Obsession (Year of Fire)

by Florencia Bonelli

  “What did you expect him to do? He did what any man with balls would have done,” Juana had defended him. “Mat,” she said, speaking to her like a child. “You always see men your way. But you don’t get the real picture. Men are different from us. They resolve their differences with their fists and make friends afterward. We may not fight but we’re a lot more insincere, don’t you think?”

  She held her breath as the overture reached the climax that had moved her that afternoon in the car, an explosion of saxophones that revived the heat behind her eyes. She turned the doorknob. She stopped. Could he have locked it? She kept going. The door inched open and she could see Eliah’s shadow through the crack. He was sitting in his Barcelona chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. He seemed overwhelmed, defeated. She went all the way in and closed the door behind her. The volume of the music should have made it impossible for him to hear the tiny click of the door and yet his head still shot up and his eyes froze on her. She couldn’t bear to see him looking at her like that. His emerald eyes could be so hard! His brow could be so dark when it frowned! His mouth was so thin! She saw him stand up slowly, like someone preparing to deliver a more lenient reprimand than the situation deserved. He had showered, his wet hair was combed back the way she liked, and he was covered in a silk robe. He was so handsome!

  His masculine perfection made her feel ashamed. After twenty-four hours without sleep and crying for fifteen minutes, dirty, with her hair all disheveled and clothes wrinkled, she must have looked like a cockroach. She began to feel tremors of anxiety. Small at first, they took hold of her throat before spreading massively throughout her body, stripping away what was left of her resistance. She dropped her shika, gloves, scarf and coat at her feet, and burst into tears with her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth gaping open. Her sobs sounded more like screams.

  Al-Saud covered the space between them and took her into a protective embrace. He felt her cold fingers climbing up the silk of his robe with the frenzy of someone trying to stop herself from falling into an abyss, and sensed a change in the way she was crying. It had grown quieter but more intense. Finally, the flow was reduced to shudders and sniffles. Like a newborn puppy looking for its mother’s teat, Matilde, on tiptoe, guided by her nose, snuffled around until she found Eliah’s cologne at the base of his neck; he usually put some on right after a shower. The familiarity of A*Men soothed her. I’m home, she said to herself, and held him tighter. No one could comfort her like Eliah, not Aldo, with his new stance of offended dignity, or Juana with her pragmatism and frivolity. My God! She worried. When the time comes, I’m not going to have the strength to leave him. She pulled her face away from Al-Saud and dared to look at him. He brushed the hair away from her forehead and dried her tears with the backs of his fingers.

  “Why did you leave me alone? Why did you leave?”

  “I thought that you wanted to be alone, that you needed your space. You came out of the intensive care unit and looked for Juana to console you,” he reminded her, but there was no reproach in his voice.

  “I couldn’t grieve for him in your arms.”

  “You can do anything in my arms, Matilde. Anything. It wouldn’t have bothered me to console you over his death.”

  “Yes, I know. I know how generous you are. But I felt soiled and devastated by guilt. He died because he followed me here, because I had driven him crazy. He was obsessed with me. If he hadn’t come to Paris…”

  “Matilde.” Al-Saud grabbed her by the shoulders, almost shaking her. “I want you to get that idea out of your head. Blahetter came to Paris for another reason. He was involved in something very shady. We may never find out what it was now that he’s dead. But he didn’t die because of you. Rather, he almost got you and Juana killed, don’t forget that.”

  “I can’t stand smelling of the hospital. I’ve been used to it for years, but right now it’s unbearable. I need to take a bath and get out of these clothes.”

  Though he had already showered, Al-Saud got into the Jacuzzi with Matilde and bathed her just as he had the night of the attack outside the institute, even washing her hair. Neither of them said a word. He stroked her back and arms over and over with a sponge to release the tension weighing her down.

  “Why did you get back so late?” He whispered, so as not to break the sense of peace that had descended.

  He saw how her back arched and her ribs expanded. She sighed before answering him.

  “All I wanted to do was come home,” she said, and he smiled triumphantly at hearing her describe his house as home. “But everything got complicated. Roy’s mother fell apart, her blood pressure hit the roof, and they hospitalized her. Then there was the paperwork. Since he didn’t die from natural causes, the doctors called the police. They took away his body to do an autopsy. Don Guillermo, Roy’s grandfather, called the consul, who appeared immediately, and spent two hours going through all the steps we needed to take. I wanted to leave, I couldn’t stand being there anymore, but I felt obligated because…” she stopped.

  “Because to all of them you were his wife, even though you never really were.”

  “Yes, and because I’m an idiot and I always do what I feel I should and not what I want.” Matilde let her eyes fall closed when she felt Eliah’s lips on her back. “I always want to please everyone.”

  “Well, you’ve achieved that with me. You please me a lot.” He heard her laugh sadly. “And at first you tried to be very unpleasant.” Matilde laughed again. “What did the consul tell you?”

  “Oof! I’m dizzy from everything he said. The fact that the police were involved complicated everything, as you would imagine. My father-in-law suggested that they cremate him once the body was returned so they could go home with the ashes. But Don Guillermo told him to shut up and shouted that they would take the body back with them.” Matilde turned to Eliah, drawing her legs up near her chin. “Eliah, I don’t want to go to Argentina for the burial. I don’t want to,” she insisted, and put her forehead in the valley formed by her knees and cried quietly. “I want this horrible experience to be over.”

  “Don’t go back.” Though he had said it calmly, Matilde perceived the anxiety in his voice. “Stay with me.”

  She lifted her head and stared at him. It actually began to upset her that nothing seemed to matter to her except for the man with whom she was sharing the Jacuzzi. She wasn’t thinking about Roy or his funeral, or her new position as a widow; nothing mattered except that the prospect of being separated from Eliah frightened her.

  “Don’t feel guilty,” Al-Saud encouraged her. “Do what you want to do. What do you want to do, Matilde?”

  I want to be yours forever, but that wouldn’t be fair to you.

  “I want to stay in Paris.”

  “End of discussion. Matilde will stay in Paris and I’ll have words with whoever dares to contradict my love’s wishes.”

  She laughed at his declaration, but suddenly went silent. Would you draw your gun on anyone who tried to take me away to Argentina?

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I was very angry when I found out you had threatened Roy with your gun.”

  “I realized you were angry. You were very cold to me.”

  “I was very angry,” she repeated. “Very. I can’t stand violence.”

  “Si vis pacem, para bellum.”

  “I don’t know Latin, or whatever that is.”

  “You were right, it’s Latin. It means, ‘If you wish for peace, prepare for war.’ It’s a quote attributed to the Roman writer Vegetius. That’s why they call nine-millimeter cartridges Parabellums.”

  “I didn’t know that nine-millimeter cartridges were called Parabellums. All I know is the violence engenders violence.”

  “Not if you finish your enemy. Matilde,” he said, “if a criminal was about to kill someone you loved and you had a gun in your hand, what would you do?”

  “I suppose I would use it, but I don’t know. I don’t know ho
w I would react.”

  “I do know how I would react. And I showed you on Monday outside the institute. It was the same thing with Blahetter. He hurt you profoundly and I needed to warn him that you weren’t on your own anymore. Is that so hard to understand? And I regret not having been tougher. I was too…how do you say it?” he asked impatiently. “Bienveillant.”

  “I understand. You were benevolent.” Since she didn’t want to argue about it anymore, Matilde changed the subject. “Eliah?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Do you think that Roy was poisoned?”

  “We’ll know for sure when we get the results of the autopsy.”

  “It’s hard to believe that Roy’s not around any more. He was so young and healthy and full of life. He was brilliant. Ezequiel told me once that he had a very high IQ, extraordinarily high. He finished high school when he was very young. Though he was very secretive about his work and never talked about it, he once told me that he was building something that would make us rich and revolutionize the world of atomic energy. Maybe he said it so that I would stay.”

  Al-Saud’s face was impassive, but his alarm bells were ringing.

  “He never told you what kind of work?”

  “No. As I said, he was very secretive. He didn’t use a computer because he was afraid a hacker would steal his work. He would say to me, ‘I work old school, the way Einstein would have done it.’ According to him, it took longer but it was safer. Oh, my God!” she said suddenly. “Could they have killed him because of his work?”

  “Don’t torture yourself. Let’s try not to think about this hellish day. It’s time to get out, your skin and fingers are getting wrinkled. I want you to eat something, Matilde. You haven’t had a bite to eat since breakfast.”

  An hour later, smelling of Upa la-lá and with something in her stomach, Matilde fell asleep in the hollow formed by Eliah’s body. He watched her sleep with his head on his palm and elbow on the pillow. Every now and again he would bend down to kiss her warm cheek and inhale her scent. He couldn’t sleep himself; his mind was a whirlwind of suppositions and hypotheses. What could Blahetter have been working on before he died? What had he hidden in the locker at the Gare du Nord and behind the painting? Did he trade prohibited substances like his grandfather? It had felt strange to be in the same room as the head of Blahetter Chemicals.

  The next morning, before Matilde woke up, he shut himself in his office and made two phone calls. The first was to his father’s best friend, Mauricio Dubois, an old Argentinean diplomat who lived in London.

  “Uncle Maurice, it’s Eliah.”

  “My son, what a pleasure! To what do I owe this surprise?”

  “I have to ask you a favor.”

  “Anything.”

  “An acquaintance of mine passed away last night in Paris. He’s Argentinean. I wanted to ask you if you still have those influential contacts in the government who can help the family get the body out of France quickly. It’s complicated, because it seems that he died as a result of an intentional poisoning, and the case is in the police’s hands.”

  “Complicated, yes. Moving a body from one country to another is never easy. If police reports are in the middle of everything, things get worse. I’ll see what I can do. Give me your acquaintance’s information.” Al-Saud gave him his name. “Tell me, Eliah, are we going to see you this year at your mother’s birthday party? A few days ago she called your aunt Evelyn”—Dubois’s wife—“and invited us on Saturday the twenty-first of February, in the house on Avenue Foch.”

  “I didn’t know my old lady was planning to spend her birthday in Paris. If I’m in the city that day and she invites me, I’ll go.”

  “Oh, I don’t know if she will,” joked Mauricio.

  As soon as he finished the call with Dubois, he called Inspector Dussollier’s cell phone.

  “Olivier, it’s Eliah Al-Saud. I’m sorry to bother you so early.”

  “Eliah! No bother at all, dear sir. Tell me, what’s up?”

  “Last night the body of a young male was taken from the Hospital Européen Georges Pompidou to the police morgue. His name was Roy Blahetter.”

  “Wait a moment. I wasn’t on duty last night, so I don’t know anything about it. I’ve just got into the base.”

  “You’re there, at thirty-six Quai des Orfèvres?”

  “Yes, I’m working Saturdays. Let me check. Spell the last name for me.” Al-Saud did so and heard him typing on a computer. “Yes, here it is. You knew him?”

  “Not well, but I knew him. He’s Argentinean. His family is very devastated. I wanted to ask you if it’s in your power to accelerate the procedures so this nightmare can end and the Blahetters can take the body back to their country and give him a proper burial as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll do everything I can. I’m friends with the head of Forensics, he’s a good guy. I don’t think he’ll mind giving this case priority.”

  “Thank you, Olivier. I owe you another one.”

  He called Thérèse.

  “Bonjour, Thérèse. I’m sorry to bother you on a Saturday morning.”

  “No problem, sir,” the secretary assured him. She was used to her boss’s eccentricities. The generous salary compensated for the feverish demands of a man with endless energy.

  “I need to get a present for Inspector Olivier Dussollier from the Criminal Brigade at thirty-six Quai des Orfèvres.”

  “What do you suggest, sir?”

  “A pair of Cartier cuff links,” he decided, when he remembered Dussollier’s sartorial elegance. “I want him to get them today with one of my personal cards.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  “Send Medes to deliver the present. Merci beaucoup, Thérèse.”

  * * *

  * * *

  CHAPTER 17

  * * *

  * * *

  Matilde spent Saturday at the house on Avenue Elisée Reclus. She swam in the pool, watched movies with Juana in the theater, exercised in Al-Saud’s gym and tried to study French for the exam on Monday, because she was hoping to pick up where she had left off in her daily routine. She needed to forget the previous week: it had started with the attack outside the institute and ended with Roy’s death. Nonetheless, she couldn’t concentrate; she read without taking anything in and dithered over her practical exercises. She was haunted by the last time she had seen Roy, blue and emaciated.

  Ezequiel called them several times; he was looking for the consolation that he hadn’t found in his parents, who were just as devastated as he was, while his grandfather wouldn’t say a word to him.

  Aldo invited them to dinner at the Ritz, where he was staying. They both declined the invitation because it didn’t include Al-Saud.

  “The Ritz isn’t cheap, is it?” asked Matilde.

  “The most expensive in Paris along with the George V and the Plaza Athénée,” Al-Saud answered. “Why are you making that face? What are you worried about?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” Matilde lied, because she wasn’t going to impose upon him with any more of her family problems.

  On Sunday afternoon, Aldo called Juana’s cell phone to invite them, along with “that character,” to have a drink at the Vendôme bar in the Ritz. Matilde accepted, saying that she had to give him a copy of the new set of keys for the apartment on Rue Toullier so that Aldo could give them to Enriqueta. Al-Saud thought that Matilde just yearned to see her father, and his suspicions were confirmed when he saw how effusively they hugged in the lobby of the Ritz. Aldo kissed her over and over again on the top of the head, the temple and the forehead, calling her, “My beautiful princess, my beloved princess.” Matilde whimpered and held her father tight. Except for a rapid squeeze of the hand, Aldo pretended that Eliah wasn’t there. In truth, he wasn’t being unkind or rude; he simply couldn’t look at him, because although he looked more like his father, there was a lot of Francesca De Gecco in the lines of his dark face. He was also beset by dark jealousy, something that he had never
felt about Roy.

  Matilde found the situation very awkward. Her unease diminished a little when her father ordered a coffee. She had been afraid that the voluptuous environment of the Vendôme, with trays of cognac and other spirits being whisked around by waiters from one end of the room to the other, would lead Aldo to succumb to temptation. All the same, her tension and discomfort persisted, a little because of Eliah’s presence and also because nobody dared to mention Roy’s death.

  Al-Saud didn’t like the choice of table; it was too exposed. He didn’t want to worsen an already edgy situation by demanding a change, so he sat against a marble column to protect his back and gestured to Matilde to sit next to him. At first they just engaged in small talk, even remarking on how cold it was; then the conversation flagged, and they fell into an awkward silence.

  “Papa, do you know if Roy was working on something important or dangerous?”

  “No, I have no idea,” he answered quickly. The speed of his reply caught Al-Saud’s attention: he hadn’t stopped to consider the question, and this planted a seed of doubt. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because the men who tried to kill them,” Al-Saud interjected, “were looking for something that Blahetter had given Matilde.”

  “Papa doesn’t know about the attack, Eliah.”

  “Yes, he does. Juana says that she told him.”

  “It’s true, Mat. I told him.”

  Matilde looked at them, disconcerted. They were always conspiring together.

  “I know,” Aldo admitted, “and I thank you for protecting them from those evil men.” He glanced fleetingly at Eliah and then focused back on Matilde. “Don’t worry, princess. Nothing bad is going to happen to you.”

  “Obviously! Because the stud is protecting us, otherwise…”

  “Why did you come to Paris, Papa?”