María Dueñas - The Time in Between

“Perhaps, if you could give me her address, I might send her some flowers. She’s been very kind to me arranging all my visits to suppliers.”

Despite her natural discretion, the secretary couldn’t help a condescending smile.

“Don’t worry about that, miss. I don’t think that’s necessary—really. We’re not accustomed to receiving flowers when we’re off work for a day. It’s probably just a cold or some other insignificant ailment. If there’s anything I might do to help you myself?”

“I’ve lost a pair of gloves,” I improvised. “I thought that maybe I’d forgotten them here yesterday.”

“I haven’t seen them anywhere here this morning, but they might have been picked up by the women who come in early to clean. Leave it to me, I’ll ask them.”

The absence of Beatriz Oliveira had left my spirit just like the Lisbon noon I found when I stepped back out onto the Rua do Ouro: cloudy, blustery, stormy. And it had taken my appetite away, too, so I just had a cup of tea and a cake at the nearby Café Nicola and went on with my business. For that afternoon the efficient secretary had scheduled a meeting with importers of exotic goods from Brazil: she thought, cleverly, that the feathers of some rare birds might perhaps be of some use to me in my creations. And she was right. If only she’d go to as much trouble to help me with other things I needed.

The weather didn’t improve as the hours went by, nor did my mood. On the way back to Estoril I added up the successes I’d achieved since my arrival, and the total was disastrous. The initial comments I’d had from João had proved to be hardly useful—just the same few brushstrokes repeated again and again with the tiresome verbosity of an old codger who has spent too long on the fringes of his boss’s real day-to-day concerns. On the subject of private meetings with Germans that Hillgarth’s wife had mentioned, I’d not yet heard a word. And the one person I thought of as a potential informer had slipped like water through my fingers, claiming some made-up illness. If I added to that the painful encounter with Marcus, the trip was an utter failure on all fronts. Except for my clients, naturally, who on my return would find a veritable arsenal of wonders impossible to imagine in the squalor of ration-book Spain. With this grim attitude, I had a light dinner in the hotel restaurant and decided to retire early.

As usual, the chambermaid had prepared the room with great care and left everything ready for a good night’s sleep. The curtains drawn, the dim light on the bedside table switched on, the bed turned down with the corner folded with military precision. Perhaps those newly ironed Swiss batiste sheets would help me to escape from consciousness and forget my feelings of frustration, at least for a few hours.

I was about to lie down when I noticed a draft of cold air. I approached the balcony barefoot, drew apart the curtains, and saw that the balcony doors were open. A moment of forgetfulness on the part of the staff, I thought as I closed them. I sat down on the bed and turned out the light: I didn’t feel like reading a single line. And then, as I stretched my legs out under the sheets, my left foot became entangled in something. I stifled a scream, tried to turn on the bedside light, but accidentally knocked it to the floor; I retrieved it with clumsy hands, tried again to switch it on with the lampshade askew. I finally managed to get it on and yanked off the bedclothes. What the hell was this tangle of black cloth that I’d touched with my foot? I didn’t dare to touch it till I’d examined it carefully by sight. It looked like a veil: a black veil, a veil for Mass. I held it with two fingers and lifted it up: the fabric bundle came undone, and something that looked like a picture fell out from inside. I picked it up gingerly by a corner, as though I were afraid it would come apart if I handled it too firmly. Bringing it up to the light, I could make out the façade of a church. And the image of the Virgin. And two printed lines in Portuguese. “The Church of São Domingos. Novena in worship of Our Lady of Fátima.” On the reverse was a penciled note in handwriting I didn’t recognize. “Wednesday, 6 p.m. Left side, tenth row from the back.” There was no signature; there was no need for one.

The whole of the following day I kept away from Da Silva’s offices, in spite of the fact that the meetings I had scheduled for that day were in the center of town.

“Come fetch me this evening, João. At seven thirty outside Rossio station. Before that I want to attend a Mass, it’s the anniversary of my father’s death.”

The driver accepted my orders, lowering his gaze with an expression of condolence, and I felt a stab of remorse at having eliminated Gonzalo Alvarado so blithely. But I had no time for such regrets, I thought, covering my head with the black veil: it was a quarter to six and the novena would be starting shortly. The church of São Domingos was next to Praça do Rossio, facing the square. When I arrived at the broad façade of white lime wash and stone, I ran into a memory of my mother that was fluttering around the doorway. The last time I’d been to a religious service had been with her in Tetouan, accompanying her to the little church on the square. São Domingos, in contrast, was magnificent, with its huge grey stone columns rising up to a sepia-colored ceiling. And there were people, lots of people, a few men and hordes of women, all of them faithful parishioners who had come to fulfill the mandate of the Virgin by praying a holy rosary.

I went down the left-side aisle, walking slowly, with my hands clasped together and my head bowed, simulating devotion while I counted the rows out of the corner of my eye. When I reached the tenth, I could see through my veil a figure dressed in mourning sitting at the end. With a black skirt and shawl and coarse woolen stockings: the attire of so many humble women in Lisbon. She wasn’t wearing a veil but a scarf tied under her chin, which hung so low it was impossible to see her face. Beside her there was an empty place, but for a few moments I didn’t know what I was expected to do. Until I saw a pale, careful hand emerge from the skirts. A hand that settled on the empty space next to its owner. Sit here, she seemed to be telling me. I obeyed her at once.

We sat in silence as the members of the congregation continued to fill the empty places. The altar boys shuffled around the altar, and in the background we could hear the purr of a sea of quiet murmurings. Although I looked at the woman several times out of the corner of my eye, her headscarf prevented me from seeing her features. In any case, I had no need: I had no doubt whatsoever who she was. I decided to break the ice with a whisper.

“Thank you for asking me here, Beatriz. Please, there’s no need to be afraid: no one in Lisbon will ever know about this conversation.”

It was a few seconds before she replied. When she did it was with her eyes still fixed on her lap and her voice barely audible.

“You work for the English, don’t you?”

I lowered my head slightly in assent.

“I’m not really sure that this will be of any use to you, it’s not a lot. I only know that Da Silva is in negotiations with the Germans over something related to the mines in Beira, a region in the interior of the country. He’s never had any dealings in that area before. It’s all recent, just over the last few months. Now he goes almost every week.”

“What’s it about?”

“Something they call ‘the spit of the wolf.’ The Germans are insisting on exclusivity, for him to cut off his dealings with the British altogether. And on top of that he is to get the owners of the adjacent mines to join him and stop selling to the English, too.”