On Thursday morning, Borja rang to say he was going to his hairstylist’s (his blond highlights needed retouching) and would be attending the launch of some exhibition or other in the evening. That meant I had the day free and, as I was curious to learn more about the treatments and therapies on offer at Dr Bou’s centre, I decided to use my time to do research on the twins’ computer and give the flat a bit of a pre-weekend clean. Given that tomorrow I’d be off for the weekend and that at breakfast Montse seemed to think my stay at the meditation centre was tantamount to dereliction of family duties, I thought it would be a good idea to go to the Llibertat market, buy an anglerfish and cook her a tasty supper. However, anglerfish was priced sky high and in the end I bought sardines. Fried with garlic and parsley, and accompanied by a good salad, that would also do the job.
Montse appreciated the gesture and was even more understanding at supper time: clearly the sight of me at the sink, gutting sardines, cutting heads off and removing bones warmed the cockles of her heart. For my part, I had no desire to spend three days practising spiritual exercises surrounded by strangers and attending talks on the mysteries of chakras or the therapeutic virtues of Bach flower remedies, especially as Barça was playing València on Saturday and I imagined the centre didn’t have a TV. At half past twelve, with the twins, Arnau and Joana in bed, I suggested to Montse that we should open a bottle of cava.
“We drank wine at lunch. We’ll have hangovers in the morning,” she remarked, heading to the kitchen to collect the bottle and a couple of glasses.
“No worries. I’m going to spend the weekend drinking tasteless tea and eating tofu hamburgers.”
“A spot of diet will do you good. Apart from getting dinner, what have you got up to today?” she asked, handing me the bottle of cava to open.
“I’ve been researching homeopathy and Bach flower remedies.”
“And did you reach any conclusions?”
“I think your mother was right. They are taking the piss, whatever Lola might say.”
“To be candid, a couple of months ago I’d have agreed with my sister, but after what happened to the Rosselló boy I’m not so sure. Luckily, in the end, his mother backed down and took the kid to hospital…”
“You know they sell homeopathy and Bach flower remedies as alternative medicines to the conventional sort without any kind of scientific proof they really work,” I said, pouring out the cava and getting into my stride. “They’re based on a whole set of beliefs and premises that are centuries old and have been overtaken by scientific discoveries.”
“But homeopathy is taught in our faculties of medicine,” replied Montse, filling her glass. “In the United Kingdom, homeopathic hospitals are part of the public health system. And none other than Prince Charles is a big fan…”
“Come on, love, the fact you are a prince doesn’t automatically make you an expert on the subject. And he doesn’t exactly have a reputation for being a brainbox… Really,” I added on a more serious note, “most scientists are adamant there is no basis in science to justify the claims of homeopathy and, if you think about it for a second, you’ll see it’s a simple matter of common sense.”
“What do you mean?” asked Montse, sipping her cava.
“Homeopaths believe that the more often you dissolve an active principle in water and shake it, the more powerful the resulting medicine is. However, the fact is that when you dissolve a substance in water several times, let alone the exaggerated number of times they do it in homeopathic preparations, the substance that is theoretically supposed to cure you has in fact disappeared.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“We know that any substance has a finite number of molecules. It’s known as Avogadro’s law,” I replied, sipping more of the cava that always lubricated our late-night debates.
“Sounds familiar.”
“Consequently, if you dissolve a substance a lot, the moment comes when it ceases to exist as a substance. It’s simply not there any more.”
“So how do the homeopathic people justify themselves?”
“Now, we come to the best bit of all. They believe that water has a memory that preserves the properties of the substances that are dissolved in it.”
“And is that possible?”
“Scientific experiments carried out in laboratory conditions say it isn’t. The theory that water has powers of memory is bullshit.”
“It’s incredible.”
“It’s the same with Bach flower remedies,” I continued. “No rational criteria exist to prove the effectiveness of preparations based on steeping wild flowers from a region in Wales in watered-down brandy.”
“So what is it all about then? A money-making exercise?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “I imagine a little bit of everything. People who believe in the stuff in good faith, like Lola, and people who earn thousands from it.”
“You know what?” asked Montse, refilling her glass with a smile that suggested we’d not just be going to bed simply to sleep that night, “I think we’d better drink the cava before its molecules dissolve and no longer have any impact on us.”
Montse was right: we got up with a headache. After I’d taken Arnau to school, I came home, took an ibuprofen and stretched out in bed again. When I woke up, it was almost midday, and even though the headache had gone, I still felt groggy. In a spirit of dutiful resignation, I showered, then packed pyjamas and underwear in a bag and went out. Borja had insisted on inviting me to lunch to compensate for all the times he invited himself to our place, and I didn’t want to ring him and make an excuse. We had to be at Dr Bou’s centre by five, and the plan was to have lunch, grab our bags and head there.
“There’s a restaurant near here with an excellent set lunch,” he said, hardly hiding the fact that he was euphoric. “We can leave our bags in the flat and collect them afterwards.”
“So Merche handed over the four thousand euros, no questions asked?”
“Well, I’d hardly say she didn’t ask any questions… But this time I did promise to return them.”
I left my bag at Borja’s and we went off. As soon as we stepped out, we saw it was drizzling, but, as the restaurant was only a couple of streets down from where my brother lives, we didn’t bother to go back to the flat for our umbrellas. We hadn’t gone twenty metres when a complete stranger wearing huge sunglasses stood in front of us and blocked our path.
“You are Mr Masdéu, aren’t you?” she whispered, addressing my brother.
“That depends,” replied Borja, smiling sweetly.
“Carry on walking. We don’t have a lot of time,” said the stranger, looking all around and breaking into a brisk walk next to Borja. “They might be trailing me.”
“I’m sorry, but you are?…”
“What business of yours is that? You have something that doesn’t belong to you,” she continued.
She was thin, average height, with dark hair that was cut pageboy style. She was dressed so as not to draw attention to herself, but even so couldn’t hide the fact she was svelte and shapely. The small area of her face her rain-splashed glasses allowed a glimpse of was youthful and soft-skinned, and her small nose and highly sensual lips gave me a hard-on. I didn’t register this at a first glance, but I am almost definite she was wearing a wig.
“Yes, I think I know what you are referring to,” Borja snapped, winking. “But must we really keep walking?”
“I told you they are probably following me. It’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Borja stopped dead in his tracks. “Hey, nobody ever said anything about—”
“I’ve come to give you this.” She took a mobile phone from her pocket and gave it to Borja. “And to say that someone will be contacting you. Be prepared…”
“Be prepared? But you just listen, I—”
“I must be off. Don’t try to pull a fast one, or you will regret it.”
And she left us gawping into space, rushed across the street, and left in her wake a trail of scent and mystery until she vanished from sight.
“Dangerous! She said it was dangerous,” I yelped, forgetting I was screaming at Borja in the middle of the street. “And who the hell is she?”
“I don’t know. My contact for the business over that statue, I expect. But I don’t understand why she gave me this mobile, if they already have my number,” my brother mumbled, not bothering to hide that he, too, was bemused.
“And that damned stone statuette is in my home!” I growled.
“I’m sorry, bro. I didn’t think that… But don’t you worry. They don’t know you’ve got it. They can’t possibly know.”
“And who are they? If you don’t mind!”
“I don’t have a clue. The antique dealer in Amsterdam said it would all be very straightforward: a person would contact me via my mobile and give me a time to hand over the statue. There must have been a change of plan.”
“Well, you’d better phone him and find out what the hell is going on!”
“It doesn’t work like that. He contacts me. I don’t have a way of ringing him.”
“You’ve got to find another hiding place, Pep. I don’t want that statue in my house.”
“Quite right,” he replied. “I’ll drop by your place on Sunday night when we leave the meditation centre and take it with me.”
“And where will you hide it?”
“In my flat, I suppose. At least, until I can think of somewhere better…”
“Do you know what? I have just lost the little appetite I had.”
“Me too.”
Even so, we had lunch in the restaurant. Borja gradually recovered his sangfroid and by the time the second course had arrived he had convinced me it was all a wheeze to frighten him and prepare the ground to pay him less money than he’d agreed with the antiquarian. While we were drinking our coffees, he took the mobile out and put it on the table.
“It’s not what you’d call the latest model, is it?” he remarked with a smile. In fact, I hadn’t seen a model like that in a long, long time.
“So what are we going to do?”
“Nothing much. Wait for them to call,” Borja replied, shrugging his shoulders.
“But mobiles are banned from the meditation centre,” I retorted. “I left mine at home…”
“You’re a real baby! I don’t expect you can smoke either, but I don’t intend going three days without a smoke.”
“And what if they catch you?”
“Eduard, we’re big boys now. This chakra and cosmic-harmony business is baloney to soak the rich, can’t you see that? And what’s more, we’re going of our free will and paying a fortune for the ride. I intend on smoking the odd cigarette. Whatever they may say,” he added, shrugging his shoulders yet again.
“Know what? I’ll be back in a second,” I said, getting up from the table. “I’m off to buy a packet of cigarettes.”