Letters to a Stranger

by Mercedes Pinto Maldonado

  ‘I’m safe and sound in Paris – calm down, everything is fine. You don’t need to worry about a thing.’

  ‘Berta, please be careful. Pedro Vidal is still on the loose and he’s desperate . . .’

  ‘Honestly, don’t worry, I’m perfectly fine. I’ll see you when I get back.’

  ‘OK. Take care of yourself.’

  I didn’t read the emails; it looked like most of them were about my restaurant. I’d already had enough for today. The police investigation was underway and that was fabulous news. I kept that in mind and concentrated on my visit to Paris.

  I had time to rest at the hotel for a few hours. Although I couldn’t sleep, the truth is it did relax me a little and allow me to get my bearings before focusing on the upcoming event.

  Given that I was within walking distance of the gallery, I wouldn’t need to leave until half past five, giving me plenty of time to get ready and then make my way there. As the time drew closer, I got more and more excited. I should have been exhausted from the lack of sleep and stress of the past few days, especially with all the terrors of the night before, but somehow I wasn’t – I felt radiant and ready to enjoy myself. Whichever way I looked at it, this was a crazy situation that not even the impetuous Mary would have understood. I’d driven many hours overnight, and been chased by someone out to get me, all to attend the opening of an artist I only knew through a clutch of letters written many years before – meanwhile turning my back on a thousand serious matters needing my attention in Madrid . . . It was utterly reckless and totally unbecoming for a woman who had always been led by her overweening common sense and notion of what was right and proper. But then Mary would have said, ‘You’re in love? That’s fantastic – go get him, Berta!’ I had no doubt that she would have cheered me on all the way in pursuit of my love.

  I was so close now to these final works of the man from Lake Crescent, and my joy was infinitely the greater at hearing from Alfonso that the police knew at last that Teresa’s cousin was the killer – the beginning of the end of this whole sorry saga. But I would savour that glorious news later: the best surprises should be enjoyed one at a time.

  My outfit, face and hair as I wanted them, I looked at myself in the mirror over the chest of drawers and told myself truthfully, ‘Berta, no one would know how many hours you’ve been driving with no sleep – you look sensational! No make-up on earth can match the glow of a woman in love.’ I’d put on a very flattering white dress that enhanced my best features: my skin tone and the glint of my russet-brown hair. Mary had coached me well in the art of choosing the best clothes to complement my complexion and natural colouring. The boat neck sat perfectly, showing off my collarbones and upper shoulders, and making my neck look long and slender. The seductive wisps and tendrils escaping from my artfully twisted bun were exactly where I wanted them. Putting my hair up was the right choice with that dress, highlighting my delicate cheekbones and sexy little chin. Fair enough – I needed cheering up. It was like getting ready all on my own for a prom or graduation ball, and I wanted to feel confident in my appearance. Finally I stepped into a pair of silver heels and picked up my matching bag before applying a spritz of scent for the finishing touch.

  I was off to meet the man of my dreams and wanted every detail to be perfect, decking myself out with him in mind. Here and now was where dreams and reality would shortly intersect, and I’d perhaps be the closest to Saúl I would ever manage in my life.

  The city unfurled beneath my feet with pleasure, as I proudly glided along the red carpet like a queen – the whole of Paris was mine that evening. I walked down the avenue in total happiness, feeling proud and triumphant . . . To arrive there on my personal crusade, I had had to overcome the most challenging of tests. I was in that beautiful city for nothing and no one other than love, which had finally come knocking at my door – and I had thrown that door wide open to welcome it in. Right from the beginning I had accepted that the other person in my romance had no awareness of my feelings. I was all dressed up to celebrate the fact that, through loving him, I was capable of doing so much more than on my own. I was welcoming here this new Berta who could feel, who could love, and was more proud of myself with every step.

  When I arrived at the gallery and saw my reflection in the window, I congratulated myself again.

  It was two minutes to seven and the place was already busy. Diverse groups of people clustered around the entrance, each quite distinct from the other. To the right stood a married couple and a single man, all three very elegant and clearly very rich. A few metres away were three girls and two guys in their thirties, somewhat bohemian, dressed in distinctive one-off vintage clothing – probably artists interested in the work of the Flickering Painter. To the left, meanwhile, stood two Nordic-looking men, possibly patrons from other galleries, collectors or investors, but they certainly didn’t look French.

  I climbed the small staircase that led inside and, looking through the window, understood why some of the guests had come back out: there was barely room in there for me.

  Chapter 21

  7 p.m., Monday 30 June 2014

  I pushed open the door to find a kind-looking man of around sixty seated behind a table. Against the deafening babble of guests with their glasses of wine, he rose to his feet to greet me, pronouncing his words with care so I could understand the French. Did I have an invitation? he asked, and when I said no, answered that such a beautiful young woman should not miss the opening ceremony for the famous painter Yosa Degui. He winked and let me go through. It’s funny, those extraordinary moments in life sometimes, when we come away from an encounter with someone, not even knowing the other person’s name, but filled with a warm glow of gratitude that human beings can be so wonderful.

  Every corner, every face, every single moment . . . Absolutely every detail was registering in my brain as though on to a hard drive. I felt so unbelievably alive, with all my nerve endings tingling, and didn’t want to miss a thing. It felt like my first date . . . Actually, it was my first date, although somewhat belated.

  I walked through the large group that crowded about the entrance and threw myself completely into his world, the fascinating, melancholy and enigmatic world of Saúl. In the showroom, which was huge, I could see his paintings over the heads of the audience, calling me, as if they had only one reason for being there: me, and me alone. ‘Breathe, Berta, look at them in sequence and take all the time you need, from right to left,’ I told myself, letting out a deep sigh.

  I would have liked to have been there all alone and didn’t appreciate seeing these crowds of people scrutinising every brushstroke of the canvases that Saúl had covered with fragments of his own life. Slipping between the other visitors as stealthily and discreetly as I could, given my height and the colour of my dress, I finally made my way through to the first painting. I managed to stand back at an acceptable distance with no distraction in my eye line, although even further back would have been perfect to view it with the best perspective.

  It showed a landscape where the main subject was the trees of the forest overlooking the lake. Every branch was represented by a phrase joined to the trunk at one end. These were overlapping and it was hard to make out all the disjointed words in Spanish: ‘Dear Muse, always yours, today I feel alone, I love you, nothing without you, loneliness, romance . . .’ I had the inner satisfaction of knowing that I was most certainly the only person here able to understand the message in all aspects because I knew the frustrated past of the artist. I couldn’t say whether the landscape came to me or whether I came to it – all I know is that I was intoxicated by the profound emotion I found captured among the phrases, which seemed to droop out of pure misery, waiting to sink once and for all in the waters of the lake.

  I was so caught up in it that I lost all sense of space and time, just like when I read his letters. My distraction and total stillness must have drawn the attention of the people around me, since one girl was bold enough to come up and drag me out of
my rapture.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked, tapping my shoulder lightly.

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine, thanks. It’s just . . . this painting is so incredible!’ I answered, still captivated, my eyes glued to the rhythm of the brushstrokes.

  The girl seemed to understand and was moved. ‘It really is – it’s a marvellous work,’ she responded, looking at the landscape, almost as drawn by it as I was. But only almost.

  Still wrapped in enchantment, I moved on to the next canvas. I think the people gave way to let me pass when they saw my fascination, which must have been contagious. They even covertly cleared an area with enough space for me to enjoy the painting with some perspective. The words kept dancing on the motifs that filled the landscape. This time the pier had the leading role. It was extraordinary! After two paintings of the dock, one from the pier and another that looked as though it had been painted from the deck of the ferry, I found the one that struck me most of all so far: in the doorway of a wooden cabin stood a tall, thin man, fairly unkempt, with seven ducks at his feet, pecking at the words that he crumbled with his slender fingers. To the right of the figure was a window through which you could see the easel and the work that was waiting. It must have been a grey day, because the light was sad and it was drawn in pastels.

  I felt uniquely privileged among this crowd. However much they stared at the paintings, searching for answers, only I knew that this figure in the painting was Saúl Guillén, the Flickering Painter, also known as Yosa Degui. The red sticker on the corner of the frame told visitors that it was not for sale. I would have given all my inheritance money to have it with me for the rest of my life.

  On the wall facing the entrance hung the most outstanding artwork of the exhibition: a large oil painting of Ruby Beach, with a somewhat disturbing cast of light. Everywhere in the gallery led to this inviting virgin beach, which seduced your line of vision towards the immensity of the sea. The undertow of the waves lapping at the white sand was at eye level for any spectator of normal height. Little ripples in stark white reached out from the image in my direction. My legs went weak and my feet would no longer support me, while a cold sweat broke out on my forehead from sheer emotion. Those snowy white crests spoke to me, each curl a letter, each connected to the next to form words; every wave, a word; the shoreline, a sentence about to be washed up on the sand.

  Someone noticed the state I was in and offered me a glass of wine, which I accepted without taking my eyes off the foaming waves. It probably wasn’t very sociable of me, but my heart and mind belonged completely to the bubbling of this beach, while my gaze ran over it again and again, from left to right, reading, ‘Dear sweet and patient stranger, let us drink to all the bitter words you have imbibed from my letters.’

  As if I were completely alone on that beach, I lifted my glass, approached its sacred waters and then drank the ambrosial nectar in mystical ecstasy. I savoured each sip until it was absorbed and there was nothing left. Then an angel must have brushed against my shoulder to break my enchantment and make me turn my face towards the exit. There in the shadows stood a tall man with a very white smile, watching me with his own glass raised, holding it out to me. It was Saúl.

  In the heart of the gallery a circular bench was set around a central table covered with leaflets on the show. Depending on where a visitor sat, it faced any given area of the room. Two people, I don’t even remember what gender, led me to the bench while everyone else stared at me in eager surprise. Sitting next to me was a man who remained silent for a moment as he took my glass, and that calmed down the bystanders, who slowly wandered off to enjoy the other paintings.

  When the man saw that I was more receptive, he leaned in and said right into my ear, in a fairly acceptable Spanish accent, ‘He came for you. He risked his freedom to meet his new muse.’

  ‘Martin Baker?’ I managed to ask.

  ‘The very same. Saúl got your email and it meant so much to him that he decided to take the risk of coming to Paris. His paintings were already in the gallery and he felt the need to leave you a personal message in his most symbolic work. He arrived seven days ago, and he’s been working ever since on that painting,’ he said, pointing to the landscape of the beach that hung over the room, ‘the final painting of the exhibition. He painted it in record time – look at its meaning, the title and the texture: it’s all still fresh. I think that he sensed you would be here today. He also wants you to know how much it’s changed his life to know now that his stranger has a name, and that she’s you. It’s funny – looking at you I realise that he hasn’t painted those other eyes in years, and that can’t be a coincidence.’

  ‘He came for me . . . ?’

  ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss – you’ve been a total surprise. I do hope that destiny allows us to meet again,’ he answered, standing up and giving me a slight bow by way of farewell.

  ‘I hope so too, Mr Baker.’

  With that he left, leaving me alone and full of questions, among a crowd that had finally chosen to ignore the madwoman dressed in white.

  I couldn’t leave the bench, where I still sat contemplating that beach, quite mesmerised. There were many more paintings to enjoy and messages to decipher, but I’d had enough for today; I would come back tomorrow. Right now I just wanted to feel the wonder of loving and feeling loved for the first time in my life. I was so dazed that I couldn’t even be sure if it had really happened, if Saúl really had been there, travelling vast distances and risking what little freedom he had left in life just to raise a glass to me . . . His face, turned towards me, smiling, happy, with his glass lifted . . . It had been like an apparition, a wonderful dream.

  It was all over, and Yolanda was in the past. The paintings hanging in the Atelier des Lumières were an ode to Saúl having managed to start on a new path, having shed the heavy weight of his painful memories. Jesus, he had come out of hiding to celebrate with me! Not in my wildest dreams had I imagined such happiness. I never thought you could reach such a magical, seductive world from this one.

  Little by little, people were drifting out of the gallery. By nine fifteen I was the only one to remain, still seated on the central bench in front of the Pacific Ocean, bound to the words that ran along its shore.

  ‘Mademoiselle.’ A kind voice brought me back to the harsh reality. It was all over.

  ‘Yes?’

  The gallery owner – the same kind gentleman who had allowed me in at the start – was standing in front of me, holding his hand out to invite me to stand up at last, probably with the intention of guiding me to the exit. Just then all the lights that brought the paintings of the man by the lake to life were switched off, and night fell on the beach.

  Only the faintest gleam around their corners stopped the timid silhouettes from dying on the walls.

  ‘Marie, turn the lights back on, please!’

  The ocean shone once more beneath the sun.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, rising to my feet.

  ‘It doesn’t seem as though you’ve quite finished with the exhibition. Take your time to savour the paintings on your own.’

  Silence accompanied me as I walked through the gallery, seeing all the paintings still waiting for me, all of them brimming with thrilling messages, with beauty, with brushstrokes as tremulous as my soul. I didn’t feel able, however, to delight in them for quite as long as I would have liked, thinking of that nameless man from the gallery who had twice been so kind and patient with me. And so I said goodbye to the final painting, leaving behind the one thing that had been fully worthwhile in my nearly thirty-five years of life. It was a painting of the lake shrouded in mist, that very mist that had tortured him so much, but between the wisps of vapour shone a radiant stream of light, a torrent of words of hope. This was what the brief message I had sent him by email had inspired in him: that there was new hope in his life, and it came from me.

  I left the big room slowly, utterly stunned, followed out by my patient, silent guide.

&n
bsp; Before I left, I asked the kind gentleman why the paintings were not for sale. He told me that they all already had a buyer, and that the exhibition had been a complete success. I was devastated, ashamed that this had not been obvious to me. But he was holding back something special for me: the painting of the man feeding the ducks.

  ‘The artist kept this for you,’ he said, taking it off the wall to place it in my hands. I couldn’t believe it – it was mine . . . ‘If you want, you can leave your address and we’ll send it on to your home,’ he commented, as I stared at the painting with the awe and wonder of a girl who had just been granted the one gift she had always longed for.

  ‘If it’s all right, I’d rather take it with me now.’

  I walked on air the whole way back to the hotel. I don’t know if it was Saúl’s painting, which was like carrying a kite pushed along by a gentle breeze, or if it was all in my mind, but I was no longer in the mortal world. I remember only that I didn’t once seem to tread on the surface of the pavement that led from the gallery to my hotel, but rather that it seemed transformed into a pathway of clouds. All the shops appeared to be shut, and the only light that evening streamed out from what I was carrying in my hands. No, I have no real memory of that walk, which I must have taken, because I ended up back at the hotel lobby.

  The pair of receptionists at the front desk greeted me as I wafted in from the street.

  ‘You are Señorita de Castro?’ one of them asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s me.’

  ‘Someone asked for you – he’s waiting in the lounge off to the right.’

  ‘For me? Are you sure? Did he give his name?’ I asked, suddenly frightened and fearing the worst, that maybe Pedro Vidal had finally found me.

  ‘Yes, his name is . . .’ She looked down at her notes for a second. ‘His name is Saúl Guillén.’