by Mathew Carr
Lawton lit a cigarette and watched Mata grate the tomato pulp into a bowl. He had spent the last two hours sitting outside Mata’s house, after Bonnecarrère had been turned back by soldiers at the top of the Ramblas, who informed them that the city was now under martial law. Further down the thoroughfare Lawton saw a line of soldiers with fixed bayonets marching in formation toward a large and angry crowd. It was not the ideal moment to walk to his hotel, and even if he managed to reach it there was every possibility that he might not be able to get out of it. Bonnecarrère also decided against trying to get to his own. Instead he had dropped him off outside Mata’s house before going off to stay the night with one of his contacts at the French consulate.
Lawton had begun to think he might have to sleep in the street, when Mata finally returned. Now he told him about Bonnecarrère and the events of the last twenty-four hours, while the Catalan made supper. Once again, Lawton could not bring himself to admit that he had found himself in bed with a murdered woman, but Mata looked aghast as he cut a head of garlic in two and rubbed the heads along the large slices of white bread.
“So Weygrand and this Klarsfeld murdered a prostitute in order to blame it on you?” he said. “And Bravo Portillo was part of this?”
“Not necessarily. Weygrand may just have told him where to look for me.”
“Well you can thank the strike he didn’t come earlier.” Mata drizzled some olive oil across the bread slices and spooned some of the tomato mixture onto them. “The Atarazanas station was attacked by a mob this morning. Bravo Portillo was trapped there for hours. It was a real battle. There were people killed. I’ve never seen anything like it, not even in 1902. And tomorrow there could be more of this. But now another woman is dead—simply in order to make it look as if you were the Monster?”
“That’s not the whole reason,” Lawton said.
“What, then?”
“They could have just killed her.” Lawton stared through Mata as though he were not there. “They could have just left her bleeding for the police to find. The police charge me with all these murders, and that’s the end of it. But they drained her blood and took it away with them. You asked me before why they would do that?”
“You have an answer?”
“Maybe. When I was at school, the priest told us the Aztecs offered blood to the Sun, otherwise it wouldn’t rise and the world would end.”
“That’s what you think is happening here?” Mata looked at him incredulously. “Blood sacrifice?”
“I know it sounds mad. But think about it. The Templar robes. The black sun. But we have five bodies all drained of blood. What if they’re using it for some kind of magic?”
“But what about this Klarsfeld? You said he might be a German spy. You’re not suggesting that the Kaiser’s government is involved in this? This is Germany, Harry. The most advanced industrial nation in the world. It’s not some magic blood cult.”
“Perhaps not,” Lawton said. “But the more I think about it, the more I think the blood is the whole point of this.”
“Well, right now all this talk of blood is ruining my appetite.” Mata laid some strips of ham on the bread and handed it to Lawton. “There you are, my friend. Pan amb tomaquet. Bread with tomato. The authentic taste of Catalunya.”
Lawton looked dubiously at the reddened bread. It was not like any sandwich he had ever seen, but he was too hungry to care. He took a large bite and nodded appreciatively.
“This is good.” he said.
“Of course it’s good! It’s Catalan!” Mata held out a bottle of red wine. “Have a glass to wash it down.”
“I’m a teetotaller,” Lawton said. “Generally speaking.”
“Well I’m definitely not.” Mata poured himself a glass. “Sylvia thinks I drink too much and smoke too much. But I need a drink after a day like this. It’s no joke out there, Harry. I’ve seen two people shot dead in front of me, and there’ll be more if this madness continues. No one is in charge. The strikers can’t control the strike and the government can’t impose order. If things don’t go back to normal quickly, anything could happen.”
“Such as?”
Mata shrugged and poured Lawton a glass of water. “The king might dissolve the government. There could be an anarchist revolution or a Republic. There might be civil war. No one can tell. And now we can’t even speculate, at least not in public, because the military censors won’t allow the newspapers to report on what’s happening. I tell you, you’re lucky to live in England, Harry. A sensible, stable country where people don’t do stupid things and the army stays in the barracks.”
Lawton pointed toward the loaf of bread. “Is there any more of that?”
“There is. But now you must try it with escalivada.”
“I have something to show you.” Lawton reached for his jacket as Mata cut another slice of bread and spread it with tomato and layers of burned peppers and aubergines. “Do you know what this means? Bonnecarrère thinks it’s a date and time.”
Mata looked at Bonnecarrère’s telegram. “Excelsior—the Latin word for higher.”
“Even I knew that. It’s the ‘M.S Bertran’ I don’t understand.”
“That’s because you’re not a Barcelones, Harry. It means ‘Muelle de San Bertran’—the San Bertran wharf. It’s in the Port of Barcelona.”
“So Excelsior is a ship?”
“Most probably. And it’s arriving at midnight on Wednesday. In theory. The dock was on strike today. Two ships went out only because the army was protecting them. By Wednesday, who knows?”
“Well Bonnecarrère will want to be there. And so do I.”
“And what about me?” Mata looked at him indignantly. “I still have a story to write—even if the censors won’t let me write it yet.”
* * *
Lawton had spent many hours of his life watching people, and from what he had seen of Mata during the attack by the TB gang, he did not see the corpulent poet-journalist as the ideal companion in a mission of this kind. He doubted that Bonnecarrère would approve either, and he was still wondering how to say no when there was a loud knock on the door. Mata went out into the corridor, and Lawton’s eyes flickered toward the window on hearing Inspector Bravo Portillo’s voice. A moment later the inspector appeared in the doorway, accompanied by two policemen. Lawton looked back at his mournful undertaker’s eyes and upturned moustache. Bravo Portillo did not take off his hat, but Lawton saw that the inspector was carrying his own.
“Señor Lawton,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Is that so?” Lawton tried to sound surprised. “Any particular reason?”
“A woman was murdered in the Passeig de Gràcia. The killer ran away from us. The last we saw of him he was being driven away in a car.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Bravo Portillo continued to stare at him with a cold, dismal expression, and held up the hat. “The killer left this behind him at the scene. Where’s your hat, Señor Lawton?”
“It’s in the hallway,” Mata said suddenly. “I’ll get it for you.”
Lawton was as surprised as Bravo Portillo seemed to be. Mata went out into the corridor, and Bravo Portillo stared gloomily at the doorway until he came back holding a derby hat that looked almost identical to the one Bravo Portillo held in his hand. “Here it is,” Mata said cheerfully. “Where you left it last night.”
“Oh, yes.” Lawton took the hat and tried it on, while Bravo Portillo continued to stare at him suspiciously.
“Señor Lawton was here last night?” he asked.
“He was,” said Mata. “We sat up for a long time talking and drinking. As men do when their wives are away. No wonder you couldn’t remember where you put your hat, Harry.”
“No wonder,” Lawton shook his head ruefully. “I do like a drink.”
Bravo Portillo was clearly struggling to comprehend this unexpected revelation. “I’ve been misinformed,” he said finally.
“May I ask
by whom?” Lawton asked innocently.
“That’s none of your business.”
“Well I’m pleased you’ve found time to investigate a murder after everything that has happened today,” Mata said. “I’m sure our readers will be impressed by your zeal.”
If Bravo Portillo had noticed the irony he showed no sign of it, and he bowed and left the room with his men. Mata showed them out, and came back looking pleased with himself.
“Lucky for you my father had the same taste in hats and the same size head,” he said. “Now what were we talking about? The docks on Wednesday, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” Lawton said. “And I was just about to say that of course you should come.”
* * *
Klarsfeld rolled a fifty-peseta note into a tube and snorted two lines of white powder from the glass table. He rolled out two more lines for Zorka, who was perched on the edge of the bed, unpinning her hair. Klarsfeld closed his eyes as the drug erupted in his head and then opened them again to see Zorka running her fingers through her long hair. He had only slept for a few of the last twenty-four hours, but he felt fully awake now as Zorka stood up and let her dress fall slowly to the floor, till she was standing in her corset and garters.
In the candlelight, with the shadows flitting across her skin and her lustrous brown hair, it was easy to believe that she really was the reincarnation of some Hyperborean queen. She sat on his lap and took the rolled peseta note, and he ran his hands down the hourglass curve of her hips and buried his bearded face in her hair. She turned and kissed him, and he could taste the cocaine on her tongue as she licked the inside of his mouth. He was just about to carry her to the bed when there was a knock on the front door. Klarsfeld knew it could not be Weygrand, who had his own key and was not due back that night. He took the little Schwarzlose semiautomatic from the drawer, shut the bedroom doors behind him, and padded barefoot toward the entrance to the apartment.
His face immediately fell at the sight of Ugarte’s pockmarked face peering at him from the hallway. He was even more surprised to find Arenales standing next to him, looking even more like a startled fox than usual.
“We need to speak to you, Baron,” Arenales said.
Klarsfeld stood back to let them in. “What is it gentlemen? I’m rather tired.”
“Our man got away,” Ugarte replied.
“Is that so?” Klarsfeld let out a sigh. “And how did that happen?”
“Bravo Portillo was caught in a gun battle at the station. He couldn’t get to the apartment till the afternoon. The Irishman escaped over the roof. Someone drove him away in a motorcar.”
“Mata?” Klarsfeld glanced at the open window, as a flame rose up out of the night sky like a giant candle.
Ugarte shook his head. “Mata doesn’t drive. I don’t know who this person is.”
“This is not good,” said Arenales in a panicky voice. “Not good at all.”
Klarsfeld suppressed his irritation. With his olive skin, his black eyes and eyebrows, and his little black moustache, and the faint smell of garlic, Ugarte was a typical example of the Mediterranean type, and the smallpox scars only made him more distasteful. Arenales might be an aristocrat with the blood of El Cid and Don Quixote in his veins, but absinthe, and—so Klarsfeld had heard—a youthful predilection for kif had obscured his noble lineage and drained his mental strength. What he did have was money—a great deal of it, and that was useful. But even though Klarsfeld was obliged to rely on such men, they rarely failed to disappoint him.
Now Arenales complained about Mata’s article in the paper, and said that the Irishman had come to his house and tried to stop his carriage on Sunday, as if all that were his fault. It was clear that the two of them were unnerved by these unexpected events and lacked the initiative to respond to them effectively, and they had even been stupid enough to come to see him together, when they might well have been followed.
“Where is Lawton now?” Klarsfeld asked.
“With Mata.”
“Well you know what needs to be done then,” Klarsfeld said.
Arenales looked pained. “Mata’s not just some piece of rubbish from the street. He’s a poet and a journalist with a reputation.”
“I don’t care about his reputation. He’s spent too much time with the Irishman. God knows what he knows, or thinks he knows. No point in getting rid of one without the other. And what about the puppy?”
“She’s been talking to Ferrer,” Ugarte said. “Our man says the Irishman knows who he is.”
“In which case he’ll know your name, too. And so will she. The puppy needs to be put down.”
“Hombre, she’s just a girl.”
“A puppy that will grow into a dog.”
Ugarte’s pockmarked face creased into a scowl. “This is dirty work. If I’d known it was going to be like this… What was done with that whore last night—it wasn’t necessary.”
Klarsfeld had neither the energy nor the desire to debate what was necessary with a mere hireling. Nor was he disposed to explain to a man who only understood the value of money that even the noblest historical tasks sometimes required a willingness to get one’s hands dirty.
“See to the puppy,” he said. “I’ll see to the other two.”
“I’ll try. But the city’s like a madhouse right now. The mob has started burning churches. Even the army has given up the streets.”
“All of which should make our work easier. And you can consider this as overtime—a special payment when it’s done. Now if you’ll permit me, I need to speak to the count alone for a moment.”
Ugarte looked as if he wanted to say something else, but he shrugged and left the room. Klarsfeld closed the door behind and smiled calmly at Arenales.
“Are you all right, Count?”
Arenales nodded, but Klarsfeld noticed a film of sweat on his brow and his sharp, pointed face looked paler than usual. Arenales generally had the corpselike pallor of a man who lived mostly at night, and not for pleasure, but for the dusty volumes that he pored over like a medieval monk. Now he looked as if he had died and come back to life.
“I don’t care about him.” Klarsfeld gestured toward the door. “But I need to know that you still have faith in the project.”
“Of course.” Arenales nervously touched his long neck. “I just wasn’t expecting this kind of… difficulty.”
“Every great enterprise encounters the occasional obstacle. It’s nothing we can’t deal with.” Klarsfeld’s voice was soft and soothing now. He nodded toward the open window, where the candle-like flame in the distance seemed bigger now. “It’s working. Everything is working. We’re achieving miracles and you are part of that.”
Arenales looked out the window and his thin lips twitched. In profile he looked like a crow, Klarsfeld thought, and it was difficult to believe that he was not a Jew.
“You have my word, I’ll take care of this,” Klarsfeld laid one hand on his hunched bony shoulders and wondered whether Arenales had ever slept with a woman he had not paid for. “Now go home. And don’t come to see me again unless I ask you to. Is that clear?”
Arenales looked anxious once again as Klarsfeld escorted him out and shut the door behind him. He silently cursed this degenerate, backward country that still seemed sunk in its ancient oriental torpor. Spain really was closer to Africa than Europe, he thought, and men like Arenales and Ugarte reflected that. No wonder its soldiers were floundering in the Rif. He would not be sorry to leave such a country, and unless Arenales pulled himself together it might be necessary to take action against him. But now he opened the doors to the bedroom and saw Zorka lying naked and glistening in the summer heat, and he put these thoughts aside and prepared to enter the garden of earthly delights.
24
Lawton looked around at the rows of dolls, the neatly arranged collection of little cowboys and American Indians on the shelves, and the pictures of animals and faraway places on the walls. Every object in the room seemed to have been chosen
with an eye for what pleased children that had been entirely missing from the brutal desolation of his own childhood. Most of the houses he had shared with his siblings had been small, rented, and temporary, with bare walls and sparse furnishings that rarely included more than straw mattresses and a table. His parents owned almost nothing, and his mother had sewed and resewed his clothes so that they lasted for years.
Now he envied the little boy he had seen in the painting with Mata, his wife, and his sister, who slept in clean sheets in a soft bed, with the friendly face of a clown watching him from the clock on the other side of the room. It was not until he smelled coffee that he got dressed and went out into the kitchen to find Mata in an apron, boiling eggs as he laid out ham, cheese, escalivada, and fresh bread.
“Good morning, Harry!” he said. “You slept well?”
“Has anyone ever told you you’d make a good wife?”
Mata laughed and said that he had gone out early to the bakery to find himself the only man among the women who were already queuing up to buy bread as the strike entered its second day.
“Help yourself to anything,” he said. “I even have Robertson’s jam. Sylvia and the children are very fond of it.”
Lawton looked at the black golliwog on the label. “Home sweet home,” he said.
“Where is home for you Harry?”
“I live in the East End. Jewtown they call it.”
“With your family?”
Lawton shook his head. “My father’s from Donegal. But he moved around a lot doing different jobs. Farm laborer. Fairs and railways. And a sailor, of course. That’s how he met my mother. In Valparaiso.”
“So that’s how you learned Spanish.”
Lawton nodded. “And some Mapuche. The old girl never really learned English. My father taught me nothing—except how to use my fists.”
“You learned well.”
“Had to, where I come from. I used to fight on the fairground circuit. You got paid a percentage of the takings if you won. Just food and a place to sleep if you lost.”