They were in Judge Carbonissa’s library; the judge had already brought out his diminutive liqueur glasses and a bottle of Armagnac. He and Doctor Pellicer were sprawled in gutta-percha wing chairs while Superintendent Muñoz slowly paced back and forth in front of the high, crammed bookcases, his hands in his pockets, a grave look on his face. From behind the heavy velvet curtains that blocked the large windows came the jagged-thunder sounds of a late-summer storm. A summer that had been warm—Superintendent Muñoz recalled—with clear skies and a resplendent sunlight above the bombed houses and the bodies scattered on the streets of Barcelona.
Something Muñoz had said brought the judge out of a state of absorption that at times seemed almost constitutional. Leaning forward, he asked, “Do you know how these animals died, superintendent?”
“Pardon?” said the officer, not sure he’d understood the question.
“The pigs. I was asking if you were privy to the details of the case.”
“It appears they were attacked by some kind of beast. They were found dead inside their pen, bitten to death.”
“Bitten to death. Interesting.”
“Interesting? What can I say? It’s merely an excuse to force me to go to the convent. Who knows—Escorza himself probably ordered them killed.”
“In the treatise De masticatione mortuorum,” said the judge, turning to look at Doctor Pellicer, not appearing to have heard what Muñoz had said, “Rehrius recounts that in a Hungarian village called Kisolova, this man Plogojovits turned up one day two months after his own burial. His wife declared that her deceased husband had appeared at the house and asked to be handed his shoes, which left her so horrified that soon afterward she left the village and never returned. The thing is that Plogojovits continued to appear to the farmers of Kisolova, or, more accurately, to their livestock. At night, he would raid the farmers’ pigpens and kill the animals by strangling them with his own hands and biting them on the neck and, once they were dead, he would drink their blood. In the end, the parish rector and an officer in the Emperor’s service exhumed Plogojovits’s body, drove a sharp stake into his chest, and threw him into a burning pyre where he was reduced to ashes . . .”
Superintendent Muñoz raised his eyebrows. “For Christ’s sake,” he said. “I tell you that the FAI has decided to take me out and you react by coming up with these vampire tales?”
Judge Carbonissa turned and looked at the superintendent as though he had just arrived. Doctor Pellicer said, “Our dear judge’s erudition sometimes gets the best of him, superintendent.” The judge mumbled something as he sipped on his Armagnac. “Nevertheless, and given the circumstances surrounding the case, the judge has pointed to a hypothesis that you would do well not to dismiss out of hand. Remember what I told you about vampiric disorders.”
The superintendent nodded several times. “I remember it well, doctor, but I don’t think you gentlemen understand me. My concern is . . .”
“. . . staying alive,” the doctor completed the sentence. “It is a reasonable concern. Do you think we might be of any help in that regard, superintendent? If so, don’t hesitate to tell us how. Might Hadaly be of use?”
The police officer bit his lips and then he smiled. They truly were a lost cause, the pair of them. “I appreciate it, doctor, but I really can’t see how a mechanical horse could help me in this situation. I’ll figure it out.”
“Mechanical, but with organic elements,” Judge Carbonissa pointed out. “It is the principle of life that—”
“Yes, whatever you say,” the superintendent said impatiently. “I didn’t come here for that, but to entrust you with something I would like you to keep.”
He took his hand out of his pocket and produced a small object. It was the spinning top. He walked to the coffee table and put it down beside the liqueur glasses.
“It belonged to the boy in Pension Capell,” he explained. “In case I . . . well, in case I don’t make it.”
“Memento mori, huh?” said the judge.
Muñoz tried to muster a smile. “I suppose so,” he admitted.
“We are honored by your trust, superintendent. Judge Carbonissa and I appreciate it most sincerely.”
“Well, you are welcome,” the officer replied drily. “I don’t really know who else to approach. If I get killed, perhaps you will one day be able to establish who killed the boy. The truth is I haven’t been able to take my mind off it.”
“The Manducus,” muttered Judge Carbonissa, absorbed in his Armagnac. But he stopped and didn’t complete his thought.
The superintendent sighed and slipped his hands back into his pockets. A bolt of lightning lit up the edges of the large windows as though someone had switched on a searchlight. Loud thunder followed; sheets of rain lashed against the window panes.
Again that ache in her belly.
“Why don’t you sing, dear? You have such a lovely voice. Please sing to me again.”
She felt the heavy ache, like a brick inside her, like a cobblestone she had swallowed and was now sitting right there in the pit of her stomach, oppressive. She felt the ache, and also the chill that was penetrating the cellar—a rank, humid chill, with a stale smell. And fear, a great fear. She was trembling and she did not know whether it was from cold or fear.
“Sing for me, my dear. You were doing wonderfully only a moment ago. Why did you stop? Sing again.”
Shelves stocked with food were all around her. Here, the lard; there, the butter; a bit farther along, the pots of jam—plum, apricot, cherry—and a hook with salt cod. Sister Concepció stood at the bottom of the cellar, where the ceiling was lower and the wall became concave and had a recess with an image of Saint Galderic, patron saint of farmers, guarding the food. Wearing a floor-length clerical robe and looking like a large ghost, His Excellency Bishop Perugorría sat atop a barrel of herring in front of her in semi-darkness. Behind the bishop some steps led down to the well and, to his side, others went up to the courtyard: he had positioned himself in the middle, cornering her, thwarting any chance she had to escape. He peered at her with lachrymose eyes and requested again and again that she sing. Earlier, and only by mustering every ounce of courage she possessed, the novice had managed to intone the beginning of Fauré’s Pie Jesu Domine, but fear had soon strangled her like a knobby, long-fingered hand around her neck, and she had stopped.
The bishop continued to stare at her, unrelenting: “Sing, sweet child. Sing in praise of our Christian faith, by which the Lord, Our Father, will lead us to ecstasy and glory. Sing, my dear.”
She recalled the canticles to Saint Galderic that her mother used to sing at that time of year, when summer was coming to an end and she was preparing to go back to school. Her mother had learned the canticles when she was a girl of her age. They had a lovely melody, and she remembered the beginning:
Legitimate and ancient Patron
of our farmers,
Saint Galderic every day
watches over fruit and seed . . .
She had to stop again: the pain in her belly, the choking sensation in her throat, her weak voice that kept breaking up, and that unbearable longing for the sweetness of her mother’s song. Why had she not come to collect her? Sister Concepció’s eyes filled with big, warm tears like benign drops of rain and she started sobbing like a little girl who had lost a toy. She rested her back against the whitewashed wall and let herself drop to the ground. She continued to weep, and the more she did the greater the onrush of tears; she found it was rather enjoyable—it made her feel that her mother would appear at any moment and tenderly wrap her arms around her, soothe her, tell her there was nothing to fear.
“What is all this now? Is this how you show your faith, my child? Is this how you honor your torment?”
The bishop’s booming voice ricocheted against the walls of the cellar and returned to Sister Concepció’s ears, amplified. She looked up
and saw that he had risen and was standing in front of her, gesturing as though he were a puppeteer at a street fair. She stopped crying as suddenly as she had begun. The bishop had also regained his calm, and now he offered her his woody hand along with an inscrutable smile.
“Get up, dear child. There’s something that you can do. Something you must do for me and for the glory of your deceased mother.”
“Is this Barcelona?”
With every step Brother Darder asked himself the same question. Dazed and bewildered, he plodded along, his faltering steps taking him through a landscape of ruin he did not recognize. After his escape, he had found himself on a deserted street with four dilapidated houses and a strip of earth, sand, and debris ending in a vacant lot filled with refuse and weeds. The sky was thick and sooty.
He took a sloping street that led away from the vacant lot and, a bit later, he arrived at an area of low, small shanty houses. There was no one around; the houses seemed abandoned. He did not recognize anything that would indicate his whereabouts: perhaps he had been taken out of the city, he thought. Then he spotted a man riding a bicycle up a hill. He hastened to catch up with him, and when he was abreast of him, he asked: “Is this Barcelona?”
The man on the bicycle turned around with a look of scorn and started pedaling harder. Brother Darder was left standing in the middle of the sloping road, panting as he watched the cyclist grow smaller as he sped away.
He had killed a man.
His whole body ached from the beating Burntface had given him, and he had painful cramps in his stomach. He was famished, thirsty, spent.
After wandering the empty streets for a long time, he spotted a garage in the distance with people moving about inside. He drew closer. Three men wearing caps were working on an engine mounted on a lathe; when they noticed his presence they studied him with marked hostility.
“Is this Barcelona?” he asked them.
“Go away, you looney,” one of them said.
He turned around and started walking again. He had killed a man. His legs could scarcely hold him and felt stultified, as from a coating of rust and gasoline.
He recalled something and turned around to convey it to the men in the garage. It seemed important to do so.
Suddenly everything turned black; he did not feel his head hit the ground.
When he opened his eyes again his vision was blurred and his mouth full of a viscous paste. The sensation scared him, but then he realized it was only his spit. Slowly, his eyes began to regain focus.
“Is this Barcelona?”
And, yes, it was: he was on the corner of Carrer Aribau, by the university. In front of him was the square, the ground gutted by bombs, and the closured Tostadero, its façade partially demolished. He had come full circle, then. The men in the garage must have taken pity on him, carted him to the center of town and, not knowing what to do with him, dumped him on that corner, leaving him on the sidewalk like a drunk or a beggar.
. . . shame on his family.
He had been robbed of his shoes. Or perhaps he wasn’t wearing them when he left the prison cell. He wasn’t sure, but his feet were as filthy as if he had waded through a quagmire.
This reminded him that he hadn’t seen his own reflection for a long time. He rose and, steadying himself on the wall, verified that his legs could support him, in spite of his dizziness. He spotted a tailor shop on the corner across the street, its counter intact, the dressed mannequins still inside. The sight of the undamaged store surrounded by half-dilapidated, shrapnel-wounded houses put him in an uncomfortable, vague state of mind somewhere between incredulity and despondency.
He crossed the street and approached the shop. He was saddened by the reflection he saw in the window; he looked even worse than he had expected: emaciated, his body scrawny and ungainly, his face gaunt, his cheeks overtaken by a madman’s beard. His clothes hung from his frame like a sad rag, and he was so soiled he could have been mistaken for an enfeebled beggar. He was covered with stains, some of excrement, others of blood—his own and Burntface’s.
It occurred to him that what he saw in the window was no longer his own image but that of a criminal. He bowed his head and leaned forward as though about to pray. But Brother Darder no longer prayed. He was simply trying to accept that he was now a criminal.
If God so deems it . . .
He started walking, crossed Plaça Universitat and headed down Carrer Tallers toward La Rambla. He passed Plaça Castella and saw a group of men and women who were living on the street: they wore rags and had built a makeshift shelter from empty boxes and debris. As he passed by they shouted out to him: they had recognized him as one of their own. He ignored them and walked on, encountering with each step insufferable signs of misery and devastation. Balconies ripped away, broken windows, bomb craters between the buildings and the cobblestones. The sky was still bleak and the few people moving up and down La Rambla dragged their feet and held their heads low, avoiding each other’s gaze. Am I in Barcelona? Brother Darder again asked himself, the question merely a reflex now, for he knew full well it was Barcelona. What remained of it, in any event: the ghost of its former self.
He walked up Carrer Ferran until he reached Pension Capell. The building was undamaged, the door locked. He pulled the doorbell chain. He waited a minute, two, three. No answer. He tugged on the chain again, harder now, more insistently. A boy walked by and looked at him with distrust. Then he heard a woman’s voice behind the door: “Who is it?”
“Senyora Gertrudis? It’s . . .” He lowered his voice so passersby wouldn’t hear him. “it’s Brother Darder. Do you remember me?”
Silence.
“Do you remember me, Senyora Gertrudis? Please let me in.”
The key turned in the lock, the door cracked open and the tip of Senyora Gertrudis’s nose protruded. She looked Brother Darder up and down, brought her hands to her face, and began to weep. He had not expected her reaction, and the pang of affection and compassion he felt for the woman made him push the door open, step inside, and embrace her with a tenderness that seemed almost improper but that comforted them both. Senyora Gertrudis was small, a tiny sack of bones, and she smelled pleasantly of talcum powder. She didn’t seem to mind the stench from Brother Darder’s clothes.
Without releasing the woman from his embrace, he peered down the hallway. The stairs leading to the bedroom were dark.
“Are they gone?” he asked.
Senyora Gertrudis raised her tear-streaked face. “They have been taken away, Brother Darder,” she sobbed. “Brother Plana came by a couple of hours ago with FAI militiamen and a bus. He said the evacuation was starting and they were rounding up the brothers who had been dispersed and taking them to the Capuchin convent in Sarrià. They climbed into the bus and left. I am terrified they might claim I was covering up for them. Do you think the people from the FAI will come back for me?
Brother Plana, he thought. “At the Capuchin convent, you say?”
“That’s what they told me.”
He released the woman and rubbed his hands together, as though preparing to undertake a difficult task.
The parable of the Good Samaritan came to Senyora Gertrudis’s mind. “Won’t you wash? You are so dirty and ragged . . . I still have the clothes and shoes that belonged to my husband, may he rest in peace. They should be your size, more or less.”
Brother Darder tried to smile, but he could not. “I must leave now, Senyora Gertrudis.”
“Are you going to look for them? Please tell Brother Plana to explain to the FAI that I was not abetting them.”
“Don’t worry—I will.”
Senyora Gertrudis clasped one of his hands between hers. “May God protect you, brother.”
Now he smiled. “Perhaps it would be better if He didn’t.”
Brother Darder opened the door and went out into the street. He continued up
Carrer Ferran as far as Plaça Sant Jaume, where some sort of checkpoint patrol had set up. He counted about a dozen men, as he felt his stomach rise to his throat. He didn’t want to backtrack because they had already seen him, so he continued plodding along, his bare feet on the shrapnel-gnawed cobblestones. As he was walking by, one of the militiamen addressed him: “Where are you going, pal?”
Brother Darder stopped and, fixing his wild gaze on some unspecified spot, he shouted as loud as he could: “Comrades, Visca la Revolució!”
The militiamen looked at him as though he were an exotic creature. He wondered how his uncle Emili would have reacted had he seen the deplorable condition he had been reduced to. A few seconds later one of the militiamen burst out laughing and the rest followed suit. Without a doubt, it was better to make them laugh than to anger them, he thought to himself. They were even younger than he, probably none of them over twenty, their appearance strong, arrogant, beautiful. It saddened him to imagine them dead in some back alley, riddled with bullets or killed by an Italian bomb.
The one who had stopped him spoke again: “Excellent, pal. We need more men like you. How about you sing something for us? Do you know ‘To the Barricades’? Go on, I’ll start it for you.
“Our only wealth lies in freedom
Which we defend with courage and boldness.
Raise the flag of revolution . . .”
The others laughed heartily, while Brother Darder, not knowing the words, lowered his head and stared at his toenails. Finally, another militiaman, half choking on his own laughter, said to the one who was singing: “Leave him alone, man, can’t you see he is an outcast?” He turned to look at Brother Darder. “Run along, comrade—and long live the revolution!”
Brother Darder said nothing and moved away from the patrol without haste and without looking back, not even when he heard the militiamen proffer another insult and break out laughing. Freedom, courage, and boldness, went the song, and it sounded like sarcasm to Brother Darder. Though, come to think of it, war was a colossal macabre joke. Brothers sacrificing brothers, parents informing on children, and children killing parents or having them killed; merchants of misery and whoremasters of death, gossipmongers of crime and peddlers of depravation.
Blood Crime Page 18