by Maria Duenas
This time no shouts or acclaim hailed Mauro Larrea’s victory; the crowd was absent, as were the whores and his opponent’s cronies. Nor had he any desire to express his joy: he was stiff all over, his ears were buzzing, his fingers numb, and his mind hazy, enveloped in a dense fog like the morning mist that rose from the sea.
A heartfelt clap on the shoulder from old Calafat brought him back to reality; he nearly cried out in pain.
“Congratulations, my boy.”
He had begun to emerge from his grave.
A future now awaited him across the ocean.
Part III
JEREZ DE LA FRONTERA
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The shutters evidently had not been used or oiled in quite some time, for the clasps refused to budge. Only through the efforts of two pairs of hands did they finally yield, accompanied by creaks and groans from the hinges. Sunlight flooded the room and the phantomlike shapes of the furniture took on a sudden clarity.
Mauro Larrea lifted one of the dust sheets: beneath was a sofa covered in faded scarlet satin. Under another sheet he found a wobbly rosewood table. At the far side of the room he saw a magnificent fireplace with the remains of its last fire. On the floor next to it lay a dead pigeon.
His were the only footsteps that resounded as he strode across the imposing room. After helping him with the balcony shutters, the notary’s clerk took refuge in the doorway. Waiting.
“So nobody has been looking after the house for a long while now?” asked Larrea, without turning around. As he said this, he pulled off another sheet: sleeping beneath it was a broken armchair with walnut armrests.
“No one as far as I know, sir. Ever since Don Luis left, nobody has been here. But, anyway, the rot set in long before that.”
He spoke unctuously, apparently submissive and not asking any direct questions, but at the same time unable to conceal the gnawing curiosity aroused by the task the notary had given him. Angulo, go with Señor Larrea to Don Luis Montalvo’s house on Calle de la Tornería. Then, if there’s time, take him to the winery on Calle del Muro. I have two appointments I need to keep. I’ll see you here at half past one.
While the mansion’s new owner was striding around it stone-faced, this Angulo fellow could hardly wait for the visit to be over so that he could escape to the stall where he bought lunch every day, to spread the news. In fact, in his mind he was already going through how best to phrase it to create the greatest impact. A Spaniard who made his fortune in the Americas—an Indiano—is the new owner of the Runt’s house. That seemed a good way to put it. Or perhaps he should say first that the Runt was dead and then add that a newly returned Spaniard had taken over the house?
Whatever order he said it in, the two main points were the Runt and the Indiano. Runt because finally everyone in Jerez was going to learn what had happened to Luis Montalvo, possessor of the nickname and of the mansion: dead and buried in Cuba, that had been his fate. And the Indiano, because that was the label he had immediately pinned on this stranger with such an impressive physique who that same morning had stridden into the notary’s office and announced that his name was Mauro Larrea, creating a ripple of interest in all those present.
While the skinny, haggard-looking Angulo was already silently celebrating the effect of the cannonade he was about to fire, the two men continued to explore room after room along the upper-floor gallery. Another couple of sparsely furnished sitting rooms; a spacious dining room with a table that could seat eighteen guests, but only half that number of chairs; a small, bare chapel, and a good handful of bedrooms with sunken mattresses. The slits in the shutters occasionally allowed in some feeble rays of sun, but the overriding sensation was one of gloom combined with an unpleasant smell of staleness and animal urine.
“I assume that the servants’ quarters and storage space will be up in the attic, as usual,” commented the clerk.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The attic,” Angulo repeated, pointing up at the ceiling. “The garrets—the lofts.”
The Tarifa tiles and Genoa marble decorating the courtyard were filthy. Some of the doors had come off their hinges, several of the windows were broken, and the yellow ocher around the doorways had long since peeled off. In one corner of the vast kitchen, a cat that had recently given birth hissed at them, obviously feeling her position was threatened as the empress of this sad room with its cold fireplaces, smoky ceilings, and empty pitchers.
How long has this place been falling into decline? Larrea asked himself as he made his way back through the courtyard, where climbing weeds wound their way up the columns. The overriding sensation was one of decay after so many years of abandonment.
“Would you like to go and see the winery now?” asked the clerk, with little enthusiasm.
Mauro Larrea took the fob watch out of his pocket and gave a last look around his new property. Two slender palm trees, a host of clay pots filled with aspidistras that had run wild, a fountain with no water, and a pair of battered wicker armchairs bore witness to the agreeable hours that the shade of this splendid courtyard must have offered its inhabitants in the distant past. Now beneath its stone arches his feet encountered only dried mud, withered leaves, and animal droppings. If he had been of a more melancholy disposition, he might have asked himself what had become of the past owners of this place: the children who ran around the courtyard, the adults who rested, loved one another, and argued and conversed in every room of this vast mansion. But since sentimental questions of this nature were not his style, he simply noted that there was only half an hour until his appointment with the notary.
“If you don’t mind, I prefer to leave the winery for later. I’ll walk back to your office; there’s no need for you to accompany me. Go back to your tasks; I can look after myself.”
His powerful voice with its strange foreign accent persuaded Angulo not to insist. They said good-bye at the entrance, each anxious to regain his freedom. Larrea wanted to digest all he had just seen, and the scrawny clerk was desperate to run off to the tavern, where each day he poured out the news and gossip he had gleaned thanks to his position.
What this Angulo, with his wheezing breath and sly expression, could not even imagine was that Mauro Larrea, despite his booming voice and resolute bearing as a wealthy man from the old Spanish colonies, was deep down just as disconcerted as he was. A thousand doubts assailed the miner’s mind as he stepped out once more into the autumnal atmosphere of Calle de la Tornería, but he uttered only one of them, a question aimed at himself that was the essence of all the others: What the devil are you doing here, compadre?
It was all legally his, he knew that. He had won it from Carola Gorostiza’s husband in front of reliable witnesses when Gustavo Zayas decided to risk everything of his own free will and in his right mind. The obscure reasons for his doing so were none of Larrea’s business, but the outcome was. By goodness, it was. That was what a wager meant in Spain, in the Antilles, and in independent Mexico, in the highest society and in the lowest brothel. There was a wager, a game, and sometimes you won and sometimes you lost. This time luck had been on his side. And yet, after inspecting the desolate mansion, a feeling of bitterness returned in the shape of vague silhouettes from the far side of the ocean: Why were you so reckless, Gustavo Zayas? Why did you run the risk of never returning?
Finding his way by instinct, he crossed a square lined with four palatial mansions, then went through the Seville gate and took Calle Larga into the heart of the town. Stop moaning, he told himself. You’re the legitimate heir, and the intrigues of the previous owners are all one to you. Concentrate on what you have just seen: even taking its present lamentable state into account, that mansion must be worth a good deal. What you have to do now is to get rid of it, along with all the rest of what you inherited, as quickly as possible. That’s why you’re here: to sell it off, pocket the money, and cross the Atlantic back to the other
shore.
He continued on his way to the notary’s office along an avenue lined with orange trees. Hardly any carriages passed him by: thank heavens, he thought, remembering the dangerous swarms of them on the streets of Havana. Caught up as he was in his own reflections, he barely registered the quiet, prosperous life of the town, with its two confectioners, three tailors’ shops, five barbers, many aristocratic façades, a couple of pharmacies, a hardware store, and a handful of stores selling shoes, hats, or foodstuffs. Strolling in among them were passersby of all kinds: elegant ladies, gentlemen dressed in the English style, babies with their maids, schoolchildren, and ordinary people on their way home for lunch. Compared to the crazy rhythm of the cities in the Americas from which he had come, Jerez was like a feather pillow, although it escaped his notice.
What he did notice was the smell: a persistent odor that drifted over the roofs and seeped in through the windows. A smell that was neither human nor animal and was nothing like the constant aroma of roasting corn on the streets of Mexico or the tang of the sea in Havana. It was strange, pleasant in its way, and distinctive. Immersed in it, Mauro Larrea reached Calle Lancería, which seemed to be a zone of business offices and negotiation, with constant comings and goings. The notary Don Senén Blanco was waiting for him, having finished his morning’s commitments.
“Señor Larrea, allow me to invite you to lunch at the Victoria Inn. This is not the time of day to sit discussing serious topics on an empty stomach.”
As they walked toward Calle Corredera, Larrea calculated the notary must be ten years his elder and a good few inches shorter. Wearing a fine-quality frock coat, he had graying sideburns and spoke with a southern Spanish accent that was not unlike those heard in the New World.
Although Don Senén did not seem as inquisitive as his clerk Angulo, inside him the same curiosity was bubbling away. He had also been taken aback on hearing that, thanks to a series of incongruous transactions, the former possessions of the Montalvo family were now the rightful property of this returned Spaniard. This was not the first and would certainly not be the last unexpected operation from beyond the seas that he was called upon to certify as a notary; all well and good. His burning interest lay elsewhere, and this made him eager for the stranger to explain how the devil these properties had fallen into his hands, how the last bearer of the Montalvo name had died in the Antilles, and any additional details the newcomer might care to supply.
The two men sat down at a table giving on to the street, but protected from the commotion of carts, animals, and humans by a white lace curtain that covered the bottom half of the windows. No sooner were they seated across from each other than a lad of twelve or thirteen in a waiter’s uniform arrived with his hair slicked down thanks to a liberal application of water and cheap soap, and plunked two small glasses on the tablecloth. The glasses were taller than they were wide, with narrow rims. And, for the moment at least, empty. Next to them he placed a bottle without a label and a small china dish filled with olives.
Larrea unfolded his napkin and took a deep breath as if he had again become aware of something that had been bothering him but that he had not yet been able to identify.
“What is that smell, Don Senén?”
“It is wine, Señor Larrea,” the notary replied, pointing to some dark barrels at the far end of the restaurant. “The smell of must, of wineries, wineskins: the smell of Jerez.”
He poured out the wine.
“That was the livelihood of the family whose properties you now own. The Montalvo family were always wine producers, yes indeed.”
Larrea nodded, staring down at the golden liquid as he extended his hand toward the glass stem. The notary observed the scar reaching to his wrist and the two fingers crushed in Las Tres Lunas mine, but asked no questions.
“And how did it happen that the place fell into ruin, Don Senén, if I may be so bold as to inquire?”
“Because of one of those dreadful things that often happen in families, my dear sir. Not only here in Andalusia but in the rest of Spain, and I suppose in the Americas as well. The great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, and grandfather break their backs building up a business, and then a moment arrives when the chain is broken: their children lack the same determination or ambition, or a tragedy occurs, or the grandchildren go off the rails and start to ruin matters.”
Fortunately for Larrea, at that moment another boy dressed in the same spotless jacket but slightly older than the first one came over, relieving Larrea of the opportunity to dwell on the image of his son Nicolás and the certainty that his own legacy would not even reach the second generation.
“Are you ready to order, Don Senén?” the waiter asked.
“Good and ready, Rafael. Tell us what there is.”
The boy reeled off the menu loudly and swiftly. “To start with, there’s bean soup with chestnuts, chickpeas with prawns, and noodle soup. For the main course, a choice as usual between meat and fish. Of four-legged animals we have basted roast beef and pork cutlets in sauce; of those that go cheep, there’s pigeon with rice. From the water we have shad from the river Guadalete, marinated dogfish, and cod with paprika.”
Larrea barely understood more than four or five words, partly because of the waiter’s closed pronunciation and partly because never in his life had he heard of some of the choices on offer. What on earth were shad or dogfish?
While the notary was deciding for both of them with the confidence of a regular customer, Mauro Larrea raised the glass of wine to his lips. With its sharp taste in his mouth, he surveyed the wooden barrels and the noisy lunchtime bustle, and with no wish to judge but speaking only to his own soul he mused: So this is Jerez.
“I would have been more than glad to invite you back home, but every day three daughters and three sons-in-law sit at my table, and I hardly think that’s the most conducive atmosphere to discuss your affairs with the requisite privacy.”
“I can only thank you,” Larrea replied. Anxious to hear what news the notary had, he spread out his hands and said, “I’m all ears.”
“Well, let’s see . . . I haven’t had the time to examine the earlier wills thoroughly because Don Luis Montalvo received his inheritance almost twenty years ago, and we keep all those documents stored in another office. But in principle everything you have shown me appears to be perfectly in order. According to the documents you’ve brought, you become the owner of all the properties, which comprise a house, a vineyard, and a winery as transferred by Don Gustavo Zayas, who in turn inherited them on the death of Don Luis Montalvo, the last owner of the properties we are aware of in this town.”
The notary seemed to have no problem raising and lowering the wineglass to his mouth as he continued his professional rigmarole in a monotone.
“An executor in Havana and another in the town of Santa Clara in Las Villas Province,” he continued, “both provide official confirmation of these two facts. And whatever is signed in Cuba, since it is territory belonging to the Spanish crown, is immediately valid in peninsular Spain.”
As if to sign off on everything he had quoted from memory, the notary popped an olive into his mouth. Larrea took the opportunity to ask a question of his own.
“As I understand it, Luis Montalvo and Gustavo Zayas were first cousins?”
This had been confirmed in the banker Calafat’s office in Havana by Gustavo Zayas’s representative when he had appeared the morning after the game of billiards to ratify the wager. And that was what the surnames in the will that he presented appeared to corroborate: Luis Montalvo Aguilar and Gustavo Zayas Montalvo. As soon as this business had been settled, and with fortune still smiling on him, Larrea had booked two passages for Cádiz on the mailboat Fernando el Católico, at that time owned by the Spanish government. Two days later, accompanied by the old banker down to the port, he had embarked with Santos Huesos. Larrea heard nothing more about Carola Gorostiza or her hu
sband. The lasting image he retained of Zayas was of him leaning against the wall as he vomited into a spittoon in La Chucha’s gaming room, pouring out body and soul.
“Yes indeed. Luis Montalvo’s father, also called Luis, and Gustavo Zayas’s mother, María Fernanda, were brother and sister. There was another brother, Jacobo, the father of two girls, who also died years ago. Luis the father was the firstborn son of the great Don Matías Montalvo, the patriarch of the family, and he in turn also had two sons: Matías, who unfortunately for everyone died as a youngster, and Luisito. Luisito was the youngest of the cousins; following the death of his elder brother, he was left in charge of the flagships of the family clan: the palatial mansion, the legendary winery, and the vineyard. In short, the same family troubles since time began; you’ll soon find out what kind of lineage you’ve just become related to, if you’ll excuse my irony.”
Here the notary paused for a moment to refill the wineglasses, then went on displaying his remarkable powers of memory.
“I see, Señor Larrea, that you’re not turning your nose up at our wine. That’s excellent . . . As I was saying, Gustavo Zayas is the son of María Fernanda, the third of Old Man Matías’s children and the only female: when I was young I thought she was a truly beautiful woman, or at least that’s how I remember it now. Apparently she did not inherit any properties, but she did have a not-inconsiderable dowry. However, she made a bad marriage—they say she had little luck with her husband, and in the end she left here—for Seville, if I’m not mistaken.”
The arrival of their first courses brought his lengthy explanation to a halt. A delicious dish of chickpeas with prawns for the gentlemen, the waiter announced. So, to help the stranger, the waiter expounded on the ingredients: very fresh headless prawns, cooked with a little sliced pepper, garlic, onion, and some paprika. While he was revealing these culinary secrets, Rafael stared quite openly at the notary’s guest to see if he could glean any information. He had already been asked about him at one or two tables. Rafaelito, my lad, who is the gentleman seated with Don Senén? I don’t know, Don Tomás, but he doesn’t seem to be from hereabouts, because he talks very differently. How differently? Like people from Madrid talk? Who can say, Don Pascual, in all my damned life I’ve never been beyond Lebrija, but I would say no, that man comes from farther away. From the colonies, perhaps? It could be, Don Eulogio, it could well be. Just wait, Don Eusebio, Don Leoncio, Don Cecilio, let’s see if I hear anything while I’m serving them. As soon as I do, I’ll come and tell you.