Southern Seas

by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

  Carvalho left the shop and began knocking on doors where the janitor’s function had not yet been replaced by an entryphone. Old janitors, bleached white by years spent in gloomy interiors, appeared down dark passages lit by flickering TV sets. No, they said, they had never seen the man. One block. Two. Even if it takes me two weeks, he said to himself. But he was already thinking that as soon as night fell, he would flee San Magín and follow the logical thread in some other direction. It seemed like it was always the same janitor … always the same doorway … after a while they became indistinguishable.

  Suddenly he realized that the pavements were full of children. The onset of dusk seemed set to greet their shouts and bustling laughter. Someone had given the order for pregnant women to appear, and they picked their way along the pavements like unsteady ducklings. He went up to the church that stood on a neat little hillock overlooking the built-up slopes of San Magín. It was a functional church, whose crumbling fabric had borne the full brunt of wind, rains, blazing suns across treeless landscapes, and the vile vapours of industrial effluent rising from dank reedbeds that hinted at the one-time presence of a stream long since extinct. The priest’s sacristy was littered with out-of-date posters calling for official amnesties. There was also a poster in Italian advertising the film Christ Stopped at Eboli. The priest himself sported a beard and a 1975 vintage Camacho pullover.

  ‘I’ve seen this face, but not recently. It was some time ago. I really couldn’t say when or where, though. Is he a relation of yours?’

  All his revolutionary mistrust glinted from one eye that was more open than the other. Carvalho left under his watchful gaze and had to decide whether to plunge back into the labyrinth of the satellite town, or to head for a brightly lit hall from whence issued the sound of music. Above the door, a sign said: San Magín Workers’ Commissions, and inside, someone was singing a sentimental song by Víctor Manuel about love between two mentally handicapped people. He showed the photo to the caretaker, who was using wood-shavings in an attempt to light a stove in the middle of the room. The room was furnished with two dozen assorted chairs, a small fridge, a blackboard, a bookcase, and several noticeboards displaying political posters and notices of various meetings.

  ‘Of course I knew him. He used to come here, a few months ago, soon after the club opened. He came quite often.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘You should know! I thought you said he was a relative of yours! Here everyone called him the Accountant. No. He never actually joined, but he used to come quite a lot. Then suddenly he stopped coming.’

  ‘Was he very active? Was he a good worker?’

  ‘No idea. I don’t know what he was like at work.’

  ‘No. Here, I mean. Did he put in a lot of work here?’

  ‘No. He came to meetings, but he didn’t really join in the discussions. Sometimes he’d stand up and make a point, though.’

  ‘Was he very committed?’

  ‘No. Only so-so. We get all sorts here. Half of them want to make the revolution overnight. But he was a moderate type. Obviously well educated, though. Very careful. He didn’t say a lot, so as not to offend people.’

  ‘Would you happen to know his proper name?’

  ‘Antonio. His name was Antonio, but everyone called him the Accountant because that was his job.’

  ‘Where did he work?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Didn’t he make friends? Didn’t he ever come with anyone else?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  A smile played round his lips.

  ‘With girls?’

  ‘One in particular. A metalworker from SEAT. Ana Briongos.’

  ‘Does she still come here?’

  ‘No. Or rather, not very often. But she’s very, very radical—the kind who got all worked up about the Moncloa Accords, and I’m not sure that she’s calmed down yet. Some people think everything’s going to change overnight just because they want it to. They haven’t got the years behind them. The experience. Like the civil war. That would have given them something to think about. Man is the only animal that trips over the same stone twice, you know. She’s a real working-class girl, Briongos. Real guts. As committed as they come. But too impatient. I’ve been in the thick of it since ’34, and I’ve been through many things, I can tell you. You win some, you lose some, that’s what I say. But don’t expect me to go round setting fire to letterboxes. Do you think that’s the way forward? Have you ever heard Solé Tura speak? I heard him once say something that made me think a lot. It went something like this: the bourgeoisie took four centuries to come to power, and the working class has only had a century of historical existence as an organized movement. Word for word. I’m quoting from memory. It’s obvious that it’s not going to be easy. Some people seem to think that we can just turn up at the Winter Palace with our union cards in our hands and say: “Out you go. We’re in charge now!” Do you see what I mean? There are plenty of people like that. But we’ve got to be patient. If we just start lashing out, we’ll bring the whole works down on top of us. Because they’re not blind, you know. Far from it. They’ve got eyes like hawks.’

  ‘Where can I find Briongos?’

  ‘That’s not up to me to tell, and no one else here will tell you either. Talk to the guy in charge if you like, but nobody ever gives their addresses here. It’s a responsibility, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘And you don’t know where the Accountant worked?’

  ‘Not really. I think he worked by the hour, doing the accounts for some fellow dealing in glassware—bottles, lab equipment and so on. Somewhere around Block Nine, because that’s where I used to see him. Always very stiff. This is how he’d walk. Very stiff. We didn’t trust him at first. He seemed out of place, and no one knew where he’d come from. But the fact that he was going around with Briongos was a kind of guarantee. A real fighter, that one. She was in the Modelo Prison before she was out of pigtails. Her father went there to give her a telling-off, and she told him to go take a jump. Too many people like that just get tired though, and then they just dump all those years of work and effort. Now she goes around saying that she’s through, and that the bourgeoisie’s got everything under control. All that kind of rubbish. Just look at me. Do you think the bourgeoisie controls me? What the hell has the bourgeoisie ever given me?’

  ‘Don’t get carried away, Cifuentes,’ shouted a young man from the back of the hall. His friends joined in the laughter.

  ‘Don’t be so stupid. And mind your manners. To think that even you have turned out a bunch of bums!’

  ‘Come and have a joint, Cifuentes.’

  Or maybe you’d prefer half a kilo of plastic explosive?’

  ‘Just listen to them. It’s all just a joke for them. But if the class enemy got to hear them, can you imagine what he’d make of it? It’s the thoughtlessness of youth. You have to be on your guard as you go through life, and you have to wait for the right conditions.’

  ‘The right conditions … ’ The phrase struck an ideological chord in Carvalho’s memory. The conditions may be right objectively or right subjectively. The conditions …

  ‘When the Accountant suddenly disappeared, didn’t anyone think it strange?’

  ‘No. He went the same way as he’d come. If we had to worry about all the people who move in and out of the workers’ movement, we’d all end up in the loony bin. Especially nowadays. At the start, everyone was high as kites and new members were flocking in. Now the commissions have a good presence in the workplace, but you won’t find a lot of people around here. The only time there’s any action here is when the labour lawyers come here for their advice sessions. The Franco years miseducated us, you know. When I read that Spanish people are mature enough for democracy, it drives me up the wall. Mature, my arse!’

  ‘Don’t get steamed up, Cifuentes!’

  ‘I’ll get steamed up if I want to, you little sod. Hold your noise. I’m talking to this gentleman, not to you.’r />
  He accompanied Carvalho to the door.

  ‘They’re good kids, but they do like getting me worked up. They’d give me the shirts off their backs, but they do love teasing me. That’s life, I suppose. I put up with it because I’m retired. I just come here to save the Commission having to pay someone wages. I’ve been in prison six times in my life. The first was in ’34. Then, each time we tried to organize the commissions again, there’d be a bust-up at the Graphic Arts faculty and Cifuentes would be off to the Vía Layetana cells again. Once, I told Superintendent Creix that if he’d rather, I’d happily move in there. And the old cynic laughed. What a nasty piece of work! Someone told me he’s retired now.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Creix. It may be true. He must be my age. And you don’t know the best part of it.’ He took Carvalho by the arm, led him into the street, and said in a low voice: ‘Creix and I are colleagues.’

  He stood back, to savour the surprise which he expected to see on Carvalho’s face.

  ‘You don’t understand? I’ll explain. During the civil war, I went on a course for officers at the Party school in Pins del Vallés. Some of us were to end up as political commissars at the front, and some would go into the police. I was told that I should join the Republic’s police force. It was Comorera himself who advised me. “Look, Cifuentes,” he said. “We’ve got as many political commissars as we need, but we don’t have reliable policemen. The force is full of fifth columnists.” So I went into the police. Then it all turned out the way it did. I was based as a station in Hospitalet, and my boss was Gil Lamas. Do you know the name? He must have already been a fifth columnist, because after the war he still stayed on in the force.

  ‘Anyway, when I got out of prison in ’46, I bumped into him on the Ronda—the bit where the Olimpia used to be. I don’t know what they call it nowadays. And he pretended not to recognize me, right? Anyway, I went through a great deal after that. But a couple of months ago, I received a letter informing me that I could claim my rights as a policemen in the Republic. So I go to see this official, a very polite, very professional gentleman. It goes before a committee, and that’s that. No problem at all. They could have dreamed up all sorts of complications, but no, it went straight through. It’s incredible. Look.’

  He took a well-worn sheet of folded paper from a plastic wallet. ‘ “Your rights have been recognized as a retired police officer with the rank of Inspector.”

  ‘An inspector! Me! With a pension of thirty thousand pesetas a month. What do you say to that? As a retired doorman from a high-class store, I used to get fifteen thousand pesetas. And now another thirty on top! I feel rich. And what’s more, I’m an inspector. It was about time something good happened to me. My wife still can’t believe it. All our bad luck has made her a bit distrustful. I showed her the letter. I show her the thirty thousand every month. But she’s still as obstinate as ever. “Evaristo”—that’s my name, “Evaristo—nothing good will come of this.” What do you think?’

  He was seeking an opinion from a man of the world, who lived in the city-beyond from which he had been expelled.

  ‘Cifuentes, once you’re down in the books as a public servant, no one can take it away from you. Don’t worry.’

  ‘It’s not the money that I care about. It’s the principle. One of these days I’m going to go and visit Creix, and all the others who flayed me alive, and I’ll stick this piece of paper right up their noses.’

  The back room of a pharmacy for giants: fifty-litre flagons made for who knows what unmentionable potions; flasks; test tubes; glass containers packed in straw and woodshavings; bare wooden shelves stained by damp and darkness; carpets; sawdust on the floor; jumpy cats; bare light bulbs; an ageing white-moustached athlete juggling with cardboard boxes; a sad-eyed alsatian sniffing at each newcomer; at the end of a corridor, amid obsolete and abandoned giant-sized glass goods, a stern man using a calculator; beside him, a boy checking emery-polished syringes; Alfredo Kraus singing The Pearl Fishers through a loudspeaker perched in one corner of the ceiling. Above their heads, the sound of high-heeled shoes clicking across the mezzanine floorboards.

  The man with the calculator said: ‘Can I help you?’ He didn’t even turn his head until Carvalho held the photograph of Stuart Pedrell before his nervous eyes and twitching nostrils. He concluded his calculation, gave the boy a couple of orders about what needed to be done before closing time, and walked across the shop floor, his arms and high-set shoulders moving as if they were separate from the rest of his body. As he led the way up the wooden stairs to the mezzanine floor, Carvalho noticed a little office in which a girl was typing a letter and a short-sighted, heavily built woman with sad, narrowed eyes had stopped work to make a telephone call.

  ‘Auntie,’ she was saying in Catalan, ‘Mother asked me if you’ll be coming up to Garriga this Sunday.’ She stopped at the sight of Carvalho and then continued in a lower voice. The boss sent the girl to do something, and sat down on an office table that was jammed up against metal filing cabinets. Next to the wastepaper basket a cat was eating a piece of liver. A spaniel looked at the newcomer with all the imperturbability of a Buster Keaton. A younger spaniel, the image of Lauren Bacall, imprudently sniffed him and tried to take a lump out of his ankle before the boss’s shout drove her under a table. In a cage, two demented canaries were dancing the dance of servitude. The boss flicked a switch, and Alfredo Kraus faded away. They sat in the half-silence of a warehouse submerged between one of the hundred and seventy-two apartment tower blocks of San Magín.

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘What would you make of a man who knows Placido Domingo’s recordings by heart and gives a perfect description of the final scene of Strauss’s Salome, as interpreted by Caballé? I’m very keen on opera, and I rarely get the pleasure of meeting a real connoisseur. He was one.’

  ‘Did you only talk about opera?’

  ‘Opera and business. But in fact we didn’t see much of each other. I manage the warehouse from downstairs, and my wife runs the office up here …’

  ‘… Míriam’s fiancé will be there too. Look, Inès. Haven’t you had a letter from uncle in Argentina …?’

  ‘Where did he live?’

  ‘Very near here, but I don’t know exactly where. Why? Has something happened to him?’

  ‘He’s a relation of mine, and he’s gone missing.’

  ‘I have to admit, it did all seem rather mysterious to me, but I don’t like meddling in other people’s lives. As long as they do their work properly. “Hello. Good morning. Goodbye. See you tomorrow.” That’s my idea of an ideal relationship.’

  ‘In general?’

  ‘Yes. And in particular. Especially with staff.’

  ‘May I have Señor Vila’s address? The man who recommended him.’

  ‘I don’t know it. He lives at the edge of town, in a little old tower. You can’t miss it. It’s got a garden at the back. Is there likely to be trouble? Like I said, he was a casual worker; I paid him by the hour, and he got on fine here. That’s all there was to it.’

  Lauren Bacall had left her hideout and cocked a cheeky eye at the stranger. Carvalho made a half-gesture to demonstrate a dog-owner’s solidarity, but she started barking. Another crack of her owner’s tongue sent her scuttling back to her refuge.

  ‘I see you’re running a zoo here.’

  ‘You start by accepting a friend’s puppy, and you end up with Noah’s Ark. We’ve also got a hamster at home.’

  ‘… By the way, Inès, did you know that Piula thinks she’s pregnant …?’

  The woman gestured goodbye to him without detaching herself from the phone. The man then saw him to the door and watched him as he went down the street. He must have switched on again, because Kraus’s voice drifted out onto the road. It glided along the towering walls, tapped on closed windows, lifted the dust from melancholy geraniums, and, like a gentle breeze, fluttered several sunshades hunched on tiny balconies. Mercury street lamps as tall
as palm trees cast circles of light that contrasted ever more sharply with the darkness gradually enshrouding San Magín, while a cold damp rose from the Prat and filled Carvalho’s head with thoughts of blankets and a glowing fire. His steps carried him from one pool of light to the next, towards a distant floodlit banner stretched across the street. It announced the outer limits of this paradise: You are now leaving San Magín. Come again soon.

  It had the air of a chalet designed by a top-notch architect and built during weekends by a team of immigrant workers on piecework. The owner, and their employer, could well have been a 1940s black-marketeer who had decided to invest his profits in a house with a garden, where he could pass an occasional day of rest far from the bustle of post-war life in the distant city.

  The door was opened by a broad-shouldered, grey-haired man wearing a quilted dressing-gown and a pair of slippers lined with rabbit fur. The house smelt of bechamel. There was a sound of whining children and an angry mother. Vila took him up to his little study, where the arrangement of objects gave the impression that the room was never used. They sank into two brown leatherette sofas. Vila was visibly surprised at the photograph that Carvalho held out to him.

  ‘Señor Stuart Pedrell.’

  ‘You knew him?’

  ‘Of course I knew him. I was in charge of building work in the area, first as foreman for one of the blocks, and then, after I had earned Señor Planas’s trust, as general supervisor. I never had any dealings with Señor Stuart Pedrell, though. He didn’t come near the building sites. What a horrible death! I read about it in the papers.’