A man leaning against a thick column was staring at me. He averted his gaze as soon as I looked at him. There was something wrong with his face, but I couldn’t see clearly for fear of appearing rude.
“Here’s the itinerary.” The clerk presented Cristóbal with a handwritten paper. “Your cabin is number 130 D.”
Cristóbal grabbed the key from the clerk’s hand before he finished the sentence. The man leaning against the column lit a cigarette. His distraction gave me the opportunity to study him.
Half of his face was burned.
The skin was thick and wrinkled from his eyebrow and cheek to his jawline. The other side of his face, however, was intact. One might even call it attractive.
For an instant, our eyes met. A chill ran down my spine, but I attributed it to the thin georgette fabric of my rose blouse. And yet, I couldn’t deny there was something unsettling about him. I held on to Cristóbal’s arm, pretending to stare at a marine landscape hanging on the wall above the man’s head.
“Ready, Puri?” Cristóbal picked up his typewriter case.
“Sí, mi alma.”
The bellhop followed us with our trunks.
I didn’t see the strange man again for two days. On the third day, I ran into him as I was stepping out of my cabin. He acknowledged me by tipping his hat and walked past me without further contemplation. His scent was familiar, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint its source.
I considered mentioning him to Cristóbal, but by the time my husband stepped out and shut our cabin door, the man had turned the corner.
On our way to dinner, the melodic sounds of an accordion and a tambourine floated from one of the salons. Through one of the windows, I spotted a vaudeville circus.
“Oh, can’t we go in?” I begged my husband. “They may have a magician!”
“Puri, I’ve had a breakthrough. Let’s just eat our dinner and go back to the stateroom.”
I clung to his arm. “Please, just this once!”
I dragged Cristóbal and his stiff legs into the salon.
The troupe consisted of three men in shiny red outfits. One rode a unicycle and sported a long, curly mustache and a top hat. His black cape billowed with the cold air drifting from the open door. Another one, a harlequin, walked among the audience on stilts, leaving the children in awe as he pretended to lose his balance above them several times. The third man had a trim goatee and was the highlight of the show. For the next fifteen minutes, he swallowed knives and balls of fire and presented us with Marina the Great, a muscular woman with a taut bun who was about to walk on a tightrope.
Cristóbal leaned over me and whispered, “Look, I’m not hungry anymore. You can go to dinner and meet me at the stateroom when you’re done.”
“But there’s a dance tonight.”
Surveying the room, Cristóbal gripped my elbow and led me outside the salon.
“I’ve already wasted twenty minutes on this.”
“You wasted twenty minutes? That’s what you call spending time with me?”
“You’re the one who suggested that I write my novel during the trip.”
“Yes, but is that all you’re going to do, Cristóbal? Write your novel all day and all night? You barely eat, and when you do, it’s in haste. I’ve spent this entire trip by myself.”
He shrugged. “I can’t help it if I’m feeling inspired.”
“And I don’t inspire you? You haven’t touched me since before. . .”
A woman with a mink coat glanced at us.
Cristóbal coughed, his cheeks a deep red. “I don’t think this is the right place to talk about this.”
There were two couples nearby. I didn’t care what they heard. In fact, it might be better. Perhaps their presence would motivate Cristóbal to stay, at least to avoid a scandal. Besides, I was tired of always avoiding the subjects that made him uncomfortable. I resented that he never mentioned my last miscarriage—my third one so far—as if it had never happened, as if that baby had never existed.
“I’m already doing what you wanted. Am I not?” he said.
He had a point there. I’d been the one who insisted that we sell everything in Spain, including my beloved chocolate shop, and that he travel with me to Ecuador to claim my inheritance—whatever that patrimony entailed. I’d used every tactic in my arsenal: how much this war had devastated Europe, how our shop was losing money, and my last resource: how this trip would be the perfect opportunity for him to write that novel he’d been dreaming about his entire life. But instead of letting it go, I pushed him further.