Read 02 _ Maltese Goddess, The for Free Online

the furniture from the shop would be perfect here. It was a good feeling.
    The design was open concept, only the stairway to the second floor segregating the kitchen from the rest of the space. There was a huge fireplace, and beside it a man directing a couple of workmen, who were putting finishing touches to the stucco, in a language that was totally incomprehensible to me. I knew from Alex’s brief geography lesson that virtually all Maltese, young and old, are fluent in English, the result of almost two centuries of British rule and influence that ended only very recently. He had assured me that English was one of two official languages for business in Malta, so I’d have no problems. The native language of the island, however, is Malti, one of those minority languages that have survived over the ages despite invasion, repression, and active attempts to stamp them out, and it was this, I assumed, that the man was speaking.
    As I approached, the older man tipped his cap and said, “Hello, missus.” I took this to be Joseph, Anthony’s father and custodian of the house. He had a pleasant, open face, the large hands of a laborer, and appeared to be considerably older than his wife, although perhaps years of backbreaking labor had added lines to his face.
    Over in one corner of the large room there was what on closer examination I found to be a large amount of furniture protected by drop cloths. Beside it, rolled in plastic were several carpets. Galea had told me he wanted to use carpets to delineate the various living areas, and he had given me a carefully annotated list of all the carpets and where they were to be placed. I sincerely hoped I remembered how to distinguish a Tabriz from a Bakhtiari, or this would be trouble.
    The back of the house was all glass, and there were no curtains in evidence. While I couldn’t see more than twenty or thirty feet beyond the windows because of the fog, I assumed the bare windows meant there were no neighbors nearby. The windows would be protected from the summer heat of the Mediterranean by a terrace with a weathered brick floor and Greek columns. Large terra-cotta pots were already filled with flowers.
    “I’ll show you around upstairs,” Marissa said, and I followed her up the staircase. There were three bedrooms on the second floor, all of them with large windows and a doorway onto a deck over the terrace below. Only one of the bedrooms, the largest, was furnished, and Marissa had seen to it that it was made up for me. There was a king-size bed, and an en suite bathroom with all the amenities. I wondered exactly where Galea was planning for me to sleep once he got there.
    “You’ll be tired from your long journey,” Marissa said.
    “I’ve left you something to eat,
fenek
and some bread and wine, and there is food in the refrigerator for your breakfast. I hope everything is satisfactory.”
    “It’s wonderful, thank you, Marissa. And please call me Lara. We’re going to be working together a lot over the next few days, and I hope we can be friends.” She looked horrified at the thought of calling me by my first name. “I work for him just as you do,” I said.
    She seemed pleased.
    “Tomorrow… It’s the Sabbath, and Joseph and I normally do not work that day. We go to Mass… but I know there is a lot of work to be done before Mr. Galea comes.”
    “That’s fine. You take the day off. I’ll need some time to figure out where everything is here, and I’ll do a plan so we can move the furniture in the easiest possible way. I’ll see you on Monday.”
    “Thank you, Missus Lara,” she said.
    “Your son has offered to show me around Malta, after school. Is that all right with you?”
    “Of course it is, but don’t let him be a pest. He is so excited when someone from far away comes here, he can be a little, I don’t know, clingy?” she replied.
    “He’s a really nice young man,” I said. “You must be very proud of him.”
    “I am. We are,” she