by Maria Duenas
There was hardly anyone on the beach. The waves, broad and flat, followed one another, monotonous. Not far away, what looked like a castle and a promontory with grand villas; ahead, an ocean almost as large as my unease. I sat down on the sand to look at it, and with my gaze fixed on the advancing and retreating of the foam, I lost all sense of time and let myself get swept away. Each wave carried a memory with it, an image of the past: memories of the young woman I once was, of my accomplishments and my fears, of the friends I’d left behind, scenes from other lands, with other voices. And above all that morning, the sea brought me feelings that had been forgotten between the folds of memory: the caress of a dear hand, the strength of a friendly arm, the joy of what was shared, and a longing for what was desired.
It was almost three in the afternoon when I shook the sand off my skirt. Time to go back, as good a time as any. I crossed the road to the hotel; there were barely any cars passing. One was disappearing into the distance, another was approaching slowly. That one seemed familiar, vaguely familiar. A needling curiosity made me slow my pace until the car passed me. And I knew then what car it was and who was driving. Da Silva’s Bentley, with João behind the wheel. What a coincidence, what a very fortuitous meeting! Or not, I suddenly thought with a shudder. There were probably a thousand reasons why the old chauffeur should have been driving calmly through the streets of Estoril, but my instinct told me that he had just come for me. Candelaria and my mother would have said, Snap out of it, girl, snap out of it! But since they weren’t around, I said it to myself. Yes, I had to snap out of it; I’d lowered my guard. Meeting Marcus had made a violent impression on me and had unearthed so many recollections and feelings, but now was not the time to allow myself to be taken over by nostalgia. I had an assignment, an obligation: a role to play, an image to project, and a task to take care of. Sitting looking at the waves wasn’t going to achieve anything except waste time and plunge me into melancholy. The moment to return to reality had arrived.
I picked up the pace and did my best to look sprightly and lively. Although João had disappeared, there could have been other eyes watching me from any little corner on Da Silva’s orders. It was quite impossible that he should have suspected me, but perhaps his nature—as a powerful, controlling man—insisted on his knowing what exactly his Moroccan visitor was doing instead of taking advantage of his car. And I would have to be sure to show him.
I went up to my room by a side staircase; I changed my clothes and reappeared. Whereas a half hour earlier I’d been in a light skirt and a cotton blouse, I was now in an elegant mandarin-colored suit, and my flat sandals had been replaced by a pair of snakeskin high heels. My sunglasses had disappeared and I’d made myself up with the cosmetics I’d bought the previous day. My hair, no longer covered in a scarf, fell loosely over my shoulders. I went down the main staircase with a rhythmic step and wandered in leisurely style along the landing of the upper floor that looked down over the main entrance hall. I descended one more flight to the lobby floor, not forgetting to smile at everyone I passed on the way. I greeted the ladies with an elegant tilt of my head—regardless of how old they were, their language, or whether they even bothered to return the attention. With the gentlemen, a few of them local, many of them foreign, I accelerated my blinking; I even made a flirtatious gesture to a particularly decrepit one. I asked one of the receptionists to send a cable to Doña Manuela and asked for it to be transmitted to my own address. “Portugal wonderful, excellent shopping. Headache today and resting. Tomorrow visiting a helpful supplier. Best wishes, Arish Agoriuq.” Then I chose one of the armchairs that were scattered around the spacious lobby in clusters of four; I wanted to be somewhere people had to walk past, and very conspicuous. And then I crossed my legs, asked for two aspirins and a cup of tea, and devoted the rest of the afternoon to being seen.
I managed to put up with pretending to be bored for almost three hours, until my stomach began to growl. Mission concluded—I’d earned the right to go back to my room and order some dinner from room service. I was about to get up when a bellhop approached carrying a little silver tray. And on it, an envelope. And inside, a card.
Dear Arish:
I hope the sea has dispelled your discomfort. João will come to fetch
you tomorrow morning at ten to bring you to my office. I hope you
have a good rest.
Manuel Da Silva
News really did get around. I was tempted to have a little wander about in search of the driver or Da Silva himself, but I stopped myself. Although one of them was probably somewhere nearby, I feigned a cool lack of interest and pretended to be concentrating on one of the American magazines I’d used to while away part of the afternoon. Half an hour later, when the lobby was half empty and most of the guests had already headed off for the bar, the terrace, and the dining room, I returned to my room, ready to get Marcus out of my head altogether and concentrate on the complicated day that lay ahead of me once this night was done.
Chapter Fifty-Four
__________
João threw his cigarette on the ground, greeting me with a bom dia, and stamped out the butt with his shoe as he held open the door to the Bentley. Again he looked me up and down, but this time he wouldn’t have the opportunity to inform his boss of anything about me, as I’d be seeing him myself in just half an hour.
Da Silva’s offices were on the centrally located Rua do Ouro, the street of gold that connected Rossio with the Praça do Comércio in Baixa. The building was elegant in an unshowy way, with everything around it exuding a powerful aura of money, negotiations, and successful business: there were banks, pawnshops, offices, men in suits, employees scurrying, and hotel bellhops dashing about.
As I got out of the Bentley I was received by the same thin man who had interrupted our conversation the night Da Silva came to meet me. Alert and discreet, this time he shook my hand and introduced himself as Joaquim Gamboa, then he led me deferentially to the elevator. At first I thought that the company’s offices were on one of the floors of the building, but it didn’t take me long to realize that in fact the whole building was the company’s headquarters. Gamboa led me directly to the second story.
“Don Manuel will be with you right away,” he announced before disappearing.
The waiting room where I settled had walls paneled with gleaming wood that looked as though it had recently been waxed. Six leather chairs marked out the waiting area; a bit farther in, closer to the double door that led to Da Silva’s office, there were two desks: one of them occupied, the other empty. At the first there was a secretary working, fiftyish, who—judging by the formal greeting with which she received me and the exquisite care she took to make a note of something in a thick notebook—must have been an efficient, discreet worker, any boss’s dream. Her companion, who was quite a bit younger, appeared within just a couple of minutes, opening one of the doors from Da Silva’s office and emerging with a dull-looking man. A client, probably a business contact.
“Senhor Da Silva is ready for you, senhorita,” she said with a bland expression. I pretended not to pay much attention to her, but a single look was enough to size her up. My age, give or take a year. With glasses for her nearsightedness, light hair and skin, painstaking in her attire, though with clothes of rather modest quality. I couldn’t observe her any further because at that moment Manuel Da Silva came out to meet me in the waiting room.
“A pleasure to have you here, Arish,” he said in his excellent Spanish.
In exchange I held out my hand slowly to give him time to look at me and decide if I was still worthy of his attention. To judge by his reaction, I gathered that I was. I’d put in a great effort to make a good impression, choosing for this business meeting a silver-colored suit with a pencil skirt and fitted jacket, and placing on the lapel a white flower to minimize the sobriety of the suit’s color. The result was recompensed with a veiled look of appreciation and a gentlemanly smile.
“Please, come in. They’ve al
ready been by this morning to bring all the things I want to show you.”
In one corner of the spacious office, under a large map of the world, stood various rolls of fabric. Silks. Natural silks, smooth and radiant, and magnificent dyed silks in lustrous colors. Just by touching them I could anticipate the beautiful drape of the gowns I could sew from them.
“Are they of the quality you’d been expecting?”
I heard Manuel Da Silva’s voice behind me. For a few seconds, perhaps a few minutes, I’d forgotten all about him and his world. The pleasure of examining the exquisite fabrics, of feeling their softness and imagining how the end products might look, had distanced me from reality for a moment. Fortunately I didn’t have to make any effort to compliment the merchandise that he had brought me.
“Better. They’re marvelous.”
“In that case I’d advise you to take as many yards as you can, because I don’t think we’ll be having these on hand for very long.”
“There’s that much demand?”
“We expect so. Although not for them to be used for fashion exactly.”
“What for, if not fashion?” I asked, surprised.
“For other requirements that are more pressing nowadays: for the war.”
“For the war?” I repeated, feigning disbelief. I knew that material was being used in other countries; Hillgarth had told me about it in Tangiers.
“They use the silk to make parachutes, to protect gunpowder, and even for bicycle tires.”
I gave a pretend little laugh.
“What a ridiculous waste! With the silk they need for one parachute we could make at least ten evening gowns.”
“Yes, but times are hard. And the countries that are at war will pay anything they need to for it.”
“And what about you, Manuel, who will you be selling these treasures to, the Germans or the English?” I asked in a teasing tone, as though I hadn’t been taking what he said altogether seriously. I even surprised myself with my boldness, but he played along with my joke.
“We Portuguese have long-standing commercial links to the English, though in these turbulent days you never know . . .” He finished off his worrying response with a laugh, but before I had the time to work out what it meant he changed the subject to more practical, immediate questions. “Here you’ll find a folder with detailed information about the materials: reference numbers, qualities, prices—in short, all the usual,” he said as he made his way over to his desk. “Take it with you to the hotel, take your time, and when you’ve decided what you’d be interested in having, fill out an order form and I’ll arrange for it all to be sent direct to Madrid; you’ll have it in less than a week. You can make the payment from there when you receive the merchandise, you needn’t worry about that. And don’t forget to include a twenty percent discount on each price, on the house.”
“But—”
“And here,” he said, not letting me finish, “you’ll find another folder with the details of local suppliers of materials and merchandise that might be of interest to you: thread, braiding, buttons, tanned leather . . . I’ve taken the liberty of setting up some appointments with them, and this is the schedule, in this section here. Look: this afternoon the Soares brothers will be expecting you, they have the finest thread in the whole of Portugal; tomorrow, Friday, in the morning, Casa Barbosa will see you, that’s where they make buttons from African ivory. Saturday morning you have a visit set up with the Almeida furriers, and then there’s nothing else arranged till Monday. But you should be prepared, because the week will start packed with engagements again.”
I studied the piece of paper filled with little boxes and hid my admiration at how well it had been arranged.
“As well as Sunday, I see I’ll have tomorrow afternoon and evening to rest,” I said without looking up from the document.
“I’m afraid you’re wrong.”
“I don’t think I am. It’s blank on your plan—look.”
“Yes, it is indeed blank, because I asked my secretary to leave it that way because I’ve planned something to fill it up. Would you have dinner with me tomorrow night?”
I took the second folder that he was still holding and didn’t answer. First I paused to examine its contents: several pages with names, information, and numbers that I pretended to study with interest, although in reality I just cast my eyes across them without stopping to look at any of them.
“Very well, I accept,” I said, after leaving him a few long seconds waiting for my reply. “But only if you promise me something first.”
“Very well, anything within my power.”
“Well then, this is my condition: I’ll have dinner with you if you’ll assure me that you’re not going to let any soldiers jump out of their planes with these precious fabrics strapped to their backs.”
He laughed delightedly and once again I noticed what a lovely laugh he had. Masculine, powerful, elegant, all at the same time. I remembered the words of Hillgarth’s wife: Manuel Da Silva really was an attractive man. And then, fleeting as a comet, the shadow of Marcus Logan passed in front of me once more.
“I’ll do what I can, don’t worry about that, but you know how it is with business,” he said, shrugging, a trace of irony at the corner of his lips.
An unexpected ringing prevented him from continuing. The sound came from his desk, from a grey machine with a blinking green light.
“Please excuse me a moment.” He seemed to have gone back to being serious in an instant. He pressed a button and the distorted voice of his young secretary came out of the machine.
“Herr Weiss is waiting for you. He says it’s urgent.”
“Take him through to the meeting room,” he said roughly. His body language had changed utterly: the cold businessman had swallowed up the charmer. Or perhaps he was simply reverting back to character. I didn’t yet know him well enough to know which was the real Manuel Da Silva.
He turned to me and tried to resume his affable manner, but he didn’t entirely succeed.
“Excuse me, sometimes my work just piles up.”
“Please forgive me for having taken up so much of your time—”
He didn’t let me finish. Though he tried to hide it, he exuded a certain sense of impatience. He held out his hand.
“I’ll come and get you tomorrow at eight, if that suits you?”
“Perfectly.”
Our good-bye was quick; it wasn’t the time for flirtation. The witty comments and frivolities had been left behind—we’d resume them another time. He escorted me to the door, and as I went out into the waiting room I looked for this Herr Weiss but found only the two secretaries. One of them was typing conscientiously and the other was putting a pile of letters into their envelopes. They said good-bye with varying degrees of friendliness: they had other, much more pressing things on their minds.
Chapter Fifty-Five
__________
I’d brought a sketchbook with me from Madrid, aiming to make a note in it of anything I thought might be interesting, and that night I began to lay out on paper what I’d seen and heard up till that moment. I arranged the information in the most ordered way I could and then compressed it as much as possible. “Da Silva joking about business relationship with Germans, impossible to know degree of truth. Expects demand for silk for military purposes. Personality changes with situation. Confirmed link to German Herr Weiss. German appears unannounced and demands immediate meeting. Da Silva tense, no doubt that Herr Weiss will be seen.”
Then I drew a few sketches of dresses that would never materialize and pretended to edge them with penciled stitches. I tried to make the difference between the short and long dashes minimal, so that only I’d be able to distinguish them. I had no problem doing that; I was more than practiced at it. I distributed the information among the sketches, and when I’d finished I burned the pieces of handwritten paper in the bathroom, threw them in the toilet, and pulled the chain. I left the sketchbook in the closet: not particularly
hidden, not ostentatiously visible. If anyone decided to rummage through my things, they’d never suspect that I’d meant to hide it.
Time flew by now that I had things to distract me. I traveled the coast road between Estoril and Lisbon several more times with João at the wheel. I chose dozens of spools of the best thread and exquisite buttons in countless shapes and sizes; I felt as though I was being treated like the most exclusive of clients. Thanks to Da Silva’s recommendations, the suppliers were all attentive, offering easy terms of payment, discounts, and little gifts. And I barely noticed that we’d reached the moment when I was to have dinner with him.
The meeting was like our previous meetings—prolonged glances, bewitching smiles, and shameless flirtation. Although I had mastered the basic rules of performance and was by now a consummate actress, I had no doubt that Manuel Da Silva himself was making things easier for me with his attitude. Again he made me feel like I was the only woman in the world capable of attracting his attention, and again I acted as though being the object of the affections of a rich, attractive man was something that happened to me every day. But it wasn’t, which was why I had to redouble my caution—under no circumstances could I allow my emotions to run away with me: it was all work, just duty. It would have been very easy to relax, to enjoy the man and the moment, but I knew that I needed to keep my mind cool and my feelings far away.
“I’ve booked a table for dinner at the Wonderbar, the casino club: they have a marvelous band and the casino is right next door.”
We walked under the canopy of palm trees; it wasn’t yet completely dark, and the lights from the street lamps gleamed like dots of silver on the violet sky. Da Silva went back to being the man he was at his better moments: pleasant and charming, with no sign of the tension that had appeared when the German was in his office.
There, too, everyone seemed to know him, from the waiters and car valets to the most distinguished patrons. He distributed greetings as he’d done on the first night: friendly slaps on the back, handshakes, and half hugs for the men, pretend hand kissing, smiles, and immoderate compliments for the women. He introduced me to some of them, and I made a mental note of the names to transfer them to the outlines of my sketches.