by Maria Duenas
“So you are the one who runs the business now.”
She nodded, still staring into the fire, surrounded by this array of work items and paraphernalia that seemed as though they belonged in a bookkeeper or lawyer’s office.
“I started to get involved when Edward displayed the first symptoms, shortly after I became pregnant with our youngest daughter, Estela. Apparently in his family there was a tendency toward . . . let’s call it eccentricity. And as soon as he realized he might have inherited this in its worst possible form, he took it upon himself to teach me all I needed to know to run things when he was no longer able to do so.”
Absentmindedly she began to play with the glass stopper.
“By then I had been living for more than a decade in London, dedicated to my daughters and living a busy social life. At first it had cost me the earth to adapt, as you can imagine. Finding myself so far from Jerez, from my family, from this southern land and its light. You can’t imagine how often I wept under those gray skies, regretting my departure, only wishing I could return. Sometimes I even thought of escaping—of flinging a few things in a case and stealing on board one of those sherry boats that left every day for Cádiz to load up with barrels of wine.”
The crackling fire seemed to echo the sad laugh Soledad gave as she recalled the crazy notion that went through her mind during those bittersweet days of her youth.
“But it’s not hard to give in to the temptations of a metropolis with three million inhabitants when you have all the necessary contacts, more than enough money, and a husband attentive to your every whim. And so I became acclimatized in every sense, and started to frequent soirees, went shopping, became a regular at masquerades and tearooms, as if my existence was an endless carousel of frivolity.”
Soledad stood up and went over to the window. She looked out at the almost deserted square lit by a handful of gas lamps, although perhaps she could see no further than her own memories. She was still holding the glass stopper, feeling its edges as she went on.
“Until one day Edward suggested I go with him on one of his trips to Burgundy. There, as we were visiting the vineyards of the Côte de Beaune, he told me I should prepare myself for what was inexorably drawing near. No more frivolity: the moment had arrived to face the cruelest, harshest reality. Either I took the reins or we went under. Fortunately, at first his crises occurred only infrequently. That meant he could help me learn the rudiments of the business, get to know its secrets and all those involved. As his condition grew worse, I started pulling the strings in the shadows. For seven years now, everything has been in my hands. And that’s how it could have continued had it not been for . . .”
“Had it not been for the return of your stepson.”
“While I was in Portugal concluding the purchase of a large shipment of port, and once again concealing my husband’s absence with a thousand excuses, Alan took advantage of my trip. He saw Edward, who was not in his right mind and could not remember that his son had already received a substantial inheritance or suspect what the consequences of this new move would be. Alan managed to persuade him to sign documents that made him a partner in our firm and gave him a considerable number of rights and privileges. From that point on, as you already know, I had no choice but to start to take precautions. And when things became really murky and Edward’s mental health deteriorated irreversibly, I decided to come home.”
She was still at the window. He had risen to his feet and was standing next to her. Their faces were reflected in the glass. Shoulder to shoulder, both of them grave looking, close to one another and yet worlds apart.
“I mistakenly believed that Jerez would be the best refuge, a safe haven where I would feel protected. I thought I could radically reorganize the business from here: I would do without the European suppliers and concentrate exclusively on exporting sherry while I kept Edward sheltered from all attacks. I began taking drastic measures: I would have nothing more to do with the clarets from Bordeaux, marsala from Sicily, wines from Burgundy and the Moselle, or champagnes. I wanted to go back to what had been the essence of the business right from the start: sherry. This is a splendid moment for our wines in England. Demand is increasing spectacularly, and prices are going up correspondingly. The outlook couldn’t be more promising.”
She fell silent for a few seconds, as if to order her thoughts. Then she went on.
“I even thought about exploiting La Templanza again, and my family’s winery, and so become both a wine producer and a supplier. Of course, naïvely it never crossed my mind that my daughters would not in the end inherit that legacy when my cousin Luisito died. I arranged for my daughters to go to boarding schools for the time being and to stay with friends, with the intention of soon bringing them back over here. I closed up our house in Belgravia and began my return journey. But I was wrong. I could not foresee just how far Alan would go.”
They were still gazing at each other’s reflections in the windowpane. A light rain had started to fall.
“Why are you telling me all this, Soledad?”
“So that you will be aware of all my lights and shadows before we each go our separate ways. I don’t know exactly what Edward’s and my future will be, but I have to decide at once. The only conclusion I have reached this evening is that we cannot continue like this, with Alan threatening us with lawyers or with his own presence. That could lead to a public scandal and to his father’s mental health deteriorating still further. It was stupid of me to think that this would be a solution.”
“What are you going to do then? Return to London?”
“Not at all: that would leave us completely at his mercy. I was considering what to do when you arrived. We could perhaps seek temporary refuge in Malta. A great friend of ours is a high-ranking naval officer stationed at Valletta. It would be relatively easy to travel there by sea, and we would have military protection that Alan would not dare to flout. Or we could set sail for Bordeaux and then hide in some distant château in Médoc. Over the years, our contacts in the wine trade there have become firm friends. Possibly we could even . . .” She paused for a few moments, took a deep breath, then went on: “Whatever the case, Mauro, what I want to do now is to stop involving you once and for all in our sordid family business. You have already done enough for us, and I don’t want our affairs to complicate yours. I’m sorry I suggested you think again about putting the properties up for sale; that was a mistake. I naïvely thought that . . . if you stayed and got them going again . . . Well, anyway, by now it’s all the same. The only thing I wished you to know is that we will be leaving shortly. And it would also be wise for you to disappear before too long.”
Better that way. Better for everyone. Each of them going his or her own way: the unexpected outcome of a destiny neither of them had sought, but to which life’s unpredictable twists and turns had driven them.
Only his own reflection remained as Sol moved away from the window.
“And now life goes on. We’ll have to hurry or we’ll be late for the ball.”
He stared at her incredulously.
“Are you sure?”
“Even though I’ll have to justify Edward’s absence with yet another excuse, the ball is in our honor. Among the guests will be almost all the wine producers who have been our family friends: those who attended my wedding and those who went to my relatives’ funerals. I can’t be so rude as not to put in an appearance. For old times’ sake and for the return of the prodigal daughter, even if they can have no idea of how disastrous my decision to come back has been.”
She glanced at the clock over the mantelpiece.
“We are supposed to be there in a little more than an hour. It would be best if I picked you up.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
A soft rain was falling. The coachman clicked his tongue and cracked his whip. The horses immediately set off again. Soledad was waiting for him inside the carriage, we
aring a dark blue cloak edged with ermine, her pale neck standing out from the fur, her eyes shining in the darkness. Distinguished and graceful as ever; the dark clouds kept at bay in a face cleverly dusted with poudre d’amour, her anxiety disguised with a seductive fragrance of bergamot. In control of the situation, sure of herself once more. Or forcing herself to muster the courage to give the appearance this was the case.
“Won’t it seem odd for the person being honored in this way to turn up with an anonymous new arrival?”
She laughed with a hint of sarcasm, her long diamond earrings dancing in the darkness as they caught the light from a gas lamp.
“You’re hardly anonymous by now, are you? Hardly anybody will not know who you are, where you come from, and what you are doing here. Everyone is aware of how we are linked because of our former properties, and they will all recognize that someone of Edward’s age can have a sudden health problem: that at least is the rumor I intend to spread right and left. Besides, these wine producers of ours are men of the world. They’re quite accustomed to putting up with the eccentric behavior of foreigners. And, despite our origins, at this stage in our lives that is what both you and I mainly are.”
The façade of the baroque Alcázar palace glittered in the light of the torches placed in iron rings on either side of the main entrance. Since they were almost the last to arrive, everybody turned as one to look at them. The expatriate granddaughter of the great Matías Montalvo, spectacular in the Prussian-blue gown that became visible when she slipped off her fur cloak; the returned Indiano in his immaculate evening tails who looked every inch the prosperous New World businessman now back in the mother country.
Not even in their wildest imagination could any of the guests have thought that this slender lady with a cosmopolitan air, whose hand and cheeks were now being kissed and who was smiling back as she received compliments, praise, and congratulations, had only a few hours earlier run a hunting knife over the cowering body of her husband’s son. Or that, beneath his spotless gloves, the prosperous miner with the foreign accent and graying hair had his hands bandaged because they had been so badly grazed when he climbed like a lizard up the vertical face of a wall.
There were greetings and compliments in a refined, friendly atmosphere. Soledad, my dear, how wonderful it is to have you back among us; Señor Larrea, such an honor to receive you in Jerez. More smiles and praise and compliments. If anyone wondered what on earth the last descendant of the old clan was doing in the company of this upstart stranger who had mysteriously ended up owning the family properties, they concealed it with perfect decorum.
Beneath three magnificent brass chandeliers, the ballroom contained almost all the wine-producing oligarchy and the local landowning aristocracy. Their figures were multiplied in the sumptuous gilded mirrors lining the walls. The satins, silks, and velvets worn by the ladies shimmered in the candlelight, and an abundance of discreet but eloquent jewelry was on display. Among the men, carefully trimmed beards, formal attire, fragrances from Atkinsons of Old Bond Street, and a fair scattering of medals. In short, sober luxury that avoided ostentation: less opulent than in Mexico, less exuberant than in Havana, but nonetheless giving the impression of nobility, money, good taste, and sophistication.
A quintet played waltzes by Strauss and Lanner, galops, and mazurkas that the dancers marked by stamping their feet. The owners of the palace greeted them; Soledad was soon invited to dance, and just then José María Wilkinson, the chairman of the social club, came over and spoke to Mauro in a friendly manner.
“Come with me, my friend, let me introduce you.”
Mauro engaged in conversation with a succession of elegant gentlemen whose names were redolent of wine: González, Domecq, Loustau, Gordon, Permatín, Lassaleta, Garvey . . . For the umpteenth time, Mauro rolled out his sincere lies and half-truths. The political complexities that had supposedly led him to quit the fledgling Mexican republic, the opportunities the mother country offered to the uprooted children now returning from her insurgent colonies, their pockets allegedly stuffed with money, and an endless series of similarly realistic-sounding nonsense. Everyone was extremely courteous toward him, engaging him in fluid talk: asking him questions, answering his queries, explaining, offering him his first insights into this world of white, chalky earth, vineyards, and wineries.
Until, after more than two hours of circulating independently of each other, Soledad caught up with him in the group of men among whom he was being entertained.
“I’m sure our guest is enjoying your conversation immensely, dear friends, but I fear that if I don’t take him away this instant he will not be able to claim the dance I promised him.”
Of course, dear Sol, several of the men said. We won’t detain him any longer; please, Señor Larrea; forgive us, dear Soledad, of course you must, for heaven’s sake.
“My father would not have missed a single polonaise on a day like today. And as a true daughter of Jacobo Montalvo, I have to live up to his reputation: a complete fool when it came to business, and an expert on the dance floor, as I’m sure you all so fondly remember.”
Well-meaning laughter greeted this tribute to her parent, although none of them appeared to notice the irony in her words.
Perhaps it was the warm reception he had received from the wine producers that led Mauro to relax and to push to a corner of his mind the violent incidents of earlier that day. Or possibly yet again it was the attraction of Soledad, that mixture of charm and dignity she had shown through all the storms and shipwrecks of her life. Whatever the reason, the moment they took to the dance floor, everything vanished for Mauro Larrea as if a magician had sent an ace of hearts up in smoke: the thorny problems that constantly pounded in his brain, the existence of the contemptible stepson, the music enveloping him. All of this seemed to disappear as soon as he put his arm around Soledad’s waist and felt the light touch of her long arm on his back. He could have stayed like that, feeling her body against his, his chin almost caressing the bare skin of her shoulder as he inhaled her perfume, with no thought for the commotion of the previous hours or the troubled future awaiting him. Unconcerned that this might be the first and last time they danced together; not caring to remember that she was preparing to leave in order to protect a husband lost in the mists of dementia, someone she had perhaps never loved passionately but to whom she would go on being loyal until his dying day.
As is often the case with this kind of dreamy state, it was something prosaic and immediate that brought him back to reality. Manuel Ysasi, dressed in his street clothes rather than in formal attire, was watching them with an anxious look from one of the ballroom’s tall open doors, waiting for either of them to spot him. It might have been Soledad who first noticed him, or Mauro himself. Whoever it was, they both met his gaze as they continued to whirl around to the rhythm of a dance that suddenly seemed endless. The message he was conveying from a distance was clear, and only needed a few discreet gestures: Something serious has happened; we need to talk. As soon as he was certain they had understood, the doctor vanished.
Half an hour and many excuses and inescapable farewells later, the two of them left the palace under a large umbrella and climbed into the Claydon carriage. Dr. Ysasi was waiting impatiently inside.
“I don’t know who is crazier, poor Edward or you two.”
Mauro’s muscles tensed; Soledad raised her chin defiantly. But neither of them said a word as the carriage began to move off. By silent, mutual agreement they let the doctor continue.
“A few hours ago I was coming around the bay on my way back from Cádiz. I stopped for supper at an inn some way before Las Cruces, a little more than a league from Jerez. That was where I found him, together with a couple of associates.”
There was no need for the doctor to spell out the name of Alan Claydon for them to realize who he was talking about.
“But you don’t know each other,” Sol protested.
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“That’s true. We had only seen each other once on the day of your wedding, when I was no more than a medical student and he was a spoiled adolescent as furious at his father’s new marriage as a calf being weaned. But he does bear somewhat of a resemblance to Edward. And he speaks English. And his friends were calling him by his name as well as mentioning you several times. So I didn’t have to be a genius to guess what was going on.”
“Did you introduce yourself?” asked Soledad.
“Not by my name or my relationship with you, but I had no choice but to do so as a doctor, given the sad state he was in.”
Soledad looked at him inquisitively, while Mauro cleared his throat.
“Some heartless brute had broken both his thumbs.”
“Good Lord . . .” Soledad’s voice sounded strained as it emerged from the furs at her throat.
The miner turned his face to peer out of the right-hand window, as if he were much more interested in the gloomy night outside than in the matter being discussed inside the coach.
“He also had a knife cut on his cheek. Fortunately only a superficial one. But obviously done with evil intent.”
This time she was the one who suddenly averted her gaze to the night outside. Seated opposite them, the doctor had no difficulty interpreting their reactions.
“You two have behaved like irresponsible barbarians. You have pretended a dead man was alive in front of a lawyer; you inveigled me into keeping that Gorostiza woman prisoner in my own house; and now you’ve mistreated Edward’s son.”
“Impersonating Luisito has had no further consequences,” Soledad insisted, still gazing out of the window.
“Carola Gorostiza will soon be embarking for Havana in the same state she arrived in,” added Mauro.
“And as for Alan, with a bit of luck, by tomorrow morning he’ll be in Gibraltar.”