The Angst-Ridden Executive

by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

  While his mother tried to shut him up, his father would try to pull him away, and the gypsy lads at the Bar Moderno would freeze their seemingly inexhaustible hilarity, reduced to silence by the drama.

  ‘He was dead.’

  ‘Sssh! The boy will hear you.’

  Why so much effort in concealing his death? Hours later, the silent moving line of people came up the street to the Murcians’ house.

  ‘Even with a hundred lives, they’ll never pay for the vile thing they’ve done.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The fascists.’

  Sometimes he began to doubt the reality of his neighbourhood. Looking back, he remembered it as a city that was poor and sunk in a kind of bitter-sweet syrup. People who were defeated and humiliated, forever having to apologize for the fact of having been born. The first time that Carvalho had left those narrow streets, he actually had imagined that he had freed himself forever from his existence as an animal drowning in historical misery. But he found he was carrying it with him, like a snail carrying its shell, and years later, when he belatedly decided to accept himself for who he was and what he’d done, he returned to the scene of his childhood and adolescence.

  His old neighbourhood had been transformed into a waiting-room for the grave, where the older generation had been sentenced to die in its damp surroundings, while the younger generation sought refuge in cheap flats out in the suburbs. Next to ageing survivors of the pre-war period were the middle-aged ones with a sense of personal failure at not having got out in time from the tight, satanic grip of this defeated city. And then a transient population of recent immigrants from Morocco and the odd bunch of Latin Americans forced into cheap rented apartments. Carvalho braked. He pulled up at the side of the road without thinking why.

  ‘You’ve hit rock-bottom,’ he thought to himself, and he pulled a box of Montecristos from the glove compartment and lit one of them with speed and the anticipation of great pleasure, with his lighter, as if he was drinking the gas flame through the Havana. When I die, the memory of those times will disappear with me. And also the memory of the people who, in bringing me into this world, gave me a first-class vantage point from which to view the spectacle of their own tragedy. Carvalho hadn’t just watched the spectacle. He’d made it his own, and had tried to transmit it to the younger generation. Up and down the Ramblas young and old people alike had expelled the fear that was left in them, on the day that the Dictator died. Happiness in their hearts—but silence on their lips. The shops ran out of bottles of cheap champagne that day; the streets and terraces were full of people enjoying the pleasure of being together without the great crushing shadow hanging over them. But still in silence, still with that cautiousness with words that they had learned in the years of the Terror as a guarantee of at least a mediocre survival. In some ways he understood that past. He knew its language. On the other hand the future opened by Franco’s death seemed foreign to him, like the water of a river that you shouldn’t drink, but that you wouldn’t want to drink either. Gausachs, Fontanillas. . . the crooks of the new situation.

  ‘And if there was another Civil War, the two of them would go to Burgos.’

  ‘And Argemi? To Tahiti, via Switzerland.’

  And you, Pepe Carvalho, where the hell would you go? To Vallvidrera, to make myself roast leg of lamb ala Périgord, or a meat stew. Would you cook the cabbage together with the meat? Maybe, as long as you don’t put too much cabbage in. Otherwise the flavour of the cabbage drowns out everything else. And what if you didn’t have the wherewithals? Then I’d make salt cod with rice. And what if there wasn’t even any salt cod? Then I’d walk down the road into Barcelona, and I’d let myself be machine-gunned by a diving jet fighter. And what if they dropped a neutron bomb? It’d kill everyone on the Ramblas, and the only faces left would be the ones on the front pages of the newspapers hanging outside the kiosks. Then the conquerors would come marching in, bringing with them the seeds of their own destruction fifty years or a hundred years later.

  ‘No, I don’t have any news.’ Carvalho wasn’t inclined to share with the widow Jauma the news that Rhomberg was arriving, and he asked her if she had any news, in order to find out whether Rhomberg had been in touch with her too. Then she asked:

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Things are moving—slowly. Now, first of all, is it true that your husband was particularly depressed, particularly worried, in recent weeks?’

  ‘He would swing from being very cheerful to being very depressed. He was worrying about everything, and he was particularly worried that a poor year would greatly reduce the value of his shares in the company. These fears were always self-inflicted and without foundation. Recently he was worried by the effect that the changing political situation was going to have on the economy. He would say: “If harder times lie ahead, then democracy is an expensive party.” Maybe that’s what you’re referring to?’

  ‘I have come to the conclusion that your husband was not what one would call a trusting person. For example, we know that, in addition to the firm’s own staff, he had his own private accountants.’

  ‘He was afraid of the power-games. He had no sense of his own worth. He used to be scared of Gausachs, for example, because he used to say that he had friends in high places and a lot of ambition.’

  ‘Did your husband go to any accountant in particular?’

  A smile illuminated the widow’s pale features. She repressed it as if it had been a serious lapse.

  ‘Ah yes . . . his Alemany mania.’

  ‘Alemany mania?’

  ‘Alemany is almost an institution in the Jauma family. My husband’s relations are all from Gerona, and most of them still live there. My father-in-law was a lawyer too, but he went into manufacturing way before the war. I think he was making cork stoppers. When he set up offices in Barcelona, he needed an accountant, and he chose one who was very well respected—Alemany. He was a kind of lucky charm. Firms that he was involved with were firms that did well. He was good for them. Then the war came, and Alemany had to go into exile, because he’d been the director of some workers’ centre or something. My father-in-law also went into exile, although not for long. I doubt that Alemany’s exile had anything to do with his professional activities. He was also involved in Barcelona Football Club, during the club’s most political period. Anyway, in the end Alemany had to leave the country, and the business didn’t do so well. He came back many years after the end of the war. The whole family used to consult him over business matters. He was an old firebrand, very tetchy, and consumed with hatred for Franco. He must be about a hundred years old by now, and he still works as an accountant, although he’s not as involved as he used to be. He just handles a few accounts here and there, and to give you an idea of what people think of him, my brothers-in-law still come down from Gerona to consult him every now and then.’

  ‘And Antonio consulted him too?’

  ‘Yes. He was always making fun of the old man, but he said he had the best accounting brain he’d ever met.’

  ‘Had he seen him recently?’

  ‘It’s possible. I couldn’t say.’

  ‘How can I get hold of Alemany?’

  ‘I’ll give you his address.’

  The woman sat down at a hundred-and-fifty-thousand peseta imported English writing desk and copied out an address. She was dressed in mourning, with an elegance that was excessive for a woman about to eat alone, and her make-up strove to hide the dark rings around her eyes. Carvalho’s next question stopped her dead in her tracks.

  ‘Did your husband leave you well provided for?’

  ‘I’ve collected on two fairly substantial life assurance policies, and Petnay pays me a pension, which is decent enough by today’s standards. Well have to see how it stands up. In the years to come, though. I need to Invest the insurance money, but I’m not sure where. I’ve left it in Fontanillas’s hands,
but he says that this is a bad time. Nobody is investing. Everybody is waiting to see what’s going to happen on the political front.’

  ‘You’ve left it with Fontanillas? Why not Argemi?’

  ‘Fontanillas has a lot of experience in these things. Argemi runs a wonderful business, but he’s not strictly a money man. I have four children, señor Carvalho, and they’re all at an age where they cost a lot of money.’

  ‘How did the children take the news of their father’s death?’

  ‘Very badly at first. The two boys got over it fairly well. But the girls still miss him terribly. It’s only natural.’

  ‘And what about you?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t think anything. That’s why I’m asking. I remember a French song I heard once. It said, more or less, “Even though I love you a lot, and we’re in the same political party, if you should go one day, it’ll leave me more time to read and to find myself.”’

  ‘That’s not a very nice thing to say.’

  ‘That’s the second time someone’s told me that today.’

  ‘Antonio was a very suffocating person, very all-consuming, you could say. Egocentric, I suppose. On the one hand he could be infuriating, but at the same time he gave me a good life. The main thing that got on my nerves was the way he never used to stop talking, particularly about sex. It was all talk, though. . .’

  ‘All talk?’

  ‘Yes. At least, I think so. And even if it wasn’t. I don’t really care. It used to take the pressure off him when he talked, so I used to let him. I got used to it, although sometimes I found the stupid things he used to say in public quite unbearable.’

  ‘In your opinion, why was he killed?’

  ‘I think it was probably a revenge killing. This whole big-business world is full of gangsters and self-made types without the sensibilities of men like Antonio, Fontanillas and Argemi. I always tell them that they’re the exception. Sometimes when we were at a cocktail party or something Antonio would point to a person and say. “That one would kill his own father for a hundred pesetas. . . “ Or. “That one’s a pig. . . That one’s a criminal. . . “ Antonio was very aggressive as an executive. He was always joking about it. He would look in the mirror while he was shaving and say: ‘Tm an aggressive executive—grrrr!” and he’d roar like the MGM lion.’

  The widow Jauma was laughing and crying at the same time. Carvalho found the sight of her submissive breasts and her broad, earth-mother hips arousing. She had the face of a Castilian—with a mantilla, she would have been just right for the Holy Week procession in Valladolid.

  ‘Was your husband a jealous man?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Did he have reason to be?’

  ‘I am not a sex maniac. I have a house and four children to look after, and everything has always depended on me, because he never used to help in the house at all. I would never have had the time to go out looking for adventures.’

  ‘Don’t you still have friends from your younger days?’

  ‘My friends were the same as Antonio’s. I was still a child when I left Valladolid. Because of my father’s profession we traveled a lot. I never had time to make friends.’

  ‘Did none of Jauma’s friends ever proposition you?’

  ‘What are you trying to suggest? That it was a crime passionel? Can you really imagine Vilaseca propositioning me? Or Biedma? Can you imagine Biedma making advances to me?

  ‘I can imagine it perfectly well.’

  ‘Well, you must have a good imagination. . .’

  Concha Hijar was now visibly uneasy, and wanted to terminate the interview. She looked at the Empire-style mantel clock and bit back the observation that it was almost dinner time, for fear that Carvalho might take it as an invitation.

  ‘It’s getting late. I have to help Vera with her homework.’

  ‘I’ll be leaving, then.’

  ‘Have you discovered anything?’

  ‘A range of possibilities has opened up, and one of them might be the light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve had a terrible day. I feel like an opinion poll interviewer working on piecework. I’ve seen too many people today—Gausachs, Fontanillas, Biedma. Vilaseca. Dorronsoro, and now yourself. Oh—and Argemi. I almost forgot the incredible Argemi.’

  ‘Why incredible? If you ask me, he’s the most normal of any of them.’

  ‘Tell me honestly, what do you think of your husband’s friends?’

  ‘They remind me of a poem by Gabriela Mistral, which the nuns used to teach us. Three girls are playing at imagining the future. They all want to be queen.’

  Pedro Parra wasn’t making it easy.

  ‘Who do you think I am —Milton Friedman? Those kinds of flow-charts are a visual gimmick—they’re not scientific.’

  ‘I need to have a visual idea of Petnay’s operations in Spain and how they connect up. Not just interlinking directorships and so on—I want a chart of all the companies that depend on Petnay for what they produce.’

  ‘I can’t do that under the counter. I’ll have to give the figures to one of our graphics people, and if I give him the data he’ll be able to draw you up a flow chart. You’ll have to pay him something, though.’

  ‘And I’ll treat you to a good camping tent.’

  ‘Drop dead!’

  Having called Parra, he rang his office again.

  ‘All quiet on the western front, boss. The German hasn’t rung.’

  A day late. Almost inconceivable. The hippy life has changed our Dieter, Carvalho mused. He’d had enough of the day’s conversations, and of himself, and decided to get them out of his system, so he plumped for a cinema where they were showing Night Moves. Afterwards he’d get home sufficiently relaxed to cook himself something special—something slightly painstaking and packed with stimulation and small difficulties. The film was an excellent example of American cinema noir, with Gene Hackman brilliant in the role of a private detective in the introspective tradition of Marlowe and Spade. In addition, Carvalho felt a special attraction to Susan Clarke’s chunky, angular eroticism, so the presence of this mature blonde, splendid in her spontaneous, animal beauty, was an added bonus. Yet more role models! Which should he choose? Whom should he copy? Bogart playing Chandler? Alan Ladd doing Hammett? Paul Newman as Harper? Gene Hackman? In the privacy of his car as it crept up the slopes of Tibidabo, Carvalho practised the mannerisms of each of them. Bogart’s dewy-eyed look and the contemptuous curl of the lip. Alan Ladd, and the way he walked as tall as possible to cover up for how short he was. Then there was Newman, with his self-awareness of being so very good-looking. And Hackman, with the look of a man who’s been jilted by his wife, weighs two hundred pounds, and is tired of life.

  ‘No news, boss. Not a peep out of the German.’

  ‘If he calls, whatever time of night it is, make sure he rings my place.’

  To begin cooking duck at one in the morning is one of the finest acts of madness that can be undertaken by a human being who is not mad. The duck roasting in the oven, shedding its fat and turning brown as if it was on a simultaneous slimming and tanning course. In the meantime. Carvalho heated some bacon fat in a pan, and used it to fry onion and mushrooms. He then added white wine, salt, pepper, and a bit of sliced truffle. The truffles came from Villores, in the Maestrazgo, and they were supplied by a commercial agent, who was also a Latinist, and who lived alone a few houses down from Carvalho. Next to his kitchen the agent had a room in which he stored the treasures which his relatives brought from Villores, or which he brought back himself from his fortnightly trips. The Chaldeans believed that the world extended no further than the furthest mountains known to them; Fuster, the agent, believed in his heart of hearts, with all the faith of a primitive Christian, that the world extended no further than Villores, and that neighbouring populations such as Morella could be considered m
ore or less as planets inhabited by alien beings. Since the agent and Carvalho were both eaters, drinkers, and bachelors, the pair of them often devoted their Sundays to matters gastronomic. Fuster’s speciality was a rabbit paella with almost no onion.

  ‘Because otherwise the rice goes soggy.’

  When he was in a good mood, Fuster would recite from Caesar’s Gallic Wars. Carvalho would allow the torrent of Latinism to pass, and would then join his friend in a medley of songs from the Castellon/Aragon border, or the songs of Conchita Piquer.

  Eyes that are green, green as the basil,

  Green as the green corn.

  Green as a green, green lemon tree.

  Seven hours after having initiated the proceedings, there was always something left to try in one or other of their houses, and it was generally already morning by the time they decided to go to bed—Carvalho with his head full of stories of the Maestrazgo and Fuster with a superficial resume of the cases that the detective had been involved in that week.

  The duck had finished roasting. Carvalho separated off the legs, wings, and breast, and cut up the remaining bits of meat, including the bird’s delicate innards. He mixed the meat back in with the duck’s juices, and added a handful of stoned olives. Once the meat had blended with the juices, he mixed it in with the diced bacon, the mushrooms and the truffle, and added a couple of spoonfuls of grated breadcrumbs.

  He let the mixture cook for a short while, and then sprinkled it over the larger pieces of meat, which he had already arranged in a casserole. The bird drank in the flavour of the sauce, and displayed on its brown-roasted surface a landscape of mushrooms, bacon, olives, breadcrumbs, and fragments of the meat sauce. He put it on the gas for five minutes, and then in the oven for a further five. A sublime, unfathomable smell of well-roasted meat assailed his nostrils as he opened the oven door. He felt that need of solidarity or complicity that takes hold of amateur cooks when they know they’ve cooked something rather special. It was half past two in the morning. Without a second thought, he returned the food to the scorching heat of the oven and leapt down the stairs that led to his dew-drenched garden. The night had stretched a canopy of deep coolness and solitude over the little village whose location seemed designed for the contemplation, on the one hand, of Barcelona, right down to the sea, and, on the other, the progress of a Catalonia winding its way to the mountains. He ran the few yards that separated him from the huge building that was shared by his three neighbours, but where only Fuster actually lived the whole year round.