Javier Calvo: Wonderful World

Aníbal Manta's face has changed, too. Saudade has never before seen the smile that is now on that face.

An enormous smile. A smile that speaks of retribution. Of sacred laws of retribution that affect every story and are stronger than the strongest character. Because they belong to the realm of Fate.

“Wait a minute!” shrieks Saudade. “Think! Shit, Aníbal! Think!”

Aníbal Manta takes an iron bar out of the leg of his pants. His expression conveys something more than fierce joy in the face of imminent retribution. Something that terrifies Saudade even more. Some sort of inner peace. Saudade realizes that Aníbal Manta has become one with the universe. And his terrified scream is heard throughout the entire floor of the public hospital.

Iris Gonzalvo's brick red Alfa Romeo moves at a speed close to the maximum allowed on a four-lane highway, heading away from Barcelona. Northward. Toward the rocky coasts of the Ampurdan. Followed closely by the convertible two-seater Jaguar that's been following them since they left the city. Probably since they left the children's psychiatric clinic. Now no one speaks inside the Alfa Romeo. Neither Lucas Giraut nor Iris Gonzalvo says anything. They don't look at each other, or do anything besides frown at the image of the Jaguar reflected in the car's mirrors. And in the middle of the image, there is a face shaken with rage. Kneeling on the backseat, Valentina Parini is carrying out a series of indecipherable, mystical-looking hand signals directed at the Jaguar's driver.

“This shouldn't be happening,” says Iris Gonzalvo. Almost to herself. With a very subtle inflection in her despondent tone that could indicate something like sarcasm. She pulls on the hem of her tight white Kenzo dress until it covers her knees and seems to become even more wrapped up in her own thoughts. “We had it all planned. What are we supposed to do now? Do we have to kill him? I don't suppose you have a gun.”

Lucas Giraut's expression as he drives north on the four-lane highway is his same vaguely namby-pamby expression reinforced by his hairless face and thin blond eyebrows. A lock of pale chestnut-colored hair that has detached from the overall wave in his hair and now falls obliquely over his forehead is the only discordant element in his appearance. The only thing that could indicate that Giraut is living through one of those dramatically conclusive situations that mark the end of a story. One of those situations that generally involve a chase that leads to a conclusive confrontation.

Outside the car, on the four-lane highway from which the rocky cliffs of the Ampurdan can now be made out on the horizon, it is that hour of the day when the sky isn't yet dark but the streetlamps have already begun to glow with a tenuous, blinking light. That hour of the day that doesn't exactly produce a transitory or provisional sensation, but rather the feeling that you're entering a new ontological state. A state bathed in the misty, melancholy light found at the end of stories. At the romantic apotheoses or the meetings with alien races. In the backseat, Valentina Parini has taken off her sweater and is wrapping it around her head like a turban. Or like one of those towels many women wrap around their wet hair when they come out of the shower.

Giraut observes the shaken, enraged face of Mr. Bocanegra, Showbiz Impresario and Lorenzo Giraut's Childhood Best Friend, with its wrinkled grimace shiny with sweat. In the middle of the rearview mirror. Under the light that's almost dusk, but not dusky enough for the edges of things to start softening, it definitely looks like what Bocanegra has in his hand is a gun. A gun that he keeps shaking over his head. He is now furiously pounding the butt of the gun against the Jaguar's dashboard. With those inane gestures of pure rage. It's possible that the tiny spot Giraut sees in the mirror at the height of Bocanegra's mouth is foam. Just maybe.

“There's a really big black spot in the sky above us.” Valentina has both hands resting on the back of the backseat and is looking out the back window of the Alfa Romeo. Looking at the sky above the car. The highway at dusk appears to be empty except for the Alfa Romeo and the Jaguar following it. “I think it's moving. That could mean several things. It could be a radiation area. They can hear better in those areas. Although they could also hear worse. It's hard to tell.” She lifts up the edge of the sweater knotted around her head like a turban so she can see better and glues her face to the window. “Although it could also be them. Now they show themselves. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Flying together. So many thousands of them that from a distance they look like a black cloud.”

Lucas Giraut and Iris Gonzalvo study the sky in search of black clouds. To the west, on the car's left, the sky at dusk begins to turn a dirty red color.

“We can't destroy them,” continues Valentina, with her voice slightly distorted by the fact that her face is glued to the pane. “But we can't live with them, either. They don't want us to. They want us to be like them. But we're different, of course. Because we're immune to their control and all that.” She turns for a moment to look at the two other people in the car. Not exactly as if she were seeking their approval. More like making sure no one was raising any objections. “The best thing to do is to find a shelter. That's what you usually do in situations like this. It could be a desert island. Or up on a very high mountaintop. Some place they can't get to. Where they can't hear us. We can wait until they leave or the germs in the air kill them. Anyway…” She pauses. The strips of white tape and the eye patch now both half hang off her face, revealing an eye that doesn't look in any direction even close to where the other eye is looking. “In either case, now we have to start the world over.”

“Valentina!” shouts Iris Gonzalvo, looking over Valentina's head.

She extends her arm over the back of her seat and pushes Valentina's head down, forcing her to lie down on the backseat just as Bocanegra sticks an arm out of his car and shoots at the Alfa Romeo twice. The shots sound muffled from inside the car.

Giraut looks through the rearview mirror. Bocanegra is driving with one hand while the other aims at the back of the Alfa Romeo. The rage in his face seems to have transformed into cruelty. There is another shot and this time they can hear how the bullet buries itself into the bodywork of Iris's car.

“Son of a bitch!” Iris grapples with the back of her seat as she turns. “Now I am gonna kill him!” She makes her way through the front seats into the back, where Valentina is adjusting her sweater turban. Iris rests the palm of her hand on the back window and starts gesticulating to the Jaguar. “I'll teach you to shoot my car, you fucking son of a bitch!”

The atmosphere of the four-lane highway at dusk is quickly becoming the atmosphere typical of the conclusion of a story. With chase scenes and shoot-outs and expectations of imminent confrontations. With streetlamps that give off that tenuous blinking light under a sky that's getter redder every minute. With the asphalt of the highway taking on a rusty tinge. With barely any cars passing sporadically on the lanes of the four-lane highway. With Valentina Parini making strange, mystical-looking hand gestures in the backseat. Like those esoteric hand gestures you use to try to protect yourself from a mystical threat. Lucas Giraut looks alternately at the rust-colored highway in front of him and at the rearview mirror and steps on the gas as hard as he can, in an attempt to elude Bocanegra's Jaguar.

Iris continues gesturing furiously toward the Jaguar. Something appears on the horizon, to one side of the highway. A structure that is still too far away for the car's occupants to see it well under the dusky light.