The Fencing Master (29 page)

He tried to move away, but those eyes held him hypnotized. At last he managed to look away, but instead he saw her bare throat, the delicate suggestion of a collarbone beneath the skin, the voluptuous pulse of smooth skin that formed a soft triangle between the young woman's breasts.

The voice came again in an intimate whisper. "I know you love me. I've always known it, from the start. Perhaps everything would have been different if..."

The words died away. Don Jaime held his breath, feeling as if he were floating far above reality. He felt her breath on his lips, her mouth half-opening like a bleeding wound full of promises. Now she was unlacing her bodice, the ribbon unraveling between her fingers. Then he felt her hands seeking one of his hands; her touch seemed to burn his skin. Slowly, she guided his hand to one of her bare breasts. Her pulsing flesh was warm and young, and Don Jaime trembled to feel again an almost forgotten sensation, one he thought he had renounced forever.

He moaned and half-closed his eyes, abandoning himself to the sweet languor filling him. She smiled quietly, with unusual tenderness, and, releasing his hand, lifted her arms to remove her hat. As she did so, she raised her chest slightly, and Don Jaime slowly brought his lips closer, until he felt the warmth of those beautiful, soft, bare breasts.

The world was removed, a confused tide beating weakly on the shore of a desert island, the sound dimmed by distance. There was nothing, only a vast, bright, luminous plain, a complete absence of reality, of remorse, even of sensation ... An absence even of passion, for there was none. The only note, monotonous and continuous, was that moan of abandonment, a lonely murmur long held in, that the contact with her skin brought to his lips.

But some part of his sleeping conscience cried out from the remote region where it still remained alert. The signal took a few moments to find its way to the springs of his will, and just when he heard that danger signal, Don Jaime looked up into the young woman's face. It was as if he had received an electric shock. Her hands were occupied in removing her hat, but her eyes glowed like burning coals. Her mouth was fixed in a tense rictus, which the scar at the corner transformed into a diabolical grimace. The extraordinary concentration of her features was something that had been written in fire on his memory: it was the face Adela de Otero wore when she was ready to lunge and deal a decisive blow.

Don Jaime leaped back with a cry of fear. She had dropped the hat and was holding the hatpin in her right hand, ready to plunge it into the neck of the man who, only seconds before, had been kneeling before her. He staggered away, bumping into the furniture, feeling the blood freezing in his veins. Then, paralyzed with horror, he saw her throw back her head and let out a sinister laugh, like the funereal tolling of a bell.

"Poor maestro." The words emerged slowly, dully, as if she were referring to some third person whose fate was a matter of utter indifference to her. There was neither hatred nor scorn in her words, only a sincere but chilly kind of commiseration. "Credulous to the last, isn't that right? My poor old friend!"

She laughed again and looked curiously at Don Jaime. She seemed interested to observe in detail the look of horror on his face.

"Of all the people in this drama, Señor Astarloa, you have been the most credulous, the most likable, and the most worthy of pity." Her words seemed to drip slowly into the silence. "Everyone, both the living and the dead, has been making a complete fool of you. You're like a character out of some feeble farce, with your outmoded ethics and your vanquished temptations, playing the role of the cuckolded husband, the last to find out. Look at yourself, if you can. Find a mirror and tell me what good all your pride and composure and famous smugness are now. What the hell did you think you were playing at? Well, it's all been very touching, of course. You may, if you like, allow yourself one last round of applause, because the time has come to lower the curtain. You deserve a rest."

Still talking, without hurrying at all, Adela de Otero turned to the table on which lay the revolver and the sword-stick; she took hold of the sword, having discarded the now useless hatpin.

"For all your noble innocence, though, you're an intelligent man," she said, looking appreciatively at the sharp steel blade, as if assessing its qualities. "That's why I'm sure you will understand the situation. In this whole story, all I have done is play the role assigned to me by fate. I can assure you that I have put into that role not one jot of malice more than was strictly necessary. But, then, that's life. The life that you always tried to stand aloof from and that now, tonight, is slipping unbidden into your home to call you to account for crimes you never even committed. Do you see the irony?"

She had been coming closer, talking all the time, like a siren using her voice to charm the sailors while their boat is hurled onto the rocks. Holding the oil lamp in one hand and the sword in the other, she stood opposite him, a statue carved out of ice, smiling, as if instead of threatening him she were extending a pleasant invitation to peace and oblivion.

"It's time to say goodbye, maestro. No hard feelings."

When she took a step forward, ready to plunge the sword into him, Don Jaime again saw death in her eyes. Only then, emerging from his stupor, did he have sufficient presence of mind to jump back and flee to the nearest door.

He found himself in the dark fencing gallery. She was right behind him, and the oil lamp lit up the room. He glanced about him, searching desperately for a weapon with which to confront his pursuer; he saw only the rack of foils he used in classes, all with a button on the tip. He picked one up—it was better than nothing—but when his hand closed around the hilt, he felt little comfort. She was already at the door of the gallery, and the mirrors multiplied the light from the oil lamp as she stooped to place it on the floor.

"A most appropriate place to settle our business, maestro," she said in a low voice, relieved to see that the foil in Don Jaime's hand was harmless. "Now you can find out just how good a student I am." With icy calm, unconcerned that her breasts were exposed beneath her unbuttoned bodice, she took two steps toward him and assumed the fighting position. "Luis de Ayala experienced for himself your excellent two-hundred-escudo thrust. Now it is the turn of the creator of that thrust. I'm sure you will agree that the situation is not without its ironic side."

She had barely finished speaking when, with astonishing speed, she thrust the hilt forward. Don Jaime stepped back, covering himself in quarte, opposing her sharp blade with his blunt-pointed weapon. The old, familiar movements of fencing were gradually restoring his lost aplomb, freeing him from the horrified stupor into which he had been plunged. He realized at once that he could not make any effective thrusts with his foil. He would have to limit himself to parrying, staying always on the defensive. He remembered that at the other end of the gallery was a closed cupboard containing half a dozen fighting foils and dueling sabers, but his opponent would never let him get that far. Besides, he wouldn't have time to turn around, open the cupboard, and pick one. Or perhaps he would. He decided to make his way, fighting, to that part of the room, awaiting his opportunity.

Adela de Otero seemed to guess his plan and closed on him, pushing him toward the corner of the room occupied by two mirrors. Don Jaime understood her intention. With nowhere to go, with no possible escape, he would be helplessly skewered.

She was fighting hard, frowning, her mouth reduced to a thin line, clearly intent on gaining control of his foible, forcing him to defend himself with the part of the blade nearest the hilt, which very much limited his movements. Don Jaime was about three yards from the wall and unwilling to go back any farther, when she made a half thrust inside the arm that put him in serious difficulty. He parried, conscious of his inability to respond as he would have had he been using a fighting foil, and then, with extraordinary nimbleness, she effected the movement known as
vuelta de puño,
changing the direction of the tip of her blade when the two blades touched, and making an angulated attack. Something cold tore his shirt, penetrating his right side, his ribs. He jumped back, teeth gritted to suppress a strangled cry of panic. It would be too absurd to die like this, in his own home, at the hands of a woman. He put himself on guard again, feeling the warm blood soaking his shirt beneath his armpit.

She lowered her sword slightly, and paused to take a deep breath and give him a malevolent smile. "Not bad, eh?" she asked with a look of amusement in her eyes. "Now, if you don't mind, it's time for the two-hundred-escudo thrust. On guard!"

Their blades clashed. He knew that it was impossible to parry the thrust without a point on his sword with which to threaten his opponent. On the other hand, if he concentrated on always keeping the upper part of his body covered against that particular attack, she could take advantage of this and attack with another, lower thrust, with equally fatal results. He was helpless and could sense the wall at his back, very close now. Out of the corner of his eye, to his left, he saw the mirror. He decided that his only chance was to try to disarm the young woman, or to aim for her face, where even the blunted weapon he was using could do some harm.

He opted for the first possibility, which was easier to achieve, by leaving his arm loosely bent and putting his weight on his left thigh. He waited for her to engage in quarte, then parried, turned his hand into pronation, beat his foil hard against the enemy blade, only to find to his dismay that she held firm. Then, somewhat desperately, he lunged in quarte over the arm, threatening her face. The lunge fell short, and the button on his blade come only within inches of her face, but it was enough to force her to take a step back.

"Now, now," said the young woman with a mischievous smile. "Is the gentleman trying to disfigure me? We'd better bring things to a swift end, then."

She frowned, and her lips contracted into an expression of savage joy while, steadying herself on her feet, she made a false thrust that forced him to lower his foil to quinte. He realized his mistake halfway through the maneuver, just before she shifted the hilt to go for the decisive thrust, and all he could do was hold up his left hand to the enemy blade, which by then was aimed at his chest. He pushed the blade away with his unarmed hand, then executed a flanconnade as he felt the sharp blade slice across the palm of his hand. She immediately withdrew her weapon, for fear that he might grasp it and snatch it from her, and Don Jaime looked for a moment at his bloody fingers before putting himself on guard again to meet another attack.

Suddenly he saw a glimmer of hope. He had made another thrust, again threatening her face, obliging her to parry weakly in quarte. While he put himself on guard again, instinct whispered to him with the speed of a lightning flash that for a brief moment there had been an opening, in which her face was uncovered. It was his intuition, not his eyes, that told him of this weak point. In the seconds that followed, his professional reflexes functioned almost automatically, with the cold precision of clockwork. Forgetting the imminence of the danger, absolutely lucid after that moment of insight, conscious that he had neither the time nor the resources to confirm it, he decided to stake his life on his years as a veteran fencer. And while he initiated the movement for the second and last time, he was still calm enough to understand that, if he was wrong he would never have a chance to regret his mistake.

He took a deep breath, then repeated the thrust in the same way he had before, and Adela de Otero, more confidently this time, opposed a parry in quarte in a rather forced position. Then, instead of immediately going back on guard as might have been expected, Don Jaime only pretended to do so, instead cutting over and then attacking over the young woman's arm, throwing his own head and shoulders back and driving the blunt point upward. The blade slipped through unopposed, and the metallic button on the tip of his foil entered Adela de Otero's right eye, penetrating straight to the brain.

Q
UARTE.
Parry in quarte. Doublé in quarte over the arm. Lunge.

It was growing light. The first rays of the sun were filtering through the cracks in the closed shutters and the line of light was multiplied to infinity in the mirrors in the gallery.

Tierce. Parry in tierce. Thrust in tierce over the arm.

On the walls there were displays of old weapons in which rusty steel blades, condemned to silence, slept an eternal sleep. The soft golden light filling the room could no longer wrest a single gleam from those old dust-covered guards darkened by time, the metal marked by old scars.

Low quarte. Semicircular parry. Thrust in quarte.

A few yellowing diplomas were hanging on one wall, their frames warped. The ink in which they were written had faded; the passing of the years had transformed them into pale signs, barely legible on the parchment. They bore the signatures of men who had died long before, and they were dated in Rome, Paris, Vienna, Saint Petersburg.

Quarte. Head and shoulders back. Low quarte.

There was a sword abandoned on the floor, with a highly polished silver handle, worn smooth by use, the hilt of which was decorated with slender, snaking arabesques and an exquisitely engraved motto:
TO ME.

Quarte over the arm. Parry in prime. Lunge in seconde.

On a faded carpet stood an oil lamp, burning without a flame now, the spent wick spluttering and smoking. Next to it lay the body of a beautiful woman. She was wearing a black silk dress, and beneath her motionless neck, next to her hair gathered up with a mother-of-pearl comb in the form of an eagle, there was a pool of blood soaking the carpet. It gleamed red in the slender ray of light falling directly on it.

Quarte inside. Parry of quarte. Thrust in prime.

In a dark corner of the room, on an old walnut pedestal table, gleamed a slender, chased glass vase, in which stood a faded rose. Its dry petals, crumpled and pathetic, were scattered on the surface of the table, presenting a miniature picture of decadent melancholy.