by Jack Douglas
Unless, of course, Craig had no intention of going to a hotel.
The small man studied Amy as she sipped her port. “You are americanos, yes?”
She hesitated. Craig had been adamant about telling anyone who asked that they were both from Montreal. Particularly in the Alfama, which was historically Islamic.
But she was tired of lying. Tired of misleading her parents about Craig, of lying to friends about her future plans. Of making excuses to her superiors at the hospital whenever he had a whim to take a road trip to Philly or Atlantic City or New England. The lies over the past three years were spread out like little land mines, each capable of going off when she least expected.
“Yes,” she said brightly. “We just arrived from Manhattan.”
Craig shot her a look. She ignored the look and took one of the two bar stools that had just opened up. Craig took the other.
“Ah, the Beeeg Apple,” said the small man. “You are here in Lisboa on holiday, no?”
“Actually,” Craig said, “we just moved here. We’ll be here one year; I’m working on a novel.”
Amy took another small sip of her port and looked away. Craig had to realize she was considering leaving now, didn’t he? Especially after seeing the flat. Little did he know, she had been this close to not boarding the plane this morning at all. In fact, the entire airport experience had felt like a dream. It wasn’t until they lifted off that she fully realized she had decided to leave.
“Very good,” said the small man, leaning in closer. His breath smelled of beer and smoke and fish. “And you are staying here in the Alfama?”
“Yeah.” Craig struggled with the name of the street.
The small man, head tilted to one side, regarded them with a curious look. He glanced around the candle-lit tavern, and then spoke in a near-whisper. “The orange building?”
Neither of them answered.
Amy twisted her head when she heard the sniggering. It came from a gruff bald man hovering over Craig’s left shoulder. “Casa de...” something, she heard him mumble.
The small man looked away, peeling at the label on his beer. “Never you mind him,” he said, with a dismissive wave of his four-fingered hand. He fondled his bottle and then gulped the last of his beer.
Amy wished they had shopped around before agreeing to rent the flat. She had wanted to, considered suggesting it, of course. But then Craig had been so sure. So damned certain. And he’d at least been to Lisbon before, even stayed in the Alfama. What did she know about living in Portugal? She had never even been to Europe.
Craig broke the uncomfortable silence. “He used the word morto,” he said of the bald man standing behind him. “Isn’t that the Portuguese word for ‘dead’?”
The small man chuckled, uncomfortably. “Sim,” he said. “Yes. Diago, he likes to frighten young americanos. It is his...” He paused, glowering at Diago, searching for the words. “It is his hobby, you might say.”
Diago took a swig and muttered something to the small man in Portuguese. Then Diago dropped his empty bottle onto the bar and lumbered off into the shadows.
So this was the culture Craig so badly desired—the Old World flavor needed to season his book. A city, he’d said, without Chili’s and Fridays. Where people left one another alone. So this was his idea of paradise.
“What did he say?” Craig asked Gilberto.
Amy finished her port and set the empty glass down on the bar.
Craig did the same and ordered another round.
“He told me to tell you...something,” Gilberto said, hesitantly. “Tell us what?”
The small man took a deep breath. “To tell you about the assassinato- suicidio. The recent murder-suicide.”
He said it so matter-of-factly that Craig laughed. “At our building?”
It was Amy’s turn to shoot the look. Craig had just told this complete stranger where they lived. This strange little man with fish-breath and nine fingers, who did indeed seem a little too pleased to learn they were from the Beeeg Apple.
Then again, they weren’t going to be living in that flat anyway. They wouldn’t even be spending the night. Once they finished their drinking, she would insist they hail a cab and find some decent hotel. Then in the morning, after a long hot shower and some breakfast, she would make her decision. Whether to stay in Lisbon or return home to New York.
The small man nodded. “Otavio and his wife Isadora,” he said softly. “They lived there one week before he went maluco.”
Craig seemed to know the word. “Mad?”
The diminutive man leaned in toward them. His next words were so hushed Amy could barely hear them. “When they found Isadora,” he said, “she was in sixty-seven pieces. And still that wasn’t all of her.” His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “The rest of her, they found in Otavio’s stomach.”
Craig drained his entire glass of port, then ordered another. It was the first time in more than two years that she had seen Craig drink more than a single glass of anything. Of course, when she met him he had been the life of the party. As hard-drinking as he was hard- working. But months into their relationship, both of those Craigs were gone. Snuffed out completely on a cold rainy night in November.
Amy had to admit she missed the socializing. Missed going out to drink with friends. After that night, Craig wanted no part of it. Had no real interest in anything other than writing his books and getting the hell away from New York. He became reclusive, almost fearful of people. He wanted to be with Amy and Amy alone.
She had felt smothered, isolated. Especially in Honolulu, far away from her family and friends. There, the burden of being the center of Craig’s universe became too great. And she came to resent him for it.
Craig said to Gilberto: “That didn’t happen on the third floor, I hope?”
The small man shrugged his shoulders and grinned. “I don’t know.
Could have been, I think.”
He theeenks, Amy thought. And realized that with her empty stomach she was already a bit tipsy. It felt good. Warm. She genuinely missed that feeling. Missed that Craig. The Craig she had met and fallen in love with. She wished that Craig had stuck around. He would have had to cut out the hard drugs, sure; she never would have put up with that. But going out every now and then and getting sloshed? That might have been just what the doctor ordered.
But no. Craig had gone from extrovert to introvert in no time at all. From a fearless trial attorney to an obsessive-compulsive writer. The day following that goddamn November night, he’d started winding down his law practice and insisting they move from Manhattan. He took what money he had, bought her a two-carat diamond engagement ring, and together—against her mother’s wishes—flitted off for Hawaii for what was meant to be a permanent vacation.
Of course, the island of Oahu was gorgeous, the condo in Waikiki everything she’d dreamed it would be. But without the income from Craig’s once-thriving practice, Amy quickly became the sole supporter. She had agreed to take on the role because she could never seem to say no. But it lasted much longer than either of them expected.
Craig was a talented writer. A brilliant wordsmith, to be sure. But even so, publication didn’t come easy. Three months after first putting pen to paper, he had finished his first novel. And less than two months after that, he’d signed with a respectable literary agent. But then the rejections from the publishers started rolling in. And as the saying goes, when it rains, it pours.
The bills started piling up. Their used Jeep began falling apart. Even with a second job, Amy, a dietitian, could no longer sustain them. Craig looked for work but was always overqualified, and he simply refused to tend bar for eight-fifty an hour while simultaneously reducing his time to write. So they fell deeper and deeper into debt, Craig spurning the idea of returning to New York to practice law, where he held a license, and Amy flatly rejecting his suggestion she file for bankruptcy. The couple had reached an impasse.
The solution arrived by way of her mother
. She would help pay off Amy’s debts if her daughter packed her bags and returned to New York. Right now. Without Craig.
And that’s just what Amy did. Her mother arrived in Honolulu and collected her. Together they flew back to the mainland. She left Craig with a month’s rent, some food, and a single-page note on Winnie the Pooh stationary.
But like a lost little puppy left for dead in the woods, somehow he found his way home.
Now he was on his fifth glass of port, she on her fourth. It was almost like old times. Craig swayed as he spoke to the small man. Slurred a good many of his words.
They were talking about his memoir. “It’s called Libations & Infatuations,” Craig said, lifting his glass.
It wasn’t even released yet and already Amy hated it. Of course, she was ashamed of herself for that. But all that life he’d lived without her, all out in the open for anyone to read. His drinking, his drugging, his fucking, lining the bookstore shelves as though he were some washed up rock star on reality tv. And what if his memoir became a huge success? What if they made the book into a movie?
Craig tossed some euros on the bar and asked Amy if she were ready to leave. She was.
They said their goodbyes and Amy turned toward the door. As she did, she felt a hand pinch the left cheek of her ass.
It wasn’t Craig; he was in front of her.
Amy spun on her heels and grabbed Gilberto’s hand by the wrist. He stared back at her with jet black eyes, his look lecherous yet calm.
The tavern fell silent.
She yanked his arm up and leaned into his face. “If you’re not careful,” she hissed, “you’re going to leave here with eight fingers instead of nine.”
She was drunk, she realized, as Craig took her in his arms and hurried her away. Not just drunk but shitfaced. And that was okay. She needed it. Deserved it. And to hell with Craig’s sobriety. Maybe this was just the cure for his three-year funk. Maybe this was the cure for everything. Maybe this would make their tiny decrepit flat look like a goddamn penthouse suite at the Taj Mahal.
Not that they were going back there, of course.
Chapter Five
A thick fog hung low over the street, disguising the archaic edifices surrounding them. This wasn’t the Portugal Craig remembered. He had been to the country before, that much was true. But he hadn’t stayed in Lisbon as he’d let on. He had stayed not far off in Estoril, a lovely resort town on the coast. In a luxurious hotel along the beach. In a magnificent three-room suite with a king-sized bed and a stunning view of the azure sea. And he had never once set foot in the city itself, let alone in the Alfama.
Okay, so he’d lied. What good would it do to confess now? Would it help them find a taxi any faster? Would it get them safely to a hotel?
“Do you know where we are?” Amy asked.
“I’m a little turned around by the fog.”
He had spent most of those two weeks in the hotel, holed up with a young woman from Poland, a law student from the University of Warsaw, who had applied to his law firm for an internship. They had corresponded for months following her application. When she was ultimately denied her visa to the States, Craig offered as a consolation to treat her to two weeks anywhere in Western Europe. Choose someplace warm, he’d said. And Anastasia chose Estoril.
For fourteen days they got drunk and smoked hash, spending an hour a day sunning on the beach and the rest in their room making love. Amy would have known all about it had she read chapter nine of Libations. But no, she hadn’t bothered to read a single word. And insisted she never would.
Craig heard soft voices a short way off. He hurried his steps, pulling Amy along. These voices were the first sign of life they had come across since leaving the tavern. And just in time: Amy was beginning to grow a tad irritated.
She had seemed fine when they first stepped outside. In fact, it was easily her best mood in months. But booze takes a bad turn once the supply is cut off. No one knew that better than him.
Through the fog he saw them and instinctively dropped Amy’s hand. Two girls no more than twenty, dancing circles in the middle of a cobblestone road. They were dressed provocatively in sheer brightly colored clothes, waving scarves and laughing, buoyant and quite possibly drunk.
Craig left Amy on the sidewalk and approached them eagerly through the mist.
“Ola,” he said. He was instantly mesmerized by their movements, his eyes tracing the contours of their breasts and exposed bellies. Inebriated and somewhat dazed by the fog, he tried to focus. “Fala ingles?” he said. “I’m looking for a taxi.”
They giggled in unison, an enticing little titter that drew him closer. Absently, he glanced over his shoulder. Amy was completely hidden by the fog.
He leaned in toward the girls, listening for a response.
The darker of the two said something softly, as she ran her fingers up the inside of his arm.
Craig shivered and looked into her face. Her sharp black eyes were hypnotizing. Her breath smelled faintly of wine. He remained silent and entirely still. As inanimate as a wax statue.
“Encantado,” she whispered. Her lips were a half-inch from his ear, such that he could feel the warmth of her breath.
The hair on his forearms rose to attention. He took slow deep breaths, inhaling the sweet scent of jasmine from her scarf, the alluring aroma of her shampoo.
She ran the fabric lightly across his lips and around his neck. Down the small of his back. She teased him with it, tracing his inseam, wrapping the scarf around his legs and arms as though she were tying him up.
Then the other’s hands were on his chest. Pawing along the muscle.
Teasing a nipple. Again he searched the mist behind him.
The fog formed a curtain. Amy had to be lost somewhere behind the mist, feeling her way like the blind.
And then one of their hands was fondling his crotch, slowly stroking him through his pants. A scarf slithered across his eyes; a warm tongue caressed the length of his lips. Whispers in the ear, followed by sensuous licks. A gentle hand cupped the curve of his buttocks, ascended the length of his spine. Fingers flitted along his waist, across his taut stomach, beginning their descent into his khaki pants.
Amy’s voice cut through the thickening mist. “Craig?”
Not now, he thought.
The hand tugging at his crotch quickened and he almost came. He stifled a guttural moan.
Her voice again. “Craig?”
Suddenly the scarf slipped from around his neck. All lips departed his face.
One hand shot out of his waistband. Another released his crotch. “Boa-noite,” said the darker girl.
“Ate logo,” said the other.
Then both girls vanished into the fog. “Craig?!”
“I’m here,” he said finally. Breathlessly. Rubbing at his face and straightening his pants. Trying to keep the exasperation from his voice.
“I couldn’t find you,” she said. Her heels emanated a foul sound— clop clop, clop clop—on the cobblestones as she approached. “You left
me there alone in the fog. I couldn’t see a thing!”
She sounded nervous and frightened. And suddenly Craig felt sick to his stomach.
It’s the drink, he thought. I’ve had too much to drink and now I’m acting like my old self. Like a fucking asshole.
He straightened up and took her in his arms.
At twenty-four he had traded in an Italian for a Russian. At twenty- five he left the Russian for a Dutch au pair. At twenty-seven he stranded an American girlfriend in Paris when he met a young waitress at a pizza parlor in the Bastille. But he was older now. And sober. He wasn’t that cad any longer.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was trying to get directions but they wandered away.”
She hugged him tightly. He couldn’t remember when she last gripped him in such an embrace. Not in months, he was sure. She had never been affectionate, but recently it had been a lot worse. Ever since she moved back in with him after Hawaii. No
unasked-for kisses, no hugs. Nothing without his initiating it.
Sometimes he felt as though she were repulsed by him. Yet here she was in Portugal with him. He couldn’t explain it; he could only surmise. Those initial feelings, he figured, were simply indelible. They couldn’t be erased. Or painted over, like that bright red wall they had painted in their first apartment. No matter how many coats of ivory they later covered it with, the goddamn wall remained red. And of course, they had lost their security deposit.
As for Craig, he knew that girl—that dancing, twirling angel with the brilliant smile and the goofy laugh—was still in there somewhere. And he was convinced that a year in Europe, in a lax city by the sea, would bring her out.
They trekked on, cautiously navigating the cobblestones, peering through the fog for some lights. And finally, they found some—two burning orbs watching them through the fog.
The driver was a lanky native in disheveled clothes. He leaned against the cab like an open coffin, staring into nothingness, puffing a cigarette. And ignoring Craig and Amy completely as they approached.
“Onde é o hotel mais proximo?” Craig said slowly.
“Not far,” said the driver in slaughtered English. His voice was low and throaty. Scratched like an old vinyl record.
“Can you take us?”
The driver nodded. He motioned to the rear door without opening it.
Craig and Amy exchanged quick glances, opened the door and silently climbed in.
The taxi navigated a few side roads, each one narrower than the last. The ancient buildings seemed to be closing in on them the closer they came to leaving the Alfama.
Then finally the cab broke free, crawling up a steep hill as they exited the quarter.
Craig reached behind him for his wallet. “Shit,” he muttered. Amy turned to face him but didn’t speak.