“Remember, I’m in Spain, and—”
A woman’s voice in the background brought Jay’s muffled reply, “Tell him to wait.” Then to me, “Gotta’ run.”
Through the glass in the French doors, I watched Tony follow Ollu across the lobby. Despite my resolve to kick the habit, I’d have killed for a cigarette. I dug in my bag for a Valium and pressed a pill through the blister-pack. Waiting for the euphoria to bloom, I circled the terrace, hardly seeing the gigantic pots of hibiscus and bougainvillea trailing from baskets overhead.
I turned into a narrow passageway that would take me back to the lobby. Midway along the corridor, a wide doorway was open to reveal a laundry room where wire carts held mountains of soiled sheets and towels. I stopped. Something a familiar blue in there. A blanket with teddy bears wearing red kerchiefs lay on the floor. I went in and slid the blanket toward me with my toe. The brown stain from the grandmother’s medicine was still there, as was the tear in the binding. Next to the blanket lay a bib crusted with egg yolk and a rolled-up crib sheet. I looked up and down the hallway. All other doors closed. But for sure Hamid was behind one of them. Was he okay? I lifted the bib. Still moist, there was egg yolk on my finger. My first thought was to get to Tony. On second thought, get to Zak.
In the lobby, Tony rose from a gilt love seat as I approached. “Ollu swore there’s no baby here,” he said. “Where’ve you been?”
“Tell you later.”
An elderly man in a kaftan escorting a veiled woman passed us on their way to the counter. When they were beyond earshot, Tony went on, “Ollu said she hadn’t heard of Ebola in Spain, and no child was here, nor ever would be because the place isn’t licensed for pediatrics. I came on strong. She stuck to her guns. I asked for a tour and got a condensed version—two beds occupied, one post-liposuction, the other with an amoxicillin IV. Ollu wouldn’t explain. Possibly a botched abortion, but that’s none of our business. No baby.”
I faked disappointment. “We’re in the wrong place. Let’s get out of here.”
“Back on the road,” Tony said.
The receptionist shot us an ‘are you still here?’ look.
On our way out, I paused at a Botox ad on an easel. No ads for Juvéderm, of course. Wrinkles hidden behind black cloth. Let’s hear it for veils.
Tony’s voice carried from the entrance. “Are you coming?”
I caught up with him on the portico. The guy in the slave suit bowed with his hand on his heart.
In the parking lot, Tony opened the passenger door for me and said, “Back to Kevin for more ideas.” I stopped his arm from closing the door. “If for one minute you think I’m facing that awful creep, you’re crazy.”
“Calm down.”
I had to get to Zak. Quick, before someone decided to do something with, or to, the baby. “Hamid’s okay even we don’t know where he is.” I said, trying to reassure myself as well as Tony.
“Are you daft?”
“Just because we didn’t find him, doesn’t mean he’s at risk.”
“Bollocks. Indeed, you are daft. For all we know right now they’re chopping off the kid’s head.
13
Six hours in Tony’s rust-bucket Panda turned my vertebrae into teeth chewing the nerves of my spine. My back was killing me. If that weren’t enough, the strain of keeping up the pretense with Tony that we had to find Hamid, took its toll.
“The next Papillion’s sure to be it.” Tony would repeat. He actually listened to the creepy waiter, Kevin, who suggested two other possibilities with the same name. One turned out to be the Papillion Thai massage parlor, the other a Vietnamese manicurist. All I wanted to do was get to Zak
Finally, home, my call to him went straight to voice mail. He’d mentioned spending every weekend on his sloop, and since the marina was only a twenty-minute walk down the esplanade, I figured, why not? The exercise would burn off some of Mozart’s energy. What was it Zak said? His slip was the one nearest the harbormaster? Or did he say, farthest?
The minute I reached for the leash Mozart leaped from his cot, galloped around the kitchen and overturned the garbage; two empty mackerel cans, last December’s LANCET, shreds of my half-written article on medication-averse patients and an expired Cascade coupon. So much for the floor I’d mopped yesterday. I went to the pantry for the broom before remembering I’d pitched it after Mozart tore out the straws. When he skidded into the kitchen, I grabbed his collar. Panting, he sat with his tongue dripping while I clipped on the lead.
Out of the apartment and in the hallway, one look at the stairs challenged my tolerance for aggravation. I dragged Mozart into the elevator, feeling like a Nazi while he trembled and whined all the way down to the lobby.
The usual Saturday night crowd on the promenade. Sunburned golfers, rowdy weekenders from Dublin and Spaniards down from Madrid for a day on the sand. The restaurants and bars were in full swing. But the shops were wrapping it up. The After-Beach Boutique had a good-looking sweater in the window. Easy to resist. Even this time of night, the temperature hung in the eighties. An African peddler approached offering me a Michael Kors knockoff.
“No.”
He held up a lovely Furla bag, a remarkably good fake. “No,” I said no too sharply, and he slunk away muttering in French. A twinge of anxiety he’d come after me for revenge. All the purse sellers knew where all the tenants lived. A ridiculous fear, totally unfounded making me think how easy it was to descend into paranoia.
I headed to the row of iron chairs facing the sea. One good thing about Spain, there were plenty of places to sit; enough seats in the mall restaurants, benches in the parks, sidewalk cafes where you can watch people or check email. Mozart flopped at my feet. The strolling accordionist swung into a waltz drowning the preferable sound of the waves lapping the jetty. Green running-lights shone from either a fishing boat or a fresh load of African refugees. I looked up at the sky-a Turkish flag of a sky—the crescent moon curved around a star, and I wondered if the Turks thought of themselves as the moon? Or the star.
Ahead I made out the cluster of tall masts swaying above the pier, Zak’s sloop somewhere among them. Was it reasonable to assume he would take responsibility for Hamid? Keep him safe from the guys with the guns?
Should I trust Zak? How well did I know him? His English was perfected in the States where he got an engineering degree. He told me he’d returned to Spain with his American wife, a chemist who dumped him, he said, for a job back in New York. His version of the divorce. Be interesting to hear her side. As a flaming narcissist, Zak would be hell to live with.
But my gut told me when it came to rescuing Hamid, Zak would step up to the plate. The key question was, why did I care? Let the world have one more kid to blow up another Bamiyan, or an Israeli bus. Did one more jihadist matter? Maybe I was putting too much weight on the importance of one individual. Me, the rescuer. At any rate, maybe it was a conceit on my part to assume my saving Hamid would be moving humanity forward along the evolutionary path. One step for mankind. As if my idealism would improve the world. On the other hand, maybe it would. Each individual’s effort mattered. If Mother Teresa mattered, so did Hamid.
I wondered if Zak felt the same way. I read the subtle clues. The flush of Zak’s skin when he said, “Muslims.” Or his hand in a fist at the name “Syria,” Or the lift of his chin when he said, “Christian.” I would not be surprised if he was a Knight. Considering they originally kidnapped Hamid, it stood to reason Zak would want him back.
I wrested an empty Styrofoam cup from Mozart’s mouth. “Give me that.” I got up, and we continued toward the forest of masts.
The marina was arranged according to Spanish social hierarchy. Runabouts—the peasants, tied up at the half-rotten doc
ks beyond the jetty. The sportfishing boats of the bourgeoisie closer in. Then nobility, the sleek Windjammers, Magellan, and the Cortez 50 next to the harbormaster. Zak’s sloop, Strega, was a 36 foot, high-freeboard beauty of teak and bright brass work rocking in its slip. The cabin light was on. Boat etiquette—one never boards unless invited. “Anyone home?”
Zak appeared at the entrance of the hatch.
“Permission to come aboard?” I asked.
“Paige, what the hell—?”
Not much of a welcome. “I can leave.”
“Don’t be silly.” He crossed the open deck and reached for the leash. Mozart jumped the stern and began sniffing the planks. Zak wrapped the lead around a winch and held out his hand to help me off the dock. “I don’t have Malaga, but there’s dry red. Come inside.”
Thinking about the humiliating tryst on my sofa the other night, I said, “I can’t stay,” and moved to the built-in bench along the bulwarks. “Here’s more comfortable.”
As usual, Zak was sartorially correct. White pants, rubber-grip sandals, a striped blue, and white Polo shirt, topped off with a red kerchief at the throat. The breeze ruffled his black hair.
I propped a life preserver cushion against the back of the bench.
“You like tostadas?” He asked.
“You have any?”
Zak disappeared into the galley and emerged with two filled glasses.
“One more minute.” He disappeared again and returned with a box of Cordoba Tostados, the god-awful cheap ones, sugar baked with sawdust. He sat beside me, and I moved the glasses between us.
“This is serious,” I said. “We have to talk.”
He studied my face. I should have put on eye shadow. Then I recalled I hadn’t brought any from Texas.
“Are you angry at me?” he asked.
I dropped a tostado on the deck for Mozart. “It’s not about you.”
He raised his eyebrows as if surprised there could be anything else.
“You know the hostage, the baby the Knights kidnapped?”
“Of course.”
I took it from the top. The church, the grandmother, Tony, Casey and I present when the Jihadists abducted the kid. Now and then I passed Mozart a tostado.
I stopped for breath. The pale moon had risen above the dark sea. Zak rubbed the base of a winch and examined his thumb. “Tarnish,” he said.
“Have you been listening?”
“Keep going.”
I got the feeling he knew the story I was trying to tell. I plowed ahead anyway. I told him about Hamid in the Papillion and wound up with, “I’m asking you to get him out. I believe you will, because—I mean—you’re committed to, let’s say,” I groped for a word. “Tradition.”
A slow blink of the eyes. “Tradition?”
“Don’t act cute.”
He rose, turned, and went over to rest his elbows on the teak rail. “Come see the boats out there.”
I joined him and said, “I think you’re in sympathy with the revisionist Catholics.”
He shaded his eyes as if there were sunlight on the waves. “Green running-lights. Going East.”
“I’m talking to you.”
“Toward Valencia where the catch brings a higher price.”
My voice went up an octave. “You’re always going on about a Muslim invasion. You’ve even made noises about the good old days of Franco. Then there’s that wily German, Kurt something, who follows you like a Doberman. Now and then you say something about your being the Bishop’s friend. Zak, look at me.”
He stared straight ahead. “You are so typical. So American. Only the facts. Compiling evidence when you could just ask,” he said.
“Are you in the Knights?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He turned away from me and after a long pause, said, “To cut the loss, I suppose.”
Laughter and the smell of grilled meat drifted from a few boats away. An insomniac gull crossed the beam of revolving light from the harbormaster’s dome.
“The loss of our dignity the monarchy used to represent,” He said slowly. “The loss of our self-respect when lost our empire, the loss of the wonderful orderly world that Franco imposed.”
“Oh, come on.”
“That’s all changed. Franco gone, we went wild. The truth is, Spaniards need the Church,” he said into the wind. He motioned to the roiling surf. “Like the ocean, it’s feisty, then calm. The Church always changing and always the same.” He nodded and addressed the night. “The duty, the demands of the faith, yet our irrational love of it.” He turned to face me.
“You’d kill for God?”
He turned back to the sea.
“Exactly what the jihadists do,” I said after a minute.
“Except they’re wrong.”
A sudden drop in temperature and I buttoned my summer sweater. “Getting back to Hamid.”
Zak shook his head as if waking from a dream. “Where’d I leave my drink?”
“On the edge of the bench.”
“I see it.” He went over, sat, stretched out his long legs, and crossed his feet at his ankles. “I can get together five men, counting me. And check out an order of nuns who run a nursing home where we can stash the boy.”
“The Papillion isn’t hard to find,” I said and started to give him directions.
“I have a GPS.” He swung forward. You haven’t touched your wine. Something wrong with it?” Without waiting for an answer, he rose and took his empty glass into the cabin, and returned with it filled.
The wind stiffened. Clouds rolled over the moon. The boat rocked, and I felt an odd bulge under the seat. I got up, lifted the bottom cushion, and drew out a crumpled tee-shirt. A faint smell of lilacs when I shook the thing out. Nebraska Is Corny written across the front. “I thought you went to Duke,” I said.
“I did.” He paused to down half the glass of wine, then moved toward me. “The shirt isn’t mine.”
Light brown makeup rimmed the shirt’s collar. I smiled. “What’s her name?”
Zak winced and closed his eyes. “Candy,” he said quickly, then added, “Feel the wind? Looks like mother nature will be kicking up.”
“Looks like she already has,” I said.
14
The backhoe teetered on the brink off a limestone outcrop, its engine a high-pitched whine, the cheapest machine Kurt could rent. Instead of a factory-installed cab, a make-shift canvas canopy protected the driver from the fierce sun. The giant tires had the traction of eggshells, and rust flaked from the boom like red dandruff. A closer look revealed patches of gray where the broken stabilizer legs had been welded back together, a reminder you get what you pay for. Kurt held his breath as the Bobcat rocked back and forth, then gathered its breath like a sprinter taking a hill. “Stay between the flags, you fucking idiot,” Kurt yelled. His Spanish wasn’t the best, but the guys seemed to understand him. He turned to Bassem, who was polishing his sunglasses on his sleeve. “The dickhead will run it over the cliff.”
Earlier that morning, Kurt and Bassem set out fluorescent flags to mark the grounds where the statue of Our Lady of Tarifa would be installed, God willing. Or inshallah, as the Mosque-rats say, but my God’s real, Kurt thought. By mid-week the courtyard will be paved in marble, the gravel raked smooth, the scarlet lantana shining with watered foliage—provided the landscaper shows up. The Bishop was slated to unveil the statue strategically placed to face North Africa, Her stony eyes on the Moroccans across the Straits of Gibraltar. Kurt glanced at the dark stripe of the horizon and imagined Arabs
crouching under date palms with binoculars scanning the Spanish coast for a vulnerable point to attack. “Take a good look, mosque-rats,” Kurt said under his breath. “This is close as you’ll get.
“I can’t hear you,” Bassem shouted.
“Pay attention to the backhoe.”
Kurt turned from the sea to the town of Molina on the slope of the hill.
The overgrown village lay on the southern-most tip of Europe a half-mile from Tarifa where the Mediterranean joins the Atlantic. To Kurt’s disgust at the erosion of civilization, the coast had become one more haven for crack-heads, pot-heads and other low-life’s with needle tracks running through their tattoos. Losers like that dare-devil wind-surfer out there now, about to go down under. Serves him right. Any minute busloads of tourists would pull up to Molino’s gate. Fools armed with sunscreen and cameras scrambling over the ramparts and video-taping a watchtower that never moved. A waste of film. Always the pictures. Can’t the assholes remember anything? In the harbor, the Trans-Mediterranean ferry was about to cast off on its morning run to Tangier. An attendant in a white djellaba scurried around the deck organizing the lineup of cars.
Kurt drew a handkerchief from his hip pocket and wiped his brow. Another glance at the opposite shore and the golden glow over the Rif Mountains.
Bassem straightened his baseball cap. “Hard for the backhoe guy to finish in the heat.” He smiled, strong teeth bright against his bronze skin.
“Wipe that silly grin off your face.”
Bassam’s perpetual smile drove Kurt crazy. Not to mention the incessant humming as he worked on the songs he wrote. Goofy, senseless song. In the middle of an earthquake, the guy would hum and laugh like a fool. A good foot soldier, but otherwise, a colossal pain the ass. Take this morning’s drive to the site when he whined until Kurt pulled off the interstate at the McAuto so Bassem could get a latte. Couldn’t live without it. Then he left the drink untouched in the cupholder. The Egyptian was unhinged, Kurt decided. Driven barking mad by his cock-a-mammie conviction the American woman would get him thrown in jail. How many times had Kurt told him, “Look, just because you and the American were on the beach at the same time doesn’t mean she’d assume you’d chopped off the Berber girl’s head. Think about it. If the American lady saw you, she would have run away, yelled, followed you to your car or called the Guardia Civil right then and there.”
The Loss of What We Never Had Page 11