The Time in Between: A Novel by María Dueñas, Daniel Hahn Page A

rush to disappear he didn’t. You should be grateful to him, because right now that’s the only thing that’s going to save you from prison,” he observed ironically. Then immediately afterward he closed his eyes briefly, as though trying to draw his last words back in. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to offend you; I imagine that in your state you have no intention of being grateful to a man who’s treated you as he has.”
    I didn’t reply to his apology, just weakly formulated another question.
    “Where is he now?”
    “Arribas? We don’t know for sure. Perhaps in Brazil, could be Buenos Aires. Maybe in Montevideo. He boarded a transatlantic ship under the Argentine flag, but he could have disembarked at a number of ports. It seems he was accompanied by three other individuals: a Russian, a Pole, and an Italian.”
    “And you aren’t going to go after him? You aren’t going to do anything to follow his trail and arrest him?”
    “I’m afraid not. We don’t have much on him, just an unpaid bill that he shares with you. Unless you want to press charges for the jewels and the money he took from you, though to tell you the truth I don’t think it would be worth it. It’s true that it was all yours, but the sourceis pretty unreliable and you’re being accused of theft as well. Anyway, I think it unlikely that we’ll hear of his whereabouts again. They’re usually pretty smart, these con men, they know the ways of the world and how to disappear and reinvent themselves four days later at any spot on the globe in the most unexpected manner.”
    “But we were going to start up a new life, we were going to open a business, we were just waiting for confirmation,” I babbled.
    “You’re referring to the thing with the typewriters?” he asked, taking another envelope out of his pocket. “You wouldn’t have been able to do it—you didn’t have the authorization. The owners of the academies in Argentina didn’t have the least interest in expanding their business to the other side of the Atlantic, and they made this clear in April.” He saw the confusion in my face. “Arribas never told you that, did he?”
    I recalled my daily visits to the reception desk, hopeful, longing to receive that letter that I believed would change our lives. Ramiro had already had it for months without ever letting me know. My resolve to defend him was dissipating, turning to smoke. I clung with what little strength I had to my last remaining trace of hope.
    “But he loved me . . .”
    The commissioner smiled with a touch of bitterness mixed with something like compassion.
    “That’s what all his kind say. Look, miss, don’t fool yourself: men like Arribas only love themselves. They can be affectionate and seem generous; they’re usually charming, but at the moment of truth the only thing that interests them is their own hide, and at the first sign of things getting a little tricky they’re out the door like a shot. They’ll step on anyone they need to so as not to be caught in a lie. This time the person hurt worst has been you; bad luck, without a doubt. I don’t question that he thought highly of you, but one fine day a better project came along and you became a burden he was no longer interested in dragging along. That’s why he left you. Don’t try and think about it any more. You’re not at fault for anything, but there isn’t a lot we can do to alter what is irreversible.”
    I didn’t want to plunge further into those thoughts about the sincerityof Ramiro’s love; it was too painful for me. I preferred to return to practical matters.
    “And the thing with Hispano-Olivetti? What am I supposed to have to do with that?”
    He breathed in and breathed out hard, as though readying himself to broach something that didn’t appeal to him.
    “That business is even more tangled. Right now, there’s no cast-iron proof to exculpate you, though personally I would surmise that it’s another scam into which you’ve