He put the mobile in the pocket of his chinos, picked up his car keys and went to open up the colossal wooden doors to his house. He drove his Seat out between the orange trees flanking the entrance and went back to close the doors.
The air conditioning blasted into his chest. He set off down the narrow cobbled streets and broke out into the Plaza del Museo de Bellas Artes with its high trees surrounded by white and ochre facades and the terracotta brick of the museum. He came out of the old city heading for the river and cut right on to Avenida del Torneo. The vague outlines of Calatrava's 'Harp' bridge were visible in the distance through the morning's haze. He swung away from it and into the new city, grinding through the streets and buildings around the Santa Justa station. He headed out past the endless high-rise blocks of the Avenida de Kansas City thinking about the exclusive barrio where he was heading.
The Garden City of Santa Clara had been planned by the Americans to quarter their officers after the Strategic Air Command base was established near Seville, following Franco's signing of the Defense Pact of 1953. Some of the bungalows retained their 1950s aspect, others had been Hispanicized and a few, owned by the wealthy, had been torn down and rebuilt from scratch into palatial mansions. As far as Falcón remembered none of these changes had quite managed to rid the area of a pervasive unreality. It was to do with the houses being on their individual plots of land, together but isolated, which was not a Spanish phenomenon but rather like a suburban American estate. It was also, unlike the rest of Seville, almost eerily quiet.