LITMIR.BIZ

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any service I can perform for you—”

      “I know, I know.” Rafael flexed his aching back muscles and went past him into the room, reaching for the cotton denim jacket he had shed the night before. Maria Maqueras was lying prostrate among the tumbled covers, the baby a squirming bundle in the shawl beside her. A flicker of impatience momentarily darkened his features and then he gave a characteristic shrug of his shoulders. It was not for him to question the burden this extra mouth to feed would place on the family. These people were taught to accept their lot and be thankful. Only occasionally he experienced doubts that life should be built on so precarious a premise, but these he determinedly squashed.

      “You’ll call Doctor Rodrigues as soon as he gets back?” he confirmed with Franco, and the other man nodded vigorously.

      “But of course, señor. No doubt he will be glad it is over without needing his assistance.” He moved his head philosophically from side to side.

      Rafael nodded, hesitating a moment as he saw the greyness in Maria’s face. The woman was exhausted. But in a few short days she would be required to take up her duties as wife and mother to her husband and the six children with whom he had now provided her. How would she cope? How could she be expected to wash and clean and prepare food with the baby draining every last ounce of strength from her scrawny breasts? His hands curled into fists. This was not his concern. He could feel sympathy—compassion; but that was all. He could offer no alternative.

      After a final word with Franco he crossed the yard where skinny chickens scratched a living and climbed into the dust-smeared Landrover that belonged to the estate. He raised a hand in farewell and started the engine with a flick of his wrist. He drove away from the humble collection of dwellings that clung to the mountainside down a track from which dust spurted liberally, creating a cloud of mud behind him.

      The sun was rising and below him he could see the fertile acres of the valley thick with wheat and fruit orchards, exotic with colour and brilliance. This valley had been his home for more than thirty years, it was his heritage, the Cueras estate which his brother Juan now ran had been his inheritance.

      But he had not wanted it. From an early age, he had been more interested in feeding the mind than the body, and the people and their problems had always been his primary concern. He and his father had clashed on that. The estate had been in the family’s hands for more than three hundred years, since the days of the conquistadores. His ancestor, Alberto Cueras, had been a rich and influential man in the old country—in Spain—but when he had come upon this fertile valley he had abandoned his ideas of returning to his homeland. He had built a house and put down roots, sent for his wife and children; and in the years that followed expanded his holding until today it was the largest in the district. Eldest son had followed eldest son, always working for the estate, always making more money, exploiting the workers and using the women for their own pleasure. Of course, in recent years, things had changed a little; large estates were no longer so common, although in these remote districts the quality of life had changed little over the centuries.

      But Rafael had rebelled. Taught from childhood to take whatever he wanted as his right, he had followed his father’s example until its very selfishness had sickened him. He had been appalled the first time he had discovered his father had mistresses, but under his father’s guidance he had become accustomed to winning the affections of any woman that took his fancy. In truth, he had encountered no opposition. His lean frame and dark good looks had disarmed the most reluctant doncellas and he was always generous to those he pursued.

      And then he went to university, and away from his father’s influence his innate decency began to assert itself. He no longer found the satisfaction of the senses an adequate substitute for books and learning and his studies began to occupy more and more of his time. During his vacations, the poverty of the peons or peasant workers, the deplorable housing conditions, the spread of disease—these things began to trouble him, and he no longer felt any identification with the inanimate chunk of land that was his heritage.

      He didn’t really know what he would have done had his father still been alive. He knew the decision to abdicate from his responsibilities to the estate would have appalled him. But his father had died from a heart attack while Rafael was taking his degree in medicine, and it had been natural that his younger brother, Juan, who had never shown any intellectual leanings, and who had been there at the hacienda at the time of his father’s death should take over the running of the estate in Rafael’s absence.

      After that, for a while at least, he had been content. He was able to practise medicine and things had been good. But restlessness had followed hard on the heels of his mother’s increasingly frequent urgings that it was time he got married, fathered sons to ensure the continuation of the Cueras line. Rafael had had no desire to get married, to have children. His youthful decadence had left its mark on him, and the placid Spanish girls produced for his delectation aroused no sexual interest in him. On the contrary, he had serious doubts that any woman could attract him now. And besides, he wanted to serve the community, not his family. And so, in spite of his mother’s tears and recriminations, he had taken the short step from uncertainty to the seminary…

      Now the Landrover was crossing the plain scythed by the rushing, gleaming waters of the Rio Lima. On either side of the river stretched acres of wheat and maize fields. Lush vegetation sprang up the wooded walls of the valley, interspersed here and there by the brown thatched roofs of peasant dwellings.

      Far across the valley, on a rise in the lower slopes he could see the rambling walls of a larger, more imposing building. This was the Hacienda Cueras, the place where he had been born, where he had lived until he went to university, where his mother and brother and younger sisters lived. But their demand of his services would have to wait for the present.

      He crossed the river by means of a wooden bridge, its patched slats bearing witness to the numerous occasions it had been partially swept away by the rain-swollen waters. He could hear the chapel bells, too, increasing in persistence. Just ahead of him now, set among trees, the Capilla de los Inocentes looked like a bride dressed for her wedding. Its grey walls were hung with purple and white blossoms, tiny star-shaped flowers in the colours of the Eucharist. Already he could see women hurrying up the worn stone steps, drawing black scarves over their heads, and he felt the familiar sense of well-being that always came from this duty. This was what he wanted, he told himself. Everything else came after.

      Later in the morning, when the sun was climbing steadily to its zenith, Rafael drove through the wide stone gateway that gave access to the grounds of the hacienda. Although it was still early the shutters were thrown wide, and the scent of beeswax which he always associated with its polished floors was in the air. He could remember sliding across them as a child, incurring the wrath of Jezebel, the housekeeper, who always knew who to blame when she found skidding marks of muddy feet marring the shiny surface. Jezebel, Rafael smiled. Whoever had chosen her name had paid little heed to the connotations of her namesake.

      He walked into the wide hall and looked about him appreciatively. It was a beautiful old building and it never failed to please him. This hall, the two rooms adjoining, and the gallery above were all that was left of the original building, but successive generations had added to its bulk, strengthening its foundations and rebuilding where necessary so that today it rambled over half an acre, split level, and partially two-storied. The furnishings, much of them antique, had the worn patina of years upon them, but its faded elegance went well with the heavily carved panelling and baroque ironwork.

       “Senor Rafael!”

      The housekeeper’s voice was filled with warmth and devotion. So far as Jezebel was concerned, Rafael was still master here. She came towards him eagerly from the door at the back of the hall which led to the kitchens and servants’ quarters, taking one of his hands in both of hers.

      “Good morning, Jezebel.” Rafael looked kindly on the elderly Indian woman who had served his family for over thirty years and who still ran the household with a rod of iron. “I had a message that Juan wanted to see me. Do you know where he is?”

      Jezebel released his hand with reluctance, her fingers indicating the lines of sleeplessness around

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