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Three o’clock in the morning. It’s now Resurrection Sunday in Ourense, Vigo, and everywhere else in Spain, including the road that, for the seventeen-kilometre stretch, joins A Barrela in Lugo with Cea in Ourense, on the hillside of the Sierra Martiñá.
The solitude in the area is absolute, and the calm silence is broken only occasionally by the sound of moving branches, or some wild animal. The insipid moonlight filters down through the trees, to be reflected in the white surface of an Audi A5 parked up on the hard shoulder. It has been there for almost an hour, with the interior light on.
After a short while, another vehicle approaches, not very quickly, its lights illuminating the thick vegetation, and a dull sound, increasing in volume, announcing its proximity.
On arriving, it stops on the other side of the road, behind the Audi. For the space of a few seconds, the silence presides once more over the surrounding area. After a brief moment, a priest opens the door and slowly walks up to the Audi, the hem of his black robes brushing the ground. The man looks through the windows to the car’s interior, skirts around the back of the vehicle, before making his way to the passenger seat.
“Good morning, Emma,” he greeted nervously.
Then he sat down in the seat and closed the door, whilst the woman watched.
“You look a little different,” he said.
The woman, with her hair silvery and tied up into a ponytail, received him with a faint smile.
“Thank you for coming, Father,” she said.
“I told you I would be here. Besides, it’s my obligation both as a priest and as a person.”
She did not contest. Now she looked out into the darkness, and began a macabre recounting:
“Javi, Sebas, Marc and Miguel, in one car. Isaac, Sandra, and you, Rodrigo, in the other.”
“Are they all dead?” asked the man, not without a certain amount of terror in his voice.
“Yes,” she replied, unemotionally.
An expression of mortality escaped upon hearing this. He bowed his head, and moved it from side to side, his gaze lost on the dashboard.
“My God, it’s madness,” he lamented.
“No. It’s justice,” Emma retorted immediately. “It’s the very same thing that’s been tormenting you yourself for the last six years.”
The man looked down even more, in clear acceptance of her observation.
“Tell me; have you ever been able to forget it?” Emma inquired.
“I think about it every second of every minute of every hour. Every single day of my life.”
She placed a golf ball on top of the dashboard:
“Like I told you on Sunday, through the iron grate in the confessional; I asked God to let me escape with my life; for him to give me the opportunity to continue just to get justice. For my husband, but most of all for my son. His life was worth so much more than that of the person who not only wanted to violently end it, but who could also live with what they had done.”
Then she took a breath, trying to calm herself, and continued talking, in a much more relaxed tone:
“Basically, it wasn’t difficult,” she explained. “In spite of being injured, I could clearly see your faces that night; the faces of those of you sinisterly deciding our future like people discussing which bar to go to next. And I also saw your cars.”
She let out a sigh before continuing:
“How could I forget you all, after seeing you in all of my nightmares for the last six years...”
“In mine too,” he stuttered, without trying to be heard.
“They all died because of their weaknesses, by their own insignificance. That’s how it should be,” she continued. “Javi, looking for a blind date; Sebas, through his ambition to get the most advantageous deal for his business; Marc, showing off his car to a potential conquest; Miguel,” she paused before proceeding, “I thought would have recognised me, and died trying to catch me. But in the end, he came out of it as a coward. Sandra killed herself out of a mother’s love. She understood that a woman would not hesitate to offer her own life in exchange for her child’s.”
“And Isaac?” asked Rodrigo. “Have you managed to get to him?”
A smile appeared on Emma’s face, loaded with contempt, but also satisfaction. She then said:
“This is his car. In reality, Isaac was the easiest of the lot. He lost his life through his perverted search for pleasure through domination; from achieving submission from everyone around him. And also through his disregard for his own son.”
“And me?” the young priest now asked.
“I haven’t had to bring you here. It’s your vocation that’s brought you,” she said. “You’ve come to hear my confession, but not to pardon me, but yourself.”
Rodrigo remained thoughtful. Emma respected the silence. After a while, the words began to flow painfully from him.
“That wasn’t my doing,” he said. “In those cars were doves and falcons. Miguel couldn’t allow himself a criminal record, because he wanted to join the Policía Nacional. Isaac was finishing up his degree, and he had a great future ahead of him, full of money and success. Those were the two who made the decision. The rest were easy to convince: Sandra would kill her own mother to please Isaac; Marc was driving the other car, and cried like a little boy whenever he lost a race; and Sebas and Javi were both so drugged up and out of it that they didn’t even realise what was happening. As for me, I couldn’t even speak. But I swear that I didn’t touch that car.”
“But you didn’t report it, you didn’t tell anybody,” Emma suddenly exclaimed.
He did not reply. He simply resumed his previous silence, staring intently at the golf ball. He picked it up and began to caress it in his hands. He did so with an air of familiarity, naturally, without the slightest hint of fear in his eyes.
“For me, my punishment comes six years too late,” he said.
Then he added:
“I know how you have suffered, and I am no one to judge you.”
Whilst the priest spoke, a blue reflection outside began to become apparent in the distance, through the trees, and approaching at high speed. Rodrigo did not notice it. Emma did. Then, she looked attentively at her companion for a few brief seconds.
“It’s time to go,” she said, turning on the ignition.
The young priest nodded. Emma asked one more question:
“Will you come with me?”
Rodrigo remained silent, staring blankly. After a second’s hesitation, he nodded, only slightly, but with enormous determination. Under Emma’s watch, he put on his seatbelt and crossed himself, only once. Then, he bowed his head over his hands and began to pray in silence.
Emma floored the accelerator, looking straight ahead, and the sound of the engine tore through the serene silence of the night like a dagger. Next, she took a deep breath, and raised the clutch. Instantaneously, the white projectile shot out into the abyss, its tyres leaving marks on the tarmac, and devastating all vegetation in its path.
When Eva arrived, all she saw was a grey car parked on the hard shoulder. There were also two obvious wheel marks on the ground, and some damaged thickets towards the drop. She knew perfectly well what would be below: the crushed wreckage of a white car, and inside it, two lifeless bodies and the final golf ball.
In the solitude of the forest, under the moonlight, she sat down by the side of the road. For a few minutes, she remembered Aurora, who had understood like nobody else that there was only one way her daughter’s journey would end. She thought about Ramón, and about the child they had still not decided whether to have. She then thought, in that instant, that she would have liked to have been able to meet Emma.
When the patrol car pulled up, Eva was still sitting. Antón got out and approached her from behind. He stood and checked the height of the drop. Then, he looked at her, and also sat down, by her side. Without needing to say anything, he knew that it was all over.