María Dueñas - The Time in Between

“This was my mother’s. There’s more, but María Luisa, my wife, has taken them away with her on her pious exile. She has, however, left the most valuable ones, probably because they’re the least discreet. They’re for you, Sira. It would be safest if you never wear them: as you can see, they’re a little showy. But you can sell them or pawn them if you’re ever in need and you’ll get a considerable sum for them.”

I didn’t know how to reply; my mother did.

“Absolutely not, Gonzalo. All that belongs to your wife.”

“Not at all,” he interrupted her. “All this, my dear Dolores, is not my wife’s property: all this is mine and my wish is that it should pass from me to my daughter.”

“That cannot be, Gonzalo, it cannot be.”

“It certainly can be.”

“It can’t.”

“It can.”

The discussion ended there. Silence on my mother’s part, the battle lost. He closed the boxes one by one. Then he piled them in an orderly pyramid, the largest at the bottom, the smallest at the top. He moved the heap over toward me, sliding it along the waxed surface of the table, and when I had them in front of me, he turned his attention to a few sheets of paper. He unfolded them and showed them to me.

“These are some certificates for the jewels, with descriptions and appraisals and all that sort of thing. And there is also a notarized document affirming that they belong to me and that I am passing them on to you of my own free will. It’ll be useful to you should you ever need to prove that they’re yours; I hope you’ll never have to prove anything to anyone, but just in case.”

He folded up the pieces of paper, put them in a file, deftly tied a red ribbon around it, and placed that in front of me, too. Then he took up an envelope and drew from it a couple of leaves of yellowed paper, with stamps, signatures, and other formalities.

“And now one further thing, almost the last thing. How can I explain this to you?” A pause, an intake of breath, then a slow exhalation before he continued. “This document has been drawn up by me and my lawyer, and it has been notarized. What it says, in brief, is that I am your father and you are my daughter. What use will it be to you? Perhaps none, because if one day you try to make a claim to my inheritance, you’ll find that I’ve bequeathed it while I’m alive to your half brothers, meaning that you will never be able to obtain any more from this family than you will take with you when you leave this house today. But to me it is valuable: it’s a public recognition of something I should have done many years ago. I state here what it is that connects you and me, and now you can do whatever you please with it: show it to half the world or tear it in a thousand pieces and throw it in the fire; that is up to you alone.”

He folded the document, put it away, and handed me the envelope, then took up another from the table, the final one. The previous one had been large, of good-quality paper, with elegant handwriting and a notary’s letterhead. This second one was small, brownish, common looking, with an appearance of having been passed through a thousand hands before reaching ours.

“This is the last one,” he said, not raising his head.

He opened it, removed its contents, and examined it briefly. Then, without a word, passing over me this time, he gave it to my mother. Then he got up and went over to one of the balcony windows. He remained there in silence, his back to us, his hands in his trouser pockets, contemplating the evening—or nothing, I don’t know. What my mother had received was a small pile of photographs. Old, brown, and of poor quality, taken by a street photographer for next to nothing some spring morning more than two decades ago. A young couple, attractive, smiling. Complicit and close, caught in the fragile net of a love as great as it was inconvenient, unaware that after their years apart, when they were once again confronted with each other and with that testimony of yesterday, he would turn toward a balcony so as not to look at her face and she would clench her jaw so as not to cry in front of him.

My mother ran through the photographs one by one. Then she handed them over to me, without looking up. I considered them slowly and returned them to their envelope. He came back over to us, sat down, and took up the conversation again.

“With that we’re done with all the material issues. Now comes the advice. It’s not, daughter, that at this point I’m trying to leave you with some moral legacy; I’m not someone who inspires confidence or who preaches by example, but if you’d allow me a few more minutes after so many years, I’m sure that’s not too much to ask, right?”

I nodded.

“Well, my advice is as follows: leave here as soon as possible. Both of you, go far away, the farther from Madrid you can go the better. Out of Spain, if possible. Not into Europe, as the situation there doesn’t look too good either. Go off to America; if that’s too far, to Africa. To Morocco; go to the Protectorate, that’s a good place to live. A quiet place where nothing at all has happened since the end of the war with the Moors. Start a new life far from this crazy country, because when you least expect it something enormous is going to explode and no one here will be left alive.”

I couldn’t contain myself.

“And what about you, sir, why aren’t you going?”

He smiled bitterly. Then he held his big hand out to mine and gripped it hard. It was hot. He spoke without letting go.

“Because I no longer need a future, my daughter. I’ve already burned all my bridges. And please, don’t call me sir. I’ve completed my cycle, a bit prematurely no doubt, but I no longer have the desire nor the strength to fight for a new life. When you undertake a change like that you have to do it with dreams and hopes, with illusions. To go without them is merely to run away, and I have no intention of escaping anywhere; I’d rather stay here and confront whatever is coming. But you, Sira, you’re young, you must start a family, raise them well. And Spain is becoming a bad place. So that is what I recommend, as a father and a friend: leave. Take your mother with you, so she can watch her grandchildren growing up. And look after her as I wasn’t able to do, promise me that.”

He kept his gaze locked on mine until I nodded. I don’t know in what way he expected me to look after my mother, but I didn’t dare do anything but agree.

“Well, with that I think we’re finished,” he announced.

Then he got up, and we did the same.

“Take your things,” he said. I obeyed. Everything fit in my handbag apart from the largest of the cases and the envelopes of money.

“And now let me embrace you for the first and undoubtedly the last time. I doubt very much that we’ll see each other again.”

He wrapped my thin body in his big build and squeezed me hard; then he took my face in his large hands and kissed my forehead.

“You’re just as lovely as your mother. I wish you good luck in your life, my daughter. May God bless you.”

I wanted to say something in reply, but I couldn’t. The sounds remained trapped in my throat, the tears welled up in my eyes, and all I could do was turn around and go out into the hallway in search of the front door, stumbling, my sight cloudy and a stab of black sorrow wrenching my guts.

I waited for my mother on the staircase landing. The door had been left half open, and I watched as she came out observed by the sinister figure of Servanda lurking in the corridor. Her cheeks were ablaze and her eyes glassy, emotion finally perspiring on her face. I wasn’t there to witness what my parents did and said to each other in those five short minutes, but I’ve always believed that they, too, embraced and said good-bye to each other forever.