The Invisible Guardian

by Redondo, Dolores

  But while she manipulated it, she looked at her hands, too small to hold a gun. She realised that the hands she could see weren’t hers, but were those of a little girl. She took a step back to get a full view of the scene. Sitting on the bed was a little girl who was her, holding a big black gun with a pale hand while using the other to caress her head, which was barely covered by the blonde hair that was starting to grow back and through which the whitish scar was still visible. The little girl was crying. Amaia felt an infinite sympathy for the little girl that was her and the vision of the child broken by pain opened a chasm inside her that she hadn’t felt for many years. The little girl was saying something, but Amaia couldn’t hear it. She leaned forwards and saw that the little girl didn’t have a neck; she had a deep dark empty stripe where it should have been. Amaia listened carefully, trying to identify the sounds mixed in with the weeping.

  The little girl, a nine-year-old Amaia, was crying thick, black tears like motor oil, which fell, shining and crystalline like liquid jet, forming a puddle at her feet wherethe bed had been before. Amaia went closer still and recognised in the movement of her lips the urgent litany of a prayer that the child was repeating with neither expression nor pause. Ourfatherw‌hoartinhea‌venhallowe‌dbethyname‌thykingdomcome …

  The little girl raised the weapon using both hands, turned it towards herself and lifted the barrel until it was resting against her ear. Then she let her right arm fall limply into her lap and Amaia saw that her hand was missing as far as the forearm. She shouted as loudly as she could, aware all the while that it was a dream and certain that, in spite of this, that evil would be irreparable.

  ‘Don’t do it!’ she shouted, but the black tears the little girl had wept filled her mouth and muffled her words. She summoned up all her strength as she fought to wake up from the nightmare before it all came to an end. ‘Don’t do it!’

  Her cry broke free of the dream and there was an instant when she felt herself flying out of that hell, conscious that she really had shouted, that it was her own voice that had woken her and that the little girl had been left behind. She turned her head to look at her again and even saw how the little girl lifted her stump of an arm, as she said, ‘I can’t let Ama eat me all up.’

  She opened her eyes and saw a dark figure leaning over her face.

  ‘Amaia.’

  The voice seemed to drag her back through the years, back to its owner, but her logic kicked in, reminding her that this was impossible, and driving away the remains of the nightmare. She blinked, trying to sweep away the vestiges of sleep that blinded her eyes like sand, making them heavy and useless.

  An extremely cold hand brushed her forehead and feeling that corpse-like touch was enough to force her to open her eyes. Beside the bed, a woman was leaning over her and observing her with an expression somewhere between curiosity and amusement. She had a straight nose, high cheekbones and her hair was tucked behind her ears in two perfect waves.

  ‘Ama!’ she shouted, suffocated by fear as she pulled awkwardly on the duvet and leant back until she found herself sitting on the pillow.

  ‘Amaia, Amaia, wake up, you’re dreaming, wake up!’

  A click that seemed to come from inside her head flooded the room with light from the bedside lamp.

  ‘Amaia, are you alright?’

  Visibly pale, Ros was looking at her with a perplexed expression without daring to touch her. Amaia felt terribly thirsty and a fine layer of sweat had formed under the bathrobe she was still wearing.

  ‘I’m alright, it was a nightmare,’ she said, panting and looking round the room, as if trying to make entirely sure of where she was.

  ‘You were shouting,’ her sister muttered, alarmed.

  ‘Was I?’

  ‘You were shouting a lot and I couldn’t wake you up,’ said Ros, as if explaining it would make it make sense. Amaia looked at her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, feeling exhausted and under the spotlight.

  ‘… And you gave me the fright of my life when I tried to wake you up.’

  ‘Yes,’ admitted Amaia, ‘I didn’t recognise you when I opened my eyes.’

  ‘Well I don’t doubt that: you pointed your gun at me.’

  ‘What?’

  Ros gestured towards the bed and Amaia realised that she was still holding her pistol in her hand. The vision of the little girl raising the weapon to her head suddenly became so vivid and ominous that she dropped the weapon as if it were hot and covered it with a cushion before turning to her sister.

  ‘Oh Ros, I’m truly sorry, I must have fallen asleep after cleaning it, but it’s not loaded …’

  Her sister didn’t seem entirely convinced.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised again. ‘The last few days have been very intense, only today I interrogated the guy who killed his own stepdaughter, and I suppose that … Well, between that and the basajaun investigation, it’s normal to be stressed.’

  ‘And I haven’t helped,’ added Ros, miserably, her lips forming a pout that reminded Amaia of the little girl she had once been. She felt a wave of affection for her sister.

  ‘Well, I suppose we all end up doing the best we can, don’t we?’ she said with a sheepish smile.

  Ros sat down on the bed.

  ‘I’m sorry Amaia, I know I should have told you. I just want you to know that it wasn’t that I was trying to hide anything from you, I didn’t think of that, I was just feeling quite ashamed about everything that was happening to me.’

  Amaia reached out her hand until she found her sister’s.

  ‘That’s exactly what James told me.’

  ‘You see? Your husband’s even perfect in that respect. Tell me, am I likely to share my marital problems with you when you have a husband like that?’

  ‘I’ve never judged you, Ros.’

  ‘I know. And I’m sorry,’ Ros said, leaning towards her sister, who hugged her tightly.

  ‘I’m sorry too, Ros, I swear that it was one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do in my life, but I didn’t have any other choice,’ she said, stroking her sister’s hair.

  When they finally pulled away from the embrace they were smiling openly at one another, in a way that is reserved for sisters who’ve shared many such looks over the years. Making her peace with Ros made Amaia feel good in a way that she had forgotten over the last few days and which she normally only experienced on returning home, having a shower and embracing James. Secretly, it had worried her, leading her to wonder whether she had succumbed to what murder investigators fear most: that the horror she faced on a daily basis had broken free of the dark place where it ought to remain locked away and had taken over her life, gradually making her into one of those police officers with no private life, left desolate and isolated in the knowledge that they are responsible for letting the evil break through the barriers and wash everything away. She felt as though a threat as dense and ominous as a curse had been hanging over her for the last few days, as though the old charms weren’t strong enough to exorcise the evil she had to confront, which stuck to her body like a damp sweat.

  She roused herself from her thoughts and realised that Ros had been watching her carefully.

  ‘Perhaps you ought to be honest with me now.’

  ‘Oh, do you mean … Ros, you know I can’t, that’s part of the investigation.’

  ‘I don’t mean the investigation, but what makes you cry out during your dreams. James told me that you have nightmares almost every time you fall asleep.’

  ‘For God’s sake, James! It’s true, but they’re just nightmares, nothing more, and it’s perfectly normal when you consider what my job entails. They come and go, when I’m very involved in a case I have more, when we finish a case they go again. You know I’ve slept with the light on for years.’

  ‘Well you had it switched off today,’ said Ros, looking at the bedside lamp.

  ‘I dropped off, it was still light when I sat down to clean the gun and I fell aslee
p without realising it. But it doesn’t usually happen, I leave it on precisely to avoid what happened today, because what I suffer from aren’t exactly nightmares. What happens is that I enter a light sleep in which I’m constantly alert and during the night I experience loads of semi-awakenings which make me jump a bit, I re-orientate myself and I go back to sleep … That’s why it’s important that there’s a light on, so that when I open my eyes I can see where I am and calm down straight away.’

  Ros shook her head as she looked at Amaia’s expression.

  ‘Are you listening to yourself? What you’ve described is a state of constant alertness, nobody can live like that. If you want to talk yourself into believing that rubbish about the light, then that’s fine by me, but you know what happened today isn’t normal. You almost shot me, Amaia.’

  Her sister’s words seemed to echo those spoken by James two days earlier outside the workshop door.

  ‘And nightmares can be normal, but only up to a certain point; it’s not normal that they cause you so much suffering, that you wake up with a jerk, incapable of telling whether you’re asleep or awake. I saw you, Amaia, and you were terrified.’

  Amaia looked at her sister and remembered the feminine profile that had leant over her face as she was waking up.

  ‘Let me help you.’

  Amaia nodded.

  They went downstairs in silence, aware of the strange atmosphere in the house in their aunt’s absence. The furniture, the plants, the innumerable decorative objects seemed dull without her presence, as if her belongings became faded and less tangible in their mistress’s absence, blurring the boundaries that anchored them in the here and now. Ros went to the sideboard and took out the little black bundle of black silk containing the cards, put them in the centre of the table and went to the living room. A second later, Amaia heard the sound of adverts coming from the television. She smiled.

  ‘Why do you do that?’ she asked.

  ‘To hear better,’ was her sister’s reply.

  ‘You know that’s nonsense.’

  ‘And yet it’s true.’

  She sat down and very carefully untied the knot that held the smooth fabric closed, picked up the deck of cards, removed the band holding it together and set it down in front of her.

  ‘You already know what to do, shuffle the cards while you think about your question.’

  Amaia touched the deck of cards, which was strangely cold, and her mind filled with memories of the other times, the smooth feel of the cards as they slid through her fingers, the strange perfume they gave off as she moved them in her hands and the peaceful communion achieved when she reached the exact moment when the channel opened and the question she was formulating in her mind was flowing in both directions; the instinctive way in which she would choose the cards and the ceremonial manner in which she would turn them over, knowing well before she did so what would be on the other side; and the mystery that was resolved in an instant when the route to follow appeared in her mind establishing relationships between the cards. Interpreting Tarot cards was as simple and as complicated as interpreting a map of an unknown place, like plotting a journey from your house to a specific point; if you were clear about the destination, if you were capable of not getting distracted en route, like a mystical Little Red Riding Hood, the answers were revealed before you in a clear path to the answer, which, as is often the case, was not the only way of getting there. Sometimes answers are not the solution to an enigma, Engrasi had told her once when they were alone; sometimes the answers only generate more questions, more doubts.

  ‘Why?’ Amaia had asked her. ‘If I ask a question and I receive an answer, that ought to be the solution.’

  ‘It ought to be, if you knew what question to ask at a given moment.’

  She remembered Aunt Engrasi’s teachings. ‘The question. There must always be a question, otherwise what’s the point of carrying out a consultation? Opening the channel to allow the answers to arrive mixed with the cries of millions of souls, clamouring, howling and lying. You have to direct the consultation, you have to plot the route on the map without leaving it, without letting the wolf seduce you by convincing you to go and pick flowers, because if you do that he will arrive at your destination before you do, and what you’ll find on arrival will no longer be the place you were aiming for; you’ll end up talking to a monster in disguise who passes himself off as your dear old granny and who has only one intention, to devour you. And he will, he will eat your soul if you leave the path.’ The warnings she had heard so many times in her childhood echoed inside her in Aunt Engrasi’s clear voice.

  ‘The cards are a door, and, like a door, you shouldn’t just open it for the sake of it, nor leave it open afterwards. A door, Amaia. Doors don’t do any harm, but what comes through them may do. Remember that you must shut it when you finish your consultation, that what you need to know will be revealed to you, and that what remains dark belongs to the darkness.’

  The door opened up a world to her that had always been there, and in a few months she proved to be an expert traveller, learning to plot authoratitive routes on the map of the unknown, directing the consultation and closing the door with the care prompted by Engrasi’s vigilant gaze. The answers were clear, concise, and were as easy to understand as a lullaby whispered in her ear. But there was a moment, when she was eighteen and studying in Pamplona, when curiosity kept her tied to the deck of cards for hours. She would ask about the boy she liked again and again, about her grades, about what her rivals were thinking. And the answers that arrived started to become confused, muddled, contradictory. Sometimes, bewildered in her attempts to discern a reply, she would spend the whole night shuffling and dealing dark cards that didn’t reveal anything and left her with the strange sensation in her heart of being deprived of something that belonged to her by right. She tried again and again, and without realising it she began to leave the door open. She never gathered up the deck of cards, which was often on her bed, and she would get drawn into long sessions over and over again with the sole intention of trying to see. And she saw. One morning, when she should have been leaving the house to go to the department, she got drawn into one of those rapid, directionless consultations that ended up absorbing her for hours. But that morning the journey to nowhere brought her an answer without a question. When she was ready to deal the cards, an ominous charge ran through the smooth cardboard on which they were printed and shook her arm as if she’d been given an electric shock. One by one she turned them over and plotted the map of the desolation in her soul. When she reached the last one, she touched it gently with the tip of her index finger without turning it over and all the cold in the universe gathered around her while she exhaled a wordless moan and, desolated, understood that the wolf had seduced her, he had deceived her into leaving the path, the damned son of a bitch had gone on ahead, had arrived before her and she had spent days talking to evil poorly disguised as a dear old granny. The phone rang just once before she picked it up and Engrasi told her what she already knew: that her father had died while she’d been off gathering flowers. She never dealt out the cards again.

  The question.

  The question had been thundering in her head for days muddled with others: Where is he? Why does he do it? But, most importantly, who is he? Who is the basajaun?

  She set the deck of cards on the table and Ros arranged them in a line.

  ‘Choose three cards,’ she requested.

  Amaia touched them one by one with the tip of her finger. Ros separated them from the rest and turned them over, arranging them in a row.

  ‘You’re looking for someone, and he’s a man. He’s not young but he’s not old either, and he’s nearby. Choose three cards.’

  Amaia chose another three cards, which Ros arranged to the right of the first ones.

  ‘This man is fulfilling an obligation, he has a job to do and he’s committed to doing it, because what he does gives sense to his life and assuages his fury.’

 
‘It assuages his fury? A crime assuages a greater fury?’

  ‘Choose three cards.’

  She turned them over next to the others.

  ‘It assuages an ancient fury and an even greater fear.’

  ‘Tell me about his past.’

  ‘He was subjugated, enslaved, but now he’s free, although a yoke hangs over him. He’s always been fighting an internal war to dominate his fury, and now he thinks he has succeeded.’

  ‘He thinks he has? What does he think?’

  ‘He thinks he’s in the right, he thinks that reason is helping him, he thinks that what he’s doing is a good thing. He’s got a good opinion of himself, he sees himself as triumphant and victorious over evil, but it’s only an act. Choose three cards.’

  She arranged them slowly.

  ‘Sometimes he breaks down and his worst side surfaces.’

  ‘… and then he kills.’

  ‘No, when he kills he isn’t at his worst. I know it doesn’t make much sense, but when he kills he’s the guardian of purity.’

  ‘What made you say that?’ asked Amaia brusquely.

  ‘What did I say?’ asked Ros, as if returning from a dream.

  ‘The guardian of purity, one who conserves nature, the guardian of the forest, the basajaun. Bloody arrogant bastard. What does he think he’s preserving by killing little girls? I hate him.’