shortest one has to go.”
But it was he who drew the short pencil.
“Fine,” he said, disappointed. “But I’m taking the boy.”
And that is how Pablo came to gaze into the face of Thanatos. At the bottom of the river Tormes, near the Roman bridge, two corpses had just been found in a state of putrefaction, their feet lashed together and attached to a small anvil. When the representatives of El Castellano arrived, the Civil Guard were trying to disperse the onlookers, who were clogging the bridge trying to get a closer view. At the center of the action, a little boat equipped with a winch was raising the bodies of a man and a woman.
“Suicide or homicide?” the journalist asked a guardsman after identifying himself as a writer for El Castellano.
“We don’t know, we don’t know,” the officer replied.
“Surely it was a suicide. The way things are these days, people prefer to die with their lungs full rather than live with their stomachs empty. Write that down, boy,” he said to Pablo, tossing a pebble into the river. But Pablo wasn’t listening, hypnotized as he was by the two bodies swinging in the air. Although they were in an advanced state of decomposition, there was no doubt that they belonged to a young man and woman, practically adolescents, to judge by their clothing. And the most curious thing was that they appeared to have died consoling each other, as rigor mortis had left them locked in an eternal embrace. Suddenly, Pablo had a vision of Angela and he felt an acute fear of never seeing her again. At that moment, he promised himself that one day he would return to Béjar to marry her.
But the day’s emotional trials were far from over. As they made their way back to the newspaper office, night had already fallen and the electric lamps recently installed in the city center gave it an unearthly appearance like a theater stage. Pablo and the journalist arrived at Calle Zamora, but they stopped in front of number 11, at the door to the Casino de Salamanca:
“Come on, let’s have a drink before we go back to hell,” said the writer.
“I don’t have any money,” replied Pablo.
“Don’t worry, it’s on the house. Manolito! Two cognacs!”
“Right away, Don Ferdinando!” shouted the waiter.
This is how Pablo learned the name of the writer with the dilated pupils.
“Here, boy, a toast to your first day on the job, and your first pair of corpses. Cheers!”
“Cheers,” muttered Pablo, lifting his cup, and he let the golden liquid burn its way down his throat.
“Of course,” Ferdinando warned him as they left the casino, “watch out for Obdulia. She has a thing for youngsters.” And he emitted a cackle that echoed against the paving stones.
Back at the office, Pablo soon found out that what he said was true. Obdulia kept staring at him in a manner that anyone with more experience would not have hesitated to call lustful. She lowered her eyelids and shot looks at him through the cloud of cigar smoke. He could be emptying a wastepaper basket, or grinding coffee, or filling an inkwell; always in the corner of his eye he was aware of the persistent gaze of the voluptuous secretary of Don Cándulo, the blind poet who directed the newspaper from his home. When the clock at City Hall rang nine, the writers stood up in unison, as if spring-loaded, and leapt for their hats and coats to go to dinner.
“Boy, you stay here with Obdulia. If any urgent news comes in, you come tell us,” Ferdinando said to Pablo. “We’ll have the waiter wrap up our leftovers for you.” He let out another of his cackles.
“Don’t take it the wrong way,” Obdulia said once they were alone. “Deep down they’re not bad guys, you’ll see. Why don’t you come over here and tell me about your afternoon?”
Pablo approached and started to tell her about the suicides of the river Tormes, but soon the woman pressed her finger to his lips and hushed him. Then she caressed his face, his neck, and his head. She stood up and dragged him to the back of the room, where a green glass door led to the “Management Office,” as indicated by the large gothic letters meticulously painted on it. The last thing Pablo saw before disappearing through the door was the glassy eyes of the stuffed owl, which appeared amused to see Señorita Obdulia up to her old tricks. “Come along, my little pepper sprout,” whispered the secretary, in a tone attempting sweetness but which left Pablo feeling only dazed, “I’m going to teach you how to manage a newspaper.”
Without turning on the light, she closed and locked the door and led her prey to the sacrificial altar. Then, as if in a dream or a nightmare, Pablo found himself fondling two extraordinary breasts, while a viscous tongue entered his mouth and turned it to an aquarium full of fish. His taste buds discovered the metallic flavor of a stranger’s mouth, and his undershorts were suddenly too tight. A hand slid into his trousers and pulled out his virginal telescope, crowned by a red, swollen glans that appeared to be watching everything with a Cyclopean eye. A petticoat fell to the floor, sighs caressed the air, a wooden table creaked under the strain, and Pablo found himself being absorbed by a mythical creature, half jellyfish and half woolly goat. Finally, he found his body erupting as an electric shock ran from his feet to his head. He bit his tongue to keep from shouting out loud, and his strength abandoned him like Samson after his haircut.
Outside the door, breathing on the windowpane, Eros looked on, buckling with laughter.
– 7 –
“From Paris and Soissons new details have been received regarding the purchase of weapons in France. A few weeks ago, the police were informed that a Spaniard who worked as a barber in Amiens had made an agreement with various workers employed in the Red Zone in the recovery of war materiel, negotiating with them the purchase of any weapons and ammunition they might find. Two Spaniards were detained; their stated names were Serrano Blas and Rodríguez Juan, and they declared that they acquired these munitions in order to sell them on the black market in Morocco. However, the police believe that these individuals are working for Spanish revolutionary forces.”
El Pensamiento Navarro, 16 November 1924
TODAY IS THURSDAY AFTERNOON, AND IN Marly, Pablo is recovering from three days of hard work. Torrential rains have destroyed the small dock on the pond, inundated the better part of the garden, and torn away some of the house’s roofing tiles, causing leakage indoors. Luckily, by Tuesday it was already starting to clear up, and Pablo has had a few rainless days to fix the damage. Also, the work has helped him keep his mind off what happened on the train, although he hasn’t been able to resist the temptation to go into town every night to see if he hears anything. But the name Vivancos doesn’t come up in any conversation or in any newspaper, so no news is good news, as his father used to say. It is already starting to get dark, and Pablo, after bathing in the pond and changing his clothes, walks down the road toward town with the idea of calming the rumbling in his stomach. He’d like to eat something hot and have a good glass of red wine—back home he would have called it “tinted wine,” vino tinto, which goes to show that reality depends on the lens through which you view it. What Pablo doesn’t know is that this metaphor will soon come back to haunt him.
Madame de Bruyn’s bistro is full of people at this hour, mostly workers who have finished their work day and are making sure to get in some elbow exercises before they go home to find dinner ready. Most are crowded around the bar, trying to stretch out the best moment of the day. But at the back of the place there are two large wooden tables, with benches on both sides, where a few diners with no one to make them dinner at home are stuffing their faces with the delicious fare that Madame de Bruyn serves for a song.
One such dish is this gargantuan hochepot the waiter has just placed in front of Pablo: a stew of various meats and vegetables, identical to the plates in front of the two guests sitting opposite and talking enthusiastically. At first, the typesetter pays them no mind, busy as he is allaying his stomach’s urgent complaints, but as his hunger subsides, his brain starts working and a few words filter in through his ears. One of them is “Amiens.” Another