They were all dressed casually, even Nagorno, who looked much younger in jeans than in his perennial expensive suits. Lyra had let her hair down, and I was surprised to see that it was even longer than mine, reaching down to the middle of her back. Lür came toward us with a smile so big it didn’t fit onto that beach.
“Am I to understand that you’ve patched up your differences?”
“Yes,” I replied with a laugh, “I think that’s a way of summarizing it.”
“You can’t begin to imagine how happy you make me,” he said, patting both of us on the shoulder. “But come on over. We were just finalizing everything.”
We reached the bonfire, which had already begun to crackle, although there was still a bit of daylight left, and Lyra came running toward me like a little girl, more relaxed than at the museum. I looked around quickly and saw that they’d brought some meat to grill on the fire, so I put the marinated salmon next to the rest of the food. Iago stayed back with his father, although I was able to overhear bits of their conversation.
“Don’t worry about your brother; he’s taken it very well,” Héctor told him.
“Then it’s going to be worse than I imagined,” was what I thought I heard him mutter, though I couldn’t be certain.
“Well, well, is that smiling man my brother? If I’d known I’d have thrown you to the lions myself,” said Lyra with a conspiratorial wink. “Father told us about the Cabárceno business. How are you feeling?”
“I’ll get over it,” I said with a shrug. I hid the pain that innocent movement had provoked.
“I have to admit that I’m impressed,” Nagorno whispered behind me.
I wheeled around. It made me nervous when he addressed the back of my neck, but when I looked at him, his face was relaxed and I could have sworn that his expression corroborated what he’d just said.
“It’s rare these days to find someone brave enough to confront something that big,” he added, as if he was proud of me.
“The men in my family and their blessed hunting,” Lyra interjected, dragging me by my arm in the direction of the bonfire. “You can’t imagine how grateful I’m going to be to have another female presence nearby again. Have you ever tried mead? I do a good job of brewing it.”
“Wait till I sit down, because I have a feeling your recipe is about . . . two thousand five hundred years old?”
“Yes, something like that,” she said, brushing aside my comment dismissively. “You’ll get used to the way we measure time.” She smiled. “You really remind me of my husband. It was like entering a new world for him, too. Anyway, to come back to your question, I learned how to make it in my first life, in Gaul. Iago will have filled in those details already. See . . .” She leaned over the receptacle and removed a small cloth bag completely soaked through with the golden liquid. She opened the bag and I saw that it contained various crushed spices. “You have to be careful with the cloves; they give it too much flavor.”
“Have a taste,” she encouraged me, picking up a wooden bowl and filling it with the liquid. It looked like beer, but paler and less dense.
“I’m only going to have a sip. I hope you won’t be offended, but I don’t want to mix it with the painkillers,” I said, taking hold of the bowl and moistening my lips.
It tasted very sweet and was quite alcoholic, but it went down easily. I forced myself to give her back the bowl to ensure I didn’t end up reading the palms of four people over a thousand years old.
At that point Iago strode up. After he’d added a few logs to the fire, which promptly revived and sent flames shooting three feet into the air, he sat down behind me, placing his bent legs on either side of mine.
“How’s the family integration going?” he murmured with a smile.
“For a St. John’s Eve spent in the company of four longevos, not bad,” I replied, accommodating myself to the space he was offering me.
He started to purr into my hair. “You know I can make you take back every one of your words, don’t you?”
“Permission to disturb you?” Lür and Nagorno asked, sitting down next to us.
“Granted,” Iago replied.
“I’ve brought you some mead, Brother. It’s delicious,” said Nagorno, placing the bowl a few inches from his face so that he could smell it. “Let’s toast the night. The occasion certainly warrants it.”
“Thanks, Brother. I’ll make short work of it,” Iago replied with a wink. It looked as if he’d decided that no one was going to ruin his evening.
“Why don’t you tell Dana some of those stories an archaeologist would kill for?” Iago urged the others as he discreetly set aside the bowl of mead without tasting any of it.
“Pick the era, Adriana,” said Lür.
“Rather than an era, I’ve got thousands of how-does-it-work questions buzzing around in my head.”
“Fire away, then,” Nagorno interjected with his hoarse voice, moving closer to me. “This is your night.”
“How does a longevo see the life of someone who ages?” I asked.
“It’s as if you were on fast-forward,” he replied, barely thinking about it. “A few years go by and you start to get wrinkles, then you stoop over and lose your strength, and then you’re not here anymore. It’s such a . . . sudden process. Do you know why no one has a butterfly for a pet? They’re very beautiful creatures, but they barely live for a few weeks. It doesn’t even give you time to get fond of them.”
I prevented myself from showing the impact his words were having on me. He continued with his hypnotic voice. The orange flames outlined his aquiline profile, and I could barely make out the dark shadow from which the voice was issuing.
“I can already see the face of the old woman you’ll become, assuming that you live that long,” Nagorno went on. “You have delicate skin, a blessing for you so far, but in twenty years’ time you’ll have thousands of tiny wrinkles beside your eyes and your mouth. Those eyebrows that arch every time my brother comes into the room will droop, too. You’re very expressive. Anyone who’s observant can tell if you feel happy, relieved, or uncomfortable, as you are right now. That will create very deep horizontal lines in your forehead. You come from slender stock, so your body will barely fill out over the next few decades, other than for a more-than-likely pregnancy. But your face will sharpen, and those regal, high cheekbones will collapse and fall. Don’t put on too much makeup when that happens, because it will add years to your appearance.”
“Enough,” said Iago from behind me. His voice was like a whiplash: one quick word tossed out with an unusual authority.
Nagorno obeyed, becoming silent, but even so I persevered.
“Okay, I’ll grow old, but you’re not so different. Traumas leave their mark on you, too, just like on any of us.”
“You’re wrong,” he replied. “That’s precisely where we’re different. Look at my left arm. You may have noticed I can’t bend it.”
I had noticed that detail, but I’d attributed it to a personal whim, or a flirtatious pose. In any event, I didn’t let on that I had noticed.
“It was hit by shrapnel a few years ago during the Spanish Civil War. The field doctor cut open the elbow and told me there was nothing he could do, that the metal slivers were lodged between the bones and they were too fine to be extracted. When the war was over, I approached my brother to get him to remove the rest. He did a fine job, but I didn’t recover the movement in it. As you can see, it’s permanently bent; I can’t extend it. Right now you’re thinking that that will make me a cripple for life, and I would be if I were an efímero like you. But for me it’s just a temporary handicap. Before this century is over, nanotechnology will have advanced enough to extract each and every one of those metal particles, and my arm will recover its mobility again.”
He kept quiet to allow his words to leave their mark in my mind. Then he rounded off with, “T
he same thing happens with the death of someone close to you, with rape, torture, or any other type of violence that the four of us have suffered. It marks your sort for life. It’s true that we have more time to mull over the suffering, but as the millennia go by, most of our experiences are left behind in the mists of forgetfulness, boredom, or indifference.” With the voice of a serpent, he added, “While you, on the other hand, are so slight that it doesn’t take much for a simple happening to scar you forever—you and those who surround you.”
Iago stirred behind me and looked away, uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken. Lür and Lyra rushed to rescue a magnificent evening that was going awry.
“It’s time,” said Lyra, getting up and shaking off the sand. “Everybody up—except you, Adriana. You remain seated and observe what we four little Ancients are doing.”
That’s what I did. What I wasn’t expecting was that the four of them would get totally undressed before my eyes with all the naturalness of people who have done it a billion times before. They allowed themselves to be observed as they positioned themselves at each of the cardinal points around the fire: Lyra the north; Lür the south; Nagorno and Iago, facing each other, the east and the west. The flames were still crackling and quite high, but that didn’t delay their dance. Because what I saw was a dance. Lür went first, running toward the bonfire and throwing himself over it. Lyra followed him. Then Nagorno leaped over with an acrobatic jump, the most catlike and highest leap, as if he were less affected by gravity than the others. And then Iago. The pace quickened. Lür, Lyra, Nagorno, Iago. Lür, Lyra, Nagorno, Iago, the leaps coming faster and faster, but with not one collision between them, until I myself had almost lost consciousness trying to follow them, dizzy with the spectacle of flames and bodies in the darkness.
Later, when we got back to his house at dawn, Iago explained to me that it was a purification ceremony, a way of cleansing oneself of one’s defects year after year, century after century, millennium after millennium. Why this ceremony specifically? He shrugged his shoulders when I asked him. They had come across hundreds of variations during their travels throughout Europe. This one was as good or as bad as any other, he commented absentmindedly.
I stopped asking him questions, and we fell asleep, exhausted once again, each of us silently cursing the poison that Nagorno had slipped into our thoughts.
48
ADRIANA
Sunday, June 24, 2012
St. John’s Day
We woke up early that morning as if we had slept for centuries, a bit befuddled but rested. Then we hit the street, heading in the direction of Plaza de Pombo. Families were on their way to the first mass at the church of Santa Lucía, the little children immaculately turned out. We crossed paths with several jogging retirees attempting to keep their balance as they bobbed up and down in their orthopedic shoes. I smiled without realizing it as I watched their precarious balancing act. I’ve always liked balancing acts.
Once we reached my apartment, I opened the front door and was one second away from calling out “Mamá, I’m home” from sheer force of habit, but I stopped myself just in time. Iago came in behind me, casting his eyes around with discreet curiosity as we went down the passage until we reached my bedroom. Then he stood staring with amusement at my new furniture. He glanced quickly at the chessboard, but luckily he didn’t ask me about it.
“So you shop at The Java Man?”
“How do you know that? It’s not the only colonial furniture shop in Santander.”
“Jairo buys his stock from craftsmen in Jakarta, and he brings a containerload to the port of Santander every three months. It’s a profitable business, of the sort my brother likes. He pays by volume for whatever will fit into the container. Once he gets it here, he inflates the prices and, as a byproduct, he makes a trip to Indonesia every so often. To reply to your question, the Javanese craftsmen sign each piece they carve.” He moved aside the mosquito netting and squatted down at the foot of my bed. “Here, look,” he said.
That’s when he saw my mother’s little safe hidden under the base of the mattress. He looked at me cautiously. “You don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t want to.”
I walked over to where Iago was, unable to figure out the surprised expression on his face. It hadn’t been my intention to talk about that topic so soon, but I guess it would have come out sooner or later.
“Let’s just say you’re not the only one with little family issues.”
He gestured at me to continue.
“The safe belonged to my mother. I’m trying to work out the combination to open it. I’ve got as far as 0-7-9-5, and I’ve got another 9,205 combinations to go. I try a few every night, but I think I’ll still be at it by the end of the year.”
“You know I have no idea what you’re talking about, don’t you?”
“Here, I’ll show you.” I grabbed the safe and took Iago to my mother’s office to show him the bookshelf with my mother’s black notebooks.
“Initially, I hunted among them for a personal notebook or some sort of diary belonging to my mother, trying to shed some light on her last few days. I didn’t find anything, except for the notebooks on the patients she was seeing. I tell a lie: one day I came across this safe. Neither my father nor I knew that it existed. My mother wasn’t the type to have secrets. Or so I thought.”
Iago frowned, trying to follow what I was saying, but I realized I’d have to go back a bit further.
“You see, at the time my mother died, she and I used to argue constantly. I was going through that awkward-teenager stage, and we both had strong personalities. The day before she died, we had a particularly fierce argument, something about the time I should get home. She was really angry because that weekend I had turned up at home very late. I demanded total freedom, quite ironic considering that as of the very next day, nobody would ever have control over me again.” I paused to catch my breath. “The day after we’d had that monumental fight, they told me that she’d died of an overdose of barbiturates. My family said that the police never concluded whether it was an accident or suicide. I didn’t ask too many questions—I guess I was in shock—but with every year that passes, the uncertainty has become more of a burden.”
“I know that feeling,” commented Iago.
“I’ve lived all these years without roots, trying to stay away from Santander, but a few months ago, when I decided to leave Madrid, I realized that I needed to come back here to investigate. I wanted to talk with my family—those who were still alive—and the police, and search among her things to see if I could find anything. And I certainly did. Do you remember the night of the work dinner? My cousin Marcos had just given me my mother’s suicide note. My whole family—my father, my grandfather, my aunt and uncle, and my cousin—had kept it from me.”
We were sitting on the floor. Iago’s back was propped against the bookshelf. I was sitting within the semicircle of his legs, and he was resting his chin on my shoulder.
“Dana, I’m really sorry. I had no idea that was what happened.”
“I know there’s nothing more to investigate, but even so I’m interested to know what’s inside that safe. I’m convinced there’s another notebook. Listen.”
I lifted the safe and gave it a shake. He nodded, agreeing with me.
“It’s true, it sounds like a book or a notebook. Dana . . .”
“What?”
“I know you won’t be pleased, but someone has to tell you.”
I sighed. “Come on, Iago, out with it. I’m an adult, remember?”
“You do realize how unlikely it is that a psychologist would commit suicide because she’s had a row with her adolescent daughter.”
“I’m not saying that’s why she committed suicide,” I said defensively, looking away from him.
“No, that’s for sure. That’s not what you’re saying.”
/> I leaned back against his chest, staring out into space. “I don’t know, Iago . . . Her death never made any sense to me. I always thought she was the strongest of the three of us, and that that phase of yelling and tense silences was temporary and my hormones would calm down. It didn’t make sense to me that she wouldn’t wait, that she didn’t love me.”
“What was your mother’s name?”
“Sofía Almenara. Why? Did you ever meet her?”
“No. I was just curious. Sofía, ‘wisdom’—it’s a good name for a mother.”
“I’d never thought about it like that,” I said with a shrug. I don’t know why, but I had a feeling he was trying to avoid giving the real reason for his question.
But just then Iago’s phone rang. He looked puzzled when he saw the number on the screen and jumped up when he heard the shrill voice of a woman—or was it a child? I remained on the floor, pretending to twirl the wheels on the safe, while Iago spoke in the same language I’d overheard him using the day Héctor handed me his amulet. I deduced that something serious had happened, because he listened silently, his hand over his mouth in a sign of his dismay.
It was a short call. As soon as he hung up he became absorbed in a series of feverish actions on his cell phone, tapping on the phone faster than seemed humanly possible, while I waited, trying to contain my impatience, as I was aware that I shouldn’t interrupt whatever it was he was doing. Minutes later he made another call and asked for a taxi at my address. When he finally hung up, he sat down beside me with a look on his face that was totally different from the one he’d had when he’d entered my apartment.
“Dana, I have to leave. I have to catch a flight to Copenhagen right now.”
‘What does ‘right now’ mean?”