an opening & a closing
There were only two Americans staying at the hotel. They did not know any of the people they ate breakfast with in the mornings. Their room was on the top floor of the three-story building, facing the plaza. It also faced the public gardens and the fountain. There was a maze of waist high hedges lining the garden. There were five benches in a line at the center, facing out onto the plaza. An old lady sat in the center bench; she had a bag of breadcrumbs and was feeding the pigeons so they created a wild frenzy at her feet. Families from the surrounding neighborhood would fill the plaza on the weekends to let the children run while the parents sat at the café. The men would talk urgently about politics while their women discussed the latest society scandal. The fountain splashed coolly in the mid afternoon heat. It was early summer and the sun shimmered on the worn marble of the plaza. The old woman threw out her last handful of crumbs and watched as the birds pecked madly on the gravel path that ran between the bushes. Across the plaza in the doorway of the café a waiter stood looking out at the quiet square.
The American girl stood at the window the afternoon sun warming her bare arms and face. Behind her and across the room the man that was not her husband sat tying a shoe. When he was finished he stood up and walked to the dresser. Standing silently he inspected the collection of records that lay strewn on the floor beneath the stereo that sat atop the dresser. He chose one and placed it on the turntable where it began to spin silently. He studied it for a moment as it turned and then brought the needle to rest gently on the outer edge of the vinyl. The lazy base and carefree piano of Oscar Peterson’s ‘Easy To Love’ drifted idly from the speakers. At the window, the American girl sighed and looked down at the empty plaza below.
“Catherine has an exhibition opening at the Whitney on Monday,” George said, watching the LP bob and spin on the record player.
The American girl didn’t shift her gaze from the marble below.
“It’s really great for her. I mean it’s really great for her career,” he continued. “It’s set to run for a month.”
There was no response from the window. George turned away from the dresser and faced her. Her back was to him. He saw the back of her neck clipped close like a boy’s. He liked her the best with her hair like that he thought. She had always worn her hair like that during the summer.
“You know, I’m sure she’d love for you to see it. It being her first major show and all.”
“Shut up,” she whispered.
“What’s that?”
“I said shut up.”
She turned, her gaze still cast downward. Her back leaning against the edge of the open window, naked arms folded across her breast.
George moved to the bed and sat down on the corner. He could almost reach out and touch her but he refrained and placing his hands on the bed’s edge he shrugged forward gazing at her face and tightly cropped brown hair. She turned back around and leaning her head against the frame of the window resumed to gaze at the plaza below.
George pushed his weight off the bed and stood up strait. He stepped forward and placed his right hand on her waist, his left he rested against the spot where her neck met her shoulder. She didn’t move away as he expected her to, she only stood completely still as if nothing could break her concentration on Madrid and the baking marble below. He kissed her left temple and she looked up at him for the first time that morning. For a moment their eyes met and then suddenly it was his turn to look away. Releasing her from his embrace George walked to the door, picking up his sunglasses where they lay on the ottoman. She watched as he went.
He paused for a moment to look at the record spinning, the side finished and the speakers silent, the room silent, then he opened the door. With his body halfway through the threshold he stopped and looked back at her. She stood facing him in a pool of light that spilled through the window.
“I fly to New York tomorrow,” he said, and stepped into the hallway, leaving the door just slightly open behind him.
From the third floor of the hotel the American girl watched the man that was not her husband walk across the worn marble of the plaza. His shoes clipping with each step, he looked back once, at the window on the third floor and for a moment she was possessed with the urge to shout to him, but it passed as quickly as it came. When he had disappeared around the corner and on to calle de la esperanza she turned away from the window. She saw that the door was open just slightly; the American girl walked across the room and pressed her right hand and forehead against it until it clicked shut.
