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

by Victor del Arbol

  “Who is this person?”

  The man stood up. When he headed toward the door of the cell, he stopped and turned completely around, opening his arms.

  “You’ll find out soon … I understand that here is where they hung your father, in this very jail. Isn’t destiny cruel and paradoxical? If you want, Inspector, I could cure all the wounds of the past and the present with one single thrust.”

  “I don’t know what you are referring to.”

  The man traced a canine smile.

  “I think you do.”

  * * *

  When he was left alone, César Alcalá sat on his bed with his elbows resting on his knees and his head supported by tense hands. Beside the headboard, next to his daughter, his father looked at him seriously, with those eyes that had gone out without seeing everything the world had in store for him. He wondered what kind of man he could have become, had he lived longer. What would he have thought if he knew that his son became a policeman? How would he have gotten along with his granddaughter, Marta? And with his daughter-in-law, Andrea? Would he have been proud of him? None of those questions would get an answer. His father was dead. And even though in his youth that was a tragedy he thought he would never get over, the truth was that the world had kept turning all those years.

  When a man dies, justly or unjustly, nothing special happens. Life continues around him. The landscape doesn’t even shift a fraction of an inch; there is no more space in the world, perhaps just a little more pain in those who experience that death personally. But even that pain is soon forgotten for the pressing need to keep on living, working, getting back on schedule. Those relatives of the corpse who have just witnessed the hanging in the prison yard don’t have much time to say good-bye beneath the watchful gaze of the soldiers guarding the gallows. The son, just a boy, barely has a chance to brush against the bare feet of his father hanging from a rope, watch the ground as the executioner cuts the knot and the body falls like a bundle of rags.

  The soldiers’ laughter is heard, their cruel jokes. The family must pray an Our Father even though none of them believe in that God dressed in armor and the yoke and arrows invoked by those animals wearing blue shirts and high leather boots. But they pray good and loud, so the prison chaplain can hear them. They are afraid, and they are ashamed of their fear. Fear of also being accused, fear of a neighbor turning them in on any flimsy excuse, and they want to continue living, even though living is the hardest thing there is. They will move, emigrate to Barcelona or Madrid; they’ll hide among the silent, gray mass that moves in trembling confusion through the city streets in these tragic times.

  Even those closest to the hanged man will someday speak badly of him. Why did he have to fall in love with the wife of a Falangist leader? What was he thinking? With a fascist, with the wife of a fascist, with the mother of a fascist. Nobody will be interested in the truth.

  What truth? will say those who hide behind acronyms and flags, the same ones who never saw jail time because they fled to France with their pockets full when all was lost. They brought with them their heroes, their legends, and their mystifications. They will make accusations left and right. They will call themselves democrats, and they’ll put flowers on their dead.

  But nobody will remember the young rural teacher who fell in love with a woman too big for his dreams. His name will be erased, lost in a police file. One of so many others.

  While César Alcalá pondered all that, his cellmate Romero came in.

  “What’s wrong?”

  César Alcalá wiped his tears with his forearm.

  “Nothing, Romero. Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Well, lately it seems like you’re dissolving like a sugar cube in a hot cup of coffee, my friend.”

  It was the first time he had used that word. Friend.

  “By the way,” said Romero, jumping up onto the upper bunk. “Ernesto told me that they’re going to let you out into the yard again, but that you have to make sure to control your enthusiasm for classical music, if you don’t want to end up in Saint Ignatius’s cave for meditation again. He says it’s your Christmas present.”

  César Alcalá lay down on his bunk. In that strange world he lived in, an honest guard could remind him of the meaning of Christmas, and a dangerous prisoner could be, yes, his best friend.

  He took out the handwritten note that he had stuck in his shirt, and he read it one more time before hiding it with the others beneath his bunk. “I am fine. I hope you don’t forget me; I think of you and Mamá every day. I still have faith that you will get me out of here soon. I love you both. Your daughter, Marta. December 20, 1980.”

  10

  Barcelona, December 22, 1980

  María ordered a coffee and lit her umpteenth cigarette of the morning. Inside the café some young people dipped churros into thick hot chocolate. Above their heads on the wall hung large black-and-white photographs from the turn of the century: the Gran Vía with the ground drilled and upturned to put in the metro, sallow men—serious even when they smiled beneath their wide mustaches and their white strolling hats—amid trolleybuses, streetcars, and horse-drawn carts.

  She thought of her father’s collection of old photographs, but far from comforting her, the image of Gabriel provoked a vague unease in her. Two days earlier, the nurse who took care of him had called: she was quitting. There was no way to persuade her to change her mind.

  “It’s not a question of more money, Miss Bengoechea,” the nurse had said over the phone. “I’m a professional, and your father has simply decided to throw in the towel. He won’t let me take care of him, and I can’t stand by watching him deteriorate day by day. It’s like he’s decided to commit suicide. My advice would be to have him admitted to a hospital.”

  María took a sip of coffee as she recalled the conversation. She noticed that her lips were trembling on the rim of the cup. She focused on keeping the shaking from spreading to her fingers.

  “What the hell is going on with me?” she muttered, closing her fist. That damn shaking again and her body turned upside down. She went to the bathroom feeling like she was about to vomit up her coffee.

  For a few interminable minutes she buried her face into the dirty toilet. She didn’t puke up anything solid. Just the coffee and a little string of bitter saliva. She sat on the dirty tiled floor, folded her legs, and put her head between her knees, surrounding them with her arms. The light went out for a few seconds. That relaxed her. Then she washed her distraught face and looked at herself in the mirror stained with splatters and crude writing. She took a deep breath. Her temples beat hard, and she had to unbutton her jacket and hold on to the sink to keep her balance.

  Slowly she started to feel better. The wave had already passed over her and there was only a distant murmur left, and it was heading away from her brain.

  It’s just an anxiety attack, she told herself.

  She faked a smile, and wearing it, she left the restroom and went back to her table to wait.

  The door to the café opened. Several customers came in. Their faces shone from the cold. Colonel Recasens came in behind them and took off his coat. His face was serious; he seemed to be in a bad mood. He dropped into the chair, which creaked dangerously, and put on the table his leather wallet and the two newspapers he had brought with him: El Alcázar and ABC.

  “I’m glad to see you again so soon, María,” he said in greeting, not noticing the lawyer’s paleness, as he turned toward the waitress to ask for a coffee with milk and a long shot of cognac. “You’ve had a chance to study the documents we gave you, I assume.”

  María nodded without looking up from her cup of coffee.

  “That girl, Marta. Is it true that they kidnapped her?”

  Recasens leaned his elbows on the table and lowered his tone of voice.

  “I’m afraid so. It’s absolutely true. She was Inspector Alcalá’s daughter. She was twelve. A couple of weeks after the kidnapping, the inspector’s wife killed herself in desperation
.”

  “You speak of the girl in the past tense, as if she were…”

  “Dead? We have no proof of that. Her body has never been found. But in all these years we haven’t found a single clue that tells us she’s alive. The only link we have to her is Ramoneda, your former client. And after he murdered his wife and her lover, he disappeared without a trace.”

  “Do you think it was him, Ramoneda, who kidnapped the girl?”

  Recasens was silent. He crossed his hands on the table and stared at María.

  “No. Ramoneda was only the messenger, a second-rate hired killer who worked for someone else.” The colonel opened the first page of El Alcázar and pointed with his index finger to the photograph of Congressman Publio.

  María looked at the photograph with dismay. Publio seemed like a good person. He was extremely calm, his smile was kind, and his appearance impeccable.

  “He doesn’t look capable of doing anything bad,” she murmured.

  Recasens nodded. Publio was the perfect grandfather, the husband that every woman wanted to have, the politician everyone could trust. In his billfold he carried a photograph of his wife, his two daughters, and his grandchildren that he proudly showed whenever he got the chance. And yet a large percentage of the receipts that he gave the party for reimbursement were from high-class brothels such as the Regàs, the Casita Blanca, or the gentlemen’s clubs on Valencia Street, as well as dinners in the most expensive restaurants in the city, where he always asked for a table for two. His companions, a different one on each occasion, were male, handsome, young, well built, distinguished, homosexual, and with very, very expensive tastes.

  Everyone looked the other way. Publio had contact in the upper echelons of the government, with military men, the church, and the bank. With such credentials it was difficult to refuse him anything.

  “He’s known for his tendency to turn any meeting in a café into a conspiracy, but skillful and vague enough to avoid being directly accused of being in favor of a coup, although he is the persistent voice that sows disaster among the army’s cells and gossip circles. Publio is an intelligent man. He never gets his hands dirty.”

  “But if you know he’s behind the kidnapping of the inspector’s daughter, why don’t you arrest him?”

  “It’s not so simple. There’s no evidence that directly incriminates him. And without evidence no judge would touch him. Publio is one of the most powerful men in this country. He is well protected.” Recasens paused significantly. He inhaled and let his words out slowly, aware of their weight. “But there is a person who has enough information to topple him: César Alcalá. The inspector has been investigating him for years. And we believe that he has hidden somewhere the proof that would incriminate the congressman.”

  María was beginning to understand.

  “Then he’s the one you should talk to, not me.”

  “César Alcalá won’t speak to us. If you read the report, you’ll know why. I can’t blame him for not trusting anyone. He was investigating one of the shadiest men in this young democracy, and when he thought he could trap him, they kidnapped his daughter. Nobody helped him look for her, nobody lifted a finger, in spite of him tirelessly repeating that it was Publio who was behind the kidnapping. Instead of help, César Alcalá is in prison, his daughter nowhere to be found, and Ramoneda, the only man who could give us any clue as to her whereabouts, is a fugitive from justice.”

  María had read the report. But she didn’t understand why the inspector still insisted on keeping his mouth shut, when his daughter was missing.

  “Why doesn’t he tell what he knows about Publio? At least he could get his revenge on him.”

  “Marta. She’s a guarantee of silence. They’ve convinced the inspector that they have the girl and they’ll kill her if he talks.”

  “But you said there is no evidence that she’s still alive. Is it true? Is she alive?”

  “The important thing is that the inspector believes she is.”

  “But is it true or not?”

  Recasens was pensive for a long moment.

  “We don’t know.”

  María drank a sip of coffee and lit a cigarette. She needed to think and buy some time to figure out her thoughts.

  “And what exactly do you expect from me, Colonel?”

  “I’m convinced that César Alcalá will want to talk to you, María.”

  María showed her skepticism. If César Alcalá had reasons to hate anyone, it was her.

  “I got them to lock him up in jail, and from what I hear things aren’t going too well for him in there.”

  Recasens smoked with his eyes half closed. Every once in a while he let the ash fall into the cup. The ash floated for a second on the remains of the coffee and then became a sticky mass. He didn’t say anything for a little while. He just looked out at the street, his elbows resting on the table. Finally, he released a violent mouthful of smoke through his nose and mouth. He stubbed out the butt on the saucer and looked at María with a focus that alarmed her.

  He pulled a small envelope out of his leather briefcase and passed it to María over the table.

  “You and Inspector Alcalá have more in common than you think, María.”

  María opened the envelope. Inside there was a sepia-colored photograph. It was a portrait of a lovely young woman. Her face was only half revealed, the other part covered by a wide picture hat that fell over her right eye. She was smoking like a movie actress, the cigarette’s filter held elegantly beside her slightly parted lips. She had a strange gaze, like the door to a half-open cage, like a seductive trap.

  “Who is this?”

  “Her name was Isabel Mola. Do you remember when I asked you if you’d ever heard that name? You said you hadn’t. Maybe her face will refresh your memory.”

  María furrowed her brow. She had never seen that woman before, and the name meant nothing to her.

  “What does she have to do with me or with César Alcalá?”

  Recasens looked into his coffee, hiding in the black well of the cup and in the bubbles of frothy milk. He could feel a tide of words emerging from inside him. He tried to hold them back. He lifted his head slowly and smiled enigmatically.

  “Why don’t you ask the inspector yourself?” He got up slowly from the chair and put on his coat. “Let me get this one,” he said, leaving a hundred-peseta bill on the table.

  “He won’t even agree to see me.”

  Recasens shrugged his shoulders.

  “Try it, at least. Ask him about Isabel. That will be the starting point. Give him hope, tell him we are doing all we can to find his daughter.”

  María felt nauseous again, but her stomach was empty. She leaned forward a bit over her stomach, and her gaze landed on the wrinkled, brown hundred-peseta bill on the table. Through the window her reflection blurred and blended in with the gray tones of the passersby who went up and down the narrow street, tightly wrapped in scarves and covered with big black umbrellas that the rain slid off of.

  “Will you do it, María? Will you go visit the inspector in prison?”

  “Yes … I’ll do it,” she murmured. The words came out weakly, almost against her will.

  All of a sudden, she felt she had to get out of there as fast as she could.

  * * *

  Two days later, María went to the Modelo prison.

  On the administrative level the atmosphere was peaceful. It didn’t seem like a prison, just like any old accountant’s office. Both sides of the hallways were lined with fat files tied with red ribbon, encyclopedic volumes of certificates and registries of all kinds. When someone took a piece of paper off the crowded shelves, hundreds of dust particles were raised that remained floating in the air for a second, run through by the light from a desk lamp.

  A public servant brought her the forms she had to fill out in order to visit César Alcalá. He had her sit between two file cabinets. The public servant left, dragging his feet, the pale tone of the papers he touched engrave
d on his skin. María watched him and thought that, in the end, we are what we do.

  With the authorization completed, she headed toward the large iron door that led to the prison area. In the sentry box that granted access into the unit she was greeted very stiffly by a guard, who softened with difficulty when María showed her lawyer’s credential.

  “Who do you want to visit?” the guard asked her, somewhat ruffled.

  María said the name César Alcalá. His face turned to granite. He looked her up and down as if he hadn’t seen her before and ordered her to wait.

  Two female guards came to get her. They forced her to go through an exhaustive search. They went through her purse, made her empty her pockets, take off her belt and her bra.

  “My bra?” asked María, confused.

  “That’s the rule. If you want to get in, hand over your bra.”

  María found this abusive and intolerable, but neither one of the two guards was intimidated by her threats.

  “It’s for your own safety,” one of them said, storing María’s belongings in a plastic bag.

  “Well, that makes me feel a lot better, thanks,” she answered with a sarcasm that neither woman seemed to catch.

  They made her go into a waiting room with long wooden benches. In one corner two young women were chatting animatedly. They were gypsies, almost still girls. They were plastered in makeup and wore very tight clothes and high heels. From the other side of the room you could smell the cheap perfume they wore. They both looked at María.

  “What, you’re here to give your guy some relief too?” said one of them, miming sucking a penis. The two gypsy girls laughed in a way that set María’s nerves on edge. Then they forgot about her and went back to their chitchat. After a few minutes one of them was called over the public address system.