no avail. She returned it four times, unopened and with no comments. Saturno gave up but continued leaving a supply of cigarettes at the porter’s office without ever finding out if they reached María, until at last reality defeated him.
No one heard any more about him except that he married again and returned to his own country. Before leaving Barcelona he gave the half-starved cat to a casualgirlfriend, who also promised to take cigarettes to María. But she disappeared too. Rosa Regás remembered seeing her in the Corte Inglés department store about twelve years ago, with the shaved head and orange robes of some Oriental sect, and very pregnant. She told Rosa she had taken cigarettes to María as often as she could, and settled some unforeseen emergencies for her, until one day she found only the ruins of the hospital, which had been demolished like a bad memory of those wretched times. María seemed very lucid on her last visit, a little overweight, and content with the peace of the cloister. That was the day she also brought María the cat, because she had spent all the money that Saturno had given her for its food.
APRIL 1978
The Ghosts of August
W E REACHED Arezzo a little before noon, and spent more than two hours looking for the Renaissance castle that the Venezuelan writer Miguel Otero Silva had bought in that idyllic corner of the Tuscan countryside. It was a burning, bustling Sunday in early August, and it was not easy to find anyone who knew anything in the streets teeming with tourists. After many useless attempts, we went back to the car and left the city by a road lined with cypresses but without any signs, and an old woman tending geese told us with precision where the castle was located. Before saying good-bye she asked us if we planned to sleep there, and we replied that we were going only for lunch, which was our original intention.
“That’s just as well,” she said, “because the house is haunted.”
My wife and I, who do not believe in midday phantoms,laughed at her credulity. But our two sons, nine and seven years old, were overjoyed at the idea of meeting a ghost in the flesh.
Miguel Otero Silva, who was a splendid host and a refined gourmet as well as a good writer, had an unforgettable lunch waiting for us. Because we arrived late, we did not have time to see the inside of the castle before sitting down at the table, but there was nothing frightening about its external appearance, and any uneasiness was dissipated by our view of the entire city from the flower-covered terrace where we ate lunch. It was difficult to believe that so many men of lasting genius had been born on that hill crowded with houses with barely enough room for ninety thousand people. Miguel Otero Silva, however, said with his Caribbean humor that none of them was the most renowned native of Arezzo.
“The greatest of all,” he declared, “was Ludovico.”
Just like that, with no family names: Ludovico, the great patron of the arts and of war, who had built this castle of his affliction, and about whom Miguel spoke all during lunch. He told us of Ludovico’s immense power, his troubled love, his dreadful death. He told us how it was that in a moment of heart’s madness he stabbed his lady in the bed where they had just made love, turned his ferocious fighting dogs on himself, and was torn to pieces. He assured us, in all seriousness, that after midnight the ghost of Ludovico walked the dark of the house trying to find peace in his purgatory of love.
The castle really was immense and gloomy. But in the light of day, with a full stomach and a contented heart,Miguel’s tale seemed only another of the many diversions with which he entertained his guests. After our siesta we walked without foreboding through the eighty-two rooms that had undergone all kinds of alterations by a succession of owners. Miguel had renovated the entire first floor and built a modern bedroom with marble floors, a sauna, and exercise
No one heard any more about him except that he married again and returned to his own country. Before leaving Barcelona he gave the half-starved cat to a casualgirlfriend, who also promised to take cigarettes to María. But she disappeared too. Rosa Regás remembered seeing her in the Corte Inglés department store about twelve years ago, with the shaved head and orange robes of some Oriental sect, and very pregnant. She told Rosa she had taken cigarettes to María as often as she could, and settled some unforeseen emergencies for her, until one day she found only the ruins of the hospital, which had been demolished like a bad memory of those wretched times. María seemed very lucid on her last visit, a little overweight, and content with the peace of the cloister. That was the day she also brought María the cat, because she had spent all the money that Saturno had given her for its food.
APRIL 1978
The Ghosts of August
W E REACHED Arezzo a little before noon, and spent more than two hours looking for the Renaissance castle that the Venezuelan writer Miguel Otero Silva had bought in that idyllic corner of the Tuscan countryside. It was a burning, bustling Sunday in early August, and it was not easy to find anyone who knew anything in the streets teeming with tourists. After many useless attempts, we went back to the car and left the city by a road lined with cypresses but without any signs, and an old woman tending geese told us with precision where the castle was located. Before saying good-bye she asked us if we planned to sleep there, and we replied that we were going only for lunch, which was our original intention.
“That’s just as well,” she said, “because the house is haunted.”
My wife and I, who do not believe in midday phantoms,laughed at her credulity. But our two sons, nine and seven years old, were overjoyed at the idea of meeting a ghost in the flesh.
Miguel Otero Silva, who was a splendid host and a refined gourmet as well as a good writer, had an unforgettable lunch waiting for us. Because we arrived late, we did not have time to see the inside of the castle before sitting down at the table, but there was nothing frightening about its external appearance, and any uneasiness was dissipated by our view of the entire city from the flower-covered terrace where we ate lunch. It was difficult to believe that so many men of lasting genius had been born on that hill crowded with houses with barely enough room for ninety thousand people. Miguel Otero Silva, however, said with his Caribbean humor that none of them was the most renowned native of Arezzo.
“The greatest of all,” he declared, “was Ludovico.”
Just like that, with no family names: Ludovico, the great patron of the arts and of war, who had built this castle of his affliction, and about whom Miguel spoke all during lunch. He told us of Ludovico’s immense power, his troubled love, his dreadful death. He told us how it was that in a moment of heart’s madness he stabbed his lady in the bed where they had just made love, turned his ferocious fighting dogs on himself, and was torn to pieces. He assured us, in all seriousness, that after midnight the ghost of Ludovico walked the dark of the house trying to find peace in his purgatory of love.
The castle really was immense and gloomy. But in the light of day, with a full stomach and a contented heart,Miguel’s tale seemed only another of the many diversions with which he entertained his guests. After our siesta we walked without foreboding through the eighty-two rooms that had undergone all kinds of alterations by a succession of owners. Miguel had renovated the entire first floor and built a modern bedroom with marble floors, a sauna, and exercise
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