“You have a visitor,” the guard said in Arabic. “Actually, visitors, I should say.”
Then he stepped aside and gestured for us to enter the cell. I let the women precede me and I was about to walk through, when the guard hissed, “Ten minutes only.”
I nodded. I had spare change in my pocket in case we needed more time.
Inez went immediately to her uncle and gave him a hug, arms wrapping tight around his waist, narrower now, thanks to his present living conditions. They’d been inside, two, no, three days. Farida went to sit next to her grandfather, Abdullah, who broke into a wide smile as she leaned into his shoulder. They spoke quietly to each other in Arabic, while Amaranta stood off to the side, her attention flickering from one thing to the other: the gray walls, the squeaking mattresses, the bare floors. For once, her expression had softened to one of compassion, and she crossed the room to sit on Ricardo’s other side. He seemed surprised by this.
“I suppose we ought to get to know one another,” she said coolly. “My mother and I will be your frequent visitors. Tell me, do you have soap?”
Ricardo gaped at her. “Soap?”
Amaranta glanced around again. “You don’t have a washbasin. I suppose that was a silly question.”
Inez threw the guard a glare. “Perhaps we can request one.”
“This is truly a deplorable room,” Lorena exclaimed, the train of her voluminous skirt swishing around her like the bristles of a broom. “This window is so small, the beds too narrow!” She spun around and gasped loudly. “Are you drinking water frompetroleumcans?”
Ricardo shot me a pained look, and I stifled my smile.
She went on and on, finding something to despair over, while Farida gave Abdullah a few letters she had written to him to be read later. She also had brought several treats, which she dug out from within her purse.
“What have you been up to?” Ricardo asked Inez, eyeing her shrewdly. “You look tired. Have you been ill?”
I had to admire the way Inez could lie with a straight face. All of the strain she carried from our disaster of a marriage dissolved, and if I didn’tknow better, I would have believed the adoring look she sent me. “The opposite, Tío. I’ve never been happier.”
I knew Inez had a tumultuous relationship with her uncle, but watching him now, with his gaze intent on his niece, the clear love he had for her was more than apparent. But when he fixed a glower in my direction, I received no such love.
That still stung. But my wife wasn’t the only one who could act the part. “Glad to hear it, amor.”
Inez’s eyelid twitched, but her smile did not falter.
Lorena glanced between us in comical alarm. Then she loudly exclaimed, “I’ve brought you a gift, Ricardo.”
I leaned against the wall and crossed my ankles, fighting my amusement. It seemed my wife hadn’t informed her aunt of our matrimonial state. Well, I wouldn’t have, either. I didn’t want to have my ears ringing the whole way home from Lorena’s screeching. It was clear she did not approve of me. Probably wanted Inez to have that Ernesto, son of a consul or whatever.
It probably would have been better if she’d married him.
“Here, look,” Lorena said, reaching into her silk purse. She pulled out a small bundle wrapped in tissue paper patterned in bright colors.
Ricardo had not lost the pained expression on his face. If anything, it had gotten much worse. “No, really, it’s fine. I don’t need anything.”
Lorena brushed his comment aside. “You’ll want this, Ricardo. Now, don’t be stubborn, and be a dear man and open it.”
Abdullah and Farida stopped their quiet conversation and gazed with interest as Ricardo carefully unwrapped the present. When the last of the tissue paper had been set aside, we all stared at the item. Ricardo appeared horrified. “Is this ateacup?”
“It is,” Lorena confirmed. “Isn’t it beautiful? I think the blue pattern is divine. Don’t you agree?”
“Er,” Ricardo said, eyeing the porcelain cup as if it were a venomous spider. “I won’t be invited to a tea in here, Lorena. What the devil do you expect me to do with this?”
“Well, you don’t drink from it,” Lorena said.
Ricardo eyed the object that was clearly meant for drinking. “I don’t?”
“Is it magic touched, Tía?” Inez asked.
Lorena nodded. “Yes! I have the matching teacup back at the hotel. Whenever you fill one with water, the other will fill up also but glow with a silvery light. That’s when the receiver knows to look inside. You’ll find the sender on the other end, and you can have a conversation as normal.”
“Brilliant,” I said. “Like Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone.”
