They arrived at the address Miranda had written down. An exiting couple let them in without question through the creaking iron and glass street door of Sixty-Four La Rambla. Olivia rushed in with evident relief, but Miranda lingered a moment in the doorway to scowl at this breach of security.
Then Miranda, with a confidence that Olivia had not yet learned to question, led them across the tiled and barely lit foyer and into the twilight of the narrow marble staircase that slithered up the center of the building, encircling a cage elevator. The Casa Joven was on the third floor of a relatively plain and forgotten Art-Nouveau building that bisected the edges of the city’s medieval and nineteenth-century districts.
Below the hostel, a notary and an architect lurked behind elaborately carved wooden doors set with stained glass, defying the shabby decay of the narrow stair they opened onto. Olivia paused for a nanosecond when she thought she saw a question mark faintly chalked in the dim grime of the stairwell wall, but Miranda pulled her past it before she could get a good look.
The Casa Joven, like the businesses below it, was hidden behind a square, hulking green door with a brass knob protruding from the exact center, a door that hung ajar, and Olivia, rising toward it, had a sense that if only it had opened an inch wider, she would have had a glimpse of fantastically intimate scenes of life unfolding just around its edge.
But instead, when Miranda pushed it open, she saw only a narrow passage, cubby-holing a computer, and a sour-faced, blond receptionist. Olivia crowded in awkwardly behind Miranda, jostling both her and the little reception desk as she tried to find a way to get her backpack out of the path of the closing door. After an agonizing moment, she emerged on the right side of the entry hall, leaving her sister to confirm their booking as if she were twelve and Miranda was her mother. Her bags had grown heavier the closer they’d approached their goal, and Olivia now dropped them on the floor of the common room with a wracking groan.
“We have reservations,” she heard Miranda say as she looked around.
Feeling the weight of weary muscles finally relieved, Olivia drank in the safety of stillness, letting the room enclose her and protect her from the painful and strange outside. She looked around the common room, letting her eyes wander from the couches slouching against the left wall, hugging the parquet floor, to the island of the faded braid rug, to the opposite wall harboring two dining tables and a fleet of spindly chairs. Turning to look behind her, she took in the kitchen in a nook open to the rest of the room, beside the mouth of the hall with the reception computer.
At the back of the common room, a wooden arch supported by lotus-shaped columns embellished a single step up, beyond which a sunken recliner hid in the corner and three computers clustered in front of a large bare window. Olivia took a step toward the window when the recliner moved. It had grown a hand; there was a person inside it.
He leaned forward and materialized as an adolescent about her age, his gangly height folded around a book. His eyes, which seemed to speak when he didn’t, met hers, and then he looked up at the ceiling above her head. Her glance followed his. Above her, strands of a sunburst shot from the center of the hanging lamp.
It was then the room became whole, crystallizing from assorted elements into a hard and definite shape: the painting on the ceiling, geometric and bright with visible brushstrokes; the angular details of the wooden arch, notched by collisions; the footpaths worn into the braided rug.
Then her sister touched her elbow and it all evaporated into invisible ordinariness again, and the silent reader in the chair made himself invisible, too, having turned the beacon of his eyes back to his book.
They followed the blond girl through the right of the common room into a short corridor with doors on both sides and a bathroom at the end.
“On the left, at the back,” the blond girl said, and with a flash of keys into Miranda’s hand, she abandoned the sisters in the corridor.
Miranda and Olivia opened the left door into a long room, where paired bunk beds multiplied in neat rows toward the small window at the back, providing enough sleeping space for about ten people. At the very end was a bunk wedged against the window, which Olivia assumed was “the back.” She shuffled toward it with their things while Miranda followed with hesitation, looking critically around the room.
“Wait, is this our room?” Miranda called out the door. “This isn’t our room, is it?” But the blond girl was nowhere to be seen.
With numb absence of mind, Olivia scrutinized the flower-specked cotton duvet rolled at the end of a neighboring bunk.
“This can’t possibly be our room,” Miranda said, her confusion growing into anger.
Olivia looked up.
“Where is she? This can’t be our room,” Miranda said again, more sharply.
“What’s wrong with it?” Olivia asked.
“I could have sworn I booked a room for two.”
“Yeah, well, we get the whole bunk, both the beds—”
“No, like a private room for two. I know I booked a private room for two. I’ve got it on our reservation.”
“Maybe the other beds aren’t filled,” Olivia said, sitting on the empty one she had been examining as if to make her point.
“No, there’s a suitcase under that bunk. And,” Miranda said, advancing toward the door and between two bunks, “there are boxer shorts over here.”
“Miranda, those were under someone’s pillow!”
“Oh my God, they put us in a mixed dorm!”
“I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.”
“Don’t they have computers to keep things straight? I can’t believe I trusted the reviewers from Australia.”
Olivia could not think of a defense for the Australian reviewers, so instead, she took off her shoes and asked, “Top or bottom?”
“Oh, it’s up to you,” Miranda said, disgorging her purse onto the bottom bunk. “You know I’m afraid of heights.”
Olivia creaked up to the top bunk and the bed squealed.
“Would you just listen to that?” Miranda continued, finding her pace and sticking to it. “I can’t even see any support for it under here. The top one’s just resting on a bracket. I bet it would fall down any minute and crush someone in their sleep.”
“Do you want me to take the bottom bunk?” Olivia asked.
“No, just don’t wiggle too much. Anyway, don’t get comfortable. I’m going to find that blond girl and get this all sorted out. Hopefully we can change today before we unpack.” Miranda sneezed. “I think I’m allergic to something in here. Probably the wool blankets. And the dust.”
With her hands under her head, Olivia quietly (and gently) stretched out under her wool blanket. The ceiling, she noted, was stained rich gold where sunlight spilled in through the window by her bed and faded to cool blue in the darker depths of the room.
“I’ll be right back,” Miranda said. “And don’t fall asleep! If you sleep in the middle of the day, you’ll never kill the jet lag.”
Olivia listened to Miranda march down the corridor and heard the opening volley of a heated encounter between people who knew only maybe five words in common, though she was moderately confused because one of the voices was male. Olivia felt an accustomed discomfort at the discharge of her sister’s outrage, but it couldn’t pique her for long in her exhaustion. With passive defiance, she let sleep steal over her. Miranda could command her to stay awake but would never wake her once she was peacefully dozing.
It was then she became aware of how precarious her bed was, because it was floating, floating.
She dreamed of home, where trees with rain-darkened bark, bare and lace-like, scratched at the sky, and the scents of cider and wood smoke slithered around and into her with warm familiarity. She dreamed of her mother hugging her goodbye, and the scratch of her mother’s knitted sweater against her cheek, and the wool blankets they kept in the closet for sitting on when the grass was damp. She did not see the ceiling close to her nose, but the wallpape
r in her own bedroom, and the table upon which her lamp sat, and her red-glowing alarm clock.
But even in her dream, her old bedside lamp became the rail of the hostel bunk bed; her alarm clock, the glow of the sun through faded orange curtains. Her blanket didn’t smell like home, but like strangers. The familiar things spun from her one by one, as her sleeping mind struggled with the notion that they weren’t just around the corner. She was jerked awake by the sudden fear that she was falling back into the darkness where she had been before. The doctor had said it was possible.
She was surrounded by a crowd of terrors. She couldn’t remember where she was, or what time it was, or who she was, only that she was floating somewhere in the midst of alien sensations. Her limbs had acquired the stiffness of travel and deep sleep, and briefly she imagined herself paralyzed, though eventually she understood it was only heavy lethargy between spans of unconsciousness. She could, however, exert herself enough to look, through clouded eyes and with shallow breath, at the commotion around her.
A girl was bending over the bed a few rows down, the one distinguished by its hidden boxer shorts, and from a nearby corner a man hummed to himself. The silhouettes of two more male figures haunted the farthest end of the room. The murmuring double pillars of their bodies were solid. With a wave of new energy, she sat up toward them, but as she did so, a door between them closed and their voices and forms were trapped on the other side.
The other voices remained, and gradually, Olivia, tilting her head from one side to the other and squinting, worked out that the other two men had been in the other room on the opposite side of the alcove. She watched with unnatural stillness as a pair of girls and the humming man bustled out of the dormitory; she saw lights in the corridor appear and disappear and heard water and toilets running and music somewhere and unintelligible conversation.
By the time complete awareness of her own body returned, with tingling sensations down her toes and the stab of an angry muscle in her shoulder, the room had expelled the rest of its living contents, leaving only Olivia and the sound of Miranda’s soft snoring. A green glowing clock beside another traveler’s bed told her it was seven in the evening—dinnertime. Of course, Olivia reflected, Miranda could contradict her own edict, but Olivia was too exhausted to resent her for long, and resentment wasn’t a natural reaction for her anyway.
The door was shut at last by a considerate hand on the outside, and the sisters were again in darkness, except for the dim glow of streetlights from the window by their bunk. Olivia rolled toward the window, pushed the curtain aside, and looked out. Below was a stamp-sized garden framed by successive rooftop balconies and terraces that contributed green tendrils to its miniature wilderness. From the railings of the building opposite, a few sheets and towels fluttered against pale patches of interior light.
It was rustic and charming enough that Olivia could imagine the place as a scene in a book, safe and comfortable and fictional. The day’s sensations had overwhelmed her with a cacophonous mess of the alien and the familiar: rows of trendy fashion shops swelling the lower levels of intricate Iberian homes; a KFC leering over the corner down the block, across from a tapas bar with its front walls folded away and open to the street like a Parisian café.
Olivia had never been so homesick in her entire life. The prospect of a week surrounded by strangers filled her with dull dread.
Safe in her position above stray eyes, Olivia had a thorough, quiet cry over the dejection of a long day of stressful travel. The shaking and possibly the effort of cleansing herself of that sticky unhappiness finished for her the work of waking.
A gnawing hunger pulled on her nerves, and she tentatively stole down the ladder. Miranda, in her sleeping mask and earplugs, would never know.
In the twilight and the chill, slightly autumnal air, the dormitory felt suspended, a bubble in antique glass, somewhere between home and Barcelona. Olivia touched the bunks as she passed, the sting of cool metal grounding her. She swam through the evening atmosphere to the door and, with a creak, peered out. Here were the sounds of life again, warm brightness, and the scent of food. Gathering courage, she slipped out at last and pattered toward them.
In the common room, a Spanish pop station played cheery dance beats under the susurrus of a dozen people attempting to converse in at least four languages—Romantic, Germanic, and some that were neither, or so heavily accented they sounded only like a jumble of meaningless sounds. Among one group, the prevalent color seemed to be a bold shade of blue, displayed on shirts and scarves and even in the pattern of a kilt. Elsewhere, a cluster of twenty-somethings in stylishly decomposed layers of tank-tops and uselessly thin sweaters lobbed vague recommendations at each other.
A man in his thirties spoke more quietly to two familiar shapes, who had first appeared to Olivia as dark pillars but now revealed themselves as the reader from the corner and an older man, visibly related. Dancing around the edges and into the middle of it all, and then out again, was one young woman who seemed to be trying to speak to everyone at once.
The smell that had pulled her toward this confusion, she identified as a combination of omelets, spaghetti, and stir-fried green vegetables. As a meal, the collection was about as organized and sensible as the words coming from the mouths of the combined crowd.
The light fell on Olivia and soon she was seen.
A young man in a black staff shirt greeted her, in Spanish, with an infectious smirk. She didn’t understand much of what he said, except she thought she caught Miranda’s name. Something about his broad smile assured Olivia of its permanence, but at the same time made her feel special, as if its warmth was extended to her most of all. However, he quickly turned with equal nonchalance and directed his attention to brighter objects.
Looking past the staffer, Olivia inadvertently met the tall reader’s eyes again, and recognition ignited his. Olivia, with a burning feeling, realized she was once again standing directly below the sunburst.
The boy stepped toward her. He smiled in a quiet, sad way, with his mouth closed.
“Do you want anything?” he asked, shrugging toward the tables scattered with food.
“I—um,” she began and stopped, surprised at how hoarse her voice was. The boy’s relative looked over and joined them before she could find another word.
“Why, hello there,” the older one said cheerily. He was barely her height, a soft, gray-haired man with a round face and young eyes. “You must be Miranda’s sister,” he said. She found her hand being grasped warmly by both of his, and then released. “Now, now,” he said, taking something out of his pocket and shaking it out. It was a handkerchief. “Such a pretty face,” he said in a soft Southern burr, patting her cheeks with the worn cloth. “Now why’s it all wet?”
She wished she knew. Olivia sniffed. She hadn’t noticed that her eyes were still welling. She wished she could sink into the floor. The older man just smiled gently.
“Let Greg get you something,” he said. “You just sit yourself down.”
Olivia couldn’t. She was already embarrassed by her tears and certain she was be the least interesting, least traveled person in the room. And apparently, they all knew about Miranda’s tirade.
Olivia shook her head and, without any further response, turned and slipped out of the room. She returned, shivering, to the calm, smothering darkness of the dorm room and, mesmerized by the sound of Miranda’s whispery snoring, waited with unnatural stillness for the other sleepers to return.
2
THIS MOTIONLESS FORGETFUL WHERE
Olivia refused to leave the dorm room by herself the next morning. That way she wouldn’t have to worry about overhearing people talk about her sister. So she and Miranda washed their faces together, rubbing the sleep-crumbs from their eyes over the same mirror. The sisters entered the chilly common room swathed in sweatshirts, with their morning hair hand-combed clumsily, their faces a matching set: big spoon and little spoon.
The young guy with the black staff
shirt and the welcoming smile wandered in and out of the common room with a pail and a mop, but the two objects never seemed to meet each other or any horizontal surface. The waspish blond girl in braids who had welcomed them when they first arrived was engrossed by one of the computers at the back of the room—was she avoiding Miranda? Two unshaven, ashen-faced men leaned lazily against the lotus columns near her, smoking their morning cigarettes. The other three travelers in the room ate a traditional breakfast at the tables against the wall.
Olivia recognized once again the reader from yesterday and his older relative at the far table, so it was a relief that Miranda steered her toward the emptier table, where a lone woman—the talkative one from last night—buttered her toast. She looked mid-twenties, about Miranda’s age, her short straight hair gathered in a spiky ponytail at the back of her head. She had the defiant ease of a person who wasn’t waiting for anyone. They sat across from her.
“I didn’t know breakfast was included,” Miranda whispered to Olivia, ineffectively attempting to maintain the privacy of their conversation. “I guess it makes up for things a little.”
“What’s wrong?” the other woman at the table asked in a jarring American accent. “If you need another pillow, ask Hugo. He brought me four last night when I asked for one, and I think one of them was his.” She smirked.
“I specifically booked a private room for two,” Miranda said, “and they stuck us in the mixed dorm. And when I talked to Hugo about it yesterday, he pretended he didn’t speak English, which I know can’t be true.”
Olivia wondered briefly if Miranda realized that, were she correct, Hugo, nearby with his mop, would overhear her quite clearly. Someone else did.
“I have a private room,” the older man at the next table called over with no embarrassment. “My son Greg and I are sharing it.”
Miranda smiled tightly.
“That’s nice.”
Their tablemate leaned forward and, her back to the two men, whispered (far more effectively than Miranda), “Those are the Browns. Beware. I try to ignore them, but they can’t catch a hint. Either of them. It’s like it’s genetic.”
Queens of All the Earth Page 2
