The Blind Man of Seville (64 page)

‘And what about Marta?’

‘It’s amazing how once you start working on something these things find you, rather than you finding them. I knew, from the journals, that she was in Ciempozuelos. I was very interested to see her, to find out about her, but I had no way of doing that without drawing attention to myself. At the time I was doing some freelance computer effects work for a film company up in Madrid and one of the directors asked if any of us would be interested in helping some mental patients in Ciempozuelos with some art therapy. I volunteered, but Marta was not one of the patients involved in the course. I still had to find her.’

‘And that’s why you became Ahmed’s friend?’

‘Once I saw that metal trunk under her bed I knew I had to get inside it and Ahmed was my only chance. I have a talent for friendship, especially with people like Ahmed — you know, forasteros … like me.’

‘Like Eloisa.’

‘Yes,’ said Julio smoothly. ‘Ahmed showed me Marta’s file and once I read the letter from José Manuel Jiménez’s psychoanalyst, I knew I had a project.’

‘And where did you get the idea of killing people?’

‘From you, when I found out that you were the Inspector Jefe del Grupo de Homicidios de Sevilla,’ said Julio. ‘To have the son of the great Francisco Falcón investigating the crimes of his father seemed too perfect an opportunity to miss. It made sense of the whole idea.’

‘That was not a rational decision.’

‘Artists don’t have rational minds. How am I supposed to disturb the minds of others if my own is a flat calm?’

‘Killing is not art.’

‘You missed out the word “real”,’ said Julio, on his feet, the pupils in his eyes suddenly massive and shiny black, but not seeing out, only sucking in. ‘You should have said Real Killing is not Art or … or … Killing is not Real Art.’

‘Sit down, Julio. Just sit down for a moment … we haven’t finished,’ said Javier.

‘You know, the problem is,’ said Julio, ‘is … is … that I see things too clearly now. I can’t seem to lower my visual scale. Once you kill somebody everything becomes intensely real, and it’s unbearable. Did you know that, my uncle, did you know that?’

‘That’s right, I
am
your uncle,’ said Javier, trying to keep Julio under control. ‘And I do know that.’

‘That’s why I didn’t kill you. I only tried to do you good. To save you from your blindness.’

‘Yes, I can see now and I’m grateful,’ said Javier. ‘There’s just one more thing I need to know from you.’

‘It’s all been said and done and written and filmed … there’s only one thing left now,’ he said.

He went behind Falcón and pivoted the chair around so that it was facing the opposite wall. On the desk was the glass of almond milk, the leather-bound journal and his police revolver. Julio took a knife and cut through the flex securing Falcón’s right hand.

‘I have to go now,’ he said, throwing the knife on to the desk. ‘You know what you have to do. You shouldn’t have to face any more of this than you’ve had to.’

Their eyes met and turned to the revolver sitting on top of the journal, next to the glass of milk — the reminder of all that he had done and all that he had lost.

‘There’s your solution,’ said Julio. ‘The only way to close everything down and leave it behind for ever.’

Sweat came up on Falcón’s hands, trickled from the hairline. How could he still have so much juice in him? He picked up the revolver, flicked open the barrel and saw all the chambers were full. He thumbed the safety off. He looked down at the gun in his trembling hand and brought it slowly up to his face. Suicide had its attractions for him at that moment. It was the simplest solution in the face of this sudden nothingness. His past gone and the future frail and uncertain. His father’s love … never there. Only hate, which he, Javier, had fuelled … just by living. And, yes, who was he now? Was he still even Javier Falcón? The threads that held him together were guilt and grief; tug at them and he would fall apart. And now it could all be over. With one small pull of the trigger he could blow away the reservoir of all his pain.

A wall in his memory suddenly gave way and, rather than more suffering flooding through to his tangled mind, he remembered that kiss, the one from his mother, that had marked him with her love forever. And, under the remembered pressure of her lips, he found out who he was, recalled the boy he had been for her. It undid something, unravelled part of the vast knot, and he was suddenly able to see clear lines of thought that were not uncomplicated but at least thinkable.

He was relieved of one pressure. He did not belong to the man he’d known as his father and yet … there had always been something. They were inextricably joined,
but … by what? Had it been as simplistic as Julio had said? That Javier walked the earth as a constant reminder to his father of all his failings? Was he the emblem of hate? Or was his father’s final act as ambiguous as we all are. Our constant needs make us weak. Adversity leads us down some treacherous paths to worthlessness and despicable acts, but there is always that draw to the power of the original connection. Raúl to Arturo. Ramón to Carmen. Francisco Falcón to Javier.

His father, in forcing the journals on him, could as easily have been saying: ‘Now you know the kind of man I was, feel free to hate me and absolve yourself.’

Javier turned. Julio was still standing in the doorway, waiting. Shaking, Javier stretched his arm out and pointed the gun at Julio’s face whose facile beauty had disappeared, leaving his features dislocated by his insanity.

‘Come to me,’ said Javier, not unkindly and Julio complied.

He walked right up to him until the gun barrel touched him between the eyes.

‘I’m not going to shoot you,’ said Falcón, whose other wrist was still tied to the chair.

It happened quickly. Before Falcón could even think of words that might penetrate the deranged mind before him, the boy’s hands flew up into his face. One gripped Falcón’s wrist and the other pressed his trigger finger and the colossal noise of the gun shot filled the room and the patio and echoed through the empty house.

Julio cannoned backwards and crashed through the glass doors on to the patio. His blood spread across the marble flagstones towards the stone circle of the fountain.

By 11.00 p.m. the levantamiento del cadáver had been completed and the Juez de Guardia, who was not Esteban Calderón, had left. Ramírez finished taking Falcón’s
preliminary statement with Comisario Lobo in attendance while all the relevant evidence was removed.

By 11.30 p.m. Lobo was driving him to the hospital to have a stitch put in his eyelid. Lobo recounted how he’d secured Comisario León’s resignation. Javier didn’t respond.

‘You know,’ said Lobo, as they drew into the hospital, ‘there’s going to be heavy media interest in this case, especially … due to your father’s unusual involvement.’

‘That was Julio’s intention,’ said Javier. ‘He wanted the maximum and most shocking exposure possible … as any artist would. It’s out of my hands now. I’ll just …’

‘Well, I hope … I think I can help you control that.’

Javier raised an eyebrow.

‘We should confine the story to a single journalist,’ said Lobo. ‘That way you can put your version of events forward, rather than having it torn from your hands and transformed into some lurid fantasy.’

‘I have no fear of that, Comisario, only because I don’t think any editor could think of anything more lurid than my father being a brute, a pirate, a thief, an impostor, a double uxoricide and a fraud.’

‘At least, this way, the first airing of the story will be as close to the truth as possible. I think it’s always best that the first impression is the …’

‘Perhaps you’ve already reached an agreement with a journalist, Comisario,’ said Javier.

Silence. Lobo offered to go in to the emergency room with him. Javier turned him down.

He went into the hospital and sat under the bright neon of his new life while they put two silk stitches in his eyelid. His mind recoiled from the harsh operative light and he shut his eyes while his thoughts writhed. How would Manuela and Paco react to the media onslaught? What would he say to them? Your father …
but not mine, was a monster? Manuela would throw it off or it would just bounce off her. She wouldn’t let it in. But Paco … His father had ‘saved’ him after his goring, given him the finca, set him up in a new life. There would be no easy rejection from Paco. And Javier was relieved to find that the connection was still there, that this would not change anything for him.

‘Am I hurting you?’ asked the doctor.

‘No,’ said Javier.

‘Nurse,’ said the doctor, ‘swab these tears.’

He was out by midnight, still in his bloody shirt. He took a taxi home. He stood in the middle of the patio looking at the bronze statue leaping out of the fountain. Always on the move, that boy. He went upstairs to the studio; the black pupil of the fountain followed him round the gallery. He went into the storeroom and removed all his father’s attempts at copying Chefchaouni’s work and the five canvases that made up the obscene painting of his mother. He threw them down into the patio. He followed them with the box of money and the pornography. He took a five-litre flagon of alcohol down and drew everything into a pile next to the fountain. He poured the alcohol on top and threw a match on it. The flames thumped into life and jaundiced light flickered in the silent patio.

He went into the study where the pewter box was still on the desk. He lifted out the priceless miniatures and laid them out one by one. His father’s work. His real father’s work. And for a moment he was up in the air again, looking down into the face he’d never remembered and seeing him for the first time.

He showered and put on a new shirt. He had no desire for bed or to stay in the house. He had a sudden need to be with people, even strangers … especially strangers.
He walked out into the night and was drawn to the lights along the black leathery river and then across it into the Plaza de Cuba, where the crowds drew him on up Calle Asunción towards the Feria ground.

He ended up in front of the Edificio Presidente where it had all begun, a lifetime ago, and Consuelo Jiménez came to mind with her daring eyes. He admired her strength. She had never wavered despite the continuous onslaught. Calderón was right, she’d held them all together. He remembered her dinner proposal and the click of her kitten heels on the marble flagstones. He shook his head. Too early for that.

He turned and entered the Feria de Abril through the massive, garishly lit portals of the main gate and walked into a surreal world, where everybody was beautiful and happy. Where the girls flounced in their figure-hugging
trajes de flamenca
with flowers and tortoiseshell combs in their hair while their men struck poses in grey bolero jackets and flat-brimmed hats. He walked, looking about him with childlike fascination under the lanterns and the bunting, past the endless marquees where everybody was eating, drinking fino and dancing. The air was full of the incense of enjoyment — music, food and tobacco. Under the silken tented ceilings women plaited the air above their heads with sinuous arms, the men upright, chins raised, shoulders braced torero-style.

He walked amongst the people, all of them smiling and laughing, as if drugged. How could there be so many and so happy? In this small galaxy he seemed to be the only human present with a direct line to misery, the only one with memories and guilt, hopelessness and fear. He wondered if he would ever be able to plug himself back into a whole life from the half-life in which he’d been living.

A burst of handclapping snapped him back into the fantasy world of the Feria. The rhythm of the Sevillanas
being sung and danced all around him insinuated, and as he passed one of the smaller casetas he heard his name shouted.

‘Javier! Heh! Javier!’

A small, dumpy woman in a white traje de flamenca with big red polka dots appeared to know him. She danced a few steps, her feet suddenly dainty and her hands turning and twisting, beckoning the air, as if encouraging him.

‘You don’t recognize me. I’m Encarnación. Welcome, stranger,’ she said. ‘Will a stranger dance a Sevillana with me on the first night of the Feria de Abril?’

His housekeeper, the perfect stranger, one who represented all that was uncomplicated in the world, had finally taken bodily form. He followed her into the caseta. She insisted that they start with a dance and a glass of fino. She took two sips of her pale Tio Pepe while Javier knocked his back in one. He slammed his glass down, raised his head, clicked his heels together and they started their first Sevillana.

Encarnación was instantly transformed. The sixty-five-year-old woman became elegant and smouldering, coquettish and daring. They danced four or five Sevillanas, one after the other. He ordered more fino. They ate a plate of paella and some calamares and he remembered how good food tasted. They danced again. His anguish subsided, his misery drifted off. He forgot everything and concentrated on one thing — the mood of his Sevillana — and he threw himself into the dance, each sequence drawing him closer to the perfect expression. And he realized that he’d found it again — the Sevillano solution to misery —
la fiesta —
and he danced his problems out of his head, down his body to his feet and stamped them into the ground.

A Small Death in Lisbon
Robert Wilson

A Portuguese bank is founded on the back of Nazi wartime deals. Over half a century later a young girl is murdered in Lisbon.

1941. Klaus Felsen, SS officer, arrives in Lisbon and the strangest party in history, where Nazis and Allies, refugees and entrepreneurs, dance to the strains of opportunism and despair. Felsen’s war takes him to the mountains of the north where a brutal battle is being fought for an element vital to Hitler’s blitzkrieg. There he meets the man who makes the first turn of the wheel of greed and revenge which rolls through to the century’s end.

Late 1990s, Lisbon. Inspector Zé Coelho is investigating the murder of a young girl. As he digs deeper, Zé overturns the dark soil of history and unearths old bones. The 1974 revolution has left injustices of the old fascist regime unresolved. But there’s an older, greater injustice, for which this small death in Lisbon is horrific compensation, and in his final push for the truth, Zé must face the most chilling opposition.