‘Don Alfonso,’ said Harold, putting out his own hand. ‘We meet at last.’
He spoke in good English, and Olive saw echoes of Isaac in the man’s face – but there was something inherently theatrical about the Don that his son did not share. Despite his flashiness, there was an intelligence in Alfonso’s small eyes; calculation and black humour. She thought of the stories Teresa said circulated about him, and tried to quell her anxiety.
‘Gregorio, give Se?ora Schloss our offerings.’ One of the boys hopped forward. ‘Almond cake and a bottle of good port,’ said Alfonso.
Sarah took the presents. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘Are you settled in well?’
‘Very well.’
Alfonso peered past Harold into the darkness of the hallway. ‘Díos mio, the kitten has grown into a cat,’ he said, knocking one heel to the other in a cod--military gesture. The clipping heels of his boots and the creak of patent raised the hairs on Olive’s skin. Olive looked back to see Teresa scowling in the dark.
‘Still so scared of me, Tere?’ Alfonso said, in Spanish. ‘I don’t know why. I’ve heard about your claws.’ The younger men laughed. ‘She’s not giving you trouble, I hope?’
Harold glanced at Teresa, who stared at him with round black eyes. ‘None at all,’ he said.
‘Well, let me know if she is.’ Alfonso looked up at the finca’s many windows, every one illuminated with tiny, flickering flames. ‘Se?or Schloss, I hope we are not going to be burned alive. I thought this house was blessed with electricity?’
‘We wanted a little atmosphere tonight, Don Alfonso. Please come in.’
‘I brought Gregorio and Jorge – you don’t mind if they come too?’
‘Not at all.’
The three men moved past Olive and her mother, Jorge’s gaze lingering a little too long on Sarah for Olive’s comfort.
‘Is that brother of yours here?’ Jorge asked Teresa.
‘Maybe. But he won’t be talking to you,’ she said.
IN TOTAL, SIXTY--SEVEN RESIDENTS OF Arazuelo came to the party. The presence of this small family from London and Vienna imbued the locals with a carnival, topsy--turvy feeling. There was a permissiveness in the air, as if a taboo had broken apart, and its scent was going to drown them all. Don Alfonso stayed in a corner of one room – a few -people came up to him and spoke, but generally he was left alone.
The guests wrote their names in a book that Harold produced. Some inscribed their signatures eagerly, happy to be included in this cosmopolitan event, with its dancing lights and jazz music, and the smell of oleanders in every room. They jotted short messages of approval or goodwill – buen vino or Dios bendiga. Others were more cautious, looking worried about being permanently embedded in this foreign book, as if it might be a politically controversial gesture. Olive remembered Adrián, the murdered boy from Malaga, Isaac’s concerns about what was going to happen to the country, and wondered if they had a point. Nevertheless, she wrote down her own name, directly underneath those of Teresa and Isaac.
Having drunk three glasses of champagne, Olive sensed the ghost of the boy moving through the rooms. She sat back in her wicker chair, and saw his bloodied body drag itself between the guests. She imagined there was a determination to their drinking, their dancing, their shouts and claps, as if they were pushing him back to the land of the dead, to reclaim this house for the living.
A woman wore a long satin dress the colour of a dawn mushroom. The candle flames sparked a glint in a brass cufflink, lifted with a crystal glass of moonshine. Teresa scurried hither and thither, always with a tray of drinks, or some meats and cheeses, or slices of cake. She was studiedly avoiding her father. The room was full of voices, the music pulsed from the gramophone in the corner – and there was Sarah, in her double--faced purple dress, flitting between the groups. She laid her hand on Isaac’s arm, and made him laugh. -People turned to her like they might to a beacon of light.
Olive watched Isaac wherever he went, feeling her attraction sing up to the wooden beams above her head, down to the slosh of champagne in her glass. Her curls had begun to droop and she tugged them nervously, worried she was walking around with a half--hairstyle. Now he was deep in conversation with the local doctor, looking sombre at something the man had said. He too had not spoken to his father. He was wearing that perfect pair of dark--blue trousers, cut close to the line of his body; a dark linen jacket, a blue shirt. She imagined what colour his skin was underneath. When was he going to turn round and notice her? She touched the green stones around her neck and downed a fourth champagne. The fumbling child she’d been all her life was soon to be a spectre; one more glass would flush that kid away.
Two of the guests had brought guitars, and from their fingers cascaded a confident duet, note after perfect note, up and down the fretboards. -People cheered when they heard it, and someone lifted the needle off the gramophone, scratching the record. There was a moment’s worried hush, but Harold, very drunk by now, roared with approval and shouted, ‘Let them play! I want to hear this magic! ?Quiero oír el duende!’