CHAPTER 37

We had two choices, to diversify or specialize, and in the end we decided to specialize, because I’ve always done really well with melons but had no luck with oranges. That’s life, what can you do?”

Arcángel liked to talk. This was becoming clear to Atticus, particularly in contrast to his own reserved nature. Like father, like son. “You talk, I’ll listen and, in return, you teach me to play the guitar” were the terms Atticus proposed and which Soleá’s cousin gladly accepted because, like he said, until the melons ripened for the next load to Madrid he didn’t have much to do, apart from playing in Dolores’s cave. Dolores, Atticus had learned, was Potaje’s mother, and Potaje had turned out to be Soleá’s uncle and not her cousin.

Arcángel was the grandson of Consuelos, another of Remedios’s sisters, and because he was the eldest of Manuela’s nephews, it had fallen to him to take charge of the fruit business when Soleá’s father, Pedro Abad, died. Tomás had told his mother and sisters that he would rather make a living from music because horticulture clipped his wings and withered his soul. Manuela, a young widow with four single daughters, knew that she was better off selling the land and the trucks to someone in the family so that, at the very least, the name of the business wouldn’t change. Arcángel, however, paid no heed to this wish, the result being a thorny issue that was best avoided, míster, why dig up old bones.

Aunt Consuelos had healing powers. Soleá’s great-grandmother used to say that her labor pains and afterpains had vanished the moment Consuelos came into the world; her body relaxed completely and her own heartbeats synchronized with the baby’s. It was true. It was an inexplicable phenomenon: Anyone who came close to Aunt Consuelos (close being less than fifteen centimeters away from her chest) noticed that his or her own pulse slowed down—the woman had a pulse rate like a lizard at rest—and that all worries and stresses gradually disappeared.

For a few years, she had been well known in Granada as “the pain lady,” a title she hated because she said it referred to the problem and not the solution. Her own name, Consuelos, which means “comfort” and was given to her by her mother precisely because of her gift, would have done the job perfectly well. In the end, though, that’s what people are like, what can you do? When she turned seventy, she closed the small clinic she had set up on Camino del Monte, scared she would die in the middle of a session and take the patient with her. But now she was over eighty and saw her life unfurl before her like that of an ancient ficus. She had begun to lose her fear of death and was pondering the idea of opening up shop again for the time she had left. Because people with a gift like Aunt Consuelos’s might never die, they could go on living forever, in slow motion, like Ravel’s Bolero, do you know the one? The one you can play all day, that starts where it ends and vice versa. Shall I play a bit for you, míster?

Arcángel, with his messy hair and his long nails, taught guitar to Atticus in the courtyard at Soleá’s house, at any time between eleven in the morning and two in the afternoon, according to what was on the menu that day. The classes were structured around mealtimes because Atticus had developed an unhealthy appetite for the stews that Granny Remedios cooked on her open fire, the smell of which wafted out into the courtyard. As soon as the oil started to heat up and the onion began to brown, Atticus lost interest in guitar chords and became obsessed with the blessed cooking pot. At that point, Arcángel knew it was better to leave the class for the next day. He would get up out of his seat and say, “You’re quite the musician, míster,” giving him a pat on the back. Then Atticus would go into the house, following the smell of frying onions, and say hello to Granny Remedios, who would reply, “Well, here you are again, Tico, niño,” handing him a sharp knife so he could help chop the vegetables.

Sometimes the broad beans needed shelling, so they would sit across from each other at a small table and pass the time discussing serious matters. She liked his way of speaking, with that funny accent of his, and would ask him things about his home, his family, the countryside near where he lived, and would listen in amazement, sometimes in dismay, like when she found out that he had spent his childhood at boarding school, or when Atticus said in passing that he couldn’t remember his father hugging him a single time in all his life.

“Do you believe in God, Tico?”

“I think this life is all we’ve got, and we should be thankful for it.”

“Thankful?” Granny Remedios had the ability to flip the meaning of anything she didn’t agree with to align it with her own beliefs. “So then of course you believe in God, Tico, niño, think about it, who are you thanking?”

“Life.”

“You can’t thank life for life; it would be like saying good night to the night itself. Which makes no sense no matter how you look at it.”

“Then I must believe in God.”

“Right. Hey, Tico, you want to marry my Soleá, don’t you?”

“I’ve never thought about getting married, Granny.” Atticus had learned to give ambiguous answers as a way to combat Remedios’s conversational maneuvers.

“I didn’t ask if you want to get married in general, like you might ask a person if he wants to have some fun or wants to travel, Tico, niño. I asked you if you want to marry my Soleá.”

“There’s a lot of Soleá to Soleá.”

“Listen, Tico.” The old woman was losing her patience. “Do you know what pelar la pava means?”

“No.”

“Well, pelar la pava is the same as chatting and shelling beans, but with the granddaughter instead of the grandmother, do you see?”

Two months had passed since he had arrived in Granada; July was almost at an end and August was hot on its heels. Soleá got more beautiful every day, every afternoon they went out for a walk, but she still called him Míster Crasman and politely addressed him as usted, and every day Atticus fought against the animal instinct to devour her before the moon was up.

Atticus was getting mixed messages from Soleá. On the one hand, she treated him with astounding familiarity, joking with him, scolding him, and confiding in him exactly as she did with her cousins, but she definitely wouldn’t let him respond in the same way. The day he dared to give her bottom a friendly pinch, which was something all the men in the house seemed to do to all the women, without exception, including the grandmothers, and were usually just pushed away with a laugh, Atticus got a resounding smack. Soleá slapped both his cheeks and stood waiting for his reaction, coldly observing his browbeaten look, his apologies in English, his blundering attempts to regain balance, and his plea that she wouldn’t say anything to Tomás, I beg you, he’ll kill me. This last bit was the only thing that softened her stony heart.

On the other hand, he also found it difficult to guess what she felt and work out what she really wanted from him. If she caught him looking at another girl, Soleá would get in a huff, storm off in the middle of the street, and spend a couple of days not talking to him. But if she felt that he was watching her too much, if she felt that he was following her like a shadow through the parched streets, or if they met in a corridor and he held her gaze, then she made it clear that his presence bothered her. She would suggest that he go out for a bit of air, it feels a little oppressive in here, Míster Crasman, and shoo him away like a bothersome beggar.

Then Atticus would hug his guitar, walk away from the Heredias’ house, wander up and down the streets, and sit down on any old corner to practice his new, solitary passion. Sometimes tourists would leave coins in his hat as they watched him tear at the strings of his wooden lover.

Then there was the question of accommodation. Soleá was still flat-out refusing to let Atticus get a room in a hotel, but he felt that if he was to stay any longer, which looked likely, he wanted to contribute in some way to supporting the family. He suggested it to Manuela, the mother, and she got horribly offended. He asked Tomás, Soleá’s brother, and he stopped speaking to him. In the end, Soleá asked him earnestly to stop embarrassing her family with the envelope of notes he kept flashing around. He was unable to make her understand that he hadn’t wanted to boast, quite the opposite, Soleá, I can’t believe you could think such an awful thing of me. Eventually he decided that the only way to shake off the terrible feeling that he was scrounging his meals was to buy a tourist ticket every night to the show at the cave, watch the performance, and leave a tip.

“You fancy one of the girls, don’t you?” Soleá said to him one evening with her eyes half closed.

“I do?”

“Otherwise why d’you come to the cave every single night?”

“To see you, Soleá,” he replied.

“Stop messing with me, Míster Crasman, I know what you’re like.”

Granny Remedios had picked up on this state of tension and disillusion—if nothing else, old age brings wisdom—and she thought the gringo could do with a little nudge to help him win Soleá over. The old woman knew Soleá was ready to be won over, you could see it from the way she came down in the morning all done up and asking for him—Where’s Míster Crasman, is he up yet? So she lay in wait until the opportunity arose to intervene in her granddaughter’s fate.

In the first week of August, Atticus received a call from England. His father wanted to know how he was getting on. Atticus had no choice but to lie. He made something up about studying the business and assured him that he would have good news soon. Then he asked if his father knew of anywhere in Spain that sold Twinings Earl Grey, his favorite kind of tea, because otherwise he was going to have to order some from England, which would be complicated. His father promised to find out, and they hung up.

Because this conversation took place in the courtyard, Manuela, Remedios, and the girls couldn’t help listening through the kitchen window and asked Soleá to translate what the míster was saying to his father.

“He’s not talking about us,” Soleá explained. “It seems he’s run out of tea and wants to buy more.”

“Tell him there’s a woman who lives on the way up to Antequera who makes herbal teas!” her grandmother suddenly exclaimed.

“But Granny Remedios,” said Soleá in surprise, “they sell the kind of tea he wants in all the supermarkets.”

“You tell him,” the old woman replied, “then I’ll explain how to get there. Tico!” she shouted out the window, “come over here. I’ll tell you where you can get some lovely tea!”

Two days later, on August 10 at precisely 8:00 p.m., Atticus Craftsman went on the strangest adventure of his life, driving Arcángel’s truck with Soleá fanning herself at his side, the picture of Camarón staring at them from the windshield while his voice strained to be heard over the noise of the motor. Before they set off, Atticus took out his cell phone, called home, waited for the tone, and when he heard the answering machine kick in he decided to leave a message so that his father wouldn’t waste time with an exhaustive investigation of Spanish tea distributors: “Leave it to me, Dad. I’ve got it all under control.”