by Maria Duenas
It was Sol herself who, without realizing it, had put Mauro on guard. It was from the notary’s office that the news had leaked out that he had taken over the Montalvo family’s properties without any money being involved, and that there was something not entirely transparent about the transaction. Mauro knew Don Senén Blanco was the sort of honest man who was no blabbermouth. This led him to suspect the source that everything came from. And that was why he was now about to act.
First he pushed the clerk up against the tiles in the doorway, and then came the warning.
“If you breathe another word about me or my affairs, the next time I’ll split you in two.”
He grasped him by the neck and at once all the blood in the poor devil’s body rushed to his face.
“Is that clear, you louse?”
When the only reply was a stifled gurgle, Mauro banged his head against the wall and squeezed his throat even tighter.
“Are you sure you understood?”
A trail of saliva emerged from the clerk’s terrified mouth, and a faint squeak that seemed to say “Yes.”
“All right, let’s make sure we don’t need to meet again.”
He left the clerk with his body slumped as if he was about to collapse to the ground, braying like a donkey. Before he had time to react, Mauro was out in the street, adjusting his shirt cuffs and winking at the astonished young boy.
This time there was no need for Palmer to open the door: Soledad was waiting for him. He again experienced the same indescribable sensation that made his skin tingle ever since he had first met her. She was wearing a cherry-colored dress; her harmonious features were once more clouded by worry.
“I’m truly sorry for disturbing you again, Mauro, but I think we have another problem.”
Another problem, she said. Not the same one as two days earlier, prolonged, multiplied, entangled, or resolved. Another, different problem. And she had said we have. In the plural. As if it was no longer a problem of hers that she needed help with but something linked from the outset to them both.
Without another word, she shepherded him toward the reception room where he had waited for her on the first evening.
“Go in, please.”
The sofa that had on that occasion been empty was now occupied. By a woman. Lying stretched out, with two cushions under her head, and a face as pale as wax. Her black hair hanging loose, dressed entirely in black, and with a plunging neckline that a skinny young mulatta was constantly fanning.
He heard a murmur behind him.
“You know who she is, don’t you?”
He answered without turning: “I’m very much afraid I do.”
“She arrived only an hour ago. She is unwell. I’ve sent for Manuel Ysasi.”
“Did she say anything?”
“She only managed to mutter that she was the wife of my cousin Gustavo. Everything else was incomprehensible.”
The two of them continued to stare at the ottoman. He was a step in front, with Sol Claydon behind him, whispering in his ear.
“She also mentioned your name. Several times.”
His alarm mingled with the agitation he felt at sensing the warmth emanating from her and her voice so close to him.
“She mentioned my name—and what else?”
“Disconnected phrases, words here and there. Everything jumbled up, not making sense. As far as I could understand, something about a wager.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Dr. Ysasi took her pulse, pressed her stomach, and placed two fingers on the side of her neck. Then he examined her mouth and the pupils of her eyes.
“Nothing to worry about. She is dehydrated and exhausted: common symptoms following a long sea voyage.”
Taking a vial of laudanum out of his bag, he asked them to prepare a drink of squeezed lemon with three teaspoons of sugar. Next he turned his attention to the young slave, following the same procedure. He had told them to close the thick curtains, and the room was enveloped in a gloom that contrasted strongly with the morning sunlight flooding the square outside. The miner and their hostess watched the doctor going about his business from a distance, both of them still standing, a preoccupied expression on their faces.
“She only needs to rest,” the doctor concluded.
Mauro Larrea turned toward Soledad and whispered in her ear: “We have to get her out of here.”
She nodded her head slowly in agreement.
“I suppose all this has to do with Luis’s inheritance.”
“Undoubtedly. And that doesn’t suit either of us.”
“Done,” announced the doctor, unaware of the conversation going on between them. “It would be best not to move her for now; let her rest on the sofa. And as for this little one,” he added, pointing to the young slave, “give her something to eat. She’s famished.”
Soledad rang a little bell, and one of the maids appeared. She was English, like all the domestic servants. After giving her the relevant orders, Soledad sent her off to the kitchen with the mulatta in her charge.
“Unfortunately, Edward is still not here, and I would prefer not to remain on my own with her. Would it be too much trouble for you two to stay to lunch with me?”
The most sensible thing, thought Mauro Larrea, would be to leave on the spot and give himself time to think what to do next. Although she was now resting calmly, he was sure that Zayas’s spouse had disembarked in Spain at the eye of a menacing tropical storm: he was only too well aware what she was capable of. She would let her tongue run away with her to anyone willing to listen, twist what had happened, make public the extravagant way in which the Jerez properties had slipped through her husband’s fingers. She was even capable of attempting some legal means to lay her claim to the goods won in the wager. And even though without a doubt nothing would return to Zayas, because the law would end up supporting Mauro, she would achieve something the miner could not tolerate: get him tangled up in lawsuits and disputes, delay his plans, and thwart his most urgent intentions. Time was racing against him: he had already used up two of the four months he had agreed to with Tadeo Carrús. He had to find a way to frustrate this Mexican woman’s intentions. To neutralize her.
He glanced at Soledad as she was gazing at the crumpled figure on the sofa, an expression of concern on her face. If Zayas’s wife began to move her pieces, he would not be the only one compromised: if she started investigating what had happened to Luis Montalvo’s properties, Soledad would be dragged down as well.
“I willingly accept your invitation, dear Sol,” Dr. Ysasi proclaimed as he was gathering his equipment and putting it away in his bag. “I’m far more attracted by the skills of your cook than by those of my old Sagrario, who rarely ventures beyond her habitual stews. First, though, allow me to wash my hands.”
Despite the fact that warning voices were colliding inside his head, Mauro Larrea’s mouth betrayed him: “I’ll join you, too.”
The doctor left the room, leaving the pair of them enveloped in the strange midday light blocked by the heavy velvet curtains. They stood there both contemplating the supine body of the newcomer. Several moments of apparent calm went by, during which one could almost hear their brains whirring as they sifted information and pieced it together.
She was the first to speak.
“Why is she so anxious to find you?”
He knew there was no point in continuing to lie.
“Probably because she does not agree with the manner in which Gustavo Zayas and I settled on the transfer of his cousin Luisito’s properties.”
“And is there in fact any reason for her to be dissatisfied?”
He also knew he would have to explain things fully.
“That depends on whether someone can accept that her husband wagered his inheritance on a game of billiards.”
The dishes and wines were excellent yet ag
ain, the china splendid, the glasses equally fine. But the cordial atmosphere of the first evening had entirely evaporated.
Even though he knew he did not have to justify himself to anyone, Mauro kept to his decision to be sincere this once at least. After all, Soledad had already confided her underhanded maneuvers to him. And the good doctor would not harm him in any way.
“Look, I’m no gambler or unscrupulous opportunist but simply someone dedicated to his own affairs who suddenly found everything had gone wrong. And while I was trying to reestablish myself, without any effort from me, I was presented with a situation that ended up greatly in my favor. And the person who created that situation was Carola Gorostiza, who obliged her husband to act.”
Neither Manuel Ysasi nor Soledad asked him any other direct question, but their curiosity floated silently in the air like the wings of some majestic bird.
Mauro hesitated over how much to say, how much to keep quiet, how far he should go. It was all too confused, too unlikely. The money Ernesto Gorostiza sent to his sister, his desperate search in Havana for a good business deal, the refrigerated ship, the shameful matter of the slave trafficking. It was all too murky for them to be able to digest over their luncheon. He decided to sum up everything as concisely as possible.
“She led her husband to believe she had a romantic liaison with me.”
Soledad’s fish knife remained hovering in the air above the sea bass on her plate.
“As a result, he challenged me,” Mauro continued. “To a kind of reckless duel on a green baize table with wooden cues and ivory balls.”
“So now she’s come to call you to account, or to try to invalidate what you won.”
“I imagine so. And even knowing her the way I believe I do, it wouldn’t surprise me if she also wants to discover if Luisito Montalvo owned anything more. After all, he made Gustavo his only heir in a perfectly legal fashion.”
“In that, at least, she’ll come away empty-handed, because poor Little Runt didn’t have a penny left to his name.”
Hearing the doctor affirm this, both Mauro Larrea and Soledad raised their forks to their mouths, looked down at the same time, and together chewed on mouthfuls of fish more slowly than necessary. It was as if, together with the white, tender flesh of the sea bass, they also wished to masticate their unease. In the end, she was the one to speak.
“In fact, Manuel, it may well be that Luisito, without being aware of it, did own more than he thought.”
When she went on to give him brief details of the astounding things she had done, the doctor’s jaw dropped. Concealment, counterfeit signatures, illicit ruses. Not to mention the indispensable part Mauro Larrea had played in a sublime impersonation of Luis Montalvo for the benefit of an English lawyer.
“The devil take you, I don’t know which of you is being more reckless: the miner who makes off with someone else’s fortune thanks to a crazy wager, or the faithful, distinguished spouse who has stripped her own family business bare.”
“There are things that go beyond what we judge we can control,” said Sol, finally raising her calm eyes. “Situations that push one to the end of our tether. I’d have been only too happy to continue with my comfortable life in London with my four lovely daughters, my affairs under control, and my busy social life. I would never have thought of committing the slightest fault had Edward’s son Alan not decided to attack us.”
However disconcerting this affirmation, neither of the men dared interrupt her.
“He tricked his father into making him a partner in the business behind my back. He made absolutely disastrous decisions without consulting him, deceived him, and prepared the way once and for all for my daughters and me to be left in an extremely weak position the day that Edward was no longer there.”
This time it was not wine she raised to her lips but a large glass of water, perhaps to help dilute the mixture of anger and sadness that had inflamed her face.
“My husband has very serious problems, Mauro. The fact that nobody has seen him since we moved here is not due to unavoidable business trips or inconvenient headaches; those are nothing but excuses I am careful to spread. Unfortunately, it is something far more complicated. And as long as he is in no fit condition to take measures that will ward off the attacks his eldest son is making against the ‘little southern Gypsies,’ as he scornfully calls my daughters and me, the responsibility for protecting us lies in my hands. And so I had no other choice than to act.”
“But, for heaven’s sake, you didn’t have to break the law in the way you did, Sol . . .” said Ysasi.
“I took the only course open to me, dear Doctor. I destroyed the business from within—in the only way I knew.”
A loud bang brought their conversation to an abrupt close. It was as though something heavy had fallen to the floor or hit a wall somewhere in the house. The glasses on the table trembled slightly, and the glass droplets on the chandelier banged against each other, producing a gentle tinkling sound. Soledad and Mauro made to stand up at once, but Dr. Ysasi restrained them.
“I’ll see to it.”
He strode swiftly out of the dining room.
It could have been Carola Gorostiza, thought Mauro; perhaps she had fallen trying to get up. Or possibly it was only a problem with the servants: perhaps a maid had stumbled. Sol tried to make light of it.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure it was nothing.”
Placing her knife and fork on her plate, she gave him a devastated look.
“Everything is getting out of hand; it’s all getting worse and worse . . .”
Mauro searched in his mind but could think of no adequate reply.
“Don’t you find there are days when you want the world to stop, Mauro? For it to stop spinning and give us some respite? To leave us immobile as statues, like mere posts in the ground, so that we wouldn’t have to think, or decide, or sort things out? So that the wolves would stop baring their fangs at us?”
Of course there were days like that in his life. Loads of them in recent times. To look no further, at that precise moment he would have given all he had once possessed to continue sharing this lunch with her for all eternity. Seated on his left, the two of them alone in this dining room with its chinoiserie wallpaper, contemplating her harmonious face with the high cheekbones, the way her collarbones were framed by her dress. He resisted the temptation to stretch out his arm and seize her hand as he had done the first day they had met, then grasp it firmly and tell her not to worry, that he was at her side, that everything would soon be over, and in a good way. Asking himself why, at his age and with all his experience, just when he thought nothing more would ever surprise him, he suddenly felt this vertigo.
Since it was impossible for him to share these sensations with her, he set off on a different tack.
“Did you hear anything more from the English lawyer?”
“Only that he is in Gibraltar. For the moment he hasn’t returned to London.”
“Is that a worry?”
“I’ve no idea,” she admitted. “I really don’t know. Possibly not: it could be has hasn’t been able to find a passage on any P&O steamer heading for Southampton, or perhaps he has other business apart from mine that is keeping him here.”
“Or . . . ?”
“Or he could be waiting for someone.”
“Your husband’s son, for example?”
“I don’t know that, either. I only wish I did, and could confirm to you that everything is progressing as it should be, and that our farce has succeeded. The fact is, though, that with every day that goes by, my doubts only grow.”
“Let’s wait and see,” he said without conviction. “Right now we have to face another problem.”
The roast pullet they had been served after the sea bass had grown cold on their plates. They had both lost their appetite, but not the need to carry on talking.
&nb
sp; “Do you think Gustavo could have agreed to his wife’s mad decision to come here on her own from Cuba?”
“I doubt it. She might even have arranged it so that he knew nothing. She probably invented something: a trip to Mexico, or heaven knows what.”
He sensed that she wanted to ask him something but did not know how to put it into words. She raised her glass to her lips, as if to give herself strength.
“Tell me, Mauro, what state was my cousin in?”
“Personally, or in his business affairs?”
She hesitated. Took another sip of wine.
“Both.”
Mauro Larrea observed how cold Soledad seemed toward Zayas, and the controlled distance she kept at any mention of his name. This time, however, he assumed she wanted to know about his personal feelings.
“Believe me if I tell you I hardly had anything to do with him, but my impression was that he was leagues away from being even moderately happy.”
The servants cleared away the dishes they had barely touched, served dessert, and withdrew.
“And you must also believe me when I say that there was never any romantic relationship between Carola Gorostiza and myself.”
She dipped her chin slightly in acknowledgment.
“Although it is true that we do have another kind of relationship.”
“My goodness,” she murmured. From her tone, it was plain that this admission did not exactly please her, but she concealed her feelings behind a spoonful of crème brûlée.
“Her brother is a friend of mine in Mexico and will soon become someone close to my family. His daughter is about to be wed to my son, Nicolás.”
“My goodness,” she repeated, this time less sourly.
“That is how I met her when I arrived in Havana: her brother Ernesto entrusted me with some money for her. That was why I contacted her, and everything else followed from that.”