Carlos Gamerro - The Islands

‘Would you like coffee, or tea, or milk …?’

‘Ocolate,’ said Malvina.

‘Ilk and oney,’ said Soledad.

‘Where does your mum keep the chocolate?’

Malvina pointed.

‘Let me know if the milk boils.’

I grabbed a blanket off Gloria’s unmade bed and carried it to the sofa. I took off her shoes and jacket, and wrapped her up as best I could. I heard the girls shouting to me, ‘Flipe! Flipe!’ and got there in the nick of time to stem the eruption of froth, which was about to overflow. I tipped two spoonfuls of Nesquik into one cup, two of honey into the other, and filled them both to the brim, stirring them at the same time, one with each hand, then put them one at each end of the greasy paper, dotted with medialuna crumbs.

‘Hey! You didn’t even leave me one?’

They both laughed, shook their heads and started to drink from their cups, holding them in both hands. I made myself a coffee and, armed with a tin of Variedad biscuits, took it into the living room. I sat down by the phone, looking at her. No one was answering at Sergio’s; Tomás took a while and sounded half asleep:

‘Felipe? Jesus fucking Christ. It’s Sunday.’

‘Emergency. The English have found Major X’s wife. They want to kidnap her and force him to surrender, and I’m here defending her on my own, unarmed.’

‘We’ll be right over. Give me the address.’

‘Listen. Bring me a 9mm.’

‘Right you are.’

While I waited for them, I unfolded the list of witnesses. After crossing out four and ticking Gloria, there were twenty-one calls to make; fifteen, as five didn’t have a phone, and Tamerlán’s heavies weren’t going to cross the Atlantic to get the Spaniard. Not knowing what pattern the exterminators might be following, I dialled at random.

‘Sr Eugenio Lopatín, please.’ The voice at the other end hesitated. No, it couldn’t be … No.

‘Sr Lopatín passed away. His son speaking.’

My knees began to shake uncontrollably, up and down.

‘How did it happen?’

‘He was killed by muggers. Out walking the dog. He had ten pesos on him. They killed the dog too,’ he said, spelling out the syllables as if trying to convince himself. ‘It’s the funeral today. Are you going to …?’

I hung up. A clean, round drop of water welled from each of my armpits and trickled down my ribs. The line I drew through his name was all shaky, as if done in a moving bus. Was I calling a list of the dead? Could they have been this quick? Sure they could. It can’t have been the first time. I dialled Urano’s office. Answering machine. Course, it’s Sunday, I said to reassure myself. I left a message. Palomeque wasn’t at home. ‘He’s just popped out to the office; call him there in half an hour,’ his wife told me. I breathed a sigh of relief: one still alive. I didn’t dare say any more, so I invented some excuse about business and hung up. Oroño’s neighbour’s was engaged, so I called Dany’s paddle courts. He picked up. I ticked him. Score: 5–3. I’m getting there, I thought to myself.

‘Don’t say anything, just listen. I was with you that day in the tower. They’re killing us all. Disappear,’ I reeled off and hung up. I’d have liked to have given two or three names to everyone I called and asked them to pass the message on, but I suspected most of them wouldn’t stick around long enough to hang up. Only by calling them one by one could I be sure.

The girls had finished their milk and came into the living room to watch the television. Malvina grabbed the remote control and put on Cablín. Bugs Bunny materialised on the screen, draped over Elmer Fudd’s pointed shotgun and munching a carrot. I’d always envied his composure against all the odds — even more than Bogart’s. I managed to get through to five more witnesses — fortunately all alive — and repeat the message I gave Dany. But when Tarino answered at home, I couldn’t resist the temptation to innovate.

‘I’m ringing on behalf of a group of patients of yours: we’re coming round to your house to break every bone in your fucking body; payback time!’ I was about to follow it up, but the doorbell rang and I froze. I wanted to peek out of the window, but I couldn’t get up. Let them break the door down if it’s them, I told myself. The girls were watching me with curiosity, waiting for me to do something. Malvina pointed at the door. Gloria turned over uncomfortably in her sleep and ended up facing the back of the sofa. Whoever it was outside started hanging on the doorbell again.

‘Felipe! Open up, mate! It’s us, not the English.’

The three of them stood there in full combat uniform, with rucksacks on their backs and FALs in their hands.

‘We brought a spare uniform just in case.’

Once I was dressed, I checked the weapon and stuffed it in my jacket pocket. I briefed them about the situation.

‘There are two of them; they drive a grey Falcon. They’re coming to take her away, or kill her. It would be a good idea if two of you were posted on the terrace with the FALs and one down here. Don’t let yourselves be seen,’ I said. ‘There are potted ferns.’

Sergio and Ignacio went upstairs. Tomás nodded at Gloria.

‘She’s done-for. Hasn’t slept all night,’ I explained.

He didn’t hear me. He’d noticed the girls. Fascinated, without letting go of his rifle, he knelt down beside them, and they, sitting on the floor smiling, lifted their penguin noses to look at him.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked one.

‘Oledah,’ said Soledad.

‘Malina,’ chimed in Malvina.

Two fat tears rolled down Tomás’s face.

I called the three vets, Oroño’s neighbour and the three from the Surprise team: Stuffer Stoffa, the video-man and the caretaker. That left Palomeque, and then I’d see what to do about the phoneless five. I called his office. Nothing doing. I rang his wife again.

‘No one answers at the office.’

‘He must be busy. He’s working on a very important job. The president of the company,’ she said, gurgling with smugness, ‘called him personally this morning he did. My husband has to collate some documents and take them to Sr Tamerlán’s tower himself. Only very important people can get in you know.’

I said I did and hung up. I have to save the poor devil, I thought.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Tomás, who’d given the girls a full FAL magazine to play with.

‘I’ll explain later. And take the bullets out in case they swallow one. I have to go out, and I don’t know how long I’ll be. Take turns standing guard and stay here till I get back.’

‘Are you kidding?’ he smiled. ‘We ain’t going nowhere. We’ve waited ten years for this.’

I was too late. Palomeque was sitting in the middle of the street when I got there, surrounded by passers-by, who were watching him die, his open briefcase spewing papers around him, on which lay the uncoiled intestines that spilled from his open belly. I squatted down beside him and he smiled when he recognised me.

‘You see?’ he said to me. ‘I was right. My dream came true. He called me personally. “I can rest easy,” he said to me, “now that I know the matter is in your hands. No one but you, Palomeque, I know I can trust in you.”’

He looked around him sadly at the scattered papers smeared with blood and shit.

‘I can’t present them like this,’ he mumbled, trying to rescue the only clean sheaf of papers and staining them with the blood on his fingers. ‘And I haven’t time to type them out again,’ he said to himself, trying to gather up the nearest ones. A passing bus blew several into the air and he cried out in despair. I went to get them for him and gathered them into a bundle, then returned them to his briefcase, trying to shake them off my hands. ‘I have to let him know about the delay,’ he said to me. ‘You wouldn’t have a token for the telephone? There’s a public one over there that works,’ he said, pointing. From where I was I could see the ragged spider of cables and the orphaned, dial-less numbers, but I didn’t want to disillusion him. At the flower stall a pretty, dark-skinned girl with blonde corkscrew curls held out a token to me and I placed it in his hand, which closed on it tight. ‘The company doctor hates me,’ he assured me, his eyes wide open. ‘And now, on this of all occasions, this has to happen to me. They’ll say I did it on purpose.’