Barcelona Shadows (7 page)

The policeman stretches out in the armchair and observes the faded wallpaper, as if the doctor might as well be living in a stable. Or in a crypt, he thinks, and smiles.

“There’s no such thing as monsters, doctor.”

“You know that’s not true. Think about the most evil person you’ve ever met.”

“My wife? She’s cruel and ugly, but I wouldn’t call her a monster. I can have her come over, if you want to dissect her.”

“Inspector…” Von Baumgarten smoothes his moustache and leans back in his chair. It is late, he’s sleepy, but he has company. And he no longer seems hostile.

“There are plenty of sons of bitches in this world.”

“Haven’t you ever spoken with someone who you think couldn’t be more of one?”

“No. Each one is a son of a bitch according to his possibilities.”

Isaac von Baumgarten sucks his teeth, Corvo is like a wall.

“I don’t understand why you’re wasting your time with me, usually people don’t give a hoot about my comings and goings.”

Moisès Corvo rolls over, making the chair leather quiver. The hairs on the back of his neck are mussed and one of his ears is red. He looks as if he’s either drunk or he just got out of bed; or like a drunk who’s just waking up.

“A hoot? You learnt that pretty well, for an Austrian. Have you dissected a teacher’s corpse recently?”

The doctor gets up without answering him. He walks to the bathtub in the corner and then says loudly, without looking at him, you want some ice? Corvo says yes, with a bit of whisky, in honour of Doctor Knox, who’s Scottish. He pulls the glass and the bottle out of a cabinet. The bottle is full and its cap is encrusted with crystallized sugar. He doesn’t drink, thinks Corvo. He pulls three pieces of chopped ice out of the bathtub and drops them into the glass with a tinkling sound. He rummages around and pulls out a larger piece from between a tattooed arm and two heads with empty eye sockets, torn lips and open skulls. Without blinking an eyelash, he covers the chunk of ice with a rag so that Corvo doesn’t see it’s covered in blood. He brings the dressing to his face, where his bruise is stinging something fierce, throbbing beneath the skin. Thank you, says Moisès when the doctor hands him the drink.

“I’m not a fool.” He sits back down in the chair, tense. “I’ve heard what people are saying.”

“And what are people saying?”

“That there’s a monster.”

“You’re wrong. You are a fool.”

“Who makes children disappear.”

“Don’t be so gullible.”

“What?” He lifts his eyebrows, he doesn’t understand.

“Don’t believe everything you hear. When there is fear, the
first guilty party is always the unknown.”

“Then you agree: there is fear. And there is a monster.”

“Not everything’s that easy, doctor.”

“It never is, but I’ll make you a deal.”

“You have nothing to offer me.”

“I can help you catch him.”

“In exchange for what?”

“Freedom to do my experiments. Fresh bodies from the Clínic.”

“And how could you, a quack, help me, a policeman, do
my
job?” He is thinking it over, but he doesn’t want von Baumgarten to know that.

“Because, as you said before, I
believe
in monsters, and that’s the first step in hunting them.”

The screech of metal blinds rising, like eyes filled with sleep, is the first thing Blackmouth hears. His lower back is stiff from the cold and a hard blow to the ribs. A man is standing, waiting for him, backlit, about to kick him again. Blackmouth protects his face with his arms, and then the man speaks.

“You didn’t find any.” “Who are you?”

Rigid posture and a sports jacket buttoned all the way up, from which emerges a silk handkerchief. Joan Pujaló puts his hands on his hips and lifts an eyebrow that the boy cannot see, being bathed in shadow. He speaks without moving his lips, hidden beneath a large, gravity-defying moustache, and he compensates by opening his eyes so wide they look like cue balls with a small chalk mark as the retina. Joan Pujaló doesn’t live, he overacts.

“Come with me,” he twists his head and offers an arm to help
him up, “before you freeze to death.”

Blackmouth looks around, frightened. Workers in grey jackets and with cigarettes hanging from their lips head to the factories half asleep, paying them no mind. The scent of coffee is almost as intense as the stench of manure from a dairy a few metres away.

“You’re no policeman.”

Joan Pujaló lets out an utterly false cackle.

“Neither are you.”

T
HERE ARE THOSE
who live happily in tumultuous times, with blood on the streets, because it allows them to slip amid the violence and drink it in at their pleasure. In anarchist Barcelona— the “Fiery Rose”—everyone does their own thing: some struggle to have food to put in their mouths, others fill their pockets and make a display of it; the beggars sleep in a tavern because they don’t have a pot to piss in, the rich travel to Sant Sebastià for a medicinal dip at the beach; there are those who speak to no one out of fear that their secrets will be discovered, there are those who chat about everything in their search for company. Enriqueta has found Barcelona’s seams and she travels along them comfortably, alone, knowing she won’t bump into anyone else, because there is no one who does what she does. Who cares about one more cadaver, when the corpses of the destitute don’t stink during the winter cold? Who cares that there’s one less child, if his mother can’t feed him? She is up and down, satisfying everyone, giving each what they deserve and, above all, what they are looking for, whether they want it or not. She has everything she wants, but she always wants more. It’s never enough. And now she has this lad, Blackmouth, who is young enough not to raise suspicions and whom she managed to enslave in a single night. Blackmouth can’t turn tail, and his only way out is to obey her until she tires of him.

The boy walks beside her, but she doesn’t ever glance at him. Enriqueta has a dignified bearing, with her head and back held up straight, like an important person, which is strange to see because she dresses in poorly sewn rags, one on top of the other, hiding her figure. Only her face is revealed, pale, moribund, extremely angular, her little eyes with pupils dark as wells. Joan Pujaló, Enriqueta’s ex-husband, accompanied Blackmouth to the Plaça Catalunya, where they met up with the woman. You can leave us alone now, Joan, she had indicated, and without saying a word the man had headed down the Rambla, because it’s still early and surely he’ll find someone gullible enough that he can paint his portrait, separate him from his wallet or sell him a bridge. The other two headed up Balmes.

“Where are we going, ma’am?” Finally, Blackmouth decided to speak.

“To run some errands.”

Blackmouth looks at his grimy fingernails and rips off a bit of skin from the side of his finger. He lowers his gaze and kicks a stone towards a horse-drawn carriage that comes down the street, lifting up dust. Whip in hand, the driver glares at him, it was really nothing, and then he looks at the woman, just as their paths cross. That evening the driver will not remember her features, but he won’t forget the unpleasant feeling that ran up his spine.

“You have to know people,” she says, like a continuation of her thoughts.

“I don’t know anyone.”

“That’s just it. You have to have acquaintances. Never friendships, they always bring problems. You have to know people’s names and figure out what they have a weakness for, that way you’ll always have them in your pocket.”

“But I don’t—”

“If you know enough people you can have it all: money, power, respect…”

“Sex?”

She doesn’t turn her gaze towards him now either, but it’s clear she didn’t like the comment. She thinks it over.

“Sex is power.”

Blackmouth doesn’t understand. Sex is sex. Shagging, fucking, screwing, getting off. He doesn’t always have the opportunity, because he doesn’t always have money. There have been times when he’s waited beside a woman until drink left her groggy, and then he’d had a ball. There is a girl, over on Lluna Street, whom he often sees passing by and one day he’s going to corner her and—every time he thinks of it he gets hard. He can almost smell her scent. He imagines her in his claws. He is overcome with such a desire to get some action that he can’t walk normally.

“Will I meet girls?”

“I can introduce you to girls, if that’s what I have to do to get you to focus.”

I like to disguise myself as a man, cloak myself in your skin and pass as one of you. I can talk to whomever and open up their soul like a pomegranate, without them suspecting who I really am. I let them think they have the upper hand, I establish trust, and they start spilling. That doesn’t mean they aren’t lying, though. You shouldn’t believe half of what Joan Pujaló says: he’s a blowhard.

My wife was a whore and, in her own way, she still is one. That’s something you never give up. No, no, it’s not just a bad habit: it’s ambition. Joan Pujaló bristles his moustache and looks
at the empty glass, dirty with foam. He stares at me, squinting his eyes, as if he didn’t believe a word of what I had told him, and he continues chatting. She already was one when I met her. Enriqueta was young, but a big, strong, well-formed woman who was all business. The customers came in through the door and blew their wad before she took off her blouse. Not me, I gave her pleasure, and I could be there for hours. I had as much money as stamina, because I’ve always been an athlete, I don’t know if I mentioned that.

Sometimes she pretended she wasn’t there, even though I heard her talking with Dionisia, there on Riereta Street, behind the door, because I left her so burnt out she couldn’t work for a week. Did you know Dionisia? No? She was very clean, she was, and she took very good care of the girls. She had six, and at first I went there for Rosaura, a gypsyish girl with enormous eyes who never opened her mouth but let you do everything, you know what I mean. Rosaura had small breasts, soft like egg custards and—well, the thing is that one day, when I got there, Dionisia told me she had a new girl, and she introduced me to her. I saw her come into the vestibule, with a gauzy little dress that hinted at some powerful hips and that gaze that singles you out, and introduced myself.

“Juanitu, at your service.”

But, really, she was the one serving me.

I visited the brothel on Riereta Street more and more; it’s closed now, a municipal policeman lives there with his wife and children, ain’t life strange. That was around ’94, you know? Barcelona was very different. Every so often an anarchist would shoot somebody on the street, but normally it was somebody who deserved it and I didn’t feel too sorry for them. That was around
the time of the bomb at the Liceu Opera House, that guy sure had balls, that Santiago Salvador. I knew him, and one day he came up and asked me: listen, Juanitu, if you wanted to bump off some middle-class folk, where would you go? To the Liceu, of course, I told him, but I didn’t think he’d follow my advice to the letter. Poor bastard, he was a good chap. I saw him sometimes around Riereta. I guess he didn’t blow off enough steam that way and so he ended up exploding there in the audience.

Enriqueta has something magnetic about her. You don’t know why, but you need to go back to her again and again. When she speaks you’re struck dumb, she hypnotizes you like one of those snakes from the Orient, those ones that come out of a basket. What are they called? Cobras? Yes, that’s it, cobras. Every time I went to see her I brought her flowers, some chocolate, those little details women like. But her expression never changed. It was if nothing excited her, except when she had me between her legs. The flowers withered in the other girls’ rooms, and I ended up eating the chocolates myself. But I insisted and insisted, because Enriqueta was more to me than just a whore. It’s not that I didn’t want to pay, eh, it’s that I was falling for the minx. I could get anyone I wanted, I could get Empress Sissi into bed if I tried. Well, maybe not now, but then, that time when she came to Barcelona, I could have for sure. But Enriqueta was unreachable, as if she were always hiding more than I could discover. She was a challenge.

“Marry me, Miss Enriqueta.”

Because I called her Miss, of course, you’ve always got to mind your manners.

“And what would I do, married? Don’t you see, Juanitu, that I need to make my bits and bobs?”

“You can retire, I’ll set up a little flat and paint your portrait.”

“The portrait I can believe, but where would you get the money for a little flat?”

“I have my contacts, Enriqueta, and pressing the right keys—”

“I know those contacts well, and for all their groping and sweating and their I love yous, in the end they never lift a finger for me.”

“Ay, don’t say that, you’ll make me sad.”

“You’re quite the actor, Juanitu. Don’t cry, what I’m selling, you’re buying, and so it would be a really bad deal.”

“Come with me to the stall, help me with my business and leave behind this world of vice.”

“I’ve got to give it up, but you don’t… I know how you are, Juanitu. Like every man. If you married me you’d have a tart to do what I do for you now, and you’d end up leaving me and I wouldn’t have the body or the desire to earn a living for myself any more.”

“Don’t be cruel, Enriqueta, I want you to have my children!”

Big cock-up. I didn’t know then that she couldn’t—you know, that the Lord our God didn’t want her to procreate. It’s not my fault, I’m sure, because more than once or twice I’ve had to run away from a swollen belly and an accusing finger.

“I said no, and I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

But there were more words about it.

You’ve got to have women on a short leash, because you know they are very fickle and hot-blooded by nature, and yours truly kept on Enriqueta until she caved. It wasn’t easy, or cheap, and we came to an agreement. I would set her up with a stall and she’d leave Dionisia. Enriqueta had always liked herbs and unctions and she had a lot of books around the house with remedies
and unguents and potions. I set her up with a herbalist’s shop on Sindicte Street. It goes without saying that she never showed enthusiasm, because that’s how she is, and the store didn’t last long. She wasn’t up to the task and didn’t have much interest in selling.

“That doesn’t make money.”

“It’s a small but honourable business, and keeps us afloat.”

“It’s like we’re begging for alms, with the few bits of lemon verbena we sell each week.”

“Don’t look at it that way, woman.”

I think Enriqueta lost respect for me the day I stopped calling her Miss.

“And how do you want me to look at it? I used to have enough to live on and I could even allow myself a few indulgences. Look at me now, in these rags.”

“But that was no way to live, my love.”

“Don’t say such stupid things, it’s as if you’re an actor in a comedy, you’re pathetic.”

She was cruel. She is cruel. Enriqueta knows how to cut you to the quick. I found it entirely unfair, because I had rescued her from a world where, day after day without fail, they beat her, humiliated her and took advantage of her. I know that she wasn’t happy, because Enriqueta doesn’t like… well, she likes to fuck but not like a man, you know? You know what I mean: we could spend all day in the honeypot, but women are different, and Enriqueta even more than most. I don’t mean she’s some nun, and she’s certainly not delicate or fragile, not by a long shot. I told you before, she’s a real animal in bed. But she doesn’t need it. Or she doesn’t need it physically, I don’t think. I discovered before long that she’d returned to some flat on the sly, and was back on the game. She’s not wanton, believe me, but it’s as if
the money she made with me wasn’t enough. And I don’t earn a bad living. Have you seen my paintings? Later I’ll take you to my studio so you can see them, I’m sure you’ll buy one off me. Some say I make Ramon Casas look like an amateur, and that’s why he’s embarrassed even to brush past me—ha, ha, ha. Brush past me, you get it?

The thing was I had to get her out of that world, and I took her to Majorca.

Blackmouth and Enriqueta enter Àngel’s, a pub on Balmes Street that was so full of people so early that morning that anyone would have thought that they’d abolished the working day in Barcelona. Around the large barrels that serve as tables there are circles of men chatting, with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other, and the waiter bustling about, serving Ratafias and conversation to whoever stops him first. Everything about Àngel is big: his head, his eyes, his hands, his heart and his dishes of soused anchovies, and when he walks it seems the place moves around him. He greets the woman and the boy who’ve just come in and he continues busily serving up breakfasts. Enriqueta points to a corner and Blackmouth looks over there.

“Do you see them?”

“See what?”

“The children.”

Blackmouth glances and counts three children of about eight years old.

“But this place is packed.”

“That means nobody’s looking at us.”

“Ma’am, I… how can we?—”

“Shut up. Talking will only draw attention. Act as if nothing’s going on.”

Àngel passes in front of her and questions them with his gaze.

“Bread and cheese,” she says, “and water.”

Àngel pulls a face. Water? In this cold?

They remain still, not chatting, contemplating the customers like someone at the picture show, distant, until after a bit Enriqueta elbows Blackmouth in the ribs. A man leads a boy by the hand (the same curls, the same nose; his son, obviously) to a door in the back, beside boxes filled with eggs. They go inside, and after a few seconds the man comes out alone.

“Go there now.”

“To the urinals?”

“Don’t waste time.”

“But the father is—” Blackmouth sees the woman’s decisive look, he gets up and walks towards the urinals.

“If you can’t do it, you’re of no use to me,” she murmurs, almost imperceptibly.

In the urinals there is, besides the boy, another man, and Blackmouth stays still as a wicker man. The boy is distracted, picking his nose with his finger, and his father reappears at the door.

“Aren’t you supposed to be peeing?”

The father enters and starts to get angry; from what it seems this isn’t the first time. The other man goes out and passes by Blackmouth, who turns his face and is forced to go to the wall to pretend he is urinating. He doesn’t know which of them has less of a desire to piss, him or the boy, because he’s lost all pressure in his lower belly and he whistles to play it off, while the father undoes the boy’s pants and lowers them, smacks him hard on his bum and leaves again.