Page 29 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

keep you to myself, and he could not forget that he was dying; he fought

sleep until the nightmares came to take him by force. He fell asleep in the
library one night—he had done this twice before, but out of respect for
him I had left using a route that meant I could pass him without looking at
him. But when I heard him saying: “No, no . . .” I went to him without
thinking and leaned over him to try to see whether I should wake him. He
was younger than the look in his eyes suggested. I don’t know what his
sickness was—it had some wasting effect—even as I saw his face I saw

that its beauty was diminished. You can read character in a sleeping face,
and his was quite a face. The face of a proud man, vengeful and not a little
naive, a man with questions he hadn’t finished asking and answers to
some questions I had myself. He opened his old man eyes and took a long,
deep breath, as if breathing me in. It must have looked as if I was about to

kiss him. Our faces were very close and curtains of my hair surrounded
us; if we kissed it would be our secret to keep. I kissed him. Then I asked if
it had hurt. He said he wasn’t sure and that we’d better try it again. And
he kissed me back. I didn’t want to leave him after that, but I had to be
back in bed by the time the other maids began to wake up.
Montserrat, I wrote that being in love with your father was nice, but
being in love with Isidoro Salazar was like a dream. Not because of money

or anything like that—! The man loved foolishly and without regard for
the time limit his learned doctors had told him he had; he made me feel
that in some way we had always known about each other and that he
would be at my side forever. When Fausta Del Olmo took me aside and
asked: “Is there anything you want to tell me?” my blood should have run
cold, but it didn’t. After all she could have been asking about the

pregnancy.
Beyond Isidoro’s staircase is a door that connects to a walled garden.
The garden is Isidoro’s too: he planted all the roses there himself and took
care of them until he got too sick to do anything but just be there with
them of an evening. We were often there together. It’s a long walk from
the top of the garden to the bottom, and I’d carry him some of the way.
Yes, on my back, if you can imagine that. He was drowsy because of his

medication—he had to take more and more—but even through the haze of
his remedies he remembered you. “The baby!” I told him you didn’t mind
(you don’t, do you?) and that his weight was balancing me out. He grew