Southern Seas

by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

  ‘Whatever you say. Would you like a drop of something?’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Whatever you fancy. Calisay, a liqueur, cognac, anis, Aromas de Montserrat …’

  He drank a glass of Aromas de Montserrat while they sat and watched the sad story of a Mexican rancher who deserted his beautiful wife because of his obsession with horses.

  ‘Iaio, what’s a xarro?’

  ‘A xarro is a gunman, a cowboy.’

  ‘A western cowboy?’

  ‘Yes. But from the west of Mexico … These kids are at the age when they want to know everything, and you don’t necessarily always know the answers.’

  ‘Almost never, in my experience.’

  ‘It’s true, what you say. Very true.’

  ‘I heard that the Briongos family didn’t much care for Ana’s political activities.’

  ‘No. She used to just take off, and no one ever knew where to find her. She’s been in trouble of one sort or another ever since she was a kid. Even under Franco. I’m telling you. They’d give her a thrashing because the police were after her. I had words with her once, when there was that fuss about the clinic. She said that I’d been a Franco supporter. But I’ve never been anything. I fired a few shots in the civil war, on the side of the reds, but that was only because I was in Barcelona at the time. Anyway, I told her she was a troublemaker—and that you convince people by talking to them, not by shouting at them. So, she goes and says I supported Franco. I don’t owe anything to Franco—well, nothing except peace and work. People have a lot of bad things to say about Franco, but in those days, things weren’t like they are today. No one wants to work any more. They turn up from Almería and they think someone’s going to pay them a thousand pesetas for bending down and picking up a bit of paper.

  ‘Look, I’m no dictator, but I say we’re in a complete mess now. We’re heading for disaster. I’ve worked like a dog to give myself a peaceful old age. No one’s given me anything. My children are married and well set up. I’ve got my health and a bit of cash for when I can’t work any longer. What more could a man want? Am I going to let a few crackpots spoil everything because they decide they want the moon? No, sir. The parents are a different matter. Good, hard-working people. I went to see Señor Briongos, to ask him to get a grip on his daughter. One day she was demanding a health centre; the next she was making a fuss about the drains; and the next day it was about schools. Well, hold your horses, girl! We’re not made of money, you know. And anyway, I just take orders. Thank God she’s not been making much trouble lately. You can tell the difference. Her new boyfriend must have calmed her down. That’s what I say: God save us from women who don’t get a proper fuck.’

  Winking as if to excuse the strong language, he raised his elbows as if preparing for take-off, and let out a laugh that sounded more like a sneeze, thereby annoying his grandchildren, who could not hear the sad story of the beautiful Mexican woman abandoned for half a dozen horses.

  Señor Briongos smelt of omelette, and the trace of oil that he wiped from his chin had obviously been used in frying the omelette in question. He looked like a croupier from a Mississippi steamboat who had been brought down in the world by the effects of a stomach ulcer. A bald, emaciated man with long sideburns and eyes as large as his daughter’s. Incisive arm movements dealt people and spaces into their allotted portion, and it was as if he were inviting Carvalho into some huge castle and instructing his family and servants to retire to their quarters. The main room was an exact copy of the one occupied by Porqueres’s three-piece, tartan suite. There was hardly any space to move between the aerial-topped television, the outsize neo-classical dining table, the chairs, the glass cocktail cabinet, and two green imitation leather armchairs occupied by two boys and a girl who had her fingers in a jar.

  ‘Switch the telly off, and go to your room. I have to talk to this gentleman.’

  The father’s withering look cut short their gestures of protest. By now the Mexican lady had decided to learn horse-riding, so that she could follow in the footsteps of her cowboy husband. Back in the room, a bell-shaped woman whose hair had been badly dyed in platinum-chestnut tufts was beginning to clear the dirty plates from the table.

  ‘Is the girl in trouble again? I must explain that I no longer have anything to do with her. She has her own life, and I have mine.’

  ‘God help us!’ the woman muttered, without pausing in her task.

  ‘That girl has given us a lot of worry, and no pleasure. Not that we haven’t tried to set her on the right road. But what can parents do, when they’ve got a lot of children, and they both work.’

  ‘Too much reading, and bad company,’ the wife shouted from the kitchen.

  ‘Reading’s not a bad thing. It depends on what you read. But I won’t argue about the bad company. So, tell me what she’s done now. I’m prepared for the worst.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s done anything. It’s not really about her that I wanted to see you, but about a fellow she was going round with last year.’

  ‘She’s had so many—I’m ashamed to talk about it. I don’t know what makes me more ashamed: that she’s messed about with politics; or that she goes to bed with anyone who wants it, ever since she learned that it wasn’t just for pissing with. Excuse me, but that daughter of mine brings out the worst in me.’

  ‘This was quite an older man. His name was Antonio Porqueres.’

  ‘Ah, yes. The musician. Amparo, he’s come to ask us about the musician.’

  ‘The musician!’ shouted Amparo from the kitchen.

  ‘Was he a musician?’

  ‘We call him that because he came here one day and spent the whole time talking about music. I’d just bought a record by Marcos Redondo, and when he saw it, he suddenly began talking on and on about music. When he left, we all cracked up. Sole, the girl you saw just now, is a born comedian, and she began imitating him. You’d have died laughing. A very stuck-up sort of bloke, he was. She brought him here because her mother was dying of shame. The whole neighbourhood was asking who her daughter was engaged to. So I went looking for her at the bus stop, and told her straight that she had to introduce us to the man, if only for her mother’s sake. And one day she brought him round. Then he went off, and left her with what she’s got now.’

  ‘So you know what she’s been left with.’

  ‘And how can I look people in the eye, now …?’

  ‘May the Lord help us!’ added Amparo from the kitchen.

  ‘I went back to the bus stop and told her, again quite plainly, that she’d have to fend for herself. I don’t want to have anything to do with it. Pedrito has already been enough of a cross to bear.’

  ‘Who’s Pedrito?’

  ‘My son. It’s a very long story. When I already had Ana, I was given the chance of working on a dam near Valencia. I went there without my family, and I’m sure you can guess what happened.’

  ‘How can this gentleman know what happened? Men aren’t all the same. There are still some who have a sense of decency.’

  ‘Shut up. Mind your own business, will you? Well, I had an affair with this girl there, and she went and died on me in childbirth. The whole village was against me, and there was nothing I could do. She’d been through every man in the village, but they pinned the kid on me. So I came back with the little boy, and my wife, who’s a real saint, accepted him into the family. It’s a pity he turned out so bad—it must have been a bad seed to start with. How can you tell where he came from? He can’t be my son—that’s getting clearer all the time. But it’s a funny business, all this stuff about seeds. Ana is mine, and look how she’s turned out. There was no way of taming either her or Pedrito. And it wasn’t that I spared the rod, either. In the end, on Amparo’s advice, we put Pedrito into care. There was nothing we could do with him. But he managed to run away, and we were landed with him again. And it’s still going on.’

  ‘Does he live with you?’

  ‘No,’ the woman shouted empha
tically from the kitchen. ‘And he won’t, as long as I have anything to do with it.’

  ‘Funnily enough, though, the boy doesn’t have bad feelings towards us.’

  ‘He has no feelings, full stop. Neither good nor bad.’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate.’

  ‘Don’t let’s talk about the monster. It only upsets me, and you know what I’m like.’

  She was occupying the whole kitchen doorway, as if ready to fall upon them and hammer them into the ground.

  ‘Was that the only time you saw Antonio Porqueres? When he was here talking about music?’

  ‘Yes. Except for the time when I got him and my daughter tickets for the cinema where I work. I asked him if he wanted to join me for a drink, but he wouldn’t. Just hello and goodbye. That was all. I never saw him again. Never.’

  He tried to open his eyes and his face to the utmost, so that Carvalho would see that he was telling the truth.

  ‘Could I talk to your son?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘What for?’ the woman repeated, now firmly esconced in the dining room.

  ‘Maybe he had more contact with Porqueres.’

  ‘He had no contact with him at all. He didn’t even see him when he came here.’

  ‘Ask Ana. She’ll tell you.’

  ‘Yes, ask Ana.’

  I can see that you’re both afraid. I don’t know if it’s the kind of fear that we all feel when we don’t know what’s round the next corner. But you’re definitely afraid.

  ‘Pedro didn’t relate to anyone in the family.’

  ‘Not to any of us.’

  ‘We haven’t seen him for months. I couldn’t even tell you where to look.’

  ‘He’s living his own life. In our family, everyone’s lives their own lives, except for us. We’re always stuck with other people, aren’t we, Amparo?’

  The woman went off to the kitchen looking preoccupied. He stood up. The audience was over.

  Carvalho left him a couple of telephone numbers.

  ‘If your son drops by, tell him I’d be interested to meet him.’

  ‘I doubt that we’ll be seeing him. I’m almost certain of that.’

  He accompanied Carvalho to the door.

  ‘You always think you’re doing the best for your kids, but either they turn out bad, or you find that you’ve made a mistake. I could never get anywhere with the girl. And what was I supposed to do with the boy? He was always a rebel. He was always answering me back, from when he was so-high. I’d give him a couple of good wallops, and he’d just stare at me, straight in the eye. I’d bash him again, and he’d still be staring.

  ‘You know what he did with Amparo one day? He threw a plugged-in iron at her, so as to electrocute her. Dirty little swine! But to look at him, you’d think butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. It seemed a rotten thing to do, putting him in a home, but what was the alternative? Some very decent men have come out of those places. Maybe he’ll change too, when he grows up and has a family of his own. It’s not true that he’s rotten through and through. In his heart of hearts, he loves us, I know. When I threw him out last time, he came creeping back with toffees for the children. Maybe he’ll come to his senses one day …’

  If you’re lucky enough to have a son who doesn’t flinch when you give him a wallop, then it’s possible that he’ll turn out levelheaded in the end.

  ‘It’s in his interest, and yours, that you tell him to contact me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Go and see if you can find him.’

  ‘Bromide’ the shoe-black was wielding a toothpick in desultory fashion, in an attempt to extract little pieces of squid from a brownish sauce. The skin hung from his wasted face, and the speckles and blackheads on his bald patch absorbed the witless attention of the waiter as he watched Bromide’s skilful performance with the toothpick from the other side of the bar.

  ‘You’re not catching a lot today …’

  ‘What do you expect me to catch, since it’s all water? I don’t know why you call it squid in sauce. It’s more like the Mediterranean with a couple of bits of dead fish in it. Not even enough for a nibble. That’s just what I needed to restore my lost appetite! Pour me another glass of wine. At least the waterworks are still functioning. Make it real wine, not that powdered garbage you mix with water.’

  Carvalho touched Bromide lightly on the shoulder.

  ‘Pepiño, you old son of a bitch. You’re turning into a real scruff lately. Look at the state of those shoes. Shall I clean them for you?’

  ‘Finish your little snack.’

  ‘Some snack! It looks more like the sinking of the Titanic. I’ve never seen so much sauce for so little squid. Hey, you, bring us the whole bottle, and a couple of glasses.’

  Carvalho sat down, and Bromide bent over his shoes.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘What do you know about flick-knife gangs?’

  ‘Quite a lot. I know all the ones in this area. And that’s saying something, because there’s a new one every day. Any kid with two balls thinks he can set up on his own account.’

  ‘What about other areas? Holy Trinity, San Magín, San Ildefonso, Hospitalet, Santa Coloma …?’

  ‘Hold on, now. I can’t keep up with all of them! You’re behind the times, Pepiño. Every area has its autonomy these days: things aren’t like they used to be. Once I could know everything that happened in Barcelona just from the hundred square yards around here. That’s impossible now. Anyone coming from Santa Coloma is like a foreigner.’

  ‘Don’t you have ways of finding out?’

  ‘None at all. If they were the old kind of villains, like in my time or yours, I’d be able to find things out. But these knife-gangs are different. They go their own way. They have their own laws. You know what young people are like nowadays. Film stars. That’s how they see themselves. Bloody film stars.’

  ‘What are you wearing there?’

  ‘A badge againt nuclear power stations.’

  ‘Getting into politics at your age?’

  ‘I’ve been saying it for years. They’re poisoning us. We’re forced to eat and breathe shit—in fact the healthiest thing about us is probably our shit, because our body keeps the bad and gets rid of the good. People laugh at you. They call me Bromide because I’ve been saying for forty years that they’re putting bromide in our bread and water to stop us getting together and screwing all the time.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with nuclear energy?’

  ‘It’s the same thing. Now they’ve decided to really do us in. Not just piddling bromides. Mass murder. I don’t miss a single demonstration.’

  ‘So you’re an ecologist?’

  ‘Eco-bollocks! Drink some wine, Pepiño, and enjoy my company while I’m here, because one of these days I’m just going to get up and go. To another area. I’m feeling real bad, Pepiño. One day it’s this kidney that hurts, and the next it’s the other. Feel here. Can’t you see the swelling? I’m keeping a close watch on it, because I like to keep an eye on myself. I’m like an animal. What does a cat do when it gets ill? Does it go to the doctor? No, it goes onto the balcony and eats a geranium. And it’s the same with a dog. We should do like animals do. Anyway, I keep a close watch on myself, and this thing came up a couple of weeks ago. You don’t know what it might be, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘For weeks and weeks I was feeding myself on tinned cockles. I’ve a brother-in-law who works at a canning factory in Vigo, and he sometimes sends me a few tins. I was short of cash, and said to myself: Bromide, eat the stuff, because shellfish are very good for you. So, I went on eating the stuff until this swelling started. I ate nothing but bread and tomatoes and tinned cockles. I’d always eaten bread and tomatoes before, without getting any swellings. So, what’s your conclusion?’

  ‘The cockles.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘You’re letting me down, Bromide. I hoped you
’d be able to solve my knife-gang problem.’

  ‘This city isn’t what it used to be. In the old days, a whore was a whore and a gangster was a gangster. Now there are whores everywhere, and everyone’s a gangster. You know what I heard one day? That you’d been caught breaking into a ham shop. And I believe it. Evil is stalking the streets, with no order and no organization. Once you could just talk to a few guys and you’d know the whole set-up. Now you can talk to a hundred, and still not get the picture. Do you remember my gay pal Martillo de Oro, the good-looking one? Well, the other day they beat him to death. Who did it? It wasn’t the competition, or the Marseilles mob. Just four Guineans who happened to get together and declared war. That couldn’t have happened before. There was more respect. We’re all rotten, all crazy. We need a strong hand.

  ‘Men like Muñoz Grandes, my general in the Blue Division—that’s what we need. There was a man who could impose respect! And he was honest, too. Paquito left a widow who didn’t have to worry about making ends meet. But Grandes left the world with no more than he came in with. Anyway, what’s up with you, Pepiño? Why are you so interested in knife-gangs? You’re keeping pretty low company these days!’

  ‘They used a knife on the husband of one of my clients.’

  ‘That’s a hard one—much harder than a gun killing. Everyone’s got a knife.’

  It’s a cold death. You see the eyes of death. You move closer, you stop, and you can feel death inside as you open a little icy passage in the flesh. Carvalho felt the knife he always carried in his pocket. An animal which lived by nibbling at death, until it suddenly unleashed it in a full burst of pent-up fury.

  ‘Steer clear of the knife-gangs, Carvalho. They’re all young and crazy … with nothing to lose.’

  ‘Thanks for the advice. Here, take this. Lay off the cockles and get yourself a steak!’

  ‘A thousand pesetas, for nothing! No, I don’t want it, Pepe.’

  ‘Another time you’ll give me some information.’

  ‘Anyway, my stomach’s fucked and I can’t take meat any more. They pump it too full of water and hormones. You can’t even breathe properly, these days. I’ll buy myself a few bottles of good wine instead—the one you drink. That keeps you going and kills the bacteria.’