Needle in a Haystack (8 page)

The response is supposed to be:
Was flight 505 on time?
Eva hangs up. There’s no one left to turn to. The cell has been disbanded. Right now, those who’ve been captured and illegally detained will be trying to get through the first twenty-four hours of torture without speaking. That was deemed sufficient time for comrades to spread the word and disappear, before someone else makes them disappear for good. The military knows this and the race against the clock makes them ever more savage.

Night draws in and promises rain. The streets are deserted. Eva has to turn back quickly as she reaches the main road, burying herself in the dark shadows of the plantain trees on the side street. At the corner, two Falcons pass by, full of gorillas, the barrels of their Ithacas poking out the windows. They’re on her trail, and anybody else’s. It’s hunting hour and she’s among the prey. Unarmed, she feels naked. She trips on a loose paving stone and splashes dirty water up her legs. It seems like a sign. She walks for blocks and blocks, in tears, the cold of the night biting at her wet cheeks, her body begging for respite. She has nowhere to go, but pride stops her from returning to Lascano’s. Though hardly ideal, it is her only possible refuge. When she accepts this, she starts to make her way back. When she gets to his building, she hesitates, desperately going over her options one more time, but there are none.

The light in the entrance hall suddenly comes on and a teenage boy steps out of the lift. Eva pretends to be looking for her keys as he comes out of the door and
he holds it open for her. Inside, the cold immediately relaxes its grip and there’s a delicious smell floating down the stairs of home-cooked beef escalopes with garlic and parsley. Her tummy rumbles. Outside Lascano’s door, she hesitates again, but only briefly, because there are people coming and going. Ignoring the bell, she taps lightly on the wood three times. Part of her wants Lascano not to hear, but he’s been leaning against the door since she left, smoking one cigarette after another, thinking about her, and so his body feels the knocking before his ears hear it. He opens the door as if he’s been expecting her all along. The sky provides the special effects, thunder, lightning and the sort of torrential downpour more typical of a hot summer’s day.

In the confined space of the kitchen, Eva and Lascano relax in each other’s company, concentrating on the task in hand and drawing close enough to smell one another. As the food takes shape, they can’t help brushing into each other from time to time, and can’t help liking it when it happens amid the aroma of frying onion and garlic. The kitchen heats up like a furnace and their body temperatures rise accordingly, warming to the domestic harmony. There are patches of sky where life can be forgotten, the bleakness suspended, while, inside, a juicy pepper, red as blood, yields under Lascano’s knife, ready to incite the mixture simmering away in the frying pan. The pot of hot water bubbles and impatiently demands spaghetti. The onions sting Eva’s eyes and surprise her with a feeling of remorse, but her need for a sense of home and a little good cheer is greater, and so for the moment she files away her pain, her fear, her constant state of being on guard. She grabs the bottle of wine Lascano has used to spice up the sauce, pours two glasses and they toast in the proper fashion, looking each other in the eye. Her body burns. Lascano feels a shiver, like that of the male spider entering the black widow’s web.

Amancio has the distinct feeling his life is tumbling down around him. Even so, he’s sometimes overcome by a crazy kind of certainty that everything is about to change for the better. This sudden optimism never arises from him doing something concrete to improve his financial circumstances - it’s all he can do to keep himself afloat - rather he imagines that a miracle is about to occur. He daydreams that he witnesses a hold-up and that in the shoot out the thief falls dead at his feet with a briefcase. Amancio picks it up and somehow contrives to slip away from the police and when he opens the valise, there’s a million dollars inside. Or he gets into a lift with another man carrying a briefcase. It’s just the two of them. The other guy has a fit, a heart attack or something, and falls down unconscious on the floor. Amancio checks that the guy is out cold and takes off with the attaché and when he opens it, there’s a million dollars inside. But now is not really the time for such fantasizing and so he stands up, straightens his trousers, looks at himself in the mirror and leaves the bathroom without flushing the toilet, something that drives Lara mad.

Lara finishes rinsing off under the shower. Amancio spies
on her from the shadows of the corridor, thinking she doesn’t notice. Even wearing the ridiculous plastic shower cap, she looks amazing. Lara could dress in rags and her beauty wouldn’t be diminished in the slightest. In fact, it would stand out all the more for the contrast. She turns off the taps, takes off the shower cap and shakes her hair in a circular motion, which fascinates Amancio even more.

Lara lets him put the garment over her shoulders, but when he moves to embrace her, she slips away with a calculated, agile movement, proving once again that she’s one step ahead of him. In the bedroom she sits in front of the mirror and brushes her hair, like a femme fatale from a white telephone movie, admiring herself all the while. There’s much to admire.

She’s not sure she fancies a drink, but she certainly doesn’t fancy giving Amancio the pleasure of staring at her naked body and, at the same time, she saves herself the bother of having to reject him when he starts his annoying advances. She quickly puts on her underwear. Provocative, yes, easy, never, or at least not now, not with this fool. When Amancio gets back, jingling the ice in the glasses like some hotshot, Lara is already putting her black dress on, a garment which set him back the price of five Hereford cows when he bought it for her in Paris. This dress, like a starry night sky painted onto Lara’s body, is proof manifest of the curvature of space.

As Amancio walks away from the discussion, Lara takes a good swig from her glass and pulls a face at him in the mirror.

Pérez Lastra goes over to his forlorn-looking gun rack. All he’s got left is the Sauer 12 gauge shotgun, which he inherited from his father, and the nine millimetre which Giribaldi gave him for his birthday. The Remington, the Winchester, the Skorpio with the added double barrel and all the rest ended up at the Banco Municipal de Préstamos, the state-owned pawnbroker, the intention always being to recover them before the expiry date of the tickets. But neither thief nor businessman appeared with the million-dollar suitcase and so the guns never came home, instead ending up under the ruthless hammer of the auctioneer and in the hands of strangers. Amancio curses his luck. He moves away from the display case feeling dazed and calls to Lara from the corridor that he’ll wait for her down in the car. Lara makes another funny face, a second swig of her drink having put a twinkle in her eye and got her in a party mood. If she wants to enjoy herself tonight, she knows she’ll have to shackle Amancio somehow.

Down on the street, making her way to the car, Lara has to dodge past a rubbish truck and inspires the admiration of the filthy, rough, brawny workers.

Amancio hears the lewd remark and makes a motion as if to get out of the car. Lara intercepts him.

The journey is short and silent. Lara sits sulking, head turned to the window.

The salon is full of the well-to-do. Everyone is very elegant, the gentlemen in tuxedos, the ladies in evening gowns. Mixed among the civilian wardrobes are a handful of military men, dressed in their forces finery, from colonel upwards. Lara and Amancio sit at their adorned table in silence. Amancio put Horacio on the guest list to impress him, and hoped through him to gain favour with Biterman, thereby extending his payments deadline, and maybe even the credit line. When Amancio invited him, Horacio jumped for joy: he’d always dreamed of setting foot in the salons where the bourgeois progeny congregate. And here he comes, his red hair floating above the crowd, as he athletically winds his way through
the well-developed paunches of the landholding class. Amancio gets to his feet to greet him.

Lara looks carefully at Horacio. What he interprets as polite feminine interest is in fact the quick radiography she performs on any man who crosses her path. The verdict: clearly a loser, like her husband, but a fine young man nevertheless, with a pianist’s hands. A roll in the hay is not out of the question. Looking over the heads of the two men keeping her company, Lara’s face suddenly lights up. She has spotted Ramiro, a half-cousin and occasional lover, ever the charmer, always elegant and always extremely rich in every sense. Ramiro comes up to Amancio from behind and slaps him on the back, a bit too hard.

There’s nothing worse than Ramiro as far as Amancio’s concerned. Even as a child, Ramiro would slight him, and although Amancio is ten years older, he has never managed to beat Ramiro at anything; Ramiro is an excellent sportsman. Amancio feels all the old animosity swell up inside him as Ramiro kisses Lara on both cheeks, the French way, doing so too close to the mouth, and lingering too long.

Lara, every day
plus adorable
. And you look younger by the day. What’s your secret? The good life is my secret. Doing whatever one wants, whenever one wants and with whomever one wants.

Noticing Horacio’s presence, Ramiro extends a hand and a broad smile.

Amancio watches them move away towards the dance floor, hand in hand, whispering and giggling to one another. He starts to stew with anger, but Horacio snaps him out of it, nodding in Lara’s direction.