‘But the unmistakable sign that Zarco was another person — a more reasonable and less stuck-up and deranged person, more independent of his own myth, more person and less persona, more suitable for living in liberty — was his wedding to María. At least that’s how I interpreted it. That wedding meant as well that the campaign for his freedom that had been running for nine months was still moving forward. Of course by then, when he was on the verge of getting married, Zarco no longer even bothered to hide the fact that the marriage was a farce; strange as it might seem, this was not for me a proof of Zarco’s cynicism, but rather of his honesty (and, by extension, of mine): according to my clever interpretation, Zarco was using María to get free, but not at the price of deceiving her, or not at the price of entirely deceiving her. As for María, it’s almost as sure that she was still in love with Zarco as it is that deep down she knew her marriage to him was a fraud; although knowing this could sometimes make her uncomfortable, it never managed to calm her impatience to get married: perhaps she thought that in the long run she could make Zarco love her; without a doubt she had become hooked on the drug of celebrity and knew that she couldn’t dispense with Zarco because dispensing with Zarco would be dispensing with fame. In spite of all this, at least a couple of times that summer María told me the doubts she was having about her imminent marriage; my reaction was always the same: cutting her off by playing them down or clearing away her uncertainties at a stroke. A logical reaction, after all, because I knew that marriage to María was not only an indispensable prerequisite for Zarco getting his third-level parole, but also for us to successfully conclude the campaign in favour of his getting a definitive pardon, and I trusted that Zarco’s freedom would represent the end of Zarco’s problems.’
‘The end of Zarco’s problems and the end of your problems with Zarco.’
‘Sure: at least I would have carried out the job of getting him his freedom back. In any case, as well as a farce Zarco and María’s marriage turned out to be quite the media event. It was held at the Gerona courthouse. Tere was the maid of honour and I was the best man. During the ceremony we could barely exchange any words other than formalities and practicalities, and afterwards not even that: a crowd of photographers was waiting outside who bombarded Zarco with flashes as he walked down the building’s steps carrying María in his arms. There was no wedding reception or celebration of any kind and, before I knew it, Tere had left. Over the following days the image of the bride coming out of the courthouse in the bridegroom’s arms monopolized the front pages of the newspapers and magazines, and the television stations were lavish in their attention on the news, magazine and gossip programmes that followed the newlyweds on their honeymoon in a hotel on the Costa del Sol, paid for by an Andalusian builder who had often proclaimed his juvenile admiration for Zarco to the press and in his main office had a portrait of Zarco hanging next to one of Marlon Brando as the Godfather.
‘After the commotion of the wedding and honeymoon, everything went back to normal for Zarco. A few weeks later, towards the middle of October, Correctional Institutions issued him his third-stage parole. This entailed two important changes for Zarco: on the one hand he no longer had to sleep in a cell and moved to a building adjacent to the yard, where he and other inmates at the same stage of incarceration had their own individual apartments with a kitchen and bathroom; on the other hand, from that moment on Zarco lived his own life outside of prison, which he left every morning at eight and where he had to return each evening at nine. By then I had got him a contract to work at a carton factory in Vidreres, not far from the city, thanks to a businessman who years earlier I’d exculpated from a fraud conviction, so theoretically, Zarco spent most of his day in the carton factory, which he went to and from by bus for eight-hour work days: from nine in the morning until six in the evening, with an hour lunch break; from six until he had to go back inside at night, Zarco was free.
‘That was his life from then on. When he embarked on it we had to give up our conversations in the interview room, we stopped seeing each other and I tried to wash my hands of what he was doing or not doing. For a time I thought the story was over, or was coming to an end, and that I’d only find out what Zarco was up to again from the press and when the various stages of his parole expired and I had to intervene to settle the final routines. Or maybe through Tere. Because, although she and I were still not seeing each other and, to spare myself futile brush-offs, I’d even stopped phoning her, now Tere called me. She called me at the office, once or twice a week, to chat for a while. These conversations weren’t as cold and utilitarian as those that followed our peaceable split, when it was still me who called her at home, but they were very brief, fairly trivial, as far as I recall we never mentioned the night in La Creueta or the uncomfortable things Zarco said there, or even the limbo that Tere had left our relationship frozen in; but, perhaps for that reason, I always hung up the phone convinced that the wait was about to end happily. Why did Tere keep phoning me? Whatever her reasons, it was in those conversations that she sometimes mentioned Zarco, always in a superficial way and sort of in passing, always to make some comment or give me some bit of news that I never knew where she got, nor did I want to find out.
‘All this lasted a short time. I soon understood that the story was not over, nor was it on the verge of being over, and soon it was me who was giving Tere news of Zarco, and not vice versa. One evening, two or three months after he’d started his part-time free-man’s life, Zarco showed up unannounced at my office. It was seven or seven-thirty and he was coming from Vidreres; he looked good, he’d lost a bit of weight, was dressed like a person and not like a perpetual convict: corduroy trousers, red sweater and a leather jacket. His presence agitated the whole firm: it was the first time he’d been there and everybody dropped whatever they were working on to see him, say hello, congratulate and welcome him. He smiled and looked happy and joked non-stop with my partners and the secretaries and the rest of the staff until, after a few minutes, he suggested we go out for a drink. I agreed with pleasure. I took him to the Royal and, although the clientele recognized him and were watching us and whispering to each other, they left us alone to talk and drink at the bar for a while. He told me about his new life; we talked about his job, the people he worked with, and especially about his boss, whom he praised to the skies and about whom I told a couple of anecdotes. My impression was that he was at ease with the new state of things, much more at least than with the old one. Before nine I gave him a lift back to the prison.
‘Zarco’s appearance at my office turned into a habit over the following months. At least a couple of times a week he’d show up there at seven or seven-thirty and we’d go and finish off the work day with a drink. At first those visits cheered me up, I enjoyed Zarco’s company and conversation, I felt proud that people saw me with him at the bar at the Royal or walking along Jaume I or under the arcades of Sant Agustí: he was Zarco — hence the pride — but also — and hence even greater pride — he was a free and reformed man, and his reform and freedom were a triumph that was in part down to me. That was when, perhaps thanks to the optimism Zarco seemed to be radiating, the two of us began to share something resembling closeness; and that was when an event occurred that I’m going to tell you about on the condition that it not appear in the book.’