THE FIRST place Martim took me was to the small gothic church just down the street from the hotel. Inside, the air was cool. I inhaled the scent of mold and incense and stood in the back, taking in the stained glass, the statues of saints, and the praying women kneeling near the front. Martim dropped a coin in a box and lit a candle. I turned away. Watching him pray felt more personal than anything we’d done before.
In the vestibule, he gestured to a display. The church was raising funds to repair the roof.
“For twenty euro you can have whatever you want inscribed on a tile and it will be there forever. Like a prayer. I bought one earlier this week.”
I lost my faith years ago, but as I stared at the tiles, I had the ridiculous idea of paying to put our names on a tile, like carving initials in a tree. I considered Martim. “What’s your inscription?”
He shook his head, looking vaguely embarrassed. “If I tell you, it might not happen.”
“Like a birthday wish?” I led him out of the church. “Since when are you religious?”
“I’m not. Or at least not in the regular way. But I often come here to light a candle for my father.” Martim looked out at the square before us. “It’s my way of saying I am sorry to him.”
“As I remember it, he was the one who should have apologized.”
“Perhaps. But I will never be free until I make my peace with him. I must remember that he had his own addictions—women, money, anger. When he died, we had many unresolved issues.” He looked sideways at me. “I was a terrible mess then. My grief and anger spilled over and hurt you. For that I really am sorry.”
“We did this already.” I held up my hand. “You don’t need to keep apologizing. I wasn’t a saint either.”
Martim smiled. “Okay. We’ll move on. Let me take you to the castle.”
I inhaled deeply. Beneath the garbage and diesel and piss that made Lisbon smell like every other city, I imagined I could smell spring. The graffiti-covered walls of the old city gleamed in the afternoon sun. I pushed up the sleeves of my sweater, hungry for the brush of air against my skin.
Martim raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. I was keenly aware of how we’d spent other post-migraine afternoons when I couldn’t think, could only feel. It was a good thing we were out in public. Otherwise who knew what could happen.
We turned a corner. A concrete stairway loomed ahead of us. I stopped to admire the graffiti.
“A group of residents got together and decided to beautify the neighborhood. They painted these walls white and invited in the artists.” Martim pointed to the picture of a woman standing on a balcony overseeing the rest of the scene. “This woman watched every day to make sure the painting was done correctly.”
The scene included musicians, wine, flowers. Lyric, really. “A lot different from Chicago gang signs.”
“We have those, but not here.” Martim made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the walls all the way up the stairway. “We are very proud of our street art here in the Alfama. It has become our thing.”
“It’s beautiful.” I looked up the steep stairway. “I’m not up to climbing all seven of your hills today.”
His brows knit. “Of course. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. We’ll get the tram.”
WE BOARDED an ancient yellow tram. It was crowded, but Martim managed to find a seat near the back. He insisted that I sit by the window.
I sank onto the old leather bench. “You’re right, this is better than Sintra, if only because there’s a tram.”
“Oh, there’s a tram in Sintra. I thought it was better to walk.”
“There was a tram?” I stared at him.
He shrugged. “What? It was good exercise.”
“My thighs hurt for days.”
He glanced down at my legs, then out the window. “These streets are very narrow. Sometimes it feels like you can touch the buildings on either side.”
I held on to the dark-wood trim around the half-open window as we lurched around a tight corner. Martim held on to the strap above his head, his thigh and shoulder pressed against mine. I was acutely aware of him and of the fifty other people breathing the same dusty air.
The road straightened out. Martim dropped the strap. He rubbed his hands across his thighs. I had to force myself to look away, out the window at the ancient Alfama streets. We passed a bakery, an apartment building, and a shop window filled with brightly colored glass roosters.
Martim touched my arm. I turned toward him. He pointed out the window on the other side of the tram. “There’s the Santa Luzia view point. If you like, we can get off at the castle and stop there on our walk down.”
“You’re the guide.” I sank back into the seat, inhaling the scent of old wood, other people’s perfume, and Martim. I focused on the warmth of his body next to mine. In my post migraine haze, I couldn’t remember why I was avoiding him. Not when this felt so good.
Later, after we’d climbed the castle walls and admired the red roofs of Lisbon, first from the courtyard of the castle and then from the vista on our way down, I followed Martim through a confusing maze of narrow streets and stairways until he ducked into a doorway. I stepped inside and was hit by the rich aroma of cooking meat. The place was crowded. People sat around communal tables, big platters and bowls of food in front of them.
We wound our way around the tables to a vacant spot. I slid into one chair and Martim into another. Our knees touched under the table. Martim paused, took a deep breath, and shifted away. A waiter practically tossed us menus. There wasn’t an English translation. I gave up trying to use my Spanish to decipher the Portuguese menu and told Martim to order whatever he thought I’d like. The other customers were clearly locals, not tourists—there was laughter and loud conversations in Portuguese. I glanced at Martim. We had less than a week before I left.
I touched his arm. “Do you forgive me?”
He looked up from the menu. He stared into my eyes for a moment, then lifted a shoulder. “What’s to forgive? It’s your job.”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure whether I’d been asking forgiveness for the present or the past, but he was right. A crowded restaurant wasn’t the time or place to pick through the scabs, no matter whether they were old or fresh. But I didn’t know what else to talk about since it was all that was on my fuzzy brain.
Martim ordered a long list of dishes in quick Portuguese. He turned to me. “Do you want wine? I don’t drink anymore, but you’re welcome to if you like.”
I shook my head. “Water’s fine.” I’d never been one to drink alone.
Martim looked relieved, and I wondered how much of a strain not drinking was for someone living in such a wine-soaked culture.
Before I could ask, he leaned his elbows on the table and asked whether I’d heard from any of our old friends. By the time our food came, we were deep into a safer form of reminiscing, both of us skittering away whenever the conversation strayed too close to a nerve. The food was amazing, earthy, salty, rich. I ate until my stomach ached when I laughed. Which was a lot.
Every now and then there are perfect days when everything feels right.
Too bad they never last.
MARTIM WAS quiet as we walked back. We reached the stairway that led down to the street in front of the hotel. Halfway down Martim stopped. He stared at the hotel facade.
I followed his gaze. It looked the same as when we had left.
“My great-grandfather, the man who bought this hotel, grew up on a pig farm north of Porto. Did I ever tell you that?” His gaze didn’t leave the hotel.
I took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be an easy a conversation. We both knew that soon I would again need to pore over the books. So far, I hadn’t seen anything there that would let Martim keep the place. I steered us out of the flow of traffic and waited for him to continue.
Martim leaned back against the concrete wall. “I never met my great-grandfather. He was only sixty when he died. In his lifetime he saw a lot of turmoil. All his brothers died in the Second World War and he lost a son in Angola. Throughout all of that, Portugal went through many changes and yet he made the hotel thrive. Did you know that his son, my grandfather, bought two more while he was in charge? Even though those were also hard economic times.”
I sat down on the step beside him. I’d heard it before. But I let him go on. It was the least I could do. Even if what was coming next was the hardest part. We’d spent so many late nights talking about Martim’s father’s mismanagement, his debts, and how when Martim returned to Lisbon with a business degree from Harvard, his father would need to listen to him. He would save the family business, no matter what. Except that’s not how it all went down.
“Your father’s mistakes aren’t your fault.” I leaned back, propping myself on my elbows on the step behind so that I could see him more clearly.
“I know that.” He glanced down, a sad smile on his face. “But I am to blame for my own. I should have come back here and helped Tia Bel straighten things out. Instead I disappeared for almost a decade, leaving her to struggle with management of the hotel on her own.”
That long? What would have happened if I’d stuck by him? Could I have helped him pull through? I shook my head. Who was I kidding? I wasn’t the savior type.
He pushed away from the wall and sank down onto the stair below me. “Do you remember how we used to speculate on my father’s debts? Papà’s finances were even worse than we thought. It’s a wonder Tia Bel was able to keep this place back then.”
“I’m sorry, Martim. I really am.”
“This is not yours to feel sorry about. Papà, Tia Bel, me, mostly me… that’s where the blame lies.” He patted my foot. “For now, it’s still my hotel. Let’s raid the kitchen to see if there are any pastries left.”
I groaned. “I’m still stuffed from lunch.”
“Then I’ll make you a coffee while I eat.” He stood and held out his hand to me. “Come on. In another week I will be just another unemployed Lisboan. Let me treat you while I can.”
His grip was firm and warm. I let him help me up. We stood for a few moments holding hands.
Martim sighed. He dropped my hand. I followed him into the hotel. I should have been relieved. He’d let me off the hook for the whole fiasco. And yet, as I walked into the cool hotel lobby, I was even more determined to find a way to keep Rex away from the Sabido hotel. I had no idea how I was going to do that and still keep my crappy, overpaid job.
Martim led the way into the kitchen. I didn’t have room in my stomach for pastry or even coffee, but as I watched the way his muscles moved underneath his white shirt and the way his jeans hugged his shape, I realized just how hungry I really was.
THE HOTEL kitchen was small but large enough that it had once supported a full meal service. These days it closed in late morning, after the breakfast and midmorning coffee crowds were gone. By late afternoon, the empty room smelled of disinfectant, and the long stainless steel counters gleamed.
Martim waved expansively to encompass the entire room. “I had been thinking of expanding our food offerings, maybe instituting a cocktail happy hour. As it is, we barely sell enough liquor to keep the bar open. Now I guess that will be your boss’s headache.”
The only improvements Rex would institute would be the ones that came cheap and guaranteed a high rate of return when he flipped the property. He’d have it on the market again within weeks.
“I estimate we could recover the money in six months, maybe a year. But your boss has to make some changes to make that happen.” Martim opened the giant refrigerator door and peered in. In a moment he pulled out a plate of hand-sized puff pastry drizzled in chocolate. “These won’t last. When they sit too long, the custard makes them soggy. Are you sure you don’t want one?”
I shook my head. “You sound cheerful all of a sudden.”
He paused, a pastry halfway to his mouth. “Do I? I think maybe I’m relieved. Your loan repayment deadline has been hanging over my head. But today I realized there is no way I can get you the money. That’s sad. But I can tell you about all the changes I wanted to make, and maybe, if you put them in your report, the hotel will benefit in the long run.”
“Sure.” I didn’t have the heart to burst his bubble. And there was always the chance Rex would listen. Nothing was impossible.
He grinned. “Okay. We’ll take these over to my apartment. I’ll make coffee, and I will tell you everything. Then I’ll leave the rest up to God or the universe or chance or whoever is in charge.”
In that moment, he looked so much like himself at twenty that I had to look away. No doubt about it, we were days away from breaking each other’s hearts.