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CHAPTER SIX PORCELAIN
14 HOURS LATER
Valletta, Capital of Malta
The plane lands on a private rocky strip just as the first ebbs of sun rise along the coastline. A strange prospect—following the sun around instead of the sun following you. We disembark and creep along the beach for the docklands.
The morning turns bright, quickly and harshly. Sun warms up bricks and wicker baskets, their contents rich with salt. As was the wind. It blows south, through the plain sails of the docked house boats and fishing vessels. But the noise. I couldn't help but lose my senses within its volume; how shouts came from all angles and degrees of anger, excitement, rage and joy.
If this were just the docks, I couldn't imagine the town centre.
Owen unfolds the piece of paper the pilot had silently handed him on the flight. Barry Sembené, Valletta, Ordnance Street, 09:00 sharp, NO WEAPONS. He politely taps a fishermen on the shoulder. 'Excuse me, which way is—'
The old man points to a shaded road and waves us off in disinterest, yelling out for a boy who head hauling a small boat to a jetty with a length of rope. Owen folds it into his back pocket. 'C'mon.'
We trek along the cobblestone road with our heads ducked. Owen and Claire keep their distance a few paces ahead. The same length of distance they'd sat from me on the train and the plane. Taking advantage of my spacious bouts of sleep to murmur in hushed conversations. Always about phone calls. Barry's name. Other names I vaguely recall and ones I didn't know. All old colleagues, know doubt. It churned my insides to think about how much debris might be kicked up with our wading into these dangerous waters we'd long left behind, circling our ankles and diffusing the water to cloudy, unpredictable states.
But the disjoint and disorientation dispels worry like a fragrant note of perfume settling over a room once we emerge from the crowded overpass. The first rows of streets sparkled in golden sunlight, buildings tall and clustered in imperfect unison. Between the tiny balconies were rickety chairs, pots of bright flowers, laundry fluttering on thin lines tied over the cobblestone roads. A tiny red car no bigger than Owen's posture when he's hunched over a desk beeps politely at us to merge out of the way, rumbling past at a merry pace. Cafes heaped along the footpath, still bustling with people's breakfast errands. So many of them. Tanned and freckled, dressed in loose flowing dresses and shorts. Nobody was without a smile. Very few were without a laugh.
