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Show 173 Waiting for the boat, she says. Her banter excites me, but I keep my head down, purposefully pause before continuing the exchange. And how did you know it was coming? It was supposed to be a secret? she says. Her eyes get larger, ask me to laugh. The waiters seem anxious for us to finish eating. The moment we abandon our silverware, our plates are swept away. For dessert they bring us fruit and cheese. When we have finished with coffee, I ask Elisa if she would care for a drink at the bar. She would. The night before I boarded the Aurelia, Paco and I went out drinking. Malaga was celebrating its patron saint, and the bars, like the streets, were festive and crowded. Paco was in great spirits, and was soon entertaining a group of young women with an endless tale about his father. He was a saint, too, Paco told them, but misguided. One night he came home to my mother with a long sad story of how he had been robbed of a small fortune in an alleyway. My mother cried for him. I cried for him. But later, when the true report came out in the newspapers, he admitted to us that he had foolishly given the money away. He had met a young aeronaut, an anarchist, who wanted to bomb the National Palace-from the balloon my father would buy-with a thousand kilos of donkey shit. But the stench at the airfield gave |
