“I could probably get the stuff to Paris tonight,” he said. “But I’m told there’s going to be a countrywide transportation strike in France as early as tomorrow, and they’re saying it may last several days. I don’t want to risk getting the stuff there and then not being able to get it out again.”
I knew he was telling the truth. I’d read the Paris papers on the way over and they’d said as much.
“So I’m working on something to Italy. Both Air Malta and Alitalia fly to Malta from Rome. Hang in, Lara,”‘ he told me. “I’ll get it there somehow. As soon as I know which flight we’ve got, I’ll get all the stuff picked up and packed in a container, and deliver it direct to the plane. I’ve already contacted a customs broker at the airport in Malta, and he’s standing by to clear it through in a hurry and transport it to the house. You be ready to move fast. Mrs. Galea is being very nice about this, by the way.” Then he added, “But I haven’t talked to the Great One himself yet. Can’t say I’m looking forward to that conversation!”
By late Tuesday afternoon I was truly despairing of ever meeting my commitment to Galea. There was nothing more I could do that day, however, except worry, and I didn’t want to disappoint Sophia, so I decided to go to the lecture and to try to forget all the aggravations of the past couple of days, for an hour or so, at least.
But there was the small matter of making my way to the University on time.
Marissa had given me rather complicated directions for taking the bus into the terminal and then another one out again. The bus route network in Malta seemed to operate on a hub and spoke model, with all routes radiating out from the Valletta terminal. This meant it was not possible to take one bus from the house to the University. On top of that the lecture was in the evening, and Marissa had told me the last bus service was about ten. I decided to drive. The car had been locked in the garage ever since it had been repaired, and I checked the padlock carefully to reassure myself it would be safe to use the car.
I knew from Marissa’s instructions that the University was at the intersection of the regional road to Mellieha and the road to Balzan. When I consulted the map she had given me, it seemed to be almost due north of the house. The island was only eight or nine miles wide, and I prided myself on my sense of direction. I also prided myself on my ability to drive almost anywhere. My buying trips had taken me all over the world, and I’d found myself in pretty obscure places. I’d driven on the left and the right. Why, I’d even driven in Rome. And I was used to almost any kind of vehicle. I once rode a donkey up a steep slope to get to a village that had particularly lovely weavings. How difficult could this be?
As the saying goes, pride goeth before a fall.
I mapped out a route that took me to a place called Siggiewi, then Zebbug, to Attard, then Balzan, then on to the University. But I ended up on the road to someplace called Rabat. Cars roared past me on both the passing lane and on the inside shoulder; I dodged donkey carts and potholes the size of craters on the moon; I passed through towns that reminded me of illustrations in my childhood book of Bible stories; I whizzed around roundabouts; and I got totally, utterly, irretrievably lost.
I also learned that second gear is a really important feature in a car. Without it I either had to go very slowly, or speed along in third. Stalling was only a hairsbreadth away at any given time. I listened enviously to the sound of more fortunate drivers gearing smoothly up or down. I became obsessed with not slowing down.
Finally I got on a relatively well-kept road that unfortunately headed in the wrong direction, toward the aforementioned Rabat and something called Verdala Palace, which if I remembered Anthony’s lecture was built by his idol, Gerolamo Cassar. That meant, at least I thought it did, that I was headed west, not north, but my innate sense of direction had totally deserted me so I couldn’t be sure. I could only hope it would lead to something headed north, or at least a place name I recognized.
As I moved along this road, I overtook a car moving relatively slowly. There was an approaching truck, but it was still quite far away, and rather than slow down, I decided to go for it and pass the other vehicle. I floored it, roared past, then pulled quickly in front of the other car, in a way that, if I’m being honest, I would have to consider rather rude, if not a bit reckless.
I glanced guiltily at the driver as I passed the car. He was looking at me too. We were both surprised to see each other. It was the Great White Hunter yet again, and he was not pleased to see me.
Normally I think I would have found this a funny coincidence, but now, with the business with the brakes, there was an edge of menace to it, not the least because of what happened next. When the oncoming truck passed us, he geared down, then passed me much too closely, pulling in so tightly that I had to slam on the brakes, which mercifully worked in a manner of speaking. The car started to skid, and for a few seconds I thought I’d lost control of it, but I was able to pull over to the side of the road, where I sat for a few minutes listening intently to my heart pound. The Great White Hunter I couldn’t see for dust.
It took me a few minutes to stop shaking. I kept telling myself I sort of deserved it, what with my rush past him. But to be forced off the road? I could hardly believe what had happened.
While I sat there, a man on an aged bicycle pedaled by, and I flagged him down. He was a pleasant person who gave me new directions, briefly explaining the intricacies of navigating around Malta: which is to say, road signs, where they exist, are only relative. One gets a general sense of the direction one is going, then sticks to it, ignoring signs for towns and sites along the way.
It was good advice and I managed to find the University, then most fortuitously a place to park. I got out, pulled up the window on the passenger side which had done its trick of falling down into the door at the first roundabout I encountered, then eyed the car. I sincerely hoped I would not return to find it minus several critical body parts. A young boy offered to watch the car for me—such a nice car, he said—for a small fee of course. I paid him on the spot, walked into the hall, flinging myself—there is no other word to describe my hasty and inelegant entrance—into the seat that Sophia and Anthony had saved for me just as the speaker mounted the platform and moved to the podium.
“Who will speak for the Goddess?” she began, a tall, big-boned woman with wispy, greying hair, owlish glasses, a less than stylish print dress, and what my mother would call sensible shoes. Not that my mother would be caught dead wearing sensible shoes herself, mind you.
The lights in the hall dimmed, then were extinguished, a single reading lamp on the podium the only light in the room, casting eerie shadows on the wall behind the speaker as she spoke.
“Who will speak for the Goddess? Try now, if you can, to set aside the kind of world we know today, and imagine yourself living in the world of six thousand years ago. To do so, you must leave behind you all those technological wonders we take for granted. Lights, cars, running water, telephones, television, computers. You must also forget all you know about the world around us: what causes the rain to fall, lightning to strike, the wind to howl, a bright orb to rise in the sky and then disappear into darkness, plants to grow, and most especially, for a child to be born and for people to die.
“Imagine yourself a fisherman, perhaps, or a sailor, setting out from your shelter in a cave or a mud-brick hut on the island we now call Sicily, to cast your nets on the sea, or ply your trade along the coast.