‘The truth,’ I replied. ‘He told me the truth.’
As I tried to reconstruct Fermín’s story Bea listened in silence. At first I felt anger swelling up inside me again, but as I advanced through the story I was overwhelmed by sadness and despair. It was all new to me and I still didn’t know how I was going to be able to live with the secrets and implications of what Fermín had revealed to me. Those events had taken place almost twenty years before, and the passage of time had turned me into a mere spectator in a play where the course of my fate had been determined.
When I finished talking, I noticed the anxious look in Bea’s eyes. It wasn’t hard to guess what she was thinking.
‘I’ve promised my father that during his lifetime I won’t look for that man, Valls, or do anything else,’ I added, to reassure her.
‘During his lifetime? And what happens afterwards? Haven’t you thought about us? About Julián?’
‘Of course I have. And you must not worry,’ I lied. ‘After talking to my father I’ve understood that all this happened a long time ago and there’s nothing we can do to change it.’
Bea seemed rather unconvinced.
‘It’s the truth …’ I lied again.
She held my gaze for a few moments, but those were the words she wanted to hear and she finally surrendered to the temptation of believing them.
2
That afternoon, with the rain still lashing the flooded, deserted streets, the grim figure of Sebastián Salgado appeared outside the bookshop. He was observing us with his unmistakable predatory air through the shop window, the lights from the nativity scene illuminating his ravaged face. His suit – the same old suit he’d worn on his first visit – was soaking wet. I went over to the door and opened it for him.
‘Lovely manger,’ he said.
‘Aren’t you coming in?’
I held the door open and Salgado limped in. After a few steps he stopped, leaning on his walking stick. Fermín eyed him suspiciously from the counter. Salgado smiled.
‘It’s been a long time,’ he intoned.
‘I thought you were dead,’ replied Fermín.
‘I thought you were dead, too, as did everyone else. That’s what they told us. That you’d been caught trying to escape and they’d shot you.’
‘Fat chance.’
‘To be honest, I always hoped you’d managed to slip away. You know: the devil looks after his own and all that …’
‘You move me to tears, Salgado. When did you get out?’
‘About a month ago.’
‘Don’t tell me you were let out for good behaviour,’ said Fermín.
‘I think they got tired of waiting for me to die. Do you know I was granted a pardon? I’ve got it on a sheet of paper, signed by General Franco himself.’
‘You must have had it framed, I’m sure.’
‘I’ve put it in a place of honour: above the toilet, in case I ever run out of tissue.’
Salgado took a few more steps towards the counter and pointed to a chair in a corner.
‘Do you mind if I sit down? I’m still not used to walking more than ten metres in a straight line and I get tired very easily.’
‘It’s all yours,’ I offered.
He fell into the chair and took a deep breath as he rubbed his knee. Fermín looked at him like someone who has spied a rat climbing out of a toilet.
‘Funny, isn’t it, to think that the one person everyone thought would be the first to kick the bucket turns out to be the last … Do you know what has kept me alive all these years, Fermín?’