The Summer Snow

by Rebecca Pawel

  “That’s Rodrigo’s seat,” the little boy informed him. “But you can share with him. He doesn’t mind.”

  Tejada raised his eyebrows at his wife. “Rodrigo?” he asked as he sat down, obediently placing the stuffed animal in his lap.

  “First I was going to get trains,” Toño explained. “But then Mama said we didn’t have room to take home enough to be fun.”

  “He wanted the deluxe set with enough track to reproduce the entire RENFE network,” Elena murmured. “We would have had to ship it separately, or get another trunk.”

  “And then I was going to get toy soldiers,” Toño continued, oblivious of the interruption. “But they were expensive and heavy and I thought that maybe Quico could make wooden ones for me when I got home, so I got Rodrigo instead.” He indicated the big cat fondly. “But the man said I could go back tomorrow to play with the trains again.”

  “I see.” Tejada scratched Rodrigo’s ears. He caught his wife’s eye and murmured, “Combien coute?”

  “Quarante-cinq pessetes.”

  “Pour un amant si chere!”

  “Talk Spanish!” Toño commanded.

  Tejada smiled at his son. “Sorry. Rodrigo’s name reminded me of a silly play in French. How did he come to be named that, by the way?”

  “The man in the store said I should call him after El Cid,” Toño explained. “You know about El Cid?” His father nodded, and he continued cheerfully. “Well, the man said that El Cid was so brave that lions kneeled before him, so I should call my lion Rodrigo like El Cid, since I was brave to play with him.”

  “Makes sense to me.”

  Elena shrugged. “By that logic you should call the lion Carmencita. Look at all those newsreels of Carmencita Franco playing with a lion cub.”

  “It’s a boy lion.” Toño looked reproachful. He could not understand why Papa was laughing so hard. He was distracted by the arrival of the waiter, bearing Elena’s coffee and a large, intriguing-looking ice-cream creation. Ignoring his mother’s warnings about not spoiling his appetite for lunch, Toño settled down to enjoy himself. His parents seized the opportunity to talk while he ate.

  “Did you see your godfather?” Elena asked.

  “Yes. You were right. There’s something funny going on with the will.”

  “Funny?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me what.” Tejada summarized his conversation with the lawyer. “So it looks like I’ll have to talk to my father this afternoon,” he finished with a sigh.

  “So you’ll stay home after lunch?” The depth of pleasure and gratitude in Elena’s voice startled her husband. So did her suddenly sharp tone as she said, “Toño! Chocolate on your good shirt! Be careful!”

  “It’s just a shirt,” Tejada defended his son as Elena scrubbed the boy’s face with a napkin.

  Elena turned on the lieutenant. “We missed Toño’s fitting with your mother’s seamstress this morning,” she informed him, “because you wanted to go shopping. But your mother says Toño doesn’t have decent clothes as it is, and if he gets stains on this one . . .”

  Tejada winced. “Sorry. I’ll try not to abandon you this afternoon.”

  “You have to speak with your father,” she reminded him acidly.

  “I’m not exactly looking forward to it,” he retorted.

  Elena suppressed another sharp comment and said instead, “Maybe we can go out for a walk this evening then.”

  He nodded, relieved. “As a matter of fact, we have a date this evening for eight-thirty.”

  “Oh, who with?” Elena felt another flash of irritation at Carlos’s high-handed way of arranging their schedule without consulting her.

  “An old—” Tejada hesitated, searching for the right word. “Friend” was too strong and “mentor” implied a formal relationship that had never existed. “Colleague,” he finished, and stumblingly explained about Nilo.

  Elena’s annoyance died away as the lieutenant fumbled for words to explain why he had accepted the doorman’s invitation. He had obviously been fond of the old man, for whatever reason, and even if he had not been, decency demanded that he sacrifice a few hours to someone who had been kind to him as a child. But it was not merely Tejada’s awkward assurances that she would like Nilo, that reconciled his wife. It was the drawn look on his face and an odd echo in his voice. He’s been seeing ghosts ever since we got here, Elena thought. At least I don’t have to worry about that. Poor Carlos.

  She held her husband’s hand on the way home, since Toño’s desire to hold Rodrigo left him with only one hand free, making it impossible for him to walk between them as was his custom. Elena was glad that Toño had chosen to cling to his father’s other hand so that he was thoroughly surrounded by his present and shielded from his past. We won’t let ghosts get him, Elena thought protectively, unaware that she was about to meet a ghost of her own.

  Chapter 7

  Consuela Alonso de Tejada had grown up both rich and beautiful. This combination of traits had naturally led to an indulged taste for fine clothing, which had survived Consuela’s youth and middle age. As a girl, Doña Consuela had hated submitting to the judgment of her mother or her modista, when she was positive that she could have designed far finer dresses. By the time Consuela became a matriarch, no mere seamstress dared to cross her judgment. The spiteful whispered that Señora de Tejada hired humbler sewing women because she was too stingy to pay the fees of Granada’s fashionable modistas, but the fact was that Doña Consuela preferred to design her own clothing without reference to professional opinion, and therefore saw no need to pay for advice she had no intention of taking. (She had, in fact, a talent for drawing that she had developed copying and altering sketches from fashion magazines.) One of her secret griefs was that she had not raised a daughter with whom she could have shared her interest in fashion.

  Doña Consuela’s dormant talents had been recently revived by the pleasant task of dressing her grandchildren, but her daughter-in-law Rosa was a regrettably strong-minded woman, who had—in Doña Consuela’s opinion—an unreasonable aversion to “interference” with her children. Since Rosa slavishly followed the fashions of Blanco y Negro, and Rosa’s husband (to his mother’s disgust) slavishly followed Rosa, Doña Consuela’s skills had been unfortunately superfluous. So Doña Consuela was delighted when Toño arrived. The fact that he was dressed like an impoverished peasant brat and had a tendency to grubbiness did not distress her at all. She enjoyed a challenge.

  Toño’s paternal grandmother had quickly discovered that he was a good-natured, biddable child, and she had been annoyed when Carlos had snatched him away immediately after breakfast, muttering something about a family outing. Carlos, his mother thought, would not understand the meaning of the word family if he stumbled across it in the dictionary, and as for that wife of his . . . ! She’s done him no good, Doña Consuela thought grimly. Of course, poor Carlos was used to living in a barracks before he married, so he probably hardly notices her housekeeping, but he might see that she’s practically keeping the child in sackcloth! What can she find to do with her time up in the mountains? Probably no better than she should be.

  Doña Consuela had pondered the mystery of her younger son’s marriage for some while that morning and had finally decided that this daughter-in-law would have to be endured for Toño’s sake, at least during the visit. She comforted herself by thinking that perhaps she would just drop a word of advice in Carlos’s ear before he left, about keeping a close eye on his wife. Of course, Carlos was always ridiculously sensitive about such things, but he could hardly object to a friendly caution from his own mother.

  Doña Consuela was waiting with a seamstress when Toño and his parents returned from their toy shopping. She dismissed her son with the assurance that he would only be in the way and pounced on Toño. The boy was perfectly willing to spend time with the person he thought of as his new grandmother, although he was a little disappointed that she was not more interested in meeting Rodrigo. He submitted amiably
enough to being measured, but was at first puzzled, and then annoyed, at being expected to stand still while his grandmother paced around him holding up fabrics. His mother always let him go play after she measured him. He explained this to his grandmother, and she laughed and patted him on the head. Then she made him keep standing still. She did not seem interested when he tried to tell her about the toy store and the ice-cream parlor. He tried telling her about the train ride, and how Private Ramos had taken him to see the locomotive. (He had learned many interesting facts about the locomotive and would have been happy to share them.) She ignored him and talked over his head to the seamstress. Toño began to fidget. She kissed him and told him to stand still.

  “He should have something for church,” his grandmother commented. “The black wool would do for that, maybe with a matching hat.”

  “Father Bernardo says it’s very important for boys to get exercise,” Toño hinted, inspired by the mention of church.

  “And a sailor suit, for other occasions,” Doña Consuela continued, as if her grandson had not spoken. She smiled and spoke with conscious sweetness. “Wouldn’t you like a sailor suit, Carlos Antonio? You could play you were a sea captain.”

  “No,” Toño said with disgust. “I don’t want to be a sea captain. I want overalls like a railroad engineer.”

  For a moment Doña Consuela looked as if she had bitten a lemon. “No, you don’t, dear,” she said, with a venomous glance in Elena’s direction. “Only Reds wear overalls. You’ll have a lovely little sailor suit, and then you’ll see.”

  Toño’s clothes were a matter of total indifference to him, but he was tired of standing still and tired of being ignored. “I want overalls,” he insisted.

  His grandmother turned away from him and began sketching something for the seamstress. “Like this,” she said. “You can tack the bow here and here, with a matching belt.”

  “I don’t want a sailor suit!”

  “Very good, Señora.”

  “I want overalls!”

  “And when will it be ready?”

  “Overalls!”

  Elena, who had been sitting like a statue in one corner of the room, intervened sharply. “Toño! That’s enough. Thank your grandmother!”

  “But I want overalls.” Toño’s voice had deteriorated into a whine. He stamped his foot and eluded his mother as she walked over to pick him up.

  “Toño! Behave yourself,” his mother hissed.

  “I am behaving.” The words were barely short of a sob.

  Doña Consuela concluded her negotiations with the seamstress and saw the woman out. Then she turned to her grandson, whose protests had steadily increased in volume. “Carlos Antonio! The first thing a well-brought-up child learns is to be polite to his elders. Your father would be very ashamed of you.”

  Toño’s face crumpled. “Papa’s not ’shamed of me!” he howled.

  Elena hugged her son ferociously and glared at her mother-in-law. “He’s overtired.” The words were an apology but the tone was a threat.

  “Obviously.” Doña Consuela once more spoke with artificial sweetness. “It was probably a mistake to take him out this morning. It’s not his fault. But, still, I never accepted rudeness from my sons. It’s important to set a tone.” She smiled into her daughter-in-law’s frozen face. “You don’t mind my saying this, do you? As an experienced mother?”

  “Of course not.” Elena’s voice was as expressionless as her face, but Toño, who was sniffling quietly in her arms, felt her grip tighten convulsively. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll take him up to bed for his nap.”

  Doña Consuela glanced at the clock on the end table. “It’s nearly lunchtime.”

  “He ate a lot earlier in the day.”

  “It’s very important to establish mealtimes. Children will spoil their appetites otherwise.”

  Elena’s throat tightened. “The majority of Spanish children eat when they can because they’re always hungry,” she said quietly. “I’d think you would thank God your grandchildren are in the lucky minority.”

  Red, thought Doña Consuela, as Elena walked out, still carrying Toño. Doña Consuela left to check preparations for lunch, well satisfied with the morning. Planning her grandson’s wardrobe had been amusing, and his minor misbehavior was no more than could be expected of his age. And she was certain that he would look adorable in his new outfits when they arrived.

  Up in his bedroom, Toño was sobbing with confusion and fury and disappointment. Elena did her best to comfort him. She retrieved the forgotten Rodrigo, and patiently reassured the little boy over and over that he could have a pair of overalls when he got home if he wanted, and that his father was not ashamed of him. She did not go downstairs to lunch until he had finally fallen asleep.

  The afternoon meal was a tense one. The expression on her husband’s face told Elena that he had not fared well in his conference with his father. Carlos’s brother, Juan Andrés, was preoccupied to the point of rudeness, and his wife, Rosa, irritated by his attitude, sniped at him, with little regard for the rest of the family. All in all, Elena was glad that Toño was spared the ordeal and cheerfully resolved to give up her siesta to play with him if he woke early from his nap.

  When she escaped from the table to check on Toño, he was still sleeping soundly. She went to her own room, where she found her husband sitting with his head in his hands. “Your mother—” Elena began.

  “Don’t start,” he warned without looking up. His voice was harsher than she had heard it in many years.

  She sat beside him, concerned, and almost frightened by his tone. “What’s the matter?”

  “I spoke to my father when we got back.” Tejada’s voice was cold and steady. “He knows of no reason why Aunt Rosalia should have been murdered. It’s not his business to speculate. The Guardia wanted to open an investigation and he had nothing to do with it.”

  Elena put a hesitant hand on his arm. “I thought Rivas said—”

  “I know what Rivas said,” Tejada interrupted, still in the same chill monotone. “I’m telling you what my father said. When I asked about Doña Rosalia’s will, he said that she’d died intestate.”

  Elena frowned. “I thought your godfather told you there definitely was a will.”

  “He also said my father was the executor,” Tejada confirmed.

  Elena’s hand tightened on his arm. “Maybe there’s some sort of misunderstanding.”

  “Don Pablo told me the provisions of her will were inequitable, and asked me to come see him tomorrow if my father didn’t tell me all the provisions of the will. Now I’m told there isn’t a will. It’s as if . . .” Tejada swallowed a few times. “As if one of them was lying to me,” he finished softly.

  Elena’s capacity for comforting had been nearly exhausted by her son earlier, but her husband’s hurt perplexity prevented her from saying that obviously one or both of the men he had interviewed was lying. She tried for a moment to imagine her own father or her father’s friends deceiving her. Well, they might after I married Carlos, she thought. No one trusts the Guardia. “Did you tell your father you’d spoken to Don Pablo?” she asked gently.

  “Of course not!” Elena was relieved to hear the anger in his voice. Anything was better than his grim expressionlessness. “It would have looked like I thought he was lying!”

  “Or that you thought Don Pablo was,” Elena offered.

  He shook his head. “I can’t believe Rosalia died without a will. If nothing else, her husband would have urged her to make one, when he was alive. But surely my father would know that.”

  Elena put an arm around him. He turned toward her, and buried his face in her shoulder. “Your father wouldn’t have wanted an investigation of her death if he . . . had anything to lose by it,” she murmured. Tejada nodded, relieved. Elena stroked his hair. “We’ll go home soon.”

  He laughed faintly. “It’ll be a relief to get back to the guerrillas!”

  “I’ve always said they were good peopl
e,” Elena said.

  “At least you know where you are with them,” the lieutenant admitted with a sigh.

  “Why don’t you write to Guardia Mojica,” Elena suggested. “You never did settle that thing about the repair bills for the roof, did you?”

  “I’ll probably be back before a letter gets there!” Nevertheless, Tejada stood and moved toward the desk in one corner of the room. The idea of returning to Potes before a letter could make its way back cheered him immensely.

  Elena took out a few sheets of stationery also and curled herself on the bed to write to her parents. The Tejadas wrote in companionable silence for a while, and the bruises of the morning began to fade.

  Elena finished her letter first, and glanced at the clock. Her husband was still intent on his work, a date book spread open on the desk beside him. She stood up. “I’m going to check on Toño. He must be awake by now.”

  “Fine,” Tejada agreed without raising his head. “I’ll be done in a couple of minutes. If he’s awake we can go for a walk before we meet up with Nilo.”

  As Elena reached Toño’s room she heard his voice speaking animatedly and then a high childish voice raised in reply. The voice was vaguely familiar, but Elena could not immediately place it. Perhaps he had made friends with one of his cousins. “. . . always holding him up as a hero in school,” the child’s voice was saying as Elena came near enough to make out the words. She pushed open the door, and found a girl of about thirteen sitting in the room’s only chair. Toño was sitting comfortably in the girl’s lap, looking at a thick school textbook that she was holding open. He was tracing an illustration with one finger, a sure sign that he was interested. He looked up and smiled at his mother as the door opened, and the girl looked up and smiled also. She gently put Toño to one side, stood up, and bobbed a little curtsy. “Hello, Señorita Fernández,” she said. “Do you remember me?”

  Toño had awakened from his nap hungry. He’d swung his legs over the side of the bed. It was a funny old-fashioned one with curtains like the sleeping compartment on the train, and the mattress was so high that he had to make a little leap to get down to the floor. He had been charmed by the bed when he first arrived. Now he felt a terrible longing for his own cozy little bed made just for him at home in Potes. Keeping one arm around the patient Rodrigo’s neck, he padded to the door in his bare feet, intent on finding Mama and something to eat.