Page 23 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

THE ROUTE they took was familiar. “Sometimes I go to an art gallery just down

that street,” Montse said, pointing. He had already been looking at her but when
she said that he began to stare.
“You sometimes go to the Salazar Gallery?”
“Yes . . . they exhibit paintings by—”
“I don’t know much about the artists of today; you can only really rely on the
old masters . . . but that’s where we’re going, to the Salazar Gallery.”
Gomez stopped, pulled a folder out of his briefcase, and read aloud from a

piece of paper in it: Against my better judgment but in accordance with the
promise I made to my brother Isidoro Salazar, I, Zacarias Salazar, leave the
library of my house at 17 Carrer Alhambra to one Montserrat who will come
with the key to the library as proof of her claim. If the claimant has not come
forth within fifty years of my death, let the lock of the library door be changed in

order to put an end to this nonsense. For if the mother cannot be found, then
how can the daughter?
Enzo put the folder back. “I hope you’re the one,” he said. “I’ve met a lot of
Montserrats in this capacity today, most of them chancers. But you—I hope it’s
you. Are you . . . what do you know of the Salazar family?”
“I know that old Zacarias Salazar was a billionaire, left no biological children
but still fathers many artworks through his patronage . . .”

“You read the gallery catalog thoroughly, I see.”
A gallery attendant opened the main gate for them and showed them around a
few gilt-wallpapered passages until they came to the library, which was on its
own at the end of a corridor. Montse was dimly aware of Enzo Gomez mopping
his forehead with a handkerchief as she placed the key in the lock and turned it.
The door opened onto a room with high shelves and higher windows that

followed the curve of a cupola ceiling. The laundry maid and the solicitor stood
in front of the shelf closest to the door. Sunset lit the chandeliers above them and
they found themselves holding hands until Gomez remembered his
professionalism and strode over to the nearest desk to remove papers from his
briefcase once again.
“I’m glad it’s you, Montserrat,” he said, placing the papers on the desk and
patting them. “You must let me know if I can be of service to you in future.” He

bowed, shook hands, and left her in her library without looking back, the
quivering of his trouser cuffs the only visible sign of his emotions.
Montse wandered among the shelves until it was too dark to see. She thought
that if the place was really hers she should open it up to the public; there were