‘Again, Santi!’
The wind fingered the new hole. Took it calmly. The sign finally succumbed to its fate.
‘See? Your lazy eye’s working already.’
Standing up, Chelín kissed his weapon and put it away. Looked around. Ruffled the child’s hair. Smiled. Turned towards the sea and unzipped his trousers.
‘Come on, champ! With style. Legs apart. Looking ahead, but keeping an eye on the dicky bird. Never into the wind. The birdie has to ride out the storm.’
Chelín laughed as he watched the rigorous, disciplined way in which the boy copied his movements. He then stood upright, looking martial, eyes to the front, to give the solemn message:
‘And this is the first thing a man should know. How not to get piss on his trousers!’
‘I’m fed up of counting boats,’ said Leda.
They were still together, next to the window. In the urban dusk it was the eyes that switched on the lights in a succession of candles. Unlike other cities, Atlántica grew at night. Next to the docks and in the estuary, the small lights on the cranes, showing the position of vessels, green and red, implied the hybrid awakening of animal and machine, the movements of a remarkable somnambulist.
Leda moved away from Brinco. Took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘Fed up of everything!’
The woman returning to the frame of the window underlined her exclamation by blowing out smoke. She added with a hint of scorn, ‘Fed up of this sofa, most of all! You end up feeling like your whole body is imitation leather.’
‘Soon you’ll live in a palace,’ affirmed Brinco. They’d had this conversation before, but this time he had an air of determination.
‘Oh yes? What palace?’
‘Your own! I’ll take care of that. Don’t you worry! With a large pool. So you can swim on your own like a mermaid.’
‘Better give it an outlet to the sea. Mermaids prefer the sea.’
‘I’m being serious. You won’t have to keep a lookout any more.’
‘So how you going to do that?’
‘If I were Mariscal, I’d have paid off the customs chief by now.’
‘Then what are you waiting for?’
29
IT’S A BEAUTIFUL spring day on the coast. Sunny, but windy as well. The east wind not only ruffles the sea, but for the first time after the long winter seems to want to distance it from the earth with gusts that whirl about its surface. It gathers up all the greens, pulling them in different directions. But this wind encourages the light, a succession of flashes, which perhaps lessens resistance and promotes sympathy.
We can see all of this with the help of Sira.
We can see it through the window in the Ultramar’s master bedroom. The largest, the one with the best views. The one known as La Suite. She is sitting on one side of the bed. Dressed. As she watches, she loosens her hair, which was tied up in a bun. The thing with windows that have the best view is they pique the curiosity of what they’re looking at. Here they come. To see Sira.
As her hair unfolds and falls, she appears hieratic, expressionless, but everything on the outside, starting with the wind and the restless light, is in the eyes. Sira watches a car on the coastal road moving slowly, as if wanting to linger over the potholes. It’s Mariscal’s white Mercedes. It passes in front of a clothes line where the yellow shirts and black shorts and socks of the Noitía football team are hanging out to dry like flashing pennants.
On the ground floor, in the bar of the Ultramar, closed at this hour of the afternoon, Rumbo is using a white cloth to wipe a glass. From time to time the wind can be heard whistling and an old iron sign creaking. The barman’s wearing spectacles. The way he’s polishing the glass even the most casual observer would describe as obsessive. He lifts it to the light, stares at it, as if seeking a sporadic stain that hides and then reappears.
Rumbo’s intensive work is interrupted by Mariscal knocking at the door. Rumbo can see his face on the other side, behind the thin curtain with lace edges. He’s dressed like an emigrant in a white linen suit, a red bow tie and a thin straw hat. His cane is hanging off his arm by the handle.
Rumbo takes one last look at the glass and places it upside down on the counter, on top of a white cloth, next to the other polished glasses.
He makes his way to the door. He’s wearing a white apron. Before he opens up, the two men exchange looks through the gap in the curtain. The barman seems to hesitate, looks down at the lock, but carries on anyway, takes the key from his pocket and quickly opens the door.
Mariscal’s cough could be understood as a greeting. Quique Rumbo turns around and goes to switch on the television. He presses the button with the end of a broom handle. A meteorological map appears on the screen, complete with isobars.
Mariscal glances at Rumbo, Rumbo’s back, the television in the background, and starts to climb the stairs.
‘They haven’t a fucking clue,’ he says. ‘Here they never get it right. We’re terra incognita for them! Tomorrow’s the first of April, there’ll be drum rolls in the sky…’
Rumbo keeps his position. Doesn’t comment. Meanwhile Mariscal continues with his forecast in a monotone, as if trying to disguise the percussion of his feet on the wooden steps. ‘… and the first spiders will start to weave their webs.’
He moves slowly through the chiaroscuro of the landing. There are lamps on the walls now with green shades, and a series of small pictures showing English country scenes, horsemen chasing after foxes. A job lot. All of which gives the impression of a colonial setting, provisional screens, that fluttering of the curtains as they’re lifted by the wind. A tunnel of flags, he thinks. Don’t they ever shut the blasted windows? He stops at the door to the suite, at the far end of the landing. Hangs his cane from the wrist of his left hand and slowly removes the white gloves. It’s the first time we see his bare hands with the old burn scars on the back. His right hand hovers in the air for a moment. Eventually he knocks gently. Takes a handkerchief from his pocket to hold the handle and open the door.
Sira doesn’t move when Mariscal comes in. She still has her gaze on the seascape outside the window. Mariscal looks at her and then follows her gaze. Without saying a word, he goes to the other side of the bed. Sits down, wipes his brow with his handkerchief, that tic he has, and carelessly stuffs it into his breast pocket.
‘There’ll be a storm tomorrow.’
On the wall, on wallpaper decorated with acanthus leaves, is a souvenir picture showing a wooden bridge in Lucerne covered in flowers, with the Alps in the background. Mariscal stares at it, as if he’s only just discovered it’s there, this photograph of flowers and snow.
‘We should go somewhere together. At some point.’
Sira doesn’t reply. She carries on gazing at the seascape outside the window. The wind is there, beating with a world of things on its back. Mariscal stands up. Goes to wash his hands in a bowl on top of the chest of drawers. Before doing so, he takes a couple of sachets from his pocket and pours the contents into the water. As the grains mix with the water they produce a kind of bubbling, and that is when Mariscal places his hands inside the bowl. In the meantime:
‘There are places that are a wonder, Sira. You always wanted to go to Lisbon, I know. All your life singing fados, and we never went to Lisbon. “In the Madragoa district, in Lisbon’s window, Rosa Maria was born…” We have to go to the Alfama during the feast of St Anthony, Sira! We never even went to Madrid! I could take you to a good hotel. The Palace, the Ritz. To the Opera. The Prado Museum. Yes, the museum…’
In the bar on the ground floor, Quique Rumbo stares at himself in one of the vertical mirrors that flank the central shelf of bottles. In the mirror frame is a cover plate concealing a lock. Rumbo takes a key from his pocket and slowly unlocks the mirror door. Inside is a weapon. A double-barrelled shotgun. And a pack of cartridges. Rumbo takes two cartridges and loads the weapon.