Tom Foran Clark

Jack and Dieter had their sights set on Barcelona, in the north. They'd go on up there and then meet Emery and Rita in Madrid whenever Pike got in. The four of them went together to the same Algeciran car rental agency, but rented separate Opel Corsas. Jack and Dieter went their way, and Rita and Emery went theirs. They drove out to a lake, the Lago de la Duquesa, then drove to the hilltop village of Casares and had lunch at a little restaurant on a slope terrace. Rita was eager for Emery to tell her everything he knew about Pike. So, over their "mixed delight" plate of local seafood -- brill, hake, sandpiper, swordfish, lobster, octopus, squid, red mullet, anchovies, and sardines, he told her how they'd started out -- how the two had gone from to Grez-sur-Loing to Milan, to the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie to see Da Vinci's "Last Supper," where a girl in a gray dress spoke to Emery beautifully in Italian, but how Pike led him out, saying, "Don’t look back.”

Emery spoke of the Venice Ostello, his hurt knee, the fever that had overcome him, Frida Christensen’s healing powers, her charming accent, long blonde hair, and high cheekbones, and of the piazza where the girl wearing red and gold cheerfully had spraypainted graffiti on the campanile. He told her of Giorgione’s paintings and the Tintorettos, Crivellis, Muranos, and Vivarinis. Emery told her of Frida's cool, green eyes, of his strange dream of her, and of how she'd ultimately ditched both him and Pike.

He talked about the statue of Habakkuk in Florence -- the melon-head -- and about Irene -- her black hair, noble nose, and ocean blue eyes -- Irene, who'd said Emery resembled Bruno the astonomer who, in the Inquisition, had been burned at the stake. He told Rita how an Algerian had stolen his wallet before they'd ever got to Algeria, how the two had stumbled onto Arlen Townsend in Assissi, and how the old man had held Pike spellbound, telling his treasure stories and entrusting Pike with the treasure map and diary. Emery told her of the drenching rains over the Italian mountains, of being robbed in Tunisia, of Ahmed all but taking control of Pike’s brain in Algeria, of nearly being shot dead, of meeting in Morocco the great mother, Zaleda, who served fresh fruits and vegetables from the jenane in the courtyard of the Maison Kethouna, and of Abdallah, Selim, and gloomy Kadur.

Emery told her of the rain in Meknes, the Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail, Madame Rose’s blue eyes, delicately embroidered slippers, fine silk pantaloons, her two Arab escorts, and lovely Rachida, brown and smooth and ample. He told her of the excavated ruins of Volubilis and of his returning to Taza where Abdallah Kethouna needed possession of his bike, only to ride it in front of the truck that killed him.

“You can’t expect," Rita tried to soothe him, "that everyone who gets something from you is going to use it wisely.”

Her speaking opened the door for Emery to ask questions. When he asked Rita how she'd come to travel in Morocco, she reached all the way back to her childhood, telling him of her father, a professor at Princeton -- “a great big brash black man with a beard about a half-dozen tones of brown” -- and of the “coolness” of her white mother: “She suffered from a sense of unreality," Rita opened her heart to Emery. "I once heard her say to herself, `It's the evil spirit in her that makes her like this.' She was absolutely convinced of that! She made the sign of the cross in the air to protect herself from me. Me! Well, what did she know of the world? As far as I could see, she had only seen the world from a window. When I said so, she was wildly upset with me. She began -- both subtly and unsubtly -- to take things from me. I told her, ‘You can keep these things, I don't care. Hold on to them until the day I am reformed.’ She has them still.”

Emery was stumped as to how all that could possibly have cast any light on his original question as to how she'd come to be traveling in Morocco, but he let it go. After lunch, the two walked down narrow streets across Casares clear to the other side of town, then went uphill to castle ruins. Then they drove the Opel to San Roque, a lovely Andalusian village with a beautiful old city center and steep streets, whitewashed courtyards, and balconies full of flowers. They drove on to Estepona, the legendary Salduba, the Muslim Estebbuna, from which they again could see the heights of Gibraltar and still further mountains of North Africa. Estepona shone white against the sparkling blue sea. The paint used on the houses was made from the surrounding limestone mountains. The old town was a maze of cobbled steep, narrow streets, squares, and patios past hotels, restaurants, cafes, tapas bars, shops, and bodegas -- wine cellars. They came to a wide promenade lined in palm trees, garlanded with flowers, then turned back to find the car.

They drove further up the Costa del Sol -- the “Sunshine Coast.” Emery had heard somewhere in Italy that the youth hostel in Marbella was just about the nicest in the world, said to have been built by the dictator Franco for his daughter. When they got to Marbella, they asked at a tapas bar for directions to it. A map was sketched, which did guide them directly to the "Africa" gardens and youth hostel.

It was far more a grand hotel than a hostel, with red velvet couches, leather-backed director's chairs, marble-top tables, flowers set out, white walls, mirrors, and chandeliers. In their room, they had opportunity of a reality check. Here were simple bunk beds. But the views from the windows were again as in a dream -- to a glorious turquoise pool over rooftops to the glorious turquoise sea. Birds in the treetops sang joyfully. Magnificent and lush arrays of flowers filled the encircling gardens, the sound of ever-present water trickling lightly through.

That evening, at a nerighboring reataurant, the Calcadillo, the two had their first paella dinner. Rita told Emery all about it, paella, her father's favorite food, which her mother had never (not once, she declared) served to him. "It's usually made with rice, shrimp, scallops, chicken, and peas," explained Rita who, for all Emery knew, had moonlighted through years as a television cook show host, so knowledgeable was she. "The rice, called 'arroz calasparra,' is harvested in Valencia," she explained. "It's grown especially for paella. The paella cooking pans are flat-bottomed. A flat pan assures the heat gets spread all through the dish. The rice has to cook evenly -- no stirring, else the paella becomes mushy."

In the morning, they went down to the pool. The sky was clear and cool, deep blue. Rita stretched out on a blanet on the poolside tiles. Emery pretended to read the International Herald Tribune, sitting on steps at the pool's shallow end, alternately gazing out to the exquisite ocean and admiring Rita. Then he went into the pool for a swim. When clouds rolled over, the two went back to their rooms to dress, then they met back at the lobby. The two walked down to the beachfront bars, the chiringuitos, for totillas and tapas snacks.

A tourist brochure informed them Marbella's several beaches stretched up and down the coast for nearly forty miles. They walked about a quarter of that, from La Alameda Park to the Avenida del Mar, a bar and restaurant flanked promenade. All the dazzling white buildings were encircled in exotic tropical plants and trees. All up and down this Costa del Sol were the girls -- the glorious, splendid seaside girls. In her bikini, Rita went among them like an orchid in the waving grasses, an Amazonian in a torpid zone. When she came onto the scene, all eyes were on her. She and Emery wound up at Frederico's Beachfront Bar, a straw and bamboo hut built right on the beach with music blaring out from speakers mounted on the roof. People were jumping around, dancing, clapping sandals, clicking castanets, somersaulting, spinning plates, juggling fruits. One old character was standing on his head juggling his swimtrunks with his feet.

At sundown, they went into the old part of town, a maze of cobblestone alleys. They came to the Orange Square -- La Plaza de los Naranjos -- and the 16th century town hall, encircled by small shops, art galleries, bars, and bistros. They came to a restaurant called the Bullfighter, where a huge fish was on display in the front window. The fish was set out in a circle on a big silver plate, its tailfin in its mouth. The two ate sardines on a spit, fried fish, and paella.

The next morning they drove on to Torremolinos, where they stayed at a solidly built beach front motel. The heavy structure seemed to have imbued itself into the the hefty matron who ruled over it -- the landlady, a stony, venerable old wench. Her face was like a granite rock, weather-beaten. The house itself was quiet -- soundless -- without resonance of any kind. “Isn't this a fine motel?” the landlady peeped when Rita and Emery checked in, sounding like some little bird. “Isn't it appointed richly?” But their dull room, with all its windows opening onto a deserted street, could not have been more sparse or bleak.

At the heart of the town was a busy pedestrian zone, the Calle San Miguel, lined with boutiques. Magnolia trees, banana trees, bougainvillea, and azaleas were everywhere. The Cuesta del Tajo led down a steep flight of steps to El Bajondillo, the old harbor, filled now with restaurants, kiosks selling souvenirs, and old men playing dominoes and drinking anis. The seafront promenade, Paseo Maritimo, reached east to sandy Playamar and west to rocky La Carihuela.

As the days passed, Rita talked just more and more. As the two drove by medieval fortresses, stopping now and then to enjoy the local cuisine, the world seemed to be renewing itself. There were fewer boundaries; there were increasing transitions. Rita opened up. Even as the sea revealed itself to them, Rita revealed more and more of herself to Emery, telling first more of her family, eventually regaling him with stll more illuminations of her joys and trials in Tangiers.

“My big, black, charming father, Aaron Sandoval, after serving in the army, returned home to Minton, Connecticut, to study English Literature at the State University of New York -- SUNY. He is now a professor at Princeton. Before he became a professor, he married a white restaurant waitress, my mother who, still in her teens, was pregnant with me. After I was born, the two of them departed Minton for New York City, leaving me in the care of my father’s New York nightclub saxophone playing younger brother, Moses Sandoval, and his Asian wife, Sah-lee. Beyond my exposure to the wild Manhattan nightclub scene, Moses hired a private tutor, Aristide Menton, the dullest pedant in Minton, Connecticut, to teach me math, Latin, Spanish, French, and German. When I got to high school, I joined the Debate Club and became an expert arguer. I fell in love with heated conversations of all kinds. I argued knotty points of controversy with my step-parents, neighbors, school chums, acquaintances, strangers, taxi drivers, bus drivers, ice cream sellers -- anybody. I felt I could stand up to the best of them -- was even eager to not only hold my ground but overwhelm any opponent daring to encounter, cross, or defeat me.

“ 'You are past seventeen, and a clever girl,' my uncle praised me. 'It’s time for you to go out into the world. Your parents wish for you to go to Harvard University. They will pay the bill.' But I was reluctant to oblige them. The first thing I did that summer -- after high school ended and before I traveled to Cambridge – was to have a summer fling with a soldier. I was shy and retiring; he was not. It did not end well. Andy Corcuelo was liberal when it came to intimacy. Though highly decorated for his feats of bravery as a soldier, when it came to making love he was a beast. He showed not the least regard or respect for my hesitating awkwardness. Seeing my gift for perverse argument, he told me a thousand things he would have done better to have kept private. Thinking himself entitled, after that voluntary confidentiality, to have his share of me, he had at me recklessly. The idea of my journeying north to Cambridge was much strengthened by that misadventure.

“When it came to the hour of my parting, my uncle gave me good advice: he told me never to sleep with anyone crazier than I was. I took an Amtrak train north, but only got as far as Providence, where I took a hotel room. A curious young man had begun to take liberties with me on the train. Breathlessly, he had asked me who I was, where I came from, and where I was going. I had felt bound to answer because, though he was abrupt in asking --and in everything else -- he had accompanied each question with pleasant touching and kissing. I took no offense. By degrees, Mike Collingham and I had got into a big, heated conversation. Mike was very cunning. I thought he would never get to the point. The apex of our argument on the train was, if I wanted to reach the conclusion or climax of the matter under discussion I would have to go with him to a hotel. This was no sooner said than done. To make a long story short, I never made it to Cambridge. Mike insisted I live with him in Cranston, Rhode Island, where I fell out of love with Mike, and in with Mike’s landlord, Ernst.

“Ernst and I set out early one morning, hitchhiking to Northampton, Massachusetts. As we went along, Ernst got to telling me the real story of cavalier Mike Collingham, who had connections to the Irish mob. We had lunch on the outskirts of Springfield. The waitress who served our salads was, if not the eighth wonder of the world, a pretty piece of goods with fullness in her upper deck and a pinched waist. She looked like an eggtimer -- I mean an hourglass. It wasn’t very long before she and Ernst were sitting together, cooing like a couple turtle doves.

“So I sat down at a table by myself, and who should then run in except Mike himself, him throwing his arms around my neck. 'Excuse me,' I said, pushing him off. But I couln’t cool his ardor down. That rapturous Irish emotion of his was flowing out like springtime flooding. He was angry, but more than that he was crying tears of joy. He was sorry. He was more than glad to see me again. He’d make it all up to me. I couldn’t respond to him in the way I’d originally intended -- to leave things be -- not so much for want of words as for breath. He hugged me so tight I began to be alarmed for my safety. Seeing me in the arms of Mike, Ernst talked the waitress into joining him in his further sojourn toward Northampton. I turned back, with Mike, to Cranston.

“After that Mike insisted he loved me more even than before. He would never mistreat me or let me go away from him, he said. But the infraction, incursion, and damage had all been done -- and deeply done. I knew the real Mike would resurface. Not three days went by but his kindness turned to first bitter antagonism, then violence. When Ernst returned from Northampton with his waitress girlfriend, Violet, the two of them had a long talk with Mike. They raised his rent so high, that the swinish Irish rascal came back to me to say he had no other option other than to ask me to leave. From spite and vexation, I was ripe for tearing his eyes out or biting my fingers off.

“At midnight, I very coolly took my leave. I packed what would fit in a paper grocery bag and left, walking across fields in the direction of the highway, but I found myself instead at a road along the edge of a forest. With two men on motorcycles approaching, I was just going to conceal myself in the heart of a thicket when they stopped and got off their cycles and came closer, each holding a pistol. They merely -- though forcefully, strangely -- demanded that I give an account of myself -- who I was, where I came from, and what I was doing at the edge of this forest. Can you believe it? -- they said I’d better not be lying. I told them I was an airline flight attendant and I was heading home in a rented car when two men hijacked it, stealing the car for a joy ride, abandoning me out in the middle of nowhere, but warning me they’d be back. I said I was hiding from them. The bikers burst into laughter. One of them said, 'Come along with us, honey. We’ll put you in a place where the devil can’t find you.'

“My appetite for new adventure was not so indelicate as it once had been. I was far more philosophical about what one could actually expect from people in this world. As it turned out, after I told them my real situation, the two motorcycle riders brought me to a bus station. They were very compassionate and generous. They even paid for my bus ticket. I got on a bus going to Boston. Along the way, I got into a conversation with this young guy who called himself Guy, in fact. He was very intense, insisting on telling me everything in this world that your average young guy finds attractive in a young woman travelling alone, and that I definitely filled the bill. We never made it in to Boston. We got Chinese take-out in Somerville and then went to this Guy’s tiny fourth floor room in Brighton to eat -- for I was famished -- and then to explore his passion – for he was famished in that. As for me, I was no longer what you could call chaste. Then come the morning, this guy revealed himself to be a jerk. He threw me out of his room while it was still dark out, calling me a devil and a sorceress and other such mean, mad stuff. There I was, at four in the morning, walking into Boston. The police saw me first, and took me in. They sent me back to Minton, Connecticut. I just went along. My uncle, insisting what I needed was a vacation from America, put me on a plane to France. On that plane I met Jack, and in Paris we met Dieter. Well, those two were made for each other, I can tell you. I tagged along with them and before I knew it we were in Tangiers.

“Anyway, I want to tell you that when I met your friend Pike in Marrakech, him ragged and barefoot and alone in the world, befriended by no one, looking lost, forlorn, and not a little mad, I figured I knew what he must feel like -- where he was coming from -- what he was going through. It reminded me of when I’d been alone in Boston at four in the morning, feeling out of luck, and stuck in a life that was not my own -- a life over which I felt I no longer had any power or even influence. As for confidence, holding my own, enjoying myself -- I knew what it was to reach an end station on that line. When I saw Pike, looking truly lost and mad and gone, my heart went out to him.

“After leaving Marrakech, Jack and Dieter and I went north to Tangiers, for this big gathering we’d been hearing about for months -- the World Convention of the Lazarillo Society. It was a great thing, yes -- but far more than we’d bargained for, as it turned out..

"I need to back up a bit," Rita said now, but without pausing. "In that summer after I graduated from high school and before I didn’t go to Cambridge," she explained, "my bold friend Andy Corcuelo liked to put risque How-To books and ribald story collections into my hands. One such ribald little book Andy put into my hands was one that had first appeared in sixteenth-century Spain, The Life of Lazarillo of Tormes: His Misfortunes, As Told By Himself. At the time it had originally come out, tales of chivalry dominated the bestseller charts. These romance novels told of brave and manly knights well prepared for fighting adversaries in battle, who were weak-kneed and incompetent when it came to the desires and charms of ladies. Now along came Lazarillo, eager to satisfy a broader range of appetites.

“Just like mine, Lazarillo’s parents were, let us say, well, colorful. When Lazarillo’s fair-skinned father died, his lily-white mother married a cocoa-black man. This was in Tejares, a village near Salamanca. Lazarillo’s widowed mother and this black man ‘had got to know each other,’ as Lazarillo put it. ‘It happened,’ Lazarillo said, ‘that my mother then gave me a pretty little black baby brother.’ One day when Lazarillo’s black stepfather was playing with his son, the boy seemed suddenly to notice that his mother and his brother Lazatrillo were white, but his father was not. Startled, he ran to his mother and pointed his finger at his father and said, ‘Mama, it's the bogeyman!’ Lazarillo said his stepfather laughed out loud. ‘You little son-of-a-bitch!’ he said. Lazarillo never forgot it. ‘I thought long and hard on the word my little brother had used, and it occurred to me how many people there must be in this world who mock or turn from others because they are blind to themselves.’

“That particular saying of Lazarillo’s -- 'it occurred to me how many people there must be in this world who mock or turn from others because they are blind to themselves' -- provided, in New York City in the late 1960s, the cornerstone for the founding of the Lazarillo Society. So there we were, then, in Tangiers, on the way to the conference, in the 100 degree heat. We were approached by a man giving us ‘friendly advice,’ assuring us he wasn't doing it to get money. We thanked him and walked off. He followed. We again thanked him -- and again turned away. He approached us again. Abdul. He kept staring at my breasts. At first I was annoyed, but soon I was like hypnotized, in a trance under his gaze.

“As we walked along," Rita continued, "his fingertips, very animated as he talked, kept lightly brushing up against my shoulders, arms, and hair. The backs of his hands kept brushing lightly, innocently, against my breasts. His rich voice, light banter, gentle laughter, and adoring gaze all held hypnotizing power. As we walked along, I began touching myself -- to stir his blood. I had no idea to what I was succumbing. Abdul insisted we have tea with him. We sat in the café, chatting pleasantly about nothing in particular, and I remember just melting into this man. Jack and Dieter seemed to recede to a distant table -- a distant universe.

“Abdul’s voice began instructing me. We moved from the café to narrowing streets. Jack and Dieter walked behind us. We entered Abdul’s palace. The next thing I knew, I was at the convention in the company of this silk-robed sheik, Abdul Husein, who presented me, now also in sheerest silk, to the convention throngs."

Rita had the scoop on the society -- a plainly printed business card -- which she took out. She read:

“ ‘The Lazarillo Society, a not-for-profit organization promoting the pursuit of joy and happiness in one's own evolving nature, seeks to foster consciousness raising among our members and the public at large through publications, presentations, and demonstrations. We feel everyone should have the opportunity to do and speak about what they are into. There is no dress code.’

“Anyway,” Rita went on with her story, “we went back, after the conference, to Abdul Husein’s palace. Jack and Dieter were nowhere in sight. It wasn’t very long before they vanished from my thoughts completely. Jack insists they were in Abdul’s palace dungeon for three months, but they refuse to divulge the details of their imprisonment. It could have been a week; it could have been ten years. I lost all track of time. I only remember the bubble baths, sweet perfumes, Abdul’s enticements, his persuasiveness and charm, and my glad submission to his every whim and command.

“In the meantime, Dieter and Jack were relegated to the basement -- Abdul’s palace dungeon. When they finally escaped, they came for me, but they couldn’t tear me away. Finally, Jack lifted up one of the many lovely porcelain urns set about, and conked him on the head. Next thing I knew, we were on the bus, then on the boat -- then we met. What can I say? So many of these things that happened to me must seem remarkable to you. But I have to face up to the authenticity of what happened, and move on -- acknowledge, and go forward. I’m not lost in some distant time, niche, corner, far island, haven, ivory tower, or dissembling refuge in my mind -- I am right here, right now."