His eyes shone in the yellowish light spilling softly from the living room and across the terrace. I had never seen him cry. I had never seen him express great emotion, at least not in words. I had seen, on countless occasions, the special expression of happiness that spread across his face when he looked at his granddaughter. He was a product of his times and his life. A punctilious man who had lived according to a code of honour. I put my hand on his and squeezed it tight. It was dry and cool despite the evening heat. We never touched one another, and for a moment I thought he would pull his hand away, but instead he put his other hand over mine and clasped it. I think he was weeping. But inside. There were no tears, and his voice was as calm and steady as usual when he spoke.
“I’ll help you, Pedro. Not because I think it will be of any use. I don’t even want revenge. What use would that be? Do I believe in justice? Hardly. Then why? Two reasons. Because it will dull the pain that I can see you trying to conceal from me and from yourself. Perhaps revenge will help to purge you. Or at least the quest for revenge. To show that one is doing something. And secondly, because I owe it to you. A deficient and all too late thank you for giving my daughter her happiest years – and an old man a few years of happiness in the radiance of his only grandchild.”
7
I went to the office the next day. Madrid was groaning in the heat. The asphalt was bubbling, the leaves on the trees were dusty and dry, and the flowers – which the municipal authorities failed to water with the plentiful supply from the mountains – hung their heads in just the same way as the few tourists queuing up outside the Prado. The vibrant, white light shimmered between the buildings and the sluggish, tooting traffic. Drops of water evaporated into gleaming rainbows round the fountains, ice clinked in drinks under the shade of pavement café parasols, and tempers were short. The sun beat down over the rocks on the plain. The millions who living in the concrete pile wheezed through the long, arid day, but air conditioning in the offices ensured that the business of earning money could continue with cool efficiency.
Our office was on the fashionable Paseo de la Castellana. Oscar and Gloria owned the whole building, occupying the penthouse flat with the same aplomb with which they dominated any gathering they chose to grace with their presence. On the floor below, we had broken down the walls between the small, old flats and created two large spaces. OSPE NEWS was on the left when you stepped out of the lift, Gloria’s law firm was on the right. Efficient young lawyers and their secretaries tapped away on computers and whispered into telephones, fired off emails and churned out important faxes. They were the lungs of modern society. They were equally predators and spiritual advisers, sheriffs and jailers. Lawyers had their fingers in every pie, and each telephone call meant more money in the bank. Time was money. Money was God. For tax reasons Gloria’s firm and OSPE NEWS were independent of one another, but in practice they were intricately entwined.
Gloria was successful. She could pick and choose from the annual clutch of newly qualified, talented lawyers who would happily work 70 hours a week for a few years in order to be in the running as one of the select few who, after years of well-paid servitude, were made partners in her firm.
As a fledgling lawyer during the twilight of the Franco dictatorship, Gloria had made a name for herself by taking on political cases. She defended socialists and communists, liberals and trade unionists, student activists and ETA or GRAPO terrorists. She fought like a lioness on their behalf in the courts and the press. Television loved this young, beautiful, dark-eyed lawyer with wild hair and an unwavering commitment.
These days she still took on a few of the more sensational criminal cases, either waiving her fee or accepting the modest legal aid paid by the authorities to a defence counsel. Most often they were cases in which the accused was poor or female. Particularly important to her heart were women defendants who had murdered a violent husband in order to protect themselves and their children. She frequently won, securing an acquittal or a very light sentence. These cases attracted a great deal of media coverage. She took them on both because she loved the battle in court against men who were no match for her and because she got to be on television. The people didn’t forget her, and the publicity attracted clients like my ants were attracted to an open honey pot. Money also poured in from property cases, copyright disputes, actions for damages – and the sale of my and the agency’s photographs. I had a good shareholding in both companies. The three of us were so inextricably entwined that, even though we had our ups and downs, we were as good as forced to stick together like a long-standing ménage à trois – till death should us part.
OSPE NEWS had eight permanent employees in Madrid alone, dealing with the administrative side of the business, and a network of freelancers all over the world to supply photographs and check that our copyright was protected. In recent years, we had also started making videos and had set up a successful media suite on the floor below, renting out equipment and crews to television reporters, but we made the serious money from the burgeoning television advertising market. Young men with crew cuts worked with powerful editing software, manipulating sounds, words and images to create the modern version of the sirens – the seductive, bogus message that happiness can be achieved only by the purchase of this, and only this, product.
We were standing by the window in Oscar’s spacious office with its modern, pale Scandinavian furniture. I was drinking cola. Oscar and Gloria were drinking water. The air was dry and cool, in sharp contrast to the grimy, shimmering heat lying across the city outside. My office was opposite Oscar’s, with the secretaries sharing an open-plan area in between. I had an old desk, a new computer, a telephone, a shabby Børge Mogensen sofa I had picked up in Madrid’s Rastro market, and an old Spanish-made, 20-inch television. I didn’t have the meeting table for twelve, new furniture, modern Spanish art hanging on the walls, high-tech swivel chair behind a large desk and Danish Bang and Olufsen multi-media system that Oscar had installed as tangible confirmation of his success. I had spent time at the office only intermittently before “the incident,” as I called it. I had preferred to work at home. And over the last couple of months I had more or less stayed away completely.
We were comfortable, yes, rich actually. I listened with only half an ear as Oscar told me how well business was going. They were pleased to see me and had immediately instructed the secretaries to field their constant telephone calls and postpone and cancel meetings, but not their lunch appointments. They knew I wouldn’t stay that long. They fussed around me as usual and hugged me and said kind words. Their well-meaning concern irritated me. I wished they would return to their usual sarcastic, ironic manner and quick-witted repartee, but I loved them anyway. Somehow or other they were my family. And all I had left now.
I looked at my old friends. We were each pushing our half century, but we didn’t look it. We were tanned, well groomed and, on the surface, bristling with arrogance and confidence. We kept ourselves trim and fit. We were closer to death than birth, but faced up to that fact only in our nightmares. We counted on getting the better of the Grim Reaper, just as we had got the better of most things so far. Oscar was wearing one of his pale, lightweight Armani suits, Gloria an elegant, floaty summer frock which accentuated her cleavage with its hint of a black lace bra, and stylish sandals on her feet that revealed red varnished nails. And I was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of jeans which had cost as much as a farm worker’s monthly board and lodging. I was casually dressed, but from my handmade boots to my expensive t-shirt, I knew that quality cost what it cost.
We had come a long way, we three, old left-wing rebels who had met in this city so very long ago. Back then we had been poor and idealistic. We had believed in the future. With the invulnerability of youth we had seen everything in black and white. There were the others. And then there was us. We were a generation who had wanted to build a new world on the ruins of the old one, and the first step towards a democratic, socialist republic had been taken when the shr
ivelled old Caudillo had rotted away on his sick bed. When had we changed? Not on any specific day. Not suddenly, but gradually we had become different. Before long we were no longer in our 20s, but in our 30s and couldn’t, without a self-conscious, silly grin, say along with Bob Dylan that we didn’t trust anyone over 30.
It would be too ridiculous to maintain that we were rebelling against “the establishment” when we ourselves were now an integral part of the elite of modern society. Lawyers living off injustice, tax evasion, impenetrable laws, the cryptic clauses of contemporary life, the EU’s jungle of splendidly incomprehensible regulations – and a photographer who provided breakfast entertainment with his telltale pictures of the peccadilloes of the rich and famous. A constant diet of fresh scandals, tragedies and happy couples on which to feast.
We were successful and rich, but were we happier than when we were young? The question was ridiculous. Being young is about being free from responsibility and having no fear of death. We had been happier then because we didn’t yet have anything to lose. It wasn’t until we experienced the pain of loss that we discovered we were no longer immortal. Once we had realised that one day we would die, we lost our innocence, and life was never the same again.
They didn’t think it was a good idea for me to go to the Basque Country. They didn’t think that my playing private detective was a good idea at all.
“Well that’s not really what I intend to do,” I said. “I need to get away. I’ll have a little chat with Tómas and some of the others from the old days and stay in the house for a while. I’ll feel like I’m doing something.”
I had yet to visit the holiday cottage Amelia and I owned outside San Sebastián. The neighbouring farmer looked after it. I still dreaded seeing it again. The fire had effectively wiped out all the material reminders of my family that had been in the flat, but in the house there would be clothes, photographs, toys, books, smells – physical and mental mementoes.
“I’ve got a better offer for you,” said Oscar. “I’ve got a tip-off that Charles is going to have a weekend tête-à-tête with that horsy woman – but with the children. Just picture it. Those poor children with the bad fairy and the chilly prince. You could get a photograph that would go round the globe, Peter. It’ll need some planning to get close enough, but you can do it. Your mind will be on something else. You’ll be moving on. You’ll …”
He dried up. He didn’t usually. Maybe he could see from my expression that he was going into territory that he should avoid. I didn’t respond. Gloria gave him one of her looks and smiled sweetly at me.
“Maybe it’s a good idea, Peter,” she said. “But you’ll fly, won’t you?”
She had always been mistress of the ambiguous statement. What was a good idea? Oscar’s or mine? I chose to think that she meant mine.
“No. I’ll take the motorbike,” I said.
“I hate that dangerous contraption. And you don’t even wear a helmet.”
“You’re getting too old to play at Easy Rider,” Oscar said.
“I’m not going to throw away my watch, but otherwise it’s pretty close to the mark. I don’t own anything any more. I’m actually back to where I was when we met. No worldly goods. A rucksack with some clothes, just the one camera. Lots of memories.”
Oscar laughed.
“Old fool,” he said. “There’s quite a big difference. You’ve got three or four credit cards and rather a lot of money in the bank and even more in the form of a most profitable business which you share with your two dearest friends. If you’re anything, you’re an old champagne-hippie. It’s not quite like when you and I met, with just a duro between us. When we didn’t know where the next meal was coming from and we couldn’t have cared less either.”
This was the Oscar of old. It made me laugh. For a moment Gloria looked as if she thought he was going too far, but he spoke it in his disarming, charming manner which made you laugh at yourself and at him and with each other. His broad face and high forehead were wrinkled now, but it was easy to see the lad in the adult face. He had always been able to resolve a situation with a string of words using cadence, body language and his big smile to make his point by means of the unsaid. Under the words. Like the iceberg in Hemingway’s writing.
“OK, OK,” I said. “I’ve just got to get away.”
“And Don Alfonzo?” said Gloria.
“We help each other.”
“You’d be better off leaving it to the authorities. They’re going through the city with a fine-tooth comb. They won’t give up. The State will not tolerate terrorism,” said Gloria.
Her face was smooth, with a few attractive wrinkles round her eyes. She was a big woman and worked hard to keep her ample figure under control, both in the gym and courtesy of the most skilled plastic surgeons. There had been no need for major surgical intervention yet. Just a few specific corrections to face and breasts in order to counteract the unfair ageing process.
The morning radio, television news and the daily papers had reported that the crimes had been the work of ETA. That the criminal Basques had done it again. The press carried almost daily reports about the murder of one or other innocent right-wing politician, but this time it was considered really vicious, the worst for a very long time. The people of Madrid groaned in exasperation. Now they not only had to endure the heat, but also police cordons, checks, searches, sniffer dogs, warnings to be vigilant. But I knew the Madrileños well enough to realise that this story would be forgotten within a couple of days too. I had already had several reporters on the line that morning. I preferred being the hunter to being the hunted. Magazines and television talk shows rang every day and my secretary turned them down with patient composure. Now I was being asked to be interviewed for a strange series on grief management. Do photographers have a moral responsibility? Does God feature in your daily life? Did I want the death penalty introduced for terrorism? Which is the best book of the year? My opinions were interesting because I was interesting. I had suffered. I was a celebrity. The entertainment business was grinding out its never-ending diet of opinions on this, that and everything.
I said no to all of it.
“They haven’t claimed responsibility. They usually do,” I said.
“Not if they’ve made a terrible mistake.”
“I’ll have a chat with Tómas. And a couple of the others. But you know them! We’re bound to end up just talking about the old days,” I said.
“Well then, at least take this with you. You’ve got to get back to living in the modern world,” said Oscar. He handed me my mobile phone and its charger. I hadn’t switched it on since the police confiscated it. Oscar had apparently brought it back to the office. I took it hesitantly.
“We’d like to be able to get hold of you,” said Gloria. “We care about you, Peter.”
Now they were getting sentimental again. I keyed in my PIN number and the telephone came to life, beeping peevishly. There were, of course, numerous messages via the answering service. I sat down and listened to them. A couple were from sources, a couple from business associates and more casual friends expressing their sympathy, and the last one, just before the tape had run out, was from Clara Hoffmann. Her cultivated, lilting voice, speaking the Danish I wasn’t used to hearing any more, came across clearly. There was a faint background noise, which could easily have come from below on the Plaza Santa Ana if she had rung from the balcony of the Hotel Victoria, and I tried to picture her as she had looked the day we went to the Cerveceria Alemana.
“Peter Lime. I am so terribly sorry to hear of your tragedy. I feel for you and send my deepest sympathy, even though words have little meaning at such a time. I’m returning to Denmark today. I won’t trouble you with my inquiries; however, I have to say that we are still interested in learning more about the woman and the man in the photograph. If you can help in any way – when the time is right for you, of course – if you want to get in touch with me, please ring me in Copenhagen. Otherwise, I’ll be getting back to
you at some point. And again, I’m so sorry. More than words can say.”
She gave me two telephone numbers and, out of habit, I waved my hand in the air for a pen and wrote them down on a slip of paper which I stuffed in my pocket before clearing her message too.
“Who was that?” Gloria asked. I must have had a strange look on my face.
“Something I’d forgotten about. A woman from the National Security Service – Danish – who contacted me just before, yes, just before, you know. About a photograph from the past.”
“Oh right, that,” said Oscar.
“What are you talking about?” said Gloria.
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter,” I said.
“Presumably it’s lost like all the others,” said Oscar.
“It’ll probably be in the suitcase,” I said.
They looked at me again.
“What suitcase?” said Gloria.
“Nothing,” I said. “Forget it.”
Gloria became businesslike, putting on her lawyer’s voice, the cut-glass, sharp tone which loosened the stomachs of her male opponents in court.
“Have you got negatives and prints that have survived? Because if you have then I, as your lawyer, would like to know. We are in the middle of a massive action for compensation against the insurance company. We’re basing it on the fact that you’ve lost your professional foundations, your professional assets, and that you should thus receive compensation. I’m not going to stand up in court, Peter, and plead your cause if the other side could suddenly pull valuable photographs out of the hat. The case rests on the fact that everything, and I mean everything, was lost in the fire. So what’s this all about?”
Oscar’s secretary stuck her head round the door.
“London,” was all she said and Oscar left the office, giving me a long, hard look.
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