I hung the “Do Not Disturb” sign from the door handle and lay on my side of the bed on top of the bedspread. I took out my contact lenses, removed my shoes, covered myself with a blanket and slept like a baby. When I woke up it must have been about eleven in the morning. Sandra was still asleep. I changed my shirt and washed, making as little noise as possible. I didn’t want to have a shower in case I woke her. I left her a note next to the breakfast.
The cleaning cart was still in the passage and I asked the chambermaid not to do the room because I was tired and would be coming back upstairs straight away.
I tried to locate the Eel. I drove past Frida’s house at the time when she was supposed to be cleaning in Villa Sol. Elfe’s old car, which the Eel had been driving recently, wasn’t there. In any case, I waited for an hour at the corner with the main road, which anyone who lived around here had to use to get anywhere. I now understood that the Eel hadn’t wanted to hurt me in the supermarket car park that day. He’d wanted to warn me that it would be dangerous for Sandra if they saw us together, and was trying to convey the seriousness of the danger. He didn’t know that he could have got me out of the picture with one single slap. I wanted to know if he’d helped Sandra only out of love or if there was more to it than that. But what could be more than love?
Then again, I was uneasy. If they were going to look for Sandra, they’d end up linking my hotel room with her, so the sooner she left the better. I had to act fast and not ask her what she planned to do, but just get her a bus ticket for early in the morning when not so many people are travelling.
Sandra
I woke up with a start, as if someone had slapped me. It wasn’t Frida who’d put the ampoule in my bag. It was Fred and Karin, and they’d done it to get me even more caught in the trap they’d set for me, and they’d set it so I’d have no choice but to join the Brotherhood. They wanted me there because I was going to contribute a new being that they’d educate in their own image. My side hurt but I didn’t have a temperature any more. Now I only felt disoriented. Suddenly I didn’t know where I was. It was a hotel room. I closed my eyes again. It was Julián’s room and he wasn’t there. It was one thirty in the afternoon. I remembered hitting the ground when I fell, and the hospital. I was free now. I got up to go to the toilet and saw some breakfast on the table and a note from Julián telling me not to leave the room. I pulled the curtains back. What a beautiful terrace. You could see the rooftops and the line of the sea in the background. I opened the glass door and breathed deeply. I was wrapped in a very agreeable coolness, which quickly turned to cold. I drank a glass of water from a bottle I found and lay down again. Maybe I should stop worrying about life making no sense. There are some people who realize very early on that it makes no sense and only plan things in the short term. Others take longer and live in fantasy land for a while, as I’d done.
I’d been clinging to illusion right up to this very moment, but from now on I knew that reality depended on me. I couldn’t and didn’t want to go back to Villa Sol, yet I didn’t feel able to leave Dianium without seeing Alberto again, without asking him to leave this shitty Brotherhood to start a new life with me. And it pissed me off that my things, however few they were, should still be in the hands of the Norwegians. I would have preferred to throw them in a rubbish bin.
When I woke up again it was three o’clock. I was hungry. I ate the breakfast, showered and got dressed. I went out to get a breath of fresh air on the terrace. The adventure had really ended for me now. I had a terrible sensation that I wouldn’t be seeing Alberto again. It felt like one of those summer loves of adolescence that are locked into a month of holidays, unable to move, like the butterfly I’d had tattooed on my ankle.
Julián
Sandra was much better and even in good spirits. She’d had the breakfast I left for her in the room and was reclining on the bed calmly reading the newspaper. She said she’d heard steps by the door and feared that the chambermaid would come in.
“The longer you stay, the more insecure this place will be for you,” I told her. “I’ve got you a bus ticket for six tomorrow morning. Until then, you have to rest and get your strength back. Does it hurt where you hit yourself?”
“I feel a bit mangled, but that’s all,” she said pensively.
“There’s no going back now, Sandra. There’s nothing more for you to do here.”
“I’m not leaving without my things. At least I want my backpack. We left it in the garden with my money and documents in it, and I’ve got to return the motorbike. It’s not mine.”
“All that can be sorted out. You can get another identity card and the motorbike’s very old. It’s not worth the risk.”
“I’m not going to leave without anything,” she said, angry and determined. “I’m not going to let those two keep my things. They’ve lived off all the things they’ve stolen and they’re not going to steal from me.”
“It wouldn’t be because you want to see the Eel again?”
“If I could, I’d take Alberto too, but he has to decide that. He knows where to find me…”
Her tone suddenly became more melancholic, dreamier, as if the very name of the Eel bore her off to another world.
“I’ll go. I want to have a chat with Fredrik Christensen and this might be just the right time. If I don’t give any signs of life before tonight, put the alarm clock on when you go to bed and leave the hotel via the alternative route with enough time to walk to the bus station in case you don’t find a taxi. If that happens, forget about backpacks and anything else. Here’s twenty euros to cover your costs.”
“It’s very selfish of me. I’d never forgive myself if anything bad happened to you,” she said.
“Nothing’s going to happen, but you’ve always got to think the worst so you can have a Plan B.”
Sandra smiled at me, halfway between being in love with the Eel and being fearful for my physical well-being, apart from her worries about what was going to happen between now and tomorrow, and what would come next when she got back to her normal life.
I asked her if she was hungry and if she wanted me to bring her something to eat. She said she still had an apple and commented that she always seemed to be locked up somewhere lately.
The hours flew by until I decided the time was ripe for me to go to Villa Sol.
I parked right next to the gate of Villa Sol. Not a single soul could be heard behind the walls. A light shower of leaves sometimes fell down over them, sprinkling the street. It was getting dark and I rang the bell.
They asked who I was and I told the truth, that I was a friend of Sandra’s.
Fredrik came in person to open the gate. He didn’t open it wide, but just enough for us to see one another.
“I’ve come to collect Sandra’s things. She says she left a backpack in the garden, some things in her room and the motorbike in the garden.”
“Sandra,” he repeated, stalling for time so he could think. “Where is she? We are worried about her.”
“She’s fine. She’s left town.”
He peered at me. Now he recognized me.
I looked at him, unblinking.
“Yes, I’m the one in the photo, the one who’s been following you and the rest of you lot.”
He opened the gate to let me in and it automatically closed behind us. The garden was very pleasant. Swimming pool, reclining chairs around it, an arbour, a barbecue. Trees towering up to the sky, semi-wild plants, the smell of damp earth. We sat in some cast-iron chairs around a very pretty table and I knotted my cravat a bit tighter round my neck. He was more used to the cold and was in shirtsleeves.
“I know who you are,” I said, “and it’s better to leave Sandra out of it. She didn’t know anything about you till I told her.”
“She’s one of us now.”
“You know she’s not. Sandra will never be one of yours, or one of mine. She’s in the hands of the wind. It was pure chance that she came to this house.”
“Nothing
happens because of chance. She is with us. She is part of our life, and nothing and nobody is going to change that.”
Fredrik Christensen was a tough bastard, obstinate and with a disgusting air of superiority. He spoke holding his chin high, looking at me as if I were a cockroach.
“If you give me Sandra’s things and leave her alone, I won’t unmask you.”
“How can I be sure?”
I shuddered. Someone was watching us through the living-room windows. Karin, for sure.
“At our age, we’re never going to bring any of you to trial. At first, I was only thinking about revenge, but now I’m thinking of the future of people like Sandra.”
“You can’t fool me,” Fredrik said. “If anyone had done to me what we did to you, there’s no way I’d spare him.”
“Don’t forget that we’re very different. Besides you’re all going to die soon.”
He smirked to himself.
“I know something, a secret that you certainly don’t know,” I said.
Evidently, it took a lot for Christensen to feel the cold. He lounged in the chair, stretching his arms full length and letting the air caress him.
“You’re really that interested in the girl’s bits and pieces?”
“Bits and pieces or otherwise, they’re hers.”
“Well, if the secret’s worth it, I’ll give them to you.”
“It’s about the injections you people use.”
He was utterly disconcerted.
“I had their content analysed.”
“That’s impossible,” he asserted.
“In the laboratory they managed to extract a sample from some used syringes. I found them in a rubbish container.”
He didn’t in the least like what he was hearing.
“I can show you the results. You’ll be completely flabbergasted.”
“You’re in my hands now. If I want, you won’t get out of here alive.”
“Then you’ll never know the truth.”
“Tell me more.”
“It’s a very highly concentrated multivitamin compound, but at bottom it’s like plenty of others sold all over the place.”
“That is absolutely impossible,” he said, incredulous. “Karin improves when she has the injection.”
“You’re talking about the placebo effect. First she improves and then she gets worse. Don’t tell her the truth if it helps her. But it won’t prolong your lives. One of these days you’ll come down with pneumonia and you’ll never leave hospital, and Karin’s one step away from never getting out of a wheelchair.”
“You’re a bastard!”
“That’s neither here nor there. The main thing is that what I’m telling you is the pure truth. Take an ampoule and get it analysed if you don’t believe me. You might save yourself a fortune in jewels and works of art.”
He laboriously heaved his huge bony frame out of the chair and went inside. Karin remained spying on me through the windows until he came out. My backside was freezing on the cast-iron chair, but I didn’t move, didn’t think. I didn’t want to get distracted by thinking. I put up with the cold and stayed alert for half an hour. Great was my relief when I saw him coming out with the backpack in one hand and a travel bag of clothes in the other.
“Here you are,” he said. “I’ve taken the motorbike out of the garage and put it next to your car.”
I opened the backpack to make sure it contained the money Sandra had earned in this house. There were about three thousand euros, a magazine, her identity card and driving licence. I didn’t look in the other bag. What I’d seen was enough.
I had to stand up to get my hand into the back pocket of my trousers and pull out the folded sheet of paper with the results of the lab tests.
“Look at that. I’m not deceiving you. In any case you can confirm it for yourself.”
“You’re asking me to believe that these tests have been done on our ampoules. They could have been done on anything.”
“Think whatever you like but that’s the truth.”
I didn’t sit down again. While he was perusing the bit of paper, I took the backpack and the bag and headed off. It was difficult for me to open the gate from inside, but it gave in in the end and, once outside those walls, I felt so free I wanted to sing.
I had to go to the little house and convince the tenant to let me drive him up to El Tosalet so that he could bring the motorbike down. I had my work cut out trying to make him see that this was not some subtle plot of his ex-wife to get him killed on the road. I relaxed when at last I saw it chained up to the bougainvillea.
Before going back to the hotel, I went to buy a roast chicken and some chips. By the time I got to my floor, the lift stank of chicken.
I nervously put the card in the door. I didn’t know what might have happened during my absence. Maybe they’d come for her. Sandra! I called her name as soon as I closed the door. I clenched my teeth when there was no response. Not a peep.
Totally forlorn, in pain and crushed by the enemy, I put the backpack and bag of clothes on the bed. I was just going to check the bathroom before starting to search for her when she came in from the terrace.
“How did it go?”
Sandra will never know the happiness I felt. She came in from that terrace like the night that was closing in, like the dark-blue clouds that were streaming across the sky.
“Better than I imagined. Here are your things.”
“I’ve had a terrible time thinking about what might be happening to you in Villa Sol, and all because of some whim of mine.”
“I left the motorbike at the little house,” I said in response to her marvellous words.
Sandra
Julián lay on the bed fully dressed. He said he preferred to be ready in case we had to get out of there in a hurry, although I guessed it wasn’t only that.
“Get some rest. Don’t worry. I’ll wake you at five. I don’t sleep much.”
Julián gave me peace, so much peace that I slept like a log. When I felt him touching my arm, it seemed that I’d only gone to bed five minutes before.
“It’s time to go,” he said.
We sneaked out of the hotel, taking the alternative route at the bleakest hour of the day, when people are still sleeping and it’s neither night nor day.
There was time for him to have an espresso and me a milk coffee before I got on the bus. I asked him to give my address to Alberto. And then I waved goodbye from the window. He was wearing the jacket he’d bought in the town, with the cravat at his neck, and was as perfectly shaved as always. I didn’t stop looking at him until he disappeared from sight.
Julián
Stories don’t end until you’re done with them, until you finish them off in your head or with your heart. For Sandra, the end of the story came as soon as she got on the bus to go back home, although she was going to keep dreaming about the Eel. However, if that relationship was going to go anywhere, it would have to be in another world. Not yesterday’s world. That, for the time being, was still mine. If all these shocks hadn’t killed me off yet, it must be because I still had something to do. I had to keep going, had to keep in step, like a soldier. Would Fredrik Christensen have sounded the alarm after our conversation in the garden? If it came to taking measures, Sebastian would already have taken them after our first meeting. Basically, I was thinking about all this so as not to think about Sandra moving away in a bus towards a future that was totally unknown to me.
I let my legs take me wherever they were going, wanting to walk because I’d been spending too much time in the car lately. I did up the collar of my jacket, stuck my hands in the pockets and let myself be drawn by the sea breeze, by its dampness, its blessed dampness that opened up my lungs and made me breathe as if I hadn’t smoked three packets a day for so many years of my life. And by the time I was ready to take stock of where I was I’d reached the port. The morning had now opened up completely and a few chilly sun rays were endowing everything with an air of normality.
Guided by the memory of my own steps, I headed automatically for the Estrella and Heim, or rather to the place where the Estrella used to be moored.
I looked around, disconcerted. Perhaps my sense of direction was feeling the strain. It wouldn’t be the first time that, one day, an old man like me suddenly didn’t know where he was, or wasn’t where he thought he was. Nonetheless, the only thing missing was the Estrella. The bar opposite was still in place, as were the two catamarans either side, the boundary stone with its two red stripes and a vacant lot I’d used for parking a couple of hundred metres away. The Estrella wasn’t there and neither was Heim. This did put me on edge, especially because they’d whisked Heim out of my clutches. Realizing he wasn’t in his right mind, they would get him out of the way, as they’d done with Elfe. The ones that were still able to fend for themselves didn’t want any unnecessary encumbrance. They didn’t have the strength to take care of the rest. However much Heim was Heim, he was now reduced to bothersome material.
I had another coffee, this time decaf, calculating how many kilometres Sandra would have covered by now. I would have liked to have gone to Madrid with her. I could still afford a bus trip, a few days in a hostel and a few more set menus. But if it was just for my sake, the journey wasn’t worth it. It wouldn’t have given me time to see a thousandth of the things I hadn’t seen, so it was better to leave things as they were, not to move them either forward or backward. I’d stay here, in the place that Salva had chosen to end his days. Salva was more like me than anyone else in the world, and he’d prepared the ground for me, so why reject it? The moment I got on the plane in Buenos Aires, I knew I was setting out on an elephant’s journey and wouldn’t be coming back. Go back for what? My memories weren’t separate from me. Tres Olivos was a good option. I could pay for it with my pension and nobody would go looking for me there. When life presents you something gift-wrapped on a tray, you have to accept it, because if you don’t you pay a high price. Life always knows more than we do.
The Scent of Lemon Leaves Page 35