The meal proceeds without incident. As usual, Vera takes a moment to examine the food on her plate, her face a display of emotions that begin with curiosity and suspicion, change into mild interest, and end with caution and acceptance as she reaches for a fork and stabs a slice of tomato. Rita doesn’t bother to use a fork. She has her heavily bejeweled fingers and she loves to use them. Anna looks like she is doing someone a favor as she carefully tastes the soup that she cannot be completely sure is free of animal products. But at least she is going with the flow as Rita promised, and not making a scene. I am just glad that the day is almost over and soon I’ll be back in my room, free to make my own decisions, even if they are as insignificant as on which side of the bed I am going to sleep or when I turn the light off.
On the way back to the apartment, Vera tries to persuade Anna to stay with us for the remainder of the trip. I don’t understand why she does it. Is she trying to make Anna feel wanted or is she just making polite conversation? I mean, it is pretty clear that Anna needs to go back to take care of her daughter, if not for financial reasons.
“What difference would two days make?” she asks Anna as if she doesn’t know that two days can make a huge difference when you know that you’ve left your dysfunctional daughter at home by herself, and she needs you to come back and take care of things. Sometimes Vera really surprises me. She gives me the impression that she is a lot more thoughtful than her scatterbrained daughter, but the stuff that comes out of her mouth makes me wonder.
“Mom, let her be. She wants to go back home tomorrow. She’s worried about her daughter,” intervenes Rita as she drags her feet behind the two of them. I think her ankle injury from thirty years ago is acting up because of the cold.
“Fine, fine,” Vera concedes. “I just don’t want her to think that she is not welcome to stay until the end of the trip.”
“No one thinks that mom,” Rita breaks into giggly laughter as if she were watching a silly video on Facebook. “She knows she can stay if she wants to.”
Sorry, but I beg to differ, Ms. Rita. Your Anna is a glob of misery that sticks to everyone around her. It will be nice to spend a couple of days free of that sticky mess. I wonder if Vera sensed my negative vibes and wanted to ensure that Anna was not privy to them. Otherwise, why would she say such a thing? Unless she is only making conversation for conversation’s sake. I can’t read her intentions, though, perhaps because it is already dark, and the streetlights are not too helpful.
“I’m also worried about my dog,” Anna adds.
The dog. I forgot about the dog and the dwindling supply of dog food. Cold-hearted me only thought of the twenty-five-year-old daughter who was left to fend for herself and I forgot that the dog is Anna’s other helpless family member. I wouldn’t be surprised if Anna misses the dog a little more than she misses her daughter. According to Rita, the daughter, whose name I fail to remember, can be demanding and super annoying at times, while a dog always gives you unconditional love and wants to make you happy no matter what you do to it.
“Do you think you’ll ever come back to Portugal?” Vera persists with the topic as we all stop at an intersection, waiting for the streetcar to pass and the light to turn green. We are heading uphill, and our pace is slowing down to a stroll.
“I think I will,” Anna says. “I want to see more of it.”
This will happen only if Rita returns to the Iberian Peninsula and takes you on another road trip like the trip that you two took together last year in Spain, because you do not travel alone, and neither does Rita, no matter how much she loves to travel.
I’ve heard a lot about last year’s trip during our walks. How Rita got off the highway from somewhere to somewhere and they found themselves lost on a winding mountain road in the middle of the night with a dead GPS that could not help Rita find her way back to civilization, until she stopped at a small gas station and asked the attendant in her nonexistent Spanish where they were and how to get to the main road. The attendant did not help them much, but at least they no longer felt that they had fallen off the face of the earth.
Come to think of it, finally I understand why Rita invited Anna to join us. She was returning the favor for Anna’s hospitality last year. Rita landed in Madrid on the way back from Morocco and wanted to travel a bit, and since she does not like traveling alone, who better to join her on her endless explorations if not Anna, who is unemployed and stuck in a small village with nothing to do and no one to do it with, and would be happy to do anything Rita wants, because she goes with the flow?
Or maybe it’s a down payment on the next trip Rita is planning to take in Spain. She mentioned that she wanted to explore the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, and Anna’s little house would be a perfect place to begin the adventure after landing in Spain, perhaps with her accommodating son who will finish high school next year (Fred does not hike if he can help it). I hope she’d be able to walk some of it because that old injury in her ankle can become a serious problem after several miles of hiking in the rain while carrying a heavy, soggy backpack.
Now that I have figured it out, I should give Anna a break. She’s just another innocent acquaintance who was sucked into Rita’s swirling vortex at a moment of weakness. I can’t blame her for wanting to break out of her routine and accept Rita’s invitation to go with her on a trip to Portugal. I fell into the same trap. And I’ll never know what Rita told her to persuade her in case she raised any objection.
“I think one week in Portugal is enough,” Rita’s voice interrupts my aha moment. “There are only two more places I want to see.”
“Which places?” Vera asks.
“The wine country in the Douro Valley and Tomar. I promised my Brazilian hairdresser I’d stop in Tomar and meet her cousin. If I don’t do it, she’ll drive me crazy.”
“Do you know him?” Vera asks.
“I’ve met him a couple of times. He stayed with her for a few months before he moved to Portugal.”
“Do you know where he lives?” Vera continues even though the answer is truly inconsequential.
“I have his phone number.”
“We can spend the night in Belmonte tomorrow where my Brazilian friend has rooms for rent,” I jump into the conversation. I think it is finally the right moment to bring up the issue.
“We can try,” Rita says unconvincingly. “Depends on what time we get there.”
She likes to be the planner and my idea is not a part of her plan. But she has not made reservations for tomorrow, yet, which means that she is not completely against it. In any case, I am not going to push it or even try to call him tonight. I don’t even know if he is in Portugal. He might be in Israel or Brazil for all I know. I will have to wait and see. In the meantime, I’ll take whatever comes my way with as much grace as I can muster.
Back at the apartment, I retire to my room. I don’t think anyone is in the mood to hang out in the living room, apart from Rita, who drops on the couch and turns on the TV before I make it down the stairs. Today was a relatively easy day for her. She didn’t have to drive for hours, search for a place to spend the night, or make important decisions about what we should do and see. Now she can relax with her phone and catch up on whatever happened on Facebook during the last couple of hours. Maybe even call Fred and lie to him about how much she misses him and can’t wait to see him in Israel.
My plan to take a nice shower in my beautiful private bathroom, and then check the New York Times for what’s going on in the world since I’ve disappeared to Portugal has to be put on hold because as soon as I take my shoes off there’s a knock on the door. It’s Rita.
“Ma Koreh?” she asks in that sing-song nasal voice she saves for this highly meaningless and annoying question that translates into “what’s happening?” I mean, what could have happened since the last time she saw me, really? I walked down the stairs and barely had time to take off my socks.
“I’m just going to take a shower,” I say hoping she gets the hint.
She pulls the curtains and looks outside. It’s too dark to see the cute little garden on the other side of the glass doors. She closes the curtains and sits on the armchair by the bed.
“It’s a nice room,” she says appreciatively. I think she’s a little bit jealous that I get to have my own spacious bedroom and she has to sleep in the little nook adjacent to her mother’s bedroom and share a bathroom with her and Anna.
“You scored a nice place this time,” I compliment her.
“You’re lucky I take care of everything,” she says, using the singular “you.”
“Yes, we are,” I answer in the plural even though she singled me out as the lucky one. After all, I am not the only one she is doing this for. I’m probably the last one on the list.
“You should thank me,” she continues in all seriousness. Again, using the singular “you.” She habitually demands gratitude from her audience if it doesn’t come when she needs to hear it.
“Thank you, Rita, you are the best,” I comply. To my credit, I say it without a trace of sarcasm.
“At last, someone is admitting it,” she says as she pulls herself out of the armchair and walks to the door.
“Any time,” I call after her.
And all I think is “Five days down; three more to go.”
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