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“Nor did I, until two weeks ago. But Miquel is a good teacher….”
The boy looked at him suspiciously, expecting the prank, the hidden attack, at any moment.
“I don’t know whether your friends will want me to be with you….”
“It was their idea. What do you say?”
From that day on, Javier would sometimes join them after finishing the jobs he had been assigned. He didn’t usually say anything but would listen and watch the others. Aldaya was slightly fearful of him. Fernando, who had himself experienced the rejection of others because of his humble origins, would go out of his way to be kind to the strange boy. Miquel Moliner, who taught him the rudiments of chess and watched him with a careful eye, was the most skeptical of all.
“This guy is a nutter. He catches cats and pigeons and tortures them for hours with his knife. Then he buries them in the pine grove. Delightful.”
“Who says so?”
“He told me himself the other day while I was explaining the knight’s moves to him. He also told me that sometimes his mother gets into his bed at night and fondles him.”
“He must have been pulling your leg.”
“I doubt it. This kid isn’t right in the head, Julián, and it’s probably not his fault.”
Julián struggled to ignore Miquel’s warnings and predictions, but the fact is that he was finding it difficult to establish a friendship with the son of the caretaker. Yvonne in particular did not approve of Julián or of Fernando Ramos. Of all the young men, those were the only ones who didn’t have a single peseta. Rumor had it that Julián’s father was a simple shopkeeper and that his mother had got only as far as being a music teacher. “Those people have no money, class, or elegance, my love,” his mother would lecture him. “The one you should befriend is Aldaya. He comes from a very good family.” “Yes, Mother,” the boy would answer. “Whatever you say.” As time went by, Javier seemed to start trusting his new friends. Occasionally he said a few words, and he was carving a set of chess pieces for Miquel Moliner, in appreciation for his lessons. One day, when nobody expected it or thought it possible, they discovered that Javier knew how to smile and that he had the innocent laugh of a child.
“You see? He’s just a normal boy,” Julián argued.
Miquel Moliner remained unconvinced, and he observed the strange lad with a rigorous scrutiny that was almost scientific.
“Javier is obsessed with you, Julián,” he told him one day. “Everything he does is just to earn your approval.”
“What nonsense! He has a mother and a father for that; I’m only a friend.”
“Irresponsible, that’s what you are. His father is a poor wretch who has trouble enough finding his own bum when he needs to move his bowels, and Doña Yvonne is a harpy with the brain of a flea who spends her time pretending to meet people by chance in her underwear, convinced that she is Venus incarnate or something far worse I’d rather not mention. The kid, quite naturally, looks for a parent substitute, and you, the savior angel, fall from heaven and give him your hand. Saint Julián of the Fountain, patron saint of the dispossessed.”
“This Dr. Freud is rotting your head, Miquel. We all need friends. Even you.”
“This kid doesn’t have friends and never will. He has the heart of a spider. And if you don’t believe me, time will tell. I wonder what he dreams…?”
Miquel Moliner could not know that Francisco Javier’s dreams were more like his friend Julián’s than he would ever have thought possible. Once, some months before Julián had started at the school, the caretaker’s son was gathering dead leaves from the courtyard with the fountains when Don Ricardo Aldaya’s luxurious automobile arrived. That afternoon the tycoon had company. He was escorted by an apparition, an angel of light dressed in silk who seemed to levitate. The angel, who was none other than his daughter, Penélope, stepped out of the Mercedes and walked over to one of the fountains, waving her parasol and stopping to splash the water of the pond with her hands. As usual, her governess, Jacinta, followed her dutifully, observant of the slightest gesture from the girl. It wouldn’t have mattered if an army of servants had guarded her: Javier had eyes only for the girl. He was afraid that if he blinked, the vision would vanish. He remained there, paralyzed, breathlessly spying on the mirage. Soon after, as if the girl had sensed his presence and his furtive gaze, Penélope raised her eyes and looked in his direction. The beauty of that face seemed painful, unsustainable. He thought he saw the hint of a smile on her lips. Terrified, Javier ran off to hide at the top of the water tower, next to the dovecote in the attic of the school building, his favorite hiding place. His hands were still shaking when he gathered his carving utensils and began to work on a new piece in the form of the face he had just sighted. When he returned to the caretaker’s home that night, hours later than usual, his mother was waiting for him, half naked and furious. The boy looked down, fearing that, if his mother read his eyes, she would see in them the girl of the pond and would know what he had been thinking about.
“And where’ve you been, you little shit?”
“I’m sorry, Mother. I got lost.”
“You’ve been lost since the day you were born.”
Years later, every time he stuck his revolver into the mouth of a prisoner and pulled the trigger, Chief Inspector Francisco Javier Fumero would remember the day he saw his mother’s head burst open like a ripe watermelon near an outdoor bar in Las Planas and didn’t feel anything, just the tedium of dead things. The Civil Guard, alerted by the manager of the bar, who had heard the shot, found the boy sitting on a rock holding a smoking shotgun on his lap. He was staring impassively at the decapitated body of María Craponcia, alias Yvonne, covered in insects. When he saw the guards coming up to him, he just shrugged his shoulders, his face splattered with blood, as if he were being ravaged by smallpox. Following the sobs, the Civil Guards found Ramón Oneball squatting by a tree, some thirty yards away, in the undergrowth. He was shaking like a child and was unable to make himself understood. The lieutenant of the Civil Guard, after much deliberation, reported that the event had been a tragic accident, and so he recorded it in the statement, though not on his conscience. When they asked the boy if there was anything they could do for him, Francisco Javier asked whether he could keep that old gun, because when he grew up, he wanted to be a soldier….
“Are you feeling all right, Mr. Romero de Torres?”
The sudden appearance of Fumero in Father Fernando Ramos’s narrative had stunned me, but the effect on Fermín had been devastating. He looked yellow, and his hands shook.
“A sudden drop in my blood pressure,” Fermín improvised in a tiny voice. “This Catalan climate can be hell for us southerners.”
“May I offer you a glass of water?” asked the priest in a worried tone.
“If Your Grace wouldn’t mind. And perhaps a chocolate, for the glucose, you know…”
The priest poured him a glass of water, which Fermín drank greedily.
“All I have are some eucalyptus sweets. Will they be any help?”
