“Such fine work,” murmured my father with a hint of pride in his voice. “When will you hand it over to Kyra?”
“She’ll have a hard time aging it to look exactly like the original,” I remarked, concerned. “I’m not sure we should risk it.”
“Family, Brother. Have confidence in the family. Our sister has a talent both for restoring pieces and for aging them. I wouldn’t be worried that they’ll detect what we’ve done. The dig is a small one, and they have few technical resources. They won’t pick up the exchange.”
“In any event, let’s see how it looks when Kyra finishes it,” I insisted.
Ultimately, Héctor and I made all the decisions to do with the museum; Jairo wasn’t really interested. The only thing that interested him was that I isolate the longevo gene. In return, he and Kyra made forgeries of the artifacts that had once belonged to us but were now on display in half the museums of the world. A very convenient quid pro quo.
“And now, are you going to tell me who that Adriana is?” he asked, sitting down beside me. Clearly, he’d been in the sitting room longer than I had thought.
“We were talking about Adriana Alameda, Son,” Héctor interjected, “the new chief curator of the Prehistory Department. Let me take advantage of this moment to reiterate that you are to stay away from the museum staff as far as conquests are concerned. We’ve had more than enough with your most recent exploit.”
“And does that order extend to Iago, or am I the only one who has to observe your ridiculous rules?”
Jairo the strategist, I thought to myself. He’d start needling me to gauge my reactions. Then he’d form his conclusions and try to inflict the greatest damage. That was his modus operandi; that was what had kept him alive for three thousand years.
“Well . . . ?” he demanded impatiently.
“We should all stop fooling around,” my father replied.
“What do you say, Iago?” he said, attempting to goad me. “Maybe I should stop by your office one of these days.”
True to form, he’d buried the landmine in the ground and was waiting to see if I would step on it. Poor Jairo. Three thousand years of playing games. I never allowed him to see that I was a better strategist than he was right from the start. I had been careful ever since my father had begged me to save him, and we had removed him to a totally uninhabited region. Since those first months when we had kept him tied to that revolting tent made of skins so that he wouldn’t attack us, the game had been one of life and death. He had been a young boy who learned he wouldn’t die, and a superstitious primitive man who believed he was a demigod. I had to tread lightly around this son furious with his father and his half brother because they had removed him from his easy life of human sacrifices, brutal pleasures, and massacres. At that stage I’d been on the earth for seven thousand years, and I would have killed him as I had, without hesitation, so many men before him who deserved to die. It was only his lucky star that saved him. Several times that I can recall.
And on this particular day, the eve of Imbolc, seated peacefully in the living room of our small city and far removed from that damned Scythia, our war still continued on another level.
Jairo was still hunting for clues so he could decide if it would be worth the effort to fight me for the only woman who had interested me recently. As if it was us, rather than she, who would decide, I was forced to admit.
“As far as I’m concerned, do whatever you want, Brother,” I lied as I punched him on the shoulder, yet again faking a camaraderie that didn’t exist between us.
Better this way, I thought. He’ll lose interest if he thinks I won’t fight him for her.
Héctor and I exchanged a quick glance behind Jairo’s back. That was enough, as always. Nothing escaped my father.
A short while later they headed off together with the intention of spending what was left of the afternoon playing golf. I declined their invitation and stayed behind to look after the fire. The wind tapped insistently against the windows with its invisible knuckles, bringing with it memories I preferred to ignore. But I knew they would come; I had smelled them ever since my brother had opened the door to the sitting room. Occasionally, I forced myself to do it; it was a painful but necessary exercise. I breathed deeply and allowed the memories in.
11
IAGO
7,598 SB, Scythia
700 BC, in what is now known as Ukraine
My father and I had been walking for twelve days without meeting a soul. The ever-present wind carried the sound of what we thought might be hoofbeats, but nothing interrupted the monotony of the steppes. We’d left the territory of the Getae behind us, and we knew that sooner or later we would have to deal with the Scythians. Our plan was to skirt the northern end of the Black Sea, always heading toward Boreas, the north wind, so as to go deep into the land of the Androphagi—if that nation of cannibals really did exist. Then, walking in the opposite direction to the movement of the sun, we would come across “those who sleep for six months.”
That’s where we were headed, following the legends that told of hairy beasts with tusks as thick as mature trees, beasts similar to elephants, but three times their size; sacred beasts like those my father used to bring down in his early youth. It was said that some herds had retreated toward the ice fields. It was said that they never died, and that they lived beneath the frozen earth.
But there was still a way to go before we reached the edge of the world. Exhausted, we agreed to have a rest at the top of a small hill. What we saw from up there was troubling: dozens of funerary mounds of packed earth and rocks silhouetted against the horizon. One in particular stood out. The corpses of some fifty horses and their riders encircled the central mound as if they were the dead man’s personal guard still escorting their master. I calculated that they had been dead for some time, as the remains of some had already been picked clean, so that only their skeletons remained.
“Kurgans,” whispered my father with a mixture of amazement and caution. “The tombs of Scythian kings and chieftains.”
We were entering sacred ground, arid land with rippled, scorched grass eternally punished by the cold wind. There was not a single tree to be seen—none could survive such harsh conditions. We exchanged a knowing smile and unloaded part of our baggage. We carried enough gold to overcome the vicissitudes of our journey, but we were in the habit of burying small quantities along the way. It was always useful, assuming that we were able to recover the gold at a later stage. Some of the Scythian tribes had a reputation for looting, and two men traveling alone were always at risk of a possible attack.
So we headed for the most prominent kurgan, the one with the dead horsemen, and spent the morning burrowing until our gold was well and truly buried. Over time we had come to realize that funerary mounds were excellent hiding places if you knew where to dig. Grave robbers usually destroyed only the main burial mound, which always yielded the greatest riches. They normally ignored the side mounds, because the corpses of the servants had little to offer.
We had just finished patting down the earth when we thought we heard something: the distant but unmistakable whinny of a horse. We started to put as much distance as we could between us and the mound, searching in all directions for the source of the sound, but initially we didn’t see anything.
“Not the best moment to be caught unawares,” muttered my father, concerned.
That was when they appeared. A troop of horsemen emerged from nowhere and galloped in our direction, aiming their small bows at us while emitting piercing cries. I reached instinctively for the dagger hidden under my belt, but my father persuaded me otherwise.
“There’s nineteen of them. Don’t even think about it.”
They encircled us in a tight formation, all save the leader, who maintained control of the situation from a slight distance. My father threw his weapons on the ground and, with a look, ordered me to do the same.
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The horsemen were dressed in striking red trousers. Their clothing—tunics, belts, hats—bore gold badges in the shapes of animals: eagles, deer, wild boars. I assumed they were the military elite, rich Scythians on their way to attend some ceremony. It didn’t escape my attention that most of them were old, too old to be warriors. One of them—he was the stockiest—was of fighting age, but he had lost a leg at the hip. They were all swarthy, with neat beards and straight, shoulder-length hair combed back. Then I noticed that their leader was clean-shaven. At first I thought he must be an adolescent, too puny to be a full-grown male, although his bearing suggested the arrogance of someone used to giving orders. He approached us without dismounting.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
I wasn’t the one who answered, because it took me a few seconds to recover from the shock—their leader was a woman. A female warrior armed with a bow, a whip, and a short sword.
Women, old men and cripples—these are the fearsome Scythians? I thought.
“You know our language, my lady?” my father hurried to reply.
“Answer!” she roared as she lashed out with her whip and cracked it a few inches from my feet.
“We are Hektor and Jason from Halicarnassus. My brother here collects medicinal herbs to prepare remedies for his patients. He pursues his profession as a healer in our native colony. In these parts there are shrubs with roots that are of particular interest to him. As for me, I’m a merchant and a bit of an adventurer, so I couldn’t resist accompanying him. It would give me great pleasure to offer you necklaces and earrings that are unknown in these parts.”
The woman smiled in a way that worried me as she forced her horse through the circle of men to stand in front of my father and our packs, totally ignoring my presence.
“Let me see them.”
Hektor opened his pack and, with slow movements, spread its contents on the ground, all the while keeping an eye on the horsemen, who muttered among themselves. The woman carefully examined the merchandise while my father quoted prices and described each piece. “The necklace my lady is looking at is made of turquoise, cornaline, and argillite beads, but this amber one is even more beautiful. I can offer you a special price.”
Even this was not enough to cause her to dismount and try on any of the pieces. Hektor picked up on this detail, too.
“I’m not a greedy man. I’m sure we can agree on a price that will satisfy both of us,” he added as his reservations grew.
“You still don’t understand, do you?” she said, ignoring me yet again. “That is my father’s burial mound, and it is my duty to protect it from looting. You’ve disturbed his rest. You are no longer free men.”
They didn’t give us time to react. She turned toward one of the old men and barked orders in their language. Half the Scythians dismounted and surrounded my father, tying his hands behind his back and forcing him up onto one of the horses. They gathered our belongings and loaded them onto the horse’s hindquarters.
They tied my feet together with a long piece of hemp that they attached to the saddle of another horse. Then they spurred the horse and set off. I was dragged across the plains full of boulders, scrawny blackberry bushes, and icy mud to their camp.
That was how I learned to hate that land.
I hated it with every strip of cloth and skin it tore from me, with every bruise caused by my body hitting the surface of the steppe—until one rock was kind enough to hit me on my head and put an end to my suffering.
12
IAGO
Jupiter Day, the thirteenth day of the month of Luis
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Jairo and I were at the bar with our drinks, watching our dates dance in the middle of the floor, having refused their invitation to join them.
“Any preference?” my brother asked, sounding me out.
“None. In any case, I think Erica prefers you.”
“Jessica,” Jairo corrected.
“Jessica,” I forced myself to memorize, although I had no idea why.
The aforementioned Jessica was the daughter of a playing partner of Jairo’s at the Pedreña golf club. She was visiting Santander with one of her friends, the girl with the long hair who continued to beckon me to come and dance with her to the ridiculous hit song from last summer that was playing at every club we’d gone into that night.
“You seem to have absolutely no interest in women lately,” whispered Jairo, dragging me away from my thoughts.
“It could be I’m stressed because of the research and my responsibilities at the museum. My life isn’t as laid-back as yours. It never has been.”
“I’m not talking about these past few years in Santander; I’m talking about maybe the last ninety years. The last time I saw you enjoying the pleasures of life was the time we shared in New York—those marvelous years of the nineteen twenties. Do you remember?”
“How could anyone forget them?” I said, sighing. “Of course I remember.”
“Do you miss them?” he persisted.
“Yes, maybe I do, now that you’ve reminded me of them.”
How could you forget Josephine Baker at the Cotton Club, knees knocking to the rhythm of the Charleston? Yes, I certainly remembered that. Back then I was playing the part of a wealthy bachelor, a bit wild and with lots of charisma. I recalled the parties with garlands and confetti, the women smoking and openly wearing makeup . . . And the two of us doing business to the sax sounds of Duke Ellington’s orchestra, between glasses of champagne.
“I haven’t seen you carefree since then,” commented Jairo, draining his twelve-year Cardhu.
“Come on, Jairo. We were all carefree in those years. We thought the good times would last forever. Who foresaw the events of Black Thursday back then? Not even your Wall Street contacts saw it coming.”
“Well, we learned our lesson. We haven’t been caught unawares by this latest crisis. Almost all our business ventures are safe.”
“May it last. And to come back to your vain attempts to liven up my evening, I have no special feelings for the twentieth century, although we’ve lived quite well since the nineties,” I said thoughtlessly.
I glanced at him and saw his jaw tighten. It was only then that I realized how tactless I’d been.
“Forgive me, Brother. How inconsiderate of me.”
“Forget it,” he replied, looking straight in front of him. “Keep talking.”
It was always the same. Whenever his daughter Olbia came up, there was no way to snap him out of his self-imposed silence.
The dark-haired young woman, Jessica’s friend, moved toward us again, treating us to a few of her dance moves.
“Come on, let’s dance!” she urged, tugging at my sleeve. “Stop behaving like a pair of old fuddy-duddies.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I finish my drink,” I promised her, putting on my best party smile. She went off happy as Jairo continued to stare at his friend’s daughter.
“Come on, Iago. You should give it a go,” he said, nodding his head in her direction. “It would be good for your ego.”
“My ego is just fine, thank you. You know, ever since you brought up the twenties, I haven’t stopped thinking about a particular person. Could you say good-bye to your friends on my behalf?”
“What are you going to do?”
“Call Lorena. I feel like a bit of genuine intimacy,” I said, putting on my jacket, which had been hanging on one of the club’s designer coat hooks.
“Lorena, Lorena . . .” He pronounced her name as if he were savoring a good bourbon. “She’s your friend the medical drug company representative, right? What a pity you won’t pass along her phone number.”
“Make no mistake,” I reminded him by way of a good-bye, “the decision not to meet you is hers, not mine. You should take better care of your reputatio
n as a libertine. May your evening end well, Brother.”
“Likewise, hermano,” he answered, switching his attention back to the girls with whom we’d entered the nightclub.
“I’m working on it,” I replied and walked out of the nightclub.
On Calle Cardenal Cisneros, I got caught up among the people busily downing drinks in tall plastic glasses, people like me who refused to accept that the night was over. I turned down various streets in my attempt to escape the music blaring from the other clubs until I finally found one that offered me darkness and silence. Grateful, I turned into it and, propping my back against a cold brick wall, I searched my cell phone for Lorena’s number. Seconds later I heard the elegant, unhurried voice of someone who knew how to sound sexy even if it was three o’clock on a Friday morning.
“Iago, what a lovely surprise! I was thinking of calling you next week,” she said, her voice caressing my ear while I closed my eyes in an attempt to forget the February cold. “I’m really tied up with work tonight.”
I ignored what she was hinting at and set off down the dark, narrow street again.
“Tell me, then, how are sales going in the northern region?”
“I’m trying to promote a new antiglaucoma drug,” she answered.
“Is it effective?”
“It doesn’t cure it, but of all the products on the market right now, it’s the one that best reduces the intraocular pressure. That said, tomorrow I have to convince the head of ophthalmology at the Valdecilla Hospital that my drug company has found the definitive solution.”
“In other words, you’re going to spend the night coming up with the most effective ways to lie,” I cut in.
“When you put it like that, it sounds terrible.”
“It wasn’t a criticism,” I said, laughing. “I have nothing against lies. In fact, I’m a pretty good liar, too. Do you want proof?”
“Why not?” she answered, playing along with me as usual. I had yet to find a game Lorena refused to go along with. “And since you’re going to lie to me, tell me that you’ve thought about me even once this past month. I’m curious to hear how those words sound coming from you.”