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Javi promptly walked out of the front door and made his way towards La Factoría, with his travel bag on his back. Toño, the waiter, was waiting behind the bar. The usual relaxed manner in which he always received his young client was in sharp contrast to Javi’s obviously agitated state.
“How’s it going today, Javi?” greeted the waiter.
Javi’s response was nothing more than a sort of grimace which, coming from any other client, could well have been confused as a sign of indifference. But Toño had long since come to terms with his client’s peculiar character.
“Coffee?” he insisted, with his hand already on the coffee machine.
“Yes.”
The waiter started up the machine as Javi settled himself on one of the barstools, letting his bag fall carelessly to the floor. Whilst the coffee was filtering, he consulted his mobile, meticulously scouring through the numbers that corresponded to young women on the contacts list. He did not find anyone who fit the bill. Nor did it take him much time to deduce that, if he had had that young woman’s number on his phone, she would have called him, and not his mother. Reluctantly, he would have to view it as a cold-caller whose only interest was to sell him some new service. He was aware that there were businesses which would sell their clients’ information to marketing companies with commercial ends, and the contact details therein were not always up to date. Therefore, it was not completely out of the realms of possibility that it was all just a mistake. For a moment, his gaze became lost as he stared blankly at the wall, and he then reaffirmed to himself:
‘That’s what’s happened, no doubt,’ he thought.
Now much calmer, he left the telephone on top of the counter and focused his attention on the steaming cup of coffee that Toño had just placed in front of him.
“Are you going away somewhere?”
“Yes, back home, and I can’t stand it. I prefer going to classes.”
“Well ... but you must also be looking forward to seeing your parents...” surmised the waiter out loud, still conscious of the fact that he was applying a logic to the situation that did not always govern the mind of his young client.
“Yes, for five minutes. After that, they suffocate me,” insisted Javi. “You don’t know my mother. Talking to her, you’d think I was still twelve years old.”
Toño smiled, as he understood perfectly how the mother treated her son. In any case, he preferred not to delve any deeper into the subject. He took out from behind the bar a packet of cigarettes that was still practically full and, taking out two cigarettes, he offered one to Javi.
“Shall we go out for a smoke?”
The Spanish anti-tobacco law prohibited the smoking of cigarettes in enclosed public areas. This was something that everybody obeyed to the letter, even in cafés. As such, Javi finished off the last of his coffee and took the cigarette, whilst the waiter cast a glance over the room, making sure that he could leave for a few minutes. Toño was dark in complexion, with short hair and a friendly face, and he knew his profession better than anyone. In spite of having only just entered his thirties, he had spent many years attending to clients daily from behind a bar. Some of them also like Javi. As such, he knew when to be discreet and when, on the other hand, he could take some liberties. And of course, he distinguished between the regular customers and those who were just coming in to his establishment for the first and probably last time: even when it was a friendly and good-looking young woman.
Toño walked out ahead of Javi, and calmly leaned back against the wall by the door. Javi followed, lighting the cigarette:
“A short while ago a girl came in and asked for you,” said Toño. “It will have been about an hour ago, now.”
“Who was she?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen her around here before.”
Javi turned around and faced Toño, thinking that that girl could well be the same person who had called his mother. At the end of the day, it was not a regular occurrence that a woman would be asking for him, and as such two in a few hours was something exceptional. Clearly this meant that the subject was not as cut and dried as it had seemed. At least, not as much as he had wanted to believe.
“Didn’t she tell you her name, or what she knew of me?” he asked.
“No. But I don’t think that you know her.”
Javi made a gesture of not understanding what he was telling him.
“She asked me about you, giving me your name and two surnames,” Toño clarified. “I already knew that it was you, but I told her that around here there are many people with that name, and I don’t know my clients’ surnames. Then she opened her bag and took out a photo. But one from a while ago, I’m sure of that, because your hair was shorter and...”
The waiter hesitated for a moment.
“And...?”
“...And you seemed rather slimmer,” Toño ended up saying, trying to avoid being discourteous.
Javi looked down, pensive. He then took a long drag from his cigarette and looked back up again to ask:
“A lot thinner?”
“Just enough to be noticeable.” A diplomatic confirmation.
Toño continued to look at him, afraid that his comment might have upset him. At the end of the day, Javi was a customer. A customer who was now, once more, staring distractedly at the pavement, although it was not the comment on his weight that was worrying him:
“I don’t know who it could be. It’s been almost four years since I last had short hair,” reasoned Javi, out loud.
“She also asked me at what time you usually come, and if you had already set off for Lugo. I answered, saying that I didn’t know that, because I really didn’t,” he wanted to explain. “And even if I had known, I wouldn’t have said.”
“How long ago was she here?”
“Well, just over an hour ago,” replied Toño, after consulting his watch.
“So it could be that as you didn’t tell her, that was when she decided to call my mother,” deduced Javi.
“She’s also called your mother?” asked the waiter, perplexed.
“She’s just told me that a woman called the house asking for me, but I don’t know if it’s the same person. What did she look like?”
“Very attractive, and very friendly. When she spoke, her voice didn’t grate. One of those people who it’s extremely pleasant to listen to,” he concluded.
Javi arched his eyebrows. It is possible that, up until that moment, he never imagined that that was a characteristic that could define a human being. For him, talking had simply been that: talking. And if somebody you were talking to wanted to listen to you, well, that could only be a good thing.
Toño continued with his story:
“And she was also very attractive,” he repeated, “but not the sort that would turn your head if you saw her in the street, no, but one of those who, when you sit in front of her, you look at her and say to yourself; ‘she’s a really attractive girl’.
“And was she blonde, dark-haired...?”
“Dark,” he answered avidly, raising his voice a little. “Straight hair, down to her shoulders, woollen jumper, jeans, your height, more or less. No exaggerated curves, but pretty ones. And flat boots, no heel.” A waiter’s capacity for observation is something that should never be underestimated. “I would also bet that she was a little older than you, but not much. Probably my age.”
“And you say that she asked for me?” commented Javi, nonplussed, as if he was unable to comprehend that a girl like that could have any interest in him.
“Yes.”
Toño felt the desire to say that he couldn’t understand why the woman with whom he had been speaking could have been looking for him. Although he then thought that perhaps this young man, with an uncared-for appearance and childish mentality had been an interesting adolescent. After all, in the photo not only was he slimmer, but also much more put-together.
The two men put out their cigarettes at the same time, and went back into the café. Javi still hadn’t sat down properly when a message tone came from his mobile. He did not know the number. He opened it: ‘Hello handsome. R u really going off 2 Lugo whilst I’m in the city?’
“She’s just sent me a message,” he told Toño, caught halfway between euphoria and surprise, and with a tremendous naivety.
“Do you know who she is now?”
Javi shook his head as he wrote: ‘Who r u?’ The response was immediate: ‘An old friend.’ He insisted: ‘But, who?’ She replied once more: ‘I was in La Factoría, but I didn’t c u. Have just arrived in the city. Do u fancy meeting 4 coffee 2nite? Besides, you’ll b able 2 find out who I am.’
He showed the last message to Toño with such an expression of surprise that, in seeing the young man’s effervescent hope, he decided to give him more details:
“She came alone, and ordered a Coca-Cola. She took no more than ten minutes to drink it, and then she asked me about you as she paid. Before leaving, she spent a while on the computers, on that one over in the corner,” explained Toño, as he pointed to one of the public computers he had in his café. “If you know how to find out the browsing history, perhaps that might be able to help you.”
Javi’s IT skills did indeed reach that level. He took a breath and put a five euro note down onto the bar counter.
“Charge me for the coffee and give me the change.”
He took his change and went up to the computer in the corner. He then dropped one of the coins into the little box and quickly searched through the most recently visited websites. As soon as he had them up in front of him, he saw that all of the web addresses were for small ads. He thought he must definitely be on the right track, but he wanted to be sure:
“Who sat here after her?” he called out from the corner.
“Nobody.”
He couldn’t argue with nobody; this must have been her then. Javi looked back at the computer, copied one of the addresses, and pasted it into the search-bar in the section ‘Erotic/professional Services’. He checked the telephone contact number: it was identical to that of the person who had sent him the message. Then the text: ‘Submissive Spanish girl, petite, young, and very attractive. Will carry out any services and perversions you desire. This week only.’
Javi furrowed his brow, thoughtful. Does that mean that the person he was looking for was a prostitute? Now he really was confused. Why was a prostitute going to be looking for him if he had never been with one, he wondered. Could it be that his friends who today, coincidentally, were nowhere around, had hired one and not tipped off Toño? Because one thing was sure: Toño didn’t know anything about it, because if he had, he would not have mentioned the computer. That was certain.
He grabbed his bag, said goodbye, and went to the door. As he left, he dialled a number into his phone.
“Mum, I won’t be leaving until Wednesday. I’m going to be staying here another two nights to study, alright?”
Then he sent a message: ‘10pm @ Borea?’ He was determined to get to the bottom of this: of who this mysterious woman was, and what she was offering. More determined than he had ever been with a girl ever before.
Message received: ‘I’ll be there. Kisses.’