Héctor couldn’t help shuddering and his eyes went to the black-and-white photo of that little blonde girl. Sitting in an empty office that had become alien to him, in a half-lit station, he forgot about everything and became absorbed in Marc’s tale. In the story of Iris.
I remember the floor was cold. I noticed when I got out of bed barefoot and ran quickly to the door. I’d waited for daybreak because I didn’t dare leave that big deserted room in the night, but I’d already been awake for a while and I couldn’t put it off any longer. I took a few seconds to close the door carefully without making a sound. I had to take advantage of this moment, when everyone was asleep, to achieve my goal. I knew there was no time to waste, so I went quickly; however, before walking the long corridor I stopped and took a deep breath before daring to go forwards. The downstairs blinds let a weak line of light in, but the upstairs corridor was still dark. How I hated that part of the big house! Actually, I hated the whole house. Above all on days like this, when it was almost empty until the next group of kids with whom I’d have to share the next ten days would arrive. Luckily this was the last one: then I could go back to the city, to that familiar room just for me, to new furniture that didn’t creak in the night, and white walls that protected rather than scared me. I exhaled without noticing and had to breathe in once again. It was something Iris had taught me: “Breathe in and breathe it out as you run, so you blow out the fear.” But it didn’t help me much: maybe because my lungs didn’t hold enough air, although I never told her because I was embarrassed. I tried to move ahead clinging to the wooden railing placed along the length of the corridor so no one would fall down and keeping my eyes fixed straight ahead to avoid seeing the stiff, big, ugly bird who, from the little table against the wall, seemed to be watching my steps. By day it wasn’t so horrible, sometimes I managed to forget about it, but in the shadows that owl with glass eyes was terrifying. I must have clung even tighter to the banister because it creaked and I let go immediately: I didn’t want to make a sound. I walked straight ahead, following the pattern of the cold tiles, and I clearly remember the feeling of treading on something rough when I stepped on a broken one. Not much further: Iris’s room was the last one, at the end of the corridor. I had to see her before everyone else got up because if not, they wouldn’t let me. Iris was being punished, and although deep down I thought she deserved it, I didn’t want another day to go by without talking to her. I’d barely had time to the evening before, when one of the monitors found her after she had run away and spent a whole night in the wood. Just thinking about the idea of it, that wood peopled with shadows and immobile owls, gave me goosebumps. But at the same time I was dying with curiosity for Iris to tell me what she’d seen there. Maybe she’d behaved badly, but she was brave and that was something I couldn’t help admiring. Of course it was precisely for that reason she was being punished; her sister and her mother had told me so. So she wouldn’t run away again. Frighten them like that.
At last I got to the door and although I’d always been taught to knock before entering, I told myself it wasn’t necessary: Iris was sleeping and also the main thing was to not make a noise. She was sharing the room with her sister instead of with the other children because they weren’t at camp: they were the cook’s daughters. And that night her sister was sleeping with her mother. I’d heard Uncle Fèlix say so. Iris had to spend two days locked in her room, alone, to learn her lesson. Opening the door I saw that the windows were completely closed: they were strange, different to the ones in my house in Barcelona. They had glass, then a wooden board that didn’t let even a tiny bit of light in. “Iris,” I whispered, feeling my way. “Iris, wake up.” As I couldn’t find the light switch, I moved closer to the bed and felt it blindly, from the foot up. Suddenly my hands brushed against something soft and woolly. I jumped back and in doing so I stumbled into the nightstand, which shook a little. Then I remembered that there was a lamp on that nightstand, which Iris usually had on until the early hours of the morning to read. She read too much, her mother said. She threatened to take away her books if she didn’t finish her dinner. The little lamp was there. I followed the cable up with my hand until I found the switch that lit the light bulb. It wasn’t a very strong light, but enough to see that the room was almost empty: the dolls weren’t on the shelves, or Iris in the bed, of course. Only the teddy bear, the same one Iris had lent me for the first few nights so I wouldn’t be afraid, but I returned to her when one of the kids laughed at me. He was there, on the pillow, disembowelled: his stomach was open as if he’d had an operation and a green stuffing was showing.
I breathed in again and knelt down to check if there was someone underneath the bed: there was only dust. And suddenly I was also annoyed with Iris, like everyone. Why did she do these things? Run away, disobey. That summer her mother was scolding her every minute: for not eating, for answering back, for not studying, for continually pestering her sister Inés. If she’d run away again while she was being punished, Uncle Fèlix was going to be really angry. I remember for a moment I thought of telling him, but I told myself that wouldn’t be good: we were friends, Iris and I, and in spite of her being older than me she never minded playing with me. Then I spotted the window and thought maybe she had gone down to the patio at first light, like I had, while everyone was asleep. It was hard, but I managed to move the metal latch which held the wood in place. It was already day. Before my eyes the wood rose, lines of very tall trees reaching up the slopes of the mountains. By day it didn’t scare me; it was even pretty, with different shades of green. I didn’t see anyone on the patio and I was already closing the window when it occurred to me to look in the direction of the swimming pool. I could only see a little piece, so I leaned a little further out to have a wider view. I remember as if it were right now the happiness I felt on seeing her: that intense, childhood happiness that soars with things as simple as an icecream or a visit to a fairground. Iris was there, in the water. She hadn’t run away, she’d just gone for a swim! I had to stop myself shouting and I limited myself to waving to get her attention, although I realized it was silly since from where she was she couldn’t see me. I’d have to wait until she got to the opposite side of the pool, the part where the water was shallower, where the little kids swam and those not daring to get in at the deep end.
And now, years later, thinking of all this, reliving every detail of that early morning, the same cold astonishment as then overcomes me. Because barely seconds later, I realized that Iris wasn’t moving, that she was still in the water, as if she was playing dead but the reverse. I know suddenly I didn’t care if they heard me and I ran down to the pool, but I didn’t dare go into the water. Even at six years old I knew Iris had drowned. And then I saw the dolls: they were floating, face down, like little dead Irises.
The image was so powerful, so disturbing that Héctor minimized the screen automatically. He looked for his packet of cigarettes and lit one, contravening all the rules. He took a deep drag and slowly exhaled. While he calmed down, blessed nicotine, his brain began to put this new piece in a puzzle becoming ever more macabre. And he knew, with the certainty given by years in the job, that until he learned exactly how this Iris had died, he wouldn’t understand what had happened to Marc at the window or Gina in the bathtub. Too many dead, he said to himself again. Too many accidents. Too many young people who’d lost their lives.
The telephone interrupted his musings and he looked at the screen, somewhere between annoyed and relieved.