After the War: A Novella of the Golden City (11 page)

Markovich heaved another heavy sigh and turned to Gaspar. “Am I under arrest or not?”

Gaspar shook his head, and Markovich shoved himself off the bed, dropping the wrapped bit of ice on the cover. He left in a huff, promising to return to his hotel to wait for news. Alejandro didn’t care much where the man went just now, as long as he was out of sight. Or rather, as long as Alejandro himself was out of the man’s line of sight.

“Since you’ve decided not to attempt removing the hex,” Gaspar asked, rising, “do you have another plan of action?”

He had no idea where to look yet. But there was one problem he
could
fix. “Do you happen to have Miguel Pinheiro’s address? I want to go visit him.”

Roberto opened his mouth, but swallowed his comment.

Gaspar’s brows rose, both this time. “Is that important just now?”

“It’s important to my wife,” Alejandro said. “And everyone in the family, I suppose. I don’t want a cousin as my enemy.”

Gaspar shrugged.

“And I feel like I need to do it,” Alejandro added. “I don’t know if that’s my gift or just guilt, but I feel like this will help with . . . everything else.”

That brought a rare smile to Gaspar’s face. “I don’t know his address, but I can find it on Rafael’s desk.”



Like most buildings in this part of the Golden City, the houses were packed together like sardines in a tin, long and narrow flats on each floor. The old stone was musty, and the plaster on the walls needed work. And for a man who used a cane, climbing three flights of stairs daily must be difficult. Alejandro heaved himself up the creaking steps of the old house to the fourth floor, his gut still twisting. Roberto had joked about catching him if he fainted and tumbled back down the steps. Alejandro didn’t entirely dismiss that possibility.

He stood for a moment in front of Miguel’s door.
What should I say?

There was honestly only one thing to say. He squared his shoulders, knocked on the door, and waited. He glanced at Roberto, who shrugged. But then he heard steps inside the apartment and the door opened.

The young man who looked out at him surprised him. Miguel Pinheiro was tall and everything about him was lean. Even his face was narrow, his straight dark hair a touch overlong, his eyes almost black. He looked nothing like his father, a reminder to Alejandro that Miguel and his brothers had been adopted. In a deep voice, he rumbled, “What do you want, Jandro?”

“I came to speak with you,” he said, very aware that he hadn’t been invited inside. “To apologize.”

“And you had to bring Mr. Machado as your reinforcement? I don’t have time for this,” Miguel said, and shut the door in Alejandro’s face.

Alejandro blinked at the sight of the closed door, taken aback. It took him a moment longer to realize that Machado was Roberto’s surname; he’d never bothered to ask. He felt a flush creep along his cheeks. Miguel had managed to prove that Alejandro didn’t know his own household as well as he did. It was also telling that Alejandro hadn’t bothered to learn the name of the man who might have saved his life an hour before. “I’m sorry, Roberto. I may have wasted your time.”

Roberto leaned against the narrow hallway’s peeling wall. “You’re here, sir. You walked up all those steps. Might as well try again.”

Alejandro knocked again, more forcefully this time. “I’m not going away,” he yelled into the door.

It only took a few seconds this time. Miguel opened the door again, lips pressed in an annoyed line. “Leave me alone, Jandro.”

“I can’t,” Alejandro said. “My wife needs you to look at some of her poetry, and she doesn’t want to go around my back to see you.”

That seemed to surprise Miguel. “And you expect me to believe you care what she wants?”

Alejandro swallowed a defensive retort.
I deserve that. Old Alejandro deserved that.
He took a careful breath, and said, “I am
trying
, Miguel. I want her to be happy.”

Miguel’s eyes narrowed, staying on his for a moment, then he stepped back
—
limping noticeably
—
and held the door open. “You’d better come in, then.”

Alejandro followed his cousin inside, Roberto behind him.

It was a cluttered place, one of a man who loved his books. There were books piled on every table, on a set of rickety looking shelves next to the window, stacked on the floor behind the door. Slips of paper marked pages within many of them. A wide wooden desk set under the front windows held a typewriter and a neat sheaf of blank papers, files, a magnifying glass, and several newspapers. Miguel’s jacket hung off the back of the wooden chair.

“Are you working on a new article?” Roberto asked in a friendly tone.

“Always,” Miguel told him with a self-deprecating shrug.

“He interviewed me for one of his articles,” Roberto said to Alejandro, “about men returned from the war having trouble finding work.”

So not only did Miguel write poetry, but he wrote for the newspapers as well. Important articles, like the difficulties of veterans. Alejandro was impressed. “Which paper do you write for?”

The gaze Miguel turned on him was markedly cooler than his friendly expression toward Roberto. “Whichever will publish a cripple’s work.”

So his mother was right
—
a grudge as wide as Portugal
. “Miguel, whatever it was I said, I know it was offensive. I don’t know how I can apologize for something I don’t recall, but I am sorry we’re no longer friends because of it.”

Miguel continued to glare at him.

Alejandro sighed. “Surely you’ve heard by now that I don’t remember anything.”

“Yes, I’ve heard.”

But he didn’t believe it. “I truly can’t remember whatever it was I’m apologizing for. I know that Old Alejandro was a horse’s ass, but I can’t recall the specific sin here. Tell me what I said, and I’ll beg your forgiveness, but otherwise I can’t.”

Miguel jaw clenched. “You said I should be grateful I’m a cripple so I wouldn’t be sent to war for my king.”

Alejandro felt his mouth fall open, and couldn’t seem to close it for a second.

I hope I was drunk when I said that.

He could grasp exactly how those words had come out of his mouth. Or rather, Old Alejandro’s mouth. If he’d foreseen the conditions in Belgium, if he’d foreseen that terrible battle, he might have said just those words. It was possible that he hadn’t meant it as a reflection on his cousin.

Miguel would only have heard the words,
You’re a cripple
.

He’d probably heard it as an insult to his bravery, a belittling of his desire to serve his country. He might have heard it as an insult to his manhood. He would have heard it as a statement that he wasn’t Old Alejandro’s equal. And even if Alejandro had forgotten saying that, Miguel never would. He’d clearly shared it with Miss Anjos.

Alejandro cursed under his breath, grateful that Miguel hadn’t repeated those words to Serafina. “I do apologize, Miguel. I . . .”

Miguel waited.

“I am trying not to be the person I was before,” Alejandro said. “I am trying to be a better husband, a better friend. I’m sorry that it’s come so late.”

Miguel frowned. “You thought you were the center of the world, before.”

Joaquim had told him that, although not in such damning terms. Joaquim had phrased it in terms of responsibility. “I gather that humility wasn’t one of my virtues.”

Miguel let out a short bark of laughter. “God, no.”

“I’m working on it, Miguel,” he said. “I am trying. For Serafina’s sake can we try to be friends? It’s important to her. She wants your insight on her work, but feels like she can’t ask while we’re estranged.”

Miguel shook his head, but after a moment, asked, “So she’s writing again?”

“Yes,” Alejandro admitted, taking hope in the change of topic. “What I’ve read seems very good, but I’m not a judge of poetry. She thinks you would be able to advise her.”

Miguel touched one of the files on his desk. “I can do that, I suppose.”

“Could you come for dinner some night this week?” Alejandro asked. “Or next week?”

“Do I take it that you’re reconciled to being married to her now?”

So Miguel was offended for Serafina as well. “I don’t know what Old Alejandro thought, but I’m very fortunate,” he said. “She’s talented and lovely, and I don’t deserve her.”

Miguel looked over at Roberto, as if for reassurance, then turned back to Alejandro. “No, you don’t, cousin.”

An uncomfortable silence followed, and Alejandro had no doubt now that Miguel had fancied Serafina at some point, no matter what he intended toward Miss Anjos now. He could easily understand that, given their mutual interest in poetry.

Breaking the silence, Miguel nodded toward a bottle of Vinho Verde sitting on a bureau across from his desk and asked, “Would you like a glass?”

Alejandro hadn’t had dinner, but he wasn’t going to turn down what seemed like an olive branch from his cousin. “Yes.”

Miguel opened the bottle and poured three glasses. He handed one to Alejandro and one to Roberto before picking up the third. “To Serafina,” he said, raising his glass.

They joined him in his toast. The wine, more potent than Alejandro expected, went to his head quickly.

An hour later, all three of them sat on the floor, apparently believing that was necessary.

Alejandro stared down into his empty glass. At one point, Miguel had threatened to take a swing at him, and Roberto intervened. Now the footman-cum-bodyguard sat between them, a solid buffer. It was their third bottle. Or perhaps their fourth.

“And you were shit to her before you went to France,” Miguel was saying.

Alejandro was fairly certain they’d covered that ground three times already. Or perhaps four, once per bottle. “I know, Miguel. I’m sorry.”

“You feel bad now,” Miguel said, “but you’ll go back to being a horse’s ass soon enough.”

He didn’t want to do that.

“He doesn’t want his memory back,” Roberto told Miguel. “Doesn’t want his powers back.”

Miguel shook his head blearily. “No.”

“It’s true,” Roberto said, rubbing a hand along the scar that lined his face. “If I could forget the war, I would, too. I hate the English, leaving us out there to die on the front line like that. I wanted to be valiant, but we had no chance against so many Germans.”

“You’ll have your chance,” Miguel answered. “Remember, I told you.”

For a moment, there was silence. Alejandro felt like he’d missed something.

“I did annoy the English,” Roberto said then. “I was never more pleased to hit someone.”

“What are you talking about?” Miguel asked.

Roberto blinked at him owlishly. “The English fellow, the witch who tried to curse Jandro’s insides out.”

“You’re lucky he didn’t curse
you,
” Alejandro said.

“I listen,” Roberto said, puffing up. “Came up behind him. He never saw me.”

“Oh,” Alejandro noted.
Line of sight
. “Smart of you.”

“What are you talking about?” Miguel asked again, louder this time.

“He wants me to find some diamonds,” Alejandro explained, “but I don’t know where they are anymore.”

Miguel leaned forward to regard Alejandro with exaggerated seriousness. “Like in that story? Where you mailed a sack of diamonds to the Holy Sisters?”

A fierce pounding on the door made them all start guiltily. “Alejandro, I know you’re in there,” Gaspar called. “We need to talk to you.”

Recognizing the seriousness in Gaspar’s voice, Alejandro pushed himself to his feet. He crossed to the door and, grasping the doorframe to steady himself, threw it open.

Inspector Gaspar stood outside, his dark face grim. “Serafina’s missing.”



Joaquim scooted over in the large Ferreira coach, making room for Miguel and Alejandro to sit across from him and Gaspar. “When your wife didn’t return from her afternoon at her parent’s house, Marina became concerned. She sent a footman to check with Serafina’s parents, and they said she’d left over an hour past.”

God, no.
Phillips or his henchman had to have grabbed her in a twisted attempt to get Alejandro to help him find his diamonds.

“Can you
find
her?” Alejandro asked through the fog in his brain. That was Joaquim’s special gift
—
he could find people if he knew them or if he could touch something of hers.