Outlaws

by Javier Cercas

  ‘All this – Zarco’s personal degradation, my return to proper work at the office and a slight cooling off of my relationship with Tere – explains what happened one night at the end of May or beginning of June, when Zarco had had several consecutive weekend releases. It was an important night for Zarco and for me. I’d gone to bed early and had been asleep for a while when the phone rang. I answered. Cañas? I heard. Speaking, I answered. It’s Eduardo Requena, said the prison superintendent. Sorry for calling so late. Still lying in bed and in the dark, I suddenly came back to reality: it was Sunday night and very late; I immediately thought something had happened with Zarco. Not to worry, I said. What’s happened? I’m calling about Gamallo, the superintendent answered. It’s midnight and he’s not back. He’s supposed to be in his cell by nine. If he doesn’t show up before breakfast we’ll be in trouble.

  ‘Requena and I barely exchanged another phrase or two; there was nothing else to say: Zarco hadn’t returned from his weekend release and, unless I found out where he’d gone and managed to get him back to the prison, the campaign for his liberty would go down the drain. I hung up the phone, turned on the light, sat up in bed, thought for a moment, picked up the phone and called María, who said when she answered that she wasn’t sleeping but watching TV. I told her what Requena had told me and, with a voice that revealed neither surprise nor alarm, she explained that she didn’t understand and that it wasn’t yet nine o’clock when she dropped Zarco off two hundred metres from the prison door. He said he wanted to go for a walk before going in, María told me. I asked her if anything abnormal had happened that weekend and María said that it would depend what I considered abnormal and for her the question wasn’t if anything abnormal had happened but if anything normal had happened. I asked her what she meant by that and María answered, sounding irritated, that she’d meant exactly what she’d said. Not understanding her irritation, I asked her if she had any idea where Zarco could be and María answered, sounding even more irritated, that I should ask Tere. He spent the weekend with Tere?, I asked incredulously. You can ask her that too, she answered.

  ‘I didn’t want to argue any more or ask her any more questions, nor was there time, so I asked María to stay home, in case Zarco called her or showed up there. Then I hung up, picked the phone back up and started dialling Tere’s number, but I hadn’t finished when I changed my mind and hung up again. I got up, tidied myself up a little, got in the car and drove towards Vilarroja. To get to Tere’s house you had to go past the neighbourhood church and down three deserted, steep and badly-lit streets, which that night seemed straight out of an Andalusian village in the 1960s. When I got to the place I was looking for – a two-storey building that looked like a garage or a warehouse – I stopped the car, got out and rang the intercom for the second floor. No one answered. I rang the first floor. Tere answered. I told her who it was and without buzzing me in she asked what I wanted and I told her what the prison superintendent had told me. She asked if I’d talked to María and I told her what María had told me and asked her the question María told me to ask her. Tere didn’t answer; she asked me to wait. After a few minutes she appeared and, without a word of greeting, pointed to my car. Let’s go, she said. Where?, I asked, following her: she was wearing jeans, a white shirt, sneakers and her handbag strap across her chest, like twenty years ago when we’d meet up in La Font to go out and steal cars, snatch old ladies’ handbags and rob banks on the coast. To look for Antonio, she answered. Do you know where he is? I asked. No, she answered. But we’ll find out.

  ‘Following Tere’s instructions I drove out of Vilarroja and towards Font de la Polvora. On the way there I asked her again if she’d been with Zarco that weekend and this time she answered: she said no. Then I asked her if she knew who Zarco had been with that weekend and she said she had an idea. Then I remembered the last time I’d spoken to the prison superintendent, in his office, and I asked her if she knew that Zarco was using heroin again. Of course, she said. And why didn’t you tell me?, I asked. Because it wouldn’t have done any good, she answered. Besides, when did you want me to tell you? We haven’t seen each other for weeks. Not through any fault of mine, I reproached her. She returned the reproach: Don’t start with me on what’s whose fault, Gafitas. I thought Tere was blaming me for Zarco’s bolting, but it seemed so unfair an accusation that I didn’t even try to defend myself. After a silence I insisted: Do you know where Zarco scores his heroin? No, said Tere and, I don’t know why, but I felt she was lying; then I wondered whether she was lying when she said she hadn’t spent the weekend with Zarco; then I wondered whether she didn’t spend the weekends with me so she could spend them with Zarco. Tere went on: Anyway, it’s easy to get it in prison. And outside prison as well. At least it is for him.

  ‘We’d arrived in Font de la Pòlvora. While we drove into the neighbourhood I asked again: Does María know? About the smack?, she asked, and she answered herself: She pretends not to know, but she knows. What she can’t pretend not to know is that she barely sees Zarco on the weekends and when he does go to her place, he robs her. Stop here. I noticed that she’d said Zarco and not Antonio and I stopped on a dirt road without streetlights, between two identical tower blocks or between two blocks of flats that the night made almost identical. Tere got out and told me to wait for her. I watched her go in one of the blocks that looked like a massive shadow dotted with windows of light, I saw her come out a little while later and point to the other building, saw her go in, saw her come out almost immediately. They don’t know anything here, she said, as she got back in the car. Let’s try in Sant Gregori.

  ‘We tried a bungalow in a housing development in Sant Gregori and a house in the old quarter of Salt. Finally, in a farmhouse near Aiguaviva they assured Tere they’d seen Zarco that evening and directed her to a place in La Creueta, a district in the outskirts, south-east of Gerona. We crossed the city again and, somewhere around four or five in the morning, I stopped in an empty field, beside the roundabout of a bypass, opposite a block of flats that in the darkness of that desolate place looked like a spaceship stranded in the small hours. Tere got out of the car, went into the building, came out a while later, opened my door, and leaning on it announced: He’s upstairs. I asked: Did you speak to him? Yes, she answered. I told him that he has to be at the prison before dawn. I don’t think he even heard me. I asked: How is he? Tere shrugged and half-closed her eyes in a gesture that meant: You can imagine. Who’s he with? Two guys; I don’t know them. Have you told him I’m here? No. We looked at each other in silence for a second. Go on up, please, said Tere. He’ll listen to you.

  ‘I was surprised by Tere’s confidence (also by that “please”: she didn’t normally ask for favours or say please), but I understood that I at least had to try. So I got out of the car and, walking behind her, entered the block of flats and walked up a narrow and dark stairway, although its darkness dissolved bit by bit as we approached a door left ajar on the landing of the top floor, out of which sprang a strip of light. We opened the door the rest of the way, walked into the flat, down a short hallway and there was Zarco, sitting on a burst sofa, twisting up the end of a joint under the sickly light of a fluorescent tube. Beside him was a redheaded guy sleeping, in a tracksuit, and to his left, legs splayed in an armchair, a barefoot black man in his underwear was watching TV with the remote control lying on one of his thighs; behind him, a big picture window looked out into the night. The room was a shithole: the floor was strewn with ash and bits of food, empty beer cans, empty cigarette packets, unidentifiable substances; also on the floor, in front of the sofa, there was a table made from two upside-down beer cases: at a glimpse I saw, on top of it, a bottle of whisky with barely any whisky in it, three dirty glasses, a crumpled Fortuna packet, a couple of hypodermic syringes, the remains of a bit of cocaine in a piece of tinfoil and a lump of hash.

  ‘Zarco seemed exaggeratedly glad to see me: he said the word fuck several times as he finished rolling the joint with an expert tw
ist of his fingers and then stood up and opened his arms wide in a welcoming gesture and asked Tere why she hadn’t told him I was with her. Tere didn’t answer the question; I didn’t answer the welcome: summoning all my patience I recognized the arrogant thug he could be turned into by the combination of alcohol and drugs, but especially by the combination of alcohol and drugs with the resurrection of his own myth, with the triumph of the persona over the person. Zarco approached me smiling, halfway between smug and somnambulant, threw an arm over my shoulders and turned towards his party pals like an actor addressing the stalls. Hey, guys!, he said, demanding their attention; he got part of it: although the redhead went on sleeping, the black guy looked over, pointing at us with the remote control. Zarco acted as if they were both listening. Believe it or not, he announced, this is my lawyer. A son of a bitch with three sets of balls, badder than a toothache. He laughed loudly revealing two rows of rotted teeth and patted me on the back. The black guy didn’t laugh; he turned back to the TV indifferently setting the remote control back down on his thigh. Zarco looked like a vagrant: he stank of sweat, tobacco and alcohol, his eyes were extremely red, his hair was dirty and his clothes dirty and wrinkled; on his feet he only had a pair of socks with holes in them out of which poked enormous and dirty toenails. He urged me to light the joint, but I refused his offer and he lit it himself; then he gestured to the whole room like a drunken host. Well, he said to us recent arrivals. Are you going to have a seat? If you feel like a beer, there should be one left somewhere. Tere and I stood still, in silence, and Zarco sat down and almost at the same moment the redhead woke up and looked at us with fear on his face; Zarco calmed him down: he patted his knee and said something that made him half-smile. Then the redhead sat up and stretched and started to prepare a couple of lines of coke while Zarco watched him, smoking.

  ‘I turned to Tere and interrogated her wordlessly. I don’t know if Tere understood the question (she was standing, looking very serious, her left leg moving faster than ever), but I understood that she was asking me wordlessly to try. I tried. I have to talk to you, I said to Zarco, who seemed suddenly to remember I was there and took a last hit off the joint and offered it to me. Great, he said. Tell me. He looked at his companions. Don’t worry about these two, Zarco reassured me, pointing at the black guy and the redhead. They don’t understand shit. Zarco shook the joint in the air, insisting that I take it; I kept not taking it and finally it was Tere who took it, with an impatient gesture. Zarco stared at me. There’s not much to say, I said. Just that you have to go back. He smiled. Feigning terrible disappointment he clicked his tongue, moved his head to the left and right, asked: To the nick? I didn’t answer. Zarco added still smiling: I’m not going back. Why not?, I asked. Because I don’t feel like it, he answered. I’m fine here. Aren’t you? Turning to Tere, he patted the sofa next to him a couple of times and said: Come on, Tere, sit down and tell this guy to take a toke and get over it all. For once we’re all partying together . . . Tere didn’t say anything, but she didn’t sit down beside Zarco or pass me the joint either. You have to go back, I repeated. The superintendent called me and told me he’s expecting you: if you go back he’ll pretend nothing’s happened. Mentioning the superintendent didn’t help. Suddenly tense, Zarco replied: Well, you can tell him from me that he can keep waiting. He sat forward on the sofa, poured what was left of the whisky in a glass, knocked it back in one and, after a silence, began to complain, getting more and more upset: he grumbled about the conditions of prison life, he assured us that since he’d begun to get weekend-release passes things had continued to get worse for him inside and several guards and several inmates had decided to make his life impossible with the consent or at the urging of the superintendent, he finished up by announcing that the next day he’d call his friend Pere Prada and then he’d hold a press conference to denounce his situation in the prison.

  ‘I listened to Zarco’s complaints with the weary feeling of having heard them all many times already, but I didn’t feel like interrupting him. When he finished talking he seemed exhausted and saddened and a little confused. I felt that I should take advantage of that slump to return to the attack and try to convince him, but just then the redheaded guy snorted the first line of coke and, pointing at the last one with a rolled-up thousand-peseta note, invited Zarco to have it; I understood that if Zarco snorted the line it would not be humanly possible to get him back to the prison that night, so, without a second thought, I grabbed the note out of the redhead’s hand, stuck one end in my nose and inhaled the line through the other. The redhead and Zarco were astonished. Then, as my brain coped with the hit of coke, Zarco looked at the redhead, still perplexed he looked back at me, his eyes narrow like slits, and finally laughed joylessly. You’re something else, Gafitas, he said.

  ‘I snorted the rest of the coke and handed the thousand pesetas back to the redhead. Zarco stopped laughing abruptly, but seemed to relax again straight away, seemed to be back in a good mood; he lit a cigarette and leaned back on the sofa; he said: So you’ve come to rescue me, eh? This time I didn’t answer either. He scrutinized me for a couple of seconds and continued in a relaxed tone: I’m curious about something, Gafitas. I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while and I always forget. What’s that?, I asked. Why did you agree to defend me?, he asked. Why have you set up this whole scene with the journalists and the brainless María? And why are you so compelled to get me out of jail? You know why, I said. No, said Zarco. I know what you told me, but I don’t know the truth. What’s the truth, Gafitas? Why are you doing this? Are you trying to be sanctimonious, because you want to go to heaven? Or is it that you want me to go to heaven so you take my coke right out from under my nose? It wouldn’t be just that you want to screw Tere, would it? Because if it’s that . . . He looked at Tere and shut up. I hadn’t heard her move, but she had moved, silently as a cat: now she was sitting on top of a beer case, with her back against the wall, with her legs crossed and the almost extinguished roach between her fingers, witnessing the scene at a distance, without showing much interest. Zarco stopped looking at Tere and looked at me, intrigued. During those months I had wondered more than once whether he knew that Tere and I were sleeping together; now I thought I sensed that he didn’t even suspect it. I answered: I told you: You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. In Zarco’s eyes curiosity turned to sarcasm, so, before he could say anything, I jumped the gun. And don’t forget it’s my job, I said as well. This is how I make a living. Fuck off, Zarco replied. People get paid to do their jobs. And you haven’t charged me a fucking cent. You haven’t asked how much you owe me either, I answered. Besides, I don’t charge you money, but that doesn’t mean I’m not earning; maybe I should pay you: you’re making me famous. Zarco looked like he was about to burst out laughing again, but limited himself to simply tightening his lips sardonically, and making a gesture with his hands as if pushing me away and repeating as his gaze wandered to the TV: Fuck off, Gafitas!

  ‘The TV was showing a car chase across a desert and, for a moment, Zarco became completely absorbed by it, just as the redhead and the black guy were; in the picture window, behind him, the night was turning into dawn. I noticed the coke was starting to speed up my brain. Then, nodding without taking his eyes off the screen, Zarco mumbled something unintelligible several times. Until he suddenly turned to me and asked: You’re doing it because of the day of the bank job in Bordils, aren’t you?’

  ‘He said that?’

  ‘More or less: I don’t remember his exact words, but that’s more or less what he said, yeah.’

  ‘What was your answer?’

  ‘None. I didn’t know what to answer. It was the worst possible timing to talk about that, or the most unexpected, and the only thing that occurred to me was to wait and see what he did.’

  ‘And what did he do?’

  ‘The same as me but in reverse: waited for my reaction. Then, since I wasn’t saying anything, he looked at Tere, looked back at me and, pointing at m
e, looked back at Tere: Has he ever told you what happened the day they caught us? Well, he corrected himself. The day they caught the rest of us and he escaped. Has he told you? I bet he hasn’t, has he? That was when I interrupted. I didn’t give you away, I said unthinkingly. If you think I informed on you, it’s not true. How was I going to give you away? I was with you, they just about caught me . . . I know it wasn’t you, Zarco interrupted me. If it had been you I would have got even by now. I didn’t run my mouth off either, I insisted. That I’m not so sure about, said Zarco. And I don’t know how you can be so sure. Because I am, I lied. Absolutely. Careful, Gafitas, he warned me. The more you say it wasn’t you, the more it seems like it was you and you’re trying to hide that.