The Whispering City (30 page)

Even so, he had to punish her. In order to protect her.

Half an hour later, Sanvisens glimpsed a burst of colour. A deep red jacket. Ana had just arrived. He rose, stepped out of his office and called to her.

‘Ana, can you come here for a minute?’

40

If there is such a thing as a time machine, it exists in words
, she thought.
Ana, can you come here for a minute?
Her boss’s voice transported her with dizzying speed back to her childhood, when her parents would ask her that same question, almost always when she was about to get a scolding.

She didn’t have time to take off her jacket. She crossed the typewriter-filled room and went into Sanvisens’s office.

‘Close the door. Sit down.’

She remembered having sat on that side of the same desk after an ‘Ana, can you come here for a minute?’ when it was still her father’s. She was very young, and sometimes he would bring her to the newspaper. What age was she then? Six, seven? What had she done that time? Didn’t matter. That was before.

Sanvisens immediately explained his crestfallen expression. ‘I got a call from the public prosecutor, from Grau. About your article. Not so much about the content, but about the tone.’

Ana already knew what her boss wanted to tell her, but she let him repeat his conversation with Grau; otherwise she would have been admitting that she had done it on purpose, which she ended up doing anyway when he asked her, ‘Why did you put in that layer of distance?’

‘Because I’m not sure I believe what the police are saying.’

‘What reasons do you have for that?’

Since she was already on the subject, she explained to him how she’d decided to consult with her cousin Beatriz about the letters and, despite the growing disapproval she saw in Sanvisens’s face, she also told him that they had travelled to Martorell together. Here she left out the visit to the Bar Pastís, instead highlighting that the police owed the discovery of the connection between Abel Mendoza, his love letters and Mariona Sobrerroca to her and her cousin. Finally, she reached Beatriz’s latest discovery, and confessed that it had made her doubtful.

At that point her boss began to shake his head.

‘You should have kept it to yourself.’

‘Why? The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the police have left loose ends. And that gives rise to doubts. Reasonable doubts.’

She was repeating Beatriz’s words.

‘That’s their job. Investigating in Martorell was their job too. Interfering was a mistake.’

‘Even if I were to give you that point, at least you can admit that I have a right to express my scepticism.’

The word ‘right’ caused Sanvisens to wince. ‘Scepticism’ made it worse.

‘Another mistake.’

‘But our job is to tell the truth.’

‘It used to be, Ana, it used to be.’

‘So what are we doing here?’

‘Don’t act the innocent with me. I’m not buying it. What are we doing? We’re doing what we can.’

‘What they let us do, you mean.’

‘If you want to hear it that clearly stated, yes, what they let us do.’

Ana bowed her head and bit her lower lip. Sanvisens got up, went around the desk and rested his hand on her shoulder.

‘That’s just the way it is. Take it or leave it. We aren’t in a position to negotiate.’

She certainly wasn’t. A woman, and a rookie. As soon as she was married, if she married, her husband could forbid her from working. No, she wasn’t in any position to demand, or even expect, anything. So she just asked, ‘And now?’

Sanvisens seemed relieved to move on to something less delicate and talk about action.

‘Now we have to do two things: first, you have to write a proper, unequivocal article, for tomorrow…’

‘Proper?’

‘Don’t start, Ana. And tonight you are going to put on your best dress and you’re going to go to the Italian consulate. Today they are introducing the new consul and there is a reception.’

‘A society piece? But…’

‘But what? Can’t you see that I’m helping you?’

‘Thank you,’ said Ana, trying to sound as if she meant it.

41

At eight in the evening, walking up to the first floor of the modest palazzo that was home to the Italian consulate, Ana felt out of place. Not because her dress was second-hand, a gift from one of her rich cousins. And not because her high-heeled shoes had already visited the local ‘while you wait’ shop, and certainly not because her earrings were the ones she always wore, the only ones she owned. It was because she was entering the hall lit by sumptuous Venetian glass chandeliers as a crime reporter, and not as a society columnist.

Even so, before going in, she pasted on a wide smile that soon found its reflection in a familiar face, Conchita Comamala.

‘Aneta Martí!’

The woman’s strange habit of always calling her by that name restored a certain order to her thoughts. Aneta Martí, society; Ana Martí Noguer, crime. Two names for a double life that still couldn’t erase the displeasure Sanvisens had caused her by sending her to cover the event. No, finding names for her two characters didn’t disguise the bitter taste of punishment in the assignment, but it gave her the courage to face up to it. She began to pay attention to the clothes the guests were wearing.

Conchita Comamala wore a tailored sky-blue satin dress, which opened into a sweeping floor-length skirt; her dark hair was swept up in a chignon that revealed her neck, from which hung a platinum and diamond choker. She gripped Ana’s arm with a gloved hand, as if taking possession of her.

Ana was surprised by the gesture of familiarity and, searching for something to say, she pointed to her dress and ventured, ‘Balenciaga?’

‘Your incursion into the underworld hasn’t clouded your keen eye.’

‘Mariona Sobrerroca didn’t exactly belong to the underworld.’

‘She didn’t, no, for God’s sake. But those policemen… and the killer, a brute from Martorell…’

Comamala led her into the main salon. It seemed that all of Barcelona society was there that night, squeezed into the embassy’s three reception halls. Even though the balcony doors were open, she already noted a faint aroma of sweat mixed with various ladies’ perfumes. On a platform to the left of the room, a small string orchestra played, too timidly, fragments of Italian baroque pieces, adagios and largos. No
vivace
that could interrupt conversations.

Several heads turned as she passed. Ana understood that she was a coveted person, the object of morbid curiosity about her experiences in the ‘underworld’, where policemen and criminals mingled in the mind, and not only of Conchita Comamala.

Finally they reached a pedestal table that held a sculpture of two mythological figures whose carefree eroticism had made it a talking point for a group of women.

‘We’ll have to ask the consul to put it somewhere else. This hall is used for the celebration of public acts,’ one of them said vehemently.

Other voices seconded her half-heartedly. The five women stared at the faun’s hands on the nymph’s body and tried to imagine what was happening in the parts the sculptor hadn’t made visible.

Conchita Comamala and Ana arrived as their displays of moral indignation were reaching a climax.

The youngest of the women was the one who seemed most bothered. Ana had seen her before. She was Dolores Antich, the wife of Fernando Sánchez-Herranz. Just then she addressed Isabel Mira, appealing to her in her role as a patron of the arts and president of several foundations: ‘You have to talk to those degenerate Italians; it’s hard to believe their capital is the home of the Pope.’

‘Of course, Dolores. I will convey our indignation and I will ask them, kindly but firmly, to remove that indecent little statue from view.’

Ana’s appearance shifted the attention of the small group of women who, rather than focusing on what was going on between the nymph’s legs, were now more interested in knowing what had happened between Mariona’s.

‘Is it true he was a swindler?’

‘A widow scammer?’ said the widow of Solsona, earning herself a couple of suspicious looks.

‘Did you see him?’

‘Did they take you to see the body?’

‘Whose? Mariona’s or the killer’s?’ asked Ana. She was starting to enjoy the attention. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad night after all.

‘Mariona’s,’ said one of the women.

‘No, the killer’s,’ corrected another.

‘Is it true he was black?’

‘Where did you get the idea that he was black?’ interjected Comamala.

Ana smiled as the spiral of conjectures became more and more absurd. But she kept quiet, not even nodding or shaking her head. She knew that any information she gave them would give rise to new speculations that would have her name attached to them; so she kept quiet and smiled enigmatically.

‘Very young is what he was, that’s why Mariona was looking so well,’ declared Comamala.

‘What’s it like, working with the police?’

‘It must be unpleasant, dear girl, just thinking of the lout who was with you…’ declared Isabel Mira.

‘Did you notice his suit?’ said Comamala. ‘His tailor hates him.’

That was the first time Ana made her opinion known. ‘Yes, it even makes you wish he wore a uniform.’

‘Do you have something against uniforms?’ The barb came from Dolores Antich.

‘No, no. Why would I?’

‘Because I know who you are. Your family isn’t exactly distinguished by their fondness for the Regime.’

The steely tone of her words cut short the other women’s frivolous curiosity. Two of them suddenly realised their cava glasses were empty and melted away. Isabel Mira returned to the sculpture of the faun, trying to divert the attention of the woman with the icy voice whose dour countenance hid the fact that she was not yet thirty years old. She spurned Isabel’s efforts and marched off. Her dark blue organza dress revealed a pair of stiff shoulders.

‘Party pooper!’ said Comamala between gritted teeth.

‘Why did she act that way towards me?’ asked Ana.

‘How do I know! She went and married a man from Castile, from Ávila. What can you expect of such people!’

With that explanation, apparently losing interest in Ana, she abandoned her there beside Isabel Mira and the statue of the faun.

Before Isabel could try to recruit her to her moral crusade, Ana trotted away. She looked for one of the waiters serving drinks and grabbed the first glass she came upon, just to have something in her hand.

Dolores Antich had gone over to her husband, Fernando Sánchez-Herranz. Ana was aware that behind Sánchez-Herranz’s soft, gluttonous face there lay a ruthless officer, a representative of the Falange’s hard line. His wife interrupted the conversation he was having with a tall man whose back was to Ana. She whispered in his ear. Then Fernando Sánchez-Herranz looked openly in Ana’s direction. The man he was speaking to also turned and Ana instantly forgot about Dolores Antich and her husband. Framed by silvery temples, two dark eyes, very close to his nose, shot her a predatory look. It was Joaquín Grau, the public prosecutor. He made a gesture for her to approach them, a mere motion of his fingers towards the palm of his hand that he repeated twice.
Come here
. The hand that tirelessly signed death sentences. Now the hand was ordering her to come over.

She took a step in his direction. Before she could take a second, a waiter with a tray loaded down with drinks stepped between her and the prosecutor and quickly turned towards the trio. They hadn’t been talking about her, and Grau hadn’t gestured towards her; it was the waiter he was calling over. She immediately turned around and looked for a place where she could get out of Dolores Antich’s sight.

At that point she would happily have left the party and gone home, but she was there to work, so she had to stay and observe. Perhaps there was a spot near the orchestra where she could mingle among those who pretended to be listening to the music, seated beside pedestal tables filled almost entirely with bouquets of flowers. Gathered there were a girl who was possibly fleeing her parents’ watchful eyes, an older woman whose feet were surely hurting, as she sat on a low armchair, concealing the fact that she’d slipped her shoes off underneath her long skirt. There too was the eightysomething banker Lluch, who everyone knew was almost completely deaf, but who followed the movements of the violin bow with the demented look of a cat watching a mouse’s tail.

In the corner, between the orchestra and the wall, sat a man of about fifty who wore a very well-cut tuxedo that was starting to be tight on him. Although he moved his foot to the rhythm of the music, his attention was on the people filling the main salon of the consulate. He had a glass of wine in his hand. As soon as he set it down in the tiny space left by the floral centrepiece on the table beside him, a waiter rushed over to refill it. Ana saw that behind the flowers there was a half-hidden chair, and she decided that she would sit there and disappear for a little while.

Dolores Antich’s words were echoing in her head:
Because I know who you are. Your family isn’t exactly distinguished by its fondness for the Regime
.

The orchestra embarked on a new piece, with little enthusiasm. Ana sat behind the enormous bouquet of flowers and polished off her drink, which turned out to be red wine. The vase, a pot-bellied piece of porcelain, hid her from direct view, and the flowers made sure that those standing in the room couldn’t see her, such as Dolores Antich and the two men with her. She sighed with relief. She leaned back in the chair and discovered a bottle of wine hidden behind the vase. She touched it. It was a white, and still cold. She discreetly filled her glass. This time she drank in short sips as she observed Prosecutor Grau, who was still conversing with Fernando Sánchez-Herranz and his wife.