by Nina Darnton
“If the prosecutor believes your story—and it is not yet certain he will—then Paco will be charged at the most with assault with excessive force during a fight and robbery. If he saves them the cost of a trial and pleads guilty to this, even with his background, he will probably end up with maybe five years in prison. If he doesn’t, and if he implicates you, as you seem to fear, they may go back to their first interpretation of the events. This would mean, if you are convicted, long jail sentences for both of you. I am sure his lawyer will tell him this. If he doesn’t go along with you, he will be putting his desire to hurt you above his desire to save himself. He may do that—you know that better than I—but it would not be wise.”
This speech seemed to calm Emma a bit. But she was still worried. “He is not wise. He is passionate. He acts on impulse.”
“But he is passionate in the service of himself,” Mark said. “I think José is right.”
Jennifer turned to José. “When will we know something?”
There was a knock at the door. José opened it and a guard informed him that the visiting time was over and Emma had to return to her room. He thanked him and reported that it was time for them to leave.
As they were hugging Emma and saying good-bye and promising her that everything would be all right and she had done the right thing, José gathered his papers and walked to the door, waiting for them.
“I think we will have an answer, at least provisionally, by later today or tomorrow. They will speak to Paco and his lawyer. If he agrees to a plea, he will remain in custody and Emma will be released. It could happen as early as tomorrow or the day after.”
“Would I have to stay here until the trial?”
“No. If he pleads guilty to that lesser charge, there won’t be a trial. You will be free to go home. But let’s not think too far ahead. We have to wait. It depends on him.”
Mark walked to the door. “This is ridiculous. You are saying her whole future depends on the decision of a psychopath.”
José shrugged helplessly. “I think that’s been true since she met him.”
“No,” Mark shot back, his voice sharp and angry. “Her future always depended on her own decisions. I hope she sees that now.”
Jennifer whirled around, shocked and furious. “Mark!”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Emma said. “He’s right.”
There was another knock at the door and an impatient voice told them in Spanish that the visit was over. Mark hugged Emma one last time and walked out. Jennifer hugged her too and smoothed her hair. “You’ve made the right decision now, Emma,” she said into her ear. “That’s what counts.”
“I hope so,” Emma murmured, as Jennifer followed Mark and José into the corridor.
CHAPTER 31
The decision didn’t come the next day or the day after or even the day after that. Jennifer called Roberto and José every day, asking when they would hear, what was happening, why was it so slow, and each reassured her that these things take time, that they would call her the moment they heard anything and that the delay was actually a good sign. The wheels were turning, they maintained. If they had been stuck in the mud, they would have heard.
Mark managed to arrange his schedule so he didn’t have to leave during what they hoped would be the final tense time. Jennifer had mixed feelings about this. She was grateful, of course, and understood he needed to be here as much as she did. But his presence also meant she saw less of Roberto. In fact, she couldn’t come up with a reason to see him at all, and he didn’t call or try to see her. But not seeing him didn’t mean not thinking about him, and she had to force herself to be present when she was with Mark and not allow her mind to wander to something Roberto had said, or to the comfort and occasional relief he had provided. She found it helped if she tried to share at least some of her relationship with Roberto with Mark, and she told him about Roberto’s own personal tragedy. Mark was sympathetic—he was a good man—but he had no attachment to Roberto, whose problems were peripheral to his own concerns. Still, she talked of Roberto’s lost daughter and mad wife so often and so intensely, Mark would sometimes look at her curiously while she spoke and then gently change the subject. Who’s not seeing what he doesn’t want to see now? Jennifer thought. But she said nothing about it and took it as a warning to hold back.
She and Mark took a cab to see Emma the first day it was permitted, two days after she had made her statement. José was too busy to take them and Jennifer didn’t want to ask Roberto—it was too difficult to be with him and Mark at the same time. The taxi driver spoke a little English and he and Mark engaged in conversation about Spain’s economic problems and the harsh cutback and privations Germany was imposing on the people in exchange for forgiving some of the debt. Trying to explain the cultural differences between Germany and Spain and how what worked for one wouldn’t work for another, the cab driver said emphatically, “Aquí es aquí y allí es allí!” She was able to translate this for Mark. It meant simply “Here is here and there is there.” But for Jennifer it struck deeper. It spoke directly to her quandary about Roberto and Mark. It was all about “here” or “there,” she thought. And she would be spending her life “there.” She wanted but couldn’t have both. She had to find a way to live with that.
Jennifer had been nervous and Mark had been edgy, but both were nothing compared to Emma, who had bitten her nails to the quick and was unable even to sit down during their entire visit. She paced and sighed and scratched her leg or her arm. She was so agitated that if she hadn’t been in prison, Jennifer might have thought she was on amphetamines. But it was all adrenaline, self-produced and unavoidable under these circumstances. They did their best to calm her down. Mark was decidedly better at it than Jennifer. Her own anxiety was so high, and Emma was so plugged into her, that no matter how hard she tried or how careful she was in what she said, she only seemed capable of augmenting rather than ameliorating Emma’s anxiety. So she hung back and said little. Emma seemed to understand and even to sympathize with her mother. When it was time to go, she put both arms around her and hugged her and whispered into her ear, “It’s okay, Mama. I’m going to be fine, whatever happens. Please don’t worry so much. I love you.”
“I love you too,” she answered automatically. But she didn’t believe for a second that any of them would be fine, “whatever happens.”
Three more days passed. Jennifer called José to see if he had spoken to Paco’s lawyer and learned anything that way, but José said he still knew nothing, though he expected a decision very soon. He advised her and Mark to take a trip to Granada for a few days. The idea seemed preposterous to her. She couldn’t think of anything but Emma’s fate, rolling around different scenarios in her mind by day and in the middle of the night. Mark wanted her to see a therapist and get some antianxiety medication, but she bristled at the idea. She feared a therapist would feed her the usual bromides: “Disentangle yourself; separate yourself; you can’t fix this for her; she has to do it herself.” “If need be, she has to serve her time.” “You have to concentrate on the rest of your life and your other children and stop obsessing over Emma.”
She didn’t want to hear them. It wouldn’t help. When did an obsession ever stop because it was the sensible thing to do? The only thing that would help would be to take Emma home. Then they could work on fixing everything—Emma, her, even her relationship with Mark.
She hung around the apartment, trying to read or find English-language movies on television. Mark urged her to go out, take a walk, do something, but she feared the reporters who continued to hound them and refused. There was one thing she did want to do, however. She remembered Roberto saying that the tabloid press back home was defending Emma by attacking Spain—in particular, implying that the beautiful former Jewish section of Seville somehow represented current anti-Semitism. This was so absurd that at first she had thought it didn’t merit intervention, that Roberto must have simply misunderstood. But it had bothered him, so she decided to see if
he was right. She called Suzie, who was managing the public-relations company. Suzie’s reaction was defensive.
“Well, maybe there was a little implication that one of the reasons they were suspicious of Emma and attacking her as promiscuous was both anti-Americanism and residual anti-Semitism. It’s probably true.”
“It’s not true at all, Suze. It’s completely out of line and even a little crazy.”
“Well, so what? Whatever gets people here riled up is good. It exerts pressure.”
Jennifer was feeling too upset and tired to enter into a prolonged argument with her best friend. She spoke curtly. “It’s not good and it does matter, and on top of that it doesn’t help. It can only hurt. Please tell them to stop any of that immediately and to recant it if asked. I think we have a chance to end this, Suzie. Let’s not fuck it up.”
Suzie heard the tone and got the message. She agreed to take care of it right away.
Otherwise, one day followed the next without much change until, a full eight days after Emma gave her statement, the long-awaited phone call came through.
It was José. He said they had a decision. Would she and Mark join him in his office at 1:00 P.M.?
Jennifer’s heart was pounding. Mark stood by and gripped her hand. “We’ll be there, José. But we can’t wait until then. What is the decision? Mark is here. Tell us now.”
“They have accepted her statement,” he said, not hiding the satisfaction in his voice. “She will be going home. We have only the bureaucratic details to work out. Congratulations.”
He was still talking—something about wanting to tell them in person and celebrate with champagne, but she had dropped the phone. She took several deep breaths, and then threw herself into Mark’s arms. “She’s coming home, Mark. It’s over. Oh, God, thank you, thank you.”
They were hugging and laughing and finally noticed the phone still hanging off the hook. Mark picked it up and spoke into it, calling José’s name, but he had already hung up.
“That’s okay. We’ll meet him at his office at one o’clock to go over the details,” Jennifer said.
She reached for the phone even before Mark had placed it back in its cradle.
“Who are you calling?”
“Roberto. I have to tell him.”
Mark looked confused. “Surely he knows, Jennifer. We need to call Lily and Eric and your parents and Suzie, not Roberto.”
She felt chastened. “Yes, of course. You’re right. It’s just that he’s helped so much in this. This wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t found Consuela. But it’s true, he probably already knows. Maybe he’ll be there at one. We should all celebrate together.”
Mark had pulled out his cell phone to call home, but Jennifer stopped him, reminding him of the time difference. “It’s the middle of the night there,” she said, laughing. “And to tell the truth, I’m glad. I still can’t really believe it. I’d rather call after we meet with José.”
Mark slowly put the phone down. They stared at each other, happy but still uneasy.
“What do we do now?” Jennifer asked. “How do we survive until one o’clock?”
He smiled affectionately at her and put both hands on her shoulders. “We get dressed. We eat a big breakfast at our favorite café. We take a walk and smell the flowers and enjoy the sunshine. We make plans about going home and what is the first thing we’ll do as a family when we arrive. We talk about how happy and lucky we are that it ended as it did.”
She put her arms around him and hugged hard. “So, so lucky,” she said. “That’s a great plan.”
But it didn’t work out that way.
As they exited the building they were surprised by a bevy of news reporters, both print and television, and who knew how many others—bloggers, tweeters, “citizen journalists,” or just nosy passersby with iPhones. Cameras clicked, microphones were shoved toward them, questions shouted out. “Have you heard the news?” “How do you feel?” “Does Emma know yet?” “What was the deal she made?” “Did she get away with murder?” And those were just the ones they could understand. There were hostile-sounding questions in Spanish too. They backed up, fled upstairs, and bolted themselves inside the apartment. Mark was not as accustomed to this as Jennifer had become. He looked at her questioningly.
“What I do when this happens,” she said, “is call Roberto.” As usual, the recording sounded.
“Roberto. If you’re there, please pick up.”
There was a brief pause.
“Diga.”
It was bittersweet to hear his voice.
“It’s me.”
“I know.”
“Have you heard about Emma?”
“Sí, por supuesto. I am delighted. Congratulations.”
“It would never have happened without you.”
“Or without you.”
A pause.
“Roberto, the media is surrounding our apartment. We are supposed to meet José at one p.m. Will you be there?”
“I can be.”
“Will you help us get there?”
“Sí. I will come with a taxi. I’ll call when I am in front. I’ll escort you both to the cab. Say nothing to any of them until she is free and at your side.”
“Okay . . . Roberto . . .”
“Sí?”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll see you later.”
He hung up and she held the phone for a few seconds. After she put it down, she noticed Mark standing in the doorway staring at her. She took a deep breath and turned to him, trying to make her voice as buoyant as possible.
“Well, that’ a relief. He says he’ll bring a taxi and pick us up for our meeting with José. And you were right. Of course he knew about Emma. He is delighted.”
Mark nodded but didn’t answer.
Jennifer got up and walked to the kitchen. “But I’m afraid our breakfast and celebratory walk will have to wait. Luckily we have a full fridge. I’ll make us a big American breakfast, okay? Fried eggs, toast, and bacon sound good?”
“Sure,” Mark said. “It sounds great.”
He sat at the kitchen table, and she took out the frying pan and put two pieces of bread into the toaster. Then she walked back to the table, bent over, and kissed him on the top of his head. He smiled at her.
“We did it,” she said. “We can take her home.”
“Yes,” he answered. “Now the real work begins.”
CHAPTER 32
Emma’s initial euphoria about her upcoming release was short-lived. In spite of everything she now knew about Paco, she worried obsessively about what would become of him. Her parents had little patience with her concern.
“What difference does it make?” Jennifer asked.
“Do you think he spent much time worrying about what would become of you when you were questioned and arrested and he skipped town?” Mark asked.
They were visiting Emma for what they hoped was the last time in the prison. They had been given one of the private visiting rooms, leaving José alone in the waiting area. Emma, seeming very tense, said she needed to speak to him. Mark left to ask the guard if Emma’s lawyer could be called in and returned with him after a few minutes. José entered, probably expecting a tearful Emma to thank him for his help in securing her release. Instead, he found her pale and worried, brushing aside his congratulations with a request that he sit down so she could talk to him.
Mark and Jennifer stood awkwardly in the doorway, not sure whether to go or stay as José pulled out a chair and sat at the table in the visiting room, waiting for her to explain herself. She didn’t ask her parents to leave, so they remained standing, leaning against the wall, worried that something dangerous and unexpected would be revealed. Emma sat next to José and leaned forward, speaking softly, her breath shallow and her eyes wide.
“He’ll be very angry,” she said.
Jennifer was puzzled, but José understood immediately.
“Yes. And so?” he answered.
S
he looked bewildered. “I don’t understand.”
“I mean, so what if he’s angry? Why does it matter? He can’t hurt you.”
He paused and patted Emma’s hand, continuing in a fatherly tone, “I worry that you are still . . .” He hesitated, looking for the right English expression. “How do you say it? Under his thumb.”
“You don’t understand,” she insisted, breathing in and exhaling in a thin stream. “He can hurt me. If he doesn’t like this deal, he can still stop mine.”
José shook his head to disagree, understanding her drift.
“Not anymore, Emma. He has made his deal. If he hadn’t, yours wouldn’t have gone through and he might have been charged with premeditated murder. He knows that. He has admitted to all that you set forth in your statement in exchange for a sentence of five years. It’s over. You can relax.”
She nodded, biting her upper lip. “Okay. Thank you. I hope you’re right.”
After that, the delight in the outcome was followed by bureaucratic confusion. Looking back on it later, from the safety of their home in Philadelphia, none of them could really remember the exact sequence of events after they got the news that Emma would be free. It all blurred into a single sharp sense of relief mixed with eagerness to be done with the formalities and board the plane home. There had been that first, congratulatory visit to the prison followed by the frustration of having to leave without her when they were so close to seeing her walk free. There was a flurry of activity—meetings with the warden and other prison officials, a closed-door session with José and the magistrate in charge of Emma’s case, and finally, a brief appearance in court, where the charges were officially dropped and Emma was released. The session was closed to the media, but Jennifer and Mark were there, seated, holding hands in the front row. Mark squeezed her hand so tightly that her wedding ring dug into her fingers. She caught a glimpse of Paco in court, a disheveled-looking, stocky man with a thick black beard and bushy black eyebrows. He kept his head down until he saw Emma enter, and then he turned to look at her, his angry regard so intense it seemed to scorch the air. Jennifer turned quickly to see Emma’s reaction and noticed Emma’s resolute stare straight in front of her, as though she had determined not even to look in his direction.