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Chapter Text

15 April, 1959

Marta,

Mi amor, te escribo estas palabras con el fin de sacar un poco de lo que traigo clavado en el corazón.  Me muero sin ti, Marta, y no sé qué hacer.

I don’t know what else to do, and so I’m writing this letter, a letter that I know will never reach you. 

I am on an airplane bound for Buenos Aires. It feels strange to write that, to know that I am flying through the sky, away from you, forever. I had never traveled farther than Madrid and now here I am bound for a new continent, a new world.  It will be many hours before we arrive. I waited half a day in Madrid before this flight left Spain. Time is meaningless now. I cannot remember the last time I slept. I know that I didn’t the night after what I did to Santiago. And I certainly didn’t my last night with you. How could I? All I wanted to do was watch you, memorize you, swallow you up or crawl inside of you. All night long, wondering what I could do to keep us together and keep you safe. I doomed us.

You know that I am gone by now. You’ve read my letter, my real letter, the one that I left in our casita de los montes. What a curse that house turned out to be. Our refuge turned into a nightmare. Remember how we invited Pelayo into our home? I can’t help but think that I spoiled everything, bringing him there, believing him. He promised salvation and all he’s done is destroy our lives. I was so stupid.

That’s the worst of it, that you won’t know what he’s done. That he’ll get away with it. He gets to keep you as if you were his real wife, as if you were a real couple. He’ll use the pictures I took of you both for that magazine spread, parade around like a man of the people. And he’ll have you beside him. Gobernador civil. I feel sick thinking about it. What could I do? I wanted to protect you, but I’ve left you with that man, my love. I can only pray you’ll see through him one day. I can only hope you’re able to free yourself.

In my stupor, I wonder if I should have chosen prison. At least you would know where I am. At least you would know the truth. I don’t care what happens to me, not now, but Pelayo can hurt you, too, and I can’t let that happen. I suppose I’m in exile now, separated from everything I’ve ever…

I was crying just now. The woman in the seat beside me asked me what was wrong and I said I’m homesick. But we just left, she said, and laughed, like it was a joke. She tried to make small talk and told me about her life in Buenos Aires, about her children, about her husband. I wanted to strangle her. 

When I look out of the airplane window, I see the ocean below. It’s so big, Marta. If we crashed now you would never know what happened to me, not ever. The sea would take me, and you wouldn’t know. 

Part of me thinks that this can’t be the end, because then my life would really be over. How do I go on if I can’t carry a shred of hope that maybe one day I’ll see you again? It still doesn’t seem real. It seems like a nightmare that I’m going to wake up from. A man is dead because of me and my punishment is to be sent away from you. Maybe it is God’s punishment. Maybe that’s it.

Your pictures are in my suitcase. I have every picture, every negative. How could I leave them behind? The camera you gave me and the one I inherited from my father, those too. I couldn’t bring much, but I had to keep them. I suppose they’ll help me now. Pelayo has sent me to stay with people he knows. He said that they would help me, that they would be kind to me. If they know Pelayo, if they are his friends, then I can’t trust them. I’ll have to forge my own way—but I can’t think of that yet. 

How is any of this real?

I’m going to try and get some sleep. I don’t want to, but I’m so tired. I’m afraid I’ll dream about you, that we’re together, and that when I wake up I’ll want to die all over again. Is this really what I deserve?

I love you, Marta. I love you, I love you, I love you. 

I’ll write to you again. I’ll write you every day. 

Tuya para siempre,
Fina

Chapter Text

16 April, 1959

Mi amor,

Por fin llegué, mi vida, a donde comienza mi calvario.

It took well over a day to arrive. The airplane made stops in places I never would have imagined stepping foot. After Lisbon, we touched down in Dakar, before the longest part of the flight ended in Brazil. We stopped in Recife first, then Rio de Janeiro. By the time we arrived in Buenos Aires, I felt completely out of my head. It was as if I had been plucked from my life by an invisible hand and placed on another planet altogether.

I did sleep, fitfully, and I dreamed of you. That was the cruelest thing my mind could have done, conjured you out of memories and presented you as if you were real. I was working, in my dream, taking inventory. Carmen and Claudia were there. Carmen said something funny, I don’t remember what, and you came in and looked us over sternly, like you used to, before. You told us to take care not to laugh the way we were, in case a customer walked in. It felt so real, Marta. I could smell the store. You know that aroma it has, that blend of soaps and perfumes and lotions, all together? I ran my fingers along the facets of the perfume bottles. It felt like I had traveled through time. I wish that I could.

Pelayo’s friends are very rich. They live in an enormous house, bigger than your father’s. They were polite when I arrived. Their chauffeur picked me up at the airport. I wish he hadn’t reminded me of my father, but he’s an older man, and cheerful, and I couldn’t help but think of him. Pelayo’s friends are younger than I thought they would be. They gave me a room bigger than the one I had to share in the colonia. This room, my cell, is very nicely appointed. An exquisite jail, Marta. What would happen if I tried to leave? I can’t stay here. I’ll die here.

I’m supposed to have dinner with them now…

They were courteous, well-mannered. They are, I think, as fake as Pelayo. I wonder how much he told them about me. The wife was interested in my work as a photographer. I told her that I’m not a professional, but she said she knew otherwise. She acted as though I was being modest. It’s strange to be told something about yourself you know not to be true.

She’s an editor at a fashion magazine, and she wants me to do some work for them. I don’t think I can refuse. I wanted to, I wanted to say no and then go running out the front door, but I realized that I’ll need to make my way in this new place and that I’ll need money to do it. Considering I know nothing about fashion photography, I can only go along and try to learn. I wonder if they could see how angry I was.

I’m so angry, Marta, you can’t imagine how angry I am. In between my crying sessions, in between missing you, I want to rage. I want to tear this room apart. I want to burn down this beautiful house.

There’s this feeling in my chest. I think I remember it from when my father died. It’s like a fluttering emptiness, a nervousness, a white heat, that spreads down to my stomach. I think it comes from knowing something irreversible has happened. All I know right now is loss and helplessness and grief.

I’m looking at your photograph now, at one of the ones I took in the dark room. You’re looking over your shoulder at me. Your eyes are full of love. I thought then that I could never want anything the way that I wanted you. It’s still true. All I want is you.

Tuya para siempre,

Fina

Chapter Text

17 April, 1959

Mi amor,

Hoy desperté con la sensación de tu mano entrelazada con la mía. Hasta pensé sentir tu aliento sobre mi piel.

I had forgotten that it would soon be winter here. Back home, in Toledo, the days were getting longer. I was looking forward to the heat of spring, to tending our garden and watching the roses bloom. Buenos Aires is warm, but it glows like autumn. The leaves are turning golden.

I went for a walk this morning. After breakfast, I left without saying a thing. I walked and kept going, by the enormous mansions with their manicured lawns, until I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to find my way back and then wondered if that would be such a terrible thing. But then I thought of Pelayo, I thought of the knife, and of how he needs to know where I am to fulfill his end of the bargain. I don’t believe him, of course. I will never again believe anything that he says.

I realized today that the time difference between us is five hours. You are, somehow, five hours ahead of me, always. I keep my watch on Toledo time so that I know where you are, what you’re doing. You’re in your office now, wrapping up your day of work. Or maybe you’re in a meeting. Or maybe you’re missing me as much as I miss you. Maybe you’re wondering what it is I’m doing. Maybe you’re crying, too.

Pelayo will call tonight. It’s what I was told by his friends—by the wife, really. The husband doesn’t talk to me. He smiles and leaves the room. Whatever it is he does, whatever his business is, I don’t know it. What I do know is that Pelayo will call tonight, to assure himself that I am exactly where I’m supposed to be.

…

When the wife told me Pelayo was on the phone I almost told her I wouldn’t speak to him, but then I thought of you, Marta—all I do is think of you. And so I took the receiver and I said hello and I could hear him breathing for a moment, and I wondered where he was. In your house, Marta, making this call, fooling you in your own home.

He asked me how my trip was, as if we were friends, as if that were a normal question to ask of someone whose life you’ve decimated. I didn’t answer. I asked about you. I wanted to know, even if he lied to me, I needed to know. He said you were fine. Está bien, en lo que cabe. What an answer, Marta, what a miserable response. How to know what to fit into that response. You and I, we’re fine, Marta, given the circumstances.

I wanted to know if you were looking for me. I think he wanted to lie, but he knew I wouldn’t believe it if he said that you weren’t. Yes, he said, but that he would take care of it. Take care of it? Take care of it how? Don’t worry, he said. I laughed. I laughed because what else could I do? Don’t worry.

It’s a fact that he needs you. The part you play is very important to him. As long as I am gone, he won’t hurt you. He’ll pretend he is your friend. He’ll pretend so earnestly that you’ll believe him. You’ll cry on his shoulder, won’t you? He’ll offer it up and you’ll cry to him because he’s your friend. Santiago was a madman, but Pelayo is insidious. He’ll smile at you, he’ll be kind to you, while he stabs you in the heart. That he lies to your face while you sleep beside him, Marta… Not being able to warn you brings me my greatest worry. Don’t worry, he said. It’s all that I do.

I’m supposed to go to the wife’s magazine with her tomorrow morning. You’ll do test shots, she said. What that means I don’t know, but I suppose I’ll have to do my best. I want to leave this place as soon as possible.

You’re sleeping now. I think you must be sleeping now, unless your sleep is as disturbed as mine as. Do you dream of me the way that I dream of you?

Tuya para siempre,

Fina

Chapter Text

18 April, 1959

Mi amor,

Desperté con tu voz sussurándome al oido. Decías mi nombre tan dulcemente, que casi lloré de la emocion.

In Buenos Aires, I am Serafina. That’s what they call me. It’s how I was introduced to Pelayo’s friends and now it’s how I introduce myself to others. Serafina Valero. Fina is someone they can’t touch, or know. Fina is for Toledo, for my friends. Fina is for you.

We were driven by that sweet chauffeur—his name is Lorenzo—from the house in Recoleta to downtown Buenos Aires, past the obelisk in the Plaza de la República. I wish that I could say I cared about the scenery, but I stared out of the car window as though I were watching a movie, as though I were living someone else’s life.

I brought your camera to the photoshoot today. The wife is aware I have no other equipment and waved off my concerns. We’ll have everything you need, she said, and they do. They have it all. Some things—many things—I don’t even know how to use. There was another photographer there, however, and I was allowed to shadow him while he worked. I lied and told them I was a street photographer, that portraits were a newfound interest. They could probably see how green I am, how inexperienced, but they were generally nice. The photographer uses a different kind of camera, and he showed me the basics of its functions. He reminded me of Marcos, the one who worked on the Anhelos de Mujer campaign, remember? Humberto—the photographer I met here—has a similarly relaxed air about him, confident, like he has nothing to prove and has no reason to guard his knowledge, or to be unkind. He took his time with everything. He was methodical. I think I can learn a lot from him. Thankfully, he doesn’t strike me as someone who is interested in women.

During our break, he asked me what was wrong. You know how I am, Marta. I can’t keep a thing from showing on my face. I told him I had left someone behind, that it hurt being separated from them. He offered me alfajores, and mate. They drink the mate in a special gourd, through a straw. In the alfajores I had the first taste of sweetness since leaving you.

Every night I find you in my dreams. As much as I hate waking up knowing none of it is real, I’ve come to look forward to those dreams. But last night I had a nightmare and in it you were angry with me. You had come to believe I left you willingly, that I no longer loved you. When we were reunited, you kicked me out of your life all over again, even when I tried to explain. What if this nightmare turns real, Marta? What if Pelayo makes you think that I don’t love you anymore?

What if he tells you I died?

Maybe then you could forget me. Maybe then you would stop searching, stop grieving. Is it selfish— No, I know it’s selfish, to want you tied to my memory, the way I’ve tied you to my soul. But it’s different, isn’t it? You don’t know the truth, and I’m drowning in it.

I miss you, Marta. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you—so much that sometimes I think I would have been better off dead. But then there’s my one hope. I can’t let go of the thought that as long as we’re both alive, there’s hope that we’ll see each other again, that maybe I’ll be able to hold you, to kiss you again.

It’s all I that have left.

Tuya para siempre,

Fina

Chapter Text

19 April, 1959

Querida Marta,

No hace ni una semana, mi amor, ni una semana, y parecen ya mil años sin ti.

The man and his wife went to mass today. They invited me to go along, but I told them I was tired and preferred to stay in my room. After many wakeful nights, I finally slept for hours and didn’t rise until midday, ravenous. They have a small staff, the man and his wife, servants. I’m supposed to ask them for anything that I need. The ama de llaves, Inez, was gruff at first. When I went into the kitchen to see if I could help, she said I shouldn’t be there, that I was a guest. I told her that I could make my own breakfast but she insisted that I could not. In the end, she let me chat with her about her family, about her years of service to the man and his wife. She wasn’t very forthcoming about them, she was fairly diplomatic, but that was to be expected. For all she knows, I would have turned around and told them whatever she said. She asked what I was doing in Argentina, was I just visiting, and I said that I wasn’t sure. I think my answer confused her, but I wasn’t in the mood to tell a lie. Besides, she very kindly served me mate, toast, a fried egg, and then she let me take her picture.

Afterward I gathered up my camera and took off again, this time with the intention of walking for as long as I could. I made it all the way to the Plaza Francia, taking photos of the mansions I passed along the way. A few people gave me funny looks, but most didn’t notice or seem to mind if I stopped and took their picture. Some smiled.

I sat on a bench and watched passersby. There were older men at a table playing dominoes and I immediately thought of my father and teared up. Being there, in that plaza, surrounded by people taking their Sunday stroll, all accompanied by partners or friends or family, I knew, in a painfully palpable way, that I was completely alone. I am now totally alone. No one on this continent has any idea what lies within me. No one here has heard me laugh.

Because it was Sunday, the streets were quiet and subdued. I walked for hours and didn’t arrive back at the house until late afternoon, by which time the couple had returned from mass and their assorted errands. I didn’t care where they had been, and so I didn’t ask.

We had supper together and they did ask me where I had gone. Maybe it bothered them that I hadn’t stayed put, but I told them what I had done, and then let them know that I hoped to soon move out on my own. They looked at each other as though I had said something crazy, and answered that of course I was welcome to stay for as long as I pleased, that they had promised Pelayo they would get me settled. I didn’t press, and maybe it’s too soon, but at least I made my plans clear.

This room has a balcony, and I’m sitting there now, writing this, stopping at times to look at the sky. Are you awake? Does the moon look the same for you?

I long to hear your voice. I thought earlier about calling your house, to see if you would answer, but you would know that it was me, and it’s cruel to do that to you. It’s cruel to do it to myself. And so I have to content myself with imagining the sound of your voice, the memory of your words of encouragement, desire, love. Tu eres mi mujer, you said, and I believed it, and I believe it still, in my bones. Even now, I am yours. I am always yours.

Te amo,

Fina

Chapter Text

20 April, 1959

Mi amor,

Te extraño, te extraño, te extraño. A veces pienso que he muerto en vida, que no soy más que un fantasma, pero si fuese así, ¿no ensombrecería yo tu almohada?

I went to work today, although it feels less like work and more like an apprenticeship. Whatever Pelayo told his friends, the wife has taken seriously her dictate to guide me on my path as a photographer. She wanted me to take test shots today, under the advisement of Humberto, whom I have learned is the Director of Photography for the magazine. They’ll be developed as soon as possible so that she and the rest of the department’s staff can go over them with me.

To say that I was nervous is understatement. I was petrified, Marta, but I knew I had no choice. There was nothing else I could do, no other work to fall back on. What should I do, escape my prison and find a department store in need of a clerk? And, anyway, I think there are still issues to sort out. I’m not officially employed by the magazine yet, and don’t know if I will be. Maybe this will be freelance work, I don’t know. I feel rootless. I am in an extremely precarious situation, and I am acutely aware of it every hour of the day.

Humberto’s been very kind. Maybe I should be wary of kind men, but he invited me to walk with him to a nearby café at the end of the day. He asked me if I was still missing the person I’d left behind and I said what else, how could I not be?

Ha de ser muy especial para que traigas esa carita de tristeza.

Sí, mucho. Muchísimo.

He’s a good talker, Humberto, a good storyteller. We ordered coffee and sat there for an hour while he told me about his life. About his childhood in Chile, about his hometown. After thirty years, he said, he still yearned for his mother’s cooking. He told me about picking up a camera when the depression drove him from his country, and from a future in the mines, like his father. With his camera he traveled the world, taking pictures for magazines of all types. He even spent time in Spain, during the civil war. There were horrors, he said, not elaborating, and I could see in his eyes that there were things he would never be able to forget.

When he asked me why I had left Toledo, I told him a roundabout truth. There was a man, I said, who had mistaken the friendship I offered him for something else, and that man accosted me to the point that I felt I needed to leave. I was full of fear.

Humberto smiled sadly and gently patted my hand. He said, I’m sorry that happened. You don’t have a thing to worry about from me. We can be real friends, if you would like to be. And then we walked back to the office. When he offered me use of his spare Rolleiflex, I took it and thanked him. He told me to practice, to take as many pictures as I could, to meet people and hear their stories. It will help, he said, ease the fear.

I don’t know about fear but my anger remains intractable, heavy. I move through my days as if caught in a mist. Do this, do that, the people around me say, as if they had any idea. As if they could fathom what’s been done to me, what lies in my heart.

What are you doing now, Marta? What are you thinking? I woke up today with a ball of anguish lodged in my throat, knowing you, too, were in pain. What has Pelayo told you, Marta? What has he done?

Tuya para siempre,

Fina

Chapter Text

21 April, 1959

Querida Marta,

Te necesito más que nunca. Aquí no soy nadie; en ningún rincón del mundo lo seré si no te tengo a ti.

The wife finally noticed I only have two changes of clothes and while I had considered that I would need to go shopping at some point, there was frankly nothing that I desired less than being among a crowd of people, choosing outfits to wear in this new place, for this new life that I don’t want.

In the morning, she looked me up and down, frowning, thinking. I could tell that she knew that I’m of modest means, that I could never live in a home like theirs, or buy the things that they so readily take for granted. I’m a shop girl, and I dress like a shop girl, and that’s always been okay with me. But the wife isn’t a shop girl, she’s rich, and she works in fashion, and what she decided for me was that I would need to go to the finest stores in Buenos Aires, and that she would take me that afternoon, once she had concluded some business at the magazine. I looked her dead in the eye and told her that I did not want company. I could see from the way her face went rigid that she isn’t the type who often hears no.

Maybe it was rude of me, my anger gets the better of me sometimes, but I don’t know what these people were told by Pelayo, what information they have about me. I know so little about them that I find it inconsequential to mention their names in these letters, Marta.

What I told her was thank you, no, I’ll go alone. I like shopping alone, taking my time, unhurried and unswayed by other people’s opinions. She accepted my refusal, but advised me to let Lorenzo drive me, as he would know where to go. I agreed.

And so I went, Marta. I took Pelayo’s money, went to the bank and exchanged my pesetas for pesos, and then allowed Lorenzo to drive me to Avenida Alvear. I did not belong there, but it didn’t matter whether I did or didn’t because I had a task to complete. Serafina Valero needed clothes, to fit in, to blend in, to disappear. I thought that, anyway, but when one of the attendants saw me walk into the department store, she pounced.

Not wanting to explain more than necessary, I told her that I had arrived from Spain and had lost my luggage, the entirety of my wardrobe, and that I would need to replace it. Her eyes lit up, Marta, the way mine used to when a rich, old crone would walk into Perfumerías de la Reina looking to drop in one afternoon as many pesetas as I made in a month.

The department store girl had so many questions about what I needed, about my style, my taste. I had to admit that my style was simple, modest, but that maybe I could branch out with her help. I’m a photographer at a fashion magazine, I told her, and I need to be able to move freely. I thought of your sister-in-law, of Begoña, and how chic and modern she seemed in her trousers, and I told the attendant that I would need some, along with dresses, skirts, blouses, a new coat. She pulled out several fine outfits, and camisoles and undergarments, too—beautiful silk and lace, in black and ivory. I picked up one of the camisoles, ran my fingers along its lacy edges, and was so overcome by the memory of you that I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. It didn’t help. I told the girl to ring up my purchases, paid her, and while she was packing it all up, I ran into the bathroom, went into a stall, and immediately began sobbing into my arm. It was loud and embarrassing and messy and I could not stop. I can’t tell you how long I was there, but when I came out, the bathroom attendant gave me a pitying look and produced a handkerchief. Keep it, she said, it’ll be all right.

Nothing will ever be all right again.

Te extraño. Te extraño tanto,

Fina

Chapter Text

22 April, 1959

Mi vida,

Las palabras que me dijiste en nuestra última noche retruenan en mi cabeza. ¿Y si es cierto que jamás podré vivir sin ti?

I’m in bed. I looked at my watch on my nightstand and it told me it’s 7 am where you are, so I know it’s 2 am here. I woke up gasping. I don’t remember the dream, but I know how it felt, and it felt like need. And so I found my paper and pen and decided I had better write to you, Marta, as it’s you I need more than anything.

When we first got together I was sure that I had enough experience to know what it was to want someone. I thought I knew what desire was, what it meant to long for a woman. But I didn’t, did I? I didn’t know anything until I found you. What is need before need, anyway?

On our final night together you remembered our first night, our very first night, that night full of nerves and fumbling caresses. More than anything I remember your eyes, the way your gaze fixed on mine before you kissed me. The way it traveled ahead of your hands. The galaxy of emotion you transmitted with your eyes and with your hands. The way that galaxy enveloped me. The way it swallowed me up, changed me.

I am changed, Marta. I can never be who I was before you, and after… I cannot conceive of an after. My mind refuses, and so I am here. I am in this limbo. I am in this strange void. I write to you knowing I am only writing to myself, thinking that I might still reach a part of you, somehow. You are a part of me and I am a part of you and so it must be true, don’t you think, that I am reaching you even if you don’t know it, even if you can’t apprehend it yet?

No me olvides, mi amor,

Fina

Chapter Text

22 April, 1959

Querida Marta,

Si supieras, mi amor, la verdad, ¿qué harías? Ahora sí que me agobian las fantasías. Día tras día, pienso que aparecerás de milagro y me sacarás del mismísimo infierno.

I wore my new clothes today and the wife took a look at me—in gray slacks, white button down, my old red cardigan, and loafers—and seemed to approve. She saw, too, the dual camera cases I was set to take with me to the magazine and asked how I was getting along with Humberto. I told her the truth which is that I like him very much, that he’s been kind enough to lend me one of his cameras, and she seemed pleased about that, too.

He’s a strange man, she said, but he has a lot of experience and he is an excellent photographer. I asked her what she meant by strange, surprised when she tilted her head and gave me a knowing look. Queer, she said. And again I had to wonder, Marta, what Pelayo told them, whether she knew about me, too. Certainly I didn’t investigate further, but when she said that Humberto would continue to be kind, that he would know what to do with me, that two of our sort—photographers, she might have meant, but I knew better—should look out for one another, I had my answer.

We had a proper photoshoot today, in a studio, and I watched Humberto work, setting up his shots, the lighting, posing the models. He never stopped moving. He always seemed to have a new idea, and allowed ideas from others, the models themselves, even. It was fascinating to watch, and then when he turned to me and told me to take some pictures of my own, as nervous as I was, as filled with dread at doing something wrong, I remembered you, and I remembered Carmen and Claudia, their support, their unshakeable belief that I had a special ability. And I went with it. I took pictures, and while I did I let myself be entirely in the moment, forgetting about the hell I was in snap by snap.

It was only later, when we were wrapping up the shoot and setting up for the next day, that it must have hit me, that I must have realized that I had had a good time, even in this abyss, even in my despair. In that moment, it felt like betrayal, like I had no right to anything but misery.

Maybe Humberto saw some of that in my eyes, on my face, because he invited me to go out. He said that there was a place for people like us and I asked him if he meant photographers and he laughed. Yes, he said, artists like us.

I almost went, Marta. I almost did, but it seemed too much, too soon. I couldn’t. I couldn’t go knowing I would only think of you. And so here I am, on this balcony, staring up at the inky night in between writing these sentences, longing. Longing only for you.

Pudieras ser mi Orfeo y yo tu Eurídice?

Tuya, siempre tuya,

Fina

Chapter Text

22 April, 1959

Queridas Carmen y Claudia,

¿Vosotras sabéis lo que significáis para mí? Espero que ya tendréis mi carta, la carta que nunca hubiese querido enviaros. Estar separada de vosotras es como haber perdido un pedacito de mi alma.

Claudia, you would make fun of me for developing a taste for mate before trying it and then liking it even better than me. And you would like Buenos Aires. It’s beautiful as it leans into autumn, as it gathers up the rapidly setting sun, gilding itself, radiant. You would appreciate its haze, its people, their language—with their ches and their pibes and their quilombos. (No te metas en un lío aquí, amiga.)

Carmen, you would hiss at the wife. You would be suspicious of Humberto’s intentions. You always have had a good head on your shoulders. I burn hot and angry, but then I trust too easily. I don’t want to do that again, but I don’t want to be alone, either. I’m afraid that if I crawl into bed and pull the sheets over my head, the way I used to in our room whenever the world seemed like too much, the way I still want to, I’ll be alone forever.

You wouldn’t believe my new wardrobe, how fine it is, how modern. I’ve never considered myself a modern girl, but maybe here I am. Here, Serafina Valero wears trousers and silk underwear. Would you tease me for trying so hard when I’m neck deep in pain? No, you would tell me to do what I can to survive. That’s all I can do—raise my head up above my grief and breathe.

I hate that what I’m doing now excites me, that I like the work, that I’m hungry to learn, because I would give it all up in a heartbeat to be back in my uniform, back in that store with you, laughing about nothing at all, dealing with sour-pussed old ladies.

God, I would give everything.

¡Cómo quisiera abrazaros!

Vuestra amiga, vuestra hermana

Fina

Chapter Text

23 April, 1959

Querido Padre,

Ahora sí que estoy sola. Ahora sí que estoy completamente desdichada. ¿Cómo seguir así, Padre? Desde donde esté, por favor, guíeme. Deme aliento.

What would you make of this, Father? Me, alone, in a new country, a new continent, friends gone, set adrift at the whim of an ambitious man, my love lost, my love ripped from my grasp.

I’ve killed a man. What would you say about that? That I was defending myself, defending Marta? Yes, all of that is true. I was holding a knife and this man, this malignant creature, wanted to kill me, and as he had his hands around my neck he fell upon the knife. Easy to write. Easy. Harder to live with, Father. Harder to put out of my thoughts. Every day I veer between the unspeakable horror of remembering that man’s hot blood dripping onto my hands and the miserable thought that I would do it again, that I would pick up that knife. What would be the alternative? Letting him hurt Marta? Letting him kill her? He would have, I know that. Clear of my haze, I know it without a doubt.

Marta is alive. I am alive. We are both alive.

More than once I have wished I wasn’t.

I want her to be happy, Father. I want her to live a good life. How could I want anything else? How could I wish for anything less? And, yet, in my selfish moments—oh, I have many of them, Father—I want her to keep my memory, to keep the flame of our love alive. How could I want that knowing I can never see her again? It isn’t just selfish, it’s cruel, and I don’t want to be cruel. Pelayo is cruel. I don’t ever want to steal someone else’s happiness the way that he stole mine.

And so I am now here, in this place, wondering what I should do. I have no choice but to continue living. I think of you, of the way that you went on after Mother died. I think of the way that you slowly shut out the things that you loved that reminded you of her—the games that you stopped playing; the pictures that you stopped taking; the small joys that you no longer allowed yourself. I see in myself those same instincts, but there is something else, something more primal, that resides within me. I want to live, Father. I want to live a full life. I don’t want to do it here, I don’t want to do it like this, but this is what I’ve got.

Today, I will pick up your camera and I will take pictures. I will think of all of the pictures that you never took, and I will take them in your stead.

Con amor y añoranza, su hija,

Fina

Chapter Text

Victoria Rossi waits for her chauffeur to open the car door and when he does she exits smoothly with a quick glance and a nod in his direction. Serafina Valero exits after her, letting Lorenzo take her hand as she struggles with two sets of camera bags and a purse. She smiles at him and thanks him when he asks if she needs help inside. I can manage, she says, watching Rossi continue ahead until she is swallowed up by the revolving door that leads into the high-rise in which Serafina now works, the building that houses a publishing house that includes in its portfolio the magazine Moda.

It is five minutes to one in Toledo, which means it is almost 8 am in Buenos Aires. They are right on time, which is as Rossi likes it.

Serafina follows a distance behind Rossi but catches up at the elevator. Rossi doesn’t acknowledge her now, has no reason to. They spoke during breakfast, and only of perfunctory things. Pelayo, Rossi said, has wired you money. Serafina had made a sound to signify she had heard, but made no further comment. Rossi only added, I’ll help you open a bank account.

They ride up the elevator in silence, then, and give the operator different floors. Serafina exits on the fifth. Rossi will go on until she reaches the top floor. They will not see each other again until it is time to leave for Rossi’s home in the evening, and then only if Serafina has not made plans. Today, she wants to make plans.

The art and photography departments are on the fifth floor. It is where Serafina works alongside Humberto Parra, the director. Humberto is already in his office when Serafina arrives and sets her bags by the door. He looks up at her and smiles briefly. He is tugging at his grey flecked beard, studying a proof sheet on a light box. Serafina can see it’s from a set of photographs they took the day before. The models are dressed for winter, in fur hats and fur coats. The background is sparse, white. Few props. The clothes are the subject here, not the setting. Serafina finds them boring, but glamorous. She prefers the people she finds on the street.

Humberto hands her a magnifying glass and asks her if she likes them, the pictures, and she shrugs. Does it matter, she asks. You have to like them, he says, otherwise no one will.

“I don’t know if I’m cut out for this.”

“You’re cut out for it. You’ll do well. Maybe it won’t be as gratifying as your other work, but it will pay you, and it will pay you well enough that you can then go on and do what you like. This is a good job, Serafina. It’s a good opportunity.”

A sigh bubbles up in Serafina’s throat and she releases it as she leans over to further inspect the contact print. A strand of hair falls into her face and she tucks it back behind her ear as she points to one of the pictures. She can’t say why she likes it, exactly, but she does.

“This one,” she says.

“Why?”

She chews on her lip, stares again at the picture, at the woman in it.

“Her face. Her expression. She looks like she has a secret that’s burning her up from the inside.” She pauses and looks at Humberto. “Do you know what I mean?”

He looks back at her for a protracted moment, then at the image. He tilts his head and purses his lips, tugs again at his beard. “Yes,” he says, “but aren’t we here for the clothes?”

“Her face makes the clothes interesting. She is interesting, and the clothes become interesting by extension.”

“Victoria thinks the models should be hangers.”

“No, she doesn’t, otherwise she’d get hangers. Wouldn’t they be cheaper?”

Humberto laughs, loudly.

“Perhaps,” he says. “You’re right, but you’re wrong. She should be interesting, there should be something about her, but at the end of the day, we want to draw the eye to the clothes, and this is a bad picture for the clothes. There’s no movement here, no style. All of the life is in her face, which I appreciate, I do, but it doesn’t belong in Moda.”

“I understand,” she says, only half-meaning it. She examines the images again until she finds something she likes. “This one?”

“What about it?”

“The drape of that coat, the way it falls behind her and her leg flares out. You can see how her skirt moves as she does. And she looks like she’s in a hurry, like she has someplace to be. Her eyes aren’t dead. She isn’t a hanger.”

“Yes, good. I agree.” He circles the image with a red grease pencil.

They go through each photograph, talking out why it works or doesn’t, whether it fits the tone, the aesthetic they desire for the spread, whether the palette is off or mismatched. At the end of it, after what feels like hours, Serafina better understands what is being judged, and the criteria involved in that judgment.

During their break, they walk to what Serafina now regards as their café and have mate with their empanadas de carne. They chat for a bit about their work, but after a while Humberto turns the conversation.

“I hope you don’t mind if I tell you that you look less sad today. Do you feel better?”

“I don’t know if I feel better. I don’t know how I feel from moment to moment. Sometimes I wake up crying and I can’t remember what I was dreaming about, whether it was… Well. If I don’t think about it, I can get on with my day. I can forget for, oh, an hour at a time, if we’re busy enough.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve just reminded you, then.”

“You don’t need to remind me, Humberto, it’s always there.”

“It’s grief,” Humberto says, kindly. “It gets easier, but it never goes away.”

“I don’t think that I want it to get easier. That doesn’t feel right.”

“But it will. It has to, otherwise you won’t be able to live, Serafina.”

Serafina tears her gaze away from Humberto, whose pity is beginning to feel overwhelming. She blinks back tears and exhales, changing the subject as she says, “I’m going to take pictures today, with your Rolleiflex. What’s an interesting place to go?”

At the very least, Humberto is a gentleman; he allows the change in subject with a nod and a little smile. He pulls his cigarette case from the inside pocket of his rumpled coat. He is always rumpled, Humberto.

“After work, I’ll take you somewhere I think you’ll like.”

Chapter Text

23 April, 1959

Ay, Marta. Marta, Marta, cómo te quiero. Ya sabes que no me gusta beber, pero hoy Humberto me llevó a una fiesta donde sí que era la gente de lo más variopinta. Tomé fotos, Marta, y bebí, y vi bailar a dos mujeres bellísimas, y pensé en ti, y se me puso, si se puede, más chiquito el corazón. Te extraño tanto, tanto, tanto.

Humberto took me to a party in San Telmo, a place I loved, a place which is all the better for having nothing to do with Recoleta, with its money and snobbishness and Pelayo’s friends and their fake politeness.

From the magazine we took off in a colectivo, crowded and loud and sweaty and real. I wanted to take pictures, then, but I was embarrassed to take out my camera and anyway Humberto gave me a look like not here, not yet, and so I waited until we were off the bus and walking along the cobblestone streets—las cashes, they say—and the shops, and the smell of food coming from the little restaurants, and the people eating in outdoor patios. Humberto walking along next to me, with his cigarette dangling from his mouth, hunched over, looking, always looking. And I wonder if that’s what it is to be a photographer, too, being aware, always of what surrounds you, and how you can frame it. I took a quick snap of three young boys mounted on a single, rickety bicycle, their heads thrown back as they screamed with joy, so much joy. Will I ever be that happy again?

We walked on, down narrow sidewalks, past the sounds of people listening to their radios with their windows open, the drifting boleros mixing with everyday life, with the clank and clatter of children playing, of women chatting with their neighbors, of men discussing el partido. When we arrived finally, the sun had disappeared and the mood on the streets was settling into something different.

The building looked like any other, but inside the courtyard was lit up—a young couple sat on a little bench surrounded by plants, talking so closely they might as well have been kissing; two men in flat-brimmed hats stood in a corner smoking; a group of women had commandeered the stairs, were chatting enthusiastically about something I couldn’t hear. All were dressed for a casual party, like when Carmen and I would go to Toledo on weekends, before you. I felt self-conscious in my trousers, but no one looked at me, even when they each in turn threw a Buenas tardes, che, ¿cómo estás? at Humberto. He introduced me to each group. One of the women asked me if I was a gallega. No, no, I’m from Toledo, I told her, but I don’t think it mattered. For the rest of the evening, she smiled at me and called out, “¡La gallega!” Near the end of the night, she let me take her picture.

There were drinks. Wine mostly, but someone had set up a little bar and was giving out vermouth with soda, which I had never had before. I liked it well enough to have more than one, and by then I was slightly tipsy. I still am, as I write this. I bet I took some horrible pictures. I missed you, Marta, there among the crowd. A man began playing a bandoneón and people cleared the way for dancing, for the tango. My blood was full of music, of the melancholy breath produced by the bellows of the instrument, of alcohol, and of the heat of the people who surrounded me as I took their pictures. I was with them and apart from them. I was in the room and floating somewhere over Toledo, wondering what it would have been like to have you there, to hold you, to sway with you in that thick air.

¿Duermes ya, mi amor? ¿Con qué sueñas?

Tuya, tuya, tuya,

Fina

Chapter Text

24 April, 1959

Mi amor,

Trato de recordar todo lo que escribí en la carta que te dejé, y se me queda el cuerpo helado. ¿Me odiarás? ¿Pensarás que soy una cobarde? Sí que lo soy. Te dejé sola en el peor de los momentos. Dejé que un hombre cruel me acobardase.

I had a rough morning with the wife. She didn’t like the late hour at which I arrived. I told her I was sorry, but that their home was not my home, merely a resting place, and that I would not stop living my life merely to accommodate their sense of decency. That seemed to shut her up. Whatever promise she has made to Pelayo, she plans on keeping it.

She did tell me that she spoke to him and that he wanted to remind me that I shouldn’t be sending any letters to Spain. It hadn’t occurred to me. The last two letters I wrote, to Carmen and Claudia, to Digna, I sent in haste from Madrid before leaving for the airport. I couldn’t go without sending word, and I knew that I would have to offer more explanations than those I left with you. I hated lying to them, but I knew they would talk to you, that they would have questions, that you would have questions for them, too. I feel ill thinking about it. It’s the same sickness that arrives when I think of Santiago. I’ve done something irredeemable. There’s no going back, is there?

What if I had told you the truth, on our last night, in our bed? I wanted to. You told me that you were sure that nothing could ever separate us and I laid there next to you, knowing we had already been separated, that soon it would be over—and I said nothing. Several times I opened my mouth and hoped the right words would slip out of me and that we would have to deal with the consequences together. What would you have done? I think of Pelayo now, from this remove, and I can only remember a coward. Would he really have upended his life, his career, just so that I would be sent to prison? Would he have wanted his wife involved in that kind of scandal? He cowed me, Marta. He used my trauma to make me feel small, worthless.

The devil’s trick is that I can’t be sure what he’ll do and because I love you, I am here. I remain here.

I almost called the store. I wanted so desperately to have something from home, just for a moment to hear Claudia or Carmen or even Gema pick up the phone and say, “Perfumerías de la Reina.” Just that. Just a voice, a reminder that my life was real, that it was important, that it mattered. I can’t risk it, of course. The wife or her husband will see the charge, and they’ll tell Pelayo. He’ll think I was trying to leave a message. And then what? What would he do? It’s the uncertainty that is eating away at me.

What I do know is that I have to leave this house. I have to leave this house as soon as possible.

I am living a life in Buenos Aires, but it isn't a real life. I am divided, always. All I do is long for you. My soul remains with you. I hope that you know that. I hope that you feel it, somehow.

What would it take, Marta, to be able to return? And would you want me, after all that’s been said and done?

Tuya,

Fina

Chapter Text

24 April, 1959

¿Sabes qué recordaba, mi vida? La noche de tu boda. Yo, hecha un desastre, claro… y ahí llegas tú, como en un sueño. Qué guapa estabas, Marta. Aún más por haber dejado atrás a Pelayo y por recordarme que era yo quien de verdad te importaba en aquel momento. Qué claramente veo tu rostro… la sonrisa que me regalaste al postrarte frente a mí. ¿Quién no te daría el “sí, quiero”? Mil veces te lo daría, Marta, y mil veces más.

Looking back, was your wedding day to Pelayo the worst of my life? The repercussions of it certainly have kept coming. It was as if on that day we had been dropped onto a minefield without knowing it, and were since then navigating it blindly until the inevitable bomb went off beneath our feet.

And, yet, didn’t we marry each other that night? Didn’t we swear eternal fealty? I don’t want my best memories of you to be tinged by what came later. I don’t want to think of him when I think of you. I hate that he’s there at all, that he’s managed to taint our love with his poisonous ambitions.

It was my fault, wasn’t it? I pushed you to marry him. He was so convincing, but you wanted no part of it. You knew that if you married him you were locking yourself into another gilded cage. I only wanted you safe. I’ve only ever wanted you to be safe. I thought that it was the right thing to want. I thought that if I didn’t keep you safe our love wouldn’t matter, but I see now that I had it turned around. I’m safe here, you’re safe with him—but what does it matter?

I told the wife I’m looking for a place to live—true, I asked Humberto to help me find an apartment in San Telmo—and I asked her if I was allowed to do that, whether her beautiful, beautiful house was just another kind of prison. You can go, she said, but you’ll have to tell him where you are. He’ll want to know.

The world is my beautiful prison, Marta. As long as he knows where I am, as long as he can keep me away from you, we’ll be safe. I think I hate that word now. Safe. Exiled and safe. Trapped and safe. Loveless and safe. Miserable and safe.

Safe, for now. Breathing. Alive. My heart, beating. An unremitting heart. I wish that I could tell you that, Marta. I wish that I could transmit to you how persistent my heart is, how unchangeable. It loves you, my heart, it needs you.

It will find its way back to you.

Mi corazón solo sabe latir por ti.

Espérame,

Fina

Chapter Text

25 April, 1959

¿Se acuerda, Padre, cuando Madre murió y yo, con mi mente de niña pequeña, le preguntaba por qué ya no podía verla? Y usted me dijo algo que, a lo largo del tiempo, le conté a Claudia después de la muerte de Mateo y de su bebé. Me dijo que, cuando Madre vivía, la teníamos a ratos, pero que ahora la tendríamos con nosotros siempre. Pues, Padre, ¿cómo se vive un duelo si la persona que se ama no se ha marchado? ¿Si es una misma la que se ha ido sin quererlo?

There’s an old cemetery in Recoleta, a beautiful, little city unto itself. Yesterday evening, after dinner, I grabbed your camera and walked there. It’s a quiet place, unnerving in the way all cemeteries are, but peaceful, too. I walked along the mausoleums, read the names of the people interred in each, the dates in which they had been born and died. I thought of you, and of Mother, of the ways in which you are both gone and with me always.

When I lived in the dormitory and worked at the store—not so long ago, Father, not so long ago—even after you were gone, I still had the impulse to go to the casa grande during my break, to take my meal with you. I knew that you weren’t there anymore, but my body longed for its practiced route. I wanted to take the secret path I had memorized as a young child, the quickest route between the house and the factory, the one that would lead me to you, to the smile and embrace that you would give me, to the meal Digna had made for us, to the laughter we would all surely share. Years of this habit broken so quickly. I didn’t know what to do with myself.

It’s like that now. My body knows what it wants, what path it wants to take, but the path is gone. There is no route I can take to Marta, just as there was no route I could take to you. But Marta is alive. She is always with me, yes, in that she is a part of me—in my heart and in my bones and in my blood—but beyond that she is in the world. She breathes and lives and speaks. It isn’t available to me, not anymore, but the path that leads to Marta exists. Any other person may take it, Father, except for me.

Part of me thinks that I need to accept this, that I should make my peace with eternal exile, that I must do what I can to continue protecting Marta from whatever it is Pelayo will do if I return. But isn’t this cowardice? The same cowardice that drove me from Toledo, from Spain? That pushed me all the way to another continent? I have been a coward, Father.

I am learning new paths in this new life, new routes. They are winding; they are desolate; they lead to misery, when I let them. I am so far from her, Father. Do you think it’s possible to carve a path back home?

¿Y si me pierdo? ¿Y si el hoyo que escarbo me traga de pies a cabeza?

¿No es acaso preferible ser tragada por el abismo que no haberlo intentado?

Su hija que le extraña,

Fina

Chapter Text

25 April, 1959

Queridas Carmen y Claudia,

Cómo quisiera que pudierais ver dónde trabajo. El edificio es enorme y moderno. La planta en la que estoy yo, donde trabajo con el director de fotografía, Humberto, es más grande que Paquetería y el almacén de Perfumerías de la Reina juntos. Creo que estoy aprendiendo mucho, chicas, pero sí que me cuesta estar sin vosotras.

You know how long I dreamed of being a clerk at Perfumerías de la Reina, how I thought it was the ultimate job a person like me could have. I worked hard, I was good at it. I was proud of myself when I worked there, because I knew that the effort I put in would be rewarded.

There’s a different energy to this work. I can't rely on numbers sold, or on satisfied clients. I can’t point to the boxes I set up, or the baskets I arranged. I can’t point at anything at all, really, except for the images I produce and the quality of those is subjective. I’ll hate a thing, and Humberto will love it. I’ll think I’ve done a good job, and he’ll remind me of all of the ways in which it is wrong for the magazine. Every day I face a new struggle, a new challenge. When I feel my temper flare because I can’t produce what I’m after, Humberto pulls me aside. He offers me a cigarette which I refuse. I’ve told him about ten different times I find his habit disgusting, and he’s laughed it off each time. That’s how he is. He laughs off my abuse. He laughs off his bad work. Off he goes to take more pictures. It’s easy, he says. If you don’t have the right photograph, take another, and another, until you find the one. You won’t know it until you have it. You’ll look at a proof sheet and find it, or you won’t until the next batch, but you’ll know it when you see it. That’s just the way of it.

And he’s right. When you find the image you didn’t even know you were searching for, it’s the most satisfying work you could ever do.

I caught myself just now. I almost wrote, When I’m back in Toledo, when you see what I’ve done, the pictures I’ve taken, won’t you be impressed? When I’m back…

I had to walk away from this letter. I had to walk away from writing it for hours. I miss you both so much. It feels impossible that we’re separated this way. There’s so much I don’t know. What are you doing now? How is your life going? Claudia, will you stay with Raul? Will he make you happy? Carmen, will you and Tasio have babies? Will you name one after me, your wayward friend? How is it I won’t see you live your lives, that I won’t get to share in your joys and your sorrows? That I won’t get to hug you after each of your victories?

Sin vosotras, sin Marta, estoy vacía. Siento un gran hueco en el alma. ¿Cómo llenarlo, amigas? ¿Cómo vivir sin vosotras? Tendré que descubrirlo, un día tras otro, tras otro…

Os quiero tanto,

Fina

Chapter Text

“¿Serafina? ¿En qué pensás? ¿Vos estás en otro mundo?”

“What?” She looks up from the tray, from the picture that is slowly resolving itself onto paper. They are in the dark room. Humberto is showing her his technique for developing photos. “I’m sorry, Humberto. Not in another world, no, not in another world. Just… across the ocean, but somehow it’s the same thing, isn’t it? It might as well be another planet.”

“You’re thinking of your person, then?”

“Mm, my person. Yes.” She fixes her gaze on the picture, unable to stand the sympathy she sees in his eyes. “When did you take these?”

They are outdoor shots, taken along a busy avenue lined with theaters and restaurants. Corrientes? The models wear ball gowns fit for a night out.

“A month ago or so. Before you arrived. Do you like them?”

“Yes, they’re very crisp, very modern. Do you ever shoot in color?”

“Yes, a different beast. You’ll learn that soon, but we don’t develop those here,” he said, matter-of-fact, hanging up the photo and preparing the next negative. “You know, I had a person once.”

Fina looks up at that, raises an eyebrow and almost laughs as she says, “Just one person, Humberto?”

"Well,” he says, lifting his hands, his own laughter bubbling out of his mouth, “more than one, of course, but one that was my person, as you say.”

“What happened?”

"I was young, and starting my career. I had an itinerant life before coming to work here. You know how it is—you have to make your way in the world, you have to learn your craft. That’s what I told myself. It suited me, but it didn’t quite suit my person.”

“And so you gave them up? For your photography career?”

"We gave each other up, for various reasons.”

"Then they weren’t your person, Humberto. You don’t give up your person, not for a career. Not for anything.”

"I think that if you can only think of them when you think of love, then they must be your person, regardless of the reasons for your parting. Didn’t you give your person up, Serafina?”

“No,” she snaps, letting out an angry breath, realizing that there are suddenly hot tears burning her eyes. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it that way. And I did, I had to give them up, but not because I wanted to—and they, they didn’t want to be separated from me, either.”

“Circumstances outside of your control, then? Star-crossed lovers?”

Fina closes her eyes and nods.

"Un amor con la yeta encima.”

"Y eso qué quiere decir?”

"Amor imposible, viste. Hay amores que nacen con la fecha vencida, nena. Como las flores que brotan en invierno. No es culpa de nadie.”

She wants to explain to him that theirs was not impossible love, that they would have clung to each other for all eternity if the world had allowed it, if one man hadn’t interfered.

"You think that happens? That some love just arrives with an expiration date and it ends because of, what, fate?”

"It’s bad luck, that’s all. But it’s easy for me to say, isn’t it? It’s not my heart that’s torn to shreds, it’s not me constantly turning it over in my head. But I’ve been where you are, I remember it, and I’m sorry, Serafina.”

She takes a deep, shaky breath and looks back down at the developer bath, at the picture that Humberto is now revealing. A pretty girl smiling at the camera. She has light colored eyes.

“Humberto?”

“Yes?”

“Would you please call me Fina?”

Chapter Text

27 April, 1959

Querida Marta,

Pensé que los días se me harían más llevaderos. No que te olvidase —eso jamás—, pero sí que el dolor fuese menos agudo. Pues no. Aquí sigo, igual, con el alma desgarrada. Hay momentos en los que casi consigo llevar una vida normal, pero luego se me viene tu cara a la mente… y se me desbordan las lágrimas.

I didn’t think that I would dare, my love, but I’ve been yearning for a way to live honestly for as long as I can remember. Besides you, it’s all I’ve ever wanted. And so, here, in this new place, as Humberto and I talked in circles about our person, the one person we’ve loved above all others, careful, so careful not to divulge even in private what we really meant, I did it. After work, we went to another restaurant, an establishment he says he’s been frequenting for twenty years, a rough little place filled with interesting people, with faces I longed to photograph. The place was small and shadowy, smelled of grilled meat and dust and cigarette smoke. Old men sat in a corner, arguing over a chess board. A couple danced slowly to the Gardel coming over a tinny radio, their feet dragging along the craggy wooden floors. We ate asado de tira, and drank what was probably cheap red wine. I was two glasses in when I reached into my purse and pulled your photograph from my wallet. I held it out to Humberto without saying a word. What he saw on my face I don’t know, but his eyebrows quirked and his mouth turned down as he looked at you in the picture, then back at me. Es hermosa, Fina, he whispered. Mirá cómo le brillan los ojos.

And I cried. He let me cry and kept quiet as I did so, but there was understanding in his eyes. It wasn’t pity, merely recognition, and maybe it was that recognition I didn’t even know that I needed, because my tears burned, and my breath caught in my throat and my crying became sobbing and still he didn’t say anything, he just kept looking at me as he put a warm hand on my shoulder and allowed me to feel what I had been desperate to let loose.

Later, as we walked back down the darkened streets of La Boca, its colorful buildings dimmed to monochrome, he asked if he could take my picture, there beneath a streetlamp. What for, I asked him.

For you, he said, and for her. Someday you’ll remember this night and I want you to have a keepsake. I told him that I wouldn’t want to remember, that it would always hurt too much, but he seemed so sure that I allowed it. I stood there, unsmiling, my arms at my side and pain in my heart. He took the picture and we walked on wordlessly, side by side, until we found a taxi that would take me back to la Recoleta.

Te extraño, eres mi vida,

Fina

Chapter Text

28 April, 1959

Querida Marta,

A veces pienso que el tiempo pasa tan despacio, que un minuto parece un siglo. Cuando teníamos citas, mi amor, así ocurría. Me quedaba mirando el reloj, contando los segundos, deseando que las horas se escurrieran entre mis dedos como el agua.

It’s been less than two weeks. In two weeks, my entire life has been disassembled and rearranged. I don’t understand how that’s possible. The amount of time I’ve been away from you, it feels infinite. Two weeks.

I wake up, I go to work, I follow Humberto around, I eat, I return to Recoleta and, if I’m lucky, I sleep. In between those moments, a thread, a winding strand connecting me to you, wrapped around my neck, at times merely tugging, others choking, reminds me of what’s been taken from me. Do you feel it, Marta? That fraying fiber, that invisible string? Does it pull on you, too? Does it strangle you?

Humberto developed that photograph he took of me last night, handed it to me like he was giving me a gift. I told him I didn’t want it, but he insisted I keep it. Tuck it into your diary, he said, and I never even realized he’d caught me writing these letters. But, the picture—I didn’t recognize myself, Marta. I look haunted.

I asked him if this was really what I look like, what he sees in me, and he said no, not always. And then I asked him why he had given it to me, why he would want me to see myself this way, and he said that sometimes we need a reminder. A reminder of what? That our life has changed. I didn’t want my life to change, I told him, I didn’t ask for any of this.

Sometimes we don’t, he said, but it happens anyway.

And then he told me that he had found a place for me, a second story apartment in a building owned by friends of his, fellow artists who live on the ground floor. It has a pretty courtyard, he said, full of plants and flowers for you to take care of. I don’t remember telling him I like to garden, but maybe I did. Maybe somewhere in between staring at photographs, I shared that small detail, that meaningless intimacy.

It’s strange, having a friend—thinking that in so short a time I’ve allowed myself an attachment. I don’t think I could have survived these days without him.

I hope you’re leaning on someone, my love. I hope that your family, and Carmen, Digna, Begoña—I hope that they are keeping you upright. I think of what I’ve done... I try to put myself in your place, and it tears me apart. What you must think of me. How you must hate me.

Solo quiero que recuerdes cuánto te amo. Pero dime… ¿cómo lograrlo, si he sido yo quien te ha abandonado por completo? Perdóname, mi vida. Te lo suplico… perdóname.

Fina

Chapter Text

¿Señora Rossi, podría hablar un momento con usted?

Victoria Rossi sets aside her newspaper, folding it carefully along its creases, slow and attentive, detailed. She is probably about Pelayo’s age—Marta’s age—with the beginnings of gray mixing with the blonde in her hair. She wears it pulled back in a tight bun. Everything about her seems controlled, measured. Fina wonders how much of how she behaves is a carefully-curated facade. She will never know. She does not care to delve too deeply.

“What is it? Is there something you need? You received all of your papers—your bank papers, your work permit, and such?”

“Yes, I did, thank you. No, this is about, about what we discussed before, about where I would be living.”

"Oh?”

"I’ve found a place… Well, Humberto’s found me a place, an apartment, and I’m planning on moving there as soon as I can. I have nothing to pack up but my new clothes, so it shouldn’t take long at all. I just wanted to let you know, and to thank you for letting me stay here these past weeks. And, frankly, for the job. It’s been my one blessing.”

Rossi’s face changes ever so slightly. She looks down at the table where she is drinking her morning coffee, where she was, up until Fina’s arrival, reading the morning edition of Clarín.

"I haven’t been entirely honest with you, Serafina. I have found this entire episode—Pelayo’s abrupt request, your arrival—upsetting. I did what he asked because he’s an old family friend, but the man who brought you here was not a person I knew, and, frankly, no one that I would care to know. Pelayo seems very busy amassing influence in Toledo, and I’m sure that his ambitions extend beyond its borders—he was always full of aspirations, always hungry. Anyhow, the truth is that I told his contact that you had refused the job I had offered you, and that you were doing work very much like the one you had left behind in Toledo. It seems that as long as you agree to stay far away from Spain, you should be left alone.”

“Why—why did you tell him that? Why did it matter if I did or didn’t take the job? Mrs. Rossi, it’s very important to me that Pelayo thinks I’m doing what he wants me to do. It’s vital.”

"I told him that exactly because I dislike what’s happened. You don’t have to share the circumstances that forced you here, I understand, but I don’t want to be complicit in anyone’s suffering—and it is clear to me that you have been suffering. Do you understand?”

“No.”

“He has enough, Serafina. He has you here, and as long as you stay here nothing else matters. He doesn’t need to know anything else. In fact, it gives me pleasure that his carefully constructed plan could go askew, even if only in his imagination.”

"But, I thought he was your friend?”

"A family friend, and because I am well acquainted with his character I am more than happy to distance myself from this entire episode. Don’t worry, if asked I will say that I have eyes on you, that you are staying put.”

"Then why not just tell him that I’m working at the magazine?”

"When you arrived, did you want to work at the magazine? Did you want to be here at all?”

Fina shakes her head, surprise rearing up inside of her—an acknowledgment, a recognition of pain. A ball of anguish surges unexpectedly in her throat and she swallows it down the best she can. Still, a stray tear falls down her cheek and Victoria Rossi undoubtedly sees it.

"And don’t worry, this won’t make a bit of difference. It’s only a tiny victory, a small way of showing him that he can’t control it all. “ She takes a sip of her coffee, picks up her newspaper again. “That’s it, then,” she says, a sympathetic smile—the first Fina has ever seen on her—playing on her lips. “Where will you live?”

“In San Telmo.”

“Good, that will suit you better. Let me know when you’re ready to go, and Lorenzo will help you move your things.”

“Thank you.”

"Have some coffee, won’t you? We’ll leave for the office in fifteen minutes.”

They leave in fourteen and a half.

Chapter Text

30 April, 1959

Querida Marta,

Me voy. Me voy de donde Pelayo me instaló, de donde pensó crearme una prisión en el extranjero. Pensó que me iba a dominar desde lejos, así como pudo arrebatarme todo desde cerca. Pues no. Quizá no pueda regresar, aun no, pero sí que puedo vivir, y viviré como a mí me venga la gana.

It’s done. I had almost nothing, just a suitcase full of new clothes, my cameras, this notebook, and so really it was only a matter of moving myself.

The row house I'll be living in looks like most in the neighborhood—colonial, old, flaking around the edges, but full of character and bustling with life in a way that the stately and sterile Recoleta never was. Here the odors, the noise, the heat of daily life are present and forceful.

I’m on the second floor, in a space that feels vast compared to what I’m used to. It has basic furnishings—a bed, a wardrobe, and a desk in the bedroom. The kitchen has a refrigerator and stove, both a little battered, but more than usable. Not that I’ve done much eating at home, but maybe now I’ll have time to cook the way I used to when we had the luxury of a lazy afternoon at our little house in the mountains. The rooms are big and open, full of light. There’s a small balcony that faces the street and a shared central courtyard with big pots of plants, with room for more.

Humberto’s friends are younger than I thought they would be, not much older than me, and they’re both artists—she, Silvia, a painter and a poet, and he, Hugo, an illustrator of some renown. They appear to be friendly and good-natured, and while they’ve warned me that they sometimes like to host parties, they’ve promised to be mindful of my hours.

I admit, Marta, that it feels stranger to be here, in this apartment, than it did being in that big house in Recoleta. There, I felt like guest, like a temporary resident. It didn’t seem real that I should live there, that I should stay there. This place is different. The room I write this in now is my room. I sit at a desk that is mine alone. No one will touch my things. I can decorate as I please. I can be as neat or messy as I want. Remember when I thought I might be able to buy a flat, before we discovered the scheme in which doña Clara was defrauded? Well, now I have that flat, I have more space than I know what to do with, but what does it matter? I don’t want to settle in here. I don’t want it to be mine.

And, yet, it is.

I’ve been getting used to the idea, my love, without wanting to, without searching for it—slowly, I have come to accept that I may never see you again. It hurts to know that with every day that passes, I feel you slip further and further away. It takes effort, Marta, it takes so much effort to refuse to lose the hope that I’ll ever hold you again, that I’ll ever kiss you. My fantasies have always pained me, but I rely on them now, I need them.

Por favor, por favor, no olvides lo mucho que te he querido. Si supieses todo lo que aún guardo en el corazón...

Tuya,

Fina

Chapter Text

1 May, 1959

Sí que es peor, mi amor, no tenerte aquí. Hacerme a la idea de que, aunque tenga yo mi propio hogar, tú no duermes a mi lado, no despiertas junto a mí. Sí que es más difícil.

I had another dream, but couldn’t remember it when I woke up. All I knew was that you were in it, and you hated me, repudiated me. If I can make my way back to you, will you even want me? I don’t know which is worse, which I despise more—letting you go, or clinging to the fantasy that I will one day be able to stride back into your life and we will then resume our relationship as though none of this had ever happened. As if I hadn’t left you. As if I hadn’t kept from you the circumstances surrounding my leaving. As if I hadn’t lied to your face. I thought that I was protecting you, but was I? Every time I think about it, a new scenario spins around in my head, a new version of what might have happened if I had stayed and fought against the vile injustice Pelayo planned to perpetrate on us. Would I have gone to jail? Would you? Would he even have dared? Did he hate me that much?

If he hadn’t threatened you I would have stayed and faced the consequences. I knew that then, and I know it now. But you… How could I do anything but try to keep you out of it? I worry now that in doing so, in making that choice without you, I have condemned us both to a different kind of torment.

Hugo and Sylvia invited me down to their apartment for dinner. Instead of going, I crawled into bed and, while lying in the dark, tried to imagine every good moment we ever had together. I wanted them to be their own, pure memories, but I can’t even have that. The present distorts the past. Now our beautiful life can only be viewed through the lens of my betrayal.

What have I done to you?

Perdóname,

Fina

Chapter Text

2 May, 1959

Querido Padre,

Hay días en los que pienso que la vida sigue, que podré sobrellevarlo. Pero hoy no es uno de esos días.

I went to work early today, even though it’s Saturday and Humberto told me we were just going over some test prints and he would be showing me how he marks them up for adjustment. The truth is, Father, that I leave early, and I come home late, because I can’t stand the apartment. It should be everything I’ve ever wanted. It would have been in Toledo. I would have filled it up with old furniture and pictures of you and Mother, pictures of Marta—but it’s so big and empty, and the thought of filling it nauseates me. When I am there, I am only reminded of the hollow in my life, that same black pit that’s followed me around since I left Spain. Nothing I do can fill it. I work and I work, and I try and talk to people, and I take pictures as I wander through San Telmo—and some of it distracts me for a moment, but nothing works in that apartment. I look around at its bare walls and feel the absence next to me in bed, and I feel sick.

Humberto took one look at me when I walked in and told me to go home, that I looked unwell and that it wouldn’t do me any good to try and work that way. I begged him. I begged him to let me stay. I told him that I couldn’t go back, that I wouldn’t go back until nightfall. Until the only thing to do there was to crawl into bed, pull the blanket up and over my head, and sleep. He let me stay but we didn’t work. He made mate and we sat together while he told me about his travels. And as he talked about his trips to Italy and France and Turkey and Burma and Mexico and Egypt, I could only be grateful that he wasn’t trying to comfort me. His trips weren’t all filled with glory and triumph. They were hard and formative and disappointing and enlightening. He asked me if I wanted to travel someday and I told him the truth which is that there is only one place I ever want to be.

Padre, ¿cree usted que hago mal en derrumbarme de esta forma? No lo puedo evitar. Me pregunto qué hace Marta, cómo está, cómo se lo ha tomado... y lo único que pienso es que he cometido el peor error de mi vida. Me siento rota y no sé cómo seguir.

Su hija, que le extraña y le necesita,

Fina

Chapter Text

4 May, 1959

Querida Marta,

Hoy me tuve que levantar. No quería. Pensé en quedarme en la cama, debajo de las sábanas, fantaseando que me había tragado un hoyo sin fin. Me persiguen los malos pensamientos, mi amor.

I felt like a zombie today. Humberto was less understanding—we had real work to do—and so I did it, I got to it. I even went to a meeting with the creative department, my first. They must have wondered what I was doing there, why Victoria Rossi had stuck poor Humberto with an inexperienced rube. I had nothing to impart, and very little energy to try and play the part of someone with drive and talent. But then we went through some of the photographs for an upcoming spread, and among them they picked one of mine. Some of them seemed impressed by my output. I can’t imagine why. Even now I try to muster up confidence by remembering your words, how kind you were, how encouraging. Without you it all seems so meaningless.

Humberto congratulated me when we got back to our office and I told him I would never understand the magazine business, but he shrugged off my concerns. Just keep working, he said. It’ll come to you.

I don’t know what else I can do, Marta. Keep working. Put my head down. Pretend I’m not deeply unhappy. Pretend that sometime, somehow, I will have a life worth living.

I thought it would get better. I thought that the hole in my heart would mend. But how can it when I pick at the scab every day? I was the one with the knife. The day I killed Santiago, I also plunged the blade into my own heart. Pelayo held the hilt and I ran straight towards my demise.

Muerta en vida, Marta. Así me siento. ¿Habrá forma de resucitar?

Tuya,

Fina

Chapter Text

5 May, 1959

Querida Marta,

Anoche, ya acostada en la cama, me puse a recordar todo sobre ti: cada sensación, cada aroma, cada sabor. Cómo sentía tu cabello entre mis dedos, cómo el olor de tu perfume me fascinaba, me obsesionaba. Todo, todo, mi amor, todo lo que podía soportar mi corazón. Cómo te hecho de menos. Cómo te ansío. A veces pienso que estoy perdiendo la razón.

Yesterday, after work, I went to the movies and ended up seeing something called Calle Mayor, a Spanish film which was incredibly sad, but which reminded me so much of life in Toledo I sat riveted, unable to move. I admit I drank in the sounds, the accents, yearning in a way for the people I had left behind, but intensely aware, too, of how stifling the small town life portrayed in the movie could be. I thought about what my life might have been like if you had never dared to be with me, what it would have been like if I had stayed on, even after my father’s death—me, alone, a spinster, looked down on, gossiped about. I thought, too, about life with you and what it might have looked like if Pelayo had never showed his face. What if that trip to the sea, the one I took with Carmen and Claudia and Tasio, what if it hadn’t been interrupted? What if our truck hadn’t broken down? What if we had never been forced to stay in that rundown hotel and Carmen had never showed you that horrible soap from Floral she found there? You wouldn’t have had the idea of partnering with Olivares. Our lives would have been so different. Maybe we could have run away to Barcelona, liked we plan to do with Jaime. Do you remember? If he hadn’t died so soon, we would be there now, living together. Together.

What if, what if, what if. It’s all I do now, Marta. Turn things over in my head, think of alternate realities. I do what I have always hated—I dream of a different future, one that is impossible.

My love, what if I can’t remember your voice?

I need to talk to you.

Cuánto te anhelo,

Fina

Chapter Text

6 May, 1959

Amor,

¿Sabes qué, Marta? Desperté con un nudo en la garganta, pensando solo en correr al aeropuerto y coger el primer vuelo rumbo a Madrid. Tanta era mi desesperación por volver a mirar tu rostro. ¿Qué no daría yo por abrazarte?

I spent the day taking pictures with Humberto’s Rolleiflex. Actually, we both took pictures for an outdoor photoshoot with a famous singer I had never heard of, but which the others on staff were obsessing over. While they fawned, I concentrated on my work, which was easy—she’s clearly been photographed countless times and knows which angles favor her. And maybe it’s because I’m not a real professional and I don’t know the lingo or the usual things photographers ask of their subjects, but she seemed confused by my requests, by the poses and expressions I asked of her. She was very comfortable with Humberto, though, who I gathered had photographed her often.

Truthfully, you were with me the entire time. As I posed her, as I talked her through what I was looking for, I thought of how much I would have liked taking your photo in this format, of how much I wanted an enormous, full-color picture of you to hang up on my wall. It was you on my mind, you I wanted looking at my camera. When I directed her, it was with the memory of what I would have wanted you to transmit. Beyond the obvious, beyond the carnal—your spirit, your fortitude, your strength. And, yes, maybe something distant, too, unreachable. That was true of this woman, who could in turn be haughty or aloof, and so I wondered if she was anything like you beneath her cold facade. I wondered if deep down she burned.

You burn, Marta. There’s an unending fire inside of you. You’re so warm that you glow. The days grow shorter here; it will be winter soon. My love, how I miss your warmth.

Extraño tus ojos, tus labios, tu sonrisa, tu piel, tus malos ratos, tu altivez, tu generosidad, tu amor, tu amor, tu amor.

Fina

Chapter Text

7 May, 1959

Querida Marta,

Hoy descubrí que hay muchas formas de ser, y que, a veces, una no sabe lo que tiene al lado. Quizá este lugar no sea donde yo me quede, pero sí podría ser el lugar donde encuentre el ánimo para seguir adelante y encontrar la forma de volver a tu lado. Es todo lo que deseo.

Hugo and Silvia were having a party tonight. They invited me, they’re very pleasant people, but I still wasn’t up to it.

After I got home from work I made tea, got into bed, and began reading from a copy of Madame Bovary I found in a used bookstore near the office. That book has seen me through a lot of bad moments, Marta—through my stabbing and our breakup after Jaime decided to stay for good. Afterward, too, I kept going back to it, again and again. She’s such a fool, you know? I thought so, anyway. I thought, who could make these choices, who could be so desperate, so needy? But maybe I’m the fool. I had it all with you. I had love, passion, excitement, companionship, kindness… We had it all, Marta, except acceptance, community, and so we were vulnerable. We were vulnerable to the Pelayos and Santiagos of the world, and because we were vulnerable we made bad decisions. In the wake of my bad decisions, I find myself being less and less judgmental of Emma Bovary.

Anyway, I was reading it again, or rather leafing through it while I tried not to think about you, when there was a knock on my door. I thought of ignoring it, but then I heard Humberto’s voice calling my name. When I answered, he looked me up and down and asked why I wasn’t at the party. ¿Pero, nena... ¿que no sabés que es para vos? Así conocés a nuestras amistades, Fina.

I made a face, I’m sure, groaned about not being dressed, not being in the mood. I would be bad company, I said, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer and then he said something that stopped me, that left me shaken. He told me that all of the people downstairs, laughing and dancing and drinking, were like family. Friends, yes, but family. People like us, he said, and if not like us then accepting of us, welcoming of us, embracing of us. He told me that it’s an important thing to have. Don’t despair, he said. When you do, someone here will lift you up. I will lift you up. And then he told me, gently, to go and get dressed and that he would introduce me to people I would like. People I could be myself around.

And so I went, my love, and I met some lovely people, and I had a few drinks, and I think Hugo made me laugh, once. These people I met, they’re not my family—my family is in Toledo, you are my family—but for once I didn’t feel like I had to hide in plain sight. These strangers felt safe.

All I wish is that you had been here with me. We could have danced, held hands openly. No one would have cared. There were others, my love, just like us. I saw them embracing one other, tender with one another. No one cared.

I miss you more than ever. I wish I had been brave. I wish I had known how to defend our love.

Mis deseos son todo lo que me queda, todo lo que me sostiene, pero quizá no estoy tan sola como yo pensaba.

Extrañándote como siempre,

Fina

Chapter Text

8 May, 1959

Mi amor,

Anoche volví a soñar contigo, Marta. Aunque, pensándolo bien, fue más un recuerdo que un sueño. Estábamos juntas en mi dormitorio, en la colonia. Solas, claro. En aquella camita estrecha en la que apenas cabíamos, y en la que, una vez, nos dejamos llevar por lo que sentíamos. Estar cerca de ti me desarma... me enloquece, Marta. Y ahora que no puedo estar contigo, mi cuerpo no sabe qué hacer. Recuerda cada gesto, cada caricia; sabe cómo abrazarte, cómo besarte... pero no tiene manera de hacerlo. Así que no le queda más que añorar.

It feels strange, now, in the middle of my despair to write to you about desire, but it’s impossible for me to separate my love from my need for you. My body remembers you, yearns for you. I was prepared to miss your voice, your laughter, your kindness, your support, your intelligence, your fortitude, your spirit, your generosity, your strength, but nothing prepared me for how much I would miss the curve of your lips; that little mole below your breast; the softness of your hair, the way it wraps around my fingers when I run my hands through it; the way you always smell like that special perfume Luis made for you--no one in the world smells the way that you do; the way that you hold me when we kiss, like I’m something precious, special, and the way that it changes when your own hunger ignites, the way that you tighten that embrace, the way that you hold me like you never want to let me go; the way that you kiss me—sweet, sometimes, tender, but desperate, too, like you’ll never get enough. I will never get enough, Marta. The way that you taste me, the way that your mouth sets me on fire. Will I ever burn that way again?

The ways in which I miss you cannot be quantified. It is an endless longing.

Sin ti, estoy vacia,

Fina

Chapter Text

Humberto, smoking his cigarette, letting it dangle dangerously from his lip, waves her over to his desk. It had rained that morning, and Fina has just stepped off of the elevator, is shaking water off of her coat and propping up her umbrella so that it will dry by her work area when she notices him.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing at all, but I had a little gift for you, a token of my appreciation for all of the good work you’ve been doing lately.”

“Not another assignment,” Fina replies, because each time he has complimented her work he has thrown something new and formative on her plate. “Estoy hasta el cuello, Humberto.”

When he laughs, raspy, his cigarette almost falls out of his mouth but he catches it in time and uses it to point to a framed picture hanging on the wall. “You should take it home today, or someone will think I’ve discovered a new model and ask about her.”

Oh.

In the middle of one of her darker days, Fina had brought her negatives to Humberto and begged him to blow them up. I need to see her, she had said. Please, I think you’ll do her justice, because I can’t. I can’t.

And so he has. Not only has he developed the photograph—developed and printed it beautifully in a way that only, Fina is sure, he could—but he has framed it, too. Un marco lindo, para una mujer aún más linda. ¿Te gusta, che?

Fina is already touching the frame, running her fingers along its edges. Then, she sets her hand on the glass that covers Marta’s face and almost bursts into tears. “I can’t believe you did this. Humberto, you’re, you—“ Not knowing what else to say, she merely turns and hugs him. It is the first hug she has given anyone since leaving Spain.

He pats her on the back and says, “It was my pleasure, little one. Anything to see a smile on your face, hmm, so stop crying.” But, ah, he smells like her father’s hair pomade, and that only makes Fina cry all the harder until slowly, as Humberto shushes her, she is able to disengage and wipe her tears.

“I’m sorry about that,” she says. “You’re so kind.”

“Sorry about what? About giving an old man a hug? Fina, please—if these are happy tears, then I can only be glad. I’ll make mate, and we’ll go over our schedule, all right? Take off that coat, nena, you’ll catch cold.” He nods at the picture. “What’s her name?”

Fina’s throat almost closes up. “Marta,” she replies, strangled.

“Marta. Llevátela a casa, Fina, que quiere estar con vos.”

Chapter Text

10 May, 1959

Querida Marta,

¿Te acuerdas, mi vida, de cuando me propusiste un viaje y me preguntaste: mar o montaña? Yo, claro, solo con imaginarme a las dos, juntas, tomando el sol, viendo cómo la marea entraba y salía, sin más pensarlo, elegí el mar. No pudo ser, ¿verdad? Quizá algún día. Quizá, cuando regrese a casa, te tome de la mano y vayamos al mar.

That photograph I tucked into my goodbye letter to you, I have it again. Humberto developed it for me, blew it up, framed it. I am looking at you now. It’s incredible, isn’t it, how quickly one can forget the details? I thought that I knew everything, every shadow, every line. I thought that I knew the look in your eyes, the bend of your smile. And, yet, I look at you and I am reminded once again that memory is fleeting and that this photograph, as beautiful as it is, as much as I can’t stop staring at it, cannot be a substitute for flesh and bone. It cannot round out your corners. It cannot evoke the softness of your skin, or the blue of your eyes. It can’t whisper my name. It can’t laugh. It can’t hold my hand. It can’t tell me that you love me. That you forgive me. That you understand. That everything will be all right. That we’ll get through this. That we’ll be together again. That you’ll hold me. That you’ll allow me to hold you. That none of this matters. That it’s all been a nightmare. That he won’t hurt us. That you’re safe. That you’re taken care of. That you think of me. That you don’t blame me. That you love me. That you love me. That you love me.

¿Seguirás queriéndome a pesar de mi abandono?

Fina

Chapter Text

11 May, 1959

Querido Padre,

Se sorprendería mucho usted al saber que tengo un amigo aquí en Buenos Aires. Un mentor, un fotógrafo que me ha ayudado a desarrollar mis habilidades. Sigo usando su cámara, Padre—la suya—pero también uso la que me regaló Marta y otra, de estilo diferente, que es la que más utilizo en el trabajo. Humberto me recuerda mucho a usted. Es noble, y comprensivo, y muy, muy paciente. Cómo le echo de menos, Padre, ahora más que nunca.

I think too much, Father. I lie in bed at night and when I can’t focus on my reading, my mind wanders. Of course, being where I am, and in the situation that I am in, my thoughts never lead anywhere good. For instance, today—today I was thinking of you, of what it meant to lose you when I did, and of what happened afterward. Santiago came to the store right after your death, when I was in a very dark place. Emotionally, I was feeling very low. I didn’t know what to do with myself, and I didn’t know how to rely on Marta. She tried, she did, but I felt guilty for not having been with you when you died. I felt selfish. It felt like it had been my fault you had been overexerting yourself.

And what did I do, Father? I rejected Marta’s attempts to help me. A complete stranger, a man I didn’t know, walked into my life and told me a story that moved me. We were both grieving. We were both lost in our grief. I wish that I knew why it was easier to accept his words of comfort. Maybe it felt less like pity. Maybe I did, unfairly, blame Marta for her part in bringing you to our house, to the place of your demise. I run hot, Father, you know that—you know how I let my feelings overwhelm me. And I was subsumed by my loss. I couldn’t see straight. I couldn’t accept that I hadn’t done anything wrong. That you had been sick for a very long time and that there was nothing I could have done to prevent what happened that day. There was no room for Marta’s logic, for her clear-eyed assessments. I resented them. I pushed them away. I pushed her away.

Now, I lie in bed and play a game of what-ifs. If I had followed Marta’s advice and taken the days after your death off from work, I wouldn’t have met him. He wouldn’t have known me. He wouldn’t have become obsessed with me. None of what happened afterward—my time in jail, the rumors, Pelayo, this now, what’s happening to me now… I have to stop doing this. I’m going to go crazy, Father.

Of what use is it to desire different outcomes to events that cannot be changed? I am here, and unless I do something, I will remain here. Thinking, wishing, praying—what good do they do me? I am still here, and Marta is far, far away from me. You are gone. My friends are voices in my head.

I have nothing but my cameras and a job with a kind, old man. For now, they will have to do.

¿Sigue pensando usted que soy fuerte, que nunca me rindo? ¿Podré levantarme de nuevo, Padre, y tener más fuerza para sobrellevar todo esto?

Su hija, que le adora,

Fina

Chapter Text

12 May, 1959

Queridas Carmen y Claudia,

A veces, chicas, pienso en vosotras y me entra una gran tristeza por no poderos contar todo lo que me sucede. A veces me pongo a imaginar que me diríais. Carmen, tú en especial, creo que me tomarías por los hombros y me sacudirías un poco, por lo tonta que he sido. Tonta y una cobarde. Sí que cuesta admitirlo. Me dejé convencer por un miserable que ahora duerme junto a mi mujer. ¿Y qué hago yo? Me muero por dentro, dándole vueltas al asunto de cómo salir de esta, amigas. ¿Cómo regreso? ¿Cómo le hago pagar a ese mal nacido todo lo que nos ha hecho a Marta y a mí?

My neighbor, Silvia, invited me over for coffee again and I didn’t think it was right to refuse, again. They seem like nice people, she and Hugo, and it isn’t their fault I’m half out of my mind with grief. So, I went, and she poured me an extremely strong cup of coffee and we chatted in that way acquaintances do, about our families, about our lives, where we come from. To be fair, I allowed her to talk and when she asked me things I tried my best to answer honestly without oversharing. The truth of why I had left Toledo I, of course, couldn’t share. But I told her about the two of you, about my best friends, and I told her about my father, and, in an extremely roundabout way, I told her about the love of my life. Nothing specific, nothing that would make me break out into tears, as I’m so prone to do lately, but it was nice to talk about you, about our friendship and how I miss it.

I only realized today that I had met Silvia before. She had been at one of the first parties Humberto dragged me to and after meeting me she had called me la gallega the entire evening, even though I had corrected her very firmly and told her that I was from Toledo. We laughed about it today. She reminded me that I had taken her picture that evening; I will have to look for it.

She showed me her work, her studio—she paints and writes; her watercolors are so beautiful—and asked about mine. You’ll need to show me your photographs, she said. Humberto tells me they’re unbelievable. What luck it was to find another artist to share our space with.

Artist. I admit, girls, I find it strange to think of myself that way. I wanted to say, no, no, I only take pictures, but maybe I shouldn’t belittle myself. I hear you now, Claudia, boosting me, telling me how much you liked the pictures I took of Marta. I never would have imagined how far that chance encounter with my father’s camera would take me. And if it hadn’t been for you, you and Marta, encouraging me—well, I’m not sure what I would be doing now. At least my camera provides distraction, something to do. It gives me a job I look forward to. Beyond that, it feeds something within me, something I didn’t know existed. For that, for finding it and for your unending support, I am grateful.

A ver si, cuando regrese a Toledo, no llego a echar de menos el mate y el asado. Vosotras, amigas, tendríais que probarlo todo; veréis qué desastre —se morirán por mis alfajores. Ay, cómo me duele escribir esto; es como si volviera mañana a la tienda, como si nada de esto hubiese ocurrido.

Vuestra hermana del alma,

Fina

Chapter Text

13 May, 1959

Querida Marta,

Hoy he ido al mercado y he comprado lo necesario para preparar, además del guiso que tú bien sabes que me sale tan rico, unos suizos. Según yo, eran para regalarlos a los vecinos, y también a Humberto. No sé por qué se me metió entre ceja y ceja que tenían que ser suizos —cualquier otra cosa podría haberles hecho—. Pero, una vez tomada la decisión, era como si me alistara para la guerra. Los he hecho, y los he hecho sin echarme a llorar, aunque por poco me puede el sentimiento.

I brought the suizos over to Silvia’s and she was so sweet about it, she even made me sit down and share one with her, a suizo and her brand of strong coffee that she loves. And even though I didn’t cry while I was making them, something about my face must have changed while I was eating—you know how hard it is for me to cover up what I’m feeling—because Silvia asked me what was wrong. I said nothing was wrong, of course. I tried hard to pass it off as exhaustion. But she isn’t like Humberto, she won’t let things go, and when she leaned back in her chair and gazed at me with interest rather than pity, I saw a little bit of Carmen in her. In that friend who is tough but loyal, who wants to help even when it’s inconvenient, who won’t baby you into being all right.

She then said, Gallega, a mí no me engañás. She was gentle about it, but I could see she would be unwavering, too. I would have to tell her something that sounded like the truth, at least. And so I told her that the suizos reminded me of the person I loved, the person I had to leave behind in Toledo.

Ah, she said, when you love someone, everything reminds you of them. If you’re separated, all the worse. The world is full of them, and yet they’re unreachable.

Yes, I told her, that’s true, but suizos were involved in our story. She made them for me, we made them together— And as soon as the words came out of my mouth, Marta, I realized what I had said. My blood went cold at once, but when I looked at her, Silvia’s demeanor had not changed. She nodded, took another bite of the pastry, and mumbled around it that she understood. If Hugo ever vanished from my life, it would be this coffee, she told me, this strong, bitter coffee that he loves and which I have grown to love because of him, that would drive me to tears. She winked at me and took another sip of her husband’s coffee.

I asked her if she didn’t mind me being the way that I am—she laughed, Marta.

“Weren’t you at our party? Half of our friends are like you, Fina. We’re artists, not bureaucrats. Besides, before Hugo, I was with a couple of girls who easily could have turned out to be the love of my life, but who just weren’t as perfect for me as he is. For some of us, it’s the person who matters, not the rest of it.”

I was so surprised that I laughed, too—with astonishment, and with delight. And I saw that Humberto had deposited me where he knew that I would be safe. A friend like us, Marta. A woman who would understand.

Me comí un bollo entero, Marta, y sí que me salió bueno. Y pensé en ti, y no me desmoroné; no se me encogió el corazón. Pensé en ti, y se me alegró el alma.

Te amo,
Fina

Chapter Text

Another rainy day—rainy and brisk. Fina wears a tan-colored trench coat, black trousers, a brown, collared shirt beneath her old red cardigan. It is autumn, nearly winter, and it feels like it as she steps off of the colectivo and opens up her umbrella. She has objectives today and they are: to take one spectacular photograph, and to find a kiosk that carries Spanish newspapers.

Downtown, along Calle Florida, where she knows there are several large bookstores and surrounding newsstands, she finds what she is looking for—a kiosk with a little sign reading “Prensa Extranjera.”

“Buenas tardes. Do you have Spanish papers?” she asks the man running the kiosk, and he nods and produces copies of ABC and La Vanguardia. ABC is the Madrid edition, so she tells him she’ll take that one and proceeds to ask whether he has copies for all of the days of the previous week.

Unlike the myriad copies of La Nación and Clarín he has waiting to be collected by busy patrons who drop their cash and take one off of stacks, he keeps the international newspapers folded and protected behind a counter. He flips through his stock and says, “I have everything but last Saturday. We have limited copies and run out sometimes.”

“Oh. How often do you run out?”

“It depends on the day. Sundays sell fast, so you’re lucky this week. If you’re interested in daily copies, I can put you on my reserve list. I get my mail every afternoon. They run a few days behind, sometimes more, depending.”

She asks to be put on the reserve list and purchases the available copies of ABC, which she then tucks into a large purse, bought shortly after moving out of Recoleta—a commute on the colectivo while carrying various folders and cases and packed lunches requires it. She thanks the vendor and then walks down the block to look for the first café she can find.

Once inside, she orders coffee and hunkers down with her papers at a corner table. Sunday first, she thinks, knowing the Sunday edition of ABC always runs a full feature on Toledo. She flips through the paper, folding and rearranging the sheets as she arrives at the section she wanted.

It’s hard to take, at first, mostly because she hadn’t really been expecting to find anything this quickly, but there he is. There she is.

Fina grips her own throat. She can hardly breathe.

The article is on Perfumerías de la Reina and their overcoming recent struggles with worker injuries. The tone of the article is upbeat, positive. Improvements have been made, workers paid, and assurances given that future safety is top of mind. The rest of it regards the recent press conference held at the colony. Miguel Ángel Vaca is there to talk about the importance of the company to the local economy, and to announce his successor for the post of civil governor, a man who just happens to be married to one of the de la Reinas. A man who, in the accompanying photograph, stands happily by Miguel Ángel Vaca, Andrés de la Reina, and…

And Marta.

A sound comes out of her, a choked sob that earns her a glance from an older woman sitting a few feet away. She swallows hard, takes a drink of her coffee. Still, tears well up in her eyes, tears she blinks back as she drags a finger over Marta’s visage. She looks tired, unhappy. Oh, she is smiling, but there is nothing behind that smile, Fina knows. She knows her so well.

So Pelayo is getting what he wants, the position for which he willingly ruined lives. A familiar rage builds within Fina, an anger that settles in her chest, an anger that feels heavy and righteous. A well-earned anger. She has never hated anyone more in her entire life, not even Santiago. At least he was forthright with his intentions, with his vile deeds. At least he is dead. Pelayo pretends, even now, to be Marta’s friend, her protector. He puts an arm around her shoulder and smiles at her.

The things he must tell her; the poison he must drip into her ear.

Fina reads the article twice and then spends long moments staring at the photograph, a hard reminder that even though she is gone, things continue, lives continue. Marta’s life goes on and here is the proof. The proof of life, the proof of devastation. Not that Fina needs proof. She lives with that devastation every moment.

She wipes at her eyes, finishes her coffee, and folds the newspaper so that it will fit back into her bag. She will go through the rest of them later, but doesn’t expect to find much of use. Home, she will go home.

But, then, she remembers the promise she made to herself. Two objectives. She is in no mood to find a subject, or to wander the streets of el Microcentro for something to photograph. No, she takes the Rolleiflex out of its case and walks outside, turns and faces the café window. There is enough good light. She is clearly visible.

Fina takes a self-portrait, puts the camera away, and begins the journey home.

Chapter Text

15 May, 1959

Querida Marta,

Ayer vi tu carita triste en el periódico de Madrid. Qué mal me sentí, mi vida. Qué culpable me sentí por haberte dejado con ese malnacido. Bien hubiera hecho en quedarme, aunque hubiese terminado en la cárcel. Pero el miedo de que te hiciera algo a ti también me cegó. Mi amor por ti me cegó por completo.

In the middle of feeling down and guilty and ashamed, I tried distracting myself by finding that photograph I took of Silvia. When I found it and brought it downstairs to show her, she excitedly ran to show it to Hugo and they asked me inside of their apartment for a drink. I wasn’t in the mood, I made some excuse, but before I could go she pulled me aside and asked me if I wanted to go out later, to a milonga.

I don’t think I’ve ever asked you what kind of parties you used to go to when you were younger, before Jaime. Frou-frou, high-society events, I should imagine. Prim and proper and, sorry, probably a big snore. Nothing like the verbenas I used to frequent with Carmen and Claudia, and before them Esther. Small town affairs with makeshift dance floors in the plaza, and either a record player or a band made up of amateurs doing their absolute best. We would all dance together, and no one minded when the girls would, too, because that’s what friends do when there aren’t enough boys to go around, or the boys are timid and prefer to watch from the periphery. It was the perfect excuse for me, as you can imagine. Esther and I would dance and dance and sometimes we’d trade off and find a boy, so we wouldn’t be so obvious, but we would always find each other again. I wish I had that memory of you, in my arms, twirling and laughing, swaying to the music whether it was good, bad, or mediocre, practicing our paso doble, holding one another a little more tightly during a melancholy bolero. Me, trying not to look at you for too long, letting my eyes linger on the string of lights or the paper lanterns, or the other dancers. Having a little too much to drink, thinking it wouldn’t matter because you’d hold me upright. I’d like to think no one would have noticed, but that’s naive, isn’t it? They would have had one look at us, at the way we gazed at one another, and they would have known. We’ve never known how to control ourselves, have we? It’s all right there, written on our faces. God, I love you.

Anyway, I told her I couldn’t, not yet, but that I would try and make it to the next one, should she invite me again. She told me that she would. Gallega, te merecés un poco de felicidad, aunque sea por una noche. Maybe I do, Marta. Maybe it’s okay to find something to hold on to, if only for one night. I can pretend you’re there with me, dancing an unsteady tango while I whisper in your ear all of the things I want to do with you in my apartment, in my bed. Maybe it’s okay to dream a little before reality slaps me in the face.

Te deseo,

Fina

Chapter Text

It’s late.

Downstairs, Hugo and Silvia are locked in a heated discussion about something that cannot be heard or comprehended from a distance. After a time, the discussion ends in laughter.

(They sing together, sometimes. The radio will be on and Fina can appreciate Silvia’s voice rising above the output of the speaker and without warning Hugo’s sonorous, wildly out of tune vocals join in—and there is laughter.)

And, Fina—in her room, in her kitchen, in her bathroom, sitting on her little couch, trying to read, leafing through her proofs, staring at Marta’s picture—envies.

It is pure and it is clean and it cuts straight to the bone. She hears them and she hears what she cannot have and without meaning to she feels the heat of anger. Not at them. Not at Silvia and Hugo who are nothing but kind and well-mannered. Who have offered her a place to rest her weary head at a very reasonable rate. No. She could never be angry at them. They’ve done nothing to her. They do nothing but live their lives, and love one another.

There, the crux. The thorn.

It’s late, but she decides to put on her shoes, throw on a coat. She will walk.

San Telmo, even at this hour, is alive. Little groups of people, young, old, bohemian, staid, clumped together, some talking, others moving without words, trying, perhaps, to get wherever it is they’re going with minimal fuss. Some, alone. Not many. Fewer women walk alone. She becomes aware of this when she hears a whistle from somewhere behind her, from a distance. She keeps on, moves without glancing back. Is unsure of a destination, only that she must proceed. Her gaze darts this way and that, taking in the crumble of concrete; the impasto and overpaint on old, weathered signage; the bright neon inviting her into a nightclub; the twirl of a pocket watch; the run on a stocking; the scuff on patent leather; lipstick on a tooth; crooked eyeliner.

Lop-sided and eager, the moon presents itself, shines in those dim corners where the street lights fail. Fina walks on, unsure, but determined.

Before long, she is drawn to the dimmed pink facade of a little café she’s never seen before. Somewhere, she took a different turn, found an unfamiliar street, and here she is. Its little wooden sign reads Cafe La Cibeles. She goes inside.

“¿Que tal? Buenas noches,” she says, and the woman behind the counter lights up.

“¡Buenas noches, guapa! ¿En qué le puedo ayudar?”

She speaks Spanish with a clear, Castilian accent, and its sound makes Fina sigh with a strange relief. She orders a churro and hot chocolate and sits where she can hear the attendant and her partner talking. After a while she gets up the nerve to interject.

“Perdonad, ¿sois de Madrid, verdad?”

They are, indeed, both from Madrid, and have named their café after the famous fountain. Eager to chat, eager to be with compatriots, Fina stays on, watching customers come and go, listening for other familiar sounds, answering questions whenever the attendant is free to talk. She’s from Toledo, she says. What is she doing in Buenos Aires? Work; she’s there to work. Does she miss Spain? Tanto, tanto, tanto.

She stays until closing time, and then the owner gently ushers her out with a free bag of leftover bread and an invitation to return whenever she pleases. “It’s always nice to hear the sound of home, isn’t it?”

By the time she arrives in her apartment, she is tired, sleepy. She brushes her teeth, washes her face, slips into her nightgown and between the sheets of her bed. The apartment downstairs is dark and quiet. Her own feels oppressively silent. Fina tries to will the sound of Marta’s laughter into her mind, but she can’t. It feels off, somehow, unnatural.

Not for the first time, Fina has the urge to call the de la Reina house, but who would answer? She looks at her watch. It is 2 in the morning in Buenos Aires. Marta is an early riser, but she wouldn’t be at the office yet. Maybe she would be getting ready for work. Maybe she would be applying her makeup, or picking her outfit for the day.

Might Marta be thinking of her? Might she be wondering, the way that Fina wonders? Does it eat her up inside, not knowing? Does it kill her, too?

Chapter Text

17 May, 1959

Querida Marta,

Domingo. Ya se me ha escurrido otra semana por los dedos, mi amor. Otra semana más sin ti. Las horas, los días… el tiempo avanza y yo sin saber qué hacer. Me replanteo que tengo que regresar, de alguna forma tengo que regresar. ¿Pero cómo?

How to devise a plan, Marta? Start big and drill down, is what Carmen used to say, when, at the store, we had a long-term objective to achieve, a project that wouldn’t be done in a day or two but was one that required advance set-up and deliberate follow-through.

My goal, of course, is to return to you. Beyond that, and perhaps more importantly, it is to destroy Pelayo’s ability to hurt you.

The knife. He said he would get rid of it as soon as I left and it was clear I wouldn’t return. Nonsense, of course. He’s a liar. He has it. Somewhere, he has it. Kept hidden, kept safe. Secret. Secret from you, my love. Because you’re in the dark, aren’t you? If you knew, if you had any idea, you would never stand next to him waiting to have your picture taken, plastering a fake smile on your face. No, if you had any notion of what he had done... I don’t know what you would do, what you could do that wouldn’t lead to your own destruction.

What I need is information, but the question is how to get it? Do I reach out to someone—? No. I can’t endanger anyone else. Bringing someone I trust into this would be reckless, selfish. And, yet, there’s only so much I can glean from the Sunday issue of ABC. There must be a way to get to you, to communicate what’s happened, but my greatest fear is telling you the truth and being far from you, helpless to stop you from doing something that would force Pelayo’s hand. I couldn’t keep you from your plan for revenge against Santiago, and I can only imagine what you would do, or try to do, if you were to learn of Pelayo’s betrayal.

So, I’m stuck, aren’t I? For now, I’m stuck. I could try to return, but I can’t be sure that I am not still being watched. I can’t trust anything.

If this seems like a cold-eyed appraisal of my circumstances, I assure you it is not. My biggest weakness now is my heart, my fearful heart.

Isn’t it funny, how I pretend? Day after day, I write these letters—these letters to you, and Claudia and Carmen. Worse, I write to my dead father. Although, perhaps not worse. The same, then. Me writing to myself. Why not just walk around my apartment while I talk to you and continue the farce that you can somehow hear me?

I thought of going to church today. Of praying for… what? Forgiveness? Redemption? You? For Pelayo’s death, surely, and so I opted not to go. Best to not involve God in these thoughts I’m having, in these plans I wish I could execute.

What if I: got on an airplane, traveled across continents, landed in Madrid, took a bus to Toledo, a taxi to your house, announced myself, threw myself at your feet, begged for forgiveness, explained, groveled, took you by the hand and ran, kept running, lived with you, loved you forever?

What if: you left your family, got on an airplane, traveled across continents, landed in Buenos Aires, found me, smiled at me, wanted me, forgave me, took me by the hand, made no promises, took me in your arms, loved me forever?

¿Qué hago más que desear, más que soñar, más que pensar, pensar, pensar? Mis propios pensamientos me aturden. ¿Podré algún día encontrar la solución?

¿Cuándo te volveré a ver?

Fina

Chapter Text

18 May, 1959

Querida Marta,

Hoy me sorprendió Humberto con algo que, la verdad, no me esperaba. No sé por qué, pero jamás pensé que, estando lejos de ti, el mundo pudiese parecerme a la vez más pequeño e infinitamente grande.

When I walked into work today, Humberto pulled me aside and told me, without preamble, that we would be traveling for our next photoshoot. Es para un especial, el número de verano. ¿Te conté? Nos vamos a Acapulco, nena.

I admit, I was taken aback. I had thought traveling for this job would be a possibility, but locally, across the city, maybe even as far as Mar de Plata, but not all the way to Mexico. What might have been a dream when I lived in Toledo, a far-off fantasy involving only the two of us, now is an adventure I will have to live out on my own. It hardly feels worth it, considering, but I don’t see a way to back out of it, especially because this job is the only thing keeping me afloat, and without Humberto’s counsel, without all of his help, I would have been lost.

And so I suppose, my love, that I’ll be taking photographs in paradise, feeling all of the while that I am in purgatory, in that unceasing realm without you.

Estar sin ti es como vivir en un abismo, en una quietud infinita. El mundo gira, lo cotidiano me toma de la mano y me obliga a seguir viviendo, pero por dentro no hay mundo, no hay universo: sólo existen las horas sin ti.

La mujer que te ama,

Fina

Chapter Text

19 May, 1959

Querida Marta,

Estoy cansada, completamente agotada. No solo por el trabajo, aunque hay días en que Humberto me recuerda a un pequeño, benéfico dictador. No, estoy cansada en el alma, en mis huesos. Estoy sin ganas de nada. ¿Cuánto más tendremos que aguantar?

If I tell you that I want to lie in bed and never get up, would you believe me? I do, and I don’t. The prospect of this trip is preemptively exhausting. Truthfully, there is something unnerving about the pace of magazine production. I have been here for weeks, but I won’t see any of my photographs in an issue for at least another month. The photoshoot in Acapulco is for the summer issue, which is being planned almost half a year out. When I write that the thought of being here another six months is maddening, I am not exaggerating. I’m supposed to be getting used to the idea of living here, of living this life, but the more time goes on the more I rebel against the notion, the more it seems inconceivable that I could be permanently banished from your side.

And what are you up to, my love? Are you getting used to the idea of living your life without me? Do you still miss me? Do you wake up, even now, to the sensation of my arms around you? Because I do. Even now, I dream I am in our bed and when I wake up the nightmare returns to me. Every morning, I wake up tired, so tired, of knowing my bad dreams are merely reality.

Why has the news of this trip made me so melancholy, Marta? Why, when my day to day was starting to feel routine, almost normal? I cannot tell you how much I ache, how my sobs stick in my throat. For a while, I thought my eyes had gone dry. How wrong I was.

Escápate de Toledo, mi vida. Recorre el mundo por mí. Encuéntrame en esa costa mexicana. Mojémonos los pies en la marea. Tómame en tus brazos. Bésame de nuevo. Te esperaré. Te esperaré.

Tuya por siempre,

Fina

Chapter Text

20 May, 1959

Marta, mi amor,

Regresé al Microcentro. Fui al kiosco donde aquel vendedor de periódicos y revistas me había apartado mis ejemplares del ABC, pensando que sería mucha coincidencia, Marta, volver a ver algo que me arrojara en la cara lo lejos que estoy de ti. Pues no. Hoy vi algo que me hizo arroparme con una manta y llorar como una cría. No sabía si estaba contenta, o llena de furia, o simplemente—y entrañablemente—triste.

Pasión oculta?

You took our love, my photograph and our love, and you turned it into an ad campaign—and I don’t know what to think. I know what I want to believe. I know what I think you would say to me, but for now I can only wonder. Did you mean it to be a sign? Did you hope it would reach me, somehow, and that I would recognize your intentions?

I’m afraid that I hurt you. No, I know that I did, because I know how I would have felt if you had done to me what I did to you. If you had left me with a tear-stained note and the flimsiest of excuses. If you had left me with the architect of my destruction.

But are you angry now? Are you trying to carve the love you had for me from your heart? That hidden love. That forbidden love. That star-crossed love. Do you think to yourself, “Forget her. Move on. It’s for the best.” I remember you, Marta, as you were when we first started, how afraid you were, how ready to drop what we had because you feared being found out. Well, look what’s happened now. Now I’ve killed a man. Now a different kind of secret is buried behind your house. Now I’ve killed our love.

Have I?

Is there anything left to return to?

Humberto caught me writing you one of these letters the other day. I was crying and he asked me why I was torturing myself. He wanted to know what good it could do, returning again and again to something I couldn’t control, that only made me sad. In fact, I replied, it’s the only thing I can control. I can’t control my heart. I can’t control her heart. I can’t control the situation I am in. And so this is what I have left of her. My pictures. My words. My feelings.

He doesn’t understand. Writing you these letters lightens me. I know that I’m not really talking to you, but imagining that I am, pretending that perhaps one day I can show you what I’ve written, how I’ve thought of you, how I’ve longed for you…

Creo que lo comprenderías. Lo aprendí de ti, mi vida, de cómo escribías en tu diario. Nunca llegué a leerlo, pero creo que te traía paz poder dejar allí tus pensamientos, tus dificultades, tus miedos. Pues así lo estoy haciendo yo. Intento buscar un poquito de paz en el destierro. No sé si podré lograrlo, pero lo seguiré intentando.

Tuya,

Fina

Chapter Text

21 May, 1959

Querida Marta,

Anoche tuve sueños amielados, mi amor. Estábamos en Illescas, en aquel hotel tan bonito —o me lo imagino bonito, porque la verdad es que yo solo tenía ojos para ti. Podíamos haber estado en cualquier lado, en cualquier cuarto, y mientras tuviera cama, yo hubiese jurado que era el mismísimo paraíso.

Today I had breakfast with Hugo and Silvia, and when Hugo took off because he had a deadline for work, Silvia poured me another cup of coffee, propped her chin on her hand, and told me I seemed better. I answered that I was surprised, given how low I’ve been feeling these past few days, despite getting news that in a month, Humberto and I would be flying to Acapulco so that we could photograph beautiful women in a tropical climate. Put that way, even I had to laugh.

¿Qué te pasa, gallega? Dale, contame... soltá un poco, no te lo tragues sola.

She said it tenderly, but with a smile, as if she could see that I was caught between knowing I was being ridiculous and still not being able to completely crawl out of the abyss I had been thrust into.

In talking to her, in explaining that I was having a hard time reconciling the new facts of my life with the one I had, unwillingly, left behind, I somehow freed myself of some of the heaviness that was sitting on my chest, that had made it impossible to enjoy anything, not even the beautiful medialunas Silvia had put out for breakfast.

Si te amaba tanto —y por todo lo que me decís, así era—, yo creo que no te querría ver así. ¿No le podés hablar?”

No, I can’t call her. I can’t write to her. I can’t do anything but stew in my feelings.

Complicated, isn’t it? she said. And then, finished her coffee and told me to go upstairs and get ready to go out. When I asked where, she said it didn’t matter. To the movies, shopping. She had to buy a new dress for her brother-in-law’s upcoming graduation from medical school.

Vamos, gallega, me podés ayudar a elegirlo. Capaz que te dan ganas de comprarte algo lindo vos también.

There was no reason not to go, my love. None at all. In fact, I knew exactly what I wanted to buy: a new perfume.

Cuando regrese a Toledo, vayamos a ese hotelito, mi vida. Vayamos juntas a ese paraíso.

Te amo,

Fina