etched onto his smooth brown face.
‘Are you all right, Señora?’ he asked.
‘I’m looking for Ramon Campione,’ she muttered.
‘Don Ramon?’ he said, frowning. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Estella Rega. I am . ..’ He cocked his head to one side. ‘I am his . .. his ...’
‘His wife?’ he said helpfully.
‘His...’
‘If you are his wife I can tell you where he is,’ he said kindly, grinning at her crookedly.
‘I am his wife,’ she said firmly, wiping the tears off her face with a white pahuelo.
‘He’s at a meeting. He left over an hour ago, but I will call you a taxi and he will take you to him.’ Estella pulled a grateful smile. ‘That’s better,’ said the porter. ‘You’re too pretty to be so sad.’ Then he watched her climb into the taxi he hailed for her and disappear into the traffic.
Ramon stood up. ‘I’m off to Africa tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’ll be away three
weeks.’
‘That’s a short visit for you,’ his agent commented, smiling knowingly.
‘Well, I don’t have much reason to stay away these days.’ He chuckled.
‘You mean to say that this woman you’ve been hiding away all these years has captured your heart?’
‘You ask too many questions, Vicente.’
‘I know I’m right. I can tell from your writing. There’s love all over the pages.’
Ramon laughed and picked up his case. Then there’s even less reason to go away.’
‘But you’ll go anyway.’
‘I always do.’
‘Call me when you get back.’
Ramon closed the door behind him and stepped into the lift. He thought about what Vicente had said to him, ‘there’s love all over the pages’, and he smiled to himself as he thought of Estella and Ramoncito. Then he glanced at his reflection in the mirror. He wasn’t getting any younger. He was already greying around the temples and, looking at his physique, he wasn’t getting any thinner
either. He cocked his head to one side and rubbed his chin ponderously. ‘I should make an honest woman out of Estella,’ he thought, ‘I should have married her years ago.’
When he opened the door into the busy street he stopped a moment, stunned to see a woman who looked exactly like Estella on the other side of the road. She was looking to her left and right in confusion with swollen red eyes that darted about like a terrified animal unused to the traffic. He blinked a few times before he realized that she was in fact Estella and he shouted at her. She heard her name and raised her eyes. She smiled with relief when she saw him and lifted her hand to greet him. ‘Ramon!’ she cried with happiness, and placing her hand over her mouth she blinked away tears of joy. Then she stepped out into the road.
‘Estella, no!’ he shouted, but it was too late. The sparks from the truck spat into the air as the wheels screeched to a sudden halt in an attempt to avoid the woman who walked blindly out in front of it. Ramon dropped his case and ran across the road, which shuddered to a halt as drivers leapt out of their cars to see what had happened. When Ramon saw the broken body of Estella lying inert at the foot of the vehicle he threw himself upon her with trembling hands,
desperate to find a pulse.
Talk to me, Estella, talk to me,’ he pleaded, pressing his face against hers, whispering into her ear. ‘Say something, my love, something. Please don't die.’
But she didn’t move. He gazed down at her pale face in shock and noticed that she still had traces of a small smile in the gentle curve of her lips. He placed a finger on them, willing her to breathe. But there was not a breath left in her. There was nothing he could do to bring her back. He lifted her shattered body into his arms and pressed it against his heart, then sobbed loudly from the core of his being as he realized that he had killed her.
‘Who was she?’ someone asked.
‘My wife,’ he wailed and rocked back and forth dementedly.
Ramon took the woman he had loved as he had loved none other back to her home in Zapallar. Maria had slipped into a deadly fever when she heard the news and lay in a trance, her ears deafened to the desperate pleas of Pablo Re-ga who held a candlelight vigil by her bed, silently bargaining with God. Mariana went immediately to their house and embraced them both for she had grown to love their daughter as her own. Only Ramoncito remained dry-eyed
and composed. Mariana explained to her grandson that his mother had gone to live with Jesus and that she was looking down on him and loving him from Heaven. But Ramoncito just nodded and put his arms around her in order to give comfort. Mariana was confused. His maturity perturbed her. But she didn’t hear the breaking of his heart or the crying out of his soul in mute despair.