The Last Resort (15 page)

From the start I tried to ignore them. I wanted to think about the here and now, about things that had absolutely nothing to do with my past life, and so I turned off the light.

I decided to stave off the onslaught of sleep by thinking about the things I had heard that night at the restaurant: the different versions of the death of Jaime Valdés, who had been so present in my recent thoughts that I almost began to look upon him as I would a friend. “What a ridiculous story,” I said to myself. First, there was the story that Fernanda had told me in London, and then the interpretations I had listened to here at the hotel: the same situation, the same characters, but depending on the storyteller, they sounded like two or three very different stories. This was really the ideal moment for putting all that disparate information in order, which is exactly what I began to do, eliminating hypotheses one by one.

Very well. I had all the time in the world and I gazed out the window and started to think back.

“How would you like to hear the story of a murderess?” That was how Fernanda had started her version of the facts: a man who choked to death in the company of his wife’s very good friend, who, instead of helping him, ran off at the most compromising moment. This was, of course, where Fernanda’s “murderess” bit came in. I smiled and then, to excuse my niece, I just said to myself:

Oh, she just got carried away,
mon cher,
a bit of exaggerated gossip. Fernanda doesn’t think that Isabella actually killed anyone—she was just trying to tell the story as vividly as she knew how, to pass the time and brighten up a lunch date that would have otherwise been a total bore.

And it stood to reason that Fernanda’s story was highly improbable, exceedingly illogical, and anything but realistic—after all, gossip is just supposed to be fun. Nothing but fun. Isn’t that right?

I still do not understand how it happened: One single ray of moonlight somehow managed to fall very obliquely into my room. All the other moonbeams filtered through the darkness rather uniformly, but for some strange reason this one lone ray had managed to escape the crowd and illuminate, like a spotlight, a tiny corner of my room with an especially abundant pile of pine needles, and I swear that I could hear those needles shouting out at me:

Rafael Molinet, what the hell do you care about a story that has nothing to do with you, that involves a bunch of people you’ve never seen before in your life? What business do you have sniffing around like some kind of ridiculous old bloodhound? Why are you going to such trouble to connect a bunch of dots that will probably only lead you to the simplest, most typical of conclusions? Nobody killed this Valdés person. You know it better than anyone: He choked to death for a stupid, stupid reason. That’s all . . .

As one might expect, I told myself, cutting off the pine needles’ sudden monologue, trying to ignore what I had just heard, the more extended version of the story is that the guy died while making love to Isabella, and that is what adds a bit of spice to the story. That is the opinion of Ana, the timid blonde who seems to be such dear friends with the radio announcer. This explanation, moreover, coincides with Fernanda’s story on all the basic points: a sudden, unexpected death at the most untimely moment—but then again, when is death ever timely?

The moonbeam was still there, casting its light on every last pine needle. Standing on the wall in vivid relief, they were like thousands and thousands of piercing memories determined to sew the past onto the present, to connect Valdés’s story with another, far older story. But I didn’t even look at them. Instead, I searched the landscape for the two lone palm trees I had noticed on the golf course, and I swear, I was truly amazed at the manner in which they followed my observations. They looked like movie-set palm trees, but they really did rustle and sway in silent and noble agreement with all that I had to say.

I felt very close to the palm trees and so very far from my bedroom. I tried hard to ascertain the real truth about the death of Jaime Valdés and to ignore the presence of those pine-needle memories. I realize that I heard Sánchez’s explanation under extremely difficult circumstances, I said to myself. But it isn’t hard to guess his theory: a rich, unscrupulous widow, a lover . . . and whether I believe this or not (what does my opinion matter, anyway?), the fact is that I now have a substantial amount of material that could easily be used to obtain a bit of spending money if I so desired . . .

Who are you going to blackmail now, Rafael Molinet?,
the pine needles shouted out at me, grotesquely illuminated by the moon.
Lies, it’s all lies. In all your life, when have you ever been able to take a situation and turn it to your advantage, and make money off someone else’s sordid story? Admit it, Rafael Molinet, confess for once and for all, why the death of Jaime Valdés means so very much to you!

At this, I turned on the light. Laugh if you must, but at that moment I went over to the closet to look for the tiny sewing box I had placed there so that I might occupy myself with a bit of useful activity, anything at all that might help me concentrate on the things I wanted to think about, not what those needles were urging me to remember. That was the best thing I could do, occupy myself with some practical domestic task, like darning a pair of socks.

And it worked, at first. As I threaded the needle, introduced a wooden egg into the first sock, and performed my first few stitches, the walls (or perhaps I should say, the memories) subsided and went back to where they had been before. And my head promptly began, once again, to try and organize the facts of a story that seemed to have very little to do with me.

Antonio Sánchez’s story is even more idiotic than Fernanda’s, I said to myself once again. And though his explanation had reached my ears through the high-volume chatter of the four Germans, I had little trouble weaving together the snippets of the radio announcer’s story now that I had a bit of peace and quiet.

My hands continued working away.

The characters, obviously, are all the same, I reasoned. Valdés, the asphyxiated Don Juan; Mercedes, the widow; Isabella, the lover; and Steine, the hapless husband of Isabella. Plus Habibi, the Moroccan maid, though I haven’t quite decided whether she belongs with the good guys or the bad guys. But that, of course, is the entire point of all this. This last thought made me pause for a moment to consider my fifth and final character.

Ana, the timid blonde, had mentioned Habibi with regard to a bracelet that disappeared the evening of Valdés’s death. Fernanda had only referred to this detail in passing, which meant that if there was any truth to the story about Habibi and the lost bracelet (as the timid blonde insisted), then we were talking about a series of facts that had been obtained . . . oh, what had my niece called that bit about the household help? Ah, yes—the maid connection. No doubt this was the source of the timid blonde’s version of the story. But then I never pay attention to the household help and their gossip.

Well, pay attention to them, Rafael Molinet,
a cluster of pine needles seemed to scream at me from my bedspread.
Pay attention, for they are talking about a gold bracelet that disappeared precisely when the man died. Mercedes Algorta, down by the swimming pool, was wearing the same type of bracelet that Isabella wore in the photograph that Fernanda sent you. Are we talking about two different bracelets, or are they one and the same? Stop and think for a moment: What would it mean if those two bracelets were in fact the same? What does that little coincidence remind you of, Rafael Molinet? Perhaps another bad girl you once knew?

“Sánchez’s version,” I said for the third time, aloud this time, in such a loud voice that Gomez gave a start, though thankfully he did not wake up. “Sánchez’s version is even more idiotic than the others I have heard. According to him, Isabella did not callously leave her lover to die (as Fernanda claimed), nor had the guy dropped dead while having sex with his girlfriend (as Ana, the timid blonde claimed). No, no. Both versions were
très vulgaires comme petite histoire.
When someone like Antonio S. finds himself fascinated by a bit of common gossip, he will always try to turn it into something much more original than it really is. He will take the five characters as if they were five playing cards, shuffle them around a bit, and come up with the most shocking explanation for the same events we have already heard about: He turns the
wife
into the guilty party, the sinner. How? Simple: I believe the French call it
laissez-faire.
It means not getting involved, allowing things to run their course—in this case, letting someone die. From what I have been able to piece together, that is Sánchez’s explanation.”

Interesting theory, I said to myself, making sure that all my stitches were perfectly uniform. You might even call it the perfect crime. There are thousands of stories like it, with all sorts of variations. For example, I can recall a very similar case that took place in Argentina and involved a woman who was married to a very wealthy but tyrannical and insufferable man. It all happened on a sailboat, at night—nobody was on deck but the woman and her despicable husband. And suddenly the man fell into the water. Herein lies the dilemma: What did the wife do? Did she call for help? Throw him a life preserver? Or did she simply not interfere with destiny’s handiwork? It was a split-second decision: In this case, the wife went down to their bedroom and began filing her nails instead of asking for help. It was the most perfect murder, with the most innocent weapon: Death by emery board is impossible, after all . . . except when it should have been in a night-table drawer while its mistress used her nails—and her hands—for more Samaritan purposes.

Clearly, Sánchez’s theory suggested something along these lines despite the fact that the ingredients of his story are as hard to swallow as the ones in Fernanda’s. The hypothesis that this Valdés character died as the result of a bit of
laissez-faire
is completely idiotic, I said to myself. We are not talking about someone who drowned on the high seas—yes, he choked to death, which is a similar affliction, but it is much more difficult to remedy unless one happens to be a medical doctor. What exactly was it that Mercedes should have done but didn’t? According to Sánchez, she waited awhile before calling for help, and to support this hypothesis he claimed that she had taken a lover and finally saw a opportunity to be free—rich and free.

Oh, these elastic stitches are so difficult, I’m going to have to rip up the thread and start over again.

What kind of person could dream up this sort of madness? I asked myself. Because it is so, so obvious that . . . At this point I had to stop working on my sock, for I was sweating profusely. I wiped my brow, looked up from my darning, and once again found the pine needles staring back at me.

Why do you care so much about a story that is nothing but vulgar gossip, as you yourself say? Nothing but a bunch of conjecture about a very unfortunate accident . . .

It was them, all right. Yet again. This time they lunged at me from the wall near the window. I turned back to my sewing, talking to myself in such a loud voice that Gomez began to stir in his corner, but I didn’t care if he woke up, because I had to try as hard as I could to focus on my sewing. “Could Mercedes have possibly wanted to kill her husband just because she had another man, a secret lover waiting in the wings? No! That is the most implausible story I have heard—not even Sánchez’s hypnotic radio announcer’s voice can make it believable. And it is implausible and unbelievable, because in this day and age, people hardly need resort to murder if they want to free themselves of husbands. Even if he was a womanizer and a cad, it is very hard to imagine that Mercedes would ever dream of doing something so risky and so very unnecessary. It takes a very curious—and very contradictory—sort of a person to pull something like that off . . .”

That, we know, is a lie. It is a split-second decision,
scream the pine needles decorating the bedspread.
None of this was planned. That is why it all seems so accidental . . . so simple. All it takes is a little slip, an imperceptible delay in doing what should be done, and there it is: omission, the most perfect of crimes. Remember, Rafael Molinet, remember back to what happened that other time. That, too, was a split-second decision . . .

“Don’t be silly. A woman would never sit back and let her husband die when something as civilized as divorce exists. This is nothing but idle speculation, nothing more.”

That was when I realized that the pine needles had no intention of leaving me in peace. They were there, waiting for me to be conquered by fatigue, but sleep can be very fickle: It takes its time when desired but assails us when we least wish to bring it on. And people think of such silly, silly things while in the dream state. I looked at my watch: Two in the morning. I would have loved to have ruminated on all this a bit longer, lingering on some or other fascinating tidbit of the Mercedes Algorta saga. And there was, in fact, one thing that I seemed to be stuck on, something all of them had mentioned in passing:

“Solid gold, from Cartier . . .” That was what Fernanda had said in her fax. I remembered it practically word for word: “. . . Mercedes had spotted it at a Christie’s auction, but Isabella beat her to the punch and got old Papa Steine to give it to her as a Christmas present . . . it was like an omen of sorts: the Isabellas of this world, they start off stealing your bracelets and end up stealing your husband.”

It was a stupid idea, but even the stupidest ideas in the world can seem halfway reasonable when you are falling asleep, struggling to keep your eyes open to stave off your sinister memories. That was when, all of a sudden, I realized that if Mercedes was right here at L’Hirondelle, and if I could ascertain that the bracelet I saw on her wrist was in fact Isabella’s . . . well, then, I might have good reason to suspect that something fishy took place the night Valdés died. How chilling to imagine Mercedes in the middle of that medical drama, deciding to keep the bracelet as collateral or as revenge for her husband’s betrayals. After all, Isabella would have to have a lot of nerve to ask for it back . . . “Her hands should have been busy with more Samaritan tasks,” I repeated to myself, thinking of the story about the husband who fell into the sea while his wife sat back and filed her nails.