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The tour moved and I followed. After Vienna, to Venice, a city of immeasurable beauty and uniqueness, now reduced to a maze of precarious walkways, squares filled with flapping pigeons and pigeon shit, and narrow streets that dead-ended at sandstone walls. Then on to Florence, where the cobbled streets threatened to trip me every other step, and its famed art remained locked away on the other side of the black curtain.
I wish I could say it got easier, but it didn’t. Countless missteps and obstacles marked every hour, and I considered a good day one in which I didn’t get hopelessly lost. I made it to Charlotte’s shows, but the effort it took to do so was extraordinary.
There were too many details to list; a litany of frustrations and embarrassments that left me with teeth clenched, rage boiling beneath the exhaustion, my skin scarlet with humiliation. I held up busy lines trying to pay for tickets or lunch or coffee. I suffered the polite silences, impatient sighs of clerks and tellers, waiters and hotel concierges, as I fumbled my way through ordering food, or picking up dry cleaning, or lugging my fucking bag onto a train that was already crowded.
I had to ask for help everywhere, every day, of strangers as they passed by, snagging them as they went and hoping they’d forgive my intrusion. Or—worse—interrupting conversations with terrible German or halting Italian, praying for an English speaker to tell me which seat was mine? Which way to the ticket office? Which way to the cabstand or train station or hotel front desk?Which way to Charlotte?I wanted to scream and fall at her feet and touch her cheek, her hand…just for a moment, to remind me what it was all for.
Crossing streets in the dark, sticking close to other pedestrians, feeling unasked for hands guiding me, or yanking me out of the way of oncoming cars whose horns blared my humiliation for everyone around me to hear. Using those stupid cards the Foundation had given me because they actually worked and I’d have been road kill without them.
The vast majority of people on the planet are kind before they are cruel, but I didn’t escape the snickers and jabs of the not-so-kind. I caught stealing hands on trains and felt the jolt of fear surge through me, wondering what would come next? To be left alone? Or maybe a knife sliding between the ribs by a more insistent thief? I had no way of knowing, of assessing the people around me for potential danger. I had to trust. I had to hope. And sometimes, I just straight-up prayed.
Words that had never, in my past life, been used to describe me hung over me every day. Helpless. Slow. Hesitant. Lost.
And that was just the first week.
I called Lucien at night to check in and told him again and again, I was fine, the lie rolling so easily off my tongue. I emailed Charlotte once that week, speaking into my little machine that didn’t translate the weariness or the longing in my voice. Just words. To her, black lines on a white screen that didn’t reveal one hint of the struggle behind them. I told her I loved her and that I missed her and that I was working to make myself whole so that we could be together, because it was clear to me that I’d have to shatter first and be put back together. This journey was going to break me down in every way, and I’d either arise from it victorious, or it would destroy me, and the way things had begun, I worried it would be the latter.
And then it got worse.
On the overnight train from Florence to Rome, a migraine woke me from a shallow doze in my sleeping compartment. I slept with my bag of lifelines under the thin pillow and felt inside it for the little bottle of pills. The train jolted and they all spilled into my hand.
All three of them.
I struggled to remember the last time I’d had a migraine. It had been a while. Was it the one that nearly killed me? The one that ended with Charlotte saving me, bathing me, and the kiss that had changed everything between us?
I swallowed one Azapram dry and made a mental note to tell Lucien to send me more. The migraines were pretty infrequent, so I’d probably be okay for the rest of the tour, but better safe than sorry. One Monster with no Azapram would do me in.
And I was walking a thin line, already. The old anger and bitterness—the absolute hatred of my situation—had been awakened, and each difficulty was another log on the fire until the inferno was raging. I felt feverish. My teeth clenched, and I had to remind myself to loosen up before the Monster awoke again.
Rome was a city of art and history, but to me it was just noise and smells and people and an infinite number of ways to become hopelessly lost. What was the Sistine Chapel to me? Or the Pieta? Or even the Coliseum? Another loss to contend with; another battle to fight against bitterness: I was visiting the world’s oldest cities, and all that made them magnificent was locked away from me but for vestiges of memory.
I tried to appreciate Rome as I was, not as I wished I could be, for wasn’t that one of my goals too?Thegoal? I couldn’t stay in my cushy hotel. I had to face the enormous, crowded, chaos of the city, to soak it in as best I could. Experience it as a blind man and find the soul of Rome—or any other city I visited—withoutlookingfor it.
On a more practical level, I planned to have lunch, buy a gelato or a cappuccino, and then prepare for Charlotte’s show that night. But Christ, the complications embedded in each one of those acts were enough to make me want to tear my hair out.
I walked from my hotel to the Trevi Fountain, obeying the commands of the GPS in my ear. I arrived without incident, without getting lost, or honked at. A minor victory. I felt pretty good. The sun was warm but not stifling, and the sound of the fountain was soothing. I envisioned the droplets catching the sun and sparkling like diamonds for a brief moment before disappearing into an impossible blue basin.
I sat for a long time and may have even smiled. The rage that boiled just beneath the surface was reduced to a simmer for the time being. Charlotte might be sightseeing with her friends. It wasn’t wise to stay too long in one place. I decided to use my GPS to find a café and grab a late lunch before heading back.
I stood up quickly, and the sudden pain almost knocked me back down. The Monster had been awakened by my movement. The back of my head glowed white hot almost at once, and I caught my breath.
Again?
I’d just subdued a migraine the night before. Was this the same pain, having escaped from the Azapram, or was this another? I felt in my bag for the pills and took one. Only one remained. I reached for my phone to call Lucien and tell him to send me more. Then the earthquake hit.
It had to have been an earthquake, didn’t it? Why was the ground tilting? I stumbled sideways, as if I were a failing Vaudeville performer and the big hook had come to yank me off the stage. I got my elbow up in time and pain radiated all up and down my arm, and then my hip, as I struck the ground. My white cane clattered and rolled. My bag hit hard, and I had a flash of worry for all the devices in it I needed to survive. Immediately, voices and shuffling feet surrounded me; grabbing hands sat me up.
I held my hand out to nothing, as if I could hold on to whatever was making the lazy spin I felt in my body, and slowly it stopped. Voices bombarded me with questions I couldn’t answer.
“Stai bene?”
“Posso chiamare qualcuno per voi?”
“Chi è con questo uomo?”
I felt around for my cane, and someone pressed it into my hands, while someone else slipped my bag over my shoulder. More strange hands helped haul me to my feet.
“I’m okay,” I said, my voice a croak. “Okay, grazie. Grazie mille.”
