“Mercedes, Valls’s daughter, remembered that her father had said something about a list to his bodyguard the night before he disappeared. A list with numbers . . .”
“I don’t know, Alicia. Most likely it’s nothing.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed. “Feeling hungrier now?”
Vargas gave in at last and smiled. “I’m always hungry.”
The visit to the Museum of Tears and the possibility—as slim as it was—that the unlikely clue found in the indentations of a blank page might lead somewhere had lifted Alicia’s spirits. To sniff a new trail was always a secret pleasure: the perfume of the future, as Leandro liked to call it. Mistaking her good mood for an appetite, Alicia confronted the Casa Leopoldo menu like a Cossack and ordered for both, and for two more as well. Vargas let her do so without complaining, and when the parade of rich food began to flow incessantly and Alicia could barely tackle it, the veteran policeman just muttered under his breath while he made short work of his own servings and a few more.
“When it comes to table-sharing we also make a great team,” he remarked, finishing off an oxtail stew with a superb aroma. “You order and I devour.”
Alicia nibbled at her food like a bird and smiled.
“I don’t want to be a spoilsport, but don’t get too excited,” said Vargas. “Those numbers might only be references to spare parts jotted down by the driver, or who knows what else.”
“That’s a lot of spare parts. How’s the oxtail?”
“First class. Like one I ate in Córdoba in the spring of 1949, which I still dream about.”
“In good company?”
“Better than the present one. Are you investigating me, Alicia?”
“Simple curiosity. Do you have a family?”
“Everyone has a family.”
“I don’t,” she snapped.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. What did Leandro tell you about me?”
Vargas seemed surprised by the question.
“He must have said something,” she insisted. “Or you must have asked him something.”
“I didn’t ask. And he didn’t say much.”
Alicia smiled coldly. “Between you and me. Go on. What did he tell you about me?”
“Look, Alicia, whatever game goes on between you two has nothing to do with me.”
“I see. That means he told you more than you admit.”
Vargas faced her. He looked irritated. “He told me you were an orphan. He said you lost your parents during the war.”
“What else?”
“He said you have a wound that gives you constant pain. And that this affects your character.”
“My character.”
“Forget it.”
“What else?”
“That you’re a solitary person, and you have a problem establishing emotional ties.”
Alicia laughed halfheartedly. “Did he say that? Did he use those words?”
“I can’t remember exactly. Can we change the subject?”
“Right. Let’s talk about my emotional ties.”
Vargas rolled his eyes.
“Do you think I have problems establishing emotional ties?”
“I don’t know, and it’s none of my business.”
“Leandro would never pronounce those words—they’re a string of clichés. They sound straight out of an advice column in a fashion magazine.”
“It must have been me, then, because I’m subscribed to quite a few.”
“What did he say exactly?”
“Why do you do this to yourself, Alicia?”
“Do what?”
“Torment yourself.”
“Is that how you see me? Like a martyr?”
Vargas looked at her in silence, and finally shook his head.
“What did Leandro say? I promise that if you tell me the truth, I’ll never ask you again.”
Vargas weighed up the alternatives. “He said you don’t think that anyone can love you because you don’t love yourself, and that you think nobody has ever loved you. And that you can’t forgive the world for it.”
Alicia looked down and gave a false laugh. Vargas noticed that her eyes were shining and cleared his throat. “I thought you wanted me to tell you about my family.”
Alicia shrugged.
“My parents were from a small village in . . .”
“I meant, did you have a wife and children?” she cut in.
Vargas looked at her, his eyes empty of all expression. “No,” he said after a pause.
“I didn’t want to annoy you. I’m sorry.”
Vargas smiled reluctantly. “You don’t annoy me. And you?”
“Do I have a wife and children?”
“Or whatever.”
“I’m afraid not.”
Vargas raised his glass of wine. “To solitary souls.”
Alicia took her glass and touched his, avoiding his eyes.
“Leandro is an idiot,” the policeman remarked after a while.
Alicia shook her head slowly. “No. He’s simply cruel.”
The rest of the meal took place in silence.
15
Valls wakes up in the dark. Vicente’s body is gone. Martín must have removed it while he slept. Only that son of a bitch could have thought of locking him up with a corpse. A slimy stain on the floor marks the space where the body had lain. Instead there is a pile of clothes, old but dry, and a small bucket full of water. The water smells dirty, with a whiff of metal, but as soon as Valls moistens his lips and manages to take a gulp, it seems to him the most delicious thing he has ever tasted. He drinks until he quenches a thirst he thought could never be quenched, until his stomach and his throat hurt. Then he removes his filthy bloodstained rags and slips on some of the clothes he finds on the pile. They smell of dust and disinfectant. His right hand has gone numb, and in the place of pain he feels only a dull throbbing. At first he doesn’t dare look at the hand, and when he does, he notices that the black stain has spread and now reaches his wrist, as if he had dipped it in a bucket full of tar. He can smell the infection, feel his body rotting away alive.
“It’s the gangrene,” says a voice in the dark.
His heart misses a beat, and he turns to discover his jailer sitting at the bottom of the stairs, watching him.
“How long have you been there?” Valls asks.
“You’re going to lose that hand. Or your life. It’s up to you.”
“Help me, please. I’ll give you whatever you want.”
The jailer stares at him impassively.
“How long have I been here?”
“Not long.”
“Do you work for Martín? Where is he? Why doesn’t he come to see me?”
The jailer stands up. The meager light that filters down from the top of the stairs touches his face. Valls can now see the mask clearly, a piece of flesh-colored porcelain covering half the man’s face. The eye behind it doesn’t blink.
The jailer approaches the metal bars so Valls can look at him closely. “You don’t remember, do you?”
Valls shakes his head slowly.
“You’ll remember. There’s time enough.”
He turns and is about to start up the stairs again when Valls stretches out his left hand through the bars beseechingly. The jailer stops.
“Please,” Valls implores. “I need a doctor.”
The jailer pulls a packet wrapped in brown paper out of his coat pocket and throws it into the cell.
“You decide whether you want to live or whether you want to rot away slowly, the way you’ve allowed so many innocents to do.”
Before he leaves, he lights a candle and leaves it in a small niche dug into the wall.
“Please, don’t go . . .”
Valls hears the footsteps fade and the door close. Then he kneels down to pick up the parcel. He opens it with his left hand. At first he can’t make out what he is seeing. Only when he takes the object a
nd looks at it in the light of the candle does he realize.
A carpenter’s saw.
16
In the darkest corner of her heart, Barcelona, mother of labyrinths, holds a mesh of narrow streets knotted together to form a reef of present and future ruins. Intrepid travelers and all manner of lost souls lie forever trapped in this district named the Raval, once the outskirts of the medieval city. When Alicia and Vargas stepped out of Casa Leopoldo, a network of alleyways greeted the couple in all its sinister splendor, populated by dives, brothels, and a whole arsenal of bazaars peddling wares and services away from the eye of the law.
The lavish meal had left Vargas suffering from a light hiccup, which he tried to get rid of by taking deep breaths and tapping his chest with his knuckles.
“This happens because you’re a glutton,” Alicia decreed.
“You’ve got some nerve. First you stuff me, then you make fun of me.”
A young streetwalker displaying rotund charms observed them with strictly commercial interest. She was standing in a doorway behind which a transistor radio was blaring out a Catalan rumba in all its crossbred glory. “How about a little twosome siesta with your skinny-ribs and a real woman, my love?” the lady of the evening invited.
Vargas shook his head, vaguely embarrassed, and hurried on. Alicia smiled and followed him, exchanging glances with the strapping woman in the doorway, who, seeing her prey walk away, shrugged and gave her the once-over, as if wondering whether this was the latest look preferred by well-shod gentlemen.
“This area is a social calamity,” said Vargas.
“Would you like me to leave you alone for a while to see if you can solve it?” asked Alicia. “I think you’ve just made a friend who’ll get rid of your hiccup in a flash.”
“Don’t prick me. I’m about to burst.”
“Would you like some dessert?”
“A magnifying glass. If possible, a huge one.”
“I thought you had no faith in those numbers.”
“You believe what it’s possible to believe, not what you want to believe. Unless you’re an idiot, in which case it’s the other way around.”
“I didn’t know indigestion brought out the philosopher in you.”
“There are lots of things you don’t know, Alicia.”
“That’s why I learn something new every day.”
Alicia put her arm through his.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Vargas warned.
“You’ve already told me that.”
“It’s the best bit of advice one can give anyone in this life.”
“What a sad thought, Vargas.”
The policeman looked at Alicia, and in his eyes she saw that he was speaking seriously. Her smile left her lips, and without thinking, she stood on tiptoe and gave him a kiss on the cheek. It was a chaste kiss, full of affection and friendship, a kiss that didn’t expect anything and asked for even less.
“Don’t do that,” said Vargas, setting off again.
The doorway hooker was still watching, Alicia noticed. They looked at each other briefly. The old hand mumbled under her breath, smiling bitterly.
17
Clouds hung low in the afternoon sky. A greenish aura filtered through them, making the Raval quarter look like a small village sunk beneath the waters of a swamp. They walked up Calle Hospital until they reached the Ramblas and from there Alicia guided Vargas through the crowds toward Plaza Real.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“In search of the magnifying glass you mentioned.”
They crossed the square, heading for the passageway under the arches that surrounded it. Alicia stopped in front of a shop window through which one could glimpse a small jungle of wild animals, frozen in a moment of fury and staring at eternity with glass eyes. Vargas looked up to see the notice over the entrance and, a little further down, to the letters printed on the glazed door:
Museum
Widow of L. Soler Pujol
Telephone 404451
“What’s this?”
“People call it the Beast Museum, but in fact it’s a taxidermist’s establishment.”
As soon as they stepped into the shop, Vargas was struck by its rich collection of stuffed animals. Tigers, birds, wolves, apes, and a whole troop of exotic species inhabited this improvised museum of natural sciences, which would have delighted, or terrified, more than one expert on exotic fauna from any of the continents. He strolled among the glass cabinets, admiring the skill shown in those pieces of taxidermy.
“Now you’ve really stopped hiccupping,” said Alicia.
Hearing footsteps behind them, they turned to discover a young woman, thin as a rake, observing them with her hands joined over her chest. Her eyes and her general demeanor reminded Vargas of a praying mantis.
“Good afternoon. How may I help?”
“Good afternoon,” said Alicia. “I’d like to speak to Matías, if at all possible.”
The look of suspicion that colored the eyes of the praying mantis deepened. “And that will be about . . . ?”
“A technical inquiry.”
“And may I ask who wishes to see him?”
“Alicia Gris.”
The praying mantis gave them a thorough going-over, screwing up her nose with disapproval, before she walked off unhurriedly to the back room.
“I’m discovering a most welcoming Barcelona,” whispered Vargas. “I’m thinking of moving here.”
“Don’t you have enough stuffed glories in the capital?”
“I wish we did. I’m afraid they’re all alive and kicking. Who is this Matías? An ex-boyfriend?”
“More like an ex-candidate.”
“Heavyweight?”
“Featherweight, I’d say. Matías is a technician here. This place has the best magnifying glasses in town, and Matías has the best eye.”
“What about the lamia?”
“I think her name is Serafina. Years ago she was his fiancée. She must be the wife now.”
“Maybe one of these days he’ll stuff her and put her on one of the shelves, next to the lions, as a finishing touch for the museum of horrors.”
“Alicia!” came Matías’s euphoric voice, as he welcomed her with a warm smile.
Matías was a small man with nervous gestures. He sported a white lab coat and round spectacles that enlarged his eyes and gave him a rather comical appearance. “It’s been a long time,” he cried, visibly excited. “I thought you’d left Barcelona. When did you come back?”
Serafina watched, half hidden behind the back room curtain, with eyes as black as tar and an unfriendly expression.
“Matías, this is my colleague, Don Juan Manuel Vargas.”
Matías studied him as he shook his hand.
“You have an impressive collection here, Don Matías,” Vargas said.
“Oh, most of the pieces are the work of Señor Soler, the founder of the establishment. My teacher.”
“Matías is very modest,” Alicia interrupted. “Tell him about the bull.”
Matías shook his head humbly.
“Don’t tell me you also stuff fighting bulls?” asked Vargas.
“No task is impossible for him,” said Alicia. “A few years ago a famous matador came here and asked Matías to stuff a beast weighing over five hundred kilos. He’d fought it that afternoon at the Monumental bullring and wanted to present it to a film star with whom he was madly in love . . . Wasn’t it Ava Gardner, Matías?”
“The things we do for women, eh?” added Matías, who obviously preferred not to broach the subject.
Serafina coughed threateningly from her sentry post; Matías stood at attention and his smile disappeared.
“So, what can I do for you? Do you have a pet you wish to immortalize? Some memorable piece of game?”
“The truth is that we have a rather unusual request,” Alicia began.
“Unusual is usual here. A few months ago, Salvador Dalí himself came through this door t
o ask whether we could stuff two hundred thousand ants for him. It’s not a joke. When I told him I thought it wasn’t feasible, he offered to paint my Serafina in an altarpiece of insects and cardinals. Quirks of genius. As you can see, we’re never bored here . . .”
Alicia pulled the notebook out of her handbag and opened it. “What we wanted to ask you is whether you could help us decipher the text that appears in relief on this page, using your lenses.”
Matías took the paper carefully and examined it against the light. “Alicia always with her mysteries, eh? Come into the workshop. Let’s see what can be done.”
The taxidermist’s workshop and laboratory was a small cave of alchemy and wonders. A complex device with lenses and spotlights hung from the ceiling on metal cables. The walls were crammed with glass cabinets, filled with countless bottles and chemical solutions. Large ocher-colored anatomical atlases flanked the room, presenting the visitor with images of the internal organs, skeletons, and muscles of all types of creatures. Two wide slabs of marble dominated the workshop’s center, making the room look like an operating theater conceived for otherworldly specimens. Next to the slabs, small metal tables covered with crimson cloths displayed a collection of the most extravagant surgical instruments Vargas had ever seen.
“Don’t mind the smell,” the taxidermist warned. “After a few minutes you won’t even notice it.”
Doubting this, but not wishing to contradict Matías, Alicia accepted the chair she was being offered next to one of the tables and smiled affectionately at him, aware of the longing in the eyes of her old suitor.
“Serafina never comes in here,” he said. “She says it smells of dead bodies. But I find it relaxing. Here one sees things the way they are, with no illusions or deceits.” He took the piece of paper and extended it over a glass plate. Using a dimmer close to the marble table, he lowered the main light until it was barely visible, then turned on a couple of spotlights hanging from the ceiling. Next, he tugged at a bar held up by pulleys, bringing down a set of lenses articulated on metal arms.
“You never said good-bye,” he said without looking up from his work. “I had to find out through the caretaker, Jesusa.”
The Labyrinth of the Spirits Page 26