against her slayer, who now, as he looked at Ramón, seemed to him could have been no one else.
Olga Velasquez patted his arm gently. People were stirring. The service was over.
âLook at Ramón,â Olga said. âDonât you want to go and speak to him?â
Ramón had hidden his face in his hands, and Arturo was standing by, trying to comfort him.
Theodore set his teeth and could not move. A woman he did not know touched his arm and said something to him. Theodore moved in the direction of his car, a way that took him closer to Ramón. Olga came with him. Three or four people stopped him to clasp his hand and to say a few words of sympathyârather as if he had been her husband, Theodore thought.
âI shall write you a letter very soon,â said the man with the walrus moustaches, pressing Theodoreâs hand, and Theodore suddenly recognized him as Sanchez-Schmidt, a wealthy art collector and honorary curator of several museums.
Finally, Theodore stood hardly more than a yard away from Ramón. He did not want to speak to Ramón, but people expected him to speak to him. âRamón?â Theodore said.
Ramón looked at him dully, out of wet eyes. âI wanted to speak to her parents. Where are they?â
Automatically, Theodore looked around, though he was not sure he could recognize them. He had seen them only once in Veracruz.
Ramón was already moving towards the large, graying man in the black overcoat and his much shorter wife, who were surrounded by people. Theodore, after a glance back at Olga and the Hidalgos, who were waiting for him, followed Ramón and Arturo Baldin. After all, he thought, he should speak to her parents, too.
âI did not do it,â Ramón was saying in a desperate whisper to the solemn, resigned pair. âI do not want you to think that I did do it.â
Theodore looked at Ramón to see if he were possibly drunk, but he was not. âSeñora and Señor Ballesteros,â Theodore interrupted Ramón. He shook their hands, bowing a little over each. âWe are all devastated by this. I want you to consider me your friend. Your daughter was very dear to me.â He was conscious that his Spanish was not adequate for the occasion, that something as simple as this was perhaps not fitting. He saw tears in the manâs grey, brown-speckled eyes that were so embarrassingly like Leliaâs.
â Gracias, â said the man.
âI want you to know that Iâm innocent,â Ramón pleaded.
âOh, Ramón,â Theodore said quickly, âI donât think theyââ
âI have to be believed!â Ramón said, shaking off Arturoâs hand on his arm.
âHe is more upset than any of us,â Arturo said gently to the parents, and Leliaâs father nodded, obviously wanting to be gone.
âLelia was very fond of me,â Ramón said. âI was falsely accused. You understand that, donât you?â
âYes, of course,â said Leliaâs father, whose friends were now pulling at him to leave.
âWe understand,â said Sra. Ballesteros dully, as if who had murdered her daughter did not matter at all, at least not at this moment, only the fact that she was dead. They had one other child, also a daughter, but she had married and gone to South America. Lelia had been their favorite.
Ramón stared at them, unsatisfied. âMay I come to see you in Veracruz?â
With a sigh, Leliaâs mother tried to muster her good manners. âWe shall always be glad to see you, Ramón.â
âAnd you believe me innocent, donât you?â Ramón asked again, clutching at Señor Ballesterosâs shoulder.
âIâm sure they believe you, Ramón,â Theodore said, trying to end the general embarrassment, though at that moment it occurred to him that an innocent man did not protest so much and that this thought might be in the minds of the
Lightnin' Hopkins: His Life, Blues