‘He’s a boy dressed like a girl.’
There is laughter from the other children. The young guide is laughing, too. They are all roaring with laughter. There’s a whole string of guffaws reverberating around the room, which I interpret as relief. I suppose it’s contagious. More and more children’s heads are shaking with laughter. But I imagine that someone is immune to all this. The redhead maybe? Because her head isn’t moving at all. She’s not taking part in all the fun, and neither does she pay any attention to the words her fellow pupil comes out with next.
‘He’s going to a fancy-dress party and has taken his big sister’s dress without asking. He’s hiding because someone’s coming.’
This is the final version, the one that prevails and which the children will all take home with them. The guide seems very satisfied and waves her hand to make the children get up and then sit down again in front of another painting hanging on the opposite wall. I stay behind the group for a short while longer. I listen to interpretations and ideas. But now the little redhead isn’t saying a word. I’m not surprised. She’s already said everything she had to say at the time in front of Interior with Figure. In front of a mirror. Now she’s just a little girl keeping a secret.
I decide that my visit is over, and I go into the shop. I buy some prints, postcards, coloured pencils. It’s a grey day with a leaden sky, but I want to walk to the Paseo del Prado, collect my case from the hotel and wander down to Atocha Station. I leave the Fundación Mapfre building and walk a few metres. Not far, not even as far as the first corner. Because almost at once I stop dead in my tracks. I’ve just heard a squealing of brakes followed by screaming. There’s a lot of screaming. It is children screaming. And someone urgently shouting – although it’s lost among the cars’ honking – ‘Be careful!’
It’s the group again. There are the children standing stock still on the pavement like stone statues. The young guide, kneeling down on the ground, is holding one of them, but I can’t make out which one. I go up to them. A woman beside me says it’s all right, it was just a scare. A few drivers are still honking their horns. The little boy who had fallen over, still holding on to the guide, now tries to get up with difficulty. He seems to be limping a bit. He’s grazed his knees and there’s a bit of blood on his leg. ‘It’s nothing compared with what could have happened,’ I hear someone say near by. ‘They drive around here like madmen.’ ‘It’s just reckless to take a group of small children out on the street with only one person in charge.’ ‘The school bus should have been parked at the entrance and not on the other side of the road.’ No one knows exactly what has happened. It all took them by surprise. I don’t ask anything else. As I understand it, accidents always take you by surprise.
But I don’t go just yet. The little boy (I can finally see his face) is blond with freckles and looks scared, then he bursts into tears. The guide gives him another hug. I look towards the other children, who are still standing on the pavement, searching for the little redheaded girl. It takes me a while to find her because she’s wearing a red mac with a hood, which she didn’t have on when she was sitting down in the exhibition. I can see her trembling. A helpless Little Red Riding Hood who’s just heard the wolf’s warning. I catch her looking at the little blond boy with freckles with as much concentration as when she was studying Cecioni’s painting a while ago. But she doesn’t seem mesmerized now. She’s just trembling. As if she knows that the accident was meant for her; as if it were just a mistake, a simple matter of time. I remember what she said when she was melding into the girl hiding in her own painting: ‘They want to kill her.’ Just as the guide did, I change the object of the verb and attribute it to her: ‘They want to kill me.’ That’s what she was telling us earlier, and her eyes, wide with fear, are telling us the same thing again. Or is it astonishment rather than fear? I’d like to be able to read Little Red Riding Hood’s mind and find out if she thinks that what just happened was simply a mishap, a failed assassination attempt or a warning of death. Although it actually doesn’t matter much. Perhaps the little boy with freckles rushed out into the road without looking and without thinking about the danger. What does matter is the shock. The little girl is trembling at the forewarning of what might happen to her. It’s one possible way to get rid of her. An accident.
A police car and an ambulance arrive at the same time. I try to speak to the police officers and paramedics, to tell them that it’s not only the little boy who needs some attention. One of the other children is suffering from shock. You can see she’s trembling. But I don’t get any further than the mandatory ‘Excuse me’. They tell me, together with all the other onlookers, to move along, to leave the scene. I can’t even get a final sight of the little girl in the mac. A traffic policeman leads the children in a line to the other side of the street to the school bus, which is waiting for them. I have no choice but to go on my way and wonder over and over again what I should I do.
It comes to me as I’m walking along. I noticed when I was out yesterday that there’s a police station a few blocks from the hotel. I think it’s in calle de las Huertas, or perhaps it’s the next one, calle de Moratín. In any case, I’ve got more than enough time to think about what I ought to tell them. A redheaded little girl, the Macchiaioli, what she said in front of the painting, the sudden squeal of brakes. Ask the paramedics or the police officers. They’ll know the name of the school – or schools, if there’s more than one, because now I think that perhaps it’s an ad hoc group on a tour of several art galleries with children from a number of different places. I also wonder whether the young woman is actually a teacher working with some of the children in a particular school or if she’s just employed as a guide and doesn’t know the children at all. Too many questions. How can I construct a coherent argument with so few facts? I could begin by introducing myself. ‘Good morning. I’m a writer. My name is—’ But I can’t get over how ridiculous that sounds, even in my imagination. A madwoman trying to pass herself off as a writer. Or a mad writer. What difference would it make? To avoid any misunderstandings I could suggest they look me up on the internet. I’m sure they wouldn’t do that, at least not while I was there. But even if they did and even if it proved what I’d told them, why would they take any notice? Police stations must be full of visionaries, mediums, obsessive types, the unemployed, housewives with extrasensory perception or people just as imaginative as me. Here’s another one playing at being Agatha Christie, that’s what they’d think. And, besides, what would the official complaint be? A crime that hasn’t yet been committed and a couple I’ve never met in my life, parents of a little girl with no name. It’s not good enough. I could have my excuses ready when I go in. That would be better. ‘I know I haven’t got enough evidence, but I’d like to tell you about something I’ve just seen, in case one day…’ One day what? I don’t imagine they have much spare time in police stations or that they would file away simple hypotheses under the heading ‘In case one day’. But I carry on, ‘…in case one day there’s a suspicious accident, a disappearance, a death, remember what I said and…’ I’m not convinced by that either. ‘Madam, there are suspicious accidents, disappearances and deaths every day.’ All I can do is ask them to be patient and to begin at the beginning. The group of children at the exhibition. What the little redheaded girl said, her expression, my feeling that she was talking about herself. The postcards I bought in the shop are in my handbag, and one of them is of Interior with Figure. Perhaps it would be a good idea to show it to them and leave it on the desk to explain myself better. But I have to be particularly clear that, in the beginning, at the exhibition, although I was struck by the little girl’s words and expression, it was nothing more than that. A little girl with a secret. Nothing more. Until I saw what happened later on outside the building, with the little boy being hugged by the guide and the little girl trembling like a leaf, when I understood that her story wasn’t a fantasy. Now the description. Red hair. Between nine and ten years old. Wearing a m
ac with a hood, also red. ‘Now she’s telling us the story of Little Red Riding Hood. We’ll be on to Snow White next.’ No, best not to mention the colour of the mac. Best not to do anything at all, at least as I’m getting closer and closer to the hotel, and to the police station as well as it’s on the way, and my imagination starts playing tricks on me. Because the inspector, deputy inspector or whichever cop is dealing with me isn’t helping at all. I don’t know why I had to imagine him like this: athletic, muscular, disrespectful and wanting to rush back to the gym, which he should never have left. It’s probably down to the influence of films or television series, whatever. I feel awkward before speaking, before coming up with some plausible allegation, and I go into the building without being in the least bit convinced and already feeling defeated. Although not all is lost. I want to believe that it isn’t. Let’s imagine for a moment (one of those coincidences in life) that one of the many police officers in the entrance hall at the time has actually read my books or, at the very least, has heard of me. He may not recognize my face, but he does recognize my name. And once he does he decides to take on my case personally, whatever it is. So he attends to me. This changes everything. I see myself making excuses again, admitting that I don’t have any proof, showing him the postcard of Interior with Figure. All very natural and stress-free with the mutual understanding that usually exists between reader and writer. But how would the supposed reader react? He’s smiling. The kind and amenable policeman is smiling.
‘You’re too sensitive. That’s why you’re a writer.’
No, that won’t do me. I would prefer something more professional.
‘There’s not the slightest bit of evidence. Words spoken in front of a painting and a tremendous scare seeing the little boy’s accident. A very emotional little girl.’
Perhaps. But what about what she said about her parents wanting to kill her? Her or the girl in the painting, it makes no difference. And what’s the motive? She’s seen things she shouldn’t have seen. At least that’s what she said.
‘And haven’t you thought about what those things could mean?’
Yes, of course I’ve thought about it, and the teacher or guide did, too. But the thought flashed through my mind so quickly. Now the imaginary cop helps me to recover it.
‘It’s more than likely that she caught them in bed, at it … if you see what I mean.’
Perhaps he’s right. The redhead went into her parents’ bedroom when she shouldn’t have. She’s confused the delights of love with force, aggression, a fight to the death. And her father was very annoyed and kicked her out. Or her mother. Or probably both of them because she’s accusing them both. Her parents. They might have threatened to punish her as well. But death?
‘Some little girls are incredibly imaginative. You wouldn’t believe it!’
I erase the image of the police officer/reader from my mind. He’s not helping me much either. Or maybe he is. Maybe I’ve been naïvely using him to get used to the idea once and for all. To accept that it’s not in the least bit important that on my very first foray I should go through the door of the police station already feeling defeated, indecisive, with no speech prepared, as if everything were lost from the start, because the fact is that everything actually is lost from the start. Not even the kind and well-disposed imaginary police officer has been able to sort it out. ‘An imaginative and emotional little girl.’ That’s all there is to it. Anything else, the possibility that what she might have seen or discovered has nothing to do with intimate bedroom games, is of no interest. Even though (and this is mere supposition) it’s so terrifying and embarrassing that it makes her fear for her life.
I walk on. I say to myself that I never really thought seriously about going to the police. And that life is full of illusions and it’s so easy to doubt innocent people. Despite the fact that it was only in my own head I’m shocked when I think about what I was planning to do just a few moments before. Believing in a little girl’s fantasies and pointing an accusing finger at her own parents. Something completely irresponsible, which hasn’t happened and will go no further than my imagination or my thoughts. I’m leaving the Paseo del Prado now and turning into calle de Moratín. That’s right, calle de Moratín. I wasn’t mistaken. I can see the police station, the door of which I will never darken, a few metres away. There are two police officers chatting in the doorway. It may be an illusion, but from here, from where I am standing, they seem strangely familiar. One of them is tall, arrogant and proud of the muscular body that’s taken him hours of work in the gym. In contrast, the other is short and smiley and looks as if he can’t wait for the working day to be over so that he can get down to reading like one possessed.
I pick up my luggage from the hotel, a bag I put over my shoulder, and quickly walk towards Atocha Station. When I get there the AVE train is already on the platform. I run like I haven’t run for years. When I get to my seat I sit down heavily, exhausted. For a moment there the idea that I might miss the train seemed as if it would have been a complete disaster, the end of the world. How absurd it all is, I think. Now that the train is moving I actually feel liberated. I don’t think about the reason why, but it’s revealed almost immediately as my hands automatically fold down the table and take the envelope containing the postcards from the exhibition out of my handbag. I quickly go through them one by one until I stop at the one in which I’m interested. It looks really strange now. I spent almost the entire morning in front of the painting, and I’m as struck by the scene as if I were seeing it for the first time. The soulless room, the half-open door, the huddled figure clutching a bundle, the gigantic bed. The bull-necked man who was about to charge at the canvas must have felt something similar. I smile when I remember this and imitate him by placing the postcard close to my eyes for a few seconds before putting it away. But I don’t put it back in the envelope. For the last time, and by way of saying goodbye, I recover the image of the flesh-and-blood little girl. I kneel her down beside the bed dressed in her red mac. She’s a frightened Little Red Riding Hood once again, and now she’s the protagonist in the painting. She’s the one who’s scared and hiding and planning her escape. And it must be because I’m travelling at the speed of light and Madrid is getting further and further away that I start thinking about the theories I rejected. And I think about what it was she must have seen that has put her in so much danger. I think about a crime that could only be covered up with another crime. About the way she was trembling. About her panic attack. About how she was certain she was an obstacle or posed a risk. About her parents. A faceless couple in the privacy of their home secretly plotting the best way to get rid of their daughter.
I’m back at the beginning once again. There’s no way around it. The little girl is hiding in the soulless room, and now I have no doubt that she really is in danger and she’s right to be frightened. I take some paper and a pen out of my handbag. A letter? An anonymous letter? A signed letter in which I will very calmly recount my theories point by point? I know full well that it’s useless and ridiculous. But the pen and paper are still on the table beside the postcard as if they were urging me to continue, as if they were waiting for something. Perhaps that’s why, taking the top off the pen, I think of a title, ‘Interior with Figure’, and do the only thing I can do. I start writing a story.
The End of Barbro
When we were little one of us discovered it was possible to look at something without actually seeing it. It happened one summer’s day in a village in the mountains when we were playing with some other children our age and we found a dead cat. None of us three girls had ever seen a dead cat – and definitely not such an enormous one. It was lying in a pool of blood, its eyes open and still like a doll’s eyes. But the image lasted only a few seconds because someone yelled almost immediately, and then everyone started running and screaming and out of the large group of children standing beside the blood-red pool only the bravest were left: the oldest boy in the gang and one of us.
&nbs
p; Even so, and although it was a long time ago, we’re still not really sure which one of us three discovered how to look at something without seeing it. We all think we remember it as if it were yesterday, staring at the cat that had bled to death and our minds lost in the distance, thousands of kilometres away. But one thing for certain is that this modest skill very quickly evolved from being the personal quirk of just one of us to become a skill the whole family shared. We started using it almost immediately in our daily lives. At school, when the classes were particularly boring, we looked as if we were paying attention to maps, explanations, the blackboard or to being told off, and no one ever noticed that we were away with the fairies. We did it so exceedingly well that it was impossible to tell by looking at us. We were there, but we weren’t really there. We were proud of it, too, as we are now, as we remember it.
Because we’ve just remembered it. Suddenly, just like that, a short while ago. And it seems as if we’re going to have plenty of time to remember the dead cat, go back in our minds and dwell on any amount of other things from the past, make an inventory of memories or even write a book. The official dealing with us has written down our names and checked them against her list and stared at us (perhaps she was looking without seeing) and asked, ‘Are you sisters?’ The question is not so idiotic as it might seem. Our first names and surnames are in her papers, but what she really wonders is whether we are triplets. It’s strange, as we didn’t look much like one another when we were little, but now people aren’t sure and get us mixed up, just like the official before she noticed our dates of birth. So we answered, ‘Sisters’, and she led us into this awful room.
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