The Fencing Master (27 page)

"Was her debt so very great?"

"It was immense."

"Was the task to be undertaken so inevitable?"

"Yes. The man had given the young woman everything she possessed, and, more important, everything that she was. Nothing she might do for him could compare with what he had done for her. But allow me to continue. The man we are speaking of occupied a high post in a large, important company. For reasons that you can easily guess, he became embroiled in a particular political game, a very dangerous game, Don Jaime. His commercial interests led him to become involved with Prim, and he made the mistake of financing one of Prim's coups, which ended in the most complete disaster. Unfortunately for him, he was discovered. That meant exile, ruin. However, his lofty position in society, along with certain other factors, enabled him to save himself." Adela de Otero paused; when she spoke again, there was metallic edge to her voice, which became harder, more impersonal. "Then he decided to work with Narváez."

"And what did Prim do when he learned of this betrayal?"

She bit her lower lip, considering the word. "Betrayal? Yes, I suppose you could call it that." She looked at him mischievously, like a child about to share a secret. "Prim never knew anything about it, of course. And he still doesn't."

This time the fencing master was truly shocked. "Are you telling me that you have done all this for a man capable of betraying his own friends?"

"You understand nothing of what I'm telling you." The violet eyes regarded him scornfully now. "You understand nothing at all. Do you still believe in good people and bad people, in just and unjust causes? What do I care about General Prim or anyone else? I came here tonight to tell you about the man to whom I owe everything I am. He was always good and loyal to me, wasn't he? He never betrayed me. Be so kind as to keep your quaint morality to yourself, sir. Who are you to judge?"

Don Jaime let out a long breath. He was very tired, and he would gladly have lain down on the sofa. He longed to sleep, to remove himself, to reduce everything to a bad dream that would dissolve with the first light of dawn. He wasn't even sure now that he wanted to hear the rest of the story. "And what would happen if he was found out?" he asked.

Adela de Otero made a dismissive gesture. "He never will be," she said. "He had dealings only with two people: the president of the Council of Ministers and the Minister of the Interior, with whom he was in direct communication. Luckily, both of them died ... of natural causes. There were now no further obstacles to prevent him from remaining in contact with Prim, as if nothing had happened. There were now no troublesome witnesses."

"And now that Prim and his men are winning..."

She smiled. "Yes, they are winning. And he is one of those financing the enterprise. Imagine the advantages that that could bring him."

Don Jaime narrowed his eyes and nodded silently. Now everything was clear. "But there was one loose end," he murmured.

"Exactly," she said. "And Luis de Ayala was that loose end. During his brief passage through public life, the marquis played an important role alongside his uncle, Vallespín, the Minister of the Interior who had the understanding with my friend. When Vallespín died, Ayala was able to gain access to his private files, and there he came across a series of documents that contained a good part of the story."

"What I don't understand is what interest that could have had for the marquis. He always said he kept well out of politics."

She raised her eyebrows. Don Jaime's remark seemed to amuse her greatly. "Ayala was bankrupt. His debts were mounting, and most of his property was heavily mortgaged. Gambling and women"—at that point her voice took on a note of infinite disdain—"were his two weaknesses, and both cost him a lot of money."

That was too much for Don Jaime. "Are you insinuating that the marquis was a blackmailer?"

She smiled sardonically. "I'm not insinuating, I'm stating. Luis de Ayala threatened to make those documents public, even to send them directly to Prim, if certain nonrecoverable loans were not paid off. Our dear marquis demanded a high price for his silence."

"I can't believe it."

"I really don't care whether you believe it or not. The fact is that the marquis's demands made the whole situation very delicate. My friend had no choice: he had to neutralize the danger, silence the marquis, and recover the documents. But the marquis was a cautious man..."

Don Jaime rested his hands on the edge of the table and hung his head. "He was a cautious man," he repeated in a dull voice. "But he liked women."

Adela de Otero gave him an indulgent smile. "And fencing, Don Jaime. That was where you and I came in."

"Oh my God."

"Don't take it like that. You had no way of knowing..."

"Oh my God."

She reached out a hand to him, to touch his arm, but stopped. Don Jaime had drawn back as if he had just seen a serpent.

"My friend brought me here from Italy," she explained after a moment. "And you were the means for me to reach Ayala without arousing his suspicions. We never imagined that you would become part of the problem. How were we to know that Ayala would give you the documents for safekeeping?"

"So his death was in vain."

She looked at him with genuine surprise. "In vain? Not at all. Ayala had to die, with or without the documents. He was too dangerous, too intelligent. His attitude toward me changed,
as if he was beginning to grow suspicious. We had to settle the matter once and for all."

"Did you do it yourself?"

Her eyes fixed him like a steel blade. "Of course." There was something so natural, so calm about her voice, that Don Jaime felt terrified. "Who else if not me? Things happened very quickly, and there wasn't much time. That night, we dined in the salon as usual. Alone. I remember that Ayala was being much too nice; he was clearly suspicious. That didn't worry me greatly, because I knew this would be the last time we would see each other. While he was uncorking a bottle of champagne, pretending a happiness that neither of us felt, I found him particularly handsome, with his thick mane of hair and those perfect white teeth, always smiling. I even regretted what fate had in store for him."

She shrugged, making fate responsible. After a pause, she added: "My earlier attempts to get the secret out of him proved unsuccessful; I succeeded only in provoking his distrust. It didn't matter by then, so I decided to ask him straight out. I told him exactly what I wanted, making him the offer I had been authorized to make: a large sum of money in return for the documents."

"He didn't accept," said Don Jaime.

She looked at him oddly. "No, he didn't. The offer was in fact a trick to gain time, but Ayala had no way of knowing that. He laughed in my face. He said that the papers were in a safe place and that my friend would have to go on paying for them for the rest of his life if he didn't want to end up in Prim's hands. Oh, and he called me a whore."

She stopped speaking, and her last word hung in the air. She had said it quite objectively, flatly, and Don Jaime knew that she had behaved exactly that way in the marquis's palace: no tantrums, no temperamental scenes, but with all the calculated coolness of someone who places efficiency above passion—that she had been as lucid and calm as when she was fencing.

"But that wasn't why you killed him."

The young woman looked intently at Don Jaime, as if surprised by the accuracy of his remark. "You're right, that wasn't why I killed him. I killed him because it had already been decided that he must die. I went to the gallery and calmly chose a foil without a button on the tip; he seemed to treat it as a joke. He was very sure of himself, looking at me with his arms folded, as if waiting to see where it would all lead. 'I'm going to kill you, Luis,' I said. 'You may wish to defend yourself.' He laughed, accepting what seemed to him an exciting game, and he chose another foil. I imagine that afterward he intended taking me to his bedroom and making love to me. He came toward me wearing that brilliant, cynical smile of his; he looked handsome in his shirtsleeves, a fine figure of a man and he crossed his sword with mine at the same time blowing me a kiss with his left hand. Then I looked him in the eyes, made a feint, and stuck the foil in his throat, just like that: a short thrust and a flick of the wrist. Even the most purist of fencing masters could have raised no objection, nor did Ayala. He looked at me in astonishment and he was dead before he hit the floor."

Adela de Otero faced Don Jaime, as defiantly as if she had merely reported a piece of mischief. He couldn't take his eyes off hers, fascinated by her expression; there was no hatred in it, no remorse, no passion at all, just blind loyalty to an idea, to a man. There was something simultaneously hypnotic and terrifying about her awful beauty, as though she were the embodiment of the Angel of Death. Perhaps guessing his thoughts, the young woman withdrew from the circle of light projected by the oil lamp.

"Then I searched the place thoroughly, although without much hope of finding anything." Her faceless voice emerged once more from the shadows, and Don Jaime could not decide which was more disquieting, her voice or her facelessness. "I found nothing, although I stayed there nearly until dawn. The revolt in Cádiz meant that Ayala had to die anyway, whether we got the documents or not. There was no other solution. All I could do was hope that, if the papers really were that well hidden, no one else would find them. I left. The next step was to vanish without trace from Madrid." She seemed to hesitate, looking for the right words. "I had to return to the obscurity out of which I came Adela de Otero was leaving the scene for good. That too was part of the plan."

Don Jaime could no longer remain standing. He felt his legs give way beneath him, and his heart beat feebly. He let himself drop slowly into his chair, fearing that he might faint. When he spoke, his voice was a fearful whisper, because he knew what the terrible reply would be. "What happened to Lucía, your maid?" He looked up at the shadow standing before him. "She was the same height, more or less the same age as you, and with the same color hair. What happened to her?"

This time there was a long silence. Finally Adela de Otero said in a neutral, unemotional voice, "You don't understand, Don Jaime."

Don Jaime raised a tremulous hand and pointed at the shadow. A blind doll floating in a pond; that is what had happened. "You're wrong," he said. This time he felt hatred in his voice, and he knew that she felt it too, with perfect clarity. "I understand everything. Too late, it's true, but I understand. That is precisely why you chose her, isn't it? Because she looked like you. Everything, down to the last horrible detail, was planned from the first moment."

"I see we were wrong to underestimate you." There was a touch of irritation in her voice. "You are a perceptive man, after all."

He smiled a bitter smile. "Did you take care of her as well?" he asked, spitting out the question with infinite scorn.

"No, we contracted two men to do it, who know almost nothing of the story. A couple of common thugs. The same ones you met in your friend's house."

"The swine!"

"They did perhaps go a bit far."

"I doubt it. I'm sure they were merely scrupulously carrying out the instructions given them by you and your worthy companion."

"If it's any consolation to you, I should tell you that the girl was dead when they did all that to her. She didn't suffer much."

Don Jaime looked at her openmouthed, as if he could not believe what he was hearing. "That was most considerate of you, Adela de Otero. Assuming that that is your real name. Most considerate. You tell me that the poor woman didn't suffer much. That does honor to your feminine instincts."

"I'm glad to see you've recovered your sense of irony, maestro."

"Don't call me 'maestro,' please. You may have noticed that I am not calling you 'Señora.'"

This time she laughed out loud. "Touché, Don Jaime, touché. Do you want me to go on, or do you already know the rest and would prefer me to stop?"

"I would like to know how you found out about poor Cárceles."

"It was very simple. We had given up the documents for lost. Naturally, we never even thought of you. He turned up at my friend's house out of the blue, asking to talk to him urgently about a serious matter. He was received, and he told us what he wanted: certain documents had come into his possession, and, knowing that my friend was comfortably off, Cárceles asked for a certain sum of money in exchange for the papers and his silence."

Don Jaime drew a hand across his forehead, stunned by the sound of his world crashing about him. "Cárceles too?" The words escaped from him like a lament.

"And why not?" she asked. "Your friend was ambitious and poor, just like anyone else. I imagine he was expecting that the deal would help him escape from his grimy little life."

"He seemed honest," protested Don Jaime. "He was so radical, so intransigent. I trusted him."

"I'm afraid that, for a man your age, you have trusted far too many people."

"You're right. I even trusted you."

"Come, come." She seemed irritated. "Sarcasm will get us nowhere. Do you want to know the rest?"

"I do. Go on."

"He said goodbye to Cárceles in the nicest possible way, and an hour later our two men arrived at Cárceles's house to recover the file. Duly persuaded, your friend ended up telling them everything he knew, including your name. Then you arrived, and I have to say that you put us all in a tight spot. I was waiting outside, in a carriage, and I saw them come running out as if the devil himself were after them. You know, if the situation hadn't been so awkward, I would have found it most amusing. Considering that you're not a young man anymore, you certainly gave them a hard time: you broke the nose of one and the other you hit twice with your sword, in the arm and in the groin. They said you fought like Lucifer himself."

She fell silent for a moment and then said, "Now it's my turn to ask you a question. Why did you get that poor wretch involved in all this?"

"I didn't. I mean, I did so unwittingly. I read the documents, but I couldn't make head or tail of them."