“I can manage alone.”
After two attempts, Vargas held her below her shoulders and pulled her out of the car. He picked up the handbag she’d left on the seat and hung it over her arm. “Can you walk?”
Alicia nodded, and they made their way to the restaurant door. Vargas held her gently by the arm, and she, for once, did nothing to rebuff his help. When they entered the bar, the policeman made a brief inspection of the place, as was his habit, locating entrances and exits and checking those present. A group of truck drivers were talking at a table covered with a paper tablecloth, house wine, and soda-water siphons. Some of them turned to have a look at Alicia and Vargas, but as soon as they met his eyes, they buried their faces and thoughts in their plates of stew without a murmur. The waiter, looking the part of the innkeeper in an operetta, was walking past with a trayful of cups of coffee. He pointed them toward what must have been the restaurant’s best table, separated from the plebs and with a view of the road.
“I’ll be with you in a second,” he said.
Vargas led Alicia to the table and settled her in a chair with her back to the other customers. He sat down opposite and looked at her expectantly. “You’re beginning to frighten me.”
“Don’t get too carried away.”
The waiter returned swiftly, all smiles and attentiveness in welcoming such distinguished and unexpected visitors. “Good afternoon, will madam and the gentleman wish to have lunch? We have a delicious stew today, made by my wife, but we can also prepare whatever you like. A little fillet steak . . .”
“Some water, please,” said Alicia.
“Right away.”
The waiter hurried off to fetch a bottle of mineral water and returned armed with a couple of menus handwritten on thick cardboard. He poured two glasses of water and, guessing that his presence would be best appreciated for its brevity, withdrew with a bow, saying, “I’ll leave the menu with you in case you want to have a look at it.”
Vargas mumbled a thank-you, while Alicia drank her glass of water as if she’d just crossed the desert.
“Are you hungry?”
She took her bag and stood up. “I’m just going to the bathroom. You order for me.” As she walked past Vargas, she put a hand on his shoulder and smiled weakly. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” She hobbled off toward the ladies’ room and disappeared behind the door.
The waiter watched her from the bar, probably wondering what the relationship was between that man and such an unusual young woman.
* * *
Alicia closed the bathroom door and bolted it. The room stank of disinfectant and was hemmed in by discolored tiles covered in obscene drawings and infelicitous witticisms. A narrow window framed a ventilator through whose blades slanted sharp beams of dusty light. Alicia went over to the sink and leaned on it, opening the tap to let the water run. It reeked of rust. She opened her bag and with shaking hands pulled out a metal case from which she took a syringe and a phial with a rubber top. She plunged the needle into the phial and half filled the cylinder, then rapped it with her fingers and pushed the piston down until a thick, shiny drop formed on the tip of the needle. Alicia then walked over to the toilet, closed the lid, sat down, and, propping herself up against the wall with her left hand, pulled her dress up to her hip. She felt the inside of her thigh, breathed deeply, and plunged the needle a couple of centimeters above the top of her stocking, emptying the contents. Seconds later she felt the rush. The needle fell from her hands, and her mind clouded over while a cold sensation spread through her veins. She leaned against the wall and let a couple of minutes go by without thinking of anything except that ice-cold snake creeping through her body. For a moment she felt she was losing consciousness. She opened her eyes to find herself in a foul-smelling broom-cupboard of a room that she didn’t recognize. A distant sound, of someone knocking on the door, roused her.
“Alicia, are you all right?”
It was Vargas’s voice.
“Yes,” she forced herself to say. “I’ll be right out.”
The policeman’s footsteps took a while to move away. Alicia cleaned the blood trickling down her thigh and smoothed down her dress. She washed her face in the sink and dried it with a piece of thick paper hanging from a nail on the wall. Before leaving, she looked at her face in the mirror. It reminded her of one of Mercedes’s dolls. She put on some lipstick and tidied up her clothes. Taking a deep breath, she prepared herself for her return to the world of the living.
When she got back to the table, she sat down opposite Vargas and gave him her sweetest smile. He was holding a glass of beer, which he didn’t seem to have tasted, and looked at her with undisguised concern.
“I ordered a fillet steak for you,” he said at last. “Rare. Protein.”
Alicia nodded to indicate that she thought his choice was perfect.
“I didn’t know what to ask for, but you strike me as a carnivore.”
“Bleeding meat is all I eat,” Alicia remarked. “If possible from innocent creatures.”
He didn’t laugh at her joke. Alicia caught her own image in his eyes. “You can say it.”
“Say what?”
“What you’re thinking.”
“What am I thinking?”
“That I look like Dracula’s girlfriend.”
Vargas frowned.
“That’s what Leandro always says,” said Alicia in a friendly tone. “It doesn’t bother me. I’m used to it.”
“That isn’t what I was thinking.”
“I’m sorry about earlier.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
The waiter came over carrying two dishes and an obliging grin.
“Fillet steak for the young lady . . . and the house stew for the gentleman. Anything else? A bit more bread? A glass of wine from the local winery?”
Vargas shook his head. Alicia glanced at the steak on her plate, flanked by French fries, and sighed.
“If you like, I can cook it a bit longer,” the waiter offered.
“It’s fine, thanks.”
They began to eat in silence, exchanging the occasional conciliatory look and smile. Alicia wasn’t hungry, but she made an effort and pretended to enjoy her steak.
“It’s good. How’s your stew? Makes you want to marry the cook?”
Vargas put down his spoon and leaned back in the chair. Alicia knew he was observing her dilated pupils and drowsy face.
“How much did you inject?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“What sort of a wound is it?”
“The sort a well-brought-up young lady doesn’t talk about.”
“If we’re going to be working together, I need to know what to expect.”
“We’re not engaged. This will last a couple of days. You don’t need to introduce me to your mother.”
Vargas didn’t show the slightest hint of a smile.
“It’s from when I was a child. During the bombings, in the war. The doctor who rebuilt my hip hadn’t slept for twenty hours, and he did his best. I think I still carry a couple of souvenirs in there from Mussolini’s air force.”
“In Barcelona?”
Alicia nodded.
“I had a colleague in the Force who came from there. He lived for twenty years with a piece of shrapnel the size of a stuffed olive stuck to his aorta.”
“Did he die in the end?”
“Run over by a newspaper delivery van as he stood outside a railway station.”
“One can never trust the press. At the slightest chance, they’ll do you in. What about you? Where did you spend the war?”
“Here and there. Mostly in Toledo.”
“In or out of the siege?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Mementoes?”
Vargas unbuttoned his shirtfront and showed her a circular scar on the right-hand side of his chest.
“May I?” asked Alicia.
Vargas nodded. Alicia leaned forw
ard and felt the scar with her fingers. Behind the bar, the waiter dropped the glass he was drying.
“It looks like the real thing,” said Alicia. “Does it hurt?”
Vargas buttoned up his shirt again. “Only when I laugh. Honestly.”
“With this work, you can probably barely afford all the aspirin you need.”
Vargas smiled at last. Alicia raised her glass of water.
“A toast to our sorrows.”
The policeman held up his glass, and they toasted. They ate in silence, Vargas mopping up the stew with bread and Alicia picking at her meat here and there. Once she’d pushed her plate to one side, he started stealing her remaining fries, which was almost the whole serving.
“So what’s the plan for this afternoon?” he asked.
“I thought you could stop by headquarters to get a copy of Salgado’s letters and see whether there is anything new on that front. And if there’s enough time, pay a visit to that Cascos guy at the publishing house, Ariadna. There’s something there that doesn’t quite add up.”
“Don’t you want us to go and see him together?”
“I have other plans. I thought I’d pay a visit to an old friend who might be able to lend us a hand. It’s better if I see him on my own. He’s a peculiar character.”
“If he’s a friend of yours, that goes without saying. Is the inquiry about the book?”
“Yes.”
Vargas signaled to the waiter to bring the bill. “Don’t you want a coffee, a dessert, or something else?”
“In the car you can treat me to one of your imported cigarettes.”
“This isn’t a ruse to get rid of me at the first opportunity, is it?”
Alicia shook her head. “We’ll meet at seven in the Café Gijón and ‘share information.’”
Vargas looked at her severely. She raised a hand solemnly. “Promise.”
“You’d better. Where should I drop you?”
“Recoletos. It’s on your way.”
12
The year Alicia Gris arrived in Madrid, her mentor and puppet master Leandro Montalvo taught her that to keep your sanity, you must have a place in the world where you can lose yourself if necessary. That place, that last refuge, is a small annex of the soul, and when the world reverts to its absurd comedy, you can always run there, lock yourself in, and throw away the key. One of Leandro’s most irritating habits was that he was always right. In time, Alicia ended up bowing to the evidence, deciding that perhaps she did need to find her own protected space. The absurdities of the world no longer seemed the stuff of comedy: they had become mere routine. And for once, destiny chose to deal her a good hand of cards. Like all great discoveries, it happened when she least expected it.
One faraway day during her first autumn in Madrid, when a downpour caught her strolling down Paseo de Recoletos, Alicia noticed a classical-style palace through the trees. Thinking it must be a museum, she decided to shelter there until the storm was over. Soaked to the skin, she walked up the grand staircase bordered by regal-looking statues, not noticing the name written on the lintel. A man with a listless gait and the piercing look of an owl had peeped out of the main door to watch the spectacle offered by the storm when he saw her arrive. Those bird eyes settled on Alicia as if she were a small rodent.
“Hello there,” Alicia improvised. “What do you exhibit in here?”
Clearly unimpressed by her opening, the man inspected her through enlarged pupils. “We exhibit patience, young lady, and sometimes astonishment at the audacity of ignorance. This is the National Library.”
Be it out of compassion or boredom, the gentleman with the owlish look informed her that she’d just set foot in one of the greatest libraries in the world, that over twenty-five million volumes awaited her inside. But if she’d come with the idea of using the bathrooms or reading fashion magazines, she had better turn around and catch pneumonia in the outdoor world.
“May I ask Your Lordship who you are?” asked Alicia.
“I haven’t seen any lordships for years, but if you’re referring to this humble person, let it be known that I’m the director of this house, and that one of my favorite pastimes is chucking out bumpkins and intruders.”
“I understand, but I wish to become a member.”
“And I wish I’d written David Copperfield, yet here I am, getting old and with no decent body of work to show for it. What’s your name, dear?”
“Alicia Gris, at your service, and Spain’s, sir.”
“Not having given birth to any contemporary classic doesn’t stop me from appreciating irony or impertinence. I can’t answer for Spain, there being too many voices pretending to speak for her out there already, but I can’t see how you could serve me, except to remind me that the years are advancing. However, I don’t consider myself an ogre, and if your wish to become a member is sincere, I won’t be the one to keep you in total illiteracy. My name is Bermeo Pumares.”
“It’s an honor, sir. I place myself in your expert hands to receive the guidance that will rescue me from ignorance and allow me, under your command, to cross the threshold of this Arcadia.”
Bermeo Pumares raised his eyebrows and reconsidered his opponent.
“I’m beginning to get the vague impression that you can rescue yourself very well on your own, and that your ignorance is less sizable than your boldness, Señorita Gris. I’m also well aware that encyclopedic gluttony has ended up warping my speech, making it veer toward the baroque, but there’s no need to make fun of an old teacher, either.”
“It would never occur to me to do such a thing.”
“I see. By their words ye shall know them. I like you, Alicia, even though I may not give that impression. Come inside and go over to the counter. Tell Puri that Pumares said to issue a card for you.”
“How can I thank you?”
“By dropping by and reading good books, whichever you feel like reading, not what I or anyone else says you’ve got to read. I may be a touch dogmatic, but I’m not a pedant.”
“You can be quite sure I will.”
That afternoon Alicia got her reader’s card and passed the first of many afternoons in the main reading room, getting acquainted with some of the treasures that centuries of human ingenuity had managed to conjure up. More than once she looked up from her page and found the owlish gaze of Don Bermeo Pumares, who liked ambling around the room to see what everyone was reading. He would gruffly eject those who had nodded off or were whispering, because, as he said, for slumbering minds and inane conversations the big outdoor world offered plenty of opportunity.
One day, after Alicia had proved her interest and voracious reading throughout an entire year, Bermeo Pumares invited her to follow him to the back room of the palatial building, into a section closed to the general public. There, he explained, lay the library’s most precious volumes. The only readers allowed in were certain academics and scholars distinguished enough to obtain a special reader’s card for their research work.
“You’ve never told me what you do in your more worldly activities, but I have a sneaking suspicion you may be a researcher yourself, and I’m not talking about inventing new penicillin treatments, or even unearthing incunabula among the ruins of Cistercian monasteries.”
“You’re on the right track.”
“I’ve never been on the wrong track in my life. The problem with this dear country of ours is with the tracks themselves, not with those of us walking along them. The mysterious ways of our Lord, as they say.”
“In my case, the mysterious ways are not those of the Lord, but what Your Eminence would call the machinery of state security.”
Bermeo Pumares nodded slowly. “You’re full of surprises, Alicia. A box of surprises one doesn’t dare open, just in case.”
“Wise decision.”
Pumares handed her a card with her name on it. “In any case, I wanted to make sure, before leaving, that you had a researcher’s card, so you can come along here whenever you feel in t
he mood.”
“Before leaving?”
Pumares’s expression turned serious. “Don Mauricio Valls’s secretary has seen fit to inform me that I’ve been retroactively removed from my post, and that my last day at the head of this institution was yesterday, Wednesday. It seems that the minister’s decision is the result of various factors, notable among which are, on the one hand, the minimal enthusiasm exhibited by my person toward the revered principles of the regime, whatever those may be, and on the other, the interest shown by the brother-in-law of one of our country’s most prominent men in taking over the reins of this fine institution. Some cretin must believe that the title of chief librarian is as impressive in certain circles as an invitation to the presidential box at Real Madrid Stadium.”
“I’m very sorry, Don Bermeo. I really am.”
“Don’t be sorry. Rarely in our country’s history has a qualified person—or at least someone not completely incompetent—found himself heading a cultural institution. Strict controls and numerous specialized staff are in place to prevent this from happening. Meritocracy and the Mediterranean climate are by necessity incompatible. I suppose it’s the price we pay for having the best olive oil in the world. The fact that an experienced librarian has actually run the National Library, even if only for fourteen months, was an unforeseen accident that the illustrious minds guiding our destinies have remedied, all the more so when there’s no end of cronies and relatives to fill the post. All I can say is that I’ll miss you. Alicia. You, your mysteries, and your jibes.”
“Same here.”
“I return to my beautiful Toledo, or what they’ve left of it, hoping I can rent a room in some peaceful country house on a hill with a decent view of the city. A place where I can spend the rest of my wasted existence peeing on the banks of the Tajo and rereading Cervantes and all his bitter rivals—most of which didn’t live far from Toledo and failed to alter the course of this ship in the slightest, despite all the gold and all the verse of their century.”
The Labyrinth of the Spirits Page 15