James looked to her as well, most likely expecting her usual detail of information. But in this case, she could not provide any.
“I have not heard of alheira,” Ava confessed.
Lamant nodded sagely as he always did when he encountered something Ava had not uncovered on her own. “This was not the first time Portugal became crowded with Jews as our people were made to flee our homes to escape persecution. Near the end of the fifteenth century, Jews sought these same shores for refuge. However, the Portuguese king wanted to wed a Spanish princess and continued the oppression in an effort to appeal to Spain.”
Ava nodded, familiar with the terrible history.
“Sausage has always been a popular dish in Portugal, which unfortunately made detecting Jews quite easy.” He presented the food with a spread hand. “And so, alheira. It could be hung and dried in smoke rooms like sausage and eaten in public to keep from drawing attention. Genius, is it not?”
He cut a section from the middle and handed it to her. She took a bite and a burst of salt and garlic mixed with a spice that tingled with culinary heat hit her tongue.
Suddenly the lights were lowered and two men with pear-shaped guitars approached the fireplace. A woman joined them a moment later, a cobweb-thin black shawl over the shoulders of her rose-printed dress.
The entire room went silent.
The men’s fingers moved over the strings of their instruments, teasing out silvery notes that danced through the room, enhanced by the broad, rounded ceiling overhead. The woman swayed to the rhythm, her eyes closed as if absorbing the delicate sound until they were one.
Her hand pressed to the center of her chest, and she began to sing, her voice husky and filled with a grief that reached deep into all the places in Ava’s soul that had ever been raw. Agony and sorrow pulled at the woman’s brow as she lifted her head, hand out in a beseeching manner that curled into a fist as the bright, clear notes faded into a vibrato.
As her palm went once more to her heart, she gazed around the room with tears shimmering in her eyes as her song went on. A lover whose affections were unrequited, the pain relayed through her was as adroitly written on her face as the fingers of the guitarists played over those six strings.
On and on the woman sang until tears also stung Ava’s eyes. The final notes tingled to a close, and the woman dropped her head to her chest.
The room exploded in an applause that the singer graciously received with the same heartfelt emotion with which she had sung. The lights were turned up once more and Ava blinked to remember where she was, having been so enraptured by the production that she’d forgotten all space and time. On the table before her, the green wine had grown warm and the food cold. But no one cared. They were all clapping with enthusiasm for what was the most incredible performance Ava had ever witnessed.
The singer and guitarists left the makeshift stage, nodding their thanks to patrons as they disappeared, and guests resumed eating and drinking once more. As Ava followed their departure, she caught sight of a familiar face, one that made her appetite shrivel despite the veritable feast laid out before her.
Lukas.
It had been months since she’d seen him. His presence was unmistakable—not only in his straight-backed appearance at a far table, tucked away in a corner, but also how he watched her, unblinking; with purpose. Except that she refused to back down from Lukas’s blatant stare and met it with one of her own. She was no coward, and she would not show fear.
Lukas smiled at her then, his white teeth, which she had once so admired, flashing from across the room. She did not smile back.
In the end, it was he who rose from the table and slipped from the room, pausing only to give her one final look before taking his leave. Whatever unease Ava had set from her mind regarding their initial meeting took root once more.
She hid her malcontent from her companions, refusing to allow Lamant’s last night in Lisbon to be tarnished. Much to her relief, he did not seem to notice, nor did Ethan. James, however, caught her eye several times, his expression concerned.