I hurried to catch up but began to cry again. This time, I stopped and turned my face against a wall. The tears emptied quickly. I’d stood before the Madonna for perhaps three minutes. What might she have done if she’d had me for three days, like Ignatius?
On our way back, the cable car got stuck. The cliffs to either side were composed of what looked like grey ladyfingers. A river flowed directly below us. We baked with the other pilgrims inside the swaying, octagonal tin.
Dawn said, “I’ve known a couple people who died on vacation.”
“We’re not going to die on this cable car,” I said, weary of her.
“I didn’t say we were,” she snapped.
The car groaned against the cable and started again.
When we got out on the train platform, school children in soccer uniforms chattered to their mothers or minders. The sun was low in the sky—somehow we’d eaten up the day. We bought two enormous bottles of water from a vendor and drank them recklessly, unworried about finding a bathroom. In the train, we huddled together on a hard seat.
“Doesn’t this remind you of being a kid?” Dawn asked. “Going out all day, getting tired and sweaty, waiting to get home to the air conditioning? We had one window unit. It weighed a hundred pounds and smelled like mildew. I always thought, if I could have any perfume made, it would be the smell of that air conditioner.”
“We didn’t have air conditioning,” I said.
When we got to the station, we jumped in a taxi and cruised down the wide boulevards where people were beginning to congregate in restaurants and bars after work. I could smell the sea, but couldn’t see it until we shot onto the spit of land that contained the hotel. The enormous port and the full beaches made the sea small in comparison to the humanity that teemed at the shore. The sleek, black tower welcomed us with a rush of cool air and a strong, sweet scent.