Antonio Hill - The Good Suicides

She was speaking as though in a trance.

“Alba was in the cradle, in the bedroom next door. She hadn’t been sleeping alone for long. For a moment I sighed with relief seeing that there was no blood. She’s asleep, I thought. Whatever had happened, she’s asleep and doesn’t know anything. I took a step toward the cradle and tripped over something. A pillow. And then I realized she wasn’t sleeping. That you couldn’t hear anything in that room. That she too …”

She closed her eyes and was unable to go on. Her hands were shaking. Héctor thought she looked even younger than she was.

“Just one more thing,” he said in a low voice. “Do these photos mean anything to you?”

He took the two photos from the inside pocket of his jacket and put the one of the work group in which Gaspar appeared on the table. Mar looked at it. Her face altered a little on seeing her brother, but she shook her head.

“I think he came to the funeral home,” she said, pointing at the older man, the one Héctor hadn’t yet identified. “He was my brother’s boss, but I don’t know his name. He was with a woman, although I don’t remember her very well.”

Before showing her the photo of the dogs, Héctor asked: “Did they find a note in your brother’s house? Or anything like one, by any chance?”

“There was nothing … The police already asked me. They took his computer and everything … Then they returned it to us. My father threw everything away.” Then she looked at the photo and repressed a cry of disgust. “What is this? What does it have to do with my brother’s death? It’s horrible.”

“I know. Don’t worry, it’s nothing. It’s a loose end I haven’t managed to explain,” said Héctor. He didn’t want to give away any more information and felt even worse because of it, so he ended the conversation there.

They went out into the street and Héctor inhaled deeply, as if he’d emerged from an airless well. He remained in the doorway for a few minutes, smoking, as he watched Mar walk away. At the corner a boy was waiting for her and without saying a word put his arm around her shoulders, as if wishing to console her. At least she isn’t totally alone, thought Héctor, throwing the cigarette on the ground, something he detested but which seemed the only solution when obliged to smoke in the street.

If he’d remembered the address correctly, the garage owned by Gaspar Ródenas’s father should be in one of those streets in the center. Héctor found it without difficulty and spent a few minutes standing at the door, looking inside. He didn’t know if it was worth going in and speaking to the owner, and he was almost on the verge of leaving when a man came out of the garage and lit a cigarette. He was a man of about sixty, and judging by his appearance and his hands, he’d been working for more than forty. Not really knowing why, Héctor approached him and asked for a light. Smoking is an unhealthy ice-breaker, he said to himself, remembering he’d just stubbed out a cigarette less than ten minutes before.

“Are you Señor Ródenas?” he asked as he returned the lighter.

The man pointed to the garage sign, but did so with a glance of distrust.

“Excuse my bothering you,” continued Héctor. “I’m Inspector Salgado, and-”

“What do you want?” The question sounded almost hostile.

“Maybe it’s not a good time, but I’d like to talk to you about your son.”

Señor Ródenas smoked in silence. Héctor was going to add something else when the other man spoke without looking at him.

“Do you have children, Inspector?”

“One.”

“Then you’ll understand. I raised mine to know the difference between good and bad. So I can’t believe Gaspar did this. I’ll never believe it. I don’t know what happened, but I know it didn’t happen as they say it did.”

He threw the butt into the street and turned around. From inside he pulled down the shutter without another word. On the metal some traces of the graffiti could still be made out, a reddish shadow, accusatory and unjust.

Sílvia Alemany looked in the car’s rearview mirror before turning the engine on. God, if the face was the mirror to the soul both were in need of a professional makeup artist. In the end that’s what we do, she thought, as she maneuvered out of the company parking lot. Falsify souls. She could make a list of their products: rejuvenating creams, nourishing creams, antioxidant creams … Whichever: their effect on the face was at best circumstantial; the inner face, the one that really mattered, aged with no remedy. It would crack, it would dry up and there was no balm or salve that could prevent it. Because of that, wrinkles reappeared, because of that, businesses like theirs went on being necessary. At heart they were like Dorian Gray’s picture: they relegated old age, evil and decay to that internal secret face, maintaining the visible one relatively young, beautiful and pure. But the picture was there, crouching within you, ready to betray you when you least expected it.

Her car merged into the many vehicles entering Barcelona at that time of the evening. An army of obedient, industrious beings retiring for a few hours, who would the following day make the opposite journey. As tired and bored in the mornings as by night: the epsilon men of 2011 who’d found happiness in buying on the installment plan. She smiled ironically at the thought that she at least had the pleasure of being something resembling an alpha woman for a few hours. A kind of queen consort, necessary and appreciated and slightly feared.

The line of cars stopped and Sílvia was taking advantage of it to put on some music when her cell phone rang.

“Hello?”

The hands-free disoriented her: she always had the feeling the other person couldn’t hear her.

“Mama?”

“Hello, sweetheart. I’m in the car.”

“Are you coming home for dinner?”

“I don’t know. There is food at home, isn’t there?”

“Yes, of course. But Pol says he’s starving and he wants pizza. If you’re not coming, we could order one.”

The car behind beeped the horn, impatient. Sílvia realized the traffic had moved a few meters forward.

“I’m moving, I’m moving …”

“What?”

“No, not you, Emma. I’m in a traffic jam.”

“Well, can we?”

Sílvia hesitated.

“No.”

“But Mama-”

“I said no. Emma, there is chicken in the fridge. And pasta salad I made yesterday. If I’m not back in an hour, make dinner for yourself and your brother, sweetheart.”

For a moment there was silence. Then she heard Emma’s voice: docile and polite.

“All right. I already told him you wouldn’t say yes. Don’t worry about the time. I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you, angel. Listen, I’ll see you at home; you know I don’t like talking while I’m driving. A kiss, and tell Pol not to argue.”

“A kiss, Mama. See you tonight.”

Sílvia blew an imaginary kiss to her daughter. If only everyone was like Emma, she thought proudly as she turned on the car radio. She was sure dinner would be made and the kitchen tidied when she arrived. She had raised her well-not an easy thing nowadays. Few girls of sixteen were so responsible, so trustworthy. If in the end she went abroad to study Second Baccalaureate, she would miss her a lot. Emma still hadn’t decided, but she couldn’t take too much longer. And this wasn’t the only thing Sílva had to attend to. The wedding, for instance. However simple the ceremony would be, there were a number of things to be done … She took a breath. She was in no mood to think about celebrations just then. She had even considered the possibility of postponing it, but she didn’t know how César would take it. And despite rarely admitting it, the truth was she wanted to marry him. Have someone in the copilot’s seat, empty for years. He wasn’t the love of her life. Thank God, she’d beaten that, as if it were the measles, and been immunized forever. She found something else in César: respect, company now the children were beginning to fly the nest … She was sure he was a good man, someone she could trust who, at least, loved her as much as she did him.