Murder in the Central Committee

by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

  A small, thin, bald man was rubbing his hands as if he were cold. Or perhaps the cold came from the cracked walls, spattered with marks of damp and indefinable erosion. Not a single piece of furniture. Maybe that was why the bulk of the fat man seemed rather comforting—a smiling bulk that came out to meet them in the company of the nocturnal visitors to Carmela’s flat.

  ‘How nice to see you both! Don’t worry. You are my guests. My niece and nephew. I’m sorry this house is so poorly decorated. It’s cold and inhospitable. The sooner we get it over, the better. There’s not even anywhere to sit.’

  ‘I need to sit down.’

  ‘I can see that, Señor Carvalho. You’re not looking well at all. You’re too high-spirited, like from a different age. You must have learnt your trade from Klotz novels. Raner is violent and aggressive, always on the move. Things aren’t done like that anymore. Look at Le Carré’s characters. That’s the model. Office work, a lot of office work. Going through files. Everything’s computerised, dehumanised. Smiley uses his head, not his fists. Forgive me for always talking about Smiley, but he really does fascinate me.’

  ‘My stomach is empty.’

  ‘There’s not a crumb in the house. One more reason to get it over as quickly as possible. You seem to have reached the end of the trail. We’d be very interested to know who you’ve picked.’

  ‘You already know.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘May I lean against the wall?’

  ‘No.’

  It was a no that condemned him to stay on his feet, like Carmela, like the others who formed a circle around the two pallid faces. Carvalho threw his head back to free his shoulders from a painful, steely tension. The ceiling of broken, flower-patterned plaster surrounded a chandelier whose crystals had gone astray.

  ‘A name is all we want.’

  Just a name. A man condemned to death. A few hours gained for Santos Pacheco to prepare a flanking manoeuvre. That was the least thing that concerned him. In the end, though, they were not his clients.

  ‘You must understand. I have a duty to my clients. You also recognise professional secrecy.’

  ‘The name.’

  Carvalho said no with his head. The fat man barely moved his arm. His short, thin, bald, shivery companion approached Carmela and hit her on both cheeks until she was dizzy. The fat man and Carvalho looked at each other. The thug had eyes of steel.

  ‘The name.’

  Carvalho looked at Carmela, who had covered her face with her hands. She was neither crying nor groaning.

  ‘I must consult my partner. After all, she’s got the worst part.’

  ‘Don’t tell those bastards anything!’ she shouted with a hoarse, false-baritone voice.

  Faced with the barrier of Carmela’s hands, the bald man landed a punch to her stomach that left her sitting with her legs sprawled and her eyes full of stupefaction.

  ‘You see? The name.’

  No, Carvalho’s head repeated. The torturer bent over Carmela, pulling her up by the hair. His free hand flew in search of the girl’s body, but it found a body that came to meet him and deliver a kick to his shins. Her hands fastened on the little man’s face, tearing his eyelids and raising bloody weals of flesh on his cheeks. He let go of her hair in order to protect his face, and Carmela launched into blind hand-to-hand combat. The other two men went towards them, disregarding a mute and tardy instruction from the fat man. Carvalho immediately went for him, even though a pistol was now staring from the cuboid’s hand. A kick in his flies demonstrated that he was not insensitive to certain assaults from reality. Two human bodies fell on the detective, undecided between themselves whether to immobilise him or to beat him to pulp. He breathed in splutters, and in splutters, too, he shouted for Carmela to run.

  ‘She’s getting away!’ one of them said, and Carvalho found himself at the mercy of a lone assailant. He heard the noise of the door being locked. He got to his feet and began moving towards the door, but then someone hit him on the leg and brought him to the ground. He could feel someone on his back. Carmela’s legs did not appear against the flaky skirtingboard that formed his horizon. They stood him up and pushed him against the wall. The fat man was in one corner with his hands on his balls; the bald man’s face was full of blood, both his own and the blood streaming from Carvalho’s nose. The red-haired nocturnal companion was holding a pistol. Only Carmela and the impassive face were missing.

  ‘You’re not a professional! You’re a kamikaze!’

  The fat man was making semi-circular movements around Carvalho, while the other two stood by with the artillery.

  ‘Leave him to us. That’s enough of the kid-glove treatment.’

  ‘A kamikaze. I can’t stand kamikazes. I hate irrational people.’

  The impassive man returned, carefully locked the door, went up to the stout overseer and said something in his ear. The fat man whispered something in reply. The others fell silent, waiting for news that did not come. The impassive man left the room by a side door. Carvalho slid down the wall and sat on the floor. His nose was bleeding and he felt pain from some of the blows he had sustained on his back. He wanted to sleep. He closed his eyes and received a message of warmth from some point of his body. His eyes had been open so long that they actually hurt. His back was grateful for the wall’s support. Carmela was not there. He felt happy.

  ‘Take advantage of the five minutes it will take for my friend to get advice. You’re through. You will only get out of here feet first. Is it money you want? Set a price for the information.’

  Carvalho soon realised that the difference between his persecutors was that some wanted to know what they already knew, while others wanted to know what they didn’t know. The previous ones had beaten him and made him feel, but with an extreme sense of assurance. These others obviously had no idea of the murderer’s identity.

  ‘Cigarette?’

  The fat man held out a packet of Ducado Specials.

  ‘I only smoke cigars.’

  ‘You’re out of luck. The Cubans have had two very bad harvests, and stocks of Havanas seem to be finished.’

  ‘I’m used to Canary cigars.’

  ‘Oh, well.’

  The fat man leant against the wall and slid down beside Carvalho. As his bottom hit the floor, the shock made him lift his legs and reveal a pair of black knee-length socks fastened by garters. Resting against Carvalho’s shoulder, he indulged in a lengthy reflection on who we are, where we come from and where we are going. The important thing is life. It is non-transferable; personal and non-transferable. Carvalho was not sure at which point he fell asleep. He knew these were not the best conditions for sleep, but he surrendered as if his very life depended on it. He was woken by the efforts of the other two to put the fat man back on his feet. The cuboid figure arranged his trousers and jacket and ambled towards the door where the impassive man stood like a tailor’s dummy displaying the autumn fashion. They muttered to one another. The fat man returned to the middle of the room, a broad smile on his face. He looked at Carvalho from his all-powerful longitude and latitude, then slowly bent over him and clutched his shoulders. Pulling him up by his arms and elbows, he propped the detective against the wall, yellowed by the light from the ailing lamp. The fat man moved to one side in contemplation of his work.

  ‘Pity we didn’t meet under better conditions. You’re a brave man. I’d like you to have been my nephew in real life.’

  The others whispered with the fat man as if something were nearing an end. They now kept their tension inside themselves, although the guns still lay in their hands like the ashes of a dying fire.

  ‘Maybe this will be my last job. I’ve already told them I want to retire. I’ve seven five-year terms behind me. Seven.’

  Carvalho watched him draw near. He no longer had the strength to attempt anything, as if Carmela’s escape had been his own liberation. The fat man stretched out one hand and, with the other, forced him to shake it.

  �
��It seems we no longer need you to tell us anything. You may leave.’

  You may leave. I may leave. From mistrust to acceptance of the situation. Carvalho shook his bones back into their right position, the fleshless frame of a hunted animal.

  ‘You’re sleepy. I can see. Sorry I can’t even offer you a bed.’

  Carvalho left the friendly chatter and walked towards the door, unsure whether to start running or to edge out backwards with an eye for the possibility of a shot. Why shouldn’t I run? And he replied: for aesthetic reasons, as a slave to behavioural models he would never be able to rework. It was with such thoughts that he eventually found himself in the cold of the night, with the door closed behind him and life represented by a path through the acacia trees. Half-way along the path, he heard the door open again behind his back. Some steps, a voice that froze him still.

  ‘The car keys. Your companion left the car keys.’

  It was the man with the impassive face. He was holding out the keys.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘That’s your problem,’ he replied, turning back to the house.

  The car was where they had left it, an object binding him to Carmela without which he would not be able to find her. He leant against the bonnet and waited. Carmela appeared round a corner of the street, hesitant at first, but then running towards Carvalho and staring at him as if he had been raised from the dead. She grasped his hands and put her wounded cheek against his chest. He urged her to get into the car and took the steering wheel. The house remained there, like a distant weight that grew lighter as the car increased the distance.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. There was no other solution.’

  ‘I didn’t tell them the name. They let me go because it suited them. Either they must know by now or they’re not interested in finding out. What about you? How did you manage to escape?’

  ‘I didn’t escape from anyone. Nobody followed me. At first I thought one of them was following, but he didn’t even leave the garden. I ran like mad, but then I turned back to see if you’d managed to get away.’

  ‘Maybe they were afraid of a scandal. Imagine a chase through the streets.’

  ‘What scandal? All these houses are deserted. I tried to get into one to phone the Party or Julio for help. I didn’t want to wander too far in case they let you go. In case you tried to escape.’

  ‘It’s all so clear that I don’t understand anything. I want to sleep. You drive. Do you feel up to it?’

  Carmela took the wheel, and they did not speak until they reached Madrid.

  ‘To hell with sleep! I haven’t eaten a thing. I’ve got an empty stomach.’

  ‘If you go to a restaurant bleeding like that, you will start one hell of a row.’

  ‘But you’ve got red cheeks.’

  ‘I’ll just put on some make-up.’

  ‘Shall we go to El Amparo? New Basque cuisine. Doesn’t the name mean anything to you?’

  ‘Basque-style salted codfish, and so on.’

  ‘Don’t go on, please. If you’re not too shattered, I suggest we eat first and then go dancing.’

  ‘Oh, John darling! This could be our night!’

  ‘Drop me at the hotel for the time being. I want to have a shower. I’ll wash my wounds away and be as good as new.’

  ‘Don’t be too long,’ Carmela said as he got out of the car.

  ‘No,’ Carvalho touched her reassuringly. He stood at an angle when he asked for the room key, so that the marks of battle would not be visible, and then dashed off towards the lift.

  ‘Señor Carvalho, one moment please!’

  The receptionist was holding out an envelope on which the word ‘URGENT’ had been written by a nervous hand. Pacing up and down, Carvalho tore open the envelope.

  Dear Señor Carvalho,

  I’ve gone over in my mind the things we have talked about and experienced in the last few days, and I have come to the conclusion that I am the one truly responsible for all that has happened. My blindness to the main facts and actors is the chief cause of Fernando’s death and of the serious damage it may do to my Party and the democratic process in Spain. I take responsibility for the confidence we showed in X, allowing him to get as far as he did and to do what he has done. I thought I could see in him the best virtues of a good revolutionary, but perhaps the only thing I saw was my own image reflected in a convenient mirror.

  I have lived through some very painful personal and collective moments, but none was more painful than this. I feel hemmed in by failure. I myself am a failure. I feel I have travelled a long road for nothing, and if I personalise the failure, it is because it applies exclusively to me and affects neither the Party nor its policy. Nearly fifty years of active membership give greater significance to the anguish I feel at what I am now holding in my hands.

  Perhaps one of my defeats, one of our defeats, is the great power, the blind faith in the logic and analysis of facts, perceived with insufficient distance and an activist-type alienation capable of petrifying our sense of reality. Using words that do not conjure up what my words have always conjured up, I realise the extreme poverty of my vocabulary now that I’m trying to break out of an ‘internal’ language. I don’t know if I’m making myself clear, or even how much I want to make clear. History did not allow us a normal existence. For better or for worse, we have always been in an exceptional situation: we saw the light of day as an alternative to social-democratic revisionism; we immediately had to wrestle with the struggle against fascism; we became a fiercely persecuted underground movement, conditioned by national repression and a bipolarisation of world politics; we entered legality declaring freedom to be a revolutionary instrument, but we were culturally weighed down by a history filled with exceptional situations and various relics. Maybe it would be necessary to make a clean break: to give a sense to the future of the communist movement beyond the alibis of a generation educated in resistance and self-repression, instead of in a process of building socialism in freedom, with the weapons of democratic liberties and the historical energy of the masses.

  The gods are dead, but we priests have remained. We respond as priests to the priesthood of counter-revolution now on the defensive. But perhaps that is not the way we should respond; perhaps the only way is to lose our own priesthood so that the other priesthoods will be thrown into relief. I look around me and am anguished to find not only that we have not taken this road, but that we have striven to reproduce ourselves as priests in our own heirs. Having no epic or ethical alibi, those heirs will end up believing that socialism is the result of eight hours of solid, though badly paid, labour. But bad pay is itself an alibi so long as power is not held, and that alibi has disappeared among the priests of the socialist countries, where power entails material privilege.

  Fortunately socialism remains as the process and objective of human emancipation, and the mistakes committed by parties such as ours are instrumental errors that do not invalidate the progressive meaning of history, the progressive meaning of human emancipation from all restrictive burdens. This meaning is preserved in every nameless militant capable of understanding the collective significance of the struggle and the long march, of sacrificing part of his or her individual liberty in the struggle for collective liberty and, if necessary, sacrificing his life for a juster history. We have to purify egoism in order to understand the evil derivatives of primary, animal egoism or the rationalised egoism of capitalist culture and civilisation.

  If the goal is so clear and its subject so self-evident, what prevents us from reworking the method and the instrument? A culture, a false consciousness of ourselves as a collective, a consciousness that is both methodologically and instrumentally conservative. What I am saying to you is the product not of the boundless depression that has gripped me, but of many reflections and conversations, including those with Garrido himself. Both of us knew we were being driven forward by the tongue of our accumulated historical glacier, but neither he nor I was capable of initiating th
e scandal of an internal cultural revolution through a break with the statutes and the cremation of old relics.

  Now I am facing the corpse of Fernando, murdered by my own godson. I feel like a stupid, empty old failure, with nothing left but to embalm the corpse and patch up the Party so that the images will be safe. I have no wish to be in charge of the election, this false election, and I would like to give an exemplary significance to the act of my self-destruction. I owe you this explanation because, in the end, it was to you we turned to give us the absolution that I assumed to be impossible. In the use that the counter-revolution has made and will make of everything that has happened, our own dramaturgy will itself be of some advantage. I hope that my exit will at least produce a respectful silence.

  Greetings,

  Madrid, 12 October 1980 José Santos Pacheco

  Carvalho put the letter in his pocket. He immediately caught himself moving towards the lift, then towards the street door and back again to the lift. He re-read a chance fragment of the letter: ‘We have to purify egoism in order to understand the evil derivatives of primary, animal egoism or the rationalised egoism of capitalist culture and civilisation.’ A fine sentence, but hard for a dying man to utter, however good his lungs. Carvalho had to struggle against a defensive incredulity. He found himself on the pavement. Carmela was parked on the corner, gesturing towards him and surprised at his lack of decision. He automatically walked up to the car. Who am I to deny him the role of scapegoat?

  ‘Where does Santos live?’

  ‘His family lives in Calle Legazpi. But he has a flat of his own.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It’s a secret. Very few people know.’