Tears in Rain (27 page)

He’d ended up holding forth in a grandiose tone. So that’s what he was doing down on all fours, poking his nose into the corners: looking for votes. Even if it was at the expense of Nabokov’s madness, Chi’s blood, the horror, the fire, and the violence. Disappointing. She looked at the angry Habib with indifference. As Yiannis often used to say,
People’s true nature comes to the fore as soon as things start to go wrong
.

B
runa got off the travelator, turned cautiously into the avenue and scanned from afar the area surrounding her apartment building as she clung to a faint hope. But no, there was the Omaá, with his translucent body and his ridiculous T-shirt. The
bicho
’s patient siege was turning her exits and entrances into a martyrdom. The night before, as she was approaching her building with adrenaline still pumping after her encounter with the thugs, Bruna mistook his huge shadow for that of an assailant and nearly gave him a kick in the groin. Or in the place where Earthlings have their groin. But the Omaá dodged it easily, as if he had predicted her movement.

“It’s Maio, it’s Maio. Sorry if I startled you,” he had said with his murmuring voice.

And the rep had almost regretted that he wasn’t an anonymous assailant. The alien was driving her mad. He was making her feel absurdly guilty and becoming an obsession to the point where the discomfort was making her think twice about going home. Right now, after completing her search of Chi’s apartment, she would have preferred not to go home. But not daring to confront him seemed shameful to her. And then there was Bartolo, whom she didn’t want to leave on his own for too long. So she had no alternative now but to start running, and race through the main entrance so as to avoid that persistent wretch Maio. The alien was turning into a problem.

Having successfully dealt with the first Omaá, she now had to confront the second one. The android opened the door to her apartment fearful of what she might find. How the devil had she managed to complicate her life in this way? Once again, she decided to get hold of an animal shelter right away and free herself of the bubi. She cautiously stuck her head inside; the place seemed to be in order. No half-chewed clothes on the floor. Relieved, she stepped inside and closed the door, at which point she caught sight of the greedy-guts glued to the far wall, very nervous, and with his head hanging down—the absolute picture of guilt. The rep’s spirits plummeted.

“What have you done? You’ve been naughty, haven’t you?”

Bartolo was wringing his gray little hands, desperately contrite. Bruna had a sudden terrible intuition and ran toward the table with the jigsaw puzzle. She gave a sigh of relief; everything seemed to be fine. But hold on a minute...There was one piece missing that had been extracted from what she’d already done. The hole was like a gaping wound in the middle of the picture.

“I told you not to touch the puzzle!”

The bubi whimpered.

“What have you done with the piece? Have you eaten it, you stupid animal?”

“Bartolo good,” blubbered the creature.

And he started to run toward the bedroom. Bruna followed him and, to her relief, found the small piece of cardboard on top of her pillow, meticulously placed right in the center of it. The rep seized the piece—it was intact and didn’t even seem to have been chewed.
It’s undoubtedly a message, a warning, perhaps even a threat
, thought Bruna.
It’s saying
:
I don’t like being abandoned and I could have taken my revenge by destroying the entire jigsaw puzzle, but I’ve been generous and haven’t done so
. It was a very sophisticated message, not that different from the just-decapitated heads of dogs that the Chinese mafia used to leave behind. The android tried to hide
the smile lurking on her lips and turned toward the bubi, forcing herself to look stern.

“Bartolo alone,” muttered the greedy-guts, twisting his fingers.

“I know. I know you were left alone and you don’t like it. Okay, fine. This time, you’re forgiven. But don’t do it again.”

The animal leaped up into her arms; Bruna felt his warm breath on her neck. Embarrassed and annoyed, she removed the bubi and put him on the floor. All she needed was to become attached to a creature she was going to get rid of right away.

“And don’t ever do that again either! No climbing up and giving hugs!”

And, seeing the contrite face of the greedy-guts, she immediately added, “Come on, I’ll give you something to eat.”

That information instantly raised the bubi’s spirits.

Just then, a call came in from Mirari. The unusual face of the violinist appeared on the screen, her spiky white hair looking like a crown of thorns.

“It’s done. I’m sending you a robot. Twenty minutes,” she said and cut off.

Always so curt.

The rep poured herself a glass of white wine and dropped onto the couch in front of the picture window, exhausted, while Bartolo ate his bowl of cereal with noisy enthusiasm.
Four years, three months, and seventeen days.
She took a sip of wine. The arm with which she was holding the glass bore the imprint of the blow from the hooligan’s chain, and the detective thought it was a symbolic mark. Events were leaving her bruised, wounded. For some reason, this case had stirred her up more than any other. It had become very personal.

It started to rain. The sky was a changing swirl of gray clouds, and the raindrops, slanted by the wind, beat against the windowpane. Yiannis had once shown Bruna the old, mythical film from the twentieth century in which replicants first made
an appearance. It was called
Blade Runner
. It was a strange, well-meaning film as far as the reps were concerned, although Bruna found it somewhat irritating. The androids bore little resemblance to real ones and on the whole, tended to be stupid, oversimplified, childish, and violent. Never mind the blonde techno who turned somersaults like an articulated doll. Even so, there was something profoundly moving about the film. Bruna had learned by heart the final words spoken by the main rep character on the rain-swept rooftop before he died: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.” And then he lowered his head and died so easily. So easily. Like an electric machine that someone unplugs. Without suffering the nightmare of TTT. But his powerful words reflected wonderfully the inconsistency of life, of that subtle, beautiful insignificance which time was unraveling without leaving a trace. The rep in
Blade Runner
lowered his head and died while the rain ran down his cheeks, perhaps hiding his final tears.

When he was close to the end of his 10/35 years, Merlín disappeared. He left. Bruna finally managed to locate him: he’d moved to a hotel. The detective, for whom eloquence had never been a strong point, nevertheless managed to make Merlín understand that watching him die from afar would be even more painful. So Merlín returned, and they were still able to enjoy a few months of serenity before his TTT manifested itself.

When the illness appeared, they went to the Scottish Highlands. Bare, windswept land, with brooks like threads of mercury flowing through black banks. They both liked cold, remote, inhospitable places—one of those shared oddities that formed the basis of their love. That was why, when Merlín decided to withdraw into the dark like a wounded dog, he chose that distant corner. They installed themselves in a small, very old rented cottage, which they immediately filled with their pathetic
cargo of medical equipment and medication. The smell of illness and poisoned time. The slow, oppressive time of dying. Death stalked them like a predator, tarnishing everything with suffering, but Bruna still remembered one night when it was raining, with raindrops drumming on the window just as they were now, and Merlín was dozing by her side in bed, momentarily relieved from his suffering while she, lying on top of the bedspread, read a novel by the yellow light of a small lamp. From time to time, she would glance over at her lover—his back, so familiar but now so bony; his emaciated features; the beard he had acquired. Because the nails and hair of the dying keep growing: while everything else is collapsing, those small cells continue to weave their substance with a blind and desperately tenacious vitality. A useless organic effort that cast a shadow over Merlín’s cheeks and made his beautiful face seem ever more gaunt. Bruna knew that, just before the end, the profile of sick people became sharper, as if to cleave the darkness, penetrate the shadows like the prow of a ship. Her lover’s face had already begun to sharpen. But they were together and they were still alive; and outside, the wind whistled and the rain whispered its desolate song, turning the bedroom into a refuge. That night, time stopped and there was a strange peace within the pain.

At times Bruna felt such acute pain that she thought she wouldn’t be able to bear it.

But afterward, she always could.

Tears in rain. Everything would pass and everything would be quickly forgotten. Even suffering.

She took another sip of wine and looked at her reproduction of
Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid
. The maid, arms crossed, was waiting, for her mistress to finish writing so that she could then undoubtedly take away the letter. She wasn’t in a hurry. While she waited, she wasn’t required to work; it was a small break in her day. She was a young girl with a chubby face. She was standing in the background and gazing with quiet
pleasure out of the window through which a clean, early morning light was entering. It must have been a lovely day outside. The girl was enjoying the sunshine, her youth, and her health, the perfect serenity of the moment, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The joy of life captured in an instant. That painting moved Bruna because it was like a slice of time outside time. It made her feel the way she had felt that rainy night next to Merlín. That night, while her lover was dying, she was immortal. Almost like a human.

Just then a robot courier beeped at her door and Bruna gave a start. Her nerves were on edge. It was a high-security delivery, so she had to allow the robot to do a DNA check before she could pick up the sealed, waterproof container.
How the devil has Mirari gotten hold of my DNA?
the rep wondered, somewhat annoyed. The violinist was a dangerous woman. Bruna broke the seals and took out a wrist computer-mobile, a data chip, and an ID tag that was so perfectly made it was even a bit battered, as if it had been used a lot. She inserted the tag in the computer and confirmed that she was a thirty-year-old woman called Annie Heart from Tavistock, Devon, in what used to be Great Britain, and a professor of applied robotics at the Asimov Technical University in New Barcelona. This was followed by the usual encrypted files, which contained the remaining details about Heart: medical history; genetic profile; student record; employment history; dental record; financial and banking details; security reports; incidents involving the police or criminal acts; a list of activities and interests and the like—almost a hundred different references that could only be opened if you had the various authorization codes. Naturally, as the owner of the ID she could without a doubt consult all of them. She would have to study them carefully so as to know this Annie Heart, the woman she would become for a few days. But before doing that, she inserted the data chip into the slot in the computer. Mirari’s face appeared on the screen.

“I only guarantee full cover for ID checks for six days. Five is better, to stay within the safe zone. As far as the mobile is concerned, I’ve bought you a month’s usage with a clandestine satellite, so it will only be untraceable for that period. Check file FF3. I think I’ve done a good job,” she said.

And she smiled a small, cheeky smile, totally out of character for the normally stern violinist. The chip switched itself off. File FF3 was a police report. Annie Heart had been arrested three days ago during a supremacist demonstration in New Barcelona and accused of having taken part in a beating handed out to a technohuman. But she had been released a few hours later because, apart from the confused testimony of the victim, there were no witnesses against her and Heart was neither politically active nor had she ever been in any radical human group, and she maintained that she had simply been passing by. Bruna smiled; it was a perfect touch, just what she needed. Mirari’s work was impeccable.

The rep verified on the computer that, just as Habib had told her, the HSP had applied for a funding permit. Political parties didn’t receive any funding from the state. They kept themselves afloat with party memberships and donations, but the latter were strictly regulated, and to receive them, they had to have a funding permit. FPs were valid for two, four, or six months, and during that period, the party could ask for and receive donations from private individuals or companies, subject to the prior payment of a certain amount of money to the Tax Office. It was assumed that this money was to pay the inspectors who controlled the transactions, but in reality it was a type of indirect tax whose imposition caused considerable resentment. That a party such as the HSP, so reluctant to recognize the legality of the state, would compromise itself by asking for an FP suggested deep financial need, or imminent plans, or both. The Supremacists’ FP was valid for two months, and there were only two weeks left.
They’ll probably
be keen to collect as much as possible before they run out of time
, thought Bruna. And that might suit her very well.