Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (65 page)

There was a short silence and then the man’s voice came on again. “Sorry, no answer.”

“No answer? Isn’t this Senor Nascimento’s home?”

“This is the Hotel Independa.”

“Where are you located?”

This time the voice was bored. “In the Calle del Sacramento. Numero — ”

“Thank you very much.”

Steve got out his guidebook. “Okay, it’s in an old, illustrious quarter. Let’s go.”

The cab driver, when told of their destination, asked if they were headed for the Palacio de los Vargas.

“No, the Hotel Independa,” Steve said, lighting a cigar.

“Ah,
si.
”

They drove through narrow Madrid streets and broad avenidas, palm-lined, with outdoor cafes at regular intervals. The sun burned everything; the sky was without clouds. Their driver obligingly pointed out places of interest. “The Cathedral of San Isidro,” he told them, and later, “The Madrid Town Hall … this is beautiful,
si?
And look, the Plaza de la Villa, the work of Gomez de la Mora. Beautiful.”

The cab driver hung his head out.

“Beautiful,” he said again, and then just around the corner from this landmark was the Calle del Sacramento, with its Palacio de los Vargas.

The taxi came to a stop in front of an elaborate building, whose canopy bore the insignia Hotel Independa.

“Estan, Senor, Senora.”

Steve paid him and they got out.

It was a rather plush hotel, with front gardens and a cool, expensive look. Inside, the lobby was dim and louvred; to the clerk at the desk Steve said, “I’m here to see Senor Nascimento.”

“Pronto.”

The desk clerk went to a telephone. Steve lit a cigar as they waited. “What are you going to say to them?” Kelly asked curiously, and Steve, raising an eyebrow, smiled. “I really hadn’t given it much thought.”

But the question was academic. After a moment or two the clerk hung up the phone. He walked back to them. “I am sorry, but Senor and Senora Nascimento have left the hotel.”

“When?”

“Two hours ago, I was told.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Certainly, Senor.”

“What’s their forwarding address?”

The clerk, a little flustered, checked a register. “I have none listed,” he said.

“You’re sure of that?”

“But … yes, I am sorry, Senor.”

“You have no idea where they’ve gone?”

“No. No idea. There is no — ”

“Why are you pursuing this?” Kelly asked him, as they walked out to the street again.

“I don’t like unfinished stories.”

“I don’t either. I wonder where they went?”

“Maybe back with the return flight. Let’s go back to the hotel and check last evening’s passenger list.”

When they were again at the Hotel Fenix Kelly called the airline. But the Nascimentos hadn’t been booked on the ITA list for the evening before. “Okay, so it’s a dead end,” Steve said. “By this time I’ve lost interest, anyway. There are better things to do.”

“Such as?”

“We could lie down and rest.”

“If you’re that tired, go ahead.”

“I didn’t mean alone, Kelly.”

“Whatever you hear about us girls,” she said, “don’t believe a whole lot of it.”

“I was afraid of that.” He sighed. “Okay, then, let’s take off for the Ermita de San Antonio. I understand there are some Goya frescoes there.”

“Where is it?”

He consulted a notebook. “Paseo de la Florida.” He went to the curb and held up a hand.

“Steve, it’s not very far from here. We can walk. Do you own stock in cab companies?”

“How would I know where the damned place was?”

“You have a big-shot complex,” she told him. “All the time taxis. Champagne for breakfast. Dollar cigars.”

“So sue me.”

She laughed, out of pleasure and contentment. Arm in arm they wandered through the old church, with its brilliant art works, the Goya frescoes as sublime as anything that artist had ever done. Afterwards they went to the Sabatini Gardens and then had drinks at a small, dark
posada
with vaulted brick ceilings. Candles flickered in the dim light; there was no air conditioning, but the thick stone walls kept out the heat.

A man whose long, sensitive fingers plucked at the strings of his guitar sang. Not tenor, not baritone, but somewhere in between.

“Yo te amo … bellaza … querida …”

The purple flowers, in bowls on the table tops, had a foresty scent. The candles lit the dark.

The little Caravelle, with its tear-shaped windows, left Madrid at ten A.M., arriving an hour later at Malaga. The air of the Costa del Sol was clear and soft. Richard, lugging his suitcase, trudged through Customs and refused help from Steve. “I can manage,” he said stoutly.

Their transfer took them, in short order, to the Hotel Pez Espada in Torremolinos, a half hour’s drive. It was at the water’s edge, and the Mediterranean was like glass, a clear, limpid blue. “Just like Miami,” Richard said of the hotel, pinpointing it with deadly accuracy. Yet it was the last word in luxury and comfort, and the Costa del Sol was almost as charming as the French and Italian Rivieras, encompassing practically the whole of the Mediterranean coast frm Capo Gata to Tarifa.

It was picturesque still, with its fishing villages, subtropical valleys and high mountains that protected the coast from the chill of the hinterland. Starkly contrasting colors abounded; white-washed houses, agaves and prickly-pears, farmhouses and gay villages were set in an ambience of rich trees and luxuriant foliage. Torremolinos was the kick-off point from which the rest of Andalusia stretched, fascinating, sometimes somber, poor and arid in spots, incredibly brilliant with riches of the soil in others.

So said the guidebooks.

“We’ll see,” Steve said, lighting a cigar as they had drinks at an outdoor bar of the hotel.

The manager, Senor Manos, refused to accept payment for their cocktails. And when they went back to their rooms, both Kelly and Steve found a bottle of chilled champagne in a bucket. Kelly was used to such attentions; all airline employees received these courtesies. “You’re, a good gal to know,” Steve said.

In the afternoon they hired a car and driver and inside of twenty minutes were back in Malaga, a beautiful little town perched on a cliff, the outstanding feature of which was the famous lookout point of Balcon de Europa and which afforded a magnificent view of the sea and mountains.

Locked in all this beauty was a huge amphitheater down below, where the festival of the bulls was held. “Want to go to a bull-fight?” Steve asked Richard, and the boy’s face paled.

“Do we have to?”

“No, Rich. First of all, Kelly would hate it. And I’ve never seen one that didn’t churn up my guts.”

“Oh, good. I like the music, of course, but — ”

“The music is something, I have to agree. The Virgin of the Macarena. But the works are grim. We’ll stay away from the blood sports, all right, Rich?”

“Yeah, I’m glad, Steve. Because … it’s the horses, you know.”

“It’s the horses, yes. And everything else. We don’t like stuff like that, do we?”

“Not me.”

“Me either.”

There were some gypsies. Not beautiful girls or women, but with a certain charm, in their tatterdemalion costumes, their strong arms raised over their heads, flashing their castanets. Pictures were taken. “This will go in my memoirs,” Richard said.

They were driven back to the hotel, arriving at four o’clock, and then they got into their bathing suits and went down to the sea. There was only one other guest there, a middle-aged man, still white in the torso, asleep on a beach chair. They lay and turned their faces up to the sun. And fell asleep. Steve woke first, nudging Kelly with a foot.

“Turn over,” he ordered. “Or you’ll be a lobster.”

Obediently, she changed position. Then fell asleep again.

When she woke next, Steve and Richard were tossing a big, red and blue beach ball back and forth. She watched them, a hand shading her eyes. She was conscious of a great sense of peace, of things being exactly as they should be, with the man and the boy, companionable, batting the ball back and forth. And the warm, golden afternoon.

They stayed until the sky purpled, then trudged back across the mauve-colored sand and back to their rooms. “We’ll meet in the lounge at eight,” Steve said, and they separated. Kelly crawled into bed for an hour or so, then got up, took a bath and got into a spectacular outfit. She was rewarded by a glint in Steve’s eyes. Even Richard remarked on her splendor.

“That’s a nice thing,” he said, fingering a fold of her gown. “It looks Arabian.”

“It is. I bought it in Morocco. It’s a djellabah.”

The gazpacho was cold and pungent, the beef rare and tender. It was almost midnight when they went upstairs. Richard’s eyes were glazed and Kelly was half asleep.

They saw the boy to his room and Steve said, “Now how about going out on the town?”

“Are you kidding? I can scarcely keep my eyes open.”

He grinned. “Me too. Anyway, there isn’t anything around here. Just other hotels like this one. Grossingertype nightclubs. Just as well. We have to get an early start tomorrow. Be ready at eight.”

“At
eight?
”

“Sure. It’s a long drive to Cordoba. We want to be there by at least three o’clock. And I’m the one who has to get up
really
early. To rent a car for the trip. So the least you can do is be ready to go at around nine or so.”

“I didn’t think we’d have to start that early, Steve.”

“Oh, stop playing on my sympathies. Kelly?”

“Yes?”

“I like you.”

“That’s a good thing to know.”

“Don’t be flippant. If you could manage to unfreeze a little, you think you could manage a good night kiss?”

“Go to bed and sleep it off,” she said, fishing for her key.

“Not yet. Look at me.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

“I’m waiting.”

She dropped her keys and both of them bent to pick them up. Heads were bumped and then the next thing she knew she was in Steve Connaught’s arms. “That was A OK,” he said, after they kissed. “Thank you very much. And now close your little eyes and go to sleep. Morning will be here before you know it.”

He pushed her into her room and she closed the door on his satisfied, smiling face. Leaning against the door, she thought, it’s too good to be true. There must be a snag somewhere. Things like this just didn’t happen …

The wide, cool bed was heaven, and she turned luxuriously, remembering the kiss and earlier, the fresh air, the sea, the peach-colored sand. And then she drowned in sleep, as the waves washed over her, the salty, sun-drenched waters of the Mediterranean, enclosing her in a kind of tender womb.

• • •

The alarm rang and then it was time to be up and going again. Packing, shoving garments hastily into her suitcase, she bathed and dressed. Steve rang her at a quarter to nine.

“Of course I’m up,” she said crossly. “I’ll be downstairs in fifteen minutes.”

“Good girl. Richard’s been awake since I guess dawn.”

“Is he down there?”

“He’s eating. Sausages and eggs and now he’s on his third coke.”

“For heaven’s sakes, see that he drinks some milk,” she said, and rang off.

It was so nice, she thought, joining them. Like a family. “Good morning, Kelly,” Richard said amiably, sliding toward the wall so that she could sit next to him in, the booth. “You look nice in pants.”

“She sure does,” Steve said appreciatively. “She’s a limber wench. I never did like fat women.”

“Both of you shut up and stop eyeing me. I’m still half asleep. Some holiday this is. Up with the sparrows. I might as well be working.”

• • •

The miles flew by, golden kilometers under a burning sun. Small villages lay sleepy in the summer somnolence. “Is this a
ciudad?
” Richard asked innumerable times. Sometimes it was; just as often it was a small
pueblo.

They stopped off for coffee and the bathroom at several places en route, and reached their destination at just short of three o’clock. Cordoba was a splendid city, on the main Madrid-Cadiz national highway, at a height of about three hundred feet above sea level. Richard read them the particulars from his guidebook.

“ ‘Cordoba has a population of about 250,000 inhabitants and is one of the oldest cities in Spain, dating to prehistoric times, roughly, around the year 152 A.D.’ ”

He raised his head. “Jaysus, that’s old, isn’t it?”

“Richard, will you try to refine your language, just a
little?
”

“Oh. Sorry.” He bent to his guidebook again. “Anyway. It became a Roman municipality and was granted the status of Colonia Patricia, as capital of lower Spain. Influential in the fortunes of the Empire were its native Seneca, the philosopher, Lucanus, who composed the poem ‘Pharsalia,’ and Hosius, head of the Nicene Council.”

“Thanks for the info,” Steve drawled. “Now I know exactly where we stand.”

“It’s super, isn’t it? What are we going to do when we get to the hotel?”

“Eat.”

“What else?”

“Then sleep. We’ll save the Mosque for tomorrow. All right, this afternoon we’ll-hack around and take a gander at the Castle, the Montmayor. And, let’s say, the Calle de las Flores and the Capuchin Monastery. We ought to work in the Tower of la Malmuerta. But I want all tomorrow morning for the Mosque. That’s really supposed to be something.”

• • •

The Hotel Cordoba Palace, deluxe and with a swimming pool in emerald gardens, was comfortably air-conditioned. They rested in their rooms for an hour, then met for a late lunch in the Senecan Room, after which they followed Steve’s itinerary. Everything was white-washed, with inner courtyards in which the purple bougainvillea bloomed around marble columns and burbling fountains.

Later in the afternoon they drove to Montoro, on the Guadalquivir, with its beautiful churches and convents, and then went on to Almodovar and Pala del Rio, the latter rich in orange groves.

When it came time for dinner they were footsore and weary, but richly rewarded. A quick bath and a short rest brought them all together again at a quarter to ten, when the dining room of the hotel opened.