Chapter 35

The conversation was animated between Don Diego and señorita Alacen. Or at least it was becoming animated on Luz's side as a result of her fourth glass of Rioja, while Diego was careful to only soak his lips in his from time to time, pretending drinking while as of yet it was still only his first glass of wine, of which he had barely swallowed two sips. A perfectly honed technique which he'd been practicing for years on Sergeant Mendoza and which had proven to be effective in extracting information from a source without arousing their suspicion.

He therefore decided to use it on señorita Alacen, since she had been careful to precisely measure her words during the outward journey. He needed her to lower her guard, so Diego stifled the qualms he had about applying this tactic not to a soldier of the king, but to a young woman. Thank God, he thought, Don Alejandro wasn't here to see it! And if the lady's state when they get back to the hacienda wasn't too brilliant, he could still use strain, exhaustion and a resurgence of fever as a pretext, three good excuses she'd certainly be happy to seize to go straight to her room and lie down without even waiting for siesta time.

"You know, Don Diego," Luz was currently telling him in a voice now a bit stronger than the one normally used by persons of quality when they were in polite society, "I find really admirable how you chose to take care of that orphaned and disabled little boy. It was a courageous choice to decide to take him back with you and take care of him! I'm not sure I would have been able to. Anyway, I would of course have been far too young for that at the time!"

She punctuated her words with some abrupt movements of her hand, her finger pointed at him. Good, Diego thought while noting Luz's slight changes of behaviour, the veneer is starting to crack, vigilance gets lower, inhibition decreases, the wine is starting to take effect. But caution! Let's not rush her, she remains smart and lucid enough to become aware of the manoeuvre if I don't play it subtly enough...

Again, he had steered the conversation back to Felipe, again he hoped that by taking his time, by talking about his past, they would end up talking about his present, or rather his immediate past.

A bit carried away by the three and a half glasses of wine she had already downed without realising it, as Diego was taking great care to fill her tumbler as soon as the level of Rioja in it lowered, Luz went on with a much lower voice:

"Thinking about it, this poor little boy... how he was certainly suffering! How miserable he must have felt!"

She paused and looked into her glass, her eyes unfocused, a bit sobered by the sad subject brought up.

Diego suddenly felt bad: the señorita was perhaps one of these people who made sad dunks.

"He's been very brave," Diego said just in order to say something.

"Seeing his parents' dead bodies..." she went on as though she had not heard him. "Both of them at the same time... It must have been horrible."

Here, Diego felt really not proud of himself, and he kept silent.

"And becoming deaf on top of that!" Luz continued. "How panicked he must have felt! Not understanding what was happening to him..."

She finally looked up from her glass and stared at Diego.

"When you think of the young man he has become," she added, "of what he has achieved, what you've both achieved, it seems amazing! You can really be proud, Don Diego, of both yourself and him!"

At this very moment, Diego, however, was very far from being proud of himself; he was nevertheless prouder than ever of Felipe. Except that the latter was hiding something from him, and despite señorita Alacen's chorus of praise he shouldn't lose sight that he was here, sitting with her at the tavern, only to discover what this "something" was.

"I'm indeed very proud of him," he answered, "and the day he will finally be officially and legally my son will be the happiest of my life; no one can dream of a more perfect and wiser son... don't you agree, señorita?"

It was a bait, a line thrown at her, a hint, a hand held out to her, a little bit of all of these for her to take: he knew that Felipe had done something which apparently was far from being perfect or wise, and she knew it too. And what's more, she at least knew what.

"Who am I to doubt it?" she replied prudently. "You know him since he was a child and I have met him only a few days ago, have spent just a few minutes with him..."

Missed again, he thought. He masked his disappointment by pouring her another glassful of wine from the jug Victoria had brought them.

"I have to admit that much of the credit for what he is today goes to him," Diego said. "All I have done is trying to find a way for him to communicate with others, and I taught him to read and write since he couldn't hear nor speak. So that he'd be less isolated, less cut off from the others. Only... he has learned so fast that I thought it would be a shame to stop there: he was so willing, so eager to learn, to get knowledge..."

He paused. This time, and although he had hardly drunk anything, he was the one who was now lost in his memories, the one who was here almost like at confession. He went on:

"I remember, I thought myself already a man at the time, while in fact I knew so little yet... I was hardly older than Felipe is right now, come to think of that... I had myself still much to learn, and when I left for Madrid he asked me to teach him everything I'll have learned on my return..."

A nostalgic smile floated over his lips.

"It is certainly quite young, said Luz, but not that much: I was myself only twenty when I took almost the reverse road, leaving Barcelona and everything I knew there for Mexico. A sort of leap into the unknown..."

"What prompted this change of scenery?" Diego asked.

She looked at him for one second or two without replying immediately.

"Vicissitudes of life..." she simply said after this short pause.

She took a sip of wine as if to regain some composure and, more cheerful, she asked him:

"So when do you think you're to finalise this adoption?"

"Oh señorita, if only it were up to me!"

He said nothing more about it, but despite the wine-induced mist starting to fog her mind, Luz caught the note of regret and frustration in Diego's voice. Feeling bad for having brought up this sad thought in the conversation, she gave him a kind smile, although somewhat blurred by the vapours of alcohol. And that smile seemed so genuine that Diego could only return it.

At the same time Victoria brought them the second pitcher of wine Diego had ordered. She put it down in front of them with a bang, a sharp gesture and a reproachful glare aimed at Diego.