Javier Cercas - Outlaws

‘Up to that moment, Cañas had listened to me visibly holding back his desire to interrupt, but here he could restrain himself no longer. I don’t know what you’re talking about, he said. Zarco is dead. Zarco is alive, I contradicted him gently. He was dead, but you resuscitated him. If that poor woman didn’t spend her days telling fairy stories to journalists, with you by her side, perhaps this wouldn’t be happening. I was referring to María Vela, of course, who Cañas was using as a battering ram in his campaign for Zarco’s freedom; it goes without saying that what I’d told him was what everyone knew, but Cañas did not like to hear it. He took a couple of steps forward, put his hands on my desk, leaned towards me. Tell me something, Superintendent, he spat out. Why don’t you stick to your business and leave the rest of us in peace? Cañas was breathing hard, his nostrils trembled and, rather than speaking, he’d babbled out the words, as if his fury had hobbled his tongue; as you know, I had tried to avoid a confrontation with him since the beginning, but now realized I could not back down. I answered: Because this business is also mine. As much mine as yours, Counsellor. Believe me: I wish it wasn’t, but it is. And, since it’s also mine, I have the obligation to tell you what I think, and I think you’re the one who should leave Gamallo in peace. Whatever life he has left, you are helping him fuck it up. I understood that this truth would really irritate Cañas; I understood that he would reply: The ones who have always tried to fuck up Gamallo’s life are people like you. And he added, standing back up again: Only this time you’re not going to be able to. Having said this, Cañas seemed to consider the interview finished, walked to my office door and opened it, but before going through it he stopped, spun around and again pointed his furious señorito ’s index finger at me. Make sure those guards don’t bother my client again, he demanded. And another thing: we’re going to start requesting weekend-release passes; I hope you’ll grant them. I asked him if that were a threat. No, he replied. Just a piece of advice. But it’s good advice. Take it. Sure, I said, leaning back in my chair and raising my hands in a gesture both sardonic and conciliatory. What choice do I have?

‘The lawyer slammed the door on his way out and left me perplexed. I still didn’t know whether Cañas was utterly naive and believed everything Gamallo told him or if he was an utter cynic and pretended to believe him and in reality he was just after fame at the expense of Gamallo’s fame. Whatever the case, I resigned myself to receiving another phone call from the director-general, to whom Cañas had appealed a few weeks earlier to force me to authorize some television cameras to film Gamallo inside the prison. But the director-general didn’t call, no one gave me any indication of how I was to deal with Gamallo, no one filed any complaints against anyone and the issue did not come out in the papers. Not only that: although two days later I received a request for a weekend-release permit in Gamallo’s name with Cañas’ signature, that afternoon the lawyer returned to my office to apologize for his behaviour during his previous visit. That was when my opinion of Cañas changed and I began to like him, because more courage is needed to admit a mistake than to persist in it, and much more to make peace than to declare war. That afternoon I thanked Cañas, told him he had no reason to apologize, and considered the matter resolved and explained that, as I’d only received his request a few hours earlier, it was too late for Gamallo to get out that weekend, but that he’d be able to the next one.

‘Over the following days I spoke to the two guards that Gamallo had accused of harassing him and asked them to stay away from him, I spoke to members of the prison staff and asked them to use extreme caution with our man, and the next weekend Gamallo went out on leave for the first time in a long while.’

‘The Saturday that Zarco got out on his first weekend release I arranged to meet Tere at noon in front of the post office, and from there we went to Marfà Street to pick up María and her daughter. When we got to the prison there was already a cloud of journalists around the door, who fell on María and her daughter as soon as they got out of the car. María dealt with them and, after answering a few questions, went inside the prison with her daughter. Tere and I remained outside, chatting a few steps away from the journalists, whom I kept at bay with jokes on the grounds that it was Zarco’s day and not mine.

‘Ten minutes later Zarco came out. His exit seemed staged by a set designer: María and her daughter each held one of his hands; the three of them smiled at the cameras. During the seconds they spent in the prison yard, Zarco answered reporters’ questions and then, still pursued by photographers’ flashes and television cameras, they walked out to the street and got in the car. Tere and I were waiting for them inside; María and her daughter sat in the back, with Tere; without saying a word of greeting to either Tere or me, Zarco got in the front, beside me. The journalists surrounded the car and for a moment all of us inside remained still and silent, as if time had stopped or we were frozen or trapped inside a glass ball, but then Zarco turned towards me with total joy in his eyes and said with a voice so deep it sounded like it was coming from his stomach: Let’s get the fuck out of here, Gafitas.

‘To celebrate Zarco’s release permit I took them all out for lunch to a restaurant in Cartellà, a nearby village. In my memory it was a very strange meal, maybe because it was the first time for almost everything: the first time Zarco was out of prison in a long time, the first time Zarco and María were together outside the prison, the first time Zarco, Tere and María were together, the first time the five of us were together, as well. The truth is that nobody knew exactly how to act, or what role they should be playing, or those of us who did know, didn’t know how to play it, starting with Zarco, who turned in a poor performance as the prisoner on weekend release and María’s future husband, and ending with me, who turned in an even worse one as the lawyer and former accomplice of the prisoner on weekend release (as well as Tere’s secret lover). But worst of all was that, as soon as I saw Zarco and María beside each other, I felt with no room for doubt that such a couple could not function, could not even do an imitation of a real couple for very long: it wasn’t just that the combination of authentic quinqui and apparent good Samaritan was entirely improbable, it was that Zarco didn’t pay the slightest bit of attention to María — neither to María nor to her daughter — and spent the whole meal stuffing his face and knocking back the wine, joking around and telling Tere and I stories while I tried to make conversation with María and her daughter, who barely touched her food and spent the whole time watching everyone with terrified eyes. The consequence of that general casting error and Zarco’s terrible manners, or his inability to pretend, was that, as well as being very strange, the meal was also very uncomfortable: very uncomfortable for everyone except him, who seemed to be having a high time; it also turned out to be much shorter than anticipated, thanks to Tere and me (who quickly took charge of the situation and, without any prior decision, tried to cut short María’s distress), and that was in spite of the fact that in the end there was no way to get Zarco out of the restaurant, especially when the owner of the place committed the error of asking him to sign the visitors’ book.

‘Before four in the afternoon I parked the car in María’s street. Are we here? asked Zarco, peering out through the windscreen. María said yes, took her leave and walked towards the door to her building. Well, sighed Zarco. I guess I’m staying here too. He said it without the slightest enthusiasm, knowing it was what I was expecting him to say. He got out of the car and stood next to it, with one arm leaning on the roof, looking in at Tere and at me through the passenger window. He’d had quite a bit to drink, and he seemed more content than resigned. Take it easy this weekend, you bastards, he joked. Don’t get carried away. Then he patted the hood of the car and followed María and her daughter.’