Antonio Hill - The Good Suicides

The pile of drawings was next, some simple outlines and some more elaborate. One caught her eye because the girl who appeared in it was so like the girl with Ruth in the photo. Once again, Leire admired Ruth Valldaura’s talent: some simple lines created a serious face, completely recognizable as such. In the drawing the little girl was somewhat older and dressed in a type of cloak. She was standing beside a cliff, looking down. Ruth had drawn her as if she were in front of her, as if she were suspended in the air or at the bottom of the precipice, observing her from below. Something in this drawing was disturbing, the tragic air enveloping the figure. There was something written underneath-Ruth’s handwriting no doubt, but it took Leire some time to work out what it said.

Love creates eternal debts.

The phrase remained in her head as she attacked the final pile of paper: addresses and phone numbers, press clippings and suchlike. She didn’t expect to find anything, so when she saw the street name written on a scrap of paper she paid no attention to it. A few seconds later, however, her heart beat faster on recognizing on one of the scraps the address and phone number of Dr. Omar’s clinic.

The next morning, after a balanced, healthy breakfast, nothing like the doughnuts she used to eat a few months before, Leire emerged onto the street. It was cool, just as the meteorologists, who had spent a few days forecasting the arrival of real winter, had warned. Although she had left in plenty of time, once on the street she decided to treat herself to a taxi to her destination. It wasn’t a visit she wanted to make at all, but she thought it necessary and, in contrast to what she’d expected, there had been no objection. Montserrat Martorell, Ruth’s mother, was expecting her at twelve. She had only requested, in a tone that had little in the way of entreaty and much of warning, that Leire be punctual: her husband was in the habit of going out at that time every day and apparently “it was better that he not be present, as he gets too upset.” No wonder.

The taxi driver left her in Plaça Sarrià, very close to the pedestrianized street where Ruth Valldaura had grown up, an area that couldn’t be more different from where she had ended up living. Despite the plaza itself looking quite ugly, the area was certainly pleasant, especially this street, which retained a village air, as if it were the main street of another, smaller, more select city, nothing to do with the rest of Barcelona.

Montserrat Martorell, Señora Valldaura, was as imposing as her name suggested, thought Leire, when the woman in question received her in the sitting room, which was the size of Leire’s entire apartment.

“It’s too cold to sit on the patio,” she said, as if it were an indisputable truth.

The woman before her, mature but in no way old, looked her up and down. In ten seconds-Leire was sure-this woman had formed an opinion of her. Only her eyes had revealed slight disapproval when resting on her bulging belly, as if she thought it improper that a woman in her condition should go to strangers’ houses. However, the expression lasted barely a second; then she smiled and adopted the role of hostess to perfection. She offered her coffee, tea or a cold drink, which Leire declined with extraordinary friendliness.

“Well then, go ahead.”

The phrase was more or less identical to the one that initiated the conversation with Carol, but on this occasion Leire answered with an elaborate explanation, the same she would have given to the headmistress in the school she’d attended if she’d had to explain not having her homework done. Señora Martorell listened to her attentively, neither interrupting nor making her task any easier. It was impossible to know what was going on behind those piercing gray eyes, too cold to be beautiful. Leire finished her soliloquy and awaited the verdict, but instead she received a question.

“And my son-in-law knows nothing about this?”

The fact that she still referred to Inspector Salgado as her “son-in-law,” though not with excessive affection, didn’t go unnoticed.

“It may seem strange, but no, he doesn’t know. We thought it best.” She used the plural that always disguises controversial decisions.

“I beg your pardon,” Señora Martorell said after a silence that betrayed her doubts, “I must admit that the way things are done nowadays astonishes me. My daughter’s husband is a police officer and yet you are in charge of investigating her disappearance.”

Leire was sure that there were other things in this world that astonished her more, so she merely pointed out: “Her ex-husband.”

Clearly not many people corrected Señora Martorell.

“Technically they hadn’t started divorce proceedings. Didn’t you know?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s how it is.”

“You do know that your daughter was in a relationship with-”

“Of course,” she replied, not allowing her to finish the sentence. “Ruth informed me of that.”

“Did you think it wrong?”

She hadn’t meant to be so direct, but there was something in that woman that made beating around the bush impossible. Though Montserrat Martorell might be a woman of the old school, Leire guessed she preferred frankness to being handled with kid gloves.

“What does it matter what I thought? Listen, you don’t know this yet: there comes a time when children go their own way. For better or worse, but they do it. And your role, like mine, will be to keep quiet and accept it. Sometimes it’s difficult, and you have to bite your tongue on more than one occasion. Like everything, you learn in the end.” She stopped a moment to take a breath. “Anyway, in answer to your question, I say no, I didn’t think it wrong. Are you surprised?”

Leire’s face must have looked puzzled, because Señora Martorell smiled.

“You young people, you think you invented everything. There have always been women and men who love those of their own sex. It’s not a new thing for this century, believe me. What is new is that they do it openly; however, the deed is the same, isn’t it?”

“Yes. But you must have been surprised. Just like that, all of a sudden … It would surprise my mother, for example,” she admitted sincerely. “I don’t mean she’d disapprove, but she’d certainly be surprised.”

“When your child is born you’ll see how few of the things they do surprise you.” Her tone was so haughty that Leire became irritated in spite of herself. “In any case, you haven’t come to find out what I thought about my daughter sleeping with another woman, correct?”

Leire blushed, and hated herself for not being able to help it.

“No. I came because I feel I need to know Ruth better to find out what happened to her. And the relationship with family usually reveals a lot about people.”

“I suppose that’s true,” admitted Montserrat Martorell. “I should tell you that my relationship with my daughter was good. She didn’t devote her life to us because I educated her that way: to be independent, to succeed, to find her own path. And I did it well.”

“And your husband?”

The woman made a vague gesture with her hand, as if that were a trifling detail.

“Husbands aren’t much use when it comes to raising little girls. At least at first. They only know how to spoil them.”

Leire looked at the woman in front of her. Her seeming impassivity astonished her and she had the impression that it might be hiding a terrible evil temper.

“What do you think happened to her?”

“I think what happened is that you didn’t do your job properly. Because, if you’d done a thorough investigation, we wouldn’t be talking about this now. I think that my son-in-law, or my ex-son-in-law if you prefer, has been inept both in keeping his wife and in investigating her disappearance. And I think you should be ashamed of showing up at my home, half a year later, to ask me a heap of questions from which it can only be assumed you haven’t the least idea of what happened to Ruth. Would you like to know what else I think? I think my daughter should never have lived alone in that barrio , I think this city is full of criminals doing as they please. No, it didn’t matter to me that Ruth was sleeping with another woman. Or left her husband-he deserved it. What matters to me, what drives me crazy is that … is that to this day I don’t know if I have a dead daughter or not. I don’t know if I should weep or retain some hope. I don’t know if-” She stopped herself, upset, and gave the impression of forcing herself to calm down. “If you have nothing more to say, I’d like you to leave. My husband should be about to return.”