Facing Africa

He saw her near the end of the street. A narrow street flanked by low, whitewashed buildings. She was standing about twenty paces away and he had seen her before. She wore a shabby linen dress and a straw hat, and she was leaning against the wall of the building three doors down with her head bowed. She appeared to be reading. Curious, he walked towards her, coming to a stop a few feet from where she stood. Now he could see she was holding a newspaper. He recognised it straight away as his, the one he wrote for. She was tracing a finger over the printed words.
She looked up when she heard a cough. The colour rose in her cheeks. She hurried the newspaper behind her back as she met the stranger’s gaze. He wore a nice suit and his hair was slicked back beneath his hat. A gentleman. He had kind eyes and a clean-shaven face. His height ¬– he was tall – and the curve of his upper lip made her think he was more Canarian than Spanish. He had local blood, at least. She hadn’t been watching, but she had to assume he had come out of that building three doors down. The one with the big wooden door. She was certain she had seen him leaving that building before, but she had not seen him this close. All of the men leaving that building had walked away in the other direction.
The sun was behind him. The glare was too much. She squinted and looked away and shuffled a loose stone with her foot. Still, she grew a little hopeful. And yet also uncertain. She hadn’t quite believed that anyone from that building would approach her in the street. She felt scruffy in her worn and grubby dress. A linen dress fit only for doing chores in, for helping her father bring back fish. Not a dress suitable for addressing a gentleman in. She didn’t know where to put her gaze.
What could he possibly want with a girl like her?
What could she possibly want with his newspaper?
‘Excuse me, Miss,’ he said, reaching inside himself for the right words. ‘Did you like the article you were reading?’
‘The article.’ She said the word slowly, as though it were the first time she had heard it.
‘Only, I work for that newspaper you have behind your back. I thought perhaps you were reading a piece I had written.’
It was his turn to feel awkward. Why didn’t he leave her be? She wouldn’t even look at him.
He was on the verge of giving up when her teeth took hold of her bottom lip. She let the flesh slide out slowly. He knew then that she couldn’t read. Of course, she couldn’t read. He only had to look at her to know that. Her thick black hair was untidy, her dress and the scarf around her neck little more than rags. She was the daughter of a labourer and no labourer he knew could read. Neither could their wives nor their sons and daughters. He felt tricked, a little annoyed. Why pretend?
When she finally lifted her gaze and squinted into his face, she saw that he was frowning. Unease rippled through her and she quickly looked away. She thought of running off up the street. But she got that feeling again, that strange sensation expanding deep within that rose up in her and made her do things she didn’t understand. It was why she had come to stand in this very spot.
She had been standing in this very spot every weekday for the last three weeks. All because of Sunday Mass.