Outlaws

by Javier Cercas

  ‘I did what I’d promised. And approximately three weeks later Zarco enjoyed his first weekend pass in a long time.’

  ‘So do you think it was a blend of jealousy and fear that made Zarco lose his initial optimism, that worried and infuriated him?’

  ‘Yes. Although the fear was the fundamental thing.’

  ‘But fear of what?’

  ‘That took me even longer to understand. Do you know what it’s like to want something and be afraid of it at the same time?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Well, that’s what was happening to Zarco: there was nothing he wanted more than to be free, and at the same time there was nothing he feared more than being free.’

  ‘Are you telling me that Zarco was afraid to get out of jail?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Chapter 6

  ‘Was Gamallo afraid of leaving the prison? Of course he was! How couldn’t he be? Did Cañas tell you this? And when did he figure it out? Because if he’d figured it out in time, he would have been spared a lot of unpleasantness, and would have spared the rest of us too. And the thing is if you think it through it wasn’t that difficult, eh? Gamallo had been living in prisons for decades; prison life is bad, but over the years you start to master the rules and get used to it, and it can end up seeming like a comfortable life. That’s what happened to Gamallo, who actually didn’t know any other kind of life. For him prison was his home, while liberty was the outdoors: he’d forgotten what it was like out there, what was out there, how to behave out there, maybe even who he was out there.’

  ‘Cañas basically said that, in theory, there was nothing Zarco desired as much as getting out of jail, but deep down there was nothing he was so frightened of.’

  ‘He’s right: when he was far from freedom, Zarco did what he could to get closer to getting it, whereas, when he got too close to getting freed, he did whatever he could to get away from it. I think this explains in part what happened. When he came to the Gerona prison at the end of the year, Gamallo was quite a balanced inmate without much appetite for trouble, he rather seemed to want to go unnoticed, to join in with the rest of the inmates and to co-operate with us; four or five months later, when he became eligible to start applying for weekend passes, he’d turned into a gruff, rebellious and angry inmate who was confrontational with everyone and saw enemies everywhere. The prospect of freedom unhinged him. I insist that, if Cañas had understood all this in time, perhaps he wouldn’t have proceeded in the worst possible way, which is how he proceeded: trying to get Gamallo out of prison as soon as he could and by any means possible, instead of being prudent and letting time take its course and letting him mature and letting us prepare him for freedom (supposing we could have done so, of course); and, especially, running that disastrous press campaign that put Gamallo back on the front pages.’

  ‘Did you tell Cañas all this?’

  ‘Of course. As soon as I could. As soon as it was clear to me.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘The second time we saw each other in my office. On that occasion it was he who requested the meeting. Or rather who improvised it. That afternoon I was negotiating with a contractor who was going to carry out some work that we’d been needing to get done at the prison for some time when my secretary interrupted me to tell me that Cañas wanted to see me urgently. I told her it was going to be a while before I finished and to fix an appointment for the lawyer for any day that week, but my secretary answered that Cañas insisted on seeing me immediately and I agreed to let him come in. I cut short my dialogue with the contractor, but as soon as I saw Cañas walk into my office I realized I’d made a mistake and should have made him wait a little longer so he could calm down. I shook his hand and offered him a seat on the sofa, but he didn’t sit down, and we both stood there beside the redundant piece of furniture. The first thing Cañas said to me was that he’d just spoken to Gamallo and had come to present a protest, and the first thing I thought when I heard him was that I wasn’t surprised he’d come to present a protest in Gamallo’s name and that, although he was probably puffed up by the triumph of the media offensive he’d launched in favour of his client and by the political and popular support he’d won with it, Gamallo had managed to infect him with his recent nervousness. I thought of saying to him: For this you kicked up a fuss with my secretary? Although in the end I only said: Tell me.

  ‘Without further ado Cañas threw in my face the mistreatment to which, according to him, two guards were subjecting his client. He rounded off his complaint with the threat of bringing a lawsuit against my two subordinates, of talking to the director-general of prisons and of taking the case to the newspapers. Then he concluded, emphatically: Either you stop this or I do. Cañas pointed his index finger at me, his eyes wide open behind the lenses of his glasses; the gentlemanly and proud winner of his first visit had disappeared, and in his place was an irate, high and mighty señorito, panicking that he might lose. I stood staring at him in silence. He lowered his finger. Then I asked him the names of the two guards and Cañas told me: they were two of my most trusted men (one, head of service; the other a guard who’d been working under me for twenty years). I sighed and again offered him a seat, this time in front of my desk; the lawyer again refused, but I pretended he’d accepted and sat back down. Don’t worry, I said. I’ll open an investigation. I’ll speak to both guards. I’ll find out what has been going on. In any case, I added straight away, leaning back in my armchair and making it turn, let me be honest with you: I was expecting this. Cañas asked me, impatiently, what it was that I expected. I reflected for a moment, tried to explain: I assured him that for some time all my specialists had been noticing a physical and psychological backslide in Gamallo, that for a couple of weeks at that point Gamallo had been refusing the methadone treatment he was on to combat his heroin addiction (which could only mean he’d found a way to get drugs and was using them again), that his relationship with the guards and with the rest of the inmates was getting worse by the day and that the whole prison-management team felt that an important part of the blame for the mess fell on the uproar of the propaganda campaign in favour of a pardon and especially on the unexpected new life that this uproar had given to Zarco’s personality.

  ‘Up to that moment, Cañas had listened to me visibly holding back his desire to interrupt, but here he could restrain himself no longer. I don’t know what you’re talking about, he said. Zarco is dead. Zarco is alive, I contradicted him gently. He was dead, but you resuscitated him. If that poor woman didn’t spend her days telling fairy stories to journalists, with you by her side, perhaps this wouldn’t be happening. I was referring to María Vela, of course, who Cañas was using as a battering ram in his campaign for Zarco’s freedom; it goes without saying that what I’d told him was what everyone knew, but Cañas did not like to hear it. He took a couple of steps forward, put his hands on my desk, leaned towards me. Tell me something, Superintendent, he spat out. Why don’t you stick to your business and leave the rest of us in peace? Cañas was breathing hard, his nostrils trembled and, rather than speaking, he’d babbled out the words, as if his fury had hobbled his tongue; as you know, I had tried to avoid a confrontation with him since the beginning, but now realized I could not back down. I answered: Because this business is also mine. As much mine as yours, Counsellor. Believe me: I wish it wasn’t, but it is. And, since it’s also mine, I have the obligation to tell you what I think, and I think you’re the one who should leave Gamallo in peace. Whatever life he has left, you are helping him fuck it up. I understood that this truth would really irritate Cañas; I understood that he would reply: The ones who have always tried to fuck up Gamallo’s life are people like you. And he added, standing back up again: Only this time you’re not going to be able to. Having said this, Cañas seemed to consider the interview finished, walked to my office door and opened it, but before going through it he stopped, spun around and again pointed his furious señorito’s index finger at me. Make sure t
hose guards don’t bother my client again, he demanded. And another thing: we’re going to start requesting weekend-release passes; I hope you’ll grant them. I asked him if that were a threat. No, he replied. Just a piece of advice. But it’s good advice. Take it. Sure, I said, leaning back in my chair and raising my hands in a gesture both sardonic and conciliatory. What choice do I have?

  ‘The lawyer slammed the door on his way out and left me perplexed. I still didn’t know whether Cañas was utterly naive and believed everything Gamallo told him or if he was an utter cynic and pretended to believe him and in reality he was just after fame at the expense of Gamallo’s fame. Whatever the case, I resigned myself to receiving another phone call from the director-general, to whom Cañas had appealed a few weeks earlier to force me to authorize some television cameras to film Gamallo inside the prison. But the director-general didn’t call, no one gave me any indication of how I was to deal with Gamallo, no one filed any complaints against anyone and the issue did not come out in the papers. Not only that: although two days later I received a request for a weekend-release permit in Gamallo’s name with Cañas’ signature, that afternoon the lawyer returned to my office to apologize for his behaviour during his previous visit. That was when my opinion of Cañas changed and I began to like him, because more courage is needed to admit a mistake than to persist in it, and much more to make peace than to declare war. That afternoon I thanked Cañas, told him he had no reason to apologize, and considered the matter resolved and explained that, as I’d only received his request a few hours earlier, it was too late for Gamallo to get out that weekend, but that he’d be able to the next one.

  ‘Over the following days I spoke to the two guards that Gamallo had accused of harassing him and asked them to stay away from him, I spoke to members of the prison staff and asked them to use extreme caution with our man, and the next weekend Gamallo went out on leave for the first time in a long while.’

  Chapter 7

  ‘The Saturday that Zarco got out on his first weekend release I arranged to meet Tere at noon in front of the post office, and from there we went to Marfà Street to pick up María and her daughter. When we got to the prison there was already a cloud of journalists around the door, who fell on María and her daughter as soon as they got out of the car. María dealt with them and, after answering a few questions, went inside the prison with her daughter. Tere and I remained outside, chatting a few steps away from the journalists, whom I kept at bay with jokes on the grounds that it was Zarco’s day and not mine.

  ‘Ten minutes later Zarco came out. His exit seemed staged by a set designer: María and her daughter each held one of his hands; the three of them smiled at the cameras. During the seconds they spent in the prison yard, Zarco answered reporters’ questions and then, still pursued by photographers’ flashes and television cameras, they walked out to the street and got in the car. Tere and I were waiting for them inside; María and her daughter sat in the back, with Tere; without saying a word of greeting to either Tere or me, Zarco got in the front, beside me. The journalists surrounded the car and for a moment all of us inside remained still and silent, as if time had stopped or we were frozen or trapped inside a glass ball, but then Zarco turned towards me with total joy in his eyes and said with a voice so deep it sounded like it was coming from his stomach: Let’s get the fuck out of here, Gafitas.

  ‘To celebrate Zarco’s release permit I took them all out for lunch to a restaurant in Cartellà, a nearby village. In my memory it was a very strange meal, maybe because it was the first time for almost everything: the first time Zarco was out of prison in a long time, the first time Zarco and María were together outside the prison, the first time Zarco, Tere and María were together, the first time the five of us were together, as well. The truth is that nobody knew exactly how to act, or what role they should be playing, or those of us who did know, didn’t know how to play it, starting with Zarco, who turned in a poor performance as the prisoner on weekend release and María’s future husband, and ending with me, who turned in an even worse one as the lawyer and former accomplice of the prisoner on weekend release (as well as Tere’s secret lover). But worst of all was that, as soon as I saw Zarco and María beside each other, I felt with no room for doubt that such a couple could not function, could not even do an imitation of a real couple for very long: it wasn’t just that the combination of authentic quinqui and apparent good Samaritan was entirely improbable, it was that Zarco didn’t pay the slightest bit of attention to María – neither to María nor to her daughter – and spent the whole meal stuffing his face and knocking back the wine, joking around and telling Tere and I stories while I tried to make conversation with María and her daughter, who barely touched her food and spent the whole time watching everyone with terrified eyes. The consequence of that general casting error and Zarco’s terrible manners, or his inability to pretend, was that, as well as being very strange, the meal was also very uncomfortable: very uncomfortable for everyone except him, who seemed to be having a high time; it also turned out to be much shorter than anticipated, thanks to Tere and me (who quickly took charge of the situation and, without any prior decision, tried to cut short María’s distress), and that was in spite of the fact that in the end there was no way to get Zarco out of the restaurant, especially when the owner of the place committed the error of asking him to sign the visitors’ book.

  ‘Before four in the afternoon I parked the car in María’s street. Are we here?, asked Zarco, peering out through the windscreen. María said yes, took her leave and walked towards the door to her building. Well, sighed Zarco. I guess I’m staying here too. He said it without the slightest enthusiasm, knowing it was what I was expecting him to say. He got out of the car and stood next to it, with one arm leaning on the roof, looking in at Tere and at me through the passenger window. He’d had quite a bit to drink, and he seemed more content than resigned. Take it easy this weekend, you bastards, he joked. Don’t get carried away. Then he patted the hood of the car and followed María and her daughter.’

  ‘Were you worried?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so. Why?’

  ‘Well, you said Zarco and María didn’t seem like a very believable couple. Besides, with the expectation Zarco’s weekend release had raised, with all the correctional authorities counting on its success and the superintendent opposed to it, any mistake could ruin your whole half-year’s work.’

  ‘That’s true. But it’s also true that I trusted Zarco and was convinced that he wanted to be free and wasn’t going to do anything stupid. Although maybe you’re right: maybe I was more worried than I remember, or than I was able or willing to recognize. I don’t know. In any case I don’t remember that as a special weekend either. What I do remember is that after dropping Zarco off I suggested to Tere that we go for coffee and that she turned down my invitation alleging that she had two exams on Tuesday and she had to study, and then I drove her home; I also remember that I spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday indoors without seeing anyone but my daughter, and that on the Monday morning, after Zarco had returned to prison the previous evening, I personally wrote the request for a partial pardon. At midday I went to see Zarco to get him to sign it, and in the afternoon I sent all the documentation to the Ministry of Justice.

  ‘Zarco began to enjoy regular outings like that, at first every three weeks, then every two weeks, then once a week. Naturally, I hoped that these increasing tastes of freedom would improve his mood and his situation in the prison; what happened was exactly the opposite: instead of diminishing or dying down, Zarco’s anxiety did nothing but grow, increasingly uncontrollable and increasingly absurd. One example: I managed to get the superintendent to keep the two guards who according to him were making his life impossible away from him, but he immediately began to complain about two other guards. Another example: each time I visited him I begged him to avoid any kind of conflict, but he answered as if he hadn’t heard me or as if I’d said the opposite of what I’d said, talking t
o me about complaints that his insubordination and protests provoked among the prison personnel, and making him feel increasingly proud of them. I still didn’t entirely understand the way Zarco worked, or I didn’t want to understand it: since our first encounter at the prison I was aware of the duplicity or internal contradiction that was tearing him up – the contradiction between the legend, or the myth, and the reality, between the persona and the person; but, in spite of this precise intuition, I didn’t accept that, as the prison superintendent had told me very early, the press campaign that I’d initiated to achieve Zarco’s freedom accentuated instead of attenuating that contradiction, because it resuscitated, unfortunately for the person, the legend and the myth of a persona by then almost redundant.

  ‘I suppose that the petulant exhibitionism with which Zarco kept me informed at the time, just when he began to start getting out, of his outrages and the degradation of his life in prison, has in part to be attributed to this resurrection. But being informed of it didn’t mean I was able to stop it. When Zarco was out on release we didn’t see each other, and, no matter how much I asked him later, he didn’t talk to me about those free weekends (only prison matters seemed to loosen his tongue). During the week I couldn’t do much to fix things either: in our conversations in the visiting room I could only listen to him, put up with his unpleasantness, swaggering and rudeness and try to calm him down and keep his spirits up and give him encouraging news, and outside the prison all I could do was keep the campaign in favour of getting him pardoned alive and carry on accompanying María (with or without Tere) on her promotional interviews. By then, I also had to go back to taking serious care of things at the office. I’d spent over half a year not doing so, working almost exclusively on Zarco’s case, and in that time a certain amount of chaos had been generated that neither Cortés nor Gubau had managed to sort out and that had led to us losing some clients (“I knew this thing with Zarco was going to get us in shit,” Cortés used to say as we had our Friday evening beers at the Royal. “But I didn’t think it would be this bad”). So I went back to handling the important cases, back to travelling frequently, back to staying late working at the office. These changes affected my relationship with Tere. Not that we stopped seeing each other, but we saw less of each other, and so I started insisting that we move our midweek dates to the weekends, which was when I could have more free time available; but Tere always flatly refused: she said that weekends were the only time she had to study and besides, if we moved our dates to the weekends, they wouldn’t be secret any more. That’s silly, I replied. And your daughter?, Tere argued. She doesn’t come every weekend, I answered. Besides, she wasn’t born yesterday, don’t you think she already knows I’m seeing someone . . . Not to mention that we could go to your house or anywhere else. Tere wouldn’t give in: she would not let me go to her house, or see me on the weekends, or meet my daughter or my friends. Anyone would say you’re ashamed of me, I said to her once, exasperated by her intransigence. Tere looked surprised and then smiled an enigmatic smile (or that’s what it seemed like to me), but didn’t say anything.