María Dueñas - The Time in Between

“As well as Sunday, I see I’ll have tomorrow afternoon and evening to rest,” I said without looking up from the document.

“I’m afraid you’re wrong.”

“I don’t think I am. It’s blank on your plan—look.”

“Yes, it is indeed blank, because I asked my secretary to leave it that way because I’ve planned something to fill it up. Would you have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

I took the second folder that he was still holding and didn’t answer. First I paused to examine its contents: several pages with names, information, and numbers that I pretended to study with interest, although in reality I just cast my eyes across them without stopping to look at any of them.

“Very well, I accept,” I said, after leaving him a few long seconds waiting for my reply. “But only if you promise me something first.”

“Very well, anything within my power.”

“Well then, this is my condition: I’ll have dinner with you if you’ll assure me that you’re not going to let any soldiers jump out of their planes with these precious fabrics strapped to their backs.”

He laughed delightedly and once again I noticed what a lovely laugh he had. Masculine, powerful, elegant, all at the same time. I remembered the words of Hillgarth’s wife: Manuel Da Silva really was an attractive man. And then, fleeting as a comet, the shadow of Marcus Logan passed in front of me once more.

“I’ll do what I can, don’t worry about that, but you know how it is with business,” he said, shrugging, a trace of irony at the corner of his lips.

An unexpected ringing prevented him from continuing. The sound came from his desk, from a grey machine with a blinking green light.

“Please excuse me a moment.” He seemed to have gone back to being serious in an instant. He pressed a button and the distorted voice of his young secretary came out of the machine.

“Herr Weiss is waiting for you. He says it’s urgent.”

“Take him through to the meeting room,” he said roughly. His body language had changed utterly: the cold businessman had swallowed up the charmer. Or perhaps he was simply reverting back to character. I didn’t yet know him well enough to know which was the real Manuel Da Silva.

He turned to me and tried to resume his affable manner, but he didn’t entirely succeed.

“Excuse me, sometimes my work just piles up.”

“Please forgive me for having taken up so much of your time—”

He didn’t let me finish. Though he tried to hide it, he exuded a certain sense of impatience. He held out his hand.

“I’ll come and get you tomorrow at eight, if that suits you?”

“Perfectly.”

Our good-bye was quick; it wasn’t the time for flirtation. The witty comments and frivolities had been left behind—we’d resume them another time. He escorted me to the door, and as I went out into the waiting room I looked for this Herr Weiss but found only the two secretaries. One of them was typing conscientiously and the other was putting a pile of letters into their envelopes. They said good-bye with varying degrees of friendliness: they had other, much more pressing things on their minds.

I’d brought a sketchbook with me from Madrid, aiming to make a note in it of anything I thought might be interesting, and that night I began to lay out on paper what I’d seen and heard up till that moment. I arranged the information in the most ordered way I could and then compressed it as much as possible. “Da Silva joking about business relationship with Germans, impossible to know degree of truth. Expects demand for silk for military purposes. Personality changes with situation. Confirmed link to German Herr Weiss. German appears unannounced and demands immediate meeting. Da Silva tense, no doubt that Herr Weiss will be seen.”

Then I drew a few sketches of dresses that would never materialize and pretended to edge them with penciled stitches. I tried to make the difference between the short and long dashes minimal, so that only I’d be able to distinguish them. I had no problem doing that; I was more than practiced at it. I distributed the information among the sketches, and when I’d finished I burned the pieces of handwritten paper in the bathroom, threw them in the toilet, and pulled the chain. I left the sketchbook in the closet: not particularly hidden, not ostentatiously visible. If anyone decided to rummage through my things, they’d never suspect that I’d meant to hide it.

Time flew by now that I had things to distract me. I traveled the coast road between Estoril and Lisbon several more times with João at the wheel. I chose dozens of spools of the best thread and exquisite buttons in countless shapes and sizes; I felt as though I was being treated like the most exclusive of clients. Thanks to Da Silva’s recommendations, the suppliers were all attentive, offering easy terms of payment, discounts, and little gifts. And I barely noticed that we’d reached the moment when I was to have dinner with him.

The meeting was like our previous meetings—prolonged glances, bewitching smiles, and shameless flirtation. Although I had mastered the basic rules of performance and was by now a consummate actress, I had no doubt that Manuel Da Silva himself was making things easier for me with his attitude. Again he made me feel like I was the only woman in the world capable of attracting his attention, and again I acted as though being the object of the affections of a rich, attractive man was something that happened to me every day. But it wasn’t, which was why I had to redouble my caution—under no circumstances could I allow my emotions to run away with me: it was all work, just duty. It would have been very easy to relax, to enjoy the man and the moment, but I knew that I needed to keep my mind cool and my feelings far away.

“I’ve booked a table for dinner at the Wonderbar, the casino club: they have a marvelous band and the casino is right next door.”

We walked under the canopy of palm trees; it wasn’t yet completely dark, and the lights from the street lamps gleamed like dots of silver on the violet sky. Da Silva went back to being the man he was at his better moments: pleasant and charming, with no sign of the tension that had appeared when the German was in his office.

There, too, everyone seemed to know him, from the waiters and car valets to the most distinguished patrons. He distributed greetings as he’d done on the first night: friendly slaps on the back, handshakes, and half hugs for the men, pretend hand kissing, smiles, and immoderate compliments for the women. He introduced me to some of them, and I made a mental note of the names to transfer them to the outlines of my sketches.

The atmosphere in the Wonderbar was like that in the Hotel do Parque: ninety percent cosmopolitan. The only difference, I noted with a trace of concern, was that here the Germans weren’t in the majority: English was spoken everywhere, too. I tried to separate myself from these concerns and concentrate on the part I had to play. My head clear, my eyes and ears wide open: that was the only thing I had to concern myself with. And with deploying all my charm, naturally.

The maître d’ led us to a small reserved table in the best corner of the room: a strategically chosen place for seeing and being seen. The band was playing “In the Mood” and there were already countless couples filling the dance floor. Others were having dinner, and I could hear conversations, greetings, laughter; I could inhale the relaxation and the glamour. Manuel waved away the menu and without hesitation ordered for us both. And then—as though he’d been waiting for that moment all day—he settled himself in his chair, ready to turn all his attention on me.