“This is a gift,” said Matilde, “from Juana and me.” Francesca had to lean down because she couldn’t hear her. “Happy birthday. And thank you for inviting us to your party.”
It was a shawl by Emilio Pucci, with one of his typical psychedelic designs in bold colors: orange, fuchsia and white. Juana had used part of the money Al-Saud had given her, plus a little that each of them had contributed, to cover the price of the expensive piece of silk. Matilde had thought that it was a little too daring and, when she saw Francesca’s classic style—that night she was wearing a long burgundy velvet dress with a plunging neckline—her spirits fell even more. Her gaze lingered on Francesca’s necklace, an exquisitely made piece that even she noticed in spite of her habitual apathy toward such things; she liked the several strands of irregular pearls and the tear-shaped pendant with a ruby in the middle that matched the color of her dress. Francesca stroked the necklace and smiled at her.
“Do you like it?”
“Very much,” she admitted.
“It was Eliah’s gift.” Matilde’s heart started racing. “He sent it to me this morning with Medes. He never gives me his gifts personally. He’s always been like that—when he was little he would leave them on my pillow or in my boudoir.”
Sofía, Nando and their son Fabrice came over to greet them. Suddenly Matilde was surrounded by other strange, smiling faces, and Francesca rattled off a stream of names that Matilde didn’t remember, and then went off to attend to the other guests. She looked for Eliah and saw him with a group of men dressed in traditional Arabic clothing, floor-length tunics and keffiyehs. Juana had been whisked away by Fabrice. Where was Alamán? She felt alone and exposed.
Yasmín was watching her brother’s woman from afar. She was the exact opposite of Samara, who had been tall, willowy and dark, with jet-black hair. Matilde was short, blonde and slim but voluptuous. She looked at her dress; it was a beauty, she had to admit. The midnight blue suited her well, and the fabric was strewn with violet sequins that sparkled against her pale skin and gleaming white-gold hair. The tight, knee-length dress enhanced her small but well-defined curves, which hadn’t been on view on Eliah’s birthday in Rouen; then she had been wearing a baggy white dress that hid her generous bust and perky behind. Were they real? Yasmín wondered maliciously. She liked the way the crepe of the dress contrasted with the gauze that veiled her arms, neckline, delicate bones and tiny back. The pearl necklace floating over the gauze was a masterly touch. She realized that Matilde felt lost but was unmoved, not at all interested in going over and rescuing her. Jealousy had made her perverse, jealousy over Samara, Eliah and Sándor.
Matilde drifted off to the side, attracted by the paintings, each one of which was lit individually. “The Victory of Saladin—1187,” she read. What followed left her stupefied. Thanks to the hours spent in Enriqueta’s atelier, leafing through art books and magazines and listening to her aunt, Matilde immediately appreciated the value of all the works on display in this section of the Al-Sauds’ large living room, a genuine artistic treasure trove: a painting by Van Dyck, another by Bruegel, two by Gainsborough and one by Tiepolo. There were also contemporary artists such as Rufino Tamayo and Andy Warhol, and in a prized spot she found a Venetian landscape by Canaletto, which she recognized because her aunt admired it. In the light of this invaluable collection, the guards that had received them didn’t seem exaggerated at all.
She realized that she didn’t mind being alone if she could continue to admire the decor. She conscientiously studied a Persian saber, which, according to the little bronze plaque on the cherrywood mount, was from the nineteenth century. She tried to guess the names of the Greek philosophers engraved on the four marble medallions adorning one of the walls and admired the tusk of an elephant, which was engraved with a scene of geishas with tiny parasols, boats and little Japanese houses; she was stunned by the precision of the details. She stopped in front of a walnut display cabinet that held a collection of Lalique glasses and jars. More than a dozen frames stood on top of the grand piano, which was covered by an embroidered Spanish blanket with tassels. She bent down to look at the photographs. The young Francesca had been a beauty, as had her husband. She pressed her fingertip against the furrowed brow of Eliah’s serious, adolescent face.
“He was sixteen in that one,” said a voice behind her, making her jump.
“Hello, Yasmín.” They kissed each other twice, in the French custom. “You look very pretty.”
“Thank you. I was saying that my brother was sixteen in that photo.”
“He’s so serious!”
“He was always like that. Well, he still is. He rarely smiles.”
He smiles with me, Matilde boasted to herself, and laughs too. But she stayed quiet because she could sense Yasmín’s hostility. She asked her about the rest of the photographs, taking a tour through the history of her beloved.
“And this was Eliah’s wife.”
Yasmín regretted her malice when she saw how Matilde’s white skin turned ash gray, and even her lips lost their color. She was pained by how intensely Matilde stared at Samara’s photograph, and frightened when she saw fat teardrops gather along the edge of her bottom eyelid.
“Eliah didn’t tell you about her, did he?” Matilde shook her head as the tears rolled down her cheeks. She took a handkerchief out of the purse Al-Saud had given her and dabbed at her cheek carefully so as not to ruin her makeup. “Typical! He keeps everything to himself.”
“Do they have children?”
“What?” Yasmín bent down to hear her.
Matilde cleared her throat and repeated in a wavering voice.
“I asked if they have children.”
“No. Samara died in a car accident when she was only a few weeks pregnant.”
Matilde lifted her head quickly and looked Yasmín in the eyes. She looked at her hard, intensely, unblinking, until Yasmín was forced to look away. She always thought of strange things during moments of tension. Rendezvous in Paris by Sabir Al-Muzara bubbled up in her mind, the book that she and Eliah had discussed on the Air France flight. I’m so stupid! She castigated herself. The character of Étienne is inspired by Eliah. She remembered how insistently he had asked what she thought of Étienne. “And as a woman, what do you think of him?” he had pressured her, much to her confusion. He’s so arrogant and conceited! she said to herself. She recalled the description of Étienne’s suffering over Sakina’s death in a car accident when she was a few weeks pregnant. In the novel, Sakina was the twin of Salem, the narrator, and a few months older than Étienne. Was that actually true? And how much was taken from real life in the part where it mentioned that the three Al-Muzara siblings had been orphaned as teenagers—their parents had been killed in Hebron, by the Israeli army—and that Étienne’s family had taken them into their home? She was dying to reread Rendezvous in Paris in this new light.
“Look who’s here!” She heard Alamán’s voice. “We found her!”
Shariar’s older children bounced around her, shouting her name and begging her to play with them. Matilde sought out Alamán’s friendly face and threw her arms around his neck.
Across the room, although he was immersed in a conversation with his Arabian uncles and cousins, Eliah nonetheless saw how urgently Matilde hugged his brother, as if she was seeking refuge and consolation. He relaxed his jaw when he started to feel shooting pain in his gums. Why was he being so insane? Doubting his brother? Alamán, whom he would have trusted with his life, or even Matilde’s? How many times had he witnessed a similar scene between Alamán and Samara and never felt the remotest pang of jealousy?
He excused himself from his relatives and headed in the direction they had gone, with Shariar’s children trailing behind them. He found them in the playroom and saw Matilde in profile the moment she picked Dominique out of the crib and held him over her head. “Upa la la!” she said, and her hair fell back as she talked to the baby, coaxing giggles and gurgles out of him. She squeezed him to he
r body, not thinking for a second about her brand-new dress, and pressed Dominique’s chubby cheek against her own. Then the baby let out a few happy gurgles as Matilde sang him a song in Spanish in which a girl called Manuelita went to Paris, giving him the hint of a smile. Al-Saud’s emotion drove him into the playroom and, ignoring Alamán and his nieces and nephews, he wrapped Matilde in his arms, leaving Dominique between them. He whispered a statement into her ear: “I want you to be the mother of my children.”
Then he pulled back to look at her. Matilde was staring at Dominique. Al-Saud saw that she wasn’t blinking, her expression had frozen. “Matilde,” he said to her, and brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek, “Matilde, what’s wrong?”
She lifted her eyes, and the ice that had covered them seconds before dissolved in the heat of his intense, dark stare. Eliah could always break down her willpower. Tonight he had combed his hair the way she liked, swept back to expose his wide forehead and well-defined cheekbones that accentuated the nobility of his features. You would give me such beautiful children! she would have liked to say, but the words stuck in her throat and came out as tears.
“Don’t cry, I’m begging you,” Al-Saud pleaded with her in French. “What did I say to upset you? That wasn’t my intention.”
“No, I’m not crying,” she said, making an effort to sound cheerful, although her tears fell and she didn’t have a hand free to dry them. “I just got emotional, that’s all. I’m sensitive today, I don’t know why.” Al-Saud took his handkerchief out of his back pocket and dried her tears.
“What’s going on, Dominique? No, don’t cry. Look, Eliah, he’s puffing out his cheeks, how funny. Do you know what that means? It means he’s getting ready to cry. No, don’t cry,” she said, and pressed him to her cheek again.
Shariar’s older children crept up cautiously—they tried to behave when Uncle Eliah was around—and begged “Matildé” to play with them, to tell them stories, to sing that song she had sung to Dominique. Bershka appeared in the doorway to summon the adults; dinner was about to be served. Two nannies came into the playroom to take care of the children. Matilde’s mood hit rock bottom. She would have loved to stay at the kids’ table!
As they went down the long corridor on the second floor, Al-Saud took her hand and said to her, “I want you to meet someone.”
The guests were leaving the living room and heading to the dining room. In a corner, near the hearth, sat an elderly couple whom Matilde had seen from afar. Al-Saud led her toward them. She got goose bumps when she heard him speak Italian.
“Nonna, Nonno, vorrei presentarvi a Matilde, la mia fidanzata.”
Matilde didn’t understand a word, except nonna and nonno, but the last word had sounded similar to fiancée.
“Matilde, these are my grandparents, Antonina and Fredo.” Antonina started to make a fuss and speak rapidly in Italian, grabbing Matilde’s hands and shaking them, so Eliah cut her off suddenly. “Nonna, ti prego, parla in spagnolo. Matilde non capisce una parola di ció che stai dicendo. Lei é argentina.”
“Ma, tesoro,” Antonina complained, “sai che mi sono dimenticata dello spagnolo.”
“An effort, Antonina, please,” Fredo urged her. “We’re very pleased to meet you, Matilde.”
“Yes, yes,” Antonina agreed, “Un pia…a pleasure.”
Matilde perched on a footstool near the elderly woman’s feet and smiled at her.
“Señora Antonina, you don’t know how happy I am to meet you. Rosalía, my grandfather Esteban’s wife, always spoke of you with so much affection.”
“Rosalía? Which Rosalía? Esteban Martínez Olazábal’s wife?”
“Yes, I’m his granddaughter, Aldo’s youngest daughter.”
Antonina opened her eyes wide, dropped her hands and stared at her as if Matilde had insulted her. Matilde noticed that Fredo was clutching his wife’s forearm as though he was trying to calm his companion down.
“You don’t have pleasant memories of my family, do you?” She felt Eliah’s hand closing around her shoulder. “I don’t blame you. My grandmother could be…”
“No, no!” The old woman reacted under the furious glare of her grandson. “I have excellent memories of your family. Your grandfather, especially, who was always so generous to my daughter and I. I adore Sofía. And I hardly knew your papa because he barely lived in the palace. Ti prego…I beg you to forgive my reaction. I was just surprised, that’s all.”
Francesca and Kamal came over to escort Antonina and Fredo to the table. As the four of them moved off toward the dining room, Matilde stared at them, thinking about how Antonina had reacted surprised at first, and then hurt.
“Matilde,” Eliah whispered, “do you want to get out of here?” He stopped in front of her and bent down to say, “Let’s go home. I suddenly pictured you naked in the pool and got horny.”
Matilde, serious, put her hand under the lapel of his jacket and felt his firm body. She also felt his fingers digging into her waist and how hard he was under the zipper of his pants. You had a wife and you didn’t tell me, she thought as she caressed his penis and looked at him in torment. She was going to give you a child.
“No,” she decided, withdrawing her hand. “I’m hungry. Let’s go eat.”
She turned on her heels and walked toward the dining room. Al-Saud watched her leaving. He needed a few seconds to recover.
Fortunately, the seat next to Juana was free, so Matilde plopped down beside her friend. This fateful night had made her feel alone and miserable. She looked up and was met by the gaze of Yasmín’s black eyes. A little farther away, Antonina was glancing at her and Matilde didn’t want to know why. What could Grandmother Celia have done to that woman while she worked as the cook at the Martínez Olazábal palace? Shame pricked at her cheeks. She didn’t want to turn to the left; she would find Eliah there, beyond Juana, and could feel his eyes on her like a heat ray.
As he watched her pushing the food around on her plate and picking like a bird, Al-Saud realized that Matilde wasn’t hungry, as she had claimed. André, his sister’s smarmy fiancé, was sitting next to her and wouldn’t stop talking. He had touched her left forearm twice to point out the delicacies on the table and encourage her to eat. Eliah gripped his fork, picturing himself driving it into André’s jugular. What the hell was Yasmín doing with that idiot? Matilde was acting strangely, it worried him. She forced herself to laugh, but it was an empty laugh that didn’t light up her silver eyes. He had left her alone. She wouldn’t forgive him. Drawn to his uncles and cousins to talk about their contracts with Mercure, he had entrusted her to his mother, who must have had to abandon her immediately to play her role as hostess. What had she talked about with Yasmín near the piano?
Matilde thought that the dinner would never end. She failed to enjoy any of the dishes, even though, as Yasmín’s boyfriend told her, they came from the kitchen of La Tour d’Argent, a concession that the famed restaurant made exclusively to Prince Kamal, one of their best and oldest clients. The caviar, appetizers and desserts came from Maison Petrossian. He also explained that they were drinking Dom Perignon to accompany the lobster, while those who had the duck were drinking a 1961 Château Mouton Rothschild, the best claret in the world.
“As you can see, his highness, Prince Kamal,” André said, and Matilde was bothered by how pompously he referred to his future father-in-law, “doesn’t drink, nor do his Saudi relatives, because they’re Muslim.”
It didn’t help when her aunt Sofía, sitting diagonally across from her, spoke to her about Celia’s enforced stay at the clinic, or when she asked about the circumstances of Roy’s death and blurted out how depressed Aldo had seemed on the phone.
Once dinner was over, they listened to famous arias in the living room, performed by a soprano, a tenor and a baritone along with a concert pianist. It was the first time that Matilde had enjoyed lyrical singing. Since she had gotten involved with Eliah Al-Saud, she had realized how ignorant she was about music, and wa
s surprised to find herself fascinated by the selection. For an hour she lost herself in thought about her ghosts and demons and allowed the music to console her.
Al-Saud was dying to leave. He wanted to wrench Matilde out of this house, which was so tied to the memory of Samara. He was desperate to talk to her. She seemed distant and mournful. His grandmother Antonina’s unexpected reaction had hurt her, and he suspected that Yasmín had also found a way to inject a little venom.
He got up from his armchair, bounded up the stairs two at a time and strode quickly down the hall, his bad mood showing in the length of his stride. He went into his bedroom and grabbed his, Matilde’s and Juana’s coats. On the way back, he passed in front of the slightly ajar door of the room where his grandparents stayed when they visited Paris. A maid was turning down the bed. He stopped when he heard Antonina’s voice, shaking with emotion.
“How could Francesca not have mentioned Matilde to me?”
“She must have forgotten,” Fredo suggested.
“Forgotten Aldo Martínez Olazábal’s youngest daughter! The daughter of that…”
“Antonina,” Fredo stopped her, “please, let’s drop the subject. The girl seems sweet and lovely. It’s not her fault that she’s his daughter.”
The maid came out into the hall and closed the door, muffling the voices. Al-Saud walked back to the living room slowly, looking off into the distance.
“We’re going,” he said in a bitter tone, and handed them their jackets.
Francesca came over, smiling, to say good-bye. As he twisted to put on his camel hair coat, Eliah stretched his arm and his shirt opened a little. The Médaille Miraculeuse dangled in front of Francesca’s eyes.
“What’s this?” she said, clasping it between her thumb and forefinger.
“Matilde gave it to me,” he muttered. “She’s very devout.” He bent down to kiss his mother on both cheeks. “I’ll see you, Mamá.”