Grace wasted no time and invited Rafa to join them for lunch. The brigadier went home, leaving his painting in order to continue the following day. He didn’t like the idea of sharing his teacher, and would normally have put his paints away for good, but he was enjoying the tree and the memories it evoked. It was like sinking into another world when he painted. As if his past was there, submerged beneath the branches, just waiting to be rediscovered.
Grace, Pat, Veronica, and Jane sat outside on the terrace, beneath a green umbrella. Grace was wrapped in a pale pink pashmina, although the sun was strong and the breeze light and warm. Rafa was pleased to join them.
Jake watched him sit down and noticed the ripple effect he had on the whole terrace. It was by no means full, but the guests who were there stopped whatever they were doing to look at him. It was as if he glowed brighter than everyone else, and even Jake’s gaze was drawn to him, quite against his will. The artist had to endure his stepmother and sister buzzing about him like a pair of dizzy bees. The attention would go to his head, and he’d become unbearable. Jake was sure he wasn’t so magnetic in his own country.
That afternoon more easels were set up on the lawn, and the four women looked at the tree as they were instructed. Grace found it quite hard to concentrate on anything but Rafa. However, after a while, with a little encouragement, she lost herself in the thick green pine needles and branches. The tree made her feel insecure, and a knot tightened in the pit of her belly. She feared poverty more than she feared anything else. The more she looked, the more the tree pulled her into a dark world where she had nothing but the skin on her body. And the skin was as old and wrinkled as the bark.
Pat stared at the tree. She had no difficulty concentrating on it. It reminded her of her childhood, for she had loved climbing the big copper beech in her garden in Hampshire, where her father had built her a playhouse out of wood. It made her feel young again, as if she could jump off her chair with the agility of a child and scale the cedar right to the top.
Veronica gazed at the tree with delight. The color green was so dark and alluring, the branches so magical and mysterious, she wondered where they led. She imagined she was a bird, perched high up, observing the world with merry detachment. She would spread her wings and fly a swooping dance, and the music in her head inspired her to hum a tune.
Jane saw the regeneration of life in the branches of the tree that had stood for hundreds of years, watching the generations come and go in the grand cycle of life. Having felt so lost without her dear Henrik, she began to feel a little more positive. Wasn’t it true that nature was reborn, season after season? Why would it not be so for human beings? Perhaps Henrik had been reborn in Heaven and was now among those branches, watching her. The tree gave her hope. The way it grew up from the ground, its roots deep in the earth, the highest branch soaring towards God. It made her think of Henrik’s body in the earth and his spirit up there beyond her senses. She smiled wistfully as the hope in her heart gave way to a sweet melancholy.
Rafa watched them watch the tree. He observed their expressions as they lost themselves in its branches. He saw the fear in Grace’s eyes, and the hope in Jane’s. He saw the joy in Pat’s and the awe in Veronica’s, and when he decided they had all been inspired to feel something, he told them to pick up their brushes and paint. For once, none of them said a word.
Bertha stood at the window of Rafa’s bedroom. As Marina hadn’t got round to talking to Jake she had decided to have a private word herself. Jake had been only too happy to put her in charge of the artist’s bedroom.
“You’re the right person for the job,” he had said with a smirk, patting her shoulder. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself.”
Now she stood looking out as Rafa taught the old ladies how to paint. She remembered painting at school, a class she had hated because she was so bad at it. She hadn’t a creative bone in her body. Still, she would give it another go if he asked her to. She pulled away and began to tidy his room. It smelled of sandalwood. As she bustled about, she picked up his things and sniffed them one by one, savoring the scent of this exotic stranger from a distant land.
She wasn’t even sure where Argentina was on the map, but she remembered Diego Maradona and “the hand of God” goal that had sent everyone into a frenzy during the 1986 World Cup. There had been something rather sexy about him, too. She didn’t need to make Mr. Santoro’s bed, as it had been done that morning by the housemaids. In fact, she had no business to be in there at all. But since she had been given the task of looking after him, she felt it was only right to come up and check that everything had been done properly. Which it had, she could see. But in future she would be the one to do it. Every morning. Every evening.