– XLVII –

In which Guada returns to La Moratalla

Two months later, Guada was pregnant again. Once certain of her state, she paid a visit to her aunt. She had not been back to the palacete since the day her father returned from Madrid with the news of Julian’s detention. In light of what she had been through during the time she lived there, it felt like a second home, and despite her trepidation about how Doña Soledad might receive her news, it comforted her to walk its halls again.

Aunt and niece took the midday meal together in the same room where they had once discussed Guada’s approaching marriage.

‘I am with child,’ Guada said.

Doña Soledad, dressed in black for the anniversary of the death of her oldest son, raised a spoon filled with chilled almond soup to her lips and savored it before replying.

‘Congratulations, my dear. Are you pleased?’

‘Very,’ said Guada.

‘Does anyone else know?’ her aunt asked.

‘Only Shiro. I wanted to tell you first.’

Soledad smiled, trying to hide her nerves. She closed her eyes for a moment and came to a decision.

‘I am honored by your confidence, Guada. Might I give you some advice?’

‘That is why I am here.’

‘If you remain in Sevilla, it will be a nuisance for you with each passing month. Not only because of the society we live in, but because of your mother. I suggest that you and your gentleman friend move into La Moratalla. I shall come with you. But we will tell all of those concerned that we are travelling to Italy. It will be easier for you to present the new baby next year as a fait accompli.’

‘La Moratalla …’ said Guada, casting her gaze to the side.

‘You disapprove of the idea?’

‘No,’ she said, looking back at her aunt. ‘It is a wonderful idea, it is only that it was there that Julian and I went after our wedding.’

‘It is my home,’ Soledad said. ‘Someday it will belong to you and your children. Better that you wash away any sad memories by putting new ones in their place. Does your friend know you were there with Julian?’

‘No.’

‘Then it shall be our secret. You will see that after only a short while, all your concerns will evaporate into the heavens.’

Don Rodrigo and Doña Inmaculada were alarmed and riled to lose sight of their grandson for such a long time. They vigorously tried to convince Guada to leave him in their care. But they were also relieved at the thought of their daughter’s absence for a year under the wing of Soledad Medina, the most esteemed doyenne of their world.

The threesome and the child and a small contingent of servants set off for the estate in May. Guada began to show in June. Doña Soledad had not spent so much time there since she had been Guada’s age, and what first seemed like a sacrifice soon became a great satisfaction. The gardens were preened and mulched into shape, the statues cleaned, leaks in the massive manse repaired. The servants particular to the house were drilled back to snuff or dismissed and replaced. The orange and lemon groves behind the house were neatened and raked, their slender trunks painted with whitewash.

Despite what she had heard from her niece and from the Duke, Doña Soledad maintained serious misgivings about the foreigner and his claim to be a Prince. But once they had settled in at La Moratalla, he won her over. His reserved manner, his love for her land, his demeanor and aristocratic bearing, his unashamed enthusiasm for flowers, his penchant for cleanliness, and, above all, the love he showered upon her niece coaxed her into their camp. His was not the Spanish version of masculinity she had known all her life. He exhibited no pretense of gruffness, no affected graveled voice. His good manners were not fraudulent or theatrical or mixed with questionable taste and a flair for vulgarity.

They occupied suites at extreme ends of the finca, and as the estate was equidistant from the two provincial capitals, Doña Soledad, when retiring to her rooms in the evening, would say, ‘I’m off to Sevilla,’ and Guada would reply, ‘Vaya Usted con Dios. We shall be on our way to Córdoba soon.’ They never left the grounds or felt a need to. When the priest came on Sundays from the Real Monasterio de San Francisco in Palma del Río, Doña Soledad would attend mass in La Moratalla’s chapel accompanied by her chambermaid. Guada attended, as well, hidden by a celosia on the balcony built for a choir.

There was a Roman ruin on the property, two stone columns in the woods where they sometimes took picnics. During the oppressive summer months, they would go down by the Guadalquivir, which flowed along the estate’s southern perimeter. The river was narrow there, but clear and deep, and Shiro would swim, carrying the little boy with him as the women watched and called out their worries from the shade.

Autumn arrived, cooling the evenings and cleansing the air. The days grew tender. The only other place Shiro had felt so at home was in Sendai, a place he tried to keep present in his thoughts even though, with each passing day, he felt more connected to the Andalusian arcadia surrounding him.

One night in late September toward the end of her eighth month, they lay awake in bed. Two candles flickered. They listened to owls and the fountains.

‘Do you know what my aunt fears most?’ she asked. ‘That you will take me away from her before she dies. Far away to Japan.’

It was an eventuality Shiro thought about often. He wished to see his mother and to show his face once again to Date Masamune so that the Lord would continue to approve of him. He was still a Samurai, not a renegade Ronin.

‘I must return at some point,’ he said. ‘But the journey is inhospitable and dangerous. It is not for a woman like you or for small children. I suffer about this whenever I think about it.’

It was the kind of conversation she had always hoped to have as a married woman, but it had never happened when she had been with Julian. She wished it would always be like this.

‘I would like to know the land you come from,’ she said. ‘I would like to meet your mother and for our child to know where its father was born. Women ‘like me’ have sailed many times to the New World.’

‘We can wait,’ he said. ‘I’ve no desire to sadden your aunt.’

‘It may be for some time,’ she said. ‘She is still a vigorous woman.’

‘That she is,’ he said, laughing in the dark.

He kissed her shoulder.

Two weeks later she went into labor. The comadrona was awakened in the middle of the night and brought to their room by Doña Soledad’s chambermaid. With difficulty, a baby girl was delivered just before dawn. Guada was badly torn and bled profusely. Shiro held her hand and stood by in silence as the color drained from her face. Doña Soledad sank to her knees and prayed.