Murder in the Central Committee

by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

  Why didn’t you ask me if you were making yourself clear, instead of whether I follow or understand? Sepúlveda glanced at his watch again. The class was over; but Carvalho still had the strength to lift a finger.

  ‘May I ask you a question?’

  ‘So long as it’s only one.’

  ‘How would you have marked Garrido in order to stab him?’

  The engineer had half risen, but now he fell back into his rotating chair.

  ‘I don’t know. But Garrido did have some kind of signal on him. I remember it perfectly well: a point of light. I repeat. I can perfectly recall a point of light.’

  He had not been inside a bookshop since the day in Amsterdam when he had had to watch someone involved in the tattoo case. He cast a sceptical glance over the new titles displayed in the VIP bookshop on Avenida Princesa, although he did dip into one or two of them. Sooner or later he would have to bring himself up to date, so that he could buy and burn books with a full awareness of what he was doing. His period as buyer-reader had come to an end in the early seventies, when he suddenly saw himself as the slave of a culture that had cut him off from life and falsified his feelings as antibiotics can destroy the body’s defences. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the Central European night-owl draw closer; the Central European he had met that morning could not be far away. The man still had the coolness of many hours before. He stood next to Carvalho and took a red book from one of the piles on offer. Communism in Freedom by Robert Havemann.

  ‘We didn’t like at all what you did to our colleague.’

  ‘You should be more choosy about the company you keep.’

  ‘After all, you didn’t come out of it too badly, while his arm’s broken in two places.’

  ‘An arm counts for a lot.’

  ‘We’d like to know what the fat guy said to you in the hotel this morning.’

  ‘He ate all my toast. He didn’t have time to say anything. Really, if you know so much about what the other guy is doing, why don’t you team up? Is he somewhere around?’

  ‘If not him, then one of his cronies. Don’t be too smart. You shouldn’t feel protected by our rivals. The day when you’re least expecting it, we’ll squash you both in one go. Don’t try to play a double game. How is the investigation going?’

  Carvalho managed to hold back a sarcastic reply. A block of disgust and indignation sealed his mouth. A remote nerve-centre transmitted the order that he shoud smash the son-of-a-bitch’s face in, turn it into one big bleeding shit-hole. He felt an elbow in the small of his back, but it didn’t belong to the same man. Turning his head, he saw the rat-like shape of a man who continued to elbow him with the arm of a hand holding a carefully chosen book.

  ‘Is he a friend of yours?’

  ‘No. But he’ll help you avoid doing something stupid. I tell you, you can’t even move. It’s very simple. All you have to do is pass us information at the right moment. Neither you nor your employers will lose out. By the way, you had a meal with Leveder and then arranged an interview with Sepúlveda. Anything interesting?’

  ‘Routine.’

  ‘Are they suspects?’

  ‘They know how to talk and like to listen to themselves. My father always told me to get to know people older and wiser than myself. Could you tell your friend to lay off? They’ll take us for homosexuals.’

  ‘As I said, I don’t know the gentleman, but you’d better not forget our agreement. The man with the broken arm dreams of the time when he’ll have you to himself. Did you mention our meeting to Fonseca?’

  ‘Yes. You’ve made yourselves a bad enemy. Fonseca loathes you. He’s a great professional who holds the theory that we don’t need to import torturers. I’d like to ask you a question. May I?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Why is the fridge in that house so full of peaches and syrup?’

  ‘I’m not in charge of the household administration.’

  ‘Very low-grade peaches at that.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ll protest through the normal channels. We’ll be seeing each other again.’

  Carvalho turned sharply and pushed the rat-man who was digging his kidneys.

  ‘Mind what you’re touching, you pansy! This filthy pig was trying to touch me up!’

  Watched by a quick-to-form circle of people, he seized the little man by the lapels.

  ‘Good Lord! What would a fine young man like that have against pansies?’ The voice gave rise to general laughter.

  The rat-man let himself be shaken by Carvalho. Not a muscle in his face moved, while his cold black eyes looked daggers into Carvalho’s gleaming eyes.

  ‘Someone call the police!’ said Carvalho, his face flushed and the veins on his temples wriggling like snakes.

  ‘Come on, your highness, let him go. What airs our fine young man has!’ The crowd opened for the boy with the effeminate voice. Wearing a three-cornered hat, a white silk scarf and a brown cape, he stood there twirling both his tongue and a small cane encrusted with mother-of-pearl. The rat-man profited from the distraction to spit a few words into Carvalho’s face.

  ‘You keep that up and your guts will be all over the wall.’

  One of his hands was buried in his raincoat pocket, thrusting the muzzle of a revolver against Carvalho’s belly. The detective pushed him away in disgust.

  ‘Piss off, you dirty little queer!’

  The rat-man straightened his coat, looked calmly at the spectators and left in no great hurry. Carvalho did not have time to watch his departure, for the boy with the three-cornered hat was trying to capture his attention with little taps of the cane on his arm.

  ‘It’s not on to be quite such a he-man. Where do you think you’re living, Mr Universe? That guy touched you with respect, while you insulted him like the guttersnipe you are.’

  ‘Get out of my sight, you scarecrow.’

  ‘Jesus, what a nasty piece of work!’

  ‘Okay, the party’s over.’

  The VIP security man gently pushed the angry defender of homosexuals.

  ‘And you, sir, if you want to make some complaint, go to the manager instead of stirring things up.’

  ‘What can he complain about? That his hymen was broken?’ The boy with the hat was still as keyed up as a violin.

  ‘I told you to shut your face, you little ponce.’

  The security guard had been resting his palms on the young man’s chest, and now, almost without a fresh movement, he pushed him back against a shelf full of cookery books. The bohemian sculpture collapsed beneath an avalanche of hefty tomes. Carvalho glimpsed his slim white calves, which descended sockless into two moccasins worn thin by the hard nocturnal pavements of Madrid. He did not have the nerve to keep his eyes on the tear-filled face that emerged from the heap of books with an old-fashioned dignity of a man in the stocks.

  Movement consists not in moving but in being moved. Where are they leading me? A Gethsemane-type anguish drove him disoriented into the street. I’ll wait here until they hand over the sacrificial lamb. It was him. No, him. He walked slowly towards the Moncloa, allowing sufficient time for those doomed to follow or catch him up. What are you waiting for, fatso? But he didn’t appear. Carvalho went into a long-distance telephone box and called Biscuter. Is everything the same? And Charo? Tell Charo . . . No, don’t tell her anything. What are the Ramblas like? How’s the food in Madrid, boss? Go easy on the tripe. Think of your liver. Tripe is good for the uric acid. Biscuter wouldn’t be convinced. Are you looking at the Ramblas? It’s almost night, boss. Biscuter would be able to smell the harbour—that special smell of autumn evenings which rises from the Puerto de la Paz and reminds the people of Barcelona of their maritime destiny, restoring their self-image of contemplative beings astonished to discover their feet in the Mediterranean basin. A lady has lost her daughter, boss. She got lost in Marbella or Tunis. Will you see her, boss? The woman is very upset. A contortionist can get lost anywhere. What’s a contortionist, boss? Someone who can put one
foot around the back of her neck and the other in a pocket. It’s like one of Forges’s jokes, boss.

  ‘I’ve finished for today. Could we go to your place?’

  ‘To my place? Sure. No problem. But first I’ve got to stop by my Party branch, pick up the kid from my aunt’s house and have a bit of a fight with my husband.’

  At the Café Malasaña there are twenty anarchistic ex-communists, twenty neo-liberal ex-anarchists and two waiters who look as if they play Monopoly by day and the class struggle by night. But everyone seems disguised as a runaway boy or girl from some home or other who is forced to pose for the ‘Malasaña way of life’.

  ‘It wasn’t called Malasaña in my time.’

  ‘Under Franco even the districts were called Spain. But this place has always been Malasaña, since long before La verbana de la Paloma was written.’

  ‘Why has it become so fashionable?’

  ‘Because it’s old without being archaeological, and it has a lot of young progressive people who had a baby nine months after May ’68.’

  ‘May I come along while you go to your branch, pick up your kid and sort out your husband?’

  ‘You may.’

  ‘First I must drop by the hotel to pick up some bags. Have you got any oil at home?’

  ‘Oil and butter. Everything necessary.’

  Outside the hotel, Carmela said goodbye with a look that was at once question and answer. When he returned with the paper bags, she changed her smile into a full alpine fold.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to invite you to supper at your house. I’ll cook.’

  ‘Europeans like hell! You Catalans are really Americans. Well, I’m blowed. May I know what’s on the menu?’

  ‘I’m still thinking it out. Depends how things go.’

  ‘Our branch premises smell of blood-pudding with rice, because the barman is from Aragon and they’re always made with rice there.’

  ‘Some are.’

  Carmela did not open her mouth once while they stuttered across rush-hour Madrid. It was full of expert traffic policemen irritated by the ubiquitous jeeps and army lorries—khaki sponges who soaked up the nocturnal darkness punctuated by a cold, gloomy light.

  ‘Didn’t you see the amber light, miss?’

  ‘I did, but not for long. It vanished straight away.’

  ‘Do you think we’re playing hide-and-seek with the traffic lights?’

  ‘Don’t shout so. This gentleman is from Barcelona and he’ll think he’s in Africa.’

  ‘We’ll see if he’s from Barcelona, because they’re supposed to drive like in Europe. Let’s see if he gives you an earful.’

  The policeman did not understand Carmela’s laughter and was on the point of doubling the fine he scribbled in his receipt book. Once they were out of range, she burst into uncontrollable laughter, as if telling herself a story worthy of the utmost hilarity.

  ‘If you tell me too, we can laugh together. I thought you were in mourning.’

  ‘It’s the oil.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘I told you I had butter!’

  Her continued laughter drew a veil of tears over her smokey eyes.

  ‘Would you like to come in? It’s a very together branch. Today there’ll be a very heated discussion on the policy of the two blocs. For something like that, the old guard calls a full mobilisation and rolls out its tanks. They think eurocommunism is to blame for unemployment. I won’t stay for the whole show, but we can listen to a bit.’

  Behind the raised metal shutters, another glass door opened on a bar that would have seemed quite normal but for the wall-pictures of Marx, Lenin and Garrido, and the posters advertising the Mundo Obrero festival. People were moving down a corridor to the meeting-room, although a number of stragglers were still paying at the bar. Carmela went from one person to another, dropping comments here and a compliment or sarcastic remark there. A compelling joke left her unmoved, while Carvalho, standing by her side, observed the liturgy of communication between the leadership and the rank and file. The leadership was on the right, weighing in at seventy-five kilos. Young full-time cadres, strong-voiced and with a Beatles hair-style ten years behind the times; at home with syntactical constructions apart from the possibly excessive use of ‘anyway. . .’ or ‘at the level of. . .’. The rank and file on the left: fifty or sixty people with an average of fifty, thanks to the correct balance between sixty- and forty-year-olds; mostly workers from the industrial belt; their wives fascinated by the ritual and, at the same time, in the process of emancipation through questions not always springing from woman’s condition. Do you think it’s right, comrade? How long must we workers go on paying for the economic crisis?

  ‘This meeting has a special significance. . .The leadership wishes that the murder of our general secretary, comrade Fernando Garrido, should not interfere with the normal course of our activity. Every scheduled meeting will take place. It’s the best answer we can give to the provocateurs.’

  The thirty-year-old cadre, who already had signs of forty around his eyes, spoke with the rhetorical tone of a rehearsed speech and left the impression that he would wall up the rank and file whose dreams of storming the Winter Palace had been stolen for ever. It’s not that we stand half-way between the two blocs: a communist ought to know that one bloc arose for aggression and the other for self-defence. But if that game were treated as a historical fatality, the emancipation struggle of every people in the world would be paralysed until the clash between the blocs had been resolved, and one would be drawn into one or other sphere of influence. We should not forget that we Spaniards are in the sphere of influence of the capitalist bloc, and that we must relate to this objective fact not as an inevitable reality but as a determinant of our strategy. History has shown that there is not just one model for the implantation of socialism. In our view, democratic freedoms are an instrument for reaching socialism in a context of pluralism and liberty.

  ‘What I want most is the freedom to work and eat, instead of living like an animal.’

  It was the first intervention from the base. The second was delivered by a well-built woman who seemed as resolute as God on the day of creation.

  ‘You want to go beyond bloc politics? Fine. I agree. But how? The blocs are there, and one day the imperialists will launch an attack on the socialist countries. What will we do then?’

  The young cadre breathed deeply and leant back in his chair before answering the question that had been handed to him on a plate.

  ‘We’ll do what no one has ever placed in doubt. We’ll fight against imperialism.’

  Nudges of complicity among the rank and file. Nods of agreement. A general impression that eurocommunism has been saved. Carmela cannot understand why Carvalho initially resists when she says they have to go; why he sits tight to hear an old man, who begins his presumably involved question by recounting that he received his Party card in June 1936 at a bar on Calle Hortaleza.

  ‘You seem to have enjoyed it.’

  ‘For a minute I thought that twenty-four years of my life had not passed, that it was the day after I left the Party.’

  ‘Ah! You’ve been part of the scene?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t show.’

  Carmela’s boy is like all the other fair-haired children in Madrid. The head of the nursery suggests that she should have come earlier, because she’s had to stay behind specially. The boy tells his mother that hens can only fly a little.

  ‘Who told you that, sweetie?’

  ‘The lady. That’s why there’s no need to keep them caged like parrots.’

  The boy naturally points at Carvalho and asks: ‘Who’s that, mummy?’ Since Carvalho does not answer, she says that he is a gentleman from Barcelona. This produces a sceptical smile on the child’s face: he cannot believe there is anything else in the world but the straight line from Madrid to the sky. Carmela parks on a double-yellow line in fron
t of a brightly lit building. The wind is blowing the blue-and-red poster: Eurocommunism and Class Struggle. Carmela takes the boy, goes into the building and shortly emerges with a man who is now carrying the child. They exchange rather heated words, but she shrugs and walks off.

  ‘He’s completely shameless. It’s the first time this month I’ve told him to look after the kid, and he says he can’t. I certainly messed up his date. He can go and. . .’

  ‘Don’t you live together?’

  ‘I don’t know. When he doesn’t have a Party meeting, he’s got one as a member of some parliamentary advisory committee, or, if not, then some municipal advisory committee. And then he goes round speaking on whether the Soviet tanks should remain in Afghanistan or keep going until they reach Madrid. He’s not the only one to live like that, overrun by a thousand responsibilities, but I’m sick to death of it. In the end I’ve got to work, function in the Party, do the shopping, keep house and be a mother—which is the least of my worries. And if you complain, some old women comrades come round and tell you a life-story that makes your hair stand on end. Fifteen years of whispering sweet nothings through the prison grille at Carabanchel or Burgos, then a kid for every period on parole, and finally, at seventy years of age, the amnesty, legalisation and sun-bathing on a park bench. I can even understand that, because it had to be done and there was nothing more to it. But now? What my husband does isn’t Party work. It’s just plain vice, and the wish to avoid anything other than political responsibility. So, what have you got in those bags?’