Javier Cercas - Outlaws

‘That’s where the real danger began. As Zarco and Guille walked into the garden and around the house — a two-storey house with a flat roof, a big willow tree shading the entrance — Tere put her bag behind her back, leaned against the hood of the 124, pulled me towards her, wrapped her arms around my neck and wedged her bare knee in between my legs. Now we’re going to do like they do in the movies, Gafitas, she told me. If nobody comes along, we stay here nice and quiet until Zarco and Guille call us. But, if someone decides to come by here, I’m going to snog you to within an inch of your life. So you can start praying that someone comes by. This last bit she said with half a smile; I was so scared I just nodded. Anyway, nobody came past, and I don’t know how long the two of us were leaning against the car, joined in that fake embrace, but shortly after seeing Zarco and Guille disappear beneath the branches of the willow, towards the back of the garden, I was startled to hear in the absolute silence of siesta time a vague crunch of breaking wood coming from the house and then an unmistakable crash of broken glass. Tere tried to calm me down by pressing her knee into my crotch and talking. I don’t know what she talked about; all I know is that at a certain point I started to get a massive hard-on, which I tried to hide but couldn’t, and that, when she noticed my erection, a happy smile revealed her teeth. Fuck, Gafitas, she said. What a time to get horny!

‘Tere had barely finished that sentence when the door of the house opened and Zarco and Guille came out carrying bags. They put them in the trunk of the car, asked me to stay there, keeping an eye out, and went back inside the house, this time with Tere. After a while they came out with a couple more bags, a Telefunken television, a Philips radio-cassette player and a turntable. When everything was loaded into the trunk, we got into the car and drove unhurriedly out of La Montgoda.

‘That was my baptism by fire. Of the return trip to Gerona I remember only that I felt not the slightest relief because the danger had passed; on the contrary: instead I swapped the fright for euphoria, the wild rush of the robbery with adrenaline coming out my ears. And I also remember that when we got to Gerona we went directly to sell what we’d stolen. Or did we sell it the next day? No, I think it was the same day. But I’m not sure. Anyway. That week I still went back to the arcade a few times to help Señor Tomàs (and sometimes, on my way past, to play a few games of pinball before going to La Font); but, when I started going out at night without telling anybody, treating my family with no consideration, further embittering my relationship with my father and multiplying our fights, I stopped going to the arcade entirely, and one afternoon, on my way to La Font, I went in and told Señor Tomàs that I was going on holiday and probably wouldn’t be back for a long time. Don’t worry, son, Señor Tomàs said. I’ll find someone to help me close up. If you like, I said. But you won’t need to. Nobody’s going to bother you. Señor Tomàs looked at me intrigued. And how do you know that? he asked. Privately proud of myself, I said: I just do. From then on I started to go to La Font almost every afternoon.’

‘But you didn’t have to: you’d paid Zarco back the favour in La Montgoda and you were even.’

‘Yeah, but there was Tere.’

‘You mean you joined Zarco’s gang for Tere?’

‘I mean that, if it hadn’t been for Tere, I most likely wouldn’t have done it: although I’d arrived at the conclusion that she wasn’t the girl for me, I wanted to think that, while we were near to each other, what had happened in the Vilaró arcade washrooms could always happen again; and I think I was willing to run any risk in order to keep open some possibility of that happening again. That said, you’re a writer and must know that, even if we find it very comforting to find an explanation for what we do, the truth is that most of what we do doesn’t have a single explanation, supposing that it even has any.’

‘You told me before that robbing the house was a rush. Does that mean you enjoyed it?’

‘It means what it means. What do you want me to say? That I loved it? That the day I stole stuff in La Montgoda I discovered that there was no way back, that Zarco’s game was a very serious game, where everything was at stake, that I could no longer be satisfied playing the Rocky Balboa pinball machine, where I had nothing at stake? You want me to say that playing that game I felt I was getting even with my parents? Or you want me to tell you that I was getting revenge for all my humiliations and the guilt that had been accumulating over the last year and that, as Batista represented absolute evil for me, this game that liberated me from Batista represented absolute good? If you want I’ll say it; maybe I’ve already said it. And it may be true. But do me a favour: don’t ask me for explanations; ask me for facts.’

‘Agreed. Let’s get back to the facts. The robbery in La Montgoda was the first in a series of robberies you participated in with Zarco. You told me before that when you got to Gerona that day you went to sell what you’d stolen. Where did you sell it? Who did you sell it to? Because I can’t imagine it would have been easy.’

‘Selling it was easy; what wasn’t easy was getting good money for it. There was only one fence in Gerona, or at least only one serious fence, so since he had practically no competition, he did whatever he wanted. He was the General. They called him that because he bragged about having been an officer in the Spanish Foreign Legion; also because he wore long bushy sideburns like a comic-strip general. I only met him three or four times. He lived in an Andalusian-style house in the middle of an open field in Torre Alfonso XII and he was a peculiar guy, although maybe the peculiar thing was him and his wife as a couple. I clearly remember the afternoon we went to sell him the loot from La Montgoda, which was the first time I saw him. As I told you before, it might have been the same afternoon as the robbery, but it might have been another, because we often stashed what we stole and took a few days to sell it. As a precaution. The thing is that day we — Zarco, Tere, Guille and I, the same ones who’d gone to La Montgoda — went that day, parked the car in front of the General’s house and Zarco went to the door and soon came back and announced that the General was busy although his wife said he’d soon be finished and we could go in shortly. They want to fuck with the guys who are with the General, Zarco said. Guille and Tere laughed; I didn’t get the joke, but didn’t think anything of it either. Between the four of us we carried all the stuff into the house guarded by the General’s wife, a skinny, scraggy woman, with vague eyes, messy hair and a grey housecoat. When we went out to the yard we saw the General and a couple of men at one side in front of a large cardboard box with a radio-cassette player sticking out of it. The men looked angry when they saw us and immediately turned their backs. The General seemed to be trying to placate them; he greeted us with a slight nod. We left our load in the middle of the yard (at the other side there was a jumble of bed frames, bicycles, scrapped motorbikes, furniture and appliances), and waited for the General to finish what he was doing. He soon did, and the two men left in a hurry without even looking at us, accompanied by the General and his wife.

‘We were left alone in the yard, and Zarco amused himself by looking through the big cardboard box with the radio-cassette sticking out of it while Guille, Tere and I smoked and talked. A while later the General came back without his wife. He seemed cheerful and relaxed, but before he could say a word Zarco pointed to the gate. Who were those guys? he asked. The ones who just left? asked the General. Yeah, answered Zarco. Why do you want to know? asked the General. Zarco shrugged. No reason, he said. Just wondering what that pair of dickheads were called. The answer didn’t seem to annoy the General. He looked at Zarco with interest and then turned for a second towards his wife, who’d come back out to the yard while they were talking and was standing a few metres away, with her head leaning on one shoulder and hands in the pockets of her housecoat, apparently oblivious to the conversation. The General asked: What’s up, Zarquito? Did you come here to piss me off? Zarco smiled modestly, as if the General was trying to flatter him. Not at all, he said. Then would you mind telling me what you’re talking about? said the General. Zarco pointed to the cardboard box he’d just looked through. How much did you pay for what’s in there? he asked. What’s it to you? replied the General. Zarco didn’t say anything. After a silence the General said: Fourteen thousand pesetas. Satisfied? Zarco continued smiling with his eyes, but pursed his lips sceptically. It’s worth a lot more, he said. And how do you know? asked the General. Because I know, answered Zarco. Anyone other than those two dickheads knows it; what a pair: as soon as they saw us they shat themselves and could only think of how fast they could get out of here. He paused and added: What a bastard you can be. Zarco said this calmly looking at the General, with no malice in his tone of voice. As I told you, it was the first time I went to that house and I didn’t know what Zarco’s relationship was with the man he was talking to or how to take that verbal sparring, but I was reassured by the fact that neither Tere nor Guille seemed anxious or surprised. The fence didn’t either, just scratched a sideburn thoughtfully and sighed. Look, kid, he said afterwards. Everyone does business the way they like, or the way they can. Besides, as I’ve told you many times: in this world things are worth what people pay for them, and in this house things are worth what I say they’re worth. Not one peseta more. And anyone who doesn’t like it shouldn’t come here. Is that clear? Zarco rushed to answer, still a bit mocking but conciliatory now: Crystal. Then, turning to the merchandise that we’d left in the middle of the yard, he asked: And according to you how much is this worth?