Antonio Hill - The Good Suicides

And Leire believed her, although then, as she watched how those flakes were changing the city and converting it into a Christmas-card scene at the end of January, she thought about how terrible it would be if that nurse’s friendly face hid someone capable of making the baby disappear, telling you that he’d died, and selling him as if he were an object. A baby like Abel, or like Ruth …

She told herself she still had something in her power that proved nothing and implied much, something that opened the door to a new enigma around Ruth Valldaura. If these suspicions were confirmed, Ruth’s life had drawn a sadly perfect circle: she disappeared from a cradle at birth, and from her home, that loft she shared with her son, thirty-eight years later. All those who took pleasure in her as a daughter, mother, lover or spouse were now obliged to search for her as perhaps a woman had done many years before. A single woman who maybe had to face a whole world against her. A hierarchy of white robes and black habits, pieces aligned in this perverse chess, which, to be able to act with impunity, also counted on accomplices in other spheres.

She didn’t hesitate to use the word “perverse.” Leire thought that in this world, in this city disguising itself as pure, bad people existed. And she wasn’t thinking of delinquents, or even killers, but of monsters without conscience like Dr. Omar. The images of Ruth in that old man’s clinic were still fresh in her memory and-she was convinced of it-were still part of that impossible jigsaw. She’d just managed to add new pieces to an incomplete puzzle. I’ll have to accept that, she thought. Someone had told her once that to get older is to give in a little. Well then, she gave in, at least for a few months. And without feeling bad about it.

Leire stayed a little longer at the window, enjoying that white night, thinking about Abel. About her own parents, who were arriving the following day, caught by surprise first by a premature birth and then by adverse weather. About Tomás, who, disregarding everyone’s advice, had started out on the journey and was now trapped on the train. And she remembered what her mother had said to her that day in the kitchen, the premonition that in fact seemed to have come true. “In the end, when the moment comes, you’ll be alone.”

But, as she watched the snow fall, Leire found she didn’t feel like that at all. And with a smile she told herself, actually, it was the complete opposite. Since the previous day she’d never be really alone again.

It hadn’t taken Ruth long to collect what she wanted to take. It would be two days, so she only needed a few things, which she put in a small travel bag. The sun flooding the house made her want to go even more. In an hour she could be lying on the beach, reading a book. With no more obligations than using sunscreen and deciding where she wanted to eat. It was a good idea. She needed a couple of days for herself. Just that, a weekend of sea, calm and boredom. She deserved this small reward after a few complicated weeks, and some very unpleasant moments. She still hadn’t got that sinister man out of her head, and the fact that he might have disappeared didn’t calm her much either. Enough, she said to herself. She’d made a mistake going to see him, but beating herself up for it wouldn’t do any good. She hadn’t told anyone … Sometimes even she didn’t understand why she got herself into these messes, which were really none of her business.

She was going, but beforehand, out of pure compulsion, she checked the taps in the bathroom and kitchen, and since she was there she put away the breakfast plates she had already washed. This is the behavior of an old woman, she scolded herself as she did it. Then she grabbed her minimal luggage and made sure she put everything required in the bag: the keys of the house in Sitges, her cell phone, the charger … She took out her sunglasses; that day she couldn’t drive without them.

She was making toward the door when the bell rang and an annoyed expression crossed her face. She had no intention of being held up by anyone, but she was surprised to see who it was.

“Hello, Ruth. Forgive me for coming without calling. Do you have a moment?”

“Of course …” She tried to conceal her irritation as best she could and let him in, because she guessed that this temporary setback to her plans arose from something important.

Lluís Savall didn’t usually make courtesy visits.