He followed Blasi out. Muck was in charge of the situation. He ran happily towards the garden.
“Whatever you need,” said Eidinger behind them. The door closed and the drama retreated back inside the house where memories of Frida Eidinger’s life, rather than her death, lingered on. The newspapers were calling it the victim’s home. Was she really the victim?
*
Ericourt was writing a private report for Blasi. As he sat at his desk, a waning moon timidly displayed its scimitar’s edge through the open window.
He wrote:
I. Do not place too much importance on coincidences. Plenty of people are interested in astrology, nudism and Baudelaire.
II. Imagine Frida Eidinger as her letters present her, apparently reasonable but with a deep-seated fear of life that inclined her towards superstition (Scorpio), borrowing emotions she could not feel herself and with an exaggerated sense of her own worth. In other words, just the kind of person who cannot bear failure.
III. Find out if there was a failure of some kind. Her suicide would be the consequence.
IV. Do not overlook any evidence. Muck can help us get a head start on the report we requested from the German police and find out who knew Frida Eidinger. That was a good idea of yours.
V. Do not jump to conclusions. They might seem obvious but that does not mean they are correct.
VI. Do not be too quick to assume that everyone else is mistaken.
VII. Pay private visits to any residents of the building on Calle Santa Fe you think seem interesting.
4
One Building and Many Worlds
Only a few blocks away, the trees in Plaza San Martín spread their winter branches like beautiful red-brown lacework under the hazy golden sun. It was the time of day when people are window-shopping or lazily taking a stroll. No one on Calle Santa Fe was in any hurry and they walked at a comfortable pace, enjoying the weather and not consumed by the pressing need to be anywhere.
Ferruccio Blasi had joined the flow of passers-by. Muck trotted happily at his side. The late August morning announced springtime in the clear air, the first buds and the flower stalls decorated with violets and camellias.
He crossed the threshold of the building where Andrés Torres, dressed in work clothes, was buffing the chrome door handle. Seeing them pass, Torres hurried after them with the duster in one hand and a tub of polish in the other.
“He’s not a supplier,” said Blasi, pointing to Muck. He knew dogs were like magnets for the ill-tempered barbs of apartment building caretakers.
He tried to slip into the service lift before the other man could begin his barrage of protests, but Torres had followed him and held the external door to stop the lift from moving.
“I have to tell you something, sir. You’re from the police, aren’t you?”
“We are,” said Blasi, indicating his companion.
“I was actually planning on going to the police station once I’d finished the cleaning.”
“Has something happened?” Blasi interrupted hopefully.
“Business of my wife’s, that’s all.” The caretaker shook his head sullenly.
Blasi fought the desire to push him aside. He didn’t have time to act as a referee for domestic disputes.
“You know what women are like, they talk and talk.”
“Tell yours to keep quiet, then.”
“That’s even worse, she puts on such a face that I’d rather she insulted me. She says I’ve no right to wear trousers if I can’t bring myself to talk to the police.”
So something was up, after all.
“And it was right here,” he pointed to the tip of his tongue, “but I couldn’t manage to say it in case people thought I was afraid. My wife thinks something else is going to happen here.”
Blasi burst out laughing.
“At this stage we have to call that fear rather than premonition.”
“As you like, sir.” Torres still hadn’t lifted his gaze from the floor. “Ever since señor Soler came back to the building my wife has said something’s going to happen. She says maybe that woman didn’t commit suicide, maybe she was murdered and left in the lift as a warning to someone.”
It was an original theory, at least.
“She won’t leave me in peace, thinks she hears noises at night, says we don’t know who’s coming and going in the building and who’s got keys, that we can’t be downstairs watching the door twenty-four hours. She’s driving me crazy.”
“Pay her no notice.”
“You obviously haven’t heard her. Listen, sir, couldn’t you send an officer to guard the door? My wife says that’s what you do when there’s been a crime.”
“But there hasn’t been a crime here,” Blasi stressed. Tell your wife that as soon as one takes place we’ll send an officer. And please let go of the door.”
He pressed the button for the third floor. As the lift rose it gradually obscured the pitiful, ominous "gure who was watching it go.
The Czerbós’s neat apartment had the musty air of a museum. It was filled with heavy drapes, genuine rugs and second-hand furniture. Muck poked his curious nose into all the corners and his exploration of the new surroundings concluded with the owner’s shoes.
Rita remained seated near a window, knitting. The curtains were almost all closed. Light was not a welcome guest in the Czerbós’s home.
“Excuse me for to receive you this way,” said Boris, pointing to his dressing gown. He looked taller dressed that way. His protruding cheekbones shone as brightly as his eyes under his thick, prominent eyebrows.
“We can speak German if you prefer,” said Blasi in that language.
“Oh, thank you!” Boris accepted the invitation happily. “I didn’t dress today. I felt tired from the interrogations these last two days. I thought they were over.”
“They are over,” Blasi confirmed. “I’ve come to see you for another reason. I’m a keen photographer and señor Eidinger told me you do enlargements.”
He carefully watched the reaction to his lie. Boris Czerbó was unperturbed.
“I used to. I’ve since swapped my hobbies for business.”
“You must miss it,” Blasi said with apparent sympathy. “Photography is an art too.”
“We have to live. That’s another art.”
Rita was listening with her chin buried in her chest. Her agile hands carried on knitting.
“Boris,” she interrupted gently.
“What do you want?” When Boris spoke to his sister, all trace of the indulgent tone he used with others disappeared from his voice.
Rita said a few words in a language Blasi supposed was their mother tongue. Boris turned back to their visitor.
“My sister would like to offer you a cup of Turkish coffee.”
Blasi accepted the coffee, and Rita got up to go to the kitchen. Muck, leaving his place at Blasi’s feet, followed the woman.
“It seems Muck remembers your sister well.”
“Who’s Muck? Your dog?”
“He was señora Eidinger’s dog. Don’t you recognize him?”
“I never visited señora Eidinger. She never came to our house either. Her husband did.”
“But your sister and señora Eidinger travelled together.”
“That’s true.”
Something akin to a cloud was forming in the room’s thick air, blurring the outlines of things, as if gas were seeping in through a crack and dulling the senses. Objectivity receded. The malign fog closed around Blasi, making him feel like he was in a different world.
He got up from his chair and went to examine a porcelain cup in the hope that a deliberate action might help him regain his lucidity.
“Dresden,” he said, examining the stamp on the cup.
“Yes.”
“On the subject of stamps,” said Blasi distractedly, “I wonder if you could help me decipher one I saw yesterday in a photograph.”
Boris’s sunken eyes shone with irony.
“Is that a personal or a professional request?”
“Think of it as both.”
Boris leant back in an armchair and, looking towards the kitchen door, called out:
“Rita!”
She appeared in no more than a couple of seconds. Her brother gestured to the cigarette holder that lay on a side table. Rita muttered a few words in Bulgarian. Muck stuck his rectangular head around the door. Boris spoke to Blasi again.
“Please excuse the scene.” Feeling herself ignored once more, Rita disappeared through the inner door. “My sister forgets all sorts of things. The war affected her deeply. One has to explain her duties to her as to a small child. Fortunately there are two cigarettes left in the case and I’m able to offer you one.”
Blasi could have quite happily hurled the silver cigarette case at his head. He hadn’t been wrong to judge Boris as a hateful human being who liked to lord it over others whenever he got the chance.
Rita appeared with a tray and poured the coffee. She then went back to her knitting by the window. While the men drank their coffee she played with Muck. She threw the ball of wool for him and the little dog ran to bring it back to her lap.
The game did nothing to dispel the pallor of her cheeks or her worried expression. She threw the ball of wool and picked it up distractedly. She was a woman absent from her movements.
“It seems Muck and your sister get on very well,” said Blasi.
“For the moment. Rita is unstable and incapable of focusing on one thing for long.”
Rita accepted the comment with her usual passivity.
“I must go,” said Blasi, standing up. “I’m sorry we haven’t been able to make an arrangement.”
“It was one possible outcome.” Czerbó had also stood up and was the first to hold out his hand. “I’m sorry too.”
“Come on, Muck!”
The fox terrier, hearing his name, ran towards Blasi. Rita stared at him with vacant eyes. She automatically followed Blasi after he had already said goodbye to Boris, who apologized for not seeing him to the door. She brought with her all the listlessness that stripped the Czerbós’s home of any human warmth. Her fear was palpable. Blasi could finally name the mephitic gas that anaesthetized one’s will upon entering the apartment. A fear that weighed as heavily as a tombstone on a world of tiny wriggling larvae, smothering them without squashing or immobilizing them.
Blasi deliberately stretched out his departure, slowly taking his overcoat and hat from the stand. Rita waited motionlessly.
“Say goodbye to Muck, señorita Czerbó,” said Blasi, patting her shoulder as if wanting to show his approval. Without saying a word, she turned and walked back into the apartment.
Aurora Torres was right, there was a bad omen floating around that house. Lost in his thoughts, Blasi did not notice the lift stopping on the second floor. The door opened to let Betty in. On recognizing Blasi she could not contain a grimace of annoyance. The young man gave her an involuntarily unctuous smile.
“Today’s your lucky day,” he said in reply to her greeting.
“Don’t try to copyright that as a conversation starter. I’ve heard it a thousand times.”
“I’m not saying that because we met but because I was just thinking of going to see you. As you’re on your way out, how about we walk a few blocks together?”
Betty agreed with a silent shrug of her shoulders. They had reached the ground floor.
“Is this your dog?” Muck had launched himself at Betty’s low-heeled shoes, stopping her from moving. “He seems intelligent.”
“If you mean that by way of contrast, thank you for the general idea you’ve formed of me.”
“Someone once told me that thinking too quickly is the same as a bad round of golf. The ball never goes far.”
Blasi observed her smilingly.
“I’ve heard plenty about you, but no one mentioned your irresistible fondness for aphorism. How is señor Iñarra?”
“Fine, thank you. He had a relapse yesterday but Dr Luchter recommended some electric treatments that have helped. All this makes things terribly difficult for poor Gaby.”
Blasi’s reproachful look did not go unnoticed.
“Don’t think me insensitive. Let me explain why. It all comes from my father’s overprotectiveness. He had the machine installed by someone on his list of protégés—the laundry delivery boy, can you imagine! As a result we’re left in the dark half the time.”
Ferruccio burst out laughing.
“It does me good to talk to you. I feel like I’ve escaped a snake pit.”
Betty did not respond.
“He’s a nice dog,” she said, pointing at Muck. “Have you had him long?”
“No, he’s been entrusted to me so I can carry out some very instructive exercises.”
All around them were the luxurious shopfronts of Calle Santa Fe. They had joined the carefree milieu and, like the others in the street, they maintained an impersonal tone of conversation. Betty said hello to a few people as they passed.
“You’re obviously rather popular,” Ferruccio joked.
“That’s exactly what the caretaker’s wife says. And she won’t let it go. She loves martyrs. I’m sure she thinks I’m too happy.”
“Other people always end up seeing us as martyrs to something or someone,” was Blasi’s verdict.
Betty’s dismissively upturned nose did not herald a friendly response.
“Now I know why you said that about my fondness for aphorism. It seems you’re easily infected.”
Blasi let the jibe go unacknowledged and they walked a little way in silence. Suddenly, Betty came at him with a direct question.
“How’s the investigation going?”
“It’s been closed.”
“Oh, yes? What were you doing at the Czerbós’s apartment, then?”
“A private matter,” replied Blasi, pointing at Muck.
Betty seemed sceptical.
“Shall we have a drink in that bar?” she suggested. “I want to ask you something and I need a stiff drink first.”
They looked for a secluded table. Blasi ordered two double whiskies and Betty did not object. While he spoke to the waiter, she slowly removed her gloves and laid them on her purse with the good manners proper to the daughter of the upright señor Iñarra.
“That’ll give you plenty of courage,” Blasi said, laughing. “But if it’s a matter of the heart, spare me because I’ll "nd it hard to hear.”
“Sort of… Do you promise you’ll be frank with me?”
“Listen, that wasn’t the deal. You were going to ask me something.”
“I’m getting to that. Will I be questioned again?”
Their drinks had been served, and Betty lifted the glass to her lips, apparently concentrating on the task of drinking the whisky without disturbing the ice cubes at the bottom.
“I can’t promise you won’t, but it’s unlikely.”
After taking a couple of sips, Betty placed her glass on the table and cupped it in both hands.
“What did Rita say to you?” she asked.
Her eyes had lost their sardonic shine and were fixed on Blasi with trusting warmth.
“Why do you suppose she said something to me?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m going to tell you anyway,” Betty sighed. “I need some advice and you seem like the best person to ask.”
She stretched out her hand towards him.
“I want you to understand. What I’m going to tell you isn’t anything bad, but I couldn’t say it… It would make things unnecessarily complicated at home. The night of señora Eidinger’s death, I was with Boris Czerbó.”
An uncomfortable weight plummeted in Blasi’s stomach. To encourage Betty he returned the half-smile she offered as bait.
“I got home from the cinema before one a.m.,” she went on, “and I went straight to the Czerbós’s apartment. I often did that when I went out at night. Boris was waiting for me. My visits weren’t wha
t you’re thinking; we used to meet at that time to avoid comments from Rita, who isn’t as harmless as she seems. She’s jealous of her brother’s friendships and I wanted to avoid any trouble.”
“What trouble would there have been if your relationship with Czerbó is as innocent as you make out?”
“It’s because of my father. He doesn’t trust anyone. He would have been against it. Sometimes I think that the fact I’m trusting and like making friends is a reaction against him. Ever since I was little he’s terrified me with his distrust. And, even so, you see what I’m capable of. It’s not like me to be telling a secret to a police officer.”
The uncomfortable, oppressive feeling in Blasi’s stomach seemed to double.
“Are you trying to tell me that your visits to Czerbó are the result of a childish desire to rebel?” he asked sarcastically.
Betty was staring into her glass again.
“If you interrogate me like that you’ll make me regret telling you. I just wanted you to tell me if I should keep quiet about my visit that night. I’d prefer to, of course, but my confession could constitute a defence for Boris Czerbó.”
“No one’s accusing him, so you can keep quiet. Did anyone see you leave the apartment?”
The question was obviously unexpected because Betty didn’t hide her surprise.
“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it. I’d just got in when Torres came to get us. Gabriela might have heard me. She spends a lot of nights awake. Dad’s illness has destroyed her nerves.”
“She ought to get some fresh air. Doesn’t she ever go out?”
“Hardly ever. She’s got such an exaggerated sense of responsibility that you could load all the world’s problems onto her and she’d be convinced it was her job to sort them out.”
“Do you blame your father for that, too?” Blasi asked with friendly sarcasm.
“I don’t blame anyone. I say things as I see them.”
Two or three tugs of the lead let Blasi know that Muck wanted a change of scene. It annoyed him to have to comply. Any interruption of his conversation with Betty could mean a change of tack that might not favour him, but he feared a disaster if he did not obey the pressing appeals reaching him via the leather lead.
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