I told him that I’d check with my sister about the possibilities of her renting out the house. But I didn’t feel like calling my sister, didn’t want to talk to her, didn’t want her to start giving me a sermon, or to remind me that I can’t keep living in this pro-tem way for ever. I didn’t want her to ask me if I was watering the plants, or doing the washing, or looking after the house.
About to leave and fanning himself with the hat, he told me his name was Julián. And I’m Sandra, I said. Sandra, he repeated. And he went on to say that I’d been very kind to him, that I should take care because the world was full of dangers that don’t show their face until they’re on top of you and, come what may, I should always put my physical well-being first. Then he apologized for being such an alarmist, saying that I reminded him of his daughter when she was my age. I felt a bit strange because he was speaking to me as if he knew me, as if he knew something about me that not even I knew, but the strange feeling passed when I started thinking about how old he was, that he belonged to a time when women were less independent, and that I should try to see what he was saying from the standpoint of his experience.
As soon as my visitor left, I got out the Calvin Klein plastic bag in which the magazine with the story of Ira’s life travelled to the beach. Fortunately, it had dried without the ink blurring.
Julián
I parked the car in the same place as before, on the patch of ground by the roadside, and then walked along the picturesque narrow street where my demons were now calling. The sun shone directly down on the girl’s little house, making it look bright and happy, and there were white clothes hung out on the clothesline. I could hear music, which meant she was inside. I rang the bell next to the metal gate and waited. Two minutes later I rang again. Finally she came out into the small garden. She was wearing a bikini, which gave a better view of her tattoos, but I averted my gaze from her body. I didn’t want her thinking I was a dirty old man because, moreover, that would have been a completely false impression. I’ve never been tempted by women younger than myself, just as I’ve never been tempted by Ferraris and mansions. My world has its limits and I like it having limits. I sensed that she was disappointed to see it was me. She might have been expecting somebody, Fredrik perhaps? I didn’t believe it, didn’t believe that she could be disappointed about not seeing someone of my age group.
“I’m sorry if I’m bothering you. I was told that this house is for rent.”
“Well, you’ve been misinformed. It’s not for sale or rent.”
Her hair was several colours, ranging from red to black, longer in some parts than in others. She also sported a small stud in her nose. She had greenish-brown eyes and an aquiline nose. The sun, striking her forehead, gave her a slightly ironic expression. If I was her age I would have fallen in love with her right then and there. She reminded me of Raquel as a young woman, her simple, direct way of seeing life and people.
“That’s a pity, because it’s such a lovely house. It’s the one I like most in the whole street. My wife insisted I should come and have a look.”
She looked around me as if searching for an invisible woman.
“She stayed in the hotel as she’s not feeling well. You wouldn’t know of any house similar to this that might be for rent?”
I took off my Panama hat and starting fanning myself, although I wasn’t actually hot. I did it to prolong the moment and to avoid having to go leaving it at that. The ploy worked because she opened the gate.
“Come in and sit down. I’ll bring you a glass of water. It’s still hot.”
“Just out of curiosity, how many bedrooms does it have?”
“Three,” she answered from inside. Then I heard water running and some other sounds.
“It’s really nice here,” she said, handing me the glass. “All day long you’re coming in contact with nature. You can see for yourself, the trees, the flowers, the air, the sun. It’s the best thing for me right now.”
It was clear she had the problems typical of her age, not knowing what to do with her life, fear of solitude, and energy.
“Thank you for letting me sit for a while. I’m taking heart medication and it brings down my blood pressure a lot.”
She told me she understood all too well, because just after arriving here she’d had a dizzy attack on the beach and it had been awful. She took a T-shirt off the clothesline and put it on.
“I’m five months pregnant.”
Five months, I thought to myself. This complicated everything. How was I going to get a pregnant woman involved in this mess? I stood up, ready to leave, as if I’d rested enough.
“Where are you going?” she asked cheerfully. “If you like the house, I’ll show it to you.”
I followed her inside, to the upper floor. Yes, she did have a bulging, rounded belly. Raquel’s now long-ago pregnancy somehow connected me with this girl. I knew something about these things. It wasn’t Greek to me. She wasn’t worried about letting me look into her room with its rumpled bed. She seemed to find it all normal, natural. She was chatting, saying that in this house she felt as if she was in a monastery, that she’d come here to cut herself off from people and reflect about her life. I didn’t ask any questions. It was better for her to tell me what she felt like telling me.
“I didn’t tell you the truth before. This house belongs to my sister and she rents it on a seasonal basis. It might be free next summer. If you want, I could speak to her.”
I said that would be fine and I’d tell my wife.
“My name is Julián,” I told her, holding out my hand. “If you don’t mind, I’ll drop by again some other day.”
“Sandra,” she replied, not smiling but not serious either. In any case, she didn’t have to smile to be agreeable. “Drop in when you want.” Then she added with some concern, “I had some friends and we went to the beach a few times but now they’ve disappeared. They’ve stopped coming to see me without any explanation.”
She must have been referring to Fredrik and Karin, which, combined with the episode at the hotel, meant that my presence had made them very jumpy.
“Don’t worry, they’ll be back.”
“Well, they’re old and maybe one of them is ill.”
“That’s also possible,” I said, as much for her sake as for mine.
As soon as I arrived at the hotel, I decided to phone my daughter to tell her that I’d finally found a little house that was ideal for the two of us, but it wasn’t free at the moment, although in all likelihood it would be next summer. I’d also tell her that my stay here would be longer than originally planned. She’d insist on coming here to make sure I wasn’t going to do anything crazy, but I’d tell her it’d be better to save the money and put it towards renting the future house. Naturally, I’d keep mum about the suite, not because I wanted to have it all to myself, but because, in these circumstances, occupying a suite doesn’t entail any pleasure.
But things rarely turn out the way you plan them. No sooner had I set foot in the lobby than Roberto came over to tell me that, at about eleven, some individual had asked whether I’d left the hotel. Luckily it was Roberto’s shift.
“I told him that this information was confidential,” Roberto stated, “but when he insisted and said he wanted to talk to the manager, I thought it best to tell him that you’d left the hotel. I don’t know whether I put my foot in it. He must’ve been about thirty, olive-skinned, quite beefy and shorter than me.”
“Thank you,” I replied. “I don’t know anyone who looks like that. As I said, I think they’ve got me mixed up with someone else.”
Roberto looked at me, somewhat defensive. He no longer believed everything I was telling him.
“Then I’ll give the order to my colleagues that they’re not to answer any questions about you.”
I smiled and threw out my arms in a gesture of impotence and to signal that I wasn’t hiding anything, that I was the object of some absurd mix-up.
The door to my room was ju
st as I’d left it. When I opened it, the transparent scraps of paper fell to the floor and I picked them up. It wasn’t good news that Fredrik had followers (like the one that had been asking about me, like the ones that had destroyed my room), young neo-Nazis maybe. It would be better if they were hired louts because they’d be less fanatical. I went back to feeling like a David against a Goliath, a feeble David. Then again, what would Roberto be thinking about me?
Sandra
I missed working on the pullover I’d started knitting and missed these adoptive grandparents who’d entered and exited from my life, as if my life was the metro or a bus, but, most of all, something didn’t seem right. It was beyond all logic that they could be more scatterbrained than me. I’ve always regarded myself as the queen of all-over-the-place and foggy ideas. I thought that, when you got to their age, doubts would be history, because the path had already been walked and there was no need to beat your brains out over what you were going to be doing in ten minutes. It could be that I’d unwittingly said or done something to upset them. After all, we were from different cultures and different generations so it wouldn’t be surprising if misunderstandings arose. I still remembered that look they gave each other when I was talking, which I found totally incomprehensible. Or, more simply, Karin had had a relapse of her arthritis. And was it all that important to me if Karin was consumed by pain? Partly it was and, then again, I’d watered the plants, hung out, taken in and folded more clothes, and I knew almost all there was to know about Ira. I needed to go back and see people who were familiar to me, who’d welcome me, give me human warmth, and I didn’t have to go looking for them because they were there within my reach. I only had to get on the Vespino and start it up.
Hence at dusk, before starting the ride up to El Tosalet, I put a change of clothes in a backpack in case I stayed the night. Basically, I was trying my luck going up there at that hour, as my secret intention was not to have to come down again at night. Although it would be beautiful to ride among stars, trees and mountains in the moonlight, it also accentuated the feeling of risk, danger and helplessness. Fear of everything and nothing had got into my body, had taken over me, a senseless cowardice. Or it might have been caution. The cars sticking to my back were getting desperate because it wasn’t easy to overtake with all the curves, but the sheer drop I had on my right impressed me more than it did them. Fuck you, fuck you, I growled at the cars. To top it all, halfway there it started to drizzle with drops that were getting bigger and bigger. It was nerve-racking because I couldn’t stop and couldn’t see well. So I breathed easier when I got to the residential zone of the Norwegians.
I rode through the streets until I got to Villa Sol. The drops had now turned into silver needles that seemed to have their own light brightening the darkness. Night had been closing in. What was I doing here? Neither my parents nor Santi could possibly imagine that, right now, I’d be looking for the house of some foreign pensioners in strange surroundings, in the middle of a downpour. I don’t know why I was doing this. I was doing things that didn’t make sense, because now I didn’t have a job and I didn’t have any discipline. But having a job meant giving a superficial meaning to life, false security. I wasn’t convinced, either, that life’s panacea was having a fixed timetable and being tied to a salary. And what if Fate had put me in Fred’s and Karin’s way so I could be liberated from such a mediocre existence? Villa Sol, the farmhouse at the fjord, the olive-green four-by-four and the black Mercedes had to go to someone when they died. And they could die any moment now. I wasn’t guided by self-interest. I’d risked my life coming up here, because, in my present circumstances, I felt better with them than without them, but this didn’t prevent me from weighing up the chances of their being a good influence on my future. I could already see myself raising my child in this house and driving him or her to school in the four-by-four. I’d sell the Mercedes and rent out the top floor so I could live comfortably. I’d put a small ceramics workshop in the greenhouse and devote myself to craftwork. I might be able to sell some pieces in the Thursday street market. All this would be for me because Fred and Karin loved me like a real granddaughter, or more than a granddaughter, because our relationship was spontaneous, chosen by us and not because of blood ties.
I parked in the deserted street and rang the bell. No one opened and I felt a bit deflated. I rang again and… nothing. What a let-down! I hadn’t thought about this possibility and didn’t dare to go back home in the rain. This was no time to be reckless and yet I was soaked through, except for my head which was covered by the helmet. It was then that it occurred to me to go to Alice’s house, where I sheltered from the rain the first time I came up to El Tosalet. Maybe they’d gone to visit her. It wasn’t likely that they would have ventured farther in this weather. I was right. I saw the Mercedes parked there, not the four-by-four but the black Mercedes, a few metres from Alice’s house. Fred must have thought that this was a chance to get it out. There were more luxury cars bordering the kerb, so Alice must have been throwing a party. Music was coming out of the house, distant music that the rain was bringing and taking away in gusts. I leant the motorbike against the wall and climbed up to stand on the seat. Through the windows overlooking the garden I could see people dancing and thought I could make out Karin walking around in a white evening dress. Maybe she’d been infected with Alice’s eternal youth. I didn’t have time to see any more because I felt a presence at my back.
“If you fall you’re going to hurt yourself.”
It was the Eel, Alberto I think his name was, whom I’d already seen in Karin’s house. He had an umbrella and looked very pissed off. I felt embarrassed. I’d been caught out snooping and the Christensens would find out about it. Alice would find out about it. My inheritance was evaporating before my eyes.
I held out my hand so he’d help me to get down.
“I wanted to know if Fred and Karin were inside. I’ve been by their house… I’m soaking wet… I don’t want to take the motorbike back down in this rain.”
Once on firm ground again, I got under the umbrella and took off my helmet.
“I know you,” he said.
“I know you too,” I replied, as if we were speaking in code.
“Why didn’t you ring at the gate?”
“I did ring,” I lied, “but they can’t have heard me.”
“Where’s the bell, on the right or on the left?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Liar.”
The umbrella was forcing us to be too close, with the mist of our breath in each other’s faces, and he didn’t like me. It was strange because, even though I was up to my eyeballs with this vague fear of everything and nothing, this jerk had something about him that didn’t make me afraid. He wasn’t like the nothingness filled with stars. He wasn’t like the road in the middle of the night. He was none of that. He was as mortal as I was, and he didn’t make me feel afraid of everything.
“If you can, tell them I came to see them. I’m off now,” I said, putting my helmet on again.
“Not so fast,” he said.
“Not so fast? So, are you a cop or something? Don’t fuck with me.”
“Don’t even think about moving,” he ordered, getting out his mobile and leaving me outside the umbrella.
He moved away a little to talk, without taking his eyes off me. He had to wait for an answer, which annoyed him. I imagined Fred and Karin, giddy with the dancing, having to take in the news that I was spying on them over the wall. I was also waiting, arms crossed, helmet in my hand. He was behaving like a nightclub bouncer, like a minder, like a security guard. Today he was wearing a suit and tie with his hair combed back behind his ears. Finally he closed his mobile.
“I’m taking you to Villa Sol and we’ll wait there for them to come.”
The guy called Martín came out from inside the house and gave him some keys. I didn’t have it in me to get into an argument. I just wanted to get dry, watch a bit of telly and get into bed.
Him taking me was a manner of speaking. I was the one who drove the motorbike with him sitting behind, holding up the open umbrella. When we got there, he took some keys out of his pocket and opened up the gate and the front door. I shrugged my backpack off, letting it slide down to the floor.
“Don’t get any ideas about sitting on the sofa while you’re wet,” he warned, guessing my intentions.
I still didn’t feel like talking. I picked up the backpack and went up to what I considered to be my bedroom, the one with the little blue flowers. The satin nightie was still under the pillow, just as I’d left it. The clothes in the backpack were damp, except for a T-shirt, so I put the nightie on. I knew what it might look like but didn’t care. Didn’t give a damn. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.
“I don’t know what your game is. You don’t fool me. And they’ll end up seeing you for what you are. They’re not stupid, you know.”
This was his response to the spectacle I offered as I came downstairs. He watched me, leaning against the wall with his feet crossed. With the black suit and wet hair combed back, I had to admit he wasn’t bad-looking. And suddenly this impression rattled me. The nightdress looked too good on me, even clinging to my belly. It slithered over my breasts and the straps slipped off my shoulders, the kind of item worn by women who aren’t into beating around the bush.
The Scent of Lemon Leaves Page 7
