77

ADRIANA

Sunday, November 18, 2012

I ago and I had spent the previous evening talking. I was still finding it hard to come to terms with the fact Lyra was his daughter, rather than his sister, but when he told me, more than anything else I understood his relief. There was something more human in his eyes; they looked more vulnerable now, not as hard. I admit I felt more at ease with, and less intimidated by, the new Iago.

“Dana, this will happen many more times,” he had told me. “I’ve lived through ten thousand years of conflict. Today it’s a daughter, tomorrow the men I killed . . . I haven’t been a paragon of virtue. It’s enough that I’ve survived. There’ll be moments when I prefer not to tell you about my past.”

“Yes, I’m beginning to understand that.”

“Do you think that what we have together will last?”

“I have no idea,” I answered.

Maybe we wouldn’t experience “happily ever after.” Maybe. But his existence was already interwoven with my life. And after the last series of events, we were fused together like metal after a nuclear explosion.

I looked at my empty bedroom one last time and smiled at the thought of my father’s face when he saw it like that, assuming it ever occurred to him to visit Santander. I didn’t want to go on having the furniture of my mother’s murderer in her apartment. There was no way for a soul to rest in peace under those circumstances. The rest of my things were in boxes again, waiting to be transferred to the house Iago and I had found a short distance from the MAC.

I heard the sound of keys behind me and a whistle when Iago came into the room.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“The movers took the furniture away this morning. Can you guess where?”

“Well, no.”

“To Elisa’s new apartment. You should have seen her face when I told her of my intentions, but she didn’t refuse. I think she’s the only person who continues to appreciate things that have anything to do with Jairo.”

“She’s not the only one,” he said solemnly.

“So it’s definite that your father is leaving Santander?”

“Yes. We’ve hardly crossed paths since our walk on the beach, and if we have, it’s been to sort out our business affairs and settle practical matters.”

“Do you think he’ll come back someday to live with you?”

Iago shrugged. “Who knows. I imagine so. If he’s capable of forgiving Nagorno over and over again, I have no doubt he’ll end up understanding my motives as well. As far as I’m concerned, it all hinges on whether or not he tells Nagorno what I confided to him. If he does, it will be difficult for me to forgive him.”

We sat down on the floor and embraced in the middle of the empty room.

“I don’t know, Dana. I’m tired of the fact there’s never an end to Nagorno’s stories. It’s an endless cycle, and this time I’d found a way to stop the wheel. But at too high a price, you know. There isn’t a family anymore. TAF no longer exists.”

Maybe I can do something about all this , I thought.

“You can make new ones,” I said, changing the direction of the conversation.

“I’d like it to be with you,” he whispered, resting his head on my shoulder. “It wouldn’t be your normal family. How much would that matter to you? How far would you go?”

“Are you talking about what we’ll do when I get old and you’re still as cheeky as you are now? Well, that depends on the two of us. Hypothetically, I guess we’ll have to move in ten years’ time or so.”

“Or twenty, if we do a good job of pretending I’m growing old, too. Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

“Of course. Then we’d hit an uncomfortable stage when you don’t look the age to be either my partner or my son. We’d have to assume people would whisper that I’m a cradle snatcher until the years passed and then you’d have to pretend you were my son or my nephew—whatever fits the circumstances at each stage.”

“And the children—have you thought about that?” he asked.

“I’d prefer them to know about your true nature right from the start. I’d like them to be with you when I’m no longer here. There’s no reason you should have to renounce them ever again.”

“For once . . . ” he said, looking into the distance. “To see them grow up for once, and not abandon them.”

“We’ll find a way to make it all fall into place,” I concluded.

“You realize our plans mean that we won’t have a fixed place of residence?”

“You and I have always been seminomads. Anyway, there’s loads of digs out there waiting for us. I hope the idea of setting up an emergency archaeology business is still in the cards, even if your father goes away for a time,” I said with a smile as I looked at my watch. “And speaking of work, there’s not much time left before the big day. I’m going to head over to the MAC. I want to go over all the details before the opening.”

I got up off the floor and said good-bye to him. “I’ll see you there in a couple of hours. Don’t be late, okay?”

As soon as I was out on the street, I rummaged in my bag and took out my mobile. “Héctor, it’s Adriana. I have to talk to you. Where are you?”

“Leaving the house. I was just on my way to the museum,” he replied, a note of surprise in his voice.

“I’d prefer that we met somewhere else. Wait for me at the lookout in front of Los Peligros Beach,” I said and hung up without giving him time to object.

Héctor was far too considerate not to turn up, so I got into my car and took Castelar Street. A few minutes later I parked on Reina Victoria and spotted his silhouette sitting on the bench. He had bags under his eyes, and he’d grown a beard. He held out his hand to me, as he had the first day we met, but I could see no sign of a smile.

“I feel uncomfortable in your presence, Adriana. I feel I’ve failed you, and I understand if you’re angry with me,” he said by way of a greeting.

“What are you talking about?”

I sat down beside him, and the two of us just remained there, gazing at the bay of Santander, as if we could detach ourselves from our real problems.

“My decision to go in search of Nagorno. He’s your mother’s murderer, so it would be perfectly normal for you to hate him and to hate me because I’m going to try to save his life.”

“I’ve come to speak to you about Nagorno, but not about the business with my mother. As far as that goes . . . I’m going to take some time to work through that. Too many things have happened that will take time for us to absorb—those of us who were there. Lyra is dead; I won’t see Nagorno again; you’re going off to look for him . . . ” I sighed. “That’s all huge for me, and what I’m about to do may be huge as well.”

“What’s it about, then?”

“I’ve come for Iago’s sake, but he must never know about this conversation. Not while I’m alive, not after I’m dead. You feel uncomfortable with me because you forgave Nagorno? Then keep this promise, and I’ll deem everything to be squared away between us, all right?”

He scrutinized me for a good while, trying to work out possible scenarios, and finally agreed. “So be it, then.”

“Some time ago I asked you to tell me what happened between Iago and Nagorno in Scythia, and you did so. You gave me your version—what you saw, what you know. But today I’m going to tell you something they’ve both kept hidden from you for three thousand years, something you should know. Nagorno told me in Lyra’s lab, I presume because the second time he really did intend to kill me. I also know Iago would never have told me. I hope when you find out, you’ll see your son Iago in a different light. Maybe then you’ll finally understand the loyalty he has maintained toward you, everything that’s had to happen because he stayed by your side, everything he’s put up with in silence.”

“Get on with it,” he said impatiently. “What happened between them that I don’t know about?”

“When the Scythians themselves began to harass Nagorno for being the son of a slave, he found a way to make them respect him. He asked his mother’s permission to kill the two of you, you and Iago, but she refused to give it. So he looked for another way.”

“What way?”

“Do you remember the three slaves he bought and who were always at his side?”

“Yes, how could I forget them? They were immense human hulks. My son did well to look for protection. That was the only way the Scythians would stop tormenting him. What do they have to do with the story?”

“How blind you were, Héctor!” I snorted. “How blind!”

He looked at me with a question in his eyes, not understanding.

“Every night Olbia demanded your presence, they came into the slaves’ tent you abandoned and took Iago away. Then they sodomized and tortured him under Nagorno’s orders, leaving no mark that you or Olbia might see. That went on for ten years. If you were with Olbia, they raped him; if you stayed in the tent, they left him in peace. That was really how Nagorno gained the respect of the Scythians.”

His horrified eyes stared at me, silently begging me to say what he’d just heard wasn’t true. “That can’t be true,” he said, sounding agitated. “I never saw anything. Nothing ever happened that would have made me suspect what you’re telling me.”

“I know. I think you’ve underestimated Nagorno’s cunning and Iago’s loyalty for thousands of years—in all senses of those words, and not just in this instance.”

“What about Ponticus? Why did he keep quiet? He always behaved like a friend. Why hide such atrocities from me?”

“Maybe his silence saved both your lives. Imagine what would have happened if you had found out. Wouldn’t you have reproached Olbia? Could you have continued your relationship with her knowing what every night of your pleasure meant for Iago? Olbia would have got rid of you, too. I don’t think the two of you would have survived either Olbia or Nagorno.”

That resounding truth altered the expression on his face. I respected his silence for a few minutes because I needed to allow my story to make its mark.

“And now for my request. I’m betraying Iago, but I’m doing it for a good reason. I’m asking you not to go in search of Nagorno, and I’m asking you not to tell him his heart will grow old if he finds you.”

He clenched his jaw, but I continued to speak.

“Don’t keep fooling yourself. Nagorno isn’t going to change. He’s the product of his circumstances, of his early childhood. You and Iago are still alive because you’ve learned to adapt with the times. He hasn’t. Your younger son remains rooted in the violent world of three thousand years ago, and there’s no place for his behavior in the present. He’s a fossil, Héctor. Let him die. Relinquish him.”

“Are you aware of what you’re asking me to do? Do you still not understand that I want to keep my family together, that I refuse to be alone again? Nobody can come close to understanding what eighteen thousand years of loneliness searching a barely populated world for people like me who don’t grow old actually means.”

“How was it?”

“Going through the last Würm glacial period alone?”

I nodded.

“It was cold. Always. Inside and out. Very cold.”

I thought about Iago. I forced myself to go on talking. “I’m asking you for justice. You longevos live on the margins of our laws. You have to in order to remain invisible, and I understand that. I can’t go to a police station and say I have the confession of my mother’s murderer, or hope they’ll go and look for him and lock him up. I don’t have proof, and even if I had it, what are thirty years in jail for murder for Nagorno? It will always be worth his while to murder someone. You are the only one who can deal out justice in this instance. For my mother, for Lyra’s family, for Iago. And what about Patricio—won’t his family suffer?”

“Patricio was a child in the favelas of Brazil. Nagorno took him in and took care of him.”

So what? I thought. I was sick of Nagorno’s contradictions. I got up from the bench and left without saying good-bye. I don’t think Héctor even realized I’d gone.