The Weight of the Heart

by Susana Aikin

  A dream was dreamt by Kriemhild the virtuous and the gay

  How a wild young falcon she train’d for many a day

  Till two fierce eagles tore it; to her there could not be

  In all the world such sorrow at this perforce to see.

  A noise at the far end entrance door set my heart racing. I threw the book into the drawer and rushed to hide in the shadows behind a row of file cabinets. Marcus walked in humming, reached his desk with light, athletic steps, and scooped up his agenda. He was putting it into his satchel and turning to leave, when he noticed the open drawer. He took a step toward it, and stood examining the messed-up contents. Then he picked up the book and lifted his eyes, scrutinizing the darkness about him for a few agonizing seconds. My heart beat with such force I was sure I would faint even before he found me out.

  But Marcus didn’t move. After a moment, the pounding in my chest slowed down, allowing me to home in on the silence. We stood across from each other, I in the darkness, he in the orange hue of the streetlight, and I restraining my breathing while I listened out for his. I watched his shape silhouetted against the window, and for a few seconds, I wanted to stretch my hands and caress his shadow.

  The sound of a car screeching and hooting outside in the street tore through the room, breaking the spell, and Marcus put back the book and pushed the drawer shut. Then he left the office with a slower, heavier step.

  I slid down toward the carpeted floor and sat with knees pulled into my chest. How would I ever be able to face him at work on Monday? I was certain he knew it was me. Who else would pick a book in English out of his drawer? And why did he have an English version of The Nibelungenlied?

  I thought of all sorts of excuses so as not to come into work next week. Nothing would do short of quitting the job, though. Sooner or later I’d have to face him. Although, come to think of it, other girls in the office, including Silvia and Margarita, who had the hots for him, might be snooping around his desk too. I had been told there had been instances in the past when these women poked inside the men’s desks. Their findings fed the comical legends of office lore. A picture of his mother as a young girl was once found in Ventura’s desk, and everyone had roared for months at his expense, seeing that, although well into his forties, he was unmarried and still lived with her. A fat wad of old lottery tickets, presumably unsuccessful, were found in Pablo’s desk, an administrative assistant who was known as the office miser, had also contributed to the general mirth for weeks. And, after a martial arts groin cup was found at Jesús’s, one of the engineers’ assistants, oohs and aahs were still muttered by the women in the Aristos bar when he walked in. So maybe I would be able to scrape through undetected.

  At last I left the office and walked down the empty street to my car. The tormenting anticipation of being confronted by Marcus besieged me. Just by the way my cheeks would burst into flames would confirm my indiscretion. My face was like an open book, and my eyes, tattletales of all hidden thoughts and desires. I moped around the house all weekend. At the last minute on Sunday, I thought of something.

  I persuaded Miguel to drop me off at work on Monday. Miguel, or Michael Bradley as was his real name, was a boy I knew from the American School whom I had dated on and off for the last three years. I was never exactly hot for him, but he was sweet and sensitive, prepared to do just about anything for me. I asked him to walk me into the office and gave him a long, wet kiss in front of everybody, including Marcus. Then I ignored Marcus for the rest of the week, and we soon returned to the polite, distant relationship we had before, with no space for laughing about piles or raising cups across the bar. But underneath, a strain remained between us, a tension as we walked past each other in the hustle and bustle of work, as we sat across from one another in meetings with clients and providers, or stood in proximity exchanging notes or documents. The office became filled with our stolen glances; at any moment I could be assailed by spontaneous, uncontrolled blushing if I happened to be close to him and remembered the worn, yellowed pages of The Nibelungenlied hidden in his drawer. And the feeling that something had melded us together persisted, despite all efforts to gloss it over.

  Later, when we were already inextricably entangled, and I looked back to recollect my first instance of desire, I returned to that sensation again, the merging of two shadows across space in the darkness of the office.

  * * *

  I’m startled by a sharp knocking at the door.

  “Anna, just a reminder that Delia wants to start soon,” Constantine says in his discreet, hesitant tone. I sigh. It always feels too short, the bathroom sojourn, a sort of hunger never satisfied. I get up and lean on the sink and open the faucet, forgetting that I cut off the water for the whole house minutes ago.

  CHAPTER 12

  Delia awaits me by the stairwell, patiently leaning on her staff. “Feeling refreshed and ready to go?” she asks, and I’m conscious of my grubby hands with no pockets to hide in. But now her eyes overflow with a sweet kindness and, as she pats my arm in passing, I once again get that whiff of treacle scent from her flesh. This time my mouth and stomach twinge with a sudden craving for sugar, a sure sign of my hypoglycemic brain plunging into angst. I walk on, ahead of Delia. But my mind is elsewhere. There’s no pushing back the rush of recollection, once it’s been unleashed.

  * * *

  The stakes were raised the moment Olga Morris defected with all the money. The office was thrown into chaos. I sat to Father’s right at the long oblong table in the conference room as he explained in his difficult Spanish the consequences resulting from her hefty withdrawal of business funds. Every time he hunted for a word, or struggled with a sentence, he turned to me for translation, and toward the end of the meeting it seemed that I was doing the talking. Questions kept coming from every angle, directed at me. The bottom line was that the company coffers were empty. All payments including payroll needed to be withheld. The staff sighed and murmured. Father put an abrupt end to the meeting, saying he would travel to England first thing in the morning to secure a loan to cover the debt. Everyone dribbled out of the room, seething discontent.

  Father said, “Anna, you’re going to have to be in charge while I’m away.” Then he turned to Marcus. “I hope you will be available to help if any situation comes up.”

  “Of course.” Marcus glanced in my direction. “Although I’ll be away most of the week supervising the training for the new dragline down in Málaga.”

  “Right. I suppose that cannot be postponed.” Father stacked his paperwork into his briefcase and switched off the conference room lights.

  That night I stayed late at the office while Father gave me instructions on the affairs I would have to deal with in his absence. By the time we were done I could hardly stand up, I was exhausted and intoxicated with the stench of his ceaseless smoking. I had never seen him this distraught. It wasn’t just the money and Olga’s disappearance; Julia had just left the house in a storm.

  The next morning, he left for England, leaving me in charge.

  At first, I refused to sit at Father’s desk, but eventually, since most of the paperwork was there, as well as the phone lines through which he insisted on calling me every few hours, I resolved to sit in his place. I felt like a midget on a king’s throne. Every moment of the day brought a humbling situation, with requests I was unable to fulfill, information on basic affairs I knew nothing about, conversations that were foreign to me. I realized how little I had learned in the past months, how well I had played the role of the dreamy, unwilling trainee at her father’s enterprise. At first, everyone displayed patience, but after the second day, they began to tap their feet around me.

  People were restless in the office, not just because of me, but because Father had already been absent for over a week and there was no news of money. Hushed conversations started to take place among groups in the kitchen, around desks or any other corner in the office. Even Silvia and Margarita, who had always posed as good friends, avoided lo
oking me in the eye or saying more than a few words when I was around. Montes and Lopez had changed attitudes, the masquerading bonhomie they displayed when Father was around had faded, and instead their faces were pulled in grumpy, aggressive features ready to jump at any moment. Every morning I was hounded with the same questions about Father’s return and news of reinstating the payroll.

  The straw that broke the camel’s back came on Friday afternoon when the coffee supply was finished at the fateful hour of three, the time when everyone needed a push to finish the week’s work.

  Conchita came into the office and said, “We don’t even have coffee left.”

  When I looked in my purse to send her out to buy some, and saw that not even I had any money left, I decided to call it a day and send everyone home early for the weekend.

  I was gathering my things to leave myself, when Montes stood at the door. “We need to talk. Everyone is gathered in the conference room.”

  I cringed. “I think we should wait till Monday. Father will be back by then.”

  “There’s no guarantee of that. People need to talk. Now.”

  I had no choice but to be escorted to the conference room. All the other employees were there, gathered around the table. I looked around at their long, sour faces and sensed how they had been rallied against me. Some of them, like Silvia and Margarita, cast their eyes down as I looked at them. Many puffed at their cigarettes, and the smog in the room, filtered through the overhead neon lights, made me nauseous.

  Lopez, leaning against the wall with his arms folded on his chest, spoke first. “It will be three weeks on Monday since we’ve waited to be paid, and haven’t seen any progress. Everyone here needs to put food on the table. We can’t wait any longer.” The volume of his voice went up in crescendo, as if he were giving a political speech. Heads nodded around the table. “Our kids cannot go hungry. We’ve done our honest part of the work and now we need to get paid for it.”

  “I’m sorry,” I interrupted him. “There’s nothing I can do about this. My father—”

  “It’s your father who’s responsible for this!” I heard Marina mutter at the other end of the table. “If he hadn’t trusted that woman, we wouldn’t be in this pickle.” The group of secretaries huddled next to her mumbled in assent. She had been under Olga Morris’s orders and hated every moment of it.

  Lopez turned around and hushed the crowd. “Just a moment! Let’s not get out of hand here. There’s something that can be done.” Then he turned to me. “Ventura tells us you have a signature in the main account and that there’s been an entry this morning . . .”

  Before he could finish, Ventura stood up. “I didn’t suggest any of this, believe me, Miss Anna, this is not my doing.” He seemed very agitated.

  “The point being,” continued Lopez, “that the sum is enough to cut checks that could cover half of what everyone’s owed. We think you should consider this.”

  Ventura interrupted him again. “That money has been temporarily deposited by a client; it doesn’t belong to the company. It would be very risky—” He faltered as angry heads turned toward him.

  “Shut up, Ventura.” Francisco scowled. “You’re always throwing stones against your own roof!” Now everyone talked on top of each other, as if a fever had overtaken the group.

  Montes came up behind me and said in his slick, suave tone, “Anna, I think it would be a good idea if you wrote some checks to calm things down. People are talking of not coming to work on Monday, even of going to the union and to the courts.”

  “But I can’t do this without consulting my father.” I was beginning to panic. It seemed that whole group was engulfing me.

  “Aren’t you in charge?” Carmen screamed at me from the tight knob of administrative assistants clumped together by the window.

  Francisco walked up to me. He was young and cocky, one of the engineer assistants who always greeted me as an equal, but in an unfriendly sort of way. “You know we’re hurting, don’t you? You’re not like your father. You need to help us.” His jaw was clenched in a hard gesture. “Ventura, bring on the checks,” he said without taking his eyes away from mine. “I know she’s going to do this.”

  “What’s going on here?” Everyone turned around to find Marcus at the door. There was a moment of silence as he walked into the room and stood by my side. “I thought I heard talk of signing some checks. Is this something Mr. Hurt has consented to?” he asked, looking around. He spoke in Spanish with a flawless accent. He was dressed in jeans, mountain boots, and a casual windbreaker, since he’d been on location all these days. He smelled of moist earth, maybe from the mud that had been spattered over his boots and calves. His presence was a slap of fresh air in this den of smoke, sweat, and gall.

  “This is none of your business,” said Francisco, confronting him. Montes, Lopez, and a couple of the women assistants booed along with similar comments.

  Marcus turned to me. “Anna, I recommend you do nothing your father hasn’t asked you to do.”

  Whatever residue was left of bottled-up emotions that had been festering all week burst into a rush of indignation and the crowd broke up into loud discussions.

  Francisco grabbed my arm. “Anna, I recommend you listen to your own conscience instead.”

  “Let’s stay civil,” Marcus said, taking his hand off my arm. “And keep respectful distances.”

  Francisco lunged toward Marcus and pushed him. Marcus pushed him back. Then Francisco punched Marcus in the face. Marcus staggered back and his glasses fell to the floor. Everyone’s head turned. Some of the women screamed. Jesús and Montes restrained Francisco, who shook them off and stepped back, swearing. Silvia picked up Marcus’s crushed glasses from the floor.

  Marcus regained his balance and thanked Silvia for the glasses. “All right, this is enough for now,” he said, facing the crowd with a bloody nose. “The checks will wait until Mr. Hurt comes back. And if anyone wants to fight, I’ll be waiting outside.”

  “I’m calling the police this minute,” Ventura said, reaching toward the phone.

  “No one’s going to fight.” Jesús nailed Francisco with his eyes. “Let’s call it a day and wait till Monday.”

  The crowd trickled out of the room, browbeaten and exhausted. Conchita brought Marcus a box of tissues, and then left with everyone else. I collapsed into a chair.

  Marcus pressed a bunch of tissues to his nose. “Sorry I couldn’t be here earlier.”

  I was shaking. “They’re so angry!”

  Marcus sat down by my side. “You can’t blame them. They live paycheck to paycheck.”

  “I felt so bad for them,” I said, and burst into tears.

  “They weren’t exactly gentle to you, either. Don’t worry, it’ll get sorted out. Let me take you home.” He helped me up from my chair and I went to get my things while he washed his nose off in the bathroom. We locked the office and walked out into the street.

  “The funny thing is,” Marcus said, frisking his pockets for car keys, “I said I’d take you home, but actually I can’t drive for the life of me without glasses. I’m afraid you’ll be the one driving a blind, nose-busted dud tonight.”

  We ended up at the house. I could have driven him to his place and kept his car until the next day, or just left him there and taken a cab back to the house. We could have done a number of things that would have made more sense than what we did. But he ended up spending the night. There was nobody home. Rosita was away on a family visit to her village. There wasn’t a question of me being fearful of staying alone in the huge, empty house. I was shaken, but not afraid. It was that the moment we got into the car we both knew we didn’t want to part. Nothing was said. Not even significant glances were exchanged. It was a feeling we both had in the gut.

  We sat by the fireplace, and I threw in a bunch of sticks together with scrunched balls of paper, and lit a fire. We sat in silence for a while, savoring Father’s most aged brandy. I studied his face, aware that his shortsightedness rendered
him unsuspecting of my brazen examination. Shadows of flames danced across his features and his eyes looked larger and deeper without glasses. Different hues of blue gave his striated irises a marbled quality I hadn’t seen before. Now that his nose had stopped bleeding, I saw that the punch had also cut his upper lip. A light brown, two-day stubble covered his chin and cheeks, and his body looked more muscular in these casual, construction-site clothes than in the suits he wore in the office. He sat in Father’s chair with the ease of a large feline resting on a tree branch, relaxed but alert. I poked the fire and served more brandy. Then I curled into my own chair, dreamy with intoxication, while we talked through the night.

  He parodied the mutinous office meeting and Francisco’s assault until I was screaming with laughter. The scenario was a spaghetti-western saloon, and two crazy cowboys who fought for a last shot of whiskey among a disgruntled crowd of aged patrons and chorus girls. I was amazed at his good humor and lack of resentment over the incident. He assured me that growing up in West Berlin among mean neighborhood bullies had prepared him for much worse than anything Francisco could put him through. Then he asked about me, and I told him about Chekhov’s Nina, and Saint Martin’s, and how I was biding my time at the office until I could study acting. I went on and on, realizing after a while that nobody had ever asked me about my life before, and that I’d never talked about myself without bringing Father, Nanny, or my sisters into the account. He said he understood the heartbreak of unaccomplished vocation. He had tried to become a professional soccer player in his teens, but injured a knee and never made it past the regional leagues. Now, his consolation consisted in running every day and hiking on weekends. I watched his strong hands feed kindling to the fire as he related how he loved the rocky landscapes of granite boulders and pine forests in the Sierra de Guadarrama, the very same chain of mountains facing our house that I had grown up with. For the last year he had explored most of the trails in its sierras. He described the crunchy sound of pine needles under his feet on his trekking expeditions, when he climbed the steep paths toward the summits.