The Skating Rink (12 page)

Gaspar Heredia:

After the fat guy and the skater left

After the fat guy and the skater left, I decided to stay at the
mansion until dawn. Not inside, and certainly not in the old storehouse where
the skating rink was, but somewhere in the gardens that surrounded the building.
A bit of stealthy, watchful exploration soon revealed a suitable place under a
leafy hospitable tree, where I settled down to wait for the first light of day.
I didn’t intend to fall asleep, accustomed as I was by then to working the night
shift, but at some point, without realizing it, I must have dozed off. When I
opened my eyes, my legs were numb and the sky was purple, with orange streaks
that looked like lines traced by skywriting planes. I was right in front of the
mansion’s main door, so I decided to look for a more discreet observation post.
I was vaguely hoping Caridad would come out so I could talk to her. I remember
that as I looked for a place to continue my vigil, my heart was racing.
Otherwise, I was calm, I think. A few hours later, when the sky had turned a
faded blue, and huge dark clouds were massing on the horizon, I saw Carmen come
out of the main door. She had the calm bearing of a housewife on her way to
market; with a bag slung over her arm and her hair combed back, except for a
sort of fringe covering part of her forehead and her left eyebrow, she stopped
on the porch, looking pleased with herself, and glanced to the left and the
right before proceeding confidently down the steps. In the garden she stopped
again and her hawk-like gaze settled on my hiding place. With a gesture, she bid
me follow her. I stepped out into the open, and together we walked slowly up the
private road, as if we were enjoying a morning stroll. Carmen was not surprised
to find me; on the contrary, she had been expecting me to turn up earlier. She
took it for granted that I was “betrothed” to Caridad, who sooner or later,
probably sooner, would return my affection, and then everyone could live
“happily ever after.” As we climbed the hill and gradually left the mansion
behind, she compared the freshness of the morning to the sturdy good health you
need to survive without love—or even with love—in hard times like these. Once
again she mentioned the apartment that the council would provide for her, and,
to my surprise, invited me to come and live in it. We’ll need a security guard,
she said with a giggle. I began to laugh. In the pines clinging to the crags I
noticed some enormous-looking birds, which seemed to be laughing as well. As we
came around a bend in the road and Z appeared before us, the singer’s good humor
suddenly vanished. To compensate, she started talking about Caridad: she didn’t
know much about her, but more than I did, so I listened carefully. Amid mumbled
interjections, and sounding increasingly serious, she said how friendly and
gentle Caridad was, how logical and clever. Then she focused on the only thing
that seemed to be a real cause for concern: her lack of appetite. Caridad had
simply stopped eating. As long as I’d known her, from when she was living at the
campground, her diet had consisted entirely of pastries and strawberry-flavored
liquid yogurt. Sometimes she’d have a coffee or a beer, mainly when she went out
with Carmen to do the rounds of the cafés, but that was exceptional and, anyway,
it didn’t agree with her: it made her even more sullen and taciturn. On more
than one occasion, Carmen had tried to get her to eat a ham sandwich, for
example, but it was useless. Caridad, or her mysterious stomach, would only
ingest donuts, madeleines, palm cakes, buns, spiral pastries, coconut cookies
and other sweet things. What did she have for breakfast? Nothing, not even a
gulp of water. And for lunch? Caridad got up at one or two in the afternoon, so
she didn’t have lunch either. An afternoon snack? For a snack she would have a
donut and a madeleine, which she took from a box secreted in one of the
mansion’s rooms, where the two of them kept their provisions, safe from rats and
ants. Nothing else? Perhaps a thimbleful of liquid yogurt before dinner. And
dinner? Dinner, which they usually ate together, consisted of two or three
donuts and a few mouthfuls of liquid yogurt. Caridad was really crazy about
donuts. And liquid yogurt. Naturally, she had lost weight, and now you could
even count her ribs, but Caridad’s willpower and her bird-like diet were
indissolubly wedded. However she looked at it, Carmen couldn’t understand how
Caridad had survived so long on such piffling nourishment, but she had, she was
surviving, and she was even “prettier every day.” When we reached the streets of
Z, I offered to buy her lunch. Carmen ordered
churros
and hot chocolate. The waiter,
a sleepy teenager who was in no mood for kidding, said they didn’t have any, so
she made do with a beer and a ladyfinger. Talking too much made her thirsty. I
ordered a coffee with milk and two donuts. Before we said good-bye, she asked me
if I had ever been inside the mansion. I said no. Wise choice, she said, but she
didn’t believe me . . .

Enric Rosquelles:

The day after the party at the disco

The day after the party at the disco that wretched old woman came
bursting into my office. The morning was calm, as if wrapped in a quiet, damp
towel, although the calm was only apparent, or rather confined to one side of
the morning, the left side, say, while chaos was seething on the right-hand
side, a chaos that only I could hear and sense. To be quite honest, I should say
that from the moment I opened my eyes, I began to feel anxious, as if I could
smell disaster even in the air of my bedroom. As I drove to Z, after a shower
and breakfast, that feeling, which was not entirely new to me, diminished in
intensity, but the irrational aspects of the problem remained, there in the car
and later in the office, if you see what I mean; they remained with me in
attenuated form, as a sense of foreboding. I felt I could actually see things
and people aging second by second, all of them swept along in a time-stream
flowing inexorably toward misery and grief. Then the door of the office swung
open with a dull thud, and the old woman appeared, followed by my secretary,
who, half aggrieved, half annoyed, was trying to shepherd her back into the
waiting room. The old lady was thin and her hair was unevenly cut; she fixed her
little eyes on me, in a brief intense examination, before announcing that she
had something to tell me. At first I didn’t even stand up; I was absorbed in my
own premonitions, and incidents like this are not unusual, given the nature of
my work. A high proportion of our clients suppose that by going to management
they will finally get their problems solved. In such cases, armed with kind
words and a great deal of patience, I direct them to the offices located in the
district of M, where they will be helped by our social workers and child welfare
agents. I was on the point of doing just that when the old woman, after checking
that it was me and not someone else observing her calmly from the other side of
the desk, winked at me and softly uttered her talismanic sentence: I was hoping
to discuss the business of the skating rink, either with you or with the mayor.
Everything I had been suspecting and fearing since I woke up that morning
materialized at once, taking shape with devastating force, as if I had stepped
into a science-fiction movie. It would not be an exaggeration to say that I
nearly collapsed into a mass of trembling jelly. Nevertheless, I steeled myself
and managed to prevent my nerves from giving me away. Feigning a sudden and
cheerful interest, I asked my secretary to leave us alone. She released the old
woman, whom she had been holding by the arm, and looked at me as if she couldn’t
believe what she was hearing. I had to repeat the order; then she left my office
and shut the door behind her. The infamous discussion that is supposed to have
taken place between the old woman and myself is, of course, a fabrication, one
of many. From my secretary’s desk you can’t hear anything that is said in my
office, unless it is shouted, and I can assure you that there were no shouts, or
threats, or screams. The door remained shut throughout. My spirits, as you can
well imagine, were about as low as they could be. The adjective “exhausted”
gives a fair description of my state of mind, faced with that old woman; she,
however, seemed to be possessed of boundless energy and vitality. As she spoke,
sometimes in a normal tone of voice, sometimes in whispers, the way she gestured
with her hands was consistently reminiscent of a movie about pharaohs and
pyramids. From that torrent of nonsense, I gathered that she wanted a subsidized
apartment, a “pension or financial aid,” and a job for some unnamed monster.
None of those things, I said, were within my power. Then she demanded to see the
mayor. Somehow she associated both of us with the existence of the skating rink.
I asked her what she hoped to get out of a meeting with the mayor, and her reply
confirmed my fears: Pilar, the old woman felt, would be more sympathetic to her
requests. I said it wasn’t necessary, I’d see what I could do to sort out her
situation, and immediately pulled out my wallet and gave her ten thousand
pesetas, which the old woman put straight into her pocket. Then, trying to sound
relaxed, I explained that for the moment I couldn’t do anything about the
subsidized apartment, but when the season was over, say mid-September, I’d look
into it, and try to find her something. The old woman inquired about her
pension. I pulled out a sheet of paper and took down some details: there again,
I explained, the problem was that until the rest of the municipal staff came
back from vacation, nothing could be done. The old woman looked thoughtful for a
while, but soon it was clear that, for the time being at least, the matter was
in abeyance. Before taking her leave, she said that this deal would wipe the
slate clean, and she was prepared to put our previous differences behind her.
Unable to conceal my surprise, I assured her that we could hardly have had
previous differences since this was the first time we had met. Then the old
woman cast her mind back; it turned out that, some years before, she had paid a
visit to Social Services. She recalled the past in clear and precise words that
set me trembling from head to foot. You have to understand, I was sitting behind
my desk and that damn witch, speaking those oily-smooth, razor-sharp words, was
painting a picture in which only she and I existed, and neither had any chance
of escape. But now the slate is clean, she said, with a sparkle in her eyes. I
nodded. I knew I hadn’t fooled her with any of my lies. I felt the way any of
you would have felt: trapped . . .

Remo Morán:

At exactly ten in the morning I got into my car and set off

At exactly ten in the morning I got into my car and set off for the
Palacio Benvingut. It was a foggy day and the bends on the highway to Y are
notoriously hazardous, so I drove with extreme care. There wasn’t much traffic
and I had no trouble finding the palace, which had always intrigued me, because
of the legend of its creator and first owner, but also because of its
bewildering architecture. Like so many uninhabited houses on the Costa Brava and
in the Maresme, the mansion had conserved its beauty even in ruins. The garden’s
iron gates were open, but not far enough to let a car through. I got out and
opened them right up. The hinges made an awful screeching noise. For a moment I
considered continuing on foot, but then I thought better of it and returned to
the car. There was a considerable distance from the main gate to the house
itself, and the road, half gravel, half dirt, was lined with anemic shrubs and
derelict flower beds. In the garden, a few enormous trees reared skyward, and
beyond them, bushes grew wild among pavilions and ruined fountains, forming a
dense, black-green wall. On the façade of the mansion, I discovered an
inscription. It’s the sort of thing that only happens by serendipity; if someone
had told me to look for the inscription, I’d never have been able to find it.
With letters chiseled into the stone, the house said, in Catalan: “Benvingut
made me.” The blue of the façade, shaded from the sun, seemed to confirm the
assertion: I am as I am because Benvingut made me so. I left the car parked by
the porch and knocked on the door. No one answered. I thought the house must be
empty; even my own presence, as I stood there waiting, seemed no more imposing
than the weeds growing all around. After a moment of hesitation I decided to go
and take a look around the back. A stone path ran along under the shuttered
windows of the first floor to an archway, beyond which lay another garden, at a
lower level than the one I had just crossed, surrounded by walls and terraces,
on each of which I noticed the mutilated remains of a statue. Each of the steps
leading up to the terraces was decorated with a little cornucopia carved in the
stone, almost at ground level. At the far end, a wooden lattice door opened onto
a patio which directly overlooked the sea. Part of the house was built on the
rocks, or rather hollowed out of the rocky promontory, clasping it in a cryptic
embrace, and to one side, next to the stairways that went winding down to the
beach, stood an enormous wooden structure, with protruding beams, a cross
between a barn and a Protestant church, blighted by time and neglect, but still
sound. The large sheet-metal doors were open. I went in. Inside, someone
animated by a fierce childish willfulness had used an enormous number of packing
cases to build a series of awkward passages, with walls about nine feet high for
a start, but dropping to just over a foot and a half as you went further in. The
passages formed concentric circles around the skating rink. In the center of the
rink was a dark huddled mass, black like some of the beams running clear across
the ceiling. Blood, from various parts of the fallen body, had flowed in all
directions, forming patterns and geometrical figures that I mistook at first for
shadows. In some places it had almost reached the edge of the rink. Kneeling
down, feeling dizzy and nauseated, I observed how the ice had begun to absorb
and harden around all that butchery. In a corner of the rink I spotted the
knife. I didn’t go over to take a closer look, much less touch it; from where I
was, I could see clearly that it was a kitchen knife, with a broad blade and a
plastic handle. The bloodstains on the handle were visible even at a distance.
After a while I approached the body gingerly, trying not to slip on the ice or
step in the congealed puddles of blood. I had known straight away that she was
dead, but from close up she seemed to be sleeping, and the one eye I could see
without shifting her had a slightly disgruntled look. Presuming that she was the
old woman who had gone to see Lola, I squatted there for a long time, staring at
her as if under hypnosis, irrationally expecting Nuria to appear at the scene of
the crime. The skating rink seemed to have some kind of magnetic pull, although,
from what I could see, all its potential users and visitors had vanished a good
while ago, and I was the last to appear. When I stood up, my legs were frozen.
Outside, clouds had entirely filled the sky and a threatening wind was beginning
to blow from the sea. I know I should have retraced my steps, gone back to Z and
informed the police, but I didn’t. Instead, I took several deep breaths and
tried to get the blood flowing in my legs—they weren’t just cold, I was starting
to get cramps—and then, as if something in there was attracting me irresistibly,
I went back into the storehouse, and wandered around the circular passages,
looking absently at the packing cases, counting the spotlights aimed at the
rink, trying to imagine what had happened in that glacial enclave. Taking care
not to leave any fingerprints, I climbed on top of some cases and surveyed the
storehouse. From that vantage point I had a panoramic view of what looked like a
labyrinth with a frozen center, marked by a black hole: the body. I could also
see that in one of the other walls, half hidden by the cases, there was another
door. I went straight to it. And after climbing a staircase and walking down a
gallery that opened onto the terraced garden, I found myself wandering through
the endless corridors of the Palacio Benvingut. I soon lost count of the rooms I
had passed through or looked into. Predictably, most of them were in a state of
utter neglect: thick dust, cobwebs, paint flaking off the walls. In some rooms
the wind had forced the windows, and the walls and floor bore witness to the
rains of the last thirty years. In others, the windows had been firmly nailed to
the frames, and the smell of rot was unbearable. Surprisingly, on the first
floor I found two rooms that had been recently painted, with some carpenter’s
tools lying outside in the hallway. I still don’t know exactly what drove me to
search the whole house. In a kind of reading room shaped like a horseshoe, on
the top floor, under a window looking out over the sea, I found Gasparín wrapped
up in ragged tartan rugs, with a girl apparently asleep beside him. Days later
he confessed to me that when he heard my steps he thought it was the police, and
there was nowhere to run. Behind them, on the wall, above the single,
magnificent window, was the following inscription: CORAJE, CANEJO
(“Courage, damn it”
). The letters,
which had faded over the years, were all capitals, and weirdly shaped, like the
rest of the house, which left me in no doubt as to who had written them.
Benvingut, the Indian. But that was odd, because as far as I knew, Benvingut had
lived, traveled and made his fortune in Cuba, Mexico and the United States,
while the expression was Argentinean or Uruguayan. And it was stranger still to
have painted it in a reading room, where a maxim in Latin or Greek would be more
appropriate, especially since it stared you in the face as soon as you opened
the door. That is, if the room had ever served its ostensible function, which I
was beginning to doubt. In any case, I wasn’t surprised that Gasparín had chosen
to wait in that place for what he supposed was imminent. We didn’t say a word,
just looked at each other, me in the doorway and him on the floor, under the
inscription, with his arm around the sleeping girl. It was a pity to speak and
wake her from what seemed such a calm and happy sleep. What do I remember most
clearly about that moment? Gasparín’s eyes and the blood-stained cheeks of the
girl. When I finally broke the silence, and asked if he knew what was
downstairs, on the rink, he nodded. For a moment I imagined him stabbing the old
woman, but I knew straight away in my heart that he couldn’t have. Then I told
him to get up and go. I can’t leave her, he said. Take her with you. Where?
asked Gasparín with a touch of sarcasm. The campground, I said, wait for me
there. Gasparín nodded. The girl was moving but she seemed to be still asleep.
Try to keep a low profile, I said as they left the palace. I went back to the
ice rink and wiped the prints from the knife with my handkerchief; then I got in
the car and drove back to Z. I had put the old tartan rugs that Gasparín and the
girl had been using in the trunk. I saw them before I reached the town: they
were walking along the highway, with their arms around each other, in something
of a hurry, as if they were worried about the approaching rain. I had never seen
Gasparín with his arm around a girl, although I had known him since he was
nineteen and I was twenty. The highway seemed very broad and the sea much
broader still, and they were like two blind stubborn dwarves. I don’t think they
recognized the car; in fact I think they hardly noticed it. On my way to the
hospital, I got stuck in heavy traffic. When I finally got there, Lola was gone.
I found her in her office, where I told her everything, except for my encounter
with Gasparín and the sleeping girl. For a while we discussed what to do. Lola
seemed distraught. I should never have asked you to help me out, she said. Do
you think the girl with the knife killed her? I don’t think any such girl
exists, I said. Then we rang the police . . .