Blood Crime

by Sebastia Alzamora

  Was she going insane? Was she losing her mind, or was she being forced to atone for an offense against God? Was it all a torment such as what Saint Eulàlia had endured? Saint Eulàlia with her thirteen geese that pastured the Desert of Sarrià . . .

  The blood anguished her more than anything else, the hemorrhaging between her legs that had lasted so many days now and had given her a chill, a bellyache, and a diffuse sadness tinged with shame. With her usual kindness, Sister Encarnació had explained to her that it was the price women had to pay for their part in the original sin. She spoke to her of Eve, the first mother of humanity, and of the cunning with which she had turned Adam away from God’s plan. She told her about the Lord’s anger, the banishment from Paradise, about the just demand that every one of Eve’s female descendants give their blood to satisfy that offense. She showed the novice how to apply and wash the rags on the days of the month when the blood flowed. Sister Encarnació had ended up hugging her and trying to console her, telling her that although being female meant they were small, unclean, and prone to sin, they themselves had nothing to fear because their husband was not of this earth, but dwelled up above in the sheltering sky, and this fact redeemed them and allowed them to pray for the redemption of all of mankind.

  To Sister Concepció this was a paltry consolation. Her imagination turned to Paradise, to the garden the Bible described it as at the beginning of the world. What must it have been like? If she had had the chance, if she had been able to travel back in time to any place and era, she would have asked to go to Paradise. She would have warned Adam and Eve against the serpent’s temptations, and then there would have been no original sin, and women wouldn’t have to bleed to atone for it. She would have assisted Adam and Eve in the task of naming things and animals—a task Bishop Perugorría had mentioned the day he commissioned her to compose the Stabat Mater—and she would have been able to decide, for instance, that geese should not be named geese. If it had been up to her, geese would have been ducks because they resembled ducks and there was no need to waste words on such similar creatures. The word goose would have been reserved for another, more original animal. Nor was there any need to apply the name to an animal: she could bestow it on a parsnip, if she liked. That would mean, of course, that the word parsnip would become available, so it would need to be assigned to something else. Could the bishop’s spindly fingers be considered parsnips? They did resemble them, come to think of it . . .

  These thoughts amused her and, hearing the sound of her own laughter, she realized it had been a long time since she had laughed. Laughing made her feel better. But now it had conjured memories of her mother, whom she missed terribly, and of Emília, a friend she hadn’t heard from in a long time and for whom she often prayed, wishing her and her family well. She and Emília had laughed a lot in their class at the Orfeó Català, as Master Millet tried to sharpen their sense of melody by having them intone a little song that went:

  It’s rainy and sunny,

  And witches are combing their hair.

  It’s rainy and sunny,

  And witches are laying an egg.

  For her and her friend Emília, the image of witches laying eggs brought on peals of laughter; they were often forced to interrupt the song because they couldn’t refrain from giggling and Master Millet would scold them. When their lesson was over, the girls would find their mothers waiting for them outside the Palau de la Música; they would sing to them the song about the witches who laid eggs and they would all laugh heartily. She remembered having once asked her mother if it was true that witches laid eggs and, smiling, her mother had responded that it could not be true because witches did not exist. Witches did not exist, and neither did ghosts, or the bogeyman, or demons who speared mischievous children with their pitchforks and hoisted them away, or Maria Enganxa, who hooked them by their necks and made them vanish in the depths of water tanks. Monstrous creatures such as those did not exist, and in life, the most important thing was not to be afraid.

  Not to be afraid: those words were etched in her memory, as was her mother’s smile when she spoke them. But now she was very much afraid. Perhaps it was true that neither witches nor the bogeyman existed, but she had learned on her own that gloom was real. The convent was full of it; it was at the root of the revulsion she felt, of her fear of going mad, of her senses departing and not snapping back: the gloom, the shadows that pervaded everything, abolishing light and devouring the world, silencing music and little girls’ laughter. Gloom in the always-strained expression on the mother abbess’s face, gloom in the glassy eyes of His Excellency the bishop. How could she not be afraid? Mater Dolorosa by the cross. Was her own mother also experiencing fear? No, she couldn’t be—not her. Sister Concepció wanted to pray, she needed to pray, for her mother—who must also be praying for her—and for Emília, whose whereabouts were known only to God. And she prayed that one day she would leave the convent and find her mother standing at the door, and she would hug her tight and sing her the song about the witches and they would laugh until she would again remind her that witches do not exist and that only Paradise awaits us beyond death.

  She again tried to concentrate on the lyrics of the Stabat Mater, but it was hopeless. She was uneasy and couldn’t banish the feeling that animals and strange creatures were all around her, stalking her.

  Bishop Perugorría’s fingers brushed against the door as he plodded toward his chambers, having devoted a few minutes—once more—to spying on Sister Concepció through the keyhole.

  “Your mother . . .” repeated the doctor after a few moments of silence.

  Superintendent Muñoz’s gaze was lost amid the light and shadows that flooded the morgue. He saw only cadavers, or parts of cadavers. Then, Doctor Pellicer’s face studying his own as if seeing it for the first time.

  “Yes,” he said. “My mother lying in place of the dog, her head bashed in. By a blow from my fist.”

  Doctor Pellicer nodded. “That’s quite the nightmare.”

  “It repeats itself every time I fall asleep.”

  “Always the same?”

  “The differences are imperceptible.”

  “Such as?”

  “Sometimes it’s as though I awake inside the nightmare. I mean I’m conscious that I’m dreaming, but I can’t do anything to interrupt the nightmare and rouse myself. It continues to unfold until the end.”

  “Until you see your dead mother.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Is there anything relevant you can tell me about your mother?”

  “Yes. She committed suicide.”

  The doctor waited a moment. Then he asked, “For any particular reason?”

  “Yes. My father used to hit her. I remember the beatings.”

  “He beat her like a dog.”

  “Yes.”

  “And she . . .”

  “One day my sisters and I came home from school and found her at the bottom of the stairs, in the entrance to the building. She had climbed over the banister and thrown herself down. She had broken her neck.”

  “And your father?”

  “He left, abandoned us. But it was better that way. He used to beat my sisters too. And me. We all breathed a sigh of relief when he disappeared. We never heard from him again.”

  “And you and your sisters . . .”

  “We ended up in a orphanage. We were also beaten there, though not as much. We looked out for each other as much as we could, until we each reached an age when we became independent. For me, joining the police force meant fulfilling the only childhood dream I could recall. I had always wanted to be in uniform and carry a gun. So, you see, doctor, I’m just your typical embittered soul.”

  “You shouldn’t speak that way, superintendent.”

  “It’s the truth. The parish rector wouldn’t allow my mother to be buried in the cemetery because suicides couldn’t be buried on hall
owed ground. We were forced to dump her at a morgue much like this, and I suppose a doctor like you must have chopped her up into bits . . . By the way, what becomes of all this butchery? Once the forensic analysis has been conducted, I mean.”

  The doctor thought of Hadaly and swallowed.

  “Well, it’s none of my business, I guess,” the superintendent answered himself. “Science has its reasons, religion has even more. That is precisely why I told you that I, too, have my reasons for not having much empathy for the Holy Mother Church. As I’ve said, I’m your typical embittered man.”

  Superintendent Muñoz smiled for the first time since the conversation had begun. Doctor Pellicer celebrated the fact by lighting another cigarette. They were silent for a long time, surrounded by the discreet attentiveness of the dead. Finally, the police officer opened his mouth again.

  “I can’t continue my investigation into the Pension Capell murder. I’m being watched, we have a sleeper agent at the precinct.”

  “You can’t be serious,” said the doctor.

  “It’s Sirga, the officer who accompanied me the day I was at the pension. He’s an FAI operative.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “He has a taste for whoring. With his salary, he couldn’t possibly afford it. Not being the sharpest knife in the drawer he’s incapable of concealing the fact that he’s making a haul somewhere else.”

  “All right, but that . . .”

  “You’re right. That doesn’t mean anything. But I smell a rat.”

  “And your suspicions . . . ?”

  “Have been confirmed. I had a man tail him and what he discovered was quite interesting. Not only as regards Sirga, but also our good friends at Pension Capell.”

  Behind his spectacles, Doctor Pellicer’s small rabbit eyes widened.

  “They are Marists,” said Superintendent Muñoz. “They are negotiating with the FAI for safe passage into France. The other day, just before the air raid, they had a face-to-face meeting in a bar downtown. Everyone from Pension Capell was present, including the nephew of that mayor from Palma de Mallorca. Representing the FAI was a group of big fish from the Department of Investigations. Altogether, a real cross-section of beasts. Then they were joined by Manuel Escorza—the Cripple of Sant Elies, they call him—the biggest, most loathsome big fish of them all.”

  “The man in your nightmare.”

  “One of them, yes. I forgot to mention that Escorza arrived at the meeting accompanied by Sirga.”

  “I’m beginning to catch on.”

  “That’s not all: as a bargaining chip, they took a hostage, who turned out to be that blasted young Mallorcan. Sirga and another goon led him away, prisoner.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. My man saw them leaving the bar, but the bombing started and he wasn’t able to follow them.”

  Doctor Pellicer considered the fact that, while bombs rained over Barcelona, Hadaly had been trotting gracefully through the grotto beneath Judge Carbonissa’s house. Afterward, they had committed the sin of arrogance by letting him out onto the street, where the incident at the Church of Bethlehem had taken place.

  “In any event,” continued the superintendent, “it’s obvious that Sirga has already informed Escorza, or Aureli Fernández, or whichever one of those bastards it was, that I turned a blind eye on a group of Marists. And so, by now my name is probably on the Department’s black list of traitors and abettors. I can’t continue with the investigation.”

  “And this causes you nightmares and keeps you from sleeping?” asked the doctor.

  “No,” said the superintendent. “What keeps me from sleeping is the thought that Sirga and three or four of his henchmen might whisk me away in a car, blindfolded, and tomorrow I might turn up on Carretera de l’Arrabassada with a bullet in my back and another in my head. I admit the thought unnerves me. I regret all this; I would have liked to become better acquainted with your vampire, but it’ll have to be on another occasion.”

  Doctor Pellicer managed a somber half-smile. He empathized with the officer’s distress, but he could have done without the mockery.

  “Personally,” insisted Superintendent Muñoz, “I’m inclined to think that Brother Gendrau was dispatched by the FAI so the Marists would get the message that the negotiation was in earnest, if you know I mean. The boy must have been thrown in as a sort of gratuity, these folks are generous that way. At least I hope it wasn’t Sirga who did the honors.”

  Doctor Pellicer snuffed out his cigarette with the tip of his shoe. He valued the superintendent’s frankness and thought he should repay him in kind.

  “Superintendent,” he began, “the only positive effect of war is that it brings to the surface everything that is secretly circulating underground. The good and the bad.”

  “Not sure what to say to that . . .” the officer said distractedly.

  “I imagine,” continued the physician, “that you haven’t heard about the man found dead at the Church of Bethlehem after the air raid. It’s rumored that it wasn’t the bombs that killed him, but a horse that entered the temple, its provenance still a mystery.”

  Superintendent Muñoz raised his eyebrows by way of response.

  Sister Concepció heard muffled screams filled with such evident desperation that they gave her goosebumps. At first, she froze in the middle of her cell, arms folded across her chest; then she heard running in the corridor and decided to take a peek, even though she was not allowed to step outside without permission. She cracked her door and caught a glimpse of scrawny Sister Anunciació from the back, hiking up her habit with both hands to be less encumbered; as though possessed, she flew down the stairs that led to the refectory, where the screams seemed to be issuing from.

  Without thinking twice, Sister Concepció followed her. As she rushed down the stairs, she saw other nuns running along the hallway off the refectory toward the door to the vegetable garden: the disturbance was coming from there. Did the screaming voice belong to one of the sisters? She couldn’t be sure; the nature of the shriek made the voice impossible to identify. What could be the cause of it? Her heartbeat accelerated with every passing instant but it seemed to slow again when she went out into the vegetable garden and realized that it was early morning and the sun was starting to come out. Shut inside her cell, she lost all sense of time and, in the end, she didn’t know if it was night or day. She was pleased to realize it was neither: the night was coming to an end, but day had not yet dawned. The cool air—when not excessive—always had an invigorating effect on her. She stopped to breathe deeply and, as she did, she detected the well-water freshness condensed in the air. For a few seconds, the mortification caused by the Stabat Mater verses was compensated by that salutary inhalation that made her feel rejuvenated. But then another disconsolate scream rent the morning.

  “They’re dead! They’re dead.”

  Now that she finally understood what the voice was saying, her stomach was suddenly in knots. Who was dead? She raced to the palm tree and, in the patches of morning light, she saw a group of sisters huddled together in a circle by the pigsty. She approached as the screams grew hoarse and syncopated, as though whoever was making them was losing her voice. She spotted Sister Anunciació a few steps from the circle, together with the chubby Sisters Benedicció, Dormició and Visitació, the ancient Ascensió and Adoració, and others who were flailing their arms toward the heavens gesturing wildly and causing a great commotion. Mother Superior was there, too, looking as stiff as though she were carved in stone, and, a bit farther away, Bishop Perugorría, equally impenetrable, plunged in faraway thoughts. They were like two gargoyles, and this resemblance made Sister Concepció’s heart sink even more.

  The person doing the screaming was none other than Sister Encarnació, who stood in the middle of the circle, her face contorted, hands gnarled, eyes like saucers—as though she were seeing a monstr
ous apparition. Her body twitched spasmodically as she made vaguely menacing gestures that the other sisters deflected by stretching out their arms and brandishing rosaries and crucifixes before the woman’s face.

  “They’re dead! They’re dead!” she repeated over and over, her voice ever weaker, more guttural.

  “She’s possessed!” clucked Sister Benedicció as the roll of fat around her wizened body quivered.

  “She carries the devil within!” came cries from around the circle. The crucifixes bobbed in a maniacal dance.

  “Deaaad! They’re deaaad!” bellowed Sister Encarnació, deranged, pointing to the pigsty with her gnarly fingers.

  The novice had retreated and stood several steps from the commotion. Sister Encarnació’s fit had nothing to do with diabolical possession, she thought; rather, it was a nervous breakdown much like the one her Aunt Enriqueta—one of her father’s sisters—had once suffered after a fight in the drawing room over something to do with her grandparents’ will. On that occasion, her aunt had gone as far as scratching up her own face and hurling a porcelain teapot, which had shattered on the floor. Compared to that memory of Aunt Enriqueta, Sister Encarnació seemed less frightening, or in any case not nearly as much as the rest of the community, which was in the grip of hysteria. Sister Concepció again glanced at Mother Superior; she remained hieratic, absent, as though she were at a cosmic remove and Sister Concepció were seeing her through a telescope. For his part, His Excellency the bishop returned the novice’s glance with that look of his that always seemed to precede a calamity. Frightened and confused, Sister Concepció lowered her head, not knowing where to look.

  “The devil, the devil!” shouted the nuns of every age and shape, in a frenzy.