At Close Quarters (4 page)

‘It’s advisable.’

‘You and your military mind,’ she joked. ‘Always seeing problems
where there aren’t any. Jaime would never dare claim any of that money. He knows it’s not his,’ she said, and further explained. ‘He knows it’s yours.’

‘Well, tomorrow when I take these papers to the bank there will be no point in speculating whether he’d claim it or not. He simply won’t be able to. Has he paid this month’s alimony, by the way?’

‘No. I’ve told you he’s had some trouble at the company.’

‘You not demanding what your children are entitled to won’t solve his problems.’

‘Your never liked Jaime, Dad,’ she said. The sweetness of her tone softened the harshness of the comment. ‘You’ve always thought badly of him. I don’t mean to say he didn’t disappoint me either, but I know him …’

‘Better than me, I admit,’ he interrupted.

‘And I know he’d never do such a thing. But for your peace of mind, I’ll sign those papers right now. Give them here.’

As he passed her the printed papers marked with crosses where she should sign, he remembered the conversation they’d had when she’d told him she was going to marry Jaime. He’d warned her that he didn’t like him and didn’t think it was a very good idea. Jaime struck him as immature, silly, volatile, very well suited to that company of his, Vertical Mediterranean, but not calm enough for the stability a marriage requires. He admitted women might find Jaime very seductive when he put on his harness and clipped himself to a safety rope and climbed up to carry out one of those jobs he did: putting up an advertising poster on top of a building or fixing a satellite dish or an aerial. Up there, all lightness and confidence, he might look like a sleepwalking angel, a bird or a feline moving along the parapets, oblivious to vertigo and fear. But back on the ground he suddenly looked smaller, as if he wasn’t the same person that had been silhouetted against the sky, and his comments sounded vain and trivial when he responded to the praise of those who had seen him at work. Time had proved Olmedo right, but he’d never been cruel to his daughter, had never said, ‘I told you so, I did tell you he was only a peacock. I said
he wouldn’t make you happy, and you didn’t listen, didn’t take my advice. So now take responsibility for your actions and deal with the consequences on your own.’ On the contrary, when she confessed her failure, he opened his arms and gave her his full support.

‘Here,’ she said, handing him the signed papers.

‘I don’t care whether I was right or wrong. I only want for you to be happy.’ He was pleased to see his daughter smile before she gave him a hug.

‘I am, Dad. I’m pretty sure I am.’

‘It’s the only thing that matters.’

‘I know.’

‘What time did you tell Gabriela?’ said Olmedo, and cast a glance at the clock ticking on the wall.

‘In five minutes. She’ll be here any moment. You know how punctual she is.’

She cleared the cups and took them to the kitchen.

Olmedo was about to take the boy out to play in the garden when he discovered his grandson needed a diaper change. He told his daughter, who picked him up and went to take care of it. One minute after ten the doorbell rang.

‘Can you get that?’ shouted Marina from the bathroom.

But he had already lifted the receiver of the intercom, and when he heard, ‘It’s me, Gabriela,’ he buzzed her in. Then he opened the door and waited in the doorway with a strange feeling of novelty. It was the first time Gabriela had visited his daughter’s house; whenever all three had met before, to go shopping or share a meal, it had been in a public place or in his flat. But the fact that Gabriela was now coming to the house where father and daughter – the family – were waiting added to their closeness, as if she were saying she did not only accept him, Camilo Olmedo, but also the circumstances surrounding him.

But there was a further dimension to her visit. For someone who had lost her son so violently, to the jaws of a dog, any reference to children could only bring to mind her own loss. The
imbalance between his own general well-being and Gabriela’s situation seem terribly unfair to Olmedo; her suffering was such that she spent whole afternoons in her flat, thinking of her son, looking at pictures of him, fighting back an enormous amount of pain. And so he felt he was beholden to her, and wanted to spend time with her not only for the sake of passion, as would have been the case twenty or thirty years before, but also to impart
something
of his own serenity and try to assuage her sorrow.

The lift stopped and out came Gabriela, tall and fragile, looking around as if searching for something, a gesture that was
characteristic
of her. She greeted him with that calm smile which was never entirely free of affliction, and at times she seemed to be on the brink of bursting into tears. She’d gathered her blonde hair into a ponytail, and this gave her an air of youthfulness. Her face, clear and clean, only looked troubled in its lifeless eyes and in the deep, M-shaped wrinkle that had formed between her eyebrows, as if Manuel himself, in dying, had engraved it there so as to make his presence felt every time she looked in the mirror. Olmedo admired how beautiful she still was. Only a woman with an upright neck and straight nape can carry off a ponytail like that. In a few years it would suggest stiffness and harshness.

‘Have you been waiting here long?’ she asked.

‘One minute,’ he replied as he approached to kiss her lightly on her thin, cold lips. They were the same height.

They went inside, and while his daughter showed Gabriela around, he sat in the living room with the child, who was now changed, and smelled fresh and clean. The boy started passing him all the toys he had in his playpen, as if that disorderly exchange of pieces were the most fun thing in the world. Olmedo heard the women in the other room, his daughter chatting about colours, furniture, decoration. They seemed relaxed when they returned, and he thought he could go to his meeting now, as they didn’t appear to need him at all. They had planned to drop by Samuel’s together, to pick up some plants he had promised them.

‘We’ll ransack his garden, you’ll see,’ joked Marina as she carried
a huge wicker basket and a roll of plastic bags. ‘I’ve bought a dozen flowerpots,’ she said, pointing to the balcony where one could see the empty containers of all sizes, ‘and we’ll get enough plants to open a botanical garden.’

‘Poor Samuel!’ said Gabriela.

‘I wish I could come with you, not to help you carry anything, but to stop you carrying so much. I really should be going, though. The meeting starts at eleven.’

He put the printed papers in his briefcase, picked up the car keys and walked to the door with Gabriela.

‘Shall I stop by tonight?’ he asked.

‘Better tomorrow. I’ve got several things to do at home.’

‘All right. Tomorrow then,’ he said, respectful of the reserve she often showed him.

They’d been seeing each other for four months, and he knew that patience was needed to solve a contradiction in their
relationship
: he sought Gabriela’s company more than she did his, and yet he was sure that, of the two, she was the one who needed the other more. But Gabriela would have to arrive at that
conclusion
on her own. In the meantime, he would stick around, and only when she opened the door would he step in, never trying to force the lock before that moment. He wasn’t a man who liked talking about himself, nor did he have enough mastery of the complex vocabulary of feelings to persuade her of all he could do for her. He felt awkward with sentimental words, perhaps because of his profession, in a time when the military had left behind the art of gallantry. If one day Gabriela looked him in the eye and asked: ‘Who are you? What are you like inside? Why do you take such pains with me and show me such kindness?’ it wouldn’t be easy to reply to her. He needed time and facts, more than words, to explain things.

Now it was Gabriela who approached to kiss him, as if with that kind gesture she meant to compensate him for her refusal to see him that night. But when she placed her hand near his left armpit she must have felt the bulk of the gun, because she withdrew it
quickly. Olmedo knew how much she disliked it when he was armed.

‘I’ll call you tomorrow then,’ he said.

‘Tomorrow, yes. Good luck at the meeting.’

‘I think it’ll be fine,’ he replied.

Fifteen minutes later he walked into his office in the main wing of the San Marcial base. He sat at his desk and went through the points of the report he would discuss in a few minutes. He remembered all facts and figures, all useful and redundant details. Nobody would put forth an argument he couldn’t firmly refute. It was a foregone conclusion. He was closing the folder when there was a knock on his door.

‘Come in.’

‘Do I have your permission, sir?’

It was one of the Latin American soldiers who, over the past few years, had enlisted in the Spanish army in order to get Spanish nationality. His accent sounded incongruous in someone wearing the same uniform as him. At first, Olmedo too had looked down on them and demanded from them double the effort, but he had ended up getting used to these dark-skinned guys with their strong teeth, stiff black hair, and short statures who, when they eventually swore allegiance to the flag, shouted the patriotic slogans with as much fervour as the natives.

‘Come in,’ he repeated.

‘The colonel would like a word with you.’

‘I’m coming right over.’

Colonel Castroviejo’s spacious corner office, at the end of the hall, was lit by two large windows; one gave on to the entrance of the base and the other to the training field where parades,
ceremonies
and official acts took place, an esplanade closed off on one side by cement stands which made it look a bit like a football stadium.

‘May I come in, sir?’

‘Please do, Olmedo.’

The colonel did not move to greet him. He stayed with his back
turned, looking out of the window at a company of soldiers doing exercises on the pitch. With his hands behind his back, he stooped forward slightly, appearing older than he was. Olmedo knew how much the colonel was disconcerted by the tremendous speed of the modern world, its confusing international conflicts without defined combat lines, and the new wars against invisible enemies hidden among civilians. He suspected that, in some way, the colonel blamed him for being complicit in those changes. On his desk was one of the two copies Olmedo had made of the report. The other was in Madrid.

‘I’ve reread your papers carefully,’ said the colonel.

Olmedo noticed the scornful nuance.

‘I should congratulate you on a job well done,’ continued the colonel, ‘except that your conclusions are not to my liking.’

‘I’m afraid there was no other …’

‘I know, I know,’ he interrupted sharply. ‘I know you were following orders. And orders are given to be obeyed; the army is not a democracy. It’s not me you’ll have to convince of simply having carried out a technical commission. I don’t agree with your premises, but, at least in public, I won’t oppose them. Don’t worry, I won’t raise any objections at the meeting.’ He paused and then, as though he’d thought it through, but wasn’t too sure how appropriate it was to say it, added: ‘Today no one can say that the Spanish military is not disciplined. Not once have we spoken out in protest, in spite of the victims we’ve had in the last few years … as a consequence of the civilians’ deficient administrations. I won’t speak out now about a matter of lesser importance.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘You’re aware you’ll make enemies?’ the colonel asked, turning to look fixedly at Olmedo, his eyes slightly blanched by age.

‘I am, but I have them already, sir.’

‘But this won’t just be professional rivalry. Some will be personally affected, and will see your report as an offence. Others will even think of the word humiliation. And all of them will feel like a band of veterans sent away from the city walls on the basis that
they will be better defended by new weapons mounted on the tower keep,’ he added, using one of those examples of old military strategy that he liked to quote in public.

‘But no one’s leaving them outside the walls,’ argued Olmedo. ‘They only need to accept a transfer. Or take early retirement.’

‘You know well that for some neither is a very honourable possibility. But they too will obey … they all will. I know them, they are disciplined, as I said. And discipline is best shown by obeying orders we don’t like.’

‘I would never question that.’

The colonel, who had not moved from his place, once again turned his back to him and looked out of the window. The soldiers were leaving the training field three abreast and presently the place was empty. There was no one walking along the clean streets in front of the pavilions with manicured areas of grass and straight paths flanked by whitewashed stones. At one end of the pitch one could see the deserted stands and, beyond, the high brick wall complete with barbed wire surrounding the compound and enforcing a dual purpose: to keep soldiers in, and to keep people out. The barracks, usually aflutter with activity, were at that moment in the deepest calm, the officers waiting in the meeting room, anxious to learn the results of his report. There was none of the shouting or clicking of heels normally heard during instruction, and nor did one hear vehicles or everyday noises generated by cleaning or pruning trees. For Olmedo all that solitude and emptiness heralded the final closure. The colonel must have thought something along the same lines, because he asked, again without looking at him:

‘Do you realise? This is all going to disappear. Everything we established with a view to remaining here will be reduced to transient, useless work.’

Olmedo didn’t reply. He just nodded briefly, even though the colonel couldn’t see him.

‘It had to happen, it was inevitable since they abolished compulsory military service. At the end of the day, there’s no better
reason to knock down barracks than the fact that they’re empty of soldiers. And I seem to remember you agreed with that measure too,’ he added recalling an old grievance which was more bitter that Olmedo had thought.