‘Then Tere got to the point. She told me they wanted me to defend Zarco at a trial to be held in Barcelona in a few months’ time, a trial in which Zarco would be accused of assaulting two guards at the Brians prison. Of course, Tere took it for granted that I knew, as everyone did, who Zarco had turned into over the years, so she skipped straight to putting me in the picture and backing up her proposal drawing an exultant panorama of Zarco’s situation: she told me that three years earlier they’d managed to get him back to a Catalan prison, specifically the Quatre Camins, and that, after three years of good behaviour and the Catalan government’s new director-general of prisons, Señor Pere Prada, taking an interest in his case, he had just been transferred to the Gerona prison, a perfect prison because María also lived in the city and because it was a small, secure prison with a high rate of rehabilitation; she also explained that Zarco was innocent of the offence with which he’d been charged, handed me a copy of the indictment and his prison record in a cardboard file folder, assured me that his physical condition and his morale were excellent, that he’d stopped using heroin, that he was very keen to get out of prison and that she and María were doing everything they could to get him out as soon as possible. Up till that moment Tere spoke without looking at me, setting out the case as if she had set it out before, or as if she were reciting it; for my part I listened to her while feigning to read through the documents she’d handed me and looking back and forth from her to María. Right, Tere concluded, and we finally looked at each other. We know you have a lot of work, but if you could give us a hand we’d be grateful.
‘She fell silent. I sighed. Tere had beat me to the proposal I was planning to put to Zarco the next day; so, in theory, it was all very easy: both sides wanted the same thing. But instinct told me it wasn’t in my interest to let my visitors know, that what suited me would be to offer a little resistance before accepting, to earn their gratitude letting them think I was making a sacrifice accepting Zarco’s defence, that I was only accepting reluctantly and in any case they should consider it a privilege that I might want to be their lawyer. I put the folder with the indictment in it down on the coffee table and began by asking: Does Zarco know about this? I was about to explain what I meant when María intervened. We would prefer you not call him Zarco, she reproached me in a timid voice with a pained expression on her face. His name is Antonio. He doesn’t like to be called that; and we don’t like it either. Zarco was another person: none of us want anything to do with him. Surprised by María’s reprimand, I nodded, apologized and looked to Tere, but couldn’t catch her eye; she was concentrating on lighting a cigarette. I cleared my throat and carried on, directing my question to María: What I was asking is whether Antonio knows that you two have come to ask me to defend him. Of course he knows, said María, scandalized. I never do anything behind Antonio’s back. Besides, the idea that you should be his lawyer was his. Antonio’s? I asked. Yes, said María. And since when does Antonio know that I’m a lawyer? I asked. María looked at me as though she didn’t understand the question; then she looked at Tere, who rubbed the mole beside her nose with the same hand that held her cigarette before answering: I told him. She smiled and said: You’re famous, Gafitas. The papers talk about you all the time. On TV too.
‘That was all I wanted to know: just as I was aware of who Zarco had become, Tere was aware of who I’d become. I don’t know if she read my mind, but she added as if to downplay her words: Besides, there are only three criminal lawyers in Gerona; so we didn’t have a lot of choice. The other two are good, I said, now feeling confident enough to joke with her. Yeah, Tere conceded. But you’re the best. The flattery meant that this time it was me who smiled. Besides, Tere went on, we don’t know them, and we do know you. Not to mention that I’m sure they’re more expensive than you. They don’t interest us. Us knowing each other is not an advantage, I lied. And don’t worry: no lawyer’s going to charge you anything, much less in Gerona. I clarified: At the moment defending Zarco is still good for business. Tere insisted: That’s precisely why we’re not interested in your colleagues. We’re interested in you. And please don’t call him Zarco again: María told you already. Tere’s words were sharp, but not the tone in which she said them; even so, I couldn’t help but wonder if, whether or not María knew that I’d belonged to Zarco’s gang in my youth, Tere and Zarco were thinking they could blackmail me with the threat of revealing that secret past. Tere stubbed out her cigarette, took a sip of water and, opening her arms a little in an interrogative gesture, looked at me, looked at María and looked back at me. Well, Gafitas, will you or not?
‘I don’t know if I thought that I’d got what I was looking for (or that I couldn’t aspire to more), but the thing is I stopped pretending and accepted.’
‘Tell me something: were you scared that Zarco and Tere might reveal that you’d been part of their gang?’
‘Of course not. I might not have liked the idea of them telling, because I didn’t know what consequences it might have, but nothing more. It was one of the risks of defending Zarco; the rest were advantages. They already were before Tere had shown up, for the free advertising for my practice and because I was enormously curious to see Zarco again after more than twenty years (and perhaps also because, at a moment when almost everything bored me and the feeling of misunderstanding and that I was living someone else’s life I was telling you about earlier, I sensed that this unexpected novelty could be an incentive, the change I was waiting for); in any case, Tere showing up, and her being so happy at us seeing each other again, made it all much better. And of course, defending Zarco was risking unearthing a dangerous past, but wasn’t it better to dig it up once and for all, now that I had the opportunity to do so? Wasn’t it less dangerous to unearth it than to leave it buried? Wasn’t I obliged to a certain extent to unearth it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, that in some way I felt in debt to Zarco. I always suspected that before the heist of the Bordils branch of the Banco Popular I had run my mouth off to Córdoba, and that was the cause of the disaster, the reason that Zarco, Gordo and Jou got caught. I told you before. I always suspected that and I always suspected that Zarco suspected it too.’
‘You wouldn’t be thinking of the Gafitas in the first part of Wild Boys, would you? Although that character reflects in part how you saw Zarco, it’s a fictional character. And he doesn’t shoot his mouth off, of course: he informs on Zarco, betrays them all. That Gafitas has almost nothing to do with you.’
‘Almost: you said it. In any case, the Gafitas of his memoirs does have something to do with me, he isn’t a fictional character and he does shoot his mouth off. You’ll remember that too.’
‘Perfectly. Only that in the memoirs it’s not clear either that Gafitas shoots his mouth off.’
‘That’s true, it’s not clear. But most likely he did, most likely the Gafitas of the book did shoot his mouth off, and was responsible for the bank job going wrong. At least that’s what Zarco thinks, or that’s what he seems to think. And even if he hadn’t thought so. Even if it wasn’t true that I’d shot my mouth off to Córdoba. Maybe I didn’t. Even so, I felt that Zarco had lent me a hand when I most needed it: the least I could do was lend him a hand now that he was the one in need, right? Especially since by lending him a hand I would also be lending myself one.’
‘Zarco lent you a hand? I would say rather that he used you and turned you into a delinquent. Is that what you call lending a hand? You yourself recognize that he was on the verge of forcing you to share the fate of all the members of his gang.’