The Barcelona Brothers (25 page)

The police officers are climbing the last flights of stairs. Alex straightens up and heads for the landing on the floor above. From there, he can look down into the stairwell and see without being seen. Pep and Rubén walk up to the apartment door and ring the bell once, twice, three times. No one answers. The policemen look at each other. Maybe they’ve got the wrong door. One of them tells his partner to try the other apartment. With any luck, someone’s home, he says. But Alex doubts it. Considering the commotion that’s been taking place on the landing, if anybody’s in the other third-floor apartment, they’d surely have given signs of life by now.

“Rubén … do you hear anything?”

Rubén shakes his head. Alex wonders what they’ll do next if they can’t find anybody home on this floor. If someone called in a complaint, the cops can’t just leave without further investigation. If they’re here just because they’ve been following him, it makes no sense that they wouldn’t look for him on every floor. Whatever the case may be, he has to keep quiet until he’s had enough time to relax and think clearly. Maybe the best idea would be to go down and talk to them. Persuade them to let him try to reason with his brother. Explain to them that it’s a jealous argument, a simple lovers’ quarrel that has nothing to do with Tanveer or anything else. But Alex is very
nervous. He shuts his eyes, but that makes everything much worse. They’re back. At critical moments, they’re always so punctual … His medication will start to take effect very soon, but in the meanwhile … He feels presences surrounding him. They smell like old people, like damp wood, like corpses, saints, and demons.

Suddenly Alex hears a click behind him that dissolves his visions into nothing. He opens his eyes and springs back instinctively from the railing, over which he’s been observing the policemen. A neighbor, apparently lost in thought, steps out of his apartment with a bunch of keys in his hand. He locks the door, and when he turns around, the sight of Alex surprises him. He utters an involuntary, astonished, irrepressible shout.

“You scared the hell out of me! What do you want? Who are you looking for?”

Alex tries to reply, but while he’s searching for the words, he can tell from the neighbor’s face that at least one of the policemen has appeared behind him. The cop speaks to the neighbor in Catalan:
“Passi, senyor, passi. No es preocupi de res, senyor. Passi, si us plaus …
”

The neighbor obeys the officer—Rubén—who’s taken his pistol out of its holster. When the man passes in front of him, Rubén lowers the weapon, effectively hiding it. Alex faces him and, without knowing exactly why, puts his hands up. At this point, the policeman shows him the pistol, as if the effect has produced the cause and not vice versa. From the next landing down, Pep abruptly calls out: “What’s going on up there, Rubén?”

“Bet you can’t guess who’s here.”

“Today’s most sought-after brother?”

“Bingo.”

“Come on down, both of you.”

Alex is convinced they’re not looking for him. They don’t know a thing. This
mosso
is probably even more scared than he is, and that’s why he pulled out his gun when it was completely unnecessary. As if reading Alex’s thoughts, Rubén puts the pistol away and tries to ease the tension in the air: “Don’t you know we’ve been looking for you all day?”

“No. I’ve been to the police station twice today. It’s not like I’m hiding out,” Alex replies crossly.

When he reaches the third-floor landing, Alex grasps how bad it looks for Epi to be playing possum on the other side of the door. The whole affair has become too complicated, Alex thinks. It has to be brought to a close, quickly, and the consequences controlled insofar as possible.

“Well, what’s going on here?”

The proper question. This cop, at least—unlike the other, who’s remained behind Alex—has no apparent desire to perform feats of heroism. What he wants to do is to resolve the matter right away, without too much noise.

“My brother’s in there.”

Pep nods interrogatively toward the door of the apartment where Epi and Tiffany are. Alex confirms the policeman’s assumption.

“Is he alone?”

“No, he’s with his girlfriend.”

“Right.”

“His friend was murdered, and he’s scared. He doesn’t have any prior arrests. It’s just that he’s confused … I was talking to them when you and your partner arrived. They were on the point of coming out. Let me talk to him some more and everything will be fine.”

“All right. Tell him to come on out. We’ll take him down to the station and ask him some questions, and then we’ll see.”

Alex silently vows to get Epi out of that apartment, whatever it takes. He makes himself promises, just as he used to do when he was a boy. If he successfully jumped the vaulting horse in gym class or held his breath for a minute underwater in the swimming pool, he would pass the exam, or the girl would be his. If he succeeds. If he manages to get Epi out of there. If this all ends well.

But when he speaks, nobody replies. The silence thickens. The policemen look at each other. With a certain brusqueness, they move Alex out of the way and replace him at the door. They identify themselves as
mossos
and demand entrance. Seconds like eternities pass. There’s no sound, and then, suddenly, Alex’s foot starts tapping against the railing. Pep urges him to cut it out. Alex withdraws his foot from the metal structure. There’s not much more he can do. His temples are thumping against the cotton walls that the tranquilizer has been erecting inside his head. But in the midst of the ambient disaster, he discerns it clearly. Amid the shouts and footsteps of the policemen, the pistols and the radios with their droning, metallic messages, there it is. Its outline stands out on the
door. Alex has seen it now, and he won’t be able to stop seeing it. It’s a Donald Duck silhouette, and it’s going to entrance him for a while; all at once, everyone and everything else will seem to shift into the background, and that image will become for him like
Christ walking on water
, as his mother would say, if she were still alive, if she were here, and if she would ever have been given to blasphemy.

“
TIME EATS UP TIME,
”
EPI’S FATHER USED TO SAY. EPI
remembers that now and thinks it’s true. Time, it seems to him, has an almost physical presence. It’s a runaway animal made of minutes, which in turn are stones, bones, teeth. Every second matters so much it hurts. Every moment is the last.

He thinks Tiffany won’t or can’t listen to him. She’s afraid, and it seems that frightening her more is the only way to make her understand she has nothing to be frightened of. He has no wish to do her harm. In reality, he never has. Now he knows that. The glimpse of her elusive eyes through the tangles of her hair is enough for him.

“Tiffany, you’re not listening to anything I’m saying, are you? Until we talk and you know everything, and I mean everything, nobody’s leaving here. Nobody. So I don’t want any more nonsense, all right? Is that so hard? And if you fuck me around too much, remember one thing: I don’t care what I
do. If I’ve come this far, it’s because I know I can’t turn back. I don’t care what I do, you understand me? The easiest thing would be to make a clean sweep. That way, all of you will stop fucking me around.”

She understands him, and how. She tells him so without speaking. She whimpers so he’ll know she’s in defeat. From the very first moment, she’s misjudged this situation. She underestimated Epi and the prevailing circumstances—the safe house, the shortage of neighbors, the time of day, Tanveer’s death—and failed to see how serious things would become. Now she needs to be cautious, she needs to be smart; Epi’s on the alert, and her life’s probably in danger. The girl perceives her body in a way she’s never perceived it before. An entity with concrete dimensions that she has to protect with the greatest care. It’s as if there were a time bomb in the room, and she must make sure Epi doesn’t touch anything that will make it go off. She notices her toes. She notices her weak stomach, transparent to the touch of a knife blade. She pictures her defenseless face, exposed to a slash, a blow, her skull caving in like plaster under the force of a madman. She’d love to be able to draw a circle, place herself inside it, and disappear. But the chalk she must use is invisible, her drawing must be perfect, and she must retrace without tremor or hesitation the line of points that she and she alone has to be able to read. With Epi, she needs to use the right words, make the necessary promises, execute the flawless caresses.

“Are you going to listen to me?” Epi asks insistently.

She nods her head. She’s going to listen to him. She’s going to tell him he’s right. She’s going to promise him eternal love. This time she’s going to do it properly, all of it.

“Where shall I start?” Epi says aloud, as though he wants Tiffany to tell him what he should say. “You know I’m no good at talking.”

He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her. The image seems strange to Tiffany; it’s like Epi’s about to teach her some sleight of hand. Nothing in my left. Nothing in my right. Look, see for yourself. Now a knife will appear, and with it I’ll cut your throat. Guess the card: one chance out of a hundred. Tiffany calculates the distance between them. She assesses whether or not she could avoid a sudden fit of rage directed at herself. What are her possibilities of parrying a blow or a knife thrust? None, she thinks. She’d be safer on her feet, but she’s afraid Epi will get mad if she stands up. So she embraces her folded legs and presses them forcefully against her body, as if trying to make herself small enough to vanish through one of those open doors in the baseboards that mice in cartoons use to frustrate cats and brooms. Not far from Epi, who’s still trying to find the words, she sees something that fills her with anxiety and dread. It’s the mountain-climbing rope that was in the wardrobe earlier and is now lying in coils on the other side of the room. When did Epi take it out? With that rope he could tie her up. With that rope he could strangle her.

“Sometimes a person doesn’t see things as they are. Tanveer was part sorcerer, you know? That’s not a stupid thing to say,
it’s true. He enchanted people. I can’t explain it, but it probably happened to you. And his name wasn’t even Tanveer Hussein. His mother told my mother that one day. At home one afternoon. His birth certificate says his name is José María. But it’s true that his father was a
Moro
from Morocco.”

“I knew that about his name …”

Epi rises to his feet and goes from one side of the room to the other. He looks somewhat calmer now that she’s listening to him.

“He didn’t love you. He never loved you. He saw you and wanted to have you because having you is like having a lucky charm. Do you see what I’m saying? It’s hard to explain. When a guy has you beside him, he feels like everything’s going to work out fine.”

“My mother didn’t think so, and neither did yours.”

“But I did. To me, you were like a guardian angel. That’s it: like an angel that doesn’t believe in God or heaven. When you were with me, you—”

“We were good together, weren’t we?”

“Yes.”

“I always end up destroying what I love the most, Epi. It’s always the same story. I’m crazy. They should lock me up. Send me to a funny farm. Or maybe to a psychologist. I could get it all out, all the stuff I carry around inside, the stuff with my father, with Percy.”

“We were a couple.”

“Yes, fuck, I’m very sorry. Forgive me. I know I treated you bad,” Tiffany ventures, praying to the God and heaven she
apparently disbelieves in that Epi doesn’t grow too suspicious of the new role she’s playing in this production.

“We used to make plans. You remember?”

Voices that aren’t yet shouts come from the other side of the door. Epi figures Alex and Allawi are getting impatient. He says they’re pretending to be the police, but Tiffany’s not so sure about that. If she could just tell them to wait a few minutes, if she could let them know that everything seems to be going well now, that Epi only wants to blow off some steam, and then he’ll let her leave and they can come in and haul him away to prison to rot for the next many years while she goes around telling everyone about her adventure, describing it on TV, in the newspapers, to friends and neighbors in the barrio.

“Shut the fuck up!” Epi yells at the door. “If you keep bothering me, I swear to God I’ll do something crazy and we’ll all leave here feet first!”

The voices fall silent. Something changes, all of a sudden, in the girl’s spirits. Epi’s not acting as unconsciously as he seems to be. He’s got some kind of plan. It could include killing her and/or killing himself. Maybe he only wants her to listen to him before he slaughters her. Maybe her life can’t be saved. Nevertheless, fear inspires her. “Leave us alone,” the girl shouts. “We’re talking. Nothing else is happening. Go away from here, and the two of us will come out in a little while. Leave us alone. Go away.”

Epi smiles. He likes Tiffany’s new attitude, even though he doesn’t trust it. He’s put everything on the line for her once already. What was it his father used to say that annoyed his
mother so much? He can’t remember it clearly; it escapes when he tries to keep it on his tongue. He says, “It won’t be so easy.”

“Why won’t it be easy? Why can’t it be? You’re talking to me. Didn’t you want to explain everything? Then explain. I’m listening. This doesn’t have to be the end; it can be a beginning. I realize a lot of things now.” At this point, Tiffany believes, she has to talk and talk. “I realize I’ve been blind. I didn’t see anything. I didn’t see who was good and who was bad. Who loved me and who didn’t.”

“I loved you so much …”

“And I loved you, too, in my way …”

“I used to wait for something, anything: a telephone call, a meeting in the street. I’d see you everywhere and I’d close my eyes and I’d keep seeing you.”

“I’m sorry, Epi, I’m so sorry.”

“And I didn’t understand what was happening. I’d see the two of you go off, and I’d—”

“I was blind. I don’t know what came over me. You were what I needed. You calm me down. You always did. But I fought against that. You satisfied me in every way. In bed, on the street.”