Part Two: The Street with No Name

Part Two


The boat pulled up to another much-higher-than-water-level, dock-less, step-less part of the street. The boatman walked me down it, and turned into a doorway. If you could call it that. When I am back in the States and have resolved my computer/memory card/camera issue, I will post pictures, but for now, you can imagine it. It was the entrance to the ghetto. The "old" ghetto; there is a newer part but I was in the original area. It was a low square-shaped opening, with planks of wood around the borders, and no lights as you went through a tunnel-like area to the other side. This is what was locked every night at 7. I was walking through it a couple of hours later, the same entrance that people had probably rushed through, to be back in time, hundreds of years ago. Or if they were not rushing, they entered it knowing they were forced to live there, and had to be there every day from dusk to dawn, no matter what.

On the other side was a narrow street. There was a kosher restaurant and another doorway open and Chasidic people were crowded in both areas, talking to each other. That was unexpected. It was Friday night, which had not occurred to me, but also I did not know religious Jews lived in the ghetto now. Between being in the ghetto and seeing Chasids in their timeless garb, all I could think was, "What year is it?"


Down the street, it opened into a small piazza (square), with a large round well in the middle of it. These are all over Venice and were used in the old days by women to wash clothes. I could see Hebrew words on two of the buildings. The boatman went to a small door that looked like the door version of the ghetto entrance - antiquated and not very inviting. Inside, there was a narrow stairwell that we climbed. The ceiling was very low everywhere. "Does the hotel have all of these apartments?" I said, for some reason hopefully. "No," he said, "You are living with Venetians."


It was very quiet. He opened the door to a two-bedroom apartment, obviously newly-renovated. But you could tell the actual structure of it was very old, with low ceilings, no light fixtures, and a somewhat closed-in feeling, despite the multiple rooms. He rushed through it showing me things, saying he had to get back to the boat. He handed me my keys. He kept calling me "Madam".


"Wait!" I said, "What is the name of this street? So I know where I am, and how to find it." I had looked on the corners of the buildings, where street names are posted in Italy, but hadn't seen it. He paused. "I don't think it has a name," he said. "Some streets in Venice don't have names." "But how will I know how to get here, or to even know where I am staying?" "It is not very hard," he said. "Everything is close." "Okay, but..." I wasn't sure what to say further.


So there I was, in the old ghetto, on a street with no name.