Antonio Hill - The Summer of Dead Toys

“Aleix dominated both of them. And Marc rebelled.”

“Are you suggesting that Aleix could have returned to Marc’s house to settle the score with him? And then killed Gina, faking a suicide so she wouldn’t give him away?”

“I suggest we shouldn’t come to any conclusion until we interrogate this boy as God wishes. I also suggest we set a little trap for his friend Rubén. I want to have them both by the balls.” He paused, and went on: “And then we have Iris. In Joana’s email, in Marc’s mobile, now in his blog. She’s like a ghost.”

“A ghost that will appear the day after tomorrow.” Leire exhaled. She was exhausted. She noticed that her muscles were beginning to relax after the tension accumulated in the Martís’ house.

“Yes. It’s late, and tomorrow a hard day awaits us.” He looked at her fondly. “You should rest.”

He was right, she thought, but she guessed it was going to be hard for her to sleep that night. Not knowing why, she was starting to feel at home with this calm guy, somewhat taciturn but solid at the same time. His chestnut eyes hinted at a well of sadness, but not bitterness. Healthy melancholy, if that meant anything.

“Yes. I have to go and get the motorbike.”

“Of course. See you tomorrow.” He moved a few steps away, but suddenly he turned around to call her, as if he’d remembered something important. “Leire, earlier you asked me if I thought Gina had killed Marc out of love. No one has ever been killed out of love; that’s a fallacy from tango. One only kills out of greed, spite or jealousy, believe me. Love has nothing to do with it.”

Héctor entered his office as if he were an intruder. He’d had no desire to go home and had decided to return to the station to read Marc Castells’ blog. He tried to shake off the feeling that he was doing something he shouldn’t, but wasn’t entirely successful. He started up his computer, remembered his password-kubrick7-and typed Marc Castells’ blog address in the browser, while he pondered the lack of decency these twenty-first-century diaries betrayed. The old ones, paper ones, were a private thing, something read only by the person themselves and therefore they could pour all their secrets into them. Now private lives were exhibited on the Web, which he was sure imposed a certain censure at the time of writing. If one couldn’t be absolutely honest, why bother writing it? Was it a cry to the world for attention? Hey, listen, my life is full of interesting things! Do me a favor and read about them. . Maybe what was happening was that he was getting old, he thought. Nowadays people got involved on the internet; some, like Martina Andreu, even married people they’d met in that hazy world that was cyberspace, people who sometimes lived in different cities and whose paths might never have crossed had they not been seated in front of the computer one evening. You’re definitely old-fashioned, Salgado, he concluded while the page was opening. My stuff (above all because I don’t think anyone else will be interested!) . It was a good name, although it was ironic that Marc’s stuff was interesting to someone after he’d died.

From what he could see, Marc had started in the blogosphere when he went to Dublin, probably as a way of communicating with the girl who’d been his best friend, who commented profusely on almost all his entries. It included photos of his room in a Dublin students’ residence, the campus, streets drenched by rain, colorful doors in austere Georgian buildings, immense parks, jugs of beer, colleagues holding the jugs. Marc didn’t spend much time writing: the majority of his entries were short and discussed subjects as enthralling as the weather-always rainy; classes-always boring; and parties-always overflowing with alcohol. As he became bored with his commentaries himself, they became less frequent. Héctor scrolled down until he found a photo that caught his attention: a young woman, blonde hair being blown by the wind, standing on a cliff. Her face couldn’t be seen because of the wind. Involuntarily, he thought of The French Lieutenant’s Woman , who wandered through her sorrow over other sea-battered cliffs. Caption: “Excursion to Moher, February 12th.” Gina hadn’t commented at all. The following entry was dated six days later, and it was the longest blog entry by far. The heading read: “In memory of Iris.”

It’s been a long time since I thought of Iris or the summer she died. I suppose I tried to forget it all, in the same way I overcame nightmares and childhood fears. And now, when I want to remember her, all that comes to mind is the last day, as if these images have erased all the previous ones. I close my eyes and bring myself to that big old house, the dormitory of deserted beds awaiting the arrival of the next group of children. I’m six years old, I’m at camp and I can’t sleep because I’m scared. No, I lie. That very early morning I behaved like a brave boy: I disobeyed my uncle’s rules and faced the darkness just to see Iris. But I found her drowned, floating in the pool, surrounded by a cortège of dead dolls.

Héctor couldn’t help shuddering and his eyes went to the black-and-white photo of that little blonde girl. Sitting in an empty office that had become alien to him, in a half-lit station, he forgot about everything and became absorbed in Marc’s tale. In the story of Iris.

I remember the floor was cold. I noticed when I got out of bed barefoot and ran quickly to the door. I’d waited for daybreak because I didn’t dare leave that big deserted room in the night, but I’d already been awake for a while and I couldn’t put it off any longer. I took a few seconds to close the door carefully without making a sound. I had to take advantage of this moment, when everyone was asleep, to achieve my goal. I knew there was no time to waste, so I went quickly; however, before walking the long corridor I stopped and took a deep breath before daring to go forwards. The downstairs blinds let a weak line of light in, but the upstairs corridor was still dark. How I hated that part of the big house! Actually, I hated the whole house. Above all on days like this, when it was almost empty until the next group of kids with whom I’d have to share the next ten days would arrive. Luckily this was the last one: then I could go back to the city, to that familiar room just for me, to new furniture that didn’t creak in the night, and white walls that protected rather than scared me. I exhaled without noticing and had to breathe in once again. It was something Iris had taught me: “Breathe in and breathe it out as you run, so you blow out the fear.” But it didn’t help me much: maybe because my lungs didn’t hold enough air, although I never told her because I was embarrassed. I tried to move ahead clinging to the wooden railing placed along the length of the corridor so no one would fall down and keeping my eyes fixed straight ahead to avoid seeing the stiff, big, ugly bird who, from the little table against the wall, seemed to be watching my steps. By day it wasn’t so horrible, sometimes I managed to forget about it, but in the shadows that owl with glass eyes was terrifying. I must have clung even tighter to the banister because it creaked and I let go immediately: I didn’t want to make a sound. I walked straight ahead, following the pattern of the cold tiles, and I clearly remember the feeling of treading on something rough when I stepped on a broken one. Not much further: Iris’s room was the last one, at the end of the corridor. I had to see her before everyone else got up because if not, they wouldn’t let me. Iris was being punished, and although deep down I thought she deserved it, I didn’t want another day to go by without talking to her. I’d barely had time to the evening before, when one of the monitors found her after she had run away and spent a whole night in the wood. Just thinking about the idea of it, that wood peopled with shadows and immobile owls, gave me goosebumps. But at the same time I was dying with curiosity for Iris to tell me what she’d seen there. Maybe she’d behaved badly, but she was brave and that was something I couldn’t help admiring. Of course it was precisely for that reason she was being punished; her sister and her mother had told me so. So she wouldn’t run away again. Frighten them like that.