Fermín laughed bitterly.
‘Because you have a wife and a son, because you have a life ahead of you and people who love you and whom you love. Because you have it all, Daniel.’
‘All except my mother.’
‘Revenge won’t give you back your mother, Daniel.’
‘That’s easy to say. Nobody murdered yours …’
Fermín was about to say something, but he bit his tongue.
‘Why do you think your father never told you about the war, Daniel? Do you think he doesn’t imagine what happened?’
‘If that’s so, why did he keep quiet? Why didn’t he do anything?’
‘Because of you, Daniel. Because of you. Your father, like so many people who had to live through those years, swallowed everything and kept quiet. They just had to lump it. You pass them in the street every day and don’t even see them. They’ve rotted away all these years with that pain inside them so that you, and others like you, could live. Don’t you dare judge your father. You have no right to.’
I felt as if my best friend had slapped me.
‘Don’t be angry with me, Fermín …’
Fermín shook his head.
‘I’m not angry.’
‘I’m just trying to take all this in, Fermín. Let me ask you a question. Just one.’
‘About Valls? No.’
‘Just one question, Fermín. I swear. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to reply.’
Fermín nodded reluctantly.
‘Is this Mauricio Valls the same Valls I think he is?’ I asked.
Fermín nodded.
‘The very one. The one who was Minister of Culture until about four or five years ago. The one who appeared in the papers every other day. The great Mauricio Valls. Author, editor, thinker and messiah of the national intellectual class. That Valls,’ said Fermín.
I realised I’d seen that man’s photograph in the papers dozens of times, that I’d heard his name being mentioned and had seen it printed on the spines of some of the books we had in the shop. Until that night, the name Mauricio Valls was just one more in that dim parade of dignitaries one barely notices but which always seems to be there. Until that night, if anyone had asked me who Mauricio Valls was, I would have said he was only vaguely familiar to me, a public figure of those blighted years to whom I’d never paid much attention. Until that night it would never have crossed my mind to imagine that one day that name, that face, would thereafter be the name and the face of the man who murdered my mother.
‘But …’ I protested.
‘No buts. You said one more question and I’ve answered it already.’
‘Fermín, you can’t leave me like this …’
‘Listen carefully, Daniel.’
Fermín looked me in the eye and gripped my wrist.
‘I swear that, when the moment is right, I myself will help you find that son-of-a-bitch, if it’s the last thing I do in my life. Then we’ll settle our scores with him. But not now. Not like this.’
I looked at him doubtfully.
‘Promise me you won’t do anything stupid, Daniel. Promise you’ll wait for the right moment.’
I looked down.