The Seville Communion (15 page)

"I will. Do you go to eight o'clock Mass?"

The question was well-meaning but Macarena's expression suddenly became suspicious, serious. "That's none of your business," she said-, opening and closing her sunglasses.

Quart raised both hands apologetically, and there was an awkward silence. He looked round for a waiter and asked her if she wanted anything. She shook her head. She seemed more relaxed so he asked her another question. "What do you think about the two deaths?"

Her laugh this time was unpleasant. "The wrath of God," she said.

Quart looked at her seriously. "A strange point of view."

"Why?" She seemed genuinely surprised. "They, or whoever sent them, were asking for it."

"Not a very Christian sentiment."

She picked up her bag impatiently and put it down. She wound and unwound the shoulder strap round her fingers. "You don't understand, Father ..." She looked at him hesitantly. "What should I call you? Reverend? Father Quart?"

"You can call me Lorenzo. I'm not going to be your confessor."

"Why not? You're a priest."

"A rather unusual one," said Quart. "And I'm not really here in that capacity."

As he spoke, he looked away for a couple of seconds, unable to meet her eyes. When he looked back, she was watching him with interest, almost, mischievously.

"It would be fun to say confession to you. Would you like me to?"

Quart took a breath. He frowned, as if considering. The cover of
Q&S
flashed before his eyes. "I'm afraid I wouldn't be an impartial confessor, in your case," he said, "you're too . . ."

"Too what?"

She wasn't playing fair, he thought. She was going too far even for a man with the nerves of Lorenzo Quart. He breathed in and out to calm himself, to keep his composure.

"Attractive,' he answered coolly. "I suppose that's the word. But you know more about that than I do."

Macarena Bruner said nothing, weighing his answer. She seemed pleased. "Gris was right," she said finally. "You're not like a priest."

Quart nodded. "I expect Father Ferro and I seem like different species . . ."

"You're right. And he's my confessor."

"A good choice, I'm sure." He paused, then continued, to make his words sound less sarcastic, "He's a very rigorous man." "You know nothing about him."

"Quite true. And so far I haven't found anyone to enlighten me."

"I will."

"When?"

"I don't know. Tomorrow evening. Join me for dinner at La Albahaca."

"La Albahaca," he repeated.

"Yes. In the Plaza de Santa Cruz. They usually require a tie, but I'm sure they'll make an exception in your case. You dress rather well for a priest."

He didn't answer for a few seconds. Why not? After all, that was what he was in Seville for. And he could drink to the health of Cardinal Iwaszkiewicz.

"I can wear a tie if you like, though I've never had a problem in a restaurant."

Macarena Bruner stood up, and so did Quart. She was staring at his hands again. "It's up to you," she said, smiling as she put her sunglasses back on. "I've never had dinner with a priest before."

Don Ibrahim fanned himself with his hat. He was sitting on a bench in the Plaza Virgen de los Reyes, and the air smelled of Seville oranges and blossom. Beside him, La Nina Punales was crocheting while they watched the entrance of the Dona Maria Hotel: four chain, miss two, one double and one treble. She moved her lips silently, as if in prayer, repeating the sequence, the ball of yarn in her lap, while the crochet grew and her silver bracelets jangled. She was making yet another bedspread for her trousseau. For almost thirty years now it had lain yellowing between mothballs, in a wardrobe at her apartment in the district of Triana. But she still added to it, as if she held time in her fingers, waiting for the dark man with green eyes to come for her.

A carriage crossed the square, with four English football fans in the back wearing sombreros. Real Betis was playing Manchester United. Don Ibrahim gazed after it and fingered his moustache, sighing. Poor Seville, he murmured, fanning himself more vigorously with his panama. La Nina muttered in agreement without looking up, intent on her crochet: four chain, miss two. Don Ibrahim threw away his cigar butt and watched it smoulder on the ground. He stubbed it out carefully with the tip of his walking stick. He hated those brutal types who ground out cigarettes as if they were murdering them. Thanks to Peregil's advance he'd treated himself to a whole, brand-new box of Montecristo cigars, something he hadn't done since Adam was a lance corporal. Two of the magnificent cigars were peeping out of the breast pocket of his crumpled white linen suit. He patted them tenderly. The sky was blue, the air smelled of orange blossom, and he was in Seville. He had a good little deal going, cigars in his pocket and thirty thousand pesetas in his wallet. All he needed to make his happiness complete were three tickets to the bullfight; three good seats in the shade to see Faraon de Camas, or that promising young bullfighter Curro Maestral. According to El Potro, Maestral's technique wasn't bad but there was no comparison with the late Juan Belmdnte, God rest his soul. The same Curro Maestral who was in the papers chasing after bankers' wives.

And, speaking of women, the tall priest had just emerged from the hotel talking to a pretty classy one. Don Ibrahim nudged La Nina, who stopped crocheting. The lady was still young, good-looking, and wore dark glasses and casual but stylish clothes with the relaxed elegance typical of upper-crust Andalusian women. She and the priest shook hands. Don Ibrahim and La Nina exchanged meaningful glances. This introduced all sorts of unexpected possibilities.

"A slight complication, Nina."

"You're right there."

With some difficulty, given his bulk, the former bogus lawyer got to his feet, placed his panama on his head, and grasped Maria Felix's walking stick resolutely. He told La Nina to go on crocheting while not losing sight of the tall priest. He himself set off after the woman with the sunglasses. She headed into Santa Cruz, turning down the Calle Guzman el Bueno and disappearing into a palace known as the Casa del Postigo. A renowned building in Seville, it had been the residence of the dukes of El Nuevo Extremo since the sixteenth century. Frowning and alert, Don Ibrahim walked past the obligatory orange trees in the little square in front of the building, which was painted ochre and white, to carry out a tactical reconnaissance of the place. The windows were protected by iron grilles. Beneath the main balcony an escutcheon presided over the entrance: a helmet with a lion for a crest, a bordure of anchors and heads of Moors and American Indian chiefs, a bend with a pomegranate and the motto
ODERINT DUM PROBENT.
Don Ibrahim translated it - "Smell before you touch," or something like that - and approved the message. He entered the dark portal casually and looked through the wrought-iron gate to the inner courtyard, a beautiful Andalusian patio of Mozarabic columns and large pots with plants and flowers around a pretty marble and riled fountain. A maid in a black uniform came up to the gate looking rather suspicious, so he smiled his most innocent smile, raised his hat and made his way back out to the street, as if he were simply a tourist who'd lost his way. He stood for a moment facing the building. Still smiling beneath his bushy, nicotine-stained moustache, he pulled one of the cigars from his pocket and carefully removed the band bearing the words
MONTECRISTO, HAVANA
around a tiny fleur-de-lis. He cut one end with the penknife hanging on his watch chain. The little knife had been a present, he claimed, from his friends Rita and Orson, a memento of an unforgettable afternoon in Old Havana when he took them to see the Partagas Cigar Factory on the corner of the Calle Dragones and Calle Barcelona. Later, Rita and he danced at the Tropicana until the early hours. Orson and Rita were there filming
The Lady from Shanghai
or something. They all hugged and kissed, and Orson got drunk as a lord and gave him the litdc penknife that Citizen Welles used to cut the tips off his cigars. Lost in the memory, or the fantasy, Don Ibrahim put the cigar between his lips and savoured the leaf of pure tobacco wrapped round the outside. The tall priest certainly had interesting lady friends, he thought. Then he held his lighter to the end of the Montecristo, looking forward to the half hour of pleasure he had before him. Don Ibrahim couldn't imagine life without a Cuban cigar. With his first puff, Seville, Havana - how similar they were - and his Caribbean youth, in which even he couldn't distinguish fact from fiction, all merged in a dream as extraordinary as it was perfect.

The light inside the brothel was red, and Julio Iglesias was playing on the stereo. Dolores la Negra put more ice in Celestino PeregiPs glass of whisky.

"You look great, Loli," said Peregil.

Dolores wiggled her hips behind the bar and ran an ice cube over her bare navel. Her enormous breasts, inside a very short T-shirt, swung in time to the music. She looked like a Gypsy; she was a large woman well into her thirties who'd had more men than were in the army.

"I'm going to give you the fuck of your life," announced Peregil, smoothing the hair over his bald patch. "It'll take your breath away."

Accustomed to such protocol and to Peregil's sexual prowess, Dolores took two dance steps, looking straight into his eyes. She stuck out the tip of her tongue, dropped the ice cube she'd rubbed over her navel into her glass, and went to pour another glass of Catalan champagne for one of the other customers. The girls had already brought out two bottles for the man and he was now well on his way to a third. Iglesias sang on. Peregil swallowed some whisky and eyed Arab Fatima, who was dancing by herself on the dance floor, wearing a skirt that barely covered her bottom, knee-high boots and a low-cut top that showed her merrily jiggling tits. Fatima was his second choice for the evening, and he seriously started to weigh the pros and cons of each girl.

"Hello, Peregil."

He hadn't heard them arrive. They came and leaned on the bar, one on either side of him, and looked straight ahead at the rows of bottles on the mirror-lined shelves. Peregil could see their reflections in front of him: to his right, the Gypsy Mairena, dressed in black, thin and dangerous, with the manner of a flamenco dancer, wearing a huge gold ring beside the stump of his little finger. He'd chopped it off himself during a riot at Ocafla Prison. To Peregil’s left, El Polio Muclas, fair-haired, neat and slight. The cutthroat razor he carried in his left-hand trouser pocket made him look as if he had a permanent hard-on, and he always said "Excuse me" before slashing someone.

"Aren't you going to buy us a drink?" asked the Gypsy slowly, amicably. He was enjoying himself. Peregil suddenly felt very hot. With a despairing look, he called Dolores over. A gin and tonic for Mairena, the same for El Polio Muelas. Neither touched his drink. Both stared at Peregil in the mirror.

"We've come to give you a message," said the Gypsy.

"From a friend," added El Polio.

Peregil swallowed, hoping that in the red light of the bar they wouldn't notice. The "friend" was Ruben Molina, a moneylender from El Baratillo. For months Peregil had been writing IOUs, and he felt quite faint when he thought how much he owed Molina. Ruben Molina was well known in certain circles in Seville. He sent his debtors only two reminders: the first by word, the second by deed. Mairena and El Polio Muelas were his errand boys.

"Tell him I'll pay him. There's money coming in."

"That's what Frasquito Torres said."

El Polio smiled, menacingly sympathetic. In the mirror, the Gypsy's long, ascetic face was about as cheerful as if he'd just returned from his mother's funeral. Peregil saw his own reflection between the two of theirs. He wanted to swallow again but couldn't, the mention of Torres had made his throat dry. Frasquito came from a good family and was well known in Seville as an idler. For a time, like Peregil, he'd called on the services of Molina. But when the time came, he wasn't able to pay up. Somebody waited for him at the entrance to his house and broke every tooth in his head. They left him there, with his teeth inside a cone of newspaper tucked into his top jacket pocket.

"I just need another week."

Mairena put an arm round Peregil's shoulders, in a gesture that was so unexpectedly friendly that Peregil almost lost his head with terror. Mairena stroked Peregil's chin with the stump of his little finger. "What a coincidence," said the Gypsy. His black shirt smelled of stale sweat and cigarette smoke. "Because that's exactly what you have, my friend. Exactly seven days and not a minute more."

Peregil gripped the bar, trying to stop his hands from trembling. On the shelves the bottle labels merged. Life is dangerous, he thought. It always ends up killing you.

"Tell Molina that's no problem," he stammered. "I'm a man of my word. I'm about to clinch a good deal." He grabbed his glass and downed the drink. An ice cube crunched in a sinister fashion against his teeth, reminding him how Frasquito Torres had had to borrow from another moneylender to pay for a set of false teeth that cost him nearly half a million pesetas. The Gypsy still had his arm round Peregil’s shoulders.

"That sounds so pretty," mocked El Polio Muelas. "To clinch."

Julio Iglesias sang on. Swinging her hips in time to the music behind the bar, Dolores La Negra came up to make conversation. She dipped a finger in Peregil’s whisky and sucked it noisily, rubbed her stomach against the bar, and then shook the contents of her shirt with consummate professionalism before stopping to stare at the three men, disappointed. Peregil was as pale as if he'd just seen a ghost, and the other two didn't look at all friendly. They hadn't even touched their drinks. So Dolores turned and walked away, still moving her hips in time to the music. After a lifetime on one side of a bar or the other, she knew when to get out of the way.

V

Captain Xaloc's Twenty Pearls

I've also loved women who were dead.
Heinrich Heine,
Florentine Nights