And in the Venetian mist, which offered almost nothing of a view, I suddenly became curious as to what happened to the animals in zoos around the world in the midst of confusion such as revolutions or wars. I wondered if the cages were bombed or destroyed, and if some animals died and others survived and ran out to the streets, exposing themselves to the strange wild world of humans in which they couldn’t receive any kind of protection, and if some of them went mad, unable to adapt to the strange environment, and starved to death while roaming the streets like a madman. I wondered if among them was a lion that, momentarily blinded by the headlights of an oncoming car, leapt in front of the car, and a gorilla that got on a subway train, and a rhinoceros that ran across a bridge and jumped over the guardrail, and a zebra that entered a basement pub that was still open even amid the confusion, and not knowing what to do among the startled people, ended up sitting on a stool, and a horse that accompanied the zebra into the pub, for which someone poured a beer, recalling that horses liked beer, and an ostrich that went into a restroom in a restaurant, frightening a woman freshening her makeup after doing her business, and a badger that climbed up the stairs in a building that was half destroyed through bombing, and a stork that came flying into someone’s kitchen and sat on the table, and a pelican that hatched an egg in a bedroom whose owner had fled. (Surreal situations that could take place when war actually broke out were something I liked to imagine, because they could cause rifts in my everyday perceptual experience, although they didn’t make me want to experience war.)
The fate of zoo animals in the midst of confusion was a somewhat strange thing to think about in mist-shrouded Venice, which is why it struck my fancy, and I wondered if there was a zoo in Venice, the city of water, and I thought that it might be nice to go to the zoo, if there was one, and listen to the cries of the animals that couldn’t be seen in the mist, but I wanted to keep the thought as only a thought (I still wonder if there’s an ordinary zoo in Venice, or just huge aquariums).
And while having a very leisurely meal at a restaurant in mist-shrouded St. Mark’s Square, and listening to the sound of the bell from the belfry of the basilica, which seemed to break everything into very little pieces, I became lost in some rambling thoughts that come to my mind when I’m having a very leisurely meal, and I suddenly wondered if there was a trampoline in a park or a playground in Venice, with children jumping up and down on it in a thick mist, and thought it would be nice if there were such children. If you jumped on a trampoline in a mist in which you couldn’t see anything, you could feel as if you were jumping up and down in a cloud. Perhaps I was led to think such a thought because I saw a blue balloon, tied to a string in the hand of a child being led out of St. Mark’s Basilica by his mother, floating in the air just before that. I thought it would be nice to jump ropes in such a thick mist and tried to picture myself jumping ropes without much success.
After the meal, I sat listening for a little while to the cooing of pigeons that moved like phantoms, like the ghosts of some animals in the mist, and then left Venice earlier than I’d planned, which strangely made me feel that I could have a special feeling for the city, by not experiencing anything more there. I actually stayed in Venice for no more than a few hours, so it seemed that I saw or felt something that I couldn’t see or feel when I saw the city of water with plenty of time on my hands. At least by doing so I could think, in mist-shrouded Venice, about what kind of a fate the zoo animals met amid confusion, and about jumping on a trampoline in a mist, and perhaps I could tell someone about it, and enjoy seeing him misunderstand, or only partially understand, what I was saying.
In the end, all I did in Venice was imagine, in a mist-shrouded square, what happened to zoo animals amid confusion, and see a blue balloon — a blue balloon in a mist is not a sight to be easily seen anywhere — tied to a string in the hand of a child being led by his mother, and I asked myself if I could say that I’d been to Venice, with that, and as soon as I asked, I answered that I could. I went to Venice again later, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did on my first visit. I went to St. Mark’s Square again, but I didn’t enter the basilica. Nevertheless, I checked to see that St. Mark’s Basilica was in the baroque style, and didn’t have the spire of a gothic basilica I pictured in my mind. And I saw many balloons in the hands of children in the square, but they were just ordinary children’s balloons. Nevertheless, I learned that at one time in Venice, masked balls were so popular that the people of Venice went around wearing masks for half the year. In the end, masked balls were banned by law due to all the scandalous things people did hiding behind masks, but it was pleasant to imagine people wearing masks, wandering in the mist like ghosts, in the city of mist which itself was wearing a mask.
To add to the feeling of being lost and wandering in my own story, I recall memories of places I’ve been to and hover above them like a phantom. A memory from Paris comes to the phantom’s mind.
At the time, I was spending most of my time doing nothing in a hotel room from which the top of the Eiffel Tower, which could be seen from almost anywhere in downtown Paris, could be seen through a window. I’d wanted a room as high up as possible, but ended up getting a room on the middle floor. In that room, I had a quarrel, more violent than necessary, with the woman I was traveling with at the time, for a reason that’s unclear now, no, a reason that was unclear even then, a reason that seemed absurd when you thought about it for a moment, and much too absurd when you thought about it for a while — the reason, it seemed, could be found out if I tried to find it out, but I wanted to remain in ignorance if possible, and wanted to feign ignorance. We stayed cooped up in that room for two days in a poor state, utterly exhausted. I wanted to get out of there, but it seemed that I couldn’t find the right moment. I suggested that she wash herself, and she did so without a fuss. I made the suggestion because I had a sudden picture of her shampooing her hair, which was because I’d stepped out for a moment that day and bought a balsamic shampoo at a shop, and the reason why I bought the shampoo was because of its brand name, which I’ve now forgotten. She went to the bathroom to wash herself, and in the meantime, I thought it might be well to leave while she was in the shower shampooing her hair, and packed my things. And I opened the bathroom door and quietly watched her naked body in the shower for a moment, then left the hotel. That was the last I saw of her, and how I wanted to remember her, and how I do remember her, and so she remains a good memory for me.
Having checked into another hotel, I had to deal with a sense of betrayal about the woman who must be dealing with a sense of betrayal upon finding me gone while drying her hair after a shower, so I took out from my coat pocket the small Eiffel Tower replica she’d bought for me at a shop the day before, made up of pieces of wood glued together, and broke it into small pieces, put the pieces back in my pocket, and went outside with a heavy heart, and it happened to be raining, which made my heart even heavier, so I went to a nearby restaurant with an even heavier heart. At the restaurant I ordered something that couldn’t really be identified, which contained a lot of boiled carrots, which I hate, and I ate halfheartedly, absorbed in picking out the pieces of carrot without hiding my hostility toward boiled carrots, and arranged the pieces into the word “NO,” but I wasn’t sure what I was saying no to.
When I went out of the restaurant I was still hungry, but it seemed that I had no emotion left in me that should be dealt with after breaking up with a woman. Nevertheless, I threw away the Eiffel Tower replica in my pocket piece by piece here and there as I walked, and hoped that the woman I’d broken up with would live a difficult life that suited her.