“Who else is home?” he asked, not bothering to hide his intentions. They were all adults in this game; he didn’t have to make chitchat and waste time pretending.
Lorenzo stood firm in the middle of the living room. He avoided the reflex of shifting his gaze toward the bathroom, which was right behind Ramoneda’s back.
“My wife was here a minute ago. You might have passed each other in the elevator. I told her to leave. I don’t want her to see this.”
See this. What a strange way to refer to his own death, thought Ramoneda, convinced that what Lorenzo said was true. He wasn’t stammering, and he was curiously calm.
“María helped César escape from the hospital,” he said.
Lorenzo didn’t try to act surprised or pretend that he didn’t know. He had found out just a few hours earlier about the escape. He would have preferred that María had taken his advice and fled. But deep down he admired her for the stupid perseverance in saving that inspector and his daughter.
Ramoneda ran a hand over the living room’s polished marble table, admiring the quality of the furniture, the perfection of the paintings hung symmetrically on the walls, the smell of the lavender air freshener, the immaculate porcellanato tile floor whose surface reflected like a still sea. Soon he too would be able to rest in a place like this. He felt the temptation to ask Lorenzo how he did it, this being rich; what made a person respectable and tasteful? But instead he asked him where María was hiding with Inspector Alcalá. He wasn’t surprised that Lorenzo said he didn’t know. It could be true. It didn’t matter. That wasn’t why he had come.
He pulled out his semiautomatic pistol from his belt. It was a beautiful weapon, a 9 mm Walther that fit his hand like a glove. He felt good, complete, when he wielded it. He felt bad having to stain those nice linen curtains and the immaculate floor. It was a dirty image in such perfect order.
Just then a shot rang out. Both men looked at each other in surprise. Lorenzo stumbled and fell to the right, onto the table. A slow trail of blood started to spread across the marble. Ramoneda touched his face. Lorenzo’s blood had splattered onto him. And yet he hadn’t shot him. Ramoneda turned around and discovered a woman brandishing a weapon but not pointing it at him. She looked at Lorenzo’s lifeless body as if in a catatonic state. She dropped the gun to the ground and looked at Ramoneda with nothing in her eyes.
Ramoneda felt confused. Then he noticed the bruises on the woman’s body, her swollen eye. And he understood what had happened. She hadn’t missed her mark. That woman had killed her husband.
He didn’t blame her for it. She had the right to her revenge. And to her rest. He approached her slowly and caressed the woman’s defenseless face. He aimed at her head and blew her brains out.
29
On the outskirts of Barcelona, that same night
Inevitably it was one of those strange and marvelous nights. Looking up at the dome of stars, one felt neurotic, small, part of something so vast that it transcended the very limits of comprehension.
Sitting in the back of the car, Fernando tried to forget for a minute what he knew and who he was, lifting his head toward those tiny fires that twinkled in the vastness. Perhaps someone was looking toward Earth at this very moment when he was looking at the stars. And between the two gazes there were hundreds of thousands of miles of silence. For a moment, he imagined that was death. The end of thinking, suffering, and enjoying. Forgetting good and evil and wandering forever in that magma of elusive lights that floated above his head. Perhaps in that immense sea of stars and unexplored cosmic bodies existed that which they called God. How could he explain his voyage through this life to Him? Would he complain like a spoiled child about his luck? Would he tell Him of his father’s hatred, or the wars, or prisoners’ camps? Would he uselessly lament a wasted life? He imagined the face of the Great Being listening to him somewhat incredulously, surely with a touch of sarcasm. And he could also imagine his response. Among all the possible options of existence, he had chosen one. So the guilt, if one could call it guilt, was only his.
He then looked toward the house with the blue roof tiles that could be seen through the sycamores. He remembered that house dressed in spring tones, the ionic columns crowned with ferns, the Greek sculptures, the gardens with noisy fountains. For years he spied on Andrés’s walks along the estate’s paths crowded with leaves. He could have been happy there with his brother. They could have chosen another life, surely. And they didn’t. Neither of them. And now, that house was like a monument erected to its own ruin. Nothing was left of the old family glory or the moments lived in it. It was cracking everywhere and seemed to be waiting for a last push, a short burst of wind to collapse and bury the last vestiges of that accursed family beneath the rubble.
He didn’t see any movement or any lights anywhere in the house. But Fernando knew that Andrés was there, somewhere in the mansion, wandering around like the ghost of a king without a kingdom. And he knew that the girl was with him. He had known it for too long. And he had done nothing to stop him. How could he betray his brother, after causing the fire that had left him forever dead in life, after leaving him to his fate? But wasn’t that just what he was going to do this time? Beside him was the old katana that Gabriel had forged for Andrés when he was a boy. He got out of the car and walked with it toward the gate’s entrance. He wasn’t afraid of Publio’s men discovering him. He had seen them leave stealthily half an hour earlier. He knew what that meant. The congressman was abandoning his brother to his fate. But he wouldn’t. This time would be different.
He delicately stroked the katana’s single-edged blade. He sheathed it in a rotating movement, bringing the blade upward with both hands, in the traditional way. It was a magnificent, elegant weapon, intended to sever more than hit. He knew every detail of its anatomy: the temper of the blade, its length, and the groove that absorbed and distributed the tension of the impact. In the part of the blade that entered the hilt he could see Gabriel’s signature, a small dragon biting its tail, like the ornamental metal pieces on one side of the handle. Slowly, like the whistle of a snake, he introduced the blade into the magnolia wood and bamboo sheath.
During those years in hiding, he had studied and read about his brother’s interests. He needed to understand why Andrés felt that apparently absurd fascination for the world of the samurai. And without realizing, he too had gotten ensnared in the fascinating web of almost liturgical rites, oriental books, and strict rules for living. He ended up memorizing the code of the Bushido. It was true that the first of the seven principles of the The Way of the Warrior demanded honor and fairness. But not the fairness that derived from others, as he later understood when Recasens died, but his own. The world confused him with its sense of good and evil, with forgiveness and remorse, distorting its true nature. But there were no shades. There was only right and wrong.
He was no longer afraid to act, nor did he plan on hiding like a turtle in its shell. That wasn’t living. Life was what he felt running through his veins, the value of accepting his impulses and following them. His mother was dead. His best friend was dead. His life was a big wound, like Andrés’s tortured body and his sick monster’s mind. And he could only heal the wound by giving back pain for pain. An offense could be ignored, unknown, or forgiven. But it could never be forgotten. And Fernando had a good memory. And finally, he had come to understand what true vengeance is, how he could definitively close the circle opened forty years earlier.
A car advanced slowly along the path with its headlights off. It stopped beside Fernando’s vehicle.
* * *
María took out the key, and the engine quieted. The silence grew more intense.
“Is it him?” asked César Alcalá beside her. He was staring at the silhouette that stood in front of the gate to the house. He couldn’t see his face hidden beneath the shadows.
“Yes. It’s Fernando. But before meeting him, you should know something important.” She needed to talk to the inspector. She
had needed to since she had picked him up at the parish church and Alcalá had handed her the evidence against Publio.
“What’s so important?”
“I feel the need for you to forgive me … I know it is difficult to understand now, but I need to know that you forgive me.”
César Alcalá listened seriously.
“I know how you feel.”
María shook her head.
“You don’t know, César,” she said with resignation. No one can ever understand things from outside. María had tried to put herself in her father’s shoes, understand why he had sold Isabel out, but she couldn’t do it. She tried to find reasons to justify what she herself had done to the inspector, and she pretended to do it, accepting arguments that were reasonable or convincing. But it was only a theoretical comprehension, never a full one.
But César Alcalá understood her, even though she didn’t believe it. Not even now, when he had his daughter in arm’s reach, was he able to forget the past. It would always be there. He had seen and suffered things that were unspeakable, that would always be there hiding in nightmares. None of them would ever be the same again.
“There are scars that never heal, María. But we have to keep going with what we are. You don’t have to ask for forgiveness; that’s of no use. You just have to keep going; that’s all there is to do.”
There was a tense silence. María contemplated the house and Fernando with a question in her eyes.
“This might all come off badly,” she said.
“It will work out,” Alcalá reassured her, with a different determination.
María breathed deeply. She almost seemed relieved, as if a terrible uncertainty had been lifted from her.
“Okay, then. Let’s go.”
They got out of the car. César let out a groan of pain and brought his hand to his stomach. María had helped him to bandage the open wound, but it kept bleeding. Sooner or later he would have to go to a hospital. But that meant they would have him in custody again, and he was unwilling to allow that.
They walked slowly toward the house. Fernando turned toward them and waited, scrutinizing their faces. When the three were face-to-face, they observed each other suspiciously. In one hand Fernando carried the katana. In the other, María held the bag with the evidence incriminating Publio of several crimes committed in the last ten years.
Fernando paid special attention to César Alcalá.
“You don’t recognize me?”
César nodded without enthusiasm. He barely remembered having seen the elder Mola son a couple of times as a child. His father was Andrés’s tutor, and Fernando was almost ten years older than his brother. Fernando was barely ever in the Almendralejo estate when César accompanied his father to classes at Guillermo’s house. Yet in his changed, aged face César could make out traces of the arrogance and complacency of those people always used to giving orders and being obeyed without a word. Luckily, times had changed. César was no longer the frightened son of a rural teacher who earned a paltry wage for educating the master’s younger son, and it didn’t look like things had gone too well for Fernando over the years.
“What do you know about my daughter?” he asked in a threatening and impatient tone.
Fernando looked at the sheathed katana and then addressed María.
“You haven’t told him?”
María knew what he was referring to. Perhaps she had held on to the hope that the old man had decided to move on. But she understood that it was too much to expect. It was stupid to believe that after so many years waiting, Fernando would relinquish the pleasure of revenge.
“I haven’t told him anything.”
Fernando nodded, calibrating the situation. There was something about María that made him feel guilty and dirty, as if she reflected back his mean, twisted side. What could it matter now that César knew that it was her father who had killed Isabel? The important thing was that he already knew that Marcelo was innocent. Recasens had taken care of that.
“What is it I need to know?” asked César. But neither María nor Fernando answered him. The old man and the woman looked at each other with the look of those in possession of a truth that they tacitly decide will never be revealed.
“Is that the documentation against Publio that you’ve gathered all those years? It must be very important for the congressman to be willing to kill us all.”
“It is,” said María, holding out the bag to him. “I’ve reviewed the file. There are tape recordings, sworn declarations, material evidence of at least four murders, a fraud case, several corruption cases, and conclusive evidence that Publio was implicated in the coup attempt of ’78, and that he’s involved in the one that will happen soon if no one does anything to stop it.”
Fernando was satisfied. But to María’s and César’s surprise he didn’t take the bag; instead he had her drop it on the ground.
“Listen, María: I want you to take this tomorrow morning to Inspector Marchán. I know you don’t trust him, but I’ve checked him out. Tell him to give it to Judge Gonzalo Andrés, of the First Military Court. He is a friend of mine, and he was a friend of Pedro Recasens. He’s up to speed on all of this, and he’s the only one willing to immediately open an investigation. If necessary, he will even ask for a letter rogatory from the Supreme Court to arrest the congressman.”
Then Fernando turned toward César Alcalá. His face was severe and inscrutable, almost stone, like that of an aristocrat about to give instructions to a serf to empty his chamber pot. Yet Fernando’s lip trembled for a second, filled with emotion, and his pupils shone. How much unnecessary pain had that family suffered, he thought. Luckily, the shadows of the night veiled his emotions, only revealing a dry command that allowed for no hesitation.
“You, Inspector, will wait here while the lawyer and I go into the house.”
César protested angrily, but Fernando waited patiently for him to stop recriminating him. He repeated the same order without getting upset.
“Under no condition are you to enter that house. Wait here if you want to see your daughter again. This is not negotiable.”
César Alcalá clenched his fists in rage. That old man knew where his daughter was; he said he knew. Was Marta in that ghostly house? And he expected him, when his daughter was in reach, to wait impassively for Fernando and María to bring her to him? But María touched his arm and took him to one side, making him see reason. Fernando was the one holding all the cards, and while they were seeing where this whole thing led, the best thing was to follow his orders. Still, they agreed that if she and Fernando hadn’t come back out in twenty minutes, he should come in to find them.
Fernando accepted, although in his heart of hearts he knew that it wasn’t necessary. He wasn’t going to allow that desperate father to find his daughter in Andrés’s clutches. God only knew what state the girl would be in, if she were still alive, and he didn’t plan on letting that cop take revenge on his brother.
The old man and María pushed the gate until the rusty door gave. César Alcalá closed his eyes tightly as they disappeared into the shadows of the yard.
* * *
A lit candle stub swayed on a corner of a low table, in front of which Andrés Mola was on his knees, with his hands relaxed on his thighs and his eyes closed, his back completely straight. The candlelight came and went like a wave, tracing the dry edges of his body. The rest of the room was dark, isolated from the world, from noise, from life.
He heard the sound of hinges. He went over to the window from which he could see the yard and looked through the planks that covered it. Beside the sycamore path there were two cars with their lights off. Someone was pacing around like a caged animal and suddenly stopped and looked right at that very window, as if he knew someone was spying on him.
“Guards!” he shouted, running toward the dark hallway of the house. Supposedly, Publio’s men were there to protect him, ready to take care of any intruder who came near to snoop. But there was nobody anywhe
re in the house. He ran through the rooms calling them; he went up to the third floor and down to the basement. They had abandoned him. He heard noise in the boiler room. Someone was tearing off the wooden planks that locked him in. He heard voices, more than one. He even thought he could make out a woman’s voice. And the man’s was vaguely familiar.
He ran upstairs to his bedroom. He searched through the boxes where he kept his most precious belongings until he found what he was looking for. He smiled with satisfaction, hid the object in his kimono, and stood up, moving his head from right to left, overcome with growing excitement. Finally, the day he had been waiting for had arrived. He no longer had to hide. If his enemies had found him, it was the moment to face them with honor.
But first there was one thing left to do. He went to the room next door. He pushed open the door and planted himself in the threshold. Seeing him, Marta withdrew into a corner like a shadow.
“Get up,” Andrés ordered.
Marta lifted her eyes with a question hanging in her pupils. Something moved for a moment inside Andrés, who shifted his gaze toward the covered window. The night was cold and clear. The wind howled as it slipped through the slots between the wood.
“Are you going to kill me?” the girl stuttered.
Andrés didn’t answer. He lifted her violently by the shoulders. The girl’s body was light. She was filthy and bloodied and gave off a bad smell. He opened the ring that attached her to the wall, and the chain fell heavily against the floor. Marta was so weak and scared that she staggered, and he had to hold her up so she wouldn’t lose her balance. He stripped her of the rag that her nightgown had become.
“What’s all this about?” asked the girl.
Andrés looked daggers at her. Maybe Marta knew that he had been a monster. She didn’t understand that a person without respect was like a house in ruins. It has to be torn down to be rebuilt. He had no reason to be cruel; he didn’t need to gratuitously show his strength. He had kept her alive all those years, he had fed her, hoping for a gesture on her part, a sign that would allow him to be less strict and more compassionate with her, but Marta hadn’t shown any remorse for her grandfather’s crime; in fact, she had profaned the memory of his mother, vomiting the day he let her into his sanctuary. He didn’t expect to get her respect for his strength or fierceness, but for his way of treating her. But Marta had dishonored him. And no one, except him, was a competent judge to impose the sentence that the inspector’s daughter deserved. A man is the reflection of the decisions he makes and the determination with which he carries them out. When he decided to do something, it was as if it was already done. That night nothing was going to keep Marta Alcalá’s head from rolling at his feet.
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