Manuel wasn’t moved by gardeners’ fascination with the craft of cultivation or disease-resistant hybrids, but he had to admit that the surreal, strong masculine beauty of those strange flowers was riveting. They seemed to call out to be touched. Those muted, pale petals evoked the fragility of human existence.
He remembered the waxy touch of the flower he’d been about to drop onto álvaro’s coffin and had instead carried around in his pocket all day. There was something addictive in the warm texture of the milky surface of a gardenia petal. It invited a caress the way that contact with human skin made one aware of its evanescent vulnerability. Without thinking, he lifted both hands to touch the open petals of the bloom he stood before. His fingers felt their yielding surface. He leaned over, almost bowing formally, and took in the scent. Like some magic spell, it transported him to that moment after álvaro’s funeral when he’d held the first such flower in an instant of graveside farewell, looking down at the coffin in which his own heart was being buried. The vision faded. He opened his eyes and found the greenhouse had become a blur of vague shapes. As if impelled by irresistible centrifugal force, he staggered back two steps and collapsed. He didn’t lose consciousness. He perceived the shapes of two men hurrying to him, and he felt a cold hand pressed to his brow. He blinked.
“It’s the heat and humidity,” Vicente said. “You’re not the first one to react that way. There’s a difference of at least twenty degrees Fahrenheit with the outside. The humidity makes it a bit difficult to breathe if you have high blood pressure, and then there’s the perfume of the flowers.”
Exhausted and embarrassed, Manuel let them help him up from the sandy floor. He brushed off his already mistreated clothes. He knew he must look deplorably rumpled and unkempt.
“What have you had to eat today?” Gri?án asked sternly.
“A coffee.”
“A coffee,” the administrator repeated, shaking his head as if lamenting the inadequacy of that response. “Let’s go to the kitchen and get Herminia to give you something.” He held Manuel’s arm in a firm grip and steered him to the exit.
The manor house facade was structured around two symmetrical arches. One was the principal entrance; he assumed that the other must once have been the opening that granted carriages access to an interior court, for it had been bricked up. Next to it a fat black cat lurked around a Dutch-style door with an open upper section. The smells of cooking that wafted through it persuaded him that maybe Gri?án was right in urging him to have something to eat.
Two women, one old and the other young, were busy at the ovens of a modern kitchen. Somewhat paradoxically the central feature was a wood-burning stove.
“Good morning,” Gri?án called through the doorway. The women turned with expectant looks. “Herminia, look and see if you have something to feed this man of ours. He’s feeling faint.”
The woman came to the door, drying her hands on her apron. She opened the lower section and stood there smiling as she looked Manuel over. He remembered her from the funeral, for she’d been wailing with the group of women. After a moment she leaned forward, took his hand, and drew him into the warm room, ignoring the administrator. Looking back and forth from Manuel to her young assistant, she brought him to the kitchen’s great wooden table.
“Oh, my dear, you have no idea how much I’ve been thinking about you recently! And all you’ve been going through. Sarita, clear the table and bring Manuel a glass of wine. And you, dear, sit here and give me your jacket.” She took it and hung it on the back of the chair. “Just let Herminia take care of you. Sarita, cut him a slice of the big pie.”
Overwhelmed by this rush of affection, he let the women take over. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Gri?án grin and heard him say, “Herminia, I’m going to get jealous, with all this attention for Manuel and none for me.”
“Don’t you pay any mind to him.” She deliberately ignored Gri?án. “He’s as shameless a flatterer as that fat cat over there. And just like the cat, if I don’t pay attention, he’s in the kitchen eating everything he can get hold of. Sarita, fetch a bit of pie for se?or Gri?án as well.”
Sarita put a pie as big as a tray on the table and set to cutting pieces under Herminia’s vigilant gaze.
“Bigger than those, woman!” the cook cried. She took the knife and cut the pie herself, depositing slabs on sturdy white earthenware plates and placing them before the men.
Manuel had a taste. A bed of onions lay under tender fragrant pieces of meat, and the cornbread crust gave it a distinctive aroma and consistency. Clearly one was meant to eat it with one’s hands.
“You like it then? Eat. Have some more!” The woman put another thick piece on his plate. She turned to Gri?án, lowered her voice, and changed her tone. “Sarita has a message for you. Sarita, what do you have to say to se?or Gri?án?”
“The lady dowager wants to see you,” the girl said timidly. “She said to tell you as soon as you arrived.”
The executor straightened up in his seat and took a last regretful glance at the steaming hot yellow crust with its onion-and-meat filling.
“Duty before pleasure,” he said as he got up. “Save it for me, Herminia. Don’t let the cat get it.” He left through a door that opened onto an interior stairway.
Little Samuel came running in, closely followed by his mother. He wrapped himself around Herminia’s legs.
“Well, who’s this?” the cook exclaimed. “Look, if it’s not the king of the castle!” She tried to lift the boy.
But the child was suddenly struck shy when he noticed Manuel. He ran to hide behind Elisa, who smiled with evident maternal pride.
“Mama!” the child whined.
“What’s the matter?” she teased him. “Don’t you know who this is?”
“Uh-huh . . . it’s Uncle Manuel,” the boy said.
“Aren’t you going to say hello?” she prompted him.
The boy smiled. “Hello, Uncle.”
“Hello, Samuel,” replied Manuel. He was overcome by the boy’s gentle innocence and the weight of that single word.
The boy took off toward the door.
“He’s full of beans today. We’ll see if we can wear him down a little,” Elisa called in farewell as she rushed after him.
Herminia looked after them and then turned to Manuel. “Elisa’s a good girl and a fine mother. She was Fran’s fiancée—Fran, álvaro’s little brother. She was pregnant when he died.”
Manuel remembered what he’d heard from Gri?án: death by overdose.
“He didn’t live to see his son,” Herminia went on. “Elisa’s been with us since then, and as for Samuel, let me tell you—” She smiled. “You’ve seen already. He’s a little ray of sunshine. He’s brought a bit of joy to this house.” Sadness crept into her expression. “And heaven knows we need it.”
Sarita, standing behind her, sighed as well and placed a hand on Herminia’s shoulder. The cook quickly covered it with hers and tilted her head to express gratitude and affection.
Gri?án looked very concerned when he returned. He didn’t touch the pie and took only a quick sip of wine. He made a show of checking his cell phone. “Look at this! I’m sorry, Manuel, something unexpected has come up at the office. I have to go back to Lugo.”
The false note in his voice was so obvious that neither of the women would look at him. They busied themselves with the first thing that came to hand to dissociate themselves from his little charade.
“I have things to do as well,” Manuel lied. “It’s quite all right.”
Manuel rose and collected his jacket. Herminia gave him a big hug before he even started to say goodbye. He was obliged to lean over and hold on to her until at last, uneasy with her excessive display of affection and afraid she’d never let go, he pretended to hug her back.
“Come back and see us,” she whispered in his ear.
He donned his jacket and caught up with the administrator, who was waiting for him outside.