“All right. Here is the truth. You’re a descendant of my wife’s third child. But you are not biologically my descendant for the baby was not mine. My wife and I had parted ways more than a year before his birth. She had left me for she loved somebody else.
“When her son was born, I recognized him as mine, out of shame perhaps, or as I wish to believe, out of concern for the baby who would have been shunned otherwise. So, in a way, I didn’t lie to you before because legally he was my son and later when he came to live with me, I loved him as such.”
The warmth in his voice when he talked betrayed the strength of his feelings. I sighed deeply, relieved to learn he was not my ancestor for his love for this boy — who in that time long ago when he was human had caused him so much shame — had only increased my attraction to him.
“Thank you for telling me.”
He shrugged. “Do you believe me now?”
“So you knew about me and my children all these years. Why did you approach Ryan now?”
“No, I didn’t know about you until recently. When I became immortal, I had to give up seeing my children. I followed them from afar over the years — my children and their children and their children’s children — making sure they were all right.
“Then, for personal reasons, I left Spain in 1936, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. When I came back, years later, I couldn’t find my descendants anymore. That monstrous war had swallowed them, and erased all trace that I had ever been alive.”
“My grandfather died in Madrid the first year of the war,” I explained to him. “My grandmother moved north after it ended, with their son, my father. That’s why you couldn’t find him.”
“I know. I ran a search on you.” He smiled his disarming smile as I glowered at him. “Don’t get upset. I read your book first then got curious about you, a Spaniard whose last name was Esteban. Could it be we were related?”
“But your last name is — ”
“Dominguez, actually, not Bécquer. But Emilio took his mother’s name, Esteban, when he was of age after he learned the truth about his birth, I guess.
“You are his descendant. I had no doubt,” Bécquer continued. “And when I learned you had a son, I had to meet him.”
“I have a daughter too.”
A fleeting smile played on his lips. “I don’t do so well with girls.”
I was about to give him some feminist speech about his blatant misogyny when I remembered Madison’s moody behavior of late and let it pass. I wasn’t doing well with girls these days either.
“How did you meet Ryan?” I asked him instead.
“I arranged to give a talk at his college and approached him afterward. When I discovered he played guitar, I told him to call me for I knew Matt’s band was looking for a new member. He called a week later and I invited him to come over to meet Matt.”
“You gave him your card?”
Bécquer stared at me. “Probably. Why?”
“I found it in his pocket today.”
“He’s not using.”
“How did you know — ?” I stopped as I realized that, like Federico, Bécquer was reading my mind, or whatever it was immortals did. I glared at him.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“Then don’t.”
He shrugged. “You don’t have to worry about Ryan. He’s clean. You must be proud of him. It’s hard to give up an addiction. Believe me, I know.”
He got up. “Now that everything has been clarified between us, let’s go. Whether I want it or not, I have a party to host. Which reminds me … ”
He was gone and back so fast that, but for the mask he held now in his hands, I wouldn’t have noticed he had moved at all.
I stood and examined the mask, a delicate piece of art made of ivory silk with colorful feathers.
“Don’t you like it?” Bécquer asked, as I hesitated to pick it up.
“It’s beautiful.”
Again he smiled, the smile of a child pleased with himself. “Federico bought it for me last year when he was in Venice.”
He talked about Federico affectionately as if he had already forgotten his friend had just stomped out of the room, threatening to leave at once. When I mentioned this to him, he shook his head. “He won’t leave. He’s with Matt.” And for the way he said it, as a fact, I understood he was feeling his mind. Did he know, I wondered, of Matt’s attraction to Federico? But, of course, he must.
“Shouldn’t you apologize to him?”
“Apologize to him?” Bécquer repeated, his eyes glowing red. “How can you suggest such a thing? He was the one who insulted me. He accused me of perverting Ryan — ”
“Why didn’t you tell him the truth?”
“And spoil his fun? Federico enjoys thinking the worst of me.”
“That’s not true. He worships you.”
“I wish he didn’t. I am no god. Thus, no matter what I do, he’s bound to be disappointed.”
“I think you like him to worship you. Or you would have put an end to his infatuation long ago.”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried?”
“Obviously not hard enough.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Stop playing games with him, Bécquer. If you really want Federico to forget you, you must treat him like your equal. Tell him the truth.”
“I will eventually.”
“Do it now. Mind to mind.”
“Even if I did, he won’t believe me because he would sense I’m hiding something from him. Which I am. But what I’m hiding is a surprise for him, not an ugly secret of mine. I’m hiding that I taught Matt and Ryan to play some of his poems set to song, and they’re going to perform them tonight.
“So you see why I have the right to be resentful of him? I plan a concert in his honor, and he pays me back by throwing wild accusations at me.”
“You care what he thinks,” I said, for the eagerness of his discourse suggested he was genuinely hurt.
“You seem surprised. I see. Federico has convinced you that I’m a monster. It’s useless. No matter what I do, Federico will never forgive me.”
“He has forgiven you long ago. It’s forgetting he has trouble with.”
Bécquer looked away.
“We must go,” he said, “the guests are waiting. And I want you to meet Richard Malick. He’s interested in your manuscript.”
He offered me his arm, but I hesitated. I don’t like parties. Parties are full of people. I like people in small doses. Not all at once. And, if facing a room full of strangers was enough to send me into a panic, talking with a publisher, even if that was the main reason I had come to the party, made my knees grow weak.
“Are you all right?” Bécquer asked.
I breathed in. “Yes.”
“You don’t seem all right to me. And you just fainted. Why?”
“I … Federico cut himself. I can’t stand the sight of blood.”
Bécquer frowned, and stared at me, his face expressionless, his eyes as dark as unfathomable wells. As I stared back, his lips parted, to reveal white flashing teeth. For a moment, his canines, longer than what seemed normal, rested on his lower lip.
I didn’t see him move, yet he must have, because his body was close to mine, his hands cupped my face, and his lips were on my lips, pressing them open. Over the familiar scent of lemon and cinnamon that was his, I felt the salty taste of blood and in my mind I heard his words: “Take it. You must take it.”
As he spoke, I felt a pressure in my mind and images formed unbidden: a woman dressed in white sitting by a fountain; a young actress declaiming her lines on stage; a baby in a laced gown; an abbey — its bells ringing — outlined against the background of a solitary mountain; an angry mob burning a horse-drawn carriage while the horses reared, neighing in panic; the face of a woman, beautiful and pale, smiling with blood stained lips.