Victor del Arbol - The Sadness of the Samurai: A Novel

by Victor del Arbol

  She noticed the man’s faltering movements and his smile. It was the smile of Mephistopheles, the bitter, dark, and nevertheless attractive Prince of Darkness.

  “Better me than Publio or one of your husband’s other dogs.”

  Isabel’s expression twisted. She was so sad that she could barely hold back her tears.

  “And what are you, if not the worst of his dogs? The most treacherous.”

  “My loyalties are crystal clear, Isabel. They are not to you, not even to your husband. They are to the State.”

  Isabel’s chest tightened. It was terribly painful to hear such things from the man she had been sleeping with every night for almost a year, the man to whom she had given everything, absolutely everything, up to and including her own life, because that was the only way she could understand love. And now here he was, turning her over for a word, for something as useless as it was abstract: the State.

  She remembered nights together, when his hands sought her out in the darkness and their mouths found each other like water and thirst. Those nights stolen from sleep, fleeting and laced with the fear of being discovered, had been the most intense, and happiest, of her life. Everything was possible; nothing was off limits in the arms of that man who’d promised her a better world. But she could no longer lament her mistake. Many before her had suffered love’s loss, and many others had seen their hopes shattered. What happened to her had happened before and would happen again and again. But the betrayal had been so great, the devastation to her heart so vast, that she had trouble accepting it.

  “All this time you were using me to win the others’ trust. You had it all planned; you knew that I was the most approachable, and you used me without remorse.”

  The man examined Isabel coldly.

  “It’s strange that it is you who talks to me of morality and remorse. You of all people, who has been feeding and protecting those that wanted to murder your husband.”

  Unexpectedly, Isabel took the man by the arm in a gesture as violent as it was fragile.

  “You were the one who suggested the assassination, and the one who made the preparations. You led those poor boys to the slaughter. You set a trap for us.”

  He shook her off with a brusque motion.

  “I only sped the events up. Sooner or later they would have tried something similar, and the best part was that I could control the how and the when in order to minimize possible harm.”

  Isabel’s face was steadily unraveling, like a wax mask left out in the sun. It was all too much for her, the man’s coldness, his certainty at not having done wrong.

  “And the harm you did to me, how are you going to minimize that?”

  The man clenched his teeth. He remembered the same nights that Isabel did, but his feelings were not filled with pleasure, but with regret. Every night, after having made love to her he had felt miserable, just as he had when she looked at him with gratitude and admiration. He had heard from her own lips of the brutal and silent way her husband had taken her, as if she weren’t a human being; he had heard from the other conspirators in the group of the atrocities that Publio and his Falangists had committed when they found some red hiding out in the house of a friend or family member. And even though all that had shifted his certainties, even though during the long year he had lived with them he had felt something similar to love and friendship, none of that could be taken into account when what was important was fulfilling the mission entrusted to him: dismantling that group of conspirators backed by Mrs. Mola herself. If it hadn’t been him, someone else would have been assigned the task. Isabel was never very discreet, she didn’t know how to lie, and obviously she was no revolutionary. She was just a bourgeois woman who hated her husband.

  He had done what he had to do, but that didn’t mollify the contempt he was now feeling for himself.

  “You should have distanced yourself from those schemers when you had the chance, Isabel.”

  “You only have me. When I knew who you really were, I warned the others. You and your boss won’t be able to reach them.”

  The man lit a condescending smile.

  “You’ll tell me where they are.”

  “I will not.”

  “I can assure you that you will, Isabel,” predicted the man in a dire voice, and, turning toward Andrés, he added, “That is if you ever want to see your son again.”

  The boy observed the scene without understanding what was going on. His face was boiling red from the cold.

  The rising wind carried on it the music of an incoming train. The train to Lisbon. The gradually lessening noise of the wheels on the rails came through the fog. There was a pause and a whistle, like the deep sigh of a runner stopping after great exertion.

  “Let’s go, Mamá, it’s our train,” said Andrés, taking his mother by the hand and pulling. She didn’t move or take her eyes off the man.

  Then he leaned down beside the boy. On his face was a broad, beneficent smile that struck at Isabel’s very soul.

  “There’s been a change of plans, Andrés. Your mamá has to take a trip, but you are going back home. Your father is waiting for you.”

  The boy looked at the stranger with confusion, and then his gaze shifted back to his mother, who was looking at him anxiously.

  “I don’t want to go home. I want to go with my mother.”

  “That’s not going to be possible. But I think your father has a very big surprise for you … a real Japanese katana!”

  Like a sudden clearing in the forest, the boy’s face lit up. He was struck dumb with astonishment.

  “You mean it?”

  “Absolutely,” assured the man. “I wouldn’t dare lie to a samurai.”

  Andrés’s face filled with pride.

  They walked toward the car at the station’s entrance. Andrés sank his feet into the snow, leaping in a race to get home before anyone else, shouting with joy. Isabel’s feet dragged, followed closely by the man, who kept his eyes glued on her.

  “What is going to happen to my son?” she asked him suddenly, before getting into the car.

  “He will be a happy boy who’ll grow up remembering how lovely his mother was … or a poor lunatic locked up for life in a miserable insane asylum. It depends on you.”

  The car left the station with a slow, jagged murmur beneath a sky wrapped in cellophane. In the backseat Isabel held Andrés tightly, as if she wanted to stick him back inside her to protect him. But the boy pushed away her embrace with a selfish gesture, asking that man to drive faster … faster. He was finally going to have a real samurai katana of his very own.

  2

  Barcelona, November 1976

  There was a strange picture hanging in the hallway of the clinic. It depicted a beggar covered in pus-filled sores, wrapped in a hooded cape. His face revealed suspicion and anger. His eyes, deep in their sockets and run through with a greenish tone, sparkled enigmatically. It was sublimely beautiful. Its true value lay not so much in the image or the composition as in the colors: the shockingly bright red of the cape, the metallic gray of the hood, the intense blue of the sky, and the earthy browns in the background.

  María took refuge in that image as she waited for the doctor to call her in. Beside her was a table with fashion magazines, out-of-date newspapers, and mental health pamphlets. But her gaze was inevitably drawn to the forlorn figure framed on the wall.

  “Miss Bengoechea, the doctor will see you now.”

  The doctor was a thin man, with withered flesh and a sunken chest whose shoulders curved inward. He wasn’t much older than her, but he spoke like an old man, with a weary voice. He asked her to sit down, and he took a sealed envelope out of the drawer. It was from the hospital where they had done tests on her father.

  For several seconds the doctor passed the envelope from one hand to the other without opening it, which was driving María mad, as she ridiculously attempted to see the contents against the light. She made out a handwritten half paragraph.

  It couldn
’t be too serious. Important things usually require longer explanations, she told herself foolishly. The doctor tore open the envelope and held the diagnosis out to her.

  “It’s not good news. I’m afraid your father has cancer. The metastasis has spread considerably. I should admit him, although, honestly, I don’t know if it’s worth it. Perhaps the best thing would be for him to spend his final months at home. His decline will be swift, and he’ll need to be taken care of.”

  María blinked, puzzled. Suddenly, everything spun very quickly, too quickly, so much so that the furniture in the office, the windows, the curtains, the voices in the hallway, and her thoughts prior to that moment converged in a funnel of absurd questions.

  When the centrifugal force that the news had provoked in her finally stopped, all that was left was the air and a rain of ash.

  “How could this have happened?”

  “These things happen” was the doctor’s verdict. Not very clinical, not very scientific. But absolutely true.

  “I’m so sorry,” said the doctor, swallowing hard.

  María knew that it wasn’t true. The doctor wasn’t sorry. He was just doing his job.

  As she listened to him reel off a series of medical concepts that meant nothing to her, María lit a cigarette.

  “There’s no smoking here,” admonished the doctor.

  She paid him no mind. She took the first drag and apprehensively watched the smoke emerge from her nose and mouth. She cursed her lack of willpower, but she didn’t put out the cigarette. What could it matter now?

  Before she left the clinic, her eyes met the eyes of the beggar in the engraving. It seemed that he was smiling ironically at her.

  * * *

  She went to the office and tried to work, but she couldn’t concentrate. She watched unenthusiastically as the files piled up awaiting her signature. Behind the beveled glass door she could hear the murmur of people waiting to be served.

  “This is all crap,” she whispered, sinking her face into her hands. All those numbers and the colorful graphics that accompanied them, the notarial deeds, the wills, the civil lawsuits, they all seemed abstract and absurd, completely disconnected from reality.

  Lethargic, with the curtains drawn and the lights turned off, she felt completely out of it. She could only think about how to explain it to Lorenzo so that he wouldn’t get too mad, about how to get used to living with her father after not speaking to him for so long.

  There was a knock at the door. María could make out the sculptured silhouette of her colleague. Greta was the best thing that could happen to her at that moment.

  “Come in,” she said, lighting up the umpteenth Ducado of the day.

  Greta opened the door and theatrically waved the smoke out of the small office.

  “If what you’re looking for is a buzz, smoke a nice joint, but don’t suffocate yourself with that garbage.”

  Greta was a lovely woman, lovely like the things we can’t have. She radiated a strength that was not only due to her large eyes streaked with green, her straight back, and her elegant figure. María had caught herself watching Greta out of the corner of her eye more than once, and she had blushed to find herself attracted to that strange mix of happiness and tragedy that Greta emanated.

  “Judging by your face, the news about your father wasn’t good,” said Greta, sitting on the corner of the desk and crossing her legs.

  “He has cancer.”

  Greta’s face tightened.

  “And what are you going to do?”

  “The most sensible thing would be to have him move in with us, but Lorenzo’s not going to like it.”

  Greta’s expression soured when she heard the name.

  “Fuck that imbecile,” she exclaimed harshly.

  María looked at her with reproach in her eyes.

  “Don’t talk about him that way. He’s my husband.”

  “He’s an asshole who doesn’t deserve you, María. Someday you are going to have to take a long hard look at your situation.”

  María made a gesture with her hand to put a stop to the turn the conversation was taking. She knew that her friend was right; her relationship with Lorenzo was reaching intolerable extremes, but she didn’t have to think about that right now.

  “It’s not only about Lorenzo; it’s me, too. My father and I haven’t spoken in years; we barely know each other. How can I bring him to live with me? I don’t even know why he gave the hospital my address when he went in for the tests. Isn’t it funny? I find out my father is dying because the doctor only had my phone number and he didn’t know who to tell.”

  Greta extended her fingers, with their lovely polished nails, and stroked María’s wavy bangs. She took more time than was necessary in the affectionate gesture, not caring that María might notice the trembling in her hand. She wondered how she could be in love with such a cold, inaccessible woman.

  “It’ll be a good way for you guys to get to know each other. After all, he is your father, you are his daughter, and for all the differences there is still an unbreakable bond.”

  María felt a shiver of pleasure at the touch of Greta’s fingers. That feeling bothered her. She shrugged her shoulders to cover it up and moved away from those tempting fingers, pretending to concentrate on a piece of paper on her desk.

  “Do I make you nervous?” asked Greta, with obvious malice.

  “Of course not,” answered María. She was no prude, and she was fully aware of Greta’s sexual preferences; but she was married and wanted to have a family, although sometimes she wasn’t entirely sure about that.

  Especially since she had lost the baby, she wondered if she wasn’t just seeking out that life because it was what was expected of a thirty-year-old woman.

  “Getting back to your father, why don’t you go see him? It’ll do you good, and you can calmly decide what’s best for both of you,” said Greta, aware of what that gentle rebuff meant.

  María thought about it. The next day was Saturday; Lorenzo had guard duty at the barracks until Monday, and the village wasn’t more than a couple of hours away on the bus. She could take a taxi to the country house, spend the night, and come home on Sunday without her husband finding out.

  “You’re right. I can go see my mother, too. It’s been centuries since I went there.”

  * * *

  She spent the hours of the trip with her forehead against the windowpane, looking without seeing, pensive. The landscape became flatter and greener the farther she went into the Pyrenees region. Passing through one of those small towns, she was struck by the gaze of a little boy who followed the trail of the bus like something that goes by but never stops. As a girl, María had watched with those same unsettling eyes. She saw airplanes and cars go by, and she wondered where they were headed. She always believed they were going to someplace better than her town.

  When the bus entered the main square of a large town, it was market day, and beneath the arcades were spread the stands of fruits, liquor, aguardiente, jams, and sausages. Large eucalyptus trees lazed beneath a winter sun with no heat.

  “Nobody should have to die on such a beautiful day,” said a passenger getting off the bus, oblivious to the impossibility of his words.

  It was indeed a beautiful day. Gray pigeons dipped their heads in a clean, vigorously flowing spouted fountain. Two large palm trees gave shade to the whitewashed facades of the noble homes on the square. Those large stately mansions maintained a certain ascetic, almost monastic, style. They still bore the heraldic shields of the old noble families, the stones from the era of the reconquest, and were reminiscent of seminaries, with their enormous windows.

  María ducked into a side street, escaping the hustle and bustle of the square. An old woman was running a broom over the paving tiles. She brought her hand to her face like a visor, covering her thick eyebrows as she watched María approach. She had glassy, indolent eyes.

  “Where is there a taxi stand?” María asked her.

  The old wo
man pointed with the broom handle toward an isolated house about fifty yards away.

  “At the bar.”

  A faded Pepsi-Cola sign swung from the facade. Beneath the frayed awning there was a parked taxi. María surveyed, with a bitter expression, the entrance to the bar and its empty tables, the rough, poorly whitewashed walls, and the dirty terrazzo floor. It smelled musty and was dark. The television played the theme music to the news. At one end of the bar a customer sipped on a beer after wiping the edge of the glass with his fingers. He smacked his lips, not sure where to place his gaze. He and the barmaid were alone in the small tavern. She was a thick woman with a wide rack that rested on the bar. They both looked at María with curiosity.

  “I’m looking for the taxi driver.”

  “Well, you’ve found him,” said the man, accentuating the wrinkles on his forehead and the folds of his mouth beneath a bushy red beard with a solemnity that seemed comic. He looked like a minister on Sancho Panza’s isle.

  “I need a ride to San Lorenzo.”

  The man looked surprised.

  “I don’t do such long trips. Going up to the mountains would take me all day, and today is market day. I’d lose all my customers.”

  The barmaid let out a derisive little laugh.

  “You haven’t left that stool all morning,” she said. The man shot her an angry look out of the corner of his eye, but the woman pretended it wasn’t directed at her. She turned up the volume on the television. Adolfo Suárez was about to declare something important.

  “I’ll pay you for the return trip, too,” said María, raising her voice above the president’s. He had begun with his well-known catchphrase, which everyone had heard so many times in those frustrating years that they were sick of it: I can promise and I do hereby promise …

  The taxi driver ran a hand over his bony face, run through with red veins. He lowered his eyelids.

  “It won’t be cheap.”

  “That’s okay.”