Chapter 27

While Felipe was discreetly drumming his fingers into emptiness in a piano-like motion to relax his knuckles, Don Alejandro had invited señorita Alacen to sit at their table and engaged in conversation with her, followed in this by Diego.

Victoria put a glass in front of their guest. Diego noted she looked slightly dejected, feeling a bit down despite the joyful news of Felipe's release.

"...isn't it, Diego?" his father asked, suddenly bringing him out of his thoughts.

"Mmm... Sorry, what did you say?" he then said, having no idea what his father had just asked him.

"Your father was praising the virtues of Los Ángeles," the young woman answered him.

"Yes," Don Alejandro added further, "admittedly it's a small pueblo, but people here are welcoming and engaging, you'll see it during the course of your stay, that I hope will be long enough for us to have the pleasure of enjoying your company."

"Oh, that's very kind of you Don Alejandro," she replied. "And indeed so far I have met here only very accommodating and nice people, like señorita Escalante and your son."

"Ah yes," Don Alejandro told her, "Diego took great care of you and was very worried about your condition, weren't you Diego?"

"Felipe too inquired several times about your state during his captivity," Diego immediately added. "And the corporal came several times to visit the señorita."

"That reminds me, Señor, I still have to thank him," she said while mechanically raising her hand to the flowers planted in her hair. "Would you please be kind enough to point him out to me if he were to enter the tavern..."

"We'll be sure to, won't we, Father?"

"Uh... yes, certainly," Don Alejandro answered, slightly at a loss as to what Sepulveda had to do with this discussion.

But even after all these years it still escaped him how much his son had become skilled at changing subject and diverting conversations.

"And as I said," Diego went on, "Felipe himself was worried about you, weren't you, Felipe?"

Felipe's mind was elsewhere, perhaps still partly in jail, and he hadn't paid attention to a single word of what had just been said.

Don Alejandro gave him a nudge that startled him. Now that Diego had his undivided attention he repeated his question, and Felipe nodded in agreement.

But Luz was not looking at him. With a slight frown and a half-puzzled half-surprised look on her face, she told Diego:

"But... but... I don't understand! Didn't you tell me he's deaf?"

Felipe, once again, didn't let a single sign betray that he'd heard her comment and understood what she just said, although it was a bit hurtful to hear her speak of him as though he weren't there. He was unfortunately used to it, although it still displeased him just as much. But then, he reasoned with himself as if to take comfort in this thought, it was for a good cause, for the greater good!

Meanwhile, Diego enlightened the señorita:

"Felipe lip-reads perfectly, so you can talk to him in an absolutely normal way, as long as you take care to look right at him while doing so."

"Well I never!" she exclaimed. "Really?"

"Don't ask me," Diego answered hiding a hint of annoyance, "ask Felipe!"

She turned to the young man and, careful to articulate very clearly, she asked:

"Really? You really understand what I'm saying just by looking at the movements of my lips?"

He nodded.

"Well I never!" she exclaimed again. "This is truly amazing."

She clearly couldn't quite believe it. Felipe, for his part, was smiling in a rather embarrassed way. But Luz didn't fully understand what could be so embarrassing there. Quite the contrary: performing something so difficult was an achievement to be proud of!

That seemed to be Don Alejandro's opinion too, as he added:

"Yes, Felipe is a very talented boy. This skill is not within the reach of just anybody, yet Felipe understands absolutely everything whoever tells him, to the point that he's able to follow any conversation if he sees everyone's lips, isn't it my boy?"

But the young man seemed even more embarrassed by his grandfather's praise, as while nodding he lowered his head almost… sheepishly? And even… ashamedly? Weird, Luz thought, there was yet no shame in developing abilities above average to get around and make up for a handicap!

But probably she was reading him wrong: maybe he was not sheepish, but just embarrassed? Maybe he didn't really know how to deal with praise and compliments?

Diego, for his part, said nothing either. He too was looking away. Don Alejandro was now so used to this behaviour from his son that he gave up the idea of raising it, and since Diego had suddenly become as mute as Felipe and the latter was now looking at his feet, the older man took it upon himself to rekindle the conversation.

"By the way Señorita, tell me, what is it that brings you to our pueblo?

z~z~z~z~z~z~z

Diego was not very proud of himself. He hated lying to his father, and he hated that act he's been making Felipe play for so many years – oh, in full agreement with him of course, and even on his own initiative… And above all, he hated lying to his father about this particular subject: Don Alejandro would be so overjoyed if he knew that Felipe could hear! He who had taken care of the boy while Diego was in Spain, who had guided him through the last years of childhood and into early teenage deserved more than anyone to know the truth about Felipe, Diego knew it, was very well aware of it.

Meanwhile, the conversation was going on between his father and their guest, and Diego emerge from his reverie when he heard his name slip in the discussion.

"…and by the way, it so happens that Diego lived several years in Spain, in Madrid, where he studied at university. Do you know Madrid, Señorita?"

"I went there twice for a few weeks, but I can't really say that I know Madrid. At least not as well as someone who has lived there. No, I'm from Barcelona."

And something could be sensed in the way she said this last sentence, some pride, almost a hint of challenge which Diego didn't fail to notice.

"Did you go to Barcelona, Diego, during your years in Spain?" Don Alejandro asked him in order to bring him back into the conversation and to his duties as a gracious host toward their guest.

"Unfortunately not," he answered. "Well, it's a good eight days' journey by stagecoach from Madrid. But it is said to be ebullient and abundant in minds of all kinds, of firebrands, restless minds and agitated spirits too."

"In all the ages the powers that be have called 'restless' and 'agitated' the minds and spirits who thought differently from themselves," the señorita cryptically said. "Am I to understand that you preferred the court spirit that certainly prevailed in Madrid?"

Ouch, Don Alejandro thought, if the conversation drifted to the political ground, it boded ill for the harmony and the 'getting along' he hoped to establish with the newcomer. Just think: for nothing in the world he would want that whatever should come between Diego and the first young woman to whom he had seen his son spontaneously offer his arm in years!

"In Madrid I mostly cared about my studies, Señorita," Diego retorted. "You can ask my father, he will confirm that much to his chagrin and utter regret, I'm only very remotely interested in all these side-issues that divert the mind from seeking knowledge and comprehension."

This reply seemed to arouse the señorita's interest or curiosity, and she arched two surprised eyebrows while examining Diego. It also had the merit of getting the wind out of her sails and rendering her speechless, stopping her short in her tracks.

Then the shadow of a smile grazed her lips and she gave him an almost imperceptible nod, as if to acknowledge the point he'd just made and scored.

"My son is too modest, Señorita; Diego's interests are far more varied and broader than he lets on," Don Alejandro went on, suddenly very little sparing with praises about his spineless son, but those that takes up most of his attention revolve around the study of experimental physics and natural philosophy, and his knowledge on the subject never cease to amaze me, doesn't it my boy?

The 'boy' in question looked at his father with a stunned look on his face, unaccustomed as he was to paternal praises. Then, after wondering for a split second what on earth had got into his noble progenitor, he suddenly saw through his father's little game and threw a very discreet frown at him, while from the corner of his eye he saw Felipe try to hide an amused smile.

Diego, for his part, was not amused. At all.

Señorita Alacen, for her part, was now staring into empty space, lost in intense thoughts; then she looked at Diego as if she was seeing him for the first time, with her mouth agape.

"Wait a…" she finally slowly let out. "Wait…"

All three looked at her – all four, with Victoria who was keeping an eye from afar on the scene playing two or three tables away from her.

In Luz's mind, which was presently running at full speed, the ideas were linking to each other, and even gradually intertwining: Señor de la Vega… Don Diego… Madrid… university… physical sciences… De la Vega… Don Diego… No! Impossible! It would really be an extraordinary coincidence if…

"You... you…" she finally managed to stammer, "you couldn't… you wouldn't be the same Diego de la Vega who wrote an essay about Young's double-slit experiment and his theories on the nature of light?"

This time it was Diego's turn to be speechless. What? Here, in a small pueblo lost in the middle of the Californian desert, in one of the remotest corners of the Empire, of New Spain, five thousands sea miles away from Madrid, two thousands and five hundred leagues, more than one-month journey from Spain, he was coming across someone who had got wind of his past works, of a six or seven years old publication!