Barcelona Shadows (24 page)

“Try it,” warns Malsano. “Just try it and I’ll blow you to bits.”

Enriqueta hesitates, but doesn’t back down. Juan Malsano holds her gaze a good long while, 500 or 600 years, and in it discovers the wickedest person he’s ever met. She is pure evil, the devil, the monster, without a grain of humanity. And his skin bristles and his body trembles.

“He’s not here.” Golem appears with Teresina. He left Salvador handcuffed, crying. “I can’t find Moisès.”

Malsano straightens up but keeps his gun on her. Enriqueta challenges him, it even seems that she’s smiling. She has a secret they can’t get out of her.

“Where is my partner?”

She doesn’t speak, she keeps her eyes glued on him, but she’s already thrown the knife to the floor. A defenceless victim.

“Where is my partner?” he repeats, raising both his tone of voice and his revolver. If he were to shoot now, he would blow a hole right between her eyebrows.

“Juan…” Golem knows that if the inspector shoots everything would be worse.

He went too far with Pujaló, and he looks capable of venting his anger and frustration on Enriqueta. Golem takes a step towards Malsano. Juan…

“Where is Moisès Corvo?” He clenches his teeth, his finger tensing on the trigger.

Golem raises his hand and places it on the barrel. Juan. And he lowers it slowly. She smiles, the miscreant.

“We’ll find him. And she will pay.”

Juan Malsano winds up and smashes the butt of the revolver against Enriqueta’s cheekbone. He breaks the skin and two teeth, leaving her on the ground, with the taste of her own blood in her mouth.

“Where is my friend?”

“Moisès, listen to me. In two weeks I will reveal where your corpse is hidden. It won’t be made public. That wouldn’t be good for anyone. Malsano will fake a robbery to get it, and he’ll give you a burial. Your family will hold a wake, finally. They will say farewell, they will cry, and they will be proud.”

“I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.”

“You don’t all leave this world the way you’d like, or the way you deserve.”

“And what happens now.”

“Nothing. It’s over. You will sleep and never awaken. I’m here to keep you company. It’s the least I can do. I owe you that, because you’ve always been with me and you haven’t ignored me, you haven’t pretended I don’t exist.”

“Why?”

“There is no answer, Moisès. There wasn’t one that day with the Apaches, and there isn’t one now, here. There is no why, just a how. And your how has been magnificent.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“You don’t have to understand it. You have to accept it. You were a great man, with many defects and many virtues. You’ve had a full life: you’ve seen it all, and there are people who love you and will miss you and remember you well. No one will say
poor bloke, poor thing, poor little thing, which is what people repeat when someone is no longer by their side, in order to go on suffering, enjoying, working, playing and surviving. They will say: Moisès Corvo was my brother, my uncle, my husband, and they will be proud. He fought for what he believed in, against adversity. He gave it his all. And he pulled it off. Not everyone can say that, Moisès. Not everyone can reach the end, close their eyes and know that they are leaving a deep, lasting mark in the hearts of those who loved them. Living is fighting, not giving in and walking off with your head held high.”

“It was good while it lasted, Teresina.”

“No: it was very good.”

“I won’t argue with a girl who talks like a doddering old man.” Moisès Corvo’s soul dies out the way it lived.

“Now I will say goodbye.”

I kiss him, and the darkness swallows us up.

This novel couldn’t have been written without the help of the Arús Public Library, the archival service of
La Vanguardia
newspaper, the endless source of stories that is Montse Aguilar, my co-workers who asked if all that was really true after listening to the story of Enriqueta over and over again; and all those people who, without realizing it, contributed a grain of sand.

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