Part 2 (1/2)

'As you see.”

He was amused. ”That makes you some kind of service-woman, then.”

”Not at all.” The golden hair swished from side to side as she shook her head. ”I'm cla.s.sified as a civil servant. I took an examination after I got my degree in history. I've been here four years.”

She turned pensive and looked out the window. Then, as if she had something on her mind she couldn't dismiss, she went to the table very slowly, closed the atlas, and put it back in the case.

”My father, though, was in the service,” she added.

There was a note of defiance, or perhaps of pride, in her words. That confirmed a number of things Coy had noticed: a certain way she had of moving, a gesture here and there, and the serene, slightly haughty self-discipline that seemed to take over at times.

”Career Navy?”

'Army. He retired as a colonel, after spending most of his life in Africa.”

”Is he still alive?” ”No.”

She spoke without a trace of emotion. It was impossible to know if it upset her to talk about it. Coy studied the navy-blue irises, and she bore his scrutiny with no expression.

”Which is why your name is Tanger. For Tangier.”

”Which is why my name is Tanger.”

THEY walked past the Museo del Prado and the railings of the Botanical Garden in no hurry, then turned left and started up Claudio Moyano hill, leaving the noisy traffic and pollution of the Atocha traffic circle behind them. The sun shone on the gray booths and stalls stair-stepped up the street. ”Why did you come to Madrid?” walked past the Museo del Prado and the railings of the Botanical Garden in no hurry, then turned left and started up Claudio Moyano hill, leaving the noisy traffic and pollution of the Atocha traffic circle behind them. The sun shone on the gray booths and stalls stair-stepped up the street. ”Why did you come to Madrid?”

He stared at the ground He had answered that question at the museum, before she had even asked. All the commonplaces and easy pretexts had been exhausted, so he took a few more steps before responding.

”I came to see you.”

She did not seem surprised or curious for that matter. She was wearing the light wool jacket, and before they left her office she had knotted a silk scarf of autumnal colors around her neck. Half turning, Coy observed her impa.s.sive face.

”Why?” was all she asked.

”I don't know.”

They walked on a bit in silence. Finally they stopped before a stall piled with detective novels strewn about like flotsam washed up on a beach. Coy's eyes slid over the worn volumes without paying much attention: Agatha Christie, George Harmon c.o.xe, Ellery Queen, Leslie Charteris. Tanger picked up a copy of She Was a Lady, She Was a Lady, looked at it absently, and put it back. looked at it absently, and put it back.

”You're mad” she said.

They walked on. People were strolling among the stands, picking up books, leafing through them. The booksellers kept a sharp eye on them from behind their counters or standing in the doorways of the booms. Most were wearing overcoats, jerseys, or pea coats, their skin tanned by years in the sun and wind, like sailors in some impossible port, stranded among reefs of paper and ink. Some were reading, unaware of pa.s.sers-by, sitting among mountains of used books. Two young sellers greeted Tanger, who answered them by name. h.e.l.lo, Alberto. See you, Boris. A boy with a hussar's locks and a checked s.h.i.+rt was playing the flute, and she placed a coin in the cap at his feet, just as Coy had seen her do on the Ramblas, when she'd stopped before the mime whose white-face was streaked by the rain.

”I come by here every day on my way home. Isn't it strange what happens with old books? They choose you. They reach out to their, buyer-h.e.l.lo, here I am, take me with you. It's as if they were alive.”

A few steps farther on she paused to look at The Alexandria Quartet, The Alexandria Quartet, four volumes with tattered covers, marked down. ”Have you read Durrell?” she asked. four volumes with tattered covers, marked down. ”Have you read Durrell?” she asked.

Coy shook his head. He'd never seen any of these books. North American, he supposed. Or English.

”Is there anything about the sea in them?” he asked, more to be courteous than out of interest.

”No, not that I know. Although Alexandria is is still a port.” still a port.”

Coy had been mere, and he didn't recall anything special. Heat, days of dead air, derricks, stevedores lying prostrate in the shade of the containers, filthy water lapping between the hull and the dock, and c.o.c.kroaches you stepped on as you came ash.o.r.e at night. A port like any other, except when wind from the south carried clouds of reddish dust that sifted into everything. Nothing to justify four volumes. Tanger touched the first with her finger, and he read the tide: Justine. Justine.

”Every intelligent woman I know,” she said, ”has at some time wanted to be Justine.”

Coy looked at the book with a perplexed expression, wondering if he ought to buy it, and if the bookseller would make him buy all four. The books mat had caught his attention were others nearby; The Death s.h.i.+p, The Death s.h.i.+p, by one B. Traven, and the Bounty trilogy, by one B. Traven, and the Bounty trilogy, Mutiny on the Bounty, Men against the Sea, Mutiny on the Bounty, Men against the Sea, and and Pitcairn's bland, Pitcairn's bland, all in a single volume. But she was moving on. He saw her smile again, take a few more steps, and distractedly leaf through another mistreated paperback. all in a single volume. But she was moving on. He saw her smile again, take a few more steps, and distractedly leaf through another mistreated paperback. The Good Soldier, The Good Soldier, he read. Ford Madox Ford did sound familiar, because he had collaborated with Joseph Conrad on he read. Ford Madox Ford did sound familiar, because he had collaborated with Joseph Conrad on The Inheritors. The Inheritors. Finally Tanger whirled around and looked at him, hard. Finally Tanger whirled around and looked at him, hard.

”You're mad,” she repeated.

He touched his nose and said nothing.

”You don't know me,” she added a moment later, a hint of harshness in her voice. ”You know nothing at all about me.”

Curiously, Coy didn't feel intimidated or out of place. He had come to see her, doing what he thought he had to do. He would have given anything to be an elegant man, easy with words and with something to offer, even if just enough money to buy the four volumes of the Quartet Quartet and take her to dinner that night in an expensive restaurant, calling her Justine or whatever she wanted him to call her. But that wasn't the case. So he kept quiet, and stood there with all the openness he could muster, at once sincere and neutral, almost shy. It wasn't much, but it was everything. and take her to dinner that night in an expensive restaurant, calling her Justine or whatever she wanted him to call her. But that wasn't the case. So he kept quiet, and stood there with all the openness he could muster, at once sincere and neutral, almost shy. It wasn't much, but it was everything.

”You don't have any right to show up like this. To stand there with that good-little-boy face___ I already thanked you for what you did in Barcelona. What do you want me to do now? Take you home like one of these books?”

”Sirens,” he said suddenly.

She looked at him with surprise.

”What about sirens?”

Coy lifted his hands and let them drop.

”I don't know. They sang, Homer said. They called to the sailors, isn't that right? And the sailors couldn't help themselves.”

”Because they were idiots. They ran right onto the reefs, destroying their s.h.i.+ps.”

”I've been there.” there.” Coy's expression had darkened. ”I've been on the reefs, and I don't have a s.h.i.+p. It will be some time before I have one again, and now I don't have anything better to do.” Coy's expression had darkened. ”I've been on the reefs, and I don't have a s.h.i.+p. It will be some time before I have one again, and now I don't have anything better to do.”

She turned toward him brusquely, opening her mouth as if to say something disagreeable. Her eyes sparked aggressively. That lasted a moment, and in that s.p.a.ce of time Coy mentally said so long to her freckled skin and to the whole crazy daydream mat had led him to her. Maybe he should have bought that book about Justine, he thought sadly. But at least you gave it a shot, sailor. Too bad about the s.e.xtant. Then he gathered himself. I'll smile. I'll smile in any case, say what she will, until she tells me to go to h.e.l.l. At least that will be the last thing she'll remember about me. I'd like to smile like her boss, that commander with his s.h.i.+ny b.u.t.tons. I hope my smile doesn't come off too edgy.

”For the love of G.o.d,” she said. ”You're not even handsome.”

Ill

The Lost s.h.i.+p

You can do everything right, strictly according to procedure, on the ocean, and it'll still kill you, but if you're a good navigator, at least you'll know where you were when you died. JUSTIN SCOTT SCOTT, The s.h.i.+pkilkr He detested coffee. He had drunk thousands of hot and cold cups in endless pre-dawn watches, during difficult or decisive maneuvers, in dead hours between loading and unloading in ports, in times of boredom, tension, or danger, but he disliked that bitter taste so much that he could bear it only when cut with milk and sugar. In truth, he used it as a stimulant, the way others take a drink or light a cigarette. He hadn't smoked for a long time. As for drinking, only rarely had he tasted alcohol on board a s.h.i.+p, and on land he never went past the Plimsoll mark, his cargo line of a couple of Sapphire gins. He drank deliberately and conscientiously only when the circ.u.mstances, the company, or the place called for ma.s.sive doses. In those cases, like most of the sailors he knew, he was capable of ingesting extraordinary quant.i.ties of anything within reach, with consequences that entailed husbands guarding their wives' virtue, police maintaining public order, and nightclub bouncers making sure that clients toed the line and didn't leave before paying.

That was not the case tonight. The ports, the sea, and the rest of his previous life seemed far from the table near the door of an inn on the Plaza de Santa Ana, where he was sitting watching people strolling on the sidewalk or chatting on the bar terraces. He had asked for a gin and tonic to erase the taste of the syrupy cup of coffee before him-he always spilled it clumsily when he stirred- and was leaning back in his chair, hands jammed into his jacket pockets, legs stretched out beneath the table. He was tired, but he was putting off going to bed. I'll call you, she'd said. I'll call you tonight or tomorrow. Let me think a little. Tanger had an appointment she couldn't break that afternoon, and a dinner date in the evening, so he would have to wait to see her again. That was what she told him at noon, after he had walked with her to the intersection of Alfonso XII and Paseo Infanta Isabel; and she said good-bye right there, not letting him see her to her door. She offered the strong hand he remembered so well, in a vigorous handshake. Coy had asked how the devil she thought she could call him, since he had no home, no telephone, no nothing in Madrid, and his seabag was checked at the station. Then he saw Tanger laugh for the first time since he'd known her. It was a generous laugh that encircled her eyes with tiny wrinkles, making her, paradoxically, look much younger, more beautiful. Then she asked him to forgive her stupidity, and for a couple of seconds looked at him, his hand in hers, the last trace of laughter fading from her lips. She gave him the name of an inn on the Plaza de Santa Ana, across from the Teatro Espanol, where she had lived for two years when she was a student. A clean, cheap place. I'll call you, she said. I'll call you today or tomorrow. You have my word.

And there he was, staring at his coffee and wetting his lips with the gin and tonic-they didn't have Sapphire in the bar-the waitress had just set before him. Waiting for her to call. He hadn't moved all afternoon, and had eaten dinner there, a bit of overcooked beef and a bottle of mineral water. It was possible she might come in person, he thought, and that possibility made him keep an eye on the plaza, not to miss her approaching along calle de las Huertas, or any of the streets leading up from the Paseo del Prado.

Between the benches on the plaza, some beggars were talking loudly and pa.s.sing around a bottle of wine. They had begged for money at the tables on the terraces and now were counting up the nights take. Three men, a woman, and a little dog. From the door of the Hotel Victoria, a guard costumed as RoboCop watched them like a hawk, hands crossed behind his back, legs spread apart, standing exactiy where he had ejected the female beggar shortly before. Chased off by RoboCop, she had zigzagged among the tables to where Coy was sitting. Give me something, friend, she'd said in a listless voice, staring straight ahead. Give me something. She was still young, he thought as he watched her counting the take with her buddies and the mongrel. Despite the blemished skin, the dirty blond hair and vacant eyes, there were traces of a former beauty in her well-defined lips, the curve of her jaw, her figure, and the red, chapped hands with long dirty fingernails. Terra firma rots people, he thought once again. It overpowers and devours them. He searched his own hands, resting on his thighs, for the first symptoms of aging that accompany the inevitable leprosy of city pollution, the deceptively solid ground beneath your feet, contact with people, air with the salt sucked out of it. I hope I find another s.h.i.+p soon, he told himself. I hope I find something that floats so I can climb aboard and be carried far away while there's still time. Before I contract the virus that corrodes hearts, disrupts their compa.s.s, and drives them rudderless onto a lee sh.o.r.e.

”There's a call for you.”