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“If Freud is right, this probably means that the priest has sneaked in a goal for us.”
“He struck me as an honest man.”
“Fair enough. Perhaps too honest for his own good. All priests with the makings of a saint end up being sent off to the missions, to see whether the mosquitoes or the piranhas will finish them off.”
“Don’t exaggerate.”
“What blessed innocence, Daniel. You’d even believe in the tooth fairy. All right, just to give you an example: the tall tale about Miquel Moliner that Nuria Monfort landed on you. I think this wench told you more whoppers than the editorial page ofL’Osservatore Romano. Now it turns out that she’s married to a childhood friend of Aldaya and Carax—isn’t that a coincidence? And on top of that, we have the story of Jacinta, the good nurse, which might be true but sounds too much like the last act in a play by Alexandre Dumas the younger. Not to mention the star appearance of Fumero in the role of thug.”
“Then do you think Father Fernando lied to us?”
“No. I agree with you that he seems honest, but the uniform carries a lot of weight, and he may well have kept anora pro nobis or two up his sleeve, if you get my drift. I think that if he lied, it was by way of holding back and decorum, not out of spite or malice. Besides, don’t imagine him capable of inventing such a story. If he could lie better, he wouldn’t be teaching algebra and Latin; he’d be in the bishopric by now, growing fat in an office like a cardinal’s and plunging soft sponge cakes in his coffee.”
“What do you suggest we do, then?”
“Sooner or later we’re going to have to dig up the mummified corpse of the angelic granny and shake it from the ankles to see what falls out. For the time being, I’m going to pull a few strings and see what I can find out about this Miquel Moliner. And it wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep an eye on that Nuria Monfort. I think she’s turning out to be what my deceased mother called a sly old fox.”
“You’re mistaken about her,” I claimed.
“You’re shown a pair of nice boobs and you think you’ve seen Saint Teresa—which at your age can be excused but not cured. Just leave her to me, Daniel. The fragrance of the eternal feminine no longer overpowers me the way it mesmerizes you. At my age the flow of blood to the brain has precedence over that which flows to the loins.”
“Look who’s talking.”
Fermín pulled out his wallet and started to count his money.
“You have a fortune there,” I said. “Is all that the change from this morning?”
“Partly. The rest is legitimate. I’m taking my Bernarda out today, and I can’t refuse that woman anything. If necessary, I would rob the Central Bank of Spain to indulge her every whim. What about you? What are your plans for the rest of the day?”
“Nothing special.”
“And what about the girl?”
“What girl?”
“Little Bo Peep. Who do you think? Aguilar’s sister.”
“I don’t know. I don’t have any plans.”
“What you don’t have, to put it bluntly, is enough balls to take the bull by the horns.”
At that the conductor made his way up to us with a tired expression, his mouth juggling a toothpick, which he twisted and turned through his teeth with circuslike dexterity.
“Excuse me, but these ladies over there want to know if you could use more respectable language.”
“They can mind their own bloody business,” answered Fermín in a loud voice.
The conductor turned toward the three ladies and shrugged, to indicate that he had done what he could and was not inclined to get involved in a scuffle over a matter of semantic modesty.
“People who have no life always have to stick their nose in the life of others,” said Fermín. “What were we talking about?”
“About my lack of guts.”
“Right. A textbook case. Trust you me, young man. Go after your girl. Life flies by, especially the bit that’s worth living. You heard what the priest said. Like a flash.”
“She’s notmy gi
rl.”
