by Jack Douglas
They headed south.
Amy held the hanky tightly to her nose, her forehead pressed against the cold glass. Craig reached for her once, twice, three times. Each time she pulled away, sulking in her corner like a spoiled six-year- old.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the window, the buildings grew even older. The streets and sidewalks were filthy and in terrible disrepair. Once the taxi entered the Alfama, all seemed ravaged.
Craig had described the Alfama as a medieval Moorish neighborhood with an emerging cosmopolitanism—a humble yet charming home for newcomers and natives alike. The heart of Lisbon, he’d said. A heart, Amy thought now, that had apparently stopped beating some two centuries ago.
They continued deeper into the quarter, twisting and turning around old churches and crumbling structures until they reached the center of the district. The core of the devastated village that Craig had described as quaint.
The cab finally rolled to a stop before a wide ancient orange building. Its face was scarred and blistered, stained horribly with grime. Amy cringed.
She removed the blood-soaked handkerchief from her nose and twisted her head to take in the steep narrow street. The road looked like a tongue, lined with filthy compact houses like rotten, crooked teeth.
Craig and the driver each opened their doors. Amy didn’t budge.
Where were the stunning white-sand beaches, the wealth of stylish bars and discos? Where were the fine restaurants, the promised museums and theaters? Where was the beauty Craig had assured her was waiting for them here?
Amy stared into the distance, at the hideous crumbling houses, their facades strung with washing, their stairways and terraces on the verge of collapse. Their shutters were in shambles, their windows cracked and cruddy. She was met suddenly with an unnerving silence, a terrible emptiness, an absence of life.
Craig walked around the rear of the cab and opened Amy’s door.
He leaned in and gently took her arm.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he said softly, gesturing to the ruins over his left shoulder. “Let’s go in and check out our flat.”
She stumbled out of the taxi and steadied herself on the uneven roadway. Waited as Craig paid the driver in euros, leaving him with harsh words and no tip, pointing to Amy’s nose as he retrieved the luggage.
The driver slammed the trunk and got back into his cab. He waited until the couple was clear of the vehicle then started the engine.
Amy stared absently at the taxi. Considered reaching for the rear door and climbing back in, begging the driver to return her to Lisbon Airport.
But instead she stood frozen, dripping blood from her nose, her will lost somewhere in the taxi’s thick brown exhaust.
She stepped forward and peered through the cab’s open passenger- side window. Saw the driver turn and flash a crooked smile as he shifted then shot them the finger. Heard him mutter “Adeus” as he pulled the taxi away, leaving them alone in the road.
Chapter Three
Craig heaved the suitcases up the broken stone steps. He paused at the top in front of the warped wooden door and turned to Amy. She stood on the step below with the carry-ons, holding the bloody handkerchief to her nose, still staring down the steep narrow street after the taxi. Craig set the suitcases down and turned back toward the entrance. The door was slightly ajar. He lifted the suitcases back up and pushed the door open with his foot. Then he stepped inside.
An indescribable stench smacked him in the face as he entered the main hall. He parted his lips so that he could breathe through his mouth, and then turned the corners of those lips up for Amy’s benefit.
She didn’t return the smile.
A single light flickered at the bottom of a flight of steep wooden stairs. The dying bulb illuminated peeling, hideously patterned wallpaper, a small table and a pair of antique chairs. The gray tiled floor creaked beneath his feet, each step louder than the last.
He bypassed the stairs and made for the ancient lift at the end of the hall. He set the suitcases down and waited for Amy.
For once he was glad she didn’t speak.
Craig stabbed once at the black button to summon the lift and, wordlessly, they waited.
He had been in buildings worse than this. Projects in Newark during law school when he interned for the public defender’s office and had to interview witnesses and clients. All but a few had lived in abject poverty, in Section 8 tenements that should have been condemned.
And of course, he had been in crack houses. In Asbury Park and Washington Heights, when he and Danny were dry and couldn’t get in touch with Suede.
But things were different now. He was different. He was older, more mature, and he simply didn’t have the stomach that he used to.
When the lift arrived, they squeezed into it, barely fit with their carry-ons and two large pieces of luggage. Craig slid the rusted brass gate shut. He struck another button and the rickety lift went into motion, grinding and shuddering with age.
They ascended slowly. Craig closed his eyes, the taste of sick rising in his throat, as he envisioned the lift dropping, plummeting, plunging through the lobby, through the basement, through the hardened earth, where he and Amy would lie mangled, buried alive until each of them suffocated, she wordlessly glaring at him until they expired.
The lift reluctantly came to a halt on the third and top floor. Craig stifled a sigh of relief and motioned with his chin for Amy to exit.
He tried to read her body language as she opened the brass gate. It wasn’t difficult. For the past twelve months he’d walked on eggshells, in constant fear that his next misstep with Amy would be his last. He had worked like mad to diffuse every spark, to concede every argument. Had tried to please her at every turn.
And now this.
Craig stepped off the lift and breathed in the stale dead air of the third floor corridor. The smile finally melted from his face. No, this wasn’t what he’d expected.
The hallway stretched on forever, a drab endless passage that smelled of must. Craig took the lead, the worn floor groaning beneath his weight, as he stepped past the faceless doorways—bleak entrances unadorned with wreaths or welcome mats. He shivered from the figurative cold but welcomed the quiet. At least, it seemed, he wouldn’t have to contend with shouting couples and screaming babies, the usual distractions he dealt with every day at his building back in Battery Park.
Still, the corridor felt a bit too quiet for early evening, a fraction too deserted and static. Part of him ached to turn them around, to march them back to the lift.
But he knew that if they left, Amy would flee to Lisbon Airport. That she would strand him in Portugal, abandon him in Lisbon just as she had done in Hawaii.
And so they continued on to Apartment 306, the last flat on the left at the end of the hallway.
They had rented the flat sight unseen over the Internet. They’d viewed photos, of course. None of the exterior, but one of each of the four rooms that comprised the flat. Nothing special, but livable and priced well within their range.
He dipped into his pocket, fished out the large metal key and turned it in the lock.
As he did, the thumping returned in his ear.
Anxiety, he decided. He would pop another Xanax as soon as they were inside the flat.
The heavy metal door creaked as it yawned open. He mumbled, “A little oil ought to take care of that.”
But Amy’s eyes were already fixated on the interior. On the grim gray rug with rust-colored stains in the tiny living area. On the lime stucco walls with fist-sized holes like open sores. On the dust-covered antique furnishings and hideous wall hangings, an eerie almost gothic decor that somehow seemed at home in this ghastly flat.
“So this is what they meant by ‘fully furnished,’” she said, brushing past him and stepping inside.
Craig recalled the last line of the ad.
Everything you need is here. Just bring yourselves.
He smirked, followed her in and set down the suitc
ases, allowing the door to close on its own.
He’d tried for three other apartments. Two in Bairro Alto and one in Belém. But the only flat Amy knew of was this; the others had both turned them down because of his credit. His past due student loans and credit card debts—things Amy didn’t need any reminding of.
He tailed her across the living room to the kitchen and caught up with her just in time to see her retch.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, right before he noticed the large brown roach lying dead in the rusted metal drain of the sink. She darted past him out of the windowless kitchen, moving quickly in the direction of the lone bedroom.
He idled there, peering down at the squalid yellow linoleum which was peeling at the corners near the lower kitchen cabinets. He shook his head, wondering if this was, in fact, one fuck-up too many, whether Amy’s ticket to Lisbon would turn out to be her ticket out of his life. He scanned the foul kitchen counters, thinking back to his childhood home.
His mother had been meticulous, their townhouse a museum. He wasn’t allowed to wear his shoes inside the house, wasn’t permitted to eat anywhere but in the kitchen. He could only wash his hands in the porcelain bathroom sink, could only cook in the toaster and then years later in the microwave. There were never any dirty dishes. Beds were always made. All toys had to be accounted for, in tip-top shape, and always returned to their place.
One by one now he opened the warped wooden cabinets over the sink. Inside were opened boxes of cereals and baking mixes, dented cans of peas, carrots and tomato soup. All of it was covered with a thick oily muck. The sight of them made Craig’s stomach turn. He would have to fill some garbage bags and haul all of it away tomorrow.
“It’s disgusting,” he heard Amy call from the bedroom.
Craig twisted the rusted steel knob on the sink. Thick beige water flowed from the faucet, washing the cockroach down the drain. He shuddered.
Craig abhorred insects. Ever since that time in the basement.
He reached into his left pocket and retrieved the miniature bottle of Purell. He uncapped the bottle and squirted a dab into his hands. He heard Amy’s footfalls across the living room and tried to pocket the bottle before she appeared. But it was too late.
She watched him rub the sanitizer into his hands.
Her arms were folded across her chest. “Let’s call him,” she said.
“Him who?”
“The landlord.”
Craig averted his eyes; last thing in the world he wanted to get into now was this. “We don’t have his number.”
“What do you mean, we don’t have his number?”
He stepped past her into the living room, an uncomfortable feeling swelling in his chest. “Just what I said,” he called over his shoulder.
Ironically enough, he had found the ad on Craigslist. He’d emailed his interest to the landlord and received the details the following day. He had shared the photos with Amy, and when it was agreed that this was the place, he’d downloaded and printed the lease, and sent a signed copy along with a certified check to this address. This was how business was conducted these days. He had never asked the landlord for a phone number. Had never provided one himself. In retrospect, maybe he should have, but he didn’t, and that was the way it was.
He knelt on one knee and unzipped his suitcase. “What are you doing?” she asked.
He pulled out his laptop. Set it atop a small table near the window. The table wobbled; it had a crack down the middle and a gimpy leg. He reached back into the suitcase, pulled out an old Rutgers sweatshirt and wiped the chair down before sitting. The pulse in his ear intensified.
“What’s wrong?” Amy said, as the computer glowed to life. “Nothing.”
Craig knew she was bored with his complaining. With his depression and anxiety. His sleeplessness, his panic attacks in the middle of the night. His Prozac, his Xanax, his Purell. And so he didn’t share any of his idiosyncrasies with her anymore. Not since she had left him in Hawaii.
The wireless icon lit. This time Craig let fly his sigh of relief.
Somehow they had Internet service. With Amy peering over his shoulder, he typed in his password and logged onto his AOL email. He always laughed about the “You’ve got mail” now when he heard it—so long past its heyday, like a ghost, really, of its former self. AOL was still there, but barely. And yet, the email still worked and he’d had it so long he never felt like changing it.
He pulled up his mails. There were twenty-six new messages, at least a dozen of them spam.
“No, I don’t need any Viagra,” he mumbled, as he deleted the first three. “And I don’t need a penis pump or any natural enhancements.” He scanned the rest. There was one message from his agent, another from his mother. He skipped them, then deleted a few more. “Ah, here we go.”
He pulled up a recent email from Amaro Dias Silva. “What should I say?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re the writer, aren’t you? Why don’t you start by telling him this place sucks?”
He ignored her, hit reply and began typing.
Dear Sr. Dias Silva: Sorry to say the flat is not as we expected; looks nothing like the pictures we received. We’d greatly appreciate a full refund of our first month’s rent and security deposit, so that we can immediately secure another flat. Kindly drop off funds no later than tomorrow afternoon, four o’clock, at which time we will vacate the premises and return your keys. Sincerely, Craig Devlin
He hit send. He turned to Amy and said, “We should have no problem finding another place now that we’re here.”
She didn’t respond.
He clenched his fingers on both hands until his knuckles cracked. He worried her mind was already back in Manhattan. That she would take what little money she had and book a return flight to New York.
His right ear continued pulsing. “What do you say we go out and have a few drinks?” he suggested. “We’ll forget about this flat for a while and then find ourselves a hotel to spend the night.”
She sighed and looked up at the water-stained ceiling.
“Tomorrow morning,” he continued, “we’ll come back here, meet with the movers, look for a new place and rent a truck. Amaro will come by with our money, and we’ll be out of here for good before nightfall.”
Amy shook her head, but she wasn’t saying no. “I guess I could use a drink.”
A bit of dried blood had caked on her upper lip. Craig licked his thumb and rubbed it away. Then he slapped his laptop shut and stood. He helped Amy back into her sweater.
Chapter Four
The evening was crisp, the air clean. There were no New York winters in Lisbon. No New York pollution. As they walked, Amy felt along the bridge of her nose to see if it was swelling. It didn’t seem to be. She took deep breaths and smelled the sea. It couldn’t be seen, not from this deep in the Alfama. But she felt better just knowing it was there, outside the confining structures of the quarter.
After ten or so minutes they came across a small cellar-like tavern with no name. They stopped and stared down the dark stairwell that led to its door. Finally Craig shrugged his shoulders, bowed his head, and together they ducked inside.
Amy was famished but the tavern clearly didn’t serve food. Not that she would have ordered any if they had. The tavern was a dank dark place, the kind you saw in crime movies. Only about a half dozen patrons sat drinking, but it still felt cramped. Each was swilling Sagres cerveza, eyeballing her and Craig suspiciously.
She almost told him she was hungry. That they should head back out and find someplace that served food. Then she remembered him cautioning her to eat on the plane. She felt foolish and decided to keep silent.
They moved slowly up to the bar, which was a makeshift thing, something you would expect to find deep in the belly of a frat house. Behind the bar stood a long-faced old man with little hair and few teeth. He took a long pull off his cigarette and ashed on the floor, regarding them through the smoke as though they had intruded.
“Fala inglês?” Craig leaned in on the plywood, which was cracked and stained badly with what Amy hoped was red wine.
The bartender sluggishly shook his head from side to side. Then he tossed a worn dishrag over his shoulder and shuffled away.
Craig seemed unfazed. “What would you like to drink, baby?” he asked her.
Amy gazed behind the bar at the dust-covered bottles and shrugged. “I guess a Grey Goose cosmo is out of the question?”
Craig placed an arm around her waist. “We’re in Portugal. How about two glasses of port?” He raised two fingers and called to the bartender, “Vinho du porto.”
Amy felt a sudden chill burrow into her skin and settle deep into her bones. She pulled away from Craig and hugged herself tightly, rubbing away the gooseflesh. Then she felt a hand settle on her arm.
She started.
“Ola,” said the small dark man who had sidled next to her. “I speak the English.”
He lifted his hand away and smiled. Glanced past her and slightly bowed his head in the direction of Craig. Then he turned and uttered something to the bartender in perfect Portuguese.
“This wine is on me,” he said to them. His accent was as thick as the smoke wafting over the bar.
Craig shook his head and pulled a thin wad of euros from his front pants pocket. “No, obrigado. Thank you, really, but we can’t...Por favor.” The small man held up a single hand in protest. Amy noticed that most of his right ring finger was missing. “Just these first ones,” he said, as the bartender set two cloudy wine glasses in front of them and poured.
Craig relented. He pocketed the euros and lifted his glass of Cockburn’s fine tawny. “Then thank you, Senhor...”
“Gilberto.”
“My name is Craig, and this is my fiancée, Amy.”
Amy forced a smile as she lifted her glass. She glanced down at Craig’s legs, his best pair of khakis pressed up against the bar. There were dark smudges on the left knee and on the upper thigh just below the pocket. Fine for tonight, but if they went straight to a hotel after this, they would have to wear these clothes again in the morning. They should have brought a change of clothes in one of their carry-on bags.