The Point of Vanishing - Maryka Biaggio (large ebook reader TXT) 📗

Barbara caught Nick’s eye across the clattery dining room and winked. It was their private joke: He only pretended to be the suave and polite waiter. Their humdrum jobs at the pension actually amused them to the point of hilarity.

Yes, he looked dapper in his white waiter’s jacket, and the pay wasn’t bad—twenty-five pesetas a week plus meals. But for Barbara, the novelty was wearing thin, not that sweeping floors, peeling potatoes, and chopping wood ever charmed much.

Barbara lugged a tray of dirty dishes to the back room, plopped it down beside the yawning two-tub sink, and swiped a forearm over her brow. It’d been a beautiful, sun-filled day, and the brick walls and tile floors still held the day’s heat.

Spring was coming to Mallorca and, for Barbara, that changed everything. Yes, she enjoyed Palma’s Arcadian ways: the cafes teeming with townspeople and roving carabineros; the hilly streets winding past peach-toned buildings; Moorish archways and majestic palms; and young people eager to learn English and offer Spanish conversation in exchange. But the rest of Europe awaited.

By eleven, they’d washed the tables, mopped the dining room, scrubbed all the dishes and pots, and set the tables for breakfast. They sat down to a dinner of rice and the last of the fish stew, washing it down with the rugged local wine.

As they strolled back to their room, Barbara reached for Nick’s hand. “Change is in the air. Can you feel it?”

“Yes, it’s getting warmer.”

“And the earth’s breath sweeter, the birdsongs livelier.”

“I suppose,” said Nick. “Say, Edith wants us to pick up some milk for teatime tomorrow.”

Barbara put on her best English accent. “Oh, the English ladies and gents must have milk for their tea.”

Nick chuckled. “They are a peculiar sort of tourist.”

Barbara swept her arm before her. “I don’t see how they can waste hours at tea in the face of such gorgeous antiquity and scenery.”

“They don’t see the beauty like you do. I often don’t until you point it out.”

They meandered down the smooth-stone street conspicuously devoid of daytime’s busyness: men jawing with cigarettes bouncing from their lips; sad-eyed donkeys hauling rickety carts; and women toting children, bread, or groceries.

“I’ve decided to write Mother tomorrow,” Barbara said.

“I’m not sure about going to Germany,” said Nick. “Not with those ugly flare-ups in Berlin. My God, why would anyone burn books?”

“Mother’s always wanted to see the Black Forest. That’s nowhere near Berlin. And it’s bound to settle down by August.”

“Will you at least ask her if it’s safe?”

“You worry too much. How can anyone take Hitler seriously? He looks like a boorish Charlie Chaplin.”

They climbed the stairs to their meager rented room above a news and tobacco shop. Barbara unbuttoned her dress, yanked it over her head, and stripped off her undergarments. “I sweat up a storm tonight. Almost wish I could go for a swim.”

“I’ll settle for warm tap water myself.”

They cleaned up at the basin, and Nick crawled onto their thin mattress.

Barbara nestled beside him, resting her palm over his soft-thumping heart. “You looked stunningly handsome tonight in the candlelight.”

He nuzzled his face against her neck. “I love you, my nimble heroine.”

She rubbed her hand over his ribs, onto the muscles of his stomach. “And I love you, my sturdy American man.”

They made hungry love in their narrow quarters. The room was so dark they could ignore the garish, mustard-yellow walls, the cracks that ranged like veins across the tile floors, and the checkered tablecloths-turned-curtains. Not even the room’s cigar and cooking oil odors or the groan of their rickety bed distracted them.

When they emerged from their cocoon-like clasp, the yowling of cats—pitched and mournful as heartache—intruded on them. They laughed at the weird synchronicity.

“Who’s wilder?” Barbara asked. “Us or the cats?”

“You, by far,” he said, twining his fingers in the whorls of her hair. “Cats can be tamed.”

Barbara drew the tip of her finger over his face. She loved the solidity of his brow, the evenness of his upper lip, the squareness of his jaw. “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “How’d you like to hike around the island?”

“That’d mean quitting our jobs.”

“Well, yes. We can walk the perimeter. Sleep under the stars. See the countryside.”

“We should build up our funds for Spain. And Germany, if we go.”

“Don’t worry about that. We know well enough how to manage on next to nothing.”

“Makes me nervous just to drop everything.”

“Didn’t I find this room for pennies a day? Haven’t we discovered how to dine on good food and wine every evening? Don’t I speak Spanish well enough to read Don Quixote?”

“But it’ll be nothing but dialect outside Parma.”

“They’ll probably understand Spanish.”

Nick made one of his I-can’t-believe-you’reserious faces. “Seems kind of foolhardy to me.”

“We managed in the wilds of Maine; surely, we can handle this sheep-and goat-filled place.”

“We didn’t need much money hiking, but here we have to pay for lodging and such.”

She ruffled his hair. “Think of it as an assignment from your father. To fritter away the days communing with agreeable souls. And do nothing but read, take photographs, and swim.”

“Sounds more like an assignment from you.”

She propped herself up on an elbow. “Please? I can’t bear the thought of not seeing the rest of the island.”

“Can’t you be practical for once?”

“Think of the pictures you can take. And show your father.”

Nick sighed. “Do you promise we can replenish our money after that?”

“Yes, yes,” she said, smothering his face with kisses.

✭

They quit their jobs, gave up their room, and purchased supplies, including a map of the island. Although a string of sunny days had warmed the stony landscape, the nights were still chilly, so Nick insisted they buy a wool blanket.

They hiked to Palma’s outskirts and picked up the trail running along the island’s shore. As they trekked the bumpy path, Barbara commented on the signs of spring: thickets of wild roses amongst rocky outcroppings; fields of lime-green grasses; tiny yellow flowers creeping close to the ground; all of it broken up by the occasional country hut, sprouting wheat