by Antonio Hill
He carried out another search. “Gaspar Ródenas.” Not many links appeared, since the press were usually careful about mentioning surnames. He didn’t mind: the following day he’d have the official report. He was going to leave it—it was hardly the time to be reading stories of fathers killing their one-year-old daughters—when an article caught his eye. The title “A Normal Family” suggested a note of irony he liked, although the real surprise was the name of the journalist who signed it: Lola Martínez Rueda. Lola. Fuck, Lola … After all this time.
He smiled, remembering. Her carefree appearance, her contagious laugh, those hands that were never still. Lola … He hadn’t thought of her in years. He’d learned to relegate her to a remote space in his mind, bury her under the weight of the decision made. However, at that moment, in that falsely warm early morning, he saw her face as if it were before him and the memory dissolved his bad mood.
11
Cities, like dogs, are never fully asleep. At the most, they doze, relax, gather strength to endure the coming and going of cars and pedestrians who await them the following morning. Their streets breathe a little more freely, occupied only by the reduced number of people who move in the early hours. Nocturnal animals of a different fur, strolling on almost empty pavements or roads, always colder, more silent. There are hours in which any noise, however petty, becomes a roar. A car door being closed becomes an explosion, firm steps provoke echoes, voices seem like sirens.
For years Brais Arjona had belonged to that world of shadows. He was used to going out alone and coming home alone, but that didn’t matter to him. What he sought, what he needed, was to fill those hours with anonymous faces and unknown bodies. Unfortunately, even in a city like Barcelona, the night animals always tended to be the same and sometimes, discovering guys he already knew by sight among the fauna, he felt uncomfortable, sickened by this atmosphere of dark corners and solitary individuals. He would pass older men and look away, not to ignore them but so as not to see himself when he was no longer as young, as attractive. As desirable. So, invariably, despite many firm late-night resolutions to cut down on these escapes, to go out only with his friends, to stay at home watching a film, the scent of the night awoke an almost irrepressible urge within him. And, past twelve, when the majority of responsible workers were getting into bed, he would take to the street. Like a wolf. In search of his pack. In search of prey. In search of something to assuage his hunger.
Just as in Madrid, during his first year in Barcelona there were memorable nights and others to be forgotten. But there was something stimulating even in the worst nights. Nonetheless, little by little, they all started to blend into one: the good and bad were blending into a single category, mediocre and gray. The same men, the same dark rooms, the same bars. The same glances that, requiring no words, set in motion the complex yet simple mechanism of sex. And then, when tedium threatened to devour him, or perhaps because of that, David appeared.
David, his husband, who was at that moment asleep hugging the pillow as if it were a lifejacket. David who went to bed at twelve at the latest and awoke at seven, brimming with energy. David, who hunted the wolf and converted him into a friendly little domestic animal. Brais had never had problems accepting his homosexuality, not even back in Galicia twenty years ago, in those rainy lands he’d hated so much and now had begun to yearn for. Probably the lack of a family smoothed the way for him: there was no one to come out to, or at least no one who would care. But had he been one of those who hide their true desires, David’s presence would have dissolved the least hint of fear or shame. Because loving someone so much couldn’t be bad. For that reason they had married, in a symbolic gesture: to proclaim to the world that they were together, would be together and, with a bit of luck, would grow old together. An old age that still seemed distant. Brais was thirty-seven; his husband had just turned thirty-one. Life stretched before them as a long, happy road. Nonetheless, that night the road appeared to be cut short, to lead to a sheer and dangerous precipice. At least for him.
A night of eternal minutes, a dawn refusing to come. It’s almost three when, sick of thinking, Brais gets out of bed, and barefoot, moves toward the laptop he’d left on the dining-room table. He knows he shouldn’t look at it, but there is something perverse in that image that he finds addictive.
The photo is attached to an email of two words. “Never forget.” As if anyone could forget that. Brais closes his eyes for a few seconds, the time it takes for the photo to open. Despite already knowing what it contains, his whole body tenses. Leaning slightly forward, both hands resting on the table, he contemplates the screen and feels the desire to destroy it with a fist. He could do it, but there’s no point. The three strangled dogs would still be in his head: their slack jaws, stretched necks, rigid paws.
He remains still, tense for a few more minutes. His body demands action, to react in some physical way to this fixed, unshakable stimulus. Because of this, still standing, he closes the window with the image and returns to his email. He composes a quick message and sends it to the personal email accounts of the five people involved: Sílvia Alemany, César Calvo, Amanda Bonet, Manel Caballero and the oldest of all, Octavi Pujades. Those still alive, he thinks indifferently. Those who can still save themselves.
Then he goes back to bed and embraces his husband in a vague attempt to catch that tranquillity of spirit that bestows a deep, restorative sleep on David, the sleep of the innocent. This is all that matters, thinks Brais, being able to sleep with David by his side for what is left of his life.
For months now day and night have become a kind of continual slumber for Octavi Pujades. He’s read somewhere that this was used as a means of coercion for prisoners of war: when the notions of time and space disappeared, the mind lost its footing and tumbled into incoherency. He wants to believe that’s not the case with him, that his brain still functions with the same precision, that he analyzes and decides using pure logic. For Octavi, financial director of Alemany Cosmetics for over twenty years, two plus two have always equaled four on balance sheets and in life. So it makes him uncomfortable that in other professions, other spheres, people could be so inexact, so mathematically incorrect.
When his wife was diagnosed with the cancer that has her lying prostrate in bed, the doctor affirmed that, unfortunately, Eugènia wouldn’t see in the New Year. In his actual words, it would be an achievement if she managed to survive until Christmas. And Octavi Pujades therefore acted according to this prognosis. He spoke to Sílvia and Víctor, appointed an acting replacement—not whom he would have chosen, but the only one possible given the circumstances—and took some months of leave to nurse his wife. Eugènia had asked only one thing of him: to die at home. In the same space they had lived in for eighteen years, since they exchanged the city apartment for this detached house in Torrelles de Llobregat, in an area where there were still birds. He’d made her that promise and taken on the task with the same discipline he applied to his work environment. It would be five months at most, from August until the end of the year, a substantial but not excessive amount of time. He was relatively sure that Gaspar Ródenas, the chosen replacement, would fulfill his role and at the same time keep him informed. Never, in the worst moments of doubt, did it cross his mind that Gaspar would die before Eugènia and in the end he would have to resort to the person who should have been the first choice. Life has a strange way of seeking justice, he thought. At one time they used to say the Lord worked in mysterious ways, which came to more or less the same thing.
This dawn, Octavi enters what was once his bedroom and is now a death chamber with a corpse refusing to die. He finds the strength with which Eugènia clings to this world, to these scant hours of consciousness without pain that make up her life, admirable and surprising at the same time. He’d never have believed that this tiny slim body could harbor such a capacity for resistance, such a desire to face death, huddled in some corner of the room, a vulture ready to drive its claws into its prey.
&
nbsp; Eugènia is sleeping. The medication keeps her sedated for the greater part of the day. He knows he is doing everything possible. Nonetheless, however much he tries to force himself, he can’t manage to share this bed with her, and this pains him. At the beginning, he moved to his eldest son’s room, empty since his marriage. In fact, when Eugènia dies, he will sell this house. It’s absurd to keep such a big house, built for a family of at least five. He tells his wife so, despite her not being able to hear him. He does what he has not done in years of marriage: explains his plans to her, taking into account the opinion she would express if she could. The good thing about being married to the same person for so long is that in eighty percent of cases you know what they will say to you. Or what she would say if she were in control of her faculties.
He talks to her then about their son, who has come to see her that evening while she was dozing; about their daughter, who refuses to visit them because every time she does she breaks down in tears; and about their other daughter, the youngest, the most troubled, who shows up unannounced and leaves without saying good-bye. Octavi trusts his wife’s opinion about her. Don’t worry, she has always told him; there are people who find their path naturally and others who need to go around and around, step backward to then suddenly advance. And when the time comes, Mireia will take a jump that leaves us all behind.
Once he has exhausted the subject of the children, Octavi goes on talking. After a few seconds he glances at the ceiling, as if he fears that having heard his confession, this predatory killer will switch victims and take him. As he took Gaspar and has taken Sara, leaving only that foul photograph as a note. And without wanting to, he remembers Gaspar’s words when he came to see him, that phrase branded into his mind. “We don’t deserve anything else. We’ll all end up like that, Octavi. Dead like dogs.”
The alarm clock, set for a quarter to six, announces the beginning of the day for Manel Caballero. He’s always found it hard to get up; as a child he’d have given anything to put off the moment of returning to the real world. He hated classes with the same intensity with which he now hates the research lab where he works, not because of the job itself, but because it forces him to come into contact with people. If he had the choice, he’d work from home or, at most, surrounded by a select few. Intelligent, clean, quiet. The type that don’t interfere in the lives of others. That is to say, practically no one.
Just as he does every day, he grabs a clean towel to dry himself and then immediately drops it in the laundry basket. He proceeds to dress himself with the clothes he left out ready the night before, and when he finishes he goes to the kitchen to make breakfast. Just coffee: at that time his stomach can’t take anything solid. Before leaving the kitchen, he washes the cup and teaspoon, dries them carefully and puts them where they belong. He returns to the bathroom and brushes his teeth for three minutes exactly. He glances around and although not a single drop of water fell to the floor as he showered, he mops it meticulously. He likes to go knowing he has left the apartment unpolluted, the bed made, the kitchen tidy. It gives him the strength to endure the worst part of the day: the journey on public transport to Alemany Cosmetics. Noisy people he has to share space with for almost forty minutes. He would have changed jobs just because of it: he had very seriously considered it, but the current situation doesn’t allow for whims. Moreover, his job prospects have become much improved since the summer and he decided months ago that it is worth putting up with minor inconveniences like this. So every day he endures the journey like someone subjecting himself to a terrible ordeal. Isolated from everyone by headphones or a book; standing, because those plastic seats revolt him and because this way he can move if someone stands a little too close. He leaves home early for this reason, because he knows for a fact that the next bus is much fuller. He hasn’t been able to breathe on the few occasions he’s had to take it.
Today for some inexplicable reason the bus is half empty, so he doesn’t have to pretend to read. If someone looked at him, they would never guess that this neat, clean-cut boy, dressed in unstylish but exquisitely ironed clothes, is thinking about his two colleagues who have died in a matter of months. His face reveals no sorrow or surprise. Rather an intense concentration, as if he were trying to solve an equation too complex for his abilities.
Manel doesn’t see the email with the photo attached or the one that Brais sent in the middle of the night until he switches on the computer at work. His habit of being the first to arrive gives him a few minutes to evaluate the situation and weigh up the options. It doesn’t take him long to decide: with a rapid click he deletes both emails and then empties the bin. His bin is once again clean like his apartment. Free from the least hint of dirt.
Amanda Bonet, on the other hand, does look at her email at home, her personal and work accounts. In fact, it’s the first thing she does every morning and the last before going to bed. Always in the hope of receiving a special message, one of those emails that fill her with excitement and make the night and waking up better. She’s spent months like this, overcome with suppressed emotion, hooked on these messages and passionate weekly encounters. Happier than she’s ever been, although perhaps “happiness” is too simple a word to describe her feelings.
So, this Wednesday, Amanda follows her usual routine and her eyes acquire a special shine on seeing that there are four new messages in her personal account. Not because of the quantity, but because of one in particular. She looks at the senders of the other three: one is from a friend and another from Brais Arjona, and she tells herself she will answer them later, while the third is from an unknown address, with no subject. She deletes it without opening it for fear of a virus and concentrates on the only one that interests her. After the night she’s had, plagued by atrocious nightmares she can’t fully remember, she needs to communicate with him, and she can do so only through email. A cold medium, perhaps, but in any case better than nothing. She opens the message and smiles at the first line, an affectionate, encircling, protective greeting. She imagines him writing it in the middle of the night, thinking of her from his bed, composing this text while he evokes her in his memory.
She continues reading and, as always, she is succumbing to the effect these words arouse in her. It still astonishes her that he brings about this response from her body with words alone. Sometimes, very rarely, she thinks that these moments satisfy her almost as much as the Sunday-evening encounters. In any case, she knows the reality would have no meaning without this part of the game, in the same way that emails and text messages would lack emotion if there were no moments of skin, touch, rewards and punishments.
She reads the message to the end, savoring every term, every bit of praise, every remonstrance and, above all, every order. He gives her precise instructions on how she should dress, comb her hair, smell. The underwear she has to wear. She sometimes disobeys him—it’s an unwritten rule—although never too overtly. She appears to follow his orders to the letter and it arouses her to put on the skirt he has chosen for that day, dab on the perfume he wants to smell, or be aware that her lingerie, difficult for him to see at work, is not the required color. The fact that they work at the same company adds the charm of disguise to the situation, the risk of illicit romance he accentuates on occasion with controlled daring. What’s more, no one has noticed their games … No one knows about them, especially now Sara is dead.
She doesn’t want to think about Sara. Suddenly she remembers the nightmare that terrified her tonight. The image of Sara running through the long metro tunnel, pursued by a pack of dogs. And her, Amanda, watching the scene like someone watching a horror film, suffering for Sara, trying to warn her that the worst is not behind her, but at the end of that damned tunnel. But it’s useless: the woman fleeing without looking back didn’t hear her no matter how much she shouted. “Stop, Sara. No one is going to hurt you. It’s not dogs, it’s us.” Then she saw herself, with the others, running in vain through the same tunnel to reach Sara. She wasn’t sure if they were
following her to save her from her terrible fate or to see her die run over by a train.
12
She had been waiting for fifteen minutes and was beginning to get impatient, not because she had so many things to do, but because deep down she was afraid Carolina Mestre wouldn’t turn up. She consulted her cell phone to see if there was any message apologizing for a delay. Nothing. Dejected, she contemplated the herbal tea she had in front of her, and for something to do she took a small sip and made a disgusted face. The most insipid brew, matching the place.
She glanced around her, more and more convinced that Carol wouldn’t come to the meeting. She had phoned her on Tuesday morning and, after a kind of monologue on her part, rehearsed to give the right impression, the other woman had hung up with a terse “I’ve nothing to say to you.” Leire had marshaled all her patience and tried again a little later. That time no one answered the phone and she left a long voicemail. Almost a whole day passed with no response from Carol, but when she had already given up, a short, unfriendly text message arrived, asking her to meet in this café, on Wednesday at six. And there she was, in this city center café with white walls and blackboards announcing things like brunch and blackberry muffins, her only company a languid, blond waitress who seemed to think of her job as a necessary step before achieving fame, and another customer, a young tourist plundering the Wi-Fi connection for the price of a black coffee.
Leire flicked through a free magazine, full of photos and interviews with singers she didn’t recognize and who, with few exceptions, looked like they’d been hungry for a good while. Her infusion was getting cold, but she couldn’t drink it. After the first trimester the nausea had given way to sudden foolish fads about a wide range of foods. At that moment she found the red fruits tea indescribably revolting. She told herself that she would get up and leave when she got to the last page of the magazine, and so she would have had she not received a message on her cell phone, not from the person she was awaiting, but from Tomás. Asshole, she thought as soon as she saw his name on the screen. He’d shown no sign of life since New Year’s Eve—that is, twelve days before.