The pain comes later, like a huge wave. It reminds him of a time when he was a child and he touched the naked cable from which a lightbulb hung―in the basement of his parents’ home. He collapses backward and feels something rising to his throat. He cannot breathe. He is drowning in his own vomit. It will just take a minute, he tells himself. He thinks of Mercedes and puts all the strength of his being into fixing the image of her face in his mind.
* * *
Valls barely notices when the cell door opens and the jailer kneels down beside him. He carries a bucket of scalding tar. He grabs Valls’s arm and dips it in the bucket. Valls feels the fire.
The jailer is looking into his eyes. “Do you remember now?”
Valls nods.
The jailer sinks a needle into his arm. The liquid flooding into his veins is ice cold and makes Valls think of a clean blue sea. The second injection is the one that brings peace, a sleep with no end and no consciousness.
20
Alicia was awoken by the wind whistling through the cracks in the windows, making the windowpanes vibrate. She looked at the clock on her bedside table: it was a couple of minutes to five in the morning. She let out a sigh. Only then did she notice. The darkness.
She remembered having left the light on in the dining room and the corridor before snatching a few hours’ sleep after her conversation with Leandro, but now the flat was plunged in a bluish gloom. She groped for the switch of the bedside table lamp and pressed it. The light didn’t go on. Then she thought she could hear footsteps in the dining room, and the sound of a door moving slowly. A piercing cold took hold of her. She grabbed the revolver that had spent the night with her under the sheets and released the safety.
“Vargas?” she called out weakly. “Is that you?”
The echo of her voice drifted through the flat, but there was no answer. Alicia pulled the sheets aside, got up, and stepped into the corridor. The floor was icy under her bare feet. The passageway formed a dark frame around a halo of pale light at the entrance to the dining room. She walked slowly down the corridor, holding up the weapon. Her hand shook. When she reached the dining room, she felt the wall for the light switch and pressed it. Nothing. There was no power. She scanned the shadows, the outline of the furniture, and the dark corners around the room. There was a sour smell in the air. Tobacco, she thought. Or perhaps it came from the flowers Jesusa had left in the vase on the table; they were starting to shed dry petals. She didn’t notice any movement, so she walked over to the dining-room sideboard and searched in the first drawer. She found a packet of candles and a box of matches that must have been there since before Leandro had posted her to Madrid. After lighting one of the candles, she held it up, then walked through the flat slowly, the candle in one hand and the revolver in the other. She checked the front door to make sure it was locked, trying to banish the image of Lomana from her mind, smiling and motionless as a wax figure, holding a butcher’s knife, waiting for her inside a cupboard or behind a door.
Once she had covered every nook and cranny in the flat and made quite sure there was nobody there, Alicia took one of the dining-room chairs and jammed it against the lock of the front door. Leaving the candle on the table, she crossed to the large window that looked out onto the street. The whole neighborhood was plunged in darkness, the serrated outline of roofs and dovecotes sketched against the dark blue that announced the oncoming dawn. Her face touching the windowpane, she scanned the shadows at street level. A glimmer of light could be seen beneath the arches of the espadrille shop. The embers of a lit cigarette. It was surely just that poor wretch Rovira, Alicia told herself, already doing his early shift at that ungodly hour. She withdrew into the dining room and took two more candles from the sideboard drawer. It was still much too early to go down to the Gran Café to meet Vargas for breakfast, and she knew she wouldn’t get back to sleep.
She went over to the bookshelf where she kept some of her best-loved books, most of which she’d read and reread a few times. Four years had gone by since Alicia had revisited her favorite among them all, Jane Eyre. She took it down and ran her fingertips over the front cover. When she opened the book, she smiled. There was the stamp: a small devil sitting on a pile of books, an old bookplate given to her by her colleagues in the unit during her first year in Leandro’s service, when they still saw her as a mysterious but harmless young girl—a whim of the boss, someone who had not yet awoken jealousy, envy, and resentment among the older members of the team.
Those had been days of poisoned wine and roses, when Ricardo Lomana had decided of his own accord that she would be his personal apprentice. Every Friday he’d given her flowers before inviting her to the cinema or to a dance hall, invitations that Alicia always found some excuse to refuse. Days when Lomana looked at her out of the corner of his eye, thinking she didn’t notice, dropping hints or flirtatious remarks that made even the older people in the room blush. A bad beginning makes a bad end, she had thought at the time. She hadn’t known the half of it.
Trying to banish Lomana’s face from her mind, she carried the book to the bathroom. There she tied up her hair and ran hot water into the bath. After lighting her candles and placing them at the head of the bathtub, she sank into the steaming hot water, letting it dispel the cold that had nestled in her bones, and closed her eyes. After a while she thought she heard footsteps on the stairs. She wondered whether it could be Vargas, coming up to make sure she was still alive, or whether she was imagining things again. The dark stupor induced by the painkillers always left a trail of half-formed pictures when she woke up, as if the dreams she had not been able to dream were trying to push their way through the cracks in her consciousness. She opened her eyes and sat up, resting her chin on the edge of the bath. A couple of voices floated in the air. Neither was Vargas’s voice. She stretched out an arm until she touched the revolver resting on the stool next to the bathtub, and listened to the echo of water dripping from the closed tap. She waited a few seconds. The voices had gone silent. Or perhaps they had never been there. Moments later, the footsteps faded away down the stairs. Probably a neighbor leaving home to go to work, she thought.
Alicia left the revolver on the stool again and lit a cigarette. She watched the smoke coil between her fingers, then lay down in the bathtub again and gazed through the window at the bluish blanket of clouds over the city. She picked up the book and went back to the first paragraph. As she turned the pages, the anxiety that had gripped her slowly dissolved. After a while Alicia lost all track of time. Even Leandro couldn’t pursue her into the forest of words Jane Eyre always conjured up before her eyes. She smiled and returned to the novel, feeling that she was returning home. She could have stayed there all day. Or all her life.
When she got out of the bath, she faced the mirror, staring at the threads of steam rising from her body. The black mark from the old wound on her right hip sketched a poisoned flower spreading its roots beneath her skin. She touched it and felt a slight stab of pain, a warning. After untying her hair, she applied a rose-scented cream over her arms, legs, and belly—a cream Fernandito had once given her in a fit of adolescent devotion, with the distinctive name of Péché Originel. She was on her way back to her bedroom when the power suddenly returned, and all the lights she had been testing went on at once. Startled, she pressed her hands to her chest. Her heart was beating fast. She turned the lights off, one by one, cursing.
Then, standing naked in front of her wardrobe, she took her time to decide. Barcelona forgave many things, but never bad taste. As she slipped on the underwear Señora Jesusa had washed and perfumed, she smiled, imagining the caretaker folding those garments and crossing herself, wondering whether that was what modern young city girls wore nowadays. Next, she put on a pair of sheer stockings. Alicia had made Leandro buy them for her to wear when she had to play the part in the fancy corners of Madrid, or for when she was assigned to one of her boss’s intrigues in the dining halls and lounges of the Ritz.
“Can’t yo
u make do with a normal brand?” Leandro had protested when he’d seen the price.
“If you want normal, send someone else to do the job.”
Making Leandro spend a fortune on finery and books was one of the very few pleasures she got out of the job. Not willing to tempt fate, Alicia decided to wear the harness that day. She fixed the fastener one notch tighter than normal and turned around to check in the mirror that the girdle was well adjusted. It gave her the air of a wicked doll, she thought, a marionette of dark beauty. She’d never been able to get accustomed to the sight. It seemed to insinuate that, deep down, Leandro was right and the mirror told the truth.
“All you lack are the strings,” she told herself.
For the day’s uniform she chose a formal-looking purple dress and a pair of Italian shoes that at the time had cost the equivalent of a month’s wages in an elegant shoe shop on Rambla de Cataluña, where the shop assistant had called her “honey.” She put on her makeup carefully, sketching the character. A dark, shiny burgundy lipstick made a finishing touch that she was positive would have earned Leandro’s disapproval. She didn’t want Vargas to find the slightest hint of weakness in her face when he saw her arrive. Experience had taught her that modesty always invited scrutiny. Before leaving the apartment, she checked herself one last time in the hallway mirror, approving of what she saw. You’d break your own heart, she thought, if you had one.
It was just getting light when Alicia crossed the street to the doors of the Gran Café. Before going in she caught sight of Rovira, already positioned at the corner, wearing a scarf that covered his face up to his nose and rubbing his hands. She thought of going over to him and spoiling his day, but let him be. Rovira waved at her from afar and ran to hide.
When she stepped into the café, she saw that Vargas had already settled down in what seemed to have become his official table. The policeman was devouring a monumental meat sandwich and washing it down with a large cup of coffee while he went through the list of numbers they had managed to scrape together with the help of the taxidermist. When he heard her come in, he raised his head and looked her up and down. She sat at the table without saying a word.
“You smell very nice,” Vargas said. “Like a cream cake.” With that he went straight back to the pleasures of his breakfast and to the list.
“How can you eat that at this time of morning?” asked Alicia.
The policeman shrugged and offered her a bite of the enormous sandwich. Alicia turned her face away, and Vargas renewed his attack with another huge bite.
“Did you know that in Catalan the word for sandwich means ‘between breads’?” Vargas remarked. “Isn’t that amusing?”
“Enough to fall over backward.”
“And—wait for it—the Catalan word for ‘bottle’ sounds like ampoule, as for an injection!”
“A couple of days in Barcelona, and you’ve become a polyglot.”
Vargas smiled like a shark. “I’m glad you’ve lost last night’s sweetness. That means you’re feeling better. Have you seen Jiminy Cricket, shitting himself with cold out there?”
“His name is Rovira.”
“I forgot you hold him in such high esteem.”
Miquel had walked over timidly, carrying a tray with slices of toast and a pot of steaming coffee. It was half past seven, and there was nobody else in the café. Miquel, a master of discretion, had withdrawn as always to the farthest point of the bar to pretend he was busy doing something. Alicia poured herself some coffee, and Vargas returned once more to his numbers, going over them one by one, as if he hoped that their meaning would be revealed by spontaneous generation. The minutes dragged by in a thick silence.
“You’re looking very elegant,” said Vargas at last. “Are we going somewhere smart?”
Alicia swallowed hard and cleared her throat. He looked up.
“About last night . . . ,” she began.
“Yes?”
“I wanted to apologize. And thank you.”
“There’s nothing to apologize about, and even less to thank me for.” A shadow of shyness veiled his severe expression.
Alicia smiled weakly at him. “You’re a good person.”
Vargas looked down. “Don’t say that.”
She nibbled at her piece of toast with no appetite. Vargas was watching her.
“What?”
“Nothing. I like to see you eat.”
Alicia flashed her teeth, gave the piece of toast a big bite, and smiled.
“What’s the plan?” he said.
“Yesterday we concentrated on the car. Let’s pay a visit to the lawyer, Brians, today.”
“As you wish. How do you want to do this?”
“I was thinking that I could be the young, naive heiress who has discovered she owns a copy of a Víctor Mataix book and wants to sell it. Don Gustavo Barceló told me that Brians represents a collector who is interested in buying all the Mataix books on the market, etcetera.”
“You as the naive young lady. Promising. What about me. Who am I supposed to be? The squire?”
“I thought you could be my loyal, mature, and loving husband.”
“Fabulous. The cat woman and the old captain, couple of the year. I don’t think he’ll buy it, even if he got the lowest grades in law school.”
“I don’t expect him to. The idea is rather to arouse his suspicions so that he makes a false move.”
“I see. So what do we do then? Do we follow him?”
“You’re quite the mind reader, Vargas.”
* * *
When they set off down the road, a dazzling sun had managed to break through and was combing the rooftops. Vargas gazed at the facades and hidden corners bordering Calle Aviñón with the placid expression of a provincial seminarist on a weekend trip. Soon he noticed that Alicia kept turning her head to look back over her shoulder every few meters. He was about to ask whether something was wrong when he followed her eyes. Rovira was trying unsuccessfully to hide discreetly in a doorway, about fifty meters away.
“I’m going to spell it out to that little piece of shit,” murmured Vargas.
Alicia held on to his arm. “No, it’s best if you leave him.”
She waved at Rovira and smiled. The man looked both right and left, hesitated for a moment, and, realizing he’d been discovered, returned the greeting timidly.
“Useless idiot,” spat Vargas.
“Better him than someone else. At least this one is on our side, if he knows what’s good for him.”
“If you say so.”
Vargas signaled to Rovira to move further back and stick to the agreed distance. The man nodded and raised two thumbs.
“Look at him,” said Vargas. “He must have seen that at the movies.”
“Isn’t that where people learn how to live nowadays, in the cinema?”
“That’s what the world’s come to.”
They left Rovira behind and continued walking.
“I don’t like having this cretin tailing us,” Vargas insisted. “I don’t know why you trust him. God knows what he’s telling them at headquarters.”
“The fact is, I feel rather sorry for him.”
“I think a couple of knuckle sandwiches wouldn’t be amiss. You don’t have to witness it if you don’t want to. I’ll catch him on my own at some point and leave him to soak.”
“You eat too much protein, Vargas. It affects your disposition.”
21
If clothes maketh the man, an office and a good address make, or unmake, the lawyer. In a city well provided with lawyers to be found in sumptuous offices inside the regal, stately buildings of Paseo de Gracia and other elegant streets, Don Fernando Brians had gone for a far more modest address.
From a distance Alicia and Vargas sighted the building, which was roughly a hundred years old and listing vaguely to one side, at the intersection of Calle Mercé and Calle Aviñón. The ground floor was occupied by a tapas bar that looked more like a refuge for forgotten bullfighters an
d fishermen on payday. The bartender, a tiny man shaped like a spinning top and sporting a plump mustache, had come outdoors armed with a mop and a steaming bucket that stank of bleach. He was whistling a popular tune and performing juggling tricks with a toothpick between his lips while he washed the pavement clean of urine, drunken vomit, and other miscellaneous souvenirs from the early hours, characteristic of the narrow streets leading to the port.
Piles of boxes and dusty bits of furniture flanked the front door of the building. A trio of young men, sweating profusely, had paused to recover their breath and polish off some baguette sandwiches with strips of mortadella peering over the sides.
“Is this the office of Señor Brians, the lawyer?” Vargas asked the bartender, who had interrupted his mopping to have a good look at them.
“Top floor,” the man said, pointing upward with his index finger. “But they’re in the middle of moving.” He smiled as Alicia walked past, revealing his yellowed teeth. “A little coffee and a madeleine, miss? It’s on the house.”
“Some other day. Once you’ve shaved off that bush,” Alicia replied without stopping.
The three young men applauded the jibe, which the bartender took sportingly. Vargas followed her into the building to the stairs, a sort of spiral that looked more like an intestinal tract than an architectural design.
“Is there an elevator?” Vargas asked one of the boys.
“If there is, we haven’t seen it.”
They ascended the building’s five floors until they came to a landing teeming with boxes, filing cabinets, clothes hangers, chairs, and paintings of pastoral scenes that looked like they’d been rescued from a flea market at a few céntimos apiece. Alicia peeked her head around the office door, an apartment in full battle cry where nothing seemed to be in the right place and almost everything was stuffed in overfull boxes or on the move. Vargas tried the doorbell, which didn’t work, then knocked on the door.
The Labyrinth of the Spirits Page 28
