The words of the hotel concierge are lost on Daniel. He looks at the directions from Nick and studies the route on the map. It’s not far. Perhaps twenty minutes.
“¡Ahí no! Do not go there. It’s not for you, señor.”
Daniel thinks of Ana. The way she looked at him in the embassy courtyard. He slings his bag over a shoulder and retrieves the keys to the rental car from his pocket. “I’ll be fine. This isn’t a tourist outing. I’m visiting someone.”
* * *
The black Buick is unnoticeable in the city center, but as Daniel reaches the outskirts of Madrid, the sedan becomes a boat in the desert. Luxury hotels and shops disappear. Manicured landscaping and paved lanes give way to dirt roads, scrubby bushes, and the occasional scoliotic tree. The roads wind through ashen landscape, dusty and bleached by the sun. There are no knife grinders or lottery vendors on the street, just tired men with frowning shoulders and sagging donkeys pulling wagons of terra-cotta pots.
Daniel approaches two Guardia Civil on horseback with rifles. Despite the heat, they wear black patent-leather hats and long capes. Their trancelike faces are instantly menacing. He grips the steering wheel as a distinct feeling emerges. He is venturing out of bounds. It’s a sensation that’s uncomfortable, foreboding. The nerves at the base of his neck ignite, sending caution signals to his mind.
Patent-leather men with patent-leather souls.
One wrong move and they’ll be on you. You’ll be dead in a dirt pit.
No. They’ve forgotten all about him by now. But he will find a way to photograph them for the contest. He drives past the Crows, tense, grateful that the car has air-cooling that allows him to keep the windows rolled up.
A few miles later and certain he must be lost, Daniel stops the car on a dusty road to consult his directions. He is well outside of Madrid amidst a large slum of squalid shacks. He checks the address that Nick gave him against the map.
Vallecas.
This can’t be it. Would Nick purposely send him to the wrong location?
Daniel glances repeatedly at the notes. The paper in his hand vibrates as a small patting swells to a pounding and hordes of children run toward the vehicle. In an instant, the car is surrounded, faces pressing against the glass, distorted, like reflections in a ghoulish fun house. The children shriek and wave, playful and exuberant. He waves back. Their faces are clean, but their clothes are faded and patched. Daniel looks out the windshield and sees a group of men walking toward the car. One carries a club. The sea of children parts for the men as they survey the Buick and walk to the driver’s side.
Daniel takes a deep breath. He rolls down the window.
“¿Qué haces aquí?” demands the largest of the group.
“I’m visiting a friend,” replies Daniel in Spanish.
“Trust me, you have no friends here. Leave,” says the man.
“I’m looking for Ana Torres Moreno. Does she live around here?”
The man pauses. “If you’re her friend, you would know where she lives.”
One man pulls another aside for an exchange of words and nods.
“Leave your car and come with us. We’ll take you to Ana and see if she knows you.”
Caution speaks, needling across the back of his neck.
He exits the car. The rabble of children, tempered by the man with the club, stand back with wide eyes. They whisper and point at Daniel’s large belt buckle, jeans, and boots.
“Americano?” gasps a small boy.
“Sí. Americano,” says Daniel. “Texas.”
The children give a collective “Ooh.”
Daniel locks the car and follows the men. He considers the possibility that he has completely lost his mind. What is he doing here and why isn’t he turning around?
Thoughts of Ana lasso and pull. He slips his camera bag over his head to hang across his body, leaving his scabbed fists free. He may need them.
The men, positioned on both sides of Daniel, begin their march. The three locals are all less than six feet tall, but he’s outnumbered. The procession of fledglings and whispers trails down the street laden with pits and holes. Daniel imagines the scene from overhead. He imagines the photo.
The pale dirt road is lined with small chabolas, crumbling barrio shacks, connected by crisscrossed clotheslines. Daylight shines through the threadbare clothes pinned to the lines. They look more like gauze than garments. Elderly residents with thick brows and faces engraved by hardship rest on chairs outside the doors. They watch as a savage-eyed cat scratches wildly at nothing in the hardened soil. A woman appears and dumps a bucket in a trench on the side of the road, sending streams of reeking sewage rolling down a well-worn canal. A naked infant sits in the dirt near the sewage trench, joyfully playing with a stick.
Snatches of flamenco guitar float over the crumbling roofs, interrupted by the irate screams of a woman. At the end of the dirt lane is a fountain, surrounded by people with buckets, jars, and galvanized tubs. A tiny girl with a raven plait down her back and holes in her shoes skips up to Daniel and takes his hand. After a few steps she stops, yanks off her shoe, and dumps out rocks.
The men continue on, finally halting at a squat cement shack. Its sole window is broken. The roof is in such collapsing decay it is nothing but a strainer for rain. The splintered door stands open, askew in a tired frame that has long given up. One of the men grabs Daniel and pushes him into the doorway.
He squints into the small space. A dull light gives the appearance of a conjurer’s cave. Bundles of dried herbs and aromatic roots hang suspended from a beam across the ceiling. A scowling young man with dark skin and blue-black hair stands shirtless, wearing the turquoise trousers of a matador. A woman, on her knees upon the dirt floor, works on the pants. Two men sit at a small table. The address is correct. He’s sure of it. Because barefoot in the corner is Ana. Daniel’s stomach seizes.
She is holding a baby.
She looks to him. The mixture of shock and shame on her face is evident.
They all turn and stare at him, standing in the crooked doorway, stealing their small bit of rationed light.
A small boy tucks in beside Daniel.
“Americano!” he announces.
Daniel knows he has made a terrible mistake. He wants to leave. To run.
But it’s too late.
52
The man with the club shoves Daniel aside and addresses Ana for validation. “Is it true? You know him?”
Ana nods silently.
Arguing briefly ensues, but a smiling young man with curly hair gives a broad wave. “Bienvenido, Americano! What is your name?”