Summer Snow (10 page)

“But I want
overalls
.” Toño’s voice had deteriorated into a whine. He stamped his foot and eluded his mother as she walked over to pick him up.

“Toño! Behave yourself,” his mother hissed.

“I
am
behaving.” The words were barely short of a sob.

Doña Consuela concluded her negotiations with the seamstress and saw the woman out. Then she turned to her grandson, whose protests had steadily increased in volume. “Carlos Antonio! The first thing a
well-brought-up
child learns is to be polite to his elders. Your
father
would be very ashamed of you.”

Toño’s face crumpled. “Papa’s not ’shamed of me!” he howled.

Elena hugged her son ferociously and glared at her mother-in-law. “He’s overtired.” The words were an apology but the tone was a threat.

“Obviously.” Doña Consuela once more spoke with artificial sweetness. “It was probably a mistake to take him out this morning. It’s not his fault. But, still, I never accepted rudeness from
my
sons. It’s important to set a tone.” She smiled into her daughter-in-law’s frozen face. “You don’t mind my saying this, do you? As an experienced mother?”

“Of course not.” Elena’s voice was as expressionless as her face, but Toño, who was sniffling quietly in her arms, felt her grip tighten convulsively. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll take him up to bed for his nap.”

Doña Consuela glanced at the clock on the end table. “It’s nearly lunchtime.”

“He ate a lot earlier in the day.”

“It’s very important to establish mealtimes. Children will spoil their appetites otherwise.”

Elena’s throat tightened. “The majority of Spanish children eat when they can because they’re always hungry,” she said quietly. “I’d think you would thank God your grandchildren are in the lucky minority.”

Red
, thought Doña Consuela, as Elena walked out, still carrying Toño. Doña Consuela left to check preparations for lunch, well satisfied with the morning. Planning her grandson’s wardrobe had been amusing, and his minor misbehavior was no more than could be expected of his age. And she was certain that he would look adorable in his new outfits when they arrived.

Up in his bedroom, Toño was sobbing with confusion and fury and disappointment. Elena did her best to comfort him. She retrieved the forgotten Rodrigo, and patiently reassured the little boy over and over that he could have a pair of overalls when he got home if he wanted, and that his father was
not
ashamed of him. She did not go downstairs to lunch until he had finally fallen asleep.

The afternoon meal was a tense one. The expression on her husband’s face told Elena that he had not fared well in his conference with his father. Carlos’s brother, Juan Andrés, was preoccupied to the point of rudeness, and his wife, Rosa, irritated by his attitude, sniped at him, with little regard for the rest of the family. All in all, Elena was glad that Toño was spared the ordeal and cheerfully resolved to give up her siesta to play with him if he woke early from his nap.

When she escaped from the table to check on Toño, he was still sleeping soundly. She went to her own room, where she found her husband sitting with his head in his hands. “Your mother—” Elena began.

“Don’t start,” he warned without looking up. His voice was harsher than she had heard it in many years.

She sat beside him, concerned, and almost frightened by his tone. “What’s the matter?”

“I spoke to my father when we got back.” Tejada’s voice was cold and steady. “He knows of no reason why Aunt Rosalia should have been murdered. It’s not his business to speculate. The Guardia wanted to open an investigation and he had nothing to do with it.”

Elena put a hesitant hand on his arm. “I thought Rivas said—”

“I know what Rivas said,” Tejada interrupted, still in the same chill monotone. “I’m telling you what my father said. When I asked about Doña Rosalia’s will, he said that she’d died intestate.”

Elena frowned. “I thought your godfather told you there definitely was a will.”

“He also said my father was the executor,” Tejada confirmed.

Elena’s hand tightened on his arm. “Maybe there’s some sort of misunderstanding.”

“Don Pablo told me the provisions of her will were inequitable, and asked me to come see him tomorrow if my father didn’t tell me all the provisions of the will. Now I’m told there isn’t a will. It’s as if . . .” Tejada swallowed a few times. “As if one of them was lying to me,” he finished softly.

Elena’s capacity for comforting had been nearly exhausted by her son earlier, but her husband’s hurt perplexity prevented her from saying that
obviously
one or both of the men he had interviewed was lying. She tried for a moment to imagine her own father or her father’s friends deceiving her.
Well, they might after I
married Carlos
, she thought.
No one trusts the Guardia
. “Did you tell your father you’d spoken to Don Pablo?” she asked gently.

“Of course not!” Elena was relieved to hear the anger in his voice. Anything was better than his grim expressionlessness. “It would have looked like I thought he was lying!”

“Or that you thought Don Pablo was,” Elena offered.

He shook his head. “I can’t believe Rosalia died without a will. If nothing else, her husband would have urged her to make one, when he was alive. But surely my father would
know
that.”

Elena put an arm around him. He turned toward her, and buried his face in her shoulder. “Your father wouldn’t have wanted an investigation of her death if he . . . had anything to lose by it,” she murmured. Tejada nodded, relieved. Elena stroked his hair. “We’ll go home soon.”

He laughed faintly. “It’ll be a relief to get back to the guerrillas!”

“I’ve always said they were good people,” Elena said.

“At least you know where you are with them,” the lieutenant admitted with a sigh.

“Why don’t you write to Guardia Mojica,” Elena suggested. “You never did settle that thing about the repair bills for the roof, did you?”

“I’ll probably be back before a letter gets there!” Nevertheless, Tejada stood and moved toward the desk in one corner of the room. The idea of returning to Potes before a letter could make its way back cheered him immensely.

Elena took out a few sheets of stationery also and curled herself on the bed to write to her parents. The Tejadas wrote in companionable silence for a while, and the bruises of the morning began to fade.

Elena finished her letter first, and glanced at the clock. Her husband was still intent on his work, a date book spread open on the desk beside him. She stood up. “I’m going to check on Toño. He must be awake by now.”

“Fine,” Tejada agreed without raising his head. “I’ll be done in a couple of minutes. If he’s awake we can go for a walk before we meet up with Nilo.”

As Elena reached Toño’s room she heard his voice speaking animatedly and then a high childish voice raised in reply. The voice was vaguely familiar, but Elena could not immediately place it. Perhaps he had made friends with one of his cousins. “. . . always holding him up as a hero in school,” the child’s voice was saying as Elena came near enough to make out the words. She pushed open the door, and found a girl of about thirteen sitting in the room’s only chair. Toño was sitting comfortably in the girl’s lap, looking at a thick school textbook that she was holding open. He was tracing an illustration with one finger, a sure sign that he was interested. He looked up and smiled at his mother as the door opened, and the girl looked up and smiled also. She gently put Toño to one side, stood up, and bobbed a little curtsy. “Hello, Señorita Fernández,” she said. “Do you remember me?”

Toño had awakened from his nap hungry. He’d swung his legs over the side of the bed. It was a funny old-fashioned one with curtains like the sleeping compartment on the train, and the mattress was so high that he had to make a little leap to get down to the floor. He had been charmed by the bed when he first arrived. Now he felt a terrible longing for his own cozy little bed made just for him at home in Potes. Keeping one arm around the patient Rodrigo’s neck, he padded to the door in his bare feet, intent on finding Mama and something to eat.

The door handle was made of intricately wrought iron, roughly at his eye level. He dropped Rodrigo and tugged at it with both hands. It moved, but not enough to engage the mechanism, and he found himself trapped. After a minute or so of vain attempts to open the door, he jiggled it with a little cry of frustration. To his amazement, the handle turned smoothly and slowly under his hands, and he had to leap backward to avoid being hit on the nose as the door opened.

A girl was standing on the other side of it. She peered around the door to make sure that he was in no danger of being hit, and then pushed it open all the way. Toño inspected her and classified her as “not quite grown up but almost.” She wore braids and a matching vest and skirt, which Toño, who had never before seen a school outfit, nevertheless recognized as a type of unfamiliar uniform. She was thin, and even the little boy could guess that she was not tall for her age. The corners of her mouth turned downward in repose, giving her face a grave but not unpleasant expression. “Sorry about that, Señorito.” Her voice was musical, although the accent was slightly unfamiliar to Toño. “There’s a trick to the door. I hope I didn’t hit you.”

The child shook his head. He remembered what his grandmother had said about being polite, and saw an opportunity to atone for his behavior. He smiled widely and put on his best party manners, with an aplomb quite unaffected by his bare feet and pajamas. “My name is Carlos Antonio.”

The girl’s mouth twitched in an answering smile. “I know. You’re Lieutenant Tejada’s son, aren’t you?”

Toño nodded, unphased by her good information. Everyone in Potes knew he was the lieutenant’s son. “What’s your name?”

“Alejandra.”

Toño gravely held out his right hand. “Nice to meet you, Alejandra.”

Alejandra’s smile grew a little wider as she shook his hand. “Likewise. Where were you going in such a hurry, Señorito?”

“I wanted to find my mama.”

“You should probably get dressed first,” Alejandra advised. She paused. “Do you need any help?”

Toño decided that he liked Alejandra. He was pleased that she had thought to ask him if he wanted help dressing, instead of insisting on treating him as if he were a baby or a doll. His answer was courtly. “No. You can wait outside. Except,” he added honestly, “sometimes I don’t line up my shirt buttons right.”

“I’ll check on them,” the girl promised gravely and withdrew.

In the end, Alejandra only needed to tie his shoelaces. “There.” She patted his foot. “All done.”

She rose and turned to go. “Wait!” Toño hopped up. “Where are you going now?”

“I have to finish cleaning the other bedrooms,” Alejandra explained.

“Can I come with you?” Toño asked. She hesitated and he added, “I can help you. My mama says I’m a good helper.”

“I thought you wanted to find your mama.” She smiled a little.

“She’s probably busy now.”

“All right, then.” Alejandra held out her hand, and Toño put his into it.

There was a basket with a duster, several rags, and a pile of clean linens sitting outside in the hall. Alejandra picked up the basket with her free hand, and started along the corridor. Toño trotted along beside her, wondering a little if she was a relation. He hoped she was, but he had not met her earlier, so perhaps she was not. “Are you my cousin?” he asked.

“No. My mother is a servant here.”

“Oh.” Toño thought about the word “servant.” He had heard the word before, but was not quite sure what it meant. A housekeeper kept house, and a laundrywoman did laundry. He had gathered that being a servant was something like this. But servants also appeared in Father Bernardo’s biblical stories, and Toño had the vague feeling that ancient Israelites probably had not worried about houses and laundry. “Are
you
a servant?” he asked, tactfully fishing for information.

“Yes.”

Toño suddenly remembered that one of his playmates in Santander the preceding summer had been cared for by a woman who was not his mother. “Is a nanny a servant?” he asked.

“A kind of servant, yes.” They reached the next room, and Alejandra pushed the door open.

“So you could be a servant and help Mama take care of me?”

“Yes, I suppose.”

Toño squeezed her hand. “Good,” he said, and then added with a confiding smile, “You’re nicer than my cousins.”

The corners of Alejandra’s mouth had been turning ever more firmly downward as Toño questioned her, but now she laughed, and squeezed his hand back. “Thanks,” she said, stooping to deposit the basket, and then handing him a rag. “Here. Run this along the baseboards.”

Toño obediently squatted by the wall and began to dust with more goodwill than efficiency. To his delight, Alejandra seemed very interested in hearing about Rodrigo and about the train set. By the time they had finished cleaning two more bedrooms (and Toño had told her all about the train ride from Potes and the taxi in Madrid and how he was learning to ride a pony and the big salmon he had caught that summer), they were fast friends. Toño explained to Alejandra the origin of his new lion’s name, and added some slightly confused information about El Cid. Alejandra, sensing that Toño would be grateful for a more complete history, volunteered to go and get one of her school textbooks and read the entire story of El Cid to him.