HENDAYA OFFERED HIM a cigarette, but Fernandito refused it.
“I don’t smoke, thanks.”
“A wise man. That’s why I can’t understand why you don’t call your father so he can come and fetch you and bring your papers. Then all this could be resolved. Or are you hiding something?”
The boy shook his head. Hendaya smiled amicably, and Fernandito remembered how he’d seen him blow the chauffeur’s knees off with his gun a couple of hours earlier. The dark stain on the shirt collar was still there.
“I’m not hiding anything, sir.”
“So . . . ?” Hendaya pushed the phone towards him. “One call, and you’ll be free.”
Fernandito swallowed hard. “I’d like to ask you not to force me to make this call. For a good reason.”
“A good reason? And what is that, dear friend Alberto?”
“It’s because of my father, who is ill.”
“Ah, is he now?”
“It’s his heart. He had a heart attack a couple of months ago, and he spent six weeks at the Clínico. Now he’s home, recovering, but he’s very weak.”
“I’m very sorry.”
“My father is a good man, sir. A war hero.”
“War hero?”
“He entered Barcelona with the Nacionales. There’s a photograph of him, parading along Avenida Diagonal, on the cover of La Vanguardia. We have it framed in our dining room. He’s the third on the right. You should see it. They allowed him to march in the front row because of his bravery in the battle of the Ebro. He was a sergeant.”
“You must all be very proud of him.”
“We are, but the poor man hasn’t really been himself after what happened to my mother.”
“Your mother?”
“She died four years ago.”
“Thank you, sir. Do you know what the last thing my mother said to me before dying was?”
“No.”
“Promise me you’ll look after your father, and you won’t upset him.”
“And have you lived up to that promise?”
Fernandito lowered his eyes and looked contrite. He shook his head. “The truth is, I haven’t been the son my mother raised, or the one my father deserves. Believe it or not, I’m a good-for-nothing.”
“And there was I thinking you were a good kid.”
“Not at all. A lost cause, that’s me. All I do is give my poor father grief, as if he didn’t have enough to cope with already. One day I’m chucked out of my job, the next I forget my ID card. See for yourself. A war-hero father and a useless idiot of a son.”
Hendaya studied him cautiously. “Am I to understand from all this that if you call your father and tell him you’ve been held in the police station because you didn’t have your ID on you, you’ll upset him again?”
“That would finish him off, I’m sure. If a neighbour has to bring him here to fetch me in his wheelchair, I think he’d die of shame and grief to see what a disastrous son he’s got.”
Hendaya thought about the matter. “I understand, Alberto, but you must understand me too. You put me in a difficult position.”
“Yes, sir, and you’ve already been very patient with me. I really don’t deserve it. If it depended on me, I’d ask you to throw me in jail with all the worst scum, just to teach me a lesson. But I beg you to reconsider on account of my poor father. I’ll write down my name, surnames and address, and tomorrow you can come and ask any of our neighbours – if possible in the morning, as that’s when my father is asleep, because of his medication.”
Hendaya took the piece of paper Fernandito was handing him. “Alberto García Santamaría, Calle Comercio number thirty-six, fifth floor, door one,” he read out. “What if some police officers come with you now?”
“If my father, who spends his nights awake looking out of the window and listening to the radio, sees me arriving with the police, he’ll throw me out, which I would deserve, and then he’d have a massive coronary.”
“And we don’t want that to happen.”
“No, sir.”
“So how do I know that if I let you go, you won’t go back to your old ways?”
Fernandito turned solemnly to face the official portrait of Franco hanging on the wall. “Because I’m going to swear to you before God and before the Generalissimo, cross my heart and hope to die.”
For a few moments Hendaya looked at him with curiosity and a pinch of sympathy. “I see you’re still standing, so you must be telling the truth.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Look here, Alberto. I like you, and the truth is that it’s very late, and I’m tired. I’m going to give you an opportunity and cut you loose. I shouldn’t, because rules are rules, but I’ve been a son too, and not always the best. You can go.”
Fernandito looked towards the office door in disbelief.
“Go on, before I change my mind.”
“A million thanks, sir.”
“Thank your father. And don’t do it again.”
Quick as a flash, Fernandito stood up and left the office, mopping the sweat off his brow. He walked unhurriedly through the long hall of the political police, and when he passed the two officers who were observing him in silence, he greeted them: “Have a good evening.”
As soon as he reached the corridor, he quickened his pace and hurried on towards the wide stairs leading to the ground floor. It wasn’t until he’d walked through the main door and was on Vía Layetana that he allowed himself a deep breath and blessed the heavens, hell and everything in between for his good fortune.
*
Hendaya watched Fernandito cross Vía Layetana and set off down the road. Behind him, he heard the approaching footsteps of the two officers who had guarded the boy.
“I want to know who he is, where he lives, and who his friends are,” he said without turning around.