Mala Vida

by Marc Fernandez

  There’s no time for gloating over his find, though. The intercom buzzes. It’s Ana, who is out of breath.

  “Open up! I have to talk to you!”

  She rushes past him into the apartment without a word of greeting.

  “Hi to you too,” Diego tosses back at her, but his curiosity is piqued.

  Rarely has he observed his friend in such a state of excitement. Looking for somewhere to sit and seeing that every inch of space is covered, Ana remains standing and announces in a loud voice that she knows the NASB was infiltrated. She knows who did it and that it was the same man who attacked Diego and Isabel, and that he is a member of the Crusaders for Christ, which her contact at the CNI confirmed.

  “Wow, that was unexpected! How did you figure that out?”

  Ana gets ready to explain, opens her mouth, and then changes her mind.

  “Wait, before I tell you, I’ve got one … no, two other pieces of news. The first is that Isabel has gone with the CNI. They were tailing her for a while, and they want to talk to her because the threats on her life are getting more serious. The second is that she’s going to have to leave for Paris. Her grandmother has been hospitalized in critical condition. She had a heart attack.”

  “Shit! I hope Emilia’s going to make it. Really, the CNI is on this? I guess that was to be expected. Is it your friend, at least? I’m guessing it is, or you wouldn’t have let her go with them.”

  “Yeah, it’s his unit, fortunately,” says Ana. “I can trust him; there won’t be any dirty tricks. He’s an agent, but he’s a good guy.”

  “And a mostly honest one, though I’m not sure you can say that about someone whose job it is to spy on his fellow citizens.”

  “Stop it; we’re not going to have an argument about him again. You know we need guys like him to do his job. Let me remind you that without him, the terrorist attacks of 2004 would never have been solved, and we’d still be saying it was the ETA behind them and not Al-Qaeda.”

  “I’ll grant you that. Well, go ahead, tell me the rest.”

  She gives him a full report in just a few minutes. She explains that her investigation into the association’s volunteers didn’t turn up anything, but a certain number of names were missing from the files. So she decided to go to the NASB’s headquarters to get the names of its newest members and anyone else who had recently offered to help without joining. She was talking to a few people from the executive committee, and they told her that the atmosphere had started to go downhill after they began to receive the anonymous letters. So she took a walk around the office, just to scope things out, talk to whoever was there, and to pick up some of the conversations. There were a lot of people because of the march being planned in Madrid in a few days. They were painting banners and creating flyers. They were excited. After waiting for this moment for so long, everyone was hopeful that thousands of people would respond to the call that went out on social media and the Internet; everyone wants to believe that this is going to get their movement off the ground and that the government will have to make gestures toward them. The bigger the crowds, the greater the pressure.

  Just as she was getting ready to leave, she decided to take a look in the room where the IT team was set up. One of them stood out to her: he had his eyes glued to his screen and didn’t seem to be taking part in the conversations going on around him. She stayed a minute to watch him. He was dressed in black. She came closer; he looked up at her and smiled. She couldn’t believe it. It was the guy in the surveillance photos. To hide her surprise, she started chatting with him, asking him how things were going, how long he’d been with the association. Just an ordinary conversation. His voice was kind of high. And when he leaned forward to hook up a hard drive to his computer, she saw it: a chain around his neck, and a red cross. The same one that was visible in the agents’ photos. Bingo! She left without saying a word to anyone and called her contact at the CNI. He told Ana the IT worker’s name and about his involvement with the Crusaders for Christ. And that the CNI had identified him only a few days earlier because the worker doesn’t have a criminal record, but they didn’t put a tail on him because the CNI couldn’t spare any more resources. These ultraconservative Catholic organizations are not on the terrorist watch list, so they aren’t considered a security threat, and no one wants to throw money at putting surveillance on them. So said the orders from the top. Of course, the fact that the director of the CNI is an eminent member of Opus Dei did not influence that decision in any way whatsoever …

  “You mean, it’s just a coincidence that these wackos aren’t considered dangerous for the country’s security … Incredible!” Diego lets his temper fly.

  “Take it easy! The CNI might not be able to do anything, but my contact and I came up with an idea: we can trap him. And it will be only too fun to use a tried-and-true method. Some good old-fashioned blackmail.”

  Isabel landed in Paris only a few hours after getting her mother’s phone call and being taken to the CNI headquarters. Now she is back in France, after eighteen months of exile in Spain, all of which flew past in a kind of fever dream. The fatigue and tension of the past several weeks overwhelm her all at once. She is on edge, not so much because of her questioning at the National Intelligence Center but because of her grandmother’s health. Isabel still doesn’t know exactly what happened to Emilia or what her condition is. She just hopes it’s not too serious. But Isabel is sure that if her family asked her to come back immediately, she should expect the worst.

  They didn’t keep her long at the CNI, given the news from Paris. Nevertheless, she waited a while in a windowless room on the basement level of the agency’s headquarters, in an ordinary looking building on Madrid’s main avenue, the Gran Via. When the two agents assigned to her case brought her there, she started to panic.

  “Is this an official questioning?” she asked, her mounting fear creeping into her voice.

  “No, don’t worry,” one of the cops reassured her. “Our chief is on his way. He just wants to talk to you.”

  Ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes passed. It seemed like an endless wait. Isabel stayed seated the whole time. With sweaty hands, she tried to download her email on her smartphone. A waste of time. No network connection. Finally, a man walked in without knocking. He was of average height and used a cane to walk, and his movement was slow because of a limp. He looked tired and old beyond his years; he was probably only sixty, if that. He was bald and thin-lipped with blue eyes and a graying goatee. He had a deep baritone voice that was surprising coming from his slight frame. He was carrying a file under one arm and extended the other hand to Isabel as he approached her, but she did not take it. He didn’t seem to notice.

  “Hello, my name is Nicolás Ortiz. I apologize for the wait and this impromptu meeting in such dreary surroundings. I want to start by reassuring you that you have nothing to fear; I’m an old friend of Ana Durán’s. I’m sorry to learn about your grandmother. I’m not going to keep you long so you can leave to join her as quickly as possible. My agents can take you home and then to the airport if you’d like. But I wanted to see you to discuss these threats you have been receiving. They are becoming more insistent and sufficiently explicit for us to take them very seriously.”

  “Is that why you have had me under surveillance? To protect me? Or to report my every movement and activity to your superiors, who will send it up the line, right to the government?”

  Ortiz smiled. He was expecting her to say as much. Despite her anxiousness, Isabel couldn’t contain her anger.

  “Ana warned me you had spunk, and you’re making an excellent display of it. I can understand your frustration, but let me just explain something: I do not work for the politicians running this country, and neither do my men. We serve our country and our fellow citizens. Everyone, and without exception. Yes, you were under surveillance. Can we agree it was a routine measure? One day you appear out of nowhere, and in the space of a single press conference, you unleash a shit storm, pa
rdon the expression. But not all of us at the CNI are filthy fascists, or Franco throwbacks, or APM militants. On the contrary. We are the guardians of our democracy. That might sound pompous to you, but it’s the truth. Just ask anyone; Ana, for example, will tell you about me. She’ll confirm for you that my nickname in this honorable institution is El Rojo, the Red. I’ll leave it up to you to find out why.”

  After these introductions, Ortiz showed Isabel some of the evidence his agents had gathered during their investigation, as well as biometric photos of her assailant, but she was unable to identify the man in the photos as her attacker. She was more worried to discover that an organization that went by the name of Crusaders for Christ even existed and that it wanted to silence her. She had heard plenty of rumors about Opus Dei but was shocked to learn that a violent group of ultra-traditionalists in its midst had provoked a schism.

  They were not her priority just now, however. Isabel’s immediate task was to get to her grandmother’s bedside as quickly as possible. She rushed from her plane into a taxi as fast as she could. She refused to cry during the drive to the Bichat Hospital in her grandmother’s neighborhood. When she arrived, she got lost in the huge hospital complex, wasting precious time running from floor to floor before finally finding her grandmother’s room. The corridor is deserted and strangely quiet. She knocks on the door but enters without waiting for a reply. Her grandmother is lying in the bed with her eyes closed, her head elevated and supported on either side by two pillows. Her complexion is pale, almost gray. She is motionless and appears to be sleeping. Isabel’s mother is seated next to the bedside and has obviously been crying. When she sees Isabel, she rises and comes forward to take her daughter in her arms.

  “It’s over,” she murmurs in her ear. “It’s over. Grandma is gone. She is at peace now.”

  “Oh, Grandma, no!”

  The tears start flowing, and Isabel is powerless to control it, to stop them, to move, to take a step toward Emilia’s body to place a kiss on her forehead, as she always did, one last time.

  Isabel is in shock. She can’t remember anything about the two days that follow her arrival in Paris, as if they didn’t happen, as if time had stopped until the funeral. It was there, at the Montmartre Cemetery, in the plot her grandparents purchased so long ago shortly after they came to France in the early 1950s, that Emilia was laid to rest next to her husband. And where the loss of her grandmother finally hits Isabel. An enormous emptiness interrupted only by intermittent thoughts of Diego. She is surprised to find herself wishing he was there at her side. The ceremony is brief, intimate, and emotional. As soon as it is over, Isabel decides to go to her grandmother’s apartment on Rue Lamarck one last time. She spent a large part of her childhood there. Isabel wants to look one last time at the place where her grandparents practically raised her, where she grew so close to Emilia. Hours of playtime, talking, and reading books together. Experiences that made her the woman she is today, influenced by this grandmother whom she worshipped more than anyone else, who taught her to read and write and passed on everything she knew while giving Isabel the freedom to make her own decisions. She wants a few souvenirs, but there are so many! She takes some old photos. Then she shuts the door behind her for good. It’s time to return to Madrid. Staying in France even one more day is out of the question. Too emotional. Too much work waiting for her in Spain. Too much happening at once.

  At precisely the same time that Isabel is burying her grandmother, the demonstration organized by the National Association of Stolen Babies begins. The crowd is enormous, packed in behind a white banner bearing a single word in capital letters: JUSTICIA. The NASB’s executive committee leads the procession. Behind them, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of people march in silence. Entire families—men and women, the old and the young—have answered the association’s call. A turnout so huge it has surpassed the organizers’ expectations. So much so the police can barely contain the crowd. As always, the official numbers are hotly disputed: 50,000 according to the police, but 150,000 according to the NASB. Some of the marchers carry photos; others brandish homemade signs sending poignant messages: SEARCHING FOR MY TWINS, BORN MAY 1973, MADRID; HELP ME FIND MY DAUGHTER, BORN AUGUST 1982, VALENCIA. Some are more direct: YOU BOUGHT MY SON … NOW GIVE HIM BACK! Others demand answers: WHERE ARE THE STOLEN BABIES? A woman in her sixties wears a wedding dress and holds a doll, the face of which has been covered by a large question mark. Around her neck, the woman wears a cardboard sign bearing a date, a tiny drawing of a child’s head, and a question: APRIL 5, 1976 … WHERE ARE YOU, MY DARLING? Beyond the marchers’ legitimate demands for justice, the most common and moving sight is the mothers holding MISSING posters high over their heads. For the first time, they are showing themselves and speaking out, accusing the Church, the politicians, and the doctors of participating in the kidnappings and profiting financially from them with total impunity.

  When the first wave of marchers arrives in complete silence at the Puerta del Sol, thousands are still waiting to leave the starting point, not far from the Buen Retiro Park. There will not be room for everyone at the finish. As they keep arriving, the square can no longer contain them all, and the adjacent pedestrian streets are soon overrun with marchers. Then the first applause is heard. Eventually, everyone begins to clap. For five full minutes, Madrid’s downtown rolls with the thunder of thousands of hands clapping, as loud as any percussion concert.

  The police are on high alert. Anti-riot units are stationed along the entire length of the route, and the intelligence services are moving through the crowd or have taken position on the balconies of City Hall or on apartment buildings overlooking the demonstration, where they film everything. Their job is to prevent the rally from degenerating at the hands of vandals and right-wing extremists or anyone who would like to make trouble. The risk is real. The fascist fringes have called on their militants to attack these “anti-patriotic” marchers, these “Commies” and “traitors.” The inevitable happens when, two hours later, as the crowds are dispersing and people are heading home, a group of about thirty thugs shows up. They wear ski masks and wield iron bars or carry motorcycle helmets slung across their chests. They begin by sacking the two newspaper stands in the center of the square as the crowd boos them. A small number of demonstrators try to intervene. The police are on the scene relatively quickly and quell the violence before it can spread. There are some clashes with the police, and tear gas is sprayed as a few people are arrested.

  These scuffles cannot detract from the success of the demonstration, however. The NASB’s gamble paid off with an enormous show of strength. Except for the agitators who arrived at the end, the march went off calmly. And with dignity, too. No one chanted. No one exchanged insults. A single statement was read by the NASB to a sea of cameras and microphones. The news stations carried it live. The foreign press was there as well, dispatching their local correspondents or even sending reporters just to cover it. The footage has been playing on a loop for hours. Artists came from all over to participate, and those who were unable to posted messages of support on their websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter feeds. The government will have no choice but to do something. Or rather, they will have to react. It cannot remain silent. It cannot do nothing. And for that reason alone, under pressure, it will recognize that there is, in fact, a problem and that something is rotten in the state of Spain. The government will try to play it down and consign it to the Franco era, another time, another place, and other customs. But it’s likely that will not be enough.

  15

  NOTHING LIKE THIS has happened to Diego for a very long time. He’s stuck. He has gone over what he knows a hundred or two hundred times in his head. Checked and reread the documents and listened again to the interview with Emilia Ferrer. Only one possible conclusion presents itself, and it doesn’t please him one bit. The murders of the nun and the notary are connected; the crimes were committed by the same person. Worse, he is sure Isabel knows something about it, mor
e than she has let on. But he can’t believe, or doesn’t dare to, that the lawyer could also be the murderer. No more than he can convince himself that she ordered the murders. And yet, the facts are there, and facts don’t lie. Sister Marie-Carmen and Pedro De La Vega are linked by official papers dating back to 1946. A death certificate from a maternity ward in Madrid and an adoption request received the same day. The same day that Emilia Ferrer’s son was born. That single date is all the proof Diego needs to know that Emilia told him the truth, that the child she delivered that day was very probably kidnapped, taken from her, and sold to another family like any ordinary merchandise. That date could be the perfect motive, too.

  The way Diego Martin sees it is there is only one thing to do: ask Isabel flat out for an explanation. But he’s going to have to be patient and wait until she returns from Paris. She must be grieving terribly for her grandmother; they were very close. That’s what Isabel told him, that night they spent in Casa Pepe poring over the documents she brought to show him. But there is one problem: in this kind of situation, patience is not exactly his forte. Diego can demonstrate an almost Zen-like calm when an investigation demands it, but in his private life, he is an easily irritated hothead when he has to wait. And now, though he would never admit it, he is taking this investigation into a State scandal very personally. His attraction to Isabel, which he thinks must be mutual from the kiss she planted on the corner of his mouth, has thrown him for a loop in ways he never imagined possible anymore. As a result, he is examining his own motivations. Since he can’t picture her having anything to do with the murders, is the reason because he doesn’t want to? Because he wants to have a relationship with her? And if it turns out that she is involved, in any way, in the deaths of these two people, how will he react? Will it change his feelings for her? Yes, absolutely. But how?