Victor del Arbol - The Sadness of the Samurai: A Novel (25 page)

“I’m going to ask you again, for the last time, the same question: is this the man that killed Isabel Mola?”

Recasens sunk his eyes into the dusty ground.

“Yes, sir.”

“Will you confirm that in court?”

“Yes, sir, I will,” said the soldier in a tiny, barely audible, voice.

Then that man, whom he had never seen in his life, lifted his face, bruised from the blows, and examined him with the gaze of a dog who doesn’t understand why he’s being beaten.

Pedro Recasens would never forget that look, which accused him silently. But he wasn’t guilty of anything, he told himself. He was as much a victim as that poor defenseless guy. He was just a soldier who wanted to go home. The prisoner held his gaze, red with rage. Recasens felt some relief: rage is always better than shame.

“Fine. You can go,” ordered Publio, visibly satisfied.

Four days later, Publio transferred Marcelo to court.

Marcelo carefully examined the man who introduced himself as the presiding judge. Physically he looked like that type of person whose low standing was only redeemed by a certain success in his work, a sad Sunday afternoon phantom, who probably collected stamps. His physical appearance was unpleasant: too many pounds held up by short legs lacking muscle tone. A series of chins that increasingly resembled a goiter, an unexceptional hairless head, with ears excessively separated from his skull and a nose too small for so much cheek.

“Sit in that chair,” Publio ordered before retiring to the back of the room.

The judge paced around a few times, shuffling some papers distractedly. He had a red irritated area beneath his jaw.

“You don’t understand the situation, young man. The autopsy reveals that you viciously attacked Doña Isabel. Refusing to make a statement doesn’t make things easier for me.”

Marcelo closed his eyes. How many times were they going to ask him the same thing?

“I already said all I had to say when they arrested me. I did not kill Doña Isabel. I was very fond of her; she was a good person, and we got along well. I am not a madman or a murderer. They have me locked up here, and I can’t talk to anyone, for something I haven’t done. If they would let me speak with Don Guillermo, he will understand that they’ve made a mistake.”

“A witness named Pedro Recasens declared that he saw you leaving the place where Señora Mola’s body was found.”

Marcelo shifted his gaze to Publio. He imagined that the witness was the poor terrified soldier whom he’d seen at the Mola estate.

“Then that witness saw a ghost. I wasn’t there, not on that day or any other.”

The judge narrowed his eyes and looked at Marcelo briefly but with intense hatred.

“Why did you kill her?”

“I didn’t do it.”

“You lie,” snorted the judge, drying his lips with a handkerchief. He looked out of the corner of his eye at Publio, who was observing the interrogation with his arms crossed, as he leaned against the wall and said nothing.

“There are less friendly ways of getting a confession out of you,” declared the judge, turning toward the teacher.

Marcelo understood that the threat took on shape in Publio’s hieratic presence.

“I’ve already been shown that. I know your methods, and what you understand as justice. The justice of butchers.”

Publio approached Marcelo from behind, unhurriedly. Without saying a word he gave him a punch in the back of the neck. The vertebrae in the teacher’s neck crunched like paper wrinkling, and he fell to the floor.

The judge used a more conciliatory tone.

“Look, you killed Doña Isabel. I don’t know your motives, and I can’t conceive of someone deciding to do something so atrocious, but none of us can get inside your head to find out what happened to make you fly off the handle. Perhaps, if you explain it to me, we can find something to attenuate the facts. Who knows? Maybe we could ask for a life sentence instead of capital punishment. But for that to happen, you have to confess your guilt.”

Marcelo tried to stand up. The whole room was spinning. Publio helped him up, taking him by the arm and seating him in the chair again. His gaze, so serene and cheerful, was frightening.

“I already told you that I haven’t done anything,” stammered Marcelo, rubbing the nape of his neck.

The judge’s greasy face reddened with anger. He swallowed hard and punched the desk.

“Stupid,” he spat out. “If what you want is to take the hard road to this confession, so be it. Go right ahead.” He looked at Publio with determination and left the room with a slam of the door.

When Publio and Marcelo were left alone, the air became thicker and the room smaller. Publio took off his jacket and placed it carefully on the back of an empty chair. He rolled up his shirtsleeves and placed the suspenders on his forearm so as not to stain them.

“Does that hurt?” he asked Marcelo, pointing to his neck.

Marcelo didn’t answer.

“I didn’t want to hit you so hard, but you can’t show disrespect for a judge. They like to know that they’re the ones in charge and that others obey them.”

Marcelo looked at the ground, aware of what was going to happen to him, wondering if he was going to be able to stand it without breaking. But the minutes passed uneventfully. Publio just looked at him; he would even say he was looking at him kindly. At one point he came over and lit a cigarette.

“Who really knows these aristocratic fat cats?” he said, shrugging his shoulders. He weighed the matter for a moment, filling Marcelo with uncertainty. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

No. Marcelo didn’t understand.

“I’ll confess something to you. I never liked Isabel,” said Publio. This time his attitude was different. He seemed more relaxed. But Marcelo didn’t trust him. He guessed that now he’d invite him to have a coffee or a smoke to soften him. But he didn’t do that. Publio rested his forearms on the back of the chair and furrowed his brow.

“Women, especially beautiful women who are used to being in charge, are somewhat petulant. They feel that pressing need to be in control. Isabel was one of those. Many times I have seen how they snare, too similar to prostitution. You want something that they have: a look, for them to speak your name, for them to give you a key to reach what you are searching for. But a reward obtained without effort doesn’t excite their hunter’s instinct. In exchange for that promise, they want something from you: your body, your admiration, your submission. I have learned to play with those childish desires, to give and take without really handing over anything. Isabel taught me that. But you went into her game, you let yourself be seduced, and then, seeing that it was all just base amusement, you went crazy. You killed her in a fit of insanity. That’s what happened, and that is the confession you will sign.”

“I didn’t kill her. You know I didn’t do it.”

“That’s true, I know,” said Publio sincerely, “but that, in reality, is the least of it. A mere detail.”

“A mere detail?”

“In four days they are transferring Guillermo Mola to Barcelona; it is a very important promotion in his career; they are even talking about naming him a minister. A minister can’t allow certain scandals or leave loose ends. And I’m the man who ties up loose ends, you understand? And we are not leaving this room until this is resolved.”

“A signed statement without guarantees has no value in a trial.”

Publio smiled. Really, Marcelo’s faith was touching.

“You don’t understand. You are already sentenced, with a trial or without. Someone has chosen you as the scapegoat, and that is irrevocable. With a little bit of luck, you might escape the garrote or the gallows and everything will be over more quickly in front of a firing squad. You could even believe the judge and think that they’ll be generous with your life. It’s a dirty trick, I know. But that’s how things are.”

Marcelo started to retch. He looked at Publio incredulously, as if he couldn’t conceive of such injustice.

“And the truth doesn’t matter?”

Publio put out his cigarette, stepping on it with his shoe.

“The truth is what I just told you. I’m no cynic, I’m being sincere. And while I’m at it, I will tell you that I’m convinced you really were in love with Isabel. We all were in one way or another. In the end, you would have ended up killing her too. I know that you were part of the group that prepared the plot against her husband, and that you were planning to help her escape to Lisbon with Andrés. And if she had asked you to pull the trigger against Guillermo, you would have done it yourself. Isn’t that true? In the end, you are guilty.”

Marcelo looked at Publio with hatred. He had the feeling that he was like a mouse trapped in a box, a scared mouse that many eyes observed with scientific interest. He never could have imagined an ending like that for his sad, dull life. Now they were going to kill him for something he hadn’t done, and the only thing he could do was resign himself to his fate, or fight. It was a useless and absurd gesture, he knew it. Defending his innocence to the final consequences was only going to bring him more pain, more suffering. Publio had just said it: he was already sentenced. But in that last gesture of resistance, Marcelo found a bit of the dignity he had always wanted. So he didn’t confess.

In the following days the interrogations came one after the other, without pause. Publio even had someone brought expressly from Madrid. The interrogator was a discreet-looking guy, who looked like he had a family and went to Mass on Sundays. He arrived early, with a small rigid leather briefcase. He greeted everyone with a timid smile. His name was Valiente, and he smoked very thin French cigarettes whose scent floated in the air for hours in the interrogation room. He worked calmly, never getting ruffled. His was a job subject to strict method, with detailed instructions to obtain the desired result as fast as possible.

“This is a boring job. From the time of the Inquisition, torture has been so perfected that there is no room for imagination or improvisation,” he would lament.

He started by opening the briefcase in front of Marcelo, spreading out over the table a series of branding irons and tools with strange, sinister shapes. He placed them in order, from minor to major, as he didactically explained what they were for and how they were used, the consequences they provoked, and the degree of pain that each could inflict. When he finished his display, he rolled up his sleeve and turned with a saintly expression toward his agitated victim, who was conveniently tied to a chair, and asked him, “Do you have any questions? No? Okay, then let’s get started with the practical lesson.”

Valiente was a true professional. He didn’t experience any morbid excitement at the blood or suffering. He wasn’t a sadist. He could provoke horrible torment in his victims, paying no attention to their screams, crying, and begging, but he never went too far. He had never had a prisoner die on him during an interrogation. Experience had trained his hand; he knew at all times the weakest points in the human anatomy, but above all in the human spirit, which he decimated. He wasn’t fooled by shrieks or fainting. He knew exactly the degree of suffering that each human being could withstand. He didn’t stop until that glass was filled to the brim, and while generous in his application, he made sure that it never overflowed.

Yet a week later, Valiente went to see Publio. His face was distraught, and that harmonious, serene air that made him seem so harmless had disappeared. Publio feared that Marcelo had died before signing the confession. But that wasn’t it.

“That son of a bitch won’t give in. This is the first time this has happened to me,” said the torturer, his words filled with a hatred that had become personal, because that fragile-looking poet was putting his fame and abilities in doubt. Valiente was losing it, crossing dangerously close to the limit of the permissible. Marcelo lay half dead in the cell, but he had not said a word. With perplexed resignation, Valiente looked at Publio and said what he was thinking.

“Maybe he’s telling the truth, and he’s innocent after all.”

Publio didn’t bat at an eyelash at that possibility.

“They don’t pay you to discover the truth, just to get the confession out of him.”

The torturer resigned himself. He cleaned his instruments with alcohol, erasing the traces of blood and remains of guts and hairs; he picked up his briefcase and said good-bye with an annoyed gesture.

“You’d be better off killing him, then. He’s not going to confess.”

*   *   *

Marcelo couldn’t feel his body, or his surroundings, or the room he was in. He was aware of wanting to open his mouth, but something inside him stole his words and forced him to drift off, carried away by the true longing of his sadness, his pain, and the deep roots of that desperation that clouded his eyes over. Sleep. That was the only thing he wanted to do. Sleep and not wake up. His ghost, his shadow, left his body and hung around the head of his bed with a patient smile. That vision of himself watching over his own corpse had become some sort of virus, an infection in the blood, of the hope of living. Sometimes he had such a high fever that he could feel his brain boiling and the blood bubbling in his veins like lava. In other moments, he was like a block of ice, like a petrified fossil in a glacier.

When they came to find him, he felt himself lifted up by strong arms. Someone covered him with a blanket. Nervous, urgent voices. They dragged him out. He couldn’t stand up. Valiente had broken him everywhere. He imagined they were going to kill him.

The cold outside was clean, different from the sick dampness of the cell. A strange luminosity entered into the darkness of his closed eyes. He tried to open them. He wanted to fill his eyes before closing them forever. Smudges of sky, a building. The bars of one of the gates of the fence and, on the other side, in the street, freedom.

When they went up to the gallows, he heard Publio’s voice as they covered his eyes.

“I have to admit you’re a brave guy. But it’s too late. They are going to hang you.”

Marcelo felt the noose tightening around his throat. Then nothing. An interminable wait. The snap of a lever. A trapdoor opening and the feeling that his stomach was going up into his mouth as he fell.