The Awakening

by Allen Johnson

  “Wow!” Savannah said, shaking her head. “You just blew me away.”

  A moment passed.

  “Where are you staying in Granada?” the girl asked.

  “At the Franciscan Hotel,” he said, still looking down, rubbing his thumb across the palm of his hand.

  “Would you like company?”

  Anthony looked into Savannah’s eyes. It was the first time he noticed the color of her eyes; they were golden, almost cat-like. “Yes. I would like that very much.”

  The ghost ended the scene. “You could not get to the hotel room fast enough.”

  “I admit it. But I was not alone. It was what we both wanted.”

  “I wonder.”

  The next act opened on the Franciscan Hotel.

  Although the hotel had been a convent in the 15th century, there was nothing grim about their room. It was beautifully decorated in warm yellow and gold tones with ornate chandeliers and Renaissance landscape paintings. The floor was covered with a lush Moroccan carpet in the living room and terracotta tile in the bedroom.

  “I could crash here,” Savannah said with cool restraint.

  She bolted from room to room. “Hey, they even have a telephone in the can!” she said, calling out from the bathroom. Finally, she skipped back into the bedroom, threw her backpack on the floor, kicked off her shoes, and fell backward onto the bed.

  After tipping the bellboy, Anthony followed Savannah into the bedroom and leaned against the door jam.

  “You like?”

  “I like,” Savannah said.

  She rolled out of the bed and, with her head tipped down, glided seductively to Anthony, one foot in front of the other, her hands tucked palms out behind the curve of her buttocks. When she stood before him, she raised her eyes and put one hand behind his head. She stood on tiptoe and brought her lips close to his, and when he pressed in to caress her mouth, she backed away, prolonging the moment. She licked her lips. Then, she again mirrored his mouth. Anthony did not move this time, and she slowly stroked the length of his lower lip three times with the moist tip of her tongue.

  Anthony placed his hand firmly against the small of her back, brought her in closer to him, and kissed her for the first time.

  Savannah brought her hand between their lips. “Wait, Anthony,” she said, leaning back against his hand. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long; I want it to be perfect. Right now, I’m starving. I know my timing is lousy, but could we have dinner first?”

  Anthony scowled and then, catching himself, softened his expression. “You’re hungry now?”

  “Famished.”

  A slow smile. “Okay. Would you like to freshen up first?”

  “No, I don’t want to freshen up; I want to get sexy,” she said with a flirtatious smile. She snatched her backpack and popped into the bathroom.

  Meanwhile, Anthony pulled a navy patch-pocket blazer out of his gym bag; it would do just fine for dinner. He heard the shower kick on.

  He settled into an armchair and flipped through a tourist magazine. After a moment, he walked to the bathroom and was about to rap on the door when he heard her voice. He could not make out the words.

  Finally, he tapped on the door. “How’s it going?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re getting impatient out there?” And, then, after a beat, “I’ll be worth it.”

  Anthony returned to his chair, again blindly thumbing through a magazine.

  “Cover your eyes,” Savannah said from behind the bathroom door.

  Anthony complied, and Savannah found her mark six feet in front of his chair.

  “OK, you can open them now.”

  Anthony uncovered his eyes and there before him stood Savannah, one hand on her hip, dressed in a simple black-cotton spaghetti-strap dress, cut at an angle at the hem. Her face was made up with a touch of sparkle in her eye shadow and a splash of red on her pursed lips. With the advantage of open-toed black heels, she looked lean and statuesque.

  “Tu es une merveille,” he said in French.

  “That’s good, I hope.”

  “That’s very good. Are you sure you want to go to dinner?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, taking him by both hands. “You’re not getting off that easy.”

  As they left the room, Anthony said, “Look at you. I just can’t believe you did all that from a daypack.”

  “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, bunkie.”

  The specter clapped his hands, and the scene jumped forward. Savannah was finishing a layered chocolate-and-cream cake, pressing her fork into the remaining crumbs and, with eyes closed, slowly sucking the fork clean.

  “Would you like another piece?” Anthony asked with a chuckle.

  “Oh, no,” she sighed, “but wasn’t that to die for?”

  Savannah crooked her finger at Anthony. He leaned forward. “Closer,” she said, “I want to whisper something in your ear.” He leaned in over the table, and she put her lips to his ear and whispered, “Let’s fuck.”

  Anthony sat back and took in the full measure of Savannah’s sex appeal. “I thought you would never ask.” Pausing only an instant, he motioned to the waiter and mimed the signing of the bill.

  He looked at Savannah. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready?”

  “Ready to go to our room.”

  Savannah pouted coyly. “Hmm, no.”

  “No?” Then, in a whisper: “I thought you wanted . . .”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well then.”

  “Well, I want to get it on; I just don’t want to do it in a hotel room.” Savannah smiled, peering at Anthony from under her eyebrows.

  “Just what did you have in mind?”

  Savannah leaned across the table and mouthed the words, “The palace.”

  Anthony smirked, thinking Savannah was joking, and then, reading her eyes, realized she was serious. “You want to make love in the Nasrid Palace?”

  Savannah pouted like a child finagling for one more chocolate.

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Don’t you see how perfect it is? To make love in a palace that was made for kings. It’d be like doing it in the Taj Mahal. It’s a hotbed of dreams and desires.” She looked at Anthony, licked her lips, and with the tips of her fingers slowly traced the line from the base of her throat to the “V” in the neckline of her dress, pulling down on the fabric to expose her breasts. “Anthony, our first time has to be there; it just has to be.”

  “Okay,” and again, “okay. Let me see what I can do. I think you need to come with me.”

  Anthony quickly signed the bill. They left the restaurant hand in hand and walked to the front desk. An English couple in their sixties, accompanied by a small sandy-haired boy, certainly their grandson, was checking in. Anthony and Savannah waited to the side. Savannah stood in front of Anthony and, reaching behind her, put her hand between his legs. When Anthony groaned, the English couple turned and looked at Savannah, who smiled back innocently.

  When the family had registered, they turned to go to their room, smiling at Savannah and Anthony as they passed. The English gentleman did not tip his tweed walking hat; he pinched it at the crown and boosted it six inches straight up and back down again like lifting the lid of a soup tureen. Savannah, who still had Anthony’s sex in hand, returned the smile and, just to be sassy, added a little curtsy.

  The lovers moved to the counter.

  “We’d like to see the Nasrid Palace,” Anthony said directly.

  “I’m sorry, sir. It closed at 8 o’clock.”

  Anthony looked at his watch. It was now 10:30.

  “But, of course, we can arrange tickets for a morning viewing.”

  “I understand,” Anthony said, pulling out a roll of 10,000-peseta bills, “but you see, we would like to see it now.” Anthony peeled off 30,000 pesetas and placed them on the counter in front of the desk clerk.

  “Sir, I could lose my job.”

  Anthony placed another 10,000-peseta bill
on the stack.

  “I cannot afford to lose my job. I have a wife.”

  Anthony snapped a fifth bill on the counter.

  “And two children.”

  “You better not have any cousins,” Anthony said, placing another bill before the desk clerk.

  “I will have to pay a security guard.”

  Anthony placed two more bills on the counter. He tapped the bills and said, “Pick a guard with no family.”

  The desk clerk deftly placed a newspaper over the bills and looked at his watch. “The gate to the Nasrid Palace will be open at 11 o’clock. It will be locked again at midnight with you either inside or outside the palace. That’s the best I can do.”

  Anthony looked at Savannah, who smiled approvingly.

  “That will work,” Anthony said to the desk clerk.

  “Do you know where the entrance is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, if you will excuse me,” the desk clerk said, reaching for the phone.

  Anthony and Savannah walked slowly through the Alhambra gardens toward the fourteenth-century Moorish palace. The September night air was warm and the moon was full. The two were quiet, as if visiting a cathedral. When they reached the gate to the palace, it was precisely eleven o’clock. Anthony pushed the wrought-iron gate, and it silently swung open.

  “Yes,” Savannah said softly.

  Anthony invited Savannah to enter and then shut the gate behind them. The first room they entered was the Mexuar. The multiple pillared arches with their intricate plaster scrollwork were astonishing. Each arch was meticulously inscribed with ornate Arabic patterns like a miniaturized version of the French gardens of Versailles.

  “Incredible,” he said.

  Savannah was less interested in admiring Moorish architecture. She pulled away from Anthony’s hand and scampered off to the Patio de los Arrayanes, the Myrtle Courtyard. It was an open patio, approximately fifty-yards long and twenty-five-yards wide. Running the length of the courtyard was a shallow pool, banked on each side by solid three-foot-high walls of myrtle shrubs. Savannah was running so quickly that she almost plunged into the pool, saving herself at the last moment by grabbing and swinging full circle around a pillar that stood two feet from the pool’s edge. And there she stood stock-still, dazzled by the reflection of the moon in the pool. Anthony came up from behind her and placed both arms around her waist. Savannah backed into him, slowly undulating into his loins.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Savannah said.

  Anthony breathed in the scent of Savannah’s hair.

  On the opposite side of the pool were seven arches; at the side of the arches there was a doorway, and it beckoned to Savannah. Again, she pulled away from Anthony and rushed around the pool and through the doorway. Anthony stood still and watched the graceful nymph disappear.

  “You look almost delirious,” the specter said.

  “I was. She made me dizzy. In spite of myself, I was incredibly happy.”

  “And also afraid.”

  “I knew if I allowed it, she could easily consume me.”

  “So you left her.”

  “I suddenly thought it was madness. I retraced my steps, getting as far as the entryway to the Mexuar. And then I thought, ‘Why not take it for what it was’?”

  “That being?”

  “That being a night of passion.”

  “No, you are too easy on yourself. Call it what it is: A night of depravity. You lied to her, and then you took advantage of her.”

  Anthony whirled around and ran full speed back to Savannah, crashing into a passage wall as he rounded the corner into the Myrtle Courtyard. He sprinted alongside the length of the pool and lunged through the open doorway into total darkness. By fully extending both arms, he could feel that he was in a corridor, but nothing more. He turned one way and was met with a solid wall. Quickly, he retraced his steps and then stopped dead in the dark and listened.

  Silence.

  “Savannah,” he called in a stage whisper.

  He listened. He heard nothing.

  “Savannah,” he called again, this time in full voice.

  He closed his eyes and listened intently, and, more like a thought than a sound, he heard his name called.

  “Anthony. I’m here.”

  “Where?”

  “Here.”

  Anthony followed the sound of her voice, threading through the maze by feel. Finally, he broke into the open Lion’s Courtyard, the Patio de los Leones. Only a bit smaller than the Myrtle Courtyard, this rectangular patio was an exquisite masterpiece of Arabic architecture, the perimeter arches supported by a hundred pillars.

  Anthony was welcomed by some twenty marble columns, topped with filigree arches placed in mirror perfection around a small ground-level fountain with a slender trough, which led to the center of the square. And at the center was a waist-high alabaster basin, perhaps seven feet in diameter, with a small spring of water spouting from its center. But, most stunningly, the basin was supported on the haunches of twelve rough-stone lions, placed symmetrically around the basin, as if indicating the hour of the day. From the mouth of each lion spouted a stream of water, which poured into a shallow channel before the lions’ front paws.

  Anthony could make out the figure of Savannah standing with her back to him at the side of the six-o’clock lion. He walked toward her and then stopped midway, a few paces from where she was standing. He could see the curve of her figure in the moonlight, and it took his breath away.

  Three times Savannah sliced her hands into the basin. Three times she raised the water to her face and, from her temples to the back of her neck, dispersed the water across her hair. Then she turned around and faced Anthony. Without hesitation, without the slightest hint of self-consciousness, she laid her arms across her chest, lifted the straps of her dress off her shoulders, and let the dress slip silently off her body and pool at her feet. She then stepped out of the dress and, with one graceful sweep of her foot, brushed the dress under the feet of the adjacent lion. Then, with her back to the basin, she reached behind her, cupped her hands in the water, and poured the water over the front of her body.

  Meanwhile, Anthony stood in perfect silence, clearly overwhelmed by the exquisite rite of seduction. He was mesmerized by Savannah’s beauty, her wet body glistening in the moonlight, the shadows and light dappling her shoulders, breasts, and hips.

  Neither said a word. Savannah straddled the six-o’clock lion and reached out her arms toward Anthony, like a siren calling him into the rocky shore. In turn, Anthony slipped his shirt over his head and flung it to the side. He walked to Savannah. With one firm tug, she unbuckled his belt. He kicked out of his loafers and pants, sat backward on the lion’s withers, and Savannah eased down on his lap, her legs hooked around Anthony’s waist and the neck of the stone lion. She reached in the basin for a handful of water and spread it across his body, admiring how the warm water coursed over his chest and stomach.

  They embraced and kissed as though discovering desire for the first time. Anthony devoured her, kissing her mouth and neck. He gently cupped her breasts and filled his mouth with one nipple, then the other, while Savannah arched her back, the nape of her hair swishing in the basin water. When he entered Savannah, she interrupted the silence of the night, whispering in his ear, “Our son will be a king.”

  Black.

  Anthony turned to the specter. They were both silent for a moment.

  “I understand,” Anthony said quietly.

  “Do you? Do you truly understand?”

  “Yes. I understand that I am a bully. I understand that I use people.” He paused. “I understand . . . that I am despicable.”

  For the first time, the specter broke into a genuine smile. “Good. Very good, Anthony. You have finally arrived at the first step of transformation.”

  Anthony looked again at the specter. Then, before his eyes, the ghost slowly transfigured. Age evaporated from his face. The scar that ran from his eye to his jaw melded i
nto his skin and disappeared. His blind eye was suddenly healed, sparkling with life. His hair darkened and thickened. And in the next moment, the specter was young—not much older than a schoolboy—with a spirit that was warm and engaging and full of innocence; he looked like a youngster without a care in the world.

  “What is happening?” Anthony asked.

  “My work is done,” Cecilio said. “The rest is up to you.”

  “But what is up to me? What must I do?”

  “You must awaken. You must come to learn what a real family can do.”

  “Will I see you again?”

  Cecilio smiled. “You may, if you need a nudge in the right direction.”

  Anthony looked sideways at his teacher. “Tell me you are not going to freeze me again; I hate being frozen.”

  Cecilio laughed a gentle laugh. “Not unless you really need it.”

  “Will I remember you?”

  “I am afraid not.”

  “Will I remember what you have taught me?”

  “I hope so.”

  Anthony looked hard at his young guide, trying to memorize his features. Then the two men embraced. Cecilio felt warm against Anthony’s chest; in fact, he thought he could feel the Spaniard’s heartbeat. Cecilio held Anthony tightly in his arms like a dear friend who was thought to be lost and was now found. He spoke softly into Anthony’s ear. “It is all right. You can awaken now; you are expected.”

  III

  EPIPHANY

  Wednesday, September 12, 1990

  IT WAS THE AFTERNOON OF the fourth day, and Antonio still lay in a coma. His physical wounds—the severe abrasion to his forehead, the puncture to his left shoulder, the massive contusions behind his knees—were healing as hoped, despite an extraordinary third day of agitation. The most troubling injury was the clean slit across the stranger’s larynx, the damage to his vocal folds impossible to determine until he revived.

  Lupita redressed Antonio’s wounds and bathed his face and torso. She also verified that the chest catheter supplying nutrition and the arm catheter providing hydration were free of inflammation. These were routine acts of medical maintenance, but for Lupita, they were more than that: They were acts of love.