“You don’t say . . .” Daniel said with obvious uninterest.
“Business, money: I sell, you buy—if you want what I have to offer, of course.”
“I doubt it, but clue us in, just in case.”
“Let me first greet our guest. How do you do, Professor Perea?”
“Fine, thank you,” I answered sullenly.
I did not like the tone that the visit was taking on. I didn’t like Darla Stern, I didn’t like the way she addressed Daniel, and above all I didn’t like the way that I anticipated she’d treat me. She took a good look at me, squinting as she tilted her head to one side.
“Height-wise they’re both the same size, wouldn’t you say? And equally skinny, but this one looks a little more serious, right, Carter? The other one laughed more; she was more, more . . . And the hair color isn’t—”
“Stop, Darla,” he ordered sharply.
“Forgive me, dear, it was a mere observation,” she replied, undaunted. “Well, let’s get down to what brings us together. From what I understand, Professor Perea has been rummaging through the papers of our dear departed Andres Fontana.”
Before I was able to answer, Daniel spoke on my behalf.
“Professor Perea, as we told you previously, has simply been working for the university, classifying his legacy.”
“Pardon me while I laugh! The university doesn’t give a shit about Fontana’s legacy; his things had been living with the rats for years. Until suddenly—surprise, surprise!—a little Spaniard comes to stick her nose in them. And just then the illustrious professor shows up again, to stroll around the campus like in the good old days.”
“You see,” Daniel said without making an effort to hide his cynicism. “Mere coincidences.”
We stood in the middle of the room; the atmosphere was becoming heavier by the minute, more surrealistic, with distorted shafts of light flickering from the silent movement of the images.
“Don’t be a smart-ass with me, Carter. I’ve been told that you’ve turned into a real academic celebrity, but I know you for more years than either one of us could wish. And this story sounds fishy. Awfully fishy. You disappeared as if escaping from the plague; didn’t stay to mourn the dead. You went missing, very much lost. And now, suddenly, here you are again and who knows with what intentions? But you can’t fool me. Maybe I wasn’t as erudite as you all, but I can still add two and two together.”
“No one doubts that.”
“This is why, even though I don’t quite know what you’re looking for in particular, I think I have something that might be of interest to you. Something that this one”—she jerked her chin contemptuously in my direction—“has been searching for. My little Fanny has told me. Ever since she was a child I instructed her to tell me everything that her brain registered. She’s been my window to the world for years. She’s told me that you need some papers of Fontana’s that are not turning up. And I imagine that it’s in your interest to find them as soon as possible if, as it seems, you’re going to leave so soon . . .”
“You wouldn’t have kept anything that didn’t belong to you, right?”
There was a tinge of astonishment in Daniel’s voice. The old woman answered swiftly.
“I took whatever I felt like: I was the one who buried him! Because you, his bosom friend, his adopted son, didn’t even show up at the funeral.”
“I had other things to take care of, unfortunately,” he replied with bitter irony. “To bury my wife in her native country, for example.”
“And how many times did you come back to visit your professor’s grave? How many times did you worry about addressing what he left behind?”
“I don’t visit graves; neither Fontana’s, nor my wife’s, nor anyone else’s. They’re in my memory and in my heart. I don’t give a damn about what is left behind in cemeteries,” he said, exasperated. “And now let’s stop wasting time, if you don’t mind. Tell us finally what it is you’ve got that could interest us.”
He’d answered her first question about his lack of visits to Fontana’s grave, but to the second, his unconcern for the legacy, he turned a deaf ear. She disregarded it and resumed her tirade.
“A bunch of boxes full of documents older than dirt, that’s what I have. The last he worked on in his lifetime. In your obsession to flee from everything that happened here, it must have also slipped your mind that, in the weeks prior to the accident, Guevara Hall was being renovated and it was impossible to do anything normally,” she went on. “That’s why he took all the papers to his place: so he could study from there. I helped him carry everything. I can still recall how heavy the damn boxes were, I even broke a couple of nails hauling them. I was clueless as to what they contained; I don’t understand that fucking language of yours and was never interested in academic matters. But he spent a good period of time absorbed with all that crap. He had it strewn all over the place until the very end.”
Daniel half opened his mouth but was unable to say a thing.
“Where are they now?” I asked, unable to keep quiet any longer. The old lady guffawed.
“Do you two think I’m senile and am going to tell you just like that?”
“What do you want in exchange?” Daniel asked abruptly, coming back to reality.
“I’ve already told you: money, dear. What else would I want? I’m a destitute old woman who lives in a stinky house. Guarantee me a better future and you’ll have the documents to do whatever you want with; you can wipe your ass with them as far as I’m concerned.”
I figured he’d stop her from blackmailing him right then and there. I didn’t think he’d give in to such a low form of coercion. Surely there was a way of getting possession of those boxes in a more conventional and less vile manner. But, as in so many other things lately, I was mistaken. It took only seconds for negotiations to begin, and to my surprise with me involved.
“First we’ll have to check and see if they’re documents that interest Professor Perea.”
“Wonderful: you can see them, talk all you need between yourselves, and afterwards determine if the deal is to your liking or not. All I know is that I’m going to give the two of you only one opportunity. There will be a lawyer here tomorrow at ten. You’ll have fifteen minutes to evaluate the contents of the boxes. If in the end you decide that they’re of interest, you can take them. If not, I’ll make sure that all those papers are destroyed in the afternoon, just in case you sophisticated intellects think you can trick this old lady into giving up this material by some other means. The price, by the way, won’t be too high, something very, very symbolic.”
“As symbolic as what?”
“A two-bedroom apartment in a residential care facility for people with special needs.”
A hearty laugh emerged from her throat, cutting and bitter.
“You’ve lost your mind, lady,” Daniel told her.
“Truth be told, I’m being more than generous with you, Carter. If you’d given me what belonged to me from the very beginning, I would have undoubtedly gained much more.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The old lady took a while to answer. For the first time since we’d arrived, she seemed to be weighing her words to hit the bull’s-eye dead on.
“You kept Fontana’s money that should have gone to us,” she finally uttered through gritted teeth. “The money he put in your wife’s name in his will when she sweet-talked him into it.”
“Be careful what you say, Darla,” Daniel warned, pointing a finger threateningly.
“I know perfectly well what I’m talking about. Your wife seduced Fontana. And he ended up leaving her his money, which eventually fell into your hands. The money that should have been my daughter’s and mine, if you two had never showed up around here and if he’d never fallen in love with her like an absolute idiot.”
A shiver
ran through me as I listened. Daniel answered, barely parting his lips.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about . . .”
“I know perfectly well what I mean. Andres Fontana was crazy about your wife and she played along. There she was, always by his side, with her long hair and permanent smile. Each time she showed up at the department, he’d be all giddy. You would hardly give her a few minutes of your time: you’d give her a kiss, joke around a little with her, and then go back to your work. Then she’d go off to see him and he’d devour her with his eyes; he’d turn into someone else, affectionate like a little lamb. During all the years I knew him, I never heard him laugh so much as when he was with her. He adored her, Carter, and you didn’t even realize it.”
“She’s only trying to provoke you, Daniel,” I told him in a whisper. “Let’s get out of here. Don’t let her continue.”
“See? This one is bamboozling you the same way. Because this little friend of yours, just like the other one, also has a husband somewhere, right?”
I preferred not to say a thing. He, on the other hand, was unable to contain himself.
“What the hell difference does it make to you? Leave her alone!” he roared. Suddenly, perhaps to protect me, perhaps to restrain himself, he firmly grabbed one of my hands. “This is between you and me, Darla. Don’t even think of attacking her!”
“In the end, history always repeats itself: that’s how foolish and silly we humans are,” she went on, unfazed. “The smart young woman seduces the mature man, and the mature man, who thought himself even smarter, ends up falling for her like a schoolboy. I don’t know if you have someone waiting for you back in Santa Barbara or wherever it is you live when you’re not monkeying around with this one here, but Fontana did have someone when your wife bewitched him. He had me.”
Now it was a loud guffaw from Daniel that cut her off.
“Fontana didn’t have anything with you. He was only a good man who felt sorry for you and your daughter.”
“He was mine until you and your wife came along!” the old lady shrieked, furiously ungluing her back from her armchair. “He cared for Fanny and me, took us under his wing when my useless drunk of a husband left us. But then the wonderful Carters appeared on the scene to ruin it all. And when your wife dazzled him, he fell into her net and pushed us aside.”
“He was tired of you, Darla,” Daniel replied, trying to stay calm but barely able to. “Tired of your whims and demands, of your impertinent behavior toward him and the rest of us. I’m unaware of what there could have been between you two before my wife and I settled in Santa Cecilia; he chose not to tell me. Perhaps you had a little adventure—maybe so—but what I do know for sure is that, when we landed here, whatever affection he might have had for you at some point was over. Aurora and I were a means of liberation for him, a breath of fresh air. Our presence allowed him to distance himself further from you.”
“You know what?” she went on as if she’d heard nothing he said. “Everything that happened afterwards was your fault. You should have kept a closer eye on her. It was your responsibility: you’re the one who took her from her country, separating her from her family and her world. You dragged her to a foreign land, but you were incapable of protecting her sufficiently. Perhaps all our sorrows could have been avoided if you’d been paying more attention.”
What he had told me the night before in my apartment came to mind. His own thoughts on the matter, the long blame that for so many years he laid on Fontana . . .
“What the fuck do you know about my life with my wife?” he bellowed.
Then, with my hand still in his, he kicked a chair with such fury that it ended up crashing against the wall, littering the floor with fragments of fallen souvenirs and porcelain. The old lady ignored the damage and continued.
“I could see you both, I watched you, and was aware of everything. She came and went as she liked. And you, meanwhile, in your office, banging away at that typewriter all day long, which resounded throughout the entire floor of Guevara Hall. I can still hear you pounding at those keys: click! click! click! click! And then those blows you’d give the carriage return, like an animal: boom! boom! And once more the typing would start up: oh, God, what torture! But you were oblivious to it all; your professional aspirations came first. You wanted to get out of here, remember? Santa Cecilia was becoming too stifling; you wanted to go to Berkeley and make your career at a great university.”
“Stop it, Darla . . .” He was trying to recover his composure, but his patience seemed to be running out.
“You were the most popular professor in the university, the most charismatic, the funniest, the handsomest,” she hammered away. “And when you weren’t locked up in your office or teaching to crowded classrooms or inviting your students to your home for parties that went on into the small hours, you’d spend your time rousing them on campus with your harangues against the Vietnam War and your fiery speeches against the system. Did you forget that too? You were reprimanded on several occasions, and proceedings were filed against you.”
“Stop it, Darla. Drop it, please . . .” he insisted.
“Fontana and your wife died because of your selfishness,” she hissed, “because you didn’t want to know what there was between them, because you were too absorbed in your own world. You should’ve been more aware and not allowed them to become so friendly. You should’ve pulled them apart. If you’d done so, neither your wife nor my man would have ended up dead on the side of a highway.”
A tense silence once again enveloped the gloomy room. I could perceive how Daniel was preparing to answer: how he was processing the information, ordering his thoughts, choosing his words. Then I realized that everything was going too far. Darla was dragging him to the abyss and he was following in her macabre game.
I let go of his hand and grabbed his arm.
“Let’s go,” I urged him, trying to pull him away. “Right now.”
“One minute, Blanca. One more minute and I’ll be done.”
Changing his tone of voice, he once again turned to the old lady.
“Too much time has elapsed and there’s no turning back, Darla. Nothing of what you told me today is going to bring the dead back to life. Your rants, true or not, can’t make me suffer more than I already have, but that was the past and I made it through that terrible time. So, please, let’s get this meeting over with.”
“You just make sure you get me the money for an apartment for people like me, and everything will work out in the end.”
“For people like you? So needy or so nasty?”
“Well, well,” she said, feigning a smile, “I see that you haven’t lost your way with words, Professor. I gather that it wasn’t altogether corroded by all that junk you took. Has the great academic told you what he did when he fled Santa Cecilia? Did he tell you why he lost his post at this university? I only know part of the story, but I think it’s very interesting. Tell her, Carter; tell her while you fuck your new Spanish bitch tonight, if you still get a hard-on.”
“Now we’re definitely leaving, Blanca,” he said, not responding to Darla’s obscenities. “And forgive me for this wretched spectacle; she’s nothing but a pathetic old lady bearing a grudge for the last thirty years.”
“Don’t be so hard on me, dear,” Darla said hypocritically, with feigned docility. “Tomorrow at ten. Don’t forget.”
“We’ll think about it. Now, if you’ll allow us, we’re out of here. We’ve already heard enough crap this evening.”
Leaving the old woman stewing in her armchair, we headed toward the door. I was hardly able to hold back my relief that we would finally breathe the fresh night’s air, go out into the real world once more. However, as we were about to open the door, Darla’s voice brought us to a halt.
“Carter!”
It was more of a rasping croak than a scream.
We
both turned our heads, and in a flash I realized I’d been wrong when I thought Darla had nothing left to hurl at us and we could finally get away.
She was still slumped in her chair, her lipstick smeared and her cheap doll’s hair disheveled as she prepared to hurl her last bomb.
“Maybe none of this would’ve happened had you been capable of giving your wife what she’d wanted more than anything.”
A chilling silence preceded the explosion.
“A child, for example.”
Chapter 37
* * *
Darla Stern burst out laughing one last time. A ghastly, biting laugh. I automatically looked at Daniel’s face and saw how he half closed his eyes and slowly drew air through his nose. I anticipated his reaction and gripped his arm firmly, but he freed himself from my grasp and took a step forward, raising a clenched fist into the air. He was blindly going after her. I reacted quickly, knowing that I had to get him out of there right away no matter how. Get him away from Darla, from that skeletal body weighed down by age, arthritis, and sheer bitterness.
I planted myself before him, placing my hands firmly against his chest, halting his advance like a wall. With his fist still in the air and his hair disheveled, he barraged Darla with insults. Suddenly I was able to muster some degree of authority.
“Enough. She’s sick and just provoking you. Don’t fall for her game; don’t let yourself be dragged into it.”
With great difficulty I managed to keep him somewhat immobilized for a few moments that seemed an eternity, until I finally noticed his body relaxing slightly. Once again grabbing him by the arm, I pulled him with all my strength and was able to drag him away from that grotesque scene.
I did not ask him if he’d driven or not. I just listened to the sound of our footsteps on the wet pavement as we walked aimlessly for a long time. Countless questions assailed me, countless doubts. But I preferred not to talk or force him to do so. Then at one point in our erratic walk he halted and looked at me.