02 _ Maltese Goddess, The Read Online Free PDF Page B

trunk.
    “Not good to slow down,” he said. “It stalls.”
    “I see,” I said again. Just then we went around another corner at breakneck speed, and with a thud the window beside me slid down into the door frame.
    “Rats,” he said. “It does that sometimes.”
    I tried to roll the window back up, but the handle spun uselessly in my hand.
    “You have to pull the window up by hand,” he offered. “I’ll pull over and we’ll do mat.”
    “That’s okay,” I said. “I like the fresh air.”
    “Me too.” He smiled.
    “Mr. Galea gave me money to go out and buy a car for the house. I got a really good deal on this one,” he said conversationally.
    “Good for you,” I said. “It’s lovely.”
    “It belongs to the house, so you get to drive it while you’re here,” he said.
    “I can hardly wait,” I said. What I meant, of course, was that I’d rather ride a donkey than drive this car. We sat in companionable silence for a while, the damp air blowing in our faces.
    “How old are you, Anthony, if you don’t mind my asking?”
    “Almost seventeen,” he replied. Then after a pause, “But I’ve been driving since I was twelve.” He looked sideways at me to try to ascertain why I was asking.
    “Do you help your mother and father look after the Galea place?” I asked him.
    “Sure. But only after school. I’m trying to do well at school so I can go to university. I want to be an architect like Mr. Galea. The Cassars are born architects.”
    “I thought your name was Farrugia. Who are the Cassars?”
    “You haven’t heard of Gerolamo Cassar?” he asked incredulously. “He was our greatest architect. He designed Valletta, the capital city, and the most beautiful buildings on Malta. My mother is a Cassar.”
    “Anthony,” I said, “this is my first visit to your country, and my knowledge of it is woefully inadequate, but I’m looking forward to learning a lot about it while I’m here.”
    He digested that for a moment or two. “I think maybe I’ll have to show you around, then,” he said. “After school.”
    “I’d really like that,” I said. “We sure can’t see much now.”
    “Yes. You got here just in time. The fog is coming in.”
    He was right. As we traveled away from the airport, the mist got thicker until you could only see a few feet in front of the car and I had absolutely no sense of where we were going, nor how I would ever retrace my route. I had the impression, despite the rain, of a rather arid land, very rocky, with little vegetation. Everything seemed grey at worst, or at best, a kind of sere yellow.
    After about twenty minutes or so, we made a sharp right turn and went up what appeared to be a driveway, lined with bushes and a low stone wall in what at closer distance was a rather pretty buttery yellow. Halfway up the hill, we reversed the pattern on the gears, coming perilously close to stalling, then rolled to a stop in front of a garage. An even older car was parked there.
    The sound of the car brought a tiny woman with very fine features and a beautiful smile to the front door and out to the driveway. “My mom,” Anthony said, although she needed no introduction. Their smiles, the kind that light up whole rooms, were identical.
    “I’m Marissa, missus,” she said. “Take the missus’s suitcase upstairs, Anthony,” she said. “And don’t forget to give the missus the car keys.”
    I was about to offer to let Anthony keep the car, but I could tell—something in her eyes—that this would not be considered a good idea by his mother, so I kept quiet.
    We entered the house. I’d had a chance to look at the plans and was beginning to recognize the Galea design trademark, so I was not surprised when the rather unpretentious facade opened into a spectacular space. The floors were all tiled in terra-cotta, and the walls, the pale yellow stone I’d seen in the driveway, had been stuccoed over in a pale ochre color. I knew the moment I entered the place that