Authors: Christine Lemmon
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
AFTER THE NEXT DAY’S
siesta, Howard’s mysterious contact Ignacio called.
He had received her letter and wanted to meet but had questions. At first he spoke
rapidamente
like everyone else in Spain, but then he picked up on Vicki’s low level of Spanish comprehension and slowed down, reassuring her that she spoke Spanish quite nicely. Talking on
el telefono
was always more
dificil
than talking in person.
She agreed. The phone made the language barrier more difficult, as if she were standing in the United States and he in Spain, and they were divided by an international border of barbed-wire fences, guards, and mean dogs.
He said that neither he nor his mother had any recollection of a man, let alone a friend, named Howard and living in Florida. In fact, they didn’t have any American friends at all. After much hesitation, he decided to meet her anyway, in case the name Howard might eventually ring a bell.
“Lo
siento,”
she apologized. “I feel foolish. Let’s forget the entire thing.
If you do not know an American man named Howard, there must be a mistake.”
“I do not want to forget,” he said in Spanish.
“You must. There must be another Ignacio living in Madrid, and I probably messed up part of the telephone number. Please, accept my apology.”
“I am not ready to accept it,” he declared. “Call me Nacho for short.”
“Si, si
. That is exactly what Howard had told me to call you as well,”
she replied. “You must remember him.”
“Friday night is best. You meet me then.”
“Si, si
. I will bring my friends,” she said. Then again, she hadn’t made any friends yet, but talking of them might lend the impression she was protected—the higher the number, the greater the protection.
“No!” He insisted she go alone.
What-ifs crowded her mind, as they had on that first boat ride to Tarpon Key. She imagined a strange plot, a kidnapping, a mugging, a mysterious plan set forth by both Howard and his strange European contact. “Nice talking to you, but
por favor
, forget the entire thing. It’s no big deal.”
“Wait!” he said, as if screaming across an ocean.
“What?” she asked. And then he tempted her with the one thing she had been craving for weeks.
“Have you seen Madrid at night?” he wanted to know.
“No,” she told him. She’d been staying in the apartment with her
señora
, studying at night.
“So you know
nothing
of Madrid,” he declared in Spanish.
“No es la verdad,”
she said. “I do know some things. I’m taking several very intense classes, all taught in Spanish and by Spanish professors.”
“Si
, but you are missing out on the one most precious aspect of Spanish life.”
“The night?”
“Si,
si
. If you don’t know the night, you don’t know the people
de España,”
he stated. “Madrid has
dos personalidades
. I heard another
Americana
say Madrid was schizophrenic, completely different night from day,” he explained in his native tongue. “I want to introduce you to the side you do not know.”
This sounded like Denver’s introduction to good Old. Mr. Two-Face. Then she thought of tarpon fishing and late-night conversations and yoga at midnight, and knew that what he said was true.
“Okay. Night does have its value. Let’s meet Friday night at six o’clock,” she said.
“No,” he told her, “night doesn’t begin that early. Nine o’clock.”
“We can meet at a café,” she suggested.
“No,” he said again. “We meet inside Madrid’s Opera House. Friday night, nine o’clock, row ten, seat B.”
“What? ¿
Que?”
she asked, still uncertain if her translations were 100% accurate, or if her mind had turned reality into a surreal semblance of things she thought she had heard.
He said,
“Yo tengo dos
tickets to a visiting orchestra performance. I will have
uno de
those tickets waiting
para ti
at the ticket box when you arrive. You only need to give your
nombre
to the
persona
inside the box.”
“No!” She was adamant. “I prefer to meet you outside the performance.”
“No!” he shouted. “I will not stand outside, risking your tardiness.”
She paused for a moment because his intensity reminded her of someone. She was the one who was always early. She was the one who stressed others not to be late.
“Okay. I’ll meet you inside.”
“The Opera House is located opposite the Palacio del Oriente. Do you know where that is?”
“Si, si,” she answered. Of course she knew of the Royal Palace, the second most stunning tourist attraction in Spain. How could she
not
know where Philip the something—in seventeen something—had built a home suitable for a Bourbon monarch? It did catch her eye every so often as she walked by, and she had gone for a tour with an English-speaking guide. Alfonso the something was the last person to live in the palace, yet Franco’s body was still there today. Yes, she could certainly find Madrid’s Opera House, just across from the palace, and she could probably find row ten, seat B.
“Adios.”
“Adios.”
They hung up.
Dear Grandma
,
There’s something I will never again take for granted back in the United States, and I can only daydream wishfully about plugging it in, turning it on, filling it with water, and feeling the steam rise forth. Yes
,
ironing. It took me an hour to persuade Rosario that I needed to iron, let alone wash my clothes. After a fun game of charades, she took out the ironing board, but explained that I’d have to pay her first, and that I could use the washing machine only once a month
.
I know I shouldn’t complain. Life could be tougher than this, but it happened the same day that I was in the midst of shaving my legs in the shower when Isabella, my Spanish sister, shut the water off. She explained to me that shaving my legs was costing her family money and that I shouldn’t do it daily, rather, like washing my clothes, I should shave monthly. Once she chased me out of the bathroom, she ran in there and stayed for quite some time. I think she might be sick. Her face looked so pale
.
Well, I suppose if I am to live the Spanish life, I need to adhere to this Spanish family’s rules. An attitude adjustment is needed. May the hair on my legs grow free and wild!
P.S. You all must laugh at the things that fluster us down here
.
She thanked God that the hair on her legs hadn’t grown too long by Friday night as she walked the couple of miles to Madrid’s neoclassic Opera House. Why was this mystery man adamant about meeting inside? Was he that uptight about missing a single moment of the performance? It was only a visiting orchestra, and he was a
Madrileno
. They’re the ones late for everything.
She followed his orders, telling the man in the box office her name, and he handed her a ticket for row ten, seat B. She went inside and found her seat, the second from the aisle. There was no Nacho. A woman sat on her right, but the seat to her left was empty.
Look who is early and look who is late
, she thought.
The lights dimmed, and she could hardly see a thing. Now she wouldn’t be able to see what Ignacio looked like, at least not until the performance
ended. That is, if he showed up.
He did. A man took the seat next to her nearly a quarter of the way through the first performance and made no apologies for his tardiness as he whispered into her ear. “Do not think I am interested in you romantically,” he said in his native language. “I am not.”
She didn’t know what to say. She had felt a rude disconnection with this man the moment they first spoke on the phone, and she felt it more now.
“And I am not interested in you,” she whispered back.
“You are offended?” he asked.
“Of course not. Let’s listen to
la musica.”
“Si, si
. That is what the love of my life told me. She told me I must listen more.”
“Are you married?”
“No. I am taking a rest from her. We have been together a long time, since I was a child. I need this time away, time to listen.”
“I think that’s a good idea. I think you should listen. You don’t have to say another word to me. Let’s both just listen then to
la musica,”
replied Vicki, aware that their whispering might upset the people sitting around them.
“I don’t like the silence,” he said when the music stopped and no one clapped.
“¿Por que?”
She asked him why.
“Porque,”
he whispered loudly. “I don’t know what to do in the silence. I don’t know how to feel.”
She herself was glad when the music started up again, so the others wouldn’t hear him whispering during the silent moments. But then she felt his shoulders jerking about and his hands flailing in the air, as if he were a conductor himself, or perhaps a crazy man controlled by the music, like a puppet on strings. He bounced about and it all made her quite nervous. She couldn’t breathe. She felt anxious, like she wanted to escape, but she couldn’t. She was also like a puppet controlled by invisible strings and there was nothing she wanted more than to cut her strings and those of the hyperactive character beside her. Then the two of them might run
down the aisle and out the door. He could go his way and she hers. What a nice escape it would be.
“Wait,” she said to Ignacio, who was standing up in the middle of the performance. “Where are you going?”
“Quiet,” he said. “You must listen. Listen with your eyes shut, and you will hear things you don’t hear with your eyes open. I go to the bathroom, and I will be back.”
She closed her eyes and listened. It was true. She heard the music differently, and felt it surrounding her body like a powerful electromagnetic field. She felt stronger and healthier as if the music added strength to her immune system.
A good twenty minutes passed. Row ten, seat A remained vacant. She walked home alone.
A few days went by, and she began feeling uneasy about Nacho. Perhaps he got sick and had to take off. Perhaps he got mugged on the way to the bathroom, or he lost his ticket and they wouldn’t let him back in. Maybe he was some whimsical figment of her imagination, her alter ego, the “her” she needed to get to know, the “her” who dumped men into a fierce Sea of Forgetfulness, and now she had been tossed overboard herself by someone who gave her no chance to be known, by someone who forced her to close her eyes and truly listen, not to others, but to music, and in doing so discovered new beauty. She didn’t get mad. She became curious, and it drove her crazy not knowing how he could tell her to listen when he himself could hardly sit still. And it was rude to leave a woman alone and not escort her home. She called him up.
“Hola
. You yourself hardly listened for five minutes. I haven’t known you long – correction, I don’t know you at all, but I agree with your girlfriend. You do need to listen more,” she said slowly in Spanish.
“Girlfriend is too simple of a word. She is the love of my life,” he answered in his native tongue.
“Then you should have taken her to the performance, not me,” replied Vicki.
“I did. I was with her in my mind that night.”
It had gone far enough, and she told him it was all too strange. “Let’s
forget we ever met,” she told him. “This was all a big mistake.
Adios.”
“¡No!
I will pick you up at eight o’clock on the curb below your family’s
apartmento.”
She regretted ever giving him the address the first time they spoke on the phone. What had she been thinking?
“No,” she said. “You won’t.”
“Si, si, I will,”
he said in Spanish.
“I won’t be there,” she stated.
“I will be there.”
“Adios.”
“Adios. I see you then.” He hung up.
“No you won’t see me,” she said to herself as she slammed the phone down.
“Loco
. This guy is crazy.”
Dear Grandma
,
The other night I was attempting to make my way through the dark hallway to the bathroom when I heard an awful noise. It grew louder and more ferocious with each step I took. Suddenly, the noise was right below me and, horrified, I discovered it was Señor Lorenzo. I had mistakenly routed myself into their bedroom and was standing over their bed. I’ve never heard such a snore in my entire life. It had a Spanish accent to it. I started to shake with laughter as I stood there, frozen and blinded, with my hands gagging my mouth
.
P. S. Is thunder really some kind of noise from Heaven? I know it’s not the angels bowling, but is it anything other than plain old weather acting out? I’m dying to know. Well, not “dying.”
She stood outside on the balcony, looking down at the city street below, hoping and praying Ignacio wouldn’t show up. Then, at around eight forty-five, he pulled up to the curb in an old-fashioned bright yellow car. As he got out, she saw his features better than she had at the darkened Opera
House. He was a semi-good-looking, short, stocky Spaniard with dark features inherited from Moorish invaders of long ago. He glanced up at her and tossed two kisses, waving his hand first to the left, then to the right.
She stared with disgust and disappeared into the apartment. Just then, Rosario flagged her into the kitchen with a look of excitement.