“He wasn’t. Santiago was right. He was a little lost boy who couldn’t foresee the consequences of his own actions. álvaro had convinced him to forget the whole thing. That’s why he didn’t show for the meeting at La Rosa.”
Catarina raised an eyebrow for just a moment as she took in that unexpected news. “Hmm. Irrelevant. How long do you think he would have held back? It wasn’t the first time he’d stolen from us. He’d have been causing problems in no time at all. It had to be done, but I wasn’t expecting Santiago to take it so hard. He was so weak, so weak and vulnerable he made me want to throw up. Someone called him to say the boy was dead, so he staged his little spectacle and tried to commit suicide. And then came another complication: before I knew it, Herminia had called an ambulance and the emergency team was all over him. I couldn’t keep them from carrying him off to the clinic.”
“Like when Santiago fell into that terrible depression after you killed Fran. You kept him locked up in his room, caring for him and spoon-feeding him until you convinced him that it was all for the best. That you’d done it for the two of you, and everyone was better off.”
She gave Manuel a look of surprise. “For God’s sake, Manuel, don’t be such a child! Santiago wanted exactly what I did. What do you think our relationship was based on? Love, maybe? Oh please! Santiago had been the old marquis’s devoted little dog, always trying to please him but always finding himself humiliated and despised. Always the same story. The old man never let Santiago do anything, never even allowed him to manage his own money, and when Fran came back it was pathetic to see the old man slobbering with delight over his favorite son. When the old marquis got sick and Fran was in rehab, we were sure the old bastard would name Santiago as his heir. But he died and left it all to álvaro, his wayward son, the black sheep of the family. Despite everything he favored álvaro over the good and loyal son who lived with him.
“It didn’t turn out too badly though. álvaro didn’t want anything to do with all this. He was never here. But the title went to him, so Santiago had to put up with being just the brother of the marquis . . . And Fran! You have no idea, Manuel! He fell apart when his father died. He was a drug addict and a coward, a shell of a man, and he was bound to die of an overdose eventually; and besides, Santiago couldn’t keep his mouth shut, so Fran started to suspect something strange was going on. He said as much to Santiago, and the big idiot repeated that in confession. And afterward he came crying to me, the way he always did.” Her voice went into a scornful mocking treble. “‘What am I going to do? How shameful! He’s going to tell everyone, and I won’t be able to show my face!’”
“I hope you’re not claiming Santiago killed his brother Fran. We have evidence that you bought the heroin.”
“Oh, of course I bought it! I knocked him over while he was praying, and his head banged against the pew. He was unconscious when I gave him the dose. Santiago whimpered and whined the whole time, and he almost screwed everything up by moving the body from the church to their father’s grave. He thought it would be ‘undignified’ just to leave it in the church. But of course he found nothing undignified about meeting his lover there. Everything would have been fine if my stupid husband hadn’t lost his head over that good-for-nothing and had just let me take care of everything. But that was Santiago—hysterical and crazy, a real drama queen. Ever since he was little, according to his mother. But make no mistake, Manuel, he wanted exactly what I did. The difference was that he didn’t have the guts for it, and afterward he was eaten up by guilt. But never for too terribly long; after the first phase of regret and repentance, sobbing and beating his chest, he revived and was a new man, ready to enjoy everything I’d gotten for the two of us. You’re not going to make me feel guilty, Manuel. I don’t believe in it. These Catholic penitents have never impressed me. Am I any worse than he is, simply because I have no regrets? Was he better than I was because he was sorry about what we’d done?”
Manuel regarded her, still amazed. There was no doubt about it: Catarina knew her place better than anyone, and she’d applied all her strength and ingenuity to maintain it. She was that rare embodiment of the self-regard of the aristocrat, the people Nogueira had said were more able than any to emerge from scandals and the afflictions of poverty with their heads still held high. And an unmatched actress. He remembered her pretense of wiping away tears after the encounter with her husband the day he first met her. As well as the fragment of her conversation with Vicente he’d overheard in the greenhouse. Theater, all of it, magnificently executed acting aimed at creating a desired effect; she’d even had the calm audacity to tell him she realized he’d overheard. No, there wasn’t a shred of repentance or regret; she held her head high as any queen, her gaze serene and her eyes calm, showing not a trace of grief. He again thought he’d have given anything to see her frightened, to find some trace of fear in those eyes.
He was about to get out and close the door when a question occurred to him. “Tell me, was it worth it?”
Her head moved as if to say nothing could be more obvious. “Of course. I won’t be in prison forever, and in my womb I bear the next Marquis of Santo Tomé.” She glanced down at the slight bulge visible through the blouse and looked up again in arrogant pride.
Manuel’s frozen, grieving lips quivered. That tic caught her attention. Her expression changed when she realized he was grinning.
“I suppose it must have been quite difficult for Santiago to go to bed with you.”
“But he did.”
“It’s not Santiago’s child,” he said, regarding the bulge.
“Officially, it is.”
“He knew. That’s why he went to talk to his mother after you announced it.”
She sat there impassive. “And managed only to get her to mock him yet again.” She waved away his comment. “My mother-in-law knew how to set priorities. She was a great lady.”
Manuel looked at her in regret. If only she were to show emotion. Any emotion at all. “Santiago wanted a son. He truly did. And the fact you hadn’t gotten pregnant worried him a great deal. When you had a miscarriage a few months ago, something made him suspicious. He brooded on it for quite a while and began to wonder why you were ‘working’ so much.” He paused. “I had a very interesting phone call with Herminia today. Turns out that his suspicions prompted him to remember something he’d almost forgotten, something his nanny remembered when he asked about it. When he was sixteen years old Santiago had the mumps. It’s a childhood disease, but it can be very serious in older patients. In teenagers it can cause fever and inflammation of the testicles, sometimes resulting in masculine sterility. That incident had been forgotten until it began to look like you two were having trouble conceiving. When you became pregnant and had the miscarriage, Santiago arranged for fertility tests.”
There it was: the fear in her eyes.
“You’re lying,” she accused him. “I’d have known about it.”
“The test results were sent to the only person he could trust—Herminia, his nanny.”
He shut the cruiser door but turned to look at her one last time. He saw it clearly, even through the thick glass window. Now she was terrified for real.
GOING BACK HOME
The river gleamed below them. He hugged Samuel, put him down, and felt a knot in his heart as he watched the boy clamber up the slope to his mother. She was laughing in response to something Daniel, the cellar master, had said. Smiles all around. It occurred to him that those two were getting along very well. He settled next to Lucas on the stone mura, warm in the midday sun, and looked around. He recalled again the enologist’s comment the first day they’d met: You won’t believe me, but when I first came here I hated the place. He took a deep breath and marveled at his own former ignorance.