-There are cities south of the equator and west of Africa and east of the South Pacific with long histories of immigration and grand cultures of dance and corrupt presidents and with white apartment blocks that are not too tall but not in disrepair and square green parks with many trees and pink and blue graffiti and places to eat near the water where things slow down in the afternoon.
-Winter taps one of these cities for a week and people’s gloves and heavy jackets stay on for three weeks long after the heat has returned to burn the crowded morning buses that are hot because the buses are for the slow and the poor and the trains under the ground are quick and cool and for the men and women in suits who work in the district of these cities where there is all the architecture and glass.
-They met in one of these cities.
-He was not from one of these cities and she was not from one of these cities but like him she was there for work.
-He stared at the color of her hair but it was not uncommon in this city and she made everyone laugh in the mornings when they asked how her weekend had been.
-He did not think more of her until he visited her office again and saw her laughing with the same man again and until his next visit he thought about her white shirt and he wondered if the man from her office had seen her wear it before.
-Some of these cities have little bars behind flower shops that open only long after the flower shops close and have painted sea gods on the wall and serve strong drinks with absinthe from tall menus made of heavy paper and have bartenders with bad beards but good enough English to explain the ingredients and serve other drinks named for important years from history and revolutionary leaders who would in their day never pay more than two pesos for drinks with clear foam and sprigs of thyme.
-The first time they had drinks in one of these cities they sat at one of these bars with two friends in between and ordered different drinks.
-Some of these cities are filled with runners because jogging is new there and neon running jackets and devices that measure their distance and steps and pace and sweat are new there and look like something they have never seen in the old parks and the boulevards bursting with tiny round cars and the runners find space after dusk in the lull after late dinners of milanesa and pasta and coffee and tea in bowls made of gourds in the hours before the streets would be populated again and the lights would come back on in the cafes across from the parks.
-He was from a city that was not like this one and he had thought about going back once but then remembered his old job and how much he liked the coffee and toast for breakfast in the café below his apartment and so he thought he would go back when he grew tired of breakfast here.
-He tried to run on nights when work did not go late.
-He once spent half a day at her office but left early and asked her if she would like to run but she said she was not a runner so he ran hard on the stone streets when they were empty and dark and he thought of her wondered if she enjoyed the nights here as much as he did or if she noticed how the stone streets sounded beneath people running.
-It was hard to think in one of these cities during the day in the light but it was easy to think in one of these cities during the night when the air was just warm enough that you did not have to think about the cold or remember to bring a coat in case it got cold because the nights never got colder as they went on they only got darker and quieter.
-It was hard for him to think about her during the day because there were never five minutes when he did not have to make sure he was not walking the wrong way towards the wrong bus stop and asking for the wrong directions in the wrong language so he wondered if she would laugh when he asked for directions and he hoped she would not mind if they were walking together and they turned a block too early.
-The days in one of these cities were long in the spring and there was lots of time to be spent outside and people were often drinking wine at tables very close to the street and reading on benches and university students always seemed to be out of class and sitting and talking all over the city and there were lots of people letting their dogs who were always small run freely in front of them and there was often the smell of meat smoking on a grill about but it never felt too heavy because the days were light and never too hot.
-He tried to stop thinking of her during the nights because he had no reason to but he did not do well at stopping once he had started.
-There was a work outing to a ranch for both of their offices and so they sat together on the long bus with wide windows meant for day trips.
-It was a tourist ranch because there was no longer enough money in selling beef and chicken and pork and eggs and lamb.
-There was a tour of the ranch and a meal of the meats it had once sold into the city, chorizos and flanks and ribs.
-There were cuts of pork that immigrants had brought when they came into the city and that he had never seen or tasted.
-There was blood sausage that he tried to hold in his mouth and savor and swallow but he could not finish and she had waved it away and smiled when she watched him eat it and struggle and frown.
-He thought about her most in the dark at the end of the day when the news on the television was read too fast and he didn’t know where to find food after midnight and it did not help him that the nights in one of these cities were so dark and he did not like to wear his glasses because they were not in the style of that city and the streetlights and even the blinking of televisions in apartments above the street that struck out into the dark through old thin curtains on the windows did not brighten things enough to stop the long nights that fed the weekends of the city and made them long and dense.
-The ranch was not far from one of those cities but it was past a town built of brick with brown dust in the roads and a dry cement canal that looked too old even for the old town so that it felt like the ranch was very far from the city and that it had been a long day away when it had only been a few hours because the day at the ranch could not last beyond the regular work hours of the offices of the city and even for the foreign workers and their guests so as he looked out the window the bus ride looked long, hours and hours, but they returned to the city before it was enough for all of the café lights to be on.
-Days later they had dinner at a steakhouse in one of these cities.
-He didn’t often eat steak but he lied and told her that after the ranch he wanted to eat it more often and try all the best places in the city.
-People said the city was famous for its steakhouses and for pairing wine with steak.
-They ordered red wine that was dry and steak that was wider than the plate.
-The wine tasted good with the steak and they did not order dessert because they wanted to walk.
-Some of these cities do not have many bridges because they are port cities that do not have rivers and the water is not in the lives of the people who live there but only in the lives of those who live near the port that opens into the Atlantic and the shipping industry is dying and there are only bridges over canals and the canal is too small for ships so it is not in the life of even the port workers so there is a low bridge that is only used for walking and decoration and it is tall and stark and plain white and the buildings nearby are new and expensive but are nice to look at while walking.
-They walked across the bridge and stopped halfway to look up at its white spire.
-They looked at the black wires that help up the bridge but were meant to be hidden by the sky so that only the white of the bridge could be seen.
-They asked a tourist carrying an umbrella for a photo and they did not recognize the language of the tourist but they thanked him and said it was a good photo.
-He could not help but think of her in the days after because he liked to think about her standing next to a sheep and riding a horse at the ranch.
-The sheep was white and dirty because it had been lying in the dying grass of the ranch all day.
-It was used to visitors and liked to be petted on its head and her hair fell onto the sheep as she petted it and her hair was shiny and now noticed it again in the photo on the bridge and stared and stared and wondered why it had not struck him in this way when he first saw her and he remembered how she held a glass of clear white wine and dirtied her shoes in the dirt by the sheep so he thought about the sheep and her the next day and then in the next days about her and the horses and he had ridden before and she had ridden before and they had been ahead of the group and looked back and were further ahead than they expected.
-The next time they met in one of those bars they did not sit at the bar on either side of two friends.
-They sat close on stools and their knees bumped and bumped and rested against one another.
-They talked with the bartender and tasted each other’s drinks and ordered more and left together after a what was a long time at a bar but not so long that the bartender stopped asking them if they needed another drink.
-For some days after that he did not have work and he walked often and rode the bus on routes he had not tried and looked out the sometimes clean but usually dirty windows at people sitting close together at restaurants at all times of the day and he thought about the pale color of her jeans.
-The clubs in some of these cities open at two after late dinners and after the runners have come inside and after naps of an hour or two and after two cups of coffee and maybe a cigarette.
-They went to a club in one of those cities.
-It was expensive but he had nothing else to spend money on.
-He had not been out with her like this so he folded too much money into his pocket and hoped they would stay out late.
-They were there too early and the club was not as loud as he hoped and they sat out back where there were big metal heaters and hard plastic chairs that didn’t feel like they were meant for sitting.
-They talked for a while but the drinks were not strong and she did not like how roughly the bartenders worked and that they would not make her a good drink and she did not like that he had taken her to one of these clubs.
-They left through the front door past a line that was not long but that was moving slowly and into the street that was not crowded because it was too early for the cabs to line up there.
-She grabbed and pulled him through the street and away from the club and towards her apartment but it was a long walk and it would have been easier to take a cab so they sat on a bench for a while with her hand on his shoulder and her other hand on his hip and his head on her shoulder and then they stood up and continued to walk and there were fewer and fewer streetlights and nothing was open and it took her several tries to unlock her door.
-Some of these cities have long fashions of dance that everyone likes to talk about in heavy ways but that not everyone likes to practice except for the old people who do not want to see the old ways die and some of these dances start with one step forward and one step back two steps forward and two steps back and the man should always take the first step unless his partner steps quickly in that case he must follow and twist and turn as she does and spin her when she asks and keep his hand on her back firmly so that she does not step without his knowing it and he does not step without her feeling it.
-She awoke before him and was clear-eyed and aware and her skin was clean.
-He awoke after her with a face that was too warm and he could feel how he had not showered though she had already showered and left and returned.
-She said she was not hungry for breakfast because she had already had a coffee but that he should try one of the cafes in the neighborhood.
-He asked why she had not woken him and she said it was already late when she left and she thought he would be gone when she returned.
-He had not left but he had laid in her bed because he was not sure how long she would be gone and her bed was larger than his and he turned onto his side and onto his back again and it was a cool morning so he remembered in his first weeks in one of these cities when he had nowhere to go so he visited the waterfalls outside the city and the bus ride was bumpy until his legs began to hurt but someone had said the waterfalls were the eighth largest or widest or fastest in the world and so he looked right into the mist though it moved fast and around and past his head and stung his eyes and wet his hair and the falls grew louder and louder.
-He had been asleep when she left and so he had not noticed what she wore in the morning.
-Outside the parks were empty and everything was empty because in mornings after the clubs were open there was not much movement in one of these cities until later when the light was less fresh and this early the buses would hardly be running and one should be quiet to let others sleep for another night to come.
-He had imagined that she wore a white shirt and he wondered if he could show her the falls and he imagined the water and rock would grow taller and wider and closer and closer to one of these cities and he imagined that the mist would spray her hair and white shirt and the falls would rumble and roar behind her until she smiled and waved him closer and the falls would shrink and grow quiet.
-She was back now and standing over the bed and not smiling and he looked at her for some moments in her yellow dress that was not the white shirt he had imagined and asked again if she wanted breakfast and she said again she was not hungry but there was a good café on the corner that he should try so he said that they could wait and have dinner there but she said she had eaten there many times already.
-Her neighborhood was far from his and it was one he had not been to often and all of the shops were small with reserved blue awnings that cast shadows over the windows and he could not see inside or guess what food the restaurants served and so he walked a few more blocks.
-He saw a man and a woman drinking coffee at a table on the street and their cups were large and steaming so he ordered a coffee there and sat near them.
-The man and the woman spoke loudly and laughed often and so he drank the coffee quick and was glad to be back to walking.
-The streets were wide and quiet and only Spanish was spoken in the neighborhood and it was Spanish with too many new words for him to understand so he would never live there when all of the neighbors and all of the waiters at restaurants and bartenders and workers in the corner store would speak too quickly with new words and ask him many rapid questions and so he would not like this neighborhood even with its wide streets and large apartments and few cars.
-He walked home and did not stop at the last café on the corner although it smelled good from the street.
-Some of these cities were Spanish but not for long enough to still eat Spanish food and now they eat pizza and pasta and have a cathedral with no Spanish art and there is only one building left from when the Spanish were there but it is next door to a big white church that looks Spanish but it is not even though it is whiter than all of the white apartment buildings in the city and when the Sun is high it looks like it is always being hardened by the heat but it is cool inside and it is a good place to meet because it is cool inside and is so white that one cannot walk past it and mistake it for another building.
-They met there to walk the Sunday tourist market which is famous because it is so long and on a narrow street that makes it look even longer and because the market is named after the saint who is supposed to save all the sailors drifting out to sea in the waters outside the city.
-He asked if she had been to the falls.
-She said she had been twice already and so he asked when.
-She had been to the falls once in her first weeks and then soon after that because a man she had met wanted to take her and she had lied and told him she had never been because he danced so well and she felt like their chests were always in line and their feet moved well so they had gone to the falls but she did not want to ever go back because the mist and the water were so cold and harsh and that man had since moved away.
-He did not buy anything at the market because he had been to the market before and many of the stalls sold the same things meant for tourists and he watched a tall woman in a baseball hat buy the same white llama ornament woven from string that he had bought on his first trip to the market after a while there was nothing new to see or buy.
-There was coffee sold from carts at the end of the market and they bought two cups.
-She did not finish hers and she said she had to go and that they would talk again but only when he had to come to her office for work.
-His apartment was always smoky because he had a balcony and there were balconies above and below where people smoked early in the morning and late at night.
–Everyone in this city smoked and he often left the door to his balcony open because the glass was dirtied from the smoke and he wanted to see the park across from the balcony.
-He always liked to have the door open when the park was full and runners and outdoor lunches between two people sitting towels of all colors and sipping tea.
-In the days after the market he woke up and coughed because there was a wind moving smoke into the bedroom.
-He shut the door to the balcony and locked it so that he would remember not to open it again.
-Later he moved to another one of those cities but it was a different city and he ate coffee and toast for breakfast there always.
Brian Aubrey Smith 