Chapter VI
The countryside
"Last one's a rotten egg!"
Wielding a fishing rod, padre Felipe took off running towards the lake. At almost 70 years old, he still had more than enough joviality for that sort of thing. On the other hand, Pepe followed along grumbling, carrying the rest of the things:
"Not fair, padre Felipe, wait for me!"
Josefina saw them get away as a light breeze touched her face. Rummaging through aunt Caridad's (God rest her soul) old trunk, she'd found a traveling little hat, very simple but pretty, that she tied up below her chin. She'd never worn anything like it; but then, she'd never gone on a field day with Diego de la Vega.
She sat down on the blanket, next to the baskets Bernardo had just brought from the carriage.
"Do you like this place?" Diego asked, settling down by her side.
I like hell itself if you're in it.
Anyway, yes, of course she liked it:
"It's great. I hadn't come to the country in ages and this is just perfect."
In one of the hampers there were baguettes, bread rolls, ham slices, grapes and apples. In the other one, cups, dishes, tea, napkins and various jams and marmalades. Occupied as she was with taking everything out and placing it around, she didn't notice when Diego tossed Bernardo a pack of bait, another one of hooks and some thread, and with a motion of the head, it was clear for the servant that his presence would be better received somewhere else. So, he had no choice but to leave, not before placing a hand over his heart and making it beat fast with a daydreaming face. Diego made as if to throw something at him, as the other one was trotting away already, chuckling to himself.
"May I?" Without notice, his hands on hers, gently stealing from her the napkin she was folding: "Josefina, you don't have to worry about serving the food, Bernardo and I will take care of it."
"Well let me serve the tea at least."
"I must insist."
"…"
"…"
"Alright. If you do it well, we might hire you at the tavern."
"If that means I get to spend the whole day with you, where do I sign?"
She still couldn't believe he'd say a thing like that to her. To her! Contrary to the heart wrenching poems she used to read (and sometimes still read), could love actually be reciprocated? Did he love her? Maybe it was still too soon to think of that hell of a word, but she was sure Diego wasn't the kind of man who would just bring any girl (whether it be princess or waitress, duchess or sweeper) for a day in the countryside. This was a serious thing and it was happening to her. It was hard to believe. Sometimes, it even scared her to stumble by accident upon the invisible sheet that surrounded this sort of fairy tale, and see it crumble to dust in thin air.
But such were ideas of unreal stuff or unfounded fears. This was real: the smell of damp earth, sunlight stubbornly opening its way through several branches of the tree that sheltered them, Diego's presence covering it all.
"Hey, don Diego! Won't you come and fish with us?"
"Muchacho, Diego wouldn't catch a shark if it was in a barrel!" father Felipe laughed.
"Don't make me go there and teach you both how to fish, eh?"
Was it a story, a dream or reality, she'd never felt so utterly good.
"Confiture de fruits: framboises et grenades…" she muttered.
"Comment?"
"Confiture de fruits: framboises et grenades" she repeated, showing him the marmalade flask: "Aimez vous la confiture?"
"Bien sûr. Et vous parlez français?"
"Speak French as such, I don't think so, but I used to like it a lot. I only remember a little bit. May I?"
"Please."
She took the lid off and tasted a spoonful: raspberry and pomegranate, indeed.
"My mother loved French, she always wanted me to learn. She died when I was three but my father made sure to fulfill her wish and got me a French teacher. Until he lost it all… gambling: the money, the hacienda, everything. Later on, he died too… I found him, he was pretty much soaked in alcohol and… I'm sorry, I shouldn't bring that up, it's too much of a beautiful day to talk about those things."
"No, please don't apologize, you can tell me anything you feel like. And, for what it's worth, I'm really sorry you had to go through all of that."
"It is worth. In fact… I'd never told anyone about that. It's weird, I feel like I took a weight off my shoulders."
"Then I'm glad I can help you carry it."
"Something bit!" they heard Pepe yell: "Padre, Bernardo, help me out!"
(…)
On the way to the lake, she was the last one they picked up, so she sat in the back seats of the carriage with Bernardo, while Pepe traveled all huddled in the very back with the baskets. However, when it was time to come back, father Felipe apologized for what he called his earlier rudeness and begged Josefina to sit at the front, next to Diego.
So, the trip back to the town took about an hour, but for her, it felt like half a minute. Her teenage fantasies came back to mind, during which she'd travel by horse with that unreachable don Diego. This was infinitely better.
"Well, you're back home, safe and sound" he announced, once they stopped in front of her house: "Are you sure your uncle is still unwell?"
"Yes, he went back to feeling bad yesterday, I left him in bed this morning. I think it's best to let him rest."
"All right."
Now don't you come and tell me this is out of plain courtesy. He took the niece out and now wanted to show his face. Is there anything he doesn't do right?
I yield, I yielded a while ago: no.
She saw him get off the carriage, circle it and approach. She'd imagined this, too, who knows how many times: him, offering her his hands, helping her get off the carriage, the both of them staring at the other's eyes…
"So long, Josefina. I hope we meet again soon."
A kiss on the hand, his fingers touching hers. It was too much.
"I hope so too. Adiós."
She said her goodbyes to the rest of the company and went through her home's door almost levitating.
(…)
"…This, no doubt, Sancho, will be a most mighty and perilous adventure, in which it will be needful for me to put forth all my valour and resolution."
"Unlucky me!" answered Sancho; "if this adventure happens to be one of phantoms, as I am beginning to think it is, where shall I find the ribs to bear it?" "Be they phantoms ever so much," said Don Quixote, "I will not permit them to touch a thread of thy garments; for if they played tricks with thee the time before, it was because I was unable to leap the walls of the yard; but now we are on a wide plain, where I shall be able to wield my sword as I please…"
Josefina placed the book on her lap and marked the page on chapter 19 with a piece of ribbon. That day's field trip (her only free day during the week) had left her sort of overwhelmed, and now, as she read Don Quixote and his sword fights, Zorro was the one appearing in her mind, and so was Diego. The strange comparison made her giggle to herself.
Two knocks on her bedroom's door.
"What are you doing out of bed, uncle Pedro? Do you want more tea?"
"The neighbor just came."
"And you went to open the door? You should have stayed in bed. Come on, take a seat."
"No, no, no. She told me the whole town saw you today in a carriage with some rich people." All right, she wasn't expecting that. "With a rich señor, to be more precise."
"Padre Felipe was there too and Pepe, and a servant and-"
"No, no, no, no, I don't want to hear anything about that, I don't even want to know who it was."
"But I-"
"Let me do the talking and keep that tone in check, will you?" She couldn't remember the last time he'd spoken to her that way: "I don't know if you're aware of what a little trip like that one might seem, when we're talking about a rich señor and the tavern's waitress. Are you? Are you aware?"
She had to gather her courage to reply: "Well I don't what people think or what you think, but I know I wasn't doing anything wrong! Besides, padre Felipe was there and-"
"Leave the priest out of this, that doesn't exempt you, if-" A fit of cough attacked him all of a sudden, so bad, that she had to hold him by an arm so he wouldn't lose balance. "I just want what's best for-"
No use. Josefina took him to his bedroom, put him into bed and covered him, then helped him drink some water and made him tea, all of this as he coughed and coughed nonstop. When he turned drowsy, half asleep and half-awake but mostly the first, she dried up the sweat on his forehead with a tissue, went to her room and lied back in bed, hanging on to the Don Quixote that was lent to her, forcing herself to think about those roll breads with marmalade, the sunbeams raining through the branches and a carriage trip down a faraway land, in order to avoid crying.
(…)
It was late already. She hadn't had any sleep or moved from the same spot, when… something… she was sure she'd heard it. But maybe not, maybe…
Again: two distinct knocks on the window.
She jumped out of bed and stayed motionless, hardly breathing at all, as to take a good listen: silence, the barking of a dog faraway and again, two little knocks. With her heart racing, she snatched a candelabrum that had seen its last candle a very long time ago, and approached step by step, as sneakily as her shaky nerves allowed her to.
"It looks like we always meet in the middle of some kind of battle" the tall and dark figure on the other side of the window spoke: "But I beg you, señorita: lay down your weapon."
She actually almost drops the weapon. She had to hold it tight with both hands, then place it on something, whatever was closest.
"What are you doing here?"
"I came to return this."
Her white shawl and the tavern's keys. Right that instant, she realized she'd always known he'd find a way to give them back to her. And she knew it because she knew him. Because it was him.
"Ah…"
"And to thank you, of course, for helping me out that night."
The keys were placed next to the candelabrum. The shawl, she threw it over her shoulders and wrapped herself in it; the air incoming through the window was somewhat cool.
"You're welcome. And thanks."
"Is everything all right?"
It was a moonless night: it was pretty much equally dark in the room and outside. So she dared to take another step closer, enough to make out the mask, the hat, the cape, even the mustache.
"Yes."
"Are you sure? Is there anything I can help you with?"
"No, I'm fine."
He wasn't convinced, but there wasn't much more he could do.
"Then I'll get going. Once again, thank you. And so long, señorita."
Had she been able to freeze time and think things through for a few moments at least, she'd have probably come to the conclusion that she shouldn't do it. Maybe at some point, later on and if things continued moving forward in the amazing way they were doing it, he'd even tell her himself. She'd never mean to… put him in evidence, let alone push him to reveal something like that. Had she stopped herself, had she covered her mouth with both hands, what would have been different? We'll never know. Because what really happened, was that both of the voices in her head crashed and converged in her throat, to then pronounce a single word in a whisper, when he'd already turned to leave:
"Diego?"
There, she said it.
He turned back around:
"Excuse me?"
"Diego" she repeated, this time with conviction.
"Why do you call me that?"
"Because… I know it's you." She took the leap. She let go everything she'd gathered inside in five years of good morning, señorita, of seeing him from the distance, of being in love, of allegedly getting over it, only to see him again and fall back in love, now for good. "Because I know you'd help people they way… you do, the way Zorro does, he's supposed to be an outlaw, right? but people root for him and I know you'd do that Diego because I know your voice, ever since you'd go to the shop and I saw you there and I'd hear your voice and you can't hide it from me, and I know your eyes even if it's dark, they're the same ones from today's field trip and the same ones that look at me like… that. Because I know you and I know it's… you."
For a moment that dragged on seemingly forever, he didn't say a word. Truth be told, she hadn't really asked anything, so there was no yes or no to be answered. Maybe everything would just stay the way it was.
"Señorita, I'm sorry to disappoint you but-"
She cupped his face in her hands. It wasn't like her to dare to do something like this, but tonight… and it wasn't just the night: it was him and her, here and now.
And she tried to slide down the black Zorro mask.
Why was she doing this?
There wasn't an exact reason. Only being close to him.
Right then, he stopped her by taking her hands in his gloved ones. A kiss on the knuckles, on the tips of her fingers, on the back of her hand. Now the other one.
She wouldn't insist. She didn't even understand why she'd tried such a thing.
And there he was, placing her hands on both sides of his face again.
More than seeing him, she felt him nod once.
What would change? That, she knew: nothing. She loved him all the same, Zorro or not, Diego or don Diego. He was the same man she loved, before, now and always.
She slid his mask down and couldn't refrain her tears, her hands cupping his face again, hands he kissed over and over again, holding her wrists.
"You're crazy."
"I am if I don't do this."
And he kissed her.
