The Antiquarian (7 page)

I don't know why I'm adding this—as if anything were going to happen to me! How silly I am!

A big, heartfelt hug.

Enrique finished the letter with a smile on his face. As always, Artur's comments were as accurate as his humor was subtle. He had not been able to bring his novel under control with the original plot idea. Enrique had wasted a lot of time before realizing that the work he'd done was of little quality, cohesion, or interest, and he had been forced to start over with a simple outline of the topic, as his godfather had indicated. The time he would have saved if he had received the letter earlier! There could be no doubt: Artur knew him all too well, much better than many parents knew their children. And he probably loved him even better than he knew him.

But if anything piqued Enrique's curiosity, it was the end of the letter: What could the mysterious discovery be? It must have been huge, as he had never known his adoptive father's self-control to falter as much as it had in his postscript. “Should anything happen to me …” Happen to him? He could understand that, having made a discovery of certain import, Artur was afraid of dying before getting to the bottom of it. Time did march on, but his health was fine, and he was not so old as to believe that the end was near. The finding must have been very special for Artur to harbor such fears. Curiosity about the mystery normally would have ignited his writer's imagination, always ready to take in unlikely stories and situations, but Enrique was too tired to make anything of it for the moment.

After reading the postscript, Enrique left the pages of the letter on the sink. He had been in the water quite a while, and it was starting to cool off. He got out of the bathtub and was drying himself with an oversized towel when the phone rang. He was tired enough to ignore it, but his answering machine was off, and whoever was calling was being persistent. He picked up after the tenth ring and sat down on the sofa.

The sun lit the room with warm golden rays. A familiar voice—loved, loathed, and, despite himself, missed—spoke immediately.

“Enrique? Are you there? I finally caught you!”

“Hi, Bety.” His fatigue from sailing was compounded by the tedium of having to talk to her. “What's going on?”

“Where were you?” The female voice did not disguise a nasty mood. “I've been trying to reach you for two days!”

“What does it matter where I've been?” answered Enrique. He barely had any contact with his ex. There were no children to warrant them keeping up any sort of bond, and although they still said hello and good-bye when they happened to meet in public, to the extent that it was possible, each tried to do without the other.

“Don't give me that. If I'm calling you it's not to relive one of those mindless conversations we were so good at when we lived together.”

“I don't know what you could say that might possibly interest me,” Enrique began, helpless against starting down the runaway track to another fight.

There was nothing in the world he wanted less than to argue with Bety, but since their separation it had been impossible for him to control himself. The bitterness accumulated by a separation rooted in his inability to understand her was greater than his desire to want her for a friend, not to mention a partner.

“Listen, Enrique, I was going to break this to you gently, but I see you're still at war with yourself and everyone else, so I'll get to the point. Artur's dead.”

Bety's news—hard, dry, and final—stunned Enrique, who, his mouth open in surprise, was unable to answer. A long silence ensued, until she broke it.

“Enrique? Are you okay?”

Enrique did not answer. He was standing next to the picture window, facing the bay, his gaze cast somewhere over the distant mountains. He was unable to find the words; in fact, he doubted they even existed.

“Enrique? Enrique?” Bety insisted, worried.

“Yes …” He left the word hanging there, incapable of adding anything else.

“I … Forgive me; it didn't come out like I had planned, but you know there are things I can't stand. I'm sorry, truly sorry.”

“Don't worry, I understand. I … The thing is …” He could not concentrate. His mind was on the postscript he had read not even ten minutes ago. Artur, dead! How? When? He thought back to the letter and shuddered to think of his father's clairvoyance; that “if anything should happen to me.” How many times had they both laughed at the world of premonitions, the supernatural, the occult!

“Enrique, I know how you feel. I know what your love and your friendship with Artur meant to you. If you want, call me later. I'll be at home.”

“No, no, tell me how it happened.”

“They're not sure. They saw the shop closed in the morning, but they didn't think anything of it. But seeing it still closed in the afternoon seemed odd. Samuel Horowitz looked in through the window and saw his body lying dead on that old altar. He apparently fell from the loft. They called the police, and opened the shop, but didn't let anyone in. But Enrique, that's not the worst part.”

Bety stopped, unsure of how to keep telling Enrique what had happened.

“It's not?”

“No. Artur was murdered.”

“Good god,” murmured Enrique, his mind reeling.

Bety felt bad about giving him the news the way she had. She knew that, however she told him, the end result would be exactly the same, because Enrique loved his adoptive father more than most people loved their birth parents. She wished she could have told him in a way that was less traumatic, less painful.

“Maybe it's better if I tell you in person,” offered Bety with the hope of somehow being useful.

“Yeah, fine. Come over if you want.”

“It's number 36, right?”

“Yes.”

“I'll be there in, say, twenty minutes. Hang in there. I'll be right over.”

Enrique did not respond. A few seconds passed. The busy signal on the phone brought him back to earth. He finished drying off and put on clean, casual clothes. He couldn't think clearly. A thousand thoughts ran through his mind in a burst of wild hypotheses that he tried to debunk, only to see them immediately replaced by others. He opened a bottle of chocolate milk and sat sipping it on the balcony, wishing this would all turn out to be a bad dream, a stupid nightmare brought on by lack of sleep and his fertile imagination—just a dream that gave life to his most deeply hidden fears. But he had not been asleep. The sun, now shrouded by a thin sea mist, did little to warm the air. But Enrique could not even feel the chilly touch of the northern wind.

The doorbell brought him out of his bitter daydreams. He opened the door: Bety stood there, beautiful as ever. The same long golden hair, the same little bangs on her
forehead; her big, green eyes barely made up save for a dash of eyeliner to highlight them; her full lips; the elegant oval of her face; her soft, olive skin. She was dressed as smartly as ever, in a designer pantsuit. She was wearing heels, which was very unusual for her, so she looked taller. Whatever the circumstances, as Enrique already knew, she always shone.

“Hello, Enrique.” Her voice caressed her host as she hugged him.

“Hi,” he managed, distracted, effortlessly enveloping the body that had always fanned his desire, but toward which today he was indifferent.

“Aren't you going to let me in?” Spoken in another tone, it would have been an invitation to do battle. But the way she said it, it was a warm and sincere peace offering.

“Of course, excuse me. I'm a little … I don't know … out of it, disoriented.”

“Here, dry your tears.” She handed him a handkerchief.

“What tears?” asked Enrique, bewildered, until he realized that he had been crying. Bety took charge immediately. She closed the door and walked Enrique to the living room, where they sat.

“This is a beautiful apartment,” she remarked with admiration. “You must be doing well to afford it.”

“Well, I can't complain. The last book sold pretty well, you know about that—a critically acclaimed bestseller.”

“Did you decorate it yourself?” she asked, looking at the accumulation of fine old wooden furniture matched in perfect harmony with other newer pieces.

“Yes. It took me a while to find what I wanted, but I did it myself.”

“Delicate and exquisite. Do you have anything to drink?” Bety wanted to get to the real conversation instead of wasting time with small talk, but she didn't know how.

“Yes. Well, no. You know, there are some bottles of juice and some milk in the fridge, but that's it.”

“That's good enough for me. It's too early for anything else. Where … ?”

“That door there,” instructed Enrique. “You relax. I'll get it.”

“No, you won't,” she ordered with authority. “You stay sitting right there. I'll be right back.”

True to her word, Bety was back in seconds with a glass of pineapple juice. While she was poking around in the refrigerator for a juice she liked, she had tried in vain to figure out how to let him know she wanted to help him. She wasn't surprised; on the drive from her house she hadn't been able to come up with anything either. She came back to the living room, took a seat next to Enrique, and waited patiently for him to take the initiative.

“Tell me how it happened,” he said at last.

Bety took a breath. She had imagined this scene several times, but it was hard for her to convey what had transpired with any coherence. She too was grieving for Artur and was having trouble assimilating his violent death. In truth, she had loved him nearly as much as her own parents. Her relationship with Artur went beyond the formalities of that between most in-laws, thanks to the antiquarian's unique kindheartedness.

“I'm not exactly sure. When they couldn't reach you, the police found me, through Samuel Horowitz. You were Artur's only direct next of kin, and since they couldn't find you, Samuel got in touch with me to tell me what had happened. He didn't have my phone number, but he got it from the university secretary's office.”

“No, don't tell me about that. Tell me how they killed him.”

“Fine. Samuel was the first to see his body through the window. The investigation is underway, and they haven't said anything officially. But he told me that they had clubbed him over the head and stabbed him in the back with a knife.”

“Jesus! That's it? You don't know anything else?”

“Do you really think they feel a need to tell his adopted son's ex much more? They used me to find you, that's all.”

“Yes, of course, I understand,” said Enrique, though that wasn't true; the truth was he didn't understand a thing.

He rubbed his eyes. They were puffy, and they were practically closing on their own from fatigue. He had never felt so disoriented. Not even the memory of Bety telling him she was leaving him that long-ago night had been so awful, so capable of altering the order of his small and perfect world.

“Why would anyone want to kill someone like Artur?” Enrique wondered.

“What was that?” asked Bety, surprised.

“Sorry, I was just thinking aloud. I can't understand why anyone would want to kill an antiquarian.”

“Who knows? Maybe to rob him,” Bety speculated.

“Any thief, even a small-timer, knows that antiquarians don't handle cash. The prices are too high for anyone to carry those amounts on them.”

“Whatever the reason, you should get to Barcelona as soon as you can. Captain Fornells is handling the case; apparently he's an old friend of Artur's, and he wants to talk to you. You were missing and I couldn't travel. Even so, I was ready to go; I'd even canceled my classes at school. And it's the worst time of year since we've just finished with the lectures, and exams are right around the corner. I even had a ticket for this afternoon's flight. Now …”

“I'll go. What time is the flight?”

“Five o'clock sharp. Can I give you a ride? You look really tired. Maybe you shouldn't drive to the airport.”

“Yeah, thanks, I haven't slept in three days.”

“You look like you've been sailing. Have you?”

“I have. Let me tell you, I'm exhausted. And now …”

“Some things never change,” Bety said with a soft smile. “If you want, I could stay with you.”

“No, no. I don't want to bother you. You've done enough already.”

“You're wrong about that. I haven't done anything. Enrique, I know how you must feel. Artur practically raised you from the time you were just an eleven-year-old kid. He was your father, and later, your friend. I loved him too. Even after we broke up, he and I stayed more or less in touch. He wanted me to think of him as a friend, not just a relative of yours. I say this with all my heart: if I can help you, just let me know.”

The offer was sincere, Enrique didn't doubt it. But still, an arrogant frostiness was rising inside him, keeping him from asking for the support he needed from the one person who could really give it to him. Their separation wasn't recent, but the wounds it had left in both of them were still fresh enough to form a barrier between them that Enrique considered insurmountable.

“No, Bety. I appreciate it, but I'd rather be alone.”

“I understand,” she murmured sadly, then suddenly took cover behind a veneer of cheery composure. “Well, there's no time to waste then. I'll be by to pick you up at three thirty. Let me call the travel agency to change the name on the ticket.”

Enrique got up to walk her to the entry hall, but she refused.

“Don't even think about it.” She stopped him, placing her hands on his shoulders. “Rest, get your strength; you'll need it these next few days.”

Bety left. His rejection had stung her, and part of him took wicked delight in it, while the other, still dulled from sleeplessness and pain, chose to ignore it instead of facing reality: after all these years he still loved her, even more than in the beginning.