A Meeting in Seville

by Paul A. Mendelson

  He stands, frozen for a second, then walks back into the bar.

  The young couple are dancing even closer, if this were possible. Maybe there was music playing back in 1988 – who remembers? Perhaps the management noticed the couple and afforded them some mellow sounds.

  William manages to ignore the many legs and arms of the rare Iberian Barbadillo, all of which are frantically reaching out for him from the large table nearby, and finds his mark.

  It is Will whom he now addresses, because what has just stupidly occurred to him is that this whole time, this whole Semana Santa, he has been devoting practically all of his attention to Lu. Whilst he can hardly blame himself, especially watching her now, her soft lips so close to – well – his, he is chastened to add one further damning insight to the evening’s mix. And to all that he has learned this revelatory week.

  Luisa was not – and has never been – the major “problem” to be solved.

  He doesn’t want to disturb the couple, not while they are having such a rare excursion into dance. So he manages simply to tap Will on the shoulder and to whisper into the young man’s ear.

  “Look after her, pal,” he warns, “or you’ll have me to deal with.”

  By the time Will turns round, the older guy has gone. Out of the door through which he came only seconds before.

  Wondering if he has just been talking to himself.

  57

  William can’t recall entering the lift outside the rooftop bar, or exiting into the hotel lobby. Yet now he stands alone in the moonlight, shivering uncontrollably as he breathes in the scent of oleander and looks back up towards the terrace.

  Wondering what the hell he has done.

  Or, even more scarily, what the hell he hasn’t done.

  He is also unusually aware of the hour in Seville, New York, London and Seoul, so he must have noticed the clocks on his way out. Despite the memory lapses, William is only too aware that time is now painfully important, even though he knows that what happens from this moment on is totally outside of his control. (Not that he feels he has exactly been master of the universal control booth up until now.)

  He stumbles out into the road, which is still full of happy humanity, most of whom have snacked on tapas and empanadas, lubricated themselves with their favourite bebidas and have probably only just concluded the late dinners that are such a feature of Spanish life and tourism. William has never investigated the effect of full stomachs and late retirement on Spanish productivity. As he now apparently produces inexplicably successful game shows, there would appear even less necessity for him to do so, but it’s still vaguely interesting.

  Not entirely certain where he is heading, he moves off in the direction of the old quarter, where the landmarks are almost painfully familiar. As if to ram home this familiarity, he catches his voluminous corporate blouson drifting past him, just fifteen inches below his chin, as though propelled by its own little motor. Almost hidden inside it is the tiny rosemary woman, whose eyes are entirely focussed on the shiny Rolex watch weighing down her stick-like wrist.

  William backs out of her way, just in case she covets the gold teeth he is certain must reside somewhere inside his expensive, tax-deductible mouth. A few more minutes of intensive, if somewhat aimless, walking delivers him through and beyond the raucous night-time crowds, to whom the message of Easter Sunday doesn’t look as if it has been comprehensively delivered. At least he hasn’t encountered any British stag or hen parties, which is always a blessing.

  Finally, he discovers himself outside the Hotel Herrera, which he guesses must have been his destination all along. Wasn’t he just telling Lu she should go with the flow and take life as you find it? Surely this is what he is doing now, possibly for the first time ever, without even realising it. He almost smiles. “Physician, heal thyself!”

  When he steps into the hotel lobby, less grand but just as bustling as the one he left some time ago, he has only to look at a solitary clock to realise that the day is nearly done. Easter Sunday and Semana Santa, in the worshipful city of Seville, are almost over. And most probably his former, burdensome, less-than-exciting, never-less-than-stressful life along with them.

  A life that suddenly means more to him than he could possibly have imagined.

  He takes the stairs up to his room. The lift would be too slow.

  ***

  “If you like Piña Coladaaa…”

  Will and Lu tumble like crabs at a hoedown up the narrow, winding staircase of the Hostal Esmeralda, bodies locked so tightly that his song, sung loudly into her grinning face in broad Glaswegian, rattles the inside of her head. Normally she would giggle then tell him to shush, as there are people less besotted with each other who are probably sleeping nearby. But tonight she bellows “Follow, follow, I will follow Rangers” back into his own open mouth. A chant which inflames him, but she doesn’t know the Partick Thistle song.

  “You had less than half a cocktail!” he laughs.

  “And a cherry! Do not forget the cherry.”

  “Talking of cherries—” he grins, which, of course, means nothing to her. It begins to explain itself when he presses her slim body, with one firm hand, against their locked door. Struggling wildly with the other, to locate both key and keyhole, he finally unlocks it.

  They topple into what Will has grandly called their Bible-black bedroom, banging immediately into the small, solid-oak bed, a collision they find the funniest thing ever, even through the pain. But, instead of falling onto it, they manoeuvre themselves around the unyielding frame, stumbling over rucksacks and shoes and oranges as they try to unzip, unbutton and unencumber themselves and each other as swiftly and with as much of the requisite frenzy as possible.

  Their yearning for each other’s flesh, the perfumed softness of Lu, the wiry hardness of Will, has never felt so imperative. Perhaps because this is their last night and real life is about to begin, with all its strains and uncertainties. Or maybe because this has been the weirdest evening so far and something about this weirdness has infused their still-developing souls. Certainly Lu finds herself going back to that earlier, rain-sodden goodbye, from the strangest of strangers, even as she feels the chill of her newly defrocked, naked body.

  Before a larger, warmer one lands directly on top of her.

  ***

  For a moment William stands outside the door to number 381.

  He is trying to regain his breath and dial down his pounding heart – which is most probably now on that expensive medication – to some sort of normality. Although normal is not exactly how he would describe this night.

  William wonders, for a moment, how come in his new persona he should have found himself in the very same hotel room, or even the same hotel, as before. But then decides that this is the least of his worries. Perhaps they hold it open for Brits in existential crisis or some leading time-travel agency has the Herrera concession. He also wonders who the hell was Herrera, then puzzles why the human mind goes off in every direction at the same time, when it should be at its most focussed. Or is this just him?

  He knows that he is putting off opening the door. But, finally, he does so and enters into a darkness that wears its vacancy like a musty gown.

  “Luisa?” he hazards, without the slightest hope.

  ***

  “I fucking want you so much,” says Will, who knows there is a time for poetry and a time for action. He doesn’t think he has ever felt so deeply in love and so unspeakably horny. And is still delighted to find that the two can function together, to the ultimate benefit of both.

  “Mi cariño. My Willy.”

  He keeps kissing her, on her lips, her tiny chin, her silky, swan-like neck, where the scent of youth and whatever bouquet she prefers today is at its most captivating, travelling downwards, hotly yet delicately, as he reaches with a free hand for his bedside drawer. Giving the lie to those that say menfo
lk can’t multitask. She can hear him scrabbling around and briefly wishes his attention tonight was all on her and that she had fully captured his mind as well as his yearning.

  “SHIT!”

  “Will?!”

  “I was sure I had one left. Bugger!”

  He rummages with such renewed vigour that the flimsy bedside table keels over. Despite herself, Lu begins to giggle.

  “It’s not funny, Lu. I’m bloody bursting!”

  “I can—”

  “No!”

  He springs up and starts to dress. “Sod it! Our last night! Can you hold on – stay there – I’ll just go and find—”

  “In a Catholic country? On the Sunday night of Easter? Near to midnight?”

  She can hear him in the darkness, ripping open his rucksack with a frenzy, as if his drunken mother might have sewn an emergency supply into the lining, “especially for ma randy wee boy”. And she wonders, lying there so happy and so free, as yet unfulfilled yet so utterly fulfilled, what exactly it is that she is doing right now.

  The words of a highly peculiar yet well-meaning gentleman glide to her through the cool, round-midnight air, still speckled with incense and orange blossom and the myriad candles of Semana Santa, suffused with memories of gleaming, floral-strewn pasos, all of them now sleeping in respectful silence for another year. And so too do her own words float back to her, the feelings she expressed to this same stranger, so honestly and frankly, about her deepest hopes for their future and her strongest fears.

  She gently strokes the chain on her neck and wonders again what in God’s name she is doing.

  ***

  William also wonders what he is doing, although perhaps not in God’s name.

  He knocks again on the door of the room adjoining his own, which belonged briefly to the new Luisa and perhaps still does. For a moment he freezes, as a troubling thought takes hold. Could she be lying there in bed right now, drowsily reacquainted with their mutual, broken-nosed friend after a few bebidas? Seeking some comfort in this life as she did in the one before.

  As the door slowly opens William thinks his heart is going to burst.

  A balding young man, drenched in sweat, stands there glaring at him.

  “Oh. Er, perdón!” blurts out William, in patent relief, which only confuses the disturbed occupant even more. “You just – carry on. With whatever—”

  The relief lasts only as long as it takes for the door to slam. He wonders now whether this same Luisa, the one content to settle for something less than happiness, has merely checked out and gone to stay in some other hostelry, with her most recent ex-husband.

  Or did she simply prefer not to see William again?

  He stands there, lost in a weary suspicion that spans two existences, wishing he couldn’t hear the less complicated sounds coming from behind the newly slammed door.

  ***

  “There’s a Canadian couple in the room down the hall.”

  “Is not like borrowing sugar!” She laughs in astonishment.

  “We should’ve gone to—. Y’know – farmacia?”

  Lu gazes down at her handbag, roughly elbowed off the side of the bed as lust took over from tidiness. The worn zip is half-open and in the dim moonlight curling through the shutters, she thinks she can see the small farmacia packet peeping out. Even in these breathless moments, she finds herself catching what little breath she has.

  She feels his eyes on her. His face, despite the urgency and the patent evidence of his desire, is the softest she thinks she has ever seen it. He gazes around the room at the debris, shaking his beautiful head, as if inviting her to share in the night’s pure nonsense. And, somewhere, a voice he only half believes he heard this curious night, an older voice yet not unlike his own, seems to whisper inside his ear once again.

  They begin to laugh at the same time, a laughter that turns into a helpless, snorting, undignified, marvellous blast that makes their eyes sparkle and their noses run. And she knows what she has to do, what she owes the truth and sheer honesty of this moment.

  She rolls gently down to the side of the narrow bed and draws out the little packet from her discarded bag. Teasingly, her hands make the tiny flamenco movements of a pair of doves, just as they did on the roof terrace as she danced.

  Their eyes meet.

  He remains staring at her, following her delicate fingers, mesmerised. She holds her breath. Wondering what he will say – or do. Until finally he smiles, throws caution to the wind and himself back onto the bed. Embracing the beautiful, new wife he will look after forever, as instructed, whatever the world hurls at them. As he prays she will look after him.

  As he knows she will.

  The little packet floats back onto the floor, as all the church clocks in the still-throbbing city outside their tiny room ring out their versions of midnight.

  And the end of Semana Santa, for this year of our Lord 1988.

  58

  William is convinced he can hear the bells tolling out his fate, even in the flaming lift.

  He certainly can’t check the time, as his watch is most probably on its way back to whatever wretched dwelling the poor rosemary woman inhabits. Unless she has already sold it on. But he can certainly check out his appearance.

  The mirror inside the still-stationary chamber reveals an image that, in other circumstances, he might have been only too thrilled to flaunt – stylish, tanned and expensively thatched. Like a gent he now faintly recalls from a casino so long ago, a dapper man with a stunning and far younger woman on his arm. A man he had found himself much admiring, in his youth.

  He hears himself sigh like a Spaniard. Or, at least, like one Spaniard he used to know.

  And then all the lights go off.

  Before he can even gasp, the entire mechanism appears to shake and rattle in the suddenly terrifying darkness. There’s an ugly grinding of machinery, far off yet deep inside his head, that sounds as ancient as the buildings all around him – making him think of some sort of medieval torture – just before the tiny, steel carriage begins to plummet at breathtaking speed. Curiously, he is aware of the total absence of muzak, which he normally hates but would currently kill for.

  William feels as if he, and his increasingly airless mode of transportation, are totally out of control, heading on the express route down to hell. His body, which now appears mysteriously bereft of bones, flops helplessly against each solid wall in turn, as if he is in some sort of celestial blender . He wonders if this is what dying is like, but nobody tells you.

  For a moment he thinks he spies Pablo reflected in the mirrored wall. Which shows him how his mind is going, as – for once – there is no Pablo and barely even a mirror.

  Beneath his own helpless screams and the ear-splitting mechanics, he hears another sound. More familiar perhaps but no less disconcerting. Two people yelling together on the brink of unfettered ecstasy.

  What the —?

  As suddenly as it began, the lift ceases to clatter and slows to a juddering stop. The lights blink on and William feels that the sweat from his body alone could cause an electrical accident. Alongside other accidents he doesn’t care to imagine. He turns to look at the mirror. What he sees makes him almost retch in astonishment. And then smile in unabashed joy, as he finally greets an old friend.

  “Yes! YES!! God, you’re beautiful!”

  The plush hair has gone, along with the wood-stain tan. He won’t be missing either of them. Back are his trusty spectacles. Even more hearteningly, the elegant watch that Luisa bought for him so very long ago is once again strapped around his familiar, milky-white wrist.

  And his back hurts.

  The lift stops on a lower floor. The doors glide open. He holds his breath.

  Marilyn and Shelby pour in.

  “Hello, stranger,” says Marilyn, juggling bag, phone and guide books with large, m
ulti-ringed fingers.

  William just nods politely; he has too much to think about right now. Although he does wonder where they could possibly be heading after midnight.

  “Where’ve you been all this time?” asks Shelby, who, by the intense look on her face and her warm, wide-open eyes, has been thinking of little else.

  “And this is a concern of yours why?” he says, not unreasonably.

  Marilyn appears to take umbrage. He senses this when she presses a button and stops the lift mid-floor. “Because we’ve been comforting poor Luisa, that’s why, mister.”

  “Poor—? Oh God, you’ve bonded.”

  “Did you know that girl has Jewish blood from way back,” explains Shelby.

  “I really don’t think—”

  “Sephardi. Trust me.”

  “That is a lovely lady, William,” declares Marilyn.

  William softens for a moment, as the hostilities subside. “I know.”

  “Despite the affair.”

  “She told you?”

  “A woman knows,” sighs Shelby.

  “But we didn’t think it’d be him.” He stares at the slightly larger partner. “You don’t deserve a woman like that, William. Does he, Shelby?”

  “He doesn’t deserve shit. If you don’t mind my saying so, William.”

  “What are friends for, Shelby? Would one of you mind restarting the lift, please? … The elevator?”

  He can feel their eyes, kind yet profoundly judgemental, locked onto his.

  “I’ve lost her again, haven’t I?” They shrug non-committedly and in perfect unison. “Where is she? Back in Richmond, packing up?” More shrugs. They aren’t giving anything away. “No – she’s with him! Bugger!” He thinks for a second. And nods . “It’s what she wants – and, most probably, what I deserve. Who am I to—? Bugger!”

  As soon as the doors open, the ladies shunt aside to allow him to rush out. It’s like squeezing a pill out of a blister pack but he’s hugely grateful as he bursts into the spacious lobby.