Crocodile Tears Page 3

  We observe her pausing on the second floor, stopping as if to rest or to get her breath back, but then Ursula turns sharply and walks quickly over to the apartment closest to the stairway, number 201. The residents are a couple – students or bank clerks, she’s not sure. Silently, she touches the door, presses her face against the wood, first her cheek, then her mouth, then her ear. It seems she wants to listen to something. She stands quite still for a few moments, and we don’t think she’s heard anything: at this time of day, the couple in number 201 must have gone out a while ago. But she doesn’t give up; she tries again with her right ear and then again with her left, and only after a while does she let up. A little put out, she continues her descent, step by step. She reaches the final stretch, the entrance hall and, against all her own predictions, makes it to the main door safe and sound.

  From inside you can barely hear the nervous echo of the outside world: the roar of the Old Town is muffled, wrapped in insulating material, the racket is scarcely audible and this silence accentuates the almost womblike atmosphere of the building in which she lives.

  Every day for just over a month, Ursula López has followed a military routine: she sleeps, gets up at six, has a bath, eats breakfast, leaves the house, makes her way to the place where the woman lives, the other Ursula, and keeps watch until she sees her go out for a run. Sometimes she follows her, sometimes she just watches her disappear, sometimes she waits for her to return. All to a precise timetable that she implements every day, without fail. It is the timetable of her revenge.

  Today she walks down Calle Sarandí, hurrying the short distance to Plaza Matriz among artisans and tourists, yuppies wearing clothes that scream lawyer, accountant, manager; among beggars with huge coats and misshapen caps, gay couples holding hands, diligent and carefully made-up bilingual secretaries, delivery boys, shivering prostitutes, uniformed teenagers. And as she walks among these people, she hears the cathedral bells tolling eight o’clock. Eight o’clock on the dot.

  The sound causes her to halt, rooted to the spot, unsettled; the eight chimes of the cathedral remind her, as they do whenever she hears them, of the time at which her father used to open her cell door. Ursula knows she can’t afford the luxury of trembling; there are some things better kept in a wooden box, and that box should be kept inside another one, and everything inside an even bigger one made of iron, bound with steel cable and dropped to the bottom of the sea.

  One day she’ll have money and she’ll be able to move out of the Old Town, buy a house in Carrasco with a swimming pool and a maid and a fancy car and forget all about her past. Forget about Daddy, for example, leave that house with all its memories. Actually, if it wasn’t for that woman she should already have her house in Carrasco and much more. She feels the pull of hatred, of revenge. No, now is not the time: she’s afraid of getting lost in the labyrinth of her thoughts, and she forces herself to keep going.

  She enters the square. Today is one of those pale sepia days when everything makes you feel like crying. Despite the cold air, the nape of her neck is sweating, her armpits are already soaked and there’s a nagging pain between her ribs.

  Sebastián, the bookseller, the kid who rents out the garage where she parks her car, approaches from the opposite direction; he’s also in a hurry, they exchange a greeting, a friendly word, a complicit glance. He’s a good boy, Sebastián, he owes her some favours that he might end up repaying one of these days.

  Ursula hurries along Calle Sarandí, the city accompanying her like a ghost, she crosses the square without looking, turns right and continues like an automaton; she could follow this route blindfolded. She reaches Calle Bacacay, from where you can see the Solís Theatre and part of Plaza Independencia, but she doesn’t look. She turns, arrives at the same time as the bus that will take her to her destination, hails it and gets on. She doesn’t take her car, she doesn’t want to park nearby, doesn’t want to run the risk that somebody might recognize it; she’s thought about everything, even the smallest details, Ursula thinks, and nobody will be able to catch her out.

  She climbs on board and sits at the back, like always. At this time of day and travelling in this direction, there are hardly any passengers, and the few that there are sit staring at their smartphones like idiots. She covers her face with a scarf, her eyes with sunglasses, her forehead with a woollen hat.

  It will be a short journey; there’s not much traffic and she doesn’t have far to go, just fifteen or twenty minutes, then she’ll get off at the junction of Calle 21 de Setiembre and Ellauri, walk a few yards to Vázquez Ledesma, the street that runs alongside the park, and then a couple of blocks south towards the waterfront, but on the side with the buildings. Then she’ll cross over to Villa Biarritz Park, sit on a bench neither too far from nor too close to her target, inhale the fragrance of the vegetation – eucalyptus, carpet grass, oak, maritime pine, monkey puzzle trees, earth, dog shit – and she’ll wait until it’s time, until the main door opens and the woman comes out.

  The woman she’s waiting for will come out of her house, an apartment block almost in the “luxury” category, stepping through the door with its polished bronze frame and out onto the waxed marble beyond, before which she will have greeted the uniformed doorman in a tone somewhere between indifference and sarcasm, that slightly overbearing tone that comes from when she still lived in Carrasco, in a house with a swimming pool and a cook and a maid, and a big garden with exotic trees and two gardeners.

  The woman she’s waiting for will come out of her house after greeting the doorman, nimbly descend the stairs separating the shiny door from the street, dressed in expensive sportswear, her hair pinned up with a designer hair clip; she’ll check the time on her Swiss watch, adjust her headphones and cross the street, jog through the park at a gentle pace that Ursula will follow from a distance and with some difficulty, until she reaches the waterfront, where the jog will become a run that will separate the two women until the next day. Or Ursula will simply sit and wait as she thinks about how the woman promised to pay her the ransom for her kidnapped husband, Santiago, about how this traitor lied to her, about how she deceived her. She trusted the woman’s promises, she imagined a house, a car, a swimming pool, and now all she has is her anger.

  And who knows what Ursula feels today as she waits on this park bench from which she has been keeping watch for a month? Who knows what she feels in this repeated simulation of police surveillance, of espionage or detective work? What does she feel? What does she think? Because sometimes her brain doesn’t entirely belong to her and suddenly she realizes something is drilling away at it: her own rage, the unstoppable internal monster that roars at her, constantly reminding her of her betrayal by that other Ursula López, that other woman, her namesake.

  V

  The image is strong, colourful, bright, as if taken from the cover of a magazine: the wintry morning light refracts as it passes through the stained-glass windows and falls on the man kneeling on the prie-dieu, tinting his grey suit and his gelled hair, colouring his whole person red, blue, violet and yellow. Autumn is nearly over and it’s very cold outside. On the walls to the right and left are representations of the Via Crucis – of the Stations of the Cross, to be more exact – and holy music that might be Bach drifts over the pews and aisles and altars and floats up to heaven from the parish church of Las Esclavas del Sagrado Corazón, on Calle Ellauri.

  Antinucci is performing the penance that Father Ismael imposed on him just a few minutes ago: one Lord’s Prayer, one Hail Mary and one Gloria in exchange for God’s forgiveness for taking His name in vain and for having three unclean thoughts about the secretary at his law practice. The shafts of morning sunlight that enter through the stained-glass windows on the east side don’t bother him because his eyes are shut, squeezed tight. He prays conscientiously, lost in his act of contrition and oblivious to his surroundings, feeling neither heat nor cold. When he recites his prayers he forgets about everything and isolates himself from the iniquitous s
inful world outside; he keeps his head down, his eyelids closed, and doesn’t even hear the muffled footsteps of tardy believers, the ones who always arrive at the last moment, just before Father Ismael steps up to the altar in his chasuble to celebrate Mass.

  Not many people attend the seven o’clock service and they acknowledge one another with a slight movement of the head, their lips forming an almost straight line; just the trace of a smile passes between those who enter on tiptoe and those who are already seated.

  Antinucci finishes his prayers and crosses himself in an expansive movement that goes from the crown of his head to somewhere down near his navel and from his left shoulder to his right. He looks up and sighs, exhaling the pent-up air, expelling the sins he has now paid for, relieving himself of the final traces of guilt, which he releases with his breath. Then he fills his lungs with fresh holy air, with the smell of incense and purity.

  His image, which a few moments ago was multicoloured, is now almost golden as a result of the sun shining through the yellow glass. If one of the faithful were to notice him – unlikely, as each is concerned with their own sins – perhaps they would assume the lawyer is an archangel or a prophet or at least a saint, or that his state of grace is beyond that of a normal human being. That being said, nobody appears to perceive the changing play of the light that now casts a supernatural aura around Antinucci and which, like so many daily miracles, goes entirely unnoticed.

  Now free of sin and having completed his penance, paid the price he deserved, Antinucci gets up and takes his seat on the pew. He smiles to himself, undoes a button on his grey suit, pulls his trouser legs up a little and sighs again. He feels good, comforted in his guilt, part of the flock of good Christians; he knows the Lord is his shepherd and he shall not want. In fact, he wants for nothing, nothing at all. He looks happily at the images of the Stations of the Cross with which he is so familiar: the Son of Man is carrying the cross, he falls to the ground exhausted, three times. And he saves his favourite image for last: Christ resurrected, beautiful and whole, luminous and full of vigour, reprimands those who searched for him in the tomb. “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!”

  Father Ismael enters and, despite the sunlit church interior, the lights are turned all the way up, the music becomes louder and the liturgy begins, with Antinucci listening in a reverential attitude, his forehead tilted slightly back, although he is paying scant attention, lost in his own thoughts. Only the Eucharist prayer, half an hour later, will shake him from his self-absorption as he prepares to receive Christ. He moves his lips, murmurs a few ritual words, keeps his thick eyelids more or less closed, and then stands up and joins the line to take Communion. And he will do so as he has done since his childhood, free of any conflict with the hermeneutics of the continuity of tradition and two millennia of teaching, just like before the Second Vatican Council, because this is not one of those churches with Communist priests, full of Tupamaros and leftists, one of those where not just the priest but any of his helpers may place the Host in the hands of the faithful. No. In the church of Las Esclavas del Sagrado Corazón, the Host will be given by the priest and placed directly in the believer’s mouth, to avoid any possible blemish to the Most Blessed Sacrament.

  Antinucci stands up, walks towards the nave, his eyes lowered and his arms crossed over his chest, takes his place at the end of a line of three or four old ladies, advances slowly while keeping his distance, waits his turn and takes Communion. He returns to the exact spot where he was sitting before, kneels with his head bowed between his hands, and prays until the Host dissolves in his saliva, prays until not one crumb is left, until he cannot feel a single particle in his entire mouth. He searches with his tongue, checks his palate, his gums, the gaps between his teeth. There is no trace of the body of Christ. He sighs, comforted.

  A few minutes later, he leaves the building with its smell of incense and disinfectant and goes out into the even more intense cold of the street, ready to face the world.

  Outside, Antinucci is surrounded by beggars with pale faces and outstretched hands. He hurriedly distributes some coins, averts his gaze from the beggars’ faces and walks towards his car, parked a hundred yards down the street.

  He feels free of sin, he looks content and at peace.

  The sound of his phone shatters the beatific moment. He brusquely takes the device from his pocket and looks at the number. His hitherto relaxed face goes tense.

  “Hello. Yes, yes. I told you I want everything ready for next week. Which bit don’t you understand? It’s time, we can’t wait any longer: do it as soon as possible, without delay. Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today. I also told you to include Diego. Yes, confirmed, he gets out in a few days. He owes me and he’s going to have to pay off his debt. The Candyman wasn’t happy? I told you last time, I’m sick of him: do whatever it takes.” He ends the call.

  He opens the door of his Audi A6 and gets in, caresses the upholstery, breathes in the smell of the material – at this point, we might ask whether this man has some obsession with leather – then starts the engine, turns on the sound system and the music gently rises. Vivaldi’s “Miserere” soothes him, fills him with peace, returns him to his state of purity.

  VI

  He has struggled to get to sleep, to expel the permanent tension of his waking minutes, to soften his nervous body; he has struggled to allow himself to be carried away by the exhaustion of so many sleepless nights, waiting, keeping watch, spying; he has struggled but now he feels himself falling into a warm dark abyss. In slow motion, he falls into a hole, feels himself leaving the other bunks behind, the doors with their iron bars, the sound of the guard’s footsteps, all the horrors he has seen in prison and all those he fears are still to come.

  It’s taken him a lot to relax, to match his breathing to his heartbeat, and now his mind gradually succumbs to drowsiness, enveloping him in a mild torpor that faintly, ever so faintly, resembles tranquillity. Although the news of his imminent freedom has plunged him yet deeper into terror, Diego finally surrenders to sleep.

  Just as he’s about to drop off, he is startled by a noise that is almost nothing, merely a faint scraping sound that could be an insect rubbing its wings or a hand brushing against something rough. He opens his eyes but can’t see anything in the dark cell. He listens, emerges from the sleep he hadn’t completely fallen into, holds his breath.

  Prison is full of unexpected noises and incidents. He was sure he heard something near his bunk but now even that certainty has abandoned him; the senses play nasty tricks when sleep and fear are involved. He raises his head, turns his neck, tries to break the darkness. Nothing. He rests his forehead on his arm, his only pillow. He feels cold, tries to cover his neck but it’s futile, the blanket barely comes up to his chest.

  No, he wasn’t dreaming; the sound has come back, footsteps – yes, footsteps, there’s no doubt – slide past, not so close to his bed this time, and advance along the far wall, behind him. The universe of familiar night-time sounds crumbles. He tries to think how long it is until dawn. He knows the answer: in here, time has been cancelled, it no longer exists.

  He tenses his muscles, fingers the shiv Ricardo gave him, grips it and gets ready. He lies quite still, breathing as silently as he can. He turns over, lying face down so he can monitor the darkness behind his head.

  The noise advances slowly, still some way from the bunks, sticking close to the back wall; sometimes it stops and then starts again, as if pulling itself along. The sound moves effortlessly through the darkness, staying far from the sliver of light that enters beneath the door.

  Diego, still unable to see anything, catches a new acidic odour, something that was not present during his hours of insomnia, a whiff of unknown perspiration, unwashed clothes, a smell that moves in time with the sound it produces, that skirts around him, that takes on strange resonances in the silence and the gloom.

  Now he can feel the tension in the other bunks,
restrained movements, muted breathing, fingernails scratching on metal. He can even hear the joints of the other men’s bones.

  He remains immobile and alert, he tries to calm himself, he can’t allow himself to be carried away by desperation but he imagines bare feet, dark dirty fingernails, fierce eyes in which you can glimpse violence or stupidity or misfortune.

  Outside, the wind is starting to blow; he shudders, he’s cold, he covers himself as best he can and grips the shiv with both hands, as if trying to squeeze juice from it.

  The footsteps become faster, they sound closer and louder, implacable, nearby, at his side, almost above his bed. Diego sits up and the movement causes his blanket to fall to the floor. He wants to shout, to stand up and run but he can’t; a sense of vertigo paralyses him, renders him mute. The rectangle of light from the door illuminates a small patch of wall to his right, just enough for him to see a shadow-puppet hand wielding a dagger. He wants to jump, to flee, but he is pinned to the mattress by panic.

  A terrifying cry echoes around the cell. The shadow hand rises and falls rapidly, it falls five, six times, then falls once more. An awful scream, then another, nervous mumbling, laboured breathing followed by an icy silence that lasts for many seconds.

  There are footsteps in the corridor, hard boots pound on the hard floor, a bolt clangs, the door opens, there is shouting, the lights go on. Diego closes his tender eyes against the blinding light, the shouting continues.

  “Everyone against the wall, everyone against the fucking wall!”

  Diego smells something acidic, metallic, he opens his eyes, slowly, just a slit, nearby he sees the puddle of blood, an arm hanging down, a limp hand, a lifeless torso.

  He hears the murmurs. The Candyman, it’s the Candyman.