The Time in Between: A Novel (68 page)

I didn’t respond to my name or even deign to look at him. As though I were deaf and blind, as though that man had never been anything in my life and I hadn’t soaked his lapels with tears as I begged him not to leave me. As though the profound affection we’d formed between us had dissolved in my memory. I simply ignored him, fixed my gaze on the exit, and headed toward it with cold determination.

João was waiting for me with the back door open. Fortunately his attention was on a small mishap on the opposite pavement, a roadside commotion that included a dog, a bicycle, and various arguing pedestrians. He only became aware of my arrival when I made my presence quite clear.

“Let’s go, quickly, João: I’m exhausted,” I whispered as I settled inside.

He closed the door when I was in, then immediately positioned himself behind the wheel and started up the car, asking me what I’d thought of his last recommendation. I didn’t answer. All my energy was focused on keeping my eyes fixed forward and not turning my head. And I almost succeeded. But as the Bentley began to slip across the paving stones something irrational inside me overcame my resistance and commanded me to do something I should not have done: to look at him again.

Marcus had come out of the door and was standing there immobile, upright, his hat still on, staring hard, watching my departure with his hands plunged into his trouser pockets. Perhaps he was wondering whether he’d just seen the woman he might have fallen in love with once, or only her ghost.

__________

W
hen we arrived back at the hotel I asked the chauffeur not to return for me the following day; although Lisbon was a reasonably large city I couldn’t run the risk of bumping into Marcus Logan again. I claimed to be tired and predicted a pretend migraine; I assumed that the news of my intention not to go out again would quickly reach Da Silva, and I didn’t want him to think I was turning down his friendly offer without a very good reason. I spent the rest of the evening soaking in the bathtub and a large part of the night sitting on my balcony, distractedly watching the lights over the sea. During those long hours I couldn’t stop thinking about Marcus for a minute: about him as a man, about everything our time together had meant to me, and about the consequences I might face if I were to run into him again at some inconvenient moment. It was getting light by the time I went to bed. My stomach was empty, my mouth dry, and my soul all shriveled up.

The garden and the breakfast were the same as on the previous morning, but although I tried hard to behave just as naturally, I didn’t enjoy it as much. I forced myself to eat a hearty breakfast in spite of not being hungry, and I spent as much time as I could leafing through a number of magazines written in languages I didn’t understand. I got
up from the table only when there were no more than a handful of straggling guests left scattered around the tables. It was not yet eleven in the morning: I had a whole day ahead of me and nothing but my own thoughts to fill it with.

I went back to my room; it had already been tidied. I lay down on the bed and shut my eyes. Ten minutes. Twenty. Thirty. I didn’t get to forty: I couldn’t bear my brain going around and around the same thing a second longer. I changed my clothes: I put on a light skirt, a white cotton blouse, and a pair of low sandals. I covered my hair with a patterned scarf, hid myself behind a pair of large sunglasses, and left the room, avoiding looking at my reflection in the mirror: I didn’t want to see the glum expression that had fixed itself to my face.

There was hardly anyone on the beach. The waves, broad and flat, followed one another, monotonous. Not far away, what looked like a castle and a promontory with grand villas; ahead, an ocean almost as large as my unease. I sat down on the sand to look at it, and with my gaze fixed on the advancing and retreating of the foam, I lost all sense of time and let myself get swept away. Each wave carried a memory with it, an image of the past: memories of the young woman I once was, of my accomplishments and my fears, of the friends I’d left behind, scenes from other lands, with other voices. And above all that morning, the sea brought me feelings that had been forgotten between the folds of memory: the caress of a dear hand, the strength of a friendly arm, the joy of what was shared, and a longing for what was desired.

It was almost three in the afternoon when I shook the sand off my skirt. Time to go back, as good a time as any. I crossed the road to the hotel; there were barely any cars passing. One was disappearing into the distance, another was approaching slowly. That one seemed familiar, vaguely familiar. A needling curiosity made me slow my pace until the car passed me. And I knew then what car it was and who was driving. Da Silva’s Bentley, with João behind the wheel. What a coincidence, what a very fortuitous meeting! Or not, I suddenly thought with a shudder. There were probably a thousand reasons why the old chauffeur should have been driving calmly through the streets of Estoril, but my instinct told me that he had just come for me. Candelaria and my
mother would have said,
Snap out of it, girl, snap out of it!
But since they weren’t around, I said it to myself. Yes, I had to snap out of it; I’d lowered my guard. Meeting Marcus had made a violent impression on me and had unearthed so many recollections and feelings, but now was not the time to allow myself to be taken over by nostalgia. I had an assignment, an obligation: a role to play, an image to project, and a task to take care of. Sitting looking at the waves wasn’t going to achieve anything except waste time and plunge me into melancholy. The moment to return to reality had arrived.

I picked up the pace and did my best to look sprightly and lively. Although João had disappeared, there could have been other eyes watching me from any little corner on Da Silva’s orders. It was quite impossible that he should have suspected me, but perhaps his nature—as a powerful, controlling man—insisted on his knowing what exactly his Moroccan visitor was doing instead of taking advantage of his car. And I would have to be sure to show him.

I went up to my room by a side staircase; I changed my clothes and reappeared. Whereas a half hour earlier I’d been in a light skirt and a cotton blouse, I was now in an elegant mandarin-colored suit, and my flat sandals had been replaced by a pair of snakeskin high heels. My sunglasses had disappeared and I’d made myself up with the cosmetics I’d bought the previous day. My hair, no longer covered in a scarf, fell loosely over my shoulders. I went down the main staircase with a rhythmic step and wandered in leisurely style along the landing of the upper floor that looked down over the main entrance hall. I descended one more flight to the lobby floor, not forgetting to smile at everyone I passed on the way. I greeted the ladies with an elegant tilt of my head—regardless of how old they were, their language, or whether they even bothered to return the attention. With the gentlemen, a few of them local, many of them foreign, I accelerated my blinking; I even made a flirtatious gesture to a particularly decrepit one. I asked one of the receptionists to send a cable to Doña Manuela and asked for it to be transmitted to my own address. “Portugal wonderful, excellent shopping. Headache today and resting. Tomorrow visiting a helpful supplier. Best wishes, Arish Agoriuq.” Then I chose one of the
armchairs that were scattered around the spacious lobby in clusters of four; I wanted to be somewhere people had to walk past, and very conspicuous. And then I crossed my legs, asked for two aspirins and a cup of tea, and devoted the rest of the afternoon to being seen.

I managed to put up with pretending to be bored for almost three hours, until my stomach began to growl. Mission concluded—I’d earned the right to go back to my room and order some dinner from room service. I was about to get up when a bellhop approached carrying a little silver tray. And on it, an envelope. And inside, a card.

Dear Arish:
I hope the sea has dispelled your discomfort. João will come to fetch
you tomorrow morning at ten to bring you to my office. I hope you
have a good rest.

Manuel Da Silva

News really did get around. I was tempted to have a little wander about in search of the driver or Da Silva himself, but I stopped myself. Although one of them was probably somewhere nearby, I feigned a cool lack of interest and pretended to be concentrating on one of the American magazines I’d used to while away part of the afternoon. Half an hour later, when the lobby was half empty and most of the guests had already headed off for the bar, the terrace, and the dining room, I returned to my room, ready to get Marcus out of my head altogether and concentrate on the complicated day that lay ahead of me once this night was done.

__________

J
oão threw his cigarette on the ground, greeting me with a
bom dia,
and stamped out the butt with his shoe as he held open the door to the Bentley. Again he looked me up and down, but this time he wouldn’t have the opportunity to inform his boss of anything about me, as I’d be seeing him myself in just half an hour.

Da Silva’s offices were on the centrally located Rua do Ouro, the street of gold that connected Rossio with the Praça do Comércio in Baixa. The building was elegant in an unshowy way, with everything around it exuding a powerful aura of money, negotiations, and successful business: there were banks, pawnshops, offices, men in suits, employees scurrying, and hotel bellhops dashing about.

As I got out of the Bentley I was received by the same thin man who had interrupted our conversation the night Da Silva came to meet me. Alert and discreet, this time he shook my hand and introduced himself as Joaquim Gamboa, then he led me deferentially to the elevator. At first I thought that the company’s offices were on one of the floors of the building, but it didn’t take me long to realize that in fact the whole building was the company’s headquarters. Gamboa led me directly to the second story.

“Don Manuel will be with you right away,” he announced before disappearing.

The waiting room where I settled had walls paneled with gleaming wood that looked as though it had recently been waxed. Six leather chairs marked out the waiting area; a bit farther in, closer to the double door that led to Da Silva’s office, there were two desks: one of them occupied, the other empty. At the first there was a secretary working, fiftyish, who—judging by the formal greeting with which she received me and the exquisite care she took to make a note of something in a thick notebook—must have been an efficient, discreet worker, any boss’s dream. Her companion, who was quite a bit younger, appeared within just a couple of minutes, opening one of the doors from Da Silva’s office and emerging with a dull-looking man. A client, probably a business contact.

“Senhor Da Silva is ready for you, senhorita,” she said with a bland expression. I pretended not to pay much attention to her, but a single look was enough to size her up. My age, give or take a year. With glasses for her nearsightedness, light hair and skin, painstaking in her attire, though with clothes of rather modest quality. I couldn’t observe her any further because at that moment Manuel Da Silva came out to meet me in the waiting room.

“A pleasure to have you here, Arish,” he said in his excellent Spanish.

In exchange I held out my hand slowly to give him time to look at me and decide if I was still worthy of his attention. To judge by his reaction, I gathered that I was. I’d put in a great effort to make a good impression, choosing for this business meeting a silver-colored suit with a pencil skirt and fitted jacket, and placing on the lapel a white flower to minimize the sobriety of the suit’s color. The result was recompensed with a veiled look of appreciation and a gentlemanly smile.

“Please, come in. They’ve already been by this morning to bring all the things I want to show you.”

In one corner of the spacious office, under a large map of the world, stood various rolls of fabric. Silks. Natural silks, smooth and radiant, and magnificent dyed silks in lustrous colors. Just by touching them
I could anticipate the beautiful drape of the gowns I could sew from them.

“Are they of the quality you’d been expecting?”

I heard Manuel Da Silva’s voice behind me. For a few seconds, perhaps a few minutes, I’d forgotten all about him and his world. The pleasure of examining the exquisite fabrics, of feeling their softness and imagining how the end products might look, had distanced me from reality for a moment. Fortunately I didn’t have to make any effort to compliment the merchandise that he had brought me.

“Better. They’re marvelous.”

“In that case I’d advise you to take as many yards as you can, because I don’t think we’ll be having these on hand for very long.”

“There’s that much demand?”

“We expect so. Although not for them to be used for fashion exactly.”

“What for, if not fashion?” I asked, surprised.

“For other requirements that are more pressing nowadays: for the war.”

“For the war?” I repeated, feigning disbelief. I knew that material was being used in other countries; Hillgarth had told me about it in Tangiers.

“They use the silk to make parachutes, to protect gunpowder, and even for bicycle tires.”

I gave a pretend little laugh.

“What a ridiculous waste! With the silk they need for one parachute we could make at least ten evening gowns.”

“Yes, but times are hard. And the countries that are at war will pay anything they need to for it.”

“And what about you, Manuel, who will you be selling these treasures to, the Germans or the English?” I asked in a teasing tone, as though I hadn’t been taking what he said altogether seriously. I even surprised myself with my boldness, but he played along with my joke.

“We Portuguese have long-standing commercial links to the English, though in these turbulent days you never know . . .” He finished
off his worrying response with a laugh, but before I had the time to work out what it meant he changed the subject to more practical, immediate questions. “Here you’ll find a folder with detailed information about the materials: reference numbers, qualities, prices—in short, all the usual,” he said as he made his way over to his desk. “Take it with you to the hotel, take your time, and when you’ve decided what you’d be interested in having, fill out an order form and I’ll arrange for it all to be sent direct to Madrid; you’ll have it in less than a week. You can make the payment from there when you receive the merchandise, you needn’t worry about that. And don’t forget to include a twenty percent discount on each price, on the house.”