The Whispering City

by Sara Moliner

  Her stomach had turned into a mollusc that contracted at the mere recollection of the anise, like an oyster when you squeeze a few drops of lemon onto it. Why hadn’t she been a little more careful with the drinking? It occurred to Beatriz that the mollusc would react with wild convulsions to the painkillers her head so urgently needed. The doctors of King Alfonso X ‘the Learned’ would have rubbed her forehead with one of the stones with curative powers that appear in his Lapidary. But in the thirteenth century they were unfamiliar with the anise hangover, of that she was sure. The best thing to do would be to start with water: clear, room-temperature water. Then some well chewed white bread, to form a cushiony layer on the walls of her poor stomach. Finally, soon, when it was feeling safe, the painkillers. In half an hour she would surely be feeling much better.

  She sat on the bed. That wasn’t a good idea. Her stomach showed its displeasure immediately with a heave. Luckily someone, maybe even she herself, Beatriz couldn’t remember, had put a bucket beside the bed and she reached it in time. The bitter stench of vomit mixed with that of the anise. She could barely hold herself upright. If she let herself fall back into bed the situation was not going to improve in the slightest. She got up, wrapped herself in a robe and walked hesitantly towards the kitchen.

  She opened the door. The music drilled into her head like a brace and bit. Encarni had the radio turned all the way up while she bustled about the kitchen, humming something through her teeth. Beatriz grabbed a jug and poured some water into a cup, before turning down the volume. Encarni indicated with a nod that she had seen her, but continued her litany. As she drank in short sips she understood what it was that Encarni was murmuring: the Lord’s Prayer. When she got to ‘for ever and ever. Amen’, she started all over again.

  It seemed that her stomach wasn’t rejecting the water.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Encarni made it clear that she wasn’t going to answer her yet and continued mumbling. ‘Are you praying for my health? People will think I’m on my deathbed!’

  Encarni started laughing, opened the door to a pantry, pulled out a bottle of powdered aspirin and put it on the table without interrupting her prayers.

  When she reached the ‘amen’, she pulled the pan off the flame and put two eggs under the stream of cold water.

  ‘They need three Our Fathers to be perfectly cooked, the whites hard, the yolks soft. That’s how we always do it at home.’

  Beatriz shot her a pathetic look and said in a pleading voice, ‘I hope they’re not for me.’

  ‘Don’t worry, ma’am.’

  Beatriz sighed. It was the moment to move into phase two.

  ‘Do we have any bread?’

  ‘Just bought. Perfect for dipping.’

  Beatriz shook her head. She chewed the bread at a ruminant’s pace, with her eyes closed so she wouldn’t see Encarni drowning her slice in the yellow, perfectly cooked yolk.

  Then she dared to embark on the riskiest part of her plan, though she started with just a teaspoon of powdered aspirin in a glass of water. She watched hopefully as the cottony clouds formed, beneficent clouds that would soon put an end to her suffering. As she was bringing the glass to her lips, the doorbell rang.

  Encarni wiped her lips with a napkin and went to open it.

  Soon voices reached her in the kitchen; an argument.

  ‘We made arrangements.’

  ‘It’s not possible. The missus isn’t well.’

  ‘Not well? Let me speak with her.’

  ‘No, she is quite poorly.’

  She got up – not without difficulty – and approached the door. On the threshold she saw her cousin dressed in a comfortable pleated skirt, a short-sleeved blouse, a jacket over her shoulders and a beige scarf on her head, all of which gave her the look of someone going on a trip, which couldn’t be a good sign. Vaguely she began to recall some plans. Martorell. She had agreed to go there with her, and what’s worse, she had promised to drive. And there she was. But honestly, she was ill. Well, she wasn’t really ill. She was indisposed. Extremely indisposed. The mollusc moved again; the aspirin had just reached it. Beatriz ordered the mollusc to be still. Then she said to Encarni, ‘Please, take our guest to the library. And make us two coffees.’

  ‘Holy Mother of God! Coffee, for you?’

  ‘Of course.’ Beatriz tried to put as much dignity as she could into her voice. ‘With milk and sugar.’

  An offering for the mollusc. Which she hoped it would accept kindly.

  She went to dress. Slowly, making sure to move her head as little as possible. Then she filled the sink with cold water and dunked her face for as long as she could hold her breath. She repeated it twice more until she felt that her facial muscles were obeying her again.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was sitting in front of Ana in the library.

  After a couple of sips of coffee, Ana asked her, ‘When do you think we can leave?’

  Even though she felt quite a bit better, thinking of the potholed road to Martorell made her feel dizzy.

  ‘I don’t think I can drive today.’

  Ana was clearly disappointed.

  ‘Oh! But I was counting on it.’

  Beatriz closed her eyes.

  ‘Really, I can’t.’

  Ana leaned towards her.

  ‘This type of illness comes and goes. I’m sure the fresh air will do you good.’

  Maybe. Why not try it? The day before the trip to Martorell had seemed attractive to her, promising. Today she saw it more as a crazy scheme dreamed up over drinks.

  But why not give it a shot? She glanced around her: the shelves with their endless rows of books and their gaps. The collected past. Usually she loved bringing them back to life, but today she wasn’t in the mood. She looked up at the stuccoed ceiling. The sky remained closed above her.

  ‘Why not?’ she said, to convince herself. ‘Give me a few minutes to get ready.’

  28

  ‘Do you always drive this slowly?’

  Beatriz didn’t turn her head as she answered, ‘Only when my head is about to explode, every pothole is a whiplash and the sun is my worst enemy. Non aveva Febo ancora recato al mondo il dí.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ottavio Rinuccini, Lamento della ninfa.’

  They were passing through apple orchards. The trees were covered in flowers. Beatriz had the window open a little so that the cold air would reach her temples and forehead. Ana could imagine that, some time ago, this was where the chauffeur had sat. It was an old Hispano-Suiza, as black as a cockroach, which her cousin kept in a garage on Valencia Street. The caretaker had checked the tyres, put in some petrol and taken it out onto the street. They had gone through the city very slowly. Many pedestrians stopped to stare; it wasn’t common to see a woman driving.

  ‘When did you learn?’

  ‘While I was in Buenos Aires.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t pick up Fangio’s style,’ joked Ana sarcastically.

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘The Argentinian who won the world motor-racing championship last year.’

  ‘Don’t know him.’

  That wasn’t surprising, given what she’d learned about her cousin.

  A truck loaded with crates of vegetables passed them on the inside, riding up on the verge. The driver, a farmer with parchment-like, weather-beaten skin, pulled the cigarette from his mouth and shouted at them as he shook his arm violently out the window. ‘Win your licence in a raffle, did you? This isn’t a cart race!’

  ‘Ignore him,’ said Ana.

  ‘I intend to. “Hearing, seeing and keeping quiet, were an aid, / in times when eyes, ears and tongue could be expressed, / and not seen as offending crimes and forbade.”’

  ‘Who is it this time?’

  ‘Quevedo.’

  ‘By the time we get to Martorell I’ll have brushed up on all my university reading.’

  Beatriz burst out laughing. The pain this caused made her wince.

  ‘“Laughter makes
me free, gives me wings. Takes away my loneliness, smashes my jail cell.”’

  ‘Another one?’

  ‘Yes, I took the liberty of slightly changing some verses by Miguel Hernández. I doubt you read him at university. Not Hernández, who died in prison; not Lorca, nor Salinas, nor a number of others.’

  Beatriz’s face grew dark. They travelled several kilometres in silence until she asked, ‘How do you picture the Knight of the Rose?’

  ‘I don’t know. Young, handsome.’

  ‘What does handsome mean to you?’

  Gregory Peck in Duel in the Sun, she would have said, but she didn’t want to give such a trivial answer after her cousin’s displays of erudition; she chose to change the subject.

  ‘Do you have a map?’

  ‘In the glove compartment.’

  Ana opened it, and for the first time in her life recognised one that did justice to its name: inside there were three pairs of white cotton gloves. Each pair was joined at the palms, as if praying, and held together with a metal clothes peg.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked Beatriz.

  ‘They’re gloves.’

  ‘I’ve guessed that much on my own. What do you use them for? They aren’t for driving.’

  ‘They are library gloves. I always carry them with me because in some libraries out in the provinces they aren’t prepared for visits, and I don’t want to touch the manuscripts with my hands.’

  ‘So you don’t dirty them.’

  ‘So I don’t dirty them.’

  In all that time Beatriz hadn’t turned her head towards her; that seemed to be the most difficult movement for her, and Ana took advantage of the fact to keep poking around. She found a small bottle of perfume, a comb, a compact and a map. As she pulled it out, a small flat packet wrapped in tissue paper came out with it.

  ‘What’s in here?’

  She forced Beatriz to look.

  ‘Spare stockings. Be careful that the wrapping doesn’t come undone; I don’t want them to run.’

  Ana placed them carefully on the bed of white gloves as her cousin returned her eyes to the road ahead.

  Ana spread the map across her knees. She couldn’t help comparing her cheap wool stockings with Beatriz’s very fine silk ones.

  ‘At this speed it’s unlikely we’ll miss the turn-off.’

  And so it was. They reached Martorell without incident, parked the car near the train station and sought out the post office.

  When they got there they still didn’t have any concrete plan.

  ‘Observe,’ said Ana. ‘The first thing we have to do is observe.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘The Manual of the Perfect Detective,’ she added, mimicking her cousin’s tone when revealing poets’ names.

  ‘And what do we have to observe?’

  ‘First, an overall inspection of the space, and then the staff and where the boxes are and who is in charge of them.’

  Beatriz nodded.

  ‘Then,’ continued Ana, ‘it would be best if we divided up the task: first one of us goes in alone, observes and then the other goes in and notices other details.’

  Beatriz entered first. Ana waited for her, sitting on a bench in the sun. A few minutes later, her cousin came out of the post office.

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘There isn’t much to see. Do you have any paper?’

  Ana pulled a notebook and pencil out of her handbag. Beatriz took them and started to draw.

  ‘This is the lobby. Here, to the right, there is a counter for parcels. A man of about forty is stationed there. I noticed he limps slightly with his right foot. Across from that there is another counter with a window where they do money orders; I saw a sixtysomething man with glasses there. To the left side of the office, in a hallway, are the PO boxes. There are twenty. At the end of the hallway, there is a small counter. The girl who works there seems to be the one in charge of the boxes. She is young, about your age, I’d say.’

  For the first time Beatriz looked up from the paper with its neatly drawn sketch. She hadn’t had to correct a single line.

  The door to the post office opened and they saw a young woman come out. Beatriz elbowed Ana to get her to take a look at her.

  ‘She’s the one in charge of the post office boxes.’

  She passed by without seeing them; her gaze was fixed on a man about her age who was leaning against a car, waiting for her. He wore a chauffeur’s uniform, including a hat, which he removed when he saw her approaching. They kissed each other on the cheek, but the way they held hands gave them away.

  ‘She only came out for a moment to meet her boyfriend,’ said Ana.

  ‘And without permission.’

  The door to the post office opened again. A man emerged and, not caring that there were onlookers, shouted at the girl, ‘Elena! Who do you think you are? Come on, inside, and enough carousing. That’s for Sundays.’

  The girl jumped and drew away from her boyfriend. She said something that Beatriz and Ana couldn’t hear, turned and headed back to the post office. The man was waiting for her with the door open.

  ‘He’s the one in charge of money orders,’ said Beatriz. ‘He must be the boss.’

  When the girl passed by again, Ana saw that she wore no stockings, that the lines travelling up the backs of her legs were drawn on. The girl entered the post office.

  Ana had a brainwave. ‘Beatriz, you have to give me your stockings.’

  Her cousin looked at her, bewildered.

  ‘We need something that we can offer her in exchange for information. Some stockings would be a good swap.’

  ‘We’ll have to go back to the car.’

  ‘That would waste time. We could give her the ones you’re wearing.’

  ‘Used stockings?’ She pulled a face.

  ‘I don’t think she’ll mind. I wouldn’t either. Do they have any runs?’

  She examined her legs. Beatriz hid them beneath the bench.

  ‘If you move like that, you’ll end up breaking a stitch!’

  ‘No, I’m not taking these ones off. Let’s go and get the others.’

  They returned to the car and fetched the stockings from the glove compartment.

  ‘Are you sure they have no runs?’ asked Ana.

  ‘If you haven’t made any.’

  They returned to the post office. Ana entered the building with the little packet in her bag and went straight to the PO box counter. The girl’s eyes were red; she had been crying. She still hiccuped a little as she spoke to her.

  ‘How can I help you?’

  She ignored the question and said quietly, ‘What an ogre your boss is! All over nothing! And in front of everybody.’

  The girl nodded with an afflicted expression. She was about to burst into tears again.

  ‘You’ve no idea how much I can relate to that,’ continued Ana. ‘I’m in a similar situation.’

  The girl’s sorrow began to be tinged with curiosity.

  Then she went into the most daring and perhaps the most contemptible part of her plan, a complex story of forbidden love worthy of a romance novel. A friendship via correspondence that had led to love. She added parental prohibition and the man’s sudden silence.

  ‘I’m afraid that my parents wrote to him and forbade him from writing to me any more. But if I knew the address that the post office box belongs to…’

  The girl understood. ‘That is not allowed.’

  ‘I know. But it’s my only hope. There are things that are above the rules. If you can’t understand that, I don’t know who can.’

  The girl hesitated.

  ‘I also have a little thank-you gift for you.’

  She drew the tissue paper packet out of her bag, opened it carefully and showed her the stockings. The girl’s eyes sparkled. She must, thought Ana, be imagining her boyfriend’s response to seeing them on her.

  ‘Which box is it?’

  ‘Number Thirteen.’

  The girl’s face show
ed a sudden sorrowful expression that Ana didn’t know how to interpret. She left for a moment and returned with a little piece of paper on which she had written down the address.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Ana handed her the stockings. She took them, thanked her and looked at her again sadly. She didn’t say goodbye; merely turned and went into the back room again. Ana supposed it was to examine her trophy in privacy.

  29

  ‘I can’t see anyone. There’s uncollected post behind the door.’

  Ana stood up. She had been looking through the letter slot. To keep it from making a noise when it closed, she lowered it slowly with her index finger. Then, as if to make full use of the finger she had already extended, she rang the bell.

  They waited a moment.

  ‘The owner doesn’t seem to be at home,’ said Ana.

  She covered her hand with her coat sleeve and turned the knob. Surprisingly, the door opened with a gentle creak. She turned towards Beatriz with triumphant eyes and disappeared into the house. Beatriz entered behind her, trying to stop her and to keep from stepping on the letters scattered across the floor.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she whispered. ‘What are you going to do if the owner comes back and finds us in his house?’

  ‘Talk to him.’

  Ana knelt down, picked up one of the envelopes and showed it to her.

  ‘And his name is Abel Mendoza, by the way.’

  ‘Would you talk to someone who had entered your house like this?’

  ‘I’ll tell him I’m a journalist.’

  ‘Would you talk to a journalist who had entered your house like this?’

  Ana didn’t reply.

  ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that this man could be Mariona’s killer?’

  ‘I haven’t stopped thinking about it since we discovered he existed, Beatriz.’

  But she was already inside the house as she was saying these words.

  ‘Well, since we’re here, we can have a look around,’ conceded Beatriz. They continued speaking in whispers.

  They had to turn on the light because the interior was darkened both by blinds and by thick curtains that reached the floor. They were in a hallway that had two doors on the left and another two on the right. It smelled of damp, mould, closed rooms. Beatriz took the first door on the right.