All Is Silence

17

THE BACK ROOM of the Ultramar is filled with the impatience that comes with the end of a hand. The players of mus and tute make up for the blazoned silence of the cards with sharp voices and authoritative raps of their knuckles on the tables. In the games of dominoes, by contrast, it is the discharge of matter that can be heard, tokens on marble, in an ascending scale of blasts excited by the advance of the victorious combination. The middle of the room is occupied by a billiard table ignored by everyone except for the trails of cigar smoke that have gathered in a storm beneath the central lamp.

At Mariscal’s table there sounds the percussion of dominoes. He likes to adorn suspense. Hold the piece in the air for a moment, its value hidden from sight, before revealing the enigma with a thwack that, on triumphant occasions, is followed by outbursts of strange historical consequences. ‘Tremble, Toledo! Carthago delenda est.’

Mariscal is on the verge of playing, but seems distracted. As almost always, he’s wearing his white gloves, which act as a shade whenever the piece is bad. He looks up at the other end of the room, above the door. There, on a ledge, is a desiccated bird in a glass case. A little owl. Its eyes shine with an electric gleam. Two illuminated lights. Inverno follows his boss’s gaze.

‘Looks like the owl’s not going to sleep tonight.’

‘Those bastards are behind schedule,’ replies Mariscal.

‘Do you think we’ve an informer, boss?’

‘No, what we’ve got is a new bedbug. That sergeant knows very well what he has to do. But tomorrow he’ll up the stakes, you’ll see. Tell us there’s another mouth that needs feeding.’

He allows his thoughts to be heard, that constant, subordinated rumour. ‘Though it comes from filthy hands, money always smells of roses,’ etc., etc. He gazes at the token’s symmetry. A double three.

‘And we’ll have no choice but to pay! That’s the way the world works, Inverno. There’s no professionalism any more.’

Brinco and Chelín’s mission is to prevent any intruders from entering the back room, which is separated from the bar by two steps and some swing doors. What they do, in effect, is act as sitting mummies. If anyone approaches, even if what they want is to play billiards, though not a sound of this game can be heard, however ignorant or foreign they may be, a simple sideways glance from Brinco, of the kind that says go jerk off a dead man, is usually more than dissuasive.

So they concentrate their attention on the sergeant and the man with him. There is a third, Haroldo Grimaldo — Micho — a veteran inspector who sometimes drops into the Ultramar. Often he drops in the literal sense.

‘He’s half pissed already,’ says Brinco. ‘The only thing that saves him is his suspicion. He can see the demijohn before it’s reached him. He’s the one who’s clairvoyant, not you.’

Víctor is talking about Grimaldo, but his gaze is fixed on Leda, who sometimes helps out as a waitress. With her slender body. Her blazing long hair. Black pirate trousers. Tight-fitting white T-shirt. She’s good at her job, thinks Brinco, because she knows how to be with people. How to be and not to be. She doesn’t dole out sugar to horses.

In ceremonial style, Chelín gets out his pendulum. While he holds it in front of himself, it doesn’t move. He guides it gently towards Brinco, who’s sitting next to him, on the steps to the back room. The pendulum begins to swing. It accelerates when the centre of gravity is located above Brinco’s groin.

‘Brinco, you’re on fire!’

The other man grabs his wrist. The pendulum swings even faster.

‘It’s your pulse, you idiot!’

‘Sure, the throbbing of your dicky bird.’

Chelín seeks out Leda with his gaze. He knows where the magnetic pole is situated. She really is worth committing a crime for. She and Brinco have been living as a couple for some time. Soon after they got together, they had a child. And here they are. Who’d have said it of Víctor, the greatest pilot in Noitía, a real wild card, that he’d stick to a single nest. Contrary to expectations, she hadn’t been just another lobster in the pot, another prawn in the cocktail, another woman for hire.

‘You like her, don’t you? You’ve always liked her.’

It’s Brinco who says this suddenly to Chelín. He remains silent. Like a fool. The pendulum in the air, now still.

‘Why don’t you go and measure her battery with that bullet of yours?’ says Brinco.

In other circumstances, Chelín would stay where he is. He’s used to the fact that Brinco’s thoughts, words and deeds don’t always match. You have to read between the lines. The moments when he is nice are the most perilous. They’re like little gifts before he takes off. There are other moments when he’s delirious, not working. Right now Chelín decides to take him at his word and play along. The game with the pendulum. He gets up. Goes over to Leda. Holds the pendulum in front of her breasts. The bullet starts swaying madly.

‘Leda, look how you put it into orbit,’ gasps Chelín. ‘You’re a universal dynamo.’

‘It’s your pulse,’ she replies. ‘I can hear your heart. The beating of a mouse.’

Brinco comes over. Chelín doesn’t know whether he’s smiling or threatening. His mouth has that thick-lipped scar, which never really healed. Because of where he’s looking, in the end Chelín comes to the conclusion, with some relief, that this has nothing to do with him.

‘Give that to me!’ says Brinco, taking the pendulum out of his hands.

Chelín quickly tries to work out the direction of his gaze. There’s not much point in him surveying the pair of guards. They’re dressed in plain clothes, or as Mariscal would say, their plain clothes are their uniform. One of them is an old acquaintance, Sergeant Montes. They should have left long ago, but they’re still here. It’s their job to guard the guards. So what’s he doing?

Brinco stares arrogantly at the guards. Raises the pendulum. The bullet on the end of a chain. They pretend not to notice. The sergeant makes out he’s reading the newspaper, but he’s spent all afternoon on the same page. His colleague sips a soft drink rather too slowly. ‘Coca-Colo’, Brinco calls him.

‘Víctor! What’s going on?’

Brinco turns around. Rumbo is calling him from the bar. There’s something in his codified look.

‘Nothing. Nothing’s going on.’

Brinco holds the pendulum in front of his eyes and lets it take him in search of Leda.

Eventually the sergeant attracts Leda’s attention with a click and gesture of his fingers and asks how much they owe. She looks at Rumbo inquisitively. He gives Montes a clear answer. Without words. The cross he makes with his hands says, ‘It’s on the house. Everything’s paid. Till next time.’

Once the guards have left the premises, the barman presses a switch under the counter. In the back room, the little owl’s eyes finally go out. A sign, the switching on and off of the lights, that is repeated three times. Until the eyes are extinguished.

‘Finally! Let’s get moving. Inverno, Carburo, let’s conquer the West!’

Mariscal heads towards the billiard table and grabs the cue. Everyone else has suspended their game. The cards and pieces, which seconds earlier were hooting and cawing like carriers of destiny, have lost their purpose and are abandoned haphazardly.

‘Sorry, gentlemen, but night has fallen,’ begins Mariscal. ‘If anyone has domestic obligations, well… I don’t want anyone’s wife to be annoyed with me. No one? Good. This could be a great day for all of us. For… the Society.’

Mariscal surveys the billiard table as if he’s just discovered terra incognita.

‘You all know what a mamma is, now, don’t you?’

He is clearly bursting at the seams. With a message for the world.

‘Always thinking about one thing… A woman takes her child to the doctor’s and the doctor enquires, “How’s it going? Is the baby sucking well?” And the mother replies, “Very well, Doctor! Just like an adult.”’

This is followed by the first round of nods and laughter.

‘Talking of sucking people dry, we have a new lawyer. A brilliant guy, who should be around here somewhere. Try and avoid him. You all know priests and lawyers are not allowed on board.’

Their looks seek out Óscar Mendoza and quickly find him on account of the spotless suit and refined bearing which contrast with the sheepskin coats and leather jackets.

‘Humour’s good for business. There’s lots of bitterness and what money wants is joy. Money’s like people!’

He turns his attention back to the billiard table. Changes expression. He has a collection of faces, which he puts to good use. Thoughtful. Serious.

‘Go on then, Carburo!’

To everyone’s surprise, Carburo pulls back the green felt from one corner and quickly rolls it up to reveal a large map of Europe. Maritime coordinates in the Mediterranean and Atlantic are marked with a red cross where a second assistant, Inverno, deposits billiard balls.

Mariscal follows the operation carefully, with an enigmatic half-smile, and when his subordinate has finished, he uses the cue as a pointer, gently stroking the balls as he reveals the crux of his discourse.

‘Gentlemen, look. There are twenty-five mammas loaded with tobacco along the coasts of Europe. Most are in the Mediterranean. Near Greece, Italy, Sicily and in those parts. There are also several in the Adriatic, next to the communist countries. They enjoy a bit of vice just as much as we do!’

He pauses for effect, remaining thoughtful and serious while the others laugh at his joke. Then he makes another movement with the cue, which is like wielding a baton. And heads westwards in the middle of absolute silence.

‘Where are we?’

He suddenly bangs the table with the cue.

‘Right here! North-west quarter west. Sensu stricto.’

Everyone gazes at their home. The surprise that comes from viewing where you live from the outside.

‘If we head further south, just a little bit, we come to the part that interests us. A mamma. Our very own mamma. Right here, very close, in northern Portugal. Of course it’s not our mamma in the sense of ownership. We’ve been suckling until recently on Delmiro Oliveira’s. Now Mr Oliveira is a man with a sense of humour. I said to him, “Listen, Delmiro, do you know what a Galician hates most of all?” And he replied, “No, I don’t.” And I said, “What a Galician hates most of all is being subservient to someone from Portugal.”’

The border joke is accompanied by smiles. But they remain silent. Watchful.

‘You see? He laughed as well. Because he’s a skilled businessman. And has a sense of humour. He understood. And said, “I don’t have servants, Mariscal. I have partners. What’s more,” he continued, “I’ve no desire to be a Midas, a shit who feeds on other people’s leftovers.” Now that Delmiro guy is smart.’

Mariscal lifts his head with satisfaction and surveys the room.

‘What made Delmiro Oliveira understand? What made them understand in Antwerp and Switzerland? They understood that we have something. We have the best arguments for business. An amazing, endless coastline full of nooks and crannies. A secret sea which keeps us safe. And we’re the closest to the mother port, to the source. So we’ve got everything. Coast, depots, boats, men. And most important of all, we’ve got balls!’

He gestures to quieten the jovial uproar. Addresses a corner of the room, where someone sits on the margins, split by a diagonal line dividing light from shade.

‘È vero o non è vero, Tonino?’

‘It’s true, boss. And no mistake.’

18

FINS HAD HIS eyes closed. When you close your eyes, beware of what might open. He took a deep breath, let it go slowly, like a mouth of wind. He heard a snort that attracted his attention. Aroused him from his absence. A herd of horses was grazing on the eastern slope of the mirador, where the morning sun lazily disentangled the strips of mist. The stallion’s gaze, pricked ears, defensive teeth, warning neigh, reminded him he was a nuisance. A stranger, a poacher, in his own land.

On top of the mountain named Curota, part of the Barbanza range, were large rocks with a wish to be altars. The highest one was reached by a flight of steps carved out of the stone. Fins climbed them.

Before his eyes stretched the broadest maritime view in the whole of Galicia. He looked south, had the impression he could make out the earth’s curve. It was the best place to see the estuary, which appeared as a vast stage. A marine womb set in earth. Across each other’s wake moved very different kinds of seafaring vessels. Crane boats headed in the direction of palafittic floating structures, the large estates that were the mussel platforms.

Fins glanced now to his right. There, in the west, was the open, the Atlantic Ocean. An infinite, restless monotony of hoarse mercury in the process of meltdown shielded the enigma. Each ripple or blade of light seemed to release the bud of a seabird. Their screeches grew louder, as when they had good or bad news to tell. A burgeoning shoal, a storm. The sky appeared clear, but it wasn’t an enthusiastic clarity.

Behind the line of the horizon, no one knows how the dead water will awake.

The sound of an engine came up the road. Fins hid behind the rocks.

The person driving didn’t hesitate. He turned, followed the other tracks, parked the Mercedes-Benz with whitewall tyres in the large expanse of the first mirador.

The Old Man had got up early. Been forced to take a roundabout route. Follow the line of the estuary. This wasn’t a run-of-the-mill appointment. He never made a phone call in person. He used carrier pigeons, people he could trust. So this wasn’t an ordinary assignation. The fish he’d been sold wasn’t rotten. Fins climbed down through the gorse, sought out a good position. Felt the camera inside his jacket, stroked the Nikon F as he’d seen a hunter stroke his ferret when he was a child. Mariscal stood with his back to him. There was no mistaking the white linen suit, the panama hat and steel-tipped cane. Facing the other way, next to the stone bust of Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, his bearing was sculptural.

Time passed and both spy and target began to grow impatient. Mariscal glanced at his pocket watch twice, but not as often as he glanced at the sky in the west. There where you could see the first line of the Azores front. A logging truck slowly ground its way uphill. Mariscal followed it out of the corner of his eye until it disappeared around the corner, in the direction of the mountain.

Fins hadn’t lost hope. All his life he’d been trained to deal with the unexpected. There was the sound of heavy machinery. A storm always starts by sending in the air force. Mariscal glanced at his watch a third time. The way he placed it in the pocket of his waistcoat, it was his ferret. He surveyed the surrounding area with suspicion. The writer’s stone bust as well. Banged the base of the plinth with his cane to shake off any mud. Went into reverse and then returned the way he’d come.

Fins patted his camera affectionately.

A day is a day.

Someone had gone and sold the same fish twice.

19

‘MOTHER. CAN YOU hear me, mother? It’s me, Fins!’

She eyed him again in surprise. ‘Fins? There was a party. My son will be called Emilio. Milucho. Lucho.’

‘It’s a good name, isn’t it, mother? I’m going to work there, in Noitía.’

Again that surprise in Amparo’s tone of voice. ‘Noitía, Noitía… I spent an afternoon in Noitía, buying thread. It was hot, very hot. The whole place was burning from the inside out, like a log. And I got caught in a storm.’

They fell silent. Whenever the word ‘storm’ was mentioned, the other words waited a bit.

‘What are you going to work as?’

‘As a secret agent,’ he said in order to see her reaction.

She did what Fins least expected. She burst out laughing. ‘A secret agent? There’ll be lots of those!’

Fins now, for her, was the memory of an outing. Nothing more. Lucho Malpica, a child who was yet to be born. And Noitía, a nightmarish place, a place she’d gone to one day to buy thread and been attacked by a storm. She was behind him, calm, unconcerned, with her cushion, teaching her carer the secret art of making lace. He stood staring at the sea through a large window which let in the combined sound of the waves’ hiss and the seagulls’ scream. He’d have loved to draw the curtain. Cover that vision. He couldn’t understand people who found gazing at the sea restful. For him it was deeply disturbing. He couldn’t bear to be alone with the sea for more than five minutes. And it seemed the feeling was mutual. He was sure its mood changed and it grew angry whenever he stood looking at it.

Diving was something else. When you were inside the sea, that was different. The only way to understand the sea was by getting wet. Surveying the underwater forests of kelp, sea lettuce, thongweed, bladderwrack, toothed wrack, knotted wrack, sea fans, sugar kelp, purple seaweed such as carrageen or Irish moss. Sailing, on the surface, he got seasick, felt as if he was dying. He sneezed, spat, drawled, coughed up his lungs, liver, prefixes, saliva, interjections, onomatopoeias, phlegm, tubercles, roots, bile, the inaccessible; the worst thing was throwing up what came after the void, after air, all of it yellow, the sky, sea, skin, the back of the eyes, the soul. Except when he was rowing. If he was rowing, and the more energy he put into it the better, with his back towards his destination, there was a temporary suspension of the disease. But he had to make sure he kept going.

He closed the window of the room and all he could hear was the unmistakable knocking of the boxwood needles. They were in a home for old people and not such old people with Alzheimer’s. Amparo’s illness was something else. She was convinced she could remember everything.

‘Poor things! They sometimes forget their own names. I’m the one who has to remind them.’

She tapped her forehead with her index and middle fingers. ‘It’s all in here!’

Next to Amparo was her carer, a young and kind girl.

‘Her hands get more and more agile,’ she said. ‘Look at them. It’s as if the skin is smoother and her hands move more quickly. Good hands for making lace, aren’t they, Amparo? And who’s this little marvel for?’

Amparo Malpica stared through the large window with melancholy.

‘It’s for my son. For when he’s born.’

The neuropsychiatrist had said, ‘Her mind has suppressed a time that hurts her. Her illness is a property. The property of erasing a period of her life. Or at least erasing it as an explicit memory. Something we call retrograde amnesia.’ The period she’d kept alive was precisely her experience as a girl, before she left Uz and went to live with Lucho in the seaside house in A de Meus. Fins knew the dynamite had exploded not only on the boat. His mother, in her own way, had put an end to a life that included him. But seeing her there, physically well, with her agile fingers, that fertile gaze, dispossessed of the fears that used to hold sway over her, knowing her name, smiling at anyone passing by, he couldn’t help feeling annoyed.

‘So what you’re saying is she forgets what she wants to forget?’ he asked reproachfully.

Talking to Dr Facal, he had the impression that he was before the sea and the sea was stronger than him.

‘No. Memory is often painful. She’s gone past the limit of pain. In order to survive, her mind has rejected the bit that’s hurting her. Memory has these strategies. She could have chosen a different path. But she’s chosen this one. We’ll never fully understand why.’

‘Is it reversible?’

The doctor took her time. In Fins’ experience, he knew that if the answer was positive, he’d have been told it already.

‘The truth isn’t always pleasant,’ she said eventually.

And this was the truest thing he’d hear in a long time.

20

‘ISN’T THAT THE son of Malpica, the one who died using dynamite?’

They gazed from the sea. Used to seeing from the outside in. From west to east. From darkness to dawn. From mist to morning. At varying depths. Several of them half submerged, the water around their waists. They moved like amphibians, with effective slowness, overcoming hydraulic resistance with their home-made diving suits of waterproof clothing over wool, their whole bodies like pistons plunging down, digging, scratching, harvesting the sea with ancient implements, long-handled hoes, rakes, forks. Their heads covered in an array of scarves and hats.

These women had been his world. They’d all passed through it. Guadalupe, Amparo, Sira, Adela, Belvís’ mother, Chelín’s mother, even Leda, with their buckets full of cockles and sacks of clams.

‘It is. I heard he studied to become a policeman.’

‘Do you have to study for that?’

‘It all depends… Not if you want to walk around with a truncheon in your hand, like your husband.’

‘That’s right, woman!’ The gatherer of shellfish gestured with the rake between her legs. ‘I bet you wish your husband had a truncheon like mine!’

They all burst out laughing.

‘Go wash out your mouth!’

‘Leda… she’s a clever one.’

The shellfish harvesters resumed their work. In search of molluscs, their bodies transformed themselves into strange, prehistoric monsters.

‘They say he’s going to be an inspector, a secret investigator.’

‘It can’t be that secret if you know all about it!’

‘That’s what I heard. Doesn’t bother me! He can be an astronaut for all I care.’

‘Oooh, an astronaut would be nice!’

The women’s voices and laughter combined at that hour with the sea’s phonemes, the screeching and splashing, greedy warnings of vigilant birds. Fins couldn’t help himself. He took a photograph. Just one. And withdrew like a poacher.

In front of the house in A de Meus, the hand on the door, calling outwards. Inside what gave him the warmest welcome was the oilskin tablecloth, on which stood an abandoned bottle, with a trail of wine like a tidemark. At dusk Fins wandered along the coastal road. Stopped at Chafariz Cross, where he used to wait for the bus. Stuck his hands in his trouser pockets. A normal man should always have some spare change. He hesitated. He had a good excuse for staying where he was. But by the time he realised, his feet had already transported him to the door of the bar. He could hear the hustle and bustle of a Friday night.

Without touching the door handle, he moved to one side and peered in. The luminous novelties of the Rock-Ola and game machines.

Behind the glass, in that large belljar, memory fermented. Life twisted and turned to the sound of music. With him on the outside.

Rumbo was filling glasses on a tray placed on the counter.

A little further down, on the other side of the counter, Leda and Víctor. He was sitting on a tall stool with a glass in his hand, looking serious. She was standing up, playing with her finger at curling the taciturn man’s hair. At that point the mocking, seductive gesture was the centre of the world. A gesture he recognised, which said, ‘Where are you?’

Leda turned to heed Rumbo’s call. Fins could see her face to face. The pottery of time had improved any memory. He was afraid he might be seen, he who was an expert in angles of shade. A specialist in shade. He could measure the textile thickness of shadows. There were shadows of satin, wool, cotton, nylon, polyester, velvet. Transparent. Waterproof. But when he peeped in again, she had her back to him, with the tray in her hand. From the eye of the catafalque, life became painful again. People were coming. He ran away from their intrusive radiance.

21

WELL, LOOK WHO’S coming. Look who’s just come in. I’m not surprised the bats are bothered. They’ve been hanging there for months, chewing on the shade, and now they’ve woken. Hear, I don’t think they have any problem hearing, and anyway Malpica has forgotten where to put his feet. Who’d have thought he’d end up looking so ugly? He knocks against all the geographical features. We’re all right. I’m a local. My nest is made. The blind mannequin and the one-armed skeleton no longer surprise me. Or the desiccated crane. How well they did those eyes. Those little dots that look everywhere at once. Wherever I am, they can see me. They’re watching out for me. I found my place. My hideaway. Even the pendulum has calmed down. And in this little corner, this screened cubbyhole with its slats of disarranged books, there’s a scent of coves, as if the sea itself came up here one night, to the map of wood, and left all these cracks and beads. The box with its glass lid and sign that says ‘Malacology’, whoever thought of that name, full of all kinds of shells and periwinkles, which I took out of the grid and put somewhere else. There were also collections of butterflies, beetles and spiders imported from America, some of them as big as your fist. I have respect for spiders. I once squashed one, a little one, on my best shirt. It was a white shirt and the bug kept climbing up, so in the end I squashed it. Never squash a spider on your shirt. You wouldn’t believe the amount of blood a bug like that can hold. A whole life’s worth. The same as a hit. The gentle pulling of the piston once you’ve found the vein. The colour of blood, the initial colour, can handle everything. The same with the amber liquid. And then you pump blood of your own blood. A blood pump. In three movements. I like to pump in three movements.

The point is, several years ago, when I was more hung up than ever, they saved my life. I gathered and sold the zoological troop, the ranked creepy-crawlies, spiders, silver-plated beetles, American butterflies. I said to the guy, ‘I’ve brought you the whole of Genesis, this lot is worth a fortune.’ So he went and gave me a ball of smack, ‘Here’s your globe, so you can stuff it up your arm.’ That’s why there are species, so I can get a fix. But not the collection of malacology. He didn’t want to see it. It must have been because of the name. Or because we’re sick of shells around here. Not me. I get genuinely sentimental whenever I set eyes on anything remotely shelly. Like the conch of a hermit. Now that’s what I call architecture. That is art. Like sea urchins. That is beauty, their spines. If I was standing face to face with one of those famous artists, I’d stick a sea urchin in his hands and say, ‘Go on then, do it, if you’ve got the balls!’ There has to be a mysterious mystery for such symmetries to grow in the sea. Now they’re uninhabited, the crabs have gone to hell, but the shells are good company, they adorn the ruins on this side of the School of Indians. The hermit crabs will be hiding behind some geographical feature, I suppose. I’m not quite sure what part of the world I’m in. It feels like the Antarctic on account of the cold. But everything went well. Everything was going well. The spoon secure, stuck between two volumes of Civilisation. Don Pelegrín Casabó y Pagés. Chronicles can be extremely useful. Thank God for Civilisation. At the height of his work, my hands are free to warm the smack in the water. To see the amber colour of smelting. And so on until you pump the geographical feature in three movements.

I didn’t forget that bit about the geographical features. ‘The eagle now is hunting flies. Tell me, Balboa, the names of some geographical features.’ It’s funny what stays and what doesn’t. That teacher, Lame, Exile, always used to say, ‘We are what we remember.’ What do I know? We are what we remember. We are what we forget. Whenever I forget something, I stick my tongue where my tooth is missing. Where all the things I forget go. I’ve a hiding place there that is a bottomless well. Exile also said, ‘Nothing is heavy for someone with wings. You have wings, don’t you?’ Of course I have wings, Don Basilio. Like Belvís. He wasn’t a bad guy, Don Basilio, though he looked tired of children and was always playing around in the clouds or out gathering words. That’s what he was like, always on the trail of other sayings, in the same way we used to search for grapes left over from the harvest. When he came down, he did so very carefully. One day he asked what we wanted to be when we were older, and I went and said, ‘A smuggler!’ He replied, ‘Better to say “entrepreneur”, child. “Entrepreneur”!’

That catechist with the cropped white hair told us we all had an angel. A guardian angel, we all knew that. But she gave details. She wasn’t fooling around. There were angels whose task was to watch over and care for God’s throne, organise the celestial rehearsals. I could understand that. It all seemed reasonable enough. God’s not going to keep tabs on everything, on whether they move his chair this way or that, what time the sun is going to rise, whether there’s a flood over here and a drought over there. And then there are the guardian angels, those who side with us, with the flock we are. I really liked the explanation about why they aren’t visible, why they don’t have a shadow, so to speak. Because they’re a profession, not matter. They come and go, do their work, this is good, that isn’t, but they don’t inspect you, don’t pop the bill in the post or pester you. They work and let others work without getting in the way. If it wasn’t like that, it would hardly be life. For you or for them. ‘Where you going?’ ‘I dunno, for a walk.’ ‘What you using that for?’ ‘I like it.’ ‘It ain’t good, you know it ain’t good.’ ‘If I like it, it can be good, so stop bugging me.’ ‘What you want a weapon for?’ ‘What weapon?’ ‘That pipe.’ ‘What pipe?’ Blasted angel, digging around where he’s not wanted, his feathers on fire. But on the other hand, you know your Guardian A. is there for you, to give you a message and bugger off. That’s what I would call a transparent profession. Then we’ll get the Last Judgement. Sounds reasonable enough. ‘Proceedings were instituted, here you have the report on so-and-so.’ ‘Mr Xosé Luís Balboa, also known as Chelín, we understand from your Guardian Angel that you were in possession of a firearm. What was it for?’ ‘For lining dogs up against the wall, Mr St Michael.’ ‘Very well, let us proceed to weigh your soul.’ At which point St Michael gets out the scales for weighing human souls, which are remarkably like the scales used by a refined dealer who supplied me in a villa on the outskirts of Coruña. Shame that catechist never came back. That girl I met once in the disco Xornes. With the cropped hair. She looked younger than she really was. Had a man’s hoarse voice. She must have been an angel. Because there’s a third class of angels, or so I understand. Errant angels like her. For whom sky and earth are closed.

And in he comes, Ugly Mug, digging around. I’d just got my fix, the flash had gone by and I was coming down slowly. I was back in the Antarctic, next to Malacology, and thinking of giving Don Pelegrín a go. You can’t read very well in the semi-darkness of the Antarctic, but I’ve read plenty of saints in here. I’ve a soft spot for Lord Byron. You what? Lord Byron contemplating the freedom of Greece. And in he comes, stepping on the geographical features. Sticking his nose in where it’s not wanted. Both matter and profession. He could be an eagle, I suppose. While he’s up north, he won’t spot me. All the same, I’d better put the tools in the shed of Civilisation, stay still as the crane, between the planks of wood. He’ll be reminiscing about Johnnie Walker. He sits down at the teacher’s desk. Pokes around inside the typewriter. Removes bits of fallen tiles. Blows away the fluff and dust. Pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket. Wipes the keys, bars, carriage, platen. Starts typing with his eyes closed. Mission nostalgia, Malpica!

O my godmother! You never know where to expect her next! Be amazed, blind mannequin. Be amazed, one-armed skeleton. Well, blow me down. Be amazed, Mr Crane. Be amazed, Mr Chelín. Because who should enter the stage but Nine Moons! Earth, swallow me up. No, Leda, you shouldn’t be here. What’s she doing in Operation Nostalgia? A century, a millennium, has gone by. Franco snuffed it years ago. Some weirdo went and shot John Lennon. Leda’s working in the Ultramar. She has a son with Brinco. And Brinco, well, he’s the number one. When Brinco’s involved, everything goes swimmingly. He’s the best pilot in the whole estuary. The best pilot in the world. There’s not a submarine will catch him. He’s got himself an iron angel, a fearless guardian. The women are crazy about him. What you doing here, girl?

Mr Nosy starts typing without paper. Reads aloud what he’s typing.

‘All is mute silense…’

‘You see? Was I right or not?’ says Leda. ‘Didn’t I tell you she wrote “silense” with an “s”? And you kept laughing, saying how would Rosalía de Castro write “silense” with an “s”?’

‘You were right. She could hear. “Silense” is more silent when it’s written like that,’ remarks Fins. The hole in the roof has grown bigger and the areas of shade on the map are smaller. ‘You can see better now. Your nails are painted black. You’re in the ocean.’

‘Like always. In the middle of the fucking ocean. Where letters never arrive. Just condolences. It was kind of you to write whenever someone died. My dad, the schoolteacher, the doctor. The condolences looked as if they’d come straight out of a book of correspondence.’

‘I remembered you, everything here, more than you can imagine.’

‘Every day, at all hours, right? I could feel some kind of Morse. Keys from the beyond. Of course you were learning how to touch-type. That must have taken a while.’

Fins gets up and heads towards her. Leda retreats until she’s leaning against the teacher’s desk, back in the shadows. As he approaches, she spits on the ground, in the sea, between the two of them. He remains still, quiet.

‘Well, I didn’t. I learned how to forget. Every hour of every day. I’m an expert at forgetting.’

‘To tell the truth, I thought a lot about myself. My life. And time went by.’

‘The boy with the absences!’

‘That’s in the past. I’m better now. Far too present.’

‘I have a son,’ she says with growing confidence. ‘A son by Víctor.’

Yes, he knows.

‘What do you want? Me to talk about Brinco? About Rumbo? The Old Man’s business? The Ultramar’s secrets?’

She realises her own cocky tongue has lost control of its traction. She’s about to say something concerning dynamite. But the word gets stuck. Goes back. Like the mouse scurrying across the ocean, through the rubble.

‘Do you know why I’m here, Fins Malpica? I have a message for you. I never want to see you again. Don’t call me, don’t talk to me, don’t even look at me. Understand?’

‘I’m not going to ask you for anything, Leda,’ replies Fins. ‘Or give you anything. Even if you ask, I’ve nothing left to give.’

They’ve gone now. What a conversation! Straight out of some soap. But it moved me. It really did. I was feeling so well, my warm body in the cold of the Antarctic, a tingling in my feet, thinking about the art of sea urchins and hermit crabs. My God, there was pain in both of them. I could see them as children playing on the beach the day they found the mannequin and carried it here, to the School of Indians. The jokes they had to put up with that day. And now I stay in my dark corner, huddled up, stiff with cold, staring at the great couple, the blind mannequin and the one-armed skeleton. I wonder what the dealer would give for them. A lump of hash. A globe of smack. Enough for two shots at least. He wouldn’t even open the door, the bastard. They’re obviously priceless.

Mariscal had a habit of rising with the sun. Having gone around various miradors, a duty he liked to fulfil with proud punctuality, in the mornings he would sit by the window to read the newspapers. He’d sometimes stop to do the crossword. Like today. He didn’t turn around, but heard the blast that opened the door and noisily cleared a way between stools and chairs before coming to an abrupt halt beside him. He’d nearly completed the crossword. He made it obvious he was in some doubt by repeatedly tapping the biro. He could hear a hum, the electric field of Brinco Furioso.

‘Where is Leda?’

‘Give me a hand here, will you? “Part of the chequebook that is left once the cheque has been removed.”’

‘Fuck, Mariscal.’

‘F-U-C-K. No, it’s not “fuck”.’

‘I don’t give a damn if he has a badge. I’m going to eat him up and vomit him off the bridge.’

Mariscal puffed on his Havana cigar and chewed, ground down the smoke. When he exhaled, the smoke was thick and stuck to the word, which appeared in the squares.

‘S-T-U-B. Now that’s it.’

He turned his head and glanced at the crazed lover.

‘Listen, Víctor Rumbo. I don’t like being shouted at from above and certainly not from behind.’

Brinco sat down opposite him. With a furrowed brow, but subdued gaze.

‘I sent her to see Malpica. To find out what the bastard wants. We need information. Information, Brinco!’

22

THE OLD LIGHT that spilled from the fluorescent strips still slid down the wall to illuminate the name of the dance hall and cinema Paris-Noitía. It could be spotted from the beach, at least by Fins Malpica. In the same way he could hear Sira’s voice, that refrain, ‘I’m not going, I’m not going’, which strangely made it easier to walk. ‘The prettiest love can go by, I’m not going, I’m not going.’ When, on a Sunday evening, she was persuaded to sing, things in the estuary already had their shadowy side. This was something Fins remembered, seeing his shadow projected on the shore. The eager progression of shadows towards the dance hall.

‘I’m not going, I’m not going.’

The cinema had closed some time before. And the dance hall opened only rarely to host some prearranged party. A footprint in the sand, ‘I’m not going’, another, ‘I’m not going’. He was far away, but inside he could see and hear. Memory had the intensity of an absence. He couldn’t tell anybody. He’d been back in Noitía for almost a year and the petit mal had returned several months earlier. The episodes were much more spaced out. But he could see them coming. They passed like intermittences. Blinks. The opening and closing of a window. He had a name for these absences. The Argonaut’s void. Because it was the petit mal, yes. But it was his petit mal.

Shortly after he left, the absences had disappeared. He thought the inconvenience would never reappear. And to begin with, when he returned, he didn’t have any short circuits. He could have said his mind went before him. Functioned well. He knew he had a long way to go, but he was starting to possess threads to weave with.

So the petit mal wasn’t exactly an illness. After a single absence, in an outburst of humour, he decided to make it a property. A secret belonging.

He stopped hearing the song, seeing the spectre of letters in the dance hall. From where he was, in the ruins of the salting factory, Fins could see San Telmo wharf. It was illuminated by a few street lamps. He could see people moving, but not distinguish them all clearly. Study their shadows. That was his trade.

At the end of the dyke, where there was a small lighthouse, stood two men. He could recognise them from a distance. One was unmistakable, with his hat and steel-tipped cane, moving in and out of the circles of light. When he was in a circle, Fins could see the white of his gloves and the tips of his shoes. It looked as if he was about to start tap-dancing. This was Mariscal. His eternal bodyguard, Carburo the giant, stood with his arms crossed, surveying everything, moving his head in time to the lighthouse beacon.

Brinco came marching down the new dyke. He was wearing a black leather jacket that turned into patent leather whenever it passed under one of the lamps. Behind him, in similar clothes, but with more zips and metal reinforcements, came Chelín, his lackey.

On several shallow-water boats preparations were under way to go out fishing. The sailors were laying out the tackle.

‘Hey, Brinco!’ shouted one of the younger sailors.

Víctor Rumbo carried on his way, but not without depositing a confidential greeting: ‘Everything OK?’

‘Doing what we can, Brinco.’ And then, to his companion, ‘See? That was Brinco.’

‘You sure?’

‘Of course I am! We played football together. Look. The other’s Chelín. Tito Balboa. A very fine goalie!’

‘Wasn’t he an addict?’

‘That guy always walked on the edge. For better and for worse.’

In his hiding place, however much the sea amplified their voices, Fins couldn’t make out their conversation. But he could hear the admiring salutations Víctor Rumbo received.

‘See you, Brinco!’

‘See you, champ!’

‘You sent for me?’

Mariscal responded with a cough, a kind of affirmative growl. Then cleared his throat. ‘It’s about time you were a little less formal, Víctor.’

‘Yes, boss,’ said Brinco as if he hadn’t heard.

The Old Man gazed at the waters, which appeared calm but grumbled discontentedly against the dyke. ‘All the best stuff comes from the sea! All of it.’

‘Without the need for a single shovelful of manure!’

‘Have I told you that before?’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘That’s the trouble with us ancients. We’re in the habit of repeating ourselves.’

Mariscal scratched his throat again. Stared at Víctor, adopting a more intimate tone of voice. ‘You’re the best pilot, Brinco!’

‘So they tell me…’

‘No, you are!’

Mariscal gestured to Carburo, who pulled a torch out of his pocket, switched it on and pointed it at the sea, creating Morse-like signals. They soon heard the sound of a motorboat that must have been waiting in the wings. Not a normal kind of boat. The roar of its horsepower overwhelmed the night.

‘Well, the best pilot deserves a bonus, an incentive!’

No such vessel had ever been seen in Noitía before. A speedboat of this length, its power increased by multiple engines on the stern. Inverno steered it towards the dyke.

‘How’s that barge then, Inverno?’

The subaltern was wildly enthusiastic.

‘It’s not a speedboat, boss. It’s a frigate! A flagship! We could cross the Atlantic in this!’

‘It has enough horsepower to travel around the world,’ boasted Mariscal. And then to Brinco, ‘What do you think?’

‘I’m checking out the horsepower.’

‘The flagship’s yours!’ said Mariscal. ‘And there’s no need to worry about the paperwork.’ He was overseeing delivery. ‘The boat’s in your mother’s name.’

This was what he liked to refer to as an ‘emotional coup’.

‘We’ll have to call it Sira then,’ replied Brinco, clearly waging an inner war to find the right tone of voice.

‘Why not? The name fits!’

The Old Man set off walking, with Carburo behind. Taking care not to step on his shadow. Measuring his distance. Suddenly Mariscal stopped, turned towards the dock and pointed at the boat with his cane. ‘Better name it Sira I.’

And then, ‘Well, aren’t you going to try it out?’

The last thing Fins saw was Brinco and Chelín boarding the powerful machine. Brinco taking hold of the steering wheel. And, after turning around, a swarm of bubbles rising and climbing in the night.

23

THERE WAS NO moon, nor was it expected. A formation of solid storm clouds, brand name the Azores, gave depth to the night’s darkness. On the surface of the sea, squeezed between two stones, a vein of graphite clarity. The high-speed customs patrol boat was hidden behind one of the crane boats for gathering mussels, which in turn was moored to a platform under repair. They were waiting for him. For Brinco. The fastest pilot. The estuary ace. A hero to smugglers.

The gurgle of his entrails may have rumbled out across the sea. The customs officer caught him clenching his teeth in an attempt to quell his gut’s rebellion. He realised the other man felt unwell, but didn’t say anything.

‘What, you seasick?’

It was the navigator who asked, with what seemed like inevitable scorn.

‘Do I look like the deceased?’ said Fins.

‘No, just dead for now.’

‘When we’re on the move, I’ll be OK,’ he said, feeling like a conspicuous bundle. Then he added with bravura, in an effort to encourage himself, ‘The faster the better!’

‘Well, now’s the time to wait,’ remarked the officer. ‘Take a deep breath. It’s all in the mind.’

Fins didn’t have time to explain that he’d been born on a boat, so to speak, during a maritime procession. Something like that. His body’s discomfort was a sort of trick or revenge.

The information was first class. Could cure any amount of seasickness.

There he was. Judging by the impressive engine, it could only be him. The kind of boat that was displayed in San Telmo and would suddenly disappear, moments before an inspection. Though recently they’d changed their habits. Started hiding the most valuable speedboats in sheds or warehouses in the most surprising places, sometimes a long way inland, at distances that could be measured in nocturnal miles, on secondary roads. This journey towards secrecy was part of the biggest change ever in the history of smuggling.

From mussel-raft blond to flour.

From tobacco to cocaine.

No, there weren’t any billboards advertising this historical change. And there were few superiors ready or willing to hear, let alone believe, his endless storytelling. Fins Malpica was a bloody nuisance, a prick, a lunatic. He should be assigned to investigating UFOs.

The boat turned. Seemed to be moving away with a mocking curtain of foam. But it came back. The ticking-over of the engine, by contrast, was like a whisper in the night. They docked next to platform B-52, exactly the one Fins had indicated. The customs officer and two agents stared with a mixture of admiration and disbelief at this pale young police inspector clinging to his camera as to a child, dressed like an apprentice on his first outing.

‘Great, golden information, inspector. My congratulations.’

A surprising informer. A nugget dropped by chance. An angry person’s betrayal of trust. These were the sources the officer turned over in his mind. Fins should have revealed the true story behind platform B-52. The hours upon hours of poring over registers. Analysing operations for buying and selling rafts. Grouping suspicious cases in a ‘grey area’. Unravelling the front man and real owner. Use, output, repairs to the structure. A whole series of dead hours and occasional living ones. And there it was, B-52. Real owner, Leda Hortas.

Somebody leaps from the speedboat on to the platform’s wooden arbour. Inverno, thinks Fins, because of the way he moves. He opens a trapdoor in one of the platform’s large floats. These used to be old drums, hulls or boilers. Now they’re made of plastic or metal and look like submersibles. On one of them is Inverno or whoever it is. He climbs into the float with a torch.

‘Full speed ahead! Let’s go get ’em!’ exclaims the customs officer.

This gives rise to shouts of alarm.

The smuggler emerges with a bundle. Skips across the wooden structure. Throws the sack to one of those on board and jumps after it.

A megaphone on the patrol boat orders them to stop. The agents point their weapons. They’re in such an advantageous position the pilot will have no problem cutting them off. What they don’t expect is such a rash manoeuvre. The speedboat’s sudden acceleration, the violent lifting of the nose so that it’s almost vertical, almost capsizing, the obvious suicidal wish, impervious to persuasion, to pass straight through the patrol boat.

‘The guy’s crazy!’

‘That bastard’s going to kill himself and us!’

The use of their weapons would only make matters worse. The officer orders an immediate about-turn. The speedboat glances past. Just enough time for Fins to aim his camera. And shoot the flash. A trembling, violent exchange of looks.

It was Brinco, yes, steering the Sira III.

24

HE USED TO take her there himself. To Bellissima. The hair salon. The name had been his idea. He would take her to work every day. And go and fetch her. He hadn’t changed, God damn it, those loudmouths always holding forth. Swiss accounts. Tax havens. Then the rumours got published in the press: money has no homeland. Well, that’s right. Statu quo. The point is Guadalupe, his wife, didn’t want him to take her any more. She drove herself. Though the car was one he’d bought. A present. A safe vehicle. Listen, girl, you spend half your time with your head in the clouds. A 2002 turbo. A palindrome.

She was sitting down, her feet bare. Her assistant, Mónica, was giving her a pedicure. You could see the two of them got on well. It was still early in the morning, a day like any other, and there weren’t any customers. So they were using the time to make themselves look pretty. Quite right. A hairdresser needed to look like a superstar. Or so he thought. They were married. She’d abandoned the canning factory and he’d asked her one day, ‘Listen, Guadalupe, what do you want?’ She had answered, ‘I want to have a trade.’

‘Wouldn’t a business be better?’

‘A business might be better, but I want to have a trade.’

There were tangos playing on the cassette player. Guadalupe’s nails. ‘Tinta roja’ sung by Goyeneche the Pole. It should be fairly straightforward.

‘Go out for a while, would you, girl?’ he said to Mónica.

No, it wasn’t a lack of trust. But today he preferred to be alone with Guadalupe. He never forgot an anniversary.

‘“Red ink in yesterday’s grey…” How well you used to sing tangos! Remember? The factory foreman shouting, “Sing! All of you, sing!” So you wouldn’t put mussels in your mouths. “Sing! Sing!” How pathetic!’

He gave her a jewellery box.

‘Well, aren’t you going to open it? Go on then…’

Guadalupe opened it. Inside was a diamond ring. She closed the box. A little smile. A painful smile. Something was something. A diamond, a tear, etc., etc.

‘Our silver wedding anniversary. Twenty-five years. Who’d have thought it?’

He looked at her feet again. Her feet always turned him on. Whenever he mentioned this, there were always idiots who laughed. Well, if they didn’t understand, he wasn’t going to explain. The two most erotic things in the world? The feet. First the left foot. And then the right.

‘You’ve wonderful feet. I’ve always been crazy about your feet.’

He was able to touch them. Pass his hand along the instep. Curve the curve. A stroke of bad luck. He didn’t know when it happened. When the wind kicked up. She realised he was seeing more than one woman. Or did she?

She got up and put on her sandals. ‘Do you need something?’

‘A few calls. Just a few calls.’

They weren’t so few. Mariscal passed her a ream of handwritten sheets, with numbers and messages. Those things that sounded so absurd to her. Which she read automatically.

‘If you want, we could have dinner somewhere tonight. Some shellfish. Some invertebrates!’

Guadalupe turned to look at him, that itching of the eyes, and took an age to say, ‘I don’t feel so well. But thanks for thinking of me.’

‘Listen, girl. Don’t be hard on me. I’ve only got three or four haircuts left. Maybe less. Do you think I should dye my grey hair? You women are lucky. One day you’re blonde, the next you’re dark. I like you more with black hair. Because of your skin. You always were a bit swarthy. But we men… If I turn up looking blond all of a sudden, I lose my authority. And I was blond, you know. More than blond. I was downright golden, like the setting of the sun. My hair on fire. Like that guy Oliveira introduced to me. Remember? The guy from the PIDE. Mr Arcada. The Legate. Dead Man’s Hand. Along came a gust of wind and disturbed his wig. The ugly ones are always the vainest. The worse the wood, the more it grows. So along came this wind and shifted his hairpiece, and there went his authority. Oh, I don’t know. He consumes everything, dirty money, weapons, drugs, and still he gives us that sermon about authority, sacred ground. Bloody hell! The twenty-fifth of April, if they’d left it to him, there wouldn’t have been a carnation revolution or any other kind. A few cannon blasts in the Terreiro do Paço, a few more in the Carmo, when Captain Salgueiro was there with his megaphone, and things would soon have gone back to normal. I said to him, “Velis nolis, Mr Arcada. People have to eat, to have shoes on their feet, not to get beaten, if they’re going to be happy, have money in their pockets. If people are fed and in possession of some cash, if they have liquidity, that’s good for business. That’s my philosophy, Mr Legate. I like knocking these leeches around. Half the country out working abroad and all day long holding forth about the motherland and empire. That’s slandering the communist enemy! Listen, everywhere goes up and down, but I know something about emigration. Half of Galicia is on the outside.”

‘Then I thought about it. Did a U-turn. This guy was a bastard, but he was our bastard. So there and then I came out with a laudation for Salazar and Franco, the two pillars of Western civilisation. Shame about their successors. Marcelo Caetano, a coward. The ones here, traitors. He said the PIDE hadn’t been so into torture as other political police forces, such as the Spanish force, to give an obvious example. “I was a Viriathus,” he declared. “Nineteen years of age and I left as a volunteer, like thousands of others, to give those reds a beating. I was an out-and-out Crusader. But what I saw, to tell you the truth, made me afraid. A colleague said to me, ‘This is dangerous land, Nuno.’ And he was right. God was nowhere to be seen. So, being practical, I replied, ‘What happened happened.’ But he stayed firm. What the PIDE did to detainees was cause them a certain ‘absence of comfort’. That was the term. Well, I was taken aback. Torment? No. Absence of comfort.” I liked that expression. I took note. Shame I wasn’t around to give it to Lame for his dictionary. “Look what I have here, Basilio. What do you make of this one? ‘Absence of comfort’.” “What does that mean?” “It means torture, Basilio, torture.”

‘Well, this enlightened bastard, Dead Man’s Hand, I have to admit it, was equally refined when it came down to business. Though we got off to a bad start. After the Portuguese revolution, the captains of April, carnations and all that, he escaped to Galicia and took up with another crowd. That was back in 1974, Franco was still alive and the idea was to provoke a squabble between Spain and Portugal. I know because I was one of the people involved. It was a line of business, or so I thought. Weapons were always an option, but things didn’t go well and they had to be sold on the cheap. Then, when Cinderello turned his attention to the new life, he ended up showing a talent for business. His experience, old contacts, stuff like that, was pretty useful. And the hairpiece fitted. He looked quite different, to tell the truth. I remember all of that. I’m worried about memory. Everybody complains about their memory. I’m worried I remember too much. I get caught up on names, recollections. And from time to time, that’s an absence of comfort.’

Mutatis mutandis, he looked away from Guadalupe Brancana. Felt his presence had lost its triumphal air. In the end said, ‘This is the one I need an urgent response for. You can send it via Mónica.’ Guadalupe nodded. Mariscal opened the door. Stood still for a moment on the border. One of his favourites was playing, ‘Garúa’. That tango about the rain. The two of them were young enough to dance tangos. They didn’t care about the murmuring gaze. Then he thought, in relation to himself, that a man could improve himself. He hummed along to the music on the cassette. ‘The wind brings a strange lament…’ Looked one way and then the other, as he always did. Without turning around, let the door close behind him. And since there was no one in sight, either to the left or to the right, he spat on the pavement.

Ex abundantia cordis.

25

FINS STAYED CLOSE to her for days, stroking her face, without her realising. From a sports boat moored in the harbour he photographed the woman framed in the window. Several moments which struck him as special, in particular those when she appeared in the window with company, he also recorded on film with a Super 8 camera. But the thing he’d never forget — an unknown trembling, his optic nerve setting all the other senses on edge, immersing everything in a strange tense, remembered present — was when yet again he scoured the fronts of the buildings facing the docks and located the window. The woman in the window. Leda Hortas. He tried out the zoom. Focused, unfocused and focused again. A Nikon F with a 70-200 lens like a piercing prolongation. Rude, desirous, infallible. Yes, Leda was the lookout. A photo. The photo. Another. And another.

‘You’re going to have a change of air, Leda,’ the Old Man had said to her one day. ‘You’re off to the capital.’

‘Are you going to give me an apartment then?’ she replied slyly. She liked to joke with Mariscal. And he liked to play along. He was an expert in irony.

‘You deserve a manor house, girl.’

‘That would need a lot of cleaning.’

‘With every convenience. A noble palace.’

‘Nonsense. All the men around here worship Our Lady of the Fist.’

‘It’s the memory of the famine, girl. The best enchantments are those that come free. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth…’

‘Right. So what do I have to do in this apartment?’

‘Keep your eyes wide open.’

He said this in a very serious tone. Not playing along any more. His voice had changed. He spoke like someone in authority entrusting a mission and expecting to be obeyed.

‘Brinco will give you the details.’

From where Leda kept a lookout could be seen the movements of the customs boats arriving and leaving. Next to the window was a small table with a telephone. Which started ringing.

The voice that said hello could only be one voice, and it was. Guadalupe’s. Even so, they went through the ritual.

‘Is that the home of Domingo?’ asked Guadalupe.

‘Yes, it is.’

‘And how is he?’

‘He’s OK. But he’s resting at the moment. He worked all night.’

‘Then I’ll call again later.’

‘Thank you, madam. That’s very kind. I’ll expect your call.’

Leda hung up and leaned out of the half-open window. Had another look at the customs patrol boats. Fins remained where he was. Spying on the spy. Zooming in slowly. Taking time over the portrait. Waiting for a look of melancholy. There it was.

‘These are good,’ said Mara Doval back at the police station, after the photos had been developed. ‘You should devote yourself to this full time, become a paparazzo.’

26

CARBURO DIDN’T LIKE being rushed. But the boss was impatient today. Rubbing his hands. All he needed now was to start singing ‘Mira que eres linda’. Which was what he sang when things were going well. Carburo was familiar with the whole repertoire. The counterpoint came when he hummed ‘Tinta roja’, for example. Carburo had a fondness for this tango. For the way the Old Man sang it. ‘That carmine letter-box, that dive where the Eyetie was crying.’ People didn’t sing well when they were happy. Exactly the opposite. But today he was in a good mood. ‘See how pretty, how lovely you are.’ There was nothing he could do about it.

It was his job to start up the radio transceiver and do the talking. Mariscal might sing, but never in public. He never broadcast. He never touched a phone, let alone one of those machines that reached further than he could tell. They were parked in one of his favourite miradors, Cape Vento Soán, which they’d driven to along a secret track surrounded by protective ferns which closed again once they’d passed. At the crossroads, in another vehicle, Lelé kept watch.

Inside the car, Carburo handled the radio transceiver, which had been fitted and camouflaged in the dashboard.

‘Ready to go, boss.’

He proceeded to repeat what Mariscal told him word for word, using the International Code of Signals.

‘Here Lima Alfa Charlie Sierra India Romeo, calling Sierra India Romeo Alfa Uniform, do you read me? Over.’

‘Here Sierra India Romeo Alfa Uniform. We read you loud and clear! Over.’

‘Attention. You have to work using the same coordinates as Imos Indo. All clear? Over.’

‘OK. Understood. Same coordinates as Imos Indo. So we don’t have to wait for Mingos. Over.’

‘Correct, correct. That is correct. Mingos is not going. Mingos is resting. He worked all night. Good fishing! Over.’

‘OK, understood. We’ll be on our way then. Over and out.’

Mariscal bent down next to the window. ‘Tell them that this time the wind is fair, there’s no room in the sea for all that bass.’

Carburo glanced at the Old Man in surprise. He seemed to be waiting for a translation or confirmation. No one gave messages like that any more. Such nonsense was a thing of the past.

‘You’re right,’ said Mariscal. ‘Tell them to come via the shade. Over and out.’

Carburo repeated, ‘Come via the shade. Over and out.’

The bodyguard disconnected the transceiver, took down the antenna and closed the false compartment in the dashboard. He got out of the car and stretched like a cat. Rarely had he seen Mariscal so excited. Clearly the bundles were going to be full. There he was, next to the cliff’s edge, standing tall, craning his neck, that way he had of helping the binoculars. The speedboats travelled full throttle along two different routes. Rather than sailing on the surface of the sea, they seemed to be jumping from wave to wave. Outside the estuary they would converge in a single direction, towards the mother boat.

‘How I wish I could see the mamma!’ said Mariscal, scanning the horizon.

‘Sure, boss. Wouldn’t that be nice?’

The day we see the mamma, Carburo murmured to himself, we’ll be well and truly done for.

27

FROM THE YACHT Fins took time to focus on Leda. Almost all the windows were open. Hardly surprising, given how hot it was. He looked around. The way a spy does. Then sought out the presence of Salgueiro, the officer on board the customs patrol boat. There he was, waiting. Fins made the prearranged signal of lifting a green handkerchief to his face. Shortly after that, the patrol boat began to cast off.

When he picked up his camera again, he saw that Leda’s window was empty. Just as he’d expected. She didn’t take long to return with some binoculars. She focused on where the patrol boats were usually moored. He watched her do so.

Using the powerful zoom, he could see the expression on her face change. To one of surprise, stupor.

Leda made a phone call from her usual position.

On the carpet in the sitting room a child was playing with two dinosaurs, pitting them against each other in a mock battle. He was six years old. This was Santiago, Leda and Víctor’s son. He wore a corrective patch over one of his eyes.

‘The T-rex will smash you, silly velociraptor.’

Leda told him to lower his voice while quickly dialling a number. At the other end, in the hair salon, Guadalupe picked up.

‘Is Mr Lima there? It’s urgent.’

‘No, Mr Lima is out, but I can give him a message.’

‘This is Domingo’s wife. Tell him Domingo, Mingos, left for work. Left in a hurry. Is already refreshed. This is urgent.’

‘Understood.’

Guadalupe scribbled a note, balancing the receiver on her shoulder.

She covered the receiver and gestured to Mónica, ‘Quick! Take this to Mariscal. And give it to him personally.’

Leda made sure the customs boat had left the port. She lit a cigarette, sat down on the wretched imitation leather sofa, that nightmare of hers, getting stuck and not being able to get up. She tried to distract herself by watching her son play.

Fins decided to wait. Now he was the man in the empty window. Time became eternal when Leda was out of sight. This was an absence he couldn’t manage. For which there was no medicine. Except for something new in the surroundings. Like this. A red Rover. Brinco had one that was the same model. The car parked at an angle to the kerb, next to the docks. Yes, Leda had a visitor. Brinco always walked a couple of feet in front when Chelín was with him. They had two ways of walking that were very different. Brinco in a straight line, striding fast, sometimes jangling the car or house keys. Chelín trying to keep up, glancing from side to side, noticing the occasional detail. A shop window. Some graffiti. Which is why, in almost all the photos Fins took that day, Chelín is more visible. As if he was posing or something.

Leda heard a noise in the lock and started. There was a small hallway which led directly into the sitting room where she was and where she had her lookout position next to the window. Brinco always entered like this. He never rang. Never warned he was coming. He went up to her and gave her a hug.

The first thing Chelín noticed was the patch Santiago was wearing over one eye. ‘Don’t tell me you turned out cross-eyed, Santi?’

Brinco heard the unusual question and turned towards his son. ‘What happened to him?’

‘Nothing happened to him. It’s to make him better. Doctor’s orders.’

Chelín burst out laughing. ‘Blimey, squinty!’

‘It’s called strabismus,’ said Leda. ‘He’s strabismic.’

Brinco bent down and observed the child’s free eye slowly. He then stood up and pointed at Chelín very seriously. ‘It’s not a squint! You heard his mother. It’s…’

‘Extremism,’ said Chelín ironically, managing to suppress his laughter.

‘Strabismus, you fool, strabismus!’

‘It’s nothing serious,’ continued Leda. ‘Fortunately the people at school realised. He has a lazy eye. One sees better than the other. You have to cover the good one so that the other does some work.’

‘That’s the way of the world, lad!’ declared Víctor solemnly. ‘The truth is the patch looks good on you.’

‘It looks great!’

‘Why don’t you take him for a walk?’ said Brinco to Chelín.

‘Sure thing. Come on, you. Let’s go give that lazy eye something to do.’

The inspector watched Chelín leave with Leda’s son. They were messing around. Fins thought he knew the boy well. He realised Chelín sometimes took on the role of general and court jester. They got in the car. He wondered whether to follow them or stay behind. Deep down, though, he already knew what he was going to do.

He looked up at the window and aimed his zoom.

Víctor and Leda were kissing.

Fins couldn’t stop photographing them. His eye and pulse had gone beyond any mission. The couple unconsciously obeyed the camera’s every wish. The way Leda turned towards the window. Brinco embraced her from behind. The way they made love on top of the harbour, bounding over the city’s hills.

He waited before returning to Noitía. He wanted to be alone in the police station, no questions or inquisitive looks when he came out of the darkroom. He certainly wasn’t expecting Mara Doval to still be there. That may have been one of the reasons he held back. But there she was, reading, like one of those students who wait for the lights to go out before leaving the library.

‘How was the session?’

‘OK. He turned up. He finally turned up.’

‘I want to see that couple!’

Before he went into the darkroom, Mara said she had some important news. The phone in Leda’s apartment only received and made calls to a single number. And that number belonged to a public establishment.

‘Which one?’

‘Bellissima, Bellissima!’ she laughed enigmatically.

Fins closed the door behind him. Turned on the red light.

He didn’t know quite where he was, where he’d come from, what he was doing with these carnal prints in his hands, which emitted the groans of a pair of lovers. But Mara Doval hadn’t moved. She looked annoyed. Professional.

‘Next time, inspector, close the door more slowly.’

‘It was a long time ago.’

‘I don’t want to see any more of your paparazzo photos. What I want you to see now are mine. You didn’t let me finish. Apart from Bellissima, Bellissima, I have some other news. If the inspector is interested.’

‘There were two twin cars. Two Alfa Romeos. Nuova Giuliettas. I noticed because I like them. That badge with the serpent and dragon’s head. Yes, you told me the other day, I like the same cars as mafia bosses. I also like Portuguese tiles. Which is why we were there, Berta and I. Berta the painter. Yes, she also likes cats, but I have one whereas she must have a dozen. Her studio’s full of cats, mostly stray ones. No, she doesn’t paint them. She takes inspiration from their eyes, or so she says. It’s wonderful watching how attentive they are while she paints. She only ever uses primary colours. Reds. Both Nuova Giuliettas were red. Hang on, wait a minute. Be patient. So we went to Caminha railway station to see the nineteenth-century murals. You should go and see them, really you should. That’s the only reason my shutter was open. I know they say that if you’re on a case, you should never close your shutter. But yesterday was my day off, and I didn’t want it open. My primary objective was to go and eat cod in Viana do Castelo. No, not à la Margarida da Praça, nor à la Gomes de Sá. In the end what I had, let’s see if I can remember, was “sliced cod with maize bread on a bed of baked potatoes and salted turnip tops”. Mnemosyne never forgets. And then we stopped in Afife, at Cabanas Convent, Homem de Mello’s place. Yes, the one who wrote “Povo que lavas no rio”. Isn’t that the best fado ever? “Chaves da vida”? No, I haven’t heard that one. How strange! Our next stop was Caminha station, the one with the tiles.

‘Which is where our story begins. So just be patient.

‘Berta was driving. I don’t know anything about that. I’m the co-pilot, the one with the maps, leaflets and so on. We were just about to enter the station, through the door, when I looked to my right. A red Nuova Giulietta with a Spanish number plate. Pretty, too. We went to see the tiles in the station. They’re amazing, as I told you. We took some photographs. Went to see a train that was arriving. No problems. We must have been there about an hour. We were just about to leave, coming through the door of the station, when suddenly the Shutter of my Imagination opened. I grabbed Berta. Said to her, “Wait, wait, the car park.” The Nuova Giulietta was on my right. With a group of four people standing beside it. But Mnemosyne knows that the Nuova Giulietta was on the other side, on her right when she came in. So it was. I peeked through the glass door and saw the other Giulietta. They had exactly the same number plate, both of them with a Spanish registration. So I said, “Berta, I’m going to take a portrait of you à la Andy Warhol. Fool around a little.” I love Polaroids. They make a lot of noise, but nothing you can’t disguise by pretending to be tourists. No heavy machinery, mind you. Not like others.’

‘Right. So what happened?’

‘Two youngish-looking men got into one Giulietta and an older couple got into the other. And went their separate ways. One pair towards the border. The other in the direction of Viana de Castelo. What do you think then?’

‘A real fairy tale. Let me see those photos!’

Fins immediately recognised the two younger men. A magnificent couple who were clearly on the same wavelength. The estuary ace and his lawyer. Víctor Rumbo and, in glasses, Óscar Mendoza.

‘Who are the others? That strange-looking man… and the woman in mourning. That waxen face. They look as if they’ve just come out of Tenebrae, having sung the Miserere.’

‘What makes him look so strange? He’s just a well-dressed old man in a tie.’

‘I don’t know. That waxen face… There’s something strange about it.’

‘He’s wearing a wig,’ said Mara. ‘That’s what it is. It’s not so unusual to wear a wig.’

‘On him it looks like some kind of geographical feature.’

‘He’s called Dead Man’s Hand,’ she said suddenly. ‘Do you want to know more?’

‘Yes.’ Fins nodded. She was right, as always. You had to be patient.

Nuno Arcada, Dead Man’s Hand, had worked for the PIDE, the dictator Salazar’s secret police. He wasn’t a run-of-the-mill policeman. He’d been assigned abroad for several years, most of the time in France. He’d infiltrated several groups in exile and also belonged to various emigrants’ associations with trade-union or cultural concerns. This was how he obtained information, not only about them, but also about what was going on back in Portugal.

‘He hunted inside and out,’ said Mara Doval. ‘And inside he had his own, very special hand, which he used during interrogations. He’s said to have been an expert in electricity. Obviously he had some very good Spanish friends with similar interests and occupations. This collaboration enabled him to go into hiding in Galicia after the Carnation Revolution. And it opened up several lines of business for him afterwards.’

‘The cars! It was an exchange. Probably the one Dead Man’s Hand was driving is the one with the upholstery. Financial, of course.’

‘That money’s in heaven by now!’

‘I’m impressed, Miss Mnemosyne. Did you mention this to the Portuguese Judiciary Police?’

‘No.’

‘No? You know there are some good people…’

‘Yes. But it was one of Berta’s cats who recognised the old man in the photo and told me his story. A Portuguese journalist. Working for the Jornal de Notícias. He’s been studying the PIDE’s crimes for years. Anything else?’

‘Yes, talk to me about Bellissima, please!’

28

CHELÍN TOOK SANTIAGO to a deserted beach in Bebo, the typical sort of cove that knows how to stay hidden, but when it’s found, opens like a shell. The path meandered between old stone walls protecting impossible crops. They’d obviously been erected by some intelligent mind because they had strategic holes for the wind to escape through. Which made them a bit nosy. Cabbages peered through. Sometimes sent the odd, restless bird to have a look. A black redstart, for example.

A haven of peace. A good firing range.

At the end of the path, where it met the beach, was an abandoned rusty road sign. A triangle with a red border. Inside the triangle, a black cow on a white background.

‘The things the sea comes up with!’

Chelín lifted the sign and placed some stones around its base to keep it upright.

‘I’m going to teach you the second most important thing a man should know.’

He took out the pistol he wore hidden on his back, next to his waist, under his jacket.

‘Something else the sea came up with,’ remarked Chelín with an ironic smile.

His ease calmed the boy’s initial amazement. He stopped next to him. Both of them eyed the sign. The cow. The man bent down and placed his right knee on the sand. Then wrapped his arms around the boy, helping him to hold the weapon and take aim.

‘That’s right, with gentleness,’ said Chelín, who set about preparing the weapon as he was speaking. ‘Do you know its name? Astra Llama. Nice, isn’t it? It’s a special one, with wooden grips. Everybody wants mother-of-pearl grips, but wood’s better. Wood is more loyal.’

‘Did the sea really give it to you?’

He gave free rein to his voice, he wasn’t quite sure why. It must have been as a result of removing the safety catch.

‘Actually I got it from a dealer. You know what a dealer is, don’t you? Someone who deals cards. Well, there’s another sort of dealer, one who deals in smack.’

Santiago laughed, repeated the word ‘smack’.

The man clicked his tongue. He had a big mouth that sometimes sounded off for him.

‘That’s right. We’ll go and see him one day. But in the meantime, don’t tell anyone about him. All right?’

He stared at the sea. The jumping of the waves. The waves’ mane. The beating surf, piercing sound. Exhaled. Focused. Set the trigger.

‘Nature’s amazing, Santi. The blessed host in verse. Now let’s take aim. Let’s blast that cow out of the skies.’

The shot reached its target. Left a perfect hole in the cow’s flank. To start with, the triangular sign groaned, as if wanting to avoid the fall.

‘Again, Santi!’

The wind fingered the new hole. Took it calmly. The sign finally succumbed to its fate.

‘See? Your lazy eye’s working already.’

Standing up, Chelín kissed his weapon and put it away. Looked around. Ruffled the child’s hair. Smiled. Turned towards the sea and unzipped his trousers.

‘Come on, champ! With style. Legs apart. Looking ahead, but keeping an eye on the dicky bird. Never into the wind. The birdie has to ride out the storm.’

Chelín laughed as he watched the rigorous, disciplined way in which the boy copied his movements. He then stood upright, looking martial, eyes to the front, to give the solemn message:

‘And this is the first thing a man should know. How not to get piss on his trousers!’

‘I’m fed up of counting boats,’ said Leda.

They were still together, next to the window. In the urban dusk it was the eyes that switched on the lights in a succession of candles. Unlike other cities, Atlántica grew at night. Next to the docks and in the estuary, the small lights on the cranes, showing the position of vessels, green and red, implied the hybrid awakening of animal and machine, the movements of a remarkable somnambulist.

Leda moved away from Brinco. Took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘Fed up of everything!’

The woman returning to the frame of the window underlined her exclamation by blowing out smoke. She added with a hint of scorn, ‘Fed up of this sofa, most of all! You end up feeling like your whole body is imitation leather.’

‘Soon you’ll live in a palace,’ affirmed Brinco. They’d had this conversation before, but this time he had an air of determination.

‘Oh yes? What palace?’

‘Your own! I’ll take care of that. Don’t you worry! With a large pool. So you can swim on your own like a mermaid.’

‘Better give it an outlet to the sea. Mermaids prefer the sea.’

‘I’m being serious. You won’t have to keep a lookout any more.’

‘So how you going to do that?’

‘If I were Mariscal, I’d have paid off the customs chief by now.’

‘Then what are you waiting for?’

29

IT’S A BEAUTIFUL spring day on the coast. Sunny, but windy as well. The east wind not only ruffles the sea, but for the first time after the long winter seems to want to distance it from the earth with gusts that whirl about its surface. It gathers up all the greens, pulling them in different directions. But this wind encourages the light, a succession of flashes, which perhaps lessens resistance and promotes sympathy.

We can see all of this with the help of Sira.

We can see it through the window in the Ultramar’s master bedroom. The largest, the one with the best views. The one known as La Suite. She is sitting on one side of the bed. Dressed. As she watches, she loosens her hair, which was tied up in a bun. The thing with windows that have the best view is they pique the curiosity of what they’re looking at. Here they come. To see Sira.

As her hair unfolds and falls, she appears hieratic, expressionless, but everything on the outside, starting with the wind and the restless light, is in the eyes. Sira watches a car on the coastal road moving slowly, as if wanting to linger over the potholes. It’s Mariscal’s white Mercedes. It passes in front of a clothes line where the yellow shirts and black shorts and socks of the Noitía football team are hanging out to dry like flashing pennants.

On the ground floor, in the bar of the Ultramar, closed at this hour of the afternoon, Rumbo is using a white cloth to wipe a glass. From time to time the wind can be heard whistling and an old iron sign creaking. The barman’s wearing spectacles. The way he’s polishing the glass even the most casual observer would describe as obsessive. He lifts it to the light, stares at it, as if seeking a sporadic stain that hides and then reappears.

Rumbo’s intensive work is interrupted by Mariscal knocking at the door. Rumbo can see his face on the other side, behind the thin curtain with lace edges. He’s dressed like an emigrant in a white linen suit, a red bow tie and a thin straw hat. His cane is hanging off his arm by the handle.

Rumbo takes one last look at the glass and places it upside down on the counter, on top of a white cloth, next to the other polished glasses.

He makes his way to the door. He’s wearing a white apron. Before he opens up, the two men exchange looks through the gap in the curtain. The barman seems to hesitate, looks down at the lock, but carries on anyway, takes the key from his pocket and quickly opens the door.

Mariscal’s cough could be understood as a greeting. Quique Rumbo turns around and goes to switch on the television. He presses the button with the end of a broom handle. A meteorological map appears on the screen, complete with isobars.

Mariscal glances at Rumbo, Rumbo’s back, the television in the background, and starts to climb the stairs.

‘They haven’t a fucking clue,’ he says. ‘Here they never get it right. We’re terra incognita for them! Tomorrow’s the first of April, there’ll be drum rolls in the sky…’

Rumbo keeps his position. Doesn’t comment. Meanwhile Mariscal continues with his forecast in a monotone, as if trying to disguise the percussion of his feet on the wooden steps. ‘… and the first spiders will start to weave their webs.’

He moves slowly through the chiaroscuro of the landing. There are lamps on the walls now with green shades, and a series of small pictures showing English country scenes, horsemen chasing after foxes. A job lot. All of which gives the impression of a colonial setting, provisional screens, that fluttering of the curtains as they’re lifted by the wind. A tunnel of flags, he thinks. Don’t they ever shut the blasted windows? He stops at the door to the suite, at the far end of the landing. Hangs his cane from the wrist of his left hand and slowly removes the white gloves. It’s the first time we see his bare hands with the old burn scars on the back. His right hand hovers in the air for a moment. Eventually he knocks gently. Takes a handkerchief from his pocket to hold the handle and open the door.

Sira doesn’t move when Mariscal comes in. She still has her gaze on the seascape outside the window. Mariscal looks at her and then follows her gaze. Without saying a word, he goes to the other side of the bed. Sits down, wipes his brow with his handkerchief, that tic he has, and carelessly stuffs it into his breast pocket.

‘There’ll be a storm tomorrow.’

On the wall, on wallpaper decorated with acanthus leaves, is a souvenir picture showing a wooden bridge in Lucerne covered in flowers, with the Alps in the background. Mariscal stares at it, as if he’s only just discovered it’s there, this photograph of flowers and snow.

‘We should go somewhere together. At some point.’

Sira doesn’t reply. She carries on gazing at the seascape outside the window. The wind is there, beating with a world of things on its back. Mariscal stands up. Goes to wash his hands in a bowl on top of the chest of drawers. Before doing so, he takes a couple of sachets from his pocket and pours the contents into the water. As the grains mix with the water they produce a kind of bubbling, and that is when Mariscal places his hands inside the bowl. In the meantime:

‘There are places that are a wonder, Sira. You always wanted to go to Lisbon, I know. All your life singing fados, and we never went to Lisbon. “In the Madragoa district, in Lisbon’s window, Rosa Maria was born…” We have to go to the Alfama during the feast of St Anthony, Sira! We never even went to Madrid! I could take you to a good hotel. The Palace, the Ritz. To the Opera. The Prado Museum. Yes, the museum…’

In the bar on the ground floor, Quique Rumbo stares at himself in one of the vertical mirrors that flank the central shelf of bottles. In the mirror frame is a cover plate concealing a lock. Rumbo takes a key from his pocket and slowly unlocks the mirror door. Inside is a weapon. A double-barrelled shotgun. And a pack of cartridges. Rumbo takes two cartridges and loads the weapon.

Mariscal bends down, looks at the ground. He’s searching in his memory, and his voice becomes more grave.

‘The truth is, it had never occurred to me to enter the Prado, but the meeting was there. Something to do with Italians, I thought. But what a piece of luck, Sira, what a marvel. Museums are the best places in the world. Better than natural landscapes. Better than the Grand Canyon or Everest, I’m telling you. Always at the same temperature. The climate is ideal.’

Something is happening on the other side of the bed. Sira’s gaze is now that of someone trying to stem her tears.

‘It’s because of the paintings. The temperature has to be… constant. Paintings are very delicate, you know. More than people. We cope with hot and cold much better than paintings. Funny, isn’t it? A scene with snow cannot withstand the cold as well as we can. We’re the strangest thing in the universe, Sira. Remember those people who used to go fishing for cod in Newfoundland? They’d stick breadcrumbs between their fingers so their skin wouldn’t fall off. And on their genitals. They say nothing burns like the cold. That must be true! That girl whose mouth was dry and she stuck her tongue on a block of ice, remember? She couldn’t get it off, had to call for help… Who’d have believed it?’

He opens the drawer of the bedside table and rummages around. There’s plenty to rummage through. His postcards, perhaps?

Basilio Barbeito spent his final days here. So he’d be more comfortable. His presence has had a lasting effect on the room. This is something Mariscal and Sira share without mentioning it. From his time in the room, he left a shelf of handwritten notebooks as an inheritance. All from the same factory, Miquelrius. All the entries for his poor, infinite dictionary are there, in alphabetical order. Write, he wrote everywhere.

Mariscal sits down again on the bed. Leans over towards the woman. Strokes, gently tugs her hair. Lame was in the habit of putting everything to good use. His pockets were always full of words. He wrote on envelopes, on the back of cinema programmes, on bus tickets, scraps of brown paper from the shop, on the palms of his hands, like a child. He didn’t leave his hands behind, of course, just the sensation of written skin. Everything full of scraps of paper. The drawer overflowing with word worms.

‘Call me names, Sira. That encourages an old man like me. Pimp, mangy dog, rogue, crook, swindler, lech, toothless, serpent, bastard, Beelzebub, whoreson, entrepreneur, son of the four letters, beast… archaic! Out of date. No, out of date, no. Archaic’s a good one. And beast is even better.’

Mariscal falls silent. Curls Sira’s hair in his fingers. An electrifying pleasure for him. Like the first day Guadalupe cut his hair, the way she swept over his temples. Shame about the hairdresser. Some people are like that, they never settle down, are never content. They still sleep together. He occasionally mounts her. But she’s not on fire. She doesn’t burn. Like a fridge. That’s what I say. Memory is a discomfort, that’s right, time decays, all those words in the drawer, when suddenly the door opens.

Quique Rumbo. With agitated breathing. The wind has finally found a way in. Sira and Mariscal turn their heads towards him, but otherwise remain still where they are. To begin with, Rumbo takes aim at Sira, but then he hesitates, swings the weapon around until he has Mariscal in his sights.

Finally he turns the gun against himself. Presses it against his chin. And fires.

Reverberates.

Everything’s gone. The wind towards the landing.

Trickles of blood run down the veins of the acanthus leaves on the wallpaper. Drops fall from the ceiling. Mariscal stretches out his hand. Where the hell are these drops coming from? From the ceiling, right. He hadn’t thought about that. The way dripping blood is silent.

‘Don’t cry, Sira. I’ll take care of everything. He died because he wanted to!’

Per se.

30

‘TWO CELTIC KINGS, let’s say, are playing chess on top of a hill while their troops are out fighting. The battle ends, but the kings carry on playing. This is an image I like a lot. You’re a king, Brancana. On top of the hill. Let the pawns do the fighting!’

They were in Delmiro Oliveira’s office, an artificial tower with its own terrace, from which the guests could enjoy a broad panorama of the Miño estuary with its islets. It was a good distance from the voices of the partygoers occupying the garden and rooms of the house in Quinta da Velha Saudade, only partly visible from the river, protected by high walls and screens of vegetation, mostly bougainvilleas in flower.

It was the host’s seventy-fifth birthday, though this was an excuse. He was happy at home and it seemed ridiculous to celebrate the falling of leaves. But he’d received a call, he didn’t let on about this, and made the most of the occasion. Around his desk, apart from Mariscal and Macro Gamboa, the silent Galician partner with him, were the lawyer Óscar Mendoza, the Italian Tonino Montiglio, and Fabio, known to his friends as the Elephant, a Colombian who lived in Madrid, but who’d recently spent a period in Galicia. His nickname was a result of the enthusiasm he’d shown for a cheerful establishment in Lisbon, O Elefante Branco.

They would soon head down to the banquet, where there would be toasts for the future. But now they were concerned with the present. Mariscal understood that the present had largely to do with him. He’d been welcomed with encouraging hugs, following the death of Rumbo in the Ultramar. ‘A misfortune. A breakdown, Mariscal. People break down.’ He’d remained silent. This mechanical diagnosis didn’t give him much comfort. One breakdown leads to another, etc., etc. He was too old to think about committing suicide. Besides, he didn’t have the guts to shit so high. Or so he thought to begin with. What to do? Ite, Missa est.

‘You’ll always have Mendoza to apply a bandage rather than a wound,’ his host continued. ‘To avoid further misfortunes. There’s nothing worse for a firm than hatred between factions. The firm looks after everybody. Factions plunder on their own.’

‘That’s true,’ said Mendoza. ‘The merit of my profession consists not in winning lawsuits, as people think, but in avoiding them. It’s a question of seeking out allies, not enemies.’

‘And how’s the new captain of the fleet?’ asked Fabio.

‘He has courage… and ambition.’

Delmiro Oliveira seemed to come to at this point, with that capacity he had for walking between the audible and the inaudible, and made his own connection between the two nouns, ‘Courage and ambition? Misfortunes never come singly.’

All his jokes, uttered in a serious tone, like those of good comedians, had their meaning. Were acts in themselves. So Mariscal laughed along with the others until the laughter died down.

‘That’s right. He has courage. Too much perhaps. The wolf will have to learn how to be a fox, isn’t that so, Mendoza? On Galician coats of arms there are plenty of wolves and not enough foxes. Then it turned out there were too many foxes and not enough wolves. Or vice versa.’

‘I think he’s inherited the best of both animals,’ declared Mendoza. ‘He possesses an innate talent that will go hand in hand with his ambition.’

‘Before coming here, I managed to talk to Palindrome,’ said Fabio mysteriously. ‘Do you know what he said, Mariscal? He said, “Mariscal is like Napoleon.”’

‘Napoleon?’

‘That’s what he said. But he added something that impressed me. First of all, “Power needs shade.” And then, “There’s no shade better than power.” I think the same, Mariscal.’

‘That’s what we all think, isn’t it?’

Mendoza’s immediate response. The others’ agreement, despite Macro Gamboa’s silence, meant, Mariscal could tell, that there’d been some kind of consultation in which he hadn’t taken part.

‘The time has passed for being thieves in the night,’ continued Oliveira. ‘What’s that saying, Tonino?’

‘Il potere logora chi non ce l’ha.’

Mariscal blew out his cigar smoke with the enthusiasm of someone wishing to make a point.

‘That’s right, power wears out those who don’t have it. What are you thinking, counsellor?’

‘That now’s the time.’

Mendoza had an instinct for historic opportunities. When he heard the name of Napoleon, his most diligent neurones headed for what he called the Hippocampus Department of Locksmithery. A lock opened, and he couldn’t help thinking about one of his favourite books, the one Karl Marx wrote about the Eighteenth Brumaire, not of the first Napoleon, but of Louis Napoleon. The locksmith was working. One door opened another. He had paragraphs in his memory. The day he brought them out at a meeting of the law faculty, he learned how to spot the gloss of his discourse, the effect of his words on the resonance of bodies, the facial tics of those in disagreement. He remembered they got not only a caricature of the old Napoleon, but the old Napoleon in caricature.

‘Now’s the time. Everybody’s talking about the crisis. Politicians are afraid, discredited. In polls they’re dismissed as part of the problem. In the eyes of most people they’re incompetent and corrupt, they’ve got shit stuck in their hair and are unable to rid themselves of this manure, this reputation… The noise of swords is constantly heard in the barracks.’

As he spoke, Mendoza noticed that first, pleasurable moment of intoxication produced by saliva with the cereal of language. A fermenting that is only possible when it is shared. As a student, during the dictatorship, he’d defended revolutionary ideas. He’d avoided ‘jumps’, public demonstrations, and more or less risky acts such as spreading leaflets, putting up posters and spraying walls with graffiti. That was to play a game of cat-and-mouse with a superior brute force. The dictatorship was in ruins, had the same illness as the dictator, multiple sclerosis with a rotting of the internal organs. The real task consisted in forming senior management for the future, for the day after the taking of power. He’d prepared, avoided having fights with the police. Attended class in a suit and tie, availed himself of the services of shoe-shiners. His appearance surprised people at meetings, especially when he opened his mouth and produced an eloquent, radical discourse whose main target was no longer the tottering regime, so old its teeth were falling out, but the revisionists, the social democrats, the puppets of capitalism.

Everything can be put to good use. It had been useful training. For the first time he felt on his fingertips the clear sensation of being able to control vital threads.

‘It’s time the king ascended the hill and moved the pieces without being in the thick of battle. It’s time, yes,’ said the lawyer, preparing with the dynamo of his hands a remark that would bring the conciliabule to a close and hoist him on to Mariscal’s shoulders. ‘As the ancients used to say, Hic Rhodus, hic salta! That’s right, gentlemen. Here is Rhodes, jump here!’

Mariscal appreciated the tribute and nodded thoughtfully. His head had to cope with the weight of the crown. And it leaned on its temples for support.

‘There’s a level here,’ he said finally. ‘This is what makes it nice to work with people!’

Macro Gamboa had remained silent, with his hands between his legs. He’d worked for a long time transporting things by land and sea and had risen to the condition of businessman on his own merits. He hadn’t once glanced at the landscape. He seemed more interested in the others’ shoes. Their oscillating movements.

It was some time before his hoarse voice emerged from his inhospitable mouth.

‘What the hell are we talking about?’

31

ON THE RIGHT of his desk, Óscar Mendoza had a large globe. The lawyer was standing up, watching it and making it turn. Víctor Rumbo was sitting opposite.

‘You’ve gone quiet, what’s the matter?’

‘I have an opinion, but it hasn’t got to my head yet.’

The lawyer smiled. He recognised the quip. This was one of his standard jokes about Galicians. Mendoza thought he’d have to change this habit of his. Telling jokes about Galicians. Yes, they laughed at their jokes, but then they chewed the words in a corner, as cows chew the cud. No, he wasn’t going to say that aloud. Besides, Víctor had a quick temper. Not for nothing was he called Brinco. He would jump out of his seat, react to the slightest provocation. If they cut off his arms, he’d row with his teeth. Better this way. No turning sharp corners, no dropping hints, no change of heart. He hated all that wrong-footing in the dance. Brinco was determined. His ambition was clear to see. Obviously much more of a wolf than a fox. They understood each other. And would get closer all the time.

‘That Brinco’s crazy,’ he’d said once to Mariscal about Víctor Rumbo. It was true he’d done something crazy, unloading a boat in broad daylight. But what the lawyer wanted to know was what the Old Man really thought. They called him that and he didn’t mind. So when Mariscal remained silent, he rephrased his statement: ‘To do what he did, you have to be off your rocker. It won’t be easy to defend him if he carries on like this.’

‘Did he burn some money?’ said Mariscal abruptly.

‘Why would he burn some money?’ asked Mendoza in surprise.

‘Well, if he didn’t burn any money, then he’s not crazy.’

That was the end of Brinco’s mental check-up. The one sitting opposite Mendoza. The madman who didn’t burn any money and was going to be his henchman. His right-hand man.

‘Anyway, no more being the Atlantic’s fastest pilot. You’re a captain now. You have to take better care of your spine.’

The lawyer pushed the globe with his forefinger, making it spin, but this time more slowly. ‘We’ve a long journey ahead of us. But first you should go and see the Old Man, Víctor.’

‘I see him every day!’ he replied sombrely. ‘He’s my favourite ghost.’

‘You’re like a son to him…’

It was Brinco who approached the globe now and gave it a shove. ‘What do you mean, like a son? If I’m going to be your boss, don’t go talking to me like some idiot out of a soap opera!’

‘If the client doesn’t agree with the discourse, one has to change the discourse.’

Mendoza pushed the globe in the other direction, his voice seeming to slide all over it. ‘Confucius travelled somewhere and was told, “Straightness rules in this kingdom. If a father steals something, the son turns him in; if the son steals something, the father turns him in.” Confucius replied, “Straightness also rules in my kingdom. There the son covers up for his father and the father covers up for his son.”’

At this point in time, Mendoza would have liked to have Mariscal before him. He would have come out with some Latin, appreciated the elevation in style.

‘Got you, Confucius,’ barked Brinco before slamming the door behind him. As he did with cars. Something that made Mendoza very nervous.

32

FINS MALPICA WAS driving an unmarked car along the coastal road. He was accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel Humberto Alisal of the Civil Guard, who’d come from Madrid in plain clothes. They were heading for the barracks in Noitía. It was an inspection without prior warning.

‘Where are you from, inspector?’

‘I was born here, sir. Nearby. In a fishing village in Noitía. A de Meus.’

‘Do your parents still live here?’

‘My father died some time ago. At sea…’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

‘A stick of dynamite went off in his hands.’

When he gave this detail, something he endeavoured to do as quickly as possible, Fins knew there would be an infinite moment, something like the pause between the ticking of a clock.

‘Oh!’

It was raining lightly. Fins allowed the windscreen wiper to introduce a couple of asides. Then he expanded on the information. ‘My mother’s still alive. She has problems managing her memory. Of memory loss, I should say.’

‘Alzheimer’s is terrible,’ remarked Lieutenant Colonel Alisal. ‘My mother had it. She’d mix me up with the weatherman! Blow kisses whenever he appeared on television…’ He made the contained gesture of someone blowing a kiss from the palm of his hand. ‘I don’t know how she made that association.’

‘Maybe the weatherman’s pointer and the staff of office,’ said Fins.

Humberto Alisal laughed and shook his head. ‘No, she never saw me with a staff of office.’

Fins was about to say something about body language, but they were reaching their destination. He slowed down. The windscreen wiper groaned out of laziness. From the car park where they came to a halt they could hear the low panting of the sea muffled by blasts of errant water.

The car park opposite the Civil Guard barracks was full of mostly new, top-of-the-range cars. Given that this was a restricted space, it made the conglomeration of luxury vehicles even more obvious. The contrast between the one Fins Malpica had just parked, his Citroën Dyane, and the others was like that between a barge and a fleet of high-class yachts.

Once out of the vehicle, with Fins behind him, Lieutenant Colonel Alisal seemed to be giving the impressive sedans the once-over. His was a silent review that didn’t conceal his displeasure. He walked slowly, paying careful attention to the minor details, starting with the number plates, all of which indicated that the cars had only just been bought. ‘This is shameful!’

Fins had been hugely surprised when Superintendent Carro called him into his office to inform him of Alisal’s visit and request that he should accompany him. Ever since, on a different trail, he’d located these ‘trout in the milk’, he’d been in touch with Chief Superintendent Freire of the Civil Guard. The kind of guy he trusted, with whom he would have entered the heart of darkness. Freire paid an undercover visit. And was the one who informed his superiors.

‘It hurt me to discover the truth, sir. To start with, I tried to look the other way, but more and more trout kept appearing in the milk. So then I spoke to Chief Superintendent Freire. He came here incognito. Saw first hand what there was.’

‘Trout, you say? You’re far too polite. Are they all this filthy?’

‘No, sir. There are three clean ones. They had a bad time.’

‘A bad time? Why? Because they were carrying out their duty?’

‘They’re off sick. Severe depression.’

‘Depression!’

Lieutenant Colonel Alisal marched towards the barracks building. His indignation could be heard moving through the gears. As he walked, he expressed his thoughts aloud, ‘Three honourable, sick men. Well, that is something!’ Suddenly he stopped and turned to Fins. ‘What’s going on here? Please explain it to me.’

Fins was always at the ready, but even so he couldn’t pinpoint the right answer. He might have said, ‘Corruption, sir, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.’ But he didn’t like to be direct. He was never that direct. Lieutenant Colonel Alisal gazed up at the front of the building, the motto ‘All for the Fatherland’, and then sought out the sea’s horizon. It was a thick, dark, oily sea, across which slid and swept a ragged bunch of clouds.

‘All of this on account of some tobacco and a handful of drugs?’

‘That’s prehistory, sir.’

‘But the statistics… This doesn’t comply with the statistics. We’ve increased the number of seizures.’

The lieutenant colonel stopped in front of the guard standing sentry at the entrance to the building.

‘I wish to talk to the superintendent on duty. At once!’

The guard raised his eyebrows. He didn’t like that tone, especially coming from a civilian.

‘At once? Who are you then, the Generalissimo?’

The lieutenant colonel took his papers out of the inner pocket of his jacket.

‘I am Lieutenant Colonel Party Pooper.’

The guard checked his papers. Immediately stood to attention.

‘At your orders, sir!’

He was about to call the sergeant in the guardroom. Tell him to find the superintendent as quickly as possible. But this plain-clothes superior didn’t seem too worried about formalities. He had other obsessions. ‘Tell me, which of these cars is yours?’

The guard glanced at the third man, who had remained silent. He knew him from somewhere, but couldn’t quite place him. He had the appearance of a shadow. Fins, however, knew who the guard was. One clue had led to another without him even trying. Most of the cars had been bought from the same dealer. They hadn’t even bothered to cover their tracks. The owner shared business interests with Mariscal. Though the latter wasn’t exactly crazy about cars. He still drove his 1966 Mercedes-Benz. Its tail fins formed part of the Wild West landscape.

‘Are you happy, does it run well?’

‘I can’t complain. The car runs well. If you increase your speed, the consumption goes up. But I’m not one to do that.’

‘At ease!’

‘Thank you very much, sir.’

33

‘AN INTERVIEW? WHAT for, counsellor? Cui prodest?’

‘You do. You stand to gain. You’re a gentleman, you can’t go down in history as a cattle thief.’

Óscar Mendoza had already accepted on his behalf. An image campaign, he explained. Cui prodest. Cui bono, etc., etc. He had nothing to lose. On the contrary, everything to gain.

‘I already have a good image,’ countered Mariscal. ‘I’m known as a bit of a Casanova.’

The lawyer played along. ‘That’s right, but it could be bettered. Do you know what Churchill used to say? “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”’

‘Who said that?’

‘Churchill,’ repeated Mendoza. ‘Winston Churchill.’

‘I know who Churchill is, counsellor!’

Mariscal used this occasion to tell a story with mocking familiarity. ‘My father sold him wolfram at a good price. He sold it to the others as well. The Nazis wanted wolfram to make weapons and the Brits to stop them. On occasion, like other people, my father would sell the same material twice.’

‘A real neutral!’ exclaimed Mendoza.

That’s right. A neutral. Many border fortunes had been amassed as a result of this mineral needed for Hitler’s cannons. Mutatis mutandis. He rather liked the idea of an image campaign. He touched his neck with his hand, pinched the skin of his double chin. The last time he’d come face to face with a journalist had been to give him a warning. Right there, on the chin.

‘They say you’re the perfect example of a self-made man, Mr Brancana.’

‘Don’t beat about the bush. Call me Mariscal.’

He stared at the journalist in silence. Made out he was considering her statement when in fact he was thinking about her. She knew. There was an animal intelligence in her eyes. He noticed this because the first thing she did on entering the Ultramar’s back room was pay attention to the little owl. And when they sat down, on opening her notebook the first words she wrote, as he could see upside down, were ‘little owl’. The blinds were half lowered and filtered a staircase of light. Mariscal had lit a Havana cigar, the smoke of which rose in rings that lazily came back to ground. He soon saw that extended periods of silence made her nervous, and this discomfort on her part made him feel secure. The animal’s eyes were intelligent, but also meek. He liked this. He didn’t have time for high voltage.

‘What I mean,’ continued the journalist, ‘is that you got to where you are through your own efforts.’

‘Sensu stricto, miss.’

‘Lucía. Lucía Santiso.’

Good, Lucía, good. He felt at ease. He puffed out his chest and came out with one of his favourite quotations: ‘A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.’

‘Do you also speak English?’

‘I speak lots of languages. I’m a troglodyte.’

He let out a guffaw. He had no problem laughing at himself. ‘The sea brings everything. Languages float as well. You just have to have a good ear. What do you think of John Wayne?’

The girl smiled. She’d end up being the one interviewed.

‘He’s from another time. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. I liked him in that.’

‘A man is a man,’ replied Mariscal transcendentally. ‘That doesn’t belong to another time, miss. That is intemporal. Cinema began with Westerns. And will go to hell, is already going to hell, when there are no more Westerns. It’s the decline of the classic genres. Write that down.’

‘I will do,’ she said agreeably. ‘We were saying you were a self-made man.’

‘Let’s just say I learned how to ride out the storm in my own dinghy. Without fear, but with common sense. You have to pray, yes, but never let go of the helm. What was it that sank the Titanic? A blasted lump of ice? No, it was the pace of greed, a loss of perspective. Man yearns to be God, but he’s just… a worm. That’s right, a drunken worm who thinks he’s in control of the hook.’

‘Mr Mariscal, people say…’

Mariscal pointed with his cigar at the journalist’s notebook. ‘Did you write down that bit about God and the worm?’

Lucía Santiso nodded uneasily. She knew the interview had been agreed between the editor-in-chief of the Gazeta and the lawyer Mendoza. There were a few ground rules. But Mariscal was growing far too much, his head, eyes, arms, everything, while she felt diminished.

‘Mr Mariscal, your name is often bandied about as that of future mayor and possibly even senator.’

Mariscal joked, making out he was on stage: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, before I speak, I would like to say a few words…’ He didn’t carry on until the journalist had let out a convincing laugh.

‘Listen, Lucía… Can I call you that? Yes, good. I’m a dried fig by now, I’m not a danger to women,’ and as he said this, he winked at her. ‘Though dangerous women still get me going. Once a gallant, always a gallant. Don’t write that down.’

Lucía lifted her biro off the paper. She was beginning to have fun and to calm down in time to the boss’s baton.

‘Listen, Lucía, I’m not going to lie to you. Politicians eat shit. Did you write that down? Yes? Then don’t. That’s right, I am apolitical. Absolutely apolitical. Ab-so-lu-te-ly! But put this as well. I, Mariscal, am prepared to sacrifice myself for Noitía.’

He waited for his words to have an effect, but the journalist continued writing in her notebook.

‘To sacrifice myself and to fight for freedom!’

Mariscal accompanied this strong statement by banging his fist on the table.

This time Lucía Santiso did look up, forced to do so by the power of his rhetoric. She found herself face to face with a Mariscal transfigured. Looking serious, with flashing eyes.

‘Freedom! You may think I don’t go in for such a word…’

‘Why would I think that?’

‘Well, I do. I love freedom! Much more than those leeches who are always sucking on it. Freedom, yes, to create wealth. Freedom to earn a living with our own two hands. As we have always done!’

The cigar was forming low clouds, and for the first time Lucía Santiso decided to break a taboo. She looked down at Mariscal’s hands.

He understood. He never spoke about this matter, but thought he would make an exception for this girl who listened and wrote with such intelligent meekness.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why I wear gloves.’

The editor-in-chief had already briefed her on this and had been strangely emphatic. ‘He always wears white gloves. Don’t even think about asking him about the gloves. It would seem he burned his hands while trying to rescue some money from the engine of a tanker. The tanker caught fire. He was taking emigrants to France. It was a miracle they got out.’

Lucía lifted her biro in a gesture of confidence. ‘There’s a journalist at the Gazeta who’s allergic to touching door handles, phone receivers… And typewriter keys.’

‘That’s the one who’ll be in charge!’ said Mariscal, finally getting the journalist from the Gazeta de Noitía to laugh out loud.

‘Don’t worry. I won’t mention your clothing. Just say you dress like a gentleman.’

‘Then you’ll be telling the truth. But I want you to ask about the gloves. There are all sorts of rumours, idiotic comments. All of it nonsense.’

‘Why then? Why do you wear them?’

‘I’ll tell you the truth. I’ve never told anyone before. Because I swore to my dying mother I would never again touch a glass of alcohol. That’s a real scoop now, isn’t it?’

Lucía thought this might be a good moment to ask about something that interested her both professionally and personally.

‘How did you make your fortune, Mr Mariscal?’

‘With culture, basically.’

‘With culture?’

‘Yes, with culture! The cinema, the dance hall… I brought the classics. Juanito Valderrama, for example, singing “El emigrante”! Everybody cried. Now that’s how you show you’re a classic. Of course nobody remembers that any more. My motto was always the same as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s: Ars gratia artis. We even set the benchmark for hamburgers, way before McDonald’s. Ours were better, of course. Nobody gave me anything, miss. But I’m going to let you in on a secret. I have always, always believed in Noitía. Noitía is an endless work in progress. It’s fashionable nowadays to preserve the environment. Yes, that’s fine. But what do we eat? The environment?… Did you include that bit about eating the environment?’

‘It’s a good metaphor.’

‘It’s not a metaphor!’ exclaimed Mariscal, trying to stifle his cough. ‘I already said I was apolitical. There are two kinds of politicians. Those who are off their heads. And those who walk about in water, asking for water. I’m not here to sing carols.’

The journalist decided to broach a sensitive subject in the gentlest tone possible.

‘Which party will you stand for, Mr Mariscal?’

‘I’ll tell you. The one that’s going to win!’

She understood his jokes. Mariscal accompanied the journalist’s smile with a pleasurable exhalation of smoke. He felt jolly.

‘Listen, the only party I’ll stand for is Noitía. I like our way of life. Our religion, family, constant partying… If that bothers somebody, well, that’s their problem.’

‘But in Noitía strange things are happening. Do you approve of smuggling, Mr Mariscal? They say drug trafficking is spreading its nets here.’

Mariscal paused, never once taking his eyes off the journalist. There was an absolute silence in the Ultramar at that time, interrupted only by the fleeting sound of suppliers. The bakery van. The beer lorry. And so on. But now the Mental Department of Bothersome Sounds was reached by the voice of this journalist criticising the ever-increasing power of drug traffickers in Noitía. Another Muhammad Ali. With a butterfly’s wings and a bee’s sting. Biff!

‘Nets? Did you know that you’ll have a better catch if a hunchbacked woman goes on board and pisses on your nets? Yes, yes. That’s a fact and the rest is myth. Write that down. That is information. Listen, Miss Santiso, I don’t go around complaining, asking, “What kind of shitty town is this?” Are we in the back of beyond? Well, no. Velis nolis. I like this place just as it is. I even like the flies here. You can tell we’re prospering because we have a magnificent police station! And supposing, just supposing, there were smugglers in Noitía. Smugglers are honourable people. Those in Noitía anyway! Who are they hurting? The Inland Revenue? Listen, miss, if there weren’t umbrellas, there wouldn’t be banks.’

‘I’m not sure I see the connection.’

‘In the summer, banks lend umbrellas. When it rains, they ask for them back. Then there are people who make fantastic umbrellas for themselves. And the banks show interest. The Inland Revenue shows interest. In their own way everybody shows interest. Do you get me?’

‘You haven’t said anything about drug trafficking.’

‘Did you write down that bit about umbrellas? Good. Listen, if I become mayor one day, I’ll put an end to drugs. And drug addicts. I’ll send them all to cut stone in quarries! There’s a lot of talk about organised crime. Organised crime here, organised crime there. Your newspaper recently talked about organised crime in Noitía. What I’m saying is there are barefoot dogs everywhere. If crime is organised, then the state has to be better organised. And that’s something we all have to contribute to. Ipso facto.’

Víctor Rumbo showed his face through the swing doors.

Mariscal glanced at him and gestured to him to wait. Then he gazed at Lucía’s notebook, her calligraphic scrawl. He was about to make some comment about her fingers and nail varnish, something to do with crustaceans, but his tongue got caught in the only gap in his teeth. He looked at his watch.

‘Did you write that down? About organised crime?’

‘Yes, of course. It’s a good thesis.’

‘Well, now I want you to record the most important bit.’

A change overcame the whole of Mariscal. His expression. His voice. He gave weight to this organic transformation by rising to his feet.

‘Of course if the first part isn’t true, then the rest isn’t either. The ancients used to say: Modus tollendo tollens. The way that denies by denying. I always rely on the ancients. They never make a mistake. There are no mafias in Noitía, miss. That’s a myth. There may be the odd bit of smuggling. As always. As everywhere. But that’s all.’

He said this out loud so that Brinco could hear. See how he was controlling the situation. Keeping a tight rein on the conversation.

Full stop.

Finis certaminis.

‘That’s the first interview I’ve given,’ said Mariscal afterwards. He seemed satisfied with the experience. He became less formal with the journalist. ‘I hope it’s not your last… Include a bit of criticism, why not? The best way to sink somebody in the shit is by praising them to the skies!’

He turned towards the swing doors. Brinco gazed at them obliquely.

‘Come in, son!’

Víctor Rumbo entered like someone clearing his way through a current of air.

‘You’re… aren’t you…?’

‘I’m nobody,’ Brinco interrupted her.

Lucía felt the violence contained in his voice. Took shelter behind Mariscal’s presence.

‘Would you permit me a photograph, sir? I don’t know where that photographer’s got to. He hasn’t arrived yet.’

The Old Man glanced over at his new captain. He knew him well. He recognised the surge in his breathing, the wake of a confrontation.

‘There was a man outside,’ said Brinco suddenly. ‘Taking photographs of the cars. I don’t like people taking photographs of cars.’

‘And what happened?’ asked Mariscal uneasily. ‘Did you send him to hospital for taking snaps of a few vehicles?’

‘No. He’ll just have to buy a new camera, that’s all.’

Mariscal looked at Lucía and made a gesture of patience and apology with his arms. Agreed to have his photograph taken with the journalist’s own camera. A way of making up for the damage.

‘Go ahead!’ he said finally. ‘An old gallant can be persuaded to do anything!’

The boss positioned the brim of his hat, then crossed his arms with confidence, allowing the metal handle of his cane to appear next to the pocket silk handkerchief. Wrought silver with a pheasant’s head.

‘That cane is a beauty, Mr Mariscal.’

‘The silver is silver, my girl, and the wood is from Itín. Always getting harder.’

His face seemed to harden as well, with carved features, as if offering a natural resistance to the succession of flashes.

‘Is that it? If all goes well, you’ll sell every copy. It’ll be a great day for the Gazeta!’

‘And if it doesn’t go well?’ asked Víctor Rumbo. This time he looked past her face. Lucía Santiso felt invaded by the piercing gaze of someone commonly known as Brinco, who now addressed her directly. ‘If you wait outside, I’ll tell you who nobody is.’

She hesitated. Said, ‘I’ve a lot of work.’ And then, ‘I’ll wait.’

Carburo got out of the van and approached the newspaper seller in the kiosk on Camelio Branco Square in Noitía.

‘The Gazeta,’ he growled.

This was his way of asking for things. The newspaper woman realised this and handed him a copy.

‘No, no, I want them all.’

Now she did look at him in surprise. But this being the Ultramar, she was used to not sticking her nose in. She handed him all the copies. Finally let out, ‘Has it got your obituary or something?’

Carburo pointed at the front page, with a picture of Mariscal. ‘The boss is in it.’

His portrait occupied the centre of the page. His hat and white suit gave him the appearance of a dandy, which was reinforced by the way he grasped his cane in the middle, lifting the handle to the height of his chest.

‘Yes, I saw. He looks very smart,’ said the kiosk woman with a hint of irony. ‘Obviously he’s the one who wields the stick. Why don’t you take some flowers, Carburo? They’re my last ones.’

The giant stared at the roses. ‘No, I’m not hungry.’

He has a sense of humour, thought the woman. Only when he imitates himself.

34

‘THE OLD MAN is sorry.’

Víctor Rumbo got up from the rock where they were sitting next to Cons lighthouse, by the crosses in memory of dead sailors, and chucked a stone in the water. Turned around and stared at Fins. ‘Sorry he’s been so good to you.’

‘What did he think? That I was going to come and buy some dynamite from him?’

‘See what a troublemaker you are? The Old Man’s right. Why is it so hard for you to be more pleasant? More… honest?’

‘Honest? What do you mean?’

‘Set your price. That would be the honest thing to do.’

‘What’s your price? Help me. Get yourself out of this web as soon as you can. It’s not going to last for ever, Brinco. The judicial system will work, sooner or later.’

‘You’re dumb. Don’t refuse my offer. I’m not going to be a grass. An informer. You know why? For one simple reason. There’s more money on this side. The Old Man said, “Go talk to him, I’m still not sure if he’s dumb or not.” And I asked him, “How will I know, Mariscal?” He said, “If he burns any money, then he’s dumb.” How much do they give for a dead policeman, Fins? A medal perhaps. And a couple of lines in the newspaper.’

‘Sometimes they don’t even get that.’

‘Do you want medals? We’ll buy you some medals. Do you want to appear in the newspaper? Better to do it when you’re alive than when you’re dead.’

‘Yes, it’s always a bit more lively.’

They laughed together for the first time.

‘Then you could devote yourself full time to your artistic photography…’

As he was making this suggestion, Víctor Rumbo pulled a couple of photographs from the inside pocket of his jacket. Handed one to Fins.

‘As you see, we have people we can trust in all places. This is one you took of me in Porto airport with Mendoza. An interesting trip, as I’m sure you heard.’

‘Yes, I heard something about it,’ confirmed Fins, suppressing his surprise. Without further ado, he stretched out his hand for Víctor to give him another image. Brinco toyed with the photograph, using it to make the arching movement of an airship.

‘This isn’t one of yours!’

Fins examined every corner of the photographic paper. Tried to ascertain if it was a montage. He was amazed. It showed Brinco with the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. Both of them laughing.

‘Yes, yes… that’s right! No, you’re not hallucinating. With Pablo Escobar, on the Naples estate between Medellín and Bogotá. You should have seen the zoo. He had elephants, hippopotamuses, giraffes, lakes with black-necked swans… But the thing he liked best was cars. That day he was over the moon. His wife had just bought him a car driven by James Bond. He showed me another car that had belonged to Bonnie and Clyde… No, there’s no trick. It’s authentic. A real treasure, right?’

He stretched out his hand for Fins to return it.

‘How much do you think it’s worth… was worth?’

Brinco pulled out a lighter and set the image on fire. Let it burn to cinders. Then handed Fins the third and final photograph.

‘This is the tops! A work of art.’

It was one of the photos Fins had taken from the docks, showing Leda in the window with a look of pleasure and Víctor embracing her from behind.

‘Keep it…’

He stood up. Threw another stone into the sea. Headed back to the car, which was parked on the track leading to the lighthouse, but first turned around.

‘The day you know your price, write it on the back.’

‘How did it go?’

Mariscal was waiting for him in the back room of the Ultramar.

‘He’s turned ugly and there’s no changing him,’ replied Brinco.

The Old Man was about to say something, but interrupted it with a cough. He had this ability. He realised when something was inappropriate and stopped himself in time by drowning it in his throat.

‘His father… Did he ask you about his father?’

‘No, we didn’t discuss the old days.’

‘Better like that,’ said the Old Man, standing up, swinging his cane, gazing at the little owl. ‘Mutatis mutandis, what do you know about his companion, that busybody who helps him?’

‘She’s another one. Doesn’t stop digging around. She’s not afraid of anything.’

‘There’s always something.’

‘Well, she has a cat. I didn’t know there were police cats!’

Brinco had used a touch of irony and the Old Man appreciated his effort.

‘Once, in the cinema, somebody launched a cat from the top balcony. The Madman of Antas probably. He ruined the film. You’ve no idea how difficult it is to catch a good cat.’

35

A MAP OF the world with pinned notes: tax haven, offshore, mother port, supply ship, transfer, unloading, consignment… The lines of routes and journeys indicated in different colours. The black line shows tobacco, the yellow line videotapes, and a third line, in red, cocaine. A green line, the transfer of personnel. One of these shows the following stages: Porto — Río — Bogotá—Medellín — Mexico — Panama — Miami — Madrid, with the initials VR — OM: Víctor Rumbo—Óscar Mendoza. In another section, photographs have been affixed using pins with different-coloured heads. There are more notes and Post-its placed according to their colour in such a way that they create a certain symmetry. The chart is like a kind of family tree, with the following label at the top: ‘Limited Company’. The section devoted to personnel is headed by photographs of Mariscal Brancana, Macro Gamboa, Delmiro Oliveira and Tonino Montiglio, with several other, unidentified silhouettes. Lower down are Óscar Mendoza, with a question mark between brackets, and Víctor Rumbo. They appear as a hub from which there are connections to different places. One of the larger ones: Círculo Ltd, with dozens of photographs. One of the many secondary portraits shows Leda Hortas framed in the spy’s window, and another one, Chelín Balboa, who seems to be smiling at the camera. A third section, denominated ‘Grey Area’, shows establishments, properties and businesses that act as fronts or laundries. Last of all is a chart called ‘Shady Area’, with branches leading to courts, security forces, communications, customs and banks. Here, like a kind of epigraph, are not specific notes, but codified numbers.

The map, photos, pins, coloured stickers, the different sections, all indicate a craftsman’s patient hand and give the small workroom the appearance of a classroom. This is the space used hour after hour by Sub-inspector Mara Doval. Even though she’s younger than he is and one of the first women in the body of investigators, Fins refers to her in private as Mnemosyne or The Professor. Tall and spindly. Long curly hair, a nest for the wind. She’s making the most of her solitude and working barefoot at the moment. Wondering where to place the photograph of Dead Man’s Hand.

When she hears the door groan, her first reaction is to find her sandals and put them on. When she lifts her eyes, she comes across the familiar faces of Fins Malpica and Superintendent Carro. And a third, unfamiliar man in uniform. Her look registers the significance of badges and stripes. He can’t help himself, even if only for a moment, gazing at her painted toenails.

‘Mara Doval, sir.’

The lieutenant colonel puts on some glasses and slowly, geologically explores this world emerging from the darkness. His gaze begins and ends with those feet.

‘All this work…’

‘No, it wasn’t just me.’ Fins makes the most of this opportunity to laud her to the skies. ‘The goddess of memory, sir. It’s all in her head.’

She tries to stop him with the language of signs, but Fins refuses to heed them. ‘What’s more, she’s the only one around here who really speaks other languages.’

They sit down at a round table, in the middle of which is an Uher reel-to-reel tape recorder. Mara presses a button, and the tape plays the voices of two women. A phone call between Leda and Guadalupe. Mara mouths the words. She knows every single sentence that is coming. The constant references to Lima and Domingo.

‘Please tell us, Fins, who is on the cast list,’ says the superintendent when they’ve finished listening.

‘The one placing the call is Leda. Leda Hortas is in a relationship with Víctor Rumbo, known in Noitía as Brinco. A celebrated pilot of speedboats. He seems to be on standby at the moment, but everything indicates his power in the organisation has grown. Leda’s role, at this point, is to keep an eye on the customs patrol boats. She’s phoning a beauty salon. The other voice is that of Guadalupe, Mr Lima’s wife. Lima, sir, is Tomás Brancana. To everyone in Noitía, Mariscal. The Old Man. The Boss. The Dean.’

‘And Domingo? Who is Domingo?’

‘Domingo is the name used to refer to the customs patrol boats.’

‘Is that as far as we’ve got?’

Mara Doval stands up to consult something on one of the charts. She removes a photo. Places it on top of the table. But first replies to Alisal’s question, ‘One other thing, sir. They don’t need a spy any more. They’ve hired a customs chief directly.’

‘I imagine these are all hypotheses,’ suggests Alisal.

‘Listen,’ says Fins. ‘They’re very careful, cover their tracks, but occasionally they let in a ray of light. Listen.’

He presses ‘play’. Leda is taking her leave of Guadalupe in a less formal tone than usual, and says that this will be their last conversation.

‘Why is that?’ asks Guadalupe in surprise.

Leda is obviously feeling very happy. ‘We’re going to move. It’s about time!’

‘And what about Domingo?’

There is a short pause. Leda finally lets out a laugh. ‘He won the lottery!’

‘But Mr Lima never told me anything.’

There is another pause. Leda, more distant, ‘You know you don’t just say those things.’ Then, ‘Ciao. Farewell!’ And she hangs up the phone.

‘That’s a beauty!’ remarks Alisal. ‘A real indiscretion.’

‘A rarity, sir,’ confirms Fins. ‘They have very good connections at the phone company. They always know when they’re going to be tapped. Here we were lucky. And very patient.’

‘Lots of patience with that pedicure, right, Mara?’ remarks the superintendent.

She nods.

‘How do we know Lima is Mariscal?’ asks the lieutenant colonel suddenly.

Fins Malpica stands up, unlocks a drawer in the filing cabinet and pulls out a folder. Inside, in transparent plastic sleeves, are several handwritten sheets of paper, some creased, torn and put back together.

‘The boss’s handwriting,’ says Fins with satisfaction. ‘He never places a call. Never shows himself where he doesn’t have to. Measures every single step he takes. Lives like a hermit. But here is his hand giving orders. In this scribble is the Old Man’s twisted mind. A treasure for graphology. At last!’

Lieutenant Colonel Alisal has come to check a report of corruption in the barracks of the Civil Guard. Superintendent Freire was right. But with these new revelations, the expression on his face is now that of a shocked, confused man.

‘What quantity of cocaine are we talking about? Our statistics say we’ve been keeping them under control…’

‘Statistics, as someone said, are the first lie.’

Fins feels he is able to be precise only through irony. ‘I believe some of them may even have been doctored by the hand of the organisation’s foremost lawyer, Óscar Mendoza.’

Alisal is downcast. Their gazes follow Mara Doval when, having opened a second drawer, she returns with another surprise. This time it’s a chess set. She places it on the table. The pieces are large, expertly made, and imitate medieval figures. The colours are striking. Red and white.

‘Would you look at that?’ exclaims Alisal. ‘Just like the Lewis chessmen.’

‘A fantastic imitation,’ agrees Doval. ‘For those in the know. Of course they’re not made of walrus ivory. Do you play chess, sir?’

‘There are few things I enjoy more,’ says Alisal. ‘Even on my own.’

‘Me too. Without pieces.’

Mara Doval unscrews one of the pieces, a pawn in the shape of an obelisk.

‘They think cocaine is just this…’

She turns the pawn upside down and a small pile of white dust falls on to one of the squares. She does the same with the bishop and the rook in the shape of a warrior. Till she reaches the king and queen.

‘But in fact it’s this and this and this…’

Suddenly she lifts the board, revealing a false bottom full of the drug.

‘And this! All of it flour.’

‘We’re talking about tons of the stuff,’ says Fins. ‘Thousands of kilos of cocaine. Thousands of millions in profit. Snow, blow, stardust! They want to turn this coast into the largest landing stage in Europe. It may already be that.’

Mara Doval adds, ‘They’ll buy out people, territory… They’ll buy out everything. That’s magical capitalism for you!’

Alisal is deep in thought, his gaze fixed on the chess set.

‘It’s the institutions that worry me. A worm is just a worm. The problem arises when the worm rots the apples. Superintendent, it’s time we had a comprehensive, definitive report. They can write it. And I’ll make sure it gets to where it has to.’

‘We’ve already written the odd report,’ remarks Fins.

‘This time will be different, I promise.’ Lieutenant Colonel Alisal bangs his fist on the table. ‘If it’s up to me, there’ll be tremors in Babylon!’

36

IN A SMALL bay next to Cons lighthouse, between the rocks, lay the body of Guadalupe. There were local police, Civil Guards and ambulance staff. They’d recovered the body from the inside of her car, which had left the road and fallen like a lead weight into the water. Mariscal was informed and soon arrived. He looked grief-stricken. An accident. A mistake. The light had blinded her. When the coroner arrived, he offered his condolences. Mariscal’s eyes were red. He looked old. Found it difficult to talk. The occasional murmur, apparent delirium. ‘Chaves da vida.’ ‘That carmine letter box…’ ‘I’m not going, I’m not going.’

‘As everyone knows, we spent some time apart. This wasn’t something I wanted. I was very sorry about it. She had this problem with depression…’

He mentioned this when the doctor from the Red Cross came over to compare notes with the coroner. ‘It must have been early in the morning. Judging by the corpse, I’d say she’s been dead for six hours.’

‘What condition is the body in?’

‘There’s nothing strange about it, sir. Not a scratch. Certainly no sign of violence. With what we’ve got, I’d say it was death by drowning.’

Mariscal talked to himself and to others.

‘She loved walking barefoot along the beach, feeling the water tickling her feet. She couldn’t bear to be a day without seeing the sea. It was in her veins. Ever since she was a girl, you know?… I’m sure you don’t… she worked over there, on the shore, gathering shellfish, the sea up to her waist. And that is where she died.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Brancana, but given the circumstances we’ll have to perform an autopsy. A forensic autopsy.’

He breathed in through his nostrils. An energetic, hoarse inhalation of air which distorted his face. A forensic autopsy. He glanced over at that woman, Malpica’s colleague, madly taking photographs of the corpse.

‘Of course, coroner. Everyone is here to do their duty.’

Mónica, who worked in Bellissima, arrived at the beauty salon at the usual hour. Guadalupe, the owner, was the one who usually opened up. She did so an hour earlier. There weren’t normally customers, but she used this time to make calls, place orders, etc.

Mónica rang the bell again. She was surprised. She looked at her watch. Tried to peer in through the frosted glass of the door.

This had never happened before. If there was some kind of problem, Guadalupe always let her know.

Nothing.

She got ready to wait. Half an hour at least. Guadalupe didn’t like being called at home. But if she didn’t turn up, Mónica would have to call. She took a pack of cigarettes out of her handbag and lit one.

A strong-complexioned man crossed the street. In a black leather jacket. She knew who it was. Carburo. He growled some kind of greeting. Hello, girl.

‘You know something? Guadalupe’s not coming.’

‘Not coming? Till when?’

‘Till… I don’t know. She’s not coming.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You don’t have to understand. She’s not here. She’s gone. She won’t be coming back. The beauty salon’s closed. Got it now?’

Mónica managed to unhook a cloud of smoke from her mouth.

She watched Carburo pull an envelope out of his jacket pocket, which he slapped against the palm of his hand in a gesture that was as meaningful as it was redundant, the way you would a wad of notes.

‘Take this. It’s a message for you. A very valuable one. Fifty thousand pesetas. Listen, Mónica…’

The girl stuffed the envelope into her bag as quickly as possible. She was afraid.

‘While you were here, you saw nothing, heard nothing. You remember nothing. Am I right?’

She was incapable of answering. Not even a monosyllable. She shook her head in a panic. No, no, no.

‘Good. Now the best thing for you to do is go. Far away from here, understand?’

‘Far away?’

‘Yes, far away. The further the better. And don’t wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow is too late.’

As he said this, Carburo’s gaze encompassed the surroundings, the insides of people passing by.

No, he couldn’t believe it. She’d been the singer. Had had to wait twenty-five years like a dead cat.

He looked up at the sky. Too much light.

Is this how the devil repays the one who serves him? My very own prima donna!

The sinking was as a result of the height.

And that snotty-nosed Malpica calling me ‘capo’. An idiot, a troublemaker, who thinks he’s going to sort out the world.

Capo? He wasn’t a capo. Like that other guy, who called him the head honcho. ‘You’re the head honcho, Don Mariscal.’ He’d already warned him. ‘There’s no honcho around here, let alone a head one.’ Aliases like that gave you away, made you look ridiculous. He could see himself on the front page of the Gazeta, ‘Tomás Brancana the Head Honcho’. Then he thought about who he was. Gazed at the horizon, searched for the bell tower of St Mary’s. He was… What was he? A dean. The Dean. That’s right. There were priests in different parishes, and then there was the dean. No, the director of the seminary hadn’t liked him. Because let’s stop beating about the bush. The director knew what he’d said, and nobody else. He wasn’t going to spill the beans. ‘Are you sure about your vocation?’ the director had asked. ‘Yes, father.’ ‘How do you think you can serve God?’ And here he’d noticed a touch of irony. Keep calm. The storm clouds are coming. As a child, ringing the bell of St Barbara’s. No, he’d never said anything about becoming pope. Or bishop. Or even dean. ‘The way God chooses.’ ‘But there must be something in your head?’ ‘A good parish.’ This is what he’d heard as an acolyte in the sacristy, what one priest had said to another: ‘Listen, Bernal, parishes are measured by the number of hosts that are consumed and the number of pesetas they bring in.’ Neither pope nor dean. ‘What I want is a good parish, father.’ That’s what he’d said. And who doesn’t?

Mutatis mutandis.

Who’d have thought she would be the principal singer. The prima donna!

Floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee.

Cassius Clay, aka Muhammad Ali.

The butterfly and the bee.

A good epitaph for Guadalupe.

37

HIS FINGERS TRIED to keep up with his thoughts, but couldn’t. They galloped over the keys but sometimes had to go back, and then he would click his tongue in annoyance. He only stopped when he heard her mocking voice: ‘Go for it, Simenon!’

‘I lack the gift he had for writing and fucking at the same time, I’m sorry.’

‘One has to appreciate one’s limits. Take it easy.’

Mara’s bare feet lay on top of the keyboard of her typewriter. The nails painted midnight blue. One of the last jobs in Bellissima. His colleague’s gaze didn’t exactly encourage an erotic game.

‘Do you see something?’

In her lap were photographs of Guadalupe Brancana taken on the beach and the autopsy table.

‘I see the face of someone who was afraid before she died. Very afraid. Long before she died. Years, perhaps… But I don’t think that will be any use to the coroner or for the forensic report. It’s artistic criticism, nothing more.’

‘There are no skid marks on the road. Did you talk to the coroner?’

‘He behaved very well. Whatever we may think, there’s no way of connecting Mariscal to this death. And the girl, Mónica, has gone to ground. The fact is, Guadalupe was taking tranquillisers, which confirms the hypothesis of driver error. There are witnesses who saw her make several mistakes while out driving. They had no further consequences. Until yesterday, that is. In the end, though, barbiturates may have been her only source of affection.’

‘I’m amazed. It’s impressive working with someone who did their thesis on post-mortem expressions.’

‘The head of department suggested I do it on post-mortem auctoris. The duration of authors’ rights after their death. These are the legal cases of the future. Especially once the world has succumbed to those clever little machines that will do away with paper. But I wanted to compete with Darwin, who wrote on The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.’

Mara placed her feet on the floor, leaned her elbow on the table thoughtfully and stared at Fins.

‘You’re doing all right yourself. Though the nickname Simenon wasn’t my idea. I’m a fan of Hammett. They say you wrote a report that resembles a novel. A good novel at that.’

‘If you want to screw a novel, say something nice about it. They’ll bury the report, Mara, you’ll see.’

‘Well, I liked it. “Most excellent sirs: real power in Noitía is being exercised in darkness and silence…” Good opening. Sounds like an anarchist skit.’ She then continued with the voice of a distant radio presenter: ‘“The only way to take effective action against organised crime is by seeing and listening in that zone of shadow and silence.”’

As he listened to her in surprise, it occurred to Fins that the voice of truth had a hankering for fiction.

‘I was just thinking…’

The one who opened the door, without knocking as usual, was Grimaldo, an overweight veteran inspector with fishy eyes and a sharp tongue. He was dressed like a careless dandy, carrying a copy of the Gazeta de Noitía which he threw on the table in front of Fins to reveal the front page.

There was a picture of Mariscal smiling and the following large headline:

Brancana, favourite for mayor

‘NOITÍA WILL BE A MODEL OF PROGRESS’

Underneath the photograph, the subheading: ‘In these parts, smugglers are honourable people.’

Grimaldo was obviously in his element.

‘Now there’s a work of art to add to your chart on the Last Judgement. “Smugglers are honourable people.” With a pair of balls! Don’t let it get you down, Fins, enjoy yourself! Old Mariscal is quite the comedian. Check out this other pearl.’

ÓSCAR MENDOZA

NEW PRESIDENT OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

‘As with miracles, there are not two, but three. Let’s have a look at the sports page. Allow me…’

With Víctor Rumbo as President

SPORTING NOITÍA ON A TOUR OF AMERICA

‘Now isn’t that wonderful? A team in the third division out to conquer the world! And captain of the expedition is their new manager, Chelín, a friend of all things pharmaceutical. I’m off. You can carry on slaving away for the Apocalypse. At dawn the moon will be eclipsed by a flight of hens! You’ll be able to watch it from this tower, where the most secret confidential report on the ills of the world is currently being written. Not that there are many people left in Noitía who don’t know about it.’

Micho Grimaldo left, scattering the sheets of newspaper in a triumphant cynical wake. Fins raised his middle finger. ‘Go fuck yourself, Grimaldo!’

‘I wouldn’t bother,’ said Mara. ‘Don’t waste your time with that sack of poison.’

‘He should write the report. You know why? Because he’s in on the secret.’

They were reading the section of social news in Noitía as a kind of collective obituary. Now somebody did knock at the door. Mara opened it.

‘Fins!’

In came Lieutenant Colonel Alisal and Superintendent Carro. Their appearance wasn’t exactly that of retreating superior officers being overwhelmed by a wave of corruption. The superintendent took the initiative with an effusive metaphor. ‘We’ve been given the green light!’

‘Tonight we’ll put in practice Operation Noitía,’ informed Alisal. ‘Apart from high command, you’re the first to know. We only have time to wait for reinforcements that are uncontaminated.’

‘The phone tapping, sir… That always puts paid to everything.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Alisal. ‘We’ve cut all ears and tongues. Stuffed poison inside the molehills.’

38

‘YOU FRIGHTEN THE balls, Carburo. That’s why you win.’

Mariscal took amusement from the intimidating way in which his bodyguard played billiards. Carburo arched his body and, with the cue and his gaze in threatening symmetry, seemed to be giving the balls unappealable messages.

The phone rang.

The Old Man gestured with disinterest. Let it ring. He didn’t like the way new technology stuck its nose in. Deep down the Portuguese Delmiro Oliveira was right when he joked, ‘Mariscal is one of those who believe the Yankees never landed on the moon.’ It was a personal matter. TV and videos were putting an end to cinema. The smuggling of tapes was profitable, but no more than that. Peccata minuta. It was the same with dance halls, which had finally closed owing to what he called ‘all that paraphernalia’. As for the ringing of the phone, this was for him the technical triumph of interference in private affairs. It was a personal matter. The phone had destroyed the cowboy’s way of life and put paid to horses in cinema. Without horses, there were no centaurs in the desert. Or speedboats, as Rumbo used to say. Poor Rumbo. Always trying to sound ironic.

There were three successive rings, which cut off. And then a fourth ring which continued. Mariscal paid attention to the machine. Affixed to the wall, black in colour except for the white of its dial, it gazed at him with the animal melancholy of its panoptic eye.

Without waiting for orders, Carburo picked up.

‘Whoever it is, tell them I’m not here,’ said Mariscal, looking at the other animal, the desiccated little owl. Its electric eyes had stopped working some time before. He’d ordered them to be repaired on more than one occasion, but that was the power of technology for you, he thought angrily. The old owl’s eyes were still not working.

‘Understood,’ said Carburo, adding, before Mariscal could make a sign, ‘Greetings to Mr Viriathus.’

Mariscal looked serious. Murmured, ‘Mr Viriathus, eh?’

‘Tonight, boss.’

Mariscal’s mind didn’t need further information to weave together the threads. This was a coded message reserved for extreme circumstances. ‘Let’s go, Carburo. We have to cross the border before midnight.’

Carburo immediately pulled back the green felt covering the billiard table, lifted two planks and uncovered a hole with a suitcase, which he passed to Mariscal. Mariscal opened it and checked the contents. Documents and a weapon.

An Astra.38 special revolver.

The boss glanced at Carburo. Rotated the cylinder. Weighed the gun in the air. Smaller than his hand, but fierce in appearance. Strong wood, dark steel. Snub-nosed.

‘Don’t tell me it’s small, Carburo! It’s a whole world!’

The Stick Under Orders silently prepared his.357 Magnum.

Brinco and Leda were dining in a recently opened restaurant in the new marina. The Post-da-Mar. A novelty, nouvelle cuisine making ground in Noitía. They were sharing a table with a couple their age, but there was an obvious difference between them. In the way they moved and spoke. In their clothes as well. All four looked elegant, but the clothes and ornaments of the other couple still shone as if they’d just come out of the shop window. He’d been director of a bank branch in Noitía for the last six months, while she had just taken over a jewellery franchise, which she talked about with gleaming enthusiasm.

‘Your lady of the shipwrecks looks pretty tonight,’ said Mara.

Fins ignored her comment. He was worried about something. ‘Who are the others?’

‘On glossy paper?’

‘Yes. Where did those creeps come from?’

‘Mnemosyne on the line… He’s Pablo Rocha. Director of the branch I told you about, with a sudden, unusual interest in transfers from Noitía to Panama and the Cayman Islands, passing through Liechtenstein and Jersey. A real phenomenon.’

‘He hardly needed to go so far. He could have laundered the money right here. There’s no place like home!’

‘Tell her that. Estela Oza. Just opened a jewellery store without the need for a loan or anything. Penniless before. It’s amazing what you can do.’

They were on the lookout. They’d followed Brinco’s car to this restaurant. He’d been driving calmly. There obviously hadn’t been leaks on this occasion. Things were going well. Midnight was the appointed time to act. Arrests would be carried out simultaneously to avoid possible escapes. Till then, the instructions were to avoid using the walkie-talkies. The smugglers had laser equipment. When they’d searched Tonino Montiglio’s rented apartment, the place had resembled a telecommunications hub.

Mara stuck her bare feet on the dashboard. Wiggled her toes like puppets.

‘That dark colour…’

‘Storm blue.’

‘They look like Argonauts.’

‘What do?’

‘Your toes.’

‘Like Argonauts? They’re not after gold.’

‘I’m talking about the real creatures. Those that live in the sea. The ugliest animals in existence!’

‘Well, that’s nice!’

Mara pressed ‘play’ on the cassette recorder. Listened with an exaggerated expression of amazement. To Maria Callas.

‘And this?’

‘“Casta Diva”, “La mamma morta”, “Un bel dì vedremo”… It’ll play until it breaks. If you find anything better in the universe, give me a tinkle.’

Fins put something in his mouth.

‘What are you taking?’

‘Garlic pearls.’

‘Give me one.’

‘They’re not garlic pearls.’

‘I don’t mind, give me one. I like novelties.’

‘No, you can’t take this.’

‘It’s not acid, is it? A trip with Maria Callas in the background has to be glorious.’

‘I have St Teresa’s disease,’ said Fins, in line with the humorous tone of their conversation. ‘The petit mal.’

He waited. Realised she was chewing it over. The goddess Mnemosyne’s Department of Lie Detection working overtime.

‘You’re talking about a kind of epilepsy,’ she said eventually.

‘Without seizures or anything. Old people called them “absences”. Having absences. It’s not an illness. More like a poetic property. A secret. I thought I’d got over it, but it returned.’

‘More reason to give me one.’

‘No.’

‘Yes!’ Mara stretched out her hand. ‘You know? She also belonged to the club of barbiturates.’

‘Who did?’

‘Casta Diva.’

The two couples dining in the Post-da-Mar were engrossed in conversation. The communication was especially good between Víctor and the banker Rocha. Without being rude to Estela, Leda paid more attention to the men’s conversation. She approved of it, she liked it, but couldn’t help noticing Víctor’s growing and passionate interest in business affairs.

‘But do you really think there are buyers in this part of Noitía for an estate with hundreds of villas?’

‘You bet. Multiply by three.’

‘Multiply what by three?’

Pablo Rocha spread his arms in a gesture that encompassed the infinite. ‘Everything!’

It was half an hour before midnight.

A waiter came to the table and placed a leather folder next to Brinco. The folder with the bill.

‘Mr Rumbo, if you wouldn’t mind…’

Brinco was taken aback. He hadn’t asked for the bill yet. He knew the waiter. They’d spent some time at sea together. Pepe Rosende. He was about to call him to order. Give him a ticking-off. But it was better not to create a scandal in front of the others. He opened the folder.

There was no bill. There was the restaurant’s business card. He turned it over and read surreptitiously, with the folder half open. On the back, a handwritten message in the International Code of Signals: Victor India Romeo India Alfa Tango Hotel Uniform Sierra.

Maintaining his composure, Brinco turned to Leda, ‘Don’t forget we have to make a call to Viriathus. Without fail. Before midnight.’ Then to the other couple, ‘Well, that was lucky! It’s on the house.’

Leda stood up and took her handbag.

‘Please excuse me, I have to visit the ladies’ room.’

Brinco followed her. The other couple seemed mildly surprised, but carried on smiling.

‘What are you thinking? I’m going to the gents, eh?’

The Post-da-Mar’s emergency exit gave on to a small alleyway illuminated by tired lamps. Leda was waiting in the middle of the street with the car running. She didn’t realise that Fins and Mara had followed her there and were hiding behind a parked car. ‘It’s the Nuova Giulietta,’ whispered Mara. Brinco was about to get in the car when Fins floored him. Mara backed him up, aiming her revolver.

‘Let go of me, you bastard! You’ve never grown up. You stink of shit!’

Fins forced him on to his front and managed to handcuff him.

‘You’ve been living on borrowed time ever since you came back here,’ muttered Brinco. ‘But I swear this time I’ll get you. Who the fuck do you think you are?’

‘I see you still have a few coffins…’

‘The Old Man was right. We should have packed you off to Chacarita cemetery as soon as you arrived.’

Leda suddenly opened the car door. Leaned out and shouted, ‘Let go of him, Fins! Is this why you came back, you idiot?’

Mara now aimed her revolver at the voice that was speaking. Walked slowly towards Leda.

‘What do you want? Don’t tell me you’re going to shoot. Fins, how good is this whore at target practice?’

‘Much better than me!’

‘We’ll see…’

‘Get out of here, Leda!’ shouted Brinco, giving orders.

Mara was very close to her now. She stared in quiet surprise at the other’s bare feet, the iridescent colour of her nail varnish. But unable to take any other decision, even to shout ‘halt’, she allowed Leda to lean back in, put the car in reverse, turn and accelerate noisily out of the alley.

Mara lowered her weapon. She was mute, downcast, like the lamps illuminating the street. She bent down and picked something off the ground. Leda Hortas’ high heels.

After the bulletin’s signature tune, the presenter read two news items. One referred to international politics and the other to Spanish politics. Then something about the economy, referring to the rise in petrol prices. Finally he mentioned the name of Noitía, and Mariscal let out a cloud of smoke.

‘A total of thirty-six people were arrested last night and early this morning accused of belonging to drug trafficking and smuggling rings during the so-called Operation Noitía. Among the detainees was Víctor Rumbo, president of Sporting Noitía, alleged to be at the front of a powerful organisation. The operation, in which all the different security forces took part, was conducted with the utmost secrecy. As a result of numerous checks and inspections, huge amounts of drugs, cash and firearms have been confiscated.

‘We will now hear from one of those responsible for the operation, Lieutenant Colonel Alisal. “This was a harsh blow to the smugglers of tobacco. And also a way of stopping any kind of illegal trafficking. It sends out much more than a clear warning. Society should feel calm and criminals uneasy. From now on, they should know we are going to root out any such activities.”’

‘I told you you could watch Spanish television from here.’

‘It’s better than over there!’

It was early in the afternoon. Delmiro and Mariscal had just had lunch. They’d settled into the sofa in a room in Quinta da Velha Saudade to watch the news. At the end, the Old Man lit a cigar.

He exhaled and watched the smoke climb, entwine the chandelier like ivy.

He clicked his tongue. ‘You should try one of these, Delmiro!’

The ocean down by the South Pole had been lifted up. Chelín was sitting cross-legged in the Antarctic. He gazed at the image of Lord Byron contemplating the freedom of Greece. The best friend he’d never had. Serene unease. He shut the tome and placed it on top of the other on the shelf. Opened the suitcase with his nest. His tools for shooting up. The syringe, rubber band, jar of distilled water, teaspoon, filters, lighter. And, most important of all, the little ball. He secured the spoon in the gap between the two volumes of Civilisation. This way he had the bowl in front of him, the crater in which to ferment the sphere. That’s right. He still had enough heroin for a good fix. A fix in three movements. He had to pump in three movements. Pump the blood. A mouse stared at him from the middle of the ocean. He was used to them scurrying about. Used to the blind gaze of the mannequin, the gaze of the one-armed skeleton and the desiccated crane. But the mouse’s gaze was enormous. It was far away, but touched him with the graphite of its eyes. A mouse contemplating the freedom of Greece.

The nest in his suitcase was a hole surrounded by wads of dollars. There was room for the pendulum and the Astra Llama. A treasure for the freedom of Greece. He’d have given anything for a kiss. A bit of saliva in his mouth.

Chelín put everything back under the ocean’s planks.

Fins Malpica’s first impulse was to sniff the air. It wasn’t meant to be an overreaction. If he did this, it was because he felt truly dizzy, a dizziness that was accompanied by the smell of burning oil. He managed to control himself. Change his expression of disgust for one of total seriousness.

And this is how he emerged from the courthouse. Descending the stairs like someone counting the steps and finding that several are missing. There were people outside, a cluster of journalists, waiting to hear the sentence passed on Víctor Rumbo, the main detainee in Operation Noitía. Fins didn’t answer any questions. He ignored the microphones. Gulped back the historic sentences.

‘What happened, inspector?’ asked a journalist.

‘You’ll hear about it soon enough.’

He was learning to talk like a cynic. He didn’t avoid the cluster of hostile faces. Nor did he issue any challenges. He just walked on by like a man without a care in the world. Which is to say, a man who is fucked.

On his way to the car, he met Mara. She was distracted. Confused by the run of events.

‘They’re going to set him free. It’s unbelievable,’ said Fins. ‘The bail’s tiny. You’d have thought Rhesus Negative had lent a hand.’

‘Rhesus Negative?’

‘One of the court’s henchmen.’

Leda Hortas pushed open the door of the courthouse and exclaimed happily, ‘He’s been set free!’

There was Brinco with his ace’s smile, accompanied by two other important detainees, Inverno and Chumbo, and by the lawyer Óscar Mendoza. From the top of the stairs, the lawyer took control of the situation. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, a good day for Noitía! My client, Víctor Rumbo, has been set free. Later on we’ll give the details. The important thing now is to celebrate the fact that justice has been done and our beloved neighbour can come home. Thank you, everyone!’

‘Mr Rumbo, how are you feeling?’ asked the journalist Lucía Santiso.

‘Better than those who arrested me. I slept very well in fact.’

He caressed Leda. Put his arm around her. Kissed her. The scene was reminiscent of a medal ceremony.

‘And tonight I’m sure I’ll sleep even better!’

In the car Mara suddenly asked Fins, ‘What would you do if you got home and found your cat dead?’

‘By “dead”, do you mean really dead?’

‘Yes, I mean they killed him. Killed him and hung him on the door handle. Just like in the old days.’

Fins placed his hands on the steering wheel. Didn’t dare look at her. Or touch her.

‘Can I put on Casta Diva?’ she asked.

‘Of course you can. It’s there until it breaks.’

39

IN THE MIDDLE of the Vaudeville’s stage was a Cadillac Eldorado. Víctor Rumbo had bought it in Cuba. Seen it in Miramar, contacted the owner and not stopped until, when Brinco said it was his last day on the island, the owner had gestured to him to get in the car and take it for a drive. ‘Let’s go for a paseíto!’ He always told this story. And whenever he got mad, this was what he said, ‘Let’s go for a paseíto!’ He was terrifying when he said it. Because the business with the Cadillac got complicated. When it was finally unloaded in Vigo, Brinco’s expression changed. He spat out curses so foul they wounded the clouds. All that had arrived was the Eldorado’s bodywork. It wasn’t that he minded so much, despite all the administrative headaches. He only wanted the sedan for decoration. What bothered him was that the emblem on the bonnet was missing.

‘Where’s the lark? Where’s the fucking skylark?’

The package had been sealed, they explained in customs. Encased in wood. This was how it had travelled. Víctor Rumbo was spewing smoke. In his rage he’d forgotten the owner’s name. Called him ‘Let’s Go’. Shouted it out. Across the sea. A raving lunatic. ‘Let’s Go’ and ‘Skylark’.

‘Don’t get so upset over a steel bird,’ commented Óscar Mendoza. ‘I’ll get you one from a Rolls-Royce. The Spirit of Ecstasy. Now there’s an emblem!’

‘You don’t understand,’ shouted Brinco. ‘This one was mine. My own fucking skylark! I didn’t know what it was. And that bastard went and told me it was a lark.’

So he sent Inverno to Havana with the details, Let’s Go’s address and the instructions, ‘Don’t come back until you’ve got the emblem.’

In the middle of the stage was the Cadillac with its emblem.

Víctor Rumbo wanted to turn the Vaudeville into something straight out of a film. A before and afterwards in Noitía’s history. Till then, most singles clubs on coastal roads had been run-down, sinister places with depressing architecture oozing neon pus. The Vaudeville was going to be different. Unforgettable. A club that would cause stylish scandal among the jet set after a wild night out. Mendoza, Rocha and the increasingly active and enterprising Estela Oza were partners, with the corresponding front. For his part, Brinco wanted the Vaudeville to be an outrageous present for Leda. He went so far as to imagine her as the great madam reigning over her kingdom, controlling everything from an office with screens relaying what was going on in every corner. In the public and private rooms, but also in the bedrooms. She had character, ambition and style. Come on. She had more style, a savage attraction, than Estela Oza ever would. But things turned out otherwise. As expected, he did his bit. Went and found the women. Because this is how it works. People think prostitutes travel around like tourists. Well, no. You have to attend the auction. Check their teeth. Compete with other buyers. Tame them. Protect them. So to speak. This was Brinco’s business. And he did what he had to. He bought the meat.

The inauguration was unbelievable. There were some surprising guests in attendance, some of the jet set, those Brinco knew looked the other way to avoid greeting him. And, above all, amazement, exclamations, when they entered the covered terrace with its large transparent column full of hummingbirds in suspended flight around the serpent of a bougainvillea flower. In the back room, where there was a place for playing cards, another exotic surprise that caused consternation among men and women. An aquarium in which warrior fish fought each other. Red dragons. A kind of host dressed in a shimmery satin jacket replaced the severed fish and sang the bets. On the main stage, with the Eldorado in the background, its bodywork glistening more than the host’s satin, a show billed as the real Tropicana.

But in the midst of all this uproar something was missing. Brinco kept asking after Leda and eventually sent Inverno to fetch her from the Ultramar. She came. Apologised for being late. Domestic matters. Her arrival did not pass unnoticed, she had a genuine air of dangerous elegance, and Brinco lost the face of someone searching for a fallen tooth. One absence was mentioned, especially among the less well informed. Where was Mariscal? But neither Víctor nor his circle asked themselves this question. The Old Man didn’t like large groups of people. He’d be floating around, with his panoptic eye, working out the moment when the void would demand his voice.

Leda would never come back to the Vaudeville. Brinco soon understood she avoided ever mentioning the subject. She’d decided it didn’t exist. On him, however, the large blue neon sign, with its pink skylark blinking in an arc above the letters, had a hypnotic effect. It stood on the hill, visible from the whole valley, defying the dark and the sea.

The wave of high rollers soon washed away from the Vaudeville. Among the partners, only Mendoza the lawyer continued to visit. He liked the girls and could fuck for free. That was the reason for his loyalty. Though there were more of them, the Vaudeville’s customers ended up being the usual clientele of a singles club. Lads on a night out. Old men with money. And flour people. Especially those glorious days after a shipment.

‘Who’s that? Belvís? You’re joking. Didn’t he lose his mind or something?’

It was Belvís, the ventriloquist, the orchestra man, with his friend the Kid. Víctor Rumbo carried on organising programmes for the weekends. Not the spectacular stuff he’d done to begin with. Now the most frequent event was a lazy singer followed by an erotic act. But one day Belvís arrived. He got off the bus at Chafariz Cross with a suitcase. Brinco stopped the Alfa Romeo and told him to hop in. Belvís was happy, he’d always liked novelties.

‘What happened to Charlie?’ asked Brinco.

Belvís looked at him in surprise. To tell the truth, Belvís always looked in surprise. ‘The Kid? The Kid’s here, in my suitcase. He likes it better in Conxo. More people to talk to. But you have to get out a bit.’

That was when Brinco announced, in that solemn tone he had, ‘Well, get ready. Tonight you’re going to perform at the Vaudeville.’

Belvís entered the stage with his suitcase. Cast an admiring glance at the Eldorado. Not because he was acting, but because it struck him as a magnificent ship with a skylark on its lips. He opened the suitcase. Took out the Kid. Sat down on the stool. Looked out for the first time. Realised there was a lot of noise since most people weren’t looking at him. At either of them. There was a long bar at the back where customers stood on their own, holding a glass. Checking out the terrain. With a hawk’s eyes. Another group was talking and laughing out loud, completely oblivious to Belvís and the Kid’s stellar presence. The only couples paying attention were those at the second row of tables, closest to the stage. Belvís searched for Brinco. He’d been there, in the corner, when he brought him in. Had introduced him to a girl with big eyes, whose name was Cora. He was searching for those big eyes in order to start looking around. But there was no one there. Neither Brinco nor Big Eyes. Only Inverno. The eternal lookout.

‘Thank you for your indifference,’ began Belvís. ‘I’d like to introduce you all to Charlie the Kid. An intellectual.’

‘Can I tell a story, Che?’

‘Course you can, Charlie. It’s what everyone expects… Just make sure you finish quickly. They’re important people and haven’t time to waste on your intelligence.’

‘OK. The other day I overheard a conversation. You know I’m always overhearing conversations. It was right here in Noitía, or maybe not. The point is, one girl said to another, “Listen, I’m in a quandary. The judge said I could choose between a million pesetas and a year in prison.” So the other said, “I don’t know why you’re even wondering. Take the money!”’

‘People are amazing, Charlie. I remember a bar like this, full of lowlife…’

‘Do you realise what you just said?’

‘Have I offended somebody?’ asked Belvís.

‘Course you have! Apologise to the owner. This isn’t a bar. It’s a… club!’

‘Pay attention to me, Charlie.’

‘No, I’d prefer not to,’ said the puppet, glancing at the ventriloquist and giving a jump. ‘Your hand’s enough. You won’t let go of me!’

And that was when the Kid looked around, very slowly, at the audience finally beginning to laugh.

‘Well, would you believe it? Look at them. Created in his image and likeness. Just imagine! That supreme being was a funny man. He must have been delighted!’

‘That’s right. Man was created in his own image and likeness. That’s what the Bible says.’

The Kid searched around for someone special to look at. A guy with a classic grumpy face. Bushels of hair in each nostril serving as a moustache. Projecting eyebrows over a pair of rodent eyes. Each wrinkle resembling a scar. He clenched his teeth and seemed to growl. Next to him, wearing a serious expression, was a girl.

It was her the Kid addressed. ‘Tell me, darling. What’s it like to sit so close to God, the divine grace?’

The couple reacted well and laughed. But in the group at the back, who hadn’t been paying much attention, there was a drunken scuffle. Inverno knew them. The first was Lelé Toén, one of Carburo’s men. The other, Flores, nicknamed the Graduate. He’d been in Noitía for a couple of days. A Mexican guest of Macro Gamboa. He knew he should leave them alone. They’d soon grow tired.

But for some reason Flores decided this puppet had to stop talking. He started shouting, staring at the Kid, not Belvís. Calling him a son of a bitch, his bald mother, and so on. Inverno thought it might be time to call Brinco. He’d be busy with Big Eyes, but he’d better call him all the same.

‘Calm down,’ said Lelé to the Graduate. ‘It’s only a comedian with a puppet. A clown. A lunatic.’

‘A lunatic? Nobody calls me a dirty pig.’

Stay quiet, thought Brinco at the other end of the bar.

But Belvís opened his mouth. ‘Did you hear that, Charlie?’

‘We were talking about God and someone changed the subject. Anyone got a ribbon to tie around a pig?’

The Graduate bent down and pulled a weapon from under his trousers, strapped to his calf. A change of subject. He aimed at the puppet and shot it in the head. Another shot rang out. Now the Graduate was moaning, the hand that was previously armed having been wounded.

‘Go pluck this cock outside before the police turn up,’ Brinco ordered Lelé.

‘The boss won’t like it.’

‘Who cares? In the Vaudeville, I’m in charge.’

Belvís was holding the puppet in his lap. Caressing it. ‘Can you hear me, Charlie? Can you hear me, lad?’

‘You’re lucky you weren’t shot.’

Brinco picked up some fragments of wood from the ground.

‘If the cops turn up, don’t say anything. The mouth is for keeping quiet.’

40

‘NOW THIS IS what I’d call a tax haven,’ declared Óscar Mendoza as he arrived for the party. Everyone knew he was joking and being serious at the same time.

Romance Manor had access to the sea, as Leda had wanted, but also a brand-new swimming pool. The gate to the sea really did give way to an Eden. A cove of fine white sand with a gurgling brook creating its very own garden next to the dune-working wind. And an old stone embankment for mooring boats.

Víctor Rumbo clapped his hands to summon the guests in the garden. He was obviously excited and managed to thread together a discourse that was sealed by applause and laughter.

‘As you know, the manor belongs to Leda. I’ll have to make do with the bed… But for Santi there’s something special. Come with me!’

He lifted his son in the air, sat him on his shoulders and directed the guests to where the surprise was waiting. There was a large open space covered by a blue canvas. Brinco gestured with his hand and a violinist began to play a waltz. Another gesture told some workers it was time to remove the cover since the guests were now surrounding the large rectangle.

There was the swimming pool. But it wasn’t empty. Out of the depths emerged a dolphin. Followed by a murmur of appreciation. Brinco didn’t need to gesture any more. Everybody fell into astonished silence while the violin bow arched over the cetacean’s back.

‘You wanted a friend? There’s a friend for you!’

Chelín followed Leda with his gaze. Managed to attract her attention. Took the pendulum out of his pocket and placed it next to the ground. It began to swing. She nodded, laughing. It was true. Now she was the one leading her son around the swimming pool while a group of men, partners and friends, surrounded Brinco with their aperitifs.

‘Brinco, your friends also have a surprise for you,’ said the lawyer with more familiarity than usual. ‘Come on then! There are marvels of nature for you too!’

The group headed towards the main gate, Mendoza and Rocha ushering them on.

‘And Inverno? Where’s Inverno?’ asked Brinco.

The lawyer clapped his hands and the main gate opened. In came a limousine with tinted windows, moving at a snail’s pace, followed by a group of mariachis with Inverno at the front playing the Mexican ballad ‘Pero sigo siendo el rey’.

The doors of the limousine suddenly opened and out stepped three gorgeous girls in revealing evening dresses.

‘Your Vaudeville princesses!’

They acknowledged the reception. Twirled around like models and then kissed Brinco.

Leda heard the music. Recognised Inverno’s strong voice. Came to see what was happening. Santiago was playing with the other boys, so she went on her own. Or almost on her own. Chelín followed her at a short distance. Because he knew her, he realised she would turn around angrily as soon as she saw the limousine and the welcome given to the girls from the Vaudeville. And he was right. Leda spun around in a rage, rushed up the stairs leading to the terrace and first floor.

Chelín went after her. ‘Wait. Where are you going?’

She eyed him like a stranger. Like someone who’d lost touch with reality. ‘What do you care? To tart myself up!’

‘Leda, you know I always brought you good luck.’

Good luck? She was about to carry on. Another lunatic. But she set her eyes on him. Recognised him. It had been ages since she’d felt so much like crying. She didn’t cry. She stroked his cheek with her fingertips. He was very thin. A child’s gaze with steel spikes on his chin.

‘That’s right, Chelín.’

‘Remember when we used to hunt for treasures? I discovered something. I discovered there are only treasures under the ocean. That’s where shipwrecked and dead people keep them. That’s where you have to look for them. Under the ocean. Say “ocean”, please.’

Leda listened to him with surprise and concern. There was something wrong with him. He wasn’t well. He’d fallen again. There was nothing more unsettling than an unsettled gaze. She smiled, and he did the same. That worked. She placed her cheek against his. Concave — convex. That also worked. ‘Ocean.’ Then a kiss. A little peck. She turned on her heels and ran up the stairs.

‘A little saliva,’ he mumbled. ‘How lucky I am!’

Brinco summoned Chelín. He was holding Cora, his favourite from the Vaudeville, by the hand. ‘Now you’re going to see the second thing I like best to do in the world. Where are the stars, Chelín?’

If it was meant to be a joke, he didn’t understand. His mind was elsewhere. Stars? Oh, of course, what a fool! He ran to fetch the firework launcher. There they went. A sun, a palm tree and then a Bengal light that descended very slowly.

When Cora looked down from the sky, she blinked. She didn’t want her eyes to cry. But her eyes had a will of their own. She could hide everything except for her eyes, God damn them.

‘That’s the most special present anyone’s given me for a long, long time.’

Víctor went into the bedroom where Leda was. He was still in his party outfit, but she’d decided to put on silk pyjamas. She was seated in front of the dressing table, compulsively brushing her hair.

‘What is it, girl? Everyone’s asking after you. You suddenly disappeared.’

‘How I wish I could disappear! You should have told me you were going to bring the whole harem to the house.’

‘Leda, they’re just employees who work at our clubs.’

‘Employees? Our clubs? Don’t talk to me like that!’

‘What do you want me to call them? Whores? One whore here, another there. They’re here because they want to be! Go and open the gates and tell them to leave. You’ll see how many actually do.’

‘Like dogs. Dogs won’t leave either, Brinco. What do you take me for? You buy these girls like cattle. How much did you pay for that one?’

‘Which one?’

‘The one without a right toe.’

The toe. That blasted right toe. Why did they have to wear sandals? He’d already warned them. Don’t dress like that, girl, you look like a slave. You make it look like I chopped it off with an axe.

‘I didn’t cut her, for fuck’s sake. It was already cut.’

‘Oh, I see. She was branded when you bought her. I’ll take the amputee. Aren’t you a good boy, Brinco, you son of a bitch?’

‘All right, so I know a thing or two about prostitutes…’

Suddenly his rage boiled to the surface. She deserved a good hiding. He tore open a drawer, rummaged around and pulled out a leather-bound bible with a zip. Holy Bible. Nácar-Colunga BAC. He opened it, threw it on top of the bed. As the leaves fell apart, hundred-dollar bills floated down on top of the covers.

‘A bible for each one. Do the sums.’

Leda couldn’t come down. She was indisposed. Something she’d eaten. The same old story. That’s right, something she’d eaten or drunk. She had to look after herself. Víctor Rumbo took his leave of all the guests. Some of them inebriated. Like Chelín. He was turning into a real pain.

‘Brinco, you know I always, always brought you good luck.’

‘Sure you did.’

‘Always!’

‘Always.’

Óscar Mendoza asked if he’d invited Mariscal. Of course he had. Why hadn’t he come?

Brinco pointed to a hill in the night. Said, ‘Look, Óscar. He’ll be up there. Watching everything. Happy and solitary as a wolf.’

41

VARIOUS MESSAGES ARRIVED from Mariscal. Nothing about Flores. If the Graduate couldn’t look after himself, that was his problem. But there was something else. And this worried him. Mariscal wanted to see him in the Ultramar. Something was beginning to stink. What was beginning to stink? Money. When it came to money, Víctor Rumbo knew a stink meant only one thing. The lack of money.

‘The payment’s been made. I’m sure of it.’

‘Milton’s two-thirds? Don’t be so sure. Who was the courier?’

An unfamiliar sweat appeared on his forehead, dripping into the caverns of his nose. He thought about it quickly. Didn’t reply to Mariscal’s question. Said, ‘I’ll check it out.’

‘That’s better.’

He talked to Chelín. It took him a while to call, but in the end he called. There’d been a complication. He’d been late for the meeting. He knew it was in Benavente. But everything was OK. Under control. He sounded confident. He’d organised a second meeting. Had all the coordinates. Everything was arranged. The payment would take place in Madrid. To make up for the inconvenience.

Brinco spent the following day in the Vaudeville. He was expecting a confirmation call that evening. That was what they’d agreed on. But the call came from Carburo. Nobody had turned up for the meeting in Madrid. Brinco set Inverno, Chumbo, everybody he had, in motion. He even spoke to Grimaldo. Find Chelín. No, he didn’t want him to call. Bring him in. As quickly as possible. Whatever it took. By the balls if necessary.

But Chelín had gone to ground. A long time passed. Three days was far too long. The whole world could go crazy in under three days. And that was what was happening. The rumbles got louder and louder. Closer to home. And one of the loudest, this annoyed him, came from Óscar Mendoza.

He’d drunk too much. That night and the previous nights. To see if one hangover could cure another. He was leaving the Vaudeville with Cora. He’d come up with one of those stupid, wonderful ideas. To take her somewhere special.

OK, he hadn’t drunk so much. He was OK. Yes, he felt better. Come on, you. Tonight is going to be special. He was just about to unlock his car when another ground to a halt. Out got Inverno, who opened the back door. Chumbo shoved Chelín outside.

‘Here he is,’ said Inverno. ‘We caught him in Porto. About to board a plane.’

‘We got a tip-off from a friend of Wiggy’s,’ added Chumbo.

‘Where the hell were you going?’ Brinco demanded of Chelín. Or rather of the half-man that had once been Chelín.

‘To Greece.’

‘To Greece? What the fuck were you going to do in Greece?’

‘I always wanted to go to Greece, Brinco. You know that.’

A bag of bones. Since the last time he’d seen him, he’d lost a lot of weight. He was as thin as a flatfish. But the worst thing was his face. Those sunken eyes. Better calm down a bit.

‘So where’s the money, Chelín?’

‘There’s nothing left, Brinco. They played that trick with the aeroplane. Went and stole it. I thought it was them when it was someone else.’

‘What are you trying to tell me, Chelín?’

‘You have to help me, Brinco. They’re after me. They’re going to kill me!’

Víctor tore back the sleeve on his left arm. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake! For the love of God! Hadn’t you given this up, you prick?’

‘Don’t leave me, Brinco, don’t leave me…’

The lights in a few windows had gone on. The first sign of complaints.

‘No, I won’t leave you. It’s not your fault. Let’s get out of here. Come on!’

Inverno pushed back the levers in the junction box to turn on the floodlights. The football pitch lit up. Chumbo took a throw-in. Víctor Rumbo was leading Chelín by the shoulder. Not violently, but holding on to him. They walked towards the nearest area. It was cold on that large open pitch and Cora waited behind, trying to warm herself up with her own embrace. The boss called to her, however. ‘Come on, you.’ And she obeyed, moving like a tightrope walker, her heels sinking into the grass.

‘Don’t fuck me, Brinco. What the hell are we doing here?’

‘What do you think? We’re going to play!’

He pushed Chelín into the goalmouth. As he was talking, he placed the ball on the penalty spot.

‘We won a lot of matches together, remember? You were a fucking great goalie. OK, a good one. A guy I could trust. Isn’t that right?’

In the middle of the goalmouth, Chelín looked disorientated, shipwrecked. But the position he was in helped him. He remembered the keeper he’d been. Stood tall. A little bit.

Brinco gave himself a run-up to take the penalty. But then suddenly turned to Cora.

‘Why don’t you take it?’

‘I’m not sure I can.’

Cora took off her shoes.

‘Oh, come on, Brinco! Don’t let her take it.’

‘Go on, girl.’

Cora ran barefoot and kicked the ball with all her might. Chelín tried to save it. A dive to one side, at the limit of his strength, which left him lying on the ground, moaning softly.

The others left. He saw them from where he was lying. With their backs to him. Cora’s shoes, which she held in her hand. The only thing similar to a farewell.

He tried to get up, but his body preferred to remain on that bald patch of earth. His eyes were taken in by the leathery, indifferent line of grass, the goalkeeper’s nightmare.

‘I always brought you good luck. What do you think?’

Carburo cut a strange, solitary figure that night in the Ultramar. In a white apron, static as papier mâché, his arms crossed, an angry expression, rooted in front of the television. The map of isobars. There was a knock at the door. He used to like haranguing the weatherman. What had happened to the weatherman? Perhaps he was a fugitive and this was him at the door, seeking shelter.

There was another rap at the glass door. The beating of a tambourine. Carburo moved the curtain and saw it was Brinco. With merry company. Just what he needed. He opened up silently. He wasn’t the kind to pretend he was pleased to see you.

‘Evening, Captain Carburo! We’ve come to ride out the storm!’

‘What storm?’

Brinco laughed. Carburo’s permanent bad mood always struck him as funny. Having climbed the stairs, on the landing he embraced Cora around the waist from behind. They walked like this, swaying slightly, covered and uncovered by the curtains the wind puffed out.

‘How well you ride the wind!’

When he saw the door of the suite, Brinco’s expression changed suddenly. Became tense. Hardened. Looked back.

‘Fucking wind! Why don’t they ever shut the blasted windows?’

‘What you looking at?’

‘The sea!’ Cora seemed moved, like someone who’s found an image she’s always dreamed of.

‘The sea? Aren’t you sick of looking at the sea?’ Brinco went over to the window. ‘Besides, you can hardly see it.’

She knew he was half drunk. She’d started to know him well. The other half filled sometimes with electrified passion, others with a sickly blackness. When he spat out his words, she didn’t flinch.

‘Yes, you can. It’s on fire.’

‘On fire, eh? That’s good, girl. Stay where you are.’

She stayed. On the bed. Gazing through the window at a sea that could be seen and not seen. Víctor went into the bathroom and switched on the light, the door half open. He looked at himself in the mirror. This sweat. This unfamiliar sweat. He rinsed his face with cold water. And again. Looked at his wet face. Raised his fist to break the face that was now in the mirror. But in the end moved his fist aside and banged the wall. Had difficulty breathing, as after a long fight. His forehead pressed against the mirror. The freshness.

Cora came over to the door. Didn’t push or look. Just whispered, ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine!’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Every night I smash a mirror with my fist. It’s a custom of mine…’

He glanced at her, and, used as she was to the tones of his voice, this time she couldn’t say whether she was the witness or object of his hostility. Unsettled, she went back to the bed, to her side next to the window, and slowly began to undress.

Brinco came out of the bathroom and went to his side of the bed, in the half-shadows. He lay down in his clothes, face up.

Everything registered a mute silence. In a move that was in fact defensive, Cora went over to him, naked, not touching him, but curling up into a ball.

‘The sea brought you as well, didn’t it?’

‘I don’t know, I don’t know…’

‘The key!’

‘He’s got it,’ said Carburo meekly. With this woman he only knew how to obey.

‘The other key!’

All the wind piled up for years on the landing, like grass pressed inside a silo, was exploding. The nightmare was bursting inside her eyes and she flung open the door.

Brinco and Cora lay on the bed, both naked. Hearing the door creak meant sticking his hand under the pillow, in search of his weapon.

But he soon saw it was Leda.

Leda carrying something in her hand. One of those leather-bound bibles with a zip. Leda opened the bible and shook free the dollar bills that floated down on top of the bare bodies.

‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘I’m buying her. She’s mine. She’s free!’ shouted Leda.

She grabbed Cora’s arm and forced her to stand up. In the middle of all this uproar, Cora glanced at the sea, the ashen paste, the oily fringe of foam. As for the rest, scraps of evanescent mist.

Leda grabbed her shoulders. Shook her about. Talked to her violently of freedom. Freedom which for Cora had a double meaning. Was always used as a threat. She’d crossed borders, as a mule, with condoms stuffed full of money inside her vagina or her digestive tract. On the verge of exploding. Why not try to buy off this policeman? The way he looked at her was very like this woman shaking her. You don’t know whether what they want is to set you free or hold on tighter. It was better not to try. The border policeman was in on the loop. Luckily she caught the gesture he made, the axial connection with the guy waiting at the checkpoint.

‘You’re free, understand? I don’t want to see you round here ever again! Take that money and leave.’

Leda released the girl and from the doorway shouted at Víctor, who was getting dressed in an appearance of calm. Patience. The storm would soon pass.

‘As for you, you bastard, go to the football pitch.’

She’d disappeared down the landing, swallowed up by eternal waves of curtain, when he finally registered what she’d said.

‘What’s that, Leda? Wait!’

There were ambulances and police cars parked at the main entrance to the football pitch, so he turned at the crossroads in A de Meus, took the left fork along the coast as far as the mirador in Corveiro.

From there he could see the pitch. What under his presidency had been renamed the stadium the day they inaugurated the covered stand with its directors’ box. From afar, it looked like a table-football table whose players had detached themselves from the metal bars and taken on a life of their own. In fact he didn’t want to see. He grabbed the binoculars not to get closer, but to have something between his eyes and the other.

Chelín was hanging from the crossbar.

42

THEY STOPPED TO have lunch at África’s place. A small bar and shop on the corner between the coastal road and the track leading to the refrigerated warehouse. As soon as they entered the bar, even before she served the coffee, África signalled to Brinco to approach the counter. ‘Some clients of yours arrived early. A jeep went up the track.’

‘The same two as always?’ asked Brinco ironically.

‘No. They weren’t guards, nor were they from around here.’

Brinco was grateful for the information. And knew how to pay for it. Inverno was driving the Land Rover and they were accompanied by Chumbo sitting in the back. When they reached the bend overlooking Cons, before they could see the warehouse built on reclaimed marshland, Brinco ordered Inverno to stop. Told Chumbo to get out.

‘Go and check out the scenery.’

Chumbo didn’t ask any questions. Just disappeared down a track between bushes, in the direction of the rocks.

When he was driving, Brinco liked to go slowly so he could enjoy the sight of the wall with the company’s name and emblem. A swordfish and narwhal. Underneath were the intertwined initials ‘B&L Frozen Foods’. This time Inverno also drove slowly, but Brinco’s attention was centred on the yard in front of the warehouse, which was devoid of vehicles. They must have left, he thought. The old woman can’t have realised they’ve gone back.

Víctor got out of the jeep and jangled the keys like a rattle. Suddenly he stopped playing around and stared at Inverno. ‘The dogs? Why aren’t the dogs barking?’

They left them loose inside the warehouse. They’d always bark excitedly and whine behind the doors. They recognised the sound of the Land Rover’s engine from afar.

He whistled. Called out to them: ‘Sil! Neil!’

This was the involuntary signal. The doors opened and out walked two stocky men holding cocked pistols equipped with silencers. Inverno had held back. As a precaution. He’d also grabbed hold of his weapon. But from the right of the warehouse, from behind a fuel tank, came another guy, aiming a sawn-off shotgun.

They were skilled and highly trained. An office job to get back the two-thirds that was owing.

Brinco had miscalculated the payment period. He’d thought he had more time. But just as he was sending a message, the office had taken the initiative.

They pushed them inside. The guy with the shotgun stayed downstairs in the warehouse, aiming at Inverno after tying him up. The two dogs, a German shepherd and a Dobermann, lay dead. Little blood for so much silence.

The other two went upstairs with Brinco, one behind and the other in front. He dialled the number he was told to.

‘Hello? Milton here.’

The person talking deliberately emphasised his name. He didn’t want the other man blurting out his real name. The one buzzing about inside Víctor Rumbo’s head.

‘Milton, this is no way to behave.’

One of his assailants, standing behind him, suddenly began to strangle him with a kind of thin wire. He felt the wire penetrating his skin. Making a furrow. Feeling the pain, he instinctively tried to resist. He banged with his elbows, gasping for breath, but the assailant opposite him stuck the barrel of his gun against Brinco’s forehead. The other loosened the wire. And the one with the gun told him to pick up the receiver again.

‘Ah, music, sweet music. Compliments of the house. The best material for tuning. They’re doing their job. They’re professionals. You’re a professional. That’s how it’s done.’

Brinco passed his free hand over his neck. The sensation that an invisible cord was still pressing into it. The digital stain of blood.

‘Listen, Milton. We had a problem with a partner. The guy who was supposed to make the payment was trustworthy. This has never happened before. He lost his head.’

‘Yes, yes, of course. That’s what they’ve been complaining about. They don’t want it happening again. We deal with serious people, not kids.’

‘He lost control of the situation. Hanged himself yesterday. You can check this out if you like.’

‘Don’t come to me with videos. It’s a very sad story. Don’t air it any more. Cover up the hole and leave it. You can do that now, can’t you?’

‘Yes, of course I can… He hanged himself, that’s all. I think it was my fault. I pushed him too far…’

‘The world is a valley of tears. Why walk about with a tombstone around your neck? I’m going to hang up. This is a public phone. Grow up a bit!’

Brinco glanced at the wall clock.

‘You’re right, Milton. There’s no point drowning in a cup of water. I’ll give these gentlemen the treatment they deserve.’

He hung up. Passed his hand over his neck again. Took a deep breath.

‘Good, let’s see to that debt, shall we, piano tuner? You killed the dogs now, didn’t you? Well, right underneath the doghouse is the bag with the money.’

They left the office. The warehouse was empty. The automatic shutters started to rise. Neither henchman had time to ask what was going on. Chumbo, Inverno and half a dozen armed men overpowered them.

‘Where’s the other guy?’ asked Brinco.

‘In the fridge, taking some fresh air,’ said Inverno, pointing to one of the cold storage rooms.

Brinco rummaged in his assailant’s pocket. Found what he was looking for. Tautened the piano string.

‘You know? I just felt a strange pleasure, something I’d never felt before.’

Milton decided to place the call reserved for extreme circumstances.

If happiness is to travel from cold to hot, he’d gone in the opposite direction. From a hot sweat, the atmosphere of a large hotel’s kitchen and the euphoria of someone who has the power of intimidation and uses it, to the cold sweat of someone whose internal affairs have been badly disturbed. As a boy he’d lived in Moravia, in a settlement raised on a mountain of rubbish. He’d grown on top of the discarded waste of Medellín’s rich quarters. There the floor of his home gave off a sticky smell through the cracks, the methane that emanates from decomposition. The senses learn. They reject the base smell in order to perceive the rest. But the day comes when the methane sweeps away all the laboriously constructed scents. And the settlement burns. Moravia burns.

Which is why he always took quick decisions, a ‘Do it!’ whenever he got a whiff of methane. As now. There was a telephone in the kitchen, which he’d been watching for hours. He decided to take every precaution. He removed his head chef’s uniform, put on a holster and jacket. Loaded the magazine in his automatic.

‘I’ll be back in a minute. Pay attention to the phone. Don’t go to sleep on me.’

He made the call from a public booth in a small square next to the Hotel Coruña Road. He had no idea who Palindrome was, but he knew it would work. Palindrome answered. Yes, sir. Milton here. From Madrid, that’s right. It was an emergency. He’d lost track of some men he’d sent to Galicia. They were his best archangels, though he didn’t say this. They’d gone to collect a debt. An office job. They were supposed to call. In a maximum of twelve hours. But he hadn’t heard from them for a day and a half. The debtor? Brinco’s group. In Noitía.

There was a silence. He couldn’t tell what the silence smelled of because his head was overwhelmed by methane.

‘Understood. Thank you for the information. First of all, calm. And no noise.’

In the hotel lobby, a receptionist gestured with his hand, came out from behind the counter and rushed over to him. ‘Boss. We got a call in reception. A strange call. They said they’ve left the piano at the door to the warehouse.’

‘The piano?’

‘That’s what they said. Nothing else. A piano for Milton.’

That’s right. Everything so clean. The stink of methane.

‘Warn the kitchen! Tell everybody to go to the entrance to the warehouse. With their weapons!’

The warehouse was reached down an alleyway that opened out into a patio at the back of the hotel. Milton’s men took up position there and at the entrance to the alley. The only thing in the way, right in the middle of the patio, was a large crate. Water poured out from between the boards. Two metres long and half a metre wide, more or less. Everything required by a man packed in ice who’d come to deliver a piano string.

Inverno communicated with Chumbo by means of a walkie-talkie. He occupied the shade next to the sea gate of Romance Manor. Sentinel for Leda and Santiago. By the shore, the water around his waist, the boy was swimming, or pretending to swim, with some goggles. Each dive was followed by a series of shouts and gestures aimed at attracting his mother’s attention.

Leda watched him. Returned his attention. She was alone, sitting on a towel on the beach, wearing a printed T-shirt that seemed to attract all the breeze.

On a boat anchored next to some rocks that acted as a natural embankment, dressed in sea clothes, pretending to be a fisherman seeing to his nets, was Chumbo, holding a Winchester kept out of sight on deck.

There were two more people, hidden, but taking part in this unfolding drama. Fins and Mara on a dune, behind the marram’s herbal screen. The rumours of a settling of scores in Brinco’s circle had brought them here, to this oblique position as the capo’s bodyguards. But the capo was nowhere to be seen.

Mara whispered ironically to Fins, ‘Everybody watching the lady of the shipwrecks.’

And the lady of the shipwrecks watching everything. She was blinded for a moment by the sun glinting on the water. She set about reconstructing everything. First of all, the child. His greeting calmed her. She’d been like this for days. An activated inner sense that kept her on the alert. Permanently ill at ease. Checking out every single place, trying to turn any sound into a murmur, a source of information.

A diver emerged on the port side of the boat where Chumbo was. Chumbo had his back to him. When he turned, alerted by the splashing, the diver fired a harpoon into his chest.

Reality is an outer layer. There is a hidden world. And in this hidden world there is a conflict of forces which for her take on the shape of currents, underwater angels. For years the sea has sent her good signals. Even at the time of the accident, when the explosion sank Lucho Malpica’s boat, her father was saved. He almost couldn’t swim. The current took him in its arms, after he’d chafed himself against rock after rock, and deposited him on the beach.

Leda got up in a state of agitation. Surveyed the blanket of water, the glittering crumbs, that infinite, ephemeral silverwork a hand of wind had wrought on the sunny sea. She suddenly felt this was a place of horror. She couldn’t shout. She ran and could hear — a sticky, faulty sound — the whistle of her own drowning.

Santiago finally reappeared. Took off his goggles and waved at his mother.

‘How long can you stay under without breathing?’

‘You what?’

‘How long can you stay under without breathing?’

Leda heard a violent roar. She quickly identified where it was. It was coming from the palafittic horizon of the mussel rafts. It was a speedboat heading quickly towards the beach. Inverno came out of his lookout post by the sea gate of Romance Manor. Tried to speak to Chumbo, but got no answer. All he could hear was the sea moaning. The strangest thing was that Chumbo was there, on his boat. Inverno could perceive his silhouette in the distance. He had his back to him. Must have been trying to work out the nature of this piercing sound approaching over the sea.

He decided to expose himself and head for Leda and the child while trying to establish communication with Chumbo.

‘Chumbo, can you hear me? Over.’

The sound of interference like a hum.

Something burning tore into his shoulder. Another bullet smashed his head open.

How could Chumbo possibly kill Inverno? Even for something like that, he’d have asked for permission.

But there he was, firing a rifle from the deck. That blasted Judas.

Instead of taking to her heels, Leda did something surprising. She took Inverno’s weapon, protected the child behind her and aimed at the place of betrayal. Let him see what rotten wood he was really made of.

‘Chumbo, you son of a bitch!’

But the marksman responded by carefully aiming his precision rifle. Leda realised her reaction was absurd and they had no way out. Chumbo was part of the enemy. The marksman wasn’t going to stop the speedboat roaring towards them.

She grabbed Santiago by the arm and they ran barefoot across the sand. The sand that loved her so much now seemed to restrain their feet. When the child fell on his knees and she tried to pull him up, to Leda’s disbelief, help came from the hidden world.

‘Lie down beside him and don’t move!’ shouted Fins.

They waited for the speedboat to come alongside the shore. There were three crewmen. Two of them got ready to jump while the third kept the speedboat steady.

‘They’re not out to kill them, they’re out to kidnap them!’ exclaimed Mara.

It was time to shoot. And for the sea to lend a miraculous hand. For the reports to multiply several times over. As sometimes happens.

43

THE TOLLING OF the bells has to make itself heard above the seagulls’ chatter, their scandalmongering on top of St Mary’s cemetery in Noitía.

‘They’re always after people, keeping an eye out, throwing insults.’

The old sailor glances at the sky in disapproval. He is one of the few not wearing a tie, the same as his companion. The top button of his shirt squeezes his Adam’s apple. As he lifts his head, the white points of the collar grow tense. They’re dressed very similarly, in black suits and waistcoats, but the top button makes a difference. His companion’s collar is open. There’s also a contrast in the whiteness and style of their hair. His hair forms a crest ending in a summit, a kind of wick on top of his forehead. His face is heavily lined, but his seniority is somehow intemporal, as if he’s returned from another age. His partner’s hair has been carefully combed, a humid whiteness, possibly smarmed down in such a way as to conceal any bald patches. They’re both tall and upright for their years. The main difference is in the way they walk. The position of their arms. One seems to be carrying a weight. A sack. A body. His own. Without the use of hands.

‘Crows have a bad reputation, Edmundo, but theirs is a different way of knowing.’

‘Talking of birds, there was a guy in Veracruz who kept trying to tell me, “You sure know a lot about tweety birds!”’

They walk slowly, at low tide, paying careful attention to the movements of the cars, mostly high-cylinder, bringing people to the ceremony.

‘Look at that, Companion! Never mind the width, feel the quality,’ mutters Edmundo, the sailor who played Christ on the day of the Passion.

‘The bigger the better!’ replies Lucho.

When they reach the niches, they move apart from the rest of the gathering.

‘This is one of the healthiest places in the world! That’s why I came back,’ says Edmundo. ‘The niche was fully paid for.’

‘It’s certainly sunny.’

‘Great views, too.’ Edmundo wishes to encourage the Companion as best he can. He gestures towards the cemetery in contrast with the new urban buildings of irregular, exaggerated heights. ‘And just look at the skyline!’

And then in the Companion’s ear, ‘They haven’t had to sleep out before.’

‘They certainly lived the way they wanted to. At a hundred miles per hour.’

‘Or more!’

The two coffins are almost entirely obscured by ribboned wreaths. The Requiem Mass is led by the parish priest in a surplice and black stole, assisted by two other priests. ‘Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them… And upon the rest of us so that no other curse like this descends upon Noitía.’

The people cluster around the priests in an atmosphere of commotion. Together with painful, tearful expressions, there are others marked by tense vigilance. At the axis of the ceremony, on the other side of the priest, is Mariscal, guarded by the impassive Carburo.

‘As it says in the Miserere mei, Deus, David’s penitential psalm, “Have mercy upon me, O God, wash me thoroughly from my wickedness… Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”’

As he speaks, he tries not to look at anybody. This is his habit. But today is starting to be a strange day for him. He’s receiving signals about a war he would have preferred to ignore. For a moment he notices Santiago, the boy with the patch, staring at him with a single eye. A panoptic eye. An eye that sees everything. Records everything. He observes Leda, the mother, curling a strand of the boy’s hair in her fingers. On the other side is Sira. Ever since the incident on Romance beach, considered a kidnap attempt, the mother and boy have been living in the fortress of the Ultramar. He’s heard the odd rumour that Mariscal has been studying Leda’s anatomy there. For goodness’ sake! The ears are for hearing. He knows full well they’re father and daughter.

He wrote what he has to say the previous evening. He thought about it word for word. But now he’s unsure about the script. He also received a visit from Brinco last night. He’s sorry he couldn’t say no to this ridiculous idea of his. He’s ashamed to think that his faint-hearted attitude, his yieldingness, may have had a causal relationship with the payment for the funeral and the generous donation Brinco made on the spot. As he is looking around, he comes across another panoptic being, the impression of a single eye with dark glasses behind the image of a marble archangel on top of a sarcophagus. Another old acquaintance, Fins Malpica, attending the farewell ritual. He recalls what he said at his father’s funeral, ‘The sea prefers the brave ones.’ He was sorry about that death. He wasn’t a believer, he’d said to Lucho, but he’d make a first-rate Christ. And when Lucho died as a result of the dynamite, he found it impossible to ask any questions. He blamed the sea. With a favourable report he helped the boy attend a school for orphans. And receive a grant for university. He also lent a hand so he’d be accepted in the police academy. Fins never attended Mass. Just once, recently, he’d come to see the priest. Behaved impertinently. Asked who the mausoleum was for.

‘What mausoleum? It’s a pantheon.’

‘A bit bigger than the rest, isn’t it? So who’s it for?’

‘Why are you asking if you already know? Doesn’t the Brancana family have the right to a pantheon?’

‘A palace, you mean,’ Fins had replied. ‘A monument to dirty money. You should know how such filth is viewed in the beyond, but the way I see it, everything started quite differently, with a manger in Bethlehem.’

Here the priest had cut him short. Nobody had the right to lecture him on doctrine. ‘When you’ve finished, you know where the door is.’

‘Real judgement is not that meted out by men on earth. So it will be for our neighbours and brothers in faith, Fernando Inverno and Carlos Chumbo. They will have to appear before true justice. At the Last Judgement St Michael’s scales will weigh the value of souls for God. And then we will find out how much their souls weighed. All we know is that they were generous to those around them and to the Church of God.’

The priest glances over at the temple and nods to a parishioner standing at the bottom of the bell tower.

‘Every year Inverno and Chumbo made their donations to Our Lady of the Sea, the Virgin of Mount Carmel. It was Inverno who paid for the new bells. So it’s only right they should ring at his funeral.’

The bells begin to toll. Fins enjoys the sound. He thinks the historical prestige of bells is due to the fact that they don’t lie. There’s another sound that doesn’t lie in Noitía. That of the cow by the lighthouse which moos whenever the mist is so thick it swallows up the light of the beacon.

In his position, half concealed by the angel, Fins removes his dark glasses. And looks at Leda. She imitates his gesture. Slowly takes off her glasses. Closes and opens her eyes in a blink that seems timed to the bells.

The priest continues the funeral oration with an air of apparent routine:

‘“I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” God is light, he sees everything, hears everything. Knows everything. What’s going on in the darkest corner. In the grottos of the sea and the depths of the soul. Our faith may stumble. We may ask where God is, why he remains in silence.’

Don Marcelo’s voice suddenly begins to shake. He seems bewildered, overcome by the turn of events. Gives the impression he is not going to be able to advance beyond that full stop, that ‘silence’. But suddenly he is transfigured. He’s not praying any more, he’s shouting:

‘God isn’t stupid! He hasn’t come to pussyfoot around. As the psalmist says:

‘He smote the first-born of Egypt,

both of man and beast.

He hath sent tokens and wonders into the midst of thee,

O thou land of Egypt,

upon Pharaoh and all his servants.’

The psalm is like a deposit of wind and gives his voice an unusual preponderance:

‘As for the images of the heathen, they are but silver and gold,

the work of men’s hands.

They have mouths, and speak not.

They have eyes, and see not.

They have ears, and hear not.

Neither is there any breath in their mouths.’

He pauses. This hasn’t happened to him for quite some time, being able to hear and understand his own words.

‘Thus the Lord speaks. He gives us breath and takes it away again. May they rest in peace.’

The workmen place the coffins inside their niches. This is followed by the sound of banging tools. A hammer nailing in wooden covers. The gravestone being slid into place. The final rubric. The priest quickly greets several family members. Offers a sentence of consolation that is left hanging in the air. Then turns to address Mariscal. ‘The religious ceremony has finished. It’s up to you what you do now.’

‘Thank you, Marcelo. You know that’s my favourite psalm. Shame not to hear it in Latin!’

‘Víctor came to see me,’ says the priest, cutting him off. ‘I don’t like the entertainment he’s prepared. This is sacred ground.’

‘It’s a tribute to both of them. Inverno played music all his life. He had the mark of the trumpet on his lips. There were even concerts where they rode on horseback. Noitía’s Magicians was their name.’

‘In Noitía a funeral was always a funeral, and a party a party.’

‘Patience, Marcelo. Remember the first-born of Egypt are in charge!’

‘I’m going. My work here is done.’

‘Thank God your work is never done, Marcelo. You have to take care of us, your flock. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis. We must meet some day and have a chat about Unamuno.’

As the priest leaves, from the far side of the cemetery, hidden until that moment, emerge the members of a mariachi quartet. The musicians, dressed in typical Mexican clothes, perform the ballad ‘Pero sigo siendo el rey’.

A murmur of surprise ripples around the cemetery. Followed by several disapproving looks. This has never happened before in Noitía. The most there was, and this was some time ago, was a bagpipe intoning a solemn march. But as the ballad progresses, the faces take on a renewed sort of expression.

‘If the acoustics are good,’ says Edmundo, ‘in three minutes you’ll have yourself an age-old tradition.’

‘That’s the thing about death,’ replies the Companion. ‘It lends itself to everything.’

44

IT WAS A refreshing sensation to be in one of the miradors used by Mariscal and not to have to hide, stay under cover, but instead to share the view. What was happening was more than unusual. It struck him as nothing short of miraculous. Because of the person by his side and the topic of conversation. Grimaldo had bumped into him in the station car park. Fins had expected a peevish greeting. Or nothing at all. But in the end he’d spat out a kind of telegram: ‘Meet me at the mirador in Corveiro. In fifteen minutes.’

‘I know you don’t trust me,’ he said when they were there. ‘You do well. Never trust me. But today make an exception.’

Haroldo Micho Grimaldo had the appearance of a dandy from the suburbs, just like the Old Man. A single policeman, he was the only guest in a boarding house whose mistress treated him like a king, viewing any other candidate as a small-time crook who’d come to the wrong door. He didn’t have a shining reputation, at the police station anyway. Though paradoxically he was, or proclaimed himself to be, the Scourge of Vice. One of his roles was to inspect so-called singles clubs, a euphemism he took it upon himself to clarify.

‘Singles clubs? Whorehouses, you mean.’

Proceedings were sometimes begun, but none of the brothels was ever closed. Except when there was a scandal, an argument leading to injuries or casualties, which transcended the barrier of night. This control was vital in the fight against prostitution rings. So Micho Grimaldo was a cynic. Or more than that. Most people thought more than that. This being the case, the strangest thing about his behaviour was that he wasn’t more hypocritical when it came to his impression of an exemplary life. There were periods when he did his best. His virtuous days, as he liked to call them. When his tongue became sharper than usual, like a cut-throat razor. But after that he’d let himself go. Roll from club to club with the repellent air of a perfumer. If others put up with him, it was because he was on the verge of retiring. And because he knew a lot. Or so people supposed. In the past he’d worked for the Political-Social Brigade, whose job it was to hunt down opponents of Franco’s regime. He’d been involved in Barcelona and Madrid. And then returned to his birthplace. He’d inherited a country house from his father, all refurbished, in a village inland, but hardly ever went there. He’d acquired an exciting new identity in his role against vice. Being a whoremonger.

‘Well, are you going to trust me or not? I can’t bear know-it-all silences.’

‘Go ahead, Grimaldo,’ said Fins.

It was dusk. The estuary was like a log, burning from the inside out. Behind them, the darkness slipped whistling over the eucalyptus leaves.

Micho Grimaldo took a stick and began to draw a map on the ground. The axis was the river Miño. He traced the iron bridge at Tui. Despite the conditions, he exhibited a wish for accuracy. He marked the main towns on either side of the border with dots and joined them up with lines representing roads.

‘This Sunday there’s going to be a party,’ he said. ‘An important party. With the excuse of a wedding. Not many guests, very select ones. The party’s going to be here, in the Lower Miño, in a place named Quinta da Velha Saudade. Not far away is an old quarry. There is a track, about a hundred yards long, with a turn-off leading to a site for abandoned machinery. A good spot to hide your car. You’ll have to climb a bit, then go through a forest which runs parallel to the road. On the other side of the road, after a bend, is the mansion. A large terrace overlooking the estuary. High walls. Two entrances. But cars can only go in and out through an automatic gate. When they leave, they have to observe a stop sign, which is right on the bend.’

He’d leaned down in order to draw on the ground and straightened up slowly, holding on to his hips. He stared at Fins. ‘You have to be there! On the sly, of course. Take note of everything on your camera. And that’s all I’m going to say.’

‘Are you going as well?’

‘Didn’t I tell you it was an important party?’ he scoffed.

The man was fat — ‘adipose’, Mara Doval would have said — but seemed to have been whittled down by the shade. He erased the map with his shoes. Then sought out the final embers of the setting sun on the sea.

‘I received two medical reports today. One bad: I have cancer. The other good: it’s progressing rapidly.’

He opened the door of his Dodge. Before leaving, he turned to Fins and remarked with an air of distance, ‘Don’t mistake confidence for compassion. If I’m telling you this, it’s not because of my soul. It’s because of you. Because I understand you haven’t sold yourself. Yet.’

He emerged slowly on to the road, let the car descend the hill in neutral. It was a long time before he switched on the lights.

From his hiding place, Fins had photographed all the cars leaving Quinta da Velha Saudade. With his zoom he’d managed to make out Montiglio. Then Mariscal with Carburo driving. After an interval in which the occupants of the cars had been strangers, mostly young, with a festive air, probably no more than guests, he’d focused on another familiar vehicle. The Alfa Romeo in which the lawyer Óscar Mendoza was travelling on his own. He’d seemed to wait far too long at the stop sign, even though there weren’t any other cars on the road. But finally he’d pulled off in the direction of the border.

The sun was about to go down. It didn’t bother his eyes any more. On the contrary, this emigrant beauty struck him as the best gift of the day.

Fins glanced at his watch. Thought about leaving, but something held him back. It wasn’t to do with the outside, but with his own mind, which had been influenced by the long wait in front of a gate that kept opening and closing. What was going on inside his mind wasn’t an absence on account of the petit mal, but the memory of an absence. What happened when an absence took place. Those moments of timelessness which were, however, extremely brief. He could see Leda with a serious expression, measuring time on the stopwatch of her fingers. This image merged with the first time he remembered seeing her. Of course he’d seen her before, when she was a girl, but this was the first time his eyes had focused on her presence to the exclusion of everything else, the day she painted her nails. She’d found a bottle in the sand, that way she had of walking as if excavating the ground. The container was small, conical, made of thick glass. In the palm of her hand, despite the coating of sand, her discovery had an animal appearance, a kind of alert immobility, a red ampoule which grew when she wet it and rubbed it with her thumb. That was when she placed her right foot on a rock, among limpets. Her foot was no longer a girl’s. It must have grown overnight. She opened the bottle brought by the sea and, using the brush in the lid, slowly painted her toenails.

‘It was eight seconds, Mrs Malpica,’ said Leda with reference to the absence.

Now she thought about it, the mother’s strange reticence, irrational anger whenever the girl turned up, may have had to do with the information in her hands. The fact that she was in on the secret. The intimacy of measuring the length of each absence.

‘Forget about it, girl,’ she said to Leda one day after Leda had told her about the absence he’d had in the School of Indians. ‘I don’t want everyone talking about it.’

Leda answered with that manner she had from another time: ‘For me it will be as if a stone fell into a well.’

The iron gate opened again, activated from the inside. Out came a car he failed to recognise. A surprising automobile that put all his motoring knowledge to the test. A very special BMW. He realised Delmiro Oliveira had a passion for the classics. From time to time he’d appeared in a Ford Falcon or an imposing Chrysler Imperial with whitewall tyres. Like the others, he was forced to stop in order to join the main road.

Fins focused on the driver. On Don Delmiro. Then on the passenger in dark glasses. He didn’t allow any idea, any emotion, to reach his finger. He clicked his camera. That’s right. In his imagination the enlarger was already projecting the image on Baryta paper. A work of art that would go down in history.

Next to Delmiro Oliveira, on board a BMW 501, a Barockengel, he had just photographed the Baroque Angel of motoring, Lieutenant Colonel Humberto Alisal.

A car on the road had been in an accident. And burned. A Portuguese National Republican Guard stood with an extinguisher, contemplating the heavy, bewildered billowing of smoke sedated by foam around the accident. The guard turned and gestured to Fins to carry on driving. What made him hold back was the sight of the blanket on the side of the road. He pulled over and went to have a look. A second guard, near the body, was writing something in a notebook that was too small for his hands and pen. Fins didn’t have to remove the blanket. The lawyer Óscar Mendoza’s head, with wide-open eyes, seemed to want to detach itself from the rest of his body. It hadn’t burned. The impact must have been so strong it flung him straight out through the windscreen. The blood from the wounds on his face had acquired the density of flies. Fins glanced at the tarmac. Couldn’t make out any skid marks. He considered the barest gesture of covering Mendoza’s face, but ignored his conscience and thought about his camera. The car. Getting away.

‘Did you know this man?’

‘No, I’ve never seen him before.’

‘Then, please, take your car out of here and let us get on with our work.’

45

CONS LIGHTHOUSE CAST its first circular beam over Noitía and the lights went on like candles in a line. The same beam passed its hand over the whitewall tyres of Mariscal’s Mercedes-Benz in the deserted mirador. The Old Man soon felt a second beam on his back, a noisy, piercing shaft. He knew who this was. He could paint a portrait of people by the way they drove.

Brinco’s was a face of impatient greed. Greed was OK. But not impatience. Job’s patience had been rewarded. It was a shame people didn’t read the Old Testament. Jehovah had given Job twice as much as he’d had before. Fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys.

He couldn’t fail to recognise the pilot by the way he braked and slammed the door. The noise disrupted his vision of the final red glow as the sun sank into the outer sea.

‘How was the funeral?’ asked Brinco.

‘I’ve seen better ones. The priest and the mariachis weren’t bad.’

Mariscal walked to the edge of the cliff and, without turning around, said, ‘Someone ran over Dead Man’s Hand’s wife this morning. The driver took off. They obviously meant to kill him. But the wife got in the way. Fell down dead on top of him.’

‘Poor woman, going before him!’

Mariscal ignored his comment. ‘More people are dying than we can cope with.’

‘Perhaps I should disappear for a while.’

He was relieved to hear this declaration. Stroked the small Astra.38 special on his chest to put it to sleep. Then turned around. ‘Go far away, son.’

‘Where to? The inferno?’

‘A little further, if you can.’

The light of the moon illuminated part of the map on the floor of the School of Indians. The rest was aged darkness. Leda and Fins inhabited the edge of the chiaroscuro.

‘Why didn’t you go with him? You should get out of here with your son. Anything could happen.’

‘He didn’t ask me.’

‘He’ll be arriving in Río about now. We’re going to keep track of him. I can pass you information. Just for you.’

Leda ignored his proposal. She was sure Brinco hadn’t boarded that flight from Porto. He’d have sent someone else in his place. Or vanished on the steps of the plane, in an airport worker’s luminous jacket. He’d done this before. She was the one who’d arranged to meet Fins in the School of Indians. She wanted to see if the bait on the hook worked. She didn’t regret it. It was a fitting tribute. To the bait.

She asked, ‘Is it true you know how to touch-type?’

‘What does that matter now?’

‘Sit down then! I want you to write a letter for me. You know I never got a letter?’

‘I don’t have any paper.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Type anyway. I like to hear the singing of the bars. I’ll dictate… “Dear friend, now that all is mute silense…” Did you write “silense” with an “s”?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’

Leda found it difficult to carry on the game. The spines of words in her throat. ‘How was it? “Now that all is loneliness, pain…” No, better not write that.’

Fins took his hands off the keyboard. ‘I wasn’t going to anyway.’

The roof groaned with the tragedy of night. Someone poured liquid through the skylight and threw in a lit piece of cloth.

But there wasn’t just fire.

The sound of a shot pinged off the typewriter. Fins flung himself to the ground, drew his revolver and instinctively sought shelter beneath the Underwood’s tiny shield.

‘Go where it’s dark!’ he shouted to Leda.

From the fire, the intruder shot at the darkness, but soon turned his attention back to the figure huddled beneath the teacher’s desk. A shot hit Fins’ shoulder. It was obvious, the intruder must have known, because Fins’ face was exposed, contorted with pain, in the moonlight, at the feet of the blind mannequin and the one-armed skeleton. But the intruder was also exposed, the length of his body, as he proudly grasped the powerful shape of a Star. Never trust an automatic. The ocean around the equator caught fire. Fins shot his revolver and the shadow fell like a sack of sand on top of the flames. A thick smoke, as from a volcano, crept all over the map.

‘Where are you, Leda?’

He shouted several times. Got no answer. Dragged himself outside, convinced he’d find her there.

Carburo stood in the doorway of the Ultramar, watching the fire on the hill. ‘Boss, boss! The old school is burning!’

Mariscal shoved him aside. Took a few steps forward, leaning on his staff.

‘It’s burning again, boss!’

He grumbled without turning around, ‘I can see that. I can see it’s burning.’

He started walking towards the fire. Accompanied by a small crowd.

His eyes were wide open. Seemed to be gazing at the trickle of blood. Brinco lay dead in the ocean. After the initial blaze this was a meek fire, trying to gnaw at the noble wood. Where it grew was over in the darkness, where the pupils’ desks had been stacked up. From there the flames aimed for the roof. The smoke disorientated the bats, which flew into the walls and from time to time collided with the mannequin and the skeleton. Had they been able to see, Brinco’s eyes would have met Leda’s. She was a little further south. Near Cape Verde. From there, down towards the Antarctic, a part of the map had been disjointed. Leda lifted the plank, using an iron bar, and revealed a leather suitcase lying on the seabed. Full of wads of notes, except for a gap in the middle with pharmaceutical tools. An Astra Llama pistol. Chelín’s pendulum.

With Carburo for company, Mariscal approached the outside of the school, where people were assembling.

‘Shall we put out the fire, Mariscal?’ asked a voice.

He swung around in a rage. Glared at them all. The shadow of the flames reflected on their faces. Glinting in their eyes as they climbed the back of night. An ancient mirror whose mercury was pouring out. A hypnotic silence whose only sound was the scoffing of flames. He thought they all owed him something. Would do whatever he commanded. But he was overcome by an unusual feeling, something he’d never experienced before. The fear of his own kind.

‘What are you asking me for?’

The other person didn’t know what to say. Felt confused by the Old Man’s reaction. The anger in his voice. Especially when the Old Man added, ‘Who am I, after all?’

He scrutinised every face. Conducted an inspection. They glanced at each other enquiringly. Things to do with the Old Man. Everybody remained quiet. The only sound the flames gnawing at the cracks, the umbilical resistance of ivy and stone.

Leda emerged from the school barefoot, her feet, arms and face blackened. At a gesture from Mariscal, Carburo went over to her and took the suitcase. Someone finally paid attention to Fins, who was leaning against the wall, badly wounded, squeezing his shoulder to stem the flow of blood. Leda glanced at him as she passed. Just for a moment. The length of an absence.

‘Is there anybody else left inside?’ Mariscal asked her.

‘No.’

Mariscal cleared a way through the barrier of people. Seemed to have difficulty walking, leaning on his cane, but only to start with. As Leda approached, he passed his hand over her blackened cheek, with the care of a portrait artist, and then put his arms around her.

‘Come on, girl, let’s go.’

Carburo followed behind, with the suitcase. Mariscal glanced over at the veteran porter.

‘What have we here?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ replied Leda. ‘Things of mine. Memories mostly.’

And Mariscal murmured:

‘Memories, eh? Then it must be heavy.’