Water-Blue Eyes

by Villar, Domingo

  ‘I’m just curious, Carmen, do you like sailing?’

  Obstinacy

  It was coining up to one o’clock in the afternoon, and it was quite hot when the policemen left the Riofarma building. The lawn surrounding it smelled of recently mown grass. The sprinklers cast water as they turned slowly in one direction and then, upon reaching the end of their curve, quickly went back to the starting point.

  Leo Caldas and Rafael Estévez went round the laboratory following a path of flagstones sunk in the thick grass. They’d been told that Isidro Freire would be waiting for them in the car park at the back.

  As they turned the corner, they saw a man playing with a small black dog whose coat of long black curls resembled a Rastafarian’s dreadlocks. The puppy ran towards them, its fur swaying this way and that, and hurled himself at Estévez’s feet.

  ‘Get the fuck out of here, you mongrel!’

  He kicked the dog away, and a ball of black dreadlocks was suddenly aloft.

  ‘Rafa, don’t be so horrible, he’s only a puppy,’ said Inspector Caldas.

  ‘Puppy schmuppy, chief. Do you think he doesn’t have any teeth?’ replied Estévez, convinced he was in the right. ‘I don’t know what dogs see in me, but they always come and annoy me,’ he added. ‘I can be in the middle of a crowd, and if there’s a hound on the loose it’ll surely single me out.’

  ‘It can’t be the way you treat them.’

  As soon as the puppy scrambled up, he charged the officer’s shoes.

  ‘You see what I mean, inspector, he’s practically asking to be kicked.’

  ‘Rafael, don’t do anything, please – here comes the owner,’ said Caldas as the man who’d been playing with the dog approached quickly.

  ‘This shitty dog will end up ruining my new shoes,’ said Estévez, as he reluctantly allowed the puppy to play with them.

  ‘Pipo, come, Pipo!’ called the man as he approached.

  ‘Go on, Pipo, go with Daddy.’

  Estévez pushed the dog with his foot, launching him a few metres in the direction of his owner.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the man, ‘Pipo’s been in the car all morning, and there’s no stopping him when you let him out. But as soon as his adrenaline wears off a bit he’ll obey me again.’

  To Caldas it didn’t look like the dog would ever obey, whether pumped full of adrenaline or heavily sedated.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Are you Isidro Freire?’

  The man picked Pipo up and held him.

  ‘Are you Don Ramón’s friends, the gentlemen from the radio?’

  Rafael Estévez let out a chuckle, and Caldas explained himself.

  ‘I don’t think they passed on the right information. We are indeed friends of Ramón’s, but we don’t exactly come from the radio. We’re police officers from the Vigo station. I’m Inspector Caldas and your dog’s friend is Officer Rafael Estévez.’

  ‘From the police station? Is anything wrong?’

  Caldas noticed the man trembled slightly as he spoke. He had read many years ago, in Camilo José Cela’s The Hive, that a slight tremor of the lower lip was a giveaway of fear. He had often witnessed the accuracy of the Nobel Prize-winning Galician writer’s observations.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Freire,’ Caldas reassured him. ‘It has nothing to do with you. At least not with you personally.’

  Isidro Freire breathed out in relief.

  ‘We’d only like a list of your clients in Vigo, those who buy the thirty-seven per cent formaldehyde solution from Riofarma,’ clarified the inspector. ‘We’ve been told you’re the right person to get that information from.’

  ‘Of course, Vigo is my area, and formaldehyde one of the products I sell,’ confirmed Isidro Freire, brooding over the matter for a moment. ‘I haven’t got many buyers for clinical formaldehyde, but I’d like to check my records to be absolutely sure. Would you mind walking over to my car to get my diary?’ he asked, pointing towards the car park, and putting the puppy back on the ground.

  ‘Of course not,’ replied Caldas as they started walking.

  Isidro Freire was a little over thirty and taller than Caldas; he combed his short brown hair with a parting that seemed branded on his skull. He was wearing dark trousers, a light blue shirt and black leather shoes. Most probably he’d left his jacket and tie in the car, as the heat didn’t allow unnecessary extras, but even so he looked handsome. Caldas thought he must be among those men who are successful with women.

  A few steps behind, Pipo insisted on fighting Rafael Estévez’s ankles, and Estévez went on trying to kick him. When Leo Caldas realised the danger the animal was in, he alerted his owner with a flick of his head.

  ‘Pipo, leave the gentleman alone!’ ordered Isidro Freire, and crouched down to push away the obstinate little dog. He lifted him up, carried him for a bit, and dropped him gently in front of them.

  They walked to the car along the flagstone path, and Pipo broke into a run on the grass.

  ‘I’d never seen a dog with such long curls,’ commented the inspector. ‘What breed is he?’

  ‘Pipo? He’s a Puli, inspector.’

  Leo Caldas had no idea what that was.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘A sheep dog, a Hungarian shepherd.’

  Pipo dashed about and then chose a sprinkler as his next target.

  ‘Come here, Pipo, you’re going to get all wet!’ ordered Freire, apparently convinced that the animal understood his every word.

  The little dog obeyed him only after getting completely soaked. Then he came back running. A set of perfectly small white teeth shone in the black muzzle of that canine Bob Marley. There was something hanging from it.

  ‘Pipo, what have you got in your mouth?’ asked Freire.

  It was Rafael Estévez who answered from behind.

  ‘My bloody shoelace.’

  Sweating

  Rafael Estévez licked his fingers and grabbed another one. For Leo Caldas these were the first sardines of the season; for Estévez the first ever.

  They hadn’t planned to eat here, but Guzmán Barrio’s call, informing them of the time of Reigosa’s funeral, had forced them to change their arrangements. They decided not to return to Vigo, but grab a bite en route and attend the funeral shortly afterwards.

  It had been Ríos who recommended the Porriño restaurant, though he himself had opted for deep-sea fishing rather than join them in sampling the sardines. Rafael Estévez had insisted on braving the heat by sitting under the vines, to one side of the barbecue where the fish and some unpeeled potatoes were being slowly grilled over the corn-cob embers.

  ‘These are great, chief,’ said Estévez with his mouth full. ‘To be honest, I thought it was a bit disgusting to eat fish with your fingers, but you were right, they taste better this way.’

  ‘I told you.’

  Rafael left the backbone on his plate and grabbed another.

  ‘Don’t you think they’re a bit small, inspector?’

  ‘As we say here, “a muller e a sardiña, pequeniña” – women and sardines are best when small.’

  ‘I’m not sure I agree.’

  ‘I thought you wouldn’t,’ muttered Caldas, helping himself to a piece of potato and placing the sardine on top of it, so that the potato would soak up the grease and salt of the fish.

  He wiped his hands in a paper napkin, reached for the wine jug and refilled his glass. The house white was a bit sour, but he welcomed its freshness nevertheless. He then lifted the fish with both hands, by its head and tail, and bit into the salty meat with relish. Next he placed the half-eaten fish on his plate and mashed the sardine-drenched piece of potato with his fork. This he spread on a piece of cornbread, and took a bite. Finally he went back to the sardine and dispatched the other half. After a year without tasting them, their flavour was glorious.

  Once they’d had their fill of sardines, they rounded off with local cheese; Rafael Estévez pulled his stool near one of the stone pillars that held u
p the vine, and leaned his back against it. He was sweating profusely even though the vine leaves shielded him from the sun.

  ‘So much for Galicia not being very hot,’ he protested, fanning himself with his hand.

  ‘It’s cooler inside,’ retorted Leo, as he remembered it had been Estévez’s idea to sit out.

  ‘Oh, don’t tell me it isn’t wonderful out here in the shade,’ said Estévez, defending his choice. ‘I sweat because I’m a bit overweight … If only there was a little breeze, it would be perfect.’

  Then Estévez lifted his eyes to the vine and remarked:

  ‘Quite a brainwave they had placing the tables under the plants. What are those little balls, by the way?’

  ‘Those little balls up there?’

  ‘Please, don’t start, inspector. If we’re both looking up and I ask you about the little balls, I must be referring to the balls we see up there, not mine

  ‘They’re white grapes.’

  ‘But how do you know they’re white? They look dark green to me.’

  ‘The bunches are still full of chlorophyll. At the beginning all grapes are green. Then, as they mature, white grapes start turning yellow, and red ones go a sort of purple.’

  ‘And how do you know these are white ones?’

  ‘Because I know. Nearly all the wine in the area is white, and then the plant is a treixadura. See the leaves?’

  Estévez looked up.

  ‘Is that one of your rhetorical questions or do you think I’m going blind because of the sardines?’

  ‘Just drop it, will you? I’m telling you they’re white. You can believe me if you want, and if not you can come back during the harvest and see for yourself.’

  The conversation about wine made Caldas’s thoughts turn to his father, who found it harder and harder to leave his world of vines to visit the city. Caldas hadn’t seen him for weeks and hadn’t had the heart to refuse when his father called to suggest they meet up. However, he wasn’t sure he’d enjoy having lunch with him the following day. Once again he’d have to go on his own, without Alba and without answers.

  Once they finished their coffee, Caldas checked his watch.

  ‘What time did Barrio say the funeral was?’

  ‘Five o’clock, I think. You spoke to him.’

  Caldas asked for the bill as the waiter went by.

  ‘We’d better be going, Rafael, it’ll take us almost an hour to get to Bueu.’

  ‘God, inspector, always driving around, like a bloody cab.’

  The cortège

  A woman in mourning was crying. Two others, also in black, held her to stop her from falling, though no one tried to console her. Nearby, a group of grieving children looked at Reigosa’s mother.

  The small cemetery occupied a rectangle adjoining a Romanic chapel. It was at the top of a hill sprinkled with the yellow flowers of the retama bushes. Four crosses surmounted the corners where the crenellated walls of the cemetery converged, and an iron gate closed it off. Caldas and Estévez had had to take a badly paved road to reach the top, a promontory from which one could admire the rías of Pontevedra and Aldán. The tide was low, and the wet sand of the beaches shone brightly in the sun.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ Estévez had commented as they arrived.

  ‘Yes, it’s a beautiful day.’

  ‘I mean the cemetery, it’s quite lovely.’

  ‘The cemetery?’

  ‘Yes, here all cemeteries are. They have a certain something. I don’t know if it’s the stone covered in moss, the crosses or what, but they’re not like that where I come from.’

  Caldas stopped to take a look. He’d never noticed the beauty of cemeteries before. He thought one could only find painful memories in them, but had to recognise that Estévez was right: this one was beautiful.

  At its centre were two mausoleums with small outside chapels. They were surrounded by some thirty graves, though most tombs were housed in sepulchres or nichos, deep recesses in the cemetery walls, which had four levels and looked a bit like a honeycomb. Most of these had flowers – some wilted and some fresh – and the odd lit candle. The nichos in one of the walls were all empty, as if reminding the visitor of his destiny.

  The policemen stayed behind the mausoleum, not too near the cortège. They could hear the mother’s wails as the gravedigger, atop a ladder, sealed off the tomb in the wall with cement. He smoothed out the mix again and again, as if he wanted to prove his sepulchral expertise. Each lick of the trowel wrenched a new cry from the mother, who refused to abandon her son there. The man applied so many coats that Caldas had to restrain himself from shouting at him to finish up. He wondered whether the man would do it as slowly on a rainy day.

  It was not a large cortège. On a rough calculation, Leo would have said forty people. The mother and other women, neighbours or relatives of the deceased, were at the front. Some of the townsmen, who had stayed smoking outside the church during the memorial, had now approached the tomb. The children must be Luis Reigosa’s pupils: the inspector had seen a van parked outside, which had a sticker from the Vigo conservatory.

  The bohemian-looking group couldn’t be from the area. Caldas thought they must be Reigosa’s fellow jazz players. Their city ways stuck out a mile. A man with red hair, as tall as Estévez, stood out. The inspector had written down the names of the musicians on a piece of paper: Arthur O’Neal and Iria Ledo. Yes, that ginger guy had to be O’Neal.

  Nor did the solitary man with the shock of white hair seem to be from the village. Dressed in an immaculate dark suit, he kept a little apart from the rest. He stood with his head bowed and his face in his hands as the sunlight danced on his hair. The inspector had the impression the man was crying. Tears did not sit well with the spring sun.

  Caldas thought he had seldom seen such a head of white hair. In most cases it is peppered with grey or yellow, but not in this one.

  Rafael Estévez was waiting at the back. He’d sought the cool of the shade near the wall of the mausoleum. He whispered to Caldas to come and join him there.

  ‘What is it?’ Caldas whispered back.

  ‘Read this tombstone, inspector.’

  Caldas read the epitaph graven in marble: Here lies Andrés Lema Couto, who died on 23 July at sea, and whom the sea sent back to me for burial on 4 August 1981. Your grateful wife will always be with you.

  ‘Is she thanking the sea for taking her husband?’ asked Estévez.

  ‘No, she’s grateful because it gave him back.’

  ‘But it gave him back dead,’ replied Estévez in dismay.

  ‘People who live by the sea know the risks, Rafa. They know one can die any day. The sense of unease is not caused by death, but by not having a body to bury. When a boat goes down and the drowned don’t surface, their families remain on the shore mourning ghosts. This man’s wife has her husband, even if he’s here at the cemetery. The wives of the disappeared have no one. They turn into widows who look at the sea every day wondering about their loved ones. And so every day, without answers.’

  ‘When you put it that way…’

  Inspector Caldas went back to the other side of the mausoleum. The gravedigger had put down the trowel and climbed down the ladder, pleased at having done his bit in the funerary rite. The stone plaque would not come up for a few days yet, not until the stonemason delivered it, but the coffin had been put away and the mother could now leave.

  But first everyone offered her their condolences. The children, standing in a line, stepped ahead one by one and kissed her. One of the little ones even managed to raise a fleeting smile on her face.

  The policemen saw her go past as she was leaving, arm in arm with one of the townswomen, her face visibly distressed. Leo Caldas could relate to that pain which ate you from within. Hopefully she would never find out the precise circumstances of her son’s death.

  Caldas then looked around for the man with the white hair. He didn’t see him. The man must have left as he and Estévez were talking about death and th
e sea. Only those he’d identified as musicians were in front of the tomb.

  ‘What now, inspector?’ asked Estévez.

  ‘We’ll wait outside,’ replied the inspector as he lit a cigarette.

  And so they waited until the musicians started to leave. Once they were all out, Caldas took the piece of paper with their names out of his pocket, and approached the Irishman:

  ‘Arthur O’Neal?’

  The man replied in a thick foreign accent.

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘Could we have a word? It will only take a moment.’

  Caldas took a drag on his cigarette, threw it on the floor and trod on it. He introduced himself as they stepped aside:

  ‘I’m sorry to trouble you on a day like this, but it’s important. My name’s Inspector Caldas, from the Vigo police station, and I’d like to …’

  ‘Caldas from the radio?’ interrupted the musician.

  ‘Yes, from the radio,’ replied Caldas, without believing his ears: even the Irishman knew Patrol on the Air. ‘I’d like to ask you when it would be convenient to speak to both of you, as Reigosa’s band mates.’

  ‘Just a moment.’ O’Neal turned to the group. ‘Iria, could you come over for a sec?’

  The small woman’s eyes were red from crying. The dark circles under her eyes contrasted with the white skin of her face.

  Caldas excused himself once again for his bad timing, but she confirmed they were prepared to do anything that might help solve the murder of the saxophonist. They arranged to meet in Vigo. The musicians were giving a concert at the Grial that night in tribute to Reigosa. It started at ten. They could talk in peace afterwards, at around eleven-thirty.

  To Leo Caldas it seemed a nice gesture, bidding a final farewell to the dead man with music, rather than just mourning him.

  ‘You know, the show must go on,’ said Arhtur O’Neal with a sad expression by way of goodbye, as if he’d read his thoughts.