Immortal Love (4 page)

I followed his stare, and saw nothing but a wall of darkness beyond the halo of our headlights.

“Don’t worry. He’ll be here soon. I feel his mind.”

“You feel his mind? So Matt is an immortal too?”

“Not at all. Matt is quite human.”

“But … then. Are you saying you can read minds? Human minds?”

“No. I don’t read minds. I sense them when they are close enough.”

He said it casually as if unaware of the magnitude of what he had just revealed to me.

“You tricked me, didn’t you? Right now. When you asked me about Bécquer, you forced me to think of him so you could read my feelings for him.”

“Yes.”

“How dare you?”

“I needed to know to warn you that Bécquer … ” He stopped and with a sudden movement of his hand flashed the headlights. As if conjured by his signal, a beam of light glowed in the distance. “Matt is almost here. I’ll explain later, I promise, after we change cars.”

He was still speaking when a car drew near and, leaving the road, came to a stop facing us. It was not the blue convertible Bécquer had driven in the morning, but a white limousine. Somehow, the idea that Bécquer owned still another car — Federico had told me the silver Mercedes was Bécquer’s also — irked me in an irrational way I found most disturbing.

“Carla?”

I turned toward Federico’s voice and found him standing outside the car, holding the door open.

Too startled to speak, as I had no recollection of him leaving my side, I took his hand and stepped outside. Beyond the halo of the limousine, I saw a man emerge from the driver’s seat.

With easy strides, Federico walked toward him. “Hi, Matt,” he greeted him, as he got closer. “So nice of you to come.”

“My pleasure, as always,” the man said, in a formal way that belied his age. For he was young, I realized once I moved into the beam’s halo and the light stopped blinding me. His youth made even more evident because, instead of the standard suit I had expected, he was wearing a leather jacket and tight black jeans with metal chains hanging from his belt.

“Nice costume.”

Matt sulked. “I thought all the guests had arrived so I had already changed when Mr. Bécquer asked me to come at once. Please, Don Federico, don’t tell my mother I came like this.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t mention your costume to her, you have my word.”

Matt smiled a crooked smile that lit his face with pride. “It’s not a costume. I’m playing later.”

Federico raised an eyebrow in mock admiration. “A paying gig?”

Matt nodded.

“My congratulations,” Federico said, taking the boy’s hand in both of his and shaking it firmly.

Matt shivered at the contact, and when Federico moved toward the car, Matt’s eyes followed him. If Federico noticed the boy’s reaction — how could he not when he could sense feelings? — he said nothing.

I didn’t mention it either when we were sitting side by side in the back of the car, although the window to the front seat was closed and Matt could not hear us. The boy’s feelings for Federico were none of my business, and I was still upset at Federico for intruding on the privacy of my mind.

“How many cars does Bécquer have?” I asked him instead.

Federico frowned. “Two that I know of. This limo is not his. He rented it for the party. But why do you care?”

“I don’t.”

“Yes. Bécquer is quite wealthy.” Federico answered the question I had not asked. “When you can manipulate minds to do your bidding, it is not surprising the books you represent end up on the bestseller list. Money follows.”

“Manipulate minds? Is that what you are doing with me?”

“No. I have never manipulated anybody’s mind.” I glowered at him. “I’m afraid you’d have to take my word for it,” he insisted. “I cannot prove it to you.”

“But Bécquer does — manipulate minds, I mean?”

Federico shrugged. “I don’t think he does it on purpose. Every time I have confronted him about it, he has denied it. Yet things seem always to go his way. In business and in love.”

“Is that what you wanted to warn me about?”

Federico stared ahead, crossing and uncrossing his fingers as if trying to clarify his thoughts.

“Bécquer has a new love interest,” he said at last. “I thought she might be you.”

“Me? That’s absurd. I only met him twice.”

“But he has read your books, liked them enough to sign you as a client. And Bécquer is quite impulsive when falling in love. Childish you may say. He falls not so much for the person but for his own idealized image of her. Seeing you twice would be more than enough for him to think himself fully in love, especially when he has glimpsed your soul in your stories. Yes, you could have been his new beloved. I’m glad to see that you’re not.”

“And you know that by reading my mind?”

“In a way. For if Bécquer were in love with you, he’d have charmed you already and you’d be blindly in love with him.”

“But I wouldn’t be really in love with him. My feelings would be an illusion.”

“Exactly my point. You wouldn’t be yourself anymore, just a puppet to his will. Yet Bécquer doesn’t seem to realize that distinction. He insists he does not change the feelings for a first attraction must be there. He just pushes the victim slightly in that direction.

“Victim being my chosen word, of course. The so-called victims would call themselves fortunate, because to be chosen, to be loved by Bécquer, is an exhilarating experience. Nobody, not a single one of them has complained yet and, trust me, he has had many.”

“What happens when he tires of them?”

“They still love him for a while, I guess. But when he stops charming them, their love eventually wanes and they forget him, and thus forgive him for leaving them.

“In fact, most of them remain friends with him until he moves on. For, of course, like all immortals, he can’t stay more than twenty years in a place before his not aging becomes obvious. Then he has to go somewhere else and reinvent himself.”

Twenty years he had told me. He had lived in the States for twenty years. Did that mean he was ready to move? Now that I’d just found an agent, was he about to disappear and leave me agentless once more? He wouldn’t, now, would he? That would just be rude.

Federico laughed.

“Are you reading my mind again?”

“I wouldn’t if you were not shouting.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Anger sounds that way to me, to us immortals. Don’t worry. He’s not planning to leave. Not yet. He’s been an agent for ten years only.”

I sighed in relief. I guess an immortal, manipulative agent was, in my book, better than no agent at all. Which didn’t say much about my ethics. Maybe I shouldn’t be so harsh on Federico for reading my mind. It was not as if he could help it.

“Friends?” Federico asked.

“Friends.”

As I spoke, the car came to a stop. Through the window, I saw the facade of an imposing stone house covered in ghoulish spider webs glistening in the glow of blinking orange lights. Several jack-o’-lanterns flickered on the stairs that led to the porch.

“Oh well, here we are,” Federico said. “Let’s hope I’m wrong because if Bécquer is in love, Beatriz is going to cause him trouble.”

“Beatriz?”

“Forget what I just said, and let’s go inside and enjoy ourselves. Bécquer’s parties are always interesting. I have the impression this one will not disappoint.”

Matt opened the limousine door for me. Although I didn’t delay, by the time I got out, Federico was already coming around the front of the car, the gravel crackling under his light steps.

“Thank you,” he said to the young man. “Please don’t forget to call the garage and ask them to tow the Mercedes.”

“I have already.”

Federico smiled. “Great. Now you better park this one in the back before your mother sees you.”

Matt glanced toward the house. “I better,” he agreed and, with a nod in my direction and a last longing stare at Federico, he disappeared inside the car.

Federico waved his hand toward the house and motioned me to go first.

Following his suggestion, I crossed the open space and climbed the stairs.

Up close the spider webs looked too perfect to be spooky and the artistic designs in the jack-o’-lanterns flanking the stairs to the porch inspired more awe than fear. An aged iron ring hung on the right side of the massive double doors that would have been perfectly in place at a Castilian noble house.

Just as Federico reached my side, the doors swung open and a woman appeared in the doorway. A woman dressed in a low cut dress with a tight bodice and a long skirt that fell to the floor.

“Here you are at last,” she said as a way of hello.

Her face was in shadow, but her voice, I recognized. It was Beatriz´s. Beatriz, wearing a dress that belonged to the mid-nineteenth century, to the time in which Bécquer had been human. Madison had been right, I realized with regret: this was a costume party.

“What a perfect choice.” Federico’s voice broke through my thoughts. “Bécquer must be delighted that you honor him so.”

I looked up, puzzled by Federico’s words. Tossing back her auburn hair that fell in waves over her shoulders, Beatriz revealed a silk blue scarf.

“
La banda azul
,” I whispered.

The blue scarf that Beatriz, the protagonist of one of Bécquer’s most beloved short stories, loses in the mountains. The blue scarf she goads her cousin to go find later that evening. He agrees because he loves her but does so against his best judgment for it’s Halloween and, that night, the mountains are said to be haunted by the souls of dead warriors that roam the earth trapped in their skeletal bodies. The following morning, Beatriz finds the scarf torn and bloody in her room and dies of fright guessing right that her cousin never returned from his quest alive.

Beatriz smiled. “So you noticed.”

I saw a glint of victory in her eyes as they moved up and down my embarrassingly plain, black dress. “Please, come in,” she said and moved back. “Bécquer is waiting for you.”

I breathed deeply to ease my discomfort, and was about to follow her when I felt the pull of Federico’s hand on my arm.

“Thank you, Beatriz,” Federico said. “But Carla and I are not quite ready yet. Don’t worry about Bécquer. You are so lovely tonight, I’m sure you can charm him into forgetting everybody else.”

Beatriz stared at Federico, like a tiger about to jump its prey. But Federico stared her down. “Of course,” she said, and closed the door, leaving us standing outside.

Federico smiled when I frowned at him. “I apologize. I should have realized that this being a costume party, you would feel uncomfortable not wearing one. Please, come with me.”

I hesitated. “Don’t you think it is a little too late now to go get a costume?”

“Don’t worry. We don’t have to go anywhere. A mask will do. And I know where to find one.”

I followed Federico around the porch decorated with white ghosts and black witches’ hats until he reached another door set on the left aisle of the L-shaped building.

“Are you sure Bécquer doesn’t want you to be his secretary?” he asked me as we walked.

“I told you I’m a writer. And, I assure you that organization is not one of my assets. No one would hire me as secretary. Why?”

“Because Beatriz thinks so and resents you.”

“Did you sense that in her?”

“No. I cannot sense Beatriz. I know because she conveniently forgot to tell you about the costume.”

“You can’t read her? But she is human.”

We had reached the end of the porch and Federico stopped by a side door. “It depends whom you ask,” he said as he turned the knob. “Matt is not so sure.”

“Matt?”

“Yes, Matt. From what he tells me, she is not the maternal type.” When I looked at him nonplussed, he added, “Beatriz is Matt’s mother.”

He smiled at my surprise and motioned me inside. We left our coats and my purse on the iron rack set against the wall, and then climbed the stairs to the second floor.

Crossing the door at the end of the corridor, we entered a big room furnished with a low table, a love seat with silver leaves on dark blue velvet, and an antique desk set before matching curtains that, I guessed, covered windows.

Federico asked me to wait there and disappeared, through a set of French doors. From where I stood I could see that the next room was even larger and was dominated by a four-poster bed carved from dark wood. Several pillows were arranged on top of the blue eiderdown. Both the bed and the heavy wooden chest with iron reinforcements that sat at its foot were of Castilian style. That and the familiar smell of lemon and cinnamon that permeated the air made me realize this was, most probably, Bécquer’s bedroom.

Startled at the thought that I was intruding on his privacy, I stepped back and bumped hard against the low table behind me. I swore under my breath at the sudden pain in my leg, and then again at the thump of metal hitting on wood.

I turned.

Two picture frames lay face down on the table. I picked one up. It was an oval painting of three children, the eldest one formally dressed in an old-fashioned suit, the two little ones in white gowns. A boy and two girls. Or maybe three boys, I corrected myself, as I remembered young boys used to wear gowns in centuries past. I set the painting back down and took the other frame. It was a photograph, a color picture of a young man I knew well. A picture of my son.

I started, my thoughts reeling in confusion. Why did Bécquer have a picture of my boy? And not just a picture among many, a collage of faces tacked to a cork, the way Madison kept the pictures of her friends. But an 8-by-10. A picture taken with care, framed with love. Love. The word brought to my mind Federico’s conversation in the car, his conviction that despite his denial, Bécquer had a new lover.

At the disturbing image my mind had conjured, my hands froze and the picture slid through my fingers and hit the wooden floor. This time the glass shattered.

The sound broke my reverie. I shook my head. What was wrong with me? The boy could not be Ryan, just someone who resembled him. I kneeled and lifted the picture. Over a dozen straight lines diverged from a central breaking point making recognition impossible. Holding the frame in my shaking hands, I removed the bigger piece of broken glass to uncover the boy’s face.