The Heart Has Its Reasons (37 page)

I began to go through the pages quickly. Until one particular front page of the
Santa Cecilia Chronicle
appeared.

USC PROFESSOR KILLED IN CAR ACCIDENT

Spanish Professor Andres Fontana, 56, chairman of the Modern Languages Department, was killed last night in a car crash . . . Aurora Carter, 32, wife of ­Associate Professor Daniel Carter, was killed as well . . .

I was unable to keep on reading. The library's heat became suddenly stifling. I noticed my dry throat, my stiff fingers hold
ing on to the table's edge, and a profound sensation of weakness. Exhausted, I was finally able to rein in my attention and finish reading the three news columns on the screen: the rain, the night, a truck, the impact, firefighters, several hours, police, Spain, husband, death.

I refused to look for further information, lacking the courage. Had I done so, I would have come upon numerous details in the following days' newspapers. The funeral, who attended, where they were buried. But I didn't want to know, just as I didn't want my own imagination to pry into that painful and disconcerting triangle that had just been displayed before me. As soon as I got to the end of the article, I got up so abruptly that I knocked the chair over.

The woman in charge of the periodicals admonished me from the counter in an annoyed tone on seeing my hasty departure—that I should turn off the machine, I thought I heard her say; that I had to hand in the microfilm. I paid no attention, I didn't stop, didn't even turn my head. Picking up my pace, I left her there yelling after me.

The first thing I did on arriving back at my apartment was to send an e-mail:

Rosalia, I'm still in California. Please, try to find out as soon as possible all you can regarding SAPAM, the foundation that sponsored my fellowship. I need to know what is behind it, who runs it. I hope I'm mistaken, but I've got the feeling that someone has gotten me involved in the weirdest business.

The following morning, the department seemed the same as any other Monday. People, footsteps, the noise of some keyboard, the photocopy machine spewing out paper. I greeted whoever crossed my path, making an effort to sound natural, the visiting professor as always, the Spaniard fallen out of the sky who day by day locked herself up in the tiniest office on that floor before a bunch of old papers that no one cared about.

I opened my e-mail and found the answer I was waiting for.

A thousand meetings and just about to run off to another of the long ones. Madness, my dear!!! Regarding your fellowship all I can come up with is the terms and conditions, plus the documents and messages we exchanged with the University of Santa Cecilia, and you've got that yourself. But I've been able to rescue from the trash folder the message with the phone number of the person at SAPAM I was in touch with at the time, a very nice guy who spoke perfect Spanish. Here it goes, I hope it's helpful. Kisses, Ros.

P.S. Will you be back in time for the president's Christmas celebration drink?

I anxiously took a breath of air, lifted my old telephone receiver, and dialed the number with which Rosalia ended her message. Just as I feared, on the fifth ring the answering machine came on with his recorded voice. He first spoke in his own tongue. Afterwards in mine. Brief, quick, concise.

This is the answering machine of Daniel Carter, Spanish and ­Portuguese Department of the University of California, ­Santa Barbara. I'm presently out of my office. To leave a message, please contact the secretary.

I felt like flinging the phone against the window, shouting at the top of my lungs the worst insults hoarded in my memory, and then bursting into tears.

But I did none of this. Nothing. I simply crossed my arms on top of the table, hid my face in them, and, in the darkness and shelter of myself, thought. For a long while that is all I did. When I finally put order to my thoughts, I sent an e-mail to Rosalia asking her not to worry anymore. Afterwards, without opening any work document or putting a single finger on any of the remaining papers of the legacy, I grabbed the book on California that Daniel had given me, which was sitting on one of the shelves, then swung my bag over my shoulder and left.

“You already knew?” I asked from the door. Point-blank. Without even greeting her.

Rebecca lifted her eyes from the keyboard. Wearing an eggplant-colored shirt, surrounded by the usual harmony.

“Good morning, Blanca,” she answered with her customary composure. “Do you mind clarifying what is it you are referring to, please?”

“You knew your friend Daniel Carter was behind SAPAM?”

She didn't seem surprised at my question. Before answering, she removed her glasses and calmly leaned back in her chair.

“I didn't at first.”

“And afterwards?”

“Afterwards I began to suspect. But I've never confirmed it.”

“Why?”

“Because I haven't asked him. Because it is none of my business. Because I can imagine the reasons that have led him to do what he's done, and therefore I've preferred to put aside any inquiry.”

“Reasons that have to do with Andres Fontana and his wife. With your friend Aurora, right?”

“I guess. But I think it's best you speak to him.”

“That is what I intend to do right now,” I said, adjusting the bag on my shoulder. “As soon as you tell me where he lives.”

“Aren't you going to call him first?” she asked while jotting down his address on a yellow Post-it.

“What for? He works from his house in the mornings, right? I prefer to see him.”

I'd already stepped out into the hallway when I heard her voice at my back.

“Don't forget, Blanca, that, one way or other, we've all got accounts pending with our past.”

On my way out I bumped into Fanny. She made as if she were about to stop, intending to show me something. I tried to feign a smile, but it didn't come out. “I'll see you later,” I said without slowing down. I left her standing there, gazing at me, mute and disconcerted.

I soon realized that Rebecca was right. Not because of that last remark she made, which I didn't even give a second thought to, but be
cause she implied that I should alert Daniel that I was coming over. No one opened the door when I rang the bell of apartment 4B of that large house subdivided into apartments. No one came out to meet me when I repeatedly pounded the white wooden door of his temporary home as hard as I could. So I sat down on the stairs and took out my cell phone.

I had two numbers for him, one for that transitory lodging and the other for his cell phone; he'd given them to me that afternoon I'd gone in search of him at Selma's Café. “In case you need me at some other time,” he'd said. That time had come.

I called the first number anticipating what would happen. I wasn't mistaken: behind the nearby door I could hear the phone ringing and no one answered. Then I tried the second number. “The number you have dialed is unavailable,” a lady said in a falsetto voice. And repeated it, until I finally hung up.

I took the book on California out of my bag. The one I believed had been a mere present, timely and clever, intended to facilitate my task. The one most likely for him to give me as a gift but was actually bait to motivate me to continue working, like the carrot one puts before the mule that pulls the waterwheel so that he never stops. A trick, a ruse. One more. I wrote on it:
YOU'VE MANIPULATED ME AND YOU'VE BETRAYED ME. GET IN TOUCH WITH ME AS SOON AS YOU'RE BACK.
The fury of my capital letters almost tore the paper. I didn't sign my name.

The book made a dry thump when I dropped it in his mailbox. Then I left immediately and decided not to call him again. Only to see him face-to-face, without subterfuges or excuses.

Thirty-four hours elapsed before he got back to me. Thirty-four sad, distressing hours until he found me at the most inappropriate moment.

I heard a quick rapping on the door, and it immediately opened. A head and half a body appeared. Light hair, light beard, a gray turtleneck sweater, and a jacket. And a tanned face that didn't conceal its worried look.

Barely two seconds were all he needed to evaluate the classroom situation. I stood next to the whiteboard, leaning slightly against the
side of my desk, my arms folded across my chest and a felt-tip pen in my hand, fatigue written all over my face, and a clear effort to hide the annoyance that I carried within. Five students of my culture class scattered around, less than half the usual attendance.

He didn't say a word. He simply held something up for me to see, his expression serious. The book on California. Mine. His. The one he had left me as a present inside an anonymous bag on the night of the Spanish omelets, gazpacho, and laughter. The same book I'd dropped in his mailbox, wishing to convey that I wanted nothing that was associated with him. I imagined he understood. Then he made a gesture indicating that he was going to insert it somewhere. In my department mailbox, I gathered. I didn't say either yes or no and he didn't wait for my answer. He simply closed the half-open door and disappeared.

It never was my intention.

I'll see you in the auditorium.

Come as soon as you can, please.

This is what I found at the end of my class in my department mailbox where messages were left, along with occasional letters from Spain. It was written on a white card without letterhead, squeezed between two pages of that book with a yellow cover that was all too familiar.

There were five speakers onstage, among whom I recognized my student Joe Super and a couple of professors I knew by sight. Just as on the day of the demonstration, there was a diverse crowd: a bunch of students, the warrior grandmothers with a raised sign, respectable citizens by the dozen, and the kid with the dreadlocks. There wasn't, however, a trace of the almost festive mood of the day of the demonstration. Serious faces, scant smiles, and concentrated attention were all that was evident.

The meeting had started a good hour earlier. One of the speakers was commenting on some archeological digs on the grounds. On the
stage, on a whiteboard, someone had written with a thick marker:
TEN DAYS TO THE DEC
. 22 DEADLINE.
If they didn't come up with something they could show the authorities by then, they'd lose the battle.

Daniel was waiting for me, sitting in the next-to-last row.

“We need to talk,” I whispered without greeting him as soon as I sat down next to him. “Let's go.”

“Five minutes,” he asked in a whisper. “I beg you, Blanca, just give me five minutes.”

“Either you're coming or you're staying; it's up to you.”

The speaker whose turn it was mentioned his name, summoning him to answer something.

“Wait for me,” he insisted, grabbing my wrist while from the stand's microphone his name and question were repeated.

I broke loose from his grip with a jerk. Then got up and left.

Chapter 33

H
alf an hour later he was at my door.

“I'm very sorry,” he said, bursting in, upsetting my apartment's peacefulness with his large and disorderly presence. “I didn't think they were going to count on me: they called me at the very last minute; I'd just returned from L.A. When I saw your book in my mailbox, I came straight to you. I left yesterday early in the morning . . .”

I did not interrupt him. Had it been a day and a half earlier, I would have seized him by the throat upon confirming what I'd suspected. But so many hours had gone by that I simply let him talk. By then my rage had subsided and the anger that plagued me earlier had turned into something quite different. It was a sort of desolation, a dense bitterness that in the long run might even prove worse.

When he was done threshing out the list of excuses that I hadn't asked him for, it was finally my turn.

“Why did you lie to me?” I asked him coldly.

“I never meant to do it, Blanca. It was never my intention to deceive you.”

He took a step forward, extended his arm to the back of my neck. As if by physical contact he sought to transmit an extra dose of sincerity.

“But you have,” I said pulling away. “SAPAM doesn't exist and
the fellowship with which I've supported myself all these months is nothing but a ruse of yours that you've hidden from me this whole time. You concealed it from me and, by doing so, deceived me; you've disappointed me and hurt me.”

“And from the bottom of my heart I'm telling you how sorry I am. But I want you to know that I never intended—”

I cut him off sharply. “I'm not looking for apologies, simply an explanation. The only thing I want you to tell me is what's behind this setup, and afterwards get out of my life for good.”

He ran a hand over his head, then his beard, clearly uncomfortable.

“An explanation, Daniel,” I insisted. “All I want is an explanation.”

Unemotional, businesslike, icy. I made no effort to appear that way; it was simply how I felt.

“Okay, let me state from the outset that you are right, that the foundation for Scientific Assessment of Philological Academic Manuscripts—SAPAM—does not exist,” he admitted. “You are not mistaken: it's a false name. But it does exist as an entity, let's say—not formally, but as something different.”

“Like what? Like something you made up after the death of Fontana and your wife?”

He looked at me deliberately. Concentrated. Serious. But he wasn't surprised.

“I imagined that you'd end up investigating it.”

The answer was so obvious that I didn't even bother to verbalize it.

He went on, “I established it in essence as the Aurora Carter Trust for the Memory of Andres Fontana. Aurora Carter or Aurora Carranza, which was her Spanish surname; it makes no difference. In short, it was a project to preserve my mentor's intellectual legacy through my wife's will.”