by Maria Duenas
This was why he nodded occasionally while Nico was talking, and from time to time asked about some trivial detail so as to disguise the fact that his mind was miles away.
“By the way, did I tell you I met Daniel Meca at a performance at the Comédie-Française?”
“Sarrión’s partner, the one with the coaches?”
“His eldest son.”
“Wasn’t he already working for his father?”
“Only at first.”
Mauro raised a forkful of potato to his mouth as Nico went on.
“After that, he came to Europe. To begin a new life.”
“Poor Meca,” said Mauro without a hint of irony, recalling his companion during endless conversations in the Café del Progreso. “He must have been really disappointed at seeing his heir apparent take flight like that.”
He was still racking his brains to try to find solutions to his own problems, but this news about former colleagues in Mexico took his mind away for a moment at least.
“I suppose it must have been painful,” his son went on, “but it’s understandable as well.”
“What is understandable?”
“That children do not meet up to expectations.”
“Whose expectations?”
“Their fathers’, of course.”
Mauro looked up from his plate and observed his son with uneasy curiosity. There was something he was missing.
“What are you driving at, Nico?”
The young man drank deeply from his glass, doubtless to give himself courage.
“At my future.”
“And where does your future start?”
“By not marrying Teresa Gorostiza.”
Their eyes fixed on one another.
“Don’t talk nonsense,” growled Mauro.
His son’s voice was steady in his reply.
“I don’t love her. And neither she nor I deserve to be tied to an unhappy marriage. That’s why I came: to tell you that.”
Calm, compadre. Stay calm, Mauro told himself while he struggled not to bang his fist on the table and shout at him at the top of his lungs: Have you gone out of your mind?
He managed to control himself and talk calmly. To start with, at least.
“You don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t know what you’ll lose if you renounce that marriage.”
“Her affection or her father’s fortune?” was the acid retort.
“Both of them, for the love of Christ!” bawled Mauro, brutally slapping the tablecloth.
The diners at the nearby tables immediately turned their heads in unison toward these eye-catching Indianos who had been the center of attention from the moment they came in. The two of them fell silent, aware of being watched, but continued to eye each other like wary hounds. It was only then that Mauro Larrea saw someone he had not seen before. Only then did he start to understand.
Sitting opposite him was no longer the frail creature of the first months following the death of Elvira. Nor was he the mollycoddled little whelp of his early years, or the impulsive, lively adolescent who took his place. When he managed for a moment to confine his own worries to a corner of his brain—when he was able properly to observe his son for the first time since he had arrived—he found sitting on the far side of the table a youth endowed, rightly or wrongly, with a solid determination. Someone who in part resembled his mother, in part took after him, and yet at the same time was entirely his own man, with an effervescent personality that could not be controlled.
One fundamental thing was missing, however. He needed to know something that at first Mauro had wanted to keep from him at all cost. Although by now it hardly mattered. That was why he laid down his knife and fork, leaned forward, and said in a hoarse voice, slowly and menacingly, “You cannot . . . prevent . . . that . . . wedding. We . . . are . . . ruined . . . ruined.”
He almost spat these last syllables, but they seemed to have no effect on the young man. Perhaps he had intuited it. Or perhaps he didn’t care.
“You own properties here. Make them pay.”
Mauro snorted with contained fury.
“Don’t be so stubborn, Nico. Think it over; take your time.”
“I’ve been thinking it over for weeks, and that’s my decision.”
“The banns have been read, the entire Gorostiza family is anticipating your return, the girl even has her wedding gown hanging in her wardrobe.”
“It’s my life, Father.”
A strained silence descended on them once more, which the other diners were immediately aware of. Until Nicolás spoke again.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what my plans are?”
“To carry on living the high life, I suppose,” Mauro replied harshly. “Except you no longer have the means.”
“On the one hand, you’re mistaken. On the other, I already have a project.”
“Whereabouts, if I may ask?”
“Between Mexico and Paris.”
“Doing what?”
“Opening a business.”
He gave a bitter laugh. A business. A business, his Nico. For the love of God.
“A business buying and selling artwork and fine furniture from other periods between the two continents. They’re known as antiques. There’s a fortune in it in France. And the Mexicans are crazy about them. I’ve made contacts, and have a partner lined up.”
“Wonderful prospects . . .” his father muttered, head down as he pretended to concentrate all his attention on separating the skin from a piece of meat on a chicken drumstick.
“And I’m also waiting,” the young man went on, as if he hadn’t heard him.
“For what?”
“There is a woman I am in love with. An expatriate Mexican who is anxious to go back, if that reassures you.”
“Perfect. Marry her, give her fifteen little Mexicans, be happy,” Mauro said sarcastically, still busily cutting up the bird.
“I’m afraid that’s impossible at the moment.”
Mauro finally raised his eyes from the plate with a mixture of dismay and curiosity.
“She is about to marry a Frenchman.”
The miner’s rage was on the verge of turning into loud laughter. To top all his ridiculous nonsense, Nico was in love with a girl engaged to somebody else. Aren’t you going to get a single thing right, flesh of my flesh?
“I don’t know why you’re so surprised at my choice,” Nico went on wryly. “At least she hasn’t already been to the altar, or have a sick husband shut in a convent, or have four daughters waiting for her in another country.”
Mauro took a deep breath, as if the air contained particles of that patience he so sorely needed.
“Enough, Nico. That’s enough.”
The young man took his napkin from his lap and brusquely left it on the table.
“I think it would be better for us to finish this conversation some other time.”
“If what you’re after is to seek my approval for your stupidity, don’t count on it now or at any other time.”
“I’ll take care of my affairs on my own, then, don’t worry. You have more than enough to do to sort out the mess you’ve got yourself into.”
Mauro watched him stride out angrily. Left alone at the table facing an empty chair and the carcass of the half-eaten chicken, he was overcome by a sense of desolation. He would have given his life to have Mariana there to intercede between them. Why on earth did I insist my son go to Europe just before he got married? he reproached himself. What were the two of them doing in this foreign land that only ever offered them uncertainty upon uncertainty? How and when had the firm alliance between the two of them begun to break down—an alliance that had begun during the dreadful days in the mines, and continued amid the splendors of the Mexican capital? Despite his adolescent revolts, this was
the first time that Nicolás had openly challenged his authority as a father. And he did so with all the force of a cannonball crashing into one of the few remaining walls of his nearly depleted stamina.
CHAPTER FIFTY
After leaving a generous amount on the table without waiting for the bill, Mauro quit the inn to return to the mansion. Carola Gorostiza’s baggage was piled up in the doorway.
“You take that side, Santos, and I’ll lift here.”
By this stage, he could not have cared less if anyone in Jerez saw him lifting and carrying like a vulgar porter. Ready: one, two three. That’s it. Everything was sinking fast, slipping through his fingers: What did a little more shame matter?
The last thing he did before leaving was to send old Simón with a note to the doctor’s house. Beg you to accompany you-know-who to Cádiz, Plaza de Mina, he had written. The Cuatro Naciones Inn. We’ll meet there tonight to decide how to proceed.
He was convinced Fatou would help them find a way to dispatch the Englishman to Gibraltar as quickly as possible. Until then he had no more tricks up his sleeve: all he could think of was to put the stepson in a hotel. He could wait close to the port for his transport. Meanwhile, they would send the Gorostiza woman back to Havana on the salt ship. After that, God would decide.
When they arrived in Cádiz at nightfall with Trinidad, the young slave, was still sobbing like a babe in arms. Unusually sullen, Santos Huesos had only responded in monosyllables to his patrón’s questions along the way. That’s all I need, Mauro had muttered under his breath.
“Go for a walk and say good-bye to each other,” he said as they approached the studded door in Calle de la Verónica. “And find some way to calm her down, Santos: I don’t want any scene when she sees her mistress.”
“But she promised me . . .” said Trinidad, bursting into tears once more.
Her sobs were so loud and bitter that several of the passersby turned to look. Shutters behind several windows in the elegant houses nearby were opened as prying eyes peeped out.
Mauro looked daggers at them. The last thing he needed at that moment was to add unnecessary problems to the long list of favors he already owed Fatou. And if he didn’t put a stop to it quickly, this scene from an operetta in the middle of the street would do just that.
“Make her shut up, Santos,” he growled before turning his back on them. “By all that’s holy, shut her up.”
He was greeted once more by Genaro and his polite coughs.
“Come in, Don Mauro, they’re waiting for you.”
This time he was not ushered into the company office but into the sitting room on the main floor where he and his hosts had chatted over coffee and spirits. The married couple, their faces still marked by shock despite their attempts to hide it, were now seated on a damask sofa beneath a pair of still life paintings full of crusts of bread, clay jugs, and freshly hunted partridges. Sitting near them in an armchair, apparently calm, Soledad greeted him with a slight nod of the head that only he perceived. Beneath the exterior calm, however, Mauro Larrea knew she was still dueling with a host of disturbing devils.
Let’s go—let’s get out of here, he wanted to tell her when their eyes met. Let’s board a ship at the dock: any one that will take us far from here, somewhere we’re not overwhelmed with disasters. Far from your problems and mine, from the lies we’ve told together, and the deceits each of us has committed. Far from your demented husband and my chaotic son. From my debts and your frauds, from our failures and our pasts.
All he said, though, was: “Good afternoon, my friends; good afternoon, Soledad.”
It seemed to him as if she, with an almost imperceptible gesture, were replying, If only I could. If only I had no burdens or ties. But this is my life, Mauro. And wherever I go, my troubles must go with me.
“Well, it looks as if everything is being resolved.”
Antonio Fatou’s words burst his absurd reverie.
“I am anxious to hear the news,” said Mauro, taking a seat. “I beg you to excuse my delay, but I had to return to Jerez on important business.”
Fatou told him of the arrangements made: as soon as the salt from the Puerto Real marshes had been loaded, he arranged for the small cabins to be prepared, sorting out all the necessary details. A thorough cleaning, mattresses, blankets, additional provisions of water and food. And, thanks to Paulita’s charitable spirit, a few luxuries as well: cooked ham, English biscuits, cherries in syrup, tongue with truffles. She even added a large bottle of eau de cologne. Everything that might help soften the deplorable conditions on board an old cargo boat that no one would imagine carried deep in its hold a proud lady whom everyone wanted to keep as far away as possible, like a dog with the mange.
Even though the ship would not set sail until the following morning, they had decided to put Carola Gorostiza on board that night. In the dark, so that she would not completely realize what was going on until Cádiz had disappeared in the distance.
“She won’t enjoy the comforts of a cabin passenger on a proper ship, but I trust it will be an easy enough crossing for her. The captain is a trustworthy Basque from Vizcaya; there is only a small crew, and they are peaceful sorts; they won’t disturb her.”
“And her maid will be going with her, of course,” said Sol.
“Her slave,” Mauro corrected her.
The same girl who had wept disconsolately and begged him to let her stay with Santos Huesos. And sobbed over her freedom, agreed in a pact as fragile as a film of ice.
“Her slave,” the others agreed with some embarrassment.
“Her baggage is ready, too,” Mauro added.
“In that case,” said Fatou, “I think we can get on with the embarkation.”
“Would you allow me to talk to her in private first? I’ll try not to be long.”
“Of course, Mauro, as you wish.”
“And if you’d be so kind, I’d like a pen and some paper.”
Carola Gorostiza received him with apparent restraint. She was wearing the same dress as the day before, but her hair had been scraped back and she was wearing none of the adornments or rice powders she had been so fond of in Cuba. She was sitting by the balcony in the guest room decorated with toile de Jouy, and lit only by a dim lamp.
“It would be hypocritical of me to say I’m sorry that nothing worked out as you had hoped.”
She turned her head to peer out of the window at the encroaching night. As if she had not heard him.
“However, I trust you will arrive in Havana without any great problems.”
She remained unmoved, although doubtless she was fuming inside and would dearly have loved to curse him.
“There are a couple of matters I wish to raise with you before you depart. It is up to you whether you choose to cooperate with me or not, but that will determine the state in which you disembark. I imagine you wouldn’t think much of the idea of arriving in Havana harbor looking like a scarecrow: exhausted and filthy, not having changed your clothes in weeks. And without any money to your name.”
“What are you talking about, you wretch?” she said, rousing herself from her feigned lethargy.
“Everything is ready for you to embark, but I have no intention of returning your things to you until we have settled two questions.”
She turned to look at him.
“You’re the son of a whore, Larrea.”
“Seeing that my mother abandoned me before I had reached my fourth birthday, there’s no way I can contradict you,” he replied, moving toward the small writing desk in a corner of the room. On it he placed the sheet of paper, the freshly cut quill pen, the glass inkwell, and the blotter that Fatou had just provided him with. “Well, the less time we lose, the better. Please come and sit at the desk and prepare to write.”
She made an attempt to resist.
“May I remind you that it’s no
t only your wardrobe that’s at stake here. There’s also the money of your inheritance that you brought sown into the lining of your petticoats.”
Ten minutes and any number of insults later, and after many refusals and reproaches, he finally managed to get her to transcribe one by one the words he dictated.
“Let’s carry on,” he said, blowing on the fresh ink on the sheet of paper. “The second question has to do with Luis Montalvo. What I want to know is the complete truth, Señora.”
“That blessed Little Runt again . . .” she said sourly.
“I want to know why he ended up naming your husband as his heir.”
“What’s that to you?” she spat.
“You’re running the risk of all Havana knowing about the sorry state you arrived in after your great journey back to the mother country.”
She dug her nails into the palms of her hands and closed her eyes for a few moments, as if trying to control her fury.
“Because that was how justice was done, Señor,” she eventually said. “That’s all I have to explain to you.”
“Justice for what?”
Weighing up whether to continue or to keep her mouth shut, Carola bit her lip. He stared at her with folded arms. Unyielding, waiting.
“For my husband having assumed someone else’s guilt for more than twenty years. And for this having meant being uprooted, being scorned by his family, and being condemned to isolation for the rest of his life. Doesn’t that seem enough to you?”
“Until I understand what guilt you’re talking about, I couldn’t say.”
“The guilt of being the person who caused his cousin’s death.”
A heavy silence fell on them until she realized she had no other recourse than to finish her story.
“He never fired that shot.”