The Prisoner of Heaven: A Novel (18 page)

‘It’s on me,’ she cut in proudly. ‘Gotta take care of my man and keep ’im well nourished.’

Rociíto kept stuffing him with small
chorizos
, bread and spicy potatoes, all washed down with a monumental pitcher of beer. Fermín slowly revived and recovered his lively colouring to the girl’s visible satisfaction.

‘For dessert, if you like, I can serve you up a house special that will knock you sideways,’ offered the young woman, licking her lips.

‘Listen, kid, shouldn’t you be at school right now, with the nuns?’

Rociíto laughed at his joke.

‘You rogue, you’ve sure got a mouth!’

As the feast went on, Fermín realised that, if it depended on the girl, he had before him a promising career as a procurer. But matters of greater importance claimed his attention.

‘How old are you, Rociíto?’

‘Eighteen and a half, Señorito Fermín.’

‘You look older.’

‘It’s me tits. Got them when I was thirteen. A joy to look at, aren’t they, even though I shouldn’t say so.’

Fermín, who hadn’t laid eyes on such a conspiracy of curves since his longed-for days in Havana, tried to recover his common sense.

‘Rociíto,’ he began, ‘I can’t take care of you …’

‘I know, Señorito Fermín. Don’t think me stupid. I know you’re not the sort of man to live off a woman. I might be young, but I know how to see ’em coming …’

‘You must tell me where I can send you a proper refund for this handsome banquet. Right now you catch me at a rather delicate financial moment …’

Rociíto shook her head.

‘I’ve a room here, in the
hostal
. I share it with Lali, but she’s out all day because she works the merchant ships … Why don’t you come up, señorito, and I’ll give you a massage?’

‘Rociíto …’

‘It’s on the house …’

Fermín gazed at her with a touch of melancholy.

‘You have sad eyes, Señorito Fermín. Let little Rociíto cheer you up, even if it’s just for a while. What harm can there be in that?’

Fermín looked down in embarrassment.

‘How long is it since you’ve been with a real woman?’

‘I can’t even remember.’

Rociíto offered him a hand and, pulling him behind her, took him up to a tiny room with just enough space for a ramshackle bed and a sink. A small balcony looked out on the square. The girl drew the curtain and in a flash removed the floral-print dress she was wearing next to her bare skin. Fermín gazed at that miracle of nature and let himself be embraced by a heart almost as old as his own.

‘We don’t need to do anything, if you don’t want, all right?’

Rociíto laid him down on the bed and stretched out next to him. She held him tight and stroked his head.

‘Shhh, shhh,’ she whispered.

With his face buried in that eighteen-year-old bosom, Fermín burst into tears.

When evening fell and Rociíto had to begin her shift, Fermín pulled out the piece of paper Armando had given him a year ago, with the address of Brians, the lawyer, and decided to pay him a visit. Rociíto insisted on lending him some loose change, enough to take a tram or two and have a coffee. She made him swear, time and time again, that he would come back to see her, even if it was just to take her to the cinema or to mass: she had a particular devotion for Our Lady of Carmen and she loved ceremonies, especially if there was singing involved. Rociíto went down the stairs with him and when they said goodbye she gave him a kiss on the lips and a nip on the bum.

‘Gorgeous,’ she said as she watched him leave under the arches of the square.

As Fermín crossed Plaza de Cataluña, a ribbon of clouds was beginning to swirl in the sky. The flocks of pigeons that usually flew over the square had taken shelter in the trees and waited impatiently. People could smell the electricity in the air as they hurried towards the entrances of the metro. An unpleasant wind had started to blow, dragging a tide of dry leaves along the ground. Fermín quickened his pace and by the time he reached Calle Caspe, the rain was bucketing down.

8

Brians was a young man with the air of a bohemian student who looked as if he survived on salty crackers and coffee, which is what his office smelled of. That, and dusty paper. The lawyer’s workplace was a small, cramped room at the end of a dark corridor, perched on the attic floor of the same building that housed the great Tivoli Theatre. Fermín found him still there at eight-thirty in the evening. He opened the door in his shirtsleeves and acknowledged his visitor with a nod and sigh.

‘Fermín, I suppose. Martín spoke to me about you. I was beginning to wonder when you’d be coming by.’

‘I’ve been away for a while.’

‘Of course. Come in, please.’

Fermín followed him into the cubicle.

‘What a night, eh?’ said the lawyer. He sounded nervous.

‘It’s only water.’

Fermín looked around him and noticed only one chair. Brians offered it to him and sat on a pile of volumes on criminal and civil law.

‘I’m still waiting for the furniture.’

Fermín could see there wasn’t even room for a pencil sharpener in that place, but thought it best not to open his mouth. On the table was a plate with a grilled-meat sandwich and a beer. A paper napkin informed him that the sumptuous dinner came from the café on the ground floor.

‘I was about to eat. I’ll be happy to share it with you.’

‘No, no, go ahead, you young ones need to grow and besides, I’ve had my dinner.’

‘Can’t I offer you anything? Coffee?’

‘If you have a Sugus …’

Brians rummaged in a drawer that held just about everything except Sugus sweets.

‘A liquorice lozenge?’

‘I’m fine, thanks.’

‘Then, if you don’t mind …’

Brians gave the sandwich a hearty bite, munching with gusto. Fermín wondered which of them looked more famished. Next to the desk, the door to an adjoining room stood ajar. Fermín caught a glimpse of an unmade folding bed, a coat stand with crumpled shirts and a pile of books.

‘Do you live here?’ asked Fermín.

Clearly the lawyer Isabella had been able to afford for Martín was not a high flyer. Brians followed Fermín’s eyes and gave him a modest smile.

‘This is, temporarily, my office and my home, yes,’ Brians replied, leaning over to close his bedroom door.

‘You must think I don’t look much like a lawyer. You’re not the only one. So does my father.’

‘Pay no attention. My father was always fond of telling us we were nothing but a useless lot of imbeciles who would end up lifting rocks at a quarry, if we were lucky. And look at me now, as cool as they come. Succeeding in life when your family believes in you and supports you, what’s the merit in that?’

Brians nodded reluctantly.

‘If you look at it that way … Truth be told, I only established myself on my own a short time ago. Before that I used to work for a well-known lawyer’s practice just round the corner, on Paseo de Gracia. But we fell out over a number of things. It hasn’t been easy since then.’

‘Don’t tell me. Valls?’

Brians nodded, finishing off his beer in three gulps.

‘From the moment I accepted Señor Martín’s case, Valls didn’t stop until he’d got almost all my clients to leave me and I was laid off. The few who followed me are the ones who don’t have a
céntimo
and can’t pay my fees.’

‘And Señora Isabella?’

A shadow fell over the lawyer’s face. He left the beer glass on the desk and looked hesitantly at Fermín.

‘Don’t you know?’

‘Know what?’

‘Isabella Sempere is dead.’

9

The storm pounded over the city. Fermín held a cup of coffee in his hands while Brians, standing by the open window, watched the rain lash the roofs of the Ensanche district and recounted Isabella’s last days.

‘She fell ill suddenly, without any explanation. If you’d known her … Isabella was young, full of life. She had an iron constitution and had survived the hardships of war. It all happened overnight. The night you managed to escape from the castle, Isabella came home late. When her husband found her, she was kneeling down in the bathroom, sweating and with palpitations. She said she wasn’t feeling well. They called the doctor, but before he arrived she started having convulsions and throwing up blood. The doctor said it was food poisoning and told her to follow a strict diet for a few days, but by the morning she was worse. Señor Sempere wrapped her up in blankets and a neighbour who was a taxi driver drove them to the Hospital del Mar. She’d broken out in dark blotches, like ulcers, and her hair was coming out in handfuls. In the hospital they waited a couple of hours but in the end the doctors refused to see her because someone in the waiting room, a patient who hadn’t been seen yet, said he knew Sempere and accused him of being a communist or some such nonsense. I suppose he did it to jump the queue. A nurse gave them a syrup which, she said, would help Isabella clean out her stomach, but Isabella couldn’t swallow anything. Sempere didn’t know what to do. He took her home and started to call one doctor after another. Nobody knew what was wrong with her. A medical assistant who was a regular customer at the bookshop knew someone who worked at the Hospital Clínico. Sempere took Isabella there.’

‘In the Clínico Sempere was told it might be cholera and he must take her home, because there was an outbreak and the hospital was overflowing. A number of people in the area had already died. Every day Isabella was worse. She was delirious. Her husband did everything he could. He moved heaven and earth, but after a few days she was so weak he couldn’t even take her to the hospital. She died a week after falling ill, in the flat on Calle Santa Ana, above the bookshop …’

A long silence reigned between them, punctuated only by the splattering rain and the echo of thunder moving away as the wind abated.

‘It wasn’t until a month later that I heard she’d been seen one night in the Café de la Ópera, opposite the Liceo. She was sitting with Mauricio Valls. Ignoring my advice, Isabella had threatened him with exposing his plan to use Martín to rewrite some crap of his with which he expected to become famous and be showered with medals. I went there to find out more. The waiter remembered that Valls had arrived before her in a car and that he’d asked for two camomile teas and honey.’

Fermín weighed up the young lawyer’s words.

‘And you believe Valls poisoned her?’

‘I can’t prove it, but the more I think about it, the more obvious it seems to me. It had to be Valls.’

Fermín stared at the floor.

‘Does Señor Martín know?’

Brians shook his head.

‘No. After your escape, Valls ordered Martín to be held in a solitary confinement cell in one of the towers.’

‘What about Doctor Sanahuja? Didn’t they put them together?’

Brians gave a dejected sigh.

‘Sanahuja was court-martialled for treason shortly after your escape. He was shot a week later.’

Another long silence flooded the room. Fermín stood up and began to walk around in circles, looking agitated.

‘And why has nobody looked for me? After all, I’m the cause of all this …’

‘You don’t exist. To avoid loss of face before his superiors and the end of a promising career working for the regime, Valls summoned the patrol he’d sent out to search for you and made them swear that they’d gunned you down while you were trying to escape along the slopes of Montjuïc, and they’d flung your body into the common grave.’

Fermín tasted the anger on his lips.

‘Well, look here, I’ve half a mind to go up to the offices of the Military Government right now and invite them to kiss my resurrected arse. I’d like to see how Valls explains my return from the grave.’

‘Don’t talk nonsense. You wouldn’t solve anything by doing that. You’d simply be taken up to Carretera de las Aguas and shot in the back of the head. That worm isn’t worth it.’

Fermín nodded in assent, but the feelings of shame and guilt were gnawing at his insides.

‘What about Martín? What will happen to him?’

Brians shrugged.

‘What I know is confidential. It can’t go beyond these four walls. There’s a jailer in the castle, a guy called Bebo, who owes me more than a couple of favours. They were going to kill a brother of his but I managed to get his sentence commuted to ten years in a Valencia prison. Bebo is a decent guy and tells me everything he sees and hears in the castle. Valls won’t allow me to see Martín, but through Bebo I’ve found out that he’s alive and that Valls keeps him locked up in the tower and watched round the clock. He’s given him pen and paper. Bebo says Martín is writing.’

‘Writing what?’

‘Goodness knows. Valls believes, or so Bebo tells me, that Martín is working on the book he asked him to write, based on his notes. But Martín, who, as you and I know, is not quite in his right mind, seems to be writing something else. Sometimes he reads out loud what he’s written, or he stands up and starts walking round the cell, reciting bits of dialogue or whole sentences. Bebo does the night shift by his cell and whenever he can he slips him cigarettes and sugar lumps, which is all he eats. Did Martín ever talk to you about something called
The Angel’s Game
?’

Fermín shook his head.

‘Is that the title of the book he’s working on?’

‘That’s what Bebo believes. From what he’s been able to piece together from what Martín tells him and what he overhears him saying to himself, it sounds like some sort of autobiography or confession … If you want my opinion Martín has realised he’s losing his mind, so he’s trying to write down what he remembers before it’s too late. It’s as if he were writing himself a letter to find out who he is …’

‘And what will happen when Valls discovers that he hasn’t followed his orders?’

Brians gave him a mournful look.

10

Round about midnight it stopped raining. From the lawyer’s attic Barcelona looked lugubrious beneath a sky of low clouds that swept over the rooftops.

‘Do you have anywhere to go, Fermín?’ asked Brians.

‘I have a tempting offer to start a career as a gigolo and bodyguard and move in with a wench who is a bit flighty but has a good heart and spectacular bodywork. But I don’t see myself playing the role of a kept man even at the feet of the Venus of Jerez.’