“Who are you?” I asked, my voice broken with fear.
Bécquer sighed and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.
“I’m Bécquer,” he said. “Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer.”
He pronounced the name slowly, his eyes on mine, and I knew he wasn’t lying. Yet the truth was unacceptable.
“You may remember me from your Spanish classes,” he continued. “Literatura it was called back then, if I’m not mistaken.”
“That’s impossible.”
I stood so abruptly my chair crashed to the floor. I remembered Bécquer, all right. He was the Spanish writer whose poems of unrequited love I’d memorized when I was thirteen, as every other Spanish girl, before and after me, has done the first time a clueless boy breaks her heart. Yes. I remembered Bécquer. But Bécquer …
“Bécquer is dead. He died long ago,” I said louder than I had intended, my fear, now a wave of panic that threatened to swallow me.
He nodded, nonchalant, a smile playing on his lips as though he was pleased that I remembered him. “In eighteen seventy to be exact. Only, I didn’t really die. I just stopped being human.”
“And what are you now, then? A monster?”
He winced as if my words had offended him. “I’m not a monster, Carla. I assure you I’m not evil. The change gives us powers, but doesn’t alter our true nature. I’m still who I was when I was human. Neither angel, nor demon, but a little bit of both at once.”
He had moved to my side as he spoke, and lifting my chair, set it on its legs.
I took a step back. “Don’t touch me.”
He bowed to me in a formal way that didn’t seem out of place. “Would you please sit down?”
I did as he said, mesmerized by his stare and the utter impossibility of his existence.
“You need a drink,” he said. “Just wait, I’ll bring you one.”
Skillfully skirting the tables and the people sitting, eerily still, he walked to the counter where a barista stood, a cup in her frozen hands.
I considered running away, but dismissed the idea as he would find me, I had no doubt, and bring me back. Besides, I wanted answers.
So I waited, my body shaking, until Bécquer came back and, retrieving the contract, set a steaming espresso in front of me.
“I meant to bring you something stronger,” he told me, “but couldn’t. After twenty years in the States, I still forget they don’t always serve alcohol in the cafés here.”
“Twenty years? Two more than me.”
“I know.”
His answer reminded me he had checked me online and thus knew more about me than I would have liked. Not to mention the fact that I had probably given him my card at the conference and so he had my address. Not a reassuring thought.
He motioned for me to drink the coffee. But I could not.
“What do you want of me?”
“Only the honor of editing your work and representing it.”
I scowled. “If you were who you claim to be, you’d write your own stories, not waste your time editing mine.”
“I’m that Bécquer,” he insisted, his eyes dark and serious. “Or I was when I was human.” There was anger in his voice and something else, frustration perhaps — or was it pain? “My mind was full of stories then, stories I could easily dress in words to show the world. But since I became an immortal, I have no stories or, if I do, words fail me when I try to capture them. Since I became immortal, I can’t write anymore, and I miss it. I miss it terribly. I miss the raw, unrestrained outburst of the artistic creation.”
“‘When I cannot see words curling like rings of smoke ‘round me, I am in darkness — I am nothing,’” I said.
“Virginia Woolf,” Bécquer attributed my quote. “My thoughts exactly. That is why I need you. You and others like you who have the gift, so I can bear witness to the birth of their stories and, through them, through their words, feel the flame that now eludes me.”
“And that is all you want from me?”
“That is all, I promise.”
“Why did you stop time then? Because you did it, right? You can change it back?”
He laughed, amused, it seemed, at the panic I couldn’t conceal from my voice as the thought struck me that this was to be forever, that we were to be the only ones alive in a frozen world.
“Yes, I did this, and we will join them in normal time after you give me your answer.”
“But I don’t understand. Why did you do it?”
“Because of her.” He pointed again at the woman by the door. “I was afraid of your reaction were you to learn from Beatriz that I am — immortal.”
“Why would she want to tell me?”
“To break your trust in me.” He shrugged when I frowned at him. “She’s jealous of you because she thinks I want you to take her place.”
“As your secretary? Why would I want to?”
“Precisely.”
“Didn’t you tell her?”
“Of course I did. Yet, she is here. But enough about her. Would you sign with me?”
My thoughts running wild at the idea of Bécquer still being alive, I hesitated.
“If you do,” he insisted, “you will never have to worry about the business part of writing. You will be free to write full-time while I deal with the editors and publishers. I used to be terrible at convincing people to buy my stories when I was human, but I’m surprisingly good at it now.”
I suppressed a smile. Was he really that clueless or was he just playing me?
Considering his striking features and the fact that most people in the industry were women, I didn’t find his success surprising at all. And his offer was most tempting. Like his human self, I also lacked the social skills needed to sell my work. Four months had already passed since I’d started my sabbatical. Four months I had spent mostly querying. If I signed with him, I could maybe finish my sequel before returning to my teaching. Yet …
“You’re scared of me.”
“I — ”
Bécquer smiled. “It’s only normal. No need to apologize. To fear the unknown is a survival skill we all possess. Would you sign if I promise you I won’t hurt anyone?”
I opened my mouth to say no, but didn’t. Instead, I nodded.
Bécquer beamed. “Then it’s done, for you have my word.”
He moved aside the espresso I hadn’t touched and once more set the contract in front of me.
“Should I sign with blood?”
A glint of red flashed through his eyes.
“That would be lovely.”
I winced.
“But not necessary.” He smiled a crooked smile, and passed me a pen, an antique black pen, I swear wasn’t there when I asked.
Our fingers brushed as I took it. His were not cold as I imagined, but pleasantly warm, as human’s would be.
“I told you I’m not a monster.”
With a flourish of his wrist, he signed his name beside mine.
“I will ask Beatriz to send you a copy,” he said, whisking the contract into his briefcase.
I looked up at the woman standing by the door and, as I did, she came to life and stepped inside.
With the feline grace that characterized all his movements, Bécquer stood — the noise of his chair skidding on the floor lost in the clamor of conversations that once again filled the room — and motioned his secretary to join us.
“Beatriz,” he called, as she came closer, “what a pleasant surprise. We were just talking about you.”
He flashed her a smile that would have charmed a miser out of his gold. But the pinched expression on the woman’s face remained unchanged. “Indeed,” she said and stared at me.
I rose to face her.
“Federico called,” Beatriz said after Bécquer had introduced us and told her I had signed with him. “He’ll be landing in Philadelphia in an hour and wants you to pick him up.”