We Run the Tides

by Vendela Vida

  I was twenty-five when I arrived in Lisbon and was struck by the extent to which it twinned San Francisco: both cities were built on seven hills, both were proud of their red bridges and cable cars, both had suffered the surprise of earthquakes, and were perched on the precipices of continents. I began working as a translator. It wasn’t a growth market, but it was steady enough work. I translated hotel brochures, menus for restaurants, terrifying religious pamphlets.

  In my thirties, I began translating short novels by a Portuguese writer named Inês Batista whose talents were being discovered later in life. Inês’s books were deeply personal meditations on resilience and her working-class upbringing. They were also very funny, as was she. We met more often than most writers meet with their translators—her fortitude reminded me of my mother, who had passed quickly, quietly, a few years after my divorce. As for Inês, she said I was the daughter-in-law she wished she had.

  One day, she brought her grown and newly single son, Lucas, to our meeting at a café in the Alfama district. Lucas was handsome and humble, with a faint lisp. He was wearing dark indigo jeans, and as we talked I began to notice that his face, especially the area around his mouth, was taking on a bluish hue. Soon his chin looked like it had grown a blue beard. It was the pants, I realized—they were new and hadn’t yet been washed. His hands were on his lap and then on his face as we ate, transferring the color. Inês and I pointed this out to him and he excused himself to use the restroom to wash up.

  I didn’t know what I found more endearing—the fact that he had purchased new pants because, as I learned, his mother had specifically suggested he not wear his usual athletic attire to meet me. Or that when he returned to the table, no longer blue, he was laughing at himself. It was particularly funny, he said, because it had happened before.

  A year after that initial meeting, Lucas and I married. At the age of forty-four I returned to San Francisco to live, bringing with me Lucas, and our son, Gabriel, who was a newborn. We found a small but comfortable place on the north side of North Beach, near to my father’s new home. He’d sold the house in Sea Cliff to a family with two ginger-haired boys, who, when I occasionally drive through the neighborhood, I see playing lacrosse on the street. I often send updates about Sea Cliff to Svea, who moved to Uppsala, near Stockholm. She lives close to Linnaeus’ Garden, with her partner, a quiet and considerate Swede.

  When I returned to San Francisco, I contacted Faith, who was now a pediatrician. Gabriel was born with an arrhythmia, and I brought him to her office for check-ups. She was attentive to Gabriel as she monitored his rapid heartbeat, and she was reassuring to me and Lucas. One day Faith suggested a walk along Land’s End, just the two of us. On our walk along the high cliffs she told me about her wife and her two daughters, who she sent to Spragg. She said it had been a great school for girls with two moms.

  “As you can imagine, it’s changed a lot,” she said and stopped walking. “I still can’t believe you got kicked out and Maria Fabiola didn’t. Her parents must have paid someone off, don’t you think?”

  “You’re more upset about it than I am,” I said, looking at her flushed neck. “I think I got used to the glitter Maria Fabiola put on everything.” What I didn’t admit to Faith then was sometimes I missed the glitter, too.

  I occasionally saw Julia, who never spoke of Gentle, but whose secure and safe life seemed to be orchestrated in reaction to her death. She was married to a private equity banker and lived in a house in Tiburon that had once been a school. She dressed in clothes that were usually worn by older women of a certain class and era—Ferragamo shoes with low heels and tidy bows, Ann Taylor turtlenecks. She always carried an umbrella if the forecast hinted at rain.

  Through Faith and Julia I was reunited with many former classmates from Spragg, even those I hadn’t known well. We sometimes met at the Big 4 Restaurant at the Huntington Hotel where we sat for hours in green leather chairs in front of old posters for the Central Pacific railroad. It was there that we exchanged stories of sadness and small triumphs. We laughed more now than we had as girls, and we found humor in how little we had known.

  Almost everyone had returned to San Francisco, it seemed, except for Maria Fabiola. No one knew what had become of her after she’d left for St. George’s, a boarding school in Rhode Island. Her family had moved to the East Coast around the same time. No one could track her down on social media—she had most likely married or changed her name. There were rumors she’d moved to Paris and her husband was a designer. There were rumors she’d moved to Uruguay and started a restaurant on the beach. We were approaching fifty and the speculation that swirled around her had not ceased.

  * * *

  IT’S MY WORK AS A TRANSLATOR that ultimately leads me to see Maria Fabiola again. My mother-in-law, Inês, is invited to speak at a literary festival on the island of Capri. Her publisher contacts me, asking if I’ll translate for the English-speaking portion of the audience. Inês is approaching eighty, a widow, and doesn’t like to travel alone.

  When her publisher forwards the details of Inês’s event, they include a link to the hotel where the festival’s participants will be staying. I spend half an hour admiring the photos. I’ve never been to Capri—I’ve never stayed in such luxurious accommodations. We meet in Naples and spend a night in a hotel with a view of Vesuvius. Inês’s gray hair is longer than when I last saw her a year ago, her eyes glassy. Her body is slightly more frail but she still has the same distinctive walk: she lifts her knees high and places each foot firmly on the ground, as though snowshoeing. She and I sit side by side on the Naples rooftop. She’s working on a new novel, she tells me, about an older woman who falls in love with a young man. “Você vai traduzir esse livro?” she asks. I tell her of course I’ll translate it. Every book, I assume, will be her last, but sometimes I think she’ll live forever. She has not given up, has ceded nothing.

  We take a ferry to Capri the next morning. In an hour we’re there, under the white cliffs draped in green. We’re driven up a steep hill in a golf cart, and then must travel by foot to Anacapri, where cars are not allowed. We walk along a breezy promenade with its explosion of pink bougainvillea. Birdsong is everywhere but we see no birds. We pass a tasteful advertisement for Inês’s festival appearance that evening. I take a photo of her posing in front of it and send it to Lucas.

  Inês’s event is held outdoors, in the plaza in front of the hotel. Chairs have been set up so the audience can have a view of Inês and of the blue, blue sea. I sit off to the side, translating everything into English for those in the audience wearing headsets. While I’m proud of Inês, my translation job is mediocre. I’m accustomed to having time to pore over the words she writes before choosing the right one in English. But tonight, I need to translate quickly, and worry I’m not doing the poetry of her speech justice. No one seems to notice.

  She signs books (she always signs them “With all my love, Inês”) and then there is a small dinner on the hotel’s patio. A buffet has been set up and candles have been lit. I sit at the round table adjacent to hers so her fans can be near her. Seated at my table is a boy around Gabriel’s age, and as I watch him eat his pasta and smear tomato sauce around his mouth, I yearn for my son. When the dinner is over, I accompany Inês to her room. The evening air is warm, the orange blossoms fragrant. The hotel has placed a chocolate cake on her desk.

  Walking along a garden path to my room, I hear a woman laughing. The sound comes from one of the private patios that accompany the larger suites. I’m reminded of Maria Fabiola and that crazy laugh of hers. I listen closely to see if it will come again, but I only hear the sound of an Italian woman singing into a microphone. She’s been paid to entertain poolside, and has an audience of three.

  In my room, I place a pillow over my head so I can sleep undisturbed. I wake up late and miss breakfast. Inês knocks on my door at 10 a.m. She’s snuck yogurts and fruits in her capacious purse so that I can eat. I ask what she wants to do that day, and she says she h
as plans to go to San Michele—the former home of a well-known Swedish doctor, with a man who was at dinner the previous night. Apparently he’s learning Portuguese and wants to practice with her. “Any young man, you know, is good research for my book,” she says and winks. She can’t wink with just one eye, so she shuts both her eyes, and for a moment it looks like she’s making a wish.

  I decide to spend a couple hours sunbathing and swimming, so I walk down to the green lawn adjacent to the pool and search for a vacant chaise longue. As I get settled in, I watch two of the pool boys, both dressed in white shorts and white shirts, adjust an umbrella for an Italian woman in her seventies wearing a sparkling gold swimsuit. She directs them to move the umbrella to the left, then to the right. My swimsuit, a pale pink one-piece that seemed an homage to Fellini when I packed it, now seems not only muted but dated, too.

  It’s too hot to read. After ten minutes I place my book on the chair and make my way to the pool. As I stand by the railing, dipping my toes in the water, I watch a woman with long hair emerge from the other side. She’s wearing a black bikini, and although she is thin, her bosom balloons over her top. A pool boy awaits her as she steps out. He seems only too happy to wrap her in an oversized white towel. As she turns and walks in my direction, I think Maria Fabiola. And then I second-guess myself.

  She must sense another set of eyes on her because she turns toward me. After registering who I am, there’s a short and meaningful lapse before she forces her mouth to smile.

  “Hello, Eulabee,” she says. She’s still fifteen feet away, her face drawn but beautiful.

  I rush toward her. I expect we might hug, but she holds my shoulders and kisses me on both cheeks. It’s difficult to decipher whether it’s the kind of kiss one gives when greeting a friend or leaving them. Her nonchalance unnerves me. It’s been over three decades since our last interaction, but her posture implies I’ve followed her on vacation against her wishes.

  “Come to where I’m sitting,” she says. “I have an extra chair set up. I’m waiting for my husband.” The emphasis is either to inform me I’m just invited to pass the time, or that he’s perpetually delaying her. I can’t tell which.

  The tile is hot on my feet and she must notice my discomfort.

  “You should get some sandals,” she says, like practical shopping advice is the most natural thing for her to be giving me right now.

  “Oh, I have some,” I explain, stupidly. “They’re just somewhere else right now.”

  We sit on the lounge chairs she’s reserved. They are perfectly shaded by a large umbrella, but still the pool boys come over to adjust it.

  “Grazie,” she says to them, smiling. She’s almost fifty and her smile is still a precious reward. I can see this in the boys’ faces.

  “Grazie,” I echo. The boys don’t look at me.

  “I think this calls for two glasses of prosecco,” she says before ordering from the boys in Italian.

  “I can’t believe we’re at the same hotel,” I say.

  “Well, it is the best hotel in Capri,” she says, and looks to the sea so far below.

  “Where do you live these days?” I ask casually, as though Spragg classmates haven’t spent hours speculating what kind of exotic place Maria Fabiola would be calling home. I expect her to say Barcelona or Rome, or a place I’ve never heard of, someplace where no one would have come across her.

  “We live in Lexington,” she says, and I practically gasp. “My husband’s business is based in Kentucky and we’ve been there for years. What about you?”

  “San Francisco,” I say.

  “You never left,” she says, while looking disapprovingly at my forehead.

  “I lived in Lisbon for years—my husband’s from there, and my son was born there. But after my mom passed . . . well, it felt like the right time to move closer to my dad.”

  She says nothing about my mother’s death. “What does your husband do in San Francisco?” she asks.

  “He coaches soccer at a high school,” I say.

  “He volunteers?”

  “No, he’s the coach at a new school in the Presidio.”

  She asks about the school, and I tell her about it, and about how San Francisco has changed. For a time, the small talk is very small. We could be two people seated next to each other on an airplane, making casual conversation before putting on headphones and ignoring each other for the remainder of the flight.

  A different pool boy approaches carrying two glasses of prosecco. He stares at Maria Fabiola’s figure.

  “Chin chin,” she says, and clinks her glass against mine.

  “Chin chin,” I say.

  She takes half the glass in one sip. “Do you see anyone from Spragg?”

  “I do, actually.”

  “Really? Tell me all the gossip.”

  And so I tell her about Julia and her house in Tiburon and her practical shoes and turtleneck sweaters. I tell her about Faith and how her children go to Spragg—how much she loves the school.

  Maria Fabiola seems strangely uncurious about Faith and Julia. Instead she surprises me by asking about Milla, a girl on the periphery of our friend group, who now owns a gallery. “That’s a crazy story,” I say.

  “Tell me,” Maria Fabiola says, and she relaxes into her chair. For a moment I am taken out of time and place—I could be a schoolgirl on China Beach, gossiping with my best friend.

  “Milla has this woman she brings with her everywhere.”

  “What do you mean?” Maria Fabiola asks.

  “This woman is a kind of advisor,” I explain. “She calls her her Intuition.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Milla doesn’t trust her intuition anymore,” I say, “so she pays a woman to be her intuition. She brings her everywhere, and consults with her before making any significant decision.”

  “That’s hilarious,” she says. “No one wants to do anything for themselves anymore. We’ve always outsourced our cooking, our cleaning, our childcare . . .”

  I smile. I can’t afford to outsource any of these things.

  “And now,” Maria Fabiola says, “we outsource our intuition!”

  She laughs her genuine cascading laugh. “I’m so happy we ran into each other,” she says, and for a moment, she does seem very happy. And I feel as I did when I was thirteen—that her laughter is a reward, that her attention is a prize.

  A man in pink salmon shorts and a white collared shirt makes his way over to us. As he gets closer it dawns on me that this must be Maria Fabiola’s husband. He’s older than we are, probably around fifty-five, but still in good physical shape. He looks like a retired tennis pro, his hair just long enough to imply an artistic side.

  “Hi honey,” she says. “How was tennis?”

  I thrill at my guess.

  He bends down and kisses her on the cheek. His nose is sunburnt and he smells of sunscreen mixed with sweat.

  “I beat him again,” he says. Then he looks at me, as though suddenly aware of my presence.

  “Eulabee, this is Hugh,” Maria Fabiola says. “Hugh, this is a surprise from the past—this is Eulabee.”

  We shake hands. His fingers are tan, his nails buffed.

  “How do you two know each other?” he asks, and for a moment I’m speechless. My husband knew Maria Fabiola’s name by our third date.

  “We grew up very near each other,” Maria Fabiola says.

  This is what it’s come to. I am a childhood neighbor, nothing more.

  “Ah, the mean streets of Sea Cliff!” he says. “So glad you survived. Not many people get out of there alive.”

  I smile politely and search his face for irony, for knowledge of the reported kidnappings Maria Fabiola and I endured, for awareness of Gentle’s death. His face is blank. He knows nothing.

  I look at Maria Fabiola and see only my own reflection in her sunglasses.

  He asks if I live in the Bay Area still, and I tell him I do. I tell him I’m a translator. Maria Fabiola removes her gla
sses and squints at me. “You are?”

  “Wow, a dying art form,” Hugh says. “How long are you staying in Capri?”

  “We leave tomorrow,” I say. “I’m here with my mother-in-law. And you?”

  “A few more nights,” he says. “We come every year for a week, sometimes two.”

  “How lovely,” I say, not sounding at all like myself.

  “What do you want to do for lunch, babe?” Hugh says to Maria Fabiola. “Should I order you your usual?”

  “I’m so tired of eating here,” she says and sighs. She turns to me. “I’ve had the same salad for four days.”

  “Want to walk to the piazza with me and get a bite?” I suggest.

  “I could use a walk,” she says. “Do you mind, Hugh?”

  He says he doesn’t, but I watch him stare at Maria Fabiola as she stands. It takes me a minute to place what I see on his face. It’s a look of concern a parent might give a child who’s about to take a test for which they are not prepared.

  Maria Fabiola pulls on a bright blue dress and slips on crisp white espadrilles. I return to my lounge chair and slide into my flip-flops and a white cover-up that’s a few years old and, in the sunlight, appears a shade of buttermilk.

  We walk out of the hotel and onto the promenade. Maria Fabiola suggests we go into a Missoni store. “You’ll love their material,” she says. The saleswoman smiles at Maria Fabiola. I mention I’m looking for a new cover-up, and she pulls out several options for me to try on. While I’m changing, I hear the saleswoman complimenting the color of Maria Fabiola’s attire. “It’s the color of the famous Blue Grotto,” the saleswoman says.

  The flattery works. Maria Fabiola tries on a long shimmering blue and green skirt.

  “What do you think?” she says, admiring herself in the mirror.

  “It looks incredible,” I say honestly. “You look like a mermaid.”

  She buys it on the spot. I marvel at the ease with which she hands over her credit card. “Are you going to get anything?” Maria Fabiola asks me.