A Dead Man in Barcelona

by Michael Pearce

  ‘Of course, I can, Constanza!’ said the Chief reproachfully. ‘He’s in safe hands.’

  ‘Well, he wasn’t last time,’ said Constanza. ‘At least, Lockhart wasn’t. You let someone creep in and poison him. It could happen again. I might even do it myself. That bastard killed Lockhart and someone ought to get him. He extinguished the one light in my life.’

  ‘You say these things, Constanza, but –’

  ‘And I mean them. He was the only man, of many, that I’ve ever really cared about.’

  The Chief felt compelled to tackle Constanza.

  ‘Constanza,’ he said, ‘there have been rumours about you.’

  ‘Only silly men listen to silly rumours,’ she said.

  ‘Nevertheless –’ he began.

  ‘Of course I slept with Lockhart,’ she said impatiently. ‘And very enjoyable it was, too. Unlike with you, Alonzo!’

  ‘Constanza –’

  ‘And with half of the male population of Barcelona,’ she said.

  ‘I know you don’t mean this, Constanza –’

  ‘And if I have any trouble with you, Alonzo, I shall sleep with the other half. And while we are on the subject, Alonzo, you’ve been drinking far too much lately. It has made your performance suffer. And I am not talking about your performance as Chief of Police. Cut out the drinking, Alonzo, and I, too, might be prepared to practise abstinence. Up to a point. Particularly if I saw a chance of getting to Madrid.’

  Nina, despite reservations about the Spanish legal system, was pleased that the murderer of her father had got his deserts. Lockhart’s death, however, meant the end of his financing of the anarchist school, since Leila was not in the least interested in anarchism and disliked Nina, a sentiment reciprocated by Nina, who wouldn’t have accepted the money if it came from Leila anyway. The school closed, as anarchist schools usually do: but then, again as usually happens with anarchist schools, another took its place.

  This one was Nina’s own and had a special character. This one was located in the Arab quarter and seemed to everyone, Arabs, Catalans, and Spanish alike, about as Quixotic a venture, and as foolhardy, as any of those espoused by her father. It seemed, however, just the sort of thing you could expect from the Lockharts and, to everyone’s surprise, succeeded. Moderately. Nina had envisaged a school which would bring Spaniards and Arabs and Catalans together. That, many felt, was not very likely.

  The Arabs near the docks, however, gave Nina their support, possibly, as Ibrahim claimed, out of traditional Arab sympathy for the afflicted, but possibly out of residual loyalty to Lockhart. After a while a few Catalans, mostly from the fishing community, appeared, muttering darkly. And then a few Spaniards, usually of an anarchist tendency. The Chief of Police kept a fatherly eye on it; on the school, that is, and not, as Constanza regularly claimed, on Nina. And, surprisingly, the school prospered, or at least, lasted. Indeed, when, after some time, the authorities threatened to close it, Catalans, Arabs and Spaniards united in its defence, so perhaps Nina achieved her aim after all.

  The cabezudos were as usual cavorting around on Las Ramblas, and, as usual, as soon as they saw Chantale they made a bee-line for her.

  They formed a circle around her. Chantale stood her ground.

  ‘Come and scratch my back, pretty lady!’ one of them pleaded.

  ‘When he says back, pretty lady, he means somewhere else!’ said another cabezudo.

  ‘No such luck!’ said Chantale firmly.

  ‘A ride? On my back?’

  ‘When he says on his back, he means on your back, pretty lady!’

  ‘No chance of that, either,’ said Chantale.

  ‘Will it be done soon, pretty lady?’

  ‘Will what be done?’

  ‘What you have come from Morocco to do.’

  ‘That is not something you should ask me,’ said Chantale. ‘You should ask my friend.’

  The cabezudos broke up and took up a new formation.

  ‘We’re squaring the circle,’ they said.

  ‘So I see,’ said Chantale.

  ‘Are you going to square the circle, too?’

  ‘Which one?’ said Chantale.

  ‘The one that began with Lockhart.’

  ‘A circle finishes where it starts,’ observed another cabezudo.

  ‘With Lockhart?’ said Chantale.

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘But if you are going to square the circle, you will have to do it soon,’ said the first cabezudo.

  ‘Before next week,’ said the second cabezudo. ‘Because otherwise you’ll have to go out to Algeria to do it.’

  ‘For the first time since I have known you,’ said Seymour, ‘you are behind the times. The circle has already been squared.’

  The cabezudos cantered away and then stopped and conferred. Then they came back.

  ‘Congratulations!’ they said, and bowed.

  ‘And now we are in another circle,’ said Chantale. ‘It is an old circle and a private one.’

  ‘And are you going to square it?’

  Chantale looked at Seymour, and Seymour looked at Chantale.

  ‘We think so.’

  ‘Ah!’

  The cabezudos danced away and then came back.

  ‘Congratulations!’ they said.