By telephone again he confirmed that buses weren’t running because of the strike. At around nine thirty in the morning he called for a taxi. He put on his sheepskin jacket and, without turning off the light so the strikers would think he was still in the office, he left the building by a back door that led to the river. A bit farther on, before getting to the bridge, a path opened to the highway. He didn’t have to wait five minutes. Before ten, he got out in the Amara neighborhood of San Sebastián.
A surprise: the woman Bittori never liked opened the door. She said the woman was a simple (she separated the syllables: sim-ple) auxiliary nurse. Whenever she recalled the profession of her son’s girlfriend, she wrinkled her nose, slightly curled the corner of her lip.
“Male doctors with female doctors, male nurses with female nurses.”
And then she’d start making negative judgments, she has no taste in clothes, she’s pretentious, she uses too much perfume. It was hard for her to conceal the aversion she took to Aránzazu from the first instant. And her loathing grew to abhorrence when she found out the woman was divorced and older than Xabier.
“What does this innocent need, then, a second mother? Doesn’t he see that this con artist is trying to take advantage of his position and his salary?”
It didn’t matter to Txato. If she was the woman his son chose, she was fine with him.
He wasn’t expecting to find her in Xabier’s flat.
“I hope I’m not interrupting.”
“Not at all. Come right in.”
He asked to see his son. He’d be out in a jiffy, he was taking a shower. And Aránzazu, barefoot and wearing little by way of clothing. Were they living together? It didn’t matter to Txato. His theory: his children, as long as they’re happy, the rest is secondary. But Bittori:
“What you want is for them to be happy so they leave you in peace.”
“Well, suppose that’s true, what of it?”
There was the noise of a hair dryer, the woman wore dark red polish on her toenails, and on the wall there was an oil painting of San Sebastián by someone named Ábalos. More than once Xabier had suggested to his father that he invest in art, but I don’t understand anything about that stuff, son.
Txato asked if the strike had spread to the hospital.
“Strike? No, not that I know of.” And when Xabier, white bathrobe, walked into the living room: “Have you heard anything about a strike?”
“No.”
“Well, your father’s employees didn’t come to work today.”
Txato confirmed what she said. Father and son hugged, and Xabier smelled of cologne and said sarcastically:
“I’ve got to operate this afternoon. Let’s hope for the sake of the patient’s health that a picket line of strikers doesn’t burst into the operating room while I’m at it.”
His father didn’t laugh at the joke. To the contrary, he frowned, put on a hard expression, and fell into a severe silence.
“What’s going on, aita?”
“Nothing.”
Aránzazu, women’s intuition, told them she was leaving so they could speak in private. They should please allow her five minutes, she needed no more time, to get dressed. Xabier let a silly “but” slip through his lips like a drip of saliva.
“But…”
Txato suggested to Xabier that the two of them should sit down in the corner bar, where he would be waiting. In the bar, there was a lack of intimacy; too many ears. Besides, Xabier wasn’t in the mood to drink anything. So they walked along these and those streets. Looking for trees and quiet, they reached the Paseo del Árbol de Gernika and, talking and talking, they walked to the María Cristina Bridge and back.
“It would be better that ama didn’t know I came to see you. Mind you, she knows the basic information. I’ve held back some details. I don’t want her to worry about problems that may be solved already and that’s why I wanted to talk to you. You’re a man with a brain. For sure you can advise me.”
“Of course, aita. What’s it all about?”
“The whole town’s up in arms against me.”
“Don’t tell me they started insulting you again with graffiti.”
“For the time being, they’re leaving me alone. Maybe they realize that I’m not the businessman wrapped in millions they thought I was. Or maybe some recent negotiations have slowed their greed.”
“What negotiations? You never mentioned anything.”
“What do you want me to do, publish it in the newspaper? I used a middleman to request a meeting in France. The idea was to explain my financial situation, that they see I’ve gotten myself involved in investments, and that I ask them for an extension or that they let me pay in installments. I’ve heard about others who do it that way and that those bastards are sympathetic if you show you want to pay.”
“Before you were against paying.”
“I’m still against paying, it’s screwed us completely, but what do you want, for them to kidnap me?”
“What did they say?”
“I went to the meeting. I arrived right on time, you know how I am. I don’t like making anyone wait. The one who waited was me. More than two and a half hours. No one came. You know that ever since that thing about the Liberation Group they’ve been super suspicious. God knows if some cop in an unmarked car followed me without my noticing but maybe they did. I asked for another meeting. They turned me down. Sons of bitches! But I do think they see good intentions in me and for that reason they’re leaving me in peace while they’re busy making someone else’s life hell. But I have to do something, Xabier. In our town, I’m way too exposed. Just this morning three idiots closed down my business. They’ve got big balls. My own employees decide whether to work or not. I don’t have the slightest doubt that at least one of them is telling the organization everything I do. Remember Andoni, Sotero’s nephew? He’s the worst. He’s a really bad person.”
“What are you waiting for? Fire him.”
“Someday, when things calm down.”
“Look, aita, if you’re the owner of a business, you can’t mix with the working class. I’m not a classist, but what can I say? Any guy who just doesn’t like you or who envies you is going to try to hurt you somehow. He doesn’t even have to make an effort because you’re standing right there. Probably he walks right by your door every single day. You and ama should live somewhere else and go to the town only to visit or to work. What does graffiti really accomplish? Let them paint all they want. If you’re not there to see them…But when you start with graffiti, where do you stop?”
“I’d move, but your mother…”
“Ama would move, too. She’s dropped hints about it more than once. I’ve heard her. The thing is, the two of you don’t communicate.”
“Well, since I gave up bicycling and playing cards in the bar we’ve been spending more time together than ever. We almost never go out in town. I go from home to work and from work to home, and she’s stopped shopping in town.”
“That’s no kind of life.”
“That’s the life we have. It could be worse. My father fought in the war against Franco. They smashed one of his legs and he was in jail for three years.”
“And you, are you sure you’re taking precautions?”
“Rest assured that I am. If they want to hurt me it will have to be outside the village. When I’m there I walk around as if I had a hundred eyes.”
“So where do we stand? Do things look good or bad?”
“Bad. I’d really like to move the business to a quieter place. To La Rioja, to Zaragoza, but it’s complicated. Almost all my clients are from this area. A week doesn’t go by without someone needing urgent service. And I mean urgent urgent. And if you’re far away, how can you react quickly? They’d just call another trucking firm and that would be that.”
“Another possi
bility would be for you set up a branch office and move the business little by little.”
“I’d need a partner, someone I could rely on who could hire employees there or who would take care of the business here. I can’t be in two places at once. What would be best for me would be a simple solution that wouldn’t eat up too much time.”
“Close down the business, sell it, live off your savings.”
“Are you nuts? The business is my life.”
“In that case, I only see one solution. If you agree, I’ll help the two of you find an apartment and you’ll come to live in San Sebastián. In the city, you’d both be more protected. Anyway, what difference would it make to you to drive to work?”
“An apartment means a big expense. I think your mother wouldn’t…”
“Yes or no? Should I try to find one?”
“Okay, take a look. Then we’ll see.”
46
A RAINY DAY
It rained the day Txato was murdered; a gray workday, the kind that stretches out indefinitely, when everything is slow, wet, when there’s no difference between morning and afternoon; a normal day, with the peaks of the mountains surrounding the village lost in the clouds.
Txato got to the office early. Early? Yes, just after six, it was still dark. He ripped off the old page from the calendar on his desk and read what was underneath. On a page in his agenda, he immediately wrote the number of days he’d gone without smoking: 114. He was proud to connect his perseverance with a long column of numbers and Bittori was happy he wasn’t filling the house with smoke that yellowed the curtains and left a disgusting smell on the walls, the furniture, in the very air they were breathing.
Txato didn’t know, how could he possibly know?, that he was seeing the world, taking care of chores, having thoughts for the last time. For him the sun had come up for the last time. He picked things up, touched them, looked them over on the last morning of his life.
From home to work, he took the usual precautions. The boards and the ropes around his car, anyone could see that, were just as he usually placed them. He drove along these streets instead of those, glancing every so often into the rearview mirror. And without knowing it, he was on the verge of frustrating the attack being prepared for him. He scheduled a working lunch with a client in Beasáin; but at ten in the morning, the client called to reschedule. An unforeseen problem had arisen.
“Of course, no problem.”
Deep down, Txato was happy because he had no appetite for driving in such bad weather on highways in such bad condition. Then, a fatal decision, he went back to his usual routine, the one known by those ordered to execute him. He telephoned Bittori to tell her he’d be eating at home, and that’s what he did, and he ate and never ate again.
Inside the garage, with the motor turned off, Txato remained at the wheel for a minute or two so he could listen to a song he liked on the radio. When it was over, he got out, put the boards and ropes in place. He looked at everything around him without suspecting that he’d never see it again: the pails of paint lined up on a shelf, the bicycle hung from the ceiling, the barrels of wine, the spare wheels for the car, tools and junk—not a lot—piled close to the walls to leave room for the car in the middle. He walked out to the street humming the song he’d just been listening to in a low voice. He pulled down the metal gate. It was raining hard and he had no umbrella, but it was only forty or fifty steps to the entryway.
It was then he saw him, powerful, wide, standing on the corner. How could he not see him when, in this bad weather there wasn’t another soul on the street? Even with his hood over his head, Txato recognized him. By his general appearance, by his huge body, by whatever it was. He walked over to him, crossing to the other sidewalk, and spoke to him.
“Well, well, Joxe Mari. You’re back? I’m happy to see you.”
Those eyes, those tightly closed lips, those tense features. Their eyes met briefly, and in Joxe Mari’s there was a mix of hardness and discomfiture. It was raining on the two men and the gray tiles on the sidewalk. Some were missing. In the holes the filthy water was accumulating. Some wires ran up the facade of the house.
The church bell struck. For a second they stood there one in front of the other, calm, silent, Txato expecting Joxe Mari to say something, Joxe Mari paralyzed, his hands in his jacket pockets. Suddenly he averted his eyes; suddenly he was about to speak, but he didn’t speak; suddenly he turned around and took off, almost running down the street, leaving Txato alone on the corner, wanting to speak, wanting to ask him.
In the kitchen, as he took off his shoes, to Bittori:
“Why don’t you turn on the light?”
“Why, when you can see clearly?”
“You can’t guess who I ran into in the street. You could try for a whole month and not figure it out.”
Steam was coming out of a casserole, a steak was sizzling in the frying pan. The only light in the kitchen was the faded gray that came in through the window covered with raindrops.
Bittori, wearing an apron, busy at the stove, deaf to Txato’s words:
“Should I fry you some peppers?”
“I saw Joxe Mari.”
She spun around as if someone had stuck a needle in her back, her eyes popping out of her head.
“The son of those people?”
“Who else?”
“Did the two of you talk?”
“I did. He walked away without saying a word to me, though he was this close—he gestured with his thumb and index finger—to saying hello. I think it took him a moment to remember that his family isn’t speaking to us. He’s just as massive as he always was and has the same dumb face.”
Sitting opposite each other, they ate and drank. Txato chewed noisily. He said he was happy he hadn’t gone to Beasáin in this weather. Bittori wasn’t so happy.
“Well, if you had gone you’d have saved me some work. Because when I’m by myself I don’t cook. Good thing I had meat in the freezer.”
“If it comes to that, my dear, we could have gone to a restaurant in town.”
“And waste money?”
After a while, Bittori went back to the subject of their previous conversation. Between her eyes there were two suspicious wrinkles.
“But he’s in ETA, isn’t he?”
“Who?”
“Who do you think? Doesn’t it seem odd to you that a man from ETA is just strolling through the town when under normal circumstances he wouldn’t want the police to spot him? Tell me something. Did he have an umbrella?”
“An umbrella? Let me think. No. He had his hood over his head. But I already told you that I spoke with him. I mean, he wasn’t hiding or anything. He probably came to see his family.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t spying on you?”
“Why the hell would he be spying on me? Didn’t I tell you I was right in front of him the way I’m in front of you? What kind of spying is that? And if he wanted to hurt me, why did he just leave when I was standing right there?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t like this.”
“Come on. You’re paranoid. The number of ice creams I bought for that kid in the Pagoeta when he was little! The sad thing is that he went away, because if he really belongs to ETA, damn it, I would have had someone who could put me in touch with his bosses and then I could explain how my finances are going.”
They finished eating the last meal of Txato’s life. Bittori immediately began to wash the dishes. He said he was going to have a siesta. He stretched out on the bed with his clothes on, on top of the bedspread. That was the last time he slept.
47
WHAT BECAME OF THEM?
He was the weakest of the three. Miren, sullen:
“Not the weakest. No. The one weak one.”
Koldo, a secondary player since he was a boy, the kind who goes through life in the sha
dow of others. He informed on them in the Intxaurrondo barracks.
“If he didn’t, your son and Jokin would still be here with us, I swear, setting fire once in a while to a garbage can, sure, but without getting into the armed struggle. They gave him a beating? They beat up a lot of guys, you know, guys who put up with the punches and the tub and said as little as possible.”
Miren had a grudge against that boy like nothing you’ve ever seen. Her breathing hastened if you mentioned his name.
Joxian, on the other hand, couldn’t stand the boy’s father, one of his workmates at the foundry. They’d shared a shift at the mouth of the furnace for many long years and hundreds of times poured molten metal into molds with their own hands. Herminio, an assimilated Spaniard, and immigrant from Andalucía, came to the village as a young man to put food in his mouth; he courted Manoli, a Basque from a tiny hamlet, naive and huge, so now he thought himself more Basque than God Himself. Did he speak Basque? Sure, kaixo, egun on, and that was that. Men like that, there were thousands of them, and thanks to his son, a softy, my son was God knows where, risking his life, with no profession, without a future, without a family, and what can I say about poor Jokin?
A worker retired. Management replaced him with Herminio to polish pieces, file the burrs off castings, and stuff like that. From then on, he and Joxian didn’t often see each other. And Herminio wasn’t the kind to play cards in the bar with his friends (friends, that guy?) or to bicycle. He was either in the foundry covered with dust or binding books at home to pick up extra money. In truth, with the distaste Joxian had for him it was better he stayed out of sight.
Occasionally during breaks one of them would go out behind the foundry to smoke a cigarette and he’d run into the other.
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