NOBODY COULD BELIEVE in such a thing, but, nevertheless, there was the coffin, covered with flowers to everyone's dismay.
Once the priest's discreet and solemn prayer was finished, the elongated brown box was placed in the mausoleum niche, thanks to the joint effort of the gravediggers.
Everything seemed to be concluded, according to the burial rites. And yet, it had only just begun.
Gregory Evans seemed absent; Jorge's death had affected him more than he could have imagined, just as it had affected the rest of his companions. It had not been a week since they had eaten together at the Wellington Hotel restaurant in New York for a boring lecture on Templar codes, where they talked about the advantages of spending their summers in Spain rather than in traditional foreign destinations, which were typical of ordinary people, in search of meaningless adventures, who valued fun more than knowledge.
He then remembered the interest the paleographer had shown when he confessed his great find in Toledo. Apparently, taking advantage of the fact that the auction house was closed for the entire month of August and part of September, he had traveled to the legendary city of three cultures with the aim of helping the Fajardo family — to which his father's former partners belonged — to evaluate, liquidate and divide an inheritance based on about a hundred texts and manuscripts dating back to the 15th and 16th centuries.
— Jorge loved his work intensely — Greg told Geovanna after the burial — so much so that his life revolved around books, especially if they were written in medieval calligraphy.
— Although he still had a few days of vacation left, he decided to help them without thinking twice. Her trip was very fruitful, for not only did she manage to get her fees paid with a 1697 edition of Don Quixote, printed in Antwerp, and sixteen copperplate images by Fred Bouttons, but she also brought with her a volume of paper written in coded language, which she paid for out of her own pocket, to study in detail and thus expand the private collection of unique texts that filled the shelves of her immense library.
Greg nodded and she continued:
— I could never have imagined that that would be your last acquisition.
— Are you okay? — The voice of Geovanna Marion, director of the Hiperión auction house, rang out to remind him of the inconveniences of life. She was looking at him with reddened eyes, because of the supposed pain she felt over the loss of Jorge. If it weren't for the fact that the tears of that haughty woman had destroyed her way of painting her eyes, which made her more human, she might have answered something she would later regret.
Marion, as her closest friends used to call her, was a soulless hypocrite, who only cared about the sales volume of her auctioned works.
— I need a wine, if possible, a cabernet sauvignon — Greg was succinct in his cold reply. — Okay. I invite you to have a drink, as long as you accompany me to the office.
In a rare gesture of solidarity, she took her fellow citizen's arm.
— I have to talk to you about a matter that concerns me.
Gregory, sensing his wife's cousin's disapproval, turned to shrug his shoulders, hoping that she would be able to understand that accompanying Miss Marion was not a privilege, but a punishment from God.
When they were already outside the Almudena cemetery, Geovanna's driver came forward to open the back door of the Jaguar for them. Greg thought that showing off in such a high-class manner at a religious ceremony of such nature was inappropriate and that it would have been better to go by taxi with the others. Despite everything, he sank into the soft seat of the luxurious vehicle, without any qualms.