“Son of a bitch yourself,” I said.
He took a step forward so that he was obstructing my access to the jeep.
“You’re blocking my way,” I said.
“Hand it over!” was all he said in reply and pointed at the camera bag.
“It’s private property,” I said.
“The films aren’t. You’ll get the cameras back, don’t worry. Hand it over!”
I put the holdall down on the road. I could feel myself sweating, and my heart was racing. The noise from the main street grew imperceptibly fainter, as if it was filtered, while my concentration focused on the man in front of me. He wasn’t quite as composed as he appeared. There was a frailty in his eyes and beads of perspiration on his upper lip. I shoved the camera bag round to my back and waited, hoping that someone might show up in the side street so he wouldn’t be able to get violent, but he took a step forwards and made the mistake of sticking out his hand as if he was going to rip the bag from my shoulder. I grabbed hold of his hand, took a short step backwards, so I made use of his own momentum, found his little finger and twisted it while I wrenched his arm round and upwards. He gave a startled gasp, but the sound got caught in his throat as I jammed my knee into his testicles while still pulling his shoulder until I heard the joint crack. He crumpled in front of me with a hollow groan, numbed by shock and pain.
I picked up my holdall. The short, fat driver stepped away from the Mercedes and raised his hands in a warding-off gesture. It had all happened so quickly that I doubt he had registered what had taken place. His partner was on his knees, retching with pain. His finger would swell up and his crotch would ache for several days.
“No,” was all the short fatty said as he stepped pointedly aside. I walked passed him, threw my bags into the jeep and drove off. My hands were trembling from delayed shock and the back of my shirt was soaked through. A family of holidaymakers with a couple of young children had come round the corner and stood gaping at me. The father put his arms protectively around the two youngsters. The woman had her hands over her face. It wouldn’t make for a pleasant holiday, but that couldn’t be helped.
I drove slowly and carefully down to the Avis office. It wasn’t only the heat that was making my vision swim a little. I took three or four deep breaths to get my breathing under control.
At Avis I exchanged the jeep for a hard-topped, fast Audi, and it wasn’t until I turned off onto the motorway and sped up that I calmed down, but I kept looking in the mirror to see if a Mercedes or a patrol car was pursuing me. I didn’t feel completely safe until I was on the plane to Madrid. I put a Grateful Dead CD in my Discman and leaned back in my seat. The plane was half empty. I saw the Mediterranean disappear as we swung slowly round and headed inland across the vast, barren Spanish interior and the familiar, vicious craving for a drink overwhelmed me.
I thought about Amelia and Maria Luisa and asked the stewardess for a cola, as the plane carried me home to Madrid.
2
Luckily there was no reception awaiting me at Barajas Airport which was its usual busy self. I had no trouble getting a taxi into the city, enveloped in the blue-violet cloak of approaching night and the smog which, thanks to the heatwave of recent days, had settled over this large heap of stones on the Castilian tableland. Madrid had been my home on and off for nearly a quarter of a century and, since my wedding eight years ago, I had no intention of ever leaving it again. I was no longer a nomad, but a resident. I had always seen myself as an eternal wanderer, living wherever I hung my hat, but now I was like a farmer bound to my patch of soil. I had settled down and was so content with my life that now and then I feared retribution. Not in the form of violence or disaster – I couldn’t really imagine that – but maybe the itchy restlessness would return with its old force and drag me away from that one spot in the world where I felt secure and happy.
A radio sports channel blared away as we drove into the centre, through the dense, honking, aggressive evening traffic. The taxi driver seemed to feel the same as I did – he couldn’t be bothered to talk. He was a gaunt, lean Moroccan who most likely had neither a work nor a residence permit, but had crossed the narrow Strait of Gibraltar to seek his fortune in the rich and yet so crisis-ridden European Union. Madrid’s suburbs are among the ugliest in the world, Soviet in their monstrosity. They fan out in ranks from the centre, huge and dark, and it’s almost impossible to imagine that they surround a vibrant city centre that I was always glad to come home to.
As usual after an assignment, I felt rather empty and depressed. Not seriously, just a feeling of the blues, that something was over and with it the knowledge that, with the passing of that particular second, I had taken a step closer to death.
The traffic snarled up completely when we reached the city centre, turned by the post office on Plaza Cibeles and drove towards Plaza Santa Ana. A few hundred metres from the plaza we ground to a halt, so I paid the driver and walked up the hill along Paseo de Prado, as the traffic, with belching exhaust fumes and honking horns, came to a standstill and the nippy motor scooters zigzagged between the stationary rows of cars. The scooters were driven by young men, their girlfriends riding pillion. The girls held on nonchalantly with one hand, their willowy legs placed elegantly as if they were sitting sidesaddle on a horse. Madrid is an affluent and elegant, yet at the same time brutal and oppressive city, but the young Madrileños outdid the young of both Rome and Paris in terms of elegance. In the heat of the night, most cities take on an aggressive tone which vibrates in the streets and bounces back and forth between the buildings and is absorbed by the inhabitants. Madrid was a nocturnal animal. A city which in the summer heat never seemed to sleep, seemed to be moving constantly, movement like that of a nomad, for its own sake, a journey with no real destination.
Plaza Santa Ana formed the centre of my barrio, my patch of the world. I had ended up there almost by accident when I was young, and had lived in various places in the neighbourhood ever since – when I lived in Madrid, that is. Teatro Real took up one side of the rectangular plaza, with the big white Hotel Victoria taking up the other side. The flanks were made up of tall, old residential properties with cafés and restaurants at street level. On hot summer days the trees provided cool shade. Children played on the white flagstones in the middle of the square, bathed in the soft violet dusk, while mothers and fathers sat on benches and chatted, keeping an eye on kids in their blue school uniforms enjoying their freedom before going indoors to eat their supper. Every time I came home from one of my trips, I liked to spend a minute with my back to the theatre looking across the square, the Cerveceria Alemana a fixed point of reference on my left. I felt a bit like the lead in an old film where the passing of time is shown by the white pages of a calendar, with their big black dates, flying off in the breeze. Standing here, I could watch the pages of the calendar running backwards, peeling off year after year of my time with the plaza, and the differences were in the details. In the length of hair, in the cut of a dress, in the make and shape of cars, in the conspicuously growing prosperity, in the women’s make-up and, up to a point, in the children’s games. But the overall picture was the same. The music of the voices, the humming of the cars and the roar of the motorbikes, the children’s games of tag and skipping, the mothers’ and grandmothers’ murmured talk of children and love, the men’s boisterous discussion of football and bullfighting as cigarette smoke coiled around them, the smell of petrol, and the aroma of garlic wafting from the cafés and restaurants. It was as it had always been and I wanted it to stay like that for ever, even though Madrid, under the impact of European integration and directives from Brussels about harmonisation, was imperceptibly but steadily changing and becoming less like itself and more like the others.
I looked for Maria Luisa and my wife. The new ingredient this summer was the appearance of smart rollerblades, making the children’s feet look far too big. A couple of years earlier it had been skateboards. Each year had its new gimmick, but the old games of s
kipping or tag, familiar to me from my own childhood, were played by each new generation, here in the warm evening air of Madrid as well.
I saw my daughter first and the usual warmth filled my whole body. She had rollerblades too, but had evidently abandoned them. Instead, with that almost-seven-years-old fierce concentration, she was skipping, two of her friends turning the rope faster and faster. She looked like her mother, with black hair and olive complexion, but she had my blue eyes and long limbs. She had a delicate, round face and a mouth that was quick to smile and laugh. The rope hit her ankle and I saw her look of disappointment, but she accepted the rules of the game and took one end of the rope so that her friend could have her go. They were wearing school uniform and had ribbons in their hair. And, even though it was impossible, I was sure I could pick out Maria Luisa’s voice above the cacophony of playing children. She was our shared small miracle. It had been a difficult birth. Amelia was 36 when Maria Luisa arrived and the doctors had thought she wouldn’t be able to have any more children, and they were right. Amelia hadn’t reckoned on having children at all. She hadn’t wanted them with her first husband. She didn’t talk much about him, but she had regretted the marriage almost immediately. He was extremely old-fashioned, at a time when Spain suddenly erupted after the dictator’s death. She left him after they had been married for three years and, when the new laws were passed, she divorced him. The years passed and by the time we met one another it wasn’t so easy. We were older and it was harder to conceive a child than we had anticipated. We tried unflaggingly for a year before we succeeded, and then no more children came along. So we were old and therefore molly-coddling parents. But no child has yet died of cosseting.
I spotted Amelia sitting on one of the benches, talking with the woman who lived in the flat below us. Amelia was the first miracle in my life, and she had come along late as well. We had been married for eight years. Her hair was beginning to go grey, but she tinted it. She was still slim and attractive in an indefinable way. She wasn’t a classic beauty, but glowed in any company. She was at ease with herself and her faith in life, and I found the lines around her eyes and mouth enchanting, because they showed that she was someone who smiled and laughed at life. She was someone who had lived, and I was grateful she had chosen to share the rest of her life with me.
I hitched up the holdall and walked towards her. She caught sight of me and rewarded me with a smile as she stood up from the bench. I was polite and greeted our neighbour, Maria, with the traditional two air-kisses before I gave Amelia a hug and a kiss on the mouth. Although we lived in a modern society, she was still modest when it came to public displays of affection. I kissed her for longer than she really liked, but the memory of the Minister’s bodyguards was still lingering. She pulled herself free and I let go of her and there was a moment of awkwardness while we tried to decide what should be said.
“Welcome home, darling,” Amelia said finally. “Did it go well?”
“It went fine,” I said.
“Where have you been, Pedro?” the neighbour asked. “Which exotic land have you been to now?”
“Catalonia.”
“Ah, the Catalans. But they won’t speak Spanish, so how did you manage?” she said with a laugh. She thought the Catalans were a peculiar people who insisted on speaking Catalan instead of Cervantes’ beautiful language.
“It’s not as bad as that, Maria,” I said. Maria was a food columnist, married to a lawyer and no more than 32 years old. She had gone against the trend and already had three children playing somewhere out on the plaza. Most young Spaniards today stop at one or at most two children. Maria came from Andalusia and had kept her regional Spanish, clipped and fast with her “s” sounding like a soft “z”.
I looked across at Maria Luisa. She was skipping earnestly again.
“She’s missed you a lot this time,” said Amelia.
My daughter caught sight of me and stopped mid-hop. She broke into a run.
“Papa, Papa!” she shouted and rushed into my arms. “Papa, you’re home!” I hugged her. She smelled clean and good. She put her hands round my neck and pulled the little ponytail I had grown years ago when my hair had begun to thin. I suppose it was because I didn’t like getting older, but it was my little vanity, and my daughter thought it was fun and Amelia said it suited me. She liked me looking a bit tough. She didn’t have anything against men who looked like rough diamonds, but she did have something against men who behaved brutally or callously and selfishly, especially towards women. Her first husband had been like that. He was of the opinion that the way to earn a woman’s respect was via a few beatings. I might have looked a bit on the rough side, but Amelia knew that where women and children were concerned I was as soft as butter.
I put Maria Luisa down and listened to her outpouring, which within a couple of minutes got me up-to-date with stupid teachers, idiotic boys, not-to-be-trusted girlfriends and a knee that was dabbed with iodine because she had fallen over and bashed a hole in it. Amelia and Maria sat down on the bench again and I sat next to them, with Maria Luisa on my lap. She nestled against me while we talked about the good warm weather that had finally arrived, how my flight had been, and how Maria Luisa also wanted to go to the seaside and swim soon. Amelia was well aware that she shouldn’t ask about my work in detail. She knew me well enough to know that, even though I said it had gone well, there was something that wasn’t quite as it should be. After a while Maria Luisa jumped down from my lap and ran across to her friends.
“Bueno,” said Maria. “I’d better go and finish getting supper ready. Juan will be home soon.” She called her children who protested violently about having to go in already.
“I’ll bring them in,” said Amelia. “We’ll stay a bit longer. I’m only going to grill steak.”
Maria left and Amelia leant against me, my arm around her.
“Well, my love. So how did it go?”
I told her about the day. She didn’t interrupt. My job was probably the most ambiguous aspect of our marriage. I didn’t know what Amelia really thought about my work, whether deep down she held it in contempt, but didn’t dare voice this contempt because she knew that it was my work which enabled us to live as we did. She was aware of the large part my career played in my life, that I couldn’t give it up. I loved my family, but I knew, and Amelia acknowledged, that they weren’t enough to fill my days. I still needed the excitement I got from hunting my prey.
“Will this cause you problems?” she asked when I had finished.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Oscar and Gloria and her lawyers will handle it.”
“You could always not publish them.”
“Are you taking sides with a right-wing Minister?” I asked, drawing her closer to me.
She laughed.
“No. No. They deserve what’s coming to them, but I don’t want you to get into any kind of trouble.”
“I’m a big boy,” I said.
“I know, but all the same.”
“You don’t need to worry,” I said.
She straightened herself up.
“A Danish woman rang,” she said. “She didn’t speak Spanish, but good English of course. She said she was from the security …?”
“Security police. Intelligence service. She rang my mobile. She’s staying over there.” I pointed at the Hotel Victoria, the lovely old bullfighter’s hotel, looking like a sedate white ship in the streetlights at the far side of the plaza.
“What does she want?”
I shook my head and pulled my arm away, took out a cigarette and lit it.
“I don’t know. I haven’t got a clue what it can be about,” I said.
“She said she’d ring again.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“Are you hungry?” asked Amelia. “Shall we go out? Have a few tapas?”
“I’m not particularly hungry. I’d rather eat at home. Let’s give the kids ten more minutes.”
We put our arms round one an
other and talked like good married couples do, about everything and nothing. Amelia was a teacher at a special school for children with learning difficulties. She was very poorly paid and in any case didn’t actually need to work, but she wouldn’t have given it up even if they stopped paying her altogether. She was the kind of person who got great satisfaction from even the smallest step forward. She told me about one of the children who could now spell his way through a comic. He was 15 and there was no real hope of improvement, but it was enough for Amelia that three years of work had enabled him to read a speech bubble. I wouldn’t have lasted an hour in her job, but I enjoyed listening to her, feeling myself gradually relax.
A woman of about 40 approached our bench. She was wearing a blue skirt which came to just above the knee, with a matching blue jacket over a white blouse. She wore red lipstick and a trace of eyeliner. Her hair was combed back, making her look slightly prim and severe, but her blue eyes were friendly.
“Peter Lime?” she said.
She said my name the Danish way. Amelia sat up straight. She seldom heard my name pronounced like that.
“Clara Hoffmann,” the woman said, and held out her hand as Danes do. I stood up and shook her hand. It was dry and slender, but her fingers were strong.
“My wife,” I said in English. “Amelia, this is Clara Hoffmann. From Copenhagen.”
The two women shook hands and took the measure of one another.
“We’ve spoken on the phone,” said Clara Hoffmann.
“I didn’t catch your name at the time,” said Amelia in her slow, but correct English. “We Spaniards aren’t very good with names beginning with h.”
“Please excuse me intruding like this,” the woman said. Her voice was light and young; it didn’t seem to match her age. “I was going for a walk, it’s such a lovely evening, and I saw your husband sitting on the bench …”
“How did you know it was me?” I said.
“I’ve seen a few photographs of you. True, they were taken when you were younger, but I could tell it was you.”
Lime's Photograph Page 3
