Beautiful Lies

by Clare Clark

  The silence in the room was suffocating. Maribel did not look towards the grille. She kept her gaze fixed upon the window. When she blinked there were dark stripes in the orange of her eyelids.

  ‘So,’ the voice said at last, ‘she intends to make the child a bequest?’

  ‘Yes, of course. But this is not simply about money.’

  ‘No. She seeks to acquaint herself with the boy.’

  ‘It is her dying wish.’

  There was another long silence. To occupy herself Maribel picked up the glass of water. She took a sip, then another. The water tasted stale.

  ‘Your sister,’ the voice said abruptly. ‘She has other children?’

  The glass slipped in Maribel’s hand. Unsteadily she set it down.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘But she is married?’

  ‘Yes. She is married. And very respectable.’

  ‘And this respectable husband of hers is a good man?’

  ‘A very good man.’

  ‘I think perhaps the child is not her husband’s son? That he knows nothing of the boy?’

  Maribel hesitated a fraction too long.

  ‘She is angry at him, perhaps? Perhaps she resents him for not giving her another child?’

  ‘That is absurd. It has nothing whatsoever to do with him.’

  ‘You are right. And yet it would seem that she seeks to bequeath him her torment.’

  ‘She is dying. She wishes to atone for her sins.’

  ‘But at what detriment to those she leaves behind? If she lights this tinderbox she will see only the pretty flames. It will be her husband who must afterwards sift through the charred remains. He and the boy.’

  ‘There may be difficulties, of course, but they can be overcome. And does the boy not deserve to know his mother?’

  ‘Perhaps the child already has a mother.’

  Maribel faltered. She rubbed at her temples with her fingertips as though she might smooth out the disordered tangle of her thoughts.

  ‘His real mother,’ she said.

  ‘To what end, child? So that he might experience the grief of her abandoning him a second time?’

  ‘Death is not abandonment.’

  ‘Do you think a child understands that?’

  Angrily Maribel shook her head.

  ‘You are twisting everything. She seeks to heal, not to hurt. The boy is her child, her flesh and blood. He is a – a part of her.’

  ‘No. After eleven years it is his absence that is a part of her. The amputated leg continues to ache. That does not make the leg real.’

  ‘The boy is real.’

  ‘Yes, if he lives. But her husband, the very good man, he is real too.’

  ‘And so is my sister. Her suffering is real.’

  ‘I do not doubt it. It is when we suffer that it is especially hard to remember that our actions continue to have consequences. Even those we carry out to punish ourselves.’

  The glare of the white sky through the barred windows hurt Maribel’s eyes. She put a hand over her face.

  ‘He is her son,’ she whispered.

  ‘She has managed to live without him for eleven years. She must know how it is done.’

  ‘Just because one learns to endure does not mean one is obliged to do so.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But when it is such a hard lesson, it is better to learn it only once.’

  Once again the silence spread itself implacably between them. Slowly Maribel shook her head.

  ‘“Judge not, that ye be not judged”,’ she said. Her heart was very heavy. ‘That is what I was taught as a child. And yet you, a daughter of God, would judge my sister, of whom you know nothing.’

  ‘I do not seek to judge her. Only to guide you, who loves her well enough to come here in her place.’

  Outside birds had begun to sing, a restless flurry of peeps and whistles. Somewhere a door banged. Maribel felt exhausted, empty of words. At the base of her skull a headache began to tremble.

  ‘Then you will not help me?’ she asked at last.

  ‘I have done what I can.’

  ‘You have not told me where I might find the boy.’

  ‘No. I have not done that.’

  ‘And you will not?’

  ‘I cannot.’

  ‘For the love of peace –’

  ‘It is not as you think. The cottages by the orange grove are not a part of the priory. They were once, a long time ago, but not for a century at least. For some time they were used by pilgrims on their journey to the cathedral at Santiago but that was long before my time. The pilgrims no longer come this way and the cottages are empty. They say they are falling down.’

  Maribel stared at the grille.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Whatever arrangements were made for your sister and her child, they will have been undertaken privately. They will have had absolutely nothing to do with us.’

  Maribel thought of the old woman with her monkey face and her rosary beads. She had taken the child. Maribel had hidden her face then. She had not had the courage to look. She thought of Oedipus on his mountain, of Moses lifted from his rush basket in the reeds by an Egyptian princess. She thought of the Irish babies during the Great Hunger, abandoned in the ruined fields to be pecked by crows. She thought of Victor and of all the people that he knew and the desolation spread through her like ink.

  ‘You knew from the start that you could not help me,’ she said. ‘You knew you could not help me and yet on you went, on and on, preaching and sermonising and –’ She broke off, her voice no longer trustworthy. Taking her cape from the chair where she had left it she put it on.

  ‘Forgive me, child,’ the voice said quietly. ‘Here in the priory we speak little. It is hard to resist the lure of conversation.’

  ‘I should like to leave now.’

  ‘Of course. I shall call for the servant to see you out. May the Lord bless you and keep you and may He make His light to shine upon you, today and all the days of your life. And may your sister find peace. Amen.’

  Maribel did not reply. From behind the lattice she could hear the scrape of a chair being pushed back. There was a rustle of skirts, the faint echo of boots on a stone floor. Then it was quiet.

  Beyond the window the birds sang. Maribel wrapped her arms around the pain in her chest and wept.

  33

  THE RAIN HAD STOPPED. In their attic room in the inn at Ferrixao the pale sunlight made patterns like lace on the single dirty pane of the window. Maribel knelt, dragging the trunk containing her camera from its place beneath the narrow iron bed. Inside she had wrapped the camera case in a blanket to keep it from damage. She unfolded the blanket and, opening the case, lifted the camera from its nest of padding. Despite the care with which she had wrapped it, it had grown dusty. She blew on it briskly and polished it with a clean cloth, working the rag carefully into the hidden cavities of the lens casing. When she peered at Alice through the viewfinder the maid scowled, scratching ostentatiously at the red bites on her wrists.

  ‘Be careful,’ Maribel said. ‘A face like that could crack the lens clean through.’

  Alice stuck out her tongue. Then she picked up Maribel’s cape, shaking it out before holding it up for her mistress to put on. Maribel slipped her arms through the slits. Alice assessed her appraisingly, smoothing out the creases at the shoulders, and fastened the clasp at the neck.

  ‘Be careful yourself,’ she said. ‘You are still weak, you know.’

  On the journey back from the priory a storm had blown in. By the time the mules reached the inn at Ferrixao Maribel had been soaked through. She had spent the following day in bed, unable to stop shivering. Alice had stayed with her, feeding her spoonfuls of soup and watching her while she slept. ‘Nonsense,’ Maribel said. ‘I am quite recovered.’

  ‘You are white as a sheet. You’re to take it slow, you hear me? And no getting into trouble with Johnny Foreigner.’

  ‘Here I believe they call him Juan Extr
anjero.’

  ‘They can call him whatever they like,’ Alice said briskly. ‘It’s not as though he’s going to understand a word they say.’

  The morning was still, the clouds parted to reveal strips of silvery sky. In the field above the lake the boys were once again picking stones. They worked slowly, hunched over, their hands reaching into the earth with weary regularity. Maribel watched as one boy straightened up, straining against the weight of the stones in his apron. They hung from his thin frame like a pendulous belly. ‘Excuse me,’ she called in Spanish.

  The boy turned. He had close-set eyes and a smear of mud across his right cheek.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said again. ‘Might I speak with you?’

  The boy did not answer. Slowly he emptied his bellyful of stones into a large flat basket. Then, putting his fingers in his mouth, he whistled at another boy who was working a little distance away. As the second boy looked up Maribel recognised him as the boy who had thrown the stone. He was taller than the others. She took a few tentative steps towards him. Further up the field other boys were working. Though she squinted she could not see if he was among them, the boy she had seen the last time, the boy with the huge eyes.

  ‘I should like to photograph you,’ she said, holding out the camera. ‘All of you. If you will let me.’

  She spoke slowly so that the boy might understand her. When he did not reply she rummaged in her satchel and pulled out a parcel, wrapped for her by the innkeeper. The paper was shiny with grease.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ she asked. ‘I brought food.’

  The boy eyed the parcel. Then he said something in Galego. It was not like Spanish. She did not understand him.

  ‘Bread and sausage,’ she said, holding out the parcel. ‘For you. From the inn at Ferrixao.’

  She pointed back towards the village. The boy hesitated. He was very thin. His Adam’s apple protruded sharply from his throat, as though he had swallowed one of his stones. Behind him the other boys had stopped working. They watched him, their arms slack against their sides.

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Take it.’

  The boy chewed his lip, his eyes flickering between her face and the parcel. The greasy paper gleamed.

  ‘Come on,’ she encouraged and, taking a step towards him, she placed the package in his hands. He stared at it. She tugged at the string, unfolded the paper. When the boy saw the quantity of sausage his eyes widened and the stone in his throat moved up and down.

  ‘It is for all of you,’ Maribel said, sweeping out her arm to include the other boys. They clustered together, nudging one another, their old-men’s faces pinched with suspicion and curiosity. She smiled tentatively at them, encouraging them to approach. The boy’s brow furrowed. He gestured at the food, the question clear without words.

  ‘Because I should like to photograph you,’ she said, digging around once again in her satchel. ‘Photograph. Like this.’

  The picture she showed him was of Mr Molloy, the translator from the Wild West. He had not known she was taking it. He leaned against a five-barred gate, his hat tipped back and his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his waistcoat, his habitually sardonic expression softened into thoughtfulness. The boy stared at Mr Molloy. His dirty fingers hovered over the man’s face, stiff with wonder and the desire to touch.

  ‘The camera makes the picture,’ she said, miming. ‘It will make a picture of you.’

  The boy’s frown deepened. He gazed at the picture of Mr Molloy. Then he shook his head, muttering something in his unintelligible language. Hearing him, the boys began to turn away.

  ‘Wait,’ Maribel cried and at that moment she saw him. He stood slightly behind the others, his hands loose at his sides, and his gaze from beneath his unkempt fringe of hair was steady and unblinking. She stared back at him and her stomach turned over.

  ‘I can pay you,’ she said.

  She dipped into her pocket, holding out a handful of coins. The tall boy sucked his teeth. Then he reached for them. Maribel shook her hand and closed her hand in a fist. From between her fingers she took a single coin.

  ‘This one now,’ she said. ‘The rest after.’

  The boy hesitated. Tearing a fragment of paper from the food parcel, Maribel wrapped the rest of the money in it. She set it on a flat stone.

  ‘For you,’ she said, pointing from the boy to the money. ‘After.’ There was a pause. Then he nodded, gesturing at the boys. They murmured to one another, their flanks pressed together like cattle. The tall boy shouted something and they began slowly to inch closer. Their clogs were solid with mud.

  ‘You can keep this,’ Maribel said to the tall boy and she held out the photograph of Mr Molloy. The boy hesitated. Then, his eyes on the ground, he nodded and took it, sliding it under his canvas apron.

  She photographed them separately. The poses were intimate, taken very close. The low cloud filtered the light to a soft dust that caught in the black mops of their hair and lit their dirty faces. She paid no attention to the lake, the majestic sweep of the mountains against the silvered sky. Beside the intimate topography of the boys’ faces, the landscape felt flat and artificial. She did not know how much of the greed was hers and how much the camera’s but with each shot she moved closer, the lens opening up like a mouth, caressing, laying claim to the smear of dirt across a cheekbone, the fleck of sleep in the corner of a dark eye, the tiny scar of a blemish in the dent of a temple. The intimacy was exquisite and yet she felt invisible, the essence of her all in the box that she held to her face, the whole world suspended in the circle of its lens.

  She saved the boy with the dark eyes until last. At first he was awkward. He squinted and shifted, biting at his lips, unable to keep still. His eyes slid from side to side. He stretched his neck to look at the other boys in the field. He frowned. He opened his mouth to say something and closed it again. He twisted his fingers together, looked down at his feet. She said nothing. She waited.

  The boy was weary. The day was mild, the respite from his work unexpected. Little by little the tension in his shoulders eased. His full lips parted and the little frown that notched the space between his eyebrows softened. His head lolled a little. He regarded the camera without curiosity and the steadiness of his gaze was at the same time vulnerable and veiled, childish and unimaginably ancient. He was disquietingly beautiful. His mud-caked hands, his ragged clothes, his thin hunched shoulders attested to the centuries of back-breaking labour endured by the poor peasants of this mountainous part of Spain, to hardship and hunger and the certainty of hardship and hunger to come, and yet in the artlessness of his beauty there was a nobility, a disquieting grace that made a costume of the rags and the mud.

  Though she moved closer and closer, her face pressed hard against the camera, she could not reach him. He gazed through her to a place she did not know and there was no distress in his eyes nor any hopefulness either. He did not preen for her as the other boys had, tugging at their ragged clothes and trying on faces. He wore his beauty and his poverty equally, as though neither belonged to him. Like a besotted lover the camera lingered over the particulars of his face, the bent arch of an eyebrow, the crumpled whorl of an ear, the fine down along the sharp line of his jaw, everything that was not him forgotten. His eyes were almond-shaped and so dark a brown that they were almost black. They gleamed, opaque, bright with silver scraps of sky, and in their fathomless depths was nothing and all the truth in the world.

  That night Maribel could not sleep. A little before dusk Sr Muñoz had returned, the panniers on the mules fat with earth from the mine, and the next day they would travel together to Madrid for the assay. It would be several days before the Mining College could assess the potential value of their endeavours in Galicia. Maribel turned over, seeking a comfortable position. The moon was full, the dirty window at the foot of the bed iced with light. She curled into the dark shadow of the eaves, straining for sleep. It did not come. She craved a cigarette.

  At last, the restlessness too str
ong in her, she rose, slipping on her heavy wrap. In the other bed Alice slept soundly, her dark hair tumbled on the pillow and her nightgown buttoned up beneath her chin. She breathed heavily, her mouth slightly open, the shadow of a dream flickering over her face. She looked very young.

  The trunk containing their clothes made for a makeshift table. Striking a match Maribel lit a cigarette and then, hurriedly, fearful of burning her fingers, the tallow lamp. The wick was reluctant and the light burned in a tight bud of flame before it caught, blooming gold against the whitewashed wall. Maribel set her writing case on the lid of the trunk and took out paper and a pen before propping the slope.

  She had not written to Edward for several days and the lid to the inkwell was stiff. She smoothed the paper, drawing her cold feet up underneath her. The night air insinuated itself through the place where the window had warped in its frame. Beside her the lamp guttered a little, spitting fat. She inhaled, drawing smoke into her chest until her lungs cramped. She held the smoke inside her for as long as she was able. Then she exhaled. She dipped her pen.

  My love,

  It is that hour of the night when ghosts roam and the certainties of daylight grow vague as dreams. In the village the street is empty, the houses shuttered and dark. The dogs are quiet at last, the birds not yet up. Everyone sleeps. Somewhere beyond the slumbering mountains our mine sleeps too, waiting like a princess for us to kiss her from her ancient slumber. I think perhaps I am the only person in all of Spain who does not sleep, my smoky little lamp the single gleam of gold in the black Spanish night.

  But it is not quite dark. The moon is full. Do you remember how, in Mexico, the moon was yellow and so heavy and swollen it seemed barely to hang above the horizon? This moon is as small and neat as a silver shilling and so sharp it prints shadows on the bare earth. I reach out through the dusty little window and I take it in my cupped hands. For you, I whisper, and I think that perhaps, in all the years I have loved you, I have never loved you as dearly as I do tonight. Sleep safely, dearest one, and, if you should wake, do not despair but gaze out beyond the bars of your window so that you might see what I see, that all we have need of is already ours. Our mine may yet yield nothing but we shall always have the moon.