In her mother’s last days, Lucia understood that death was not an end, was not the absence of life, but a powerful oceanic wave of clear, luminous water that was carrying her off to another dimension. Lena was loosening her ties to the earth, letting herself be borne on the wave, free of any anchor and the weight of gravity; light, a translucent fish driven on by the current. Lucia no longer struggled against the inevitable, and relaxed. Seated beside her mother, she took slow, deliberate breaths until she was filled with an immense calm, a desire to go with her, to let herself be pulled along until she too dissolved in the ocean. For the first time in her life, she felt her own soul as an incandescent light within her, sustaining her, an eternal light that could not be affected by the urgencies of existence. She found a point of absolute calm at the very center of herself. There was nothing to do but wait. To shut out the clamor of the world. She realized this was how her mother was experiencing the approach of death, and this helped banish the terror she had been overwhelmed by when she saw how her mother was being consumed and gradually snuffed out like a candle.
Lena Maraz died on one of those February mornings when the suffocating heat of the Chilean summer is felt from the early hours. She had been semiconscious for several days, her breathing reduced to a sporadic gargle, as she clutched Enrique’s hand. Her granddaughter prayed that her heart would give out once and for all, to spare her from this desolate miasma. Lucia on the other hand understood that her mother had to travel this last part of the journey at her own pace, without being rushed. She had spent the night stretched out alongside her awaiting the final outcome, with Daniela on the living room sofa. To them, the night seemed very short. At first light, Lucia splashed her face with cold water, drank a cup of coffee, and then woke Daniela so that they could resume their posts on either side of the bed. For an instant Lena seemed to return to life. She opened her eyes and stared at her daughter and granddaughter. “I love you very much, little ones. Let’s go now, Enrique.” She closed her eyes, and Lucia could feel her mother’s hand grow limp between hers.
DESPITE THE LIT STOVES, the cold penetrated the cabin and they had to cover up with all the clothes they could find. They put a cardigan over Marcelo’s tartan coat: his fur was sparse and he suffered from the cold. The only one who was hot was Richard, who woke from his siesta sweating and feeling renewed. A feathery snow had begun to fall, and he announced it was time they got a move on.
“Where exactly are we going to get rid of the car?” asked Lucia.
“There’s a bluff less than a mile from here. The lake there must be at least forty feet deep. I hope the track is passable, because that’s the only way in.”
“I assume the trunk is properly closed . . .”
“For the moment the wire has held, but I can’t be sure the trunk will stay shut at the bottom of the lake.”
“Do you know how to avoid the body floating up if the trunk opens?”
“Let’s not even consider the possibility,” said Richard, who had not even thought of it.
“You have to slit the stomach so that water gets in.”
“What are you saying, Lucia!”
“That’s what they did with the bodies they threw into the sea,” she said, her voice breaking.
The three of them remained silent, absorbing the horror of what had just been revealed and certain that none of them would be capable of doing such a thing.
“Poor, poor Miss Kathryn . . . ,” Evelyn finally murmured.
“I’m sorry, Richard, but we can’t go through with this,” said Lucia, who like Evelyn was on the verge of tears. “I know it was my idea and I forced you to come here, but I’ve changed my mind. We have done all this on the spur of the moment, we didn’t make a proper plan, think deeply enough about it. Of course, there wasn’t time for that—”
“What are you trying to tell me?” Richard interrupted, aghast.
“Ever since last night Evelyn can’t stop thinking about Kathryn’s spirit, wandering in torment. And I can’t stop thinking that the poor woman has a family. She must have a mother . . . and my own mother spent half her life searching for my brother, Enrique.”
“I know, Lucia, but this is different.”
“What do you mean, different? If we go on with this, Kathryn Brown will be a disappeared person, just like my brother. There will be people who love her and will look for her all the time. The suffering caused by that uncertainty is worse than the certainty of her death.”
“What shall we do then?” asked Richard, after a long pause.
“We could leave her where she will be found . . .”
“What if they don’t find her? Or if her body is so decomposed it can’t be identified?”
“It can always be identified. Nowadays all you need is a tiny piece of bone to identify a corpse.”
Pale-faced, Richard paced the living room clutching his stomach, searching for a solution. He understood Lucia’s reasons and shared her scruples; he didn’t want to condemn Kathryn’s family to an endless search either. They should have talked it over before they got this far, but there was still time to put things right. The responsibility for Kathryn Brown’s death lay with the murderer, but her disappearance would be his fault. He could not take on this fresh guilt—he had more than enough on his conscience about the past. They had to leave the body somewhere far from the cabin and lake, where it would be safe from preying animals and would be found in two or three months’ time with the spring thaw. That would give Evelyn the chance to find somewhere safe. It would be extremely hard to bury Kathryn. Digging a hole in the frozen earth was something he could not have done even if he were well, still less so with his ulcer raging. He raised the problem with Lucia, only to find she had already come up with an idea.
“We can leave Kathryn in Rhinebeck,” she said.
“Why there?”
“I don’t mean the town but the Omega Institute.”
“What’s that?”
“Briefly, it’s a spiritual center, although it’s a lot more than that. I’ve been there for retreats and conferences. It’s set among almost two hundred acres of pristine nature, in an isolated spot, near Rhinebeck. No one ever goes there during the winter months, because the retreat is closed.”
“But there must be maintenance staff.”
“Yes, for the buildings, but the woods are covered in snow and don’t need any special care. The road to Rhinebeck and its surroundings is good. There’s quite a lot of traffic, so we wouldn’t attract attention, and once we entered the institute no one would see us.”
“I don’t like it, it’s very risky.”
“I do, because it’s a spiritual place, with good energy, in the middle of spectacular woods. I’d like my ashes to be scattered there. Kathryn would like it as well.”
“I never know if you’re talking seriously, Lucia.”
“Completely seriously. But if you have a better idea . . .”