The Immortal Collection (A Saga of the Ancient Family Book 1)

  “There’s no time,” Nagorno insisted. I looked at my father and he agreed.

  “Tell me, Father, is that how you treat your flesh and blood now? Is that what you taught me?”

  “Come, Yennego, this isn’t the first time. Tell me that we don’t leave behind widows and orphans wherever we go.” Beside himself, he shouted, “What the devil’s happened to you?”

  “You two and your attachments,” Nagorno interjected. “We’re demigods, even if we have such miserable lives and cannot reveal ourselves to the mortals. Are we going, then? They’re opening the gate. It’ll be the men from Fanan.”

  “Tell him to shut up,” I yelled, pointing at Nagorno with the iron bar in my hand. “I can’t stand him.”

  “Make your decision. We’ll wait for you by the river,” said my father, and they disappeared.

  I grabbed a basket with several partridges as I replied, “Go. I’ll be there shortly.”

  I jumped over the wall into my neighbor’s workshop and found him concentrating on his monotonous hammering. He started when he saw me.

  “Gervas, listen carefully, because my life depends on it. I have to leave the village right now, but before I go I’m going to do a deal with you that will be very much to your advantage. In a month’s time, after the festival of Samhain, go to the dead oak tree in the northern wall of the stockade. Climb it, and you’ll find a nest. It won’t be empty, because I’ll fill it with pieces of gold, amber brooches, and whatever else I can find to make you the richest man in the village. In return you must promise me that if Bryan abandons her daughter, you’ll take her into your home and raise her as if she were your own. Your wife must treat her well, too, and you must never allow your sons to torment her. She’s very small, but she’s smart. No one must know of our little arrangement. If Bryan keeps her daughter, take the treasure anyway. I won’t come back to reclaim it. But this first winter, take them food and make sure they don’t die of hunger. Take these partridges. They’re expecting them today.”

  I looked into his eyes searching for his agreement and then made my escape through the window without looking back.

  29

  ADRIANA

  Monday, May 14, 2012

  I’d already declared my day over, at least as far as the social side was concerned, and I’d spent some time sitting on my bed with my mother’s safe. I dedicated a bit of time each day to playing around with combinations in the hope of opening it. I couldn’t avoid hoping and believing that it contained the longed-for personal diary of my mother, which, at this stage, only existed in my imagination.

  It was almost eleven o’clock at night when my flashing phone signaled Rubén’s insistence that I take his call. I put the safe under the bed and headed into the kitchen in my socks and T-shirt, ready to eat one of my culinary inventions, with the phone burning my ear. I answered the call as I lit the gas burner. It had been too long since I’d spoken to him.

  “You finally decided to pick up.”

  “How are you, Rubén?” I asked, overlooking his accusation.

  “Fine. Thanks for asking. How are you?”

  “Pretty busy with work.” I hunted through the various registers of my voice for the most professional one. “My apologies if we haven’t spoken much recently.”

  He laughed, though he didn’t sound happy. “I think you’ve just come out with the euphemism of the year. Adriana, since we broke up—or rather, since you broke up with me—and you moved to Santander, we haven’t had a single conversation beyond an exchange of the usual clichés about work and the weather. You said we’d go on being friends.”

  I hunted through the arctic landscape of my fridge for something that would be easy to cook, although my appetite was disappearing by the minute.

  “Rubén, I didn’t say that. You asked me. But it’s complicated . . .” On the other end of the line, Madrid was silent. “You don’t really want to be my friend. You want to be nearby, because you want us to be a couple again.”

  “And what was wrong with us as a couple, Adriana? Can you tell me that? Because I haven’t worked it out yet, and our friends haven’t either. In fact, no one can work out what got into you. Everyone thought—”

  “Yes,” I cut in as I turned off the gas, “that we’d be the next ones to get married and all the rest of it.”

  “Was that the problem?”

  “Once and for all, can you listen to what I’m trying to tell you?” Did I sound impatient? Because that was the effect I was after.

  “Of course, I’ll try.”

  I took a deep breath and sighed. How could I make him understand? “There was nothing wrong with you,” I explained.

  “ ‘Was,’ just like that, in the past? You’re so convinced that I’m no longer a part of your life?”

  He’d hit the nail on the head, but was he prepared to accept it?

  “Let me finish. I was saying that there was nothing wrong with you or the relationship. But my life in Madrid wasn’t satisfying me: neither my bureaucratic job, nor endlessly going out with friends, nor the social commitments with so many people. I didn’t have a minute to myself.”

  “And you have it now?”

  “Yes, indeed,” I said, flopping down onto my chair and putting my feet up.

  “And that makes you happy?”

  You could really tell that he was a lawyer. He always put his finger right where it hurt.

  “Give me time,” I asked him.

  My ex said nothing for a moment and then, when he saw he had reached a dead end, he decided to change tactics.

  “Listen, Adriana, I’ve been checking out some legal practices in Santander. There may be a possibility of joining one of them, but I don’t want to go any further or risk what I have here in Madrid without consulting you first. You say the problem was your life in Madrid. Well, I’m not asking you to come back here. I could move to Santander. I don’t know, what do you think?”

  My head was starting to ache. I pressed my fingers against my closed eyelids, but the headache wasn’t going away.

  “Say something,” he begged.

  “Rubén, I broke it off almost a year ago. You should move on.” I paused. “Without me. Don’t make any plans for Santander if I’m the reason for your move. Look, I’m sorry to have to say it to you like this, but you’re going to force me into a conflict I’m not looking for.”

  He began to cry, just as he’d done the day I left him. I held the phone away from my ear. I didn’t want to listen to him again. But I couldn’t hang up either. I swallowed and let him calm down. It was painful to hear him like this. No question, it really hurt. But I couldn’t create the illusion that I’d be there for him, because that wasn’t going to happen.

  “I suppose I should stop calling you,” he said when he’d recovered.

  “At least for a while,” I agreed. “This is just hurting you.”

  “I’m sorry if I’ve given you a hard time,” he said, clearing his throat.

  “Don’t worry, it’s fine. Are you feeling better?” I asked, trying to keep my concern for him out of my voice.

  “Yes, I think so,” he said. “I guess it’s good-bye, then.”

  “Bye, Rubén.”

  I left the mobile on the floor and headed for the bathroom like an automaton, removing my clothes as I went. I sat down in the shower with my legs crossed and turned on the hot water. Hotter, I ordered myself. Hotter.

  I buried my head between my knees and let the burning needles of water sting my back and shoulders. And then, without really knowing why, my tears arrived too, silent and violent, like the artificial rain punishing my back. I cried for Rubén’s pain, for the ongoing suffering I was causing him. I cried for all my wrong decisions. I cried because it would be simpler to agree and let myself be carried along, but also because I knew I wouldn’t do that. I wept because Iago’s eyes were alway
s in my head, observing every one of my moves, as if a sadistic scientist had placed a hidden camera in my brain so that nothing would escape his attention.

  I couldn’t go back to Rubén. It would be comfortable, like living with an affectionate pet that’s waiting for you at the end of the day and keeps your bed warm. That was the problem. It wasn’t a relationship of equals. Rubén had placed me on a pedestal, and I was conscious of it. I no longer admired him, but he still looked up to me. I had lost that fantasy from the early days when you don’t know, you only imagine. But apart from Rubén, the Iago inside my head was asking permission for access, demanding that I make a decision. And it made me mad, because I’d tried everything to forget him and nothing had worked.

  But then I realized that that wasn’t true. Being indifferent, avoiding him, keeping my distance, getting involved with other people who, at the end of the day, were just poor copies of the original—all of that hadn’t been enough. Maybe the solution lay with Iago himself. Maybe if I spent a night with him I’d realize he wasn’t so incredibly amazing. Maybe I’d worshipped him, and that entire obsession was giving way to normality.

  I turned off the tap, relieved by my new idea, dried myself, and sat down on top of the bedspread gazing at the chessboard. My king was surrounded by black pieces: bishops, knights, the queen, the king. Corralled, more like. The game had seemed doomed for some time. My new strategy would provide a break.

  I climbed into bed with Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. Marcos had been insisting for some time now that I read it.

  And there comes a night when everything is over, when so many jaws have bitten down on us, and our flesh is hanging from our bodies, as if all the mouths had chewed it . . .

  After a short time, drowsiness crept into all my muscles, relaxed by the boiling hot shower. The words and letters in the novel began to get mixed up, trying out totally unconnected combinations, until finally, comforted by my new resolution, I fell asleep over its open pages.

  30

  ADRIANA

  Friday, May 18, 2012

  Night of the Museums

  It was almost four in the morning, and the drowsy visitors to the MAC were crowded together at the exit, protecting themselves from elbows in the ribs while they extracted their car keys, as if this trivial gesture would get them to their beds sooner. Meanwhile, the security guards were checking all the exhibition halls, and we staff continued to clean up after a very long day. We had been working since eight in the morning, and many would be leaving as soon as they were no longer needed.

  Héctor and company had saturated the day’s program with fun activities in order to attract the residents of Santander to their little kingdom for the annual Night of the Museums cultural celebration. The five departments of the MAC had pulled out all stops to help them do it. We were competing with the Neocave of Altamira, only twelve miles from our museum, which was offering a night in its cave reconstruction looking at the bison illuminated by oil lamps.

  I had turned to my list of contacts and locked in a lecture on human evolution by the codirectors of the Atapuerca archaeological site, undeniable media stars on the national stage. I had successfully passed my first exam at the MAC. The Holy Trinity didn’t seem particularly interested in bringing pieces from the Lower and Middle Paleolithic periods to the museum, but Atapuerca was the holy grail for any archaeologist south of the Pyrenees. It was the place where you went to excavate in the afterlife if you had been good in this one, and no one in their right mind would have had any reservations about collaborating with the Atapuerca team. After acting as guide to the visiting codirectors and taking them to sample the well-known seafood platter at Puertochico, I had escorted them to the Hotel Sardinero, with promises of future synergies. Mission accomplished.

  Hours later I found Iago in the darkened Prehistory Hall, standing totally absorbed in front of the urn in the middle of the room. The dim light that illuminated the piece shone in a wedge shape onto his face, giving him a theatrical look. I walked up to him and also focused on the Monte Castillo molar inside the urn.

  “Do you realize this is the last time we’re exhibiting it here in the MAC?” he said, without turning around, as if he had picked up on my presence by scent alone. There was a slight note of sadness in his voice.

  The molar was one of the pieces we had to give back to the Prehistory Museum of Cantabria. It had been a rare find in its day: a human molar discovered in a recess together with eighteen spearpoints, all similarly carved, and an engraved harpoon, all made from deer horn. Obermaier had found it during excavations at the beginning of the twentieth century. The level corresponded to the later phases of the Magdalenian culture, approximately eleven thousand years ago, but no one had ever sent the dental piece for dating.

  “Why is there no plaque with the date? Was it an oversight when we were putting together this hall?” I asked.

  “No, it’s simply that we can’t be sure of the exact age,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders.

  “But we’ve been able to carbon-date the spearpoints with certainty. Don’t you think the molar is from the same period, based on the strata—”

  “Based on the strata they correspond to eleven thousand years ago, I know,” he interrupted, visibly impatient, “but the Monte Castillo hiding place is too atypical to be able to venture any definitive conclusion.”

  “True, but I believe that the theory that a hunter hid that arsenal for whatever reason is quite plausible. If it’s your theory that the molar belonged to a later epoch, that would mean that the location and existence of that recess was passed down over many generations. That doesn’t make much sense. It’s my view that it’s the work of a single person, and the tooth, although it hasn’t been dated, belongs to the same era.”

  He maintained a polite silence as I spoke, with that air of considering everything that was so typical of him, although that night his mood seemed different.

  “I don’t want to start one of our discussions at this late hour, Adriana. I’m tired. I’ve spent the whole day showing school kids how to make a fire.”

  You and your mania for not delegating, I was on the point of saying to him. But he was right; I didn’t want a discussion either.

  “Let’s finish clearing up. It’s been a long day,” he said, with a nod of his head.

  We walked to the door of the hall, at which point Iago, as he often did, given his manners of a nineteenth-century gentleman, put his hand on my waist to usher me through the door ahead of him. But this time I didn’t avoid the contact; I didn’t run from it or reject it. I stood still with Iago behind me and put my hand on top of his, which was still holding on to my waist. I sensed his bewilderment and wanted to see his face. I turned around slowly, ending up just a few inches from him. Neither of us spoke, but his expression reflected one enormous question mark. At the same time, rather than removing his hand from my waist, he held the palm of his other hand up to my face and placed it, gently but firmly, on my cheek and chin.

  This is a gift, I thought. Because for once I could remain locked on his eyes, lose myself in his unique irises, and note the close warmth of his Atlas-like body without having to move away from him. No questions, no challenges, no explanations.

  Iago, for his part, understood and accepted. He opened his mouth to say something, but I put a finger over his lips to prevent him from speaking. “Better not to say anything,” I whispered.

  “Let it be here, then, and in this way,” he replied more to himself than as something to share with me, as if he had come to a decision.

  He took my face between his two strong hands, and I finally tasted the tartness of his mouth. On impulse he pushed me against the black wall next to the display of Azilian harpoons by the entrance. One hundred centuries of history could watch as he rested the palms of his hands against the wall, creating a small trap from which I had no intention of escaping. He plunged his fingertips int
o the roots of my hair, lowered his nose, and inhaled as if my perfume was the only thing that mattered at that moment. Then he traced my scar with feather-soft kisses. I held my breath as best I could—it was delicious contact.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he whispered in my ear.

  We got into his car together, and he drove back to Santander in silence. The total darkness of the night afforded us a certain freedom, as we couldn’t see each other’s face under the arch of the eucalyptus trees, which seemed black without the light of day. Iago drove with just his left hand, holding on to my hand with the other, and if he needed to change gears, he’d do it with both our hands, his on top of mine. It was as if neither of us wanted to lose the physical contact between us for even one moment; as if we were both aware that every second counted, that there was a finite number of seconds, and that they were not to be squandered.

  He parked in the street behind his house, and we walked along it holding hands, going past some local bars with people inside them, still on the go. I spotted a small red sports car parked by the sidewalk and glimpsed a flash of irritation on Iago’s face. We walked on and then saw the four people who had just come out of Las Hijas de Florencio. They stopped beside us. The shortest of the four, Jairo del Castillo, escorted by three impressive women who were all a head taller than me, blocked his brother’s path. The three women were dressed in designer clothes, the rhinestone logos shimmering on their overly tight T-shirts. Their hair was dyed platinum blond and had long extensions, and their makeup would have made a porno actress proud. I figured there were about thirty plastic surgeries among the three of them. Even so, the overall impact was intimidating.

  “What do my eyes see?” said Jairo, grinning from ear to ear. “The MAC’s entire prehistory section in one hit.”

  “Jairo, it would have been great if you’d come by the museum tonight to help,” Iago replied without letting go of my hand.