The Heart Has Its Reasons by María Dueñas

subconscious those references to fathers, missions, and trails must have taken hold, because at one point I suddenly remembered that among Fontana’s papers, I’d seen in passing some mention of the Franciscans and their buildings. Those documents remained in a couple of boxes set aside in a corner of my office, needing further attention. Once I gave it, perhaps I’d be able to fill in the gaps.
    I left the campus as soon as the class was over, satisfied by the results and exhausted after an entire day of nonstop work. I finally took a deep breath, inhaling the smell of eucalyptus in the late afternoon.
    â€œHow did your new course go?”
    I had been walking along the sidewalk, distracted, when the voice came from a car that had halted beside me. Like me, Luis Zarate was about to go home, and instead of his customary work clothes, he was wearing a pair of shorts and a deep-red sweatshirt with the logo of some university other than Santa Cecilia. Next to him, a sports bag occupied the passenger seat.
    â€œExtremely well. It’s an excellent group, very motivated. I’m lucky.”
    â€œI’m glad. Would you like me to give you a lift home?”
    â€œWell . . . I appreciate it, but I think it’ll do me good to walk awhile and get some air. I’ve been locked up since nine o’clock this morning, I didn’t even go out for lunch.”
    â€œWhatever you like. Enjoy your stroll, then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    I was about to return the farewell, but he had already rolled the window up, so I didn’t make an effort. I simply raised my hand in a good-bye gesture. And suddenly, unexpectedly, the window rolled back down.
    â€œPerhaps we could go for dinner one of these days.”
    â€œWhenever you like.”
    I was not taken aback by the invitation. In fact, I was quite tempted, and even if the invitation had been for that very same evening, I would have said yes. Why not?
    â€œDo you know Los Olivos?”
    One more in the long list of words from my native tongue in this foreign land, I thought, recalling the recently finished class.
    â€œNo, I don’t know it. I’ve heard it mentioned several times, but I’ve never been there.”
    â€œThey serve wonderful pasta and excellent wines. Let’s talk about it, okay?”
    The car disappeared into the distance and I resumed my walk home, rapidly reviewing the different parts of that intense day. I made an effort to put the memory of Ana’s phone call aside, categorically refusing to stop and think if behind the impetus of my sister’s words there was an undeniable piece of truth. Instead, I turned my attention to more pleasant things, like Luis Zarate’s invitation. Then to Fontana’s papers, which had absorbed me, enticing me to make sense of them all, to the point of leaving off all other obligations to the last minute, even forcing me to satisfy my hunger with a miserable sandwich spat out from a vending machine. It was a job that was becoming increasingly gratifying and simultaneously made for good therapy. The more I was engrossed by the dead professor’s legacy—the more conscious I became of his charisma and worth—the less I thought about my own predicament.
    By then I had already realized that, after a spell as a lecturer, his intention was to return to Spain and continue with his projects there: to sit for a public entrance examination in the then prestigious positions for secondary-education teachers, perhaps even return to university and maybe in the meantime find a job at some private school or academy. The Spanish Civil War in the distance, however, froze his will and soul. Overwhelmed, dismayed, devastated, he decided not to go back.
    Among his papers I hadn’t found any desire to return after the war to that motherland, irremediably different from the one he’d left behind, although one could intuit the occasional shadow of nostalgia in his