Off Side

by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

  ‘Do you know anything about someone putting the screws on a centre forward?’

  ‘Schuster?’

  ‘No. First because he’s not a centre forward, and second because he’s no longer with Barcelona.’

  ‘A centre forward, you said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No, nothing.’

  ‘Well see what you can find out.’

  ‘Keep your voice down, Pepe, because round here even the Coca-Colas have ears.’

  ‘What are you so scared of, Bromide?’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘Scared that they’re putting bromides in the water so’s you can’t get a hard-on any more?’

  ‘That’s the least of it. People are terrified these days. Everyone’s scared, wherever you go. And me too. Things aren’t what they used to be, Pepiño. I’ll come to your office in a couple of hours, and we can talk more freely.’

  ‘I’ll have a glass of wine, please.’ Bromide’s request had the urgency of a shipwrecked man just rescued from the waves and wracked with thirst. Biscuter disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a bottle and three glasses. He filled Bromide’s glass half full, and handed it to him. The shoeshine sniffed it, held it at a slight distance to judge its colour against the light, and crinkled his nose.

  ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you, but is this stuff decent?’

  ‘Look at the label on the bottle. Val Duero. The boss is in the process of trying all the wines from Ribera del Duero. One after another. Last month he tried all the wines from Leon. With all due respect, boss, I’d say you’ve been getting a bit obsessional recently. The boss says, and he can correct me if I’m wrong, that he wants to try all the good wines in the world before he dies.’

  ‘So why didn’t you fill my glass right up?’

  ‘The boss says that a glass of wine shouldn’t be filled to the top.’

  ‘Is that what you say, Pepiño?’

  ‘Biscuter, for Bromide you should fill it right up. Bromide’s ways are different to ours.’

  Biscuter was upset at being taken to task, so he retorted that Bromide could pour it himself, and there-upon disappeared into the little kitchen next to the toilet, slamming the door behind him, as an indication of a state of internal torment that the rest of them were going to have to work out for themselves.

  ‘The dwarf’s in a bad mood, and when I say dwarf, I mean it in a friendly way, Pepiño, because I like Biscuter. But what you said just then really hurt, Pepe.’

  ‘What was that, Bromide?’

  ‘When you said that my ways were different to yours.’

  ‘I wasn’t meaning to put you down.’

  ‘I know, Pepe. You’re not talking with some little old lady, you know. You’re talking with a gentleman legionnaire and a veteran of the Russian campaign. And that’s the whole problem. I can still talk to you about the Russian campaign, even though you are a commie — or used to be a commie — because at least you remember how things were. But I don’t know what’s happening to the world, Pepiño. People have lost the ability to remember, and it’s as if they don’t want to be reminded of things. As if there’s no point in remembering. No point? If you take away my memories, what’s left of me? As far as I’m concerned, this is all a conspiracy of those bloody stupid socialists. They want everyone to think that everything started with them. But they’re just like all the rest. I don’t recognize anything any more. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, and I feel very strongly about this … Pepiño, we’re surrounded.’

  ‘If you say so …’

  ‘I don’t know … I guess I’ve been talking to myself. I didn’t dare talk openly when you saw me earlier, because walls have ears. I don’t even feel at home in the places where I used to feel at home. In the old days, Pepe, I used to know every criminal in this city, every one of them. They were like my family. They were in and out of prison, and they stole whatever they could lay their hands on, and Bromide was like their memory. Up in my head I’ve got all the shit that’s ever happened in this city. But it hurts, Pepe, it hurts, what’s going on now. They’ve colonized us.’

  ‘I presume you’re referring to American imperialism.’

  ‘The hell I am. I’m referring to the new class of criminals. There’s not a single Spaniard among them. It’s all split between the blacks, the Arabs and the Asians, and our own Spanish criminals have to go and work for them, and God help anyone who tries to set up for himself. Do you remember “Golden Hammer”, the pimp I introduced you to one time? Well, two months ago they found him dead as a doornail on a demolition site. He thought he was going to be in the game for life, but he wasn’t watching what was going on around him. And don’t go thinking that the blacks and Arabs you find round Barcelona are the kind who’ve come off the farms. Not a bit of it. They’re ready-made mafiosos, with good connections with the police. The other day I was talking to an old soldier who comes from the same village as me. Valverde is his name, José Valverde Cifuentes. Well, he told me: “What can we do, Bromide? The bloody blacks and the Arabs all look the same. Supposing one of them mugs you, what are you going to do at the ID parade? You could identify someone who came from Calahorra, or Marbella, or Stockholm, but they stick ten blacks in front of you, or ten Arabs, and you can’t tell one from the other. And if you do happen to point one out, it’ll be curtains for you. The police prefer to turn a blind eye, because what happens if they arrest them? The case finally comes to court, and they know that it’s going to cost them more to put them on an aeroplane out of the country, or keep them in prison, than it will to leave them on the streets, so they pretend they don’t know what’s going on. Or they do a deal with the gang bosses: don’t stir it up for us, and we won’t stir it up for you. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. You know what I mean, Pepe? If a Spanish bank robber does a job — say El Macareno, or El Nen, or La Mapi — then the cops just go round and pick them up, because they know exactly where to find them. But nobody’s going to touch one of the immigrants. And that’s where my problem starts. Where do I figure in all this? Nowhere. Absolutely bloody nowhere. I’ve had these Arabs coming up to me, looking like something out of a fashion show, with more gold hanging off them than Lola Flores, and they threaten me: “You just clean your shoes and mind your own business.” If anyone had said that to me four or five years ago, he’d have got my box on his head, brushes and all, and I’d have taken my shirt off and shown him my chest with the tattoos from the Legion and the Blue Division: “There, cocksucker, read that, and remember who you’re dealing with — a gentleman and a legionnaire.” But if you do that with this lot, they just laugh in your face. Even the police laugh at me. Before they used to treat me with respect, because even if you’d only been in the infantry, if you were one of Franco’s soldiers, it meant something. But nowadays the gangsters and the police don’t know or care what happened in the old days. They have no memory, Pepe — they’ve stuck their memories up their arses. And that’s why we’re fucked. So that was what put the wind up me, when you asked me what I know, Pepiño. You know I’d love to help, and I know you’d be generous in return. But I can’t, because I don’t know anything.’

  ‘But surely you know someone who might know something.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, lead me to them.’

  ‘I don’t dare, Pepe. They leave me alone because I pretend to be crazy, but if I go up to one of the Arabs and say: “Listen, I’ve got a friend who wants to talk to you,” they’ll just tell me to mind my own business. And I might get a kicking too. I tell you, we’ve been colonized, Pepe. It’s terrible that we’ve just got to swallow it in silence. Instead of jetting off round the world all the time, Felipe Gonzales should at least see to it that when people rob us or knife us, it’s Spaniards who do it. I’ve always been a good patriot, and it infuriates me when I see how they’re selling Spain out. The other day there was an expert on the TV — one of those eggheads who talk out of their arses — and he was going bla
h-blah-blah, all about how Spain was up for sale, and how anyone with any sense would come and invest here, because they’d make a mint. Of course they would. Even the criminals’ hang-outs are up for grabs. There are people who have a seat in Plaza Real, and they wouldn’t give it up for two million pesetas, because all they have to do is sit there all day, and they make a fortune. Cocaine, I’m talking about, cocaine … So what can I say? If a prostitute’s even halfway good-looking, she goes with an Asian. We’re getting to the point where there won’t be any Spanish pimps left. Sure, your average-looking prostitutes end up with Spanish pimps. But the minute you start talking above-average looks, ten thousand a screw and upwards, they all end up with the foreigners. We need another Franco, that’s what we need. I’d like to see Franco back on the scene, waving his sword around. You wouldn’t see these foreigners for dust. If people feel they need to go thieving, fair enough, go ahead. But they can stay at home and do it in their own countries, because Spaniards take lessons from nobody when it comes to crime. But it’s the same old story. Who invented the helicopter? And the submarine? Spaniards. But who made the profits? The Yanks. Well now the same thing’s happening with crime. You’ve always had Spaniards stealing and killing, but we did it in our own Spanish way. And now we’ve got these foreigners coming in and running off with the loot, and even the blacks are taking liberties now. Even the blacks, Pepe! I don’t understand anything any more. I’ve said it before, and I say it again — there are two kinds of people in this world: the mafiosos who control everything, and the junkies who go their own way and don’t control anything. And poor old Bromide’s stuck in the middle, and they treat him like a dog. And I’m hurting all over, Pepe, I can hardly tell you. One day it’s my kidneys, the next it’s my liver. I can hardly piss, Pepe, I can hardly even piss. When I shake my ding-a-ling, it’s like a lump of wood, and I don’t know why I bother, because even if I shake it, all that comes out is drops. I could shake it for two days on end, but all I’d get would be drops.’

  Carvalho had let him talk on, but even though he pretended to himself that he wasn’t really listening, he slowly found himself getting involved. What the old man was saying now was no different to what he’d been saying as he’d got more and more pessimistic over the years, but this time it sounded less rhetorical and more a sincere declaration of impotence. A powerlessness at the core of his being. And his gestures as he pointed to the various aches were the gestures of a man who could hardly bare to touch where it hurt because it was hurting so badly.

  ‘There are doctors, Bromide.’

  ‘The trouble is, they find all sorts of things wrong with you, Pepe. I used to go to one before, a National Health doctor, and he was very good. He’d ask me: “Do you want me to find something wrong with you? No? That’s fine. Goodbye, then.” And off I went, and for sixty years now I’ve been fit as a fiddle. But then my doctor retired, and I’ve not been back from that day to this. Or rather, I did go back one day, and I saw his replacement. He was an idiot. No sooner did he set eyes on me than he started dreaming up all kinds of things wrong with me. Some of them were right, as it turned out, but he was making up the rest. I waited till he went to answer the phone, and I cleared off. If he’d been right about everything he said was wrong with me, by rights I should be dead by now. And the other thing is, I feel a bit awkward about going to doctors.’

  Carvalho caught himself saying: ‘I’ll come with you.’

  Bromide stood and looked at him, letting the words sink in. Then he swallowed heavily.

  ‘I’d be embarrassed to go to the doctor with you, Pepe. It’d be different if I was married … I’ve always dreamed of having a wife to go to the doctor’s with me, but then you know what a hard time I’ve had, trying to find a decent woman. I’d like to be married. It’s good to go to the doctor’s with your wife.’

  This time Carvalho heard himself say: ‘Charo could go with you.’

  All the dirty wrinkles on the shoeshine’s face creaked into action and his eyes suddenly shone with happiness.

  ‘Would Charo do that for me?’

  ‘Charo needs a dad to take to the doctor’s.’

  ‘You’re making fun of me, Pepe.’

  ‘I’m serious.’

  Bromide finished off his wine and savoured it with a tongue that ranged around a mouth that was more or less devoid of teeth.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do to find you a contact. But be careful with what you find out.’

  Carvalho stuck a thousand-peseta note in Bromide’s jacket pocket, and the shoeshine closed his eyes as the money made contact with his body.

  Juan Sánchez Zapico was a self-made man, and he had surrounded himself with people who were incapable of seeing that what he’d made of himself didn’t actually amount to much. The four apartment blocks that he had constructed in the barrio; the six scrap-metal yards which extended his domain to the outskirts where Pueblo Nuevo meets with San Adrián; a small sugared-almond factory which had all the latest technology, as he never tired of telling anyone who was willing to listen — all this had made him moderately rich, and likely to remain so. This meant that he could dedicate part of his leisure time to being chairman of Centellas, a historic club in a historic barrio. In the early days of football in Catalonia, Centellas had been capable of competing with Barça, Europa, Espagñol and San Andrés. But then, after the Civil War, it was lucky to survive at all. Its continued existence was due in part to the solid support of its fans in the barrio, and in part to the fact that its pitch was located in a key zone for Barcelona’s future. The club’s directors had resisted the temptation to sell the ground in the period of urban expansion in the 1950s and 1960s, and then later when people began sniffing around for promising real estate in the area around the proposed Olympic Village. The Centellas ground sat on the third or fourth parallel from the sea, almost on the edge of San Adrián, and as such it was fated to be swallowed up by the new Barcelona which was planned to grow outwards from the central nucleus of the Olympic Village, which in turn would become apartment blocks for the new post-Olympic petty bourgeoisie — a marked contrast with the previous population of the neighbourhood: the last remains of the Catalan proletariat, and the archaeological sedimentations of various immigrations.

  ‘All in due course,’ Sánchez Zapico would say when the club’s more impatient directors started pressing the merits of some of the more lucrative offers-to-sell.

  On other occasions he would wax more lyrical: ‘For as long as I live, Centellas will live, and without this ground Centellas would die.

  ‘Centellas depends on its ground,’ he declaimed, at the end of the speech with which he introduced Palacín to the other players and to around two hundred fans spread out on the club’s time-worn terraces, not forgetting three trainee journalists, recently emerged from the Faculty of Information Sciences who were there to cover third-hand news events with fourth-hand tape recorders bought in the flea market in Plaza de las Glorias.

  ‘Our intention in signing Palacín is to improve club attendances. Palacín isn’t just a name. He’s a centre forward to his core. He’s got balls.’

  The journalists noted down the phrase ‘he’s got balls’, but then, when their offerings finally appeared in their respective newspapers, they went no further than to say that, in the opinion of Sánchez Zapico, Palacín was ‘well furnished’. The new signing merited only one photograph, which, in the event, was not published, although a small headline at the bottom of the last page of sports news seemed keen to stir public interest in the reappearance of Alberto Palacín. ‘Centellas is obviously taking next season seriously, as we see from the fact that they have signed Alberto Palacín, the centre forward who was hailed as the new Marcelino in the 1970s, but who then ran into bad times because of injury. He continued his career in American football, and ended up playing for Oaxaca in Mexico. He was a popular player and established himself as one of the highest goal scorers in the Mexican League. At the age of thirty-six, Palacín has committed himse
lf to helping Centellas to promotion to the Third Division. Then, he says, he will retire. On the pitch he looks to be in fine form, although the passing years have clearly left their mark.’ This was written by a twenty-two-year-old journalist, in other words, a journalist of no age at all: this was the thought that ran through Palacín’s mind as he read the article and had a vague recollection of the youngster who for a few minutes had accorded him the role of a star.

  ‘Don’t take any notice of what they say in the papers. I never take any notice of the press,’ the club’s chairman urged him, thinking that the bit about his age had hurt him. ‘A journalist is like a man with a gun. He thinks that just because he’s got a pen in his hand, he’s got more balls than you. I want you to show balls when you’re out there. This club needs players with balls.’