Sara Craven - Temple Of The Moon

Now she wished she had not been quite so altruistic. She might have found explanations slightly humiliating, but not as bad as this utterly fruitless trek from hotel to lodging house that had occupied most of the day. She had used a local guide book to draw up a list of the more likely places to try, but this was almost exhausted now and it was nearing sunset. She had to find somewhere quickly, she thought with alarm. It would be unthinkable to be out on the streets with her case after dark.

The Bensons had promised cheerfully to ‘Keep in touch’ as they said goodbye, and Gabrielle found herself longing for them to appear by magic in their big blue car and take charge. But that was negative thinking, she chided herself mentally. It was tantamount to admitting that Shaun Lennox could be right, and that she was out of her depth here.

She stifled a quick sigh and took a firm grip of her suitcase. She had one more place in her list—the Café Tula, which offered a few rooms to rent above its ground floor premises. She crossed her fingers superstitiously, hoping rather desperately that they might still have a vacant corner somewhere they could offer her.

Her spirits rose a little as she went in and glanced round at the neat booths with their solid-looking tables and benches and the spotlessly clean tablecloths. Several of the booths were already occupied by diners and an invitingly spicy smell of cooking drifted in from the kitchen. There was a well-stocked bar at one end of the room and a man was standing behind it arranging bottles on a shelf. He turned as Gabrielle approached rather diffidently.

‘Quisiera una habitation, por favor,’ she asked politely. the Spanish phrase requesting a room rising almost fluently to her lips after a day of practice.

The man studied her for a moment without reply. He had a round placid face with a slightly anxious expression. Then with a slight shrug, he called ‘Pilar!’ and turned back to his task.

Almost at once, the swing doors to the kitchen bounced open and a small, dark woman swathed in a white apron swept into the room. She paused, her hands resting aggressively on her hips. The swift flood of Spanish, directed primarily at the man behind the counter, was too fast for Gabrielle to follow, but from the tone and the accompanying gestures she gathered that Pilar was far from pleased at being brought from her stove to deal with a passing turista.

‘ Que quiere usted, señorita? ’ Her voice was brusque and impatient and Gabrielle flushed a little, and repeated her request for a room.

‘ No hay ningunas ?’ The woman spoke dismissively and turned as if to go back to the kitchen.

‘Oh, wait—please.’ Gabrielle spoke in English in her alarm. ‘ Señora, estoy cansada. I’m tired—I need a room. Es urgente ,’ she added on a note of appeal.

But the only response from Pilar was a sniff, followed by another tirade in Spanish, none of which was comprehensible to Gabrielle. The man behind the bar tried to intervene but was silenced with a look. Gabrielle turned towards him impulsively.

‘ Señor , I don’t understand what your wife is saying. Can you explain to her that I’m not a tourist? I am—working here in Merida for a while. I do need a room very badly and I’m willing to pay whatever she asks.’

As she spoke, Gabrielle fumbled in her bag for her wallet, but the man shook his head.

‘Is not—money, señorita. Is—no room,’ he said haltingly, but he looked uncomfortable and his eyes did not meet Gabrielle’s as he spoke.

Pilar muttered something to him, then swung away and returned to her kitchen. The man sighed.

‘My wife says Hernandez may have room. The señorita should try there.’

‘Hernandez?’ Gabrielle was puzzled. It was not one of the names on her list nor one she had encountered in any of the guides, but it seemed she had little choice other than to go along with the suggestion. She produced a scrap of paper and a pen from her bag and laid it on the bar counter. ‘ Como puedo ir a Hernandez, Señor, por favor ?’

With another sigh, he drew her a brief sketch map, then turned away with an air of relief to serve some customers who had just arrived.

So much for the famed hospitality of the Yucatan, Gabrielle thought with an inward grimace as she hoisted her case and prepared to set off on her travels again.

Her uncertainty increased when she finally arrived at the place indicated on the map. It was not the small restaurant or posada she had envisaged but a small bar in a side street, its sign picked out in gaudy electric bulbs, many of which were either broken or missing. A beaded curtain gave access to the bar from the street and after a momentary hesitation, she pushed this aside and entered. Her nose wrinkled involuntarily as she glanced around. It had none of the clean, comfortable atmosphere of the Café Tula. The interior lighting was poor and a few noisy fans fixed to the walls were the nearest approach to air conditioning. The customers appeared to be all men and Gabrielle paused, fighting an instinctive urge to turn and go back to the dark street outside. Anywhere—even a bench in one of the plazas—would be better than this, she thought despairingly, before common sense came to rescue her, reminding her not to judge by appearances alone and that she had, anyway, very little choice in the matter.

‘ Si, señorita ? Can I help you?’ A large man who had been sitting alone at a corner table reading a newspaper heaved himself to his feet and came forward, his eyes roaming over her. He was an unprepossessing individual, his dirty shirt straining the buttons over his belly, while his smile revealed broken and discoloured teeth. But his voice was polite enough and Gabrielle forced herself to return his smile.

With the feeling she was living through some kind of bad dream, she explained her predicament in her halting Spanish and saw his smile broaden.

‘ No norteamericana ?’ he asked.

Gabrielle shook her head. ‘ Inglesa ,’ she returned.

‘And who tells an Inglesa to come to Hernandez?’

‘They sent me from the Café Tula. A woman called Pilar told me to try here.’ Gabrielle was relieved that his command of English seemed so good.

‘Pilar told you, eh?’ He was overcome by a spasm of silent laughter, his shoulders heaving up and down appreciatively. ‘It—figures. Pilar does not like gringas. ’ He reached down and picked up Gabrielle’s case. ‘I show you the room, señorita. ’

Gabrielle followed him across the room, embarrassedly aware of the frankly assessing glances fixed on her from all sides. She found herself uneasily checking that all the buttons on her navy shirt were fastened and that the cream flare of her skirt hadn’t been caught up in any way. She was almost glad to find herself out of the bar and going up a narrow stairway between stained and peeling walls. She felt a shiver of distaste which she firmly quelled. Whatever the room was like, she could put up with it for one night at least. Tomorrow she could make fresh plans—maybe even go to Villahermosa.

But the room was not as bad as she had anticipated. The floor was uncarpeted, and some of the slats were broken in the shutters at the windows, but the brightly patterned bedcover seemed clean and so did the cracked washbasin in the corner.

She turned to Hernandez. ‘How much is the room, Señor ?’

The price he named made her gasp in disbelief. ‘I—I couldn’t possibly afford all that!’

He shrugged. ‘But the señorita is working. It is a fair rent.’

Now how did he know that? she wondered helplessly. She tried to speak firmly.