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Madrid, 1965
Palace of the Marquis, Villanueva Street.
In spite that the manor was monumental, he knew how to find the door that gave access to the drawing room, where two repulsive plaster statues with the form of naked women and in a lascivious attitude received him between glances of frozen luster. Even José María loved art, he never understood the moth-eaten satisfaction of the Spain’s rich men, who on and on surrounded themselves with kitsch art. A maid came to meet him —she was almost a child— sheathed in an ugly and grovel uniform, crowned with a coping that constantly kept tilting on her small head, giving her a funny appearance more than a formal one.
—May I help you Sir? — offered obedient with a weak voice.
—Of course, my name is José María Millán — he introduced himself. I’ve arranged with the Marquis to meet with him here.
—You mean Don Julio de ...?
—As he lives and breathes — interrupted her, afraid that the poor woman would spout all the titles, string and mentions attached to the name. — Could you be so kind please in announcing me; I’ll wait here.
He stood as a soldier — a bit stagy —, and he hinted a big smile that pretended to calm the prepubescent chick. It seemed to be effective, since the girl escaped quickly, maybe to do her duty, or maybe to escape from the eyes of that old man with walrus’ moustache that stared at her in a so solaced way. While he was waiting, José María took a view of the huge drawing room, that finished in two spectacular marble stairs that went up in half a spiral up to the second floor. Once more, it came to his mind the difference between social classes in that Spain’s postwar period.
Half an hour after the maid left him waiting in the drawing room’s vast space without one chair to seat down, Julio Muñoz appeared, the Marquis of Alella —and other surnames— trying to copy the way of those who truly have been born in high society. He was dressed on a brown silk shirt, topped with a portentous watery red wine waistcoat, and all that was completed with a well-tailored trousers and with Italian loafers. A thin little ridiculous moustache tried to look like Europe’s emerging fashion, but in José María’s opinion, it looked very ugly in a face like that one of Don Julio. As he walked with his bandy legs he stared at him and noticed that he had no grace, so Jose María said to himself his dearest mother’s phrase: “you can’t make a silk purse out of a saw’s ear”.
—Good morning dear Millán— greeted the Marquis, although he had seen Jose Maria only once-. What brings you to my poor dwelling in such a wonderful day?
Jose María disliked him as bad as the first day he met him, although in his work he had to show cordiality. That’s what his lentils depended on.
—Good morning Don Julio-he answered. I only wanted to ask you some questions about the Jarabo case.
The noble twisted his mouth and it didn’t go unnoticed to José María.
—A tragic incident, unfortunate I will say.
—Ok.
—You don’t know well what this means to...people like us— José María felt as his insides trembled—. That a gentleman of an aristocratic social standing could commit these atrocities. I mean, that people of low-class and villains kill themselves daily for a loaf of bread, but us...I can’t understand it at all.
—The motivations of the Jarabo case I fear were not-monetary —he added—. Rather of another nature —José María had released the hook, and the Marquis tumbled down the rabbit’s hole. Now only he had to pick up the fishing line—. But in fact, he did not just want to talk about the Jarabo.
The stuck up noble raised an eyebrow without understanding. That gesture made him uglier, if that was possibly.
—As you know, there was a time when I worked for the newspaper “El País” —Muñoz nodded —but since a few years my commitments have been directed towards other let’s say... intrigues.
—I don’t see the point right now mister Millán— Muñoz started to get nervous, a thin drop of sweat slipped on his waxed moustache—. Sorry I am very busy, so if you will allow me...
—Are you familiar with the name Carmen Broto? —he said point-blank—. I fear that the Jarabo case leads me to reopen Miss Broto’s death.
The marquis radically changed his body posture and stopped pretending. In the end José María could see the kind of person he was dealing with, and by no means he was a gentleman.
—Listen to me, I don’t know what a nasty pamphlet you subsist, but stop sticking your nose where you don’t mind—he approached threateningly—. Perhaps they are going to cut it off.
—Are you threatening me mister Muñoz?
—Gentlemen don’t threat— he arranged his gesture and turned to leave—, we pay for others to do it.
After saying this he went out through one of the doors that crammed the hall to the manor’s bowels, as if he had been waiting for this moment, the maid appeared at full speed. She stood in front of the guest with extreme shyness and showed him the way out.
—Don’t bother dear, I know my way out— he stared at the girl, thinking that she was about sixteen years and was a wild beauty—. Take care of your lord. Please?
The girl looked at him with her almond shaped eyes for the first time, and José saw something in them that he couldn’t explain. Fear, determination maybe...
—If you allow me— she cut in with a hand gesture.
****
In spite that he didn’t like drinking, Jose María had allowed himself to be persuaded by his redaction fellows and they all ended in the “El Tapete”, stuffing themselves with templated beer and tripe with tomato. Late at night he said goodbye to his fellows a little bit drunk, they were singing “face to sun” with their pitchers in high.
—Stay a little bit more killjoy! —they insisted, but he decided to decline the offer when he realized that he had difficulty in focusing.
—I’m leaving because drunk people and I don’t get mixed— he joked.
Hearing his fellows’ laughing he went out to the middle of May refreshing night, that against all weather forecasts it had appeared stormy. He went undecided through Severo Ochoa until Candilejas, and from there went across several Peleterías’ dark passageways. When he was arriving to the Gran Vía he felt a tremendous push in the back that made him stumble and fall to the ground, and almost before he could ask himself what was happening, two sinewy hands grabbed him by his nape and back and pushed him to a dark passage. He received punches in different directions that broke his teeth, nose and lips, and a kick in his belly that made him release all the air that because of the fear he had accumulated in his lungs. Blinded by fear he could distinguish two faces half hidden in the dark and dressed up in berets. One of them took the saddlebags that he had hanging from his belt, and in a glint sparkled in the dark, José María knew what was going to happen, but that didn’t stop that ten centimeters of a Toledo blade was inserted in his guts. He counted one, two, three times...until he founded himself laying on the floor, looking at the blade men’s old shoes walking away down the street. After that, his eyes closed.