Tarnished Beauty (32 page)

I entered the dining room to find a large and elegant space overflowing with countless jovial pilgrims. Hanging on the stone walls were colorful tapestries that reached from floor to ceiling and there were many long tables laid end to end, upon which were placed massive bowls filled with fragrant stews and mountains of bread still steaming from the oven. Although in one corner two men played the guitar and flute, it was impossible to hear their music over the sound of clinking glasses and hundreds of voices eager to divulge the miracles that had taken place while on the
camino.

I spotted Tomas sitting alone at one of the tables and went to sit with him. Without a word, he served me a plate of food, and I began to eat, but was only able to get down a mouthful or two. His plate was also untouched, and his expression glum.

I pushed my food away. “Have you spoken with Rosa?”

He nodded. “I have emptied my heart and my soul. I've done everything within my power to persuade her to make a life with me.”

“And what did she say?” I asked, sounding like an impertinent child.

“Don't you know, Antonio? Hasn't she come looking for you to tell you herself? Just a few hours ago, you were so sure of her love.” He folded his arms across his chest and sneered. “Well, if she hasn't told you, then neither will I.”

My fists clenched with fury and for the first time in my life I thought I might strike him. Instead, I stormed out of the room, my long strides resulting in several collisions with baffled pilgrims who knew better than to start a quarrel when they saw the loathing on my face. I looked for Rosa in the women's dormitory, but was told that she wasn't there. I walked the grounds of the hostel, and searched in every public room I could find, and even made my way to the well where some of the women were washing. Back in my room, I collapsed on the mat on the floor. My mind was an old rag used one too many times, yet I persisted in wringing out the anxieties contained within its fibers. My God, I'd waited long enough, and it was cruel to keep me waiting much longer. Didn't my love realize that I desperately needed to see her again, and hold her in my arms?

The room was dark, and I was preparing to resume my search for Rosa when the door opened and I saw her standing on the threshold, appearing as a column of light. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure the corridor was empty, then entered, closing and locking the door behind her. “Antonio,” she whispered, breathless with fear. “I need to see you alone. Tomas doesn't know that I'm here.”

“What does it matter if he knows? We're together, as we're meant to be, and we're free to tell the world.”

Appearing like an angel who'd lost her way, she knelt beside me and placed her fingers on my lips. Her gaze intensified, but she did not speak right away. Finally, she whispered, “I saved you once before and I'm going to save you again.”

“The only way you can save me is by leaving with me this instant,” I said. “We'll steal away into the night and never look back.”

She spoke as though in a trance. “Sometimes it is impossible to run away, Antonio, as much as we may want to.”

“Don't torture me with such words, Rosa. The only thing that matters is the love we have for each other. Don't be tempted by Tomas and his wealth and empty promises. Come away with me now, before it's too late.” Kneeling before her, I pressed her hands against my forehead and began to weep, fearing that I'd already lost her.

“May God forgive me,” she whispered and then stood up, and without another word she removed her skirt and let it fall in a heap to the floor. Moments later, her blouse fluttered down, only to be followed by a series of undergarments each smaller than those that preceded it, until she stood before me wearing nothing at all.

Overcome, I reached up for her and pulled her down to me. Our union was ecstasy, every movement a submission to the truth in our hearts, a consummation of our perfect love. Words were no longer necessary to assure me of her devotion. I had no doubt that she would be mine forever.

I can't be certain of how much time we lay together, only that we were still breathless with passion when she hastily took up her clothing and dressed. Pressing into my hands the small Bible she'd carried with her on the
camino,
she said, “Always remember that everything I do, I do because I love you.”

“What are you saying, Rosa?”

“I'm saying that even though I love you with all my heart, I have decided to go away with Tomas. We must face the harsh realities of this life, Antonio. We are both poor, and we will always be poor if we stay together, but now we have a chance for a better life—I with Tomas and you with Jenny. We must accept these miracles we've found on our journey.”

“No, I won't accept it, Rosa. I'll never accept it. I can't believe what you're saying.”

“Believe it, Antonio, because I have never spoken a truer word in all my life. After this day, you will never see me again.”

The words struck me like a lethal blow to the chest. I couldn't believe what came from her mouth, yet there was no mistaking the conviction in her eyes. And I could only watch, paralyzed and miserable, as she walked out of the room, taking everything that was hopeful and beautiful in my life away with her into the Galician mist.

 

Señor Peregrino's eyes were half open, fluttering between waking and sleeping. He hadn't spoken for several minutes, but Jamilet remained mesmerized as she watched the steady rise and fall of his chest. He'd succumb to sleep at any moment if she didn't say something.

“So then what did you do?” she asked abruptly.

His eyes widened slightly as he continued, “The next morning, once I had sufficiently recovered from my stupor, I set out with a vengeance to find Tomas and Rosa. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that something other than money must have influenced Rosa's decision, and even if I had to beat the truth out of Tomas, I intended to discover what it was. But it was Jenny who I found waiting for me in the square, her hand coiled around a scroll of some sort. It seems that the priest we'd arranged for earlier had been put to good use, and Jenny wasted no time in showing me the place on the marriage certificate that revealed Rosa and Tomas's signatures. After seeing this, I staggered back to my room as though I were delirious with drink, but I would neither eat nor drink anything for several days.

“To think that Rosa had actually married Tomas, and that they were husband and wife nearly destroyed me. I couldn't comprehend it. The pieces just didn't fit together in any way that made sense. But Jenny stayed by my side during those difficult days, all the while speaking gently and persuasively as I wept and raged like a madman. She told me that all women are practical creatures at their core, and that poor women are even more so. She said that I should forgive Rosa for her feminine weakness in these matters and get on with my life, and many more things besides. I didn't know what to believe, or even if I was dead or alive. All I knew was that in order to survive, I had to hold on to something and the only lifeline within reach was Jenny. She convinced me that in time she'd cure my broken heart, and before the week's end she'd bought passage on a ship that took us far away from Santiago, from Spain, and from everything else I knew.”

Señor Peregrino pressed both palms to his eyes, and shook his head as though reacting to a severe and sudden headache. “Over the years, I managed to delude myself into believing that my deep love for Rosa had been a mere obsession fueled by nothing other than youthful lust. As I resigned myself to a life with Jenny, I learned how to appreciate her many talents. She was undoubtedly a clever woman, and if nothing else, we proved to be good business partners. I grew to love not the woman at my side so much as the life that we'd made together—a life dedicated to the acquisition of wealth and the power that goes along with it. Although still young, Jenny and I decided not to have children, but to vigorously pursue our chosen professions, and we acquired numerous businesses over the years, including a chain of hospitals and asylums, Braewood among them.”

“You own
this
hospital?” Jamilet asked, incredulous.

Señor Peregrino nodded, as though guilty of the fact, and lowered his hands from his face. “I was able to put everything behind me. I suppose you could even say that I made peace with the fact that Rosa had chosen a life of wealth with Tomas over a humble shepherd's life with me. And whenever I thought of her, which was less and less as time passed, I hoped that she was as comfortable with him as I was with Jenny.” He opened his desk drawer and took out the letters he incessantly studied, spreading them over the top of his desk. “But when I found these letters, everything changed.”

“Why, Señor?”

He chuckled bitterly. “Betrayal reveals itself in the most insidious ways, my dear. It's a snake that slithers through the years undetected, then quite suddenly you find that it's been hiding in your bed all along, ready to devour you in your sleep.” He snatched the letter closest to him and dangled it in front of Jamilet's eyes. “These were written when I was still a young man, but I first laid eyes on them only three years ago. I found them while searching for an old set of golf clubs in the attic. They had been stashed away in a shoe box that quite literally fell on my head while I was moving things around. I can't imagine why Jenny kept them, perhaps because she thought she might need them if legal complications arose, and Jenny has always worried so about legalities. Sometimes I wish that she'd thrown them out, and that I'd never found them.” Señor Peregrino's eyes began to fade once again.

“Why? Who wrote them?” Jamilet asked.

Señor Peregrino answered, “Tomas, of course, and it was shocking to see how many he'd written and the mysterious invoices that accompanied his letters. But even more so to put this puzzle together piece by piece until the dreadful scene was complete.” He tossed the letter he held back onto his desk with the others. “What I learned was that when Andres challenged Tomas and me to the duel, Rosa secretly begged Jenny to help her put an end to it. While we agonized on that night we thought might be our last, they schemed and then bargained with Andres, who finally agreed to give up the duel and Rosa as well if Jenny made the payments for a prime piece of grazing land he'd had his eye on in the northwest of Spain. So long as Jenny made the payments, he'd leave Tomas and me alone. But that wasn't the worst of it. Before the deal was struck, Jenny told Rosa that she would go along with it only if Rosa also agreed to leave me to her, and Rosa consented.

With head held high, Señor Peregrino declared, “I was right. Rosa did not turn away from my love for money and other worldly comforts. She did so to save my life. That's why she was so desperate to keep our love a secret. Had Jenny found out that Rosa had violated their agreement, she would have ceased the payments, and Andres would have come after me as he'd promised—he was not the sort of man who'd ever forgive and forget.” Señor Peregrino sighed wearily. “I suppose that as the journey neared its end Rosa hoped that we might find a way to escape, but both Jenny and Tomas, who was by then involved in the scheme as well, were successful in convincing her that there was no escape, and that Andres would hunt me down and kill me whether I was married to her or not. But if she had told me the truth, I know we would have found our miracle.” His eyes glittered for an instant. “My only comfort was in learning that the marriage certificate Jenny had produced was a fake and that Rosa never truly married Tomas. She left Santiago soon after and didn't contact him again until some years later.”

Señor Peregrino began searching frantically for a specific letter among the collection before him. And when he found it, he tenderly kissed the corner of the yellowed page and pressed it to his heart. “When I read this letter, it was no longer possible to put things out of my mind, as I had been able to do for so many years.” He turned to Jamilet, his eyes gleaming. “You see, my dear, on the last night that Rosa and I were together, she became pregnant with our child. She never planned to let me know of it and was prepared to raise the child alone. But when she grew deathly ill a few years later, she contacted Tomas for fear that our child, still so young and vulnerable, would be orphaned. Tomas then wrote to Jenny, and…” He sighed bitterly, placed the letter down, and retrieved a small leather Bible from his desk, staring longingly at it. “I don't know what happened after that. The letters revealed nothing more, and when I confronted Jenny, she denied knowing anything about it, and said that I had misinterpreted everything. She even accused me of writing the letters myself in order to torture her with painful memories of the past. Such a cold hatred grew between us that I could barely look at her without wishing to destroy her.

“The only feeling within me stronger than my hate for Jenny was my desire to find my child. I made endless inquiries with authorities here and abroad. In my business dealings, I'd acquired friends in high places, and I asked them for favors that might help me in my quest. I even enlisted the assistance of a private detective, the most expensive one I could find, but you have no idea how difficult it is to find the nameless child of a woman who died so long ago. I didn't even know if our child was a boy or a girl.

“When I had no choice but to accept that I'd failed, I began to falter. For weeks, I didn't speak to anyone. I refused to eat, hardly slept, and was unable even to work. Eventually, I refused to set foot out of my front door. Everyone believed that I'd gone mad, and if I should try to explain what was fueling my madness, Jenny was always nearby to explain how years of hard work and stress had finally caught up with me. There was no way of convincing anyone of the truth. Even good friends, who were once in a position to help, began to doubt me. I was stripped of all hope and dignity, and before long, I stopped caring about anything at all.”