Бесплатный фрагмент - Amarga Valdes

AMARGA VALDÉS

“This novel contains scenes of violence, cruelty, and severe psychological trauma. This is a story of survival and love for the sake of revenge, not light reading!”

FOREWORD

There are wines that are drunk. There are wines that are listened to. And there is one wine that brings back. “Amarga Valdes” — a novel not about winemaking. It — about terroir. About soil that remembers everything. About a house that does not let go. About a family that does not know how to speak, but knows how to bury. This book is written not for fast reading. It is read slowly, as old wine is drunk — in sips, with pauses, with respect for bitterness. If you are ready to enter this cellar — enter. The bottle is already open.

Chapter 1. The Bottle

Night in Mendoza smelled not of grapes. It smelled of what lies deeper than roots: wet, heavy earth and old iron. The bones long since rotted, turning into minerals, but the vine remembered everything. It drew juices from what was buried thirty years ago and never should have been found. The earth kept the secret tighter than any safe. It did not give it away even to the rains.

Isabel sat in the cellar alone. The candle on the table trembled from the draft crawling with icy fingers from under the stone slabs; the flame now stretched into a blue thread, now fell, dropping drops of hot wax onto the oak tabletop. The wax congealed in white tears, layering one over another, like years of silence. Isabel did not see the bones under feet, but she felt them with soles of boots — the low-frequency vibration of someone else’s death, stuck here for three decades. She felt this vibration with spine, that place between the shoulder blades where the skin was always a couple of degrees colder than the rest of the body. This place never warmed, even in the hottest Andalusian summers. She thought it was simply a feature of her body. Now she knew: it was memory. Physical. Unerasable.

On the table stood a bottle without a label. Delivered today by DHL courier in a cardboard box wrapped in tape in three layers. No letter. No note. Only black oiled cloth, which wrapped the glass so tightly, as if it was used to polish gun barrels before a shot. When Isabel unwrapped the bundle, fingers felt under the cloth something more than just glass. The bottle pulsed, barely noticeably, like a sleeping heart.

She ran the tips of fingers over the surface. The dark, almost opaque glass seemed dead and heavy — it absorbed the light of the candle, giving nothing back. Cold penetrated through the finger pads, crawled along the joints up to the wrists. Isabel could not take her hand away. The glass drew, as a magnet draws iron, not asking permission. Through the old cork a smell seeped — weak, barely catchable, almost weightless, but nostrils widened in a spasm before the brain managed to give the order. Throat contracted reflexively. The trachea narrowed to the thickness of a straw. On the tongue appeared the taste of iron — so sharp, as if she bit the cheek from within until blood. The blood was salty and warm. And the smell came from the bottle in an icy wave, striking the palate, the root of the tongue, that part of the brain where is stored that which is not subject to extraction.

Isabel felt how moisture appeared on the upper lip. Sweat. Cold. Sticky. She ran the back of hand over it, but the sweat did not wipe off. It was part of this reaction — part of the memory of the body, which knew more than her consciousness.

“What thing are you?” she whispered into the silence of the cellar. The bottle was silent. The candle blinked, and the shadows on the vaults swayed, like dancing dead, inviting into a round dance. She looked at them and suddenly understood: she danced with them all her life. She simply did not know about it.

She took the corkscrew. The hand trembled — not from fear, from tension. Fingers seemed foreign, numb from the Andalusian cold. Joints ached with a dull pain. The steel of the corkscrew was colder than the glass. She screwed it in slowly, with physical effort, as if opening the door of a tomb, locked with a bolt for a whole eternity. The metal creaked, entering the dense wood of the cork — the sound was wet, smacking, like the tearing of living tissue. The cork came out soundlessly. Not a pop, not a hiss. Simply an absence, like the held breath of the world, which finally burst out.

From the neck did not smell of wine. From there struck air — dry, like Andalusian heat, and icy at the same time. The smell of wet granite, old blood and something sweetly rotten, like semi-wilted grape, which began to decompose, but not to the end. Isabel drew this air in with nostrils, and her stomach did a somersault. She squeezed eyes shut for a second, trying to calm the nausea.

She poured the wine into the glass. The liquid was black, thick, oily. It did not run down the walls of the crystal — it crawled, heavily, reluctantly, like molten obsidian. The light of the candle died in its depth. The glass turned into a vessel with liquid vacuum, into a black hole on the table.

Isabel brought the cold rim to lips. The glass burned skin — not with warmth, with the absence of warmth. Absolute zero. She felt how the vibration from the bottle passed into the glass, and from the glass — into her fingers, into the bones of the wrist, into the blood. She closed her eyes.

“To your health, papa,” she said aloud. And drank. The gulp went along the esophagus and burned with cold — not with the fire of alcohol, but with dry ice of absolute truth, which does not know compassion. The wine spread over the tongue, leaving traces: first iron and salt, then bitter almond, then something sweet, almost cloying, like blossoming almond in April, when Andalusia explodes with white color. And then — silence. Inner. Deep. Like a fall into a well.

The world changed not at once. First came vibration in the teeth. Then — blindness. Isabel closed her eyes and saw not the past. The future. Andalusia. White scorched earth, cracking from the heat, yellow sun, burning out the retina, red clusters, filled with thick life. She stands between the rows completely alone. Without Emilia, without Raphael, without Thomas. The heat dries the skin to the state of parchment — she feels how each millimeter of the face tightens, stretches, ready to crack, like dry clay. But in the back, exactly between the shoulder blades, pulses an icy point. There, where in a year will enter the knife.

She knew this. The point pulsed in time with the heart, cold, like that bottle in Mendoza. No pain. No fear. Only absolute recognition of the inevitable. This was not a prediction. This was a promise. She herself gave it to herself — then, thirty years ago. And now she was fulfilling it. Isabel opened her eyes. Fingers unclenched by themselves, having lost sensitivity. The crystal slipped from the weakened palm, struck heavily against the oak tabletop — a dull, raw sound — rolled over the polished wood, stopped at the very edge, by a miracle not shattering to pieces. The wine spilled, leaving on the oak a black oily stain. She looked at this stain for a long time. It did not soak in. It lay on the surface, like a pupil, looking at her in reply.

She set the glass straight. She did not cry, and did not scream. Tears and screams were for those who can allow themselves the luxury of weakness. She could not. Never could. Simply sat in the cellar, looking at the dying candle and the empty bottle, while the night of Mendoza was entering the open door of the cellar with wet, heavy breath. The air smelled now differently. Earth. Black soil. The very one that remembered.

The future cannot be changed. But it can be postponed. As wine does: patiently, silently, waiting in the dark, until comes the one who will drink, see and not look away. Isabel did not know who she was now. But she knew for sure: she did not turn away.

Isabel took out the phone. The plastic of the case was sticky from the cellar dust. Fingers slipped, not obeying, as if still feeling the cold of the glass. She dialed the number, which she knew by heart, but did not touch for thirty years. The keys were damp from sweat.

The rings stretched, like the silence between the blows of the pruning shears on living wood. One. Two. Three. Each ring cut into skull, echoing in the teeth.

“Isabel.” Not a question. A statement. Voice of Carmen sounded as if they parted yesterday. The same timbre — low, with a hoarseness, which appears when a person is silent too long. Without greeting. Without “how are you?”. Without pause. Carmen did not waste words on emptiness — she never wasted them in vain at all.

“Come,” said Carmen. Evenly, without emotions, as they state the fact of an autopsy on a cold table. “Father is dying.”

Isabel squeezed the phone. The plastic crunched under fingers — barely audible, but she felt it, as if something burst inside her, synchronously with this sound.

“Wine waits not for him,” continued Carmen. Voice faltered. Just a tiny bit — enough for Isabel to hear the crack in the icy crust. “For you. It waits since the day you left. Since the day I kept silent, a whole generation, Isabel — it waited for you.”

Isabel was silent. She looked for a long time into the darkness of the cellar, where the shadows from the candle danced on the vaults, reminding of the dancing dead on the day of the dead. She felt how the air enters into lungs — cold, dense, with the taste of earth and iron. It smelled of old dust, wax and that which cannot be named. That which lay deeper than roots. That which she was seeking all her life, even not knowing about it.

She was not afraid. It was frightening the last years years in Buenos Aires, in an apartment with a view of the ocean, where she pretended that she had no past. Where she was building a new life out of the fragments of the old, like a mosaic. Here, in this cellar, fear ended. There remained only weight. Familiar. Native, like the earth under feet.

“I will come,” she said. In the voice there was no trembling. Only weariness — deep, like the roots of an old vine, which broke through the limestone and reached the underground waters. The weariness of a person who ran too long and too far, and understood: to run there is nowhere anymore.

“I knew,” answered Carmen. Short rings. Mother hung up the receiver first.

Isabel put the phone on the table. The screen lit up for a second, illuminating her face — pale, with dark circles under the eyes, with wrinkles, which were not there in the morning. She looked at her reflection in the dark glass and was not recognizing herself. Or was recognizing — that other one, which she was hiding in herself for long years. She turned it off. In the cellar it became dark again. Only the candle was burning down, casting long shadows. She was going not to say goodbye. She was going for what father buried. For the second bottle. For the truth, which does not exhale. For the house, which held her — not letting go, not forgetting, and not forgiving.

Isabel came out of the cellar. Dust settled on her shoulders, on her hair, on her eyelashes. The night of Mendoza met her with wet, heavy air, smelling of grass, earth and something sweetish — blossoming tobacco, which grows along the fences. The vineyards descended to the horizon. The silhouette of the Andes was drawn against the sky — dark, jagged, like the spine of an ancient monster.

The moon hung low, heavy, pregnant with rain. The Milky Way was visible with the naked eye — a wide crack in the heavenly fabric, through which cold light shone. Isabel raised her head to this crack, drew in air with full chest. I am returning, she thought. Not home. Home is not a place. Home is people who breathe, drink, remember and let go simultaneously. Or those who do not let go ever. Or those who pretended to let go, but himself kept in the cellar a bottle without a label for half a century. Before this night, and before this gulp, which brought her here, into the silence, turned out to be not emptiness, but a real home.

Isabel ran a palm over face — a gesture of weariness, which she allowed herself only in complete darkness. Fingers smelled of wax and iron. She tried to wipe this smell off on the jeans, but it remained. It soaked into the pores. She understood: this smell will stay with her forever. Like a brand, and a reminder.

She looked at her hands, barely noticeably trembling, but not from cold. This house, this earth, these vines — they remembered everything. And now she too remembered. Not the past — the future. The point between the shoulder blades, and the knife sticking in back and the dead solitude among the white rows of grapes.

Isabel turned to the cellar. The bottle remained inside, empty, black, deadly. But Isabel knew that she will return for it. When she is ready. She locked the door of the cellar. The bolt clanged, cutting her off from what lay inside. From the wine, from the truth, from the dream so early and unexpectedly begun.

She went through the vineyards to the house. The soles of the boots crunched on the dry earth. The night embraced her from all sides, and in this embrace there was nothing frightening. Only weight, familiar, as roots having covered the bones. And wine, steeped in blood and flesh.

Chapter 2. The Flight

The plane was piercing night body of the Atlantic. Below, under wing, yawned abyss — not ocean, but memory without bottom. Truth without end. Mother’s silence, which lasted thirty years and two decades of her life, pulsed in this darkness as dense, tangible mass, like clot of blood, stuck in artery of the world.

Isabel sat by window, pressing forehead against cold plastic. Her reflection in glass was pale, blurred, almost ghostly — she looked at it and was not recognizing herself. Or was recognizing — that other one, whom she buried in this same sky, flying in opposite direction. Then she ran. Now she was returning. Difference was not in direction. Difference was that she was no longer afraid.

Emilia slept with eyes half-open in neighboring business-class seat. Cord from headphones snaked over black cashmere of her sweater — as black as hair of Isabel, spread over headrest. In sleeping state daughter seemed younger than her twenty-five years. More defenseless. But Isabel knew: this defenselessness deceptive, like first layer of grape skin, under which hides tannic power. Emilia was stronger than she seemed. Stronger than she herself knew, and this simultaneously calmed and frightened Isabel. Emilia wore father’s eyes. Green ice of man whom she never saw. Whom Isabel never once named aloud even in whisper. He was shadow. Dense absence behind back, he waited patiently, and silently. Waited for the one who turns around, and sees, not looking away.

Isabel looked at sleeping daughter and remembered day of her birth. Pain, blood and first cry — so thin, so desperate. She then swore: this child will never know taste of that earth. Will never hear name that cannot be spoken. Will never see bottle without label. And now she was carrying her back. Right into core of hell. Oaths turned out weaker than blood, or weaker than truth.

“Mama,” voice of Emilia cut through monotonous hum of turbines. She pulled off one earpiece — music splashed out for a second, sharp, dissonant, and immediately shut back into silence of headphones. “Why are you crying?”

Isabel touched cheek with tips of fingers. Skin was wet and cold, despite dry heat of ventilation blowing from above. Salt on face appeared differently than ordinary tears. It appeared when you return to where you fled from, realizing that bridges are burned to ashes. When you realize: that woman who bought ticket to Madrid thirty years ago died over ocean an hour ago. A different one is landing here. The one who drank from bottle. The one who saw knife, the one who did not turn away.

Isabel removed hand. She looked at wet fingers, at salty trace, left on them. She suddenly understood that these tears — not weakness, it is purification, as rain washes dust from leaves.

“I am not crying,” she said. Voice sat down, crumbled with dry Andalusian earth, cracked from heat. “I remember with skin. These are different things.”

Emilia did not look away. She looked at mother the way one looks at glass before throw — assessing thickness, point of impact and inevitability of shards. Twenty-five years enough to learn to read micromotorics of mother’s face better than multiplication table. Enough to know: mother is now mourning not past. Mother is mourning future, superimposed over past with transparent layer of cyanide. Like wine that stores juice of crushed grapes and predicts taste of cellar. In one gulp, in one drop, running down wall of glass.

“Where are we flying?” asked Emilia, returning earpiece to place. Her fingers moved slowly, almost lazily, but Isabel saw: daughter waited for answer with tension she did not show. Light touch to earlobe. Movement she always repeated when she wanted to hide agitation.

Sound of her voice immediately became muffled, wadded, cut off from world by plastic and membrane of speaker. But Isabel heard, through music, through roar of engines, through thirty years of her own silence.

“Home,” she breathed out. Word lay on tongue like piece of rusty metal, foreign and bitter. She tried it on taste — tongue forgot this aftertaste, but blood remembered. Bitter as wormwood, tart as oak bark. Metallic, like blood from bitten cheek. She wanted to spit it out, but instead swallowed. Word fell inside, leaving behind burning trail.

Emilia snorted. Briefly, without smile. Sound that meant: “I do not believe you, but I will not argue.” She turned away to window, but her shoulders were tense. Isabel saw this. She saw everything.

“You still did not tell me what happened there, thirty years ago. Why you left.”

“I will tell,” answered Isabel. “When you are ready.”

“I am ready.”

“No,” Isabel turned head to daughter, peering into green ice of her eyes. “You think that you are ready. Because you are brave. But readiness and bravery — not one and the same. Readiness is when your spine knows truth before you heard it in words. Your spine does not yet know.”

Emilia turned away. Her fingers gripped armrest of seat so that knuckles turned white. She was silent several seconds, examining window, beyond which stretched endless black void.

“I want to know who my father is,” she said. Quietly — almost soundlessly. Voice was drowned by noise of turbines, but Isabel heard. She always heard voice of her daughter even through walls.

Isabel closed eyes. Under eyelids flashed Andalusia. White earth, yellow sun. Red clusters, and face of man whom she never named. Luis. The one who stood at edge of vineyard and watched how seven-year-old Isabel runs between rows. The one whose hands smelled of earth and tobacco. The one who was her father by blood, but not by name. She opened eyes, and looked at daughter.

“You are not ready,” she repeated.

Emilia did not answer. She again put on headphones, turned away to window and froze, looking at clouds. But her shoulders were tense. Isabel saw this. She saw everything. The plane went through night. Isabel looked into plastic window, covered with thin layer of frost, but instead of clouds saw Andalusia. White earth, burned white. Yellow sun, capable of boiling mercury in thermometer. Red clusters, filled with thick, heavy life. House on the hill waited. Not father. Not Thomas. Wine waited. Patiently. Silently. Until comes the one who is able to hold in himself this silence, not spilling.

Isabel looked at reflection in glass of window. Own face — pale, with dark circles under eyes, with wrinkles, which were not there thirty years ago. She saw in this reflection foreign woman. The one who fled, and the one who was returning.

Head of Emilia rolled onto shoulder of Isabel. Breathing became deep, childish, even. So do those breathe to whom they have not yet shown bottom of their own blood. Isabel felt weight of daughter on own shoulder — alive, warm, real. Smell of her hair — vanilla shampoo, mixed with road dust and light sweat of fear. Smelled of youth. Smelled of trust. Smelled of what Isabel was afraid to destroy.

This is right, she thought. Child should not see shape of knife before she takes it in hands. Until time comes. Until first conscious gulp comes, which will connect vision with spine forever.

Isabel looked at eyelashes of daughter. They cast thick blue shadow on her high cheekbones. Lips slightly parted — like person balancing on edge of inhale. Between what already soured and what not even began to ferment.

Isabel ran finger along temple of daughter, removing strand of hair. Skin under fingers was warm, smooth, alive. Not at all like that cold surface of bottle in cellar of Mendoza. Isabel felt how inside her something painfully clenched — not fear, not pain, but determination hidden like spring.

She will not tell her, neither today nor tomorrow. And maybe never, because truth is concentrate. They drink it in drops. To drink bottle in one gulp means to burn from within alive. Isabel did not want to bury daughter. Not after what she saw in her glass. In that black, thick darkness, which now lived under her ribs, and was not going anywhere from there.

She shifted gaze to window. Clouds below parted, and for a moment she saw stars. Not where they should be — right under wing, reflected in black surface of ocean. Sky and water changed places. Isabel felt dizziness. Or it was not height. It was understanding that she was flying not over water. She was flying over own life, which waited for her below, in white limestone of Andalusia. The plane flew over water, and over life. Over death, which waited for them not at end of path. She sat right here. In first breath of Emilia, when she was born, in that very moment when person takes first breath and does not yet know that simply signed lease agreement for body, inside which always wanders someone else’s, old longing.

Isabel closed eyes. Fell asleep. Not deeply — the way mothers sleep who must be ready to wake at any moment. On surface of sleep, like oil on water. In dream she stood between rows in Andalusia. Alone. White earth, yellow sun and cold knife between shoulder blades. She did not turn around, and she knew that if she turns around, she will see face. And face is name with likeness of death.

It rocked the plane and she woke up. Turbines changed tone — they went on descent. Behind window lights lit up. Madrid.

Isabel looked at daughter. Emilia slept, having put head on mother’s shoulder. Her breathing was even. Isabel felt warmth of her body through cashmere, felt how eyelashes tremble in sleep. Does she see dreams? Does she see face of man whom she never saw?

Isabel kissed top of head of daughter. With dry lips, barely touching.

“Forgive,” she whispered. “You will find out. When time comes, I promise.”

The plane touched runway. Landing gear struck concrete with dull, heavy sound. Isabel straightened, adjusted hair, shook off remnants of sleep. She was here again, in Spain. On earth that remembered everything, and waited for her. Before this day and decision to be silent. But silence, like wine, does not tolerate endless aging. It needs the one who will open cork. And Isabel knew: this bottle will open. Soon.

Chapter 3. The House

Valdés house stood on top of hill. White limestone, bleached by sun to the state of bone, and to the state of salt ash which remains when fire eats everything superfluous, leaving only essence. Walls kept heat of day and gave it back at night, like living being which breathes slowly and deeply. Isabel looked at them and felt how this warmth seeps under skin, mixing with cold which she brought from Mendoza.

Vineyards descended to Sanzón River in uneven terraces, like scars on body of earth — deep, closed over, but never healing to the end. Olive trees guarded borders of property, standing too close to each other, intertwining roots into underground net. They did not sleep, did not grow old, and did not forgive mistakes. Simply stood. Forever, like everything in Andalusia, until gates open.

Taxi coughed with muffler and went quiet. Engine jerked in last agony, releasing little cloud of blue-gray exhaust, and fell silent forever. Driver did not even turn around — simply nodded into rearview mirror, taking payment, and drove away, leaving them standing in middle of dusty road. Isabel watched how car disappears in cloud of dust, and felt how with every meter that separated her from last connecting link with Buenos Aires, weight in chest became more and more palpable.

Asphalt melted soles of boots even through thick leather. Isabel felt how heat seeps through soles, rises up through feet to ankles, burning bones. Air trembled over white land, distorting outlines of house, turning it into mirage. She squeezed eyes shut for second, and when opened eyes — house still stood in place. Real, solid and inexorable.

Sky struck eyes with piercing, surgical blue — so clean that it hurt to look. Same blue color was kept in irises of Carmen. Memory of color is absolute. In family of Valdés there is no color blindness. Isabel remembered this color from childhood — it was first thing which she saw when mother bent over her crib. And last thing which she remembered when she was leaving. Blue like sky, and promised death. Earth remembers steps of everyone who stepped on it. And blood remembers guilt. Wine remembers every tear fallen into vat. The one who returns brings through life all this memory back in his lungs. Isabel took deep breath — and felt how air enters into her, heavy, hot, saturated with thousands of smells which she could not name, but which through feelings she returned into body.

Isabel stood motionless, drawing air in with mouth. It was dry, hot, with taste of dust, limestone and something sweetly rotten — overripe grapes fallen to the ground and begun to ferment right in dirt. She felt this smell with palate, root of tongue, every cell of mucous membrane. Stomach contracted into tight knot. She did not know, was it nausea, or became fusion with existing.

Emilia came out beside her. Drew in with nostrils air, mixing smell of road dust, wild grasses and that very sweetly putrid aftertaste of memory.

“Beautiful,” she said. Beautiful. Word of tourist. Word of passerby with guidebook who sees only postcard, and not underside. Isabel wanted to answer, but tongue did not obey. She looked at house — and saw not with eyes. With retina of own fear. House was not beautiful, and was an open wound which they forced to close over with crust of dried blood. Scar never will stop itching, because under crust everything still festering. Familiar, like old scar on wrist. Like voice of dead man in telephone receiver, and sip of wine reminding: you tried to pretend that skin is not. That one can take it off, like old clothes, and put on new.

But skin remained, and it feels everything. Always. Isabel felt how sweat appeared on back — not from heat. Every stone in wall was familiar to her. Every crack in plaster had name. Window of her childhood bedroom on second floor looked at her with empty, blind eye, behind which emptiness darkened. She knew: behind this window she woke every morning for eighteen years. And every morning she hoped that this day would be different. Not one day which she waited was different.

“Beautiful,” Emilia repeated, already quieter, as if herself not believing in this word.

“No,” said Isabel. Voice sounded foreign, hoarse from dryness. “This is not beautiful. This is true, and there is difference.”

Emilia looked at her, but said nothing. She already learned not to argue with mother when she speaks in that voice. Gate trembled. Hinges did not creak — they groaned, low, deep in belly. Like everything in this Valdés house. Sound penetrated through soles of boots, echoed in spine, forcing muscles of back to contract in spasm. Isabel felt how her body remembers this sound. It remembered it from childhood — every time when she returned from school, every time when father opened gate to go out into vineyards.

Time here moved not by hands of clock, but by level of sugar in berries. Not earlier, and not later, now. At that second when heels of Isabel touched dusty gravel of courtyard, and sun reached zenith and stopped moving, hanging like white hole over tiles, where grape filled with lead.

First came out Rafael. Tall. Solid mass of sharp angles and gray at temples. Cold steel instead of whites of eyes. He did not open embraces, did not utter greeting, but only scanned space between them with optics of predator. Assessing threat. Not woman. Enemy, returned to own territory to claim inheritance. Thirty years of waiting lay on his shoulders like concrete slab. And this slab became only heavier from her arrival. He stopped three meters from her. Arms hung along body, but fingers were slightly bent — like claws, ready at any moment to clench into fist, and looked at Isabel as if he saw her for the first time. Or for the last time. In his eyes there was no warmth, but Isabel knew: under this mask there is something. Something that he hid for decades.

“You came,” he said, stating fact of death or payment of tax. Without intonations. Without air in lungs, and without single hint that behind this word stands anything except indifferent observation. But Isabel heard trembling. Barely noticeable. Only someone who knew him since childhood could hear it.

“I came,” Isabel answered. Two stones rub against each other, striking sparks, giving hope but not warmth, which is not between souls. Facts one does not discuss. Earth does not ask forgiveness for earthquake, as also blood does not ask permission to clot.

Silence hung between them — thick, like freezing syrup. Isabel felt the coming heat from him — not warmth of brother, but temperature of red-hot metal which can burn at first touch. But she did not step back. She knew: if she steps back, he will take it as weakness.

Rafael moved optics to Emilia — scanning continued. Variable. Risk-factor, unplanned change in recipe. His gaze ran over face of daughter of Isabel — over her green eyes, over high cheekbones, over line of chin. Stopped on lips. Isabel saw how corner of his mouth twitched. Not smile, but cold appraisal of usurer pawnbroker.

“She looks like him,” Rafael said quietly, only for Isabel. “Like Luis. Same eyes, same jaw. God, Isabel. You brought her here, knowing that he is here? Knowing that she carries his blood?”

Isabel did not answer. She looked brother in eyes, and not one muscle on her face twitched. But inside her everything contracted, because she knew that he will recognize it. Knew that she will not be able to hide this, and all the same brought her.

“She is my daughter,” she said. “This is all that you need to know.”

Rafael grinned. Briefly, soundlessly, and stepped aside, freeing passage. Emilia withstood gaze of man who they introduced to her as uncle. Spine straight, chin slightly lifted. She did not ask what he had in mind. Did not ask again, but simply looked in reply — the way Spanish women from Valdés family know how to look: without lowering eyelids first. To look away — means to admit presence of shadow. To admit fear, and they carry their shadows inside themselves, like skeletons, and like bones under roots.

Then stepped forward Tomás, like soft mortar binding hard stones of family. Shorter, more stooped, with eyes of old beaten dog which accompanied its owners to cemetery too many times and each time hoped that they will return. He stopped before Isabel for a moment, as if not believing that she was real. Then stepped closer. Embraced, awkwardly, but tightly, pressing too hard, as if checking whether she will not crumble from touch, whether she will not turn to ash. Embraced loss. A thirty-year debt that suddenly came to pay itself.

His hands were trembling. Isabel felt this trembling through coat — small, nervous, like of man who waited too long just to touch. She felt how his fingers dig into fabric, and shoulders shudder convulsively.

“I thought you died,” he whispered into her hair. Voice was wet, squeezed. She felt his breath on her neck — warm, with smell of cheap tobacco and old coffee. “For us. On that day when father closed gate behind you. Dead are easy to love. Them one does not need to feed, and one does not need to give up chair. Their opinion does not hinder sleeping at nights. One has to wait for the living, every damn day, all these damn years. I was setting for you place at table, knowing that fork will remain virgin. It is more painful than funeral, because funeral ends, and waiting for living — does not.”

Isabel pressed brother into own coat, absorbing smell of his sleeplessness, cheap tobacco and old books. She felt how his shoulders shudder — soundlessly, almost unnoticeably. How his fingers dig into fabric of her coat, as if he is afraid that if he lets go, and she will disappear.

“I am here,” she whispered in reply. “I did not disappear.”

“You disappeared,” he answered. “Thirty years ago. And I do not know whether you came back — you are like a ghost before me.” And he, barely holding back tears, bit lip until blood to not scream. She found nothing to answer. Words were superfluous. Flesh spoke for itself. Blood recognized structure of other blood, as wine recognized own cellar.

Tomás pulled away first. Wiped face with sleeve — quick, sharp gesture, and stepped back a step, shamefully hiding eyes, like child caught doing something shameful. He did not look at her. He looked into ground, and into gravel under feet.

And then heavy oak door opened. On threshold stood Carmen. Black silk of scarf absorbed midday light, turning her head into dark silhouette. Gray hair gathered into such tight knot at back of head that skin on face stretched, sharpening high Andalusian cheekbones. Time did not spoil Carmen. It only made her finally stone. Sculpture, carved from limestone which remembers everything. She stood in doorway, resting hand on doorpost. Fingers — long, knotted, with bulging veins — lay on wood motionless, like spider frozen before leap. Her eyes — that very blue color which sky of Andalusia kept — looked at daughter. Gaze lasted exactly as much as is required to assess weight of someone else’s soul on apothecary scales. Drove out, survived, and came back. Not for apologies, but for balance. Because one cannot abandon vine forever. Vine will call, blood will demand its own, and earth always draws sweet fruits to itself, turning them again into earth.

Carmen slowly moved gaze from face of Isabel to her hands. To those very hands that held a one-way ticket. To hands which now trembled, but did not lower. She studied them, as one studies new grape variety — assessing potential, endurance, ability to withstand pressure.

She did not take step forward. She did not open dry lips for words “daughter” or “come in.” She simply looked. Isabel felt this gaze on her skin — heavy, like leaden coverlet, or like clusters which are about to break from vine.

And then Carmen uttered one word. Dry, like autumn leaf which broke in half. Strict, like order of surgeon before amputation, when anesthesia is no longer needed. Only one syllable. One movement of air.

“Sing.”

Isabel froze. Neurons refused to connect command and reality. In throat dried up so much that tongue stuck to palate. She looked at mother and could not move. Because this word — “sing” — meant everything, and nothing at the same time. She remembered — remembered for good. Summer evening, gazebo, smell of jasmine. Carmen sings — low, hoarse, tearing throat on barbed wire of ancient melodies. Seven-year-old Isabel sits at feet of mother, absorbing sound with every cell of body. Voice of Carmen burns like hot wax. Song breaks off in middle. Carmen looks at daughter and says: “You will sing instead of me when I am tired.”

She remembered — remembered for good. If Carmen Valdés spends only sound on word “sing,” then silence of previous thirty years was only pause in score. Most important pause, fermentation of grief. Song which they interrupted mid-word, and now came time to take breath anew.

Isabel opened mouth. Throat contracted in spasm. She tried to make sound, but only rasp came out — dry, like gravel under feet.

“I cannot,” she whispered.

“You can,” said Carmen. Voice was level, like surface of old wine. “You came, and that means you can.”

Isabel looked into mother’s eyes. And saw there what she did not see for thirty years. She saw in Isabel not daughter who ran away. She saw continuation of own song. The one which was supposed to finish it.

“I will try,” said Isabel. Carmen nodded, twice noticeably once. Then she turned and disappeared into darkness of house, leaving door open. Isabel stood on threshold, feeling how heat of Andalusia digs into her back, and cold of house pulls her forward. She took step. House received her, as they receive only that which already belonged to you from the very beginning.

Chapter 4. Death

Alejandro was dying like wine of forty years of aging which knows its hour and does not hurry. Long descent of temperature. Sip passing through throat like ice — not burning, but slowly freezing from inside. Room smelled of sterile sheets of city clinic, chlorine and medicinal bitterness which ate into nostrils and did not blow away. And under this — cellar. Deep earth of Mendoza. That very one which remembered his steps, his vines, his silence.

Alejandro lay in middle of bed. Like empty leather wineskin from which they pumped out everything to last drop. Giant, having driven out daughter with one word, now could not lift eyelids. Eyelids were heavy, like leaden shutters lowered forever.

Tubes stretched from his hands to apparatuses — thin, transparent snakes through which foreign life flowed into him. Liquid in dropper fell with monotonous regularity: drip. Drip. Drip. As if stopwatch counted last minutes. But he knew and felt her with spine. That very place between shoulder blades which in Valdés always grew cold before truth. She saw how his fingers trembled on sheet, how tried to turn head to door. Could not, but knew.