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FROM WHERE LUCY sat beside her gambler she had a view through a casement window, a view of a long street that led to the foot of a mountain. And what Lucy liked best about her casement window view was that as nighttime turned into dawn, the mountain seemed to travel down the street. It advanced on tiptoe, fully prepared to be shooed away. Insofar as a purely transient construction of flesh and blood can remember (or foretell) what it is to be stone, Lucy understood the mountain’s wish to listen at the window of a den of gamblers and be warmed by all that free-floating hope and desolation. Her wish for the mountain was that it would one day shrink to a pebble, crash in through the glass, and roll into a corner to happily absorb tavern life for as long as the place stayed standing. Lucy tried to write something to Safiye about the view through the casement window, but found that her description of the mountain expressed a degree of pining so extreme that it made for distasteful reading. She didn’t post that letter.
Safiye had begun working as a lady’s maid—an appropriate post for her, as she had the requisite patience. It can take months before you even learn the location of a household safe, let alone discover the code that makes its contents available to you. But was that really Safiye’s plan? Lucy had a feeling she was being tricked into the conventional again. Safiye instigated bothersome conversations about “the future,” the eventual need for security, and its being possible to play one trick too many. From time to time Lucy paused her work on the rose book to write and send brief notes:
Safiye—I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to think; I’m afraid I’ll only be able to send you a small token for this St. Jordi’s Day you wrote about. I’ll beg my forgiveness when I see you.
Safiye replied: Whatever the size of your token, I’m certain mine is smaller. You’ll laugh when you see it, Lucy.
Lucy wrote back: Competitive as ever! Whatever it is you’re doing, don’t get caught. I love you, I love you.
On April 23rd, an envelope addressed in Safiye’s hand arrived at the post office for Lucy. It contained a key on a necklace chain and a map of Barcelona with a black rose drawn over a small section of it. Lucy turned the envelope inside out but there was no accompanying note. She couldn’t even send a book, Lucy thought, tutting in spite of herself. She hadn’t yet sent the book she’d made, and as she stood in the queue to post it she began to consider keeping it.
The woman in line ahead of her was reading a newspaper and Lucy saw Safiye’s face—more an imperfectly sketched reproduction of it—and read the word “Barcelone” in the headline. Some vital passage narrowed in her heart, or her blood got too thick to flow through it. She read enough to understand that the police were looking for a lady’s maid in connection to a murder and a series of other crimes they suspected her of having committed under other names.
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