The Angel's Game (26 page)

25

I left Casa Marlasca in low spirits and wandered aimlessly through the maze of lonely streets that led to Pedralbes. The sky was covered with a mesh of clouds that barely allowed the sun to filter through. Needles of light perforated the grey shroud and swept across the hillside. I followed these lines of light with my eyes and saw how, in the distance, they caressed the enamelled roof of Villa Helius. The windows shone in the distance. Ignoring common sense, I set off in that direction. As I drew near, the sky darkened and a cutting wind lifted the fallen leaves into spirals. I stopped when I reached Calle Panamá. Villa Helius rose before me. I didn’t dare cross the road and approach the wall surrounding the garden. Instead, I stood there for God knows how long, unable to leave or to go over to the door and knock. Then I saw her, walking across one of the large windows on the second floor. An intense cold invaded me. I was about to leave when she turned and stopped. She went up to the windowpane and I felt her eyes resting on mine. She raised her hand as if she were about to greet me, but didn’t spread out her fingers. I didn’t have the courage to hold her gaze; I turned round and walked off down the street. My hands were shaking and I thrust them into my pockets. Before turning the corner I looked back again and saw that she was still there, watching me. I tried to hate her but I couldn’t find the strength.

I arrived home feeling chilled to the bone. As I walked through the front door I noticed the top of an envelope peeping out of the letter box. Parchment and sealing wax. News from the boss. I opened it while I dragged myself up the stairs. His elegant handwriting summoned me to a meeting the following day. When I reached the landing, the door was already ajar and Isabella was waiting for me with a smile.

‘I was in the study and saw you coming,’ she said.

I tried to smile back at her, but can’t have been very convincing. She looked me in the eye and her face took on a worried expression.

‘Are you all right?’

‘It’s nothing. I think I’ve caught a bit of a chill.’

‘I have some broth on the stove. It’ll work wonders. Come in.’

Isabella took my arm and led me to the gallery.

‘I’m not an invalid, Isabella.’

She let go of me and looked down.

‘I’m sorry.’

I didn’t feel like a confrontation with anybody, still less my obstinate assistant, so I allowed her to guide me to one of the gallery armchairs into which I fell like a sack of bones. Isabella sat opposite me and looked at me with alarm.

‘What happened?’

I smiled reassuringly.

‘Nothing. Nothing has happened. Weren’t you going to give me a bowl of soup?’

‘Right away.’

She shot off towards the kitchen and I heard her rushing about. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes until I heard her footsteps approaching.

She handed me a steaming bowl of exaggerated dimensions.

‘It looks like a chamber pot,’ I said.

‘Drink it and don’t be so rude.’

I sniffed at the broth. It smelled good, but I didn’t want to seem too docile.

‘It smells odd,’ I said. ‘What’s in it?’

‘It smells of chicken because it’s made of chicken, salt and a dash of sherry. Drink it.’

I took a sip and gave the bowl back to Isabella. She shook her head.

‘All of it.’

I sighed and took another sip. It was good, whether I wanted to admit it or not.

‘So, how was your day?’ Isabella asked.

‘It had its moments. How did you get on?’

‘You’re looking at the new star shop assistant of Sempere & Sons.’

‘Excellent.’

‘By five o’clock I’d already sold two copies of
The Picture of Dorian Gray
and a set of the complete works of Kipling to a very distinguished gentleman from Madrid who gave me a tip. Don’t look at me like that; I put the tip in the till.’

‘What about Sempere’s son? What did he say?’

‘He didn’t actually say very much. He was like a stuffed dummy the whole time pretending he wasn’t looking, but he couldn’t take his eyes off me. I can hardly sit down my bum’s so sore from him staring at it every time I went up the ladder to bring down a book. Happy?’

I smiled and nodded.

‘Thanks, Isabella.’

She looked straight into my eyes.

‘Say that again.’

‘Thank you, Isabella. From the bottom of my heart.’

She blushed and looked away. We sat for a while in a placid silence, enjoying that camaraderie which doesn’t even require words. I drank my broth until I could barely swallow another drop, and then showed her the empty bowl. She nodded.

‘You’ve been to see her, haven’t you? That woman, Cristina,’ said Isabella, trying not to meet my eyes.

‘Isabella, the reader of faces . . .’

‘Tell me the truth.’

‘I only saw her from a distance.’

Isabella looked at me cautiously, as if she were debating whether or not to say something that was stuck in her conscience.

‘Do you love her?’ she finally asked.

For a moment there was silence.

‘I don’t know how to love anybody. You know that. I’m a selfish person and all that. Let’s talk about something else.’

Isabella’s eyes settled on the envelope sticking out of my pocket.

‘News from the boss?’

‘The monthly call. His Excellency Señor Andreas Corelli is pleased to ask me to attend a meeting tomorrow at seven o’clock in the morning by the entrance to the Pueblo Nuevo Cemetery. He couldn’t have chosen a better place.’

‘And you plan to go?’

‘What else can I do?’

‘You could take a train this very evening and disappear forever.’

‘You’re the second person to suggest that to me today. To disappear from here.’

‘There must be a reason.’

‘And who would be your guide through the disasters of literature?’

‘I’d go with you.’

I smiled and took her hand in mine.

‘With you to the ends of the earth and back, Isabella.’

Isabella withdrew her hand suddenly and looked offended.

‘You’re making fun of me.’

‘Isabella, if I ever decide to make fun of you, I’ll shoot myself.’

‘Don’t say that. I don’t like it when you talk like that.’

‘I’m sorry.’

My assistant turned to her desk and sank into a deep silence. I watched her going over her day’s pages, making corrections and crossing out whole paragraphs with the pen set I had given her.

‘I can’t concentrate with you looking at me.’

I stood up and went past her desk.

‘Then I’ll leave you to work, and after dinner you can show me what you’ve written.’

‘It’s not ready. I have to correct it all and rewrite it and—’

‘It’s never ready, Isabella. Get used to it. We’ll read it together after dinner.’

‘Tomorrow.’

I gave in.

‘Tomorrow.’

I walked away, leaving her alone with her words. I was just closing the door when I heard her voice calling me.

‘David?’

I stopped on the other side of the door, but didn’t say anything. ‘It’s not true. It’s not true that you don’t know how to love anyone.’

I took refuge in my bedroom and closed the door. I lay down on the bed, curled up, and closed my eyes.

26

I left the house after dawn
.
Dark clouds crept over the rooftops, stealing the colour from the streets. As I crossed Ciudadela Park I saw the first drops hitting the trees and exploding on the path like bullets, raising eddies of dust. On the other side of the park a forest of factories and gas towers multiplied towards the horizon, the soot from the chimneys diluted in the black rain that plummeted from the sky like tears of tar. I walked along the uninviting avenue of cypress trees leading to the gates of the cemetery, the same route I had taken so many times with my father. The boss was already there. I saw him from afar, waiting patiently under the rain, at the foot of one of the large stone angels that guarded the main entrance to the graveyard. He was dressed in black and the only thing that set him apart from the hundreds of statues on the other side of the cemetery railings was his eyes. He didn’t move an eyelash until I was a few metres away. Not quite sure what to do, I raised my hand to greet him. It was cold and the wind smelled of lime and sulphur.

‘Visitors naively think that it’s always sunny and hot in this town,’ said the boss. ‘But I say that sooner or later Barcelona’s ancient, murky soul is always reflected in the sky.’

‘You should publish tourist guides instead of religious texts,’ I suggested.

‘It comes to the same thing, more or less. How have these peaceful, calm days been? Have you made progress with the work? Do you have good news for me?’

I opened my jacket and handed him a sheaf of pages. We entered the cemetery in search of a place to shelter from the rain. The boss chose an old mausoleum with a dome held up by marble columns and surrounded by angels with sharp faces and fingers that were too long. We sat on a cold stone bench. The boss gave me one of his canine smiles, his shining pupils contracting to a black point in which I could see the reflection of my own uneasy expression.

‘Relax, Martín. You make too much of the props.’

Calmly, the boss began to read the pages I had brought.

‘I think I’ll go for a walk while you read,’ I said.

Corelli didn’t bother to look up.

‘Don’t escape from me,’ he murmured.

I got away as fast as I could without making it obvious that I was doing just that, and wandered among the paths with their twists and turns. I skirted obelisks and tombs as I entered the heart of the necropolis. The tombstone was still there, marked by a vase containing only the skeleton of shrivelled flowers. Vidal had paid for the funeral and had even commissioned a pietà from a sculptor of some repute in the undertakers’ guild. She guarded the tomb, eyes looking heavenward, her hands on her chest in supplication. I knelt down by the tombstone and cleaned away the moss that had covered the letters chiselled on it.

JOSÉ ANTONIO MARTÍN CLARÉS
1875-1908
Hero of the Philippines War
His country and his friends will never forget him

‘Good morning, father,’ I said.

I watched the black rain as it slid down the face of the pietà, listened to the sound of the drops hitting the tombstones, and offered a smile to the health of those friends he’d never had and that country that had consigned him to a living death in order to enrich a handful of
caciques
who never knew he existed. I sat on the gravestone and put my hand on the marble.

‘Who would have guessed, eh?’

My father, who had lived on the verge of destitution, rested eternally in a bourgeois tomb. As a child I had never understood why the newspaper had decided to give him a funeral with a smart priest and hired mourners, with flowers and a resting place fit for a sugar merchant. Nobody told me it was Vidal himself who paid for the lavish funeral of the man who had died in his place, although I had always suspected as much and had attributed the gesture to that infinite kindness and generosity with which the heavens had blessed my mentor and idol.

‘I must beg your forgiveness, father. For years I hated you for leaving me here, alone. I told myself you’d got the death you deserved. That’s why I never came to see you. Forgive me.’

My father had never liked tears. He thought a man never cried for others, only for himself. And if he did, he was a coward and deserved no pity. I didn’t want to cry for him and betray him yet again.

‘I would have liked you to have seen my name in a book, even if you couldn’t read it. I would have liked you to have been here with me, to see that your son is managing to get on in life and has been able to do things that you were never allowed to do. I would have liked to have known you, father, and for you to have known me. I turned you into a stranger in order to forget you and now I’m the stranger.’

I didn’t hear the boss approaching, but when I raised my head I saw him watching me from just a few metres away. I stood up and went over to him, like a well-trained dog. I wondered whether he knew my father was buried there and whether he had asked me to meet him in the graveyard for that very reason. My expression must have betrayed me, because the boss shook his head and put a hand on my shoulder.

‘I didn’t know, Martín. I’m sorry.’

I was not going to open that door of friendship to him. I turned away to rid myself of his gesture of sympathy and pressed my eyes shut to contain the tears of anger. I started to walk towards the exit, without him. The boss waited a few seconds and then decided to follow me. He walked beside me in silence until we reached the main gates. There I stopped and glared at him impatiently.

‘Well? Any comments?’

The boss ignored my hostile tone and smiled indulgently.

‘The work is excellent.’

‘But—’

‘If I had any observation to make it would be that you’ve hit the nail on the head by constructing the whole story from the point of view of a witness to the events, someone who feels like a victim and speaks on behalf of a people awaiting the warrior saviour. I want you to continue along those lines.’

‘You don’t think it sounds forced, contrived . . . ?’

‘On the contrary. Nothing makes us believe more than fear, the certainty of being threatened. When we feel like victims, all our actions and beliefs are legitimised, however questionable they may be. Our opponents, or simply our neighbours, stop sharing common ground with us and become our enemies. We stop being aggressors and become defenders. The envy, greed or resentment that motivates us becomes sanctified, because we tell ourselves we’re acting in self-defence. Evil, menace, those are always the preserve of the other. The first step towards believing passionately is fear. Fear of losing our identity, our life, our status or our beliefs. Fear is the gunpowder and hatred is the fuse. Dogma, the final ingredient, is only a lighted match. That is where I think your work has a hole or two.’

‘Please clarify one thing: are you looking for a faith or a dogma?’

‘It’s not enough that people should believe. They must believe what we want them to believe. And they must not question it or listen to the voice of whoever questions it. Dogma must form part of identity itself. Whoever questions it is our enemy. He is evil. And it is our right and our duty to confront and destroy him. It is the only road to salvation. Believe in order to survive.’

I sighed and looked away, nodding reluctantly.

‘You don’t looked convinced, Martín. Tell me what you’re thinking. Do you think I’m mistaken?’

‘I don’t know. I think you are simplifying things in a dangerous way. Your whole speech sounds like a stratagem for generating and channelling hatred.’

‘The adjective you were going to use was not “dangerous” but “repugnant”, but I won’t hold that against you.’

‘Why should we reduce faith to an act of rejection and blind obedience? Is it not possible to believe in values of acceptance, of harmony?’

The boss smiled. He was enjoying himself.

‘It is possible to believe in anything, Martín, be it the free market or even the tooth fairy. We can even believe that we don’t believe in anything, as you do, which is the greatest credulity of them all. Am I right?’

‘The customer is always right. What is the other hole you see in the story?’

‘I miss having a villain. Whether we realise it or not, most of us define ourselves by opposing rather than by favouring something or someone. To put it another way, it is easier to react than to act. Nothing arouses a passion for dogma more than a good antagonist. And the more unlikely, the better.’

‘I thought that role would work better in the abstract. The antagonist would be the non-believer, the alien, the one outside the group.’

‘Yes, but I’d you like you to be more specific. It’s difficult to hate an idea. That requires a certain intellectual discipline and a slightly obsessive, sick mind. There aren’t too many of those. It’s much easier to hate someone with a recognisable face whom we can blame for everything that makes us feel uncomfortable. It doesn’t have to be an individual character. It could be a nation, a race, a group . . . anything.’

The boss’s flawless cynicism could even get the better of me. I gave a despondent sigh.

‘Don’t pretend to be a model citizen now, Martín. It’s all the same to you and we need a villain in this vaudeville. You should know that better than anyone. There is no drama without a conflict.’

‘What sort of villain would you like? A tyrant invader? A false prophet? The bogeyman?’

‘I’ll leave the outfit to you. Any of the usual suspects suits me. One of the functions of our villain must be to allow us to adopt the role of the victim and claim our moral superiority. We project onto him all those things we are incapable of recognising in ourselves, things we demonise according to our particular interests. It’s the basic arithmetic of the Pharisees. I keep telling you: you need to read the Bible. All the answers you’re looking for are in there.’

‘I’m on the case.’

‘All you have to do is convince the sanctimonious that they are free of all sin and they’ll start throwing stones, or bombs, with gusto. In fact, it doesn’t take much, because they can be convinced with the bare minimum of encouragement and excuses. I don’t know whether I’m making myself clear.’

‘You are making yourself abundantly clear. Your arguments have the subtlety of a blast furnace.’

‘I’m not sure I like that condescending tone, Martín. Does this mean you think this project isn’t on a par with your moral or intellectual purity?’

‘Not at all,’ I mumbled faint-heartedly.

‘What is it, then, something tickling your conscience, dear friend?’

‘The usual thing. I’m not sure I’m the nihilist you need.’

‘Nobody is. Nihilism is an attitude, not a doctrine. Place the flame from a candle under the testicles of a nihilist and notice how quickly he sees the light of existence. Something else is bothering you.’

I raised my head and summoned up the most defiant tone I was capable of, looking the boss in the eye.

‘Perhaps what’s bothering me is that I understand everything you say, but I don’t feel it.’

‘Do I pay you to have feelings?’

‘Sometimes feeling and thinking are one and the same. The idea is yours, not mine.’

The boss smiled, and allowed a dramatic pause, like a schoolteacher preparing the lethal sword thrust with which to silence an unruly pupil.

‘And what do you feel, Martín?’

The irony and disdain in his voice encouraged me and I gave vent to the humiliation accumulated during all those months in his shadow. Anger and shame at feeling terrified by his presence and allowing his poisonous speeches. Anger and shame because he had proved to me that, even if I would rather believe the only thing I had in me was despair, my soul was as petty and miserable as his sewer humanism claimed. Anger and shame at feeling, knowing, that he was always right, especially when it hurt to accept that.

‘I’ve asked you a question, Martín. What is it you
feel
?’

‘I feel that the best course would be to leave things as they are and give you back your money. I feel that, whatever it is you are proposing with this absurd venture, I’d rather not take part in it. And, above all, I feel regret for ever having met you.’

The boss lowered his eyelids and sank into a long silence. He turned and walked a few steps towards the cemetery gates. I watched his dark silhouette outlined against the marble garden, a motionless shape under the rain. I felt afraid, a murky fear that was beginning to grow inside me, inspiring a childish wish to beg forgiveness and accept any punishment in exchange for not having to bear that silence. And I felt disgust. At his presence and, in particular, at myself.

The boss turned round and came over to me again. He stopped just centimetres from me and put his face close to mine. I felt his cold breath on my skin and drowned in his black, bottomless eyes. This time his voice and his tone were like ice, devoid of that studied humanity that peppered his conversation and his gestures.

‘I will only tell you once. You fulfil your obligations and I’ll fulfil mine. It’s the only thing you can and must feel.’

I was not aware that I was nodding repeatedly until the boss pulled the sheaf of papers from his pocket and handed it to me. He let the pages fall before I was able to catch them and a gust of wind swept them away, scattering them near the cemetery gates. I rushed to recover them from the rain, but some of the pages had fallen into puddles and were bleeding in the water, the words coming off the paper in filaments. I gathered them together in a fistful of wet paper. When I looked up again, the boss had gone.