"Good evening, Señor Astarloa. I must thank you for taking the trouble to keep an appointment with a complete stranger."
Her voice had a pleasant, slightly hoarse quality to it, with an almost imperceptible foreign accent, impossible to identify. The fencing master bent over the hand she offered him and brushed it with his lips. It was a slender hand, with the little finger curved gracefully inward; her skin was agreeably cool and dark. Her fingernails were kept very short, almost like those of a man, and were not polished. Her hand was adorned only with a slender silver ring.
He raised his head and looked into her eyes. They were large eyes, violet in color, with small golden flecks that seemed iridescent when they caught the light. She had thick black hair, gathered at the back with a barrerte in the form of an eagle's head. She was quite tall for a woman, only a couple of inches shorter than Don Jaime, and of average build, perhaps somewhat slimmer than most women of the day, with a waist that required no help from a corset in order to appear slender and elegant. She wore a plain black skirt and a raw-silk blouse with a lace front. There was something slightly masculine about her, perhaps because of the tiny scar at the right-hand corner of her mouth, which seemed to impress on the mouth a permanent, enigmatic smile. She was at that age between twenty and thirty when it is hard to judge exactly how old a woman is. The fencing master thought that in his now-distant youth such a beautiful face would doubtless have driven him to commit certain foolish acts.
She asked him to take a seat, and they both sat, face-to-face, by a low table opposite the large balcony.
"Coffee, Señor Astarloa?"
He nodded, pleased. The maid entered, silent and unbidden, bearing a silver tray on which a delicate porcelain coffee set chinked and rattled. The lady of the house herself picked up the coffeepot and filled two cups, handing one to Don Jaime. She waited for him to take a first sip, apparently studying her visitor. Then she got straight to business.
"I want to learn the two-hundred-escudo thrust."
The fencing master sat holding his cup and saucer, playing distractedly with his spoon. He thought he must have misheard. "I'm sorry?"
She took a sip of coffee and looked at him impassively. "I have made inquiries," she said, "and was told that you are the best fencing master in Madrid. The last of the old school, they say. I was also told that you are the inventor of a famous secret thrust, which you are willing to teach to interested pupils for the sum of one thousand two hundred reales. It's a lot of money, I know, but I can afford it. I wish to hire your services."
Not yet recovered from his astonishment, Don Jaime protested weakly: "Forgive me, madam, but this ... It is a little unusual. I am the inventor of a secret thrust and I do teach it for the sum you have just mentioned, but, please understand, I would never teach fencing to a woman, I mean..."
The violet eyes looked him up and down. The scar emphasized the enigmatic smile. "I know what you mean," said Adela de Otero, slowly placing her empty cup on the table and pressing her fingertips together as if she were about to pray. "But I don't think the fact that I'm a woman should have anything to do with it. To put your mind at rest about my abilities, I can assure you that I have a reasonable knowledge of the art that you practice."
"That isn't the point," he said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, running a finger beneath his shirt collar. He was beginning to feel very hot. "It's just that taking on a woman as a fencing student is ... forgive me, but it is rather unusual."
"It would be considered improper?"
He stared at her, still holding his cup, the coffee barely touched. That permanent, attractive smile made him most uneasy. "Forgive me, madam, but that is one of the reasons. I would find it impossible, and I can only repeat my apologies. I have never before found myself in such a situation."
"Do you fear for your reputation, maestro?"
There was a mocking, provocative note in that question. Don Jaime placed his cup carefully on the table. "It is not the done thing, madam. It is not the custom. Perhaps it is abroad, but not here. Not with me at least. Perhaps you should try someone more ... flexible."
"I want to learn the secret of that particular thrust. Besides, you are the best there is."
Don Jaime smiled benevolently at this flattery. "Yes, I may be the best, as you do me the honor of saying, but I am also too old to change my habits. I am fifty-six and have been practicing my trade for over thirty years. The clients who have passed through my galleries have always been, exclusively, male."
"Times change, sir."
The fencing master sighed sadly. "That is very true. And do you know something? They may be changing too fast for my taste. Allow me, then, to remain faithful to my old habits. Believe me, they are the only assets I have."
She looked at him in silence, nodding slightly as if weighing what he said. Then she got up and went over to the display of weapons above the fireplace. "They say that this secret thrust of yours is impossible to parry."
Don Jaime gave a modest smile. "They exaggerate, madam. Once you know it, parrying it is the simplest thing in the world. I have as yet to discover the unstoppable thrust."
"And your fee is two hundred escudos?"
He sighed again. This lady's singular caprice was placing him in an awkward position. "I beg you not to insist, madam."
She turned her back on him, stroking the guard of one of the foils. "I would like to know what you charge for your ordinary services."
Don Jaime got slowly to his feet. "Between sixty and a hundred reales per month per student, which includes four lessons a week. And now, if you'll forgive me..."
"If you teach me the secret thrust, I will pay you two thousand four hundred reales."
He blinked, stunned. That was more than four hundred escudos, double what he earned for teaching that particular thrust on the rare occasions when there were interested clients. It was also the equivalent of three months' work.
"You may not realize it, madam, but you insult me."
She swung around and, for a fraction of a second, Don Jaime glimpsed a flash of anger in her violet eyes. It would not, he thought ruefully, be very hard to imagine her with a foil in her hand.
"Isn't it enough?" she asked insolently.
He drew himself up and gave a faint smile. Had that remark come from a man, that man would soon be receiving a visit from Don Jaime's seconds. However, Adela de Otero was a woman and much too beautiful.
"My dear lady," he said, icily polite. "The thrust in which you are so interested has the exact value I attribute to it, and not a penny more. Besides, I teach it only to those I deem worthy, a right which I zealously preserve. It has never occurred to me to make a business of the thrust, far less to haggle over price like some vulgar merchant. Good evening."
He took his top hat, gloves, and walking stick from the maid and went down the stairs without another word. From the second floor he heard the notes of Chopin's polonaise being wrested from the piano with furious determination.
PARRY in quarte. Good. Parry in tierce. Good. Semicircular parry. Again, please. That's it. En marchant and advance. Good. Withdraw and break off. To me. Engage in quarte, that's it. Take "time" in quarte. Good. Parry in low quarte. Excellent, Don So-and-So. Paquito has talent. He just needs time and discipline.
SEVERAL days passed. Prim was still waiting to pounce, and Queen Isabel was setting off to do some sea bathing in Lequeitio, highly recommended by the doctors to relieve the skin disease she had suffered from ever since she was a child. She was accompanied by her confessor and her consort, with a large cortège of flatterers, duchesses, tittle-tattlers, servants, and the usual hangers-on from the royal palace. Don Francisco de Asís twirled the ends of his mustache and simpered over the shoulder of his faithful secretary, Meneses, and Marfori, the foreign secretary, went about bragging to all and sundry, flaunting the spurs he had won for his prowess in the bedroom the spurs of a chicken royale à la mode.
On either side of the Pyrenees, emigres and generals were openly plotting
, all of them brandishing aspirations. The deputies—third-class passengers—had approved the Ministry of Defense's final budget, knowing full well that most of it was to be used in a vain attempt to calm the ambitions of the military, who were paid for their loyalty to the Crown in promotions and privileges, going to bed as moderates and waking up as liberals, according to the vagaries of the promotions ladder. Meanwhile, Madrid spent the afternoons sitting in the shade, leafing through clandestine newspapers, with a wine jug close to hand. On the corners, sellers cried their wares: Horchata de chufa, delicious horchata de chufa!
The Marqués de los Alumbres refused to go away for the summer, and he and Don Jaime kept up their daily ritual of fencing followed by a glass of sherry. In the Café Progreso, the marvels of a federal republic were proclaimed by Agapito Cárceles, whereas the more temperate Antonio Carreño sketched Masonic signs and threw himself wholeheartedly behind unitarianism, although without entirely discounting a proper constitutional monarchy. Don Lucas protested loudly every afternoon, and the music teacher stroked the marble tabletop and stared out the window with sad, gentle eyes. As for the fencing master, he could not rid his mind of the image of Adela de Otero.
SOMEONE was knocking at the door. Don Jaime had returned from his morning walk and was freshening up a little before going down to eat at his usual tavern in Calle Mayor.
He was in his shirtsleeves, rubbing his face and hands with cologne in order to gain some relief from the heat, when he heard the doorbell and stopped, surprised. He wasn't expecting anyone. He quickly ran a comb through his hair and put on an old silk dressing gown, a souvenir of better days, the left sleeve of which had long needed darning. He left the bedroom, crossed the small living room that also served as his office, and, opening the door, found himself face-to-face with Adela de Otero.
"Good morning, Señor Astarloa. May I come in?"
There was a touch of humility in her voice. She was wearing a low-cut, sky-blue dress with white lace at the cuffs, neck, and hem. On her head she wore a picture hat of fine straw adorned with a bunch of violets that matched her eyes. In her hands, covered by gloves of the same lace as on her dress, she carried a diminutive blue parasol. She was much more beautiful than she had seemed in her elegant living room on Calle Riaño.
The fencing master hesitated for a moment, disconcerted by this unexpected apparition. "Of course, madam," he said. "I mean, of course, please ... do come in."
He gestured for her to enter, although, after the abrupt way in which their conversation some days before had ended, the young woman's presence was a distinct embarrassment. As if guessing his state of mind, she gave him a prudent smile.
"Thank you for receiving me, Don Jaime," she said, and her violet eyes looked at him from beneath long lashes, only increasing the fencing master's disquiet. "I was afraid that ... but then, I expected no less of you. I am glad to see that I was not mistaken."
Don Jaime realized that she had feared he would slam the door in her face, and the thought startled him. He was, above all else, a gentleman. On the other hand, the young woman had, for the first time, addressed him by his Christian name, and that did nothing to calm his mind; to hide his confusion, he resorted to his habitual courtesy.
"Please come in, madam."
With a gallant gesture he invited her to cross the small hallway and go into the living room. Señora de Otero stopped in the middle of the dark, crowded room, looking curiously around at the objects that constituted Don Jaime's history. Completely unabashed, she ran a finger along the backs of some of the many books filling the dusty oak bookshelves: a dozen old treatises on fencing, bound copies of Dumas, Hugo, Balzac. There were also a few volumes of Plutarch's Parallel Lives, a much-read Homer, Novalis's Heinrich von Ofterdingen, several titles by Chateaubriand and Vigny, as well as various memoirs and technical treatises analyzing the military campaigns of the First Empire; most were written in French. Don Jaime excused himself for a moment and, going into the bedroom, exchanged his dressing gown for a frock coat, hurriedly tying his tie. When he returned to the living room, the young woman was studying an old oil painting, grown dark with the years, hanging on the wall between ancient swords and rusty daggers.
"Is he a member of your family?" she asked, pointing to the thin, youthful, rather severe face looking back at them from within the frame. The man was dressed in the fashion of the early part of the century, and his pale eyes regarded the world as if he found it not entirely convincing. His broad brow and his air of dignified austerity gave him a marked resemblance to Don Jaime.
"He's my father."
Señora de Otero looked from the portrait to Don Jaime and back again at the portrait, as if to test the truth of his words. She seemed satisfied. "A handsome man," she said in that pleasant, slightly hoarse voice. "How old was he when he sat for the painting?"
"I don't know. He died when he was thirty-one, two months before I was born, fighting against Napoleon's troops."
"He was a soldier?" The young woman seemed genuinely interested in the story.
"No, he was an Aragonese gentleman, one of those upright men who hate being told what to do. He took to the hills with a group of other men and killed Frenchmen until they killed him." A tremor of pride shook the fencing master's voice. "They say he died alone, hunted down like a dog, berating in excellent French the soldiers who came for him with their bayonets."
She remained for a moment with her eyes fixed on the portrait, as she had done all the while he spoke. She bit her lower lip thoughtfully, but the enigmatic smile made indelible by that small scar lingered at the corner of her mouth. Then she turned slowly to face him.
"I am aware that my presence here disturbs you, Don Jaime."
He avoided her gaze, not knowing what to say. Señora de Otero removed her hat and put it down, along with the parasol, on the paper-strewn table. She was wearing her hair gathered at the back of her neck, as she had on their first meeting. It struck Don Jaime that her blue dress added an unusual note of color to the room's otherwise austere décor.
"May I sit down?" Charm and seduction. It was clear that this was not the first time she had made use of these weapons. "I was out for a walk, and this heat is stifling."
Don Jaime muttered a hurried excuse for his lack of consideration and asked her to have a seat in a leather armchair worn and cracked with use. He drew up a footstool for himself, placed it at a reasonable distance from her, and sat stiff and circumspect. He cleared his throat, determined not to allow himself to be dragged into terrain whose dangers he could all too easily foresee.
"What can I do for you, Señora de Otero?"
His cold, courteous tone only accentuated the lovely stranger's smile. Stranger for, although he knew her name, thought Don Jaime, everything else about this woman was veiled in mystery. Regretfully, what had at first been only a spark of curiosity inside him was rapidly growing, gaining ground. He struggled to control his feelings, awaiting a reply. She did not speak at first, but took her time with what seemed to the fencing master almost exasperating calmness. She gazed about the room, as if to find in it signs by which she could evaluate the man she had before her. Don Jaime took the opportunity to study the features that had so filled his thoughts in recent days. Her mouth was full and well formed, like a cut made by a knife in a red, ripe fruit. He thought again that the scar at the corner of her mouth, far from marring her looks, gave her a special attractiveness, hinting at dark violence.
From the moment that she had appeared at his door, Don Jaime had resolved, whatever her arguments might be, to restate his initial refusal. He would never take on a woman pupil. He expected pleas, feminine eloquence, the deployment of the subtle tricks peculiar to the fair sex, an appeal to certain feelings ... Nothing would move him, he promised himself. Had he been twenty years younger, he might have been won over by the woman's undoubted powers of fascination. But he was too old for such things to change his mind. The feelings that her proximity stirred in him might be momentarily troubl
ing, but they were controllable. Don Jaime would politely refuse, unmoved by this childish female caprice of hers. He was entirely unprepared for the question that came next:
"How would you respond, Don Jaime, if, during a bout, your opponent made a doublé attack in tierce?"
The fencing master thought he must have misheard. He began to ask her to repeat what she had said but stopped halfway, confused. He drew a hand across his forehead, then placed both hands on his knees and sat looking at Señora de Otero as if demanding an explanation. This was ridiculous.
"I'm sorry?"
She was watching him, amused, with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. She spoke with disconcerting firmness. "I would like your expert opinion, Don Jaime."
He sighed, shifting about on his footstool. All this was devilishly unusual. "You're really interested?"
"Of course."
Don Jaime raised one hand to his mouth and gave an embarrassed cough. "Well, I don't know how far ... I mean of course, if you find the subject ... A doublé attack in tierce, you said?" After all it was just a question, albeit a strange one coming from her. Or perhaps not so strange. "Well, I suppose that if my opponent attacked in tierce, I would parry and then respond with a half thrust. Do you understand? It's fairly elementary."
"And if he responded to your half thrust by parrying and disengaging immediately m quarte?"
He looked at the young woman, this time with amazement. She had given the correct sequence.
"In that case," he said, "I would parry in quarte, and attack immediately in quarte." This time he omitted the "do you understand?" It was obvious that Señora de Otero did understand. "That is the only possible response."
She threw her head back in unexpected gaiety, almost as if to laugh out loud, but instead she merely smiled. "Do you want to disappoint me, Don Jaime? Or are you trying to catch me out? You know perfectly well that that is far from being the only possible response. It may not even be the best one."
The Fencing Master Page 4
