For a moment we just sat there, side by side, the sound of the rain not covering, but underscoring, the silence that had fallen between us.
“What was that about?” Richard said at last, sounding more dazed than scared. “You could have gotten us killed.”
“I’m sorry. But, really, it was your fault. Why did you say that to me? Why did you make up such a horrible lie?”
Richard’s look of shock melted into something else, something like pity, which scared me even further. “So, Bécquer didn’t tell you.”
“No, of course not. Bécquer didn’t tell me because it is not true. You just made it up now to … to … ” But for all I wracked my brain to think of a reason I came up empty.
“I’m afraid I didn’t make it up, Carla. And, again, I apologize for misjudging you. Had I known you do care for him, I would have broken the news to you more gently.”
I braced myself against the wheel. “It’s too late to spare my feelings now. So please, just finish your story.”
“Do you want me to drive?”
“Drive?” I repeated, then, as I realized we were still on the shoulder when we were supposed to be driving to catch a train, I put the car in gear. But my movements were shaky, my vision blurred. I shifted again into park and nodded to him. “If you don’t mind.”
“Bécquer did not give me all the details,” Richard said after we’d exchanged seats. “All I know is that he was doing better after the accident. Then this past Monday, Rachel found him unconscious in his study. She called 9-1-1 when he didn’t respond to her attempts to revive him, and they rushed him to the hospital. Later that night, he came back to his senses. Apart from not remembering what had happened to bring him to that point, his mind suffered no damage, but his spine had been irreversibly broken. There is no doubt on his prognosis. He will never regain the use of his legs.”
I said nothing for I could not find my voice.
Bécquer is immortal. He’s not paralyzed, a part of my mind repeated, convinced perhaps that if I said it enough times it would be so. But another part of me was remembering my recent meeting with Bécquer, and, as it did, details I had ignored came to the foreground as if forced from my subconscious by Richard’s words.
Bécquer had been sitting when I came into the study and never got up during the meeting, not even to say goodbye. Conveniently, when I was ready to leave, somebody had called and prevented him from accompanying me.
As for his bizarre claim that he didn’t know how to make a copy, it made perfect sense now. It had been an excuse to avoid getting up. Bécquer was almost 200 years old. He had grown up in a world without technology, but he had learned how to drive, and knew how to use a computer for he had sent me e-mails. How could I have ever believed he was too stupid to know how to work a copy machine?
So, yes, it was possible that Bécquer was paralyzed and had tried to hide it from me. But that didn’t mean his condition was permanent. In fact, it couldn’t be, for Bécquer was immortal.
Then another detail came to my mind. His reaction when his pen rolled out of his reach had been slow. And losing it had been clumsy to start with. Bécquer, the immortal Bécquer I remembered from the party, from our meetings in Café Vienna would not have dropped it. I started to shake.
Richard released a hand from the wheel and touched my arm. “Carla. Are you all right?”
I started at his touch, but didn’t push his hand away. “Yes,” I lied and closed my eyes, overwhelmed by a sense of loss so intense I felt like drowning. Bécquer, the perfect immortal who had so impressed me, was gone, replaced by an injured man forever dependent on others.
No. My mind fought back. Bécquer could not be mortal and paralyzed. Federico would have told me. Federico knew I loved Bécquer. Why had he not contacted me?
According to Richard’s account, only Rachel had been with Bécquer at the time, which meant Federico had left before Bécquer was fully recovered. Did he even know about the accident?
“Who is Federico?” was Richard’s answer when I asked him. “Is he Bécquer’s friend?”
“Yes. They have been friends for many years. Just friends,” I hurried to add to quench the note of hope I had noticed in his voice. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to call him now.”
I was aware I couldn’t talk freely to Federico with Richard sitting next to me. But I needed Federico’s reassurance that Bécquer would be fine.
I reached back for my purse without waiting for Richard’s answer and grabbed the phone and Federico’s card. But when I punched his number on my cell, my call went directly to voice mail.
“Will this Federico come to stay with Bécquer?” Richard asked after I finished recording my message.
“I hope so.”
“Good,” Richard said, sounding relieved. “And until he does, would you agree to check on him?”
“You want me to check on Bécquer?”
“Yes. Actually it was because I wanted to ask you this that I waited for you. I don’t think it’s good for Bécquer to be alone right now.”
“But he’s not. Matt lives over the garage. And — ”
Richard shook his head. “Not anymore. Rachel told me Matt left last week.”
“What about Rachel?”
“Rachel doesn’t live with Bécquer.”
“They may not live together but they — ” I stopped, embarrassed when I noticed the trace of jealousy trailing in my voice.
Richard took his eyes from the road and shot a glance in my direction. “Lovers. Is that what you think? That Bécquer and Rachel are lovers?”
I nodded.
“You’re wrong. They are not lovers. I’m sure of it.”
I disagreed. Even if I had not seen them flirting in Café Vienna, Rachel’s behavior today was proof enough that her feelings for Bécquer went well beyond a simple boss-secretary relationship.
“If, as you say, they are not lovers, why was Rachel so upset today?”
“I didn’t say she didn’t care for him. The distress she showed today obviously suggests she does. But Bécquer does not care for her that way, or he would not have fired her. Today was her last day with him.”
I thought about it for a moment. I wasn’t convinced. “It may be her last day as his secretary. That does not mean she won’t continue seeing him.”
“Yes, it does. Rachel told me Bécquer was adamant. He strictly forbade her to come back any more, which means Bécquer will be on his own. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“But he can’t be alone. Doesn’t he need help?”
“Yes, of course he needs help. That’s why he hired David and two other nurses who take shifts around the clock. I was talking about friends.”
“I don’t think Bécquer thinks of me as a friend. He didn’t even tell me he was incapacitated.”
“Maybe he didn’t tell you because he cared too much and didn’t want your pity.”
“He cares for you, Carla,” Richard told me when I said nothing. “I saw the way he looked at you at the party. I would have given my soul for him to look at me that way. And I was not the only one to notice. Beatriz was jealous of you, so jealous that she quit that very night. What more proof do you want, Carla?”
He had gotten it all wrong, but I couldn’t tell him the truth. I couldn’t tell him Bécquer only cared for me because I was the descendant of his wife’s third son. I couldn’t tell him Beatriz had left because she had stolen Bécquer’s blood and become immortal. And I was too ashamed to tell him that, regardless of the fact that Bécquer didn’t love me, I was in love with him.
“I don’t know what happened between you two that night that makes you doubt him so. But I know he still cares for you. He has never pushed me so hard to read a manuscript in the ten years I’ve known him.”