Victor del Arbol - The Sadness of the Samurai: A Novel (48 page)

There was a tense silence. María contemplated the house and Fernando with a question in her eyes.

“This might all come off badly,” she said.

“It will work out,” Alcalá reassured her, with a different determination.

María breathed deeply. She almost seemed relieved, as if a terrible uncertainty had been lifted from her.

“Okay, then. Let’s go.”

They got out of the car. César let out a groan of pain and brought his hand to his stomach. María had helped him to bandage the open wound, but it kept bleeding. Sooner or later he would have to go to a hospital. But that meant they would have him in custody again, and he was unwilling to allow that.

They walked slowly toward the house. Fernando turned toward them and waited, scrutinizing their faces. When the three were face-to-face, they observed each other suspiciously. In one hand Fernando carried the katana. In the other, María held the bag with the evidence incriminating Publio of several crimes committed in the last ten years.

Fernando paid special attention to César Alcalá.

“You don’t recognize me?”

César nodded without enthusiasm. He barely remembered having seen the elder Mola son a couple of times as a child. His father was Andrés’s tutor, and Fernando was almost ten years older than his brother. Fernando was barely ever in the Almendralejo estate when César accompanied his father to classes at Guillermo’s house. Yet in his changed, aged face César could make out traces of the arrogance and complacency of those people always used to giving orders and being obeyed without a word. Luckily, times had changed. César was no longer the frightened son of a rural teacher who earned a paltry wage for educating the master’s younger son, and it didn’t look like things had gone too well for Fernando over the years.

“What do you know about my daughter?” he asked in a threatening and impatient tone.

Fernando looked at the sheathed katana and then addressed María.

“You haven’t told him?”

María knew what he was referring to. Perhaps she had held on to the hope that the old man had decided to move on. But she understood that it was too much to expect. It was stupid to believe that after so many years waiting, Fernando would relinquish the pleasure of revenge.

“I haven’t told him anything.”

Fernando nodded, calibrating the situation. There was something about María that made him feel guilty and dirty, as if she reflected back his mean, twisted side. What could it matter now that César knew that it was her father who had killed Isabel? The important thing was that he already knew that Marcelo was innocent. Recasens had taken care of that.

“What is it I need to know?” asked César. But neither María nor Fernando answered him. The old man and the woman looked at each other with the look of those in possession of a truth that they tacitly decide will never be revealed.

“Is that the documentation against Publio that you’ve gathered all those years? It must be very important for the congressman to be willing to kill us all.”

“It is,” said María, holding out the bag to him. “I’ve reviewed the file. There are tape recordings, sworn declarations, material evidence of at least four murders, a fraud case, several corruption cases, and conclusive evidence that Publio was implicated in the coup attempt of ’78, and that he’s involved in the one that will happen soon if no one does anything to stop it.”

Fernando was satisfied. But to María’s and César’s surprise he didn’t take the bag; instead he had her drop it on the ground.

“Listen, María: I want you to take this tomorrow morning to Inspector Marchán. I know you don’t trust him, but I’ve checked him out. Tell him to give it to Judge Gonzalo Andrés, of the First Military Court. He is a friend of mine, and he was a friend of Pedro Recasens. He’s up to speed on all of this, and he’s the only one willing to immediately open an investigation. If necessary, he will even ask for a letter rogatory from the Supreme Court to arrest the congressman.”

Then Fernando turned toward César Alcalá. His face was severe and inscrutable, almost stone, like that of an aristocrat about to give instructions to a serf to empty his chamber pot. Yet Fernando’s lip trembled for a second, filled with emotion, and his pupils shone. How much unnecessary pain had that family suffered, he thought. Luckily, the shadows of the night veiled his emotions, only revealing a dry command that allowed for no hesitation.

“You, Inspector, will wait here while the lawyer and I go into the house.”

César protested angrily, but Fernando waited patiently for him to stop recriminating him. He repeated the same order without getting upset.

“Under no condition are you to enter that house. Wait here if you want to see your daughter again. This is not negotiable.”

César Alcalá clenched his fists in rage. That old man knew where his daughter was; he said he knew. Was Marta in that ghostly house? And he expected him, when his daughter was in reach, to wait impassively for Fernando and María to bring her to him? But María touched his arm and took him to one side, making him see reason. Fernando was the one holding all the cards, and while they were seeing where this whole thing led, the best thing was to follow his orders. Still, they agreed that if she and Fernando hadn’t come back out in twenty minutes, he should come in to find them.

Fernando accepted, although in his heart of hearts he knew that it wasn’t necessary. He wasn’t going to allow that desperate father to find his daughter in Andrés’s clutches. God only knew what state the girl would be in, if she were still alive, and he didn’t plan on letting that cop take revenge on his brother.

The old man and María pushed the gate until the rusty door gave. César Alcalá closed his eyes tightly as they disappeared into the shadows of the yard.

*   *   *

A lit candle stub swayed on a corner of a low table, in front of which Andrés Mola was on his knees, with his hands relaxed on his thighs and his eyes closed, his back completely straight. The candlelight came and went like a wave, tracing the dry edges of his body. The rest of the room was dark, isolated from the world, from noise, from life.

He heard the sound of hinges. He went over to the window from which he could see the yard and looked through the planks that covered it. Beside the sycamore path there were two cars with their lights off. Someone was pacing around like a caged animal and suddenly stopped and looked right at that very window, as if he knew someone was spying on him.

“Guards!” he shouted, running toward the dark hallway of the house. Supposedly, Publio’s men were there to protect him, ready to take care of any intruder who came near to snoop. But there was nobody anywhere in the house. He ran through the rooms calling them; he went up to the third floor and down to the basement. They had abandoned him. He heard noise in the boiler room. Someone was tearing off the wooden planks that locked him in. He heard voices, more than one. He even thought he could make out a woman’s voice. And the man’s was vaguely familiar.

He ran upstairs to his bedroom. He searched through the boxes where he kept his most precious belongings until he found what he was looking for. He smiled with satisfaction, hid the object in his kimono, and stood up, moving his head from right to left, overcome with growing excitement. Finally, the day he had been waiting for had arrived. He no longer had to hide. If his enemies had found him, it was the moment to face them with honor.

But first there was one thing left to do. He went to the room next door. He pushed open the door and planted himself in the threshold. Seeing him, Marta withdrew into a corner like a shadow.

“Get up,” Andrés ordered.

Marta lifted her eyes with a question hanging in her pupils. Something moved for a moment inside Andrés, who shifted his gaze toward the covered window. The night was cold and clear. The wind howled as it slipped through the slots between the wood.

“Are you going to kill me?” the girl stuttered.

Andrés didn’t answer. He lifted her violently by the shoulders. The girl’s body was light. She was filthy and bloodied and gave off a bad smell. He opened the ring that attached her to the wall, and the chain fell heavily against the floor. Marta was so weak and scared that she staggered, and he had to hold her up so she wouldn’t lose her balance. He stripped her of the rag that her nightgown had become.

“What’s all this about?” asked the girl.

Andrés looked daggers at her. Maybe Marta knew that he had been a monster. She didn’t understand that a person without respect was like a house in ruins. It has to be torn down to be rebuilt. He had no reason to be cruel; he didn’t need to gratuitously show his strength. He had kept her alive all those years, he had fed her, hoping for a gesture on her part, a sign that would allow him to be less strict and more compassionate with her, but Marta hadn’t shown any remorse for her grandfather’s crime; in fact, she had profaned the memory of his mother, vomiting the day he let her into his sanctuary. He didn’t expect to get her respect for his strength or fierceness, but for his way of treating her. But Marta had dishonored him. And no one, except him, was a competent judge to impose the sentence that the inspector’s daughter deserved. A man is the reflection of the decisions he makes and the determination with which he carries them out. When he decided to do something, it was as if it was already done. That night nothing was going to keep Marta Alcalá’s head from rolling at his feet.

He pulled out the object he had gone to his bedroom to find. It was a ceremonial knife with a carved ivory handle and a double-edged curved blade almost eight inches long. He took the naked girl by the wrist and dragged her forward. He wanted his enemies to watch the ritual, unable to stop it.

“Get on your knees,” he ordered.

Marta obeyed. Andrés waited calmly. Time was no longer a necessity. Nor was desire. He no longer experienced the bite of flesh as he looked at her grimy thighs, the matt of her pubic hair, and the tremble of her nipples in contact with the knife blade. The desire he had once felt had disappeared. He felt the calm of a frozen desert beneath a starry night sky.

Marta didn’t resist him. Not anymore. She was paralyzed by fear. She decided to remain lying facedown, with her eyes closed and her hands balled into fists, waiting for the sharp blow that would take her life. She felt Andrés’s hand grab her by the scalp and lift her head, revealing her neck.

“Don’t do it,” said someone behind them. A deep, serious voice, which for a moment Marta believed had come from the dead mouth of the very house itself. But it wasn’t a dead man’s voice that spoke; it was a living man who came into the room followed by a woman horrified at what she saw.

Andrés remained very still. He blinked, dropping Marta’s head. She crawled over to the newcomers.

“Don’t do it,” repeated the man without taking his eyes off Andrés, but addressing Marta.

After the first moment of confusion, Andrés recovered. He brandished the knifepoint forward, like a threatening finger.

“Who are you, a ghost?”

“I’m Fernando … your brother.” As he came forward, he leaned slowly toward Marta, without taking his gaze off Andrés. “We are alone, you and I,” he said, as he lifted Marta up by the shoulders and shielded her with his body.

“Don’t touch her!” shouted Andrés. “She’s mine.”

Fernando didn’t move. He pushed Marta back into the arms of María, who remained by the door.

“Get her out of here,” he said to the lawyer, his eyes glued on his brother, who was tense like the string of a bow, about to let loose a fatal blow with his knife.

“I’ll kill you all!” shouted Andrés, disconcerted.

“That won’t heal your wounds. Look at me, it’s me. It’s really me. And I’ve come to find you,” said Fernando in a conciliatory tone, advancing slowly toward Andrés. “Lower the knife. You aren’t going to hurt me. It’s me, your brother. Come with me; we’ll go far from here. We’ll start fresh somewhere.”

Andrés lowered his gaze, but not his knife, which trembled indecisively in the air. He was confused, he didn’t know what to do; thousands of voices, all contradictory, shouted at him at once; they pulled on him as if his extremities were tied to horses that each ran in a different direction, tearing him apart.

As she held Marta, María was moved by her extreme thinness and the expression of suffering in her eyes, which were sunken into dark circles like wells.

“Let’s get out of here,” she murmured. But Marta didn’t move. She was like a stone statue stuck to the floor, staring at Andrés.

Fernando turned his head toward them.

“Get her out of here now, María.”

“No!” shouted Andrés suddenly. His hands, overcome by desire, clung to the handle of the knife. He lunged forward with a desperate scream. But even before he took a breath, everything was suspended in a turgid, lovely, mauve color. The sound of a blade cutting through the air, like a guillotine, was heard and the dull impact against a neck.

It all happened so fast that those present couldn’t take in the moment. Slowly, the blood started to spurt from the open wound that was widening by the second. Andrés’s gaze darkened like an eclipse, and his body collapsed to one side.

For a moment no one said anything; there were no screams, crying, or moans. Fernando was absorbed in his own thoughts, looking at his brother’s body convulsing on the floor. His hands grew weak, releasing the katana that had just slit Andrés’s throat, and he fell to his knees in front of him. María flattened herself against the wall, protecting Marta with her arms, unable to move or to take her eyes off Andrés’s body.

Fernando’s shoulders began to tremble as a sob came like a wave, hitting him, and headed out with a murmur only to return more virulently, until it became a fierce, desperate, animal scream.

Slowly his eyes, consumed by tears that looked like blood, turned to rest on the two women.

“Go. Leave us alone.”

María dragged the girl out. It was difficult to tear her away from Andrés’s hypnotic gaze; his eyes rolled back in his head, like a plaster demon. Free of the chains and prisons, she hesitated like a bird who one day finds the doors to its cage open. María covered Marta with her coat and forced the girl down the stairs. From the floor below they saw Fernando close the door, locking himself in with his brother’s corpse.