I’ve noticed you always put too much salt in paella. Watch yourself, and MAKE SURE YOU PUT IT IN ONLY AT THE SPECIFIED TIME …
Don’t think that the rice is the most important ingredient. It isn’t. It is there as a vehicle for the other flavours. Each element has its role to play, but NEVER ALLOW ONE TO DOMINATE. Paella is nothing if it isn’t about HARMONY and UNITY. The one dish must be created from the many ingredients.
The underlining only increased his feeling of being lectured at from beyond the grave. But the one comment that really grated on Cámara was the entry on saffron:
Most saffron available in shops is fake. Don’t use it. FIND NATURAL ALTERNATIVES. The colour additive they sell is almost pure tartrazine and will give you cancer. Try turmeric – it’s not bad, if not exactly authentic …
Cámara himself had exposed the mafia in La Mancha peddling fake saffron, but Hilario could not resist passing the information on as his own.
At first, Cámara had gritted his teeth and smiled when he read the Manifesto – everything about it was typical of his grandfather. And he folded it up and placed it in his wallet. Which was where it had stayed ever since.
He stepped away from the bedroom and paced towards the kitchen and back on to the balcony. At the end, beyond the washing machine, was a small hut-like structure made of wood. As he opened the door he was struck by the sharp-sweet smell of a dozen marihuana plants basking in artificial light. They seemed to smile at him and he murmured a low ‘Hola’ in greeting. He pressed his fingers into the soil of the nearest one: the watering system appeared to be working, while the fan set in the corner kept them well aired. But it was hot and muggy in there: after the briefest of checks he closed the door and went back to the kitchen.
He had not smoked anything since Hilario had died, resisting the temptation to blur the loss in the green furry blanket of his home-grown. Hilario had always taken the most care of them, and even hooked the electricity up to the mains in such a way that they did not have to pay for the expensive lights that simulated sunshine twenty-four hours a day. It could be an expensive hobby otherwise. But surprisingly, in the time that his grandfather had not been with him, the urge had never come. The remains of last year’s harvest – dried and ready to smoke – sat in the usual coffee jar in the living room, and this year’s crop was steadily maturing. But he did not really care for the plants any more. If he came back one day and found by some miracle that the hut had been dismantled and they were all gone, he would not care, though a curious inertia kept the process going. Perhaps it was a last link to his grandfather: Hilario had always claimed that by providing Cámara with dope he kept him on his side of the law. Or at least a toehold of sorts.
In the kitchen, he picked up one of the dry pieces of bread on the table and chewed on it as best he could while he scouted around for dinner ingredients. The fridge was practically empty, with half a carton of semi-skimmed milk, a jar of anchovies and an opened tin of tomato purée with white mould erupting from the top. He would have to go out or go to bed hungry. It was half-past ten – there was still time to find somewhere open.
He was wondering again where Alicia might be when the latch clicked and he heard her come inside. Her keys rattled as she placed them in the bowl by the door. The lights were on and it was clear that he was inside the flat as well, but instead of walking down to the kitchen, he heard her go straight to the bedroom.
‘Hi!’ he called. No answer.
He pursed his lips and walked to the other end of the flat. Their bedroom door was ajar. He pushed it open.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I’m back. How’re you doing?’
Alicia was perched on the bed, pulling down her trousers carefully. Tossing them on to a nearby chair, she opened a drawer in her bedside table and pulled out a tube of cream. She squeezed a small amount on to her fingertip, and then started rubbing it on round pink-and-red spots on her thighs.
‘Do they hurt?’ Cámara asked in a low voice.
She shrugged.
‘I … er, I thought about popping out to get something to eat,’ he said.
She finished rubbing the cream into one sore, then squeezed out some more from the tube and moved on to another. There were seventeen of them; the ones high up, close to her groin, were the worst.
‘I’m not hungry,’ she said at last. ‘And I’m tired.’
She looked at him. Her brown, deer-like eyes, usually so bright and alive, looked clouded and heavy. She tried to smile.
‘You sort yourself out. I need to sleep.’
FIVE
IT WAS DARK and he no longer felt so hungry.
He had told neighbours that he was a salesman, and the story appeared to work as a cover: the dealers knew not to approach him, but a couple chatting in a doorway greeted him with a nod as he passed. Being known as police was inadvisable. Most of his colleagues preferred to live outside the city, always careful about giving their address for fear of reprisals from criminals they had put away. But he found the satellite towns near Valencia, with their bungalow estates and tennis clubs, dull and uninspiring. He was a city dweller and liked being in the centre. The danger was all part of a need to feel alive.
The street was quiet – it was midweek – but nonetheless the city felt asleep, as though its sparkle were fading. Months before, when the economic crisis had been at its peak, there had been a palpable sense of possibility in the air, that sudden change, revolution even, might come about at any moment. That had now given way to something more lethargic and resigned. Not even the old King’s departure – finally, having given in to the inevitable and abdicated in favour of his son – had resurrected it. The new monarch had swiftly and efficiently stepped in, and while he did not enjoy quite the same respect – and could never be the same father-figure to the nation – many at least appeared inclined to give him a chance to establish himself before passing judgement. ‘Give the kid a year or two,’ the comment went.
In Barcelona, he had noticed, people barely seemed to care about the new head of state; emotionally it was as though they had already separated from the rest of the country: what did events in Madrid matter to them? But inevitably, in much of Spain, the change of king had strengthened the republican movement, and a new, media-friendly but anti-Establishment party had risen meteorically in the polls.
There were still many boarded-up shops in his part of the city – perhaps one or two on every street. Some of them reopened for a few months as a new fad appeared and people tried to cash in: fine beauty parlours offering dodgy laser treatment for body hair had mostly been and gone, as had a handful of iced-yoghurt outlets. Now it was the turn of vapour-cigarette vendors desperately trying to fill a shop window with only half a dozen brightly coloured metal tubes that were, supposedly, the latest thing. The sight of them only sparked an unconscious desire in him, and before he had even realised it, a Ducados was hanging from his lip, smoke pouring out behind him as he walked along.
No, there had been no revolution, but everything felt different, and strangely the same.
A couple across the street were ambling slowly, hand in hand. As the girl talked, the boy leaned in quickly and kissed her on the mouth, cutting her off for a second before she smiled at him and carried on telling her story.
He drew hard on the cigarette, filling his mouth with as much smoke as possible before inhaling it and holding it deep in his lungs. Finally letting it out, he coughed lightly and held the back of his hand to his lip. He did not smoke any more in the flat. After what had happened to Alicia it was the wrong thing to do. She herself had not touched a cigarette since. The doctors had told them that the burn scars would never go away completely. But with time, if she used the creams regularly and avoided the sun for a year or more, they would fade to some degree. Both of them had come to understand, however, that the marks on her skin where the thugs had used her body as an ashtray were but the physical side of something longer-lasting.
At first Cámara had thought that the damage w
as not too bad. They enjoyed a period of closeness during the first few weeks after she finally left the clinic. Hilario had died not long before and they were united by a mixture of powerful emotions – grief, relief, even joy at the successful conclusion of the case Cámara had been working on, exposing corruption in the local ruling party and sending down the right-wing sadists who had tortured her.
But after a month or so the distance started to open up between them. It was understandable, given what had happened, that Alicia did not want to make love. But at first she had craved him physically, if not sexually. Later, though, she had even refused his embraces, while his tentative moves to rekindle an erotic spark had come to nothing. He did not resent it. But sometimes he caught himself wondering whether they would ever have sex again.
A primitive anxiety had started to eat away at him – that Alicia blamed him for what had happened, for her getting caught up in everything. Not consciously – she was not, ordinarily, the kind of person to hold grudges. But perhaps at some hidden level. She had been trying to help him with the case, to get information, and he had encouraged her. But she had almost died in the process. And the reaction, some kind of delayed shock, had surprised him when it came.
He flicked the cigarette into a nearby drain hole and exhaled. In front of him stood a late-night bar. He could go in, have a couple of glasses of beer, whatever was left to eat, perhaps a glass of brandy or two, and then head home. Or he could go and see his friends. The collective was only a few blocks further on. He had not seen them for weeks.
Pushing his hands deep into his pockets, he carried on walking.
He smelt it before he could see it – the scent of fried garlic, cheap tobacco and human bodies in need of a wash. At the door, drawing on a roll-up, his head bent down slightly and his face hidden behind lumpy dreadlocks, stood a familiar figure.
Dídac smiled broadly when he caught sight of Cámara.
‘Tío! You’re back!’
They embraced warmly, Cámara’s powerful arms gripping the young man close to him.
‘So good to see you,’ Dídac said. ‘We’ve been managing,’ he grinned. ‘Managing without you, but it’s always good to have you around.’
Cámara smiled. Dídac was seventeen, and Cámara felt protective towards him. The boy’s good humour and innocence made him appear younger than he really was. Cámara was certain that Dídac had never had a girlfriend, although from time to time the boy seemed to have taken a shine to some of the women arriving at their food bank. He was reserved, particularly with new people, despite always wanting to help, and was only ever himself with a handful of friends – with Cámara, with Berto, who owned the place, and with Daniel, his father.
‘How’s things?’ Cámara said, glancing at the door behind. Dídac shrugged.
‘We’re still here,’ he said. ‘That’s the main thing. They haven’t closed us down.’
‘Have they tried?’
Dídac frowned. ‘Nah, but, you know. The threat’s always there. Neighbours complain of the noise sometimes. But they just don’t like the idea of free food being handed out. Doesn’t fit with the system.’
Cámara smiled at him. ‘You’re doing a good job, an important job, that’s the main thing.’
‘Oh, I know that,’ Dídac said, punching him on the arm. ‘You’re not my dad, you know.’
‘Sorry, that sounded wrong.’
‘It’s all right. Come on, let’s go in.’
‘Good crowd?’
‘About the usual. Maybe more, in fact. The media don’t report house repossessions and poverty because it’s not news any more. But people still need to eat.’
‘Restaurants still providing stuff?’ Cámara asked.
‘Less and less,’ said Dídac. ‘That’s the main problem. Because no one’s talking about this any more, people think it’s gone away. So some restaurants think we’re just scrounging and stop giving us their leftovers. And it doesn’t look so good any more. Most were doing it for the publicity in the first place – solidarity with the new poor and all that. Thinking they might win customers with a social conscience. But it doesn’t last long.’
He curled his nose and stubbed out his roll-up with his foot.
‘But we’ve still got enough. For the time being.’
He placed his hand on Cámara’s arm and led him inside.
‘Come on, let’s go. Daniel will be pleased to see you. He’s got all kinds of new ideas. Big changes. Big plans.’
SIX
SMOKING WAS NOT allowed inside the food hall. Not because anyone agreed with the ban – that was not their way of doing things – but because if they were caught it would give the authorities the perfect excuse to close them down. Dídac pushed his cigarette stub with his foot towards a small pile on the pavement by the door and they stepped inside.
The first thing that Cámara noticed were posters plastered over the walls; these were new: the place had previously been undecorated. They were mostly coloured red and black, with splashes of purple and yellow. He saw images of raised fists, anguished, hungry faces and dramatic fonts screaming out words like ‘RESISTANCE’, ‘POWER’ and ‘STRUGGLE’.
The effect was immediate. People of all ages and shades were eating and chatting – many with scruffy, tightly packed bags crammed underneath the long benches where they sat – but the atmosphere had changed. This was no longer simply a food bank offering the homeless and unemployed something to eat; it had become something altogether more politicised. The charity was no longer free: their guests were now expected to absorb some of the ideas of the collective in return for their nourishment.
Berto, the anarchist economist who owned the place, was at the top end of the long rectangular room with a group of volunteers, helping to clean up the used paper plates and plastic cutlery, gathering them up and stuffing them into black bin liners. For a while, at the beginning, they had used real plates, but things got broken and the washing-up rotas became too complicated to manage. Using throwaway alternatives was less environmentally friendly, but worth it, the group had eventually decided, in order to keep things going. Cámara had missed the vote.
After a pause, Berto looked up and caught sight of Cámara in the doorway. He left his helpers and walked over to greet him.
‘You’ve been away too long,’ he said with a grin.
‘Nice to be back at last,’ Cámara smiled back. ‘It looks busy.’
Berto nodded. ‘Some have already left.’ He waved a hand in the direction of the emptier benches. ‘But we were packed, yeah. Tell you what, though, we’re getting more and more children coming in. Used to be just a handful, but now maybe twenty per cent are kids. Families can’t afford to feed them any more.’
He curled his lip.
‘From our end there’s no sign of things getting any better, despite what they keep saying on the news.’
Cámara liked Berto – he had given them the use of his small, ground-floor premises here when the food bank was forced to abandon the unfinished metro-line station under the city centre. But Cámara could sense that a sermon was about to begin. Looking up, he tried to catch sight of Daniel, spotting him at one of the tables, joking with a group of friends; Dídac had joined them.
‘You’re absolutely right,’ Cámara said to Berto, placing a hand on his shoulder. ‘You must fill me in.’
‘It’s the banks, see—’
‘But I just want to go and say hello to Daniel.’
Berto stopped. ‘Oh, sure. No problem, Max.’
Cámara dropped his hand and turned to go, but Berto pulled him back.
‘Haven’t seen Alicia here for a while. She OK?’
‘She’s got a lot on her mind,’ Cámara answered. ‘She’ll be back.’
Daniel’s group – his son and three Latin American men – smiled as Cámara stepped over to them. Daniel was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt – his usual attire, no matter what the weather. He was unshaven these days – an earlier experiment with an over-manicured
goatee had thankfully been abandoned and he looked gentler as a result, despite the penetrating shine in his dark green eyes.
Cámara shook the hands of the others, who he did not know, before embracing Daniel.
‘Come and join us,’ Daniel said. ‘There’s some food left if you’re hungry.’
Before he could answer, Dídac had got up and gone to fetch him some of the remaining leftovers from the counter at the back of the room.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘So how are things in Barcelona?’ Daniel asked. ‘Hotting up, by the looks of it.’
Daniel was from Barcelona himself – Cámara was not sure how long he had been in Valencia. He had given his son a very Catalan name – Dídac was the Catalan version of Diego.
Cámara shrugged.
‘It feels …’ he paused. ‘Different. Independence flags are everywhere, and there’s a curious, almost manic energy about the place – edgy, nervous, as though something is about to change.’
He grinned. ‘But I’m done trying to predict the future. I’ll just stick with cleaning up the past.’
The others chuckled and Dídac placed a plate of tortilla and dried strips of jamón serrano in front of him.
‘Not much left,’ he said by way of apology.
‘That’s fine. Thanks.’
‘You ask me,’ Daniel said, ‘I think independence is inevitable. It gives Catalans something to look forward to, a project they can believe in. Which the rest of Spain is lacking right now. Spain is going nowhere. Catalonia at least has a direction, something to aim for.’
A Body in Barcelona: Max Cámara 5 Page 3