Merceditas was on the point of shooting something back at Fermín when we heard an uproar in the street. We all fell silent, listening expectantly. We could hear indignant cries outside, followed by a surge of murmuring. Merceditas carefully put her head around the door. We saw a number of shopkeepers walk by looking uncomfortable and swearing under their breath. Soon Don Anacleto Olmo appeared—a resident of our block and unofficial spokesman for the Royal Academy of Language in the neighborhood. Don Anacleto was a high-school teacher with a degree in Spanish literature and a handful of other subjects, and he shared an apartment on the first floor with seven cats. When he was not teaching, he moonlighted as a blurb writer for a prestigious publishing firm, and it was rumored that he also composed erotic verse that he published under the saucy alias of “Humberto Peacock.” While among friends Don Anacleto was an unassuming, genial fellow, in public he felt obliged to act the part of declamatory poet, and the affected purple prose of his speech had won him the nickname of “the Victorian.”
That morning the teacher’s face was pink with distress, and his hands, in which he held his ivory cane, were almost shaking. All four of us stared at him.
“Don Anacleto, what’s the matter?” asked my father.
“Franco has died, please say he has,” prompted Fermín.
“Shut up, you beast,” Merceditas cut in. “Let the doctor talk.”
Don Anacleto took a deep breath, regained his composure, and, with his customary majesty, unfolded his account of what had happened.
“Dear friends, life is the stuff of drama, and even the noblest of the Lord’s creatures can taste the bitterness of destiny’s capricious and obstinate ways. Last night, in the small hours, while the city enjoyed the well-deserved sleep of all hardworking people, Don Federico Flaviá i Pujades, a well-loved neighbor who has so greatly contributed to this community’s enrichment and solace in his role as watchmaker, only three doors down from this bookshop, was arrested by the State Police.”
I felt my heart sink.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” remarked Merceditas.
Fermín puffed with disappointment, for it was clear that the dictator remained in perfect health.
Well on his way now, Don Anacleto took a deep breath and prepared to go on.
“According to a reliable account revealed to me by sources close to Police Headquarters, last night, shortly after midnight, two bemedaled undercover members of the Crime Squad caught Don Federico clad in the lush, licentious costume of a diva and singing risqué variety songs on the stage of some dive in Calle Escudillers, where he was allegedly entertaining an audience mostly made up of brainwise meagerly endowed member
s of the public. These godforsaken creatures, who had eloped that same afternoon from the sheltering premises of a hospice belonging to a religious order, had pulled down their trousers in the frenzy of the show and were dancing about with no restraint, clapping their hands, with their privates in full bloom and their mouths drooling.”
Merceditas made the sign of the cross, alarmed by the salacious turn the events were taking.
“On learning of what had transpired, the pious mothers of some of those poor souls made a formal complaint on the grounds of public scandal and affront to the most basic code of morality. The press, nefarious vulture that feeds on misfortune and dishonor, did not take long to pick up the scent of carrion. Thanks to the wretched offices of a professional informer, not forty minutes had elapsed since the arrival of the two members of the police when Kiko Calabuig appeared on the scene. Calabuig, ace reporter for the muckraking dailyEl Caso, was determined to uncover whatever deplorable vignettes were necessary and to leave no shady stone unturned to spice up his lurid report in time for today’s edition. Needless to say, the spectacle that took place in those premises is described with tabloid viciousness as Dantesque and horrifying, in twenty-four-point headlines.”
“This can’t be right,” said my father. “I thought Don Federico had learned his lesson.”
Don Anacleto gave a priestly nod. “Yes, but don’t forget the old sayings ‘The leopard cannot change his spots’ and ‘Man cannot live by bromide alone….’ And you still haven’t heard the worst.”
“Then, please, sire, could you get to the frigging point? Because with all this metaphorical spin and flourish, I’m beginning to feel a fiery bowel movement at the gates,” Fermín protested.
“Pay no attention to this animal. I love the way you speak. It’s like the voice on the newsreel, Dr. Anacleto,” interposed Merceditas.
“Thank you, child, but I’m only a humble teacher. So, back to what I was saying, without further delay, preambles, or frills. It seems that the watchmaker, who at the time of his arrest was going by the nom de guerre of ‘Lady of the Curls,’ had already been arrested under similar circumstances on a couple of occasions—which were registered in the annals of crime by the guardians of law and order.”
“Criminals with a badge, you mean,” Fermín spit out.
“I don’t get involved in politics. But I can tell you that, after knocking poor Don Federico off the stage with a well-aimed bottle, the two officers led him to the police station on Vía Layetana. With a bit of luck, and under different circumstances, things would just have ended up with some joke cracking and perhaps a couple of slaps in the face and other minor humiliations, but, by great misfortune, it so happened that the noted Inspector Fumero was on duty last night.”
“Fumero,” muttered Fermín. The very mention of his nemesis made him shudder.
“The one and only. As I was saying, the champion of urban safety, who had just returned from a triumphant raid on an illegal betting and beetle-racing establishment on Calle Vigatans, was informed about what had happened by the anguished mother of one of the missing boys and the alleged mastermind behind the escapade, Pepet Guardiola. At that the famous inspector, who, it appears, had knocked back some twelve double shots of brandy since suppertime, decided to intervene in the matter. After examining the aggravating factors at hand, Fumero proceeded to inform the sergeant on duty that so muchfaggotry (and I cite the word in its starkest literal sense, despite the presence of a young lady, for its documentary relevance to the events in question) required a lesson, and that what the watchmaker—that is to say, our Don Federico Flaviá i Pujades—needed, for his own good and that of the immortal souls of the Mongoloid kids, whose presence was incidental but a deciding factor in the case, was to spend the night in a common cell, down in the lower basement of the institution, in the company of a select group of thugs. As you probably know, this cell is famous in the criminal world for its inhospitable and precarious sanitary conditions, and the inclusion of an ordinary citizen in the list of guests is always cause for celebration, for it adds spice and novelty to the monotony of prison life.”
Having reached this point, Don Anacleto proceeded to sketch a brief but endearing portrait of the victim, whom, of course, we all knew well.
“I don’t need to remind you that Mr. Flaviá i Pujades has been blessed with a fragile and delicate personality, all goodness of heart and Christian charity. If a fly finds its way into his shop, instead of smashing it with a slipper, he’ll open the door and windows wide so that the insect, one of God’s creatures, is swept back by the draft into the ecosystem. I know that Don Federico is a man of faith, always very devout and involved in parish activities, but all his life he has had to live with a hidden compulsion, which, on very rare occasions, has got the better of him, sending him off into the streets dolled up as a tart. His ability to mend anything from wristwatches to sewing machines is legendary, and as a person he is well loved by every one of us who knew him and frequented his establishment, even by those who did not approve of his occasional night escapades sporting a wig, a comb, and a flamenco dress.”
“You speak of him as if he were dead,” ventured Fermín with dismay.
“Not dead, thank God.”
I heaved a sigh of relief. Don Federico lived with his deaf octogenarian mother, known in the neighborhood as “La Pepita,” who was famous for letting off hurricane-force wind capable of stunning the sparrows on her balcony and sending them spiraling down to the ground.
“Little did Pepita imagine that her Federico,” continued the high-school teacher, “had spent the night in a filthy cell, where a whole band of pimps and roughnecks had handled him like a party whore, only to give him the beating of his life when they had tired of his lean flesh, while the rest of the inmates sang in chorus, ‘Pansy, pansy, eat shit, you old dandy!’”