you, Don Veremundo. Have a nice day,” said Pablo, and he took off running toward the church of San Juan. When he arrived, the most impatient of the faithful were starting to exit the church, including Robinsón and Doña Leonor. The moment they saw each other, the two friends leapt on one another and began punching each other’s backs, as if in a boxing match. But in mid-embrace, the inspector’s son was left paralyzed: Angela emerged from the church, along with her family. Their eyes met and Pablo’s heart skipped a beat. Robinsón turned around just in time to give Angela a signal before her cousin Rodrigo noticed him: he brought his two index fingers together, forming an inverted V, and said to Pablo, “Come on, let’s go.”
“What about Angela?”
“We’ll see her at the hideout, don’t worry.”
Half an hour later, the three were reunited in the tree house.
“So I don’t know when I’m going to be able to come back,” Pablo was saying, after explaining his new situation. “But I’ll write to you, you can count on that.”
“What address are you going to put on the envelope? Roberto Olaya’s hideout, first door on the left?” Robinsón joked.
“So you’re going to be a journalist?” Angela asked, with admiration.
“Who knows?” Pablo replied mysteriously, unaware that he was going to spend more time with a broom than with a pen in his hand.
“I’m going to be a spelunker, like Robin,” said Angela.
“That’s impossible,” said Robin.
“Why?”
“Because there are no woman spelunkers.”
“Well, I’ll be the first, you’ll see.”
And so they spent the rest of the morning making future plans, as a person ought to do when they have their whole life in front of them.
“Alright boys, I have to go home to eat,” Angela finally said. “What time does your train leave, Pablo?”
“Six thirty.”
At six thirty, Angela was at the station to say goodbye to her vampire. When the train started rolling, she walked along outside Pablo’s car, while Robinsón remained standing on the platform waving his hat with enthusiasm.
“Angela,” said Pablo, sticking his head out the window.
“What?” she asked, adjusting her stride to keep up with the train, which was gaining speed with every passing moment.
“I’ll come back for you,” he said, as she started to run. “Will you wait for me?” he added desperately, as the train left Angela behind, her eyes sparkling for the last time in the distance.
The last thing Pablo saw was the way she stopped at the end of the platform, nodding her head in affirmation, her arms now fallen against her body, unaware that a wise man once said that while the wind carries words away, gestures are the devil’s affair, and that there can be more difference between two silent yesses than between a yes and a no uttered aloud. But what wise men say is not always true.
AT THAT TIME, SALAMANCA WAS A city in the grip of vice and poverty, with narrow, winding streets, squalid tenements often lacking running water, inhabited by people and animals in unsanitary cohabitation, with scant light and an outdated sewage system, all of which made the provincial capital one of the places with the highest mortality rates in all of Spain. Salamanca was publicly known as Little Rome or Little Athens for its monumental buildings and its famous scholastic past, but in private it was known as the City of Death, because of the periodic outbreaks of smallpox, diphtheria, or influenza, in addition to the frequent violent deaths that scandalized the populace and filled the pages of the newspapers. It’s no wonder, then, that the editors of El Castellano were besieged with the most horrifying stories imaginable, although the city’s newspapers, under pressure from the ruling class, had agreed to undertake a campaign of hygienic and moral sanitization.
Pablo started working in the middle of April of that year, 1904. The first day, before he left home, his mother kissed his forehead and tried to cheer him with the worn-out refrain that work gives a person a sense of dignity. But the Martíns’ firstborn did not take long to understand that, while it’s true that work brings a sense of dignity, it also brings a sense of mortality: on his very first day on the job, he would meet two peculiar people who would suddenly launch him into adulthood. If he had read Freud, who was in vogue at the time, he would have been able to put names to these people: the first would have been called Thanatos, the second Eros.
With the maternal kiss still wet on his forehead, Pablo departed from home, crossed the train tracks, and reached Alamedilla Park, one of the most disreputable spots to be found in turn-of-the-century Salamanca. The office of El Castellano was located on the main floor of number 28, Calle Zamora, next to the Plaza Mayor. Stepping through the door, Pablo was taken aback by the great hubbub and the asphyxiating tobacco smoke, which irritated his throat and eyes. The center of operations was a large space full of tables, chairs, wastepaper baskets, and spittoons, presided over by a stuffed owl mounted at the corner desk, monitoring everything with bulging glass eyes. There were about ten people in the room, talking, smoking, writing, or typing. For a moment, no one noticed Pablo’s presence.
“You, boy, come here,” he finally heard a voice calling him. Through the thick smoke, a bald man with a tawny face beckoned him closer.
“My name’s not ‘boy,’” said Pablo as he approached the man’s desk, making a ploy for respect.
“Ah, no? Then what is your name, might I ask?”
“Pablo. Pablo Martín.”
“Very well, Pablo Martín, listen up: from now on you’re going to forget your name. We’re going to call you ‘boy’ around here, you got that, boy?” the man barked, his cigar swinging up and down with each syllable. His eyes were red and his pupils were dilated as if he had taken belladonna.
“Understood,” the newcomer finally replied, resolving to compromise with the new authority. After all, it wouldn’t do to get fired on the first day.
“That’s what I like to hear. Alright, now take this article to the printer. You know where that is, don’t you?”
Pablo shook his head.
“You’ll have to pay attention.”
“I’ll show you the way,” said a female voice from the next desk over.
The bald man turned toward his colleague, a curvy woman with her hair coiled like a snail upon her head: the director’s secretary.
“If you wish, Obdulia. But don’t get distracted. I know your ways,” said the man, winking at her.
“You’re such a swine,” Obdulia replied. Rising from her seat, she motioned to Pablo to follow her.
“Thank you,” said the boy as they exited the office.
“No, thank you,” Obdulia replied offhandedly, winking. Apparently winks came cheaper than day-old bread around here.
The print shop was located on the same street, Calle Zamora, in a cramped basement with no natural light occupied by two old Marinoni machines working at full tilt. The scene was completed by a plate, a guillotine, a stereotype, a glazing machine, several rolls of paper, galley prints, proofs, casts, and a diminutive man in coveralls with inkstained hands. Obdulia introduced the two of them, shouting over the noise of the machines. Pablo gave the printer the article, and then he and Obdulia made their way back to the writing office, where they found some of the writers in a heated discussion:
“No, damn it, it’s not my turn today,” said one.
“Mine neither. Last night I got stuck with the mess at the brothel,” said another.
“I’ve been on the beat all week,” said a third.
“So