The Time in Between by Maria Duenas

Author:Maria Duenas [Duenas, Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781451616897
Amazon: 1451616899
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2012-07-10T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-One

___________

The following morning the world started up again at a different pace. For the first time in several weeks, I didn’t wake up early, didn’t drink a hurried cup of coffee or install myself immediately in the workshop pressured by things to do. Rather than returning to the frantic activity of the previous week, I began my day by resuming the long bath that had been interrupted the previous evening. And then took a walk, to Rosalinda’s house.

I’d gathered from Beigbeder’s words that her illness was just something mild and passing, no more than an unfortunate upset. Which was why I was expecting to find my friend just the same as ever, ready for me to tell her every detail of the event she’d missed and keen to enjoy my comments on the outfits that the guests were wearing, which of them was the most elegant, which the least.

A maid led me to her bedroom, where I found her still in bed, surrounded by bolster cushions, with the shutters closed and a thick stale smell of tobacco and medication, and a lack of air. The house was spacious and beautiful: Moorish architecture, English furnishings, and an exotic kind of chaos in which the rugs and the upholstery of the sofas were covered with old records out of their sleeves, letters marked “air mail,” forgotten silk scarves, and Staffordshire porcelain cups with unfinished tea, now cold.

That morning, however, Rosalinda had an air of anything but glamour.

“How are you?” I tried not to let my voice come out sounding too concerned. I had good reason to be, however, because of the way she looked: pale, haggard, her hair dirty, slumped in a dead weight on a disheveled bed with the sheets dangling onto the floor.

“Terminal,” she replied with the blackest humor. “I’m not well at all, but come sit here close to me,” she commanded, patting the bed. “It’s not contagious.”

“Juan Luis told me last night that it was intestinal trouble,” I said, doing as I’d been told. First I had to move off a few crumpled handkerchiefs, an ashtray filled with half-smoked cigarettes, the remnants of a package of butter cookies, and a decent-sized pile of crumbs.

“That’s right, but that’s not the worst of it. Juan Luis doesn’t know the whole story. I’ll tell him tonight; I didn’t want to trouble him on the last day of Serrano’s visit.

“So what’s the worst of it?”

“This,” she said, furious, taking up what looked like a telegram and holding it in her fingers as though with pincers. “This is what has made me ill, not the preparations for the visit. This is the worst part of all.”

I looked at her, confused, and then she summarized its contents.

“I received it yesterday. Peter arrives in six weeks.”

“Who’s Peter?” I didn’t remember anyone by that name among her friends.

She looked at me as though she’d just heard the most preposterous of questions.

“Who else would it be, Sira, for God’s sake? Peter is my husband.” Peter Fox

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