The Woman in Valencia by Annie Perreault (book recommendations website txt) 📗

sagging backs, legs splayed open, arms crossed over motionless chests. Her brain conjures up a formless heap, like in a mass grave, then quickly switches channels, unable to reconcile the mental picture with the humanity of each of the refugees decomposing in the truck, which was previously owned by a Slovakian poultry company and which the traffickers bought, registered in Romania, then abandoned on the highway.

On the plane, she can hear babies crying—you can’t not hear them, their symphony of cries starts up well before takeoff. Those years are behind her. No more pacing up and down the aisles with a baby screaming in her ears. She noticed them earlier, standing at gate A50, the stressed-out wives and mothers with their anxious expressions, always on the alert, unable to relax. They never sit down, they stay standing the whole time, waiting for the boarding call, keeping an eye on the kids, criticizing the husband, sighing with exasperation. The fear of the delayed flight, the interminably long lineup, the impossibly heavy suitcase, the hyperactive child: They’re focused only on what could go wrong.

TRAVELLING FOR A LIVING

In her late teens, Claire had devoured the Work Your Way Around the World guide and piles of Lonely Planet, Guides du routard and Rough Guides travel books. She’d dreamed about writing guidebooks and had eventually wound up being paid to take part in organized tours, getaways, journeys, treks, expeditions and all sorts of off-the-beaten-path adventures.

The years had passed, and Claire Halde had racked up passport stamps and published articles like so many victories and milestones on her personal journey toward becoming the woman who’d aspired to travel, write and, above all, feel free. But the trips weren’t like they used to be. Comfort levels had changed, and the tourists were changing too, as communications and connections—by land and sea, even in far-flung locations—became more frequent and better adapted to the obsessive Western quest for a change of scenery. As people began travelling more and all over the world, so Claire felt less inclined to help them on their way.

She’d worked breaks into her travel itineraries, coming home at regular intervals. But, over the years and with the arrival of the kids, her enthusiasm had waned, and the wind had gone out of her sails. It didn’t bother her anymore to stay in port, to postpone her departures. The whole thing had lost its appeal, its charm, its novelty.

She’d told her editors that she just wasn’t into it anymore, that she’d prefer to work at a desk than in the field, and that, no, she would not update a “tiny little” section of the upcoming new edition of Three Days in Valencia just because she “happened” to be on vacation in Spain.

Yet, it’s what she’d pictured herself doing for the rest of her life. At twenty-five, fresh out of university, it had been easy to imagine that travelling and writing would be enough, that they’d fill up her days, that hopes and ambitions would be sufficiently satisfied to call it a life, a life deliberately chosen and lived to the fullest.

It had been her roadmap.

LANDING IN SPAIN

Waiting at the luggage carrousel at Barcelona’s El Prat Airport, Claire stifles an exhausted yawn. She refuses to let her impatience and irritation show, refuses to pounce on every black, rectangular suitcase that looks like every other black, rectangular suitcase. Claire Halde remains stock-still, impassive, a little nostalgic for the years when she used to travel with nothing but a carry-on backpack. Standing in the middle of the bustling crowd, she downs the last few sips of her stale mineral water. So much for sparkling.

THINGS SEEN AND DONE

It’s fair to say that Claire Halde had travelled in her life. Since her first plane ticket—a return trip bought at the age of fifteen with the money she’d earned slaving away at her dishwashing job, spending every weekend up to her elbows in tepid water, rinsing greasy smears off stemware, washing fingerprints and lip marks off delicate goblets, scraping bland Neapolitan sauce and congealed cheese off plates at a tourist-trap trattoria in the Old Port—she’d seen a place or two.

In the cities, she’d admired the worn stones of the cathedrals and the crumbling castles, never tiring of exploring temples or touring air-conditioned museums on days when the sweltering heat drove her indoors. She’d strolled casually through gardens and parks, where she’d picnicked, watched the pigeons and ducks, dodged aggressive monkeys roaming freely and dogs left off their leashes. She’d sat on wooden or concrete benches, under trees in full bloom.

She’d gotten lost in medieval streets, explored boulevards crammed with boutiques and tourists, where she’d window-shopped or bargained fiercely, always watching her step, avoiding the dog turds during the day and the giant cockroaches at night. She’d photographed panoramic vistas and bodies of water, countless ruins and architectural marvels, colourful facades, and faces that she’d found particularly inspiring, haggard, fresh or photogenic.

She’d often ventured outside the cities to camp beneath the stars, meander through rice paddies, sail rivers and lakes in makeshift boats, cross deserts and canyons by train, spend bone-jarring nights on long bus rides, soar in planes and helicopters over four different oceans and the lands above the clouds, always attuned to the time zone, attentive to the movement of the hands on her watch, turning the tiny dial forward or backward between her thumb and index finger. She’d trekked through forests, snapping dead branches under her bulky Gore-Tex boots and jumping at the faintest sound on the trails, and she’d scaled mountains and volcanoes, barely flinching as she picked her way along the sheer rocky paths.

Holding her breath, she’d swum through murky and crystal-clear waters alike; she’d forded rivers, water up to her neck, backpack balanced on her head, skin covered in leeches, which were later burned off with the lit tip of a cigarette. She’d asked strangers for directions, hailed taxis and tuk-tuks, hitchhiked on desolate highways in Borneo, Argentina,