The Time in Between: A Novel (21 page)

The main door was open, as they all were in those days. I assumed there was a caretaker, though there was none to be seen. I began to climb the stairs nervously, almost tiptoeing, trying to muffle the sound of my tread. While outside I’d increased in confidence and poise, deep down I was still intimidated and preferred to go unnoticed as much as possible. I arrived at the main floor without passing anyone and found myself on a landing with two identical doors. Left and right, both closed. The first belonged to the neighbors I had not yet met. The second was mine. I took the key out of my pocket, inserted it into the lock with nervous fingers, then turned it. I pushed shyly and for several seconds didn’t dare to go in; I just cast my eyes over what the gap in the door allowed me to see. A large reception room with bare walls and a floor of geometric tiles in white and maroon. The start of a corridor at the back. On the right, a large living room.

Over the years there have been many times when my destiny has delivered me unexpected moments, unforeseen twists and turns that I’ve had to handle on the fly as they appeared. Occasionally I was ready for them; very often I wasn’t. Never, however, was I so aware of entering a new stage as I was that afternoon in October when I finally dared to cross the threshold and my steps sounded hollowly in the unfurnished apartment. Behind me was a complicated past, and in front of me, like an omen, I could see a space opening out, a great empty space that time would take care of filling up. But with what? With things, and affections. With moments, sensations, and people: with life.

I walked toward the living room in the half gloom. Three closed balcony doors protected by green wooden shutters kept the daylight out. I opened them one by one, and the Moroccan autumn poured into the room, filling out the shadows with sweet premonitions.

I savored the silence and solitude, waiting a few minutes before undertaking any activity. As those minutes passed I didn’t do anything, just remained standing there in the center of that emptiness, getting used to my new place in the world. After a short while, when I thought it was time to break out of that lethargy, I finally summoned a reasonable dose of decisiveness and got going. With Doña Manuela’s old
workshop as my reference point, I went over the whole apartment and mentally parceled out the different areas. The living room would serve as the main reception area: that’s where ideas would be presented, patterns consulted, fabrics and styles chosen, and orders placed. The room closest to the living room, a sort of dining room with a bay window in the corner, would be the fitting room. A curtain halfway down the corridor would separate that outer area from the rest of the apartment. The next stretch of the passageway and its corresponding rooms would be converted into the working area: workshop, storeroom, ironing room, the depository of off-cuts and hopes, whatever would fit. The third part, at the back, the darkest and least elegant part, would be for me. That is where the real me would live, the woman in pain, forcibly expatriated, debt-ridden, burdened with lawsuits and insecurities. The woman who had nothing to her name but a half-empty suitcase and a mother alone in a distant city who was struggling to survive. Who knew that setting up this business had cost the price of a large heap of pistols. That would be my refuge, my private space. From there outward, if luck finally stopped turning her back on me, would be the public domain of the dressmaker lately arrived from Spain to set up the most magnificent fashion house that the Protectorate had ever seen.

I returned to the entrance and heard someone knocking on the door. I opened it at once, knowing who it was. Candelaria slipped in like a particularly solid earthworm.

“How do you find it, girl? Do you like it?” she asked anxiously. She’d tidied herself up for the occasion; she was wearing one of the outfits I’d made for her, a pair of shoes she’d inherited from me and that were two sizes too small for her, and a somewhat unwieldy hairdo that her dear friend Remedios had done for her in great haste. Beyond the clumsy makeup on her eyelids, her dark eyes had a contagious gleam. It was a special day for the Matutera, too, the start of something new and unexpected. With the business almost ready to begin, she had done everything she possibly could do for the first time in her stormy life. Perhaps the new phase would make up for the hunger in her childhood, the beatings she received from her husband, the continual threats she’d
been hearing for years from the police. She’d spent three-quarters of her life cheating, constructing cunning wiles, hurtling onward, and arm wrestling with bad luck; maybe it was finally time for her to take a rest.

I didn’t reply immediately to her question about what I thought of the place; first I held her gaze a few moments, stopping to weigh up everything that this woman had meant to me ever since the commissioner had deposited me in her house like an unwanted package.

As I regarded her in silence, unexpectedly I saw the shadow of my mother pass in front of her face. Dolores had very little in common with the Matutera. My mother was all rigor and temperance; Candelaria was pure dynamite. Their modes of being, their ethical codes, and the way they faced up to what fate offered them were quite different, but for the first time I saw a certain similarity between the two of them. Each, in her way and in her own world, belonged to a stock of brave women who fight their way through life with the little that luck gives them. For myself and for them, for all of us, I, too, had to fight to make that business stay afloat.

“I like it very much,” I replied at last with a smile. “It’s perfect, Candelaria; I couldn’t have imagined a better place.”

She returned my smile and pinched me on the cheek, brimming with affection and a wisdom as old as time. We both sensed that from then on everything would be different. Yes, we’d still see each other, but only from time to time, and discreetly. We’d no longer be sharing a roof, no longer be together to witness the arguments fought across the tablecloth, no longer be clearing the table together after dinner or talking in whispers in the darkness of my wretched room. But we both knew that until the end of time we would be joined by something that no one else would ever hear us speak of.

___________

I
n less than a week I was all set up. Spurred on by Candelaria, I went about organizing the space, asking her for certain pieces of furniture, equipment, and tools. She took it all on, bringing to it her ingenuity as well as the banknotes, ready to sacrifice her very eyelashes to this business whose fortunes remained uncertain.

“Ask me loud and clear, my angel, because I’ve never seen a fancy dressmaker’s workshop in my goddamn life, so I have no idea what equipment a business like this needs. If we didn’t have the war on our backs the two of us could just go to Tangiers and get some marvelous French furniture at Le Palais du Mobilier, and while we were there half a dozen pairs of panties in La Sultana, but since we’re stuck in Tetouan with broken wings and I don’t want people to associate you too much with me, what we’ll do is you’ll ask me for things and I’ll figure out a way to get hold of them through my contacts. So just set me going, child: tell me what I’ve got to go hunt for and where to start.”

“First, the living room. It has to represent the image of the establishment, to give a sense of elegance and good taste,” I said, recalling Doña Manuela’s workshop and all the residences I’d seen on my deliveries. Although the apartment on Sidi Mandri, built to the proportions of Tetouan, was much smaller in its look and scale than the fine houses
of Madrid, my memory of old times could serve as an example of how to arrange the present.

“And what do we put in it?”

“A gorgeous sofa, two pairs of good armchairs, a large table in the center, and two or three smaller ones to serve as side tables. Damask curtains over the balcony doors and a big lamp. That’ll be enough for now. Not many things, but very stylish and of the best quality.”

“I don’t see how I’m going to be able to get hold of all that, girl—Tetouan hasn’t got shops with such extravagant stock. Let me think a bit; I have a friend who works with a transport company, I’ll see if maybe I can get him to make me a delivery . . . Anyway, don’t you worry about it, I’ll sort it out somehow, and if any of the things are second- or thirdhand but of good, really good quality, I don’t think that matters much, right? That way it’ll seem as though the house has more old-fashioned class. Go on.”

“Images of designs, foreign fashion magazines. Doña Manuela had them by the dozen; when they got old she’d give them to us and I’d take them home, and I never tired of looking at them.”

“That’ll be hard to get hold of, too; since the uprising you know the borders have been closed and we aren’t receiving very much from outside. But, well, I know someone with a safe-conduct to Tangiers, I’ll sound him out to see if he can bring me some as a favor; he’ll give me a hefty bill in exchange, but, well, God knows . . .”

“Let’s hope he gets lucky, and be sure that there’s a good pile of the best ones.” I recalled the names of some of the ones I used to buy myself in Tangiers toward the end, when Ramiro was beginning to drift away from me. I had taken refuge for entire nights in their beautiful drawings and photographs. “The American ones—
Harper’s Bazaar
,
Vogue
, and a couple from France,” I added. “As many as he can find.”

“Consider it done. What else?”

“For the fitting room, a triple mirror. And another couple of armchairs. And an upholstered bench for putting the clothes down on.”

“And?”

“Material. Some swatches of the best fabrics to use as samples, not whole pieces until we’ve got things under way.”

“They have the best ones at La Caraqueña; we’re having nothing to do with the
burrakía
that the Moors sell next to the market, which are far less elegant. I’ll also go see what the Indians on La Luneta can get me, as they’re very smart and always keep something special out back. And they’ve also got good contacts with the French neighborhood, so let’s see if they might not be able to get some interesting little things out of there. Keep talking.”

“A sewing machine, a Singer from America if possible. Even though almost all the work is done by hand, it’s useful to have one. And also a good iron and ironing board. And a pair of mannequins. As for the rest, it’s best if I sort those out quickly myself, just tell me where I’ll find the best shop.”

And on and on we went, organizing everything. First I would place my order and then Candelaria would scheme tirelessly to get us what we needed. Sometimes things would appear disguised and at strange times, covered in blankets and carried by men with sallow faces. Sometimes the deliveries would happen in daylight, witnessed by whoever was out on the streets. Furniture arrived, and painters, and electricians; I received parcels, tools, and an endless variety of goods. Wrapped in my new image as a woman of the world radiating glamour and ease, I supervised the whole process from beginning to end with an expression of resolve, my eyelashes thick with mascara, my new hairstyle perpetually groomed, my feet shod in stylish high heels. I dealt with any contingencies that presented themselves and allowed myself to come to be known among the neighbors, who would greet me discreetly when they passed me at the front door or on the stairs. Downstairs on the ground floor there was a milliner’s and a tobacconist’s; on the main floor, opposite me, lived an older lady in mourning and a chubby young man with glasses whom I took to be her son. Upstairs lived families with crowds of children who tried to nose out whatever they could about their newest neighbor.

Everything was ready in a few days; all we still needed were customers. I remember as though it were yesterday the first night I slept there, alone and terrified. I barely managed a moment’s sleep. In the small hours I heard the last domestic shufflings in the nearby apartments:
some child crying, a radio turned on, the mother and son opposite arguing noisily, the sound of crockery and water coming out of the tap as someone finished washing the last dishes from a late dinner. As the early hours of the morning progressed, the external sounds fell silent and other ones, imaginary ones, took their place: it seemed that the furniture creaked too much, that there were footsteps on the floor tiles in the hallway, that shadows were spying on me from the newly painted walls. Before sensing even the first ray of sunlight, I was already out of bed, unable to contain my anxiety any longer. I made my way to the living room, opened the shutters, and leaned out to wait for morning to come. The minaret of a mosque sounded the call to
fajr,
the first prayers of the day. There still wasn’t anyone on the streets, and the mountains of the Ghorgiz, barely perceptible in the gloom, began to appear, majestic, with the arrival of the first light. Bit by bit, sluggishly, the city was being set in motion. The Moorish servant girls began to arrive, wrapped in their haiks and shawls. Some men went out to work headed in the opposite direction, and a number of black-veiled women, in twos and threes, made their way hurriedly to an early Mass. I didn’t wait to see the children heading out to school, or the shops and offices opening up for the day, or the maids going out for
churros
, or the mothers heading for the market to choose the things that the young Moorish delivery boys would then carry back to their houses in the big baskets they bore on their backs. Before all that had begun, I’d gone back inside to the living room and sat down on my brand-new maroon-colored taffeta sofa. What for? To wait for my luck to change at last.

Jamila arrived early. We smiled nervously; it was the first day for both of us. Candelaria had given up the girl’s services to me, and I appreciated the gesture: we’d become very fond of each other, and she’d be a good ally for me, a younger sister. “It’ll take me two minutes to find myself a Moorish maid,” Candelaria had said. “You take Jamila, she’s a good girl, you’ll see how much help she’ll be to you.” And so sweet Jamila came with me, delighted to be getting out of the heavy burden of boardinghouse chores and beginning a new line of work with her
Siñorita
that would allow her youth to be somewhat less wearisome.