Berta had told her that there had to be some way of making things right, and Raquel wanted to believe it. ‘I’ve got to find some way to make things right,’ she told Alvaro the next morning as they were having breakfast together, and she went on saying it to herself, a hundred, a thousand, a million times. She sprawled on her bed, lying on her back, arms folded over her chest like a corpse, her thinking position, but even this was useless. The word ‘disappear’ seemed to lurk round every corner, behind every door she opened, trying to escape from this brutal, cruel fate that meant giving up on the only thing that mattered to her.
This can’t be happening, it can’t be happening, she thought. She got up, went into the bathroom and splashed water on her face. But this time, she could not come up with a plan.
Clara, my sister, was waiting for me on the porch steps. I hadn’t said I was coming, but I wasn’t surprised to see her sitting on the same step she had sat on as a little girl when there was trouble at home.
I said hello and sat down next to her, the way I used to when I was the only brother who knew she was upset because she’d ruined a library book or lent her watch to some friend from school who had lost it.
‘Hi.’ She smiled, ignoring my black eye. She took my face in her hands and kissed me on both cheeks. ‘What are you dressed like that for?’
I was wearing the grey suit I wore at my viva examination, a dress shirt and a tie. On the rare occasions I wore a suit, I never managed to feel comfortable enough to forget I was wearing it, but that morning I had forgotten.
‘I came to talk to Mamá,’ I said, as though this was sufficient.
‘Really? What about?’ She looked at me and I saw that her eyes were shining. ‘Weren’t you even going to call me?’
I had an appalling hangover, though I only realised this when I climbed into the car, the big suitcase packed into the boot, my breath steaming up the windscreen with a foul-smelling mist. I felt intimidated by the pure blue of the horizon, the blue of my mother’s eyes, which was always deepest, loveliest, when she was angry or upset. ‘Don’t go, Alvaro,’ Raquel had said. Her dark eyes flecked with green were suddenly so dark they seemed black. ‘Don’t go.’ But I did go, I had to go. When I closed the door of the apartment on the Calle Hortaleza, a place I had always loved and would now never come back to, I thought that maybe it was better this way, better to get it all over at once, like when we were children and one of us had chickenpox and Mamá piled all five of us into the big bed so we would all get it over with at once.
When I closed the door of the apartment on the Calle Hortaleza, I thought about the time Miguelito had chickenpox. I remembered the fever, his little body limp and sweaty, and then, almost before I realised it, he was bouncing around with the wonderful, inexhaustible energy of a healthy three-year-old. It was better this way, better to get it all over with at once, I thought, the tears, the guilt, the questions, the secrets. ‘I’m tired of deep meaningful conversations,’ I had said to Raquel the night before, and it was true. I couldn’t take any more, yet there I was driving down the road to Burgos while my memory bombarded me with images of the life I was leaving behind, my wife’s naked body, my son’s irrepressible laughter, my mother’s soft fingers as she held my hand in the street.
‘Of course I was going to phone you.’ This was why it did not bother me, running into Clara, even though I hadn’t called her. ‘It’s just that you are the youngest, so if I didn’t know anything about it, you were hardly likely to know anything either.’
‘I’m never going to know, Álvaro,’ she said, not looking at me, ‘never.’
‘Don’t you want to know?’
‘Of course, you know me ...’ she looked at me now and smiled, ‘but I’m a coward, aren’t I? That’s what you always used to say when we were little. Come on, Clara, talk to Papá, talk to Mamá, just tell them what happened, you can’t keep hiding for ever, you can’t sleep out here on the porch ... Remember when I broke the porcelain dancer? The day I failed my exams? The night everyone was out and it was just you, me and Fuensanta and I got ink all over Angélica’s dress and it wouldn’t come out? That was the worst, I’d never been so scared in my whole life, do you remember?’
‘Yes.’ I remembered everything, and I smiled back. “‘It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me.” Whenever anyone couldn’t find something, it was because you had wrapped it up carefully in a plastic bag and put it in the bin, and you’d always say the same thing: “It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me.” But it didn’t matter, you always gave yourself away in the end. This time it’s different, Clara.’
‘No,’ she shook her head, ‘it’s not ... Last night, talking to Angelica, I could hear Papá’s voice, you remember, “Little mouse, little mouse ...” Then I called Rafa and I could still hear him, “Little mouse, little mouse, will you marry me?” I didn’t even call Julio, there was no point, he always takes your side even when you’re wrong, and you’re wrong, because you can’t be right, and Rafa can’t be right ...’
‘Little mouse, little mouse, will you marry me?’ When Clara was about three or four, it had been her favourite story, and Papá was the only one who was allowed to tell it. Every night she would appear in the living room of the apartment on the Calle Argensola carrying the same book and she would go over to Papá and say, ‘Little mouse, little mouse,’ and Papá would say, ‘Little mouse, little mouse,’ and sweep her up in his arms and read the short poem. He did it so often that eventually they both knew it by heart, and they would recite it all the time, wherever they were. Clara always played the Vain Little Mouse, and Papá would put on the different voices for the other characters, including the shrill voice of the little boy mouse that always had Clara rolling around laughing. Clara became ‘Little mouse, little mouse’; my father always called her that, even on the most solemn occasions. The day she stepped out of the house in her wedding dress, he took her by the shoulder before she left and said, ‘Little mouse, little mouse, why are you marrying someone else?’ and they both burst out laughing.
‘How is Rafa?’
‘Well ...’ She pulled the face she always did whenever she had to talk about something unpleasant. ‘He’s furious with you, obviously. And his face is a mess. He had to have stitches, and they’ve put something in his nose to keep the septum in place. You knocked it out of place when you punched him. He said it was very painful.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She did not react immediately, so I went on, ‘I swear, I’m sorry ... but he was the one who started it.’
‘I know, Angelica told me. Anyway, you only have to look at your eye. But what I don’t understand is how you could fight with Rafa, Alvaro. I mean, I’m not surprised at him, that’s what he’s like, but you ... And all over some stupid remark, just because he made fun of your museum.’
‘No, Clara, that’s not what it was about. It’s true, he did laugh at the museum, at me, and my work, but the worst thing was ...’ I wondered whether I had it in me to explain, and even if I had, she probably would not understand. ‘It’s not because he attacked me, he attacked what I stand for, everything I believe in ... I wasn’t bothered by what he said about me, but to attack science and scientists and what we do ... I just lost it.’
My sister looked at me, the disbelief on her face almost comical, and I realised how ridiculous what I had said seemed to her. ‘I know it sounds stupid, Clara, but it’s not. There’s nothing I hate more than people who brag about their ignorance, people who are proud to be nothing more than animals, I can’t stand it. That’s what Rafa did, and he did it deliberately, he knew exactly what he was saying. I may not be religious, but I don’t go round blaspheming and insulting people who are.’
‘You can’t compare the two!’
‘I’m not ...’ I smiled, trying to comfort her. ‘But that’s what happened. Rafa attacked me, he was looking for a fight and I gave him one.’
‘When I heard, I couldn’t believe it, honestly, not you ... He’s more violent ... well, maybe not violent — he’s more antagonistic, more controlling, you can’t have a simple conversation without him getting all worked up, but you just have to let him, we all know that, and then he calms down.’
‘I’ve been taking this shit all my life, Clara,’ I interrupted her, ‘I’ve been putting up with it for years, Rafa screaming and me saying nothing so as not to spoil things for everyone, but that doesn’t mean I’m passive and it doesn’t mean he has the right to have the last word even when he’s wrong. It’s just habit, it’s the way we do things in our house, it’s the way we do things in this country.’
I had been careful to control my anger, careful not to raise my voice, even as I felt the flames licking at me, the stifling heat of this rage I had hoped never to feel again. But for all my efforts, Clara must have seen some small spark, because she looked terrified.
‘I don’t understand, Alvaro.’
‘It doesn’t matter ... I’m not proud of what happened yesterday — in fact, I’m not even sure I understand myself.’ This was true and she realised it. ‘Nothing like that has ever happened to me before.’
Clara said nothing and I began to feel guilty again, sick with shame as I pictured the scene, Angelica rushing into Casualty, finding some colleague she could trust, whispering that her brothers had been fighting; Rafa slumped on a plastic chair, his face swollen, hating me and Julio next to him, not knowing what to say. It must have been horrible, humiliating for everyone. I felt so ashamed just thinking about it that I made the mistake of trying to justify what I had done.
‘And it’s not that bad, is it? I mean, people fight all the time because they’ve had too much to drink, or someone’s rear-ended their car, or because of some woman ...’ Seeing misery well thick and watery in my sister’s eyes, I stopped.
‘This whole thing is driving you crazy, Alvaro.’
I tried to see myself through those eyes, which still looked like drops of honey, Clara’s eyes, the baby of the family, the little mouse who had understood me better than anyone when we were children and who then began to look at me as though I were an alien with a bizarre job and bizarre opinions but who had never stopped being her brother Alvaro, one half of the team doomed to lose every game we ever played against our arch-rivals, the big kids. She was grown up now, she was thirty-five, she had just told me I was going crazy, and perhaps she was right because she was staring at me from the serenity of a perpetual childhood, in which nothing was difficult, nothing was nasty, a universe of pastel colours in which, if emotions were not intense, at least they were never confusing or unpleasant. To Clara, this was what life was like, she would not allow it to be any other way.
‘This story would drive anyone crazy,’ I said.
‘No, Alvaro, not me.’ She shook her head. ‘Not me, you know that. That’s what I told Angelica last night when she tried to explain that this woman you’ve left Mai for is our cousin and that she’s told you ... horrible things about Papá and Mamá and Grandma Mariana. I told her I didn’t want to know, and now I’m telling you, I don’t want to know, not now, not ever. I’m not going to fall out with any of you, because you’re my family, but Papá was my father and to me he was the best, no matter what anyone says.’
Tears made it impossible for her to say more, and I could have asked her why she was crying, what reason there could possibly be for these tears that belied her faith, the gentle certainty of her words, but I didn’t. I knew the answer, and I knew that she would give me a different one. ‘I’m crying because this whole thing upsets me, I can’t stand to see you fighting, I love you all so much.’ It was true, she loved us, we all loved each other, what else could we do, we were a family.
‘Let it go, Alvaro, please.’ She took my hand and squeezed it just as Raquel had done that morning when she had asked me not to go. ‘Forget this nasty, ugly story ... We can’t understand it. I know you think you do, but I think Rafa is right, we can’t know what we would have done if ...’ She did not want to continue, so she changed tack. ‘The thing I really don’t understand is, what difference does it make? What does it matter what Papá did before we knew him? When we knew him he was a good man, a good father, he was clever and ambitious, but he was honest, everyone loved him, you most of all, Alvaro, you loved him more than any of us ... That’s the saddest part. Julio and me, we were always on Mamá’s side, but you were the one he loved best, then Angélica, then Rafa ... Poor Rafa!’ Her eyes filled with tears again. ‘And you did love him, Alvaro, I know you did, you can’t hide that kind of thing.’
‘I loved Papá, Clara, and I still love him,’ I said, ‘I could never stop loving him, even if I wanted to forget him ... Julio told me it’s possible to forget, but I don’t think I can. I think about Papá all the time, more than I ever did, and I always remember the good times, the times he helped me, took care of me ... It’s about the same with Mai. She has never seemed as beautiful or as wonderful as she does now in my memories.’ I looked at my sister and smiled. ‘It’s all my fault, I know that, and I know I’ll get over it. I know that if my relationship with Raquel wasn’t so complicated, that if she hadn’t blown our world apart, my memories of Mai would not be as powerful. But with Papá, it’s different. With Papá, there’s nothing I can do.’
‘Then let it go, Álvaro. Don’t do it for Papá’s sake, or even Mamá’s, do it for yourself ... And for me. Just leave things the way they are, because it’s pointless, Papá is dead, and we have to go on living. We have to try to be happy. Look at what you’ve done ... Rafa hates you and he’ll end up hating Julio because he stuck up for you, Angelica is in pieces, and as for me ...’
Clara began to cry again and I put my arm round her shoulders. I thought about her, about what she had said, about the words that mattered to us — generosity, responsibility, selfishness — and I thought of other words, words that Clara would never know:
be a good man, an honourable man ... Maybe I am wrong, but I am doing what I feel I have to do, and I am doing it out of love ...
Clara did not understand, but I did. Clara did not want to know, she was determined to live, or at least to pretend to live, inside her little glass house. It was not terribly original, but it was a path she had the right to choose, to add her deafening silence to the silence of the millions before her who had chosen to say nothing, to close their ears to a silence more piercing than any scream. It was a choice I had had. From the very start, I knew that I could choose to do nothing, pick up the pieces of the porcelain dancer, put them in a plastic bag, and throw it in the bin, pile some rubbish on top of it and stamp it all down. This had always been her approach when she was little. She could run away now, but sooner or later the future would catch up with her and she would end up knowing what she did not want to know, hearing what she did not want to hear. Some small shard of truth, this enemy she was trying so hard to outwit, would slip beneath her skin like a splinter of wood that draws no blood. This was what would happen, I knew that. I was her big brother and I had been through every stage already.