The World House by Guy Adams Read Free Book Online Page B

that this Jésus Garcia lived there. He was willing to bet money on it."
      "Then he would have lost. Garcia has that walled villa near the cathedral."
      Kesara tried to think of it. "The one with the little bell-tower?"
      "Yeah, people joke that he was jealous of the cathedral bells so had one built of his own."
      "I know it."
      "What did the American want with Garcia anyway?"
      "No idea…" Kesara tried her best to sound as if she really meant it, adding: "None of my business, is it?"
      "No, it isn't, and make sure it stays that way. You don't want to start getting mixed up with people like that."
      They talked about other things for a short while – only as a further attempt on Kesara's part to hide her true interest – before, finally, Pablo's father shouted to him from the prow of his fishing boat and the boy was forced back to work. Kesara was relieved. She wanted to go and have a look at Garcia's house.
     
    It was a building she had seen many times but paid no attention to. After all, what importance did it have for her? A rich man's house was neither here nor there to Kesara; she wasn't welcome there and had better things to do with her days than look on things she couldn't afford. Now it was entirely different. In her imagination she hoped she might soon be able to afford a house just like it. Of course five thousand dollars wouldn't even begin to pay for a house like this but Kesara wasn't to know that. Anything over a few hundred pesetas was beyond her ability to imagine; there was "very little" money and then there was "more than you could ever dream of", nothing in between.
      The house was surrounded by a high white-plastered wall above which poked the bell-tower and the large blue-domed roof of the main house. Just below the dome was a small balcony window that revealed Garcia to Kesara as she watched from the steps of the cathedral. He stepped out through the dark archway, wrapped in a silk gown that was so soft and colourful it looked to Kesara like a woman's dress. He was smoking a cigar, watching the city come back to life after its siesta. A slender hand appeared at his shoulder, its long feminine nails painted a deep Rioja red. Garcia gave the sort of smile Kesara had seen fat men offer a heavily laden dining table and for a moment she thought he meant to bite the proffered fingers, chew them off one by one like shapely asparagus stalks. He kept his teeth sheathed, kissing the hand and taking it in his, holding it against his shoulder as if to carry its owner on his back. Kesara watched the woman emerge into the late-afternoon light and at first glance decided that she had found the face she wanted to grow up into. Then, as the soft light began to pick out flaws, Kesara realised that nobody – least of all the woman herself – would wish themselves into this skin. She was beautiful, yes, but it was a beauty painted over an inner ugliness. The eyes were not as happy as the smile pretended to be, and the woman's slender shoulders were hunched as if prepared to bear the greatest weight one could imagine. Kesara thought that weight was probably the companionship of the man standing next to her.
      Garcia pulled the woman in front of him and kissed her neck like a man chewing on a chicken drumstick. His piggy little hands rumpled the silk of her nightdress, pushing her breasts face upwards towards the sun. She sagged in his embrace, her face empty and devoid of passion. But then Garcia's unsubtle devouring was nothing to do with passion either, even Kesara could see that; it was about pos session . He was offering this young conquest up to the eyes of the town and making sure all who saw them knew only too well that he had taken all he could want from the woman and would do so again and again until he tired of her. His hand dropped briefly between the woman's legs before retreating to follow its laughing master back into the darkness of the house. The woman held her position for