Why so early? We could have moved at a more leisurely pace if we’d taken the train. I’m not sure if I brought everything with me. Is the hotel reserved?”
“Blanca, let’s save the questions for the others. Let’s just pretend we’re two ordinary travelers. When are we going to have another chance to drop everything and go somewhere together for two nights?”
“And three days. Okay, Liguori.”
“And today we don’t have to work at all, that starts tomorrow. What do you want to listen to?”
“Mozart.”
Liguori, Blanca, and Mozart left behind the industrial periphery of Naples and the traffic that went with it.
When Blanca recognized the highway from the smooth ride and the steady speed, she did her best to relax the muscles of her neck and admitted that she had no other excuses to turn back. Every so often she cracked the window and leaned her head into the breeze.
The vein in her right wrist pounded with the awareness of her eardrums. Since the night before, the woman had heightened the perception of every part of her body. She told herself that there were times when she could detect her own renal functionality, which had been accelerated recently, resulting in frequent trips to the restroom.
She focused on Mozart and sent him a silent prayer, a prayer that begged for peace with every beat of the vein in her right wrist.
In some way, Mozart responded and helped her to appreciate the quality of the sound and the absence of synthetic smells in the car.
Blanca caressed the upholstery of the car door. Liguori noticed the gesture and smiled.
“Can I change music, Signora? The next Requiem I hear, I’m going to drive under a semitrailer.”
“Too bad for you if you can’t appreciate someone who’s capable of happiness even in the midst of death.”
“I’m a simple soul, if there’s one thing I like in life, it’s happiness.” He looked at her hands. “Especially lately.”
After Rome, they stopped at an Autogrill. Blanca was beside herself, she didn’t want to have to ask for help in moving around in a place she didn’t known, but her agitation had begun to press down once again on bladder and kidneys.
With a level of intuition far greater than would have been expected, Liguori told her that he needed to go to the bathroom and led her up the steps with the discreet touch on her shoulder that the woman knew by heart.
The man’s concern for her limitations surprised Blanca in the Autogrill bathroom. It occurred to Blanca that romantic moments were obliged to utilize what was at their disposal.
Amusement at the thought helped to break down the woman’s defenses. It opened a breach in her capillary protection: blood reached her neck and stained it with an adolescent blush.
To the delight of the fates, in Blanca’s memory that instant was bound up with the buzz of voices and the clatter of spoons and cups, the scent of bad coffee, thawed croissants, footsteps descending the stairs, and even the ringing of loose change in the attendant’s bowl at the entrance to the bathrooms.
Liguori walked Blanca back to the car, and then asked her to wait for him.
In a short while, the man came back with a glass cup.
“I found the mint tea you like so much.”
Blanca drank. She knew exactly how to savor a taste; she knew how to be entirely present both in her mouth and in the hot liquid.
“Good. How did you manage to find Lady Grey and fresh mint in an Autogrill?”
“All you have to do is ask. It’s amazing how accustomed we are to asking a thousand things instead of the one thing we really want. What do you desire, Blanca?”
The woman said nothing, but just went on hungrily sipping her tea. In silence.