by Maria Duenas
Her eyes suddenly sparkled dreamily, like those of an adolescent, despite her almost eighty years. Then she put out the cigarette with extreme elegance and remained contemplating the diamond solitaire that shone on her ring finger, a point of brilliance in a hand clotted with spots, veins, and wrinkles; a beacon illuminating the sad evidence of decrepitude. She then lowered her voice and leaned close to Daniel’s ear, as if she were about to whisper to him her most intimate secret.
“Imagine the impressive jewels our Aurora would now inherit.”
It didn’t take long for Daniel to figure out that this coquettish and talkative matriarch was considered by her daughter and son-in-law to be little more than an old scatterbrain with no power whatsoever to influence the clan’s decisions. Her long-winded chatter centered on her opulent youth and on her dozens of admirers who danced with her at dazzling parties. She gracefully skipped over the painful aspects of her life, those which—consciously or unconsciously—had disappeared from her beautifully coifed head. The bankruptcy into which her crackpot of a father had driven the family’s industrial supplies business after frenzied nights in the Biarritz casino; her hellish marriage to a tyrannical man who never gave her a wisp of happiness; the forced and hasty move to that strange region in search of a future that would allow them to save the furniture, sheltered by the mines of La Union; the deaths of her two sons in the civil war before either one turned twenty-five; the unbearable pain in her bones that the Mediterranean’s humidity produced in winter and some other obscure ailment that she chose not to air. After chain-smoking five cigarettes from Daniel’s pack of Chesterfields and drinking the three vermouths she’d ordered and he’d paid for, the old lady—“Call me Nana, dear,” she’d said—got ready to go. She adjusted the stole around her neck, put her cigarette holder away in her bag, closing it with a loud click, and rose majestically while he pulled the chair out for her. Resolute on her complicity and as a form of good-bye, she reformulated the idea she’d put forth upon her arrival.
“You’re very cute, but my daughter and son-in-law are a pair of dolts and aren’t going to consent that you take the girl just like that.” And then she smiled, charming despite her wrinkles, her forgetfulness, and her swarm of selective memories. “You love her very much, don’t you?”
He returned the smile, shrugging his shoulders, unable to lay bare his feelings under the circumstances.
“If it’s true—if you really want to have her by your side forever—I’d look for a good godfather,” she said, and to stress the point, she patted his forearm affectionately while lowering the tone of her voice. “In this country of ours, darling, everything can be obtained with a good godfather, don’t forget.”
Noticing the consternation on Daniel’s face, the old lady immediately caught on to his dilemma.
“Think about it . . . There must be someone who can lend you a hand.”
Without giving him time to react, she air-kissed him on both cheeks and went off with a flourish as if she were still nineteen years old and a bold adventurer were waiting to take her across the seas in search of new fortunes.
Chapter 25
* * *
The encounter with Nana improved Daniel’s spirits. Deep down, everything was pretty much the same: the conversation had not solved anything, nor had she offered any tangible solution. Nevertheless, the old lady had managed to transmit a glimmer of hope, a tiny spark of energy so that he did not lose heart.
On the way back to his pension he mulled over her parting advice to find a good godfather. Although he wasn’t too familiar with the wheelings and dealings of the Spanish, he suspected the old lady’s suggestion went beyond the meanings of the word “godfather” that he already knew. His dictionary gave him an additional definition: one who sponsors or protects someone in his aspirations, advancements, or plans. Having discovered this, but uncertain about what to do with it, he left it on the back burner.
He phoned Aurora again from the reception desk of the pension. The old lady had informed him that she was refusing to speak to anyone except Nana herself and Asuncion, the aged nanny, who brought her bowls of broth, croquettes, and French toast in an effort to make her see reason. No one answered, and on his third failed try he gave up. Meanwhile, Modesto, the desk clerk, had been keeping one eye on The Avenger of Colorado and another on Daniel. Between shoot-outs in the Old West, he wondered who the American was calling so insistently and why he was in such a bad mood, always slamming the receiver down after failing to get through to anyone.
“It seems you’re enjoying this city, isn’t that so, my friend?” he dared to ask Daniel, momentarily putting aside the commotion of bullets and dust storms in order to find out once and for all what this guest was up to.
Daniel nodded politely, but Modesto insisted eagerly, “Although this may not be like America, one lives well here, don’t you think, Mr. Daniel? Our streets aren’t exactly paved with gold, but everyone seems to manage and raise their kids as best they can, and on Sundays there are soccer games everywhere, and we’ve got the best bullfighters in the world. What more can I say? Some people even own fridges, and boy, the beers are nice and cold . . . And although the law of ‘grin and bear it’ still very much rules, in no time, I’m telling you, the tourism industry will make us all rich, you’ll see.”
Daniel didn’t refute the desk clerk’s predictions; what was the point of bursting his bubble?
“But in your country one is even better off, isn’t that true?” the clerk continued in a livelier tone. “With those big cars that appear in the movies, and those long-legged blondes with their slim waists, smoking nonstop and openly showing their cleavages; good God, what babes they must have there, right, Mr. Daniel? And that soap of yours, which smells of bliss and doesn’t crumble like mud in one’s hands, and the lighters that look as if they’re made of silver and never go out even if the wind is blowing, and the shaving machines that leave one’s face as smooth as a baby’s ass, not like the Palmera razor blades we use here. Boy, you’re lucky to be an American, that’s what I’m telling you, Mr.—”
“It’s not such a big deal,” Daniel said, trying to halt the untimely gushing about his country’s material wonders.
“Not such a big deal, you say . . . I learn all about it through my brother-in-law, you know?” Modesto babbled on insistently. “He works at the Algameca Naval Base and he says those Navy people are really something. Everything’s magnificently organized: they even use a blueprint to put up a wall. Agustin, my brother-in-law, tells me that Spanish workers erected a wooden shed the other day using half the nails they were given. After a while the American sergeant shows up, looks it over carefully, and says no to the shed, that it needs to be torn down and rebuilt—that if the instructions specify five hundred nails, five hundred nails it’ll be. What a pair of balls on the guy! So the shed came down and went up again, with the five hundred nails all in place, by God . . .” He clicked his tongue in admiration. “Damn! Those Americans, they’re something else!”
Listening to the concierge deliver his long-winded speech, Daniel became curious.
“If your brother-in-law works with the Americans,” he said, choosing his words carefully as he slid the pack of Chesterfields across the counter in Modesto’s direction, “that means there is daily contact between the Americans and the Spaniards.”
“You bet there is, mister, you better believe it,” the clerk replied, taking out two filtered cigarettes. The first he put between his lips, the other behind his left ear. “They recently placed ads in newspapers for Spanish civilian staff, and even I filled out the papers, but they didn’t take me, God knows why not. I would’ve solved a lot of problems standing in my sentry box in my uniform, like a general: You can come in, you can’t, let’s see your ID, sir, please . . . Boy, I would’ve been fucking great there with the Americans if they’d hired me.”
Indifferent to the clerk’s musings, Daniel pressed on.
“But tell me, Modesto, do those Americans come and go from the base, or do they just stay there?”
“As far as I can tell, some come into town. You can see them once in a while on the streets, with tremendous cars, sometimes in uniform and other times wearing loud shirts that they don’t tuck in. Haven’t you come across any yet?”
No, he hadn’t come across any Americans yet; he’d hardly had time in his brief stays. Or perhaps he had and wasn’t even aware of it, absorbed as he was with his worries. Then he remembered the day he’d met Aurora, when she herself asked him in the pharmacy if he was from the American base. Nearly three long months had gone by since. Perhaps the time had come for him to meet them.
“Do you think that I’d have any problems getting in there to see them?”
“At the base, you mean? Well, I think it’s going to be tough,” the clerk replied. “My brother-in-law has told me that they’ve got everything pretty much controlled. Permits, passes, you name it . . . You might show up at the gate and they won’t let you in. Now, if I was a guard and saw you coming along . . .”
Daniel began to see a way those Americans could help him in the search for a godfather that Nana had suggested. As the clerk went on to detail the smattering of geographical knowledge he had extracted from his cowboy novels, Catalina, his wife, appeared in the lobby armed with a feather duster and joined in the chat, resolving the matter with her usual good sense.
“But how the hell would you know how those people operate, Modesto, if you’ve only seen them from a distance and only dropped off your papers after the deadline had expired? We’re going to call my brother Agustin right now. He works afternoons in a garage not far from here. Go ahead, dial the number, and stop talking nonsense once and for all.”
Agustin didn’t take long to show up, dressed in blue overalls and a beret, and with grease still in his fingernails. He was more than willing to help.
“Tell me, my friend, what is it you want to know? I’ll get you up to speed right away.”
Daniel learned from him that the joint U.S.-Spanish naval base was located in a pine-covered mountainous area about a mile outside of Cartagena. Although the Spanish and Americans lived and worked independently, from the very beginning the Americans tried to cultivate friendly relations with the local population with the encouragement of the high command. Events were organized to foster international cooperation. The wives of the American sailors would give birth to their babies in local clinics assisted by Spanish midwives and interpreters. The Americans would give chewing gum to the local kids who would form noisy circles around them, and some of the younger servicemen would end up marrying local girls, while others would spend their free days letting off steam with the whores of El Molinete, afterwards gallantly giving them cans of condensed milk and a pack or two of Philip Morris cigarettes in addition to the fees for their services. Catalina’s brother offered several intercultural anecdotes as examples, but Daniel was only interested in one thing: how he could get onto the base to speak to some Americans there.
“I’m telling you, my friend,” the brother-in-law declared, taking one last drag on his frayed Ideales cigarette, “without formal papers they won’t even bother to raise the barrier. Maybe you could bump into some of your fellow citizens on the street or in the bars.”
The chat at the reception desk continued, interrupted only by the arrival of an occasional guest, to whom no one paid any attention. They were all too absorbed in the conversation, with Modesto behind his counter, Agustin and Daniel leaning on the opposite side, and Catalina dusting nearby, interjecting now and then.
“What if I tried to visit them at their homes? Do you think they’d receive me?” Daniel asked.
“Well, I’m not too sure,” Modesto said while passing his hand through his thinning hair and not having, in truth, the remotest idea of how foreigners would react in that situation.
“Boy, what houses they’ve built for themselves in Tentegorra. With washing machines, central heating, and carpets glued to the floor in all the rooms, according to what I’ve been told,” the brother-in-law added.
“Do the military live there alone or with their families?”
“I think they live with their wives,” Modesto speculated with renewed zest. “Otherwise, who else could those knockouts be that I come across once in a while in tight pants that give me this urge to . . . to . . .”
“Cut the crap, Modesto, otherwise you get all carried away and your blood pressure will go through the roof,” Catalina scolded, cutting short his daydream. Adjusting her feather duster beneath her arm, she addressed Daniel, trying to impose some order on their conversation, which was going nowhere. “But you, Mr. Daniel, if I’m not intruding: Why are you so interested in seeing your compatriots? For a work-related matter or something of that sort?”
Three pairs of eyes were left awaiting some juicy explanation while a newly arrived client, tired of being ignored by the desk clerk, rapped on the counter with his key.
“Well . . . it has to do with something else . . . more . . . of a family matter, you might say.”
Although he wasn’t quite telling them the whole truth, he wasn’t exactly lying. After all, his intention in the long run was to create a family with Aurora.
“In that case, if I were you—if I can speak freely—you know what I’d do?”
They all looked at Catalina.
“I’d go in search of the women first thing tomorrow. You see, we women have a better understanding of family matters than men do. Then, if it’s necessary, they’ll know how their husbands can best resolve whatever needs to be resolved.”
Once again Catalina was the light that chased away the darkness. Just as on the murky night of his fever, when she’d come with a French omelet sandwich like manna, she’d offered a possible solution to his problem.
“What time do they finish work at the base, Agustin?” Daniel asked in a hurry, glancing at his watch. It was 4:20.
“At five o’clock a siren goes off.”
“Could you please get me a taxi, Modesto?” he asked.
“Consider it done, mister. You don’t want me to accompany you, right?”
Chapter 26
* * *
No sooner had he arrived than Daniel had the feeling of having been torn away from the reality of Holy Wednesday next to the Mediterranean and transported as if by magic to an anonymous spot in his own country. Before his eyes was what seemed to be a suburb of an average American city: modern houses surrounded by immaculate lawns, red hydrants on the sidewalks, and blond kids playing Frisbee on the grass.
He walked slowly, incredulous, immersed in that almost surrealistic experience, until a group of mothers with babies in their arms and kids running between their legs guessed his nationality from his looks and greeted him in their own language: “Hi!” “Hello!” “Are you an American? How’re you doing?”
With a short distance still separating them, he made a decision: not a word of the truth for the time being. No mention of his true intentions. In any case, he had no clear idea how to explain the hazy concept of the godfather, in the Spanish sense, that he was seeking.
Those six young mothers fit the image of a girlfriend that he would have chosen had he wished to have a peaceful future devoid of complexities. Now, as a first step, he would attempt to win these American women over, not quite knowing yet how or to what end.
After the greetings and self-introductions, he began to recount his wanderings through a Spain they hardly knew: nights in medieval castles where ghosts were said to wander; visits to cellars full of gigantic casks; and basilicas that seemed as vast as baseball stadiums.
“Wow! Fascinating! Really?” Soon the husbands also started gathering to hear of his exploits, and then everything began to change. They greeted Daniel with cordial handshakes and exchanged some friendly words. “How do you do? What a surprise: an
expert in literature. How interesting.”
Until they started talking over each other and his novelty began to wear off. Each of the newcomers had something to tell, the wives’ attention was directed elsewhere, and Daniel’s star, like the end of a fireworks display, slowly vanished until it disappeared. His glory had lasted only briefly and the feeling that his opportunity was slipping away from him was confirmed as the group began to break up: “Well, good luck, buddy. See you later. Have a good one,” the men said. “A pleasure meeting you, Dan. We hope you keep enjoying your adventures,” the women said.
Each couple slowly retired to their homes, dragging their little ones, leaving behind the landscape of children’s laughter and speech. As the group thinned out and peace and quiet settled over the previously bustling area, Daniel’s despondency grew proportionately. Perhaps he had acted in the worst possible manner, he thought as one of the last families moved off, turning their backs to him. Perhaps it had been a mistake to pretend to be a mere wandering compatriot, a charming student devoid of worries. Perhaps he should have been more direct, to have spoken to them of Aurora’s angry parents, of her dogged tenacity, of his determination to find a way of not losing her. He should have confessed that, for the first time since his arrival in Spain, the visceral attraction to that unfamiliar culture had turned into uncertainty. That the eternal honeymoon he’d lived until then had started to crack.
Only two women remained, the most mature, in spite of their evident youth. There was a tall one with a chestnut ponytail, green eyes, and a yellow checkered shirt with a slight Southern accent. Her name was Vivian. And then there was Rachel, a blonde with a turquoise bandanna tied in the manner of a headband.