María Dueñas - The Time in Between

“I sew. I’m a dressmaker.”

He didn’t answer, he just looked at me with his piercing eyes and waited for me to continue my explanations. I gave them to him sitting up straight on the edge of the sofa, without displaying even a trace of the poses from the sophisticated repertoire I’d rehearsed a thousand times for my new persona. No spectacular leg crossing or casual smoothing of my hair. Not even the slightest batting of my eyelashes. Composure and ease, those were the only things I was trying to convey.

“I used to sew before in Madrid; I’ve spent half my life doing it. I worked in the atelier of a very well regarded dressmaker, where my mother worked as well. I learned a lot there: it was an excellent atelier, and we used to sew for important women.”

“I understand. A very respectable occupation. And whom do you work for now, if I might ask?”

I swallowed again.

“Not for anyone. For myself.”

He raised his eyebrows in an expression of feigned surprise.

“And may I ask, how was it that you managed to set up this business all on your own?”

Commissioner Vázquez might be inquisitive as the devil and hard as steel, but above all he was a gentleman and as such formulated his questions with immense courtesy. Courtesy seasoned with a touch of skepticism that he didn’t try to hide. He seemed much more relaxed than on his visits to the hospital. He wasn’t so strained, so tense. It was a shame that I wasn’t able to offer him answers that matched the standard of his elegance.

“I had the money lent to me,” I said simply.

“My word, how lucky you’ve been,” he said ironically. “And would you be so kind as to tell me who the person was who’s done you this extremely generous favor?”

I didn’t think I could do it, but the reply came out of my mouth instantly. Instantly, and confidently.

“Candelaria.”

“Candelaria the Matutera?” he asked with a half smile loaded with sarcasm and disbelief in equal measure.

“Yes, that’s right, señor. ”

“Well now, how interesting. I didn’t know there was so much to be made from black market dealings these days.”

He looked at me again with those eyes like drills, and I knew then that my luck was balanced at exactly the midpoint between survival and being cast into the abyss. Like a coin that’s been thrown into the air, with equal odds of landing heads or tails, or a clumsy tightrope walker on the wire, as likely to end up on the floor as to remain suspended. Or a tennis ball served by the model in the picture my neighbor sketched, an unlucky shot propelled by a graceful player dressed in Schiaparelli: a ball that doesn’t cross the court but rather stops for the eternity of a few seconds on the edge of the net before tumbling one way or the other, unsure whether to grant the point to the glamorous tennis player sketched in pastels or her anonymous opponent. Salvation on one side, total collapse on the other, and me in the middle. That’s how I saw myself in front of Commissioner Vázquez on that autumn morning. I closed my eyes, breathed in through my nose. Then I opened my eyes again and spoke.

“Listen, Don Claudio: you advised me to get some work, and that’s what I’m doing. This is a decent business, not a fleeting pastime nor a cover for something unsavory. You have a lot of information about me: you know why I’m here, the reasons for my fall, and the circumstances that prevent me from leaving. But you don’t know where I’ve come from and where I want to go, and now, if you’ll allow me, I’m going to tell you. I come from a humble home: my mother was single, raised me on her own. As for my father, the father who gave me the money and jewels that were largely responsible for my misfortune, I didn’t learn about him until several months ago. I knew nothing of him until one day he suddenly got the idea into his head that he was going to be murdered for political reasons, and when he stopped to measure up his past, he decided to recognize me as his daughter and bequeath me a part of his inheritance. Until then, however, I hadn’t even known his name, nor had I enjoyed a single wretched cent of his fortune. So I started working at a young age. At first my duties were nothing more than making deliveries and sweeping the floor for a pittance, as I was still a child. I was the same age as those girls in their Milagrosa school uniforms who just passed by on the street; maybe one of them was your own daughter on her way to school, that world of nuns, penmanship, and Latin declensions, which I never had the chance to master because in our house I had to learn a trade and earn a living. But I was happy to do it, believe it or not: I loved sewing, and I had a knack for it, so I learned, I tried hard, I persevered and in time became a good seamstress. And if there came a day when I gave it up, it wasn’t on a whim, but because things had become difficult in Madrid with the political situation. A lot of our clients went abroad, the workshop shut down, and I was never able to find more employment.

“I’ve never looked for trouble, Commissioner; everything that’s happened to me this past year, all the crimes I’m supposedly implicated in haven’t come about of my own will, as you know very well, but because one unfortunate day some swine crossed my path. And you cannot even imagine what I’d give to erase that hour when that bastard entered my life, but there’s no going back, and his problems are now my problems, and I know I’ve got to get myself out of them one way or another: that’s my responsibility, and as such I am taking it on. You should know, though, that the only way I can do that is by sewing—I’m not good for anything else. If you shut this door to me, if you cut off these wings, you’ll be suffocating me, because I won’t be able to devote myself to anything else. I’ve tried, but I haven’t found anyone willing to hire me because I have no other skills. So I’m asking you a favor, just one: let me continue with this workshop and don’t investigate any further. Trust in me, don’t bring me down. The rent on this apartment and all the furniture has been paid for, down to the last peseta; I haven’t cheated anyone for them, and I don’t owe anything to anyone. All this business needs is someone to do its work, and that’s what I’m for, ready to give it my all, night and day. Just allow me to work in peace, I won’t create any trouble for you, I swear to you by my mother, who is all I’ve got. And when I finally earn the money I owe in Tangiers, when I’ve settled my debt and the war is over, I’ll go back to her and not trouble you any longer. But until then, I’m asking you, Commissioner, don’t demand any more explanations of me, and let me keep going. This is all I ask of you: take your foot off my neck and don’t suffocate me before I’ve started, because by doing that you will gain nothing and I, meanwhile, will lose everything.”

He didn’t reply, nor did I say another word; we just sat looking at each other. Contrary to all my expectations, I’d managed to get to the end of my speech with my voice still firm and my temper serene, without falling apart. At last I had got it all out, stripped myself of all the resentment I’d been feeling for so long. Suddenly I felt immensely tired. I was tired of having been stabbed in the back by an unscrupulous bastard, of the months I’d been living in fear, feeling constantly under threat. Tired of carrying around such heavy guilt, burdened down like those unfortunate Moorish women I used to see walking along together slowly, bent over, wrapped in their haiks and dragging their feet, carrying packages and bundles of firewood on their backs, or bunches of dates, little kids, buckets of clay, and sacks of lime. I was fed up with feeling afraid, humiliated; fed up with living such a sad life in that strange land. Tired, drained, exhausted, and yet ready to fight my way out of my ruin tooth and nail.