“Stop fighting it, Manuel,” she urged him in a low voice. “Crying will do you good.”
“He wasn’t wearing his wedding ring, Mei. The man who died here wasn’t my husband anymore. I can’t weep for him.”
Gri?án, the executor, answered his call immediately.
“I have to talk to you. I’ve made a decision.”
“I’ll be there in half an hour. At the hotel café.”
When he shut the door to the room behind him, he was carrying his packed suitcase. He had no intention of returning.
Gri?án was punctual. He ordered a coffee. As he seated himself he noticed the suitcase. “You’re leaving?”
“Right after the funeral.”
Gri?án looked him over as if to judge his resolve, and Manuel asked, “Correct me if I’m wrong: You’re now my legal representative, aren’t you?”
“Unless you decide to entrust your affairs to another professional.”
Manuel shook his head. “I want you to inform álvaro’s family that I’m not accepting the bequest. They don’t have to worry, because I don’t want anything. I don’t want to hear another word about any of this. Do everything necessary, so I can complete the formalities as soon as possible, and send any paperwork to my home. I’m sure you have the address.”
Gri?án smiled.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was just thinking how well álvaro knew you. I can inform the family if you wish, but your husband included an instruction that you’re not to be permitted to renounce his bequest until three months after his death or—which is the same thing—until his will is probated.”
Manuel glared at him for a moment, but then his tension ebbed away. It wasn’t Gri?án’s fault, after all; álvaro was to blame.
“This is unbelievable,” he said wearily. “All right then, tell the family, and you can send me the documents in December.”
“As you wish,” was the response. “That way you’ll have time to think it over.”
He’d been determined to keep his cool with Gri?án, but this was just too much. He lost it. “There’s nothing to think about. álvaro hid his identity from me. He concealed his life. Now I discover I’ve spent almost fifteen years with a man I didn’t know, who has a family I didn’t know existed, and I find myself heir to a fortune that doesn’t belong to me and I don’t want. I’ve made my decision, and I’m not going to change my mind.”
The executor looked down, his face studiously neutral as he sipped his coffee. Manuel looked around and saw the few other customers doing their best to pretend they hadn’t heard. He’d been berating Gri?án at the top of his voice.
In his BMW he tailed Gri?án’s Audi for forty minutes on the highway and another fifteen through a settled area. The forecast of rain had resolved itself into a sky of billowing clouds that offered sufficient cover to filter the sunlight and impose a palette of muted colors. The town wasn’t large. The countryside and landscape were a series of rural clusters along the road with barns along their outskirts, flanking the highway or the train tracks. After they’d turned off the main road there were fewer barns, and the perspective opened to vast fields of emerald green enclosed by walls of ancient stone and fences so picturesque they’d have been the delight of any photographer. Manuel was surprised by the beauty of the small cultivated groves of trees, their leaves shaded between green and silver. He guessed they were eucalyptus. The gorse bushes, nearly black and dotted with distinctive yellow flowers, contrasted with the pink heather along the road. Gri?án turned right onto a wide, graded gravel road that led toward a forest. A hundred yards farther he stopped the car outside an immense iron gate that stood wide open. Manuel parked behind the Audi, got out, and approached the administrator. Gri?án stood waiting at the entrance, his face lit with almost childish enthusiasm.
“We could have driven in together,” he explained as they walked through the gate, “but I didn’t want you to miss your impression when you saw it for the first time.”
Flanked by hundred-year-old trees, the unpaved drive was covered with pine needles. Here and there open pine cones clung to thin branches overhead like wooden roses. The ground sloped gradually upward toward an open area with a carefully manicured lawn and a one-story stone structure where rounded arches in a facade enclosed two magnificent wooden doors.
Manuel looked at Gri?án, who was expectantly awaiting his reaction.
“It’s very beautiful,” he had to admit.
The executor smiled in satisfaction. “It is, but this is merely one of the outbuildings. The stables are down there.” He stopped and pointed to the right. “The house is there. Se?or Ortigosa, that is As Grileiras manor, the house where your husband was born and the residence of every Marquis of Santo Tomé since the seventeenth century.”
The rectangular building was triple the size of the first one. Its small windows were deeply inset in walls of light-brown stone. It was situated at the crest of a gentle hill that dominated the grounds and contrasted with the deep vale extending behind it. The flat plain before the manor was planted with a thick little grove of ancient olive trees that blocked the view at ground level but would not, he was sure, obstruct the panorama visible from the upper floor. A line of wrought iron lamps and stone planters full of flowers was situated in front of the structure, much in the style of the Vatican, and they were surrounded by a hedge of shiny leaves and white flowers so fragrant he could smell their aroma even at this distance.
“Those are gardenias. As Grileiras has the most extensive collection of these flowers in Europe, perhaps unmatched anywhere in the world. Catarina, Santiago’s wife, is an expert; since the day of their wedding she’s taken care of their cultivation and has even won prizes in the most prestigious competitions. Next to the pond there’s a magnificent greenhouse where she has succeeded in cultivating some really interesting hybrids. We can visit it afterward if you wish.”
Manuel walked to the exterior hedge to admire the waxy cream-colored flowers and glossy leaves. He picked a flower and ran a fingernail along the hard stem. Cupping it in his hand, he inhaled a perfume so thick it almost dripped through his fingers. Gri?án’s explanations, that parade of offspring and in-laws, the family devoted to class distinctions he’d never encountered—this constellation seemed absurd and hostile, and the shame and humiliation of the encounter almost drove him away. Not even his need for answers would be enough to motivate him to stay in this place one minute beyond the required time. Concealing that reaction in deference to the friendly executor, he asked, “What does As Grileiras mean? It sounds like something to do with crickets.”
“It does, doesn’t it? But that’s entirely misleading.” Gri?án smiled. “As Grileiras in Gallego, also known as herbameira, are magic herbs with marvelous healing powers, just short of miraculous. According to the legends, they grow along the banks of ponds, lakes, and fountains. The expression comes from the word grilo or grelo referring to the first little shoots of the plants.”
Manuel took in the fragrance of the flower, slipped it into the pocket of his double-breasted jacket, and trailed after Gri?án.
“The cemetery is about two hundred yards from here, next to the estate’s church.”
“They have both a cemetery and a church?”
“Actually it’s something between a small church and a large chapel. A few years ago lightning struck the steeple of the village church, and the family allowed people to use this sanctuary for some months while the other was being restored. The parish priest was delighted. He held daily masses in addition to the usual Sunday service, and I believe that many more people came for the mass here. For the pleasure of being admitted to the marquis’s manor grounds, you know. People here follow such things very closely.”