Free Checkmate in Amber by Matilde Asensi Page A

don’t even like dogs!’
    ‘Well, I have got Juana,’ I said, and instantly regretted having said it.
    ‘Juana! Hah!’ she spat contemptuously. ‘That …! Do you really not understand? Your aunt is shut up inside that convent, by her own choice. When I’m gone, you’ll be left completely alone in this huge old house with no-one at all to look after you!’ Her tears began to fall and pool in the folds and wrinkles of her face. ‘That’s what scares me most. You have nothing, Ana María,
nothing
. If only you had a child. God knows I would rather you married a respectable man and properly, in church. But if that’s not what you want, if you don’t want to be tied down to somebody, for goodness’ sake have a child! That’s what I really want as a birthday present.’
    ‘What? You want me to give birth in less than a week?’ I was scandalized. Ezequiela smiled back at me.
    ‘You know what I mean, girl.’
    ‘Look, the one thing I’m sure of is that you’ve still got plenty of years ahead of you and you’re certainly not about to die on your birthday. And can you imagine what they’d say in Ávila if the last Galdeano girl got herself pregnant by some fly-by-night?’
    ‘Let them say what they want! They’ll soon get bored of it.’
    ‘I never realized you were quite so avant-garde.’
    ‘I’m not, not at all,’ she declared emphatically, drying her face with the back of her sleeve. ‘But I cannot bear the idea of you all alone. Promise me that you’ll give it some thought.’
    ‘I will, I promise you. Happy now?’
    ‘Promise me again - and this time look at me in the eyes when you say it.’
    ‘Oh come on, Ezequiela, give me a break here! Can you really see
me
looking after a baby? Do you really think that being a mother is in my nature? I’ve got no maternal instinct at all, and not the slightest urge to reproduce myself.’
    ‘Promise me.’
    ‘Jesus!’ I shouted out, raising my arms in exasperation. ‘What did I do to deserve all this nagging?’
    ‘Ana María!’
    ‘OK, OK, you got me … I promise,’ I said, looking her in the eyes. ‘I promise that I will give serious thought to the prospect of having a child.’
    Ezequiela smiled triumphantly, just like a small girl who had stamped her feet and thrown tantrum after tantrum until she had ended up getting exactly what she wanted.
    ‘Good girl, well done,’ she declared, stroking my hand. ‘
Now
you can go back to your book.’
    She got up off the bed, with her satisfied smile still plastered across her face. After making the sign of the cross on my forehead with her right thumb, she gave me a gentle kiss and left the room, quietly closing the door behind her.
    I didn’t have the slightest intention of keeping my promise, but at least I’d got Ezequiela off my back for a while. There was no doubt in my mind at all that she’d come at me again on the subject like a light cavalry flying column, but that was a few more months away now.
    I had terrible nightmares that night, all jam-packed with pudgy drooling babies, like a TV diaper commercial gone viral. They all had rosy skin and curly blonde hair, like little angels. Another problem was that they were all blue-eyed, just like Tía Juana, and in the Galdeano family, nobody had ever had blue eyes. The result, of course, was that I woke up the next day exhausted and in a pretty bad mood, a situation which Ezequiela resolved with her customary skill, by keeping out of my sight and disappearing into some far-flung corner of the house.
    Fastening up the cord of my dressing-gown and yawning until my jaws clicked, I wandered into the study and turned on my computer. Warm sunlight shone in through the windows, and the strong smell of fresh coffee drew me unresisting into the kitchen, while my desktop booted up and began checking my mail. I poured myself a cup and added just a touch of milk and sugar.
    By the time I sat down in front of the screen, Läufer’s decoding algorithm had