Gibraltar
Flicka von Hannover
A comparison and contrast of certain European territories.
The plane departed for Gibraltar at noon, on schedule, with just two Russian guards on board.
Flicka began watching in earnest for an opening to dart away with Alina. Schedule disruptions like this were the best opportunities for slipping away, she had found over the years.
However, when the plane touched down at the Gibraltar International Airport, jostling them all more than strictly necessary, six additional oversized men met them on the tarmac to escort them to the town’s government building, where they could obtain a Special License to be married immediately.
Gibraltar reminded Flicka of Monaco in many ways, especially in that it was exceedingly small and dominatedby its harbor and headlands.
Politically, they were different. Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory ruled by the Crown for the last three hundred years and proud to be British subjects and part of the Empire, while Monaco is, of course, a fully independent principality and its own country, sort of. Monegasques were aware they were descended from Italian nobility and the blood in their veinsran as azure as the Mediterranean.
Gibraltar was located on a splinter of land jutting out from Spain into the Mediterranean Sea. Water surrounds the point except for the small neck connecting it to the Iberian peninsula. Monaco, however, is a small strip of land excised from France by political borders on the Mediterranean coast.
Gibraltar covers a roomy two and a half square miles in area,while Monaco encompasses only about three-quarters of a square mile.
Flicka smiled. She’d asked Pierre once whether they should just carpet the whole country.
And then she flinched, because that was back when she and Pierre had been happy, in their own way.
And then she remembered that he had never really been happy with her at all, except as a royal trophy wife to cover up the fact that hewas in the closet about his real marriage to Abigai Caillemotte.
Flicka breathed, holding Alina’s hand as they walked off the runway toward the waiting cars.
Bright winter sunlight warmed the tarmac, though the air was cool.
Alina’s small fingers clutched her hand, comforting her.
Raphael walked beside her and placed his hand on the small of her back, a protective move. She wished she couldlean against him somehow, but the Russian guards encircled and rushed them. They’d barely let the customs agent inspect their passports before they’d herded everyone off the plane.
If she and Raphael didn’t get out of this, at least she would have these few happy hours with the two of them, a modest wedding and one honeymoon night in Gibraltar because they had to spend the night in the territoryto fulfill the requirements of the special license.
Gibraltar was a beautiful land. It reminded her of the best parts of Monaco.
Both Monaco and Gibraltar have massive, rocky prominences visible from most of the country.
In Monaco,Le Rocheris the monolith overlooking the harbor where the Prince’s Palace and the Art Deco village of Monaco Ville stand. Every square inch of Monaco was utilizedas much as possible, and they were building more land by reclaiming the harbor. Houses were built overlooking nearly vertical ravines. One of her favorite crevasses had a church nestled at the nadir of the crack in the Earth.
The Rock of Gibraltar, however, is an enormous limestone promontory surrounded by a nature preserve and home to about three hundred Barbary macaques, the last populationof wild macaques in Europe.
The fresh sea breeze cooling her face and soothing her throat and lungs was the same here as in Monaco. Her hair fluttered around her ears, tickling her neck. The crisp air chilled her back, but it was warmer on the Mediterranean coast than in the mountains of Switzerland.
She’d always liked the sea breeze of Monaco with its humid scent of the ocean and sunshine.It was different than the forest damp of Germany where she’d lived at theSchloss Marienburgcastleas a young child, redolent of green leaves returning to the rich soil. In Rolle, Switzerland, the profusion of flowers that overflowed from every windowbox and street planter perfumed the air of the town, while Le Rosey school itself smelled like dorms the world over: marijuana smoke and adolescentfeet.
The waiting cars drove them to the registry office, where Flicka presented her birth certificate and divorce papers and signed a document certifying that she was free to marry. Raphael presented the same, and Flicka was kind of impressed and shocked that he’d had his divorce papers so readily available.
He told her, “They were in the file with Alina’s birth certificate, which was one ofthe few things I grabbed from the townhouse in Nevada. When I flew to Las Vegas after picking Alina up from her caregiverSuze Meier, where I’d left her for a week to provide security for Wulf’s wedding in Montreux, I needed proof of the custody arrangement that allows me to travel with Alina without her mother’s permission.”
Because he was, indeed, connected to his ex-wife Gretchen through Alina,legally and forever.
Flicka was still watching for an opening to grab Alina and dart into a crowd, knowing that Spain was only a quick taxi ride away. There, she would be within the Schengen area and thus could get all the way to Hannover, Germany,where her father lived in a house in town. Surely, he would help her. He would probably rant someI-told-you-so’s,and Flicka would tell him thathe had been damn right about Pierre Grimaldi, that asshole.
Just please God and the saints and all the other gods she had neglected all her life,pleasehelp get the three of them to Germany and her father.
She had absolute faith that Raphael could fight his way out if she weren’t hanging around his neck like an enormous, blond albatross.
Guilt chewed at her.
The Russian guards needn’t havewatched Flicka so closely, though.
Sophie elbowed Raphael out of the way and clung to Flicka’s arm, giggling the entire time the cars drove them around the sunny land of Gibraltar. “I’m just so glad I will see my baby get married! It’s just wonderful. It’s just beautiful, and I’m so happy for you. When he disappeared, I thought—oh, I thought terrible things, but now he’s home and getting married!I’m so glad he’s here for this. I’m so glad you’re a member of the family now, Flicka. You’re simply beautiful, and I’m so glad you two found each other.”
Flicka laughed with her and scanned the Russian guards and the traffic pattern around the car, watching for a break where she could grab Alina and run.
