“Relax, Martín. You make too much of the props.”
Calmly, the boss began to read the pages I had brought.
“I think I’ll go for a walk while you read,” I said.
Corelli didn’t bother to look up.
“Don’t escape from me,” he murmured.
I got away as fast as I could without making it obvious that I was doing just that, and wandered among the paths with their twists and turns. I skirted obelisks and tombs as I entered the heart of the necropolis. The tombstone was still there, marked by a vase containing only the skeleton of shriveled flowers. Vidal had paid for the funeral and had even commissioned a Pietà from a sculptor of some repute in the undertakers’ guild. She guarded the tomb, eyes looking heavenward, her hands on her chest in supplication. I knelt down by the tombstone and cleaned away the moss that had covered the letters chiseled on it.
JOSÉ ANTONIO MARTÍN CLARÉS
1875–1908
Hero of the Philippines War
His country and his friends will never forget him
“Good morning, Father,” I said.
I watched the black rain as it slid down the face of the Pietà, listened to the sound of the drops hitting the tombstones, and offered a smile to the health of those friends he’d never had and that country that had consigned him to a living death in order to enrich a handful of caciques who never knew he existed. I sat on the gravestone and put my hand on the marble.
“Who would have guessed, eh?”
My father, who had lived on the verge of destitution, rested eternally in a bourgeois tomb. As a child I had never understood why the newspaper had decided to give him a funeral with a smart priest and hired mourners, with flowers and a resting place fit for a sugar merchant. Nobody told me it was Vidal himself who paid for the lavish funeral of the man who had died in his place, although I had always suspected as much and had attributed the gesture to that infinite kindness and generosity with which the heavens had blessed my mentor and idol.
“I must beg your forgiveness, Father. For years I hated you for leaving me here alone. I told myself you’d got the death you deserved. That’s why I never came to see you. Forgive me.”
My father had never liked tears. He thought a man never cried for others, only for himself. And if he did cry, he was a coward and deserved no pity. I didn’t want to cry for my father and betray him yet again.
“I would have liked you to have seen my name in a book, even if you couldn’t read it. I would have liked you to have been here with me, to see that your son is managing to get on in life and has been able to do things that you were never allowed to do. I would have liked to have known you, Father, and for you to have known me. I turned you into a stranger in order to forget you and now I’m the stranger.”
I didn’t hear the boss approaching, but when I raised my head I saw him watching me from just a few meters away. I stood up and went over to him, like a well-trained dog. I wondered whether he knew my father was buried there and whether he had asked me to meet him in the graveyard for that very reason. My expression must have betrayed me, because the boss shook his head and put a hand on my shoulder.
“I didn’t know, Martín. I’m sorry.”
I was not going to open that door of friendship to him. I turned away to rid myself of his gesture of sympathy and pressed my eyes shut to contain the tears of anger. I started to walk toward the exit, without him. The boss waited a few seconds and then followed me. He walked beside me in silence until we reached the main gates. There I stopped and glared at him impatiently.
“Well? Any comments?”
The boss ignored my hostile tone and smiled indulgently.
“The work is excellent.”
“But …”
“If I had any observation to make it would be that you’ve gotten the matter exactly right by constructing the whole story from the point of view of a witness to the events, someone who feels like a victim and speaks on behalf of a people awaiting the warrior savior. I want you to continue along those lines.”
“You don’t think it sounds forced, contrived?”
“On the contrary. Nothing makes us believe more than fear, the certainty of being threatened. When we feel like victims, all our actions and beliefs are legitimized, however questionable they may be. Our opponents, or simply our neighbors, stop sharing common ground with us and become our enemies. We stop being aggressors and become defenders. The envy, greed, or resentment that motivates us becomes sanctified, because we tell ourselves we’re acting in self-defense. Evil, menace—those are always the preserve of the other. The first step for believing passionately is fear. Fear of losing our identity, our life, our status, or our beliefs. Fear is the gunpowder and hatred is the fuse. Dogma, the final ingredient, is only a lighted match. That is where I think your work has a hole or two.”
“Please clarify one thing. Are you looking for a faith or a dogma?”
“It’s not enough that people should believe. They must believe what we want them to believe. And they must not question it or listen to the voice of whoever questions it. Dogma must form part of identity itself. Whoever questions it is our enemy. He is evil. And it is our right and our duty to confront and destroy him. It is the only road to salvation. Believe in order to survive.”
I sighed and looked away, nodding reluctantly.
“You don’t look convinced, Martín. Tell me what you’re thinking. Do you think I’m mistaken?”
“I don’t know. I think you are simplifying things in a dangerous way. Your whole speech sounds like a stratagem for generating and channeling hatred.”
“The adjective you were going to use was not dangerous but repugnant, but I won’t hold that against you.”
“Why should we reduce faith to an act of rejection and blind obedience? Is it not possible to believe in values of acceptance, of harmony?”
The boss smiled. He was enjoying himself.
“It is possible to believe in anything, Martín, be it the free market or even the tooth fairy. We can even believe that we don’t believe in anything, as you do, which is the greatest credulity of them all. Am I right?”
“The customer is always right. What is the other hole you see in the story?”
“I miss having a villain. Whether we realize it or not, most of us define ourselves by opposing rather than by favoring something or someone. To put it another way, it is easier to react than to act. Nothing arouses a passion for dogma more than a good antagonist. And the more unlikely the better.”
“I thought that role would work better in the abstract. The antagonist would be the nonbeliever, the alien, the one outside the group.”
“Yes, but I’d like you to be more specific. It’s difficult to hate an idea. That requires a certain intellectual discipline and a slightly obsessive, sick mind. There aren’t too many of those. It’s much easier to hate someone with a recognizable face whom we can blame for everything that makes us feel uncomfortable. It doesn’t have to be an individual character. It could be a nation, a race, a group … anything.”
The boss’s flawless cynicism could get the better even of me. I gave a despondent sigh.
“Don’t pretend to be a model citizen now, Martín. It’s all the same to you, and we need a villain in this vaudeville. You should know that better than anyone. There is no drama without a conflict.”
“What sort of villain would you like? A tyrant invader? A false prophet? The bogeyman?”
“I’ll leave the outfit to you. Any of the usual suspects suits me. One of the functions of our villain must be to allow us to adopt the role of the victim and claim our moral superiority. We project onto him all those things we are incapable of recognizing in ourselves, things we demonize according to our particular interests. It’s the basic arithmetic of the Pharisees. I keep telling you, you need to read the Bible. All the answers you’re looking for are in there.”
“I’m on the case.”
“All you have to do is convince the san
ctimonious that they are free of all sin and they’ll start throwing stones, or bombs, with gusto. In fact, it doesn’t take much, because they can be convinced with the bare minimum of encouragement and excuses. I don’t know whether I’m making myself clear.”
“You are making yourself abundantly clear. Your arguments have the subtlety of a blast furnace.”
“I’m not sure I like that condescending tone, Martín. Does this mean you think this project isn’t on a par with your moral or intellectual purity?”
“Not at all,” I mumbled faintheartedly.
“What is it, then? Something tickling your conscience, dear friend?”
“The usual thing. I’m not sure I’m the nihilist you need.”
“Nobody is. Nihilism is an attitude, not a doctrine. Place the flame from a candle under the testicles of a nihilist and notice how quickly he sees the light of existence. Something else is bothering you.”
I raised my head and summoned up the most defiant manner I was capable of.
“Perhaps what’s bothering me is that I understand everything you say, but I don’t feel it.”
“Do I pay you to have feelings?”
“Sometimes feeling and thinking are one and the same. The idea is yours, not mine.”
The boss smiled and allowed a dramatic pause, like a schoolteacher preparing the lethal sword thrust with which to silence an unruly pupil.
“And what do you feel, Martín?”
The irony and disdain in his voice encouraged me and I gave vent to the humiliation accumulated during all those months in his shadow. Anger and shame at feeling terrified by his presence and allowing his poisonous speeches. Anger and shame because he had proved to me that, even if I would rather believe the only thing I had in me was despair, my soul was as petty and miserable as his sewer humanism claimed. Anger and shame at feeling, knowing, that he was always right, especially when it hurt to accept that.
“I’ve asked you a question, Martín. What is it you feel?”
“I feel that the best course would be to leave things as they are and give you back your money. I feel that, whatever it is you are proposing with this absurd venture, I’d rather not take part in it. And, above all, I feel regret for ever having met you.”
The boss lowered his eyelids. He turned and walked a few steps toward the cemetery gates. I watched his dark silhouette outlined against the marble garden, a motionless shape in the rain. I felt murky fear grow inside me, inspiring a childish wish to beg forgiveness and accept any punishment in exchange for not having to bear that silence. And I felt disgust. At his presence and, in particular, at myself.
The boss turned round and came over to me again. He stopped just centimeters from me and put his face close to mine. I felt his cold breath on my skin and drowned in his black, bottomless eyes. This time his voice and his tone were like ice, devoid of that studied humanity that informed his conversation and his gestures.
“I will tell you only once. You fulfill your obligations and I’ll fulfill mine. It’s the only thing you can and must feel.”
I was not aware that I was nodding repeatedly until the boss pulled the sheaf of papers from his pocket and handed it to me. He let the pages fall before I was able to catch them and a gust of wind swept them away, scattering them near the cemetery gates. I rushed to recover them from the rain, but some of the pages had fallen into puddles and were bleeding in the water. I gathered them together in a fistful of wet paper. When I looked up again, the boss had gone.
27
I fever I had needed to see a friendly face, it was then. The old building of The Voice of Industry peered over the cemetery walls. I headed there, hoping to find my former master Don Basilio, one of those rare souls immune to the world’s stupidity, who always had good advice. When I walked into the newspaper offices I discovered that I still recognized most of the staff. It seemed as if not a minute had passed since I’d left the place so many years before. Those who, in turn, recognized me, gave me suspicious looks and turned their heads to avoid having to greet me. I slipped into the editorial department and went straight to Don Basilio’s office, which was at the far end. It was empty.
“Who are you looking for?”
I turned round and saw Rosell, one of the journalists who’d already seemed old to me even when I was working there. Rosell had penned the poisonous review of The Steps of Heaven, describing me as a “writer of classified advertisements.”
“Señor Rosell, I’m Martín. David Martín. Don’t you remember me?”
Rosell spent a few moments inspecting me, pretending to have great difficulty in recognizing me, but finally he nodded.
“Where’s Don Basilio?”
“He left two months ago. You’ll find him at the offices of La Vanguardia. If you see him, give him my regards.”
“I’ll do that.”
“I’m sorry about your book,” said Rosell with an obliging smile.
I crossed the editorial department cutting a path among the unfriendly looks, twisted smiles, and venomous whispers. Time cures all, I thought, except the truth.
…
Half an hour later, a taxi dropped me off at the door of the main offices of La Vanguardia in Calle Pelayo. In contrast to the rather forbidding shabbiness of my old newspaper, everything here spoke of elegance and opulence. I made myself known at the reception and a chirpy young boy who looked like an unpaid intern, reminding me of myself in my youth, was dispatched to let Don Basilio know he had a visitor. My old friend’s leonine presence remained unchanged; if anything, with his new attire matching the impressive setting, Don Basilio struck as formidable a figure as he had in his days at The Voice of Industry. His eyes lit up with joy when he saw me, and, breaking his iron protocol, he greeted me with an embrace that could easily have lost me two or three ribs had there not been an audience—happy or not, Don Basilio had to keep up appearances.
“Getting a little respectable, are we, Don Basilio?”
My old boss shrugged his shoulders, making a gesture to play down the new décor.
“Don’t let it impress you.”
“Don’t be modest, Don Basilio, you’ve ended up with the jewel in the crown. Are you taking them in hand?”
Don Basilio pulled out his perennial red pencil and showed it to me, winking as he did so.
“I go through four a week.”
“Two fewer than at The Voice.”
“Give me time. I have one or two experts here who punctuate with a pistol and think that an intro is an orthopedic contraption.”
Despite his words, it was obvious that Don Basilio felt comfortable in his new home, and he looked healthier than ever.
“Don’t tell me you’ve come to ask me for work, because I might even give it to you,” he threatened.
“That’s very kind of you, Don Basilio, but you know I gave up the cloth and journalism isn’t for me.”
“Then let me know how this grumpy old man can be of service.”
“I need some information about an old case for a story I’m working on. The death of a well-known lawyer called Marlasca. Diego Marlasca.”
“What year are we talking about?”
“Nineteen hundred and four.”
Don Basilio sighed.
“That’s going back a long way. A lot of water under the dam.”
“Not enough to wash the matter away.”
Don Basilio put a hand on my shoulder and asked me to follow him to the editorial department.
“Don’t worry, you’ve come to the right place. These good people maintain an archive that would be the envy of the Vatican. If there was anything in the press, we’ll find it for you. Besides, the archivist is a good friend of mine. Let me warn you that next to him I’m Snow White. Pay no attention to his unfriendly disposition. Deep down—very deep down—he’s kindness itself.”
I followed Don Basilio through a wide hall with fine wood paneling. On one side was a circular room with a large round table and a series of portraits of an illu
strious group of frowning members of the aristocracy.
“The room for the witches’ Sabbaths,” Don Basilio explained. “All the section heads meet here with the deputy editor, yours truly, and the editor, and like good Knights of the Round Table, we find the Holy Grail every evening at seven o’clock.”
“Impressive.”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” said Don Basilio, winking at me. “Look at this.”
Don Basilio stood beneath one of the august portraits and pushed the wooden panel covering the wall. The panel, yielding with a creak, revealed a hidden corridor.
“What do you say, Martín? And this is only one of the many secret passages in the building. Not even the Borgias had a setup like this.”
Don Basilio led me down the corridor to a large reading room surrounded by glass cabinets, the repository of La Vanguardias secret library. At one end of the room, under the beam emanating from a lampshade of green glass, a middle-aged man was sitting at a table examining a document with a magnifying glass. When he saw us come in he raised his head and gave us a look that would have made anyone young or sensitive turn to stone.
“Let me introduce you to José María Brotons, lord of the underworld, chief of the catacombs of this holy house,” Don Basilio announced.
Without letting go of the magnifying glass, Brotons observed me with eyes that seemed to go rusty on contact. I went up to him and shook his hand.
“This is my old apprentice, David Martín.”
Brotons reluctantly shook my hand and glanced at Don Basilio.
“Is this the writer?”
“The very one.”
Brotons nodded.
“He’s certainly courageous, stepping out into the street after the thrashing they gave him. What’s he doing here?”
“He’s come to plead for your help, your blessing, and your advice on an important matter of documental archaeology,” Don Basilio explained.
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