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

by Victor del Arbol

  César sat on the last bench to the right, beside a metal cabinet where candles were lined up for sale along with some pamphlets for charities like Cáritas and Medicus Mundi. Next to the seats there were small missals, their covers wrapped in plastic. He picked one up and opened it to a random page.

  “Blessed are those who suffer and forgive, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” he read. For a minute he stared at those words printed on cheap paper. Suffering, forgiveness. It was all easy when you stripped away the passion. Maybe, when Jesus said those words collected in the Gospel of John, he meant them. He closed the missal and looked at the image of Christ, who appeared like a strange being, foreign to everything except his own crucifixion.

  “Was it easy for you to forgive? Did you just accept the suffering others inflicted on you? Surely you didn’t lose a wife or a daughter. You were destined to be a victim; you looked for it and you found it … But what about me? I didn’t want to be adored on a cross; I only wanted to live in peace with my loved ones.”

  He heard the priest’s footsteps approach, and he felt ashamed of what he had just said. It was like going over to a friend’s house and disrespecting his family. But the priest hadn’t heard what he said, or simply chose not to.

  “Here you go. I hope what’s inside is worth it, because I sense that this is the reason behind all your troubles.”

  César Alcalá took the small canvas bag that the priest had kept in the sacristy for five years. He was sure that Father Damiel hadn’t opened it or told anyone that he had it. Convinced of his trustworthiness, Alcalá had handed it over to him shortly before he was arrested for the Ramoneda case. Father Damiel never asked him what was in it. He didn’t now, either. The old man sat beside him looking at the altar. Alcalá could hear his breathing in those four walls. The priest closed his eyes for a moment. Perhaps he was praying, or perhaps he was meditating on what he was about to say. Alcalá respected his silence and didn’t move, even though María would soon be arriving.

  “I would have liked to visit you in jail,” the priest said finally, looking forward, as if he weren’t talking to the inspector, but to the Jesus twisted like a log, whose profile was barely visible through the candles.

  “It’s better this way, Father. I didn’t want anyone to link you to me; it would have put you in danger. Besides, you already get enough suffering in here; you don’t need to go to a prison to find more.”

  The parish priest put a hand on top of César’s. It was a knotted, rough, honest hand. The hand of a father who sees his beloved son heading off down an uncertain path where he can’t accompany him.

  “Life isn’t fair to us: we look for consolation for what can’t be consoled, explanations for the inexplicable, justification for the unjustifiable. There is no reason in madness, nor logic in the heart poisoned by life. I’ve asked myself why good men are the ones who most suffer the pain of losing their loved ones, betrayal, abandonment, and humiliation. I have asked our Lord … But this old priest hasn’t found any answer. I hope you find your daughter, and God wants you to be able to forgive the damage your wife did to you when she left you alone with this guilt; I even pray for you to find the strength that makes you forget those who have hurt you so much. But I don’t see forgiveness in your eyes. Only disenchantment and vast weariness … Take that bag, do what you have to do, and then try to start again. Maybe you’ll have more luck this time. Forget vengeance, César. And not because vengeance is a sin, but because in it you won’t find consolation or an answer. And take care of that wound; it doesn’t look good. If the police ask me, I’ll tell them that I haven’t seen you.”

  When César Alcalá went out, he saw that María’s car was parked on a corner with the lights off. He made sure that no one had followed him, and he crossed the street with the canvas bag in his hand. Before he got into the car he turned toward the church. The light on the upper floor was turned out. But the inspector knew that there inside someone was praying for him.

  28

  Sant Cugat (on the outskirts of Barcelona), the morning of February 13, 1981

  He liked the housing developments on the upper edge of the city. They were austere, clean, ordered, and calm. The rows of leafless trees and art-nouveau houses with their tall fences carpeted with vines gave his mind a stability that helped him think clearly. It was as if the inhabitants of those mansions had everything as clear as their place in the world. Those people didn’t seem to be searching for anything or worried about the future or the meaning of their lives. Everything about them seemed safe from turbulence, and nothing outside of their lives got them ruffled. Ramoneda knew the upper classes well enough to know that all of this was just an appearance. But he didn’t care; at this moment he needed this silence and that monastic peace.

  The sun irritated the ocher tones of the house he stopped in front of. It was a building at least a hundred years old, surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. He took his time, observing the iron filigrees that crowned it. He pushed the gate that was ajar. Just then the doorman of the estate came out to meet him. He was an arrogant lackey, like a big trained dog content to serve his great masters. He proudly wore his uniform with golden buttons.

  “May I help you?”

  Ramoneda was used to the looks of scorn. The doorman smiled smugly, aware of his place as a sentinel. He smoked and expelled the smoke gently through his nose. His nose was thin and straight, bordered with little red veins, tiny burst blood vessels in the shape of a tree. His eyes were a vague color, somewhere between blue and green, handsome. The uniform’s pale shirt was flattering on him, and the jacket widened his back. Ramoneda thought of the pleasure he would feel smashing his face against a rock.

  “I’ve come to see the congressman.”

  The doorman approached carefully. He observed him attentively and said he didn’t remember having seen him there before. And he never forgot a face, or an assignment from his master, who had expressly prohibited his granting access to strangers.

  “But I’m not a stranger. Don Publio is expecting me.”

  The doorman didn’t blink. If that was the case, he wouldn’t mind giving his name, and the doorman would call up to the master’s residence to announce his visit. Meanwhile, he could wait there. In the street.

  Ten minutes later, Publio showed up, visibly upset. He spoke with the doorman for a second and went out to the street, grabbing Ramoneda by the elbow without looking at his face.

  “What are you doing here!” he exclaimed, forcing him to walk.

  “You said that if something important happened, I should let you know,” replied Ramoneda, lifting his head toward the windows of the house. The doorman was watching them.

  “Let’s take a walk,” answered Publio, somewhat more relaxed once they left the estate. Nevertheless, as they walked along the sidewalk he turned several times, as if he feared they were being followed. A street sweeper pushed dead leaves indolently with a rake. Even his presence, apparently harmless, shook Publio up.

  “What are you playing at, moron?” spat out Publio to Ramoneda, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. “I don’t want anyone seeing you lurking around my house or being able to link you to me.”

  Ramoneda didn’t try to pretend convincingly. There was no time for niceties.

  “I don’t like you treating me like a stinky dog, no matter how well you pay me or how powerful you are. So watch your mouth and your manners, if you want to hear what I have to say: César Alcalá escaped from the hospital last night. I hired someone to get rid of him in jail, but it seems he was unsuccessful. They transferred him to the Clínico, and he ran away at night.”

  The congressman went pale. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and leaned against the trunk of a giant banana tree.

  “How is that possible?”

  Ramoneda held his gaze for a few seconds.

  “The lawyer lady helped him. I told you that woman couldn’t be trusted. It would have been better to kill her, like we did
with Recasens. And there’s something more. Lorenzo met up with her, and I’m almost convinced that he told her the plans you have. That faggot is about to crack. He’s going to betray you.”

  Publio thought quickly. He had ordered Lorenzo to take care of that meddling lawyer, but it was clear that this jerk hadn’t followed his orders. He had betrayed him, and, in these moments, betrayal was the worst of crimes. There was no time to act cautiously. Publio had to take the initiative before César Alcalá decided to go to some judge or some journalist with the evidence he had against him. The congressman was the pillar that held up the scaffolding of the coup attempt. Everyone hesitated and many wanted to turn back, but his iron will to continue forward kept them united. If he fell, it would all be a failure.

  He searched for a piece of paper in his wallet and pulled out his fountain pen. He jotted something down quickly.

  “We’ve lost too much time. It’s time to cut this out at the root. Go to this address. It’s a house you’ll find near the Tibidabo overlook. You can’t miss it. It looks abandoned, but it’s not. Wait until night falls; the house is guarded over by men in my service, but I’ll have them leave discreetly so as not to raise suspicions. There you’ll find two people: one is Alcalá’s daughter; the other is Andrés Mola. Kill them both, and burn the bodies so they are unrecognizable.”

  Ramoneda said nothing, but his eyes smiled. He hardly blinked. Nobody had said that it would ever end. People like him were always needed. And he would comply to the letter, no matter who was hurt by it.

  “So it’s true; that crispy critter is still alive and has the girl. I always suspected it. He must have had a ball with Alcalá’s daughter … I knew that I should have demanded more money for that job. But it’s never too late. My complicity has a price that just went up, Congressman. I think I’m the only one you can still trust.”

  Suddenly, Publio’s fist slammed violently into the mouth of Ramoneda, who stumbled but didn’t fall. Publio grabbed him by his slicked-back hair and pulled him toward his knee, hitting him again with surprising agility. Lightning fast, he pulled out a sharp blade and held it up to Ramoneda’s Adam’s apple.

  “Look, you son of a bitch, don’t be fooled by appearances. I’m old, but I’ve spent a lifetime dealing with much more dangerous riffraff than you. I’m not a defenseless little woman or an inmate you can frighten. If you try to extort money from me again, I’ll gut you like a pig,” he growled, spitting into Ramoneda’s face.

  Publio slightly loosened the pressure of the blade against Ramoneda’s reddening neck. He knew that, for the moment, this loser was right. Ramoneda was the only person he could trust. He got up, wiping off the blood that had stained his cuff. The sudden flash of anger was robbing the air from his lungs.

  “I’ll pay you what we agreed on, but I want those two bodies charred. And I’ll remind you that María and César are still alive.”

  Ramoneda rubbed his neck. He touched his split lip and laughed. That harmless-looking old man had just given him a good thrashing. He wouldn’t forget it. He grabbed the paper that Publio gave him and put it away without looking at it. Faintly in his mind an idea took form, an idea he found increasingly more brilliant as it grew.

  “And what about Lorenzo?”

  Publio looked at Ramoneda as if he didn’t understand the question. Then he made an offhand gesture, as if suddenly remembering an insignificant detail.

  “Kill him.”

  * * *

  He got off the metro at the María Cristina station. When he went out into the street he was greeted by a gust of unpleasant wind that dragged drizzle along with it. He wanted to light a cigarette but couldn’t. He threw it down in disgust.

  The street was exquisitely dull. On both sides of a slight slope were lines of staircases with marble balustrades and small flowerbeds beside the varnished entrances to buildings. In the distance he saw the walls and gardens of the Pedralbes Palace.

  Ramoneda’s expression soured. He had never even dreamed of living in such a neighborhood. His type of place was El Carmelo, La Trinitat, or La Mina. But the present circumstances made him look at things with a different perspective. Why couldn’t he buy one of those two-thousand-square-foot penthouses and have his own lackey at the door dressed like a clown, like the congressman? Thanks to Publio, now he could live in an apartment in the upper part of the city, with marble railings and stupid dried flowers on the balconies. Maybe that luxury was completely ridiculous, pure show. But that wasn’t the only part of it that interested him; it wasn’t the order of the streets, the tension of the pedestrians, not the atmosphere of plenty and lethargy, like the air surrounding a sated lion as he naps. What really attracted Ramoneda was the feeling of power that oozed from the seams of the neighborhood, the certainty that there were different laws for its residents, and that “justice” was much laxer with them than with other mortals. Nothing, except they themselves, could hurt them or interfere in their lives. They were untouchable.

  He stopped at a building whose architectural style was sober and boring. A skyscraper from the seventies that had nothing to do with Porcioles’s development policy and everything to do with the dismal ostentation of a contained but clearly evident economic power. He checked the mailboxes outside: private offices of lawyers, gynecologists, psychiatrists, upper-middle-ranking civil servants. Ramoneda smiled to himself. Lorenzo was a guy with aspirations, but he still hadn’t reached the level of power that would allow him to move to a housing development like the one Publio lived in. Even there, among the winners, there were ghettos.

  He looked up toward the window of Lorenzo’s apartment. A woman, who seemed attractive, was looking out the window.

  * * *

  “There’s a stranger downstairs. He’s looking up here.”

  Lorenzo took his glassy gaze off his gin and lifted his head toward the window. Leaning on the wall, his wife pulled aside the Japanese panel curtain with her fingers and looked toward the street. She had bruises on her neck and shoulders that could be seen above her robe. She felt a shiver, a mix of contradictory feelings like fear and guilt.

  “What does he look like?” he asked without daring to get up off the sofa, glancing at the loaded pistol on the television shelf.

  His wife described the man she saw. There was no doubt that it was Ramoneda. Lorenzo tore at his hair. Everything was happening very quickly, he told himself, trying to calm the anxiety that was overwhelming him. He already knew that sooner or later Publio would send someone, as soon as he found out that María was still alive. Luckily he had gotten his son somewhere safe. He didn’t want him to be there when it happened. The intercom buzzed. A cold, brief tone announced the expected visit.

  The woman turned. There was no anguish or anxiety in her gaze. Just infinite weariness, so fed up that the feeling had become a permanent state of confusion. Her right eye was swollen, and she smoked with a slight trembling on her lips. She knew that Lorenzo hated cigarettes, and in other circumstances that gesture of rebellion would have meant a little more torture. But now nothing mattered to him anymore.

  “Do you want me to open the door?”

  Lorenzo observed the loop of bluish smoke that partially covered his wife’s face. He felt a deep irritation in his throat at her gesture of abandonment that blamed him wordlessly. That rebellion of hers, smoking in the house, choked him with rage. But what most bothered him was her challenging him now that she knew he was weak.

  The buzz came again, this time more insistently. Only now it was the upstairs doorbell. Some idiot neighbor or maybe that senile doorman had let him in downstairs.

  Lorenzo let out an almost inaudible moan, as if something deep inside of him had broken. There was no escape, not now. He could have taken his savings and fake passport out of the safe and fled when there was still time. But he hadn’t done it, convinced that a final gesture could redeem him in the eyes of María, his wife, and his son, even in his own eyes. A gesture of stoic bravery. Waiting for death on his feet. But now
that the moment had arrived, he felt the impulse to run and hide under the bed, to hug his wife’s bruise-covered legs and ask her to protect him. He could try to reason with that sadistic beast Ramoneda, ask Publio for forgiveness, beg him for another chance, but none of that would do him any good.

  “Should I open the door?” his wife asked again, looking at him with contempt, tempered by a compassionate smile that sweetened something in her haggard face.

  “I’ll open it,” said Lorenzo with a surprisingly confident voice. He got up calmly, and his steps involuntarily led him to the hallway. He was surprised to note that his legs weren’t shaking. Before opening the door, he turned to his wife and pointed to the television table. “Grab that gun and hide in the bathroom. It’s loaded. The only thing you need to do is wait for him to sit down. When I give you the signal, shoot him. It’s easy; remember what we practiced. All you have to do is press the trigger.”

  His wife stubbed out her cigarette in a cut-crystal ashtray. She grabbed Lorenzo’s weapon and looked at it as if it were an object foreign to her and her life, as if that piece of cold metal summed up all the lies of an existence she had imagined very differently. She had shot cans and pieces of wood in a quarry. Lorenzo had said she was good at it, and she’d felt a stupid pride in that skill. Now she would have to shoot a man. But in her heart of hearts she knew that it wouldn’t be any different than shooting an inanimate object. She went to the bathroom and sat down to wait with the door ajar, just enough to see what was going on in the living room.

  Lorenzo sighed heavily. He suddenly felt a strange calm, the almost absolute certainty that everything would turn out okay. His wife would be able to do her part of the plan. He opened the door, and in spite of knowing whom he was going to find there, he couldn’t help taking a step back with a contrite face.

  Ramoneda advanced into that space that Lorenzo ceded to him, like a chess pawn that goes straight for its opponent. He explored the house’s limits, and his gaze stopped on the smoking butt in the ashtray. He knew that Lorenzo didn’t smoke.