The Other City

You can see pieces of it sometimes hovering in a patch of cloud over the river, when the moisture in the air and the angle of the sun combine in the right way. Gleaming buildings, bright and busy streets lined with cafe umbrellas. On certain days it even seems to extend all the way down to the river, close enough to throw a stone.

On a day like this I was sitting on a park bench overlooking the river when a man, a visitor, asked me if it was possible to go to the other city. At first I was taken aback. Maybe the question seems obvious but here in this city we don’t talk about these things. What I came out with was, “Yes, but if you eat anything there you must stay forever.”

The visitor seemed satisfied and went on his way. I stayed for another half hour gazing at the river and the other city, but not long enough to learn if he went and ever came back.

Our city stretches along the curving eastern shore of a big, lazy river. Unlike most river cities, it does not extend onto the other side. There’s no Left and Right Bank, no Trastevere, no Outer Boroughs, no sacred and profane halves of town. The water of the river, though slow, is sparkling clean and fresh.

I was not born in this city but I had lived here for over twenty years, since I was a small child. Here I had a perfectly normal life: job, apartment, and an Italian greyhound who went everywhere with me, hopping on his tiny feet like he was too light and precious for this world. When it was cold, I bundled him up in a doggy sweater and carried him inside my coat.

This dog loved sweets, so sometimes I would buy a cookie from the bakery downstairs and we would share it, bite for bite.

They say it’s dangerous to look at the other city at night. Still there are groups of people (myself included) who liked to gather to see it at its most beautiful (and surely most dangerous): under the light of the full moon. Often we glimpsed street festivals, many people dancing and playing instruments under bright lights, but too far away for anyone to hear the music.

One day I thought I saw the man again, the visitor who wanted to go across. I tried to get his attention. At first it seemed like he didn’t recognize me but then he turned around and I saw that although it was indeed his face the eyes were different, like the eyes of a fish or some cold creature born and dying only by night.

“Ah. I’m not him,” he said. “I’m the one from the other side.”

I must have stood there looking idiotic, as he continued: “When your man crossed, it allowed me to cross also. You should be careful who you go inviting through, you know.”

“Inviting?” Had I invited that man to the other city?

“All sorts of things can slip through once a door is left open, even just a crack. But don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”

He disappeared into the crowd. I glanced across the river. It was a cloudy day and only a few spots of street corners and storefronts where visible in the haze. Unsettled, I picked up my Italian greyhound, carried him to the nearest cafe, bought a strawberry macaron and let him eat the whole thing while I drank an espresso under the awning.

A few things happened in the weeks following that could be considered odd. First, my boss unexpectedly resigned, leaving command of the small business to her right-hand man, a person I found both quite competent and extremely disagreeable. Several people I knew started complaining of mysterious phone calls in the middle of the night, from private numbers, and if they answered there would be no response but soft classical music in the background. And I started remembering my dreams. All of them, in perfect detail. They were completely ordinary, mundane dreams — so ordinary that this in itself was a bit unusual.

Going out to buy milk. Trimming my dog’s nails. Showering, brushing my hair, choosing an outfit for work. Eating breakfast. Eating lunch. It was like living a parallel, equally routine life every night. I began to wonder if I did sometime really crazy in the day, would the dreams change, or would my dream-self just continue with her neatly packaged existence in this way forever?

Finally I knew what to needed to happen. I went walking along the river, looking for the right person to ask. I thought I would know them when I saw them, and indeed I did: an old woman painting a watercolor landscape on an easel. “Excuse me, ma’am,” I said.

When she turned to me my heart did a somersault. She was precisely my height and looked impossibly familiar, but beyond that she was incredibly beautiful. She had long gray hair and hazel eyes crinkled with smiles. So much warmth radiated from those eyes and from the gentle turn of her lips. Purple beaded earrings glittered through her silvery hair.

“Can I go to the other city?” In that moment I wanted to ask her so many other things: did she have children, grandchildren, a husband? What was the inside of her house like? Had she traveled in her life, lived in many different places? Did she know how to braid children’s hair or horses’ tails or Friday bread? What were her fondest memories? Where was her favorite window? But it was too late, and she said just what I knew she would.

“Yes, dear, but if you eat anything there you must stay forever.”

“Is that so bad, staying there forever?”

“Do you want to stay anywhere forever?”

I didn’t know. I didn’t even know if I wanted to be anywhere right now.

“The Buddha said go and don’t come back, but he wasn’t talking about across this river. The way I’ve always looked at it, whenever I get to feeling like I want to stay somewhere forever, I paint a picture of that place instead. Then I have the place but the place doesn’t have me.”

“But I don’t know how to paint.”

She tore her work out of her book of watercolor paper and handed the rest to me. “I might have been older than you when I started.”

So I sat with her and tried to paint the city in the clouds. At first it was just watery blobs, but after a while some recognizable shapes came through. Then I started painting other places I knew. My apartment with its cozy coffee table and dog bed. The bakery where we ate cookies. The street corner where I waited for the bus every morning. The sandwich shop by my work. A field starred with yellow flowers, my earliest memory.

I didn’t notice at what point the old woman left, but at a certain time I realized it was getting chilly and I was alone, except for my tiny hound, who was bored and restless. I picked him up and wrapped him in my arms. He dug his head under my chin, like maybe he wanted to bury himself in the root of my tongue and speak through me. I would have been happy for this.