“I think I’m going to burst,” said Salva, and I had to agree.
Like my companions, I was feeling stuffed and somewhat overwhelmed by the assault of flavors and the persistent smell of vanilla. Some of the guests had left the room, having made short work of the desserts—honey cakes, raisins, grapes, and pecans. Elisa was among them, having disappeared sometime earlier with a feeble excuse I didn’t understand terribly well.
I needed some fresh air, too, so I got up and wandered through the rooms that were open to us. Then I saw a stream of people going down the stairs to the floor below, and I followed them. I found myself on a kind of mezzanine. It ended in a railing from where you could sense that, several feet farther down, there was an enormous, dark room. Jairo was leaning against the railing with his back to the dark space. When we’d all made it down the stairs, Jairo turned around and, with a theatrical gesture similar to that made by the conductor of an orchestra, ordered Patricio to turn on the lights. One by one they lit up the space below right to the end, showing off the treasure stored there: small-scale models of battle scenes.
A murmur ran around the group of onlookers. We didn’t wait for an invitation from Jairo to make our way down a side stairway and rush to the models to examine them more closely. Each was about six feet square and reproduced the physical geography of the terrain and contained hosts of tiny soldiers. The overall impression was that each model captured an actual battle scene from a specific epoch.
“Is that the Siege of Numantia?” asked Onofre, the chief curator of the Modern Era Department, who was wearing the uniform of a Napoleonic army officer.
Of all the staff at the MAC, Onofre was the most like my former colleagues in the National Museum. Both his physique and bearing were more like those of an auditor or an accountant than an archaeologist. He was as unimaginative as he was efficient in his area of expertise, which covered the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Our relationship at this stage worked on the principle of polite indifference.
“No, it’s the destruction of the Celtiberian settlement of La Hoya, in the present-day Rioja Alavesa region,” Jairo replied, pleased with the admiration we were showing for his hobby.
“Is this one from the Civil War?” I asked, recognizing the shirts worn by the soldiers.
“Yes. The Nationalist army spent several weeks in Madrid’s Ciudad Universitaria, beside the Manzanares River. The soldiers fired from the trenches at the Republican troops for one hour a day. As you can see, it was ridiculous: the enemy trenches were barely a few yards apart. They could have killed each other easily at any moment, but they were obeying orders and waiting. Hunger was the worst enemy. Every night the soldiers took turns dragging themselves over the frozen rocks in the Manzanares to bring back provisions from the other shore. Then they had to put up with soaking wet clothes for several days. More men died of pneumonia during that assault than from bullet wounds.”
“Is that a rat they’re cooking over the campfire?” I wanted to know.
“Yes,” he replied laconically. “They were in luck that day.”
Jairo had done it again: he had the audience in the palm of his hand. Somewhat irritated, I looked around. The room was huge, and at this level the series of models looked never-ending. What a lot of spare time some people have, I thought.
But Jairo took advantage of the fact that I was by myself to head my way.
“I think there was a bit of a misunderstanding between us earlier on,” he said, fixing me with his dark, predatory eyes.
“Is that an apology?”
“No, not really. I’m sorry you misunderstood me, but I assure you that I had no intention of offending you. Comparing you to a hetaira doesn’t belong in my catalogue of insults. You see, as far as I’m concerned, hetairai were independent, sophisticated women who received an education in a world where it wasn’t the custom for women to take part in symposia or drinking parties, or for men to take female views and opinions seriously. Naturally, they were also known for their physical skills, but—”
“I get it, Jairo,” I interrupted.
“Can we start again, then?”
What choice do I have? You’re my boss.
“Of course. I’m not one to hold a grudge.”
“So now that there’s a level of trust between us, I’d like you to clarify a small doubt I have: Was it a horse that kicked you on the forehead?”
At least he had guts; usually, nobody asked me about my scar. They tried not to look at it, and eventually they stopped noticing it.
“A mare, actually.”
“I assume you hated her when she did that to you,” he murmured.
“She’d thrown me to the ground before she did it. But she kicked me accidentally. Horses don’t kick people; they’re too noble.”
“I know,” he said in a husky voice.
“I was knocked unconscious, and my cousin, who was riding with me, took me to the hospital. When I came to that night, I was alone and had a lot of time to think,” I explained, turning away so that he couldn’t see my face.
It was true that none of my family came to see me. Marcos was furious with me for having provoked the animal, so as soon as they stitched the wound and he was sure I was all right, he went back home and didn’t say anything to my uncle and aunt or my grandfather. He didn’t call my father either, which was just as well, because my father was on the road in some cheap roadside motel, not long before he was fired.
“No, I didn’t hate her,” I continued. “That mare was always good to me, but I can’t say the same for myself. I used to ride her on weekends. I was nearly eighteen. I was angry with the whole world and had turned into someone who hurt anyone who got close to me, including that animal. I used to spur her to the limits of her endurance, and she always responded, until the day she threw me.”
“Right. I assume you’ve never ridden again,” he said, scowling.
He clearly adored horses. The sculptures that marked every corner of his house revealed that, as did his Hermès scarf with the stirrups, which was the only item of clothing I’d seen him wear more than once. Even more revealing was the disapproving look he had given me as I told him my story. I can’t say I blamed him.
“You’re wrong. I did ride her again. Many times, in fact. At first, she was very nervous and didn’t want to have anything to do with me. So I started over again with the absolute basics. My cousin was doing an internship at the equestrian center, and he allowed me to clean out her stall. Then I learned to groom her. It took a few months, but in the end she accepted me again.”
“Incredible! I didn’t think—”
“That I’d ever want to see her again? That kick was a turning point for me. I don’t like to cover up my scar, because it reminds me of the person I never want to be again.” I stopped talking because I’d already said too much.
I don’t know what it was with me and the del Castillo brothers. One of their ancestors must have been a confessor; I always ended up revealing more about myself to them than I wanted to.
“What breed was she?”
“She was an Andalusian mare,” I said, thinking back.
“Color?”
“Gray.”
By this stage in the conversation, Jairo had coiled his arm around my waist like a snake.
“Listen, you have to stop doing that,” I insisted, unwinding myself from his grip.
“Doing what?” The query almost sounded innocent. Almost.
“Trying to turn all our conversations into a seduction. You have to stop trying so hard with me. The business with the game of chess, your sports car, your theatrical stagings . . . And all these things,” I said, looking around me, “all just to embellish you. You don’t need all that in order to be attractive. You are already interesting without it. That said, you’ve also just employed me, and I want to do things by the rule book, okay?”
It was my way of saying that I wasn’t impressionable, that I was professional. Oh yeah. Says who? A pair of unusual blue eyes and an outstanding mind were enough to leave me sleepless for weeks. We all have our weaknesses.
Turning toward Jairo, for the first time I saw something genuine in his expression. Initially, stupor, then something that looked like the smallest of capitulations.
“Okay,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. Although it sounded more like, “I’ll give it a go, but I’m not making any promises.”
Had I neutralized him? Time would tell. With guys like him, it was better to apply the brakes right at the start. I had learned to be clear up front and expose them if I thought there might be something more than well-disguised hot air behind the façade.
“And it seems to me that you should go and attend to your admirers,” I said as a way of ending the conversation.
I pointed toward Onofre and his interns. “I think they want to know exactly how many casualties there were at Waterloo.”
I turned away from him without waiting to see his reaction and continued to stroll among demolished bridges and burned trees until a light caught my eye. There was a half-open door painted the same color white as the walls in one corner of the space. I walked over to it and peeked through.
“My God!” My exclamation was involuntarily. This time I really was captivated.
The small room contained models as well, but the individual scenes were smaller and nothing like the other ones. In this case, there was no sign of battles; rather, they portrayed scenes of daily life from distinct epochs. The figures were much larger, and they were crafted with a level of detail that obliged me to look so closely that my nose was almost touching them. Jairo really was a craftsman. They weren’t arranged in any chronological order like those in the hall outside, so the whole ensemble was as eclectic as the evening itself. The fifteenth century coexisted with the fourth, the Neolithic period with the Bronze Age, the Enlightenment with the Middle Ages.
I walked up to the model closest to me, where a couple of rough-looking men were laboring over the keel of a boat. The dark-haired one was squatting over a wooden bucket of pitch. His blond companion was, if anything, taller and even better built. He was holding a T-shaped tool propped against his chest with which he was cutting planks from a log of wood. His beard was braided and his bushy eyebrows were so blond they were almost white. Their clothing suggested to me that they were Vikings. And they were caulking a drekar.
I wandered around the room until another model caught my eye. Several people were surrounding a young woman in labor. She was in the act of pushing, her face tense, her eyes tightly shut, and her hands gripping two hewn stones that jutted out of the ground. The young woman was squatting and naked but for the red ochre line of paintings snaking their way around her body. She wore bracelets made from small foxes’ teeth and a necklace of seashells.
Littorina obtusata. Mesolithic, I decided. I had always been good at calculating the age of ancient pieces. I’d earned the nickname C14 on the sites, I recalled with a smile.
The woman’s hairstyle was unusual. Her temples were shaven, and there was a long braid tied back at the nape of her neck. But even more strange was that several of the individuals surrounding her—an old woman, two children, and two men—wore their hair in a similar, though not identical, style, which suggested that they were part of the same ethnic group, or from the same clan. A woven basket between the woman’s legs seemed destined to catch the baby or the placenta. The children had several wooden bowls by their feet containing various liquids. It looked like this was the place where births occurred, and all the members of the clan took an active part in the delivery.
A man was positioned behind the woman, although unlike the others, he had no facial features. Whoever had sculpted that figure—was Jairo capable of something like this?—had worked on all the other details. Long black hair styled like the woman’s; trousers sewn up the sides; a painted ochre line snaking its way from his shoulders to his wrists. The faceless man was pressing downward forcefully with his forearm below the laboring woman’s breasts.
The Kristeller maneuver, I recalled.
Elisa had explained it to me during the endless stories of the births of her three children. If the baby was positioned badly, the midwife would put all her weight on her forearm and push downward in order to force the baby out. I moved even closer to the model, forgetting about the outside world, my inappropriate costume, the dizzying vanilla scent, and the Civil War. Right there, under my nose, was a fragment of prehistory. Unable to resist, I put my finger into the diminutive wooden bowl and raised it to my mouth.
“It’s honey made from heather,” a voice behind me confirmed.
I turned around and discovered Iago leaning against the wall with his customary smile.
“Have you been there for long?” I inquired.
“Long enough,” he replied as he came toward me. “You’re not supposed to be looking at this.”
That was when a few things started to fall into place.
“The models are yours, aren’t they?”
“Right. No wars.” He brushed away the very thought with a wave of his hand. “I prefer to work on more peaceful scenes.”
I stared again at the prehistoric birth. “Is that how you imagine it took place?”
He nodded.
It makes sense, I thought. Honey is an energy food and a good option if it looked like it was going to be a long labor. It also made sense that the whole tribe, young and old, would take part: it would be important for everyone to know what to do in case of an emergency.
“You’re good at speculating.”
“Thank you,” he acknowledged modestly. “I’m delighted you’re not accusing me of inventing.”
“I hope you’ve forgotten the business of the other day. It wasn’t the best way to start.”
“But it was sincere,” he offered in return. “And anyway, it saves us a lot of time if we know how you think.”
“True,” I had to admit. “But, to change the topic, why don’t you display the models in the museum?”
“No, no,” he protested modestly. “They’re my way of relaxing—well, more like therapy. They’re strictly personal. I build them at home, and as I finish them I bring them over here, because Jairo has a lot more space than I do. Anyway, once I’ve finished them I don’t want them cluttering up my apartment.”
“You said therapy. To deal with stress from work?”
“No,” he replied with a wink, “nothing like that. And if I were stressed at work, I wouldn’t admit it to you. We’ve just hired you, and I have no desire to see you leave us.”
He was silent for a moment, weighing up whether or not to confide in me and then, luckily, he continued, “You see, I have problems sleeping.”
“Insomnia?”
“No, not insomnia,” he replied, his gaze fixed somewhere beyond the room, his mind somewhere very far away. “Sometimes I wake up totally disorientated and I need to reboot so I can start the day like a normal person. Making models is one of Jairo’s passions, and he suggested that I build them, too, to give my mind something to think about as soon as I wake up. And it worked—or at least for now it’s working—although I prefer scenes that restore a sense of inner calm.”
“Like this scene here,” I murmured, pointing at another model.
A monk in a brown habit with a long rope around his neck was drawing intricate, illuminated letters into an enormous book, holding a quill in his right hand and a sort of scraper in his left.
“Yes. They’re the glosses of Saint Emilianus, annotations in the codex from the Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla. As you know, for a while it was thought that Spanish was used for the first time in the eleventh century in this book. In reality, though, the glosses were in a Hispanic Romance language, medieval Basque, and Latin. It seems th
e monk-scribe was at least bilingual.”
I encouraged him to continue; I liked the way he explained things.
“That book consists of about fifty very large pages, as you can see. Each page is made from the skin of an unborn calf, so you can imagine the number of cows that were needed to create the book.”
I carefully examined the scribe. He had a very long beard, but his features were hidden by his hood. I wondered if that figure would also be faceless, but I didn’t dare pull back his hood with Iago standing right there. And then I had a hunch and glanced at the other twenty or so models, looking for a common denominator. Bingo. They all included a male figure with no facial features. I opened my mouth to ask him about it, but there was something about his uncomfortable posture that persuaded me, for once, to keep my mouth shut. Enough with the questions, I ordered myself. The evening had already had its fair share of emotions.
But there were still a few emotions to go. An hour later, as I was walking carefully in the dim light of the lamps lining the edge of the grass in the outside parking area, I was given a real fright by two people near my Clio. I recognized Jairo by the long purple toga. The girl with him was one of the waitress-slaves—the most stunning one, in fact. I stood stock-still several yards from the car they were leaning against, reciting the few prayers I knew in the hope that they wouldn’t notice me.
The slave girl was bent forward at the waist with her hands on the car. Jairo stood behind her, slithering his hand up her tunic like the serpent along the trunk of the biblical tree. The light from the closest little lamp enabled me to see the young woman’s smooth white buttock, and Jairo whispering something in her ear as she closed her eyes and threw back her head.
Jairo slowly penetrated her, holding her hips and dictating the rhythm of the movements in a way that showed he was in charge. I held my breath. I didn’t know whether to move in the direction of my car or stay standing where I was until the performance was over. I chose the first option, and so I lifted the skirt of my dress a little with my two hands so as not to trip over it and began to move as surreptitiously as I could toward my car. I glanced one last time in the direction of the couple, who were still fully engaged in their coupling, thankful that they hadn’t seen me. Just then Jairo turned his head in my direction, flashed his crooked smile, and blew me a kiss.