The Carpenter's Pencil by Manuel Rivas Page B

no worse stigma than having served someone on the other side of the river. Be that as it may, in that walled universe, Alírio seemed the freest spirit. He lived apart from the others and moved about the estate like the silhouette of a sundial. As a girl, Marisa thought that the seasons were in part the creation of this gardener, who was so quiet he seemed dumb. He extinguished and kindled colours, as if he had an invisible underground fuse in the garden, connecting bulbs, trees and plants. The yellow never went out. The decree of winter turned off the last lights of the Chinese golden rose, but it was then, in that funereal atmosphere, that the lemons ripened and the souls came out with thousands of candles amid the canopy of mimosas. And, at the same time as the sparks flew on the brave mountain gorse and broom, the branches of forsythia caught fire. And by then the lanterns of the first irises and daffodils were appearing on the ground. Until in spring the splendour of gold dust exploded. It was Alírio who looked after the display with his lighter.
    When Benito Mallo showed his distinguished visitors the manor’s magnificent botany, among which the varieties of camellias stood out like a coat of arms, Alírio would follow them at a short distance, with his hands interlocked behind his back, like the master of keys of that cathedral. He would supply his lordship with the names of the different species when asked and with great tact make the necessary corrections.
    “Alírio, how old do you think this bougainvillea is?”
    “This wisteria, my lord, must be as old as the house.”
    Marisa would be amazed by the sentimental diagnosis with which he summed up the state of the trees, something he did only on unforeseen occasions, as if writing out a prescription in the air. “Those pale leaves! The lemon tree has melancholy. The rhododendron is genial. The chestnut has irregular breathing.” The chestnut tree was like a secret home to Marisa. In the hundred-year-old trunk with its porthole, there was the space of a cabin from which you could spy on the world without being seen. The chestnut and she shared at least one secret, that of the chauffeur and Aunt Engracia. Ssssh.
    When she told Da Barca what Alírio had said about the chestnut, the doctor had been astonished. “That gardener is a professor! A sage!” And then her lover said thoughtfully, “The trees are his windows. He’s talking about himself.”
    Alírio fadesnow into the fog of fallen leaves.
    Her grandfather appears at the top of the steps to receive her. His arms hang stiffly from his drooping shoulders and the cuffs of his jacket almost conceal his hands. All that is visible are the claws clenching his walking stick, its metal handle in the shape of a mastiff’s head. The hawk in his eyes, Benito Mallo’s unmistakable characteristic, is still alive, but there is about him the kind of resentment with which a lucid mind fights sclerosis. And that is why he comes down the steps.
    “Do you need some help?”
    “I’m not an invalid.”
    He tells herthey can talk walking towards the rose garden, the sunny spell will not last, the winter sun is effective against what he calls this accursed rheumatism.
    “You look very pretty,” he said. “As ever.”
    Marisa recalled the last time they had seen each other. Her bleeding to death, her veins open in the bathtub. They had been forced to break down the door. He had wiped the scene from his mind.
    “I’ve come to ask you a favour.”
    “You’re in luck. That’s my speciality.”
    “The war ended a year and eight months ago. As I understand it, there’ll be pardons around Christmas.”
    Benito Mallo stopped and breathed in. The winter sun blinked on the majestic stained-glass window of the monkey-puzzle. “Irregular breathing,” Marisa thought, searching with her eyes for the gardener’s cloud of smoke.
    “I’ll be honest, Marisa. I did everything I could to have him killed. Now the greatest favour