The Fencing Master (14 page)

"You took me on, maestro."

"Exactly. I'm a fencing master by profession. Don Luis de Ayala's profession is being a marquis."

The young woman let out a brief laugh, mischievous and gay. "The first time you visited me at home, you said you refused as a matter of principle..."

"Professional curiosity got the better of me."

They crossed Calle de la Princesa and drove by the Palacio de Liria. A few smartly dressed passersby were walking in the cool, beneath the tremulous light of the street lamps. A bored watchman touched his cap at the calash, believing that it was heading for the residence of the Duke and Duchess of Alba.

"Promise you'll tell the marquis about me!"

"I never promise anything that I'm not prepared to do."

"Maestro, anyone would think you were jealous."

Don Jaime felt a wave of heat rising to his head. His face was hidden, but he was sure that he had flushed bright red to his ears. He sat with his mouth open, unable to articulate a word, feeling a strange knot forming in his throat. "She's right," he said to himself in a rush, "she's quite right. I'm behaving like a little boy." He breathed deeply, ashamed of himself, and banged on the floor of the calash with the tip of his walking cane.

"Very well, I'll try, but I'm not promising anything."

She clapped her hands like a happy child and, leaning toward him, squeezed his hand. Too warmly, perhaps, to be out of mere gratitude for his granting her wish. Adela de Otero was, without a doubt, a most disconcerting woman.

D
ON
J
AIME
reluctantly kept his word, tactfully approaching the subject during a fencing session at the house of the Marqués de los Alumbres: "A young fencer, you know the one I mean, indeed you yourself expressed some curiosity about her once. You know how young people like to break with tradition and all that. She's undoubtedly an enthusiast for our art, gifted, with a good hand. If it were anyone else, I would never dare to mention it. If you think..."

Luis de Ayala stroked his waxed mustache with great satisfaction. Of course. He'd be delighted. "And she's beautiful, you say?"

Don Jaime felt irritated with himself and cursed what he felt to be his ignoble role as procurer. On the other hand, what Señora de Otero had said in the carriage kept coming back to him, with painful persistence. At his age, it was ridiculous to discover that he could still be pricked by jealousy.

T
HE
introductions took place in Don Jaime's gallery when, two days later, the marquis just happened to be passing at the time when Señora de Otero was having her fencing lesson with Don Jaime. They exchanged the usual courtesies, and Luis de Ayala—sporting a mauve satin tie with a diamond pin, embroidered silk socks, and an impeccably waxed mustache—humbly asked if he might watch. He leaned against the wall, arms folded, and adopted the grave expression of a connoisseur, while the young woman, with absolute aplomb, gave one of the best displays of fencing that Don Jaime had ever seen from a student. From his corner, the marquis burst into applause, obviously completely charmed.

"Madam, it has been an honor to watch you."

Her violet eyes fixed on Ayala with such intensity that the marquis loosened his collar with his finger. In them was a spark of defiance, of provocative promise. At the first opportunity, the marquis went over to the fencing master and said quietly, "What a fascinating woman!"

Don Jaime watched all this with an ill humor that he struggled to hide beneath an attitude of cold professionalism. When the bout was over, the marquis launched into a long, technical ill conversation with the young woman, while the fencing master returned the foils, plastrons, and masks to their places. The marquis offered, with exquisite gallantry, to accompany her to her house. His phaeton along with his English coachman were waiting outside in the street, and it would be a pleasure to place them at her entire disposal. The two of them obviously had a lot to talk about, given their mutual love of fencing. Perhaps later that evening, at nine, she would care to go to the concert in the gardens in the Campos Elíseos. The Society of Music Teachers, conducted by Gaztambide, was playing Rossini's
La ladra
and a medley from
Roberto el diablo.
Señora de Otero bowed graciously and accepted, charmed. Her face was still flushed from her exertions, and that only made her look more seductive.

While she was changing, with the door closed this time, the marquis invited Don Jaime to come too, out of pure politeness, but without much enthusiasm, since it was obvious that he was not keen for him to accept. Don Jaime declined with an awkward smile, in dumb anguish. The marquis was a formidable opponent, and Don Jaime sensed that he had lost the game before even daring to begin. The marquis and Señora de Otero walked off together arm in arm, talking animatedly, and Don Jaime listened in painful impotence as their footsteps disappeared down the stairs.

He paced about the house all day like a caged lion, cursing loudly. On one occasion he stopped and looked at his face in a mirror in the gallery.

"What else did you expect?" he asked himself scornfully.

In the mirror, the gray-haired image of an old man made a bitter face.

S
EVERAL
days passed. Gagged by the censors, the newspapers could only hint at political difficulties. It was said that Donjuán Prim had obtained permission from Napoleon III to take the waters in Vichy. Troubled by the proximity of the conspirator, González Bravo's government made its unease known, through various channels, to the emperor of France. In London, while he was packing his bags, Prim held intense meetings with his fellow conspirators and managed to persuade various important people to open their purse strings for the Cause. A revolution without sufficient financial backing ran the risk of being a botched job, and the hero of Castillejos, having got his fingers burned with previous failures, was not prepared to take any chances.

In Madrid, González Bravo repeated, with a certain raffish charm, the words he had pronounced on the day he took up his post in congress: "As a government, we vow to resist revolution; we have confidence in the country, and the conspirators will find that we will stand our ground. It is not I who preside over the council of ministers, but the ghost of General Narváez."

However, the ghost of the great man from Loja did not give a damn about the rebels. Seeing the way the land lay, the generals who before had been quite happy to put people to the sword now passed en masse over to the side of the revolution, although they were still not willing to show their cards until the thing was done. Quietly soaking in Lequeitio, far from the hotbed of Madrid, Isabel II was uncertain what to do, and as a last resort she turned to General Pezuela, the Conde de Cheste, who stroked the pommel of his saber and made fervent vows of loyalty to her. "If we have to die defending the royal chamber, so be it. That, after all, is what we are here for."

Trusting for the moment in that rather bizarre promise, the government press tried to calm the country by publishing endless news items about how everything was continuing to function normally. A popular song had become fashionable in progovernment papers:

Lots of people live quite happily on hope,
and lots of donkeys eat green grass...

Don Jaime had lost a client. Adela de Otero no longer came to her fencing lessons. She was seen about Madrid, invariably accompanied by the Marqués de los Alumbres: walking in the Retire Gardens, riding in a carriage along the Prado, at the Teatro Rossini, or in a box at the Zarzuela. This caused great duckings among the cream of Madrid society, who tapped one another with their fans and discreetly elbowed one another, asking who this young woman was who had so obviously set her cap at that rake Luis de Ayala. Nobody knew where she had sprung from, nothing was known about her family, and she seemed to have no social contacts at all, apart from the marquis. The sharpest tongues in Madrid spent two weeks in arduous speculations and investigations, but in the end they had to declare themselves defeated. All they could say for certain about the young "woman was that she had recently arrived from abroad, which doubtless explained why she did certain things which were improper in a lady.

Somewhat muted versions of these rumors reached Don Jaime's ears, but he took it all with due stoicism. He even imposed this exquisite prudence on the daily fencing bouts he continued to have with the marquis. He never showed the slightest curiosity about the young woman's life, and the marquis did not seem inclined to keep him up-to-date. Only once, while both were savoring their usual glass of sherry after a couple of bouts, the aristocrat placed a hand on Don Jaime's shoulder and, smiling in a friendly, confidential manner, said, "Maestro, I owe my happiness to you."

Don Jaime accepted the remark with the necessary aplomb, and that was that. A few days later, the fencing master received the second money order signed by Adela de Otero in payment of his fees for the last few weeks. It was accompanied by a brief note:

I regret to say that I no longer have time to continue our very interesting fencing sessions. I would like to thank you for your kindness and to assure you that I will never forget you.

Yours sincerely,
Adela de Otero.

He frowned as he reread the letter several times. Then he put it on the table, picked up a pen, and did his sums. He immediately took out some writing paper and dipped his pen in the inkwell.

Dear Madam:

I note with surprise that in the second money order which you sent me you include payment for nine fencing sessions this month, when in fact I only had the pleasure of giving you three. I am therefore returning to you the excess amount of three hundred and sixty reales.

Yours faithfully,
Jaime Astarloa,
Fencing master.

He signed the letter and threw the pen down on the table in irritation. A few drops of ink spattered her letter. He waved it in the air so that the blots could dry, then studied the young woman's edgy handwriting, whose strokes were long and sharp as daggers. He was not sure whether to tear it up or keep it, but finally decided to keep it. When his pain had lessened, that piece of paper would be just another memory. Mentally, Don Jaime consigned it to the overflowing trunk of his nostalgias.

T
HE
afternoon meeting at the Café Progreso broke up earlier than usual. Cárceles was hard at work on an article that he had to deliver that evening and Carreño assured them that he had an extraordinary meeting to go to at the San Miguel lodge. Don Lucas had gone home early, complaining of a slight summer cold, so Don Jaime was left alone with the piano teacher. They decided to take a walk, now that the heat of the day had given way to a warm evening breeze. They strolled down the Carrera de San Jerónimo; Don Jaime doffed his hat when they passed an acquaintance of his near Lhardy's and at the door of the Athenaeum. Romero was his usual placid, melancholy self and walked along staring at the tips of his toes, sunk in his own thoughts. He was wearing a crumpled cravat, and his hat was pushed too far back on his head. The cuffs of his shirt were distinctly grubby.

The Paseo del Prado was seething with people strolling beneath the trees. On the wrought-iron benches, soldiers and maidservants were exchanging compliments and jokes while enjoying the last of the sun. A few elegant gentlemen, either in the company of ladies or out with a group of friends, walked back and forth between the fountains of Cibeles and Neptune, affectedly swinging their walking sticks and raising a hand to their hats whenever some respectable or interesting woman rustled past. Open carriages drove down the sandy central avenue in the reddish evening light, carrying women wearing hats and parasols of every conceivable hue. A ruddy-faced colonel from the Engineers, his chest emblazoned with heroic hardware, and wearing a sash and saber, was smoking a cigar while he talked in a low voice with his adjutant, a buck-toothed captain who kept gravely and cautiously nodding; they were clearly talking politics. The colonel's wife followed a few steps behind, her ample flesh precariously corseted into a dress thick with lace and ribbons while the maid in apron and cap shepherded a flock of about half a dozen children of both sexes all lace edgings and black stockings In the square a couple of fops with brilliantined hair parted in the middle were twirling their waxed mustaches and casting furtive glances at a young woman who, beneath the vigilant gaze of her governess, was reading a volume of short poems by Campoamor, oblivious to the interest aroused in the two observers by her small, slender foot and two tempting inches of delicate ankle encased in white stocking.

The two friends walked calmly along, enjoying the pleasant temperature; the fencing master's old-fashioned elegance presented a stark contrast to the pianist's rumpled appearance. Romero eyed a man selling ice-cream wafers, who was spinning the wheel of his machine, surrounded by children. Romero turned glumly to his friend and asked, "How are you for money, Don Jaime?"

Don Jaime gave him a friendly, mocking look. "Don't tell me you want to buy a wafer."

The music teacher blushed. Most of his students had gone away on holiday, and he was down to his last penny. In summer, he usually lived by scrounging discreetly off his friends.

Don Jaime put a hand in his vest pocket. "How much do you need?"

"Twenty reales will do."

Don Jaime took out a silver duro and slipped it into the hand that his friend held shyly out to him. Romero muttered a hurried excuse: "My landlady..."

Don Jaime cut short the explanation with an understanding gesture; he was familiar with the situation. His friend sighed gratefully.

"We're living in difficult times, Don Jaime."

"We are indeed."

"A time of anxiety and unrest..." The pianist raised a hand to his heart, feeling for a nonexistent wallet. "A time of solitude."

Don Jaime grunted noncommittally. Romero interpreted that as a sign of agreement and seemed to find it comforting.