Tristana (23 page)

“Uncle, you have spent your life offending against God, and the most infamous, most ignominious of those offenses is your criminal union with—”

“But we no longer—”

“That doesn’t matter. You and she will both go to hell and all your good intentions now will be worth nothing.”

In short, the archdeacon wanted them to marry. How ludicrous, what a terrible irony, given the individual we are dealing with here, Don Lope, a man of radical, dissolute ideas!

“I may be in my dotage,” said he, drawing himself up with some difficulty onto the tips of his toes, “I may have been reduced once more to being a snotty-nosed brat, but, please, Primitivo, don’t treat me like an imbecile.”

The good cleric set out his plans very simply. He was not asking, he was blackmailing. Here’s how.

“Your devout cousins,” he said, “are offering, if you will fall into line and bow to the commandments of divine law . . . they are offering, I repeat, to transfer to you their two estates in Arjonilla, which would mean that you could live comfortably for however many more days the Lord sees fit to grant you, as well as being able to bequeath to your widow—”

“My widow!”

“Yes, because your cousins—quite rightly—require you to marry.”

Don Lope burst out laughing, not at this extravagant proposal but at himself. The deal was done. How could he reject their proposition when, by accepting it, he would be safeguarding Tristana’s existence after his death?

Yes, the deal was done. Who would have thought it? Don Lope, who had lately learned how to make the sign of the cross over forehead and mouth, never ceased now to cross himself. In short, they married, and when they emerged from the church, Don Lope was still not convinced that he had truly abjured his beloved doctrine of bachelorhood. Contrary to his expectations, Tristana had no objections to the absurd plan. She accepted it with indifference; indeed, she had come to regard all earthly things with utter disdain. She barely noticed that she had been married off, that a few brief formulaic words had made her Don Lope’s legitimate wife, filing her away in one of society’s honorable pigeonholes. She felt nothing, accepting it as something imposed on her by the outside world, like having to register your address with the town hall, pay your taxes, or comply with police regulations.

Thanks to the improvement in his fortunes, Don Lope was able to rent a larger house in Paseo del Obelisco, which had a courtyard-cum-garden. Under this new regimen, the old rake revived; he seemed less senile, less slow-witted, and as he neared the end of his life, he felt stirring inside him—quite how or why he did not know—tendencies he had never known before, the obsessions and longings of a placid bourgeois gentleman. He had hitherto been ignorant of the urgent need to plant a tree, not stopping until he had achieved his desire, until he saw that the plant had taken root and grown fresh new leaves. And while his lady wife was at church praying, he—his religious enthusiasms having already somewhat waned—spent that time taking care of the six hens and the one arrogant cockerel he had in his courtyard. What delight, what excitement, going to see if the hens had laid an egg and, if so, how large, and then preparing the clutch of eggs that would become chicks, which, when they hatched out, were just adorable, so bold and eager to live life to the full! Don Lope was beside himself with contentment, and Tristana shared his excitement. At around that time, she took up a new hobby, that preeminent branch of the culinary arts: cake-making. A skillful teacher taught her how to make a few different sorts of cake, and she made them so well, so very well, that Don Lope, after sampling them, licked his fingers and praised God. Were they happy, the two of them? Perhaps.

I would like, as ever, to thank both Annella McDermott for all her help and advice, and my husband, Ben Sherriff, who is always my first reader.