I was unable to keep on reading. The library’s heat became suddenly stifling. I noticed my dry throat, my stiff fingers holding on to the table’s edge, and a profound sensation of weakness. Exhausted, I was finally able to rein in my attention and finish reading the three news columns on the screen: the rain, the night, a truck, the impact, firefighters, several hours, police, Spain, husband, death.
I refused to look for further information, lacking the courage. Had I done so, I would have come upon numerous details in the following days’ newspapers. The funeral, who attended, where they were buried. But I didn’t want to know, just as I didn’t want my own imagination to pry into that painful and disconcerting triangle that had just been displayed before me. As soon as I got to the end of the article, I got up so abruptly that I knocked the chair over.
The woman in charge of the periodicals admonished me from the counter in an annoyed tone on seeing my hasty departure—that I should turn off the machine, I thought I heard her say; that I had to hand in the microfilm. I paid no attention, I didn’t stop, didn’t even turn my head. Picking up my pace, I left her there yelling after me.
The first thing I did on arriving back at my apartment was to send an e-mail:
Rosalia, I’m still in California. Please, try to find out as soon as possible all you can regarding SAPAM, the foundation that sponsored my fellowship. I need to know what is behind it, who runs it. I hope I’m mistaken, but I’ve got the feeling that someone has gotten me involved in the weirdest business.
The following morning, the department seemed the same as any other Monday. People, footsteps, the noise of some keyboard, the photocopy machine spewing out paper. I greeted whoever crossed my path, making an effort to sound natural, the visiting professor as always, the Spaniard fallen out of the sky who day by day locked herself up in the tiniest office on that floor before a bunch of old papers that no one cared about.
I opened my e-mail and found the answer I was waiting for.
A thousand meetings and just about to run off to another of the long ones. Madness, my dear!!! Regarding your fellowship all I can come up with is the terms and conditions, plus the documents and messages we exchanged with the University of Santa Cecilia, and you’ve got that yourself. But I’ve been able to rescue from the trash folder the message with the phone number of the person at SAPAM I was in touch with at the time, a very nice guy who spoke perfect Spanish. Here it goes, I hope it’s helpful. Kisses, Ros.
P.S. Will you be back in time for the president’s Christmas celebration drink?
I anxiously took a breath of air, lifted my old telephone receiver, and dialed the number with which Rosalia ended her message. Just as I feared, on the fifth ring the answering machine came on with his recorded voice. He first spoke in his own tongue. Afterwards in mine. Brief, quick, concise.
This is the answering machine of Daniel Carter, Spanish and Portuguese Department of the University of California, Santa Barbara. I’m presently out of my office. To leave a message, please contact the secretary.
I felt like flinging the phone against the window, shouting at the top of my lungs the worst insults hoarded in my memory, and then bursting into tears.
But I did none of this. Nothing. I simply crossed my arms on top of the table, hid my face in them, and, in the darkness and shelter of myself, thought. For a long while that is all I did. When I finally put order to my thoughts, I sent an e-mail to Rosalia asking her not to worry anymore. Afterwards, without opening any work document or putting a single finger on any of the remaining papers of the legacy, I grabbed the book on California that Daniel had given me, which was sitting on one of the shelves, then swung my bag over my shoulder and left.
“You already knew?” I asked from the door. Point-blank. Without even greeting her.
Rebecca lifted her eyes from the keyboard. Wearing an eggplant-colored shirt, surrounded by the usual harmony.
“Good morning, Blanca,” she answered with her customary composure. “Do you mind clarifying what is it you are referring to, please?”
“You knew your friend Daniel Carter was behind SAPAM?”
She didn’t seem surprised at my question. Before answering, she removed her glasses and calmly leaned back in her chair.
“I didn’t at first.”
“And afterwards?”
“Afterwards I began to suspect. But I’ve never confirmed it.”
“Why?”
“Because I haven’t asked him. Because it is none of my business. Because I can imagine the reasons that have led him to do what he’s done, and therefore I’ve preferred to put aside any inquiry.”
“Reasons that have to do with Andres Fontana and his wife. With your friend Aurora, right?”
“I guess. But I think it’s best you speak to him.”
“That is what I intend to do right now,” I said, adjusting the bag on my shoulder. “As soon as you tell me where he lives.”
“Aren’t you going to call him first?” she asked while jotting down his address on a yellow Post-it.
“What for? He works from his house in the mornings, right? I prefer to see him.”
I’d already stepped out into the hallway when I heard her voice at my back.
“Don’t forget, Blanca, that, one way or other, we’ve all got accounts pending with our past.”
On my way out I bumped into Fanny. She made as if she were about to stop, intending to show me something. I tried to feign a smile, but it didn’t come out. “I’ll see you later,” I said without slowing down. I left her standing there, gazing at me, mute and disconcerted.
I soon realized that Rebecca was right. Not because of that last remark she made, which I didn’t even give a second thought to, but because she implied that I should alert Daniel that I was coming over. No one opened the door when I rang the bell of apartment 4B of that large house subdivided into apartments. No one came out to meet me when I repeatedly pounded the white wooden door of his temporary home as hard as I could. So I sat down on the stairs and took out my cell phone.
I had two numbers for him, one for that transitory lodging and the other for his cell phone; he’d given them to me that afternoon I’d gone in search of him at Selma’s Café. “In case you need me at some other time,” he’d said. That time had come.
I called the first number anticipating what would happen. I wasn’t mistaken: behind the nearby door I could hear the phone ringing and no one answered. Then I tried the second number. “The number you have dialed is unavailable,” a lady said in a falsetto voice. And repeated it, until I finally hung up.
I took the book on California out of my bag. The one I believed had been a mere present, timely and clever, intended to facilitate my task. The one most likely for him to give me as a gift but was actually bait to motivate me to continue working, like the carrot one puts before the mule that pulls the waterwheel so that he never stops. A trick, a ruse. One more. I wrote on it: YOU’VE MANIPULATED ME AND YOU’VE BETRAYED ME. GET IN TOUCH WITH ME AS SOON AS YOU’RE BACK. The fury of my capital letters almost tore the paper. I didn’t sign my name.
The book made a dry thump when I dropped it in his mailbox. Then I left immediately and decided not to call him again. Only to see him face-to-face, without subterfuges or excuses.
Thirty-four hours elapsed before he got back to me. Thirty-four sad, distressing hours until he found me at the most inappropriate moment.
I heard a quick rapping on the door, and it immediately opened. A head and half a body appeared. Light hair, light beard, a gray turtleneck sweater, and a jacket. And a tanned face that didn’t conceal its worried look.
Barely two seconds were all he needed to evaluate the classroom situation. I stood next to the whiteboard, leaning slightly against the side of my desk, my arms folded across my chest and a felt-tip pen in my hand, fatigue written all over my face, and a clear effort to hide the ann
oyance that I carried within. Five students of my culture class scattered around, less than half the usual attendance.
He didn’t say a word. He simply held something up for me to see, his expression serious. The book on California. Mine. His. The one he had left me as a present inside an anonymous bag on the night of the Spanish omelets, gazpacho, and laughter. The same book I’d dropped in his mailbox, wishing to convey that I wanted nothing that was associated with him. I imagined he understood. Then he made a gesture indicating that he was going to insert it somewhere. In my department mailbox, I gathered. I didn’t say either yes or no and he didn’t wait for my answer. He simply closed the half-open door and disappeared.
• • •
It never was my intention.
I’ll see you in the auditorium.
Come as soon as you can, please.
This is what I found at the end of my class in my department mailbox where messages were left, along with occasional letters from Spain. It was written on a white card without letterhead, squeezed between two pages of that book with a yellow cover that was all too familiar.
• • •
There were five speakers onstage, among whom I recognized my student Joe Super and a couple of professors I knew by sight. Just as on the day of the demonstration, there was a diverse crowd: a bunch of students, the warrior grandmothers with a raised sign, respectable citizens by the dozen, and the kid with the dreadlocks. There wasn’t, however, a trace of the almost festive mood of the day of the demonstration. Serious faces, scant smiles, and concentrated attention were all that was evident.
The meeting had started a good hour earlier. One of the speakers was commenting on some archeological digs on the grounds. On the stage, on a whiteboard, someone had written with a thick marker: TEN DAYS TO THE DEC. 22 DEADLINE. If they didn’t come up with something they could show the authorities by then, they’d lose the battle.
Daniel was waiting for me, sitting in the next-to-last row.
“We need to talk,” I whispered without greeting him as soon as I sat down next to him. “Let’s go.”
“Five minutes,” he asked in a whisper. “I beg you, Blanca, just give me five minutes.”
“Either you’re coming or you’re staying; it’s up to you.”
The speaker whose turn it was mentioned his name, summoning him to answer something.
“Wait for me,” he insisted, grabbing my wrist while from the stand’s microphone his name and question were repeated.
I broke loose from his grip with a jerk. Then got up and left.
Chapter 33
* * *
Half an hour later he was at my door.
“I’m very sorry,” he said, bursting in, upsetting my apartment’s peacefulness with his large and disorderly presence. “I didn’t think they were going to count on me: they called me at the very last minute; I’d just returned from L.A. When I saw your book in my mailbox, I came straight to you. I left yesterday early in the morning . . .”
I did not interrupt him. Had it been a day and a half earlier, I would have seized him by the throat upon confirming what I’d suspected. But so many hours had gone by that I simply let him talk. By then my rage had subsided and the anger that plagued me earlier had turned into something quite different. It was a sort of desolation, a dense bitterness that in the long run might even prove worse.
When he was done threshing out the list of excuses that I hadn’t asked him for, it was finally my turn.
“Why did you lie to me?” I asked him coldly.
“I never meant to do it, Blanca. It was never my intention to deceive you.”
He took a step forward, extended his arm to the back of my neck. As if by physical contact he sought to transmit an extra dose of sincerity.
“But you have,” I said pulling away. “SAPAM doesn’t exist and the fellowship with which I’ve supported myself all these months is nothing but a ruse of yours that you’ve hidden from me this whole time. You concealed it from me and, by doing so, deceived me; you’ve disappointed me and hurt me.”
“And from the bottom of my heart I’m telling you how sorry I am. But I want you to know that I never intended—”
I cut him off sharply. “I’m not looking for apologies, simply an explanation. The only thing I want you to tell me is what’s behind this setup, and afterwards get out of my life for good.”
He ran a hand over his head, then his beard, clearly uncomfortable.
“An explanation, Daniel,” I insisted. “All I want is an explanation.”
Unemotional, businesslike, icy. I made no effort to appear that way; it was simply how I felt.
“Okay, let me state from the outset that you are right, that the foundation for Scientific Assessment of Philological Academic Manuscripts—SAPAM—does not exist,” he admitted. “You are not mistaken: it’s a false name. But it does exist as an entity, let’s say—not formally, but as something different.”
“Like what? Like something you made up after the death of Fontana and your wife?”
He looked at me deliberately. Concentrated. Serious. But he wasn’t surprised.
“I imagined that you’d end up investigating it.”
The answer was so obvious that I didn’t even bother to verbalize it.
He went on, “I established it in essence as the Aurora Carter Trust for the Memory of Andres Fontana. Aurora Carter or Aurora Carranza, which was her Spanish surname; it makes no difference. In short, it was a project to preserve my mentor’s intellectual legacy through my wife’s will.”
“Don’t give me all this linguistic crap. All I want to know is why, thirty years after both of their deaths, you’ve decided to come up with this sinister plot and get me involved.”
He stuck his hands in his pockets and lowered his eyes, as if trying to find the means to focus on his answer, his gaze fixed on the horrible taupe wall-to-wall carpet that silenced my every step in that provisional lodging.
“Because it was the only viable option to bring to light Fontana’s legacy,” he finally said, raising his eyes. “The only solution that occurred to me when all the doors were closed.”
“What doors?”
“The usual ones to go through the regular channels, that is, the Modern Languages Department.”
“And who closed them to you? Luis Zarate?”
“Who else?”
I recalled the chairman’s words during our dinner at Los Olivos, his rendering of the facts on the day he received Daniel in his office.
“I don’t believe you. You tried to coerce him; you expected him to behave according to what best served your interests. And he didn’t accept.”
“I presume that’s the version he’s given you.”
“A version neither more nor less convincing than yours.”
“No doubt, but inaccurate. I never tried to coerce him. I simply suggested that perhaps the department should make operative use of its resources—”
“To intervene in the Los Pinitos matter, from what I gather,” I interrupted him.
“Exactly.”
“And although you didn’t tell him explicitly, by mentioning those resources, you were referring to Fontana’s papers.”
“I see you’re clued in on everything.”
I chose not to answer; I just waited for him to continue.
“By then I had already begun to suspect that perhaps some interesting facts could be unearthed among the documents that were left behind in Fontana’s office upon his death. Irrefutable documents that would show that Los Pinitos has historical importance, a solid reason to reject the plan to build an absurd and unnecessary mall in the area.”
“Something as significant as a Franciscan mission.”
“Exactly.”
“Because if it could be proven that a mission had stood there, as Fontana had come to believe, e
verything could be brought to a halt.”
“Or at least it could force a reevaluation. The Santa Cecilia town hall exerts its jurisdiction over the area, but lacks an ownership title; there is no evidence regarding whom it belonged to in the distant past. If we were able to explain that the place was once the site of a historic Franciscan mission, everything would have to undergo a revision. And the project, while this matter was being resolved, would have to come to a standstill.”
“That’s why you’ve always been so interested in knowing if the legacy contained some mention of the alleged Mission Olvido. Why you’ve constantly been trying to wheedle information out of me. Why you always made an effort to control my work: first you give me a book so that I can learn the history of California, then I take you to see a nearby mission . . .”
“No, Blanca,” he denied forcefully. “I have never tried to control or interfere with your work. I’ve always had the utmost trust in you; the only thing I’ve tried to do at all times is to help you go forward. But you must believe me: it all came to a head as a result of Zarate’s refusal. From then on, I had no other solution than to put the wheels of SAPAM in motion, maneuver it through the department without raising suspicions, and making the announcement public. And that’s how you came onto the scene.”
I was still angry and frustrated, but as we spoke I grew increasingly curious about the reasons behind that dark plot, about the complex relationship between the three of them that had led Daniel to behave in such a fashion.
“Besides, I still don’t understand what the recovery of Fontana’s legacy has to do with all of this. If you were only looking for specific information on a mission, why waste my time classifying his legacy down to the last detail? Why force me to put order to the thousands of tiniest pieces that make up the puzzle of his life? I’ve been giving it my all for the last three months, Daniel, doing a job nobody cares about,” I said, raising my voice, unable to check my outrage.
“Wait, Blanca, wait . . .”
He spoke forcefully, gesticulating with hands that he’d finally taken out of his gray pants pockets. The clothes he was wearing were completely unlike those he usually had on when relaxing in Santa Cecilia. A good cut, good material, professional. Nothing like the wrinkled chinos and old denim jacket he had worn in Sonoma. His other face. His B side.