by Pablo Tusset
‘Josephine, slide the pistol across the floor and out of the room. Come out with your hands up high.’
Apparently, the guy with the megaphone didn’t take too kindly to my brother’s initiative.
‘Remain silent and with your hands up. I repeat: remain silent and with your hands up. We give the orders here.’
By the time the guy finished repeating himself, Fina had already emerged, with her hands up and her face frozen with fear. Behind her followed the staple-gun girl.
‘Am I supposed to surrender, too?’ she asked, though it was unclear whether she was addressing me or The First.
‘Yes. Stay there, keep quiet and everything will be fine.’
‘Silence. I repeat: silence!’ shouted the guy with the megaphone, growing testier and testier at the fact that everyone was ignoring him.
As soon as guard number one, complete with helmet and gas mask, collected the three pistols from the floor, some more masked men in blue coveralls began to emerge, all of them pointing rifles (or Uzis, or whatever they were) at us. Predictably, they came around to place a set of handcuffs on each of us, excluding the staple-gun girl, who left as fast as she could once they were able to positively identify her. Before they shackled us, however, they made us line up against the wall, just like when the cops nail you in flagrante. The guy with the megaphone must have been the boss of the posse, because he continued to talk into his walkie-talkie and bark orders left and right. Someone tried to body-search Fina and in a sudden burst of rage, the offended lady landed the guy a wallop that knocked off the gas mask hanging from his neck. I had my back to all this, but I did hear the bam and see the mask go flying into the air. Thanks to that, she was able to avoid getting handcuffed, and they simply placed her in line between me and The First.
They herded us into the lift after freeing the car from its temporarily immobilised position. Then they made us walk down a bunch of hallways and then more hallways between the various interconnected buildings. There were people in some of the hallways, too: here and there you could see a guard sitting at a desk, or people dressed in black coveralls similar to those of the staple-gun girl, and even a couple of hyenas with dirty underwear beneath their Corte Inglés suits. The worst part, though, was that one of the guards kept nudging me in the back with the butt of his gun. It was really starting to piss me off. After the umpteenth nudge I stopped cold, making the guy bump into me and I turned around, furious, to face him head-on.
‘Listen, why don’t you stick your goddamn gun up your balls? Can’t you see my leg is busted?’
All that got me was an extra nudge, in the chin this time, plus another one in my gut. The one in my gut was nothing, but the one in my face made me lose it, and I lifted my lame leg and kicked the guy. This was a stupid move on my part: my hands were shackled, and so I fell clumsily to the floor and the guards following us started kicking me until I was able to get up again. Fina, who watched the whole thing, lunged against the first guy she could, grabbed him by the hairs of his head and gave him a free mini-scalping. Luckily The First intervened, and yelled at us to shut up already. In any event, the little number didn’t do us a bit of good. The guard continued nudging me with the butt of his gun until we arrived at a rather elegant vestibule and were shoved into another lift. During the ascent I began to wonder what would happen if they decided to interrogate me as they had done with my brother. I promised myself that I would hold out until they rendered me just a bit worse than him. I happen to be particularly fond of my nose but bruises to my honour heal much slower than the physical kind. And if they made me piss myself, well, I’m used to smelling pretty awful, so that part didn’t worry me too much.
The floor we got out on, however, much less the office we were led into, didn’t look much like torture chambers.
And there, sitting behind a desk in a spectacular, high-backed easy chair, was none other than Darth Vader himself.
THE GAME IS UP
At first glance, the enthroned individual behind the desk reminded me of Mario Vargas Llosa, but with fewer teeth. I suppose it came as something of a surprise, but I was already so surprised that I didn’t even flinch. Plus, there was someone else standing next to him: an elegant, thirtysomething lady, a medium-length mane of Head & Shoulders hair, lovely face and eyes like those of a dragon lying in wait.
I was, however, more nonplussed by the manner in which The First and my green-eyed Beatrice stared at each other.
‘Well, well … The Miralles brothers, reunited at last. And with a lovely young girl, at that,’ said the Exorcist.
‘Woman,’ corrected Fina, who is very sensitive about the way people address her, and who was already a bit peeved at the recent episode with the guards. The guy got up from the table, his eyes fixed squarely on her, and I would have bet my life that he was about to plant a kiss on her hand. Score.
‘Excuse me. Woman.’
Fina’s scowl slowly softened and she quickly removed her recently smooched hand from sight so that she could shake off the snarl of guard’s hairs that were still twisted around her fingers. I would almost say she looked embarrassed by the gaffe.
The Exorcist made like he didn’t notice and continued with his greetings. Now it was my Magnificent Brother’s turn: the Exorcist offered his hand to The First who, obviously, couldn’t shake it.
‘Oh … excuse me. I didn’t realise you were handcuffed.’
‘Don’t worry, I can do without the handshake.’
Good for him, damn it. Clearly this guy was the big cheese around here, you could tell from the office. But he simply nodded his head, smiling all the while at The First’s snub and then turning to me for the last greeting.
‘You and I know each other, don’t we? I do hope you had a pleasant dinner with Gloria the other evening. Quail in onion sauce, if I remember correctly … And I believe you also know my daughter Eulalia.’
Well, then. That made my little Beatrice both secretary to the Chairman of the Board as well as the niece-grand-daughter of a papal nuncio, all in one fell swoop. I tried to hide my shock.
‘Yes, we know each other. A divine comedy, Beatrice. Congratulations.’
‘Thank you. You weren’t so bad yourself …’
She said it without even looking at me; she had eyes only for my Magnificent Brother. Then, she went over to him to give him a kiss on the lips. The First didn’t fight it, though he glared at her. What a bad scene, I thought, to have a lover and pay her an executive secretary’s salary for this.
‘It’s lovely to see you, but I’m afraid I have to leave now,’ she said, not without caressing The First’s cheek with the back of her hand. And with that she left the room.
‘You’ll have to forgive my daughter. We have so many obligations to attend to today. I’m sorry to have ruined your summer solstice party, Pablo … may I call you Pablo?’
‘I can stand it, I suppose. But I don’t believe I ever said you could speak to me in the familiar,’ I said, just to show him that I could be every bit as disagreeable as my Magnificent Brother. The guy laughed a bit, for show.
‘Always with your guns cocked, eh … Very well, I shan’t reproach you for it. But I assure you, we will understand one another when all is said and done. Guard, please remove their handcuffs. They won’t be necessary now, will they?’ he quipped, turning toward us.
‘As far as I’m concerned they will. I plan on wringing your neck as soon as my hands are free,’ I answered.
‘How kind of you to warn me. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t advise you to check the king, not in one move at least. As you can see, I have my rooks very well-situated.’
Immediately he signalled to the guard, indicating that our handcuffs were to be removed. I looked at the two hyenas on either side of the table. They were special – so special that I recognised them: the same two massive hulks that stood guard at the entrance to the restaurant. In addition to them, three of the guards who had brought us here were still with us, plus the loudmouth with the meg
aphone. Fina, noting that the scene had begun to acquire a more civilised air, dared to ask if there was a ladies’ room she might use, and the Exorcist instructed the megaphone guy to get the guards to disperse a bit and added that he would send ‘an officer to accompany the lady.’ Then he pressed a little intercom button on the table and asked whoever was on the other side to come in, too.
For a few seconds the only thing you could hear were the festival and the fireworks outside, as intensely as you could hear them from any other building in the city.
‘The San Juan festivities: a magical night,’ our host said, effectively destroying whatever magic the night could have had. I sensed the imminence of a speech on the rape of Persephone, and I was hungry, thirsty and desperate for this thing to end once and for all. I looked at The First through the corner of my eye and by the scowl on his face I could tell that, for the first time in our lives, we had before us someone that both of us found equally repugnant. Fina, however, seemed utterly tickled by the bit about the ‘magical night.’ At that moment, two women entered the office, interrupting the dissertation. One was dressed in a guard’s uniform and the other in a pair of those black coveralls. Coveralls seemed to be all the rage around here – almost everyone I had seen walking up and down the halls wore them, even though they made them all look like extras in a science fiction movie starring Steve Lawrence and Edye Gormé.
Once Fina had left the room with the female guard (‘Won’t you excuse me? I’ll be back in no time,’ she said, absolutely oozing politeness), the Exorcist asked The First and me if we needed anything. Apart from hunger and thirst, I would have killed for a coffee and a joint. I could produce the joint myself if they would give me back the contents of my pockets, which is exactly what I told the guy. The First only wanted water, but his ascetic routine was purely for show, because he certainly didn’t deny himself the luxury of firing me one of those long, disapproving glares he loves so very much. The Exorcist then looked up with a ‘please’ that was directed toward the girl in the black coveralls, to indicate that she was to go and get what we had asked for. Then he asked us to sit down. Both of us accepted the offer and fell down, with relief, upon the two easy chairs facing the desk.
The Exorcist then resumed his position at his black leather throne.
‘Did you know that the celebration of the San Juan summer solstice feast is very probably of Chaldean origins? Some anthropologists have linked it to an ancient religious group that revered the god Bel. It seems that many, many years ago people ate a circular cake in celebration of his memory, a cake with a hole in the middle as a representation of the solar disc …’
The last thing I wanted was to attend a lecture, but I didn’t much feel like getting on his bad side, at least not until coffee was served. My Magnificent Brother, however, was not able to contain his feelings.
‘Listen, Ignacio, your conversations are really scintillating, but if you don’t mind, I’d rather return to my prison cell.’
The Exorcist smiled in that sarcastic way of his, displaying his full set of fake pearly whites.
‘Oh … I’m so inconsiderate. You must be tired, it’s been a rough day for you two. What a shame, because this particular evening does inspire such fascinating observations … Look outside: the city is on fire.’
As he said it, his hand, which was underneath the table, activated some kind of gadget that intensified the lights somehow. Almost at the exact same time, we heard a mechanical buzzing noise that made us whip around to look at the wall behind us. In reality, it was a huge metallic curtain which was now rising up, up and away to reveal a huge glass cupola through which you could see all of Barcelona dressed up in the night sky, like a cabaret singer in her best sequinned costume. If he was trying to impress us, he was on the right track, but for the moment I was more interested in ascertaining our current location than in marvelling at the pyrotechnics. We were in a very tall building, too tall to see the street it towered over, but all I had to do was look at the rooftops to see that we were on Jaume Guillamet, right next door to number 15. It was maybe eleven o’clock in the evening, and the entire city had to be eating cake and drinking that cheap champagne that all those Registered Windows Users like to call ‘cava.’ That was exactly what I was thinking when the black coveralled girl reappeared, pushing a little cart that boasted, in addition to what The First and I had requested, a pignoli-nut cake and the aforementioned dark green bottle, though this one didn’t hail from San Sadurní but rather from France itself. A more careful examination of the little cart revealed the presence of my booklet of rolling papers and my last bit of hash, both presented on a little silver platter.
Shit.
‘I was thinking that we ought to celebrate the evening comme il faut,’ said the Exorcist. ‘A glass of champagne? It is a splendid brut. Of course, one’s palate would rather savour something other than sweets, but popular traditions lose all their charm when one doesn’t observe them exactly as they are intended. Wouldn’t you say so, Pablo?’
‘Hmph. I tend to respect only the most basic and necessary of popular traditions.’
‘Ahh … such as?’
‘Breathing.’
He didn’t offer the slightest sign of jumping up to the net; all he did was flash those pearly whites in a kind of sportsmanlike gesture. The First, apparently indifferent to the banter, poured some water into a glass and drank it. I did the same as Don Ignacio took advantage of the pause between sets to uncork his Magnificent Bottle. He was still pouring it in a tall flute when The First, who appeared to be familiar with this routine, began to press the issue again.
‘All right, Ignacio. If you don’t mind getting to the point and telling us what you need to tell us …’
The guy returned to his throne with his champagne flute filled to the brim, and took a little sip. Then he closed his eyes, with a theatrical flair, as if he simply adored that horrible bubbly wine that champagne is, when all is said and done. Now it was just the three of us in the room (plus the two heavily-armed mega-hyenas, but they kind of faded into the furniture) and, to be honest, the atmosphere in that space that looked out over the steadily mounting crescendo of the festival outside began to acquire a certain cinematic je ne sais quoi. The scenario outside the glass walls was starting to look like a Repsol petrol ad, and I think if I’d had a lyre on hand I might had broken into an ode to the city in flames.
But I had to turn my attention away from the spectacle outside because the Exorcist had finished up his wine-connoisseur bit and had started talking again. This time he heeded The First and tried to get straight to the point.
‘I have a proposal in mind for the two of you, but I think we should start out with a round of questions first. I suppose you’re both a bit confused … Especially you, Pablo. And the better you understand the situation, the better you will be able to evaluate the proposal I am about to make.’
He was looking straight at me as he finished the sentence, but The First was the one who answered him, like a sceptical journalist preparing to nail a politician with some very specific question.
‘Very well. Why don’t we start with the questions. When are you going to let us out of here?’
‘I’d say that depends on the agreement we reach.’
‘Very well, then. Let’s see: what do you want from us?’
‘Complete and total discretion.’
‘Okay, we’ll be discreet. Can we go now?’
‘I’m afraid I’ll need some sort of guarantee.’
‘You have our word.’
‘That won’t be enough. Please understand: I don’t have anything personal against you. But this doesn’t depend on me, you know that.’
I was still on phase one of licking the glue part of the rolling paper, but I didn’t want to be left completely out of the loop.
‘Excuse me. Can somebody please tell me what we are talking about?’ I asked.
The Exorcist momentarily abandoned the circumspect tone he had adopted when speakin
g to The First and turned to me. In a much more grandiloquent tone, he declared, ‘You have entered The Fortress, Mr Miralles. You have crossed the border into a place governed by a different set of laws, a rare privilege for which a high price is usually paid.’
Lovely. The way he said it, it almost came off like a kind of aphorism, but I was beginning to lose patience.
‘Listen, Don Ignacio, excuse the honesty but if there is one thing I’m not into it’s telepathy. Given that I don’t know what the hell this Fortress is that you’re talking about, do you think you can tell me in some intelligible manner why we are being detained here?’
He seemed to be flipping through the files of his memory, searching for an appropriately vulgar way to express himself.
‘Let’s just say that you two know too much. Is that sufficiently intelligible?’
‘Now you’re talking. But if that’s what you’re worried about, please know that I don’t know a goddamn thing. In fact, I have wasted the last week of my life on this and still I haven’t figured out what the hell is going on.’
‘I’m sorry to disagree with you, but you actually know much more than you think you do. You know that Worm exists, you can associate it to a specific address in a specific city, and you know of at least two of the Doors to the Fortress in Barcelona. In addition, you are able to identify various external members of the organisation, including myself, even though I am not exactly external but rather someone whose position in the hierarchy implies a relatively important relationship to Worm. And all that information is sufficient to jeopardise eight hundred years of a most discreet existence. I think you know what I am speaking of: we received your questionnaire on our site. Incidentally, I do hope that the defence virus we sent hasn’t caused too great an inconvenience to your German friends. Our technical staff has instructions to take extremely drastic measures in the event of a computer attack.’
A real well-situated pack of raving lunatics. The First, however, was a few steps ahead of me, and insisted that we speed up the conversation.
