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.‘I’ll need your help and advice.I think my husband is quite old-fashioned.He’ll expect me to run the house, and I’m rather nervous about that.’Rosita warmed a little.‘You must not be.The rules of Hyperion House are very exact.The rooms without light stay locked.As for the rest, every night the lights are lit ten minutes before sunset, according to the timetable.The clocks are kept working so that the lights can be turned on at the right time and can remain lit through the hours of darkness.I make sure that the rooms in use stay bright at all times, until the owners go to bed.This was what we always did here, and it is something I will continue doing.’‘What was the last owner like?’‘I don’t like idle talk about my employers,’ she cautioned.‘But he was not an easy man.When he first came here he was not happy, but in the end he was very sorry to leave, even though he was dying.You may find the house hard at first,’ she warned, smartly cracking her sheet and folding it away in the cupboard behind her.‘But I think in time you will come to care for it.’I noticed a catch of reservation in the housekeeper’s voice.‘Why would I find it hard?’‘The light can be – confusing.This area is lonely.During the winter it is very quiet, a few farmers perhaps, no turistas, and for those from the city the country darkness can play tricks on the mind.But you must not worry.I promise you will be very happy.’‘I must let you get on,’ I said, rising.‘Thank you very much for the advice.’ Well, she was a bundle of laughs, I thought, heading downstairs.I can’t wait for the long winter evenings when Mateo is away on business.Perhaps we’ll play cribbage together, whatever that is.Perhaps I’ll start hitting the bottle again, like Jack Nicholson in the Overlook.I went outside to take a walk around the grounds.It still astonished me that such a sunbaked area could have yielded so magnificent a garden, even with a spring beneath it, but shade was afforded by the surrounding trees that lined the property, and there was a complicated watering system consisting of a network of fine black plastic tubes over the flowerbeds.They looked new, and had been discreetly inserted around the edge of the lawn as well.I found Jerardo in a small summerhouse of white peeling wood, in the farthest corner of the grounds.Short and tanned to the colour of the tree-trunks, he was so old that it hardly seemed possible he could still manage the gardening.He was bent over some seed pots, looking as though he belonged on the lawn of one of my mother’s Somerset friends, possibly as a gnome.When I entered he ignored me, continuing to dig into the soil with his fingers.The room smelled overpoweringly of sour sweat and earth, but I tried not to let my distaste show.I waited.From the corner of my eye I could see a bright green lizard perched on a rock with something yellow in its mouth.The butterfly fluttered its wings feebly, and then the rest of it vanished into the lizard’s maw in a single swift movement.I thought that Jerardo would rise and show some deference to the new lady of the house, but nothing happened.Finally I gave in.‘You must be Jerardo.’He turned to look at me.Cloudy blue eyes were set in a heavily lined face.The sun had drawn itself over his skin.‘I’m told you’re the gardener and the handyman for the house.’He looked at me blankly.‘My husband talked to you.’He continued to stare.‘Do you speak English? Usted habla Ingles?’Still he remained silent, watching me.I was trying to work out what to do when he opened his mouth and pointed.At the back of his throat was a waggling pink stub like a block of luncheon meat.It was clearly not a deformity; his tongue had been cut out.I tried not to look startled.He seized my hand and put my fingers in his mouth, so that I could feel the hot dry stump wriggle beneath my touch.I yelped and snatched my hand away, but he took it again, dragging me from the summerhouse and leading the way between rows of corn at the rear of the garden.I allowed myself to be pulled along, annoyed that Rosita had failed to warn me adequately.Jerardo cut across the lawn, which was segmented into four equal squares by paths of ochre sand.At the centre stood the stone sundial topped with the statue of the naked young man holding the black and white disc above his head.Releasing my hand he gestured at it, then pointed toward the house, but it was impossible to understand what he wanted me to know.‘It’s very beautiful,’ I said, not knowing what else to say.He shook his head violently and pointed again to the line of shadow at the edge of the house.I stared in the direction of his raised hand, but I hadn’t brought my sunglasses outside, and couldn’t understand what he wanted me to see.He grabbed my hand once more and placed it on the bronze figure’s arm.The sun had heated it so that it felt almost alive.I wondered if the sun had touched Jerardo, too, and quickly removed my fingers, leaving the gardener alone in the centre of the absurdly emerald lawn, its green geometry too perfect for this harsh climate, this wild and wilful land.CHAPTER NINEThe VillageWHEN MATEO RETURNED I sat him in the drawing room and told him what had happened.I was surprised when he started laughing.‘I’m sorry,’ he said finally, ‘I should have warned you about Jerardo.I’m used to people like him.Don’t worry, he’s not crazy, he’s just spent too many years in the sun and too much time by himself to ever develop social skills.’‘What on earth happened to his tongue?’‘Ah, that.You should come to the village with me next time, you’ll hear all the gossip.The story goes that when he was very young his father supported the Republican rebels and spied on his countrymen in the village.Some of the boys from the Movimiento Nacional didn’t take kindly to the idea that Jerardo’s old man was relaying their conversations to his pals in the workers’ party up in the hills, so they kidnapped the father and son.They made his father watch while they laid the boy on a table in the village square and hacked out his tongue with a can opener [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]