Zig Zag

JOSE
CARLOS
SOMOZA

ZIG
ZAG

A
NOVEL

Translated
from Spanish by Lisa Dillman
HARPER
An
Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
This
book was originally published in Spanish as
ZigZag
by
Plaza Janes in Spain in 2006 and in hardcover April 2007 by Rayo, an
Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are
not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

HARPER
An
Imprint
of
HarperCollinsPublishers 10 East 53rd Street New York, New York
10022-5299

Copyright
© 2007 by Jose Carlos Somoza Translation copyright © 2007
by Lisa Dillman ISBN 978-0-06-119373-6

All
rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in
any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case
of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For
information address Harper paperbacks, an Imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers.

First
Harper paperback printing: August 2008 First Rayo hardcover printing:
April 2007

HarperCollins®
and Harper® are registered trademarks of HarperCollins
Publishers.

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in the United States of America Visit Harper paperbacks on the World
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If
you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that
this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and
destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the
publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

For
my sons, JOSE and LAZARO
The
sea I sail has never yet been passed.

Dante,
Paradiso, Canto II

PROLOGUE

The
Outskirts of Olleros Andalusia, Spain July 12, 1992 10:50 P.M.

IT
was neither foggy nor dark. The bright sun shone high in the sky. The
world was green and filled with the scent of pines and flowers, with
the sounds of cicadas and bees, and the gentle gurgling of a nearby
stream. Nothing could disturb the idyllic scene, so bright, so
vibrant, he thought. Though without knowing why, the
thought
itself
disturbed him. Maybe he knew that any connection to perfection,
thought or otherwise, could easily be destroyed; that there were
thousands of ways a twist of fate (or something more sinister) could
crush even the highest of spirits. It's not that he was a pessimist,
but he'd reached a certain age, and the experiences he'd accumulated
made him suspicious of anything that seemed so much like paradise.

He
walked along the stream. From time to time, he stopped and looked
around, as if he were soaking up his surroundings, deliberating even,
only to then keep going. Finally, he reached a spot he liked. A few
trees provided just enough shade, and there seemed to be less dust in
the air. The air itself was cool. A little farther on, the path
hugged the rocky banks of the river and came to an end at a stony
hill. Here, he thought, he could count on solitude. It was almost as
if he'd found a sort of refuge, or a shelter. He planned to sit on a
large, flat rock and cast his line, taking pleasure in the wait, the
quiet, the sparkling water. Nothing could be more relaxing. He
crouched down, dropping his fishing rod and small tub of bait onto
the ground.

He
heard the voices when he stood back up.

At
first he was startled, given the calm silence that preceded them.
They were coming from some place on the hill he couldn't quite see,
and judging by their high pitch the voices sounded like they belonged
to children. They were shouting, probably playing some game. He
assumed they lived in one of the nearby mountain houses. Although the
presence of other people irritated him slightly, he tried to convince
himself that children playing in the distance provided the ideal
counterpoint to a perfect day. He took off his baseball cap and wiped
the sweat from his face, smiling. Then, he froze.

It
was no game. Something was wrong.

One
of the kids was screaming, very strangely. The words were
unintelligible, all blurred together in the still air. It was clear
that whoever was shouting was not happy. A child screaming like that
was in serious trouble.

Suddenly
everything—even the birds and insects—went quiet, as if
the world had stopped to take a breath, a pause at the start of some
extraordinary event.

A
moment later there came a very different kind of scream. A shriek
that pierced the clean air, and seemed to shatter the china-blue sky.

As
he stood beside the stream, he realized that this summer Sunday
morning in 1992 was not going to turn out how he'd imagined. Even if
only slightly, he knew that everything had forever changed.

Milan,
Italy March 10, 2015 9:05 A.M.

IT
was
almost unreal, the way that scream kept reverberating for the long
minute after it had stopped. Like embers of sound in Mrs. Portinari's
ears, the scream had shattered her domestic silence. After a very
brief pause, she heard it again, and only then was Mrs. Portinari
able to react. She took off her reading glasses, which were attached
to a tiny pearl chain, and let them hang from her chest.

"What
on earth?" she said aloud. Despite the fact that given the time
(9:05 according to the digital clock on the bookshelf, which had been
a gift from the bank where she deposited her pension checks), the
Ecuadorian cleaning girl had not yet arrived and, thus, she was
alone. Ever since her husband died, four years ago, she talked to
herself all the time. "Good God in Heaven, what the...?"

There
it came again, louder.

Mrs.
Portinari was reminded of a fire in her old apartment building in
downtown Milan, fifteen years ago. She and her husband had almost
lost their lives in it. After he died, she decided to move to an
apartment on Via Giardelli, close to the university. It was smaller,
but quieter, more fitting for a woman her age. She liked living
there. Nothing bad ever happened in that little neighborhood.

Until
that moment.

She
ran to the door as fast as her swollen, arthritic joints would let
her.

"Blessed
Virgin!" she whispered, clutching the object in her hands.
Later, she realized it was the pen she'd used to write out her weekly
grocery list. But for the moment, she held onto it as if it were a
crucifix.

Several
residents of the building were out on the landing. All were looking
up.

"It's
coming from Marini's place," yelled Mr. Genovese, the man from
across the hall. He was a young graphic designer whom Mrs. Portinari
would have been quite fond of were it not for his very flamboyant
manner.

"The
professor!" she heard someone else shout.

The
professor, she thought. What could have happened to that poor man?
And who was shrieking so horrifically? It was definitely a woman.
But, whoever it was, Mrs. Portinari was sure she'd never heard cries
like that before. Not even during that terrible fire.

Then
came the pounding footsteps of someone rushing down the stairs. Fast.
Neither she nor Mr. Genovese immediately reacted. Dumbfounded, they
stood staring at the landing. United in their fear and pallor, they
suddenly seemed the same age. With her heart in her mouth, Mrs.
Portinari steeled herself for whatever she might find: criminal or
victim. Instinctively, she knew that nothing could be worse than
standing there listening to that tortured soul howl. Hearing those
echoes spiral through the air without being able to see who was
making them shook her deeply.

But
when she finally saw the face of the person screaming, she realized,
with absolute certainty, that she'd been very wrong.

There
indeed was something far worse than the sound of those horrible
screams.

PART
ONE

The
Phone Call

Dangers
are no more light, if they once seem light…

SIR
FRANCIS BACON

01

Madrid
March 11, 2015 11:12A.M.

EXACTLY
six
minutes and thirteen seconds before her life took a drastic,
horrifying turn, Elisa Robledo was working at something quite
ordinary. She was teaching an elective on modern theories of physics
to fifteen second-year engineering students. She in no way intuited
what was about to happen. Unlike many students, and even a fair few
professors for whom the setting proved formidable, Elisa felt more at
ease in the classroom than she did in her own home. That was the way
it had been at her old-fashioned high school and in the bare-walled
classrooms of her university, too. Now she worked in the bright,
modern facilities of the School of Engineering at Madrid's Alighieri
University, a luxurious private institution whose classrooms boasted
views from the enormous windows overlooking campus, perfect sound
from their superb acoustics, and the rich aroma of fine wood. Elisa
could have lived there. She unconsciously assumed that nothing bad
could happen to her in a place like that.

She
couldn't have been more wrong, and in just over six minutes she would
realize that.

Elisa
was a brilliant professor who had a certain aura about her. At
universities, certain professors (and the occasional student) are the
stuff of legend: the enigmatic Elisa Robledo had given rise to a
mystery everyone wanted to solve.

In
a way, the birth of
the
Elisa Mystery
was
inevitable. She was young and a loner; she had long, wavy black hair
and the face and body of a model. She was sharp and analytical, and
she had a prodigious talent for abstraction and calculation—
characteristics that were key in the cold world of theoretical
physics, where the principles of science rule all. Theoretical
physicists were not only respected, they were revered—from
Einstein to Stephen Hawking. They fit people's image of what physics
was all about. Though most people found the field abstruse (if not
wholly unintelligible), its champions always made a big splash and
were seen as stereotypical, socially awkward geniuses.