Venice

Venice becomes Paul Carpenter’s first chosen destination through the portable door: a place he has only just decided he would like to see, and one that greets him with a canal, a rope coil, and the ordinary bustle of a city street. The arrival turns an uncertain magical passage into a tangible encounter with a particular place, while the door and the stapler wedged into it remain visible reminders of how he got there.

Arrival through the portable door

Before crossing, Paul is told to hold the door ajar with a suitably heavy object. A long stapler is available, and he picks it up, opens the door, and presses the stapler against it. Beyond the opening he sees only darkness and shadows. He knows he must go through despite the prospect of renewed withdrawal symptoms, and the directions ask him to make a careful mental note of his desired arrival.

At first, Paul cannot think of anywhere he particularly wants to go. He settles on Venice because, given the choice, he has always rather fancied seeing it. The thought is not an elaborate itinerary; the destination takes shape in the pause between instructions and action. Paul then steps through, catches his foot in a coil of rope, and narrowly avoids falling into a canal. His first moments in Venice therefore combine the wonder of arrival with the awkwardness of a traveler who has landed directly among the objects of the street.

The canal-side scene

Paul turns to look behind him. The door stands slightly ajar in the middle of a crumbling red-brick wall, with the stapler still wedged into it. Beside the door is what looks like a theatre poster, printed in Italian. The threshold is not hidden or dissolved by the journey: it remains an open door in a wall, held in place by the same office object Paul carried through.

When he turns back, he sees the canal and the rope that nearly tripped him. A small motor boat bobs on the green water. Three Japanese women walk past, talking quickly, followed by a businessman in an expensive-looking suit. Farther to the right, a yellow fingerboard fixed to the façade of a tall, ancient building points toward Piazza S Marco. These details establish Venice through a sequence of immediate observations—water, passing pedestrians, a sign, and a landmark—rather than through a general description of the city.

A place tested by the senses

The change of setting is also registered through Paul’s body. He feels better after the crossing: his hands are no longer shaking, and the salty taste and squirming itch have gone. He checks his watch, which still reads 01:09:56, then notices a clock high on a church-like tower showing ten past one. He suspects that the discrepancy may have something to do with the time difference, but his watch changes to 01:09:55. The conflicting readings leave the local time uncertain even as the scene around him appears definite.

Paul tests that apparent reality in more direct ways. The pavement feels solid beneath his toe, a breeze touches his face, and the air carries the smell of salt, fresh algae, and old fish. These sensations distinguish the arrival from an imagined glimpse: Venice is not merely a destination named in his thoughts but an environment that presses back through his senses. The stopped or shifting watch complicates his grasp of time, while the pavement, wind, and smell give the place physical weight.

The café and the first small transaction

A café lies farther down the road. Paul first looks back to make sure the door and stapler remain where he left them, then walks toward it. Outside, two men speak loudly into mobile phones; the display window holds about nine hundred varieties of cake. Paul would like coffee and cake but has no Italian money, and the abundance in the window sharpens the small, practical problem of being in a foreign city without usable currency.

One of the men lights a cigarette with a match from a black, shiny matchbook. Paul sees an identical book on the nearest table, marked with the café’s name, telephone number, and website, and slips it into his pocket. No one stops him. Feeling guilty, he leaves a twenty-pence coin on the table, only to retrieve it after a waiter clears the cups and plates and the coin attracts puzzled attention. His first contact with the café is thus less a purchase than a fumbling attempt to manage the ordinary demands of money and exchange.

Then a gust blows something against Paul’s cheek. He picks it up and finds a blue banknote marked with a five and a row of zeroes. Remembering that Italian money can involve very large-looking figures, he decides he feels brave enough to sit at the nearest table and offers the note to the waiter, beginning with an apology. The arrival’s practical obstacle—having no local cash—has acquired a possible answer through the same unpredictable material world that delivered him to Venice. The scene ends as he tries to turn that unexpected note into the coffee and cake he wanted.