The Vineyard

by Maria Duenas

  “It’s time for us to allow our hostess to get some rest, don’t you think, Mauro?”

  Sol and Larrea descended the staircase side by side, this time without touching. The butler brought their things; as the master of the house was absent, Sol accompanied them almost as far as the front entrance. She held out her hand in farewell; he merely brushed it with his lips. As he touched and felt her skin, a shudder ran through his body.

  “It has been a very pleasant evening.”

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dr. Ysasi busy with his own affairs: he picked up his Gladstone bag and donned the cape Palmer was holding out. The butler said a few incomprehensible words to him and the doctor nodded, listening closely.

  “The pleasure was all mine. I hope we can repeat it once Edward gets back. Although before then, perhaps . . . I believe you haven’t been out to La Templanza yet, have you?”

  Templanza . . . didn’t that mean temperance? Yes, that was what he needed, loads of temperance. But he doubted whether she was referring to the cardinal virtue that he had been so sadly lacking for so long. He raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

  “La Templanza, our vineyard,” she clarified. “Or, rather, the vineyard you now own.”

  “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware the vineyard had a name.”

  “As mines do, I suppose.”

  “That’s true, we usually baptize mines with a name as well.”

  “Well, the same happens here. Would you allow me to accompany you to what once belonged to our family, so that you can get to know it? We can go in my carriage. Would tomorrow morning at ten suit you?”

  At this she lowered her voice, and it was then that Mauro Larrea suddenly realized that the French wines, the Russian dessert, the lack of indiscreet questions, the Manila tobacco, and, above all, the enchantment that oozed from every pore of this woman’s body all came at a price.

  “I need to ask you something in private.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “Are gentlemen from the Americas accustomed to retiring early, or would you accept a last drink with me?”

  The gates of the Claydon house had just swung shut behind them, and it was Manuel Ysasi who made this invitation when they were out in the street.

  “I’d like nothing better.”

  The doctor had turned out to be an excellent conversationalist, intelligent and pleasant. And Larrea needed another drink to help digest Soledad Montalvo’s parting words, which were still ringing in his ears. A woman who needed a favor. Yet again.

  They crossed Calle Algarve, then walked along Calle Larga toward the Puerta de Sevilla.

  “I hope you don’t mind walking. I inherited an old phaeton from my father for nighttime emergencies or if I ever have to visit some farm laborer’s cottage, but I normally get around on foot.”

  “On the contrary, my friend.”

  “I must warn you that there is no great amount of nightlife here. Despite the economic boom, Jerez is still a small city that retains a lot of the Moorish town it once was. Only some forty thousand of us live here, even though we have enough wineries to derail a train: more than five hundred of them at the last count. As I suppose you already know, the great majority of the population lives either directly or indirectly from wine.”

  “And they live well, from what I can see,” said Larrea, pointing out some of the magnificent family mansions lining the road.

  “That depends on whether fortune has smiled on you or not. Just ask the hired hands in the vineyards and big estates. They work from dawn till dusk for next to nothing, eat miserable soups made with black bread, water, and only a few drops of oil, and sleep on stone benches until they return to their toil at first light.”

  “Don’t forget, I’ve already been warned of your socialist sympathies, my friend,” said Larrea. The doctor accepted his irony with good grace.

  “To be frank, there is a lot that’s positive here, too; I’ve no wish at all to leave you with a bad impression. For example, as you can see, we have the benefit of gas street lighting, and the mayor has announced that we are about to receive running water from the springs of Tempul. We also have a railway that is used above all to transport wine barrels down to the bay, a good number of elementary schools, and a secondary school. We even have a regional economic society plagued with eminent men, and a more-than-decent hospital. And the former town hall, next to Sol Montalvo’s mansion, has recently been converted into a library. There is a lot of work in the vineyards, and above all in the wineries: warehousemen, foremen, coopers . . .”

  Mauro Larrea could not help but notice that Ysasi called Sol Claydon by her maiden name, even though according to English law a woman lost the right to use it the moment she said “I do” at the altar. Sol Montalvo, he had said; without meaning to, he was showing what a close, long-standing friendship he had with her.

  They continued chatting as they passed the last poor souls still out on the streets. A bootblack, an old woman as bent as a hook who offered them matches and cigarette papers, four or five shady characters. The doors of the stalls, cafés, and inns in the center of the city were all closed; most of the locals were already safely at home sitting around a warm brazier full of coals. At that moment a night watchman with a sharpened stick and an oil lamp greeted them with a Hail Mary from beneath his heavy brown cape.

  “As you can see, we even have armed patrols at night.”

  “That doesn’t seem like a poor outcome, by heavens.”

  “The problem is not Jerez, Mauro; here to some extent we are privileged. The problem is what a disaster Spain is. Luckily, almost all you former colonies are now independent from us.”

  Larrea had no intention of getting involved in any political arguments with the good doctor; his interest lay in another direction. He had already heard enough generalizations about the town; now was the moment to focus on his own particular concerns. From the wide mouth of the funnel to the narrow neck. He interrupted his newfound friend.

  “Can you clear something up for me, Manuel, if it’s no trouble? I suppose that the successful activity of the wine producers has had a lot to do with all this progress, hasn’t it?”

  “Obviously. Jerez has always been a town of land laborers and winegrowers, but it was the emergence of larger wineries and the increased capital in the last few decades that has given rise to the current prosperity. These new wine producers are having the region’s centuries-old landowners for breakfast, if you’ll pardon the expression. The ones who have owned land, palaces, and noble titles since the Middle Ages are now in full retreat from the energy and economic might of this new class. They are offering them matrimonial alliances with their children and all other kinds of pacts. The Montalvo family, in fact, was to a certain extent an example of how these two distinct worlds could end up amalgamating.”

  That’s where I wanted to get to, thought Larrea, secretly pleased with himself. To that complicated family that blind destiny has somehow linked me with. To the clan of that woman who has just invited me to dinner and deployed all her charms and enchantment only to then pull out a stiletto and run me through, heaven knows for what reason. Speak, Doctor, tell me all about them.

  But it was not to be, at least not for the moment. They had left Calle Larga behind and were not far from Larrea’s new residence.

  “See? Here’s another example of our city’s dynamic growth: the Casino Jerezano.”

  In front of them rose an imposing baroque construction with vast windows and airy closed-in bays. In the center was a magnificent red-and-white marble doorway flanked with Solomonic columns and topped by a superb open balcony.

  They stood beneath the stars for a few moments, admiring the façade.

  “Impressive, isn’t it? You should know, though, that it’s only being rented until the new club premises are finished. This is the former palace of the Marquis of Montana. The poor man only managed
to enjoy it for seven years before he died.”

  “Are we going in here, then?”

  “Some other day. For now I want to take you somewhere that is both similar and different at the same time.”

  They set off toward the Calle del Duque de la Victoria, which everyone in Jerez still called Calle Porvera because it followed the line of the old wall of that name.

  “The members of the Casino Jerezano Club we have just left behind are from the petty and middle bourgeoisie; they often have interesting talks and are active in the cultural sphere. But there is another club that welcomes those with large fortunes and the high bourgeoisie, the titans who trade with half the world, the real aristocracy of wine with names like Garvey, Domecq, González, Gordon, Williams, Lassaletta, Loustau, or Misa. There are even a few Ysasis among them, though not from my branch of the family. More or less fifty families altogether.”

  “A lot of them sound foreign . . .”

  “Some are French in origin, but most prominent are those of British ancestry. Some people call them the ‘sherry royalty.’ Sherry is what they call our wines from Jerez outside Spain. And there have also been legendary men who, like you, are Indianos. Pemartín and Apezechea, for example, are repatriated Spaniards, although unfortunately they are both dead now.”

  An Indiano—what a label they had given him. Although possibly it was not a bad disguise beneath which he could hide his truth from the world.

  “Here we are, dear Mauro,” announced the doctor at last, coming to a halt outside another magnificent building. “The Isabel II Club, the wealthiest, most exclusive club in Jerez. As the name indicates, it’s monarchic and patriotic through and through, but at the same time it is very anglophile in its tastes and customs. It’s almost like one of the London clubs.”

  “And is it this select group to which a man with your ideas belongs, Doctor?” the Mexican miner asked slyly.

  Ysasi chuckled as he let the other man go in ahead of him.

  “I look after the health of every one of them, and of their numerous offspring, and so it makes sense for them to treat me as one of them. As if I were selling barrels of wine even to the pope in Rome. And, of course, it goes without saying that if you yourself, Mauro, took it upon yourself to revive the Montalvo business, you’d be welcome, too.”

  “I’m afraid my plans are directed elsewhere, my dear friend,” muttered Larrea, stepping inside.

  There was not the slightest trace of the hectic nighttime noise he was used to from cafés in Mexico and Havana. Instead a relaxed atmosphere reigned among leather armchairs and carpeted floors. Groups chatting, Spanish and English newspapers scattered on the tables, a few quiet games of cards, the last cups of coffee. Naturally, only men; there was not the slightest trace of femininity.

  There was a pleasant smell of wood polished with carnauba wax, expensive tobacco, and foreign colognes. The two men sat beneath a large mirror, and it was not long before a waiter came over.

  “Brandy?” the doctor suggested.

  “Perfect.”

  “Let me surprise you.”

  He ordered something that Larrea did not catch. The waiter nodded and soon returned to fill two glasses from a bottle without a label. They sniffed the bouquet first, then tasted it. First there was an intense aroma, and then it was smooth on the palate. They swirled the contents slowly around the glass and gazed at the caramel-colored liquid in the candlelight.

  “It’s not exactly Edward Claydon’s Armagnac.”

  “But it’s not bad, either. Is it French as well?”

  The doctor smiled mischievously.

  “Not at all. It’s from Jerez, a completely local product. Produced in a winery not three hundred yards from here.”

  “Don’t make fun of me, Doctor.”‘

  “I’m not, I promise you. It’s brandy aged in the same oak barrels that held the wine. Some enterprising wine merchants are already starting to put it on the market. They say they found the recipe by pure chance, when an order from The Netherlands was left unpaid and it aged without ever being sold. I personally think that must be just one more legend and that it was more than just a fluke.”

  “I think it is a fine drink, whatever its origin.”

  “Some people are starting to call it Spanish cognac, although I bet the Frenchies aren’t that keen on the name.”

  They sipped their drinks again.

  “Why did Luis Montalvo let everything go to rack and ruin, Manuel?”

  Perhaps it was the warmth of the brandy that made him express his curiosity so openly. Or the trust he already felt toward this slender doctor with his jet-black beard and liberal ideas. Larrea had already asked the same question of the good-natured notary the day they met, but his answer had been vague. And at his first meeting with Sol Claydon, she had rushed him almost at a gallop through a nostalgic tour of her clan’s splendor, and yet had been careful not to supply any details. Maybe the family doctor, a more scientific and Cartesian sort, could help him grasp once and for all the soul of the Montalvos.

  Ysasi needed to take another sip of brandy before replying.

  “Because he never considered himself worthy of his inheritance.”

  Larrea was still trying to take this in when an elderly gentleman appeared behind them. He looked very distinguished, with a curly graying beard that reached halfway down his chest.

  “A very good evening to you, gentlemen.”

  “Good evening, Don José María,” the doctor greeted him. “Allow me to introduce—”

  He could not finish his sentence.

  “Welcome to our club, Señor Larrea.”

  “Don José María Wilkinson,” Ysasi said, apparently not surprised that the newcomer already knew the miner’s name. “He is the club’s chairman as well as being one of the most renowned wine producers in Jerez.”

  “And the number one devotee of the excellent medical care our dear doctor here offers.”

  As the object of this compliment acknowledged it with a brief nod of the head, Señor Wilkinson concentrated his attention on Larrea.

  “We have already heard of you and your links to the properties Don Matías Montalvo used to own.”

  Despite his surname, this Wilkinson spoke without trace of an English accent. Larrea reacted to his words in the same way as the doctor, with a brief nod. He preferred not to add anything more about his intentions. Not even the gunpowder that Tadeo Carrús had threatened to use to blow up his house on San Felipe Neri would have spread as quickly as news did in this town.

  “Although I understand your intention is not to stay, do feel free to use our facilities for however long you remain in Jerez.”

  Larrea thanked him formally for the kind offer. He thought this would bring the interruption to an end, but the chairman seemed in no hurry to leave the two men alone.

  “And if at any time you change your mind and decide to revive the vineyard and the winery, count on us for whatever you need—and, believe me, I speak on behalf of all our members. Don Matías was one of the founders of this club, and so, in memory of him and his family, nothing would please us more than to see someone restore glory to the enterprise he and his predecessors created with such determination and heart.”

  “As you’ll find out, Mauro, these wine merchants are a race apart,” Manuel Ysasi added. “They compete fiercely for markets, and yet they help and defend each other, they meet socially, and they even marry each other’s children. Don’t dismiss his promise: it’s no empty gesture; it’s a real offer of a helping hand.”

  As if I had nothing more urgent to do than to devote myself to getting mixed up in a ruined business, thought Larrea. Fortunately, Wilkinson insisted no further.

  “At any rate, and so that you won’t leave Jerez without getting to know us, I’ll ask our member and friend Fernández de Villavicencio to arrange an invitation to the ball he gi
ves annually in his Alcázar palace. Every year we celebrate a significant event that concerns one of us. On this occasion it will be in honor of the Claydons, now that they have returned. Soledad, the wife—”

  “Is the granddaughter of Don Matías Montalvo: I know,” Larrea finished for him.

  “I see you have already met. Excellent. As I said, my dear Señor Larrea, we trust we shall see you there together with the doctor.”

  As soon as the wine producer and his bushy beard had retired, Ysasi refilled their glasses.

  “I’m sure you and I will make an excellent couple at the ball, Mauro. What do you prefer, the polka or the polonaise?”

  Larrea’s loud laugh made several heads turn.

  “For God’s sake, stop talking nonsense and continue telling me about the Montalvos. Let’s see if I can understand that family once and for all, dammit.”

  “I no longer remember where we had got to, so allow me paint you a picture in broad brushstrokes. The Montalvos always seemed immortal. Rich, good-looking, entertaining. All of them blessed by good fortune, even little Luisito, with all his limitations: he was the family’s eternal child. Loved, pampered, literally wrapped in cotton wool. He was the youngest of the cousins. That, as well as his physical condition, meant he never once imagined he would be the heir of the great Don Matías’s fortune. Sometimes, though, life surprises us with its ricochets and sends us off in a different direction when we least expect it.”

  You don’t say, my friend.

  Unaware of the miner’s thoughts, the doctor went on: “But a decline in their fortunes seemed inevitable as soon as one got to know Don Matías’s successors, Luis and Jacobo—the fathers of Luisito and Soledad.”

  “The ones who invited Gypsies to Christmas dinners and played billiards until dawn?”

  The doctor gave a hearty laugh.

  “Sol told you that, did she? That was the two brothers’ outward reputation: the one their children, nephews, and nieces, and those of us who were their friends, all adored. They were outrageously sociable and uniquely fine-looking; amusing, elegant, witty, generous. There was little more than a year between them and they were alike as two peas in a pod—physically and temperamentally. The shame was that, in addition to these virtues, they also had some less laudable characteristics: they were spendthrifts, slackers, gamblers, womanizers. They were irresponsible, and their heads were filled with sawdust. Don Matías never managed to bring them into line, whereas he was as upright and honest a man as you could wish to find. The grandson of someone from the Cantabrian mountains who had made his way as a shopkeeper in Chiclana, where his father grew up selling dried beans, chickpeas, rice, and cheap wines behind a counter. Do you know where Cantabria is? It’s in the north of the country, and they came south from there . . .”