by Mathew Carr
That was the freedom they had sent him back to, and it was made even worse by the knowledge that there were rich men only a few streets away who lived in palaces with silver cutlery; who ate in fine restaurants whenever they felt like it; whose women slept on scented sheets and whose children had playrooms as big as his family’s apartment. Less than a year ago the city had seemed so unbearable that he had been prepared to get himself killed in order to escape it. Now the city seemed suddenly full of promise and possibilities. They were not the possibilities that Pau had dreamed about when he sat up reading one of his books or pamphlets by candlelight stub, or holding forth about Kropotkin or Proudhon.
Pau was clever, but he was a dreamer, and the world he dreamed about was as unobtainable as Heaven—a world of perfect justice where everyone shared everything, because people were naturally good and it was only the system that made them bad. Had his brother-in-law spent time in prison, he would have learned the lessons he had learned: that people were divided not into the good or bad, but the weak or strong; that survival depended on making friends with those who had power; that there was no such thing as the collective good, but only those who took from others and those who allowed themselves to be taken.
Ruben would have liked to explain all this to Pau, but even if his brother-in-law were still alive, he knew he would have had to deceive him, the same way he deceived everyone else. He himself was surprised how easy and simple it was, once he had set his mind to it. All you had to do was tell people what they wanted to hear and most of them were willing to believe you. That was what he had done ever since his return, and he could not help feeling pleased at his success as he looked out toward the reddening sky. He quickly checked himself, because overconfidence was weakness, and weak people made mistakes that could ruin them. He continued to sit on the roof until the sun had gone down, and then went back downstairs. He found Flor still sitting at the kitchen table with her mother, his other sister-in-law, and her husband. To his annoyance, there were still children running in and out of the three rooms, shouting and screaming. If there was a hell, it could not be much worse than this, he thought, as Flor looked at him with the sorrowful and resentful expression that made him want to slap her.
“I’m going to Poblenou,” he said. “I’ll take the bike.”
“Of course,” Flor said. “Can’t keep the comrades waiting, can we?”
Señora Tosets gave her daughter an exasperated look. Ruben knew that Flor wanted a confrontation, and he had no intention of giving her the satisfaction.
“No, I can’t,” he replied testily. “Because there’s going to be a strike tomorrow. And I’ve got people to see and leaflets to give out.”
Flor continued to look at him with cold hostility as he put on his cap and jacket, and picked up the canvas bag filled with leaflets. The bicycle was out in the hallway and he carried it downstairs. He no longer thought of Flor now as he cycled down the Ramblas, past the carriages lined up outside the opera house, where men in top hats and ladies in evening dress hurried past the beggars who were trying to opportune them despite the presence of police. He turned into the Calle de Fernando and cycled past the closed-up shops and through the Plaza Sant Jaume, past the City Hall and the Generalitat building, where a circle of soldiers had gathered around a brazier.
There was a pleasant breeze on his face now as he cycled around the Ciutadella Park, past the Eastern Cemetery, and into Poblenou. From time to time he saw the ocean sparkling in the moonlight as the bicycle whirred softly through the dimly lit and mostly empty streets, past monasteries, churches, and factories, past the Lebon gasworks, before turning northward into the Calle Lope de Vega. He continued cycling beyond the Jupiter Club football ground, and then turned east once again till he reached a solitary apartment block. Even as he turned the key in the door he felt as if he were passing from one life into another. He hoisted the bicycle over his shoulder and carried it up to the third floor. The door was unlocked, and he opened it to find Matilde lying on the narrow bed painting her nails. He was pleased to see that she was wearing the negligée he had bought her, but his smile immediately faded when she held up the Beretta and pointed it directly at him.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he said.
“You promised to take me to the beach,” she replied, in a petulant little girlish voice that sometimes excited him. “Now I might have to shoot you.”
Ruben glanced at the little chest of drawers on the other side of the room, and took the pistol from her hand. “You’ve been going through my things.” He sat on the edge of the bed and laid the leaflets down beside her. “Didn’t I tell you not to do that?” Matilde heard the menace in his voice and she looked cowed now, as she reached under the pillow and handed him a small pile of notes and coins. Ruben counted them and reached for the little metal box under the bed. He laid the notes inside it and lifted out an ammunition clip. “You shouldn’t play with guns,” he said, slotting the clip into the pistol. “Even when they’re unloaded.”
“I won’t do it again, papi,” she said, in the same childish voice.
“I know.” Ruben reached out with his free hand and yanked her head toward him by the hair, so that she was lying across his thigh. She let out a muffled yelp as he forced the barrel into her mouth.
“If I tell you not to do something, you don’t do it! And if you ever disobey me again I swear I will blow your fucking brains out, do you understand me?”
Matilde’s eyes were bulging wildly, but she managed to nod as Ruben withdrew the gun. She was only seventeen, and he knew from her terrified expression that she would not repeat the same mistake. This was the only way to talk to whores, and it would not have done his nagging wife any harm to be treated in the same way. The sight of her wet cheeks and the soft weight of her hair excited him, and he laid the gun on the floor and turned her over onto her stomach. She lay there rigid with fear as he unbuttoned his fly and forced himself into her with a grunt. As he moved back and forth inside her he remembered the punishment cell in the Rio de Oro where he had lain beneath the boards for three days half-crazed from lack of food and water. At one point he had been so delirious that he hallucinated naked women. They came to him in an endless procession of delight, like the temptations of Saint Anthony, pouting and touching themselves obscenely before they writhed away from his outstretched hands. In the desert, these phantom-women had driven him mad, but Matilde was real. She belonged to him, and she could not escape him. Through his half-closed eyes he saw the scattered leaflets calling on the workers of Poblenou to come out on strike. In a few hours he would distribute them to the early morning shift, but now he wanted only to take his pleasure, and even as he brought himself closer to the point of no return, he imagined that it was not Matilde lying underneath him, but Esperanza Claramunt.
21
At seven o’clock Lawton was already sitting in a café on the Passeig de Gràcia. On the other side of the avenue, beyond the rows of trees and lampposts and the trickle of carriages, trams, and motorcars that moved dreamily back and forth between them, he saw the glass entrance to the address he had been given. From time to time some of the residents came and went, but there was no sign of life from the shuttered window on the sixth floor. Lawton was tempted to walk across the street and enter the building, but he continued to wait until the appointed time approached, smoking one cigarette after another and ordering the occasional coffee to justify his presence.
All around him men and women in smart clothes and stylish hats sat talking animatedly as the sky grew darker. It was not until the sun dropped below the skyline and the electric lights came on that the tables began to thin out. Lawton ordered a small plate of squid and fried potatoes and continued to watch the building through the bright glow of the arc lamps. Even now the new electric lamps amazed him. In Limehouse, in his first year on the force, he had spent whole nights on the beat in streets without any lights at all, apart from his police bull’s-eye lamp. Even then he didn’t always use it, becau
se the metal got too hot to hold and sometimes it was better to have no light until he really needed it. His first few months on the night beat had been terrifying—more terrifying even than the war. In Africa he usually had people around him. From the moment he left the Limehouse station till he returned at dawn smelling of oil and covered in soot, he was on his own in streets that were badly lit or not lit at all, armed only with a truncheon and a pair of cuffs, and a whistle that his colleagues might not even hear.
Now the new lamps extended the day into the night, and it was only a matter of time before they were found in every city and every street, even in the slums. He waited until the café was nearly empty, and then took up a less conspicuous position in a sheltered doorway a few buildings away. At half past nine the glass door opened once again, and he ducked back into the shadows as Weygrand stepped out onto the street, wearing a cape and top hat and holding his silver-handled cane. Lawton felt quietly triumphant and considered following him as he walked off briskly in the direction of the Plaza Catalunya, then he looked up at the sixth floor and saw the red glow through the open shutters.
He waited till Weygrand had disappeared before crossing the avenue. There was no concierge, and he pressed the bell to 6.1. The door immediately buzzed open and he stepped into the hallway. He heard the whirring of a generator and the sound of someone playing a waltz on the piano as he walked up the stairs. As he approached the fifth floor he untucked the revolver from his belt and held it by his side with his finger resting on the trigger. The door to the apartment was slightly ajar, and he pushed it open with his free hand, holding the gun in the other, to find Zorka standing at the end of the hallway.
* * *
She was holding a lantern and wearing a blue silk dressing gown emblazoned with peacocks, and her dark hair fell back across her shoulders as she stared anxiously at the revolver.
“You don’t need that, Harry,” she said softly. “He’s not here.”
“I know.” Despite his wariness he could not help noticing that the dressing gown only reached down to her knees and that she was not wearing shoes. He took the lantern from her hand and looked around at the table and two chairs before inspecting the bedroom, the kitchen, and the little sitting room leading out onto the balcony. He quickly satisfied himself that there was no one there. Zorka had already sat down at the table, where he noticed the pack of Black Russians and an ashtray with a half-smoked cigarette butt.
“Where’s he gone?” He sat down on the other side of the table and laid the pistol on his lap.
“Gambling with his friends. He won’t be back till the morning.”
“Does one of his friends drive a red Delaunay-Belleville?”
She stared back at him blankly.
“You don’t happen to have a blond wig lying around, do you?”
“I don’t understand you,” she said.
“Don’t play the innocent with me girl. We’re not in the theatre now. Your man Weygrand tried to have me killed and I’m not happy about it.”
“I don’t know anything about that, Harry! I don’t murder people.”
“But you helped kill Foulkes. After you’d fleeced him. And you tricked me into the bargain. Tell me something, Marie Babineaux—was she a Hyperborean too?”
“You’re angry, Harry. But before you judge me, maybe you should hear what I have to say.”
She looked sad and plaintive now, the way she had looked toward the end of her performance. Despite himself, Lawton could not help finding her husky voice alluring. In the light of the lantern, with the darkness all around them, her face had the luminous purity of an old religious painting.
“I’m listening.”
“So is Franz.” She put her fingers to her temples. “Even when he’s not here. I’ve learned how to keep him out. I can put a wall around my mind, but only for a short time. If he knows it’s there he might wonder why.”
“Christ almighty,” Lawton said. “Will you stop with the mumbo jumbo now? I may be Irish but I wasn’t born in a fucking peat bog.”
“You don’t believe me, Harry. Or perhaps you only believe in things you can see—and touch?” There was the trace of a smile on her lips. “But Franz understands the world we don’t see. That’s what makes him dangerous. He’s not what you think he is. And I’m not who you think I am.”
“So what are you then?”
“A prisoner! The young girl who Franz stole from her family when she was only fifteen years old. Who he promised to take to Vienna and write a book about because he wanted to study my mind. My mind! Hah! So he paid my parents money and then he took the one thing a young girl should only lose with the man she loves.”
“Well isn’t that a heartrending tale,” Lawton said. “If I only had a violin. And if it wasn’t coming from a liar and a fraudster I might even shed a tear.”
“You’re too harsh, Harry! Franz made me do things. Dirty things that made me ashamed! He can always make people do what he wants. Franz has too much power, and he uses it—for himself.” Her shoulders were trembling now, and she bit her lip fetchingly. If she was acting, Lawton thought, it was a performance to impress the Divine Miss Sarah herself.
“Most of the time we didn’t do anything that bad.” Zorka went on. “Just the tricks and illusions like the ones you saw. And what’s wrong with that that? People believe what they want to believe. So we gave it to them—for a price.”
“What about Foulkes?” Lawton asked impatiently.
“We met him in Vernet,” she said. “He was a scientist—like Franz. Franz saw that he liked me. He liked me a lot. More than you would expect a man like that to like a woman. So he got me to persuade Foulkes to come to Barcelona. The plan was simple. Franz would put him in a trance. He would get him to make a payment. A large payment.”
“To Marie Babineaux.”
She nodded. “By the time the trick was discovered we would be out of the city. Foulkes wouldn’t remember anything and no one would ever know what had happened to his money. I didn’t know Franz was going to kill him!”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I’m telling you the truth!” she pleaded. “Franz just said send him to the toilet and then leave. I didn’t know there was a bomb in there!” She reached for the cigarettes, and took one before she offered him the pack. Lawton accepted and lit them both.
“I feel so bad, Harry!” She drew on the cigarette and let out a stream of smoke. “And so alone. Don’t you feel alone? Haven’t you been waiting for someone like me?” Her pink lips were parted and her eyes were shining as she reached out a pale hand and laid it on his wrist. Lawton did not move his arm away. He felt suddenly light-headed and a little giddy.
“What about the Explorers Club?” he asked.
“What would you like to explore Harry?” Her voice was soft and purring now and she lifted one of his hands to her breast as he sucked nervously on the cigarette again. In the same moment he noticed that her features had become vague and slightly blurry, and he sniffed at the cigarette.
“Bitch!” The cigarette fell from his hand he reached groggily for the revolver, but he seemed to have no control over his movements. He was still groping for the weapon when he felt a sharp prick in his neck and he looked up to see Zorka looming over him. There was a triumphant and faintly tigerish smile on her face as she pushed the syringe down into his neck and stepped away from him. Even as he reached toward her, he felt his strength failing, and as he fell face down toward the floor he heard the click of the door in the hallway, and he knew that he was going to die and that it was his own stupid fault.
* * *
It was still dark when Esperanza woke up and reached for the rattling clock. On the other side of the room Eduardo gave a snuffle and turned over in his bed as she walked barefoot across the tiled floor in her nightdress. She had spent much of the night worrying about Ruben, and the strike and what Ugarte might do to her or her brother, and she still felt anxious as she got dressed by candlelight. She pinne
d her hair up and put on the same blouse, skirt, cloak, and hat that she normally wore to work, in case her mother woke up.
Finally she let herself out, and held her boots in one hand as she quietly closed the door to the apartment with the other. She put her boots on in the hallway and went downstairs. There was no sign of Ugarte or his companion, and she walked quickly up to the Plaza de Lesseps, where the Gràcia strike committee had established its headquarters. Already there were men and women milling around the square talking in low voices, while women and children carried trays of hot chocolate, brandy, and cakes. Esperanza stopped just long enough to check with the strike committee that everything was in place, and let them know that she had to go downtown. She wished them luck and promised to be back by midday, and then headed off down toward the Diagonal. As she walked along the Passeig de Gràcia she was pleased to see that there were no trams or streetcars or any traffic at all. She was about halfway down the avenue when she saw the stationary tram.
Esperanza was not entirely surprised that one of the Marquess de Foronda’s drivers should have broken the strike, because Foronda had pledged to keep all his trams working. But as she came closer she saw some thirty men and women standing around the vehicle shouting at the few passengers to get out. Neither the driver nor his passengers needed much persuasion. No sooner had they moved out of the way than the crowd moved to the pavement side of the tram and began to rock it back and forth. It took barely a few minutes before the street car fell over with a crash.