CHAPTER 24

At about nine in the evening, having first tried Shakespeare, then Stendhal, then the Brontë sisters, and ending up desperately, but unsuccessfully, seeking refuge in one of Corín Tellado’s romantic novels, Berta Quiñones had to admit that some troubles can’t be cured with books alone.

She couldn’t turn up at Asunción’s house and tell her about María’s affair. She didn’t usually keep secrets from her friend, and if it had been any other sort of problem—to do with work, health, or loneliness—she would have gone running to pour her heart out to her. But since it was a matter of infidelity, it seemed better to keep her worry to herself than spread it to Asunción, who had suffered enough with her own unhappy marriage to start sorting someone else’s out. Although they never talked about it, Berta knew that Asunción had to summon enormous courage not to burst out crying every time she remembered her ex-husband and the Iberia flight attendant.

In the end, having rejected the option of talking to her best friend, Berta decided to go to Gaby’s house to scrounge a cup of tea and some comfort. In Berta’s eyes, Gaby and Franklin were the perfect couple. They adored each other.

“Come in, Berta, what a surprise.”

“Is Franklin in?”

“No way. He’ll be back really late tonight. He’s got a commission for a mural on the entrance to the Naval Museum. You wouldn’t believe how good it’s looking.”

“All the better, my love, because something bad has happened . . .”

“I can see that. You’re pale as a sheet, Berta. Shall I get you a glass of wine?”

The two of them sat on the orange sofa in the living room. The sofa and a blob that looked like squashed fruit—a vinyl on the far wall—were the only touches of color in the room. Everything else—the shag carpet, the coffee table, the cylindrical standard lamp, and the life-size plastic sculpture of a greyhound—was as white as snow.

“Oh, Gaby! This is so horrid that I don’t even know how to start telling you about it. I’m sorry to come bursting into your happy life with this.”

“We’re all worried, Berta. Atticus Craftsman is probably going to fire us all. We know that. But it’s not your fault, these things happen.”

Berta burst out crying.

“That too, what a mess. I swear to you, Gaby, I’ve been careful, I’ve never spent more than the magazine can handle. You know yourself the sacrifices we’ve all made to keep the business going. We haven’t allowed ourselves a single luxury, we’ve been honest, we’ve tried so hard. And, all the same, it turns out we’ve done everything wrong. It’s horrible. Mr. Craftsman spoke to me about debts, ruin, failure in every sense. He says no one reads us, we’ve got no credibility, no name for ourselves, no prestige. That we’re a stain on the Craftsman & Co. brand and we’re hemorrhaging money.”

Gaby went to get the tissues. The box was white as well.

“I don’t get it, Gaby,” Berta confessed. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, if your conscience is clear, that’s the main thing. You’ll see it’s not such a big deal. It might just be a question of tightening our belts on certain expenses, asking Craftsman to delay his decision, and putting our thinking caps on. I can do unpaid overtime, if you like.”

“Thank you, sweetie, you’re a gem,” Berta managed to say through her tears. “The awful thing is I didn’t come to talk to you about work. It’s something even worse.”

Gaby was taken aback. Her boss didn’t usually share her personal problems with her. Their relationship was more like that between a niece and a favorite aunt who never forgets to say happy birthday or send a Christmas present. Berta was a protective, maternal person whom you could talk to about your problems but would never tell anyone about hers.

“Has something happened to Asunción?” Gaby worried, because she knew how close the two women were. If Berta had a personal problem, she would have gone to her best friend first.

“No. Asunción is fine, the poor thing, but I can’t ruin her day with this. It’s about María.”

“María?”

Berta took a large gulp of her wine to steel herself. Then she launched into the story of how she had caught María in the arms of another man four months ago, on Three Kings morning, to be exact, and how María had later justified her infidelity by saying that she felt trapped in a mundane, unhappy marriage.

“But she promised she would end the affair soon,” Berta said, screwing her face up. “She swore that the man meant nothing, emotionally speaking, it was only a bit of fun that would last a few days, maybe a month, but afterward she’d go back to her normal life with Bernabé and the kids, just like the character from The Bridges of Madison County, those were her words, as if her life was a film.”

Gaby said nothing. She squeezed Berta’s arm. Sometimes it’s better just to listen.

“And today I saw her with the same man again. Four bloody months have gone by, Gaby, and she’s still with him.”

“Do you know who he is?”

How strange, thought Berta. No, she didn’t know who he was. She had never actually seen his face and it had never occurred to her to ask María his name. She had simply believed what the adulteress said: He’s no one, he doesn’t have a name, he doesn’t have an identity; he’s a brief fling, not a real person.

“No.”

“Are you going to talk to her again?”

“Why? So she can lie to me again and tell me I’m seeing things? That what I saw isn’t what it looks like and her marriage is back on track?”

“So what are we going to do?”

“Well, nothing, love, what can we do . . .”

The two of them drank in silence. Women, unlike men, are capable of talking about a problem for hours without trying to find a solution. Not planning the next move, merely talking until their mouths go dry, and their tears stop, and their eyes sting, and the time comes to go home. But they leave with only half the weight of the problem on their shoulders.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Berta told Gaby when they said goodbye at the door. “Let’s see what happens. Maybe we’ll all be unemployed in a few days anyway, and this mess of María’s won’t be our business anymore.” It was then that Franklin arrived, carrying a bunch of orange tulips.

“Where’s my princess?” they heard him shout up the stairwell.