Authors: Marc Pastor
Mr Llardó pays 400 pesetas. The extra is the price for silence.
“One week, without fail.”
“I am a woman of my word.”
The next day, Inspectors Corvo and Malsano are covering the beat between Conde del Asalto Street to Marqués del Duero, searching for the woman whose son was abducted by a lame man, as the gypsy patriarch had informed them. It is cold and the shelters are teeming, so it will surely be an unsuccessful undertaking, but this is the thread they have started to pull on. They have nothing else.
Mata Street is empty, and Moisès Corvo is feeling frustrated.
“We are looking for a goddamn ghost.”
“I would let it go, Corvo. We’ve done all we can.”
Marqués del Duero is all lit up: theatres, cafés, bars, dance halls. A few steps from the deserted street they’ve just left behind there is a throng of people lined up in queues, bundled up to their eyebrows, for the different cabaret, magic and variety shows. Raquel Meller draws the biggest crowds at the Teatre Arnau. The Petit Moulin Rouge, made to look like its Parisian older brother, attracts the curiosity of passers-by.
“What are you doing for Christmas?” asks Malsano.
“I still don’t know. My brother asked us to sup with them at their house, they’re going to roast a chicken, and my wife is excited at the prospect because she complains that she never sees her nephew.”
“Andreu? How is he?”
“Big, I guess. Youngsters are always bigger than the last time you saw them. He’s quite a clever lad.”
“So, what will you do?”
“Work, I guess.”
“Something’s wrong with you, Corvo. Don’t give the force an hour more than you have to, not a minute more. It’s not worth it.” “I’m not doing it for the force.” He furrows his brow, like a small child.
“If you don’t mark the time for you, the force will take it all.”
Moisès Corvo wants to find the son of a bitch who’s snatching children. He feels like a vulture circling the scent of rotting flesh, but he can’t quite find the corpse. He’s obsessed. Each passing day brings them closer to the next disappearance. And while they’re only the children of whores and indigents, they are just as defenceless as his nephew, Andreu, for example. And it enrages
and frustrates him no end: after all these years of experience wading through the dung heap of criminals in that city, now he can’t even find a goddamn cripple. It is his duty, not only professional, but moral. The last moral left to him, perhaps, but it’s all he’s got and he wants to hold on to it.
“We’re not going to find beggars here, not today,” he mutters.
“Let’s go to the station, we have work backed up.”
Silence, coloured lights on the fronts of buildings.
“Do you like magic?”
“Magic?”
Moisès Corvo crosses the street, dodging cars and drivers’ insults. It looks like half the cars in Barcelona are jammed up there that night, and it’s not even a weekend. Juan Malsano follows him to the entrance with the windmill, the former Pajarera Catalana, below a large illuminated sign announcing the performance of the Great Balshoi Makarov, master of the disappearing act and artist of the mind. He shows his police credentials to get in. His partner is already inside, through the curtains that lead to the vestibule and then on to the seats.
Darkness.
“Shit, Corvo…” he murmurs, but the inspector elbows him to be quiet.
The light from the crucibles tints the master of the disappearing act and artist of the mind’s silhouette in pastel colours. He is standing beside a box some two metres tall, some sort of vertical coffin.
“I need a volunteer,” he states, with an obvious Russian accent. No one responds. “It can even be a lady.”
Nervous laughter, until a woman stands up, earning the audience’s applause. She wears a hat and a long dress that reaches
her ankles, and the Great Makarov receives her with a bow, as if she were a princess, removing her hat and making it disappear. A bit of small talk before introducing her into the box where he will eventually saw her in half; from a hole in the upper part we see her frightened face, and from another in the lower half some dancing feet. You know, the typical magic-act number. The audience bursts into applause and the Great Makarov nods in every direction to acknowledge the praise.
“This is a cock-up,” Malsano says, taking advantage of the pause. “If anybody sees us here—”
“Shush.”
The illusionist puts the volunteer back together and asks for another ovation for her. The act continues for a good hour. The Russian guesses with his eyes blindfolded what people in the audience are wearing, makes pigeons come out of the most unusual places and escapes from a locked and bolted safe before making a last triumphant appearance floating over the audience, handing out 100-peseta bills with his face on them.
The people leave happy—how does he do it, where’s the trick—and gradually the theatre empties. The policeman stay in the penumbra, waiting, until the Great Makarov comes out of the door from the dressing rooms with the volunteer he had sawed in half at the start of the show. The girl starts to sweep the corridors with the skill of someone who does it mechanically every night, and Makarov is surprised to see that there are still two people at the back of the theatre.
“If you like it that much, come back tomorrow, there’ll be more and even better,” he calls out.
“It was quite good,” responds Moisès Corvo, as he approaches him.
“Can I help you?” says the Russian, and the girl stops sweeping.
“Inspectors Corvo and Malsano.” They extend their hands.
“Vladimir Makarov, at your service.” He reveals his name and shakes hands without trying to hide his disappointed expression. “I thought you were producers interested in the show.”
He turns and nods to his assistant, as if saying you can continue.
“How long have you been here?”
“Here where? In Spain?”
“No, at the Arnau.”
“Oh, that here…” He thinks back. “About a year, not quite. At the end of this year my contract’s up and I doubt they’ll renew it.”
“It seems you’re quite a success.”
“Appearances can be deceiving: this is Christmas, it’s a good time of the year. In June there was nobody here. In fact, I doubt they’ll let me premiere the performance I’m preparing.” Theatrical stance, arms extended, gaze out on the horizon.
“Beneath the Wings of Death.”
Vladimir Makarov seems more French than Russian. He is crammed into a burgundy silk vest over a linen shirt, all in all very bohemian, very Parisian.
“They’ll renew: magic is in style.”
The artist sucks his teeth.
“Illusionism. Magic is for crazy old men who wear goat horns on their heads and throw animal guts into pots of boiling broth.”
“Illusionism,” concedes Moisès Corvo, deferential but unconvinced.
“Everyday life is too grey; I help those who come to see me to escape it. Note the irony.”
The policemen don’t see the irony anywhere, but they use the conversation thread started by this Frenchified Russian.
“Speaking of seeing you…”
“Yes, of course, you are policemen, you haven’t come to my dressing room to give me flowers.”
“At what time do you usually arrive at the theatre?”
“At seven in the evening, more or less.”
“And you don’t leave again until?…”
“Well, I was heading home now.”
“Do you have supper before or after the show?”
“Before, I have a loud stomach.”
“Here inside?”
“Sometimes, but usually I go to a café nearby, where they make delicious sausages.” He smoothes his pointy blond moustache, pensive. “I’ll help you in any way I can, I envy your job, but… could you be more specific? I’m beginning to get uneasy.”
“There’s no need. We are looking for someone who sleeps near here, on the street, and we’d like to know if you’ve seen him.”
“No need to beat around the bush then. Now, in the winter, there’s no one around, as you’ve noticed. But during the summer there are a few guys who spend the night out here. Who are you looking for?”
“A lame man.”
“Lame?”
“Lame.”
“No…” He thinks, furrows his brow, rolls his eyes upward, quite the actor.
“A few months ago he snatched a woman’s son just a few metres from the theatre.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t usually lend my ear to gossip. I haven’t heard anything about it.”
He seems sincere, thinks Malsano. Moisès Corvo is silent, hesitant about saying what he is about to say:
“Have you heard talk of a monster?”
Malsano sighs loudly. Here we go again.
“Corvo, we’ve got to be going.”
“No, no. What monster? The lame chap?” Makarov is getting interested.
“Corvo…” insists Malsano.
“Nothing. Forget it.”
“I’m not in danger, am I?”
The girl keeps sweeping, now paying more attention to the conversation.
“Not at all,” respond the policemen in unison, which produces the opposite effect in the illusionist.
“He’s talking about the vampire,” says the girl from the other end of the theatre. “The one that takes children without leaving a trace and eats them.”
“There’s no vampire,” denies Malsano, raising his voice.
“Then why did your partner ask about the monster?”
Ask him about the Xalet del Moro.
“Do you know the Xalet del Moro?”
“What?” Now it is Makarov and Malsano who ask the question in chorus.
Have you ever gone there?
“Have you ever gone there?”
The Russian hesitates, confused.
“Yes, but… Goddamnitalltohell! The gimp, I do know him!”
“You know him?” Malsano can’t believe it.
“Well, I know a man with a limp who hung around the theatre, but he doesn’t sleep on the street. A fat, ugly bloke. I noticed him because in one week I saw him around the theatre and at the Xalet del Moro.”
“The brothel?” asks Malsano.
“There they are ladies of the evening,” qualifies Makarov.
“Whores with money,” maintains Corvo, and asks, “How long ago was that?”
“I don’t know… maybe the last time I saw him was in the summer, or September. But I don’t go there very often, to the Xalet del Moro, don’t get the wrong idea.”
“Do you know his name?”
“No, I already told you I’ve only seen him, and it surprised me to see him there, because it doesn’t exactly look like he has much money and they don’t just let anyone into the Xalet.” He smoothes his clothes, proud. “I also have to say that it didn’t look like he was a client.”
“What do you mean?”
“He didn’t look at any of the girls. I saw him chatting with the madam, and then I stopped paying attention to him.”
“Your mind was on other things.”
“Exactly.” He put on his Tyrolean hat, ready to go out to the street. “So, this guy is the one snatching children?”
“We didn’t say that.”
“But he snatches them.”
“Around what time did you see him?”
“The gimp?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. Late afternoon maybe, I don’t know.”
“On a weekend?”
“No, during the week. On Saturdays and Sundays I do two shows, so I’m busy all afternoon and evening.”
“You would recognize him if you saw him again.” It’s not so much a question as a statement.
“Yeah, I guess so…” He hesitates. “Yeah, yeah.”
“OK. I’ll go and look for him. I want you to come with me.”
They say goodbye and the policemen go out to the street. The blades of the windmill are no longer spinning but the city is still throbbing.
“We should go to the station,” recommends Malsano. “Who knows what’s happened while we were in there. And besides, we have work to do, Millán Astray is going to kill us if we don’t finish it.”
“Let’s go over there, Juan. If we had a photographic file like we should we could show it to that Makarov.”
“But we don’t.”
“No.”
They cross the avenue and enter into the dark, narrow streets of the Santa Madrona district.
“Where did that bit about the Xalet del Moro come from?” he asks, finally.
Moisès Corvo pleads a stroke of intuition, a response that doesn’t satisfy his partner, but which he’s just going to have to accept.
Maria Pujaló, crumpled handkerchief in her closed fist, pale knuckles and dried tears forming a map of desolation on her face, is a scared woman.
“What can you tell me about Angelina?” I take her by the hands, but she doesn’t let me. She looks away.
“What do you want me to tell you?”
“When Enriqueta had Angelina was when you decided to leave Barcelona.”
I know that it hurts her.
“I had just lost a baby,” she says in a reedy voice.
Now I like you.
“What?”
“After my father’s death, may God hold him in His Glory, I was glum for a while. I didn’t have much energy and Pepitu really wore me out. Enriqueta was always taking him around with her, all over, and he’d become all quiet, always afraid and peeing in the bed at night. He didn’t have anyone, you know. Juanitu is a scatterbrain I never saw, my son was like a stranger to me, and Enriqueta said that if I was going to live like a soul in torment anyway I might as well die, that I would be more helpful to my father on the other side, that all I was doing was bringing in evil spirits.”
“Evil spirits?”
“Yes. She said that since I had one foot on this side and one on the other, since I ate like a bird and never left the house and I was a bag of bones and my skin was getting all wizened, I was like an open door to all sorts of ghosts and demons and who knows what other superstitions.”
“But you don’t believe in such things.”
“No, but they still scare me. Enriqueta wasn’t home much, but when she was she was always burning bundles of thyme in every corner and hanging rabbits’ feet from the door lintels.”
“Against you.”
“She said I brought bad luck. That my condition brought only misfortune. She accused me of everything. If she lost clients at the herbalist’s shop, it was my fault.”
“What herbalist’s shop?”
“The one Juanitu set up for her, by the house, with the few pennies my father left us.”
“And she worked there?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it working. At first she did make some balms and syrups, and she seemed… I was about to say excited, but I’ve never seen Enriqueta show any real excitement. She was more like obsessed. But when she started to have problems with the police, she quickly grew tired of it. And she blamed me for it, that they arrested her all the time, and again with the amulets all around the flat and the strange prayers at every hour of the day and night. Then she opened the store only when she felt like it. The customers got tired of her, her odd ways and her bad humour, and she only went to the store when… well, she didn’t go there much.”