Letters to a Stranger

  ‘What did they tell you about your sister’s father?’

  ‘First, that he died of a brain tumour, or that’s what our mother said . . . I mean, that’s what she always told her friends and her daughters. Then I found out that he’d wandered off – that he’d slowly been losing his faculties and one day he just went out and never came back, according to the official version at least. But then a few days ago I found a letter from Fabián’s mother that she’d sent to my mother after his disappearance . . . She was convinced that her son had had no mental problems and that he would never have abandoned his pregnant wife and daughter. I don’t think he had any idea that he wasn’t my father and that his wife was cheating on him.’

  ‘But the fact is, he didn’t come back. Do you think your mother could have been capable of—?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ I said without hesitation, and then I swallowed hard. ‘But I have no proof of anything and my opinion might not be the most objective.’

  ‘Tell me, what do you think really happened?’

  ‘That she “over-medicated” or rather poisoned him until he lost his mind, and that’s what maybe made him go . . . Alfonso, I have absolutely no idea what really happened. All I can say is that my mother invented a version of her life that didn’t match reality in any way. Remember that everyone thought and still thinks to this day that I was Fabián’s daughter. I found out the truth when I was nine years old and wasn’t allowed to tell a single person. I still use Fabián’s last name, in fact. You can imagine how scared I was of her . . .’

  ‘But a man in that condition, if he was that disorientated, could not have made it very far, and they never found the body. It’s not that easy to hide a body.’

  ‘I’m just telling you my personal opinion. I don’t have any answers and that’s why I hired you. The truth is, it’s hard to believe any of this . . . Sometimes I wonder if I’m not just imagining it all . . . I don’t have proof for any of it – not for my mother having an affair with Bodo, not even for the claim that he was my father,’ I explained tensely, uncomfortable at the way he was making me confess my innermost thoughts. ‘I don’t like what I just told you, because it probably makes me sound unbalanced. It’s not exactly normal for a daughter to presume that her mother has committed murder.’

  ‘I’m not judging you, I’m just trying to get as much information as I can. I think it’s time to go now. I’ll call you when I come up with anything significant,’ he said, leaning a little closer as he said my name, his face kind and understanding. ‘Berta, I think that sooner or later we’ll get to the bottom of all this and find the guilty parties. We’ll get Saúl his freedom back and find you some answers about your past.’

  ‘Oh, I hope so,’ I said, somewhat more relaxed. ‘We just need solid evidence so we can get the case reopened.’

  ‘Finding the evidence is my job, but convincing a judge to listen to all this stuff will have to be yours.’

  We said goodbye until the next time.

  On my way back I headed to the Corte Inglés, the only shopping centre I knew here, to go to the post office and send my letter to Washington State before I changed my mind. After my talk with Alfonso, I was stricken with endless doubts, no longer sure if it was such a great idea to communicate with Saúl, even though he couldn’t know who I was. Having addressed the envelope, I was about to shove the letter back in my bag and leave when I suddenly thought of the email I’d already sent to Boston. Hesitantly I handed it over to the girl at the counter. She smiled reassuringly, as though she knew it contained something troubling. How wonderful to get a smile in such moments of terrible indecision!

  Next I dropped the key off at the car rental company and returned home in a taxi. When I opened the front door it was already past eight o’clock.

  Aris was waiting for me again. I was so comforted by his steady gaze, finding him right there by the door, and leaned down to pet his soft fur . . . The heavy smell of my mother’s perfume was also there to greet me.

  I made myself a salad and rewarded my friend with a tasty tin of cat food.

  Despite having Aris and Neca with me – more company than on any night in my flat in London – I don’t think I’ve ever felt as lonely as I did that evening, sitting at the kitchen table in front of some lettuce and a few tomatoes. All three of us were gloomy. Even my doll seemed to have lost her look of surprise. Very slowly, a tear ran down my cheek, then another and another . . . It had been so long since I’d cried that a part of me was delighted. When the tears reached my lips, I caught them with my tongue and, ironically, the salt of my loneliness made me feel more alive than ever. Yes, I was sad, but so utterly alive.

  In the last few days alone a torrent of emotions I’d never known existed had been coursing through me. True, almost all of them were painful, but they had roused me from my numb existence and, above all, were leading me to a love I had never thought I’d find. It was the most platonic love possible, and the chances that we would even get to talk to each other were almost zero. Well, so what? Did that mean my feelings were any less genuine than those of anyone else? Did the fact that I could not shout my love to the world nullify the truth of its existence? No, it did not! What I felt for Saúl was more real than tonight’s crescent moon. His letters had won me over so completely that right now I would have given up everything I’d struggled for over so many years simply to have him at my side for one moment – just as he would have given everything for Yolanda. I felt the most profound understanding for the man by the lake through our shared experience – what Saúl felt for Yolanda was the same thing I felt for him. An outrageous foolishness for someone as rational as myself.

  Time passed and my salad sat untouched, and still the tears trickled slowly down my cheeks. I had a thousand reasons to cry, but the water that filled my eyes came only from Lake Crescent. I don’t know how long I stayed this way, imagining the wonderful possibility of meeting him, while Aris and Neca watched compassionately from the chairs on the other side of the table, as if they knew how I felt.

  Between tears and sighs, I gave the kitchen a deep clean. When I’d got home I’d found that while I was gone, Teresa had tidied away the remains of the breakfast things, and I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t give her any more reason to come and go as she did. I washed my face, made myself comfortable and then shut myself in my room with my two companions and Saúl’s letters.

  The piece of paper I’d left between the door of the wardrobe and its frame was on the floor, along with the one I’d placed between the bundles of letters. At first I was furious, and then concerned: I hadn’t counted the letters I still had to read – what if Teresa had taken one? She might be reading them now – she was both skilled and careful and might have opened them and resealed them without my noticing. I was becoming quite paranoid. I took each one out and examined it carefully. At first glance, it didn’t look as though any had been opened. There were a lot, so I first took the bundle from the most recent year, all the letters from 2014. There were eleven of them, and the latest three definitely showed signs of the seal having been tampered with. I opened the last one and discovered that the envelope had indeed been messed with. Before putting it back in the basket, I noticed that the return address was different from all the letters I’d been reading thus far. This letter, along with all the others in this bundle, as well as those from several years prior, came from Seattle, something I hadn’t spotted until now. In fact, had my suspicions not led me to inspect them, I would certainly have missed this detail, and that someone had opened the envelope. I felt an almost uncontrollable urge to read the letter inside, concerning the most recent parts of Saúl’s life, but then stopped myself, more out of fear that on the other side of the world he already had a new love or a family than from not wanting to break the chronological order. Finally, I focused on one question: what about these letters could possibly interest Teresa? The situation was beginning to run away from me – so much mystery, so many doubts and lies, would have been too much
for anyone. At this moment I felt too vulnerable to go on. I thought again about leaving and going back to my safe, routine life in London, to my tidy flat, to my successful restaurant and my satisfying sexual encounters with Harry. Until just a few days ago, everything I could have dreamt of was there, but now I felt trapped in a parallel reality that not even Alfred Hitchcock could have imagined. The path of my return had become full of obstacles, and the further I went, the more doubts I had, and the more treachery and secrets I uncovered.

  That night my strength and resolve failed and I wanted only to be whisked back home – to my real home. I decided on a whisky, hoping it would relax me. As I walked down the hall, I once more sensed my mother’s presence and shuddered, my legs wooden and unresponsive, but I kept moving onwards. Deep down I knew it was just another trap, laid not by her but by my own mind. Alberta was dead, and she couldn’t hurt me any more. It was my own emotional weakness playing tricks on me. I managed to make it to the kitchen, albeit with damp temples and ice-cold hands, clammy and pale with my panic. This time I had won.

  I poured myself a slug of whisky and took the bottle out into the garden. Aris followed me discreetly, as though he were escorting me. I lay down in my usual spot under the old willow. The air was perfectly clear, and the myriad stars flashed with unusual intensity against the indigo sky, cloaking the darkness in an unearthly celebration. That night I really needed to switch off. It didn’t take long for me to fall unconscious, rocked off to sleep by the soft music a neighbour was playing. At some point I must have woken up and gone back to my room.

  Chapter 11

  Saturday, 21 June 2014

  I hadn’t even opened my eyes yet when my mind formed the question, Will she have come? I remembered that the night before I’d left my glass and the almost empty bottle of whisky out in the garden. I’d lost all trust in her, and no longer wanted to share my fears and doubts with Teresa as I did as a child. I listened carefully, not even getting out of bed yet, trying to hear any sound that might mean she was there. Finally I concluded that she wasn’t, although I wasn’t a hundred per cent certain. My phone told me that it was almost nine o’clock, so maybe she’d already left. Before going to the bathroom, I was reassured: she hadn’t been here, as the little thread that I’d torn off my scarf the previous evening was still caught between the door frame and the door. This is all so sad, I thought. How could I have come to this? Watching the one person who loved me most, distrustful to the point of spying on her.

  As I was tidying up, I remembered that it was Saturday and that I had a whole weekend ahead of me with no plans, no appointments and nothing to do. I’d been longing for a weekend like this for years, but now I felt as though I were suffocating. I’d never liked crowds or parties, or gatherings of more than four people. I have a natural tendency to isolate myself, but solitude to this extent was beginning to take its toll on me. I would have loved to have seen Mary right now, to go shopping and then for lunch in some restaurant on Carnaby Street, and listen to her say over and over that she shouldn’t have spent so much money on clothes she might never wear. I needed her to distract me with her exuberance and chatter, to witter on with her trivialities and explain to me, all over again, how to be stylish and glamorous. After lunch, we’d probably go back to Harrods to return some of what she’d bought, in order to ease her conscience. I was missing her so much this particular Saturday. Back in my fantasy, I would almost certainly get a call from Harry in the evening . . . It was odd, but over the last few days I’d stopped missing that part of my Saturdays in London. I guess Harry was already part of the past. When I went home he’d have to get used to being a friend without benefits. Did I simply not feel like sleeping with him any more because of Saúl?

  I had a quiet breakfast in the garden with Aris and Neca. What a pair of friends I had here though! I was embarrassed at the thought that some neighbour might happen to glance from a window and see me looking like a madwoman, seated at the garden table in the company of a cat and a rag doll. Once I’d finished, I tidied up the kitchen and my bedroom meticulously and turned on the washing machine, then took the bundle of letters still left to read from 2003 and laid myself down beneath the willow tree.

  Olympic National Park

  7 April 2003

  My beloved Yolanda,

  How are you? Sometimes I feel as though my questions go blowing into the wind. It’s so easy for me to see your eyes and imagine you reading my letters – you know how artists can go without food, but not imagination . . .

  Some days I fear I’m going mad. Let me tell you what crazy thoughts I’ve been having, and how far from reality I’ve wandered. I feel like a puppet in the hands of love, someone nurturing an imaginary romance through his letters, writing to the wind, and that time, fickle as it is, may carry them on its breeze to someday make their way into the hands of a perfect stranger. In some ways, I’m consoled by the thought that my love isn’t going into the void and that even though you may have forgotten me, my letters may bring love to someone else lost in time and space like myself. Somehow there is no more tragic possibility than the madness of thinking that my words of love will roam eternally through the heavens, looking for a recipient who never existed.

  I’m sorry, my darling, today is a bad day. Even crazy romantics like me sometimes need tangible proof that our dreams can come true. And it’s been so long without hearing from you! I can’t help but think that you’ve forgotten me, or worse, that you never even loved me at all.

  Forgive me for doubting you. I’m sorry . . .

  I’ll leave it at that for today. I don’t think I’m very good company right now.

  The eternal lover,

  Saúl

  Without realising it, my eyes had welled up for the second day in a row and I had to stop reading. Saúl’s words were like a premonition: eleven years earlier he had already thought of the possibility that his letters might end up with someone very distant from himself in space and time. It was as though he sensed my existence, as though somehow he was writing to me. I was his second choice, the one to provide comfort in a desperate situation. Right then I would have given all that I owned and more to be with him.

  For me it was a letter full of hope, even though he seemed so depressed. For the first time he seemed conscious that his dreams might not be realistic, and even his farewell was revealing: ‘The eternal lover’ was light years away from ‘Forever yours’ or ‘I adore you’. It was an unusual ending, lacking the involvement with the object of his affection that was so evident in the other letters. He could have written ‘Your eternal lover’ but, as he said himself in the letter, he no longer knew whether he was having an affair with Yolanda, the wind, or with someone else he had never even met. The ‘the’ in that sign-off indicated that he felt like a man in love, but was no longer sure with whom or why, and was beginning to glimpse the notion that he had been bewitched by a fantasy. In effect, he was saying something along the lines of, ‘That’s right, my dear: loving you has not all been in vain – it has given birth to a whole ocean of feeling within me that I had never thought possible.’

  I sat for a long time imagining that his letters were addressed to me, and that maybe the real purpose of so many years of correspondence was to allow two people to meet who understood love in the same way. Somehow, that was exactly what had happened.

  I remembered that the photos were still in my bag, hanging on the hook in the hall, so I went to fetch them, then went back to thinking about the man from Lake Crescent, I don’t know for how long. I think I memorised every plank of the dock, every soft ripple of the waters around it, every curve of the mountains that cut across the sky . . . even the eyes of the man with his back to me.

  Just then, the landline started to ring.

  ‘Hello?’

  And whoever it was hung up.

  I stood motionless in the sitting room, rooted to the spot next to the side table with the phone, then went to perch on the sofa, in the exact same spot where my moth
er used to sit. As my weight compressed the foam, the cushions released the scent saturated in each fibre over forty years. The essence of her dark spirit engulfed me so completely that I felt her hanging over me, drowning me, suffocating me. I experienced the agonising episode with such intensity that I lost consciousness for a few minutes. First I felt my stomach turn over, then I had difficulty breathing, and finally dizziness ended up robbing me of my senses. I woke up soaked in sweat, frozen and with drenched jeans; I had wet myself.

  Limp as a rag doll, I collapsed along the length of the sofa, my head ending up against the arm, and knocking the handset on to the floor. I lay there on my back and waited to feel better. It took me a while to recover and remember why I had fainted, while my eyes remained locked on the harsh glitter of the Bohemian crystal lamp, inducing a sort of visual hallucination. Cutting through my dreamlike state came a desperate voice I was slowly starting to recognise.

  ‘Oh, sweetheart! What’s wrong, my darling? What happened? Oh my love, oh dear, oh dear . . .’

  Countless times in the past I had been overjoyed to hear Teresa’s words of comfort, but never as much as I was now. All alone, I had gazed upon the face of death. Teresa began to mop at my face with a towel. She stopped once in a while to take my pulse and rest her hand on my forehead to check my temperature.

  ‘I think I blacked out, Teresa,’ I was finally able to mumble.

  ‘Oh, my darling, I was so scared! I thought you were dead, my love. What happened?’ she asked, her voice trembling. She really was frightened.

  ‘It’s that smell . . .’