02 _ Maltese Goddess, The by Lyn Hamilton Page A

nature that I was beginning to recognize. “Cassar?” I asked, pointing.
    Anthony beamed. “You recognized it! It’s the House of Representatives,” he added.
    I noticed Sophia looking longingly at a tray of sweets at one of the cafes on the square. “Can I treat to coffee and a sweet?” I asked. “In appreciation of a great tour?”
    “We’ll come back here,” Anthony said. “There’s one more building I want to show you,”‘ he said, gesturing further down the street. “The Mediterranean Conference Centre.”
    I was not paying much attention to Anthony at this point, partly because jet lag had set in once again, but also because I was mesmerized by the now familiar khaki hat bobbing among the Sunday crowds, heading in the direction Anthony had pointed. When I turned my attention back to the two of them, Sophia, sensing my fatigue, gave Anthony a warning nudge.
    “Actually,” he said, catching on, “a coffee would be great!” Despite my intentions, I turned back to where I had last caught sight of die hat, but it was nowhere to be seen.
    As we selected a table in the square beside the House of Representatives, and I had a chance to sit down and really look around me, I began to forget the occasionally tacky shops and the advertising billboards, and to see Valletta as I think Anthony did, as a beautiful city of plazas, palaces, and churches laid out on an elegant grid. I could see that the plan and the style of Anmony’s hero, the great Gerolamo Cassar, had been a pervasive influence; indeed, he had set the tone for the city and influenced its structure over the centuries since he had first envisioned and built it. It really was a magnificent achievement, and I was pleased for Anmony, for some inexplicable reason.
    We ordered coffees and I, hungry for lunch, bought a couple of little pastry pies called
pastizzi,
filled with cheese and peas and onions. Both Anthony and Sophia ordered sweets, he a cheesecake of sorts, she something called a treacle tart. I, as me tourist and host, got to try everything, but found my new young friends’ sweet tooth far exceeded mine.
    While we were eating, I mentioned that I would like a good guidebook on the islands so I could see as much as possible in the time I was there. Anmony leapt up as soon as he was finished and said he knew exactly the guide I needed, and that he would get me one immediately. I insisted on giving him some money despite his protestations, and off he went.
    Sophia and I sat enjoying the sunshine but saying little. She was very shy.
    “I expect the guidebook will have a section on Gerolamo Cassar,” I said as an opening conversational gambit.
    She giggled. “I think you may be right. A long section, probably.”
    “He’s a very nice young man,” I said, sounding to my own ears, at least, like a doting auntie or something. Nothing like being with a couple of teenagers in love to make you feel old and tired.
    “He is, isn’t he?” she glowed. “Even if he does go on about Cassar.”
    “It’s difficult to be an architect, you know,” I said, continuing on in my aged auntie mode. “It takes years of study and dedication. Lots of people never qualify. And then it’s hard to get commissions, to get started. And it must be very difficult to put so much of yourself into a design and then have people criticize it. I think you have to be pretty committed and focused.”
    She nodded. “I think he’ll do it,” she said.
    “Are you married?” she asked in a moment or so, glancing at my ringless hands.
    “Not anymore,” I said.
    “Have a boyfriend?”
    I thought to explain to her that at her age you had boyfriends; at mine you had the chronic problem of coming up with a suitable description for the man, like partner, or significant other, or whatever. But I restrained myself.
    “Yes,” I said. “His name is Lucas, and he’s an archaeologist.”
    “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Then you really are interested in archaeology!” I