Nina Marries the Count of Torrelavid

Nina Marries the Count of Torrelavid turns a wager over land into a bargain over a child’s life. Ricardo Uribe gives Nina to the Count of Torrelavid after the Count offers Belsito in exchange; the marriage that follows both preserves Nina and binds her future to the man who had been assigned to make her disappear.

Background and Stakes

The marriage follows the death of Salinas, found dead in bed two years after the events surrounding Manuel Roca. The official explanation was a heart condition, but a rumor accused his doctor, Astarte, of poisoning him gradually over several months. An investigation produced no proof. The account links Uribe to the affair indirectly: during the war he had helped Astarte develop Botran, a medicine for fevers and infections, and after the war Uribe faced police scrutiny over alleged work for the Iena’s hospital.

Uribe then left for a hidden town in the south, bought a pharmacy, and lived with a young daughter whom he called Dulce, claiming her mother had died years earlier. The community later identified this child as Nina, Manuel Roca’s surviving daughter. As suspicion grew that she knew something about Salinas’s death, a group of people who felt the war had never truly ended decided that she should be eliminated. They assigned the task to the Count, who had played both sides during the war.

The Wager

The Count first saw Nina only once before the night of the wager: she was crossing a town square while he sat at a café. He asked who the girl was. Later, at the card table, Uribe said he had nothing worth risking against Belsito. The Count suggested that Uribe could wager his pharmacy, laughed, and then turned the stakes toward the child, offering Belsito for Uribe’s daughter.

The Count set five face-down cards on the table. Uribe stared at them without touching them, murmured something no one later could identify, and finally slid his own cards toward the Count. The scene makes the exchange’s imbalance stark: Belsito is a beautiful estate, with an avenue of orange trees climbing a hill and the ocean visible from the house, while the other stake is Nina herself. Her wishes are not part of the bargain. The narration gives no indication that the cards’ outcome changes the terms: Uribe hands her over, and the Count takes her that same night.

From Intended Killing to Marriage

The Count’s assignment was to make Nina disappear, and the people who sent him expected him to kill her. Instead, he kept her in his house and continued to conceal her. They made clear that she was supposed to die, but he did nothing to her; eventually he told them they need not worry about the child. His actions reverse the purpose of the arrangement without undoing its coercion: Nina is spared, but Uribe has relinquished her and the Count controls where she lives.

The Count waited sixteen months before marrying her, doing so when she turned fourteen. Nina recounts that he brought her to him on the night Uribe surrendered her and that the marriage came later. She says she gave the Count three children. For months, people in the region talked about the marriage; afterward, attention faded. Nina remained largely unseen in public and was known as Donna Sol, the name the Count had given her.

Consequences and Significance

The marriage is both a reprieve from the planned murder and a continuation of Nina’s treatment as an object of exchange. Uribe’s choice is described as a response to pressure: the Count offered him a choice between disappearing with the child or facing prison for Salinas’s murder. The storyteller considers Uribe a coward and says no court could have convicted him, but Uribe was afraid, left Nina with the Count, and went away. He died about ten years later in a remote village beyond the border, leaving a statement that he had done nothing and that God would pursue his enemies to hell.

Nina’s public silence deepens the unsettling aftermath. No one in the area had heard her speak since Uribe’s time; people speculated that it was an illness or simply her nature, and feared her without knowing why. The marriage thus closes one immediate danger without restoring Nina’s agency or ordinary place in the community. Its apparent domestic outcome—three children and a life within the Count’s household—rests on the earlier wager, the threat of murder, and her removal from the world that knew her as Uribe’s daughter.