Donte

Lethe met Donte at the airport where they split a taxi to get into the city. They dragged their suitcases up eight flights of stairs. A masculine-looking older woman greeted them at the door.

Lethe scanned the floor of the entry hall. Where to put his suitcase? He held his luggage for a long time and felt the choke of not being able to express himself in Spanish.

Donte put his suitcase down and sized up the apartment. The Senora’s daughter, a woman in her early thirties, rushed over with a spasm of energy. She had a flighty voice that took off around the corners.

You had to follow her around when she was talking, and this was no easy task.  She said that while she didn’t live here anymore, she wanted to help her mother out with the new guests, it was in her nature to make sure things ran smoothly and now her mother was getting a bit older in years.   They followed her into the kitchen.  She’d just gotten married a few weeks ago, the wedding was beautiful, done with such taste!  Another burst of energy, more garrulous speech, she bustled between rooms.   She had to make sure there was clean linen on the beds and fresh towels on the racks . . .

The Senora stood off to the side, watching her daughter with the silence of a statue. The old woman had a tentative glare that seemed to catch onto you with hooks.

“Would you like some coffee?” The Senora’s daughter called from the kitchen.

Side tables and chairs filled the Senora’s dim living room. Little metal ashtrays were scattered throughout and the residue of tobacco smoke lingered in the air. The nervous daughter rushed in with their cups of coffee.

“There are two bedrooms in my mother’s apartment.  One room has a balcony and the other . . . well, the other has a slightly longer bed.”

“You can have the room with the balcony.”  Donte said.

The old woman glared at Lethe.

“That’s fine.  I like balconies.”

The Senora lit a cigarette, which surprised Lethe.  He didn’t expect a woman her age to be smoking.  But she lit the cigarette without even appearing to do so.

Lethe was a smoker.  If the lady of the house was smoking, then obviously there could be no problem if he smoked.  So he lit up a cigarette with a foolish grin, like he had nothing to hide.

Donte talked to the Senora about a half-dozen things.  Listening to Donte talk was like listening to a professor give a lecture.  Lethe regretted that he’d been studying Spanish his entire life, now he was living in Spain, and still he couldn’t understand a single word.

Donte’s perfectly-molded jet black hair drew Lethe’s earnest attention.  The hair was a work of art worthy of display in a national museum if it could only be torn from his head.  It bounced, oh, how it bounced with a sort of dalliance over Donte’s remarkably high forehead.  From Donte’s superb hair, Lethe’s eyes wandered to his dark complexion.  Was Donte a Spaniard in disguise?

The Senora’s daughter took Lethe and Donte to their separate rooms. Small and square but clean. The Senora’s daughter walked away and Lethe stepped out onto the balcony.

Pastel-colored, stucco buildings leaned over narrow, brick alleyways, a very picturesque setting.  And directly across from his room were flower-filled patios with shiny white railings.

A couple pretty young maids danced in front of the windows.  Lethe laughed.

Donte appeared in the hallway, wearing a heavy serape sweater and a hemp purse slung around his right shoulder.  He looked like an Eskimo.  “Do you want to go for a walk?”  He asked.

“Sure.  Why not?”  Lethe joined him.

You should have seen the souvenir shops and the stony-eyed vendors.  Cross-legged gypsies on heaps of fabrics, and scrawny, emerald-eyed children.  The city itself was in a hurry.  Chic, well-dressed Spaniards were darting this way and that.

Grille windows, and narrow, labyrinthine streets.  The cloying smell of fried pastries and the occasional whiff of trash bags.

Sign, signs, signs.  You saw them in the States of course, but in a foreign language everything looked so cryptic.  National banks, telephone companies, fresh vegetables, cigarettes, it was all written in a cipher.

Lethe was smitten by the provocatively elegant clothing of the Spanish women.  They showed their naked asses in transparent summer dresses.

“I’m in love!” Lethe shouted.

“With who?” Donte replied, pulling his hemp purse closer to his chest.

“I’m in love with this fucking place and I’ve only been here two hours.”

“I think it’s kind of hot and sticky.”

“I’m just happy to be away from home .  . .” Lethe said, and they continued down the narrow, cobbled street.