Southern Seas (19 page)

He woke up two hours later. He took a while realizing where he was. He tried to get back to sleep, but the musty smell and damp texture of the sheets were irritating him. He made some coffee. What can a person do in San Magín at five in the morning? Catch the bus and go to work. Halfway through the coffee, it occurred to him that Ana Briongos would soon be taking the bus to the SEAT plant. He downed a shot of coffee. Then he thought once, thought again, and decided to try one of the pickled gherkins. It was revolting.

The lift moved slowly upwards, like a maggot climbing up the nest in which it is trapped forever. Deserted sidewalks. Down the block, though, scattered human figures could be seen moving doggedly, almost obsessively, towards the exit to Barcelona. He quickened his step in order to catch up with one of the early risers. A young man, huddled in a black leather jacket, told him that the SEAT bus left from the little square next to the obelisk which read:
A New Town for a New Life
. There were two buses waiting. Their interior lights threw their passengers into sharp relief. The buses offered a homely shelter from the sharp hostility of the early morning.

‘She always takes the one behind,’ said the driver of the first bus. No, she hadn’t arrived yet.

‘She’s on the next shift. She won’t be along for another hour yet.’

‘You don’t happen to know where she lives, do you?’

‘No. But she always comes from that direction.’

Carvalho stood and watched the buses fill up and leave, as if he were the Lord of San Magín despatching his argonauts on their quest for the golden fleece. He had a choice—either to take an early-morning stroll, or to return to Stuart Pedrell’s flat.

In the event, he decided to stay where he was. But then the cold drove him off in search of a cafe that might be open at that hour—a fruitless search which took up half an hour and allowed him a second look at the neighbourhood. The cement cliffs began to display a sprinkling of lighted windows. The sun broke behind the tower blocks, forming an aurora around the heads and shoulders of these grey pachyderms.

He returned to the little square, hoping to be in in luck and find Ana Briongos waiting, with enough time for a conversation. Empty buses waited in line. The early-morning workers were now arriving in groups and the advancing daylight emboldened them, so that some were talking and some even laughing. As Ana Briongos drew nearer, she assumed the shape of a short, solidly built young woman with dark, striking features, whose hair had been badly mauled by some local hairdresser. On the lapel of her quilted jacket, she wore an old badge in defence of free speech and a newer one with a slogan against nuclear power. She firmly held the gaze of the man who stopped her at six in the morning, in order to ask whether she was Ana Briongos.

‘Yes. And who are you?’

‘I’m looking for a missing relative. I’ve been through half the city, and in the end it turns out that he came to live here. Do you recognize him?’

With one eye on Carvalho and the other on the photograph, she made a move, as if to continue on her way.

‘I’m sorry. The bus is leaving.’

‘Not for another ten minutes. I know this isn’t a good place to talk. Perhaps we could arrange something else—a meal this evening, for instance.’

‘I eat in the factory canteen at the end of my shift.’

‘What about later?’

‘I have things to do.’

‘All day?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll wait for you at the end of your shift.’

‘I’ve already told you that I don’t know this gentleman.’

‘Maybe you need to take another look. I was told that you used to know each other, and that you were going out together. I was told it by an old communist trade unionist—the type who never lie unless Moscow tells them to. At least, that’s what I was taught as a kid.’

‘OK, you don’t need to keep on at me. I do know him. The sooner we get this over, the better.’

‘Won’t you miss your bus?’

‘There’s more than enough time for what I’ve got to tell you. The man’s name in Antonio. He lived in San Magín. We got to know each other. We saw each other a few times. One fine day, he vanished, and that’s all.’

‘He might have vanished, but he turned up again. Dead. On an abandoned building site. He’d been stabbed.’

She turned her face to hide a rush of tears, and wept uncontrollably, with her back to Carvalho. Her woman companion rushed over.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes. I’ll join you in a moment.’

She turned round and looked Carvalho in the eye. The tears had reddened her nose. Her fleshy lips were trembling as she said, ‘Seven o’clock this evening. Here.’

She sat beside her friend in the bus, and must have said something about Carvalho, for the other girl listened, nodded, and looked at him in some alarm. He turned away, crossed the square to the subway entrance, and allowed himself to be carried down by the stream of humanity hurrying down metal stairs worn smooth by millions of tired steps—steps burdened with the
extra weight of a realization that every new day is just like the one before, and that the stairs that you came up at night are the stairs you’ll that you’ll be going down again in the morning.

‘You should have got into a bank when you were young. By now you’d have twenty or twenty-five years’ service behind you.’

That was what his father had told him on his deathbed, repeating one last time the theme that had become his obsession as it became increasingly clear that Carvalho would pass through university, prison, the country, and life itself without ever acquiring respectability.

‘Even better if it could have been the National Savings Bank. There you get an end-of-year bonus.’

Carvalho would listen indignantly, until he reached the age of thirty; then with indifference; and more recently with a growing affection. His father had wanted to bequeath him security in life, symbolized in the use of the metro or some other means of public transport, every day, twice a day. The same metro that was now carrying him towards the heart of the city. He alighted at Paralelo, crossed the rambling intersection, and began walking down Calle Conde del Asalto, in the direction of the Ramblas. He passed familiar landmarks as if he were returning from a very long voyage. The ugly poverty of the Barrio Chino had a patina of history. It was completely different from the ugly, prefabricated poverty of a neighbourhood prefabricated by prefabricated speculators. It’s better for poverty to be sordid rather than mediocre, he thought. In San Magín, there were no drunks piled in doorways, absorbing what little heat they could from those appalling stairwells. But that was not progress—quite the contrary. The inhabitants of San Magín could not destroy themselves until they had paid all the bills outstanding for the little corner they occupied in the ‘New Town for a New Life’.

The front page of a newspaper announced that the United States would experiment with zero growth in 1980. President Carter’s photo confirmed the news—looking like the branch
manager of a bank, continually surprised that one of his functions might be to bomb Moscow, or to stuff himself all day with apple pie. What would you do if you were President of the United States? You’d screw Faye Dunaway, for starters. Assuming she allowed it. I must advise you that I’m the President. Faye Dunaway would look at him with wild eyes, pretend to kiss him, and treacherously bite off his nose. I must advise you that you’ve just bitten off the nose of the President of the United States. Carvalho entered his office without making a sound.

Biscuter was snoring on the folding bed that he got out every night after he had prepared the elements of Carvalho’s surprise meal for the next day. He was sleeping curled like a foetus, with one eye half open. Curls of lank, fair hair stood out, like stunted, misplaced antlers on the sides of his skull.

‘Is that you, boss?’ said the eye, since the mouth was still in mid-snore.

‘In person. What a din! You certainly have a way of snoring!’

‘But I’m awake, boss.’ And he went on snoring.

Carvalho climbed over the bed and prepared to make some coffee. But Biscuter was already up, rubbing his strained and bulging eyes. He smiled from a far and distant world, like an ugly angel wrapped in yellow pyjamas.

‘Out on the town? You’re quite a raver, boss. You’ve had some phone calls. One from that loony girl. One from Charo. And one from a lady. At least, she sounded like a lady. I wrote it down in the office book.’

Carvalho checked his suspicion—that the lady’s voice belonged to the widow.

Señora Stuart Pedrell invites you to take an aperitif at the Vía Véneto.

‘What’s the celebration?’

‘Señor Planas’s victory in the elections for the CEOE vice chairman. It’s the only spare moment Señora Stuart has. Don’t forget to wear a tie. They’re very strict at the Vía Véneto.’

The note reminded him that the appointment was for one o’clock.

‘Have you got a tie, Biscuter?’

‘I’ve got the one my mother gave me as a present twenty years ago.’

‘That’ll do.’

Biscuter came back with a big cardboard box. It was full of mothballs, which covered a blue and white polka-dot tie.

‘It stinks.’

‘I’m very fond of it. It’s a memento.’

‘Well, hang your memento by the window, to get rid of the stink a bit. If I go in smelling like that, they’ll take me off to the hospital for infectious diseases.’

‘Things like this have to be kept in mothballs.’

Biscuter half opened the window, hung a string between the two frames, and, caressing more than constricting, pegged the tie to the line. Carvalho phoned the Stuart Pedrell house.

‘No, don’t wake Señorita Yes. Tell her I called. I’ll meet her at two at the Río Azul restaurant on Calle Santaló.’

As soon as he put it down, the phone rang again. A male tenor voice asked, ‘Is this the number for the private detective?’

‘It is.’

‘I’d like to consult you on a confidential matter.’

‘Has your wife run off?’

‘How did you know?’

‘Intuition.’

‘It’s not the sort of thing one can discuss over the phone. It’s very delicate.’

‘Come round straight away.’

‘I’ll be with you in a quarter of an hour.’

He saw the look of surprise on Biscuter’s face as he hung up.

‘How did you guess?’

‘By the voice. Ninety per cent of voices like that belong to
men whose wives have run away. Probably because they are tired of hearing them.’

Biscuter went to the shops, while Carvalho amused himself drawing flowery monsters on a sheet of paper. The man knocked almost furtively. He was wearing a crumpled suit on a no less crumpled body. His bald patch would not have shamed the front row of a military parade, and his voice was midway between tenor and soprano. Some people are born to look like deserted husbands, thought Carvalho, although the real misfortune is probably to be born to become a husband.

The visitor delivered a rehearsed speech, and then burst out crying. He got as far as saying that his wife’s name was Nuria, and that she was blonde. But then he broke down.

‘Have a drop. It’s orujo.’

‘I don’t drink on an empty stomach.’

‘It shouldn’t be empty at this time of day. Would you like a sandwich? There may even be some hake in cider left.’

The man had one eye fixed on the hanging tie, and the other fixed on Carvalho.

‘I’m a modest bread manufacturer. I have a little factory.’

‘Absolutely disgusting. How can anyone run a bread factory?’

‘I’ve been in the trade all my life. My parents had a bakery in Sants, and I’ve always been in the bread trade. What more can I say? It’s my life.’

‘And is your wife also in the bread trade?’

‘She lends a hand with the accounts. But she comes from a different background. Her father was a judge.’

‘Do you know where she is?’

‘I have my suspicions.’

‘Where?’

‘I’m ashamed to say.’

‘So you know who she’s with?’

‘Yes. Listen, it’s very embarrassing. She’s living in one of the streets around here. She’s gone with a man called Iparaguirre, a
Basque pelota player who’s a big-mouth, always boasting …’

‘About what?’

‘Forget it. Let’s just say certain eccentricities. I don’t know what women see in people like that.’

‘But what does he boast about? Tell me.’

‘Of being in ETA. He used to rent a flat in the building where we have our offices. He was always chatting with me or my wife—about how the Basques have balls, how they’re tough, and so on. They set off a few bombs, kill a few poor sods, and then they think they’re Kirk Douglas or Tarzan or something.’

He laughed tearfully at his own joke.

‘You’re lucky. She could have run off with someone from GRAPO.’

‘How does that make me lucky?’

‘Because ETA is a different kettle of fish. It’s a much more solid organization. I had another case recently of a husband deceived by someone claiming to be a member of ETA.’

‘And he wasn’t?’

‘No.’

‘The nerve of them …!’

‘Anything goes, when it comes to picking up women. In my day, you’d carry half a dozen leaflets and you’d lower your voice when you talked about politics. You stood a fair chance. But nowadays, women are more demanding. They need something a bit stronger to turn them on.’