“I don’t know how you can joke about this sort of thing.”
“It’s better than jumping in front of a train. In any case, this document, which from what I’ve been told is in a very rudimentary state, will serve as a source of information and something to work from. Your task is to write an exemplary biography of this person based on the pages you’ve been sent. You have a year to do this. After going through the notes sent by the client, you’ll have another six months to incorporate the required changes, polish up the text, and prepare the manuscript for publication. And if you’ll allow the comment, the best thing is that there’s no need for you to sign the book. Nobody need ever know that you wrote it. In fact, your silence and mine are essential requirements for the transaction.”
“Why’s that?”
“Perhaps I should have said from the start that the book is in fact an autobiography. You will ghostwrite it in the first person, and my client will sign it.”
“I imagine it already has a title.”
“The working title is I, XXXXXX: Memoirs of a Spanish Financier. I believe they’ll admit alternative suggestions.”
Then Mataix did something that neither he nor Brians expected. He burst out laughing. He laughed until he cried, and the other people in the café turned to look at him askance, wondering how anyone would want to guffaw like that when things were going from bad to worse. When he recovered his composure, Mataix took a deep breath and looked at Brians.
“Am I to understand that that was a yes?”
“Is there any alternative?”
“That you and I get a bullet in the head tomorrow morning, or the day after, as we walk down the street, and that they do the same to your family and to mine, sooner rather than later.”
“Where do I sign?”
A few days later, after a succession of sleepless nights, remorse, and speculations, Mataix could bear it no longer. He went to see his publisher in Ediciones Orbe. Revells hadn’t lied: the offices exuded a delicate perfume straight from the gardens of the Ampurdán. Whole crates from Badens’s vegetable sanctuary were lined up along the corridors, among piles of books and heaps of unpaid bills. Revells listened carefully to Mataix’s account while he sniffed a splendid tomato that he shifted playfully from hand to hand.
“What do you think?” asked Mataix when he finished his story.
“Divine. Just smelling it makes me feel hungry.”
“I’m referring to my dilemma,” Mataix insisted.
Revells set the tomato on the table. “That you had no choice but to accept.”
“You’re saying this because you know it’s what I want to hear.”
“I’m saying this because I like to see you alive, and because we’ve advanced you a lot of money that we hope to recoup someday. Have you received the stack of papers yet?”
“Part of it.”
“And . . . ?”
“They make you want to throw up.”
“Were you expecting Shakespeare’s sonnets?”
“I don’t know what I was expecting.”
“At least you must have started guessing. You must have figured out who the person is.”
“I have an idea,” said Mataix.
Revells’s eyes shone in anticipation. “Tell me . . .”
“From what I’ve read, I suspect it’s Ubach.”
“Miguel Ángel Ubach? Holy shit. The Gunpowder Banker?”
“I don’t think he likes being called by that name.”
“Too fucking bad. If he doesn’t like it, he should have financed a welfare fund and not a war.”
“What do you know about him—you who know everything about everyone?” asked Mataix.
“Only about those who matter.”
“I know the world of nobodies and good-for-nothings has no romance for you.”
Revells ignored the jibe, fascinated as he was by this high-flying thriller. He leaned his head outside his office door and called one of his trusted staff, Laura Franconi.
“Laura, come here a sec, if you can . . .”
While they waited, Revells walked restlessly around the office. After a few moments, dodging a couple of crates full of onions and leeks, Laura Franconi came through the door. Seeing Mataix, she smiled and went over to give him a kiss. Petite and vivacious, Laura was one of those active minds that makes an establishment work as smooth as silk.
“What do you think of our fruit and vegetable stall?” she asked. “How about some zucchini?”
“Our friend Mataix here has just made a deal with the war gods,” said the publisher.
Mataix sighed. “Why don’t you look out of the window and blare it out through a megaphone?”
Laura Franconi closed the office door and looked at him anxiously.
“Tell her,” said Revells.
Mataix gave her a summary of the facts, but Laura didn’t need any help to fill in the bits between the lines. When he’d finished, she just put her hand on his shoulder, looking concerned.
“By the way,” asked Revells, “has that son of a bitch Ubach got a publisher who will bring out that horror?”
Laura threw him a caustic look.
“I’m only suggesting a business opportunity,” Revells said. “I don’t know why you have to be so squeamish in times like these.”
“I’d appreciate your help and advice,” Mataix reminded him.
Laura took his hand and looked him in the eye. “Accept the money. Write whatever that bighead wants you to write, and then get the hell out of this country forever. I recommend Argentina. Plenty of space, and the steaks are out of this world. Plus there’s a handy ocean in between.”
Mataix observed Revells.
“Amen,” said the publisher. “I couldn’t have put it better.”
“Any suggestion that doesn’t involve crossing the world and exiling my family?”
“Look, Mataix. Whatever you do, you’re on thin ice. If Ubach’s side wins—and he’s got plenty of cards in his favor—I have a hunch that once you’ve offered him your services, your existence will become uncomfortable, and more than one person will want you out of the way. And if the Republic wins, and someone finds out that you collaborated with one of Franco’s money men, I can picture you in a secret police dungeon, all expenses paid.”
“Fabulous.”
“We can help you flee. Badens has contacts with a merchant fleet company, and we could get you and your family to Marseilles in a matter of days. From there, it would be up to you. I’d listen to Laura and head for the Americas. North or South, it doesn’t matter. It’s a case of putting plenty of distance between here and wherever you go.”
“We’ll come and visit you,” Laura promised. “Unless of course you end up having us all as guests, the way things are going in this country . . .”
“And we’ll bring you tomatoes and delicious vegetables for all those barbecues you’re going to enjoy with your two-hundred-thousand-peseta booty,” declared Revells.
Mataix sighed. “My wife doesn’t want to leave Barcelona.”
“I’m guessing that you haven’t told her anything,” said Revells.
Mataix shook his head. Revells and Laura exchanged glances.
“And I don’t want to go anywhere, either,” said the writer. “This is my home, for better or worse. It’s in my blood.”
“The same thing happens with malaria,” remarked Revells, “and it’s not always healthy.”
“Do you have a vaccination against Barcelona?”
“Deep down, I understand you. I’d feel the same way. Although I wouldn’t say no to seeing the world with a well-lined pocket. And you don’t have to decide right away. You have a year and a half to think about it. As long as you don’t hand in the book and the war continues, everything will be on hold. Do what you do with us, never keeping to deadlines and leaving us in the dark.”
Laura gave Mataix a sympathetic tap on his back. Revells took the wonderful sample of wild flora from the Ampurdán and handed it to him.
* * *
Only part of the manuscript of Memory of Darkness has survived, but everything seems to point to the fact that Mataix decided to give in. There are no signs of him handing in a first version of Miguel Ángel Ubach’s autobiography until well into 1939. Indeed, when the war came to an end and Franco’s troops made their victorious entry into Barcelona, he was still working on revisions and changes he’d been asked to make—most of which presumably came from Federica, Ubach’s wife, whose devotion to Fascism was linked to a great sensitivity for literature and the arts. Once he’d handed in the final manuscript, in 1940, Mataix might have considered his publishers’ advice to try to leave the country with his family and his fees, but in the end he ignored the warning and decided to stay. The most likely reason for that decision, which he kept postponing, was that his wife was pregnant again, this time with their second daughter.
By then Ubach had already returned triumphant to Spain, enjoying the highest levels of acclaim and gratitude among the top echelons of the regime, thanks to his work as banker for the national crusade. Those were days of revenge, but also of rewards. All circles of Spanish life were being restructured, and while many people were cast into oblivion, internal exile, and poverty, just as many acolytes rose to fill posts of power and prestige. There wasn’t a single corner of public life where that purge was not undertaken with relentless zeal. Becoming a turncoat, a deeply rooted Spanish tradition, grew into an art form. The war had left hundreds of thousands of dead, but even more forgotten and damned. Many of the old acquaintances and colleagues who had looked down on Mataix with such scorn reappeared, desperate, begging for his help, his recommendation and compassion. Most of them would soon end up in prison, where they would linger for years until what was left of them was snuffed out forever. A few were summarily executed. Others took their own lives, or died from illness or sadness.
Some, predictably the most pretentious and untalented, switched sides. As protégés and courtiers of the regime, they made all the progress they had been unable to achieve by their own merits. Politics can sometimes be a shelter for mediocre and failed artists. There they can prosper, gain power with which to lend themselves airs, and above all, get back at all those who, through their own work and talent, have achieved what they’ve never come even close to achieving, while they declare, with a look of holiness and sacrifice, that everything they do is for the country.
In the summer of 1941, two weeks after the birth of Sonia, the second daughter of Susana and Víctor Mataix, something unexpected happened. The family was enjoying a sunny, peaceful Sunday in their home near Carretera de la Aguas when they heard a stream of cars approaching. Out of the first car came four armed men in suits. Mataix feared the worst, but then he noticed the second car, a Mercedes almost identical to the one used by Generalissimo Franco, out of which emerged a gentleman with faultless manners, together with a blond lady covered in jewels and dressed as if she was going to a royal coronation. They were Miguel Ángel Ubach and his wife, Federica.
Mataix, who had never told his wife the truth about the book in which he’d buried over a year and a half of his life—the book that had saved her life—felt the floor sink under his feet. Susana, looking confused, asked him who those illustrious visitors crossing the garden were. It was Doña Federica who would speak for him throughout that long afternoon. While Don Miguel Ángel retired to Mataix’s office to discuss matters that concern men only, between snifters of brandy and the Cuban cigars he had brought with him as a gift, Doña Federica became the best friend of that poor commoner who, still weak after the birth of her second daughter, could barely stand. Even so, Doña Federica allowed her to get up and go to the kitchen to prepare a cup of tea which she didn’t deign to touch and some dry biscuits she wouldn’t even have given to her dogs, and watched her limp around while she sat in the company of those two girls, Ariadna and little Sonia, who, quite inexplicably, were the most beautiful things she’d seen in her life. How could those two sweet creatures, so full of light and life, have been born from that couple of starving nobodies? Sure, perhaps Mataix had some talent, but basically he was like all other artists, a servant, and besides, the only really good book he’d written was The House of the Cypress Trees. All the rest were nothing special, disappointing her with their unintelligible and macabre plots. “The only really good one was the first,” she had told Mataix right away when they shook hands, disappointed too by how distant he seemed, as if he were not happy to see her. That Mataix had married that uncouth woman who didn’t even know how to dress or speak confirmed her suspicions. He had been useful to pass the time, but he would never have a place among the greats.
Despite all that, it was with the best of smiles that Doña Federica endured the company of that poor wretch, who was doing everything she could to please her. Susana kept asking questions about her life, as if she could hope to understand it. Doña Federica barely listened. She only had eyes for those two children. Ariadna looked at her suspiciously, the way all children did, and when Doña Federica asked her, “Tell me, darling, who do you think is prettiest, your mommy or me?” she ran to hide behind her mother.
It was getting dark when Ubach and Mataix emerged from the study and Don Miguel Ángel decided to put an end to the impromptu visit. He embraced Mataix and kissed Susana’s hand. “You’re a charming couple,” he declared. The Mataixes accompanied the illustrious spouses to their Mercedes-Benz and watched them leave, escorted by the other two cars, beneath a starry sky that promised a horizon of peace and, perhaps, of hope.
A week later, shortly before dawn, two more cars returned to the Mataixes’ house. This time they were black cars with no license plates. Out of the first car came a man in a dark raincoat, who identified himself as Lieutenant Javier Fumero, from the political police division. With him was a meticulously dressed man, with spectacles and a haircut that suggested a middling bureaucrat, who observed the scene from the passenger seat, never leaving the car.
Mataix had come out to meet them. Using his revolver, Fumero struck Mataix so hard on the face that he broke his jaw and knocked him down. His men picked him up and dragged him, screaming, to one of the cars. Fumero wiped his bloody hands on his raincoat and went into the house to search for Susana and the girls. He found them hiding inside a wardrobe, trembling. When Susana refused to hand over her daughters, Fumero kicked her hard in the stomach. He took little Sonia in his arms and grabbed Ariadna by the hand as she wept in terror. He was about to leave the room when Susana threw herself on his back and dug her nails into his face. Without batting an eyelid, he handed the girls to one of his men, who was watching from the doorway, and turned around. He grabbed Susana by her neck and flung her on the floor. Then he knelt down on top of her, crushing her chest, and looked into her eyes. Unable to breathe, Susana gazed at that stranger who was staring at her with a smile. She saw him pull a cutthroat razor from his pocket and unfold it. “I’m going to open up your guts and string them around your neck like a necklace, you fucking whore,” he said calmly.
Fumero had pulled her clothes off and was starting to play around with the blade when the man who had remained in the car, the icy bureaucrat, put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him.
“There’s no time,” he warned.
The men walked away, leaving her there. Susana dragged herself, bleeding, down the stairs. She listened to the drone of the departing cars through the trees until she lost consciousness.
The Forgotten
1
When Vilajuana ended his story, his eyes looked glazed and his voice was dry. Alicia dropped her head, remaining silent. After a while, the journalist cleared his throat, and she smiled weakly at him.
“Susana never saw her husband or her children again. She spent two months visiting police stations, hospitals, and charity homes, asking after them. Nobody knew anything. One day, in despair, she decided to phone Federica Ubach. A servant answered the phone and passed the li
ne on to a secretary. Susana explained what had happened and told the man that Señora Ubach was the only person who could help her. ‘She’s a friend of mine,’ she said.”
“Poor woman,” murmured Alicia.
“Two days later she was picked up in the street and taken to the women’s mental hospital. She remained there a few years. They say she escaped some time later. Who knows. Susana was lost forever.”
A long silence ensued.
“What happened to Víctor Mataix?” asked Alicia.
“Brians, the lawyer, who some time earlier had been hired by Isabella Gispert to try to help David Martín, found out through Martín that Mataix had also ended up in Montjuïc Castle. He was held in solitary confinement by an express order of the prison governor, Don Mauricio Valls, not allowed to go out to the yard with other inmates, receive visits, or have any form of communication with anyone. Martín, who had himself been sent to one of the isolation cells more than once, was the only person who had been able to speak to Mataix, exchanging words across the passage. That’s how Brians knew what had happened. I imagine that by then the lawyer must have felt very remorseful and partly to blame, so he decided to help all those poor devils trapped in the prison. Martín, Mataix . . .”
“The defender of lost causes . . . ,” said Alicia.
“He was never able to save them, of course. Martín was murdered by order of Valls, or so they said. Mataix was never heard of again. His death is still a mystery. And as for Isabella, with whom poor Brians had fallen in love, as did everyone who met her, she had preceded them, also in extremely suspicious circumstances. Brians never got back on his feet again after all that. He’s a good man, but he’s frightened, and anyhow, there’s nothing he can do, either.”
“Do you think Mataix is still there?”
“In the castle? I hope God isn’t that cruel.”
Alicia nodded, trying to take it all in.
“And you?” asked Vilajuana. “What do you plan to do?”
The Labyrinth of the Spirits Page 39
