by Maria Duenas
“You know something, Sira? I really loved your mother; I loved her very much, very much indeed. If only everything had been different, so that I could have kept her with me forever. But regrettably that’s not the way it was.”
He looked away from me and turned back to her. Toward her big hazel-colored eyes tired from sewing. Toward her beautiful maturity with neither cosmetics nor embellishments.
“I didn’t fight for you much, Dolores, did I? I was unable to confront my family, and I wasn’t worthy of you. Then, as you know, I adjusted to the life that was expected of me, I got used to another woman and another family.”
My mother listened in silence, apparently impassive. I couldn’t have said whether she was hiding her emotions or whether those words didn’t provoke either cold or heat in her at all. She remained, quite simply, stern in her posture, her thoughts inscrutable, sitting upright in the beautifully tailored suit I’d never seen her in before, doubtless made from the fabric remnants of some woman with more material and more luck in life than she.
Rather than stopping in the face of her impassivity, my father kept on talking. “I don’t know whether you’ll believe me or not, but the truth is that now I find myself coming toward the end, my heart grieves that I’ve let so many years go past without taking care of you both, and without even having gotten to know you, Sira. I should have insisted more, I shouldn’t have given up trying to keep you close, but things were the way they were. And Dolores, you were too dignified, you wouldn’t allow me to devote only the leftover scraps of my life to you. If it couldn’t be everything, then it would be nothing. Your mother is very tough, girl, very tough and very firm. And I, I was probably weak and a fool, but, well, this isn’t the time for regrets.”
He remained silent a few seconds, thinking, not looking at us. Then he breathed in slowly through his nose, breathed out again hard, and shifted position, leaning forward in his armchair as though wanting to be more direct, as though he had decided to approach head-on what he seemed to have to tell us. He seemed finally ready to extract himself from the bitter nostalgia that kept him flying over the past, ready now to focus himself on the earthly demands of the present.
“I don’t want to occupy you any longer with my melancholy thoughts, forgive me. Let’s get to the point. I’ve called you here to transmit my last wishes. I ask you both to understand me and not misinterpret them. My intention is not to compensate you for the years I haven’t given you, or to demonstrate my remorse with gifts, still much less to try to buy your good regard at this point. All I want is to leave the ends nicely tied up, which rightfully I think should be put in order for when my time comes.”
For the first time since we’d settled down, he rose from his armchair and made his way toward the desk. I followed him with my gaze, observing the broad back, the fine cut of his jacket, the agile step despite his corpulence. Then I looked at the portrait hanging on the back wall toward which he was headed, large and impossible not to notice. It was an oil in a gilt frame of an elegant woman dressed in the fashion of the beginning of the century, neither beautiful nor the contrary, with a tiara on her short wavy hair and a severe expression on her face. When he turned around he gestured toward it with a movement of his chin.
“My mother, the grande dame Carlota, your grandmother. You remember her, Dolores? She passed away seven years ago; if she’d done it twenty-five years ago, you, Sira, would probably have been born in this house. Anyway, we’ll let the dead rest in peace.”
He was talking without looking at us now, busy with whatever he was doing behind the desk. He opened drawers, took out objects, riffled through papers, and returned to us with his hands full. As he approached he didn’t take his eyes off my mother.
“You’re still beautiful, Dolores,” he observed as he sat down. He was no longer tense, his initial discomfort only a memory. “I’m sorry, I haven’t offered you anything, will you drink something? I’ll call Servanda . . .” He made as though to get up again, but my mother interrupted him.
“We don’t want anything, Gonzalo, thank you. Let’s finish this, please.”
“Do you remember Servanda, Dolores? The way she used to spy on us, the way she’d follow us and then go telling tales to my mother?” Suddenly he gave a laugh, hoarse, quick, bitter. “Remember when she caught us locked in the ironing room? And now look, how ironic after all these years: my mother rotting in the cemetery, and me here with Servanda, the only person who takes care of me, what a pathetic fate. I should have dismissed her when my mother died, but where could the poor woman have gone then, old and deaf and with no family. And besides, she probably had no choice but to do what my mother told her to do: it wasn’t the time to be losing her job just like that, even though Doña Carlota had an unbearable nature and would drive her servants down a road of misery.”
He remained seated on the edge of his armchair, without leaning back, his large hands resting on the heap of things he had brought over from his desk. Papers, packages, cases. From the inside pocket of his jacket he now took out some metal-framed glasses and positioned them on his face.
“Well then, to practical matters, one thing at a time.”
First he took up a package that was really two large envelopes, bulky and held together at the middle by an elastic band.
“This is for you, Sira, to open up a new path in your life. It isn’t a third of my capital as by rights should be yours as one of my three descendants, but it’s all I can give you at the moment in cash. I’ve barely been able to sell anything, things are going badly for every sort of transaction right now. And I’m not in a position to leave you property, either: you’re not legally recognized as a daughter of mine and the inheritance taxes would swallow you up, not to mention that you’d be embroiled in endless lawsuits with my other children. But here you’ve got almost a hundred and fifty thousand pesetas. You seem smart like your mother; I’m sure you’ll be able to invest them well. With this money I also want you to take care of her, to make sure she doesn’t lack for anything and to support her if one day she needs it. The truth is, I would have preferred to split the money in two, half for each of you, but as I know Dolores would never accept it, I’ll leave you in charge of everything.”
He held the packet out; before taking it I looked over at my mother, disconcerted, not knowing what to do. With a nod—quick and concise—she conveyed her consent. Only then did I hold out my hands.
“Thank you very much,” I mumbled to my father.
He prefaced his reply with a mirthless smile. “No reason to thank me, daughter, no reason at all. Well then, let’s get on.”
He took up and opened a small box lined in blue velvet. Then he took another, this time maroon colored, smaller, and did the same. And so on successively till there were five. He left them open on the table. The jewels inside didn’t shine brightly, there wasn’t much light, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t guess how valuable they were.
“This was my mother’s. There’s more, but María Luisa, my wife, has taken them away with her on her pious exile. She has, however, left the most valuable ones, probably because they’re the least discreet. They’re for you, Sira. It would be safest if you never wear them: as you can see, they’re a little showy. But you can sell them or pawn them if you’re ever in need and you’ll get a considerable sum for them.”
I didn’t know how to reply; my mother did.
“Absolutely not, Gonzalo. All that belongs to your wife.”
“Not at all,” he interrupted her. “All this, my dear Dolores, is not my wife’s property: all this is mine and my wish is that it should pass from me to my daughter.”
“That cannot be, Gonzalo, it cannot be.”
“It certainly can be.”
“It can’t.”
“It can.”
The discussion ended there. Silence on my mother’s part, the battle lost. He closed the boxes one by one. Then he piled them in an orderly pyramid, the largest at the bottom, the smallest at the top. He mo
ved the heap over toward me, sliding it along the waxed surface of the table, and when I had them in front of me, he turned his attention to a few sheets of paper. He unfolded them and showed them to me.
“These are some certificates for the jewels, with descriptions and appraisals and all that sort of thing. And there is also a notarized document affirming that they belong to me and that I am passing them on to you of my own free will. It’ll be useful to you should you ever need to prove that they’re yours; I hope you’ll never have to prove anything to anyone, but just in case.”
He folded up the pieces of paper, put them in a file, deftly tied a red ribbon around it, and placed that in front of me, too. Then he took up an envelope and drew from it a couple of leaves of yellowed paper, with stamps, signatures, and other formalities.
“And now one further thing, almost the last thing. How can I explain this to you?” A pause, an intake of breath, then a slow exhalation before he continued. “This document has been drawn up by me and my lawyer, and it has been notarized. What it says, in brief, is that I am your father and you are my daughter. What use will it be to you? Perhaps none, because if one day you try to make a claim to my inheritance, you’ll find that I’ve bequeathed it while I’m alive to your half brothers, meaning that you will never be able to obtain any more from this family than you will take with you when you leave this house today. But to me it is valuable: it’s a public recognition of something I should have done many years ago. I state here what it is that connects you and me, and now you can do whatever you please with it: show it to half the world or tear it in a thousand pieces and throw it in the fire; that is up to you alone.”
He folded the document, put it away, and handed me the envelope, then took up another from the table, the final one. The previous one had been large, of good-quality paper, with elegant handwriting and a notary’s letterhead. This second one was small, brownish, common looking, with an appearance of having been passed through a thousand hands before reaching ours.
“This is the last one,” he said, not raising his head.
He opened it, removed its contents, and examined it briefly. Then, without a word, passing over me this time, he gave it to my mother. Then he got up and went over to one of the balcony windows. He remained there in silence, his back to us, his hands in his trouser pockets, contemplating the evening—or nothing, I don’t know. What my mother had received was a small pile of photographs. Old, brown, and of poor quality, taken by a street photographer for next to nothing some spring morning more than two decades ago. A young couple, attractive, smiling. Complicit and close, caught in the fragile net of a love as great as it was inconvenient, unaware that after their years apart, when they were once again confronted with each other and with that testimony of yesterday, he would turn toward a balcony so as not to look at her face and she would clench her jaw so as not to cry in front of him.
My mother ran through the photographs one by one. Then she handed them over to me, without looking up. I considered them slowly and returned them to their envelope. He came back over to us, sat down, and took up the conversation again.
“With that we’re done with all the material issues. Now comes the advice. It’s not, daughter, that at this point I’m trying to leave you with some moral legacy; I’m not someone who inspires confidence or who preaches by example, but if you’d allow me a few more minutes after so many years, I’m sure that’s not too much to ask, right?”
I nodded.
“Well, my advice is as follows: leave here as soon as possible. Both of you, go far away, the farther from Madrid you can go the better. Out of Spain, if possible. Not into Europe, as the situation there doesn’t look too good either. Go off to America; if that’s too far, to Africa. To Morocco; go to the Protectorate, that’s a good place to live. A quiet place where nothing at all has happened since the end of the war with the Moors. Start a new life far from this crazy country, because when you least expect it something enormous is going to explode and no one here will be left alive.”
I couldn’t contain myself.
“And what about you, sir, why aren’t you going?”
He smiled bitterly. Then he held his big hand out to mine and gripped it hard. It was hot. He spoke without letting go.
“Because I no longer need a future, my daughter. I’ve already burned all my bridges. And please, don’t call me sir. I’ve completed my cycle, a bit prematurely no doubt, but I no longer have the desire nor the strength to fight for a new life. When you undertake a change like that you have to do it with dreams and hopes, with illusions. To go without them is merely to run away, and I have no intention of escaping anywhere; I’d rather stay here and confront whatever is coming. But you, Sira, you’re young, you must start a family, raise them well. And Spain is becoming a bad place. So that is what I recommend, as a father and a friend: leave. Take your mother with you, so she can watch her grandchildren growing up. And look after her as I wasn’t able to do, promise me that.”
He kept his gaze locked on mine until I nodded. I don’t know in what way he expected me to look after my mother, but I didn’t dare do anything but agree.
“Well, with that I think we’re finished,” he announced.
Then he got up, and we did the same.
“Take your things,” he said. I obeyed. Everything fit in my handbag apart from the largest of the cases and the envelopes of money.
“And now let me embrace you for the first and undoubtedly the last time. I doubt very much that we’ll see each other again.”
He wrapped my thin body in his big build and squeezed me hard; then he took my face in his large hands and kissed my forehead.
“You’re just as lovely as your mother. I wish you good luck in your life, my daughter. May God bless you.”
I wanted to say something in reply, but I couldn’t. The sounds remained trapped in my throat, the tears welled up in my eyes, and all I could do was turn around and go out into the hallway in search of the front door, stumbling, my sight cloudy and a stab of black sorrow wrenching my guts.
I waited for my mother on the staircase landing. The door had been left half open, and I watched as she came out observed by the sinister figure of Servanda lurking in the corridor. Her cheeks were ablaze and her eyes glassy, emotion finally perspiring on her face. I wasn’t there to witness what my parents did and said to each other in those five short minutes, but I’ve always believed that they, too, embraced and said good-bye to each other forever.
We went down the steps just as we had come up: my mother ahead, me behind. In silence. With the jewels, the documents, and the photographs in my handbag, the hundred and fifty thousand pesetas wedged under my arm, and the noise of my heels hammering on the staircase marble. Arriving at the mezzanine, I couldn’t contain myself: I grabbed her by the arm and forced her to stop and turn around. My face was right in front of hers, my voice was just a terrified whisper.
“Are they really going to kill him, Mother?”
“How should I know, daughter, how should I know . . .”
Chapter Four
___________
We went out into the street and began our return journey without exchanging another word. She picked up the pace and I struggled to keep up with her, fighting the discomfort of my new high heels. After a few minutes, still stunned, I found the courage to speak.
“So what do I do with all this now, Mother?”
She didn’t stop to answer me. “Keep it somewhere safe,” was her only response.
“All of it? And you won’t keep anything?”
“No, it’s all yours; you are the heir, and besides, you’re already a grown woman and I can’t interfere with what you do with the things that your father has decided to give you.”
“Are you sure, Mother?”
“I’m sure, daughter, I’m sure. Maybe just give me a photograph, any of them, I want only one memento. The rest is all for you, but in God’s name I beg you, Sira, by God and holy Mary, listen to me well, girl.�
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She stopped at last and looked me in the eye under the dim light of a street lamp. Beside us passersby walked in a thousand directions, oblivious to our agitation.
“Be careful, Sira. Be careful and be responsible,” she said in a low voice, forming her words quickly. “Don’t do anything crazy. You’ve got a lot now, a lot; so much more than you could ever have dreamed of having, so for God’s sake, my child, be cautious; be cautious and sensible.”
We kept on walking in silence until we parted. She returned to the emptiness of her house without me, to the mute company of my grandfather, who had never known who his granddaughter’s father was because my mother, stubborn and proud, had always refused to give him a name. And I returned to Ramiro. He was waiting for me at home, smoking in the half light as he listened to the radio in the living room, anxious to know how it had gone for me and ready to go out for dinner.
I described the visit to him in detail: what I’d seen there, what I’d heard from my father, how I’d felt, and what he had advised me. I also showed him what I’d brought from that house to which I would probably never return.
“This is worth a lot of money, girl,” he whispered as he looked at the jewels.
“And there’s more,” I said, holding the envelope of notes out to him.
In reply, he allowed himself just a whistle.
“What are we going to do with all this now, Ramiro?” I asked with a knot of concern.
“You mean what are you going to do, my love: all this is just yours. If you want me to, I can take charge of determining how best to keep it. It might perhaps be a good idea to deposit it all in the safe at my office.”
“Why don’t we take it to a bank?” I asked.
“I don’t think that would be good, the way things are going at the moment.”
The fall of the New York Stock Exchange a few years earlier, the political instability, and a mountain of other things that didn’t interest me in the slightest were the explanations with which he backed up his proposal. I barely paid attention: any decision he made would seem right to me. I only wanted to find a safe place as quickly as possible for that fortune already burning my fingers.