Hell Calling (3 page)

He shook his head, and shot up in his seat, as if wanting to detach himself from his own skin, which weighed him down incredibly, like his head, like his brain, like all of the ideas bubbling away inside him.

“She never told me anything. She never shared her worries with me.”

“Perhaps she was going to do it soon.’

“And besides... my daughter was just a little girl... she was so lovely. I wasn’t with her for long, that’s true, but... It’s not possible, it’s just not possible...”

“Like I already said, Laura was a little girl like any other.”

“You said to me earlier that she ‘almost never’ gave an answer for the drawings... Is that because she actually did give an answer once?”

Marta diverted her gaze for the first time, stood up, and went up to the window in her office, which was on the first floor in the school.

“Listen, I think it would be best if we left this conversation for another day. I am a psychologist who specialises in children, but I also attend to adults in the morning, in my private practice.”

Carlos wrung his hands, in an effort to restrain himself, knowing that the woman was right in what she was saying.

“Look...”

“You don’t understand that you’re under a huge amount of emotional pressure, and that anything could lead to you... becoming unbalanced.”

He sat up, and then made his way to the window too. Outside, some children were playing football in the playground.

“I promise I’ll come for a session. I definitely need help in overcoming this situation. But please, don’t leave more doubts in my mind than I already have.”

She turned back to him, and looked him in the eyes with a worried and sincere expression. It was the expression of someone beginning to feel a great empathy for the person they are speaking to.

“Carlos,” she began speaking very slowly, “the majority of times, things aren’t what they seem.”

“I know. I’m convinced of it.”

He clung tightly onto the window handle, hoping for the revelation of an unknown truth, but at the same time fearing it like his worst nightmare.

“Laura told me that those pictures showed her future. That she was the person who all of those terrible beings were torturing.”

XIII

His father watched him sadly, and in spite of his eternally flexible and positive disposition, he was having difficulty finding the right words to say. Despite having lived through dramatic experiences over the course of his own life, he did not feel prepared to face this situation.

“It’s terrible...”

“What’s terrible, Dad, isn’t that I never knew Laura, but the fact that on top of that, my daughter was suffering enormously, and I was right there by her side, and I never had the slightest idea.”

“I still haven’t managed to know you completely either...”

“But this is different; she needed me. Perhaps you haven’t understood me at times, but I’ve always had you by my side whenever I needed you.”

Esteban picked up a clump of damp earth, and squeezed it with all his might. The earth gave him security, along with the tension in his fingers upon squeezing it. For many years, he had been coming to this place, so separate from the civilised world, and yet still not too far from it. The silence and solitude had been a refuge in which his memories couldn’t reach him, and bite him with their relentless jaws. He looked up at the sky, clear and almost completely cloudless, trying to find the right words.

“And what now. What do you want to do, exactly?”

“Know the truth.”

“What truth, Carlos?

“I don’t know. I want to know the reason behind those drawings, I want to know more about my daughter, I want to not feel responsible for it all...”

Carlos looked at his father with a slight hint of desperation in his eyes.

“You’re not responsible for this at all. I can only hope you don’t take long to realise that.”

“That’s really easy to say, Dad.”

“No. What are you expecting? You can’t turn back time, and nothing you do or begin to do now with respect to Laura is going to change what’s happened.”

“It can at least change my way of seeing the world, and it can also help me to get up every day.”

Esteban understood that his fight was going to require a lot of effort, and constant contact with his son. He saw him as being on the edge of a precipice, and had to find the right way to prevent him from falling into it.

“Carlos, you’re going to have to choose. You can either set off on a search for the truth, regarding Laura, or you can just let it go and put an end to all of this.”

“And what would you advise me to do?”

His father gritted his teeth before answering.

“Let it go... You’ve got nothing definite to gain, Laura is already dead; she’s in God’s hands. If you don’t, I’m afraid you’ll end up losing your mind.”

XIV

The mother returned with a cup of tea, and sat down on the sofa before offering it.

“I’m so sorry about your daughter, she used to come over to our house a lot. She was very bright and full of life. Your wife also spent an afternoon with me, and she was lovely.”

“Thank you very much,” said Carlos, taking the cup of tea and bringing it to his lips.

“María will be home any minute; her father’s just bringing her back from her piano lesson.”

“I’m sorry for turning up unannounced. I’m visiting Laura’s closest friends from school. I’m sure you’ll find it quite strange, but only now that I’ve lost Laura forever, have I decided to get to know my daughter.”

The woman forced a smile of understanding, although she could not hide a certain confusion.

“I... understand...”

“It’s really hard to have not known her, and it’s really comforting for me to get to learn more about her now,” he lied.

There was the sound of the front door unbolting and, immediately after, María entered the lounge, followed by her father, a tall man with a reserved expression.

“Hi mummy.”

“Hi, darling. How did it go?”

“Good... Daddy can tell you, I played better today than ever before.”

“It’s true,” confirmed the father, looking at the stranger out of the corner of his eye.

“Look, this is Laura’s father. He’s come to see us. He’d like it if you’d tell him a few things about your friend.”

The little girl looked at Carlos, untrusting.

“Ok... I’m going to my room!”

María shot off down a corridor, and all that could be heard were her ever-distant footsteps, along with a snippet of song. The girl’s father took advantage of the moment to offer his hand to Carlos.

“Hello, I’m Julián. I’m so sorry about your wife and daughter; we found out at school.”

“Thank you so much. I’m sorry to bother you; it’ll only be a few minutes. I hope you understand...”

“No, it’s no trouble, it’s natural,” replied Julián, although somewhat unconvinced by his own words.

“I’ll call to María right now. It’s late, and she won’t want to...” added the mother.

Carlos made a rapid gesture with his hand to interrupt her:

“Only if it’s alright with you, of course... and I realise it’s rather an abuse of confidence, but I would like to speak with your daughter alone. It won’t really be the same with both of you present.”

The parents looked at each other, incredulous, without knowing exactly how to respond to this man who they did not know, but for whom they did feel genuine compassion.

“Alright. Her room’s at the end of the corridor. But please, don’t be too long.”

“Thank you. I won’t keep her any longer than ten minutes.”

Carlos walked slowly down the corridor. The door to the little girl’s room was open, and she was stretched out on the bed playing with a couple of dolls. It was a bedroom like that of any other girl her age. It was a bedroom like Laura’s.

“Hi María. I only want to speak with you for a few minutes.”

“I remember you. You brought Laura to school one day in a really nice car, didn’t you?”

“Yes, that’s right, I did. You have a good memory,” Carlos replied, satisfied at having found a common link with which he could generate confidence between the two of them.

“Laura was a very good friend of mine. We used to sit together at school.”

The little girl spoke to him with naturalness. Carlos remembered how stupid adults are, always insisting on treating children with an absurd air of superiority.

“I know, your teacher told me. María, I won’t keep you long. Laura’s not here anymore, and I need to find out some very important things about her. I’m sure that she shared secrets with you; secrets that only you and she knew...”

The girl sat up, and looked away from his face.

“You’re not supposed to tell secrets...”

“I know, but Laura has gone away, and those very secrets can help me now. I’m not asking you to tell them to the whole world; I’m just asking you to tell them to me, her father.”

María returned her gaze to his face, with a worried expression. She fidgeted with the bedspread.

“But it’s just that... I’m sure you won’t believe me. We had a really big secret, and we promised never to tell. Laura made me promise that I’d never tell.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll believe you. And besides, Laura wouldn’t get angry that you told me.”

“But please don’t tell anybody. And most of all, don’t tell my parents.”

“I promise.”

“Laura was really scared. Very often, she was really, honestly scared. She hid it, she didn’t tell anyone. Only I knew what was happening to her. She thought that if people found out, she’d be taken away to a mental hospital.”

Carlos felt once more as if an abyss was opening up before his feet, and once more, he found no other way to go but take a step forward.

“And... what was she afraid of?”

“Laura told me that she had a lot of nightmares. Sometimes she would wake up, and then she would hear some men’s voices, which really scared her.”

“And what were they saying to her?”

“Laura, we’re coming for you, and we’re taking you to Hell with us.”

XV

He had decided to spend the afternoon there in that peaceful park. He had chosen the bench that was furthest from the hustle and bustle, although he could watch from the distance as the children enjoyed the swings, the slide, and a small wooden castle. The laughter reached his ears, but it was deadened, absorbed in part by the cypress trees, by the pines, and by the air that opened up towards the sky. A rubber ball made its escape and landed, coming to a stop at his feet. A little girl went looking for it, and came up to where he was sitting.

“Excuse me sir, would you give me the ball, please?”

“Of course,” replied Carlos, throwing it to her.

“Sir... you seem really sad...”

And then the girl quickly went away, with the ball in her hands. Carlos remained immersed in an ever-increasing solitude, and did not listen to anything else the entire afternoon.

XVI

That night, Carlos had found it harder than usual to get to sleep; as if his spirit could already foresee the dream he would immediately slip into:

“Alicia was driving her car, and Laura was sitting in the back. They were both talking, relaxed. The car was driving calmly down through trees, along a narrow road that, every now and then, opened into a turn of some kind, opening out to some marvellous views.

‘Laura, don’t take off your seatbelt.’

‘But it’s really annoying, Mummy.’

‘Well you’re just going to have to put up with it.’

‘But I can’t play.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Alicia looked at her daughter through the rear view mirror. The girl had some plastic animals along the backseat, and was moving them around, doing their voices.

‘Put the animals on your lap, and then that way you can play without having to twist around.’

‘Okay...’ said Laura, disheartened.

It had rained that morning, and the sky had remained a smooth grey, which gave an even greater beauty to the green of the trees and plants. Alicia felt relaxed, content at having spent that Monday morning in the company of her daughter, walking in the mountains.

‘Have you had a good time?’

‘Yes, it’s been great.’

‘What have you liked the most?’

‘When it started raining and we took cover in that cramped little cave!’

Alicia smiled. It had been very good fun. If it hadn’t been for that little cave, they would have been soaked through.

‘Are you looking forward to seeing Daddy?’

‘Yes, really, really, really!!’

‘Me too.’

Although the car was moving slowly, Alicia had to take care with her driving, because there was no firm grip with the road. The fallen water, after almost a month of no rain, had left the road in a very slippery state. She remembered that the best thing to do in such cases was not to accelerate, not brake sharply, or disengage the clutch too often.

‘Mummy, I’m starting to feel bad.’

Alicia looked back into the rear view mirror. There was a look of anxiety on the girl’s face, and she was twisting in her seat.

‘Do you need to be sick?’

‘I don’t know, it’s like a really strange pain.’

The mother had a strange sense of foreboding, and wanted to concentrate on the road, at the same time trying to calm the girl.

‘If you prefer, we can stop, or I can lower the window and you’ll feel better.’

‘I think... I think I know what’s happening to me...’

‘No, please. Don’t start, Laura.’

Alicia tried to keep one eye on the road and the other on her daughter. The girl gritted her teeth, as if trying to silence herself. And then suddenly she began to shout:

‘Mummy, Mummy, it really hurts!’

Laura now twisted around with an inexplicable violence in the back seat of the car, and she continued to shout, with an ever more serious voice, that was less and less like her own.

‘Mummy, help me, they’re coming for me! Mummy, Mummy!’

Alicia tried to control her nerves, but without wanting to, she accelerated. When she raised her eyes to look back at her daughter in the rear view mirror, she was able to see with her own eyes the most terrible sight she had ever seen: the girl’s face was contorted, in an expression of uncontrollable panic, her tongue sticking halfway out of her mouth, her cheeks bloated and her eyes were almost bulging out of her head; completely shining and red. Terrified, and with almost no control over herself or her actions, Alicia realised that they were approaching a bend at high speed, and she slammed her foot hard on the brake. Then she screamed; screamed with all the air in her lungs”.