The Years That Followed by Catherine Dunne Page A

mother’s words when finally she could speak.
    â€œYou’ve made your bed, my girl. And now you may lie on it.”

pilar
    Madrid, 1965
    ----
    Pilar is putting the finishing touches on her uniform. Severely cut black dress, starched white apron, black shoes, and sheer black stockings. She puts on her tiny pearl earrings and passes one hand over the smooth darkness of her hair. Not even one stray curl. On the upper floor of the restaurant, Señor Roberto is nothing if not exacting. The informal bistro downstairs is another matter: that business is delegated to a manager. Roberto does not feel the need to be so demanding there.
    Pilar pins the frothy white cap into place, still convinced—even after all this time—of its silliness. Pilar is not a fan of frivolity. Nevertheless, she checks in the mirror to make sure the cap is on straight, that the grips that keep it in place are no longer visible. Señor Roberto will examine this, as he examines every detail, before permitting his waiting staff to grace the floor of his dining room. He is, perhaps, the only restaurateur in the city who employs women to serve in his exclusive establishment.
    Four days a week—Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday—for more than eight years now, Pilar has arrived at exactly five o’clock in the afternoon to begin the preparations for evening service at Number Eleven.
    Alfonso Gómez had introduced her to his old friend Roberto almost as soon as Pilar arrived in Madrid. It seemed that Señor Gómez knew everybody who was worth knowing. Pilar became aware of how small the huge capital city really was—something that surprised her—almost as small, in many ways, as Torre de Santa Juanita.
    But here, people seemed to be connected to one another in different ways. They were not yoked together by poverty or envy or long-forgotten family feuds over land. Nor were they held together by the simple threads of friendship. Instead, these men—because in Pilar’s experience, they were exclusively men—were woven into one another’s lives in ways that spelled influence, mutual benefit, the advantages of business deals well done. Discretion was everywhere: a quiet, well-bred guest, present at every gathering.
    â€œWatch and learn,” Alfonso Gómez had told her. “Watch and learn. Roberto is the best restaurateur in Madrid.”
    When Pilar first started at Number Eleven, Roberto had trained her himself. For almost a year, she endured weekend after weekend of exhausting rituals, of punishing, repetitive tests that measured everything from her knowledge of wine and food to her memory for names and faces. Tests that, above all, assured Roberto he could trust her. “You are ready,” he’d said at last. “Table three is yours.” And a wave of his hand flourished his approval. Pilar had looked at him, afraid to understand what she thought she had just heard. Her? Ready? For table three?
    Roberto walked away. “You know what to do,” he said.
    Pilar had been filled with a mix of exhilaration and terror. Hidden from the rest of the room, three was the most discreet of all the tables at Number Eleven. From the street, the building that housed the restaurant was indistinguishable from all the other apartment buildings on either side. There was no name, just the number, carved into a rough-hewn block of olivewood. Some patrons booked a table months in advance; their eagerness was palpable. Some had no need to book: those who were preceded by a hush and a flurry of activity in the dining room, those who were shown to their table by Roberto himself.
    Pilar also learned that for others, a table would never become a possibility, no matter how long the supplicants were prepared to wait.
    Famous faces were everywhere under Roberto’s roof. Politicians, members of aristocratic dynasties, men of the Church. Occasionally, there was a woman or two—but only late in the