I felt as if my best friend had slapped me.
‘Don’t be angry with me, Fermín …’
Fermín shook his head.
‘I’m not angry.’
‘I’m just trying to take all this in, Fermín. Let me ask you a question. Just one.’
‘About Valls? No.’
‘Just one question, Fermín. I swear. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to reply.’
Fermín nodded reluctantly.
‘Is this Mauricio Valls the same Valls I think he is?’ I asked.
Fermín nodded.
‘The very one. The one who was Minister of Culture until about four or five years ago. The one who appeared in the papers every other day. The great Mauricio Valls. Author, editor, thinker and messiah of the national intellectual class. That Valls,’ said Fermín.
I realised I’d seen that man’s photograph in the papers dozens of times, that I’d heard his name being mentioned and had seen it printed on the spines of some of the books we had in the shop. Until that night, the name Mauricio Valls was just one more in that dim parade of dignitaries one barely notices but which always seems to be there. Until that night, if anyone had asked me who Mauricio Valls was, I would have said he was only vaguely familiar to me, a public figure of those blighted years to whom I’d never paid much attention. Until that night it would never have crossed my mind to imagine that one day that name, that face, would thereafter be the name and the face of the man who murdered my mother.
‘But …’ I protested.
‘No buts. You said one more question and I’ve answered it already.’
‘Fermín, you can’t leave me like this …’
‘Listen carefully, Daniel.’
Fermín looked me in the eye and gripped my wrist.
‘I swear that, when the moment is right, I myself will help you find that son-of-a-bitch, if it’s the last thing I do in my life. Then we’ll settle our scores with him. But not now. Not like this.’
I looked at him doubtfully.
‘Promise me you won’t do anything stupid, Daniel. Promise you’ll wait for the right moment.’
I looked down.
‘You can’t ask me that, Fermín.’
‘I can and I must.’
At last I nodded and Fermín let go of my arm.
13
When I finally got home it was almost two in the morning. I was about to walk through the front door of the building when I noticed there was light inside the shop, a faint glow coming from behind the back-room curtain. I stepped in through the side door in the hallway and found my father sitting at his desk, enjoying the first cigarette I’d seen him smoke in years. In front of him, on the table, lay an open envelope and the pages of a letter. I pulled a chair over and sat down facing him. My father stared at me, sunk in an impenetrable silence.
‘I didn’t know you smoked,’ I ventured.
He simply shrugged.
‘Good news?’ I asked, pointing at the letter.
My father handed it to me.
‘It’s from your Aunt Laura, the one who lives in Naples.’
‘I have an aunt in Naples?’
‘She’s your mother’s sister, the one who went to live in Italy with her mother’s side of the family the year you were born.’
I nodded absently. I didn’t remember her. Her name belonged among the strangers who came to my mother’s funeral all those years ago, and whom I’d never seen again.
‘She says she has a daughter who is coming to study in Barcelona and wants to know whether she can stay here for a while. Her name is Sofía.’
‘It’s the first time I’ve ever heard her mentioned,’ I said.
‘That makes two of us.’
The thought of my father sharing his flat with a teenager who was a perfect stranger seemed unlikely.
‘What are you going to say to her?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll have to say something.’
We continued sitting there quietly for almost a minute, gazing at one another without daring to speak about the matter that really filled our minds – not the visit of an unknown cousin.
‘I suppose you were out with Fermín,’ my father said at last, putting out his cigarette.
I nodded.
‘We had dinner at Can Lluís. Fermín finished everything, down to the napkins. I saw Professor Alburquerque there when we arrived and told him to drop by the bookshop.’
The sound of my own voice reciting banalities had an accusatory echo. My father observed me tensely.
‘Did Fermín tell you what’s been the matter with him lately?’
‘I think it’s nerves, because of the wedding and all that stuff that doesn’t agree with him.’
‘And that’s it?’
A good liar knows that the most efficient lie is always a truth that has had a key piece removed from it.
‘Well, he told me about the old days, about when he was in prison and all that.’
‘Then he must have told you about Brians, the lawyer. What did he say?’
I wasn’t sure what my father knew or suspected, so I decided to tread carefully.
‘He told me he was imprisoned in Montjuïc Castle and that he managed to escape with the help of a man called David Martín. Apparently you knew him.’
My father was silent for a while.
‘Nobody has dared to say this to my face, but I know there are people who at the time believed, and still believe, that you mother was in love with Martín,’ he said with such a sad smile that I knew he considered himself one of them.
My father had a tendency to grin the way some people do when they’re trying to hold back their tears.
‘Your mother was a good woman. A good wife. I wouldn’t like you to think strange things about her because of what Fermín may have told you. He didn’t know her. I did.’
‘Fermín didn’t insinuate anything,’ I lied. ‘Just that Mum and Martín were bound by a strong friendship and that she tried to help him get out of the prison by hiring that lawyer, Brians.’
‘I suppose he will also have spoken to you about that man, Valls …’
I hesitated for a second before nodding. My father saw the consternation in my eyes and shook his head.
‘Your mother died of cholera, Daniel. Brians – I’ll never know why – insists on accusing that man, just a bureaucrat with delusions of grandeur, of a crime for which he has no evidence or proof.’
I didn’t say anything.
‘You must get that idea out of your head. I want you to promise you’re not even going to think about this.’
I sat there with my mouth shut, wondering whether my father was really as naïve as he appeared to be or whether the pain of her loss had blinded him and pushed him towards the convenient cowardice of survivors. I recalled Fermín’s words and told myself that neither I nor anyone else had any right to judge him.
‘Promise you won’t do anything stupid, and you won’t look for this man,’ he insisted.
I nodded without conviction. He grabbed my arm.
‘Swear you won’t. For the sake of your mother’s memory.’
I felt a pain gripping my face and realised I was gnashing my teeth so strongly they were in danger of cracking. I looked away but my father wouldn’t let go of me. I stared into his eyes, and until the last second, thought I might be able to lie to him.
‘I swear on my mother’s memory that I won’t do anything while you live.’
‘That is not what I asked you.’
‘It’s all I can give you.’
My father dropped his head between his hands and took a deep breath.
‘The night your mother died, upstairs, in the flat …’
‘I remember it clearly.’
‘You were five.’
‘I was four.’
‘That night Isabella asked me never to tell you what had happened. She thought it was better that way.’
It was the first time I’d heard him refer to my mother by
her name.
‘I know, Dad.’
He looked into my eyes.
‘Forgive me,’ he whispered.
I held my father’s gaze. Sometimes he seemed to grow a little older just by looking at me and remembering. I stood up and hugged him quietly. He held me tight and when he burst into tears the anger and the pain he’d buried in his soul all those years gushed out like blood. I knew then, without being able to explain clearly why, that slowly, inexorably, my father had begun to die.
Part Four
Suspicion
1
Barcelona, 1957
The first glint of daybreak found me in the doorway of little Julián’s bedroom. For once he was sound asleep, far from everything and everyone, with a smile on his lips. I heard Bea’s footsteps approaching and felt her hands on my back.
‘How long have you been standing here?’ she asked.
‘A while.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m looking at him.’
Bea walked up to Julián’s cot and leaned over to kiss his forehead.
‘What time did you come in last night?’
I didn’t reply.
‘How is Fermín?’
‘Not too bad.’
‘And you?’ I tried to smile. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ she insisted.
‘Some other day.’
‘I thought there were no secrets between us,’ said Bea.
‘So did I.’
She looked at me in surprise.
‘What do you mean, Daniel?’
‘Nothing. I don’t mean anything. I’m very tired. Shall we go back to bed?’
Bea took my hand and led me to the bedroom.
We lay down on the bed and I embraced her.
‘I dreamed about your mother tonight,’ said Bea. ‘About Isabella.’
The rain began to pelt against the windowpanes.
‘I was a little girl, and she was holding my hand. We were in a large and very old house, with huge rooms and a grand piano, and a glass-covered balcony that looked on to a garden with a pond. There was a little boy by the pond. He looked just like Julián, but I knew that it was really you, don’t ask me why. Isabella knelt down by my side and asked me whether I could see you. You were playing by the water with a paper boat. I said I could. Then she told me to look after you. To look after you for ever because she had to go far away.’
We lay there without speaking for a long time, listening to the patter of the rain.
‘What did Fermín tell you last night?’
‘The truth,’ I replied. ‘He told me the truth.’
As I tried to reconstruct Fermín’s story Bea listened in silence. At first I felt anger swelling up inside me again, but as I advanced through the story I was overwhelmed by sadness and despair. It was all new to me and I still didn’t know how I was going to be able to live with the secrets and implications of what Fermín had revealed to me. Those events had taken place almost twenty years before, and the passage of time had turned me into a mere spectator in a play where the course of my fate had been determined.
When I finished talking, I noticed the anxious look in Bea’s eyes. It wasn’t hard to guess what she was thinking.
‘I’ve promised my father that during his lifetime I won’t look for that man, Valls, or do anything else,’ I added, to reassure her.
‘During his lifetime? And what happens afterwards? Haven’t you thought about us? About Julián?’
‘Of course I have. And you must not worry,’ I lied. ‘After talking to my father I’ve understood that all this happened a long time ago and there’s nothing we can do to change it.’
Bea seemed rather unconvinced.
‘It’s the truth …’ I lied again.
She held my gaze for a few moments, but those were the words she wanted to hear and she finally surrendered to the temptation of believing them.
2
That afternoon, with the rain still lashing the flooded, deserted streets, the grim figure of Sebastián Salgado appeared outside the bookshop. He was observing us with his unmistakable predatory air through the shop window, the lights from the nativity scene illuminating his ravaged face. His suit – the same old suit he’d worn on his first visit – was soaking wet. I went over to the door and opened it for him.
‘Lovely manger,’ he said.
‘Aren’t you coming in?’
I held the door open and Salgado limped in. After a few steps he stopped, leaning on his walking stick. Fermín eyed him suspiciously from the counter. Salgado smiled.
‘It’s been a long time,’ he intoned.
‘I thought you were dead,’ replied Fermín.
‘I thought you were dead, too, as did everyone else. That’s what they told us. That you’d been caught trying to escape and they’d shot you.’
‘Fat chance.’
‘To be honest, I always hoped you’d managed to slip away. You know: the devil looks after his own and all that …’
‘You move me to tears, Salgado. When did you get out?’
‘About a month ago.’
‘Don’t tell me you were let out for good behaviour,’ said Fermín.
‘I think they got tired of waiting for me to die. Do you know I was granted a pardon? I’ve got it on a sheet of paper, signed by General Franco himself.’
‘You must have had it framed, I’m sure.’
‘I’ve put it in a place of honour: above the toilet, in case I ever run out of tissue.’
Salgado took a few more steps towards the counter and pointed to a chair in a corner.
‘Do you mind if I sit down? I’m still not used to walking more than ten metres in a straight line and I get tired very easily.’
‘It’s all yours,’ I offered.
He fell into the chair and took a deep breath as he rubbed his knee. Fermín looked at him like someone who has spied a rat climbing out of a toilet.
‘Funny, isn’t it, to think that the one person everyone thought would be the first to kick the bucket turns out to be the last … Do you know what has kept me alive all these years, Fermín?’
‘If I didn’t know you so well I’d say it was the Mediterranean diet and the fresh sea air.’
Salgado gave an attempt at a laugh that sounded like a hoarse cough or his bronchial tubes on the verge of collapse.
‘You never change, Fermín. That’s why we got along so famously back then. What times those were. But I don’t want to bore the young man here with memories of the good old days. This generation isn’t interested in our stuff. They’re into the charleston, or whatever they call it these days. Shall we talk business?’
‘I’m listening.’
‘You’re the one who must do the talking, Fermín. I’ve already said all I had to say. Are you going to give me what you owe me? Or are we going to have to kick up a fuss you’d do better to avoid?’
Fermín remained impassive for a few moments, leaving us in an uncomfortable silence. Salgado was staring straight at him with venom in his eyes. Fermín gave me a look I didn’t quite understand and sighed dejectedly.
‘You win, Salgado.’
He pulled a small object out of his pocket and handed it to him. A key. The key. Salgado’s eyes lit up like those of a child. He got to his feet and slowly approached Fermín, accepting the key with his remaining hand, trembling with emotion.
‘If you’re planning to reintroduce it into restricted areas of your anatomy, I beg you to step into the bathroom for the sake of decorum. This is a family venue, open to the general public,’ Fermín warned him.
Salgado, who seemed to have recovered the bloom of first youth, broke into a smile of boundless satisfaction.
‘Come to think of it, you’ve actually done me a huge favour keeping it for me all these years,’ he declared.
‘That’s what friends are for,’ answered Fermín. ‘God bless, and don’t hesitate never to come back here again.’
Salgado smiled and winked at us. He
walked towards the door, already lost in thought. Before stepping into the street he turned round for a moment and raised a hand in a conciliatory farewell.
‘I wish you luck and a long life, Fermín. And rest assured, your secret is safe with me.’
We watched him leave in the rain, an old man anyone might have thought was at death’s door but who, I was sure, didn’t feel the cold raindrops lashing at him then, or even the years of imprisonment and hardships he carried in his blood. I glanced at Fermín, who seemed nailed to the ground, looking pale and confused at the sight of his old cellmate.
‘Are we going to let him go just like that?’ I asked.
‘Have you a better plan?’
3
After the proverbial minute’s wait, we hurried down the street armed with dark raincoats and an umbrella the size of a parasol that Fermín had bought in one of the bazaars in the port – intending to use it both winter and summer for his escapades to La Barceloneta beach with Bernarda.
‘Fermín, with this thing we stick out like a sore thumb,’ I warned him.
‘Don’t worry. I’m sure the only thing that swine can see are gold doubloons raining down from heaven,’ replied Fermín.
Salgado was some hundred metres ahead of us, hobbling briskly under the rain along Calle Condal. We narrowed the gap a little, just in time to see him about to climb on to a tram going up Vía Layetana. We sprinted forward, closing the umbrella as we ran, and by some miracle managed to leap on to the tram’s running board. In the best tradition of those days we made the journey hanging from the back. Salgado had found a seat in the front, offered to him by a Good Samaritan, who couldn’t have known who he was dealing with.
‘That’s what happens when people reach old age,’ said Fermín. ‘Nobody remembers they’ve been bastards too.’
The tram rumbled along Calle Trafalgar until it reached the Arco de Triunfo. We peered inside and saw that Salgado was still glued to his seat. The ticket collector, a man with a bushy moustache, scowled at us.
The Prisoner of Heaven: A Novel Page 16