Free Turned to Stone by Jorge Magano Page A

sculpture.”
    Paloma’s face went through a series of expressions: alarm, then panic, then momentary composure, followed by anxiety. As her hands clutched the edge of the table, they turned ivory, and her cheeks went a shade of pomegranate. “The . . . essay?” She tried unsuccessfully to sound calm.
    “Gods and Monsters in Italian Baroque Sculpture.”
    “So that’s why you’ve come: to thank me for letting you take credit for a piece I wrote almost entirely by myself?”
    “I thanked you at the time.”
    “How considerate. By the way, I read that trash you wrote in Arcadia . ‘The Curse of Medusa.’ You could have consulted me before quoting my study as a bibliographical source for that drivel.”
    “It must have slipped my mind. But right now I need you to listen. Someone tried to kill me because they linked me to that study and to the bust of Medusa. I don’t know why, exactly, but I think you could be in danger, too.”
    Paloma’s eyes grew bright and her grip tightened on the table until the ivory color almost reached her wrists. This lasted only a few seconds before she restored her state of feigned calm. “The statue was stolen from the museum in Verona last month.”
    “Exactly.” Jaime raised an eyebrow. “Do you know something I don’t?”
    Paloma turned her gaze away. “Only what the newspapers said. But what’s this business about someone trying to kill you? Is that true or just more of the same old bullshit?”
    Jaime pointed at his swollen lips and the bruise on his forehead. “Do you really think this is about some old bullshit?”
    “I wouldn’t put it past you.”
    “What do you know about the Medusa, Paloma?”
    “No more than you. Andrea Bolgi was a minor sculptor, virtually unknown. It makes no sense that someone murdered a security guard to get it.”
    “The sculpture’s good. It looks ancient.”
    “That’s not reason enough for someone to kill for it.”
    The waiter appeared to take their order, but Jaime asked him to come back later. Next he rummaged in his leather bag and took out a dirty, crumpled issue of an academic journal that he placed on the table. “Ring any bells?”
    “Where did you get that?”
    “It was in my kidnappers’ van. All the pages of our essay have been marked with a cross.”
    Suddenly, Paloma looked a little sick. She lowered her head into her hands and started to massage her temples. After a minute she glanced back at the copy of the Revista Complutense but she seemed unable to focus on it. “I’m sorry.” Her eyes looked glassy and tense. “I’m not well. I want to go home.”
    “I’ll take you,” said Jaime, rising to his feet.

9

    Glancing over at Paloma on the bus that was taking them down Calle Atocha, Jaime felt the pangs of conscience that visited him from time to time and then disappeared again, as if they’d found no place to take root. All these years later he still didn’t know whether leaving Paloma before graduation had been the right thing to do.
    At first he’d justified his behavior with the idea that he and Paloma simply had different views of what it meant to be in a relationship. Jaime believed himself to be—or wanted to be—a free spirit, and he rebelled against the idea of someone being able to control him. He still agreed with this assessment, but how could it have been the right thing to leave without saying anything, throwing away a four-year relationship that he knew had not been a bad one? Despite Paloma’s earlier characterization of their relationship, the truth was he and Paloma had travelled, laughed, cried, and made love together countless times, often in charming places like country hotels, forest cabins, gorgeous ravines, old ruins, or at lakes. Back then they’d been drawn together, pushed apart, and reunited. Just as they were now, so many years later.
    They made the journey in silence. When the bus arrived at her stop, Paloma jumped off and Jaime followed, trying not to get left behind.