Carlos Gamerro - The Islands

Like someone resigning himself to an unjust fate, I pressed the button for the fourth floor. A straight beam of light filtered from the end of the passageway. The door opened with a gentle push, though its lock and latch looked intact. Arturo Cuervo was stiffly seated in a chair at the exact centre of the only room, only the chair had tipped over, its back and back legs, to which he’d been tied by the wrists with wire, on the floor; its front legs in the air, holding his ankles. Quarter of his left temple now formed part of the yellowish wallpaper and the indistinct pattern on the carpet, while his naked, white bulk covered with grey hair was marked and scored like a map by the knife, his eyes fixed on the brownish ceiling, the Ls of his legs in the air, like in some exercise to improve the circulation. I stood there beside him for a while, I don’t know how long, unable to take my eyes off him. Seen from above like that, he didn’t look so terrifying, and even the once fearsome picana of the flesh, the raper of millions, now lay to one side, almost lost in the patch of grey fuzz that cushioned it. There were tiny droplets of blood everywhere, even still floating in the air, like an almost invisible drizzle barely perceptible to the eyes and nostrils, making you itch and feel like sneezing; it was lit up in the shafts of light coming in through the half-open blinds and clung, still dancing, to the dust in the air. It must have been vaporised by the explosion inside his head; ever since I came in, I’d been breathing in his blood. I had to step over him to reach the kitchenette, where I borrowed a greasy tea towel which I used to pick up the phone — not because I was worried about leaving prints, but to avoid getting the blood on my hands — and dial Gloria’s number. The moment she recognised my voice, she lashed out sarcastically:

‘Oh. Felipe. So, did you find my ex?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you having me on?’

‘No. I’m with him now.’

She went quiet for a few seconds, which my eyes put to good use to turn and look at the skin on which the sweat hadn’t yet dried. When she spoke to me again, her voice was trembling uncontrollably.

‘What is this, another torture session? If you work for him, why don’t you just come and kill me instead of playing with the phone? Don’t you ever get bored of it, you lot?’

‘He’s dead.’

This time it was longer before she spoke, but when she did, her voice was neutral, cold and utterly distant.

‘Did you kill him?’

‘No.’ Was I lying? But I didn’t feel like explaining. ‘I found him like this.’

‘Are you sure?

‘Half of his brain’s on view and the other half’s decorating the walls.’

‘I mean, that it’s him.’

‘How can I tell?’

‘Do me a favour. Undo his shirt. Has he got a white scar under his left nipple?’

‘White as the driven snow.’

‘What’s his big toe on his left foot like? I mean, if it doesn’t bother you to take off his shoe.’

‘No need, he’s naked.’

‘What, they buggered him as well?’

‘I don’t think so. His arse looks well protected at least. He’s missing a nail and a good slice of the toe.

‘It’s him. Fucking hell, it’s him. It’s him, Jesus Christ, it’s him.’ She seemed incapable of saying anything else.

‘I thought you’d want to know,’ I said over her litany. I wanted to say more, or the same thing in another way, but all the compassion got stuck in my throat, from which all that escaped was an emotionless, bureaucratic dribble. It would have been better not to call. I let my eyes wander around the room. They hadn’t left a drawer unopened. And all in fifteen minutes. If not exactly efficient, they certainly were fast workers.

‘Gloria …’ I began.

‘Wait, at least tell me where I can find you!’ she managed to say before I hung up. Something bothered me. I squatted down at the dead man’s side. Except for the small amount that had oozed out of the switch-blade slashes, there wasn’t a single splash of blood on his whole body, but there were speckles on the side of his face, the lampshade next to him and, a little smudged, the backs of his hands. I checked the heap of clothes, unmistakable after following them for so many hours. That was where all the missing drops of blood had gone. Why, I wondered, would someone stick a bullet in his brain and then strip him naked, tie him to a chair and torture him? If what Tamerlán’s men were after was information about the prodigal son, they hadn’t exactly followed procedure — unless Cuervo had squealed straight off. But he didn’t look the type: he looked like he’d take some working over, if only for form’s sake. Ah well, maybe Tamerlán had all the answers. I’d call him later.

Something familiar peeped out from under the sofa-bed. ‘Christopher Products’, I read without having to bend down. ‘So you finally found Sobremonte’s missing treasure,’ I said to him, without finding myself amusing. Out in the street, I scraped my soles several times on the paving stones as if I’d trodden in dog-shit. But what’s the point when you’re wearing espadrilles.

* * *

Home felt like a stranger’s apartment. Even my face in the mirror looked like someone else’s. Luckily Martita, the neighbour from 1H who cleaned for me, had stopped by in the week and everywhere was gleaming and well-ventilated. I turned on my computers one by one to feel at home again, then peeled off my sticky clothes, binning each item in turn, espadrilles and all. The almost scalding water and the soap burned on contact with my skin and I cut myself shaving more than once on the week-long stubble. Groomed, perfumed and wrapped from head to toe in freshly washed clothes, I had a cigarette and a cup of coffee before calling Tamerlán.

‘Félix. What do you want?’ he barked impatiently.

‘Just to see if everything went all right. You found him, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, yes. He was where you told us. I suppose I should thank you. You can call Marroné and sort out the money now if you like, then …’

‘Did he tell you what you wanted to know?’

‘Yes. No. It’s rather delicate to talk right now … Oh well, I suppose you’ve a right to know.’ He turned away from the receiver: ‘He croaked on you? Where did you two learn to torture? Pitman’s?’ He came back on: ‘They say he had a dicky heart.’

‘Did they kill him?’ I asked innocently.

‘He told them my son was still alive. Or at least that he got back from the war alive. Do you believe that, Félix? Could it be true? We’re frantically going through the papers they brought back. Eh? You’ve found something. Oh. I have to go, Félix. Talk to Marroné. I’m hugely grateful … Goodbye, goodbye.’

He hung up. I’d been about to tell him about the bullet-hole, but he’d soon find out in the papers; or maybe he wouldn’t. It was nothing to do with me after all. I was just curious to work out why his thugs had told him such a barefaced lie. Ah well. There were so many possible explanations …

Knowing I wouldn’t be able to put the affair out of my mind, as so often happens when you finish a long and complex job, I went back to the dead man’s papers, riffling through them fairly randomly at first. A superficial glance through while I waited for him in the bar outside Hugo’s had been enough for me to get the gist of what they were about. It was nothing too complicated. What Arturo Cuervo had been going to such great pains to decipher was what he himself had written ten years ago, the mythical and untraceable sacred text that held the secret of the war, all the answers to the numberless questions that ten thousand damaged minds had conceived in ten years: the infallible plan to wrest the Islands from the usurping claws of the English and reunite them once and for all with the soil of their native land. What I had in my hands was nothing other than Major X’s diaries.