Victor del Arbol - The Sadness of the Samurai: A Novel (17 page)

It’s just an anxiety attack, she told herself.

She faked a smile, and wearing it, she left the restroom and went back to her table to wait.

The door to the café opened. Several customers came in. Their faces shone from the cold. Colonel Recasens came in behind them and took off his coat. His face was serious; he seemed to be in a bad mood. He dropped into the chair, which creaked dangerously, and put on the table his leather wallet and the two newspapers he had brought with him:
El Alcázar
and
ABC
.

“I’m glad to see you again so soon, María,” he said in greeting, not noticing the lawyer’s paleness, as he turned toward the waitress to ask for a coffee with milk and a long shot of cognac. “You’ve had a chance to study the documents we gave you, I assume.”

María nodded without looking up from her cup of coffee.

“That girl, Marta. Is it true that they kidnapped her?”

Recasens leaned his elbows on the table and lowered his tone of voice.

“I’m afraid so. It’s absolutely true. She was Inspector Alcalá’s daughter. She was twelve. A couple of weeks after the kidnapping, the inspector’s wife killed herself in desperation.”

“You speak of the girl in the past tense, as if she were…”

“Dead? We have no proof of that. Her body has never been found. But in all these years we haven’t found a single clue that tells us she’s alive. The only link we have to her is Ramoneda, your former client. And after he murdered his wife and her lover, he disappeared without a trace.”

“Do you think it was him, Ramoneda, who kidnapped the girl?”

Recasens was silent. He crossed his hands on the table and stared at María.

“No. Ramoneda was only the messenger, a second-rate hired killer who worked for someone else.” The colonel opened the first page of
El Alcázar
and pointed with his index finger to the photograph of Congressman Publio.

María looked at the photograph with dismay. Publio seemed like a good person. He was extremely calm, his smile was kind, and his appearance impeccable.

“He doesn’t look capable of doing anything bad,” she murmured.

Recasens nodded. Publio was the perfect grandfather, the husband that every woman wanted to have, the politician everyone could trust. In his billfold he carried a photograph of his wife, his two daughters, and his grandchildren that he proudly showed whenever he got the chance. And yet a large percentage of the receipts that he gave the party for reimbursement were from high-class brothels such as the Regàs, the Casita Blanca, or the gentlemen’s clubs on Valencia Street, as well as dinners in the most expensive restaurants in the city, where he always asked for a table for two. His companions, a different one on each occasion, were male, handsome, young, well built, distinguished, homosexual, and with very, very expensive tastes.

Everyone looked the other way. Publio had contact in the upper echelons of the government, with military men, the church, and the bank. With such credentials it was difficult to refuse him anything.

“He’s known for his tendency to turn any meeting in a café into a conspiracy, but skillful and vague enough to avoid being directly accused of being in favor of a coup, although he is the persistent voice that sows disaster among the army’s cells and gossip circles. Publio is an intelligent man. He never gets his hands dirty.”

“But if you know he’s behind the kidnapping of the inspector’s daughter, why don’t you arrest him?”

“It’s not so simple. There’s no evidence that directly incriminates him. And without evidence no judge would touch him. Publio is one of the most powerful men in this country. He is well protected.” Recasens paused significantly. He inhaled and let his words out slowly, aware of their weight. “But there is a person who has enough information to topple him: César Alcalá. The inspector has been investigating him for years. And we believe that he has hidden somewhere the proof that would incriminate the congressman.”

María was beginning to understand.

“Then he’s the one you should talk to, not me.”

“César Alcalá won’t speak to us. If you read the report, you’ll know why. I can’t blame him for not trusting anyone. He was investigating one of the shadiest men in this young democracy, and when he thought he could trap him, they kidnapped his daughter. Nobody helped him look for her, nobody lifted a finger, in spite of him tirelessly repeating that it was Publio who was behind the kidnapping. Instead of help, César Alcalá is in prison, his daughter nowhere to be found, and Ramoneda, the only man who could give us any clue as to her whereabouts, is a fugitive from justice.”

María had read the report. But she didn’t understand why the inspector still insisted on keeping his mouth shut, when his daughter was missing.

“Why doesn’t he tell what he knows about Publio? At least he could get his revenge on him.”

“Marta. She’s a guarantee of silence. They’ve convinced the inspector that they have the girl and they’ll kill her if he talks.”

“But you said there is no evidence that she’s still alive. Is it true? Is she alive?”

“The important thing is that the inspector believes she is.”

“But is it true or not?”

Recasens was pensive for a long moment.

“We don’t know.”

María drank a sip of coffee and lit a cigarette. She needed to think and buy some time to figure out her thoughts.

“And what exactly do you expect from me, Colonel?”

“I’m convinced that César Alcalá will want to talk to you, María.”

María showed her skepticism. If César Alcalá had reasons to hate anyone, it was her.

“I got them to lock him up in jail, and from what I hear things aren’t going too well for him in there.”

Recasens smoked with his eyes half closed. Every once in a while he let the ash fall into the cup. The ash floated for a second on the remains of the coffee and then became a sticky mass. He didn’t say anything for a little while. He just looked out at the street, his elbows resting on the table. Finally, he released a violent mouthful of smoke through his nose and mouth. He stubbed out the butt on the saucer and looked at María with a focus that alarmed her.

He pulled a small envelope out of his leather briefcase and passed it to María over the table.

“You and Inspector Alcalá have more in common than you think, María.”

María opened the envelope. Inside there was a sepia-colored photograph. It was a portrait of a lovely young woman. Her face was only half revealed, the other part covered by a wide picture hat that fell over her right eye. She was smoking like a movie actress, the cigarette’s filter held elegantly beside her slightly parted lips. She had a strange gaze, like the door to a half-open cage, like a seductive trap.

“Who is this?”

“Her name was Isabel Mola. Do you remember when I asked you if you’d ever heard that name? You said you hadn’t. Maybe her face will refresh your memory.”

María furrowed her brow. She had never seen that woman before, and the name meant nothing to her.

“What does she have to do with me or with César Alcalá?”

Recasens looked into his coffee, hiding in the black well of the cup and in the bubbles of frothy milk. He could feel a tide of words emerging from inside him. He tried to hold them back. He lifted his head slowly and smiled enigmatically.

“Why don’t you ask the inspector yourself?” He got up slowly from the chair and put on his coat. “Let me get this one,” he said, leaving a hundred-peseta bill on the table.

“He won’t even agree to see me.”

Recasens shrugged his shoulders.

“Try it, at least. Ask him about Isabel. That will be the starting point. Give him hope, tell him we are doing all we can to find his daughter.”

María felt nauseous again, but her stomach was empty. She leaned forward a bit over her stomach, and her gaze landed on the wrinkled, brown hundred-peseta bill on the table. Through the window her reflection blurred and blended in with the gray tones of the passersby who went up and down the narrow street, tightly wrapped in scarves and covered with big black umbrellas that the rain slid off of.

“Will you do it, María? Will you go visit the inspector in prison?”

“Yes … I’ll do it,” she murmured. The words came out weakly, almost against her will.

All of a sudden, she felt she had to get out of there as fast as she could.

*   *   *

Two days later, María went to the Modelo prison.

On the administrative level the atmosphere was peaceful. It didn’t seem like a prison, just like any old accountant’s office. Both sides of the hallways were lined with fat files tied with red ribbon, encyclopedic volumes of certificates and registries of all kinds. When someone took a piece of paper off the crowded shelves, hundreds of dust particles were raised that remained floating in the air for a second, run through by the light from a desk lamp.

A public servant brought her the forms she had to fill out in order to visit César Alcalá. He had her sit between two file cabinets. The public servant left, dragging his feet, the pale tone of the papers he touched engraved on his skin. María watched him and thought that, in the end, we are what we do.

With the authorization completed, she headed toward the large iron door that led to the prison area. In the sentry box that granted access into the unit she was greeted very stiffly by a guard, who softened with difficulty when María showed her lawyer’s credential.

“Who do you want to visit?” the guard asked her, somewhat ruffled.

María said the name César Alcalá. His face turned to granite. He looked her up and down as if he hadn’t seen her before and
ordered
her to wait.

Two female guards came to get her. They forced her to go through an exhaustive search. They went through her purse, made her empty her pockets, take off her belt and her bra.

“My bra?” asked María, confused.

“That’s the rule. If you want to get in, hand over your bra.”

María found this abusive and intolerable, but neither one of the two guards was intimidated by her threats.

“It’s for your own safety,” one of them said, storing María’s belongings in a plastic bag.

“Well, that makes me feel a lot better, thanks,” she answered with a sarcasm that neither woman seemed to catch.

They made her go into a waiting room with long wooden benches. In one corner two young women were chatting animatedly. They were gypsies, almost still girls. They were plastered in makeup and wore very tight clothes and high heels. From the other side of the room you could smell the cheap perfume they wore. They both looked at María.

“What, you’re here to give your guy some relief too?” said one of them, miming sucking a penis. The two gypsy girls laughed in a way that set María’s nerves on edge. Then they forgot about her and went back to their chitchat. After a few minutes one of them was called over the public address system.

When they were left alone, the other gypsy girl looked at María with a mix of pity and kindness.

“Is this your first
conjugal visit
?” Once a month the prisoners who were
well behaved
, the gypsy stressed that sarcastically, have an hour of private time with their girlfriends or wives.

“Yes, although that’s not exactly why I’m here.”

The gypsy girl laughed. “You don’t have to be embarrassed here. We all came for the same reason. Relax. It’s not that bad. The bed is clean, and there’s a shower with hot water. The problem is, whether you’re in the mood or not, you have to put out. The poor guys really need it bad, and nobody wants to spoil their party. It sucks because I’m on the rag, but I’ll do what I can.” She laughed with a sad brutality. From beneath her cheap whore appearance and the grotesque makeup, showed the shyness of a poor girl who was giving herself to her partner without privacy, without any preambles or romance. She used put-on bravado to tolerate the crude comments from the guards and the dirty looks from the other inmates when she went through the gate.

The gypsy girl heard her name called over the PA system. She got up and sighed like someone going to war, but she pulled herself together quickly. She winked at María and left, swinging her ass.

María was alone for quite a while. She had barely thought about what she was going to say to César Alcalá if he agreed to see her. After ten minutes she heard a crackling on the speaker and a female voice: “Bengoechea, María: visiting room number six.”

She went into a room with bare walls and a bed with sheets folded beside the headboard. There were a table and two chairs in front of a window that overlooked nothing. A common painting of a fruit bowl was the only note of color in the room. On the ceiling buzzed an annoying fluorescent light. To the right there was a built-in shower and a couple of little soaps piled up on a bath towel. The outer door was metal and had a sliding little door so the guards could look in. Above it was a large round clock that marked each passing second.

María wondered how anyone could get aroused in that setting. It smelled of industrial disinfectant. She had never been in a place like that. It was all cold and aseptic. Silent. Miserable in spite of the apparent cleanliness. Sad. Devoid of any emotion or sentiment.

She was nervous, and her hands were sweating. Her cigarettes had been taken away at the entrance. And her headache pills. She felt a slight buzzing in her right ear, like the flitting of a fly trapped in some part of her brain. She was starting to feel bad. She wanted to get out. She was suffocating.

Just then she heard the clack of the door lock, and it opened wide, letting in a man whose nerves tensed like cables when he recognized her.

*   *   *

César Alcalá arched his eyebrows. He examined her carefully for a few seconds. His eyes went from one side to the other, and his expression softened incomprehensibly. So this was the visitor he was waiting for. That asshole Publio was full of surprises.

María looked at the inspector’s cuffed hands.

“Can’t you take the handcuffs off?” she asked the guard who was in charge of watching over César Alcalá.