A Million Drops

by Victor del Arbol

  He didn’t have his father’s political affiliations, but Gonzalo was a far-left sympathizer and often attended the meetings of splinter groups. Obviously, although Agustín never showed Lola the report, the boy was not an especially qualified candidate for family membership. At first it wasn’t too unpleasant. If his daughter wanted to fall in love and have a little fun with some low-class kid, he couldn’t stop her. He knew Lola; she was like the strong north wind—tempestuous for a few days but then dying out. He trusted that she would settle down one day, finish her economics degree, and tire of deadbeat boyfriends and traveling around the world. But he was wrong. The Communist’s son had slipped quietly into the family like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, refusing to accept Agustín’s help (and thus his control). Before he had time to realize how wrong he’d been, the old man found himself planning a lavish wedding.

  Searching for a silver lining, he decided to do something with the wastrel, maybe give Gonzalo an internship and slowly bend him to his will. Again he was wrong: Right after the wedding, Gonzalo set up his own firm and refused any help or counsel until a few years ago, when he agreed to occupy the office Agustín offered him in his building, right next door, at a reduced rent. Twenty years had gone by and he had two wonderful grandchildren, and Lola seemed moderately satisfied. He had to admit that Gonzalo was intelligent, accepted only lawsuits he had a chance of winning, played along when Agustín reached out to him, and would pretend to go along with things, but in the end the bastard always managed to slip out of his grasp and carry on his way.

  Well, that was all going to end, right here, right now.

  At exactly ten o’clock his secretary informed him that Gonzalo was waiting.

  “Make him wait ten minutes.” Enough to let him stew. “Then send him in.”

  Gonzalo had to admit, he’d never understood Cubist art, but he had no doubt this painting was incredibly valuable—his father-in-law never bought anything that wasn’t. Still, the only thing this jumble of geometric shapes inspired in him was confusion; it looked like broken glass. He tried to concentrate on the painting in order to keep his back turned to the secretary. Once the allotted time had passed, she informed him he could now enter through the imposing solid-wood door. She said it as though granting permission for his entry into the Sancta Sanctorum, and Gonzalo adopted the doleful expression he assumed was expected of him. His father-in-law sat at the far end of the immense office, reading something, a tray with whiskey and water placed strategically to his right. The gray porcelain-tile floor glimmered in the light that streamed in through immense picture windows. So this is what success looks like, Gonzalo thought, cowed by the minimalist elegance of the room.

  Agustín raised his head and motioned for him to approach but did not stand to shake his hand, nor did he wear a friendly expression. It would have been counterproductive. He’d taken off his jacket, which now hung over the back of his chair, and loosened the knot of his tie. This was his way of saying he had no intention of observing niceties. Gonzalo sat down to his right. He didn’t take off his jacket or loosen his tie. He simply took out his pen and a small notebook. Agustín leaned back in his chair and the leather creaked.

  “First, I want to say I’m sorry about what happened with your sister.”

  Liar, Gonzalo thought. You can’t even be bothered to fake it.

  “At any rate, from what I understand, you weren’t in contact. Better that way—this whole murder-suicide thing is quite gruesome. We might objectively conclude that your sister was a…complicated woman.”

  What an odd way to say “troublesome,” Gonzalo thought. He stared at his father-in-law and felt the urge to ask him what on earth he was talking about. Gonzalo hated this old man as much as the old man despised him, and they both knew it. But they had to stick to the script.

  “Can we just concentrate on what we’re here for?”

  A crease of irritation formed on his father-in-law’s brow.

  “You’ve already guessed what my proposition is: that you join my firm as an associate. You could still have a brilliant career.”

  Gonzalo knew that any colleague in his place would be levitating at the opportunity. Working with Agustín would unquestionably put him on the road to jurisprudential heaven. But none of his colleagues was the man’s son-in-law. The sight of his father-in-law sitting across from him, legs splayed, summed up exactly where his life was inexorably headed. All his hard work, the dreams he’d had as a kid at that Claretian boarding school for the underprivileged…He had dreamed of being like his father. And since he never really knew what his father was like, it all came down to the vague ambition of living free, like the lean wolf in Aesop’s fable, which they’d had to memorize in Latin at the age of sixteen. He knew better than to interrupt Agustín before the man had finished, and knew that once finished the only answer his father-in-law was prepared to hear was a resounding, unqualified yes. An unconditional surrender. He’d come mentally prepared for this. For twenty seemingly interminable minutes they looked over paperwork. Gonzalo leafed through the dossier vaguely, not really paying attention. He made only a few trivial requests.

  “I’d like to keep working with Luisa.”

  Agustín raised no objections. Things were all rolling smoothly toward their logical conclusion—until Agustín stood, walked around a bit, and returned to the table with the ACASA file.

  “What do you think of this? A luxury development: five-star hotel, golf courses, highway access via new roads, private sewage system and electricity grid, its own phone network. Lots of contracts and subcontracts to be negotiated. This will be your first assignment with me. We’re talking about millions of euros.”

  Gonzalo felt a flush rise through his body. He’d never dealt with anything close to this scale of negotiation. Litigating with expropriated landowners, bringing proceedings before the appropriate authorities, providing legal counsel for concessionaires.

  “Why me? I’m not up on the documentation; I’d have to study it all in quite some detail.”

  Agustín nodded impatiently. He’d already foreseen this.

  “Did you know that when I was younger I used to run marathons? That’s right. I’d spend months training, eating right, studying the course and potential rivals. I never left anything to chance. And yet my most important race was a disaster, because of one stupid detail: The day before the race I went for an easy jog along the boardwalk to loosen up my muscles. I didn’t realize that a little sand got into my shoe, and a tiny pebble got stuck in the insole. The day of the race, when I started running, I could feel it but didn’t give it much thought; I assumed it would pass, eventually disappear. But it didn’t. Mile after mile that tiny pebble in my shoe grew larger and larger, torturing me; it felt like a shard of glass. In the end I had to stop and take off my shoe and sock. I lost my stride and precious time. It was a failure I’ve never forgotten.”

  “I’m not sure I follow you.”

  Agustín González showed him the blueprints for the development and pointed out a spot in the center. Gonzalo looked at his father-in-law. Suddenly he understood why he’d been so conciliatory with the merger.

  “My family’s property is in the affected area. That’s the stone in your shoe.”

  “Precisely. And it could bring the whole project down.”

  “But that property doesn’t belong to me. It’s my mother’s.”

  “Only fifty percent of it. The other fifty is split between you and your sister. Now that she’s dead, since she had no will, her twenty-five goes to your mother. That’s seventy-five for her and twenty-five for you.”

  “I can see you’ve studied this.”

  “Never leave anything to chance. That piece of property is holding up the entire deal. But now we can concentrate on your mother. Try to convince her, we can offer her a good price on a house that’s worth nothing. Enough for you to be able to afford a luxury nursing home for her i
n Marbella, if that’s what she wants.”

  Get as indignant as you want—won’t change a thing. This is what his father-in-law’s expression said. Gonzalo squirmed anxiously; he took off his glasses and his green eyes became small dots buried in folds of flesh, like marbles in a hole in the ground.

  “That still leaves my twenty-five percent.”

  Agustín waved a hand, as though shooing away a tiresome fly.

  “Associate your firm with mine and you take on the ACASA case. The two go hand in hand. If I don’t get one hundred percent of this property, there’s no deal. We’ve got a lot at stake, and you more than I. Take the file home, study the documents, think about it, and give me a call. I’ll expect your answer tonight.”

  “Even if you do get my share, my mother will never sell; there’s no way. That land means everything to her.”

  Agustín González gave a caustic little laugh.

  “Oh, she will, I assure you.”

  A large pastel seascape took up one entire wall of the nursing home lobby. It was of a ship with three beautiful masts, attacking the rough waves, its keel rising above the choppy foam. Alcázar smiled. His wife, Cecilia, would have gotten queasy just looking at it; she’d have thrown up on a little rowboat in the Ciutadella Park lagoon. Thinking of her, Alcázar was moved. He could picture Cecilia, bent over double and clutching her stomach, white as a sheet, saying with characteristic Andalusian wit that water was for frogs and fish.

  Through the large shuttered window, he caught sight of Esperanza’s stooped silhouette. Or should he say Caterina Orlovska’s silhouette? He was surprised at her seeming vitality, given her age. Cecilia would never have had that much energy at the end. Esperanza was made of sterner stuff. He went out through a side door and approached, coming close to her face to give her time to recognize him. The old woman raised her head like a mole, almost sniffing him before he was close enough to identify. It wasn’t easy: In addition to the fact that Esperanza was now almost blind, thirty-five years had passed and they’d both changed a lot.

  “Hello, Caterina.”

  Esperanza hadn’t heard anyone use her real name for ages, and the sound of it now made her start.

  “Who are you?”

  “A long time ago, when we were both a little younger, I wore a toupee. Maybe that’s why you don’t recognize me. I’m Alberto Alcázar. We met in 1967: I was in charge of the investigation into Elías’s disappearance. I saw you at Laura’s funeral.”

  Alcázar let his words sink slowly into Esperanza’s brain. This was the key he needed to open the door to her memory and slip in through the crack. Instinctively, the old lady covered her spit-covered lips with a tattered handkerchief she clutched in one hand, no doubt to dab at the constant streaming from her right eye.

  “You probably know that your daughter and I worked together these past few years.”

  Esperanza shook her head, in a gesture that looked more like an involuntary muscle spasm than a conscious response.

  “I have nothing to say to you. Leave.”

  Alcázar brought his lower lip over his mustache. There were only twenty years between them: Esperanza was nearing the end of the road, and he’d begun the final descent. Maybe that was why he felt sorrow, sitting down beside this old lady and recalling a woman who’d been so full of fire at fifty in 1967 that she’d spat in his face and called him a murderer in front of his subordinates. Alcázar was another man then, only thirty years old, and felt the need to prove so many things that he’d slapped her and had her taken to jail. Neither of them had forgotten the slap, or what happened the night of San Juan, the night Elías Gil disappeared.

  “It would be absurd for me to ask forgiveness at this stage, don’t you think? Newer sins, graver sins, have buried the old ones. But I see you’re still a woman to be reckoned with, as you were back then.”

  Esperanza persisted in her stubborn silence. She tried to use her walker to get away, heading for the front of the garden, but she moved so slowly that Alcázar could keep up without even trying, walking beside her, hands in his pockets, staring at her all the while.

  “I didn’t see you shed a single tear at your daughter’s funeral. Sort of makes you a heartless mother, don’t you think?”

  She whipped around to face him in fury, a fury that could have broken her feeble wrinkled neck. A lock of hair split her face in two.

  “A daughter who vilifies her father’s memory and betrays her own flesh and blood by working with the officer who killed him doesn’t deserve to be called a daughter. The murderer of her own father!” Esperanza’s face contorted in rage and hatred so deep that it seemed impossible for her tiny ailing body to contain it. But Alcázar was not moved, nor did he lose his cool.

  “We’re alone here, no one can hear us, so no need for you to keep playing mother courage or the wronged wife in pursuit of justice. Not with me, Caterina. Laura knew the truth, that was why she came to me after so long, and that’s why she asked me to accept her into my unit. And I did, for the same reasons you decided that she was dead to you. You were never fair, or brave, no matter what those in search of a hero or a godless saint might say. The truth, the only truth, is that he disappeared. And we both know why.”

  “No! You murdered him! You shot him in the back and threw his body in the lake that night!”

  Alcázar took out a newspaper clipping dated a few weeks earlier.

  “Can you read this yourself, or shall I read it to you? ‘The Ministry of Development has resolved to shut down what was once Cal Guardia substation. Built in the forties, the station is powered by a dam which, according to reports compiled by specialists, has sustained serious structural damage, requiring that it be drained before demolition. Known informally as “the lake,” the reservoir is a threat to both adjacent agricultural areas and the area’s own ecosystems. Environmental groups are opposed to the project, arguing that technical pronouncements are simply excuses to cover up the real reason for the station’s closure: the development plans of a major business consortium that has set its sights on rezoning the area.’ That’s why you’re refusing so stubbornly to sell your land to Agustín González, isn’t it? It’s got nothing to do with the old house or family memories or that ridiculous empty grave where your gullible son takes you every Sunday to lay flowers. You don’t want the lake to be drained because you know there’s nothing at the bottom of it. And when that’s proved, how will you keep feeding the lie you’ve lived with all these years? You’d rather remain in the dark than be proved wrong. Gonzalo doesn’t know a thing, does he? He doesn’t have a clue what happened that night. He was just a five-year-old boy and believed everything you told him.”

  Esperanza rocked back and was on the verge of losing her balance. Alcázar helped steady her; she tried to shake him off, but the inspector wouldn’t let go until she was sitting on a bench among the cypress trees. Behind them, the sea purred like a sleepy cat. Soon night would fall, but you could still hear children laughing on the beach and the cry of seagulls flying up in the cloudless sky. Alcázar took an envelope from his pocket bearing the Agustín and Associates logo and placed it carefully in her hands.

  “Sign this bill of sale, Esperanza. Sign it and you can keep being what you’ve wanted to be all these years: the hero’s widow, guardian of dreams in a world you invented to keep from losing your mind. Or don’t sign, and become Caterina Orlovska again, but in that case, your son will discover the truth, I give you my word.”

  When Alcázar walked off he didn’t dare turn to look back. He felt despicable and vile, and thought that wherever Cecilia was watching him from, she’d be doing it full of sadness and disappointment. He could hear her rebuke, through the crashing waves of the motionless seascape in the lobby: How can you live with yourself, Alberto? And he replied that he had no choice but to behave like what he was. Being faithful to himself was all he could do, now that she’d left him and he was alone. />
  5

  Patricia sat at the edge of the pool, her legs dangling in the water, feet swishing to create gentle waves that rippled out in expanding circles. She stared at the tile bottom, transfixed by the sun’s sparkling reflection. Javier watched for a moment from the kitchen window without Patricia realizing. He adored his kid sister, her tiny freckled nose and hair that changed color—from golden blond to brown—depending on the light. She was a know-it-all and a daddy’s girl, spoiled and sometimes capricious, but also completely without guile. He knew she missed him, that she admired him and was hurt when he blew her off, and sometimes Javier felt bad for not giving her more attention.

  But he wasn’t always willing to deal with her endless questions. Patricia’s insatiable and often absurd curiosity was enough to drive anyone crazy. A few days earlier he’d caught her smearing his shaving cream all over her face, razor in hand. Rather than get upset, Javier burst out laughing and then, delighted, spent twenty long minutes explaining to her the intricacies of shaving. He couldn’t remember having laughed so hard in months. But in general he tried to avoid her.

  Though he would never admit it, Javier was jealous of his sister, of the ease with which she basked in her father’s affections, of the long and dogged conversations she and Gonzalo had and the patience and pampering he lavished on her. He could have tried to console himself, thinking that as Patricia grew, their bond would break—his sister would enter a very different world and their father would sink into perplexity and isolation without knowing how to handle the change. But this didn’t make him feel any better. He’d never had the sort of closeness with his father that she did, never seemed to merit anything more than cold distance, and at times he glimpsed in his father’s expression a look of surprise. It was as if rather than consider Javier his son, Gonzalo saw him as a strange creature who had furtively slipped into his life. He was convinced that his father didn’t love him, had never loved him, and he couldn’t understand why. It was as though Gonzalo felt uneasy whenever Javier was around and found little ways of letting him know. He never scolded him but made his displeasure clear in his silences. That was what Javier hated the most, his father’s constant silence.