Now that it’s only the three of us, the dynamics might change, and not necessarily for the better. Until today I was the fourth wheel in this misaligned human assembly, which meant it was easier to make myself disappear into the background during unforeseen eruptions. But now I am one of three wheels, two of which are of the same brand, so my ability to disappear is limited. I don’t remember ever being in this situation before and I am not sure I know what I’m supposed to do. In short, I am venturing into the unknown. But I shouldn’t be too pessimistic. Maybe it will turn out to be just fine. I might even get to sit in the front seat for a few hours, not that I care about it anymore. I think I gave up any desire I might have entertained, even unconsciously, when I decided to avoid the drama of giving up my ticket and fly to Portugal as planned.
At least the energy in the car is growing lighter. Rita is back in her element, sitting behind the steering wheel and doing what she loves the most: watching the world fly by, with nothing to stop her but an empty gas tank. Driving makes her feel that she is doing something important, that she is in control of the situation, and that life is happening even if the only thing that happens is the change in scenery. Vera, thankfully, does not try to make an empty conversation, leaving me free to stare out the window and enjoy the view.
I think we are heading to Belmonte. I don’t remember Rita saying we were going there, but she didn’t say we were going anywhere else either, so I assume we will end up there sometime before nightfall. I’m almost sure she did not book a place for tonight so it might be my responsibility to call my old Brazilian friend Umberto and find out if we can rent a couple of rooms from him. I’ll just have to wait and see.
The road we’re on winds up and down narrow valleys covered in evergreen forests. Sometimes it runs along a lake or crosses a bridge built over a nameless creek. Once in a while we get stuck behind a car or two, but soon they turn onto other roads and disappear, making me feel that we are the only people in the world who are traveling in these parts of the country. In the distance, I can see the vineyards that put Portugal on the world’s wine map absorbing the little sunlight that manages to get through the gray clouds. We pass a cluster of old stone houses with not a soul in sight, apart from a couple of dogs that don’t bother to look at our car or bark. The houses look like people have lived in them for centuries, braving the hot summers, the damp winters, and the occasional invaders.
A sign advertising a roadside café attracts Rita’s attention and she pulls into a small parking lot in front of it. A bustling stream flows far below. Large boulders strewn on both sides of the stream nearly choke it in some spots and force the water to rise above them to continue their journey downhill. On the other side of the stream, there is a massive building whose backside looks like an armory or a fort. The gray bricks and narrow windows exude eerie vibes, verging on the ominous. On second thought, since I know so little about Portugal, this building could well be a candy factory or a storage place for animal feed, though I’ll never find out.
The café is empty except for a guy with purple hair arranging water bottles and soft drinks in an upright refrigerator. There are three unoccupied tables inside; pink flowerpots at the center of each table give the place a homey feel. Outside, on a stone terrace, stand several round tables under umbrellas that advertise European beer, a testament to busier and warmer days. Rita waddles toward the counter in her flat leather boots to check the offerings. Vera and I are in tow as usual, waiting for her to decide what to order.
“What do you feel like?” she asks Vera.
“Order for me whatever you order for yourself,” Vera says.
That’s strange. She can’t know what Rita is going to order unless she still has that mother’s intuition that lets her know what her child wants before she knows it herself. I had it too with my daughter. Only Rita has not been a child for years. At least officially.
“You want coffee?” Rita asks.
“Yes,” Vera says, in that special voice that gives me the impression that she doesn’t care one way or the other.
“You sure?” Rita persists.
“Yeah,” she says again, in that same voice. “With milk.”
God, give me strength, I think to myself, even though I don’t believe in God.
“You want one of these pastries?” Rita asks her again.
“No. I want to find the bathroom,” she answers.
Now I get it. We’re on the bathroom discovery mission. Again.
Without missing a beat, Rita turns to the guy with the purple hair and asks him in her heavily accented English if there’s a bathroom around, catching him completely off guard because until now she and Vera were speaking in Hebrew. I don’t know if he feels the same as I do, but to my ears Rita sounds pushy rather than like the super friendly person she aspires to be around people who are not her immediate family.
“The bathroom?” he repeats.
“Yes, bathroom, toilet, restroom,” she says in English. She turns to me and says in Hebrew, “How do you say bathroom?”
“Bathroom, I understand, outside, down the stairs,” he says pointing to the back door and depriving me of a rare opportunity to speak Portuguese, maybe even start a conversation about something other than what to order and how much something costs.
“You have a key?” Rita asks him, mimicking the motion of unlocking a door with her hand.
“Key? No,” he says, looking confused. He has probably never visited a Starbucks or a busy café in a touristy town. I wonder how he would feel once he saw a bathroom key attached with a rope to a large wooden spoon or a cheese grater.
“You don’t want to go with me?” Vera asks.
“I can wait,” Rita says, ignoring Vera’s coded language.
“OK,” Vera shrugs and leaves us to search for the bathroom all by herself.
Suddenly I am alone with Rita and I’m not even in a bedroom. I wait for her to order coffee and pastries and I order a soft drink for myself. Then I join her at one of the round tables. I am not trying to make conversation. I have nothing to say. I feel as if I don’t know Rita anymore. Since we left San Francisco, I have seen a side of her that is so foreign to me, I am not sure how to behave around her.
Years ago when I first met her, she used to make me laugh with her incredible stories. They were borderline insane in a funny way, often involving someone famous that she impressed with her sense of humor and her indifference to their celebrity. I never got tired of listening to them, even when they required that I suspend disbelief and take her at her word. One story involved the Dalai Lama, whom she met during her travels in India and had a one-on-one conversation with about something I can’t be bothered to remember, probably about life and spirituality; another story involved one of Israel’s prime ministers, whom she met when she was caring for goats in Northern Galilee and had a conversation with about starting an alternative farm in the Negev Desert. When she returned from visiting her family in Israel there were stories about running into a top fashion model on a nature hike with her nieces or about sitting in a restaurant next to one of Israel’s biggest movie stars who headlined a Hollywood blockbuster and was nice enough to accept her friendship request on Facebook. I’ve never met anyone who happened to run into so many famous people and make such a lasting impression on them. It was fascinating listening to her stories and believing every twist and turn in the plots she made up so effortlessly, without worrying that I’d be taken for a fool.
Then there was her language. The Hebrew she spoke was nothing like the Hebrew I heard before I left Israel. She talked the way I assume men talk when they are not near women. I picture car mechanics on cigarette breaks, men who sell vegetables in the open-air market in Tel Aviv, and bored reservists stuck in a dusty army base between combat training drills. I’ve never heard a woman her age use so much slang. I thought she was doing it to make me laugh until I realized that this was the way she talked. It was not an act.
In return I was the serious one she could count on when she needed help with filling out and printing official documents—she could not figure out how to use a printer even though she claimed that she could take apart a laptop and put it back together—or who could provide support when she fought for custody of her son and felt humiliated by her ex-husband’s depiction of her terrible parenting style. I performed the boring parts of the friendship; she was the entertainment.
But no more.
In spite of all the comfort and sense of security that Fred’s money has given her since she started living with him, she has become a bundle of nerves. Everything puts her on edge. She complains about Fred and his laziness; about her son’s attachment to his father; and about her ex-husband’s contempt for her. She complains that people expect something from her and then don’t appreciate what she does for them. Then she says that all she wants is to be happy and not worry about anything. Because life is short, and we can’t take anything to our grave. It’s exhausting.
Luckily, at the moment she is more interested in checking her phone than talking to me. She raises her eyes only when Vera joins us and absolves me from having to talk. I can recede into the background and come out for air when we get to wherever she decides to spend the night.
I assume it will be in Belmonte.
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