“I desperately miss it. I miss my youth. We never appreciate the life we have until it’s gone, and we turn to look back at the ruins of our world and the tatters of our soul.” The professor chuckled, then he extended a trembling hand in Ulises’s direction. “I might have a cigarette after all.”
“Sure.”
He handed Nepomuceno a cigarette and they smoked and looked at the stars. Afterward, he bade Nepomuceno a good night and slipped back into bed. In the morning, he tiptoed into Perla’s room; she was peacefully snoring. She hadn’t had a drink after all.
He stepped into the bathroom. The bottle wasn’t there, only the shards of broken glass. He looked around the bedroom, but fearing Perla would wake up, he slipped out again.
He found Inés in the hallway, looking curiously at him.
“She didn’t drink it,” he said. “I don’t know what she did with the bottle.”
“Maybe she put it back in the kitchen.”
They went to look downstairs but couldn’t locate it. Before they could conjecture about the missing bottle, a woman screamed. They ran in the direction of the noise.
Rita was standing with a broom in her hands, staring at Nepomuceno’s room with her mouth open. Ulises stepped inside and saw the old man was sitting in his armchair, dead. There were a couple of empty bottles by his bed. One had been overturned, liquid spilled all over the floor and soaked into a rug. He didn’t have to look at the label to know it was the missing bottle of sherry.
He stared at the scene, the shock of it numbing him. He didn’t even realize when Inés elbowed past him and began to cry. The noise was attracting the other members of the household, he heard the Zorrilla sisters loudly wondering what was happening, and the dog began barking.
He pulled the girl out. She felt boneless and he feared she might collapse, but he managed to drag her out into the hallway. He placed his hands on her shoulders and bent down his head to whisper in her ear.
“He drank it. The old coot drank it,” he said furiously.
“What’ll we do?”
“We’ll keep our mouths shut.”
He feared she would blabber, that the thought of the law would loosen her tongue, but at once she went quiet. Her face acquired a resolution that a soldier in battle would have envied. She nodded.
Because he couldn’t help himself, and because he thought she needed it, and he needed it too, he embraced her. An embrace so fast, so light, it was like holding on to a ghost. Then they parted, both terrified and silent.
13
The first thing Perla did,after poking her head into the room and seeing that Nepomuceno was indeed not simply drunk and asleep in his chair as usual but dead, was order Fito to head to the church with a message for the priest.
“What a mess,” she muttered, gripping the collar of her robe closed with one hand. “We’ll have to telegraph his brother.”
“His brother is dead,” Inés said.
“Since when?”
“He passed away last year.”
“He must have cousins or nephews.”
The dog was barking again. Perla rubbed a hand against her temple.
“I don’t think he had anybody.”
“That’s perfect. Who will pay for the funeral?” Perla grumbled. “Go knock on Dr.Carrel’s door and tell him his presence is required. He’ll have to sign a death certificate. And Beto must come over here too.”
“Why do we need the police?” Ulises asked.
“Because Dr. Carrel is coming, Beto needs to come too,” Perla said. She didn’t have time to explain the delicate rivalries and associations of the town. If Beto wasn’t summoned, he’d think he’d been snubbed. After all, he fancied himself the authority on all things forensic.
After Fito and Inés departed, she went to her room and considered the financial implications of this death while she donned a proper dress and combed her hair, for she had been abruptly forced out of her bed by the commotion downstairs. The previous evening, instead of sherry, which was much too mild when she was in the mood for a proper night of drinking, she had availed herself of one of her secret bottles of tequila. As a result, she had a hangover.
Not that she would ever admit that she understood the meaning of the word “hangover,” because ladies were not supposed to imbibe too much alcohol, but she did, and she wished it were an ordinary day when she would have been able to sleep in. Now she’d have a headache for the entire day.
