Vistaria Has Fallen (The Vistaria Affair/Vistaria Has Fallen #1)(26)

The truck lurched to the left as it turned into a rutted, bumpy side road and came to a halt with a squeal of brakes. The engine quit with a heavy sigh of relief.

The silence that fell seemed almost profound.

Everyone got to their feet, stretching, wriggling, rubbing their legs and butts. The wooden floor had been unforgiving.

“Hola!” The shout came from the other side of the boards Calli leaned against.

She got to her feet. The truck stood beside a modest house. It was more extensive than the two-room cottages she had seen, yet not palatial. It was a bungalow like most houses here, with adobe walls. An elegant arch lifted over the gate into the front courtyard. People emerged from the gate, shouting greetings at the new arrivals, including a heavily pregnant woman, who moved slowly and wore a large smile. They waved, calling to each other as they spilled out of the truck and moved toward the house.

Calli looked around from her vantage point on the back of the truck. The trees crowded close here. The ground dipped from the nose of the truck forward. The truck stood at the end of a narrow, rutted path used as a driveway. In another driveway on the far side of the house, three sedans were parked behind the tail end of a fourth just visible behind the corner of the house.

“Come.”

Calli turned around. Pietro stood at the end of the truck. With a smile he beckoned her toward him. “You come. We eat, no?”

“Sure,” she agreed and moved to the edge of the truck. He stepped back and let her jump down by herself, then motioned that she should precede him toward the house.

Everyone else had gone inside. The noise level spiraled, even out here. The party had begun.

The front courtyard was paved in terracotta tiles. The front door, a massive wooden thing decorated with metal studs and a wrought iron grill, stood open, revealing a passage that ran through the middle of the house. Calli looked up as they moved into the passage and saw a roof of exposed tiles resting on timber framing. On either side of her were rooms with the fourth wall that would have lined the passage not there. It made a charming and intriguing open style of house.

At the end of the passage, more daylight beckoned. A kitchen area on the right gave her a startling glimpse of a modern stainless steel stove top and range hood, a wide wall-oven and a double-doored fridge behind an island counter. On the counter sat a wooden chopping board, surrounded by tantalizing fresh produce. When Calli stepped into the kitchen area, she stopped to draw a second surprised breath.

There was another courtyard on this side of the house, with knee-high walls surrounding it, instead of roof-height walls. They had been built low to take advantage of the view, which showed the trees carpeting the valley. The land dropped nearly the full thousand feet to sea level before climbing up again to the other side. The courtyard extended twenty feet from house to wall and twice that from wall to wall, running the width of the house. Deep reddish-brown colored terracotta tiles paved the whole area. Colored and patterned tiles in deep blues, olive greens and yellows were embedded in odd places across the paving.

Trees that had been trimmed and trained to provide shade leaned over the walls. One of them stood at the far corner of the courtyard, its gnarled trunk made up of many thick cables. The trunk was over fifteen feet thick. The base of the tree flared even wider. The thick strands spread, burrowing into the earth. It looked like it had been there forever.

The wall ran right up to the trunk, incorporating the tree into the walls. Calli had seen many trees like this in the city. Uncle Josh had called them Banyan trees. They had been imported to the island from African territories by the Spanish. Only, none of them had been this big or this old.

While Calli admired the view, three men helped the pregnant woman sink into an armchair sitting in the kitchen corner of the courtyard. Chairs and stools surrounded three low tables, grouped across the courtyard. Everyone settled into them, chatting like long-lost friends. Everyone knew each other.

Movement to her right made her turn and check over her shoulder. Three men stood in the kitchen, one of them at the island, chopping a handful of herbs, while another one dug through the interior of the refrigerator. The third set out glasses.

The front wall of the kitchen was made of three big glass panels. Two of them were pushed along tracks to slide behind the third, leaving the kitchen open to the courtyard.

Calli checked over her left shoulder. The wall there was the same, pushed back to reveal an indoor lounge area, furnished with overstuffed sofas and spice-colored cushions.

People put plates and bowls of food on the tables. Colorful salsas, rolled tortillas. There were more dishes she could not name. They made her mouth water just looking at them, with their sprinkling of fresh herbs and garnishes of hibiscus and cucumbers.

Minnie came over to her, carrying two glasses. “It’s a punch. Alcoholic,” she told Calli, offering her one.

Calli shrugged and sipped. The sweet-and-sour tang held a pleasant, rum-like flavor. “Strong.”

“It’s good,” Minnie declared. “Come and sit with us.” She led Calli over to the table closest to the edge of the courtyard. Beyond the knee-high wall, the ground plunged.

Elvira sat at the table and Pietro had just set down another steaming dish.

“Eat,” Elvira said, handing Calli a large, bright napkin as she sat.

Duardo brought the short man who had been standing at the chopping block over to their table. “Calli, Minnie, this is Hernandez Mendosa, whose house this is. Hernandez is marshal at Lozano base.”