The Time in Between: A Novel (7 page)

“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.

We went down the steps just as we had come up: my mother ahead, me behind. In silence. With the jewels, the documents, and the photographs in my handbag, the hundred and fifty thousand pesetas wedged under my arm, and the noise of my heels hammering on the staircase marble. Arriving at the mezzanine, I couldn’t contain myself: I grabbed her by the arm and forced her to stop and turn around. My face was right in front of hers, my voice was just a terrified whisper.

“Are they really going to kill him, Mother?”

“How should I know, daughter, how should I know . . .”

___________

W
e went out into the street and began our return journey without exchanging another word. She picked up the pace and I struggled to keep up with her, fighting the discomfort of my new high heels. After a few minutes, still stunned, I found the courage to speak.

“So what do I do with all this now, Mother?”

She didn’t stop to answer me. “Keep it somewhere safe,” was her only response.

“All of it? And you won’t keep anything?”

“No, it’s all yours; you are the heir, and besides, you’re already a grown woman and I can’t interfere with what you do with the things that your father has decided to give you.”

“Are you sure, Mother?”

“I’m sure, daughter, I’m sure. Maybe just give me a photograph, any of them, I want only one memento. The rest is all for you, but in God’s name I beg you, Sira, by God and holy Mary, listen to me well, girl.”

She stopped at last and looked me in the eye under the dim light of a street lamp. Beside us passersby walked in a thousand directions, oblivious to our agitation.

“Be careful, Sira. Be careful and be responsible,” she said in a low
voice, forming her words quickly. “Don’t do anything crazy. You’ve got a lot now, a lot; so much more than you could ever have dreamed of having, so for God’s sake, my child, be cautious; be cautious and sensible.”

We kept on walking in silence until we parted. She returned to the emptiness of her house without me, to the mute company of my grandfather, who had never known who his granddaughter’s father was because my mother, stubborn and proud, had always refused to give him a name. And I returned to Ramiro. He was waiting for me at home, smoking in the half light as he listened to the radio in the living room, anxious to know how it had gone for me and ready to go out for dinner.

I described the visit to him in detail: what I’d seen there, what I’d heard from my father, how I’d felt, and what he had advised me. I also showed him what I’d brought from that house to which I would probably never return.

“This is worth a lot of money, girl,” he whispered as he looked at the jewels.

“And there’s more,” I said, holding the envelope of notes out to him.

In reply, he allowed himself just a whistle.

“What are we going to do with all this now, Ramiro?” I asked with a knot of concern.

“You mean what are you going to do, my love: all this is just yours. If you want me to, I can take charge of determining how best to keep it. It might perhaps be a good idea to deposit it all in the safe at my office.”

“Why don’t we take it to a bank?” I asked.

“I don’t think that would be good, the way things are going at the moment.”

The fall of the New York Stock Exchange a few years earlier, the political instability, and a mountain of other things that didn’t interest me in the slightest were the explanations with which he backed up his proposal. I barely paid attention: any decision he made would seem right to me. I only wanted to find a safe place as quickly as possible for that fortune already burning my fingers.

He returned from work the following day laden with bits of paper and leaflets.

“I haven’t stopped turning your situation around and around in my head, and I think I’ve found the solution. Best would be for you to set up some sort of commercial enterprise,” he said as soon as he came through the door.

I hadn’t been out of the house since getting up. I’d spent the whole morning tense and nervous, remembering the previous afternoon, still shaken by the knowledge that I had a father with an actual name, a fortune, and feelings. This unexpected proposition only increased my agitation.

“Why would I want a company?” I asked in alarm.

“Because that way your money would be safer. And for another reason, too.”

He spoke to me then about the problems in his company, about the tensions with his Italian bosses and the uncertainty of foreign businesses in turbulent Spain. And about ideas, too. He talked to me about those ideas, unfolding a list of projects the likes of which I’d never imagined. All innovative, brilliant, destined to bring outside inventions to the country and open up a path to modernity. Importing English mechanical harvesters to the fields of Castile, North American vacuum cleaners that promised to leave urban homes as clean as a whistle, and a Berlin-style cabaret for which he already had a site in mind on Calle Valverde. Among them all, however, one project emerged more brightly than any other: Pitman Academies.

“I’ve been mulling over it for months, ever since we received a leaflet at work through some old clients, but in my position as manager it didn’t seem appropriate for me to approach them personally. If we set up a firm in your name, it would all be much simpler,” he explained. “Pitman Academies are running in Argentina at full throttle: they have more than twenty branches, thousands of students who they are preparing for posts in business, banking, and administration. They’re taught typing, shorthand, and accounting using revolutionary methods, and after eleven months they come out with a certificate under their arm,
ready to devour the world. And the company just keeps growing, opening new sites, hiring staff, and generating income. We could do the same, set up Pitman Academies on this side of the pond. And if we propose the idea to the Argentineans, saying that we have a legitimate firm backed up with enough capital, we’ll stand a much better chance than if we approach them as private individuals.”

I didn’t have any way to judge whether it was a sensible project or a harebrained scheme, but Ramiro spoke with such certainty, with such mastery and knowledge, that I didn’t for a moment doubt that it was a brilliant idea. He went on and on about the details, continuing to amaze me.

“What’s more, I think it’s worth bearing in mind your father’s suggestion to leave Spain. He’s right: everything is too tense here, any day now something powerful could blow up, and this isn’t a good time to undertake a new enterprise. That’s why I think we have to follow his advice and go to Africa. If everything works out, once the situation has calmed down, we can hop back to the Peninsula and expand right across Spain. Give me a little time to make contact in your name with the owners of Pitman in Buenos Aires and convince them about our plan to open a large branch in Morocco, either in Tangiers or the Protectorate, we’ll see. A month at most and we’ll have our reply. And as soon as we have it,
arrivederci
Hispano-Olivetti: we’ll be off and get this thing running.”

“But why would the Arabs want to learn how to type?”

Ramiro’s first reaction was a resonant laugh. Then he enlightened me.

“The things you say, my love. Our academy is aimed at the European population living in Morocco: Tangiers is an international city, a free port with citizens coming from all across Europe. There are lots of foreign firms, diplomatic missions, banks, and financial companies of all kinds; the employment possibilities are immense, and everywhere they need qualified staff who know typing, shorthand, and accounting. In Tetouan the situation is different but equally full of possibilities: the population is less international because the city is the capital of the
Spanish Protectorate, but it’s full of civil servants and people who aspire to be civil servants, and all of them, as you well know, my love, need the preparation that a Pitman Academy can offer them.”