They weren’t listening to me. They seemed completely absorbed, holding hands and gazing at the village and the ocean. They didn’t ask, as other clients did, why I’d settled in such a remote place. They didn’t prattle on about former diving adventures. When Jola turned her face to me and took off her sunglasses, her eyes were moist — from the wind, I thought, the breeze blowing through the open window on her side.
“It’s absolutely beautiful here,” she said.
I shivered and turned the ignition key.
Today it seems to me as if that first meeting took place half an eternity ago, in another century or in an alien universe. Although I can still see the Atlantic through my window as I write, the island’s no longer in the present tense. I’m literally living out of suitcases. Down at the port in Arrecife, a container holding all my equipment is awaiting shipment to Thailand, where a German from Stuttgart wants to open a dive center on some palmy island with white beaches. A second container with my personal stuff is almost empty. When I was considering what I could use in Germany, hardly anything occurred to me. What would shorts, sandals, portholes from sunken ships, and a swordfish I caught and mounted myself be doing in the Ruhr? The only suitable place for all that is the past.
We coasted slowly down the dirt road and turned left at the touchingly hubristic little wall that divided the Atlantic from the dry land. My property constituted the end of the village. Standing at oblique angles and a stone’s throw from each other on the edge of a large sandlot were the two houses: the two-story, generously roof-terraced “Residencia” where Antje and I lived, and the “Casa Raya,” the somewhat smaller guesthouse. The area both houses occupied had been blasted into the black rock overlooking the sea. They stood raised up on natural stone foundations the sea spray couldn’t hurt. I’d acquired the houses for a good price and renovated them lavishly, and Antje had worked real miracles in the gardens around them. She’d fought with the contractor for days on end about how much excavation would be required, she’d drawn up irrigation plans, she’d insisted on bringing in special soil. She’d conscientiously investigated wind load and sun angles and the direction of root spread. With the passage of the years, there had sprung up on the edge of the rocky wasteland an oasis it cost me a fortune to keep watered. Royal Poinciana, hibiscus, and oleander bloomed all year round. Masses of bougainvillea threw their cascades of color over the walls, and above them two Norfolk Island pines stretched their thick-fingered needle leaves to the sky. The bloom of flowers on Lahora’s outermost edge burned a bright hole in the bare surroundings.
“No, not possible,” said Theo, shaking his head and laughing softly, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. Jola had her sunglasses back on and remained silent.
There were clients who didn’t care for Lahora, but everybody liked the Casa Raya. The house, a simple white cube with blue shutters on its windows, contained only a bedroom, a living room, a bathroom, and a cooking niche, but in spite of its small size, there was something majestic about the place. Under the steps that led up to the front door, the lava rocks were battered by the Atlantic, which seemed not so much raging as experienced; it’s been throwing itself against them in the same way for a couple of million years. Every two minutes the water in the cove surged up and spewed skyward a huge fountain sixty feet high. It was incredible that such a drama had nothing, not the smallest thing, to do with us humans. After guests left the Casa, they’d go back to Germany and write us to say that the fabled roar of the surf had stayed in their ears for days. It was a sound that inhabited you.
Antje was already sitting on the Casa’s steps, waiting for us. Todd, her cocker spaniel, was asleep on the hood of her white Citroën. The only dog in the universe that would voluntarily lie on hot sheet metal in blazing sunlight. This was his way of making sure Antje wouldn’t drive away without him. Or so she believed. When she saw us coming, she jumped up and waved; her dress was a big, shiny spot. She owned an entire collection of vivid cotton dresses, each in a different pattern. She’d accessorize from a range of flip-flops in various matching colors. On this particular day, little green horses on a red background galloped over her body. When she extended her hand to Jola, it looked for a few seconds as though someone had taken still shots of two different women in two different films and artfully spliced them together. Theo gazed at the ocean with his hands in his trouser pockets.
I set the luggage on the dusty ground. Antje raised her hand in thanks. We’d greeted each other rather scantily. I didn’t like her to touch me in the presence of other people. Even though we’d lived together for many years, it always struck me as funny that we were a couple. In public, at any rate.
While I lugged the empty scuba tanks from the morning dive into the Residencia’s garage, where the fill station was located, Antje showed our guests around their vacation home. Getting clients settled in was one of her responsibilities. In addition to the Casa Raya, she also managed a few holiday apartments in Puerto del Carmen for their owners. My diving students made up the majority of the guests. Antje did bookings, turned over keys, settled up, cleaned up, tended the garden, supervised workers. At the same time, she ran the business end of my diving school — took care of the office, updated the website, did all the paperwork required by the various diving organizations. It had taken her less than two years after our arrival to make herself indispensable. She even knew how to cope with the mañana mentality of the Spanish islanders.
I threw the used diving suits into the washing shed in the yard and went into the house. I was suddenly thirsty for an aperitif. Campari over ice. Ordinarily I drank only when I had to: in airplanes, at weddings, or on New Year’s Eve. The Campari I wanted at the moment was somehow related to Jola and Theo. I could smell and taste it before I knew whether Antje had any on hand. I found a bottle in the refrigerator, poured myself a large glass, and listened with pleasure to the crackling ice cubes. Glass in hand, I stepped out onto the lower terrace. If you put your chair right up against the railing, you could look across the sandlot and into the Casa’s living room. Just then the curtains were opened. Antje’s colorful dress was visible through the window. I could see Jola and Theo in the background, contemplating the cooking alcove. They were probably used to much better kitchen arrangements. Or maybe they were wondering how they could get anything to cook anyway, seeing that there wasn’t so much as a chewing-gum machine in Lahora. On this, their first evening, Antje would invite them to dinner, and tomorrow after the morning dive, she’d take them shopping for supplies. That was what we always did with the guests who came to the Casa.
Across the way, Antje was explaining stove, microwave, and washing machine. Theo appeared to be listening, while Jola let herself drop onto the sofa. Her head bounced up and down in the window; she was probably testing the sofa for springiness. I was tempted to imagine Theo throwing her onto the dining table and pushing up her dress — but I deleted the image at once. Female clients were taboo. In my profession, your work clothes were a pair of swimming trunks.
JOLA’S DIARY, FIRST DAY
Saturday, November 12. Afternoon.
Incredible place. White facades and barred shutters. Blazing sun and black sand. Zorro might come around the corner at any minute, rushing to prevent a duel. The air tastes salty. I find it fabulous here, but since Theo likes it too, I naturally have to take the opposite side. The sublime aesthetics of the austere! All right, old man. Why not just give it a rest? The world doesn’t become any more beautiful because you dump your poetry on it. Not bigger either, or more important or better. All you do is crash into the world and bounce off. Like the sea hitting the rocks, your words burst into spray and flow back into you. If you had ten thousand years, maybe you’d be able to round off a little corner, but you won’t live that long. You least of all.