Lilia's Secret (14 page)

I sat on a bench in the town square and leant back to enjoy it all. I loved being so far away from home and in another country. It didn't matter that earlier people had snapped shut when I asked about Lilia. Beautiful brown, smiling faces – suddenly stony.

I was missing Andrés now, but in a good way. I was smelling the same kind of lemon-scented breeze that he had as a child, buying avocados from the same kind of busy stalls in open-air markets that he had. It was the way I wanted to be close to him at the moment: in the nostalgic abstract. I guess I knew that my reaction to him wanting a baby was totally out of proportion. I mean, leaving the country was a touch dramatic. And it did seem weird that I'd become so obsessed with Lilia. Perhaps it was that she epitomised the idea of violence within families – killing your husbands is a pretty clear-cut case of violence. And when I heard the rumours swirling around her, I got really hooked.

I needed to let Andrés know where I was though. That scared the hell out of me. The bruises from my disconnection from him were just beginning to fade. When he found out about how I'd lied, it may be his turn to cut off. And that's
without the Matías thing. Where was the rulebook on one-night stands born of despair? If I told him he'd definitely back off. Who wouldn't? And I needed him close, now. Selfish, I know.

I walked to Lilia's house to get my backpack. I took a big stick to prop up the back window and I was in and out within one minute, the adrenalin pumping through me the whole time.

When I got back I sat on the edge of Marta's table and asked her about Lilia. She shook her head, as if to suggest, ‘What could I know of an old lady, long gone?' and continued pounding the batter for tortillas against her kitchen bench. She wiped her cheek on her shoulder and used her hand to push her long plait behind her back. She was only two years older than me but she'd already had five children. Her husband had died last year in a car accident, so she wasn't having any more. ‘At least that's one good thing,' she said. ‘You should talk to Padre Miguel. He'll know something. All priests know something.'

The priest was dressed from top to toe in a black sheath with a rectangular square of white at his throat. With his big belly, he looked like something out of an old story book. He broke into a huge smile that rucked up his face like a bulldog's. I grinned back. Before I'd even introduced myself at the door, he'd thrown his arms wide and stepped back to gesture me in.

‘Maddy Maquire from Australia, I've been waiting for you to call.'

‘How did you know I would?'

‘I am the Rome of Aguasecas; all roads lead here, you know.' His extra flesh jiggled up and down as he laughed.

I laughed too and stepped over the threshold into another land. The ceilings were high and it was cool and dark and reassuring. He led me into a big narrow room, which was lined with shelves filled with books, some sticking out, others flat on top of the others. There were papers over the armchair at the end of the room and books on the floor in short stacks around the base of the lamp beside the chair.

‘My library,' he chuckled. ‘One day I'll join the modern world with its Dewey system.'

A long, heavy wooden table ran the length of the room. I found it vaguely disturbing. How did they get it into the house?

‘They didn't,' said the priest, who had introduced himself as Padre Miguel. ‘I think they made it right here in this room.'

He laughed. ‘What a face! I'm not a mind-reader. Everybody thinks the same thing when they walk through the door.'

‘You know what else I think?' I said to him. He cocked his eyebrow. ‘This is exactly the same kind of table that's Lilia de Las Flores' kitchen.'

‘Really?' he sat down, gesturing at me to do the same. ‘I've never been inside her house.'

‘Never?'

‘Well, it's said she was a witch,' he explained, his eyebrows moving up and down like they were attached to wires. ‘And I've only been here twelve years. People who have lived here all their lives wouldn't go in there.' He rubbed his hands. ‘I'm not a brave man, you see.'

‘What do you mean by witch?' My wrist was itching but I held my left hand hard down on the bandanna.

‘Witch! Witch! Potions and poison and magic.'

‘You believe in that stuff?' I asked.

‘It was your Shakespeare that said, “There's more things on heaven and earth than we can dream upon”, or some such. I believe in everything until it's proved otherwise. People will tell you still, today, that La Doña is responsible for a super corn, or for the death of a child.'

‘But that's not logical.'

His whole body trembled again as he laughed. ‘What does it matter whether it's logical? Or whether I believe or don't believe?' He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘I die, just like everybody else, and not one thing I think or don't think will change the hour or what comes after.' I liked this man who was prepared to swim in the current of life and not make his every thought into brain surgery.

‘So you're saying that it doesn't matter whether she was a witch or not, because people believe it and you respect that.'

‘Exactly.' He clapped his hands together and then gestured with the flat of his palm at me as if I were of more than average intelligence. ‘Exactly.' He leant forwards. ‘Although I keep away from her house, just in case they're right.' His eyes were wide open and his eyebrows were moving again.

I pressed on my bandanna, but smiled at him anyway. ‘Nobody will talk about her to me.'

‘Of course not. You are Maddy Maquire, a stranger from Australia.'

‘I'm married to her grandson – he wants to know.'

The priest looked at her strangely for a moment. ‘Her grandson, eh? Well, a
connection
,' he stressed the word, ‘is all the more reason not to talk to you. You may have a direct line to her beyond the grave. Besides, people are suspicious because you are not the only one asking questions.'

I nodded.

‘Excuse me a moment.' Padre Miguel stood up, went to the door and yelled into the cool dark of the passageway. ‘Magdalena! Any chance of one of your nice cups of coffee?' He turned to me. ‘She has so much to do looking after me that she pretends she is too busy to attend to all my needs.' He feigned a sigh as he sat down again, his worn runners sticking out from his robe like dirty toenails beneath a ballgown.

‘You know about our American?'

‘Bill,' I said. ‘I was planning to find him this afternoon.'

‘Good. He arrived ten days ago. It is too much of a coincidence that after twenty years two people arrive in the same month.'

‘It's spooky,' I shivered. ‘What's he like?'

‘Very American,' Padre Miguel chuckled. ‘But losing weight fast.'

I raised my eyebrows to him, waiting for more.

‘If you don't find him today, you can meet him tomorrow,' Padre Miguel said.

I kept my eyebrows raised.

‘There is a wedding tomorrow afternoon. I invite you both. No problems.' He waved his hands. ‘There are some perks to being the frontman at these functions. Besides, I want you both to meet Ramiro.'

‘And Ramiro is?'

‘Someone who was close to Lilia.'

I clapped my hands. ‘I thought they'd all be dead by now.'

‘I'm not sure he's ever going to die,' the priest said. ‘You should talk to him.'

‘Did Lilia kill her husbands?'

At that moment the door opened and Magdalena came into the room with two plain white cups jiggling against their saucers on a silver tray. She set the tray down with a bang and poured the coffee from the pot into the cups, asking without looking at me whether I wanted milk.

‘Yes please, señora,' I said in my most polite voice. She added the milk and left the room without a glance.

‘Have I done something to offend Magdalena?' I asked Padre Miguel.

‘Of course,' he said breezily. ‘You are shaking up the dirt over La Doña's grave. You never know where that can lead.'

‘I just want to know what drove Lilia to do what she did.'

Suddenly Padre Miguel was serious. ‘Is that all?' He leant over the table. ‘Here is a woman who, it is said, killed men – some of them her husbands – in cold blood. Here is a woman who owned most of the houses and in one way or another all the businesses in this town, and still would own them if she were alive today. Lilia had extraordinary power in this town and her memory is just as towering. On top of that, not one but two strangers come looking for her at the same time.' His eyes were soft and urgent. ‘The older people live in fear and the younger ones follow, although they don't know why. It's the worst kind of fear – the one you don't notice.'

I felt like a big bumbling tourist and I was ashamed.

Within a heartbeat – he moved too quickly for me to protest or stop him – he had unwrapped the bandanna around
my right wrist. We both considered the fragile skin with its little islands of scabs.

‘Mmm. A tortured soul.'

I shook my head, ‘No, just an itchy one.' We laughed. He was serious again almost immediately though. I dropped my eyes. ‘OK. I'm not sleeping.'

‘Go on.'

‘I see two little feet every time I close my eyes. They're sticking out from under a bush. If I somehow fall asleep I dream that the bush becomes a globe of the world and it explodes, and I wake up.'

The grain of the table was disturbingly flawless.

‘Whose feet are they?'

‘I don't know.' I took a deep breath and added with a rush, ‘I think they belong to a child and I wonder if Lilia killed the child.'

‘Why?'

‘I saw them in the garden when I was at her house.'

‘A vision?'

‘Yes.' I tore off the bandanna and scratched furiously at my wrist. Padre Miguel stood up and grabbed my hands. I tried to shake him off for a moment before I came to my senses.

‘Lilia's first child disappeared,' he said, holding my hands steady.

‘At what age?'

‘About three, I've been told.'

‘It could be her?' I felt sick even saying it.

‘No need to jump to such a conclusion. You may even be having this vision for somebody else – let's not assume it's yours. And visions are OK: you're not going mad.'

It was exactly the thing to say, as if he'd found the exact right spot out of a thousand to touch.

‘Magdalena!' Padre Miguel shouted over his shoulder. She came in moments later, as if she'd been standing in the passageway waiting.

‘Sit down, sit down,' he ordered her. She sat on the edge of the chair opposite me. A bobby pin was hanging off her neat bun by only a couple of threads so that strands of her hair were threatening to unravel.

‘Look at her, Magdalena. She has even less bite than the other one,' said Padre Miguel.

I narrowed my eyes and he shrugged at me, laughing. ‘It's true. Itchy souls are too busy troubling themselves to give trouble to others.'

I broke into a smile. The only thing I could see of Magdalena was the top of her head, she was so bent over, arms folded.

He addressed her. ‘She doesn't know.'

I looked from one to the other.

‘The family of Doña de Las Flores deserves to know.'

Magdalena shook her head. ‘There's too much talking about these things.'

‘You told Bill,' Padre Miguel said.

She shook her head again, her arms remaining folded over her stomach. I felt an echo of pain in my own stomach.

‘My husband is the grandson of Doña de Las Flores. I want to know what kind of blood runs in his veins,' I intervened, speaking to Magdalena. For the first time she looked up, but not at me. She and Padre Miguel exchanged glances.

Padre Miguel pointed to a pile of notebooks sitting at the end of the table and pulled them towards us. He nodded and
winked at me. I pulled the first one off the pile and opened it to see a small yellowing newspaper article. My written Spanish isn't as good as my spoken, but a quick scan told me it was about somebody who had stolen cattle. I turned the page. There was another story about cows gone missing, again just a few paragraphs. The same on the next few pages. I looked up and scanned Magdalena's face for an answer.

On the next page the article was longer. As I read I quickly got the gist of the stories. The first articles reported the missing cows as a mystery, then there were suspicions of a band of young men behind their disappearance; later drugs were said to be involved, then there was mention of killings, then the names of
bandidos
appeared, and finally the leader of the
bandidos
was identified – the cruel and merciless El Tigre. There were terrible torture stories of what he did to his victims.

It was very dramatic but what it amounted to I couldn't guess.

‘I don't know what this means,' I said.