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“Aren’t you getting a bit ahead of yourself, Fermín? You’ve only just met her….”
“Look, Daniel, at my age either you begin to see things for what they are or you’re pretty much done for. Only three or four things are worth living for; the rest is manure. I’ve already fooled around a lot, and now I know that the only thing I really want is to make Bernarda happy and die one day in her arms. I want to be a respectable man again, see? Not for my sake—as far as I’m concerned, I couldn’t give a fly’s turd for the respect of this choir of simians we call humanity—but for hers. Because Bernarda believes in such things—in radio soaps, in priests, in respectability and in Our Lady of Lourdes. That’s the way she is, and I want her exactly like that. I even like those hairs that grow on her chin. And that’s why I want to be someone she can be proud of. I want her to think, my Fermín is one hell of a man, like Cary Grant, Hemingway, or Manolete.”
I crossed my arms, weighing up the situation. “Have you spoken about all this with her? About having a child together?”
“Goodness no. Who do you take me for? Do you think I go around telling women I want to get them knocked up? And it’s not that I don’t feel like it, eh? Take that silly Merceditas: I’d put some triplets in her right now and feel on top of the world, but—”
“Have you told Bernarda you’d like to have a family?”
“Those things don’t need to be said, Daniel. They show on your face.”
I nodded. “Well, then, for what my opinion is worth, I’m sure you’ll be an excellent father and husband. And since you don’t believe in those things, you’ll never take them for granted.”
His face melted into happiness. “Do you mean it?”
“Of course.”
“You’ve taken a huge weight off my mind. Because just to remember my own father and to think that I might end up being for someone what he was for me, makes me want to get sterilized.”
“Don’t worry, Fermín. Besides, there’s probably no treatment capable of crushing your procreative powers.”
“Good point,” he reflected. “Go on, go and get some sleep, I mustn’t keep you any longer.”
“You’re not keeping me, Fermín. I have a feeling I’m not going to sleep a wink.”
“Take a pain for a pleasure…. By the way, remember you mentioned that PO box?”
“Have you discovered anything?”
“I told you to leave it to me. This lunchtime I went up to the post office and had a word with an old acquaintance of mine who works there. PO Box 2321 is under the name of one José María Requejo, a lawyer with offices on Calle León XIII. I took the liberty of checking out the guy’s address and wasn’t surprised to discover that it doesn’t exist, although I imagine you already know that. Someone has been collecting the letters addressed to that box for years. I know because some of the mail received from a property business comes as registered post and requires a signature on a small receipt and identification.”
“Who is it? An employee of Requejo the lawyer?” I asked.
“I couldn’t get that far, but I doubt it. Either I’m very mistaken or this Requejo guy exists on the same plane as Our Lady of Fátima. All I can tell you is the name of the person who collects the mail: Nuria Monfort.”
I felt the blood draining from me.
“Nuria Monfort? Are you sure, Fermín?”
“I myself saw some of those receipts. That name and the number of her identity card were on all of them. I deduce, from that sick look on your face, that this revelation surprises you.”
“Quite a lot.”
“May I ask who this Nuria Monfort is? The clerk I spoke to told me he remembered her clearly because she went there two weeks ago to collect the mail and, in his impartial opinion, she looked hotter than theVenus de Milo and with a firmer bust. I trust his assessment, because before the war he was a professor of aesthetics—but he was also a distant cousin of the Socialist leader Largo Caballero, so naturally he now licks one-peseta stamps.”
“I was with that woman today, in her home,” I murmured.
Fermín looked at me in amazement. “With Nuria Monfort? I’m beginning to think I was wrong about you, Daniel. You’ve become quite a rake.”
“It’s not what you’re thinking, Fermín.”
“That’s your loss, then. At your age I was like El Molino music hall—morning, afternoon, and night shows.”
I gazed at that small, gaunt, and bony man, with his large nose and his yellow skin, and I realized he was becoming my best friend.
“May I tell you something, Fermín? Something that’s been on my mind for some time?”
“But of course. Anything. Especially if it’s shocking and concerns this yummy maiden.”
