Manuel decided not to play anymore. For the rest of the weekend he limited himself to executing his signature on a different page each time and handing back the book with the same pleasant smile as at first, the same smile he offered every reader, and he refused to allow himself to be trapped into doing more. By the end of the Sunday sessions, he’d decided that the young man was a harmless stalker, either an ardent fan or a collector of autographs.
The last weekend was in the middle of June. The central avenue of Retiro Park was practically coming apart beneath the constant flow of visitors. He gave autographs all Saturday morning and afternoon, and álvaro didn’t appear. At the end of the Sunday-morning session, he was convinced álvaro wouldn’t be back, a prospect that created a curious emptiness in the pit of his stomach. The publisher had arranged for a farewell luncheon in a nearby restaurant, but Manuel scarcely touched his plate as he tried to follow the conversations, most of which were writers’ anecdotes about other autograph sessions. The press relations agent came up to him as the meal ended.
“Manuel, you’re looking under the weather. Has this all been too much for you? You’ve been signing every single weekend.” She took out a thick sheaf of paper and consulted it. “It’s your turn to sign at the Lee Bookstore booth. If you’re not feeling well, I’ll make excuses for you. They’re lovely people, and they’ll understand. It’s your last session and only the real latecomers will be there.”
He went. The metal stands were stifling in the heat of that June afternoon. The proprietors left the back doors open in unfulfilled hopes of creating a cooling draft. But the high temperature didn’t appear to affect the visitors. Like some great multimembered living thing they slithered their way past the stands, carrying with them their noise and the radiant heat of their bodies. At eight o’clock the place was jammed to the bursting point; by nine they were almost all gone. The crowds were quickly replaced by squads of workers taking apart the concession stands and carrying away dispensing machines in the open backs of freight trucks and pickups. This time the booksellers hadn’t lowered the metal shutters on their booths, and they’d stacked up dozens of cardboard boxes into which they were busy collecting everything that had constituted a branch of the store throughout the duration of the fair.
He lingered and took farewell of his hosts, feeling satisfied at the outcome of the fair. It had broken all sales records for the third consecutive year. Then finally he had no excuse to stay. He walked away from the stands and looked for the nearest bench so he could sit to observe the central aisle and the activity of those taking the stands apart.
álvaro sat down beside him.
“I was afraid I wouldn’t get here in time,” he said and excused himself with a smile. “I’m lucky to find you still here.”
Manuel’s heart suddenly pounded so hard that he felt his pulse throbbing in his throat. He wasn’t sure if he could even speak. “I’m waiting for my press agent,” he lied.
álvaro tilted his head to one side and met his eye. “Manuel, your press agent left a while ago. I saw her going out as I was coming in. She went out into the park with a group of authors.”
Manuel nodded slowly and smiled. “That’s right.”
“And the real reason is . . . ?” His eyes still had all the sparkle of the youngster he’d been not too many years before. Manuel would recognize that same audacity and confidence many years later when he at last saw a photo of álvaro as a boy.
“To tell you the truth, I wanted to see you again,” Manuel admitted.
“Will you sign this for me?” he said, holding out the book again.
Manuel looked back with a smile. Here we go again. What was the point of all this? he asked himself once again.
“You’ll have to keep on signing it until you write another one this good.”
IMPASSE
The administrator’s offices occupied a whole floor of an imposing building in the center of town. As Gri?án had promised, a driver with a limousine picked him up at the hotel and drove him the short distance to the executor’s place of business. Doval escorted him to a small room adjoining a larger conference room and insisted on providing him with a coffee he sipped reluctantly and a tray of pastries he wasn’t going to touch. The very thought of food made him feel ill, even though the last decent meal he’d had was breakfast at home the day before, before the corporal and the handsome woman sergeant turned up to deliver the worst imaginable news.
He rose and grunted, but his head was all right. An old woman who’d taught him to drink whiskey had given him good advice: “Whiskey is the perfect tipple for a writer. It lets you think when you’re drunk and doesn’t leave a hangover. So the next day you can go back to writing.”
He stepped up to the glass door between the two rooms, attracted by the rattle of chairs against the floor and the obvious unease of Gri?án, who was overseeing the setup of the room. The administrator’s worried look wasn’t at all in keeping with his earlier affability. It was as if he’d ordered the staff to set up a display of coffins instead of chairs. Gri?án caught sight of him through the glass door, smiled, waved, and came toward him.
“Se?or Ortigosa, you look like hell.”
Manuel couldn’t help smiling at the candid evaluation of a reality of which he was all too aware. “Call me Manuel, please,” he replied.
Gri?án smiled. “Excuse my frankness. All my fault; I should have foreseen you’d have trouble sleeping, given the situation. Completely to be expected. My wife, who’s a physician, gave me this for you.” He held out a tiny metal pillbox. “She made me promise that I’d ask you if your blood pressure is normal and whether you’ve had any heart problems.”
Manuel shook his head, checked the pillbox, and noted that Dr. Gri?án’s precautions went well beyond perfunctory inquiries about his circulatory system. The little box contained only two pills.
“Take them just before bedtime, and you’ll sleep like a baby.” Gri?án closed the door to the adjacent office. “You’ll wait here. I think that’ll be best. Doval will seat the immediate family. With the blinds down they won’t be able to see anything in here. After they’re all seated, I’ll escort you to your place, and we’ll begin. That way you won’t be in the room as they’re arriving. I think that will make this easier for everyone.”
He turned on a little desk lamp and gave Manuel a worried glance as he lowered the blinds. Gri?án sat down next to him. “There’s one thing you should know,” he said in a concerned tone. “They, too, have been shocked by all this, just as you have. And for them perhaps it was worse, not so much because you were in a relationship with álvaro—that they could have taken for granted—as for the revelation that you and he were married.”
“I understand.”
Gri?án shook his head. “The noble line of the Marquis of Santo Tomé is one of the country’s most ancient noble families and beyond all doubt the most important of Galicia. They regard their name as sacred. The old marquis, álvaro’s father, was extremely strict, and he considered the preservation of family honor more important than anything else. Absolutely anything,” he repeated with emphasis. “álvaro’s homosexuality was unacceptable to him, and he was aware that the title would revert to his eldest son. Through his long wasting illness, he continued to insist we not inform álvaro until after his death. Perhaps that will give you an idea of how vindictive the gentleman was.”
“If he despised álvaro so much, why didn’t he disinherit him and pass the title to one of his other sons? For example, the one who inherits it now?”
“Disinheriting the eldest son would have caused a scandal. He found that unthinkable, and in my view he was right. Oh, well, you’ll get to know them soon enough.” Gri?án got up and turned off the desk lamp. “Let’s go.” He moved to the glass-paneled door. “What I’m trying to convey is that they’re cut from very different cloth.”