That was the easy part. What he couldn't figure out was why, for example, Elisa couldn't just ask him to come to her place. Why not tell him straight out that she needed him to come over? What was the matter? Could there be someone with her (no, please, God), someone there threatening her?
Then there was another possibility. One that was even more unsettling. Elisa might be mentally ill.
The best possible explanation, the most likely, was one he didn't care for. He pictured it would go like this: he'd arrive, she'd open the door, and they'd have a ridiculous conversation. "Victor, what are you doing here?"
"You told me to come over."
"Me?"
"Yes, you said I should do what the rebus said."
"Oh, no, you didn't think...!" And then she'd burst out laughing. "I told you to do the puzzle tonight, to solve the riddle, not do what the answer said!"
"But you told me not to call..."
"I just meant not to go to any trouble, I was going to call you later." And Victor would stand there in the doorway feeling ridiculous as Elisa laughed at him.
No.
That was impossible. He was sure.
Something was wrong. Something terrible. In fact, he knew Elisa had been going through something terrible for years.
He'd always suspected it. Like all reserved people, Victor had an uncanny ability to gauge things that interested him. And few things interested him more than Elisa Robledo Morande. He watched her when she walked, talked, and moved, and he thought, "Something's wrong." Whenever she passed by, her past was like a magnet to him. He couldn't help but be attracted to her long black hair, her athletic body, and he never doubted it. "She's hiding something."
He even thought he knew when and where the secret began. Her time in Zurich.
He navigated a detour and turned down Silvano. Slowing down, he began to search for a parking place. No luck. He saw a man behind the wheel of a parked car, but the guy waved him on, signaling that he wasn't leaving.
Victor passed Elisa's building and kept looking. Suddenly he saw a great spot, braked, and started to back up.
That's when it all happened.
A moment later, he wondered what made the human brain react the way it did in these extreme situations. Because the first thing that occurred to him when she appeared out of nowhere and knocked on the passenger window was not how petrified she looked, or that she was as white as a sheet; nor was it how odd it was that she'd practically leaped into the car the second he leaned over to open the door. She whipped her head around to look behind her as she shouted, "Go! Go! Drive!"
He did not stop to think about the irate honking that his maneuver had caused, or the headlights in his rearview mirror, or the screeching of tires behind him that brought to mind—oddly—the parked car he passed moments earlier, with its lights off, its driver behind the wheel. He felt all of those things, but none of them made it above his spinal cord.
There, in his brain, his intellect was entirely focused on one thing.
Her breasts.
Elisa was wearing a low-cut T-shirt under her leather jacket, something she'd clearly just thrown on at the last minute, too summery for the cold March night. And her magnificent, round breasts were in plain view. He couldn't tell if she was wearing a bra. When she leaned in the window before climbing into the car, he'd stared at them. Even now, as she sat beside him and he breathed in the smell of her soap and leather jacket, feeling dizzy, he couldn't stop himself from glancing sidelong to peek at her gorgeous chest.
He didn't think it was wrong. He knew it was the only way his brain could deal with the situation, set the world back in its place after having suffered the terrible experience of seeing his friend and colleague leap into the car, crouch down, and begin shouting desperate orders. Sometimes men have to clutch at straws in order to preserve their sanity. He'd clutched at Elisa's breasts. Correction: he used the image of her chest in his mind to help himself calm down.
"Are we... are we being followed?" he stammered as they reached Campo de las Naciones.
She turned to look back and said, "I don't know."
"Where do you want me to go?"
"Take the Burgos highway."
And suddenly she crumpled, her shoulders shaking spasmodically.
Her howling was horrific. Seeing her like this, the image of her breasts vanished from Victor's mind. He'd never seen an adult cry like that. Forgetting everything, including his own fear, he spoke with a determination that surprised even himself.
"Elisa, you've got to calm down. Listen to me. I'm here for you. I always have been. I'm going to help you. Whatever it is, I'm going to help you. I swear."
She recovered suddenly, but he had the feeling it wasn't his words that had that effect on her.
"I'm sorry to drag you into this, Victor, but I had no choice. When I'm scared to death, I'm evil. A total bitch."
"No, Elisa, I..."
"Anyway," she cut him off, "I don't want to waste time apologizing."
That was when he noticed the long, flat, plastic-wrapped object in her hand. It could have been anything, but the way she held it was intriguing: her right hand wrapped around one end of it, and the left one stroked it almost imperceptibly.
THE two men, having just arrived at Madrid's Barajas International Airport, were not asked to show any identification or go through security. They didn't take the same tunnel to the terminal as the rest of the passengers, either. Instead, they walked up an adjacent stairway. A van awaited them. The young man in the driver's seat was polite, courteous, and kind; he clearly wanted to practice his night-school English on them.
"In Madrid, there isn't so much cold, eh? I mean, now."
"You said it," replied the older man, good-naturedly. He was tall and thin, with snowy hair and a bald spot on top that he hid with a comb-over. "I love Madrid. Come whenever I get the chance."
"In Milan, I think it was cold," the driver continued. He knew where their plane had come in from.
"Too true. Though more than cold, rain." And then, linguistically reciprocating, the older man added, in second-rate Spanish, "Much pleasing to return to good Spanish climate."
They both laughed. The driver couldn't hear the other man laugh, the burly one. And, judging by his looks and the expression on his face when he'd climbed into the van, he decided he'd rather not hear him laugh, anyway.
If he even knew how to laugh.
Businessmen, the driver thought. Or a businessman and his bodyguard.
The van circled the terminal. Now it stopped and another dark-suited man opened the door and stood aside to let the two men out. The van drove off, and that was the last the driver saw of them.
The Mercedes had tinted windows. As they settled into the wide leather seats, the older man got a call on the cell phone he'd just turned on.
"Harrison," he said. "Yes. Yes. Wait, I need more information. When did it happen? Who is it?" He pulled a flexible computer screen, thin as a strip of fabric, from his coat pocket and unrolled it on his knees like a tablecloth, touching the interactive surface as he spoke. "Yeah. Yeah. No, no change of plans. Fine."
But after he hung up, nothing seemed "fine." He pursed his lips tightly as he watched the floppy, illuminated screen on his legs. The burly man glanced away from the window to look at it, too. On it shone some sort of blue map with moving red and green dots.
"We've got a problem," said the white-haired man.
"I don't know if we're being followed or not," she said, "but take this exit and drive through San Lorenzo for a while. The streets are narrow there; maybe we can throw them off."
Victor silently followed her orders. He got off the freeway and took an access road to the labyrinthine subdivision. His car was an old Renault Scenic with no computer or GPS, so Victor had no idea where he was going. He read out street names as if in a dream: Dominicos, Franciscanos ... Nerves made him feel there was some form of divine intervention responsible for all this. A memory suddenly popped into his anguis
hed mind: he used to drive Elisa home in his old car, the first one he'd had, when they were both students in David Blanes's summer course at Alighieri University. Those were happier times. Now things were a little different. He had a bigger car, he taught at the university, Elisa had gone crazy and was armed with a huge knife, and they were both fleeing some unknown danger as fast as they possibly could. This is real life, he surmised. Things change.
He heard the crinkling of plastic and saw that she'd taken her knife partway out of its wrapper. The streetlights' reflection twinkled on the blade.
He felt as if his heart skipped a beat. No, worse. He felt as if it was melting, or being stretched out like a spit-covered piece of gum, auricles and ventricles forming one solid mass. She's lost her mind, his common sense told him. And you let her get into your car and now she's forcing you to take her wherever she wants to go. It was all coming clear. The following day, his car would be found abandoned in some ditch, his body inside it. What would she have done? Decapitate him, maybe, judging by the size of that knife. Slit his throat, though maybe she'd kiss him first. "I always loved you, Victor, I just couldn't tell you." Then zzzzzzzzzzzip. He'd hear it before he felt it, the sound of her slashing his carotid artery, the blade slicing through him with the unexpected precision of a paper cut on a fingertip.
Still, even if she's insane, I have to try to help her.
He turned down another street. It was Dominicos again. They were just going around in circles, like his thoughts.
"What now?"
"Let's go back to the freeway," she said. "Head toward Burgos. It doesn't matter if they're still following us. I don't need much time." To do what? he wondered. Kill me? But then she added, "To explain all this to you." She paused and then asked, "Victor, do you believe in evil?"
"Evil?"
"Yes. You're a theologian, right? So. Do you believe in evil?"
"I'm not a theologian," he murmured, slightly put off. "I read theology, that's all."
It was true that he'd once wanted to go to seminary school, study theology, but he'd eventually discarded the idea, deciding simply to study on his own instead. He read Barth, Bonhoeffer, and Kung. He'd told Elisa this, and under different circumstances he would have been flattered that she'd brought it up. But right then the only thing he could think was that things were stacking up in favor of his insanity hypothesis. Had Elisa lost it?
"Whatever," she said. "Do you think there exists some form of wickedness beyond what can be scientifically explained?"
Victor pondered his answer.
"There's nothing that cannot be scientifically explained except faith. Are you talking about the Devil?"
Elisa didn't answer. Victor stopped at an intersection and turned back toward the freeway, his mind racing faster than he was driving.
"I'm a Catholic, Elisa," he added. "I believe that there is an evil, supernatural force that science will never be able to explain."
He waited for some kind of reaction, wondering if he'd put his foot in his mouth. How could he possibly know what a mentally disturbed person wanted to hear? But her response left him ill at ease.
"I'm glad to hear you say that; it means you'll have less trouble believing what I'm about to tell you. I don't know if it's about the Devil, but it's definitely a force of evil. An inconceivable, mind-boggling, sickening evil that has no scientific explanation..." For a second, he thought she was going to burst into tears again. "You have no idea, no idea, the degree of evil I'm talking about, Victor. I've never told anyone; I swore I wouldn't. But I can't take it anymore. I have to tell someone, and you're the one I chose."
He would have liked to respond with the easy self-confidence of a Hollywood heartthrob and say something like "You're doing the right thing, babe!" Though he didn't like movies, he felt his life had suddenly turned into a horror flick. But he couldn't respond. He was trembling. It wasn't a figure of speech, an internal shiver, or any kind of tingling. He was literally trembling. Though he gripped the steering wheel tightly, his arms shook as if he were sleeveless in the Antarctic. Suddenly, Victor doubted his theory about Elisa's insanity. She spoke with such assurance that it terrified him to listen to her. He realized it would be worse, much worse, if she wasn't crazy. It was scary to think she might have lost her mind, but if she hadn't, Victor didn't know if he could face up to whatever she was going to say.
"I won't ask you to do anything besides listen to me," she continued. "It's almost eleven. We've got an hour. After that, just put me in a taxi, if you ... if you decide not to come with me." He stared at her. "I have to be at a very important meeting at twelve thirty tonight. I can't miss it, no matter what. You can do whatever you want."
"I'll go with you."
"No ... Don't make that decision before you hear me out." She stopped and took a deep breath. "After that, feel free to kick me out. And forget everything that's happened. I swear I won't hold it against you if you do..."
"I...," Victor whispered, and then coughed. "I won't do that. Go on. Tell me everything."
"It started ten years ago," Elisa said.
Out of the blue, Victor suddenly became very sure of something. She's going to tell me the truth. She's not crazy. She's going to tell me the truth.
"It was early summer, at that party in 2005, the party where you and I met, remember?"
"The orientation party for summer school at Alighieri?" When she met me and Ric, he thought. "Of course, I remember, but... nothing happened at that party..."
Elisa stared at him, her eyes wide. Her voice faltered. "That was where it all started, Victor."
PART TWO
The Beginning
We're all ignorant, but we're not all ignorant about the same things.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
04
Madrid June 21, 2005 6:35 P.M.
IT had been an eventful afternoon. Elisa had almost missed the last bus to Soto del Real after an absurd argument (yes, another one) with her mother about her messy room. She got to the station right when the bus was pulling out, and as she made a run for it, one of her tattered sneakers had come off. She'd had to beg them to stop and wait for her. The passengers and conductor glared at her reproachfully as she boarded the bus. It occurred to her that their stares had less to do with the few seconds they'd been forced to wait than they did with her appearance. Elisa wore frayed, ripped jeans and a tank top with a grimy neckline. Her long hair hung down to her waist, accentuating how conspicuously greasy it was. But she was not entirely to blame for her unkempt look. For the past few months, she'd been under incredible pressure, the kind that only college students during finals week can relate to. She'd barely even thought about necessities like food or sleep, and looking presentable figured nowhere on her list of priorities. She'd never cared about her appearance or anyone else's. It seemed like such a stupid thing to worry about.
The bus stopped twenty-five miles outside Madrid, in a pretty spot near the Pedriza Mountains, and Elisa walked up a road lined with hedges and almond trees to Alighieri's summer school, having not the slightest idea that two years later, the same place would hire her as a professor. The sign on the entrance had a worn profile of Dante and, underneath it, one of his verses: L'acquea ch'io prendo gia mai non si corse. Elisa had read the translation in one of the university brochures (she spoke perfect English, but that was as far as her language skills went). The sea I sail has never yet been passed. That was the school's motto, though she realized that it could apply to her as well, since there was no other course in the world like the one she was about to take.
She crossed the parking lot and walked over to the quad, which was surrounded by faculty buildings. A large group of people gathered there, listening to someone speak from a podium. She pushed her way through the crowd to the front, but couldn't see who she was looking for.
"... give a warm welcome to all those who are enrolled, and also ...." a bald man in a linen suit and blue shirt (no doubt the dean) was saying. He had the self-assured air of a man wh
o knows that people have to listen to him.
Suddenly, someone beside her whispered, "Excuse me, are you Elisa Robledo?"
She turned and saw John Lennon. Or one of the thousands of Lennons always milling around universities the world over. This particular clone wore the de rigueur wire-rimmed spectacles and had a mop of curls. He stared at Elisa intensely. His face was so red that his head looked like his neck had produced one giant pimple. When she nodded, the boy seemed to relax slightly and his wide, fleshy lips made a shy attempt at a smile.
"Congratulations. You got the highest score of all the people accepted to Blanes's course." Elisa thanked him, despite the fact that—obviously—she already knew she'd come in first. "I was fifth. My name is Victor Lopera. I just graduated from the Complutense. You went to the Autonomous University, right?"
"Yeah." Elisa was no longer surprised when strangers recognized her. Her name and picture were in college papers regularly. But she wasn't proud of her reputation as a studious intellectual. In fact, it got on her nerves, especially because it seemed to be the only thing her mother liked about her. "Is Blanes here?" she asked.
"Looks like he couldn't make it."
Elisa frowned, irritated. The only reason she'd come to this stupid orientation was to catch a glimpse of the physicist she admired most in the world (well, along with Stephen Hawking). Now she'd have to wait until the next day, when Blanes himself began teaching. She debated whether to stay or not when Lennon-Lopera piped up again.
"I'm glad we'll be classmates." He sank back into silence. He seemed to think a long time before he got up the nerve to say anything. Elisa assumed he was shy, or worse. She knew that almost all good physics students were weird, herself included. She politely replied that she was glad, too, and waited.
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