“The coffin is in the van. First we’d like to examine the customer. Pure technicality.”
I felt overpowered by nausea.
“I thought Mr. Collbató was going to come in person,” said the nun.
“Mr. Collbató begs to be excused, but a rather complicated embalming has cropped up at the last moment. A circus strongman.”
“Do you work with Mr. Collbató in the funeral parlor?”
“We’re his right and left hands, respectively. Wilfred the Hairy at your service, and here, at my side, my apprentice and student, Sansón Carrasco.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I rounded off.
The nun gave us a brief loo
king-over and nodded, indifferent to the pair of scarecrows reflected in her eyes.
“Welcome to Santa Lucía. I’m Sister Hortensia, the one who called you. Follow me.”
We followed Sister Hortensia without a word through a cavernous corridor whose smell reminded me of the subway tunnels. It was flanked by doorless frames through which one could make out candlelit halls filled with rows of beds, piled up against the wall and covered with mosquito nets that moved in the air like shrouds. I could hear groans and see glimpses of human shapes through the netting.
“This way,” Sister Hortensia beckoned, a few yards ahead of us.
We entered a wide vault, where I found no difficulty in situating the stage for the Tenebrarium described by Fermín. The darkness obscured what at first seemed to me a collection of wax figures, sitting or abandoned in corners, with dead, glassy eyes that shone like tin coins in the candlelight. I thought that perhaps they were dolls or remains of the old museum. Then I realized that they were moving, though very slowly, even stealthily. It was impossible to tell their age or gender. The rags covering them were the color of ash.
“Mr. Collbató said not to touch or clean anything,” said Sister Hortensia, looking slightly apologetic. “We just placed the poor thing in one of the boxes that was lying around here, because he was beginning to drip, but that’s done.”
“You did the right thing. You can’t be too careful,” agreed Fermín.
I threw him a despairing look. He shook his head calmly, indicating that I should leave him in charge of the situation. Sister Hortensia led us to what appeared to be a cell with no ventilation or light, at the end of a narrow passage. She took one of the gas lamps that hung from the wall and handed it to us.
“Will you be long? I’m rather busy.”
“Don’t worry about us. You get on with your things, and we’ll take him away.”
“All right. If you need anything I’ll be down in the basement, in the gallery for the bedridden. If it’s not too much bother, take him out through the back door. Don’t let the others see him. It’s bad for the patients’ morale.”
“We quite understand,” I said in a faltering voice.
Sister Hortensia gazed at me for a moment with vague curiosity. When I saw her more closely, I noticed that she was quite an age, almost an elderly woman. Few years separated her from the hospice’s guests.
“Listen, isn’t the apprentice a bit young for this sort of work?” she asked.
“The truths of life know no age, Sister,” remarked Fermín.
The nun nodded and smiled at me sweetly. There was no suspicion in that look, only sadness.
“Even so,” she murmured.
She wandered off into the shadows, carrying her bucket and dragging her shadow like a bridal veil. Fermín pushed me into the cell. It was a dismal room built into the walls of a cave that sweated with damp. Chains ending in hooks hung from the ceiling, and the cracked floor was broken up by a sewage grating. In the center of the room, on a grayish marble table, was a wooden crate for industrial packaging. Fermín raised the lamp, and we caught a glimpse of the deceased between the straw padding. Parchment features, incomprehensible, jagged and frozen. The swollen skin was purple. The eyes were open: white, like broken eggshells.
The sight made my stomach turn, and I looked away.
“Come on, let’s get down to work,” ordered Fermín.
“Are you mad?”
“I mean we have to find this Jacinta woman before we’re found out.”