Page 88 of The Seven Sisters

*

Twenty minutes later, we were parked on the opposite side of the road from the Casa. The two of us had driven past the rusting iron gates and seen that they had been heavily padlocked since our visit the day before.

‘What’s happened?’ I said, as we both climbed out of the car. ‘Do you think it’s because Senhora Carvalho thought we’d be back?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ replied Floriano, walking away from me along the length of the overgrown hedge. ‘I’m going to investigate if there’s another way in, legal or illegal.’

I stared through the iron bars at the house beyond, disappointment and frustration coursing through my veins. Perhaps our visit had simply been coincidence and there had already been a plan for the old woman and Yara to leave the house – to visit relatives perhaps. But it was in this moment that I realised how desperately I wanted to know the past I was now convinced belonged to me.

Floriano appeared by my side. ‘The place is like a fortress. I’ve walked all the way around the perimeter and, short of slashing our way through the hedge with a chainsaw, there’s no way in. When I peered through the hedge at the back of the house, I saw that even the rear window shutters are closed. It looks like the place has been shut up completely and there’s no one at home.’

‘What if they don’t come back?’ I asked, hearing the frustration in my voice.

‘There’s no saying they won’t, Maia. It could simply be a case of bad timing. Look, at least there’s a post box for the house, so I suggest you leave Yara a note with the address of your hotel and a contact number.’

‘But what if the old woman is the one to find it?’

‘I can absolutely guarantee that Senhora Carvalho will not arrive back and rifle through the contents of her post box. She’s a woman from a different era and that’s her maid’s job. It’s probably handed to her on a silver salver,’ he said with a grin.

‘All right,’ I agreed reluctantly, as I dug my notebook and pen out from my handbag before scribbling a note to Yara as Floriano had suggested.

‘There’s nothing more we can do here. Come on,’ he said as I opened the rusty metal flap and dropped the note inside.

I was initially silent on the twenty-minute journey back to downtown Rio, deflated after the excitement of reading the letters and wanting to know more.

‘I hope you’re not thinking of giving up.’ Floriano read my thoughts as we drove along Ipanema Beach.

‘Of course not. But I really don’t know where I should go from here.’

‘Patience is the key, Maia. We will simply have to wait and see if Yara responds to your note. And of course we must continue to check on the Casa to see whether they reappear. Normally under these circumstances there’s no great mystery, just a perfectly rational reason. So, in the meantime, I suggest we think of what the explanation could be.’

‘They’ve gone away to visit relatives?’ I voiced my earlier thought.

‘A possibility, but given how frail the old woman seemed, I doubt she was up to long journeys. Or any pleasant small talk once she’d arrived.’

‘Then maybe they’ve left because they’re scared we’ll return?’

‘Again, a possibility, but unlikely. Senhora Carvalho has lived in that house for all of her life, and even though she didn’t seem keen to discuss your possible relationship to her, we were hardly wielding guns and knives,’ he mused as he drove. ‘Personally, I think there’s only one reason that neither mistress nor servant are at home at present.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘That Senhora Carvalho has been taken ill, and has had to be moved to a hospital. So, I think I shall call the local ones and see if my dear “great-aunt” has been admitted to any of them in the past twenty-four hours.’

I looked at Floriano in admiration. ‘You could well be right.’

‘We’ll go back to my apartment and I’ll look up the local hospital numbers, then call around them,’ he said, taking a right turn off the Avenida Vieira Souto instead of continuing along the seafront to my hotel.

‘Please, Floriano, I don’t want to bother you. I can do it on my laptop.’

‘Maia, will you please shut up. The letters I read this morning are some of the most interesting I’ve ever laid eyes on as an historian. There’s also something else in them that I haven’t told you about yet, which makes them still more fascinating. And perhaps even solves a long-standing mystery about theCristo. So please believe that we are helping each other. I’m warning you, though, my home isn’t exactly the Copacabana Palace,’ he cautioned as we continued to head away from Ipanema Beach.

Shortly afterwards, Floriano made a sharp right turn and pulled his car up on a small concrete strip in front of a crumbling apartment building. It was probably only five or ten minutes’ walk from the hotel, yet it felt like a different world.

‘So,’ he said, as we got out of the car and climbed up the steps to the front door. ‘Welcome tochez moi. There’s no lift, I’m afraid.’ He opened the front door and began to bound up the narrow staircase two steps at a time.

I followed him up and up, and up again, until we arrived on a small landing and unlocked the door.

‘I’m not the world’s greatest domestic, but it’s home,’ he warned me again. ‘Please come in.’