by Maria Duenas
“Two.”
“And a wife? Is there a Señora Larrea waiting for you somewhere?”
“Not for many years now.”
“I’m truly sorry. My husband is English. We used to live in London, but we have always been coming and going to Jerez, and we decided to settle here almost two months ago. I trust you will do us the honor of dining with us one of these days.”
With this vague invitation that concluded nothing and committed her to nothing, she turned to go. As she approached the broad staircase that had once been one of the treasures of the mansion, she glanced with distaste at the crust of dirt on the banister. Seeing the state it was in, she decided not to risk touching the wood. She started down without leaning on it, raising her skirt so that her feet would not get caught in her petticoats or step in the mess on the wet marble.
In three bounds he was beside her.
“Be careful. Hold on to me.”
He crooked his right elbow, and she clung to it without false modesty. Although there were several layers of clothing between them, he could sense her heartbeat and her skin. Then, stirred by something that had no name or trace in his memory, the miner laid his huge, disfigured left hand on the glove of Sol Claydon, of Soledad Montalvo, of the woman she was now and the child she had been. As if wanting to emphasize his support to avoid any untoward fall. Or as though trying to guarantee that, despite having robbed her daughters of their legacy and having turned their lives upside down, this disturbing individual who had come from across the ocean, this man who looked like some opportunistic migrant and spoke in only half-truths, was someone she could put her trust in.
They descended the stairs arm-in-arm, step after step, without a word. Separated by the worlds they inhabited and by their own interests, joined by the proximity of their bodies.
At the bottom, she moved away from him and murmured her thanks. He replied with a hoarse “Don’t mention it.”
As he studied her slender back and the way her skirts swept the tiles of the threshold on her way out, Mauro Larrea was certain that this luminous woman’s soul must harbor dark shadows. And a twinge in his stomach gave him a sense of foreboding that he himself had now become one of those shadows.
He lost sight of her when she turned into Calle de la Tornería. It was only then that he realized the hand he had held hers in was still clenched, as though reluctant to let go of her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
That night, Mauro Larrea returned to the Fatou family house in Cádiz. The following day, while conversing with his hosts at the dinner table, with ancestors staring down at them from the walls, churros on the table, and thick chocolate steaming in cups from the new bride’s dowry, Larrea informed them that he had decided to install himself in Jerez.
“I think that’s the most sensible idea; it will be easier for me to negotiate with any potential purchasers from there, and to look after all the matters arising from the transaction.”
“But tell us, Don Mauro, if it’s not being rude,” said Paulita hesitantly, “is the place you’re going to move into in a proper state? Because if there’s anything you need . . .” She paused to look across at her husband, as if seeking his support.
“Of course you have only to ask,” he finished on her behalf. “Utensils, furniture—anything you think we could help you with. We have plenty of everything in our storehouses. The unfortunate deaths of various members of the family in recent years have obliged us to close three houses.”
It would have been so easy to say yes, to accept the young couple’s offer, fill a couple of carts to the brim with solid armchairs and mattresses, china cabinets, screens, and wardrobes, which would make his new home a little more comfortable. But it seemed wiser not to build bridges or create more commitments than were strictly necessary.
“I thank you with all my heart, but I think I’ve imposed myself on you quite enough already.”
Before he had returned to Cádiz, Larrea had instructed Santos Huesos to remain behind in the mansion on Calle de la Tornería. “Manage this well, my lad,” he told him, handing him money before leaving. Their passages from Havana had already cost him a large part of his scant capital, and so they had to be careful about what they spent.
“Go out at first light to see what you can find to spruce up a pair of rooms there for us to live in; we’ll keep the others locked. Find people to clean the place up, buy only the minimum, and see which remaining articles from the previous owners we can still use.”
“I don’t want to contradict you, patrón, but are you sure that you and I are going to live here?”
“What’s wrong, Santos Huesos? It seems to me you’ve become very fussy. Where did you grow up, if not in the mountains of San Miguelito? And me, in a wretched forge. Have you forgotten the nights we spent sleeping on the ground with bonfires at Real de Catorce? And, more recently, the journey we made with those Chinaco soldiers from Mexico City to Veracruz? Get a move on and stop complaining; you sound like an old maid on her way to morning Mass.”
“I’ve no wish to speak of what is none of my business, Don Mauro, but what are people going to think when they discover you’re living in this ruin? They all believe you’re a Mexican silver millionaire.”
An extravagant millionaire come from overseas, that was exactly what Larrea had intended his façade to be. But what did their opinion of him matter if he intended to return whence he came as soon as he had sold everything? Nobody in that town would ever hear of him again.
In spite of his denials, Fatou’s wife could not resist fulfilling her domestic role. That was how she had seen her mother and mother-in-law behave in their lifetimes, and she wanted to do likewise in her own household now that she was married. No doubt this was the first opportunity she had found to show herself a good hostess to such a prepossessing guest. And so, in midmorning, while Larrea was gathering up the last of his things and closing his trunks, wondering for the umpteenth time whether this move was a mistake or not, Paulita knocked timidly at his bedroom door.
“Forgive the intrusion, Don Mauro, but I’ve taken the liberty of preparing a few sets of bed linen and a few other little things to help you be more comfortable. You can return them when you come back to Cádiz to board ship again. If as you say your new home has been shut up for a long time, even if it has everything you need in it, doubtless it will be damp and musty.”
God bless you, child, he was on the point of saying.
“Since you’ve gone to all the trouble, it would be very impolite of me not to accept your kindness. I promise to return it all to you in perfect condition.”
He heard discreet little coughs from the butler, Genaro, behind him.
“Forgive me for interrupting you, Señorita. Don Antoñito has asked me to give this to Don Mauro.”
“Don Antonio and Señora, not Señorita, Genaro,” the young woman whispered, correcting the old man for what must have been the hundredth time. “Now we are Don Antonio and Señora: How often do I have to tell you?”
Too many years had gone by for him to change his ways, the old servant must have thought, although he did not seem greatly troubled: he had seen them both since their birth. Ignoring the innocent spouse, he handed their guest a small bundle covered in stamps from Havana. The neat handwriting was Calafat’s.
“I’ll leave you with your correspondence. I don’t want to detain you any longer,” said Paulita. She would have liked to list everything she was intending to lend him, so that he could see how carefully she had chosen. Four sets of linen sheets, half a dozen cotton towels, two embroidered muslin tablecloths, all of them perfumed with camphor and rosemary. In addition, several woolen blankets from Grazalema, white wax candles and some oil lamps, and . . .
By the time she had gone over the list in her mind, she was still out in the corridor and he had barricaded himself in his room. As there was no paper-knife at hand, he tore the bundle
open with his teeth. This was urgent. He needed to know if the news came directly from the old banker in Havana and whether, as they had agreed, he had also sent news of his family in Mexico. Fortunately, there was plenty of both.
He began with Andrade’s letter, anxious to know what he had found out about Nicolás’s whereabouts. Yes, he had been found. In Paris, of course. The miner felt a surge of relief. Mariana will tell you the details, he read. There followed an update on his own disastrous financial position and a summary of events in the country he had left behind. His debts were more or less under control, but apart from the mansion on San Felipe Neri, which was hanging by a thread, there was nothing left of his once ample wealth. Mexico for its part was still bubbling like a cauldron: the guerrillas fighting Juárez were still causing trouble, while Liberals and Conservatives could not make peace. Wherever Andrade went, Larrea’s friends and acquaintances asked after him: in the Café del Progreso, coming out of Mass at La Profesa, or during events at the Coliseo. Andrade assured all and sundry that his affairs abroad were flourishing. “No one suspects anything, but sort something out as quickly as possible, Mauro, by all that’s holy. The Gorostiza family is still planning the wedding, even if your boy doesn’t seem to know when he’s coming back. He’ll be sure to do so as soon as what little money he has left runs out. Luckily or not, we can’t send him even a paltry amount.” He ended with a “God bless you, brother” and a postscript: “For the moment I haven’t heard a thing from Tadeo and Dimas Carrús.”
Larrea then read the lengthy missive from Mariana with all the details about Nico. A brother of a friend’s fiancé had bumped into him in Paris. This was in the early hours during a soirée in Place des Vosges, at the home of a Chilean lady with a somewhat loose reputation. He was surrounded by other whelps from the newly independent American republics, with several glasses of champagne inside him and pretty uncertain regarding his return to Mexico. He thought of going back shortly, he had said. Or perhaps not. Larrea almost crumpled the letter in disgust. Brainless idiot, dissolute wretch, he growled. With that Gorostiza girl pining for you. Calm down, you fool, he told himself. At least we’ve found him and he is in one piece. Even if, as his agent had noted, by now he must have little money left to go on living the high life. Which meant he would have no choice but to return to Mexico, where the wolves lay in wait for him. He preferred not to dwell on it, but carried on reading his daughter’s letter. It was full of juicy titbits: the baby was still growing inside her, if it was a boy it was to be called Alonso, and her mother-in-law insisted it should be called Úrsula if it was a girl. She felt more pregnant every day, and spent all her time eating cakes in syrup and peanut bars. Once he had finished, Larrea looked at the date; a swift calculation made his stomach clench: by now his daughter, Mariana, must be about to give birth.
Finally it was Calafat’s turn. The banker had sent him something that had arrived on the day after his departure from Havana from a town in the interior: Luis Montalvo’s Spanish identity document and the death and burial certificates from the main parish of Villa Clara. The very documents she is expecting, he thought, remembering what Sol Claydon had said. Suddenly through his mind flashed her beautiful face and her easy manner. Her subtle irony, her elegant self-possession, her back when she walked away from him. Keep on reading; don’t get sidetracked, he told himself. Although there were no details of these documents’ origin, the banker appeared to have no doubt they were genuine. It was Gustavo Zayas himself who had forwarded them from Las Villas Province, where his coffee plantation was. And although this was not written anywhere, they were addressed not to Gustavo Zayas’s own cousin or the doctor in Jerez whom she had mentioned but to Mauro Larrea. In case he needed to justify the facts they contained, wrote the old man. Or to pass them on to whoever it might concern.
He left Cádiz at first light the next morning; his two trunks and the chest of linen went with him. The pouch with the countess’s money stayed behind with Fatou for safekeeping.
When he reached Jerez, he noticed that the entrance and the courtyard to the house looked much cleaner than before.
“Santos Huesos, as soon as we get back to Mexico I’m going to ride to the hills of Potosí to ask your father for your hand in marriage.”
The Chicimec Indian laughed to himself.
“All it took was to spread a few small coins around, patrón.”
The grime had diminished somewhat in the courtyard, on the staircase, and on the gallery tiles; the floors in the main rooms had been swept and washed. The few pieces of furniture previously scattered throughout the rooms and attic had been brought together in what was once the game room to make a space that was more or less inhabitable.
“Should we bring in your trunks, then?”
“Better leave them all afternoon by the front entrance for everyone passing by to see. That way they will all think we have lots of baggage; we don’t want anyone to know this is all we have.”
And so the opulent leather trunks with their bronze borders and clasps were in full view of anybody who cared to come and peer through the wide-open gates. Until evening, when between the two of them they carried the trunks up to the first floor.
Thanks to the bed linen lent by sweet little Paulita, they slept soundly on their first night in the house. Larrea was awakened at dawn by a cockerel in a nearby yard. The bells of San Marcos brought him out of bed. Santos Huesos had already filled half a wineskin with water for him to wash in the yard behind the house, then served him breakfast in the room where the billiard table had once stood.
“I swear on my children you’re worth your weight in gold, you rogue.”
His servant smiled without a word as his master devoured the meal, not once asking where the bread and milk had come from, or the heavy earthenware crockery, which was colorful if rather chipped. Larrea ate slowly: he knew that after his breakfast there was no way he could postpone what had been on his mind since the day before. Unable to decide, he took a coin and left the decision to chance.
“Which hand, lad?” he said, putting them both behind his back.
“It’ll be the same whatever I choose, I suppose.”
“Come on, which one?”
“The right hand, then.”
Larrea opened his empty hand, unsure if this was good or bad news.
If Santos had chosen the left one, where the coin was, that would have meant Larrea went to Sol Claydon’s house to share with her the documents concerning her cousin Luis Montalvo. He had been considering this ever since he received the package from Calafat. After all, she was in Jerez and was, if not his legal heir, then at least his moral inheritor. The Little Runt, she had called him. And yet again he recalled her face and voice, her long arms as they stretched out to show him where the billiard table had been, the light touch of her hand, her narrow waist and harmonious way of walking as she took her leave. Stop this nonsense, you idiot, he roared silently to his conscience. But his servant had chosen his right hand. So you keep the documents to yourself. Everyone here already knows that the cousin is dead; the notary Don Senén has all the proof he needs. Keep them even if you have no idea why or what for.
“Santos, my boy”—Larrea jumped up from his chair—“I’ll leave you to finish things here while I go and sort out some business in town.”
His first trip to the winery had been in a carriage, accompanied by the notary. Now, on foot and in a strange place, it proved complicated to find. The old Arab quarter of Jerez with its tangle of narrow alleyways was a devilish labyrinth; the imposing mansions of the local aristocracy with their coats of arms stood alongside far more ordinary houses in a strange architectural jumble. On a couple of occasions he had to retrace his steps; more than once he stopped to ask a passerby, until finally he arrived at the winery on Calle del Muro. More than thirty yards of wall on a corner, crying out for a coat of whitewash. By the side of the wooden entrance gates, two old men were sitting
on a stone bench.
“God be with you,” said one of them.
“We’ve been expecting the master for several days now.”
Between the two of them they could count fewer than eight teeth and more than a hundred and fifty years of age. They had weather-beaten, leathery faces, with lines that were more like furrows. Struggling to their feet, they removed their battered hats and bowed respectfully to him.
“A very good day to you, gentlemen.”
“We heard you have taken over Don Matías’s properties, and here we are, ready to serve you in any way.”
“Well, the truth is, I don’t know . . .”
“We can show you the winery and tell you everything you need to know.”
How courteous these people from Jerez are, thought Larrea. Sometimes they take the form of beautiful ladies; at others, skinny bodies on the edge of the grave, like these two.
“Have you ever worked here?” he asked, extending his hand to both of them. The mere contact with the rough, calloused hands of the old men told him the answer was yes.
“Your servant here was the storeman for thirty-six years, and my relative here a few years longer. His name is Marcelino Cañada, and he’s as deaf as a post. You’d do best to talk to me: Severiano Pontones, at your service.”
They both wore rope sandals worn down by the cobbled streets, and rough cotton trousers with a broad black sash around the waist.
“Mauro Larrea, pleased to meet you. I’ve brought the key with me.”
“There’s no need, sir; all you have to do is push.”
It only took a good shove with his shoulder for the wooden gate to give way, revealing a big rectangular space bordered with acacia trees. At the far end stood a building with a pitched roof. High and sober, it must have been completely white in its day, when it was whitewashed once a year. Now the bottom half was stained with black, moldy patches.
“Here on this side is where the offices are. That was where they did the accounts and the correspondence,” said the deaf old man, raising his voice and pointing to the left of the building.