Chapter 7 - The Meeting on the Breakwater
The rain had died down to a thin, greasy mist by three in the morning, but the swell was rising.
At the entrance to the harbor of Bermeo, the green light on the outer mole flickered every six seconds, its beam cutting through the fog to illuminate five hundred yards of heaving, oily black water that broke against the dolerite blocks with a sound like distant artillery.
The great hall of Villa Bellisima was completely dark, save for the single brass ship’s lantern that Mateo had hung from the central chandelier hook.
On the long refectory table, the two girls sat side by side.
Mercedes had washed Valentina’s face, scrubbing the soot from her hairline with warm water and lye soap, dressing her in a clean woolen jersey that had belonged to a cabin boy thirty years before, the sleeves rolled up four times to free her wrists.
Beatriz still wore her white French nightgown, its hem stained with the black coal dust from the carriage drive, her bare feet tucked beneath her on the polished oak.
They looked at each other.
It was like looking into an old glass that had been silvered twice.
The same blunt brow. The same pale, mineral-gray eyes that seemed to take in the room without offering anything back. The same small, sharp dent in the center of the chin—the mark Diego’s father had carried, the mark Diego carried beneath his graying beard.
Neither child spoke.
Valentina reached out. Her hand, still rough and red from the cold of the scullery, touched the fine French lace at Beatriz’s collar.
Beatriz looked down at her own chest. Then she reached out and touched the mismatched mustard yarn of Valentina’s left sock.
“They didn't give you shoes,” Beatriz said. Her voice was still crisp, that precise, convent-bred French cutting through the damp air of the hall.
“I have shoes,” Valentina answered in the rough, singing Basque-Spanish of the quays. “Two pairs. Wooden ones for the wet stones, and leather ones with brass buckles for the churchyard.”
“Where are the leather ones?”
“In the box under the copper boiler,” Valentina said. “Mother says if I wear them on the gravel, the thread rots.”
Beatriz considered this. She pulled her legs up higher, resting her chin on her knees, her eyes drifting toward the window where the black sea was thumping against the foundation of the house.
“The lady in the white dress had thirty-two pairs of shoes,” Beatriz said. “All of them made of silk. When it rained, her driver carried her across the stones on his back so the mud wouldn't touch the heels.”
“That’s stupid,” Valentina said simply.
“Yes,” Beatriz agreed. “It was very stupid.”
Diego stood by the cold hearth, watching them.
He had stripped off his wet coat. His gray wool shirt was unbuttoned at the neck, exposing the thick hair on his chest and the white, puckered line of the winch scar. In his left hand, he held a glass of dark Rioja wine, untouched, the surface trembling slightly every time the ground-swell hit the cliff below.
Mercedes stood five paces behind him, her hands still tucked into the pockets of her calico apron. She looked ten years older than she had at dawn; her back was bent, her shoulders curved inward as if she were expecting an iron bar to fall across her spine at any moment.
“They don't know,” Diego said softly, his eyes never leaving the table.
“They know enough,” Mercedes replied. Her voice was barely a rasp. “Children who grow up in closets know which floorboards hold weight before they learn their letters, Don Diego. They know who owns the bread.”
“Sofia had both of them for three weeks,” Diego said. It wasn't a question; it was an attempt to reconstruct the four miles of shore he had spent nine years ignoring.
“Three weeks and two days,” Mercedes said. “In the hay-loft at Morga. She had one on each breast, Diego. She didn't sleep for twenty days because she was afraid the rats would come down from the rafters if the lantern went out.”
“And then my mother’s men came.”
“They didn't use men,” Mercedes said, her voice dropping into an octave of pure, ancient gall. “Your mother came herself. In the black landau with the rubber tires. She brought two civil guards with their rifles unslung. She stood in the manure at the bottom of the ladder and called Sofia down like a stray bitch that had stolen a ham from the larder.”
Diego took a slow sip of the wine. It tasted of vinegar and sulfur.
“And Sofia gave Beatriz up?”
“She didn't give her up!” Mercedes’ voice cracked, rising for the first time into a sharp, indignant cry that made both little girls turn their gray eyes toward the shadows. “Your mother had the civil registry certificate in her reticule! She told Sofia that if she didn't hand over the strong twin, she would have the sergeant sign an order committing both of them to the lunatic asylum at Valladolid! She told her they would be scrubbed with carbolic and put into canvas sacks until their teeth fell out!”
Mercedes began to weep—not with the polite, theatrical tears of Luciana in her plum-silk bedroom, but with the dry, rhythmic, shuddering sobs of an old beast of burden that had been beaten until its ribs were numb.
“Sofia held Beatriz out by the heels,” Mercedes whispered, her hands clawing at her apron. “She told your mother: 'Take the blood, then. Take the registry. But leave me the one that has Diego’s chin. Leave me the one that won't ever look at you without remembering what you stole.'”
Diego set the wineglass down on the mantelpiece.
He didn't drop it, but his fingers were shaking so violently that the red liquid slopped over the rim, running down the gray limestone in thin, dark ribbons that looked like dried blood on a gravestone.
He walked over to the refectory table.
He didn't sit down. He stood between the two girls, his large, scarred hands resting flat on the dark wood on either side of their plates.
Both children looked up at him.
Four gray eyes. Cold. Mineral. Indifferent to the titles of the 1888 Maritime League, indifferent to the de la Torre banking syndicate, indifferent to the thirty million pesetas of dry cargo that would enter the river when the dawn tide turned.
Diego looked at Valentina.
Then he looked at Beatriz.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the two golden buttons.
He didn't put them back into his pocket. He didn't lock them in the iron box with the unread letters.
He picked up the heavy iron poker from the hearth, walked to the open casement window overlooking the three-hundred-foot drop into the Atlantic, and held both buttons over the sill.
“Diego,” Mercedes gasped from the darkness, taking two stumbling steps forward, her hands outstretched. “The charter... the registry... your family’s title...”
Diego didn't answer.
He opened his fingers.
The two pieces of nine-karat gold fell together through the darkness.
There was no sound. The wind off the cape caught the two-headed herons, tumbling them once, twice, through the salt spray before the black water three hundred feet below opened its gray jaws and swallowed the 1888 Maritime League whole.
Diego pulled the casement shut.
He turned the brass espagnolette bolt until it clicked into the deadwood.
Then he walked back to the table, pulled out the high-backed master’s chair at the head of the oak board, and sat down between his daughters.
“Mercedes,” Diego said.
May you like
The maid wiped her face with the rough blue hem of her apron. “Yes, Don Diego?”
“Clear the table,” he said, his voice dropping into that deep, quiet, unshakable calm that had brought the San Pedro through sixty knots of wind nine years before. “Bring three bowls of the leek soup. And find two pairs of woolen socks that match. We have work to do on the docks at six.”
