Letters to a Stranger Read online

  I left my mother’s bedroom, passing the main bathroom on the right and the staircase that led to the attic on the upper floor. That would have to wait for another time. For now, I was completely mentally drained.

  It was already past lunchtime in Spain, while in England families would already be preparing their dinner, but I wasn’t hungry: I’d had a late breakfast and my stomach was unsettled. To pass the time I fetched my laptop and sat out in the garden. I needed to answer a few emails from suppliers, but couldn’t concentrate and decided just to forward them on to Brandon.

  Someone nearby was listening to dreamy boleros, so I let myself be swept along with the music, falling into a peaceful, drowsy haze. The afternoon was passing very pleasantly, slow and calm, keeping pace with my mind, allowing me to finally think clearly again.

  I had not yet processed everything I’d learned since my arrival: my mother was dead, I would soon own the two houses I’d grown up in, and my father – my sister’s husband – had probably been killed by his wife’s young lover. Anyone would be horrified at such a tale, but all the more so if it happened within the bosom of their family. At first, listening to the awful story Teresa was telling me, it felt as though she was talking about something completely unrelated, something that was none of my business, but in the few hours I’d spent in my mother’s house it was all brought home to me with startling clarity – it could not affect my life any more closely. And I didn’t know if I was strong enough.

  Rocking in one of the hammocks, I stared up at the sky. With some difficulty, I tried to put my thoughts in order while I mulled it all over. The news that Yolanda was going to marry Bodo, who would always be a stranger to me, had hit the family like a nuclear bomb. I’m sure there were other more shocking things in our family history, but those I hadn’t experienced personally.

  Over the years I had never understand Bodo’s role in the family. I couldn’t understand how Fabián, my mother’s husband, had never recognised the truth about her relationship with the property developer. Maybe he was too heavily medicated and just didn’t notice, or maybe his poor memory and the disorientation resulting from his illness had put him out of touch with reality. I’d never understood how he could disappear so suddenly, however unhinged he had become towards the end – it was so peculiar that he should have gone out for a walk one day and just never come back . . . Sometimes I heard the neighbours talking about how it was such a shame that he was gone, especially since he was about to be a father for the second time, and above all since he and my mother had had the perfect marriage. But when Alberta talked to us about him – when at the time I thought he was my father too – she claimed he’d been a tyrant and a bully, surely to justify her illicit relationship with Bodo.

  The German fellow showed up at the house at unexpected moments, on the pretext of advising my mother on legal issues concerning her property, or to wish her a happy birthday; sometimes he simply came by to say hello. I was never clear on whether he was a distant relative or a friend of the family. But Yolanda had always known he was sleeping with our mother. He owned property in Marbella and was one of the investors who had developed the neighbourhood where our holiday home was located. When we were on holiday we saw a lot more of him. Some afternoons, when the sun was starting to set, he’d visit us for no reason at all and stay until dinnertime, when Teresa would be forced to serve him begrudgingly. He and my mother spent hours discussing politics, the weather, issues put in front of the city council . . . but they never went any deeper than idle chit-chat, like two old pensioners gossiping as they threw crumbs to the pigeons, even though they were both still young.

  He spoke fluent Spanish, although his native tongue left him with a strong German accent. A tall, strong, decent-looking man with perfect manners, his hair was always immaculately combed and done up with pomade, his shirts impeccably ironed and his shoes gleaming. Despite his heaviness he looked more Latin than German, with his dark eyes and hair and his light tan. He sweated a lot in the summer, and became quite obsessed with constantly pinching the fabric of his shirt to hold it away from his chest and get a breeze on his skin. The compulsion was so bad that he even did it in winter. I didn’t like him at all. In photos he could appear almost handsome, even intriguing, but in real life he seemed ugly and untrustworthy. He was a vain fellow, in fact, who thought too highly of himself because in reality his only value came from his appearance and his bank account. Furthermore, the paltry displays of affection shown to my sister and me were fake and I could tell he didn’t mean them. He’d look at us so oddly too, as though devouring us with his eyes. When he arrived, he’d stand uncomfortably close to us as he came up for a kiss, so my sister and I always ran away from his gestures of ‘affection’, much as we might do from a bucket of iced water.

  The day I found out who he was to me, I felt the greatest betrayal and disappointment of my life – he was absolutely the very last person I would have picked as a father. More than anything I wanted to imagine I was Fabián’s daughter and to think of him as the best father in the world, whom heaven had cruelly taken away from me, even if my mother insisted on vilifying him.

  I was about nine years old when Yolanda told me during one of our sisterly arguments. ‘Berta, you’re so stupid you don’t even realise that Bodo is your father.’

  ‘Liar, you’re just saying that to hurt me – you’re so mean!’ I repeated over and over.

  ‘It’s true. I heard him and Mother talking about it – just ask Teresa.’

  And it was true. Teresa couldn’t deny it. I never talked to my mother about it. She knew that I knew but she never brought it up. She never admitted her mistakes to anyone.

  How many times had I looked in the mirror and deluded myself, thinking that Bodo and I didn’t look a bit alike, but the truth was I did take after him a little; physically I had equal parts of him and Alberta. Like my sister, I was lucky to inherit my mother’s eyes (from the nose up, the three of us were carbon copies of each other), because I hated the German man’s sly, mocking, sunken eyes.

  I hated Bodo more with every passing month. Teresa strongly disapproved of him and didn’t bother to hide it, which the lady of the house ignored. One day, coming out of the cinema, I found out by chance that he had a family. My first instinct was to feign ignorance, just like he did, but Yolanda, always bolder and more inquisitive than me, went straight up to him and Bodo was forced to introduce us to his two sons, aged six and four, and his extremely young wife. They were my brothers . . . and they didn’t even know it. A torrent of anguish flooded my heart. By then I was about ten years old and my sister around fifteen. Yolanda had become a mean and selfish teenager, with a particular gift for finding weakness in others and using it to her benefit. Amused at the encounter, she always acted in a suggestive and provocative way around Bodo. I think even then she had plans for him. She was always cleverer than me, and not only because she was five years older. She’d understood from a young age that any attempt to get affection from our mother was useless, and had fixed on devoting her considerable energies to more lucrative endeavours. I, on the other hand, never gave up – I struggled to be loved until I left home, and it cost me dearly, because it made me the weakest person in the family.

  I couldn’t believe how much Alberta would let slide with her elder daughter. Yolanda was certainly old enough to come and go as she pleased, but that was no reason for our mother to relax the iron tyranny of her reign. She’d made us into completely dependent women, with no initiative, little education and nothing to offer the world. If we wanted to keep on enjoying the comfortable lifestyle to which we were accustomed, we had to abide by her rules. Yolanda began spending nights away from home, openly refusing to take her punishments and getting away with murder. At the time I wondered if she had some ace up her sleeve, but I never would have imagined the hand she was hiding! I suspected something was up after a few weeks, because my mother didn’t even blink at Yolanda’s shameless behaviour. I think my sister, for some reason I
didn’t know then and still don’t now, was blackmailing her and that’s how she got away with so much. Or maybe the two of them had unfinished business that my mother didn’t want to tackle. Perhaps she thought Yolanda would settle back into the way she was before and never have to deal with it. But that wasn’t the case; in fact, she took it to an extreme that Alberta never could have imagined.

  I remember that day as though it were yesterday. It was past nine o’clock at night and Mother and I were eating an omelette and salad. Some meals stick in your mind no matter how much you want to forget them. Suddenly we heard the click of the front door and Yolanda burst into the room like a tornado.

  ‘Good evening, family.’

  ‘I suppose,’ my mother answered. ‘If you want any dinner you’ll have to make something yourself.’

  ‘Relax, Mother. I only have a minute to tell you my news: I’m getting married!’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense, Yolanda. Are you quite crazy?’ my mother asked, putting down her fork. She’d gone terribly pale.

  ‘Nonsense? And why is it nonsense?’

  I wasn’t too surprised. She’d probably found the perfect victim and wanted to trap him before he could get away. She’d always wanted a man who would pay for all her expensive whims, and over the last few months she’d been surrounded by a few too many luxuries. But I really didn’t care one way or the other.

  ‘We haven’t even met him, and a wedding takes a lot of work and preparation . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mother.’ Mother. For Yolanda that word was synonymous with contempt. Whenever she wanted to get on her good side, always with some ulterior motive, she called her ‘Mama’. ‘You already know him perfectly well. I’m getting married to Bodo.’

  Alberta froze and seemed unable to breathe. For once she let her mask drop and I could see her hands shaking. She picked up the napkin from her lap, a clear sign that dinner was over, took a deep breath and said wildly: ‘That’s madness! Bodo is a married man with children!’

  ‘He’s left Noelia – incredible, isn’t it? I guess it’s just my amazing powers of seduction.’

  I listened to all this in shock. Yolanda was standing in front of us. From where I was sitting she looked more diabolically tall and lovely than I’d ever seen her before, with her shining long mane of chestnut-red hair, worn loose down to the middle of her back. She was wearing an expensive brown leather jacket, a flattering sky-blue blouse and perfectly cut designer jeans, showing off her flawless body. Yolanda had a striking figure, and she knew it.

  ‘Get out of here, Berta, leave us alone!’ my mother ordered, beside herself.

  ‘Don’t bother, sister, I’m leaving. They’re waiting for me . . .’

  ‘I told you to leave us alone!’ my mother shouted again, getting more and more enraged and taking it out on me.

  I got up, left the table and shut myself in my room. They were talking heatedly but keeping their voices down so no one would hear, and it was impossible to make out at first what they were saying until they lost control and the insults, abuse and threats floated in to my bedroom with perfect clarity.

  ‘This is just another of your reckless impulses, Yolanda. This wedding can’t go ahead. Bodo is more than twenty years older than you and . . . he’s like one of the family. Wait to fall in love with someone your own age . . .’

  ‘Mother, Mother, Mother . . . I can hardly believe you would use such a stupid trick on me. Fall in love? Ha! Me, fall in love . . . You know very well that I’m incapable of love – just like you, I never learned how. Bodo has everything I need to be happy and to get out of this damn house: money. Mountains of the stuff – more money than even I know what to do with! What more could I want?’

  ‘The stupid man!’ my mother retorted, her voice growing even more shrill as though she’d taken leave of her senses, overwhelmed with helplessness at not being able to control such a serious situation, which threatened to ruin her own virtuous standing in society. ‘How has he let himself get so tangled up?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? This is the third time he’s done it that we know of. The poor dear just doesn’t learn – a woman barely has to look at him and he opens his wallet.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about Bodo! He’s not the man for you,’ Mother insisted, now fully yelling.

  I was no longer bothered about the neighbours overhearing, although they’d surely be shocked to hear Alberta’s voice screaming quite so loudly.

  ‘Oh, I don’t, is that it? I’m telling you I know him and I know all about him, because he’s been in and out of this house since I was five years old. I can assure you I know him better than you think – I know him better than you ever did. You’ll see – he’ll never leave me for someone else, but I have to marry him to make sure. I’m afraid I definitely stand a better chance than you do, because I’m not the one committing adultery. I don’t need to hide my “love”. And yes, he is absolutely the perfect man for me.’

  ‘That was a long time ago. You can’t hold that over my head forever.’

  ‘But of course I can. So long as you care more about what people say than you do about your own daughters, I will continue to use it against you. Can you imagine your friends finding out that your daughter Yolanda is marrying her sister’s father?’

  ‘Shut up, shut up!’

  ‘You refused to give up your position as a respectable widow so you lied to the whole world, telling them that Papa had died, leaving the seed of his second daughter in your womb . . . You know, I wasn’t that young – some images stand out perfectly clear in my mind . . . I’ve always wondered why—’

  ‘Shut up or I won’t be responsible for what happens!’ Mother screamed.

  I didn’t understand my sister’s last words, nor what she meant when she mentioned the images in her head or what it was she had wondered.

  ‘Nothing has ever been good enough for you – you always want more, more, more . . . You had it all planned out, didn’t you? You know exactly what I’m talking about . . . Why do I even bother asking? Of course you planned it all along, and I know how – you never leave a loose end, except for this one. Ha ha ha! I can’t deny that it feels good to finally take my revenge.’

  ‘Are you really going to marry your sister’s father?’ our mother asked then in a low voice, sounding almost resigned. There must have been something really serious I didn’t know about, preventing my mother from challenging her openly.

  ‘Yes. What difference does it make, so long as no one knows . . . ? Isn’t that the only thing that matters? Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret – this one and the other one too.’

  I summoned all my courage and left my room. I stepped timidly into the sitting room, but the rage inside was burning me up.

  ‘You can’t marry my father, Yoli.’

  ‘Of course I can, little sister, of course I can. He’s your father, not mine, and he’s never acted like one in any case. Besides, no one knows anyway so what’s the problem? Oh dear, I just realised I’ll be your stepmother soon. Isn’t that funny?’

  ‘You’d be the perfect stepmother,’ I replied, not caring about the consequences of what I was saying. But she was too happy to bother firing back with one of her sarcastic remarks.

  ‘Yeah, whatever . . . All right then, I’m off. I’ll come round tomorrow to pick up some of my things. Bodo’s rented a beautiful flat in Salamanca and we’re moving in. Poor dear, he’s been waiting for me for nearly an hour – he must be so fed up.’

  ‘He’s outside?’ asked my mother, who was apparently going from one state of shock to another.

  ‘Yes, I didn’t think it was quite appropriate for him to come in with me when I gave you the news. See you tomorrow, my darlings.’

  My mother and I were left staring at one another, speechless, although she remained sitting on her high horse and here I was, challenging her openly for the first time. The moment seemed to stretch on forever.

  Finally I ventured: ‘I don’t know if I can ever forgive you f
or all the lies, all your greed and arrogance, for such coldness . . . I really don’t think I can. Before I found out who my real father was, I could still live under the illusion that Fabián went missing before I was born and that he would have really loved me, but after this . . . You didn’t even have the basic dignity to sit me down and tell me yourself. I would say not to worry about me, as I honestly don’t give a stuff about this wedding, but I don’t need to – right now I know you’re just thinking about yourself, like you always do.’

  ‘So you’re going to torment me too, are you? You have no idea what I’ve been through. I could have aborted you, but—’

  ‘Well, I don’t know if I should thank you or wish that you had, given how much I’ve suffered, having you as my mother. Knowing you, I bet you went on with the pregnancy for some reason that had absolutely nothing to do with me.’

  No apology, no hug, not even a tear . . . She rose from the chair and before leaving the room said, ‘Don’t forget to clear the table and clean up the kitchen.’

  For once I refused to obey orders, but stalked off to slam the door of my room before shutting myself away. Amazingly enough, this was one time when I wasn’t afraid of her.

  Night had crept in among the ivy, bougainvillea and jasmine. There was no moon that night and my eyes drank in the twinkling points of the stars in the vast sky overhead. The darkness and silence that enveloped me were warm, sweet and serene. Aris was sharing the hammock with me, merging peacefully into the surroundings, purring as I stroked him. I thought about how far I had come since my escape from this house fifteen years ago. Since then I had done the impossible – learned to appreciate and respect others, and to accept appreciation and respect myself.

  I had let myself be carried away by the pleasantness of this moment, however, my mind lighting upon disjointed thoughts and memories – of my childhood, my trip, my life in London and my friends, Harry, my first years of independence . . . It had been so long since I’d given myself time to think, and I savoured it now like a little one with her first sweet. Jumbled parts of my life crowded chaotically through my head, my mind everything and nothing like a child’s random drawing – impossible to make sense of but full of meaning. After a while, my contemplations took shape and led me once more to the gruesome thought that my biological father had possibly been murdered by my sister’s lover. I was convinced that Yolanda was merely playing the innocent party as far as this episode was concerned. Searching through my memories, I realised she’d always been behind anything questionable that happened at home, yet was always the one who came out of it unscathed. I wanted to be wrong, if only just this once, but that wouldn’t have been typical of my sister – the Machiavellian, cold and selfish Yolanda. I was fascinated to know how it had all come about, but saw it more like the events in a crime novel rather than something with any bearing on my own life.