The Immortal Collection by Eva Garcia Saenz

Author:Eva Garcia Saenz [Sáenz, Eva García]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781477849798
Publisher: AmazonCrossingEnglish
Published: 2014-04-07T16:00:00+00:00

35

ADRIANA

Friday, June 1, 2012

By the time Iago finally stopped talking, the sun had just hidden itself on the other side of the bay, leaving ever-darker strips of cloud in its wake. I was still sitting on the white sofa, wrapped up in the fur of some animal I couldn’t identify. I was hugging my knees, concerned not to let go of the computer in my lap. He continued to pace barefoot up and down the green living-room carpet, constantly looking toward the windows as if, by highlighting the direction of the outside world, some force of nature would come to corroborate his story. I knew it was my turn to say something, but for once no words emerged. In their place, irritation, disappointment, and rage had been piling up like heavy rocks inside my head.

Another part of me was trying to sketch out some sort of explanation that would justify this incredible senselessness. I rejected the possibility that it was simply a joke, a bit of nonsense between friends, a practical joke between colleagues. I could see the gravity of the matter in his face. I tried to imagine the motives someone might have for coming up with such a ridiculous smokescreen. It had to be linked to what I’d overheard in the tunnel. Something he had to hide from me at all cost. Maybe to protect himself, or to protect me from finding out the truth. Maybe someone else was behind it: some government, a group of lobbyists, a pharmaceutical company, private capital, industrial espionage, whatever. I was on the outside, and Iago wanted it to stay that way.

Fine.

Message received.

What I found humiliating was that he would need to invent a lie of such magnitude in order to keep me away from the truth. There were simpler ways. I would have understood. But the truth is that, at that moment, more than any other emotion, I felt insulted—as an expert in archaeology, and as a casual partner for one night, or whatever it was we had been.

“And so?” he pressured me.

“And so what?” I answered, in a foul mood.

“Now it’s your turn to speak. Say it, whatever it is, please. Just give me something.”

And I did. I looked at him with a blind, crushing fury.

“You’re angry,” he whispered, dejected. It wasn’t a question.

“Listen, I’m going to ask you just one thing. I don’t want you to see me really angry, and you’re one second away from that, so I don’t want to hear one more word of that absurd ‘immortals’ story.”

“Ancients,” he corrected me.

“Stop doing that!” I shouted at him, unable to control myself.

“Doing what?”

“What you’re doing: continuing to persist with your story, extending the lie.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t want to see me extending a lie, believe me!” he let fly, almost without intending to.

There was something in his tone that made my hair stand on end, because I sensed he was sincere. And for the first time I asked myself if I really knew Iago at all or if, up to now, I had just been dealing with a magnificent disguise.

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