Dona Nicanora's Hat Shop (27 page)

‘Well that's a fine way to talk to us.' The tone clearly indicated that the voice was perturbed. ‘Over twenty years and we hear nothing from her. Not so much as a birthday call. But now she's in trouble, it's a different story.' It was, quite obviously, Genara.

‘Well, it's only to be expected,' croaked a voice in reply. ‘She always was a thankless girl just like her mother.' Nicanora jumped from the bed in shock, uncertain whether to be delighted to hear from her long-lost ancestors again, or to be angry at the abuse they were so ready to hurl at her. The critical tone certainly ran through the family.

‘And what is that supposed to mean?' came another voice. ‘She is headstrong and always has been. She will never listen to advice from anyone, least of all me. I told her at the time she should have married him. Now look at her.'

‘Hello, Mama,' Nicanora said. ‘How are you?'

‘Fine. Thank you for asking,' her mother replied. And Nicanora was certain that if she could have seen her mother's face, her lips would be pursed very tightly. ‘It's only taken you fifteen years to get in touch. I suppose you've been too busy to say a quick hello, although goodness knows what with.' Nicanora decided that it was best not to answer. Strange, she thought, how after all these years one can slot back into such a familiar argument.

‘Strange indeed,' her mother agreed. Nicanora now remembered why she had so purposely lost touch with her ancestors: the problem with having such direct communication with them was that her thoughts were never her own.

‘I'm sorry,' Nicanora replied, deciding that conciliation was the best tactic. ‘But I really need your help. Do you know where Don Bosco is? Can you tell me whether he will come back safely?'

There was silence at the other end. She sat down in the barber's chair and waited, until she finally drifted into a half-sleep. She lost track of how long she had waited, until she saw the first light of dawn appearing through the shutters. The silence continued.

‘Are you there? Can you tell me where he is?' she whispered at last. She waited some more. Then, sobbing, certain that she had been given her answer, Nicanora cried out. ‘He's dead, he's dead. I know he is. And I've killed him.'

‘Well you should have married him when you had the chance, instead of going off with that good-for-nothing.' It was her mother.

‘Where have you been?' Nicanora shouted. ‘I've been waiting for hours. Can you answer my question? Do you know where he is?'

‘We can't know everything.' It was Alicia-Maria's voice. Then in a slightly more comforting tone she said, ‘But we have had a consultation and we don't think you have cause to worry, yet. You just need to make him
want
to come back.'

‘How do I make him want to come back?'

‘Make up for old hurts,' her mother said. ‘Find the tears to wash away old sorrows.'

‘How?'

‘Ask the Virgin for help,' Alicia-Maria said.

‘The Virgin?'

‘We have had a long consultation and our advice is to get the blessing of the Virgin. Hold a fiesta. She might help bring him back.'

‘But I need to bring him back today. What can I do?'

‘We have to go, we are late for a committee meeting,' Alicia-Maria replied, her voice now faint in Nicanora's head.

‘Stop, please don't go,' Nicanora said. ‘What did you mean by telling me there is trouble ahead?'

‘There is always trouble ahead,' the voices said as they faded away.

Once again Nicanora was left alone. With dawn breaking, there would soon be activity in the plaza. She hurriedly gathered up the leaves to remove all signs that she had been in the shop and made her way towards the storeroom. As she placed the bottle of alcohol on the shelf she once again banged her arm against the small cabinet in the corner. It seemed out of place in the broken chaos of its surroundings. Taking a closer look she saw that it was engraved with delicate flowers and leaves, clearly made by the hands of a master craftsman. In the early light the red wood shone with a deep lustre. She tried opening the top cabinet drawer. She had now intruded so far into Don Bosco's world that looking into one more small corner of his life seemed almost inconsequential. The drawer was locked. Certain that the key must be kept somewhere near, Nicanora started hunting among the bottles, jars, tins, cans and other junk. In her haste she knocked the bottle of alcohol on to the floor. It smashed and the pungent vapour of the spirit filled the dusty room. She went back to the cabinet and on the top, behind the jars and brushes, quite obvious now, she saw a little tin.
She knew that it contained the key before she even took off the lid.

The cabinet was as untidy as the room that housed it. Her first instinct that it would be full of more barber's junk had clearly been correct. The top drawer was stuffed with broken implements: scissors that had lost their handles, old brushes and rusting razors, a collection of keys, green with age, that had long since forgotten which door they belonged to, old pens, broken watches and clock faces. There appeared to be some system in the disorder. The second drawer was obviously used for storing old bits of paper. On the top were some blank writing pads, some newspaper cuttings and a pile of brown tinted photographs of Don Bosco and his brothers as children. Beneath the photographs was an envelope. Nicanora instantly recognised the writing on the front as Don Bosco's:
To my love
, was all it said. No longer aware of the time, or concerned about who might be passing through the plaza to catch her, she sat down on the stool in the corner and opened the envelope. It was full of single sheets of paper on which were written love poems unashamedly describing the virtues and failings of the woman to whom they were written. Some of the poems were less than flattering, but all were written with the compassion and tenderness of a man who loved consistently, despite the shortcomings of the object of his affections. Each poem was inscribed with little drawings of flowers of the forest, birds with multicoloured plumes and trees from a mystical land dreamt up in Don Bosco's lonely imagination. Each sheet of paper was separated from its neighbour by a dried rose petal. Nicanora took one of the petals in her hand and it crumbled into dust, adding to the film on the floor.

Were these poems really meant for her? She certainly recognised herself in some of the narratives, especially the more descriptive
passages. Had he intended her to find them? Perhaps that was why he had given her the back-door key. Had she entered through the front of the shop she would most certainly not have stepped more than one foot into the messy storeroom. At the very back of the envelope, tucked in behind the poems, was a sheet of paper that looked fresher than the rest, as if it had been recently placed there. She carefully took it out and read it, certain that it had been put there for her to find. It was not a poem like the others and had no drawings on it.
My only real sadness
, it said,
is that you have not yet known what it is to be loved and may now never find out
.

Nicanora could not help herself now, she delved further into Don Bosco's secrets. There were answers inside this cabinet, she knew it, and her search was quickly rewarded. Beneath the envelope was a letter, clipped to a photograph of a young man and woman. The woman was small and slight. She was wearing a light summer dress, her shoulders covered by a shawl and her long hair tied back so that the sun fell on her delicate Indian-looking face. Nicanora was struck by the uniqueness of the woman's beauty and the honest expression in her dark eyes. The couple looked unselfconsciously happy. The young man was saying something to make the woman laugh. It was Don Bosco. Nicanora stared at the photograph and was clutched by a pain that she had not experienced since the early years of her marriage to Francisco. She was overtaken by a deep and unexpected jealousy. Her mother's words of warning echoed in her head: Jealousy grows like an overfed pig, until it consumes everything in its path. She did not know what to make of the scene she was looking at. There was no doubting the radiance of love in Don Bosco's eyes. She could not make out from the photograph exactly when it would have been taken, but judging by Don Bosco's age, it must have been about the time she
had left to try to make her life with Francisco. She felt foolish and cheated. She had spent her whole life assuming that she had been the only object of Don Bosco's affections. She was not afraid to admit to herself now that it was the conviction that he still loved her, after all these years, that had given her the strength to face her life. She held in her hands the evidence that he had given these feelings to another, and probably more deserving, woman.

The letter to which the photograph was attached was dated twenty years previously and had been sent by Don Bosco's brother, Aurelio. She opened it and read it. She no longer felt as if she was intruding into someone else's private affairs, but rather that some hidden secrets of her own life were revealing themselves to her. The letter began with Aurelio counselling his younger brother on the ways of fickle women and suggesting that he leave behind his humiliation and the tatters of a broken heart and join him as a partner in the new export business he had established in the city of Manola. Inside the envelope was a ticket for the boat from Puerta de la Coruña. It was Don Bosco's passage out of town, a ticket to the life of hope and success that he had never had. His brother had offered him the chance to start again and for some inexplicable reason Don Bosco had chosen not to take the risk and had stayed tied to his tiny barber's shop. Perhaps she was not the only woman to have destroyed his dreams. To have your heart broken once is sad; to have it happen twice in the space of a few years is something that a person would never recover from. In her careless offer to buy the shop from Don Bosco, Nicanora realised she had tried to take from him his reason for being. He had faced the harsh reality of his existence with enough clarity not to bother to sweep its sad remains from the floor. The ticket, being out of date, had been left in the drawer and Nicanora supposed that after all his years as a
barber he had now managed to save enough money to buy his own boat ticket to Manola, if that was where he was heading.

As she gently placed the evidence of a lost life back from where she had taken it, her hand brushed against the corner of a larger, sturdier envelope. It had been carefully tucked away at the back of the drawer. Dislodged by her fumbling, it had edged its way forward, into her hands. Believing there could not possibly be any more secrets to discover, she pulled out the envelope. Don Bosco had written on the front:
Shop lease and agreement
. She opened it. There were two documents inside. The first was largely unreadable, the language was so obscure. She turned the document to the last page and there were the signatures of Don Bosco and Don Ramirez, proof that the mayor had handed the property over to Don Bosco. This, she realised, was her chance to do at least one good deed in return for all the damage she had caused. She would pin the lease to the front of the shop so that everyone could see that it rightfully belonged to Don Bosco, and so prevent the mayor from doing anything to take away his business.

The second document was entitled ‘The Agreement'. It too was signed by Don Bosco and Don Ramirez, and dated the same day as the lease of the shop.
I, Don Pedro Bosco,
the letter stated,
agree that in return for the lease on the barber's shop I will assist Don Rodriguez Ramirez in all his political activities. I give my solemn word in front of the Virgin that I will never stand against him in his efforts to become mayor or support any other individual who stands against him
. It continued:
I, Don Pedro Bosco, understand that the lease is granted to me on condition that the keyholder will have full and unrestricted use of the premises on the plaza for as long as I desire, as long as the property is never closed for more than one working day in a week.

Nicanora had to read the paragraph several times to make sure that she had really understood what had been written there. Don
Bosco had signed away not only his integrity but his freedom: his right even to close his business for longer than a day. That at least had explained his dedication to his work. But why had he not just walked away from it, as the mayor must have expected him to do years ago when he asked him to sign such a ridiculous agreement? It was clear to Nicanora that he had stayed because the shop, with all its sad memories, had been his purpose, his hope and his home. Perhaps he had been waiting all these years for the woman he loved to come back and join him. He had left now because he no longer felt he belonged.

Arturo returned to the clinic more dejected than he had felt since his arrival. He had failed everyone, not just himself. He had failed Don Bosco. He had failed Teofelo. He had let Doña Nicanora down and he felt he could no longer look Ernesto in the eye. Above all, he had shown himself to be far from the hero that Isabela believed he could be. Teofelo would have continued leading the search party into the swamp and risked all their lives if Arturo had not stopped him. Was it fear for his own life that had held him back? Perhaps Teofelo was right. Perhaps it would only have taken a few more paces into the darkness and they would have found Don Bosco, dead or alive. Arturo had stood there, in front of Julio and Ernesto, and persuaded Teofelo to call off the search after only eight hours. They were pushing deeper and deeper into the treacherous bog and Arturo feared that he was allowing Teofelo to lead them all to their deaths. It was Arturo who, as they turned back, had seen the hat floating on a deep patch of bog, almost hidden in the undergrowth near the old tree. A sign to all that Don Bosco had been swallowed by mud. He did not know how Teofelo was going to break the news to the town that the search party had brought
back certain evidence of Don Bosco's death. It was too awful to contemplate.