02 _ Maltese Goddess, The (28 page)

“I suppose it will have a heart on it,” Anna went on. “Do you have to be dead to get a Purple Heart?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Oh well, either that or some other medal with a heart on it, I’ll wager. Appropriate enough.”

“Of course it’s appropriate,” I said, taking the conversational high road. “You saved those people’s lives, you know. They’d be dead if it weren’t for you.”

She was silent for a few minutes. “Time to retire,” she said. “Get myself a nice little cottage in the country. Devon, Cornwall, something like that. Nice long walks by the sea, a pint at the local pub, long evenings with a good book. I expect they’ll let me retire a little early, don’t you? Being a hero and all.” She smiled slightly.

“I don’t think you should make a decision like that right now,” I said. “Wait until you’re feeling better.” She nodded. The nurse came and signaled it was time for me to go.

As I reached the door, I heard her voice, very soft, behind me. “Dead, is he? They haven’t told me.”

“Yes,” I said. She closed her eyes and I left her there. I thought about how Sidjian had flattered and charmed his way into her heart, and despised him, not her, for all of it.

I came to Mnajdra just before I left, I think, to try to get my emotional bearings once again. I sat on the ground, leaning against one of the ancient stones of the Great Goddess’s temple, and thought of the friends, old and new, that I’d lost: Martin Galea, for all his faults, a remarkable man. He had always shunned the banal and striven for, and given us, the beautiful, a creative flame, intense and passionate, snuffed out too soon. Anna Stanhope, in whom, if she chose to retire as she said she would, the world had lost what it could ill afford: a wonderful, inspiring teacher. And Marilyn Galea, a woman who might well have died without ever having really lived. I wanted to avenge them all.

But revenge in whatever form, justice or retaliation, does not bring the victims back. Tabone had said, “
Afin najgarrabx il-hazin ma jafx it-tajjeb
—he who has had no experience of evil cannot know the worth of what is good,” and I tried to concentrate on that. As the sun went down and turned the walls of Mnajdra to gold, I thought about the builders of these ancient temple walls, now forgotten as individuals, but with a legacy that had extended through centuries and spoke for them still. I felt better thinking this, and I thought that perhaps Martin Galea’s buildings spoke for him, just as Anna Stanhope’s students, inspired by her teachings, would continue to speak for her.

I did not know what, or who, would speak for Marilyn Galea.

ANATH

SIXTEEN

Gone. All of them, gone. Free at last.

It was a few days before Rob and I were able to head for home. Tabone drove us to the airport to say good-bye, and as we left, handed us each a copy of the
Times of Malta.

“cabinet minister questioned in assassination scare,” the immensely satisfying headline trumpeted. Even if the link to Galea’s murder could not be made, and something told me it wouldn’t be, at least the man I thought might be responsible would pay. Perhaps too, I thought, the Hedgehog would yet have his day in court.

Rob’s girlfriend Barbara and his daughter Jennifer met our flight from Paris. Jennifer was an attractive girl but with a rather sullen expression that I thought might be in danger of becoming permanent. Barbara, on the other hand, was bright and perky, young, of course, and presumably athletic, dressed as she was in a white tracksuit and shoes, her blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. They offered to drive me home, and although I thought them quite sincere in wanting to do it, I insisted on taking a taxi, happy to sit in silence in the darkness of the backseat as the familiar sights sped by.

I was so glad to turn the key on my Utile Victorian cottage that I almost wept. I could see the lights on at Alex’s house next door, but decided to take some time for myself. I knew he’d be watching out for me and would be over in the morning to see how I was doing, but in the meantime I needed some time to think.

There was a huge pile of mail on the kitchen counter, sorted by Alex into little piles—“Junk,” one said; “Read at Leisure,” another said; “Bills” was the terse message on the largest; and finally “Read Now.” Life was coming back to normal.

There were really only two items in the “Read Now‘’ pile, one postmarked Belize, the second a postmark and stamp I hadn’t seen before.

I poured myself a glass of wine, threw a log or two on the fire, and sat down to read. First, I turned to the letter from Lucas. It had occurred to me that isolated as he was at the archaeological site in Belize, he might know nothing of my adventures, and I looked forward to a letter devoid of any sad references to the last few weeks. But if I thought the letter would put the world right for me, it was not to be.

Dear Lara,

This is a very difficult letter for me to write, and it may be equally difficult for you to read.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about the future, about what I need to do, and about us. You have always respected my wish not to discuss my ties with one of the underground groups agitating for change in my country, but I think you have always known how important these ties are, how critical I consider the cause.

I have been persuaded that now is the time to move forward to the public stage, to begin a political push for change, rather than a clandestine one. In a way it is because of you that I make this decision. Your optimism and faith that justice will always prevail have made me dare to hope that I can change the inequities that exist in Mexican society, that if other people truly understand the situation, they too will support change.

This is, I believe, a very positive decision, except for one thing, and that is that I do not believe I can continue our relationship and do what must be done. I cannot see these two aspects of my life—my relationship with you, and my aspirations for my country—as compatible, in part because our lives, our cultures are so very different, but also because I do not, as you know, believe in doing anything by halves. To attempt to do both would deny both of us the relationship we need and deserve, neither would it serve my cause and my people well. Given that I must choose, I believe I must take the path that benefits my society, rather than the one I might personally prefer.

I think you will not be happy with what I have to say, but perhaps I presume too much. If you take anything from this letter, indeed from our time together, I hope it is that I love you. This may be the hardest thing I have ever done.

Please forgive me and try to understand. Love, Lucas.

I reread the letter many times that night, the pain so great I could not even cry. In the end, I set the letter aside. No, Lucas, you do not presume too much, I thought. This hurts me more than I will ever let you know. I promise only to try to understand. I do not know if I can forgive you.

Finally, I opened the mysterious letter.

Dear Lara,

I trust I may call you that? I hope more than I can tell you that this letter finds you safe and well. You have been through a terrible ordeal, if the newspaper reports are anywhere close to accurate, for which I feel in some way responsible, although I think my actions did not directly cause it.

But perhaps I rationalize. Perhaps what happened precipitated a chain of events that have caused you considerable pain, and this grieves me, more, I must tell you, than the original deed itself.

I did not plan for this. There is a Swiss bank account, set up by my father for emergencies—and surely this qualifies—so I am not penniless, though far from the financial status I once enjoyed. But I am rambling, wishing to delay telling you what I must.

Perhaps I should start at the beginning as they say, at least where life seemed to begin for me, when I first met Martin Galea. Before that I was a gawky, homely, painfully shy woman, afraid of life and living. When I met Martin, I was a librarian at the University of Toronto— not a real librarian, you understand. The McLean women do not seek employment, real work being, in the opinion of my father, beneath the dignity of the “ladies” in his family. I was a volunteer, such charitable activities considered the proper role for a woman of means.

My mother died when I was very young. I have only vague memories of her, but I have her picture. It is one of only two things of this kind I thought to bring with me. She was lovely. I, unfortunately, take after my father in looks, and was, in this and almost everything else, a disappointment to him. My upbringing was therefore given over to a housekeeper, a rather stern woman of limited imagination, and then a series of tutors of whom I have no fond memories. All of them, while uninterested in me as a person, had very definite ideas about what I should do and what I should think.

Despite his disappointment in me, my father saw to it that I was well educated, schooled in the great masters, taken as a child to the great centers of culture on my vacations. In my early twenties, I was sent to what was rather quaintly called finishing school in Europe. It was then and there that I discovered Italy. More specifically, I discovered architecture.

One of my fine arts professors used to say that the world could be divided into two kinds of people—those who love Venice, and those who love Florence. I think I can understand that. To me, Venice, while stunning, has a reckless quality to it, a sense of impending darkness, a certain dangerous wetness, like damp sheets after an afternoon of illicit lovemaking.

But Florence—ah, Florence. To me this is a city where reason and order prevail, not in a static way, but in a way that attains the sublime. Those porticoes with sunlight streaming in perfect patterns between the perfectly proportioned columns were the most beautiful urban spaces I had ever seen. I roamed the streets, captivated by the grandeur, the soaring domes of Brunelleschi, the spacious piazzas—my favorite, Santissima Annunziata, completely soothing in its proportions, the most beautiful square, I think, anywhere in the world.

But I digress again. After Florence, I desperately wanted to be an architect, but my father would not permit it. You may think that in this day and age women should be free to do as they please. This is not, after all, Victorian England. But I have never been one who had the strength, the courage, to defy those around me, most particularly, I must say, my father. In a way though, he was right, if for the wrong reasons. I lack the unshakeable confidence in one’s own abilities, the certitude that one’s decisions and choices are invariably correct, that being an architect seems to require.

Since I was not permitted to be an architect, I became, I suppose, what is rather unflatteringly called a groupie. I worked as a volunteer at the library at the School of Architecture, hung out at the back of the lecture halls to hear the guest speakers, sat in the cafeteria listening to the students talk about their work.

One day as I was tidying up, I found, sound asleep in one of the study carrels, the most beautiful man I had ever seen. His features were perfect, dark eyelashes flecked with gold, a perfectly shaped nose, cheekbones chiseled in marble, a Greek god in the living flesh. His head was cradled in his arms, resting on a set of architectural drawings I assumed he’d been working on.

I sat looking at him for several minutes, just watching him breathe, until he awoke with a start, embarrassed to find me there. To ease his discomfort, I asked him what he was working on, and he showed me the drawings on which he had been resting his head.

They were magnificent, as he was, and his enthusiasm for his work apparent. He looked very tired, and in a gesture so uncharacteristic of me that it surprises me to this day, I asked him if he would like to go for a coffee. At first he declined, then he laughed apologetically and confessed he didn’t have the money to pay for it. I told him money was not an issue for me, which of course it wasn’t.

We went to a little coffee shop nearby—the Cake Master Cafe in Yorkville, do you know it? He was effortlessly charming, in a way I could never be. He told me about his passion for his studies, how he wanted to be the world’s greatest architect, and thought he could be. However, he said, he might have to drop out of school before he qualified, because his scholarship had run out, and he couldn’t come up with the next installment of his fees.

At some point in that conversation over coffee, I knew my aimless days had come to an end. I had found my metier, my calling, and that was to support—to nurture— what I believed, and still believe, to be a prodigious talent. I paid his tuition, not just that year, but for several years of graduate study to follow. I cooked, although I dislike cooking intensely; I shopped; I bought his clothes, seeing to it that he looked and acted the part of the successful architect.

A couple of years after we met we were married, against the wishes of my father, who threatened to disinherit me. In the end he didn’t, he couldn’t, because of a promise he had made to my mother. I was much older than Martin, a good fifteen years. In fact, I was thirty-seven—the age he was the last day of his life—while he was only twenty-two. He said he didn’t care about age, that what counted was that I was his muse, his patron, his very own de Medici.

And I was. I introduced him to my friends, my father’s friends. I made sure he walked the halls of the wealthy and the powerful. I saw that his life was a comfort, his work unhampered by the demands of the sordid realities of having to pay the bills. In turn, our life together shielded me from the loneliness and fear I had come to dread before I met him. I did not have to face the world alone. He was charming enough for both of us. We were invited everywhere, at first because of my social status, but later because of his.

And he met, no, exceeded, my wildest expectations. He is—was—a genius, my own Brunelleschi. I think that history will judge him as one of the greatest architects of our age. How history will judge me to a large extent remains in your hands.

How can I describe to you what happened that day? That one bright flame of passion in an essentially passionless life. To a certain extent, I viewed my life with him as a job as much as a relationship, and I thought myself fairly sanguine about it.