Outlaws

by Javier Cercas

  ‘The next day I went to La Font.’

  Chapter 2

  ‘Yes: I’m a police officer. Why did I join the police? I don’t know. I’m sure my father being a Civil Guard had something to do with it, though. And besides, I imagine at the time I was as idealistic and fond of novelty as any other kid my age; you know what I mean: in the movies the cop was the good guy who saved the good people from the bad guys, and that’s what I wanted to be.

  ‘The fact is that at the age of sixteen I prepared for the exam to become an inspector of the General Police Corps, the secret police. I was a terrible student, but for nine months I studied like crazy and at the end of that time I sat the exam and passed it and even got a good grade. How do you like that? To do my practical training I had to move from Cáceres to Madrid; I took a room in a house on Jacometrezo from which I came and went daily to the Police Academy, at number five Miguel Ángel Street. At that time I began to realize what this job actually entailed. And you know what? I wasn’t disappointed; well, some things did disappoint me – you know, the obligatory routines, stupid colleagues, oceans of red tape, things like that – but on the other hand I made a discovery that should have surprised me a lot and didn’t surprise me at all, and it was that being a police officer was exactly like I’d always thought it was going to be. I already told you I was an idealist, and such a stubborn idealist that for a long time I believed my job was the best job in the world; now that I’ve spent almost forty years doing it I know it’s the worst, apart from all the rest of them.

  ‘What were we talking about? Oh, yes. My practical training. I found Madrid a bit intimidating, in part because I’d always lived in a small city and in part because it was a difficult time and the veterans of the force with whom I patrolled the city and I were always coming across altercations in the streets: one day it was an illegal demonstration, the next it would be a terrorist attack, and then another day a bank robbery. Or whatever. The thing is I knew almost immediately that level of commotion was too much for me and that neither Madrid nor any other big city was right for me at the time.

  ‘That is one of the reasons behind the decision I took when I finished my practical training: requesting a position here, in Gerona. I both did and didn’t want to go back to Cáceres. I liked the city, but I didn’t like the idea of going back to live there again one bit, and much less with my parents. And then I thought Gerona could be a good solution to that wanting and not wanting, because it wasn’t Cáceres but it was very similar – both were tranquil, historic provincial capitals, with a large old quarter and all that – and I thought that would make me not feel such a stranger in Gerona; I must have also thought I could get a head start there before going home or choosing a better posting, doing easier and less demanding work than I would have had to do in a big city. Besides (this might seem stupid to you but it was very important), I don’t know why but I was very curious about the Catalan people, especially the people of Gerona. I’m lying, I do know: I was curious because during my practical training I read Gerona, the novel by Galdós. Do you know it? It’s a portrait of the city during the siege by Napoleon’s troops. When I read it, forty years ago, I loved it; it was damn good: the total tragedy of war, the greatness of a whole city up in arms and defended by an iron-willed people, the heroism of General Álvarez de Castro, a character of mythic stature who refused to surrender the ruined and starving city to the French, and whom Galdós portrayed as the greatest patriot of his age. In 1974 I was only nineteen years old and things like that made an impression on me, so I thought Gerona would be the ideal place to start.

  ‘I requested Gerona and they sent me here.

  ‘I remember the day I arrived as if it were yesterday. I’d come on the train with five other new recruits and we went straight from the station to the Hotel Condal, where they had reserved rooms for us. It must have been seven or seven-thirty in the evening and, since it was February, night had already fallen and everything was dark. That was my first impression of Gerona: the sensation of darkness; the second was the sensation of damp; the third was the sensation of dirtiness; the fourth (and most intense) was the sensation of loneliness: a complete and absolute loneliness, such as I hadn’t even felt in my first days in Madrid, alone in my room in the boarding house on Jacometrezo. When we got to the hotel we unpacked, had a quick wash and went out to find some dinner. One of the other recruits was from Barcelona and knew the city, so we followed him. Looking for a restaurant we walked up Jaume I, crossed the Marquès de Camps and Sant Agustí Plazas, past the statue of Álvarez de Castro and the city’s defenders, which I didn’t see or didn’t notice that night; then we crossed the Onyar and in the dark could just barely make out its filthy water and the sadness of the façades overlooking the river, covered in clothes hung out to dry; then we wandered through the old city and walked the Rambla from bottom to top and crossed the Plaza de Cataluña and, when we were about to give up and say to hell with it all and go to bed on empty stomachs after that depressing stroll and that exhausting trip, we came across a place that was open very close to the hotel. It was the Rhin Bar. There, after haggling with the owner, who was closing and didn’t want to serve us, we drank a glass of milk. So I managed to go to bed that night not completely starving, and as I did so I thought I’d made a mistake and that as soon as I could I’d request a transfer and leave that godforsaken city.

  ‘I never did: I didn’t request a transfer or return to Cáceres or ever leave this city. Now it’s my city. My wife’s from here, my children are from here, my father and mother are buried here, and I love it and hate it more or less the way a person loves and hates what matters most to him. Although, on reflection, it’s not true: the truth is that I love this city a lot more than I hate it; how do you think I’ve put up with it for so long? Sometimes I even feel proud of it, because I’ve done as much as the next guy to make it what it is today; and believe me: it’s a lot better than it was when I got here . . . Back then, as I’ve already told you, it was a horrible city, but still, I soon got used to it. I lived with my five friends in a rented flat on Montseny Street, in the Santa Eugènia neighbourhood, and I worked at the station on Jaume I, near Sant Agustí Plaza. Gerona has always been as calm as a millpond, but it was even more so back then, when Franco hadn’t yet died, so as I’d expected, my work was much easier and less dangerous than what I’d done during my practical training. I was under the command of the deputy superintendent in charge of the Criminal Investigation Squad (Deputy Superintendent Martínez) and a veteran inspector in charge of one of the two groups the squad was divided into (Police Inspector Vives). Martínez was a good person and a good cop, but I soon discovered that Vives, who could be a lot of fun, deep down was a brainless thug. Why should I lie to you: there were lots of cops like that then. But luckily none of the guys with whom I had to share the flat and the squad, because I was living with them all hours of the day: we spent our mornings at the station, had lunch at Can Lloret, Can Barnet or El Ánfora, in the afternoons we walked our beats, at night we slept under the same roof and on our days off we tried to amuse ourselves together, something that in the Gerona of those days was almost more difficult than doing a good job. It’s true that the resources the Squad had at its disposal were very sparse (we only had, for example, two undercover cars, which everyone recognized anyway because they were always parked in front of the station), but we didn’t really need that much more either, because there was very little crime in the city and it was all concentrated in the red-light district, and that made it pretty easy to keep it under surveillance: all the crooks congregated in the district, all the jobs were cooked up in the district, and in the district, sooner or later, everyone knew everything about everyone. So all we needed to do was pass through the red-light district every evening and every night to control most of what went on in the city without too much difficulty.’

  ‘And that’s where you met El Zarco?’

  ‘Exactly: that’s where I met him.’

  Cha
pter 3

  ‘As I told you before: at the age of sixteen I’d heard of the red-light district, although the only thing I knew about it was that it was not a highly recommended place and was on the other side of the river, in the old part of the city. In spite of my ignorance, the first time I went to La Font I didn’t get lost.

  ‘That afternoon I took the Sant Agustí bridge across the Onyar, and once I was in the old quarter I turned left on Ballesteries Street, continued up Calderas and, as I left the Church of Sant Fèlix behind on my right and turned into La Barca Street, realized I’d arrived in the district. I realized that from the stench of garbage and piss rising up like a thick waft from the paving stones heated by the siesta-hour sunshine; also from the people at the corner of Portal de la Barca, taking advantage of the stingy shade those decrepit buildings cast: an old man with sucked-in cheeks, a couple of sinister-looking adults, three or four quinquis in their twenties, all smoking and holding glasses of wine or bottles of beer. I passed them without looking at them and once I’d crossed Portal de la Barca I saw the Sargento bar; next door to it was La Font. I stopped at the door and looked through the glass. It was a small place, long and narrow, with a bar on the left and a space that ran along in front of it towards the back where it opened out into a little room. The place was almost empty: there were a few tables in the little back room, but I didn’t see anybody sitting at any of them; a couple of customers were chatting by the bar; behind the bar a woman was rinsing out glasses in the sink; above the woman, stuck on the wall, a sign read: “Smoking joints strictly forbidden”. I didn’t dare go in and kept going along La Barca to the corner of Bellaire, the border of the district. I hung around there for a good long while, between the railway overpass and Sant Pere Church, wondering whether I should go home or try again, until at some point I gathered my courage, returned to La Font and went in.

  ‘There were quite a few more people in the bar now, although not Tere or Zarco. A bit intimidated, I planted myself at the end of the bar, near the door, and the landlady – a grim-faced redhead in a stain-covered apron – soon came over and asked me what I wanted; I asked for Zarco and she said he hadn’t arrived yet; then I asked if she knew when he was going to get there and she told me she didn’t; then she stood there looking at me. What’s wrong?, she finally said. Aren’t you going to order anything? I asked for a Coca-Cola, paid for it and began to wait.

  ‘It wasn’t long before Tere and Zarco showed up. As soon as they came through the door of La Font they saw me; as soon as they saw me, Tere’s face lit up. Zarco patted me on the back. Fuck, Gafitas! he said. About time, eh? They took me to the back of the place and we sat at a table where two young guys were sitting: one, freckled and with almond-shaped eyes, they called Chino; the other chain-smoked constantly and was very small and very nervous, had a face full of pimples and they called him Colilla, or cigarette butt. Zarco made me sit between him and Tere, and while he was ordering beers from the landlady, Lina appeared, a blonde in a miniskirt and fuchsia-coloured sneakers who, I later found out, was Gordo’s girlfriend. No one introduced me to anyone and no one said anything to me: Tere was talking to Lina, Colilla and Chino talked to Zarco; Gordo and Tío didn’t even give any sign of recognizing me when they showed up after a while. I felt totally out of place, but never for a minute did I consider leaving.

  ‘A little while later a slightly older guy came over to sit with us. He was wearing cowboy boots, very tight flared jeans and his shirt unbuttoned; a gold chain shone on his chest. The guy sat astride a chair, beside Zarco, leaned his forearms on the chairback and pointed at me: And this posh kid? Everybody shut up; I suddenly noticed eight pairs of eyes staring at me. Zarco broke the silence. Fuck, Guille! he admonished. He’s the guy from Vilaró: I told you he’d show up eventually. Guille made a face like he didn’t know what Zarco was talking about. Zarco was about to go on when the landlady appeared with more beers and with a kid they called Drácula. When the landlady left (and Drácula stayed: they called him that because one of his eye teeth stuck out over his lip), Zarco continued: Go on, Gafitas, tell Guille what you told me the other day. Although I guessed what he meant, I asked him what he meant. What you told me about the arcade, he said. I told him; flattered by my momentary prominence, maybe trying to score points in front of the group (or just in front of Tere), I added that now I was helping Señor Tomàs close the place. Zarco asked me a couple of questions, among them how much money Señor Tomàs collected each day. I don’t know, I said, honestly. More or less, Zarco insisted. I said a figure that was too high, and Zarco looked at Guille and I looked at Tere and at that moment I guessed I shouldn’t have said what I’d just said.

  ‘I soon forgot my hunch, and spent the rest of the afternoon with them. After my starring moment on account of the arcade and Señor Tomàs, I barely opened my mouth again; all I did was try to go unnoticed and listen while they drank beer at La Font and went out to smoke joints sitting on the rail of the bridge over Galligants, in the Sant Pere Plaza. That was how I found out three things: the first is that Zarco and Tere lived in the prefabs (as I later learned, the rest of them lived in Pont Major, Vilarroja and Germans Sàbat, but all of them or almost all of them had lived in the prefabs and most of them knew each other from there); the second is that, apart from Zarco, who was from Barcelona and had only been living in Gerona for a few months, they were all from Gerona or had been living here for years; and the third is that Zarco, Guille, Gordo and Drácula had all spent time in reform school (as I later learned, between the previous summer and the winter of that very year Zarco had been in Barcelona’s Modelo Prison, even though he hadn’t yet turned sixteen and was still a minor). As for the rest of it, until that day I had never tried hashish, so towards evening, after the feeling of well-being and uncontrollable laughter that a couple of tokes provoked had passed, I started to feel bad and, while we were on our way back to La Font from Sant Pere Plaza, I slipped away from the group and walked down Bellaire Street away from the district.

  ‘Walking through La Devesa did me good. When I arrived at the arcade it was still open, and as I walked past Señor Tomàs’ booth I waved to him, but didn’t stop to talk. I went directly to the washrooms; I looked at myself in the mirror: I was pale and my eyes were red. I still felt like I was floating in a thick fog; to clear my head I urinated, took off my glasses, washed my face and hands. Then, as I looked back at myself in the mirror again, I remembered Zarco and Guille’s conversation about Señor Tomàs and the arcade. On my way out of the washroom I bumped straight into the old man; as if he’d caught me doing something wrong, I was startled. What’s wrong?, asked Señor Tomàs. Have you been sick again? I said no. Well, you still look ill, son, said Señor Tomàs. You should go to the doctor. We’d started to walk towards his booth. The arcade was still full of people, but Señor Tomàs announced: We’ll close in ten minutes. At that moment I thought I should tell him what I’d told Zarco and Guille and the rest of them at La Font, and what I was starting to suspect about them; only then did I realize that maybe he had suspected it much earlier than me, since the first afternoon Zarco and Tere showed up at the arcade, and that this was precisely why he’d offered to make me his helper. Even so, I didn’t dare confess my suspicions – after all, doing so would have also meant confessing that I’d been with Zarco and the others and in a sense had turned into their accomplice, or at least that I’d said too much – and ten minutes later I helped him close up.

  ‘That same night I had my first fight with my father. I mean the first more or less serious fight, of course, because we’d already had quite a few unimportant fights; not many, really: up till then I’d behaved like a good boy, and the one who had fights in my house was my sister, who was the eldest (and who, therefore, because I was a good kid and never confronted my parents, accused me of being a coward, a hypocrite, faint-hearted and accommodating). But over the last little while things had begun to change and the run-ins between my parents and me – mostly between my father and me –
had become habitual; I suppose it was logical: after all I was a teenager; I suppose as well that, since nothing is as satisfactory as being able to blame someone else for all our woes, part of me blamed my parents for my troubles, or at least all the trouble Batista was giving me, as if I’d arrived at the conclusion that the inevitable result of my meek charnego upbringing was the horror in which Batista had me imprisoned, or as if this horror were part of the natural logic of things and Batista was just doing to me what, without my knowing or anyone having told me, his father had always done to my father.

  ‘I don’t know. The thing is that for months a wordless grudge against my parents had been growing in my guts, a silent fury that surfaced then, the first day I drank a few beers and smoked joints with Zarco’s gang. I have a sort of hazy memory of what happened that night, maybe because during that summer there were various similar episodes and in my memory they all tend to blend into a single one: one of those interchangeable quarrels between fathers and sons in which everyone says brutal things and everyone’s right. What I do remember is that when I got home it was after nine and my parents and my sister were having dinner. You’re home late, said my father. I mumbled an apology and sat down at the table; my mother served my dinner and sat down again. They were eating with the television news on, though the volume was so low that it barely interfered with conversation. I began to eat without lifting my eyes from my plate, except to look at the television screen every once in a while. My sister was absorbing my parents’ attention: she’d just finished high school at the Vicens Vives Institute and, while preparing to start university the following year, she had a summer job in a pharmaceutical lab. When my sister stopped talking (or maybe just paused), my father turned to me and asked how I was; avoiding his gaze, I said I was fine. Then he asked me where I’d been and I said outside. Oh oh oh, my sister intervened, as if she couldn’t stand not being the centre of attention for every second of the meal. But look at the eyes on you! What’ve you been smoking? A hush fell over the dining room, disturbed only by the sound of the television, where there was news of an attack by ETA. Shut up, you idiot, I said before I could stop myself. There’s no need to insult anybody, said my mother. Besides, your sister’s right, she added, putting her hand on my forehead. Your eyes are red. Are you feeling all right? Pulling my forehead away I said yes and kept eating.