SHE SAW THEM emerge from the shadows of the corridor for what they were, two puppets made up to frighten people who still took life at face value. She’d seen them before, but she’d never bothered to remember their names. All those dummies from the secret police looked the same to her. They stopped in the doorway and gave the room a studied look of contempt before resting their eyes on Alicia and showing her the wolfish smile Leandro must have taught them on their first day at school.
“I don’t see how you can live here.”
Alicia shrugged and finished her cigarette, waving a hand towards the window. “I like the views.”
One of Leandro’s men laughed half-heartedly, and the other muttered disapprovingly under his breath. They came into the room, had a peek at the bathroom, and examined the place from top to bottom as if they hoped to find something. The younger one, who still oozed inexperience and tried to make up for it with attitude, pretended to take an interest in the collection of books piled up against the wall, practically filling half the room. He slid his forefinger along the spines. “You’re going to have to lend me one of your lovely romantic novels,” he sneered.
“I didn’t know you could read.”
The novice turned around, scowled, and took a step forward, but his colleague, and presumably his boss, stopped him, sighing wearily. “Go on,” he said to Alicia, “powder your nose. They’re expecting you at ten.”
Alicia showed no signs of leaving her chair. “I’m on mandatory sick leave. Leandro’s orders.”
The novice, who apparently had felt his manliness tarnished, plonked his ninety-plus kilos of muscle and bile close to Alicia and offered her a smile that was clearly well practised in prison cells and midnight raids. “Don’t fuck with me – I’m not in the mood today, sunshine. Don’t make me have to drag you out of that chair.”
Alicia turned her eyes on him. “It’s not about whether you’re in the mood, it’s about whether you’ve got the balls.”
Leandro’s thug glared at her for a few seconds, but when his partner grabbed his arm and pulled him away, he decided to break into a more gentle smile and put his hands up as a sign of truce. To be continued, thought Alicia.
The leader of the twosome checked his watch and shook his head. “Come on, Señorita Gris, it’s not our fault. You know how these things work.”
I know, Alicia thought. I know only too well. She pressed both hands against the sides of the armchair and stood up. The two henchmen watched her stagger over to a chair. On it lay what looked like a harness made up of fine lengths of string and a set of leather straps.
“May I help you?” asked the novice, his voice malicious.
Alicia ignored them both. She picked up the contraption and went into the bathroom with it, leaving the door ajar. The older man looked away, but the novice couldn’t help finding an angle from which to dwell on Alicia’s reflection in the mirror. He saw her remove her skirt and, grabbing the harness, place it over her hips and her right leg as if she were putting on some exotic sort of corset. When she adjusted the fasteners, the harness hugged her figure like a second skin, giving her the appearance of a mechanical doll. It was then that Alicia looked up and the thug met her eyes in the mirror: cold eyes, devoid of all expression. He smiled with delight and, after a long pause, turned back into the room, not without catching a fleeting glimpse of that black stain on Alicia’s side, a tangle of scars that seemed to sink into her flesh as if a red-hot drill had rebuilt her hip. The officer noticed his superior looking at him severely.
“You cretin,” he heard him mutter.
Moments later Alicia emerged from the bathroom.
“Don’t you have another dress?” asked the older policeman.
“What’s wrong with this one?”
“I don’t know. Something a little more discreet, maybe?”
“Why? Who else is at this meeting?”
His only response was to hand her a walking stick that was leaning against the wall and point to the door.
“I haven’t put my make-up on.”
“You look fine. But if you like, you can do that in the car. We’re already late.”
Alicia refused the stick and walked out to the corridor without waiting for them, limping slightly.
A few minutes later they were travelling silently through the streets of Madrid in the rain. Sitting on the back seat of the black Packard, Alicia looked up at the profiles of domes and statues along the cornices of Gran Vía. Angel-driven chariots and stone sentinels kept watch from above. It looked to her as if the lead-grey skies had disgorged a snaking reef of colossal, somber buildings, all piled up against each other: petrified creatures that had swallowed entire cities. At her feet, the canopies of grand theatres and the fronts of cafés and fancy shops gleamed beneath the rain. Closer to the ground, people were just tiny sketches with vapour coming out of their mouths, walking past under a swarm of umbrellas. On days such as this, Alicia thought, one began to agree with good old Maura and believe that the dark shadows of the Hispania stretched right across the country, from one end to the other, without letting in a single chink of light.