by David Wood
Craig gazed out the window and took another deep breath, entranced by the incessant pulsing in his ear. He reached into the seat pocket for his iPod Shuffle and placed the tiny white buds into his ears. He punched up the volume and watched out the window at the blue sky above, the gray clouds below. For the next three hundred and sixty- five days, he’d leave behind his problems and worry over nothing but his writing. He and Amy would soak up some Old World culture and hammer out each of their issues long before they returned to New York.
He reached over and took her left hand, warming it between both of his. He allowed himself to close his eyes and lean back in his seat. He daydreamt of their first nights in Lisbon, of dining at outdoor cafés and imbibing in quiet, dimly lit taverns. Of strolling home arm-in-arm with only the moonlight and stars to guide them. Of rushing up the stairs and fumbling for their keys, of bursting through the door and shedding their clothes, of making love on the floor of their new flat.
Craig drifted off, half-thinking, half-dreaming, as the music drowned out the sound of the pulse and the hum of the plane. And before long he was sleeping, and the airliner was descending, and Amy was awake and reading, and in his ears, Ozzy was going off the rails on a crazy train.
Chapter 2
Amy waved Craig off and lifted her overstuffed suitcase into the dusty trunk of the taxi herself. Then she climbed into the rear of the cab and sat idly in protest, her hands folded in her lap. She’d wanted to call her mother but Craig had hurried her out of the airport, anxious to catch a taxi and make their way to the flat.
It had been like this ever since they started dating, Craig trying to drive a wedge between her and her parents—especially between her and her mother. He had never even given them a chance. Dodging her parents the first three or four times they were supposed to meet. Amy showing up alone at restaurants in the city after her parents drove for more than two hours from their home upstate, making excuses for Craig: Oh, he’s sick. Or, he’s got a big trial starting tomorrow morning.
By then, of course her mother was biased against him. Of course she was none too thrilled when he proposed marriage after only two and a half months of serious dating. Of course she was horrified when Amy first announced they were moving seven thousand miles away to Hawaii.
Now, in the rear seat of the taxi, Craig fumbled with his guidebook, flipping pages and muttering sounds, attempting to answer the driver in Portuguese.
“Onde?” the driver said again, impatiently. He watched them through the rearview, and his gaze made Amy feel uneasy. His skin was dark and prematurely wrinkled, his eyes narrowed and bloodshot, as though he had spent the afternoon drinking on the beach.
Amy surreptitiously sniffed the air, sure she picked up the faint scent of wine. She leaned over to Craig to whisper in his ear but kept silent. He would only shrug off her concern anyhow, she decided, accuse her again of trying to sabotage their precious trip.
Instead she sat quietly, huddled in the corner, watching the bustle on the street. The sky was gray and threatening dark. It was disorienting, since back home in Manhattan it was only two o’clock. She’d slept some on the plane but was still fatigued. Worn mentally and emotionally. Still torn over her decision—a decision she didn’t really make until the moment she stepped onto the plane.
“Aqui,” Craig said finally, jabbing at the map. “Here.” He rattled off their address in the Alfama quarter.
“Porquê?” said the driver, shaking his head.
Amy could tell Craig was growing flustered, red rising up his neck. “No compreendo,” he sputtered. “I don’t understand.” Then, “Please, por favor, go now, take us to the Alfama quarter, to our flat.”
The driver sat mute, still staring into the rearview, his bloodshot eyes trained on Amy. Then he reset the fare, shrugged his shoulders, shifted out of park, and stomped on the accelerator, flinging Craig back against the torn vinyl seat.
The taxi merged into traffic and Amy stared out the window, still somewhat stunned to find herself in Lisbon. It was her first time in Europe, her first time abroad unless you counted the day-trip she and her family once took to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.
It wasn’t for her family’s lack of desire to travel. Certainly not her mother’s. No, Diana Berdan would have been the first to say, “Let’s rent one of those over-the-water thatched-roof bungalows in Bora Bora.” But that was pretty difficult to do on a teacher’s salary, and her husband, Amy’s father, was of no help at all.
Sure, Johnny Berdan had big dreams at one time. Not unlike Craig. He had had an entrepreneurial spirit, Amy’s mother said. He was going to open the finest bar and grill in Pawling, and follow it up with one in Poughkeepsie, one in Newburgh, one in Waterbury and another in Naugatuck. Then he and her mother got married, had Amy, and soon after Amy’s brother.
Instead of owning a Pawling bar and grill, her father began working at one, slinging drinks at Dooley’s over on Dutchess Drive. Five bucks an hour plus tips. A Pawling Gazette paper route on the side.
So much for Johnny’s big dreams. So much for Diana’s.
Amy’s eyes grew wide. Portugal’s capital city wasn’t at all what she had expected. It was old, sure, yet spectacularly beautiful. Elegant with rolling hills—a striking contrast from the flattened landscape of Manhattan.
And the streets of Lisbon were surprisingly eclectic. The taxi swept past contemporary buildings nestled between baroque cathedrals and old boutique specialty shops. Ornate archways fronted cold, hidden doorways. Narrow cobblestone alleyways displayed working old-fashioned trams. The roads were lined with small tavernas and neighborhood cafés, the riverbanks with restaurants advertising fresh seafood and fine wines. Every building, every storefront, seemed to shine despite the tired gray sky. And the pedestrians moved slowly, in no apparent hurry, actually taking the time to acknowledge one another on the street.
The cab coasted smoothly along the uncrowded city thoroughfare. The driver, once agitated, now seemed calm and unhurried, his bloodshot eyes finally focused not on the rearview but on the road ahead.
Craig was uncharacteristically quiet, surveying the city, jotting notes in the margins of his travel guide. He, too, seemed oddly serene. No doubt relieved that he had actually made it to Lisbon with Amy at his side.
She knew he didn’t trust her. Not after what had happened in Honolulu.
She looked away from him and sighed.
The driver didn’t signal, just suddenly jerked the steering wheel to the left. Amy’s stomach leapt like it had on the Kraken, that goddamned roller coaster Craig finally conned her into riding last month. She lost her balance and crashed into him, as Craig braced himself against the door.
The cab veered down a narrow side road. The wheels bounced along the broken pavement, jolting the pair like Mexican jumping beans. Amy reached for the front seat to steady herself. Her eyes settled on the set of red rosary beads swinging like a pendulum from the rearview mirror.
The driver seemed oblivious, his right foot glued to the accelerator, his left hand adjusting a chipped and peeling Jesus statue stationed on the cracked blue dashboard.
Amy pulled her eyes from the rosary and watched through the windshield at the fast approaching intersection. The taxi roared toward it without slowing. She caught a glint off the fender of an approaching vehicle, and then she screamed and shut her eyes.
The taxi screeched to an abrupt halt. Amy’s face was flung forward as though through a slingshot into the front passenger seat. A fierce pain shot up through her nose.
Next thing she knew, Craig was leaning over her, holding a handkerchief to her face, cursing the driver from one side of his mouth and reassuring Amy from the other.
She opened her eyes and saw the white hanky turn crimson. She gasped and shuddered and held onto Craig’s arm as he lifted her head skyward to ebb the bleeding.
She worried that her nose was broken. Imagined spending her first days in Lisbon with a splint down her face and two black eyes. Pictured he
rself returning to her parents’ place in Pawling, fractured and doped on painkillers, falling into her mother’s arms, sobbing, conceding she’d been right all along.
“Do you want to go to a hospital?” Craig asked.
Amy shook her head and blinked back tears. She breathed deeply, more shocked than pained. She pleaded, “I just want to go home.”
Craig nodded. For a moment she thought he would ask the driver to return them to the airport. That they would purchase tickets and board the next flight bound for New York. Instead he instructed the driver to proceed to the Alfama, but slowly. The driver bowed his head as though he suddenly understood ingles and rolled the taxi back onto the street with an exaggerated caution.
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 3
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 suitcases, 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.
