Chapter 4 #2
Prudencia raised her eyebrows expectantly.
“Tulips,” whispered Emma Giovanacci.
“Tulips?”
“Tulips. Fresh, delicate, wild tulips. Tulips that come up every year and cover the steppe, without anyone planting them. And that’s exactly what it’s about, Prudencia.
Routine is like the steppe: it’s not a monster, it’s nourishment.
If you can get something to grow there you can be sure that it will be real and strong.
It’s the little everyday things that we mentioned earlier.
But poor Balzac with all his dark, romantic sentimentality couldn’t know that, could he? ”
“The little everyday things,” echoed Miss Prim. “Well, let’s suppose I follow your advice. Can you help me with the investigation? Or do I have to do it all on my own?”
The other two women looked at each other, amused. Then the florist spoke.
“The investigation is up to you. We can only provide a little guidance. To start with, you could draw up a list of all the men you know who, objectively, possess the minimum qualities for a potential husband. We’ll add a few more names to the list—there are always possible candidates who go unnoticed and, in that respect, due to our age, we’ve got more experience than you.
You can use it as a starting point. How does that sound? ”
Miss Prim, who had begun to feel a fizzing excitement at the idea of solving this old-fashioned detective mystery, assured her that it sounded good, wonderfully good.
The first name that came to Miss Prim’s mind was that of her former employer, Augusto Oliver.
Though her initial reaction was a shudder, she was forced to concede that if this was all about applying a scientific method of investigation, she couldn’t make a list of possible husbands without including him.
Had he ever wanted to marry her? Miss Prim maintained that he had not.
Augusto Oliver was the kind of man who enjoyed making promises he had no intention of keeping.
For three long years he had claimed to be sympathetic to his employee’s wish for more reasonable working hours—Miss Prim worked from ten till ten—and had promised again and again to do all he could to change them.
But it became apparent that this was the last thing on his mind.
Mr. Oliver liked to be alone with his most efficient employee at the end of their working day.
He would emerge from his office and come to stand behind her, pretending to read over her shoulder.
Sometimes, when he’d been at a business lunch and had had a little too much to drink, he’d come right up close and lean over so that he was almost whispering in her ear, making Miss Prim recoil.
He was an attractive man, or at least he would have been if his manner had not been so overbearing.
Very soon, what had begun as a minor nuisance, the kind any female employee experiences when her boss is attracted to her, ended up becoming untenable.
Compliments were followed by invitations on dates, and invitations on dates—always politely refused—eventually led to tensions between them.
Would things have been different if she had ever agreed to go out with him?
It was difficult to say. Would employer and employee have married if Miss Prim had replied in the affirmative to the ridiculous proposal he made her on the day she announced she was leaving?
“So was the swine really in love with you?” asked the mother of the Man in the Wing Chair, who had listened attentively to the librarian’s musings as they unpacked Christmas decorations from large white cardboard boxes.
“Of course not. It was his hunting instinct, the kind that makes a cat toy with a mouse, even if it isn’t hungry. No, I don’t think he wanted to marry me. He just wanted to win the chase, that’s all.”
Thoughtfully, the Man in the Wing Chair’s mother unrolled a bright crimson velvet ribbon.
“Was he attractive?”
“I suppose so.”
“Intelligent?”
“Not especially.” Miss Prim thought fleetingly of the Man in the Wing Chair.
“Honest?”
“Just enough.”
“Amusing?”
“In his own way.”
“And in yours?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Did he have money?”
“Lots.”
“Then you can cross him off,” said the old lady firmly. “A man who’s not completely honest can keep within the bounds of decency if he’s lucky enough to be unattractive and of slender means. But add money and good looks, and the road to ruin is clearly signposted.”
The librarian nodded and scored through the first name on the list.
“Come, my dear, let’s not waste time. Who’s next?”
The next one, Miss Prim explained nostalgically, had been her great love for several years, the first man she had fallen in love with and the first to have loved her. At the time, he was just a quiet young teacher, devoted to Husserl, amateur fencing, and the instruction of German.
“I don’t recommend this one. I know the type. Do you really think you could feel fond of him again?” asked the Man in the Wing Chair’s mother scornfully.
Miss Prim was sure she couldn’t, though she had to admit she’d wondered about him more than once.
“Why did it end?” asked the old lady.
“I suppose because what we felt for each other wasn’t love,” replied the librarian, weighing a Christmas star in her hand.
“And how do you know that?”
“Because I thought more of my own well-being than of his. And I think he, in his way, did the same.”
“Such altruism! You’re starting to sound like my son,” said the old lady sardonically.
Miss Prim blushed but did not reply.
“So do we dispose of the disciple of Husserl as well?”
“We do.”
The old lady’s maid entered the library with the tea tray and went around the room turning on the lamps, closing the heavy curtains, and stoking the fire.
Her silent, methodical movements passed almost unnoticed by the other two women, who were absorbed in unpacking fragile Nativity figures and conjuring further ghosts of men from the past.
“I think I should cross out these three,” said Miss Prim pensively once the door had closed behind the maid.
“I think so too, Prudencia. The fact that you refer to them as ‘these three,’ lumping them together, should give you a clue. Trust me, no woman should marry a man she sees as part of a group; it doesn’t bode well.”
Miss Prim laughed wholeheartedly, admitting that none of the three men was at all likely to be a potential husband, and crossed off their names. When she reached the sixth name on the list she saw that it was one of those added by Hortensia and Emma.
“The vet?” Miss Prim burst out laughing once again. “The vet? What possessed them to include him?”
“As far as I know it was Herminia’s suggestion. She claimed to notice some interest on your part the day you met him.”
The librarian recalled her flirting at the tearoom and again blushed.
Couldn’t you do anything here without all the neighbors knowing?
Admittedly she had found the young vet attractive, but from that to its being the talk of the village was quite a leap.
True, she had smiled at him, paid him attention, and tried, unsuccessfully, to charm him, but wasn’t that every woman’s prerogative without it becoming the subject of public discussion?
And anyway, what none of the ladies of San Ireneo knew was that part of the vet’s allure that afternoon had sprung from her rage at the Man in the Wing Chair.
Would she have noticed the vet if she hadn’t been absolutely furious over her employer’s discourteous behavior?
Would she have smiled as much? Miss Prim knew the answer perfectly well.
“Don’t you want to give him a chance?” asked the old lady curiously. “I know Hortensia well enough to sense she’d be happy to arrange a date and even make the poor man think that it was his own idea.”
“I’m pretty sure the poor man, as you call him, won’t want to have anything to do with a woman who believes that a love of animals isn’t real love. I think I said the wrong thing the day Hortensia introduced us. I’m afraid I offended him.”
The Man in the Wing Chair’s mother peered at her in surprise over her glasses.
“Offended him? For the love of God, what is the matter with men nowadays? In my husband’s day, my father’s, my brothers’, the idea that a man might be offended by a bit of idle chat with a woman would have been thought ridiculous.
A man who feels wounded by a conversation in a tearoom is simply a wimp. I can’t imagine what you saw in him.”
Miss Prim said nothing as she went on carefully unwrapping the figures that decorated the living room every December.
“These are wonderful,” she said with admiration.
“They’re over four centuries old. They were made by Irish monks.
My husband, who had no sisters, inherited them from his mother, who inherited them from her mother, and so on for several generations.
I was going to leave them to my daughter, but that wasn’t to be.
They’ll go to Teseris, of course,” she said with sadness in her voice.
Miss Prim kept a respectful silence.
“So what about the wounded vet?” asked the old lady, making an effort to emerge from her introspection. “Would you go out with him?”
“Maybe. It would depend how he asked,” she replied, smiling. “Let’s see, there are two more names here and . . . a question mark. What does that mean?”
The Man in the Wing Chair’s mother cleared her throat and suddenly appeared intensely interested in the Christmas decorations.
“It must be a mistake. There’s no name, just a question mark,” murmured Miss Prim.
“I don’t think it’s a mistake. I’d say our dear Hortensia and Emma know exactly what they are doing,” said the old lady with a wry grin.
“What do you mean? Who does the question mark stand for? Is it an actual man?”
“You do have an outlandish turn of phrase sometimes, Prudencia. Is there such a thing as a man in the abstract? At least, one whom you can go out with?”
Miss Prim did not reply.
“Of course the question mark stands for a specific man. Our two ladies obviously know of a prospective husband whom you haven’t yet identified.”
“Do you mean I haven’t met him yet?”
“Why would they bother to conceal his identity with a question mark if you hadn’t met him?
Of course you know him, my dear, that’s the point—to hide from you a man you haven’t yet considered as a candidate, or maybe are refusing to consider.
Can you think of any man who fits that description?
” asked the old lady, looking inquiringly into her eyes.
Miss Prim lowered her gaze and began nervously rummaging through the box of Nativity figures, eventually pulling out a little shepherd carrying a sheep.
“Would you mind handling those figures a little less energetically,” said the old lady coldly. “A husband may last a lifetime, but those figures have survived several lifetimes. And I’d be grateful if they could continue to do so.”