María Dueñas - The Time in Between

I hope the sea has dispelled your discomfort. João will come to fetch you tomorrow morning at ten to bring you to my office. I hope you have a good rest.

News really did get around. I was tempted to have a little wander about in search of the driver or Da Silva himself, but I stopped myself. Although one of them was probably somewhere nearby, I feigned a cool lack of interest and pretended to be concentrating on one of the American magazines I’d used to while away part of the afternoon. Half an hour later, when the lobby was half empty and most of the guests had already headed off for the bar, the terrace, and the dining room, I returned to my room, ready to get Marcus out of my head altogether and concentrate on the complicated day that lay ahead of me once this night was done.

João threw his cigarette on the ground, greeting me with a bom dia, and stamped out the butt with his shoe as he held open the door to the Bentley. Again he looked me up and down, but this time he wouldn’t have the opportunity to inform his boss of anything about me, as I’d be seeing him myself in just half an hour.

Da Silva’s offices were on the centrally located Rua do Ouro, the street of gold that connected Rossio with the Praça do Comércio in Baixa. The building was elegant in an unshowy way, with everything around it exuding a powerful aura of money, negotiations, and successful business: there were banks, pawnshops, offices, men in suits, employees scurrying, and hotel bellhops dashing about.

As I got out of the Bentley I was received by the same thin man who had interrupted our conversation the night Da Silva came to meet me. Alert and discreet, this time he shook my hand and introduced himself as Joaquim Gamboa, then he led me deferentially to the elevator. At first I thought that the company’s offices were on one of the floors of the building, but it didn’t take me long to realize that in fact the whole building was the company’s headquarters. Gamboa led me directly to the second story.

“Don Manuel will be with you right away,” he announced before disappearing.

The waiting room where I settled had walls paneled with gleaming wood that looked as though it had recently been waxed. Six leather chairs marked out the waiting area; a bit farther in, closer to the double door that led to Da Silva’s office, there were two desks: one of them occupied, the other empty. At the first there was a secretary working, fiftyish, who—judging by the formal greeting with which she received me and the exquisite care she took to make a note of something in a thick notebook—must have been an efficient, discreet worker, any boss’s dream. Her companion, who was quite a bit younger, appeared within just a couple of minutes, opening one of the doors from Da Silva’s office and emerging with a dull-looking man. A client, probably a business contact.

“Senhor Da Silva is ready for you, senhorita,” she said with a bland expression. I pretended not to pay much attention to her, but a single look was enough to size her up. My age, give or take a year. With glasses for her nearsightedness, light hair and skin, painstaking in her attire, though with clothes of rather modest quality. I couldn’t observe her any further because at that moment Manuel Da Silva came out to meet me in the waiting room.

“A pleasure to have you here, Arish,” he said in his excellent Spanish.

In exchange I held out my hand slowly to give him time to look at me and decide if I was still worthy of his attention. To judge by his reaction, I gathered that I was. I’d put in a great effort to make a good impression, choosing for this business meeting a silver-colored suit with a pencil skirt and fitted jacket, and placing on the lapel a white flower to minimize the sobriety of the suit’s color. The result was recompensed with a veiled look of appreciation and a gentlemanly smile.

“Please, come in. They’ve already been by this morning to bring all the things I want to show you.”

In one corner of the spacious office, under a large map of the world, stood various rolls of fabric. Silks. Natural silks, smooth and radiant, and magnificent dyed silks in lustrous colors. Just by touching them I could anticipate the beautiful drape of the gowns I could sew from them.

“Are they of the quality you’d been expecting?”

I heard Manuel Da Silva’s voice behind me. For a few seconds, perhaps a few minutes, I’d forgotten all about him and his world. The pleasure of examining the exquisite fabrics, of feeling their softness and imagining how the end products might look, had distanced me from reality for a moment. Fortunately I didn’t have to make any effort to compliment the merchandise that he had brought me.

“Better. They’re marvelous.”

“In that case I’d advise you to take as many yards as you can, because I don’t think we’ll be having these on hand for very long.”

“There’s that much demand?”

“We expect so. Although not for them to be used for fashion exactly.”

“What for, if not fashion?” I asked, surprised.

“For other requirements that are more pressing nowadays: for the war.”

“For the war?” I repeated, feigning disbelief. I knew that material was being used in other countries; Hillgarth had told me about it in Tangiers.

“They use the silk to make parachutes, to protect gunpowder, and even for bicycle tires.”

I gave a pretend little laugh.

“What a ridiculous waste! With the silk they need for one parachute we could make at least ten evening gowns.”

“Yes, but times are hard. And the countries that are at war will pay anything they need to for it.”

“And what about you, Manuel, who will you be selling these treasures to, the Germans or the English?” I asked in a teasing tone, as though I hadn’t been taking what he said altogether seriously. I even surprised myself with my boldness, but he played along with my joke.

“We Portuguese have long-standing commercial links to the English, though in these turbulent days you never know…” He finished off his worrying response with a laugh, but before I had the time to work out what it meant he changed the subject to more practical, immediate questions. “Here you’ll find a folder with detailed information about the materials: reference numbers, qualities, prices—in short, all the usual,” he said as he made his way over to his desk. “Take it with you to the hotel, take your time, and when you’ve decided what you’d be interested in having, fill out an order form and I’ll arrange for it all to be sent direct to Madrid; you’ll have it in less than a week. You can make the payment from there when you receive the merchandise, you needn’t worry about that. And don’t forget to include a twenty percent discount on each price, on the house.”

“But—”

“And here,” he said, not letting me finish, “you’ll find another folder with the details of local suppliers of materials and merchandise that might be of interest to you: thread, braiding, buttons, tanned leather… I’ve taken the liberty of setting up some appointments with them, and this is the schedule, in this section here. Look: this afternoon the Soares brothers will be expecting you, they have the finest thread in the whole of Portugal; tomorrow, Friday, in the morning, Casa Barbosa will see you, that’s where they make buttons from African ivory. Saturday morning you have a visit set up with the Almeida furriers, and then there’s nothing else arranged till Monday. But you should be prepared, because the week will start packed with engagements again.”

I studied the piece of paper filled with little boxes and hid my admiration at how well it had been arranged.