“How many people work on the estate?”
“Well, that depends on the season. The caretaker family lives in their lodge. Estela, the dowager marquess’s nurse, lives here; although you saw the old lady at her best yesterday, she suffers from terrible arthritis that sometimes leaves her prostrate for weeks. The nurse is sturdy enough to carry her when necessary. Her room is adjacent to the dowager marquess’s quarters, for obvious reasons.” He began counting on his fingers. “And then there’s Sarita, who comes every day to help Herminia with the housework; Vicente, who assists Catarina with her gardenias; and Alfredo, who’s a combination steward and farm manager. You’ll have seen him yesterday at the cemetery, overseeing the burial. He’s mostly in charge of hiring temporary labor for plowing and farmwork, gardening, pruning, and whatnot.” He frowned as he searched his memory. “There’s a man who comes from time to time to take care of the orchards, and a dairyman too. On a normal day there might be eight or ten people attending to different things. They harvest chestnuts, potatoes, apples, and olives.” Gri?án shrugged. “These estates were designed long ago to be completely autonomous. As you’ve seen, this one has its own church and cemetery, like a little independent village. As Grileiras has its own wells, arable lands, and cows, hogs, and sheep in a rustic barn about a mile away. There’s also a mill on a waterway and an olive press.”
Manuel noticed that the two men outside the stables had stood up and stopped chatting in response to their arrival.
Gri?án introduced him by name but didn’t explain the reason for his visit.
The veterinarian gave him a firm handshake. Damián’s grip was gentler and more tentative; he took off his English-style cap and wadded it between his fingers, which were as thin and dry as vines. As they walked away Manuel felt the man’s watery gaze still fixed on his back.
“They don’t seem very surprised to see you here,” Manuel commented.
“We have a bookkeeper in our office who follows the details of the estate and its daily operations. My responsibilities as administrator don’t bring me around as often, but I like to drop by from time to time. I find the place enchanting.”
They walked in silence. The gravel crunched underfoot as they took the path through the trees to the church. When they came to the circular clearing Gri?án stopped, hesitated, and waved toward the direction of the cemetery.
“Perhaps you’d care to . . . ?”
“No,” Manuel answered, studiously not looking in that direction.
The path around the right side of the church was narrow and sloped downward, so Gri?án was forced to lag behind Manuel. The older man grumbled about his inappropriate footwear. Manuel took the opportunity to move ahead—not far, just a couple of yards to distance himself from the executor for the first time since they’d arrived. He’d had the impression of being under constant surveillance, like a prisoner in transport or a visitor who wasn’t entirely trustworthy. Behind him he heard the man call out in a voice agitated by the effort of trying to keep up.
“As Grileiras wasn’t always called by that name. In the seventeenth century it was known as the Santa Clara estate, and it’s recorded as having been the property of a wealthy abbot, a family ancestor favored by the king. He willed it to his only nephew, the Marquis of Santo Tomé, who had a winter residence constructed on the estate and called it As Grileiras. That must have made the abbot turn over in his grave. As I mentioned, the name of the estate is drawn from the folklore of the region.”
When he crested a slope Manuel was delighted to find a long stretch of perfectly-laid-out chrysanthemum beds and beyond them the agreeable disarray of an English garden. His steps slowed involuntarily as he listened to the murmur of the breeze through the tops of the towering eucalyptus trees on the far side. The terrain then sloped downward through a densely wooded area. A shady path brought him to a small clearing with a still green pond. The roots of several weary ancient trees had given way, leaving the trunks inclined here and there over the banks of the pond. He stood for a moment, moved by the beauty of the place, and then looked around for the administrator. “This place is . . . incredible!”
Clearly winded from trying to catch up, Gri?án looked down in dismay at a lichen-covered stone bench but at last lowered himself onto it. “An Atlantic garden in the English style. At least a dozen landscapers throughout history contributed, each one in his time, to achieve its beauty.” He fanned himself ineffectually. “And to think that my wife is worried about her heart. She’d do better to worry about mine.”
Manuel didn’t look back at him. Engrossed by the calm power of the garden, he looked all around. He was fascinated. How was it possible that such a place should exist as part of someone’s home? How could this wonder be someone’s private garden? He was surprised to find himself thinking álvaro had been lucky to spend his childhood here. His imagined recollection of his husband’s childhood brought to mind an unwanted recollection of his own.
The silent house of the elderly maternal aunt who took them in after their parents died in a traffic accident. The foibles of an old woman who could scarcely stand the sight of them. The smell of boiled greens that over the years had permeated the walls and couldn’t be scrubbed away. Whispered conversations on the upstairs balcony, the only place he and his sister could talk, and Madrid’s summer sunsets, little more than a glint of dying red light fading across the house fronts opposite. They’d found them beautiful.
A century-old ficus had place of privilege at the near edge of the pond. Its two-toned leaves shone, forming a strange cascade, and its veined living roots gave it majesty and sweep, as if it were ruled by its own desires and not by any passersby who had the liberty to walk away.
Attracted by the grandeur of that tree, Manuel stepped forward and touched the trunk, its bark as fine and warm as a living animal. He turned again toward Gri?án but didn’t see him. He smiled for the first time in days. He looked down the path and made out the shape of an ancient water mill. He set off in that direction, resisting with difficulty the impulse to break into a run. He descended a stair guarded by two sandstone lions that the ravages of time had rendered as smooth and round as shapes drawn by a small child, and he went around the building of ancient tile, attracted by the splash of water over a mill wheel. Ferns grew along steps that presented a succession of communicating pools of greenery, each thicker and denser than the previous one. Every turn in the road opened up new paths that beckoned him into their labyrinth with the alluring promise of undiscovered niches, fountains, and views.