A Million Drops

by Victor del Arbol

  It was he, and not Lola, who had bought the revolver; he was the one who’d treated his son with undeserved scorn, the one who refused to see the signs, the one who hadn’t realized that the wall of silence erected was becoming insurmountable. What right did he have to blame his wife? Hadn’t he just done the same thing with Tania a few hours earlier? Did their individual reasons really matter? Did their excuses make any difference at all?

  “I didn’t know. My God, if only I had known!” Lola sobbed, curled into a ball on the bedroom floor, stifling her cries in a pillow so that Patricia wouldn’t hear. Shattered, her eyes implored Gonzalo to believe her, and Gonzalo looked without seeing, without hearing, like when he took off his glasses and the world of appearances disappeared, leaving only hazy, indistinct outlines.

  He sat next to her on the floor and mechanically encircled her in his arms. Slowly, Lola’s stomach seized again and again, over and over, desperation catching in her throat, but no tears soothed her. Only the nausea that precedes a sense of total emptiness.

  The old wolf at Ciutadella Zoo studied Gonzalo with indifference. He prowled his enclosure and at least once got close enough to the moat to show his decaying yellow fangs. The animal seemed to be wondering why this man kept coming, week after week, to sit behind the dirty partition and watch him with such focused attention. Can’t you see? This is what I am. Just go, leave me alone.

  But Gonzalo was still there, smoking one cigarette after another, wanting to confide things only this soulless old beast could understand.

  “If I jumped over this partition, you wouldn’t even attack, would you? You’d just sniff me and decide I wasn’t worth wasting your energy. I bet you wouldn’t even try to escape if I opened the gate. You don’t care about anything outside your enclosure, not anymore. And you know what’s funny? I wanted to be like you until I saw you like this. It wasn’t actually you I was seeing, it was me. A wild wolf, not tied down. So stupid. This is what we become: broken, tamed, domesticated; we accept our lot in life. I wish I’d realized in time. This is insane. I’m not a wolf, I’m not Laura, I’m not my father. I’m not even the man my mother wants to believe I am.”

  The wolf shook his head, slowly circled his enclosure, sniffed his own shit, and then hid from Gonzalo behind some bushes. Through the branches, Gonzalo could see his honey-colored eyes and pink tongue, panting.

  “This is what we do—hide, try to become invisible. We step lightly; it’s called emotional economy. I have to accept it, and you seem to have managed. How? How do you learn to be so resigned?”

  “It’s called pragmatism, though some call it brains or adaptability.”

  Gonzalo would have liked to think it was the bored wolf that had finally spoken, in an attempt to rid himself of this annoying human and his depressing observations. But it wasn’t the wolf. Or at least not the one in the cage, Gonzalo thought, turning to the right to see Alcázar.

  “Strange place for us to meet,” said the ex-inspector.

  Strange? Why? Weren’t they both caged monsters? They were in their element here. This was as fitting as meeting in a prison cell, which is what his son was looking at if—as the doctors said after a week in observation—he fully recovered from the coma and his postop continued to progress.

  Alcázar sat beside him and looked around glumly.

  “This place has changed a lot since the days my father used to bring me, when I was a kid. I remember the second you came in through the gate, the whole zoo smelled like animals. I loved that smell.”

  Gonzalo had to admire how effortlessly hypocrisy came to Alcázar. Luisa had put together a file on the ex-inspector; Gonzalo had read it.

  “Your father used to bring you here?”

  “He sure did.”

  Sitting there evoking memories, eating lupine beans from a paper cone like a nostalgic old man—charming, the world of appearances. It was amazing. No one would have guessed that this mild-mannered grandfatherly man with a mustache that wriggled like a caterpillar was a killer who’d threatened to harm Patricia if Gonzalo went against his wishes.

  “So was that before or after throwing detainees from the police station window? How did it work? Did he sign police reports sentencing men to death first and then, to unwind, turn into a normal father?”

  Alcázar took the blow without batting an eyelid. He was used to the uncomfortable way half-truths sat with half-lies, the midpoint between what people knew and what they thought they knew. It had taken him years to understand why his father insisted on protecting Elías to the end but was merciless with others just like him. Nor did Alcázar understand why, that night in 1967 when he called his father to ask what he should do with Gil’s body, his father told him not to move and showed up at the lake an hour later—in the middle of the night—to say he’d take care of everything. Elías was still breathing despite the open wound on his back, and Ramón sat beside him and stroked his face, already starting to pale. Elías whispered something, and Ramón had to put his ear so close that it got covered in blood. And then Ramón looked up at his son and asked where the Russian was. Alcázar had made her wait in the car. Get her, his father ordered. And to Anna Akhmatova, He wants to talk to you. Ramón moved off to give them some privacy after asking his son for a handkerchief to wipe the blood from Elías’s face. You need to leave, Alcázar’s father told him, and don’t tell anyone about this. I’ll deal with it.

  It wasn’t until his father was on his deathbed, a few years later, that Alcázar found out the truth. Ramón Alcázar Suñer had saved Elías’s life in Argelès, and then several more times in subsequent years. He did it because Elías was his friend, but also because it was thanks to Elías that he—Alberto Alcázar—had grown up with a father. If Elías had not made the decision to be a man and not a Party member, on that night in 1938, everything about their lives would have been radically different. Gonzalo didn’t know this. But Laura did. She knew the truth. And the truth would die when the last person who’d lived it did.

  This was something he accepted with forbearance; he had to put aside his reticence and be the keeper of these shades of gray. Because the truth is never straightforward. In his personal opinion, Elías Gil was a bastard. But history, and his own father, had decided to make him into a hero.

  “You shouldn’t be so quick to pass judgment on what you don’t know,” was all he said in reply.

  “I know what I know.”

  Alcázar spread his hands in resignation. “In that case, you know nothing.”

  “I don’t want my family suffering anymore.”

  “I understand, and I know what you think. It’s not like I enjoyed having to get your daughter involved in this.”

  He seemed sincere. Gonzalo wondered what Alcázar was capable of, how far he would be willing to go.

  “Would you actually hurt her? A girl not yet ten years old?”

  Alcázar gave him a look that said, Blow out this candle before you start a huge fire. It was hard to gauge his true feelings.

  “You lied to my sister all these years. She trusted you, put herself at your mercy, and you betrayed her.”

  The ex-inspector examined the inside of his little cone, spat out a desiccated lupine, and tossed the paper cone into the trash. His mustache wormed along as he ran his tongue across his top teeth. Alcázar didn’t want to get into this. Gonzalo was both right and wrong. But he really didn’t care what the man thought about his relationship with Laura or his involvement in what happened to Roberto. There were already too many judges. And at least Gonzalo’s low opinion of him gave him the freedom to act in a way that would live up to expectations.

  “Look, you called me and here I am. Are you going to tell me who Laura’s informer was or not?”

  Gonzalo still acted as uncertain as the day Alcázar first met him. Still had the same evasive look, the timid way of avoiding dealing with things head-on, even now. Alcázar decided to
give him an incentive.

  “Atxaga is still out there, Gonzalo. I can call my men off, have them stop guarding your house, stop looking for him myself. And if I do, whatever happens will not be my responsibility.”

  Gonzalo gave Alcázar a sideways look that said this hesitation was not due to cowardice and that he found blackmail as repugnant as the ex-inspector’s very presence. His eyes told Alcázar not to underestimate him or mistake prudence for something else. He might be like that old wolf, but he still had teeth and knew how to use them.

  “I’ll forget about the Matryoshka, I’ll forget about Laura. I’ll sell the house, do whatever it takes, let the old man fuck me over for the rest of my life if that’s what he wants. But you have to get my family out of this.”

  “A man is dead, Gonzalo. It’s not that easy.”

  “My son cannot go to jail, and Lola can’t be implicated in any way. I don’t want anyone pointing their fingers at Patricia when she walks down the street. You were chief inspector, there must be plenty of people who owe you favors. Call them in.”

  “Your father-in-law is on his way back. He’ll be here in a couple of days and he’s been apprised of the situation. He knows how to handle these kinds of things.”

  Gonzalo laughed disparagingly, teeth clenched.

  “My father-in-law is the one who got me into this mess. The best I can hope for is that his plane crashes.”

  “Maybe, but he’s one of the best criminal attorneys in the country. Your son killed a man, the evidence is irrefutable. The way I see it, the old man is the only one who could possibly save him. He’ll get a lesser sentence, maybe three years in a juvenile detention center.”

  Gonzalo was prepared to give everything up, as long as in return he got the one assurance that Alcázar could give him. Agustín might be the finest scammer in the land, his influence might be enough to get a not-guilty verdict for Javier. But that wasn’t what Gonzalo was talking about. He wanted none of it to come out in public, and there was only one way to ensure that.

  “You misunderstand me, Inspector.” When had he gotten the nerve to talk down to Alcázar, to give him threatening looks? “Change the proof or make it disappear. My son is not going to jail, not for a single day. Understood?”

  “You’re a lawyer, you know what you’re asking is impossible. It’s gone too far.”

  “I’ll give you the name of Laura’s informer, I’ll refuse to testify against you and Agustín. I’ll leave you in peace. In exchange for my son’s freedom. And if you say no, then nothing will stop me—not your threats and not those of your Russian buddies.”

  “What about the laptop?”

  “I don’t know who has it, but that doesn’t matter. If I don’t give the prosecutor the information, it’s as though it never existed. Besides, it wouldn’t be valid without Siaka’s testimony anyway.”

  Gonzalo realized he’d slipped up the second he spoke. And the dark glimmer in Alcázar’s eyes told him how critical an error it was.

  “The fucking African kid? Zinoviev’s lapdog is Deep Throat?” Alcázar shook his head, almost amused, and smacked his forehead. He should have known from the start. It made sense.

  “What are you going to do? Are you going to kill him?”

  Alcázar didn’t rule out the idea; in fact, it would be the most convenient solution. And if he didn’t do it himself, someone in the organization would. Anna had warned him. It had all gone too far, perhaps past the point of no return. But Alcázar had his own plans.

  “I told you once already, Gonzalo. I’ve done things any man would regret, but I’m not a killer. Where is he?”

  “I haven’t heard from him in days. We were supposed to meet at a café, but the waiter told me he left ten minutes before I got there. By now he’s probably gone forever.”

  Neither of them believed that. Siaka was not the type to be scared of taking the next step.

  The ex-inspector stood and observed the wolf’s enclosure. There was no sign of the animal, but he was there, crouching in the bushes, waiting.

  “I’ll see what can be done about Javier. Meanwhile, I’m afraid I have to ask you something else. I can’t force you, and the truth is it shouldn’t even matter to me, but you should stop seeing Tania Akhmatova. It’s none of my business who you cheat on your wife with, but it’s good advice—especially if you want to leave all this behind.”

  Gonzalo stared at him in shock. “How do you even know about Tania?”

  Alcázar shook out a cigarette and buried the filter under his furry upper lip.

  “Why don’t you ask her that, the next time you see her. Or better yet, ask her mother.”

  Whoever lived in this house gave no attention to detail. That was the first thing that occurred to Siaka. Over time he’d developed a taste for the flamboyant style of the rich, whose parties he’d attended on Zinoviev’s arm. He liked ornate furniture, heavy curtains, gold-leaf crown molding, and fine china. The more garish, the more luxurious—in his mind that was the aesthetics of power. Despite Siaka’s situation, displeasure at his surroundings was the first thing that registered.

  The room had high, pitched ceilings, swanky exposed concrete beams, and sweeping curtainless windows that overlooked the sea. Approaching the window, he found it conveniently locked from the outside. An iroko wood deck jutted out several meters over the cliff. On the right was a large sunshade, its canvas down, and wicker furniture with thick colorful cushions. Siaka retraced his steps and tried to open to door. It was locked, too.

  “What a lovely cell.”

  The smooth walls were entirely bare; the only furniture, minimalist. A glass table with steel legs on which sat a bowl of fruit and a tray of food. Perspex chairs matched the seeming transparency of the whole room: blindingly white, almost evanescent. A beautiful cell indeed.

  His head still hurt. He touched the swollen nape of his neck and felt two tiny marks, hardly bigger than mosquito bites. A stun gun, that must have been what took him out. He had a thick bandage on his head and put a hand to it, remembering that before losing consciousness he had cracked it on a step at the entrance to the Metro. Aside from that, he seemed in fairly good shape.

  But they haven’t even started, Siaka thought.

  He had little doubt as to why he was there but still felt upset at the décor—it was too modern for the likes of the Matryoshka. Those Eastern European thugs with their dirty wars weren’t so considerate. They chose dank cellars and dungeons or abandoned warehouses for their interrogations. Sleaze and squalor were their modus operandi, a backdrop befitting the terror they inflicted. And it would definitely never have occurred to them to leave a tray with poached eggs, multigrain toast, and fresh fruit. They’d have forced him to eat his own shit.

  The guy with the newspaper. It must have been him. So his instinct had warned him after all; Siaka simply hadn’t listened in time.

  He sat on one of the chairs and wondered what would happen now, looking around for a camera. He found it in a high corner, hidden between the joists. Siaka waved.

  “I’m ready. We can start whenever you want. And by the way, the eggs need salt.”

  Two minutes later he heard the door being unlocked. It was him, the guy with the newspaper.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Siaka asked, standing, eyes glued to the thick iron rod the man was wielding in his right hand as he approached.

  The guy slipped his left hand into a pocket and pulled something out. A salt shaker. “I got your salt.”

  Siaka’s eyes darted back and forth from one hand to the other but didn’t manage to dodge the first blow; the iron bar slammed into his side full force.

  “You should treat your guests a little better,” he said, gasping for breath. He’d doubled over with the blow and was now staring at the tips of the stranger’s shiny expensive shoes.

  “And you should be less demanding of your host.”r />
  The second blow struck him right in the mouth, scattering his teeth like dice across the marble floor. So much for the perfect snake-charmer smile he used on unsuspecting tourists.

  Siaka’s mind flashed back to the Scotland Yard officer with great tits. He should have taken her .22. It would have come in really handy right now.

  Over the next several days, Gonzalo hardly left the hospital. He spent hours behind the glass, gazing at the jumble of tubes and cables and machines keeping his son alive. Javier had regained consciousness, and that meant that beneath those closed eyelids, his mind was working; he was analyzing his surroundings, thinking about what had happened and about the consequences. But he still wasn’t ready to deal with it.

  “It’s best not to upset him,” the doctors had said.

  Gonzalo respected his privacy, understood better than anyone that Javier needed to be alone for now, but he wasn’t going anywhere. He wanted his son to know he was right there by his side, wanted the first thing Javier saw when he finally opened his eyes to be his father’s arms, embracing him.

  Lola came early in the mornings and sat with Gonzalo, saying nothing. She had an expectant, devoted demeanor. Over the course of those weeks she’d lost the last vestiges of her youth and become an empty shell, someone with no soul and no inner light; it was as though she’d given up. Her hair hung limp, her sunken eyes made her cheekbones jut out sharply, and her nose was permanently red. Despite the sleeping pills the doctor had prescribed, she got almost no rest and hardly ate at all. It was as though she’d shut her body down in order to devote all of her energy to the wait.

  Ironically, Gonzalo and Lola seemed almost to bond over the cigarettes they shared, by the door of the hospital cafeteria.

  “I sent Patricia to my father’s estate in Cáceres until this is all over. I don’t want her living through it.”

  Gonzalo nodded. It was better that way. Lola hadn’t asked his opinion. Nor had Agustín. The second his father-in-law landed at the airport, he took charge of the situation. Suddenly nothing was more important than dealing with the murder his grandson had committed. The Matryoshka, the merger between their law firms, the sale of the property, and the whole ACASA project disappeared from his list of priorities in a single stroke.