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

by Victor del Arbol

  Publio smiled sarcastically. He drank two cups of red wine in quick succession. When he was looking for the third he realized that someone was carefully observing him from one side of the room.

  “What the fuck is he doing here?” he grumbled through his teeth.

  The man who was looking at him came over. He walked with his spine straight and taking long steps. His hands were somewhat tense. He must have been a few years younger than Publio, and he was attractive. At least that was how he must have seemed to a couple of ladies who watched him furtively as he passed.

  “Good afternoon, Congressman,” he said, opening his mouth only slightly, as if the words wanted to run out but he was holding them back with his tongue.

  Publio shifted his gaze slowly. He remained silent for a minute. Finally, he looked up and observed the man solemnly.

  “You’ve aged a lot since we last saw each other, Recasens.”

  “Yes, it’s been a long time,” Pedro Recasens replied haltingly.

  Publio let out a soft groan, as if the other man’s calmness made him impatient.

  “I understand you now work for the CESID.”

  Recasens was silent for a moment, searching for the right words.

  “Then you already know why I’m here, Congressman.”

  Publio knew his place in the world well, and he held it unassumingly. He was vastly wealthy, and that, while perhaps not meaning much, said it all: at his side one had the vague, constant impression that something was going to happen. A mere slight movement of his bushy, gray eyebrows brought a solicitous waiter with a glass of whiskey wrapped in a paper napkin; with an offhand gesture of his ringed finger, the men around him headed off, giving them some privacy.

  “Did you come here to ruin my weekend? We’ve known each other a long time, Recasens. You do your job and I do mine, which once in a while has caused some legal friction between us, but you have nothing against me; otherwise you’d already have asked the Supreme Court for an arrest order.”

  Recasens observed him without saying anything. Publio was probably the man he had most hated over the course of his long life. He had him in arm’s reach; it was easy to grab him by the trachea and break it before anyone present could intervene. And yet he couldn’t touch him. Nobody could.

  “I came to see you so it was clear that in the CESID we’re not stupid. I know what you’re doing, Publio. I know what you’re planning.”

  Publio listened, taking small sips of whiskey and smacking his lips in satisfaction. His pale face looked like a laborious work in marble. With his clear forehead and scant hair, he had the air of a carefree, despotic king; with his impeccable attire of rigorous black, he languished in lovely and apparently leisurely retirement. But that theoretical docility was merely an appearance. He was no carefree fool.

  “Are you referring to the rumors of a coup? Everybody knows what I think; I’m not in hiding. But I don’t have anything to do with that, and even if I did, you couldn’t prove it, which is the same thing in the end, isn’t it? On the other hand, you are harassing an elected official, and that could cost you your brand-new rank as colonel,” he said, making a cavalier gesture with his hand.

  “It’s not like it was before, Publio. Franco is dead, and I’m no longer a frightened recruit you can send to Russia to be killed,” said Recasens sarcastically. “The circumstances are very different now.”

  “Circumstances are nothing,” Publio said, cutting him off somewhat tensely, as he approached a large picture window that overlooked the club’s garden. “I loathe those who declare themselves slaves to circumstances, as if circumstances were immutable.”

  He knew what he was talking about. He hadn’t always been rich. When he was a boy he lived in an unpaved neighborhood, without electricity or running water. Transportation consisted of small carts and dilapidated horse-drawn carriages, with the kids hanging off the sides to get from one place to the other. In his youth lice, bedbugs, and tuberculosis were rampant. But he used to say that he was happy then; protected by the ignorance of childhood, he knew how to get past circumstances. He looked at Recasens with hatred.

  “If I want to get you out of the way, I don’t need to send you to Russia. Any alley will do.”

  Pedro Recasens clenched his fists in the pockets of his jacket. He was sorry he hadn’t brought a tape recorder.

  “Then I’ll watch my back, Congressman. But if the Russians and the Nazis couldn’t finish me off, I doubt your second-rate thugs can. And I also doubt that you’d dare to do anything to the lawyer…” Publio pretended not to understand. Recasens smiled wearily. Those absurd games wore him out. “We know that you sent a message to María Bengoechea; the same way you’ve been sending messages for years to César Alcalá to keep his mouth shut in prison. Why are you afraid that María can break the pact of silence you have with the inspector?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Publio, raising the glass to his lips.

  Pedro Recasens grabbed his wrist tightly, stopping him. A few drops of liquor splattered onto the congressman’s jacket.

  “You know perfectly well what I’m talking about, you son of a bitch,” murmured Recasens through his teeth. “I’m talking about the inspector’s daughter. I know you have her. She’s your guarantee. But she won’t be forever: dead or alive, I will find her. And then there will be nothing to keep the inspector from revealing what you’ve been doing since you ordered the murder of Isabel Mola, which you pinned on his father. It doesn’t matter if you threaten me, Publio; every day that passes you get weaker, your power lessens, and you will be left alone. And there I’ll be, waiting for you.”

  Publio was about to lose his composure and shout at the damn upstart, who, in his eyes, was still the same recruit that perjured himself against Marcelo Alcalá, but he held himself back, aware that dozens of eyes were on him. He got Recasens’s hand off his wrist and wiped the drops on his jacket with his thumb.

  “Those drops of my whiskey are more valuable than all the pints of blood that run through your dead man’s veins, Colonel.”

  Recasens went past Publio and looked out at the garden. How naive and distant the grainy shadows that filtered through the panes seemed. He heard the children playing, the happy barks of a German shepherd. He heard the muffled murmur of the gardener trimming the front of the parterre. It looked like the living image of happiness. Nobody could imagine that beyond that neighborhood, buried beneath the stench, was another, different world.

  The only dissonant note in that picture, the only crack that broke down that lie, were the men stationed outside the window. Two enormous masses of muscle with furrowed brows, tight clothes with lumps in them that were obviously guns. Don Publio’s bodyguards.

  * * *

  That night in the former estate of the Mola family, in spite of the cold, the servant girl opened the window a bit to air out the stuffy parlor. From the garden came in a scent of recently mowed grass. Publio, who presided over the meeting, couldn’t avoid longing, there surrounded by olive trees, to be immersed again in growing his vegetables and flowers. Soon, when everything had been completed, he would be able to retire for good. But now, what he had to do was stick to the facts, focus on the preparations so that everything would go according to plan.

  Juan García Carrés was explaining to those gathered that his secretary had already agreed on the purchase of the buses that would bring Tejero and his men to the congress. A hard-line Falangist, he was the only civilian at the meeting. His black suit and bow tie gave him away, as if it were a business dinner. Publio was annoyed by his smug appearance and his mustache that looked like it belonged on a Mexican actor, and the fact that he never stopped sweating and wiping his brow with a wrinkled handkerchief.

  The other duties were solemnly distributed: Lieutenant Colonel Tejero would be the one to go into the congress. In spite of the fact that he had been arrested in 1978 for the attempted kidnapping of Suárez and his ministers with the help of Captain Ynestrillas, i
n the so-called Operación Galaxia, he seemed the most devoted to the cause.

  Yet the main role was to be carried out by a man with a kindly, focused look, who was circumspectly listening at the end of the table. Alfonso Armada Comyn had been the king’s tutor, when he was still the prince, as well as secretary of the royal house. His presence ensured that the other military governors believed that the monarch supported the coup attempt.

  In an aside, the captain general of Valencia, Jaime Milans del Bosch, discussed the intervention of the battleships with the heads of the Brunete division: Luis Torres Rojas, José Ignacio San Martín, and Ricardo Pardo Zancada.

  Somewhat removed from all of them was Lorenzo, conversing in whispers with a superior, dressed in plainclothes, whom everyone addressed amicably as José Luis. He was an intelligent-looking man, with a pointy nose and badly receding hairline that extended his forehead. His hands held the strings that moved the secret service, although nobody knew in exactly which direction.

  They agreed that the day for the coup would be February 23 at 18:00 hours, timed with the vote for the investiture of the new president, Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo. The men gathered were plotting for success without bloodshed. The group that called themselves the Almendros toasted somberly for the success of their endeavor.

  Toward the end of the meeting, a butler came over to Publio and handed him a folded note. The congressman put on his glasses to read it. He clenched his jaw and left discreetly.

  On the porch of the house, Ramoneda was waiting for him.

  * * *

  “What are you doing here?” scolded Publio with irritation.

  Ramoneda was smoking with a somewhat cocky air. He sent a mouthful of smoke upward, as he leaned on a column.

  “You said you wanted to see me, so here I am.”

  Publio felt the nape of his neck growing red. He mumbled something unintelligible, shifting his attention to the inside of the house, from which emerged some lively conversation.

  “Did you think I meant you should show up at my house when it’s filled with guests?”

  He had many enemies, too many at this point to allow himself a slip-up. Besides, that very morning, Publio had had a bitter conversation with Aramburu, the director general of the civil guard, warning the congressman against any illegal activity. The closer the date got, the more difficult it was to make plans in secret. Sabino, the current head of the royal household, also was suspecting something, as was the chief of general staff, Gabeiras. Given the precarious circumstances surrounding the plan, any error could finish off the coup before it even started. And that was unacceptable to him, completely unacceptable. He needed to think, make decisions quickly. There was no longer any going back.

  “I want you to take care of something very urgent.” He grabbed a piece of paper from his pocket, wrote something hastily, and handed it to Ramoneda.

  Ramoneda smiled insolently. That was a challenge of the highest order, but he was flattered by the confidence with which Publio entrusted him to the task.

  “This is going to cost you. I charge more for night work and a bonus for the extra effort.”

  Publio looked at Ramoneda irascibly.

  “You haven’t even filled your part of the other assignment I gave you: César Alcalá is still alive.”

  “Not for long.”

  “Listen up, you fucking psychopath. Do what I tell you, and I’ll line your pockets with gold. Fail me, and I’ll smother you in your own shit. And now get out of here.”

  When he returned to the room, no one noticed Publio’s mood except Lorenzo. He inconspicuously moved aside the curtain and saw Ramoneda heading off, unmistakable in his cheap pimp’s suit and with that hyena’s smile on his face.

  “What’s he doing here?” he asked Publio, approaching him discreetly.

  The congressman gave him a withering look.

  “Doing what you should have done, which is what I pay you for.”

  Lorenzo swallowed hard. He had a bad feeling.

  “I’m doing my part of the bargain. I went to see César Alcalá in prison, I gave him the note from his daughter, and I warned him to keep me informed when he spoke with María. And I know that he hasn’t said anything important about what he knows about us.”

  Publio shook his head. He detested Lorenzo as much as most of his hired mercenaries. Really, he didn’t know whom he could trust anymore. Now that whole plan of mixing up the lawyer lady with César Alcalá seemed absurd. He’d thought that she could find out where Alcalá was hiding the evidence against him that he’d gathered over the years. He trusted that Alcalá’s grudge and María’s inexperience would do the rest. But at the moment nothing had come of it yet.

  But now he had a much more serious problem.

  “This afternoon your boss came to see me. He knows we have Marta.”

  “He only suspects. He has no proof,” said Lorenzo, who wasn’t entirely sure of that. Recasens didn’t tell him everything.

  Publio squinted his eyes. What was being proposed was risky, he thought, watching the head of the CESID, who chatted in an aside with Armada. It was risky, but it had to be done, he told himself, cursing himself for not having finished off Recasens forty years earlier, when he was just a frightened recruit. Now it was going to be much more difficult.

  But he had faith in Ramoneda.

  17

  Barcelona Port, January 16–17, 1981

  A boy wandered among the rusty hulls of the merchant ships abandoned on an isolated pier of the port; he jumped like a circus monkey from one cargo crane to the next, amid the foul water, trying to fish carp, huge fish that were to the sea what rats were to garbage dumps. Nobody ever paid any attention to him, which was to be expected. The company of his dog was enough for him; a flea-ridden mutt, with a skittish green gaze, who accompanied him on all his adventures.

  All of a sudden the dog lifted his ears. He started to run. The boy followed, shouting at him, but the dog didn’t stop until he reached a dark passageway created by stacked containers, and he growled, the hair on his back standing on end.

  “What’s wrong?” asked the boy, trying to drill through the darkness of that passageway. Suddenly, he lowered his eyelids and leaned his neck forward. His mouth opened in surprise; he turned and ran in fear.

  All that could be seen were the corpse’s bare feet, sticking out from beneath a blanket. They were ugly hairy feet, with twisted toes and thick calluses on the heels. They had no toenails, just lumps of dried blood where the toenails had once been. The smell was nauseating.

  * * *

  “Cadavers always smell the same. Like dead dogs,” said Inspector Marchán to himself, spitting onto the ground. He lit a cigarette, protected from the rain beneath a black umbrella. Dried spittle marked the corners of his lips. He pointed with the tip of his cigarette at the corpse’s deformed toes. “Uncover him.”

  The inspector’s assistant took off the blanket with a quick motion, and it made an arc in the air, like a matador’s two-handed pass.

  The dead man was lying on his side in a puddle, partially naked and totally mutilated. From the shape of the bones they could tell his shoulders were dislocated and his knees were broken. Where his testicles should have been there was just a big dark stain.

  “They might have thrown him from up there,” said the inspector’s assistant, pointing to the thick metal wall down which slid a layer of dirty water. It rose several yards over their heads.

  Marchán said nothing. He leaned forward a little and illuminated the bloody body and face with his flashlight. Tiny insects crawled through the mouth cavity, as if peeking into a well they didn’t dare to enter. The cadaver’s expression was terrible, as if he had anticipated the incredible certainty of his own death. It was clear that the poor wretch had fought for his life. The forensic doctor would have to certify it, but the inspector suspected that not all the blood and flesh trapped under the dead man’s nails was his. Perhaps that fierce resistance had fed the brutality of his killer or kil
lers.

  “Who did this to you? Why?” he said without emotion. He moved the body without any qualms. Flipped over like a sack, the corpse was the verification, not metaphysical in the least, that death was merely the absence of life. For Marchán, the dead all had the same expression. Their noses curved like an eaglet, and their eyes sank inward, as if searching for refuge in the very darkness that drew near. He didn’t find anything religious or mystical in a lifeless body. Dust, miasmas, decomposing feces, and a horrible stench. It didn’t matter if the dead were rich or poor, soldiers ripped open by a bayonet, or civilians blown apart by a bomb. Men, children, old folks, women … they all turned into something sad and dusty. That was what he had learned in those years of dirty work. He knew from experience that this case, like so many other anonymous deaths, might never be solved, no matter what the statistics say. Statistics were fodder for idiots. And he wasn’t one, he told himself with a cynical smile.

  Marchán was a cynic. At least, that was what those who thought they knew him said, and they were actually a select few. Also unflappable, extremely distant, with a constant twisted smile on his face.

  Yet that night, approaching the sunken chin of the dead man, he murmured something that sounded strange coming from his mouth.