Paris
Adela had changed, or at least that’s what Fernando thought. He hadn’t been gone for all that long, but suddenly it seemed that the teenage girl was becoming a woman. As for Catalina, she hugged him tight and said how much she had missed him. “I’m not used to being without you,” she admitted.
“Neither am I,” said Adela, “and now that you’re here, I need to say that I’ve decided to leave. Mama agrees with me.”
“Leave? Where to?” Fernando felt incapable of processing more emotions.
“To the United States. As soon as the school year ends, I’ll be off to Boston. I’ve applied for a scholarship to study there, and I think they’ll give it to me,” Adela said.
“But … when did you make this decision? You didn’t say anything to me.”
“We couldn’t because you were in Chile,” Catalina said.
“But I was only gone for ten days …”
“And in those ten days, Mama and I went on yet another trip to try to find that man, my father …”
If he had not been so exhausted, maybe Fernando would have been angry, but given his state, he simply listened to the two of them provide a disjoined explanation of what had happened.
“Mama read in the papers that Marvin Brian was in Italy, in Sorrento, where he was going to spend some time relaxing. You can imagine what she decided to do …”
And Adela spared no detail of the story while Catalina looked at her in silence.
They had traveled by airplane as far as Naples and then they had taken a train down to Sorrento where they looked for a place to stay. Marvin was staying at the Hotel Excelsior.
“An earthly paradise,” Adela said. “The gardens are the stuff of dreams, it’s where Augustus Caesar had his palace … there are still some ruins there … and you can imagine what the people in the hotel are like … it was like another universe.”
For a couple of days, they had stood waiting outside the doors of the hotel, but hadn’t seen Marvin or Farida enter or leave. On the third day, Catalina decided that she would go in and ask for him. She took advantage of one of the guards looking the other way to climb over the fence and go through the garden into the hotel.
They walked through the garden ringed with orange and lemon trees and breathed in the smell of the flowers. The hotel was a little palace, and the receptionist had told them that the Great Caruso himself had stayed there. It was a place where aristocrats and people with money went to avoid being disturbed.
A very friendly doorman came out to meet them before they got to the door of the hotel building, and when Catalina said, very sure of herself, that Mr. Brian was waiting for them, he told them where to find him on the terrace. Marvin and Farida seemed happy, looking out at the Bay of Naples. The hotel was built on some rocks and had incredible views.
They were talking peacefully, laughing, holding one another’s hands. There were other guests, all of them dressed very elegantly, and they seemed to be enjoying the spot, and the calm that came from such beauty.
Adela felt that she was in the way here, an intruder, and begged Catalina to turn around and head back to Paris. She didn’t feel like she could face another scene. But Catalina walked forward with determined steps and stood in front of Marvin and Farida.
“Good morning, I’m sorry to bother you, but I hope you won’t run away again. I’m here with Adela.”
Marvin got to his feet and ran into the hotel followed by Farida. Catalina ran after them, but the concierge came out and stood in her way, grabbing her by the arm.
Adela felt incredibly embarrassed to hear Marvin shouting “Throw that madwoman out of here!” And that’s what they did: throw them out. Two men made them leave, stopping Catalina from chasing Marvin, who had disappeared as though the ground had swallowed him up.
Catalina protested, and said she wouldn’t go without speaking to Marvin, but the two men practically dragged them out, and told them that they would call the carabineers if they saw them again.
They had a fight when they got back to where they were staying. “Never again, do you hear me? Never again am I going to let you embarrass me like that! This man doesn’t want anything to do with you, or me. Let’s not humiliate ourselves any more. At least, I won’t humiliate myself. I don’t need him. I don’t need him to be my father!”
Catalina assured her that she would never give up, that she would follow him forever until he acknowledged her as his daughter. But Adela had made the first important decision of her life. “You can do whatever you want. But I’m not having anything to do with it. I won’t go with you again, anywhere that you go looking for him. And I forbid you from demanding that I acknowledge him. I don’t want him as my father,” she said furiously.
And that’s why she had decided to leave. She didn’t want her life to hang on the hope that her father might acknowledge her; that would stop her from being herself, just as it had stopped her mother from having a normal life.
“I refuse to allow this poet to control how I live my life,” Adela said.
And Fernando knew that they had lost her.
It was not easy for him to get back into his routine, and he barely had time to talk to Sara because two days after they got back from Chile, she and Benjamin went to Alexandria. They didn’t want Zahra to travel alone, and knew that she needed them.
Sara had time to mention the last incident that had occurred between Marvin and Catalina.
“I know that you can’t do anything, but …”
“No, I can’t do anything. And I don’t know if I want to,” Fernando said, sincerely.
“Sometimes I ask myself if I wasn’t a little selfish to make you Marvin’s editor.”
“It’s not just your decision. I could refuse to do it as well.”
“Yes. In spite of everything, I think you’re very lucky to be his editor … think about what he’s become … the whole world applauds him. There’s not a single critic who’s against him.”
“I’m an editor who deals with his writer via someone else, via you. I am sure that he’d be happy with the change, but you’ve insisted that I carry on with the job, and I don’t know why.”
“Because the day I met you there was something about you that moved me and …”
“And you decided to take me under your wing, just as you have done with Marvin, and Zahra, and everyone who you think needs you.”
“It’s not a question of need so much as who deserves a hand from me. Marvin is the Poet of Pain and his ailing soul makes his work sublime. Zahra … well, I don’t need to tell you how she built herself back together piece by piece. And you … I still think you’re trying to escape from yourself. Your conscience pricks you, what you did … even though you had a good reason to do it. You and Marvin are held together by pain. A permanent, unbearable, intense pain that stops you from being happy. He has found something akin to peace at Farida’s side, but you …”
Fernando didn’t want to let her carry on with her voyage through his soul.
“We deal with our own pain as best we can. When will we get a new book from Marvin?”
“It’s still soon … but he is writing. He went to Sorrento to do just that.”
Two days later, when he got home from work, he found Madame Dufort waiting for him, holding a letter.
“It came this afternoon. It’s from Spain,” she said, pointing to the postmark.
Catalina wasn’t back yet, and Adela was in her room studying, so he sat down to read the letter alone. His mother’s name was on the back of the envelope.
My dear son,
I write this letter in the hope that it will come into your hands. Although you told Piedad that you were going to America and that the address in Paris wasn’t a fixed one, she thinks that it’s not a house like that, but rather the place where you and Catalina live in Paris. I hope she’s not wrong, because that would mean having you close to me. Even so, we sent the letter to Monsieur Dufort, whom Piedad says is the owner of the building. I hope it gets into your hands.
The first thing I have to tell you is that there has been a tragedy in Catalina’s family: her father has died. He was very frail and couldn’t get over his last heart attack.
Ernesto died with the sorrow of not seeing Catalina again, and never knowing his granddaughter.
I don’t want you to see any reproach in these lines, but why don’t you come back? What’s stopping you? I promise you that Ernesto and Asunción care very little about what the neighbors might say about Catalina’s daughter. Ernesto did care, but in spite of everything, he did love his daughter. He stood up to Don Antonio and Antoñito himself to defend Catalina.
No one in the neighborhood knows that Catalina had a daughter, but I promise you that the child would have been a joy for Ernesto and Asunción.
Asunción asked me to tell you about Ernesto’s death so that you can tell Catalina. She didn’t feel strong enough to write to her. She is distraught and does nothing more than pray that her daughter will come home. If there is anything you could do to convince her …
You can imagine how she is. She has looked after Ernesto for years, has never left his side, has suffered in silence watching her husband slip away. Asunción says that it was only the hope of seeing his daughter again that kept him alive.
And now Asunción doesn’t know what to do, because if there’s one thing she needs, it’s her granddaughter and her daughter. Please, Fernando, do whatever you can to have them at least go and see her, or have her come to see them.
As for Eulogio, you can rest assured that he’s well. You can imagine how Piedad looks after him. She never leaves him alone. She gives herself, body and soul, to her son. She left her job at the workshop and now makes a living doing piecework for ladies. I won’t say that she’s happy, but having her son back has made her a lot more serene.
I told you that Antoñito was married to Mari Paz Nogués. They have two children, a girl and a boy, both of them now teenagers. Mari Paz has been pregnant on other occasions, but has never managed to have another child. It seems like she can’t have more children.
Sometimes I ask myself, the Lord forgive me, how they could have had two such good children. Mari Paz has brought them up well. Don Antonio has plans for his grandchildren: he hopes to have them inherit his property, because as you know well, Antoñito isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer and can’t really do more than follow his father.
As for our neighbors, the Gómezes are as stuck-up as ever. Their son Pablo has got married and had a baby girl. He comes by a lot to see his parents. As for your friends, they are all married and have children, but most of them don’t live in the neighborhood any more.
And so, that’s the news, and now I need to ask about you.
Why don’t you come home? I know how unbearable it would be for you to live here … it is. … well, you know … but even if you don’t want to stay, why don’t you come and see me?
There’s nothing stopping you from coming to Madrid. If it’s a question of money, then I save pretty much everything I earn, which isn’t a lot, but I am keeping it saved for you, for the future or for any need that you might eventually have.
If you are in Paris, maybe I could come to see you. You’re not that far away, and the journey wouldn’t be too hard.
I’m old now, Fernando, and I pray to God that what happened to Ernesto doesn’t happen to me. I don’t want to leave this world without seeing you again, and knowing that everything is going well for you, and that you’re happy.
All my love, forever,
YOUR MOTHER.
Fernando let the tears flow down his face. He felt like a terrible person for allowing his mother to suffer, but he couldn’t tell her the truth: he couldn’t confess that he was not coming back because he had killed two of his father’s killers. He couldn’t tell her that sometimes people make decisions that there’s no coming back from. And he didn’t know if they had decided to close the investigation into the deaths of Roque and Saturnino Pérez, or whether the case was still open.
And it would be hard for him to return to Franco’s Spain after so many years of living in freedom.
No, he couldn’t get used to silence, and lying, and keeping his head bowed low.
He heard Catalina’s voice calling out a greeting. Adela called back, and said that Fernando was at home as well. She knocked on his door.
“Fernando? I’m here … I ended up talking for too long to the mother of one of my students … are you all right?”
He opened the door and she saw his tears. Without saying anything, she held him tight. They stayed like that for a few seconds, then he gently pushed her away.
“Let’s go into the salon, and tell Adela to come too.”
Catalina and Adela sat and waited for him to speak. It was a few seconds before he could calm down.
“I got a letter from my mother,” he said.
“What? Where did she send it?” Catalina asked.
“Here. When Piedad came to see Eulogio he was here, and when she got back, she told my mother that she was sure we lived here.”
“Well, it’s obvious that it isn’t just a boarding house,” Adela interrupted. “Anyone would have realized that.”
“What did your mother say, Fernando? What’s going on?” Catalina was nervous, guessing that something must be happening.
“I’m sorry … I’m sorry … It’s your father, Catalina …”
“What’s happened to him?” she asked, feeling the words catch in her throat.
“He’s dead. Your father is dead.”
Catalina covered her face with her hands. She was devastated. She knew about her father’s poor health, but she thought he would live forever. How could he possibly die? Death had never been a part of her thoughts about him.
Adela went over to her mother and held her. It was the first time she had seen her mother cry. Catalina had always been so sure of herself in front of her daughter, and had never shown the least sign of weakness.
Fernando and Adela let her cry. Neither of the two found the words to console her. For Adela, this dead grandfather was someone who had neither face nor voice. Catalina had never spoken at length about her parents, or about her life in Spain. It was as though she had abandoned her past and never looked back.
But Fernando was a part of this past and he knew why she was devastated. She had turned Marvin into an obsession for herself, and she had done this because of her parents, so they wouldn’t have to feel ashamed because of her, so that no one would murmur about her behind their backs or point her out to people. Maybe she had even stopped loving him, although she didn’t admit that to herself.
He didn’t interrupt her tears. He cried along with her.
They both agreed that they would carry on pretending that they didn’t live in Paris.
Fernando wrote back to his mother, and included the following passage.
Although I got this letter, I beg you, please don’t make me tell you where I am. You can carry on writing to me at Monsieur Dufort’s address. He’ll know how to get the letters to me.
I am sorry, Mother, I know that you won’t understand my attitude, but at least believe me when I say that not a day goes by when I don’t think about you and miss your hugs. All I hope is that one day you’ll forgive me for the suffering I’m causing you. Catalina is distraught and incapable of dealing with the news of her father’s death. Adela has moved on. She’s decided to embark on her own life now. Yesterday she was barely more than a child, and she’s become a woman without us realizing. Her absence makes us even more aware of how devastated we are. I keep trying to make Catalina go back to her mother. I think that her place is not with me, and certainly is not so far from Spain. But she is still stuck on the idea that she will only come back when Marvin acknowledges Adela, which I think may never happen.
Mother, I keep on asking myself what we have done, what Catalina and I are doing with our lives, and the only answer I can come up with is that we are wasting them. But we have reasons that stop us from coming back, and I am afraid that these reasons will never disappear.
In Catalina’s letter to her mother, she couldn’t hide her despair. She felt lost. The death of her father and the absence of Adela were two wounds that were difficult to heal.
Monsieur Dufort agreed to be their intermediary and put the two envelopes with their letters into a larger envelope which he sent to Fernando’s mother’s address in Madrid. Isabel took Catalina’s letter to Asunción. For all that they spoke about the decisions that their children had made, neither of them could understand why they didn’t come back to Madrid, and why they refused to allow them to come and visit. Piedad couldn’t help them find any answers. Isabel asked her to tell her one more time how Fernando was, and she said, holding Eulogio’s hand, that “he’s changed, he’s not a child anymore and I don’t think he’s happy.”
But who could be happy, after a war that had taken the lives they dreamed about away from them?
Piedad didn’t dare confess to Isabel and Asunción that she almost felt happy. She had Eulogio back by her side and that was more than she had expected from her life.