Books Burn Badly

The Medal

HE WAS ABOUT to open the back door of the house by the marina when someone got ahead of him and opened from inside. That nightmare he sometimes had. Gabriel had seen her only once. They could have been the same age. Except he was the father’s son and she was the wife. Her hair in a bob, smooth and coppery, matched her skirt. Golden locks that were like a continuation of the letters printed on the invitation to the wedding he didn’t attend. Gabriel the Odd sent a cold, irreproachable telegram. Katechon came into his mind. The one who holds back the years, though they’re still there, riding an invisible merry-go-round. ‘No, Ricardo’s not at home. He’s too busy. He had a pressing engagement followed by an important lunch with the directors of the Academy of Political and Moral Sciences, who, as you should know but don’t, are visiting, a token of their appreciation, quite unusual really, despite the fact we live in Madrid. The session will be here, during the summer. They’re to pay him a tribute in the provinces. You can imagine the state he’s in, having just received the Raimundo de Peñafort medal.’

‘Yes, apart from the medal, how is he?’

He shouldn’t have asked this question she was waiting to answer with one of those fateful punches you get in a clinch in the ring.

With a youthful spirit. Like an ox. Living a second spring. Any one will do.

‘Unbearable,’ she said with a triumphant smile, as if she meant a little child. ‘He won’t stop.’

Yes, in this meeting, she was giving him a good hiding with the back of her tongue. He’d come in search of sin, the stain of history, but it wasn’t going to be cheap as far as she was concerned.

Another punch.

‘He’s in fine fettle. Gets up early every day, when it’s still dark, does his exercises on the bearskin, as you know, works in the study and then attends first Mass. Won’t hear about a siesta. Before lunch, he has a quick doze, a few minutes, what he calls the ram’s sleep.’

He’s waiting to be asked in. Would you like to come in? But no. She says, ‘I’m sorry not to invite you in, but I was just on my way out. And next time don’t act like a terrorist. Use the front door!’

She raised her index finger, an apparently spontaneous movement that is aimed at poking out the other’s eye. ‘I’m in a hurry! Ricardo and I are due to have lunch with the board of honour of the Academy of Political and Moral Sciences in recognition of a whole life devoted to Law and Justice. Work that has always been solid, discreet, rigorous, never political or biased. The work of an exemplary civil servant. I’ll tell him you called.’