Mariscal bends down, looks at the ground. He’s searching in his memory, and his voice becomes more grave.
‘The truth is, it had never occurred to me to enter the Prado, but the meeting was there. Something to do with Italians, I thought. But what a piece of luck, Sira, what a marvel. Museums are the best places in the world. Better than natural landscapes. Better than the Grand Canyon or Everest, I’m telling you. Always at the same temperature. The climate is ideal.’
Something is happening on the other side of the bed. Sira’s gaze is now that of someone trying to stem her tears.
‘It’s because of the paintings. The temperature has to be… constant. Paintings are very delicate, you know. More than people. We cope with hot and cold much better than paintings. Funny, isn’t it? A scene with snow cannot withstand the cold as well as we can. We’re the strangest thing in the universe, Sira. Remember those people who used to go fishing for cod in Newfoundland? They’d stick breadcrumbs between their fingers so their skin wouldn’t fall off. And on their genitals. They say nothing burns like the cold. That must be true! That girl whose mouth was dry and she stuck her tongue on a block of ice, remember? She couldn’t get it off, had to call for help… Who’d have believed it?’
He opens the drawer of the bedside table and rummages around. There’s plenty to rummage through. His postcards, perhaps?
Basilio Barbeito spent his final days here. So he’d be more comfortable. His presence has had a lasting effect on the room. This is something Mariscal and Sira share without mentioning it. From his time in the room, he left a shelf of handwritten notebooks as an inheritance. All from the same factory, Miquelrius. All the entries for his poor, infinite dictionary are there, in alphabetical order. Write, he wrote everywhere.
Mariscal sits down again on the bed. Leans over towards the woman. Strokes, gently tugs her hair. Lame was in the habit of putting everything to good use. His pockets were always full of words. He wrote on envelopes, on the back of cinema programmes, on bus tickets, scraps of brown paper from the shop, on the palms of his hands, like a child. He didn’t leave his hands behind, of course, just the sensation of written skin. Everything full of scraps of paper. The drawer overflowing with word worms.
‘Call me names, Sira. That encourages an old man like me. Pimp, mangy dog, rogue, crook, swindler, lech, toothless, serpent, bastard, Beelzebub, whoreson, entrepreneur, son of the four letters, beast… archaic! Out of date. No, out of date, no. Archaic’s a good one. And beast is even better.’
Mariscal falls silent. Curls Sira’s hair in his fingers. An electrifying pleasure for him. Like the first day Guadalupe cut his hair, the way she swept over his temples. Shame about the hairdresser. Some people are like that, they never settle down, are never content. They still sleep together. He occasionally mounts her. But she’s not on fire. She doesn’t burn. Like a fridge. That’s what I say. Memory is a discomfort, that’s right, time decays, all those words in the drawer, when suddenly the door opens.
Quique Rumbo. With agitated breathing. The wind has finally found a way in. Sira and Mariscal turn their heads towards him, but otherwise remain still where they are. To begin with, Rumbo takes aim at Sira, but then he hesitates, swings the weapon around until he has Mariscal in his sights.
Finally he turns the gun against himself. Presses it against his chin. And fires.
Reverberates.
Everything’s gone. The wind towards the landing.
Trickles of blood run down the veins of the acanthus leaves on the wallpaper. Drops fall from the ceiling. Mariscal stretches out his hand. Where the hell are these drops coming from? From the ceiling, right. He hadn’t thought about that. The way dripping blood is silent.
‘Don’t cry, Sira. I’ll take care of everything. He died because he wanted to!’
Per se.
30
‘TWO CELTIC KINGS, let’s say, are playing chess on top of a hill while their troops are out fighting. The battle ends, but the kings carry on playing. This is an image I like a lot. You’re a king, Brancana. On top of the hill. Let the pawns do the fighting!’
They were in Delmiro Oliveira’s office, an artificial tower with its own terrace, from which the guests could enjoy a broad panorama of the Miño estuary with its islets. It was a good distance from the voices of the partygoers occupying the garden and rooms of the house in Quinta da Velha Saudade, only partly visible from the river, protected by high walls and screens of vegetation, mostly bougainvilleas in flower.
It was the host’s seventy-fifth birthday, though this was an excuse. He was happy at home and it seemed ridiculous to celebrate the falling of leaves. But he’d received a call, he didn’t let on about this, and made the most of the occasion. Around his desk, apart from Mariscal and Macro Gamboa, the silent Galician partner with him, were the lawyer Óscar Mendoza, the Italian Tonino Montiglio, and Fabio, known to his friends as the Elephant, a Colombian who lived in Madrid, but who’d recently spent a period in Galicia. His nickname was a result of the enthusiasm he’d shown for a cheerful establishment in Lisbon, O Elefante Branco.
They would soon head down to the banquet, where there would be toasts for the future. But now they were concerned with the present. Mariscal understood that the present had largely to do with him. He’d been welcomed with encouraging hugs, following the death of Rumbo in the Ultramar. ‘A misfortune. A breakdown, Mariscal. People break down.’ He’d remained silent. This mechanical diagnosis didn’t give him much comfort. One breakdown leads to another, etc., etc. He was too old to think about committing suicide. Besides, he didn’t have the guts to shit so high. Or so he thought to begin with. What to do? Ite, Missa est.
‘You’ll always have Mendoza to apply a bandage rather than a wound,’ his host continued. ‘To avoid further misfortunes. There’s nothing worse for a firm than hatred between factions. The firm looks after everybody. Factions plunder on their own.’
‘That’s true,’ said Mendoza. ‘The merit of my profession consists not in winning lawsuits, as people think, but in avoiding them. It’s a question of seeking out allies, not enemies.’
‘And how’s the new captain of the fleet?’ asked Fabio.
‘He has courage… and ambition.’
Delmiro Oliveira seemed to come to at this point, with that capacity he had for walking between the audible and the inaudible, and made his own connection between the two nouns, ‘Courage and ambition? Misfortunes never come singly.’
All his jokes, uttered in a serious tone, like those of good comedians, had their meaning. Were acts in themselves. So Mariscal laughed along with the others until the laughter died down.
‘That’s right. He has courage. Too much perhaps. The wolf will have to learn how to be a fox, isn’t that so, Mendoza? On Galician coats of arms there are plenty of wolves and not enough foxes. Then it turned out there were too many foxes and not enough wolves. Or vice versa.’
‘I think he’s inherited the best of both animals,’ declared Mendoza. ‘He possesses an innate talent that will go hand in hand with his ambition.’
‘Before coming here, I managed to talk to Palindrome,’ said Fabio mysteriously. ‘Do you know what he said, Mariscal? He said, “Mariscal is like Napoleon.”’
‘Napoleon?’
‘That’s what he said. But he added something that impressed me. First of all, “Power needs shade.” And then, “There’s no shade better than power.” I think the same, Mariscal.’