Manuel heard her approaching the door. He felt the urge to retreat up the hall, but it would be absurd to try to pretend that he hadn’t heard. He stayed where he was.
Catarina was wearing a light-blue dress of sheer fabric that made her look much younger. She carelessly clutched a coat and a purse. She gaped in surprise when she saw him and seemed to want to say something, but not a word came out. She didn’t even close the door all the way behind her. She dropped her purse and coat, threw herself into his arms, and burst into sobs. He felt the warm press of that female body, short and strong but overcome with grief. She pressed her face to his chest as if trying to burrow into it, her hands like two small frightened animals seeking holds on his shoulders. He held her tight, taking in the scent of the shampoo from that mane of hair trimmed to the level of her chin, and he let her cry. He was deeply moved by the woman’s strength. He had an intimation of what they must have meant when they said she knew how to maintain her place within the family.
Catarina gradually calmed down. She accepted a tissue from Manuel and didn’t make the awkward mistake of apologizing for her behavior. She dried her face and then hugged him again, rose on tiptoes, and kissed his cheek. She leaned down to recover her purse and coat, pointed toward the coffee vending machine at the far end of the corridor, and walked in that direction.
She sank onto one of the plastic seats next to the machine, but waved away his offer of coffee, gesturing toward her abdomen.
“Oh, that’s right! Congratulations!”
She smiled as best she could in the circumstances.
Manuel was so moved that he found himself apologizing. “I’m sorry you’re being subjected to all this just when you should be celebrating.”
“Oh, Manuel! Thank you so very much. You don’t know how much I needed to talk to someone. This has been a terribly hard day.”
He recalled the scene he’d witnessed when Catarina and the Raven had come out of the front entrance. The relations between the two seemed quite cordial. He wondered if perhaps Catarina didn’t share that opinion or if she was deliberately not acknowledging that she’d already received support from someone.
“I can imagine. Do you feel all right?”
She smiled. “Yes, thanks, I’m fine, just worried, but I’m very happy you’ve come. I wanted so much to talk to you. Herminia told me Elisa and Samuel went away with you last night.”
“They did.”
“I’m not blaming you at all, and I do hope things work out. I adore Samuel, and now he’s going to have a little cousin. I’d love to see them grow up together.”
Manuel didn’t reply, for he didn’t know what to say. But he was aware that her affection for Samuel didn’t extend to Elisa.
“How is Santiago?”
Her face darkened. “Terribly depressed. I’ve never seen him so bad.” She put a hand over her mouth.
“Herminia told me that he went through a spell of depression after his younger brother died.”
“Yes, he did, but it was nowhere as serious as this. He turned to me then, and I helped him get over it. But this time, I suppose it’s not his fault alone. I should have realized that he was at a breaking point. He’s so weak, so . . .” She shook her head, and for an instant her expression was vexed, almost angry. Or perhaps even something harsher. Manuel looked at her, disconcerted, and pretended not to notice, but he remembered the Raven’s condemnation of Santiago in almost the same words.
“Catarina, I’d like to talk to Santiago; there’s something I’d like to ask him.”
Her first reaction was one of alarm, but she restrained herself and appeared cautious. She tried to smile but failed.
“I’m sorry, but it’s just not possible, Manuel. Santiago’s in a very delicate condition, and I still remember how he reacted the last time you two met. I’m not going to allow it, whatever you say. I must protect him, Manuel. I have to take care of him.”
He had to accept that. He gave Catarina a dutiful hug before he left, but this time the embrace left him with a feeling of dismay. He didn’t know whether to attribute it to his own sentiments or to the stiff reluctance he sensed in her embrace. She prolonged the contact, perhaps by way of compensation, and held his hand as they walked to the elevator. Manuel took no solace from her grasp, for it seemed to incarnate the ghostly presence of the Raven.
Rebuking himself silently for that reaction, he sought to compensate for it with an act of loyalty. “Catarina, when I arrived, I saw Vicente sitting inside a pickup truck in the parking lot.”
“Oh!”
“I wouldn’t bother you with it right now, but when I spoke to him I saw he was very emotional. He was weeping. I convinced him to drive home, but he seems determined to speak to you. I wouldn’t be surprised if he came back.”
Her mouth tightened into a hard line, an expression of annoyance or displeasure, as if instead of communicating the man’s desperation he’d mentioned a plague of aphids threatening her plants.
“Well, you heard our exchange the other day. I finally had to fire him. It was very unpleasant. Vicente was an excellent assistant, but he’s one of those people who doesn’t respect boundaries or understand his proper place.”
Without thinking Manuel dropped her hand. He was disappointed. Perhaps because he’d been expecting an expression of regret, some spark of humanity that might differentiate her from the rest of the Mu?iz de Dávila family. Maybe Nogueira was right; maybe they were all the same.
The elevator door opened. Manuel stepped in and turned to catch her eye. “He had a pistol.”
That did provoke from her eyes the glint they’d been lacking, but she recovered quickly. “Oh, don’t worry about that, Manuel. Men are dramatic and exaggerated, but I know Vicente well. He’d never raise a weapon to me.”
“But against himself, perhaps?”
She just shrugged. The elevator door closed.
The rain didn’t let up all day. The two weeks he’d spent so far in Galicia had taught him not to trust a brilliant cloudless sky, for he’d seen it close over in hours as the weather changed rapidly. On the other hand he’d also assimilated the locals’ ability to intuit when rain would continue all day long. Madrid’s rains were hectic, sudden, and impetuous; they dirtied the sidewalks and sent torrents surging headlong down the gutters, but all trace of them disappeared from the air as soon as the drops stopped falling. In Galicia, however, the earth soaked up water and welcomed it like a long-awaited lover. After a rain a humid presence lingered in the air, a barely concealed ghost ready to materialize at any moment.
He parked next to Nogueira’s car and Laura’s small van. He smiled when the girls’ faces appeared at the window in response to the sound of his arrival. He stopped the engine but didn’t get out.
He felt still confused and dismayed by the state in which he’d found Catarina. The orballo with its quietly relentless rhythm intensified those feelings. Sheltered within the car, he watched Nogueira’s house through the windows and saw the image waver and blur as if the residence was melting. Misgivings again seized him. He was tempted to start the engine and drive off.
He faced his anxiety. “Screw it,” he muttered.
Café had made all the difference. If anyone had suggested to him a couple of weeks earlier that the furry little fellow would become so important to him, he’d have laughed himself silly. But that’s what had happened. His mood wasn’t because of Santiago, the feeling of general melancholy, or the orballo; he was simply afraid that the dog wouldn’t want to come back with him. He’d read somewhere that animals choose their masters. How could a boring writer hope to be more attractive than an eight-year-old playmate?