“Out!”
That was when it became imperative to summon all of his strength, to force his legs to move, to clench his sphincter, to keep from sobbing. This was the closest thing to dignity he could hope for—not to embarrass himself at the last minute. To calm the maelstrom of his mind just long enough to formulate a thought for his wife and child. To quickly say I love you, murmur Forgive me, to whom he did not know; to smile faintly in search of comfort, knowing that he was utterly alone as he crossed the stone courtyard and men turned their gazes away. Guilty, all guilty. Why at night? Why like this, with the guard behaving in a cowardly manner despite loud-mouth antics as he shoved Ramón into the waiting car? Give my best regards to Jesus-fucking-Christ your goddamned savior. The guard, too, was afraid of himself, of his own brutality; Ramón could see it in the way his cigarette trembled between his lips, in the senseless hatred reflected in his eyes. Soon it will be my turn. This was what his eyes said.
The car, driven by a young man—judging by the back of his neck—set off down a road Ramón could not identify. Two aides along for the ride had put a hood on him and made him lie facedown on the backseat. So this, too, would be denied him—the sight of one last starry night, the chance to envision a magical place, something that would await him after the trench, up there in the sky above. For him, only the sour-smelling hood and the reek of the cloth seat. And then at some point, one of the guards lit a cigarette and rolled down the window, and there came the smell of pine, of forests far from the city, resin fermenting until spring, night whipping through the fields. It seemed to take forever for the car to stop, although men in such circumstances lose all notion of time. He clung to each minute, aware of each breath he took, each pain in his body, the hood’s rough flannel touching his cheeks. This is it, he thought, when they pulled him from the car and ordered him to walk. A shot in the back, his head still covered and hands still tied behind him.
But nothing happened. He heard tires on gravel and was sure that the headlights’ glare had been replaced by the milky moon. He listened. Night, silence, a woman’s panicked cries nearby. His wife. He felt her frantic hands stroke the hood as though molding his features in clay as she whimpered, kissing him through the cloth. A firm hand removed his handcuffs and Ramón wrenched off his hood and inhaled deeply, desperately, as though surfacing from the bottom of the sea. But there was nothing but a star-filled sky, the silhouette of Montseny mountain in the distance, and the sprinkling of lights that was Sant Celoni village, close to the railroad tracks. He embraced his wife, who wailed as though unable to believe it was him. Ramón saw his son, standing beside a car whose lights were out though the engine was on. The man holding his hand let go and the boy tottered awkwardly to his father’s legs.
Elías Gil lit a cigarette and leaned against the car’s hood. The men who would take Ramón to the front line and help him and his family cross were trustworthy—mercenaries, black marketers, bootleggers employed by the Gat Negre’s madam. Elías handed him the papers without a word, without even looking at him.
“I’d be quick if I were you,” he said then. “You’ve got a long road ahead of you. And Ramón, one more thing. Don’t come back until it’s all over. You’ve done your hero’s duty.”
He looked at the woman, at the boy who would never know that his father had been willing to sacrifice them both for nothing. They would remember that night as heroic, would recount it to their grandchildren and feel proud of Ramón Alcázar Suñer.
“Why, Elías?”
Elías Gil shrugged, crushed his cigarette beneath his heel, and walked back to the car. All men are forced to make decisions. And every decision has consequences. He knew that only too well.
The memory of Irina and Anna was a reminder of that, each and every day.
20
BARCELONA, OCTOBER 2002
Leaving the hotel was risky and Siaka knew it, but summer had come to an end and the cruise ship flying the Union Jack would likely be the last one to dock in Barcelona for months. The stream of tourists was too tempting to pass up.
Sitting at an outdoor café across from the dockyard, he watched them file off the ship like rash little ants, marching toward the statue of Columbus and then up the Ramblas. They were comical, almost adorable, with their ridiculous out-of-season hats, their cameras and pale skin, trailing obediently after the guide, who held a closed umbrella aloft in order to be seen. It was kind of funny, the fact that he saw them as foreigners. This was his city, after all, Siaka thought, standing up.
He’d picked an attractive middle-aged blonde who was lagging behind, gazing at buildings. What initially attracted him was the fact that she wasn’t snapping photos every five seconds. She chose to actually look at things rather than mindlessly try to capture them.
Good for you, Siaka thought. He liked getting a read on people, seeing things about them that they were unable to see in themselves. This woman, for instance: intelligent but overly sentimental; easily swayed by appearances and vague promises, by the grandiosity of places she was just passing through; liberal profession, a lawyer maybe, recently divorced; the trip was an effort to get over the trauma of it all, an attempt to expand her horizons and ease the pain that had not fully healed; sexually active, fake smile, obvious effort put into seeming carefree and laid-back.
Perfect.
They parted ways a few hours later, she with a slightly mocking look in her eye. No doubt she knew that Siaka had tried to lift her wallet as she was getting dressed. The woman imagined his face on seeing what was in her purse, the shock he must have gotten. A Scotland Yard badge and a small semiautomatic .22-caliber handgun.
“Relax, I’m on holiday,” she said, giving him a kiss on the lips and slipping a bill into his pocket.
He was losing his touch, Siaka thought, watching her head off in a taxi. He hadn’t even been able to enjoy the sex, despite the fact that the hotel had been up to his standards. Satin sheets, fine robes, liqueurs and engraved glasses waiting on a silver tray, chintz curtains that matched the baroque furniture. His brain and his dick were at odds, going in opposite directions. Gonzalo’s call hung in the air like a bad omen. The lawyer had insisted on meeting him at a bar not far from the hotel. Siaka asked what was going on, but Gonzalo refused to say anything except that he’d discovered that Alcázar worked for the Matryoshka.
Why wasn’t he surprised? Inspector Alcázar—ex-inspector, actually—had never struck him as squeaky clean. He’d had his suspicions for a long time, and though Laura never said anything, Siaka had sensed that she no longer trusted him. But he was worried about getting trapped. Lately he was getting paranoid, couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being followed and watched, and fear made it impossible to do anything.
Still smarting from his experience with the tourist, Siaka walked into the café-bar where he’d arranged to meet Gonzalo and ordered coffee. He was early.
It was time to rethink his options. He couldn’t go on like this, worked up and stressed out all the time, or he’d lose his mind.
I should take off, get out of here, just go.
That was what his instincts kept telling him. Run, Siaka, run.
He thought about the attractive Scotland Yard officer. She could have turned him in to hotel security or, worse, taken out that pretty little pistol and shot him. Instead she’d treated him like a naughty little boy she’d chosen to indulge. Yes, he was definitely losing his touch.
Five minutes past the time Gonzalo should have arrived, Siaka began to suspect he wasn’t going to show. Had he blown the meeting off or maybe just gotten stuck in traffic? Impatiently, he glanced up at the clock on the wall, still attentive to the customers coming and going. He checked the time again two minutes later, then three, then four; it seemed to stand still. The alarm bells going off in his head rang louder with every second that ticked by; it was unbearable.
From the corner of his eye, Siaka observed a man lean
ing against the bar reading a sports paper, who seemed to be checking him out. Maybe it was his imagination, but he’d caught the guy staring and then looking away when Siaka caught him—twice. He might have been one of Alcázar’s thugs, someone on the Matryoshka’s payroll, or just a man killing time, reading a paper and having his coffee. But Siaka wasn’t willing to take his chances. Gonzalo was always punctual, and now he was fifteen minutes late. Siaka took a risk and phoned him. Out of range.
Run, Siaka, run, shouted the voice that had kept him alive on so many occasions. Take that train to Paris. What the fuck was he thinking, letting himself get caught up in this? Panicking, he couldn’t even remember what Laura or Roberto looked like. But they were dead and he was alive. It was time to get out of there if he wanted to keep it that way.
Siaka took a few deep breaths in an attempt to bring down his heart rate, paid with the bill the tourist had given him (as if he was a common prostitute), and kept a furtive eye on the guy at the bar while waiting for his change. He relaxed a bit, the man looked harmless. But you never could tell. Zinoviev had once told him about a kind of spider that’s almost invisible and yet injects you with a poison so deadly it can kill within hours.
He walked out and headed for the Metro, turning a few times, feeling he was being followed. But all he saw were passersby, caught up in their own lives.
Man, if you don’t relax, your head’s going to explode.
And in fact, that’s exactly what happened. He felt the impact at the base of his skull while placing a foot on the top step leading down into the Metro station. Intense heat shot up and hit his brain like a fist. Siaka stumbled and fell down the stairs. He felt a crack and knew his tibia had just broken. Despite putting out his hands in an attempt to break the fall, his head hit the edge of the bottom step, which literally cracked his skull.
Reflected in the mirror was an unbearable image, but one that was impossible to erase, even by holding a hand up to cover half of its surface. It was too late. Carlos was still there, lying in bed, forearm under the pillow, looking at her like she was some kind of goddess.
A goddess? Lola closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to keep seeing her own face, lipstick smeared, mascara raccooning her eyes. She hated herself for what she’d done, wanted to rip off her skin to get rid of that smell. Reaching a hand out to the night table, she downed what remained of her whiskey. Nothing changes, she thought, full of self-loathing. The same emptiness, the same realization that it was impossible to become someone else by sleeping with someone else. Just like eighteen years ago, when she found out she was pregnant and knew Gonzalo wasn’t the father.
“This didn’t happen,” she murmured, more to herself although she was looking at him when she said it.
Carlos reached out and stroked her spine. Lola shivered as though his fingers were made of ice.
“Oh, but it did, Lola. I love you. You have to understand. This isn’t about sex; I really like you. We could do anything, go anywhere, you and me. Forget the past.” He really believed what he was saying. Carlos was willing to erase the tape he’d made, and Lola would never even need to know how close she’d been to her own undoing. All she had to do was turn to him and say yes.
Lola stood, offering her whole body to the mirror: firm breasts, narrow hips, flat stomach, pubic hair still wet—a woman at her peak, fully mature. And yet she felt old and pathetic. She didn’t know, and didn’t want to know, how she’d let herself be talked into something so stupid. Screwing her son’s friend in her own bed, in her own house.
She could try to come up with excuses, say she felt lonely and that the two bottles of wine had dampened her judgment, that that was why she’d let Carlos kiss her in the restaurant parking lot, let his hand reach into her blouse to touch her breast, given in to the fingers that sought their way inside her panties and touched her, an overexcited teenager. Yes, she could say she’d been swept up in the heat of the moment, overcome by the urge to live a little: it struck her every once in a while to remind her she was a hot-blooded woman. There was nothing wrong with it, Lola was an attractive woman and didn’t want to miss out on what life had to offer. It was just sex with an attractive young stud who had muscles, a tight ass, and the thrust of a colt trying to prove its worth. A story like any other that she’d save for long winter nights, something to masturbate to when loneliness lay there on the other side of the mattress.
But the truth was quite different. She had been the one to set the whole thing in motion, the one to reach for Carlos’s hand, fully aware of what she was doing and feeling no remorse until, when he penetrated her, Lola’s glance fell on a photo of her husband and children, a photo from a time when they were happy, when she dreamed that they would be enough, that with her family, life would be complete. The sight of it had forced her to face up to her own failure, to her lies, to the fact that she was tired of all the pretending. Lola was filled with sadness on realizing that the reason it was impossible for her to be happy had nothing to do with a lack of sex, or falling out of love, or remorse over what had happened eighteen years ago. She herself was the problem.
And now Carlos’s words, his naïve yet honest desire, made her feel even worse. Run away with a teenage boy? Throw her life overboard? For what? An affair that would last exactly as long as it took for desire to become routine, for the fact that their lives had nothing in common to become apparent, and then she’d grow old alone, embittered over the stupid decisions she’d made that were too late to change. All she wanted was for him to leave, to literally rip the sheets off the bed and stuff them into the washer, and scrub herself in the shower so hard she bled. And forget.
“You have to go. And this won’t happen again, ever.”
Carlos’s face darkened ominously, all expression erased, as though he were a blank canvas to be painted. For a few seconds, he expected to see some tiny flicker of light in her face, a glimmer of hope, of gratitude at least. But all he saw was indifference, remorse, and scorn. Suddenly, looking around Lola’s room, it all came clear: the unmade bed, the light filtering in through gauzy curtains, the pictures of her family, souvenirs and mementos of a life he played no part in and never would. The necklaces and bracelets in the jewelry box on the dresser, the rug on the floor where their underwear lay in a heap, the bottle of whiskey and expensive heavy-bottomed glasses. None of it belonged to him and none of it ever would. He was an accident in this picture, an unintentional brushstroke the artist would cover up the moment he walked out the door.
What an idiot he’d been, to think that things could be different with her. He belonged in the shadows, on dark streets, in diseased buildings with hookers and pimps. Anything else was just a dream. A stupid dream, a pipe dream. He saw that now, saw it clearly as he contemplated her body, which had been nothing but a vessel. And it made him tremble with rage. He thought of the small video camera hidden in his clothes; for a few minutes he’d forgotten why it was there. With Lola he had enjoyed the sex, never with her son. And he was glad not to have yielded to the temptation to tell her everything when she, in a fit of passion, had panted into his ear that she loved him.
“Really? Are you sure you want me to go?”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
Carlos sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at the tips of his dirty boots. Love was fine as long as you didn’t let it take shape, kept it within the manageable bounds of the abstract. Lola should never have been more than a name to him, one of many on a long and tedious list piling up on his table, a list that included her son Javier. They meant nothing to him, they were simply a means to an end, part of his plan. They meant money. Information, numbers, efficiency, economy. That was what mattered. He’d fallen into the trap of believing it could be different. Fortunately, Lola’s expression had sent him crashing into a tangible reality, made him feel in his bones what had until now been a hazy notion, made him hear what had been the distant sound of cries
he had ignored by closing the window. Now there was no way around the evidence: He meant nothing to her or those of her class, and he never would.
Carlos thought about showing her the tape, blackmailing her, asking for a serious amount of money in exchange for keeping her infidelity a secret, as he had with Javier. That was the original plan, but now—his mind was racing—it wasn’t just a question of money. Now it was personal. He was going to make this arrogant cow pay dearly for her scorn. He’d teach her a lesson she would never forget.
Carlos dressed slowly, with painstaking care, to make her uncomfortable. He took his time and hid the camera, repressing an urge to glance back at Lola as he walked out.
He knew where to find Javier.
Javier could tell there was something very wrong; he had a sick feeling that he didn’t dare put a name to. Maybe it would have been undetectable to others, but he could see it in Carlos’s eyes, hear it in his cocky tone, his words seeming to ooze contempt, something that had never been out in the open before, and yet now, for some reason, was on full display.
“What was so urgent? And what are we doing here?”
Carlos was pacing like a caged tiger. He’d told Javier to meet him in an old abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Barcelona.
“You’ve never once asked me where I lived, never showed the slightest interest in my family or anything I do when I’m not with you.” He sneered, looking down on Javier and the rest of the world, defiant, as though to prove that he’d been through hell and survived, nothing scared him. It was as if whatever inferno he’d lived through had burned away his humanity and transformed him into something else, something superior, and he wanted to show it.
A Million Drops Page 40