Erhard figured that Aaz would somehow notice the new car. But the Boy-Man’s sitting rigidly in his seat, as usual, and they make it all the way to Las Dunas before he rolls the window down, and something in his movements seems to register that it’s a new car, a new way to roll down the window.
So you finally got a new car.
– Do you like it?
Better than the old one.
– The old one was OK.
The old one was terrible, its suspension hurt my butt.
– Watch the language, young man.
You have to admit that this one is better. The air conditioning is better. It sounds better. It smells better.
– It’s nice, I admit.
What do you think about taking over Raúl’s job and his car?
– Don’t you think I deserve it?
One doesn’t always get what one deserves.
– If Raúl returns, I’ll just say thanks for letting me borrow your car and go back to my old job, my old house.
What if he doesn’t return? Then you’ll be trapped in that mind-numbing job.
– It’s better than sitting in an old Mercedes every day, on the same dusty road, earning a salary that can’t even support an old man and his two goats.
You’ve never complained.
– Trust me, Aaz, it hasn’t been fun. Why can’t a man have a taste of the good life after many years…
What if Raúl comes back? Will you be able to return to your old life? After driving the new car, living in a luxury flat, drinking expensive wine with the upper crust, and playing doctor with his girlfriend? You can’t.
– He threw his life away, don’t you agree? What I’ve done is pick up all the pieces. I can always, always, return to my old life. The Mercer was never mine, so I’ll never see it again, but the house is only locked up as if I’m on holiday.
So you’ll just say, ‘Thanks for letting me use your flat and car and luxurious life’, then go back to Laurel and Hardy?
– I’ve lived on this island for nearly twenty years, and during that time not a damn thing has changed. Now that an opportunity has presented itself, are you telling me not to take it?
Will you stop driving me?
– No. It’s my favourite thing to do every week, driving an overgrown boy who talks my ear off. Why do you think I’ve got myself such a fine car?
Will we have time to drive out to see the kites on the beach?
– Yes, Aaz. Someday I’ll get a note from your mum, and then we can go see the kites. You can sit on the beach and drink warm tea, while I try to stand on one of the surfboards. It’ll be quite the sight.
Mónica is standing outside the house today, as if she has been expecting them for some time. She has prepared omelettes, which Aaz loves. They sizzle warmly on the plates. Cautiously she asks Erhard if he wishes to come in. It doesn’t feel like a matter of course. She slices off triangular chunks of omelette and serves them with rosemary. As they eat, they listen to the canaries in the garden. He tells Mónica the news.
At first she’s indignant, and practically laughs at him. She knows the Palabrases and isn’t crazy about them. She shifts in her seat, picking at the little vase of flowers from the garden which rests in the centre of the table. She thinks Erhard’s trying to back out of their agreement, but he assures her that he’ll continue to drive Aaz every Wednesday. Hopefully he’ll even have time to take him to the beach now and then. Or maybe the flea market in Gran Tarajal. Mónica quietly tines small hunks of egg with her fork.
After the meal, she turns on the telly and lets Aaz sit in the plush chair to watch the programme with the turtle and the fish who run an underwater grocery.
Erhard helps clean up the kitchen. He rinses a plate and sets a jar of sun-dried tomatoes back in the fridge. There’s something private about gazing into the fridge. He doesn’t inspect the shelves, but gazes straight ahead as he sets the jar on the lowest shelf. He can’t bear the thought of seeing Mónica’s little weaknesses: the jam, coconut macaroons in a little bag, or tinned pickles.
– We need to leave in half an hour, he tells Aaz.
– As long as this doesn’t happen every time, Mónica says. – I’d hoped he could stay for dinner.
He’s arranged to stop by Autovenga and check out two vehicles. He’d figured he could drive Aaz back before then.
– Then I’ll have to return later, he says.
But it has no mitigating effect on her.
– Forget it, she says. She’s standing at a small mirror in the corner, near the refrigerator, and applying lipstick. – I release you from your duties. We’ll manage without your help. We’ve done it before.
Erhard doesn’t know how to respond. But he’s certain she means to wound him. She doesn’t realize that he’s not helping for Aaz’s sake or hers; he’s helping for his own. But it sounds all wrong, selfish.
– I’ve already made sure that I’m available every Wednesday morning so that I can drive him, Erhard says.
But the truth is he hasn’t told anyone what he does on Wednesday mornings, and he won’t ask for permission like some kind of teenager, especially not from Marcelis. When he left the office, he told Ana that he was going to meet with Autovenga. Which is true, but he didn’t say anything about giving someone a free taxi ride. He can damn well do whatever he pleases.
Mónica brews coffee in the Italian kettle. He drinks it as he watches television, while she goes out in the garden.
– Come visit me on Saturday, he tells her when she says goodbye to Aaz through the rolled-down window. The words just come blurting out of him. Maybe the result of guilt, maybe something else, but so what? He doesn’t know what he would do with Beatriz, but perhaps he could just lock the door, like he did when Emanuel stopped by.
Mónica doesn’t seem to understand, but also doesn’t seem hostile to the idea, either. At most reluctant.
– To thank you for letting me drive your son and for your help with the computer. He imagines Aaz saying, C’mon, Mum, let’s do it. On one hand, he hopes she’ll say no, that she’ll reject his invitation. But on the other, he would like to see Aaz. And her. Under different circumstances. He would like to show her that he has something to offer. – If there’s a football match, Aaz can watch it on my widescreen telly.
– Is that wise? she asks. Predictably.
– Maybe not. If Barça loses, he’ll probably smash the entire flat.
She flashes a faint smile.
– Are you sure about this?
Her doubt seems so deep-seated, so heart-wrenching. He has heard the question his entire life, and he has often asked himself the same thing. He has to turn away before he can respond. – Yes, he says simply. He can’t emphasize it enough, and yet he has nothing else to add.
She glances at Aaz, who stares straight ahead through the windscreen as if they’re rolling across an interesting landscape. – Then we’ll be there.
All he manages to do is give her a smile before she retreats from the window, and says: – Pick us up at noon.
He thought it was difficult to stop drinking. But it’s nothing compared to the feeling of stress and confusion that fills him every day when Ana tries to go over his daily assignments with him. There’s a management meeting, a board of directors meeting, a monthly meeting, a coffee meeting, a personnel meeting, and above all else: customer meetings. A number of meetings with business clients who wish to be wined and dined before they choose a taxi company.
Ana explains that they can hold the meetings in his office at the little round table with its ergonomic chairs, or down at Restaurant Muñoz, where they’ve installed bullfighting posters and bottles of sherry in a backroom. He doesn’t know anything about these kinds of meetings. He’s concerned that he’ll need to use proper manners and speak business jargon. He’s concerned they will view him as some lousy driver who’s bitten off more than he can chew and take him for a ride in negotiations. Nervous, he goes to the bathroom several times at Muñoz before the first meeting with the deputy manager of the Gran Hotel & Spa Atlantis.
But he turns out to be just a young man in a jean jacket. Luckily their sancocho is edible after hours of simmering and lots of pepper. Erhard spills hot sauce on his shirt and tries to remove it with the napkin, which only makes it worse. The deputy manager just thinks it’s funny; he seems uneasy, pushing his stew around with his spoon, talking non-stop. He used to work at McDonald’s, it turns out, and he doesn’t know how long he can stand living on the island. He glances at his mobile phone, as if he expects a call of utmost importance, and orders a beer. Erhard orders one for himself, thinking to hell with Marcelis and his rules.
Erhard knows the Gran Hotel, has often driven customers to and fro. The driveway runs uphill, so a person has to walk up a long, steep stairwell to reach the hotel. Many of the drivers don’t want to schlep the luggage up to the foyer, and Erhard’s usually knackered after helping an American with four or five suitcases. There’s nothing the hotel can do about it, the deputy manager explains. We don’t have the time to pick up suitcases for all our guests, and besides, the porter is no spring chicken; he’s worked at the hotel for twenty years and all he cares to do is open doors, collect tips, and look for celebrities. We can’t fire him. He’s somebody’s uncle’s sister’s husband.
– What if our drivers carry up the luggage? Erhard says.
– We’ve had that arrangement. The young drivers don’t care to do it. They’re busy. And the old ones, no offence, they aren’t capable. Like Alberto.
– If I can get the drivers to do it, do we have a deal?
– TaxiVentura can get there in seven minutes. I’ve been told that Taxinaria can do it in six.
Erhard knows this is a lie. Gran Hotel & Spa Atlantis is remote. There’s no development nearby, just a few ordinary stretches of beach. It’s a question of luck, getting to the hotel in seven minutes. From Puerto north, where the taxis park outside the theatres, it takes a minimum of eleven minutes to reach the hotel. – We can be there within thirteen minutes.
The deputy manager laughs. He tosses out a few of the hotel’s catchphrases. How they are customer-oriented, how they do their best to go beyond the customer’s expectations, training their personnel’s customer-service intelligence. But all that depends on pushing more than 3,000 guests a month, on average, through the machine, and during the summer that figure rises to 8,000. He makes it sound like a mincer. – We can’t afford to let them wait for thirteen minutes.
Now it’s Erhard’s turn to laugh. – Make them a good cup of coffee for four euros while they wait. Let them relax.
The deputy manager hadn’t considered that. Instead he says: What do you think about your offer?
– I think it’s realistic. I think the person who told you we can do it in under eleven minutes is irresponsible.
– It was Marcelis Osasuna last year when I sat with him in this very restaurant. Ate the same sancocho. If nothing else, you’re persistent.
– I’m not Marcelis. But Marcelis doesn’t know anything about driving a taxi. Marcelis knows how to run a business, Erhard says. And Marcelis knows how to send me to meetings like this one. – I can’t get the taxis there any faster, but I can give you a realistic offer that you can count on, and ensure that our drivers help your guests with their luggage.
The deputy manager says nothing, but raises his glass as he studies Erhard. – Excuse my impertinence, but where the hell did they dig you up?
– Cotillo Beach, Erhard says simply. The deputy manager laughs. It’s an infectious laughter. Erhard can’t help joining in.
Soon the bored head waiter returns with half-melted bowls of ice-cream with tinned peaches.
– A few years ago, the deputy manager says, poking around in the dessert, – this was the peak of Fuerteventura’s gastronomical capacity. Sad-looking, unserious, tinned food. The sancocho was average, but this is a joke, a disgrace. We need to do better if we’re going to survive as a tourist destination. Do you know how many bad reviews this place has on TripAdvisor? More than ninety. Ninety people have spent time writing negative reviews about this shithole restaurant, because they’ve sat here and stuck their spoons into an absurdly disgusting bowl of ice cream that costs four and a half euros. That’s what we’re up against. Every time someone fucks something up here on the island, a flag is raised on the Internet to the delight and benefit of anyone who wants to avoid a four-hour flight just to be treated like an idiot.
Erhard knows what the man means; he’s heard about instant Internet reviews, but he has a hard time believing it. On the other hand, Alina and Mónica found images rather swiftly on the Internet that were only a few days old. Everything moves so bloody fast now. One would hardly believe that anyone had enough time to post images online, but some don’t seem to do anything else.
– You don’t understand a word of what I’m saying, do you? the deputy manager says.
– No, Erhard says. No reason to explain himself.
The deputy manager laughs again. – Fantastic. You look like a wasted drunkard three days before his retirement, and we’re sitting here at one of the island’s shittiest restaurants. Still, you’ve given me hope, or what passes for hope, that we can still work together and earn some good money. You can pass that on to your boss.
– He’s not my boss. I belong to no one.
The deputy manager’s smile vanishes. – OK, he says. The vanilla ice cream melts while they drain their beers.
After that he begins to enjoy the meetings. He still feels awkward around his former colleagues. Sitting and drinking and eating doesn’t feel like work, but the meetings go well. He gets Ana to reserve a table at Miza’s instead, and even though the food is a salad or a sandwich, it’s better than Muñoz. The view is better too, and Erhard feels more at home. He wins five contracts before he gets his first taste of defeat. The female head of sales, the so-called Customer Experience Officer, from the Oasis Park Zoo doesn’t like the fishermen’s city of Alapaqa and seems uncomfortable. She says she would rather sign a pact with someone who knows the island and respects its culture. He tries to explain to her that he does indeed know the island, but she notes that neither Osasuna nor Erhard are from Fuerteventura. And besides, Osasuna has a reputation for being disloyal. In the end it sounds as though she has talked to Barouki or already received a good offer, and Erhard is forced to give up. Miza, who overheard the conversation, rests a hand on Erhard’s shoulder when she strolls past him.
At the office, he sees flashes of the same hostility.
One morning he meets Marcelis out in the hallway and says hello. – Señor Castilla, I presume, Marcelis practically shouts. Erhard already knows what’s coming next. Castilla is the main character in El Comisario, the most popular Spanish detective series, which airs every Thursday. Erhard has watched a few episodes at the cafe. – You are well aware that you are contractually obligated not to work a second job. I don’t go around building houses in my spare time.
He knows exactly what Marcelis is driving at, but he steers it in another direction. – Palabras gave me permission to continue with some clients on the side.
– I’m not referring to your piano tuning. I mean your detective work.
– I don’t have detective work.
– You know what I’m talking about, Jørgensen. Apparently, people are talking about it. Ana brought it to my attention.
It takes Erhard by surprise. She hasn’t said a word about it. – It’s nothing, he says. – It’s like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. It’s just something I spend a little time thinking about. Nothing more. It’s not a second job.
– Well, stop assembling your puzzle. Just do your job.
Erhard is unable to muster a reply before Marcelis stomps off in the direction he came from. He considers speaking to Emanuel and asking him to put Marcelis in his place, but he knows that, since he has to work with Marcelis, that’s not a good solution. Besides, Palabras would probably say the same: Do your job, forget about your little exploration.
Those who don’t know him very well, like young Mijael and Gustavo, easily accept that he’s the new director without giving it a second thought, but Luís sends him dirty looks and stops talking whenever Erhard marches down the corridor with his vending-machine coffee. One afternoon, Erhard sits down in the break-room to talk with the drivers who stop in during siesta. At first they don’t say much, but before long they forget that Erhard is one of the directors, and they begin to complain as usual – about the system and their hours. Erhard simply listens, then heads to his office and jots down some of what they said. He doesn’t tell them anything about it, he doesn’t make promises, but he would like to improve everything they mentioned. He has begun to understand why management can’t satisfy the drivers’ wishes, but he thinks that he might be able to show the drivers that management does indeed care about them and their frustrations. That they would like to change some things – if there’s enough money to do so. Marcelis isn’t against improvements. Erhard has learned that much in the past few weeks. But Marcelis is mostly interested in getting more vehicles on the street, not spoiling the drivers with coffee machines and massages. The lack of tourists and the rising prices of petrol haven’t made things any easier.
On those days when he stays in his office, he listens to Radio Mucha on a little transistor radio and riffles through files of contracts and agreements, examining old accounts to understand how they spend their money and how much they spend. Ana or Marcelis has put a globe on one of the filing cabinets, as if the company has an international reach. He spins it and peers at the tiny speck in the middle of the sea that is Fuerteventura, and the almost-as-tiny speck above Germany that is Denmark. And when there’s nothing left on his schedule, he sits on the toilet and reads.
Saturday morning he wakes on the sofa before sunrise. Still wearing the same clothes as the night before. Maybe it’s the light that woke him, the blue-violet light, the thinnest fissure between the dark sky and the sea. He thinks of Raúl. Becoming Raúl. As if the dream he’d just had was all about being Raúl. As if he has just been Raúl and now can’t shake the feeling. He doesn’t wish to be Raúl. He doesn’t wish to live like him. He would like to be Raúl’s age, would like to enjoy his effortlessness, his unconcerned waltz through life. He would like to experience Beatriz’s gaze, the way she looked at Raúl whenever he told a story or philosophized about the sea or commented on some wine.
But he doesn’t want to be Raúl whenever she looks at him in fear. Like just before, in the dream, when Beatriz was lying naked underneath him, screaming as he beat and raped her. One of her brown breasts jiggled while, for some reason, the other stood firm. Her screams sounded like a rope swiftly lashed around a post, a screechy, dry trill. He is Raúl, his arms are Raúl’s hairy arms, so hairy that you can’t even see his skin beneath fists bashing her from either side, like a piñata, while he fucks her. She cries out, No! Crying and praying to Santa Maria. Erhard can’t remember if she’s Catholic. No, she never went to church; he never saw her anywhere near one. She’s not reciting Santa Maria, she’s repeating the lyrics from one of those pop songs Raúl loved: ‘Only When You Leave, I Need to Love You’. She stops talking. She falls silent. She lies still beneath him. He counts his arms, and there are more of them. Up to eight or nine flapping in front of him. Then Beatriz disappears.
He almost can’t bring himself to go into the bedroom to check on her. The body that’s lying in that bed is so different from the one he’s just touched in his dream that it’s both a relief and a grief. In the dream, she was a broken soul trapped in a pure sex machine; in reality, she’s nothing more than a distressed soul trapped in a broken body. Without turning on the light and seeing her face, he changes her drainage bag and rolls her over in the dark. He doesn’t care to see her eyes, the glossy dull buttons, and doesn’t care to see the atrophied muscles of her cheeks.
He goes for a walk down to the beach. It’s the best time of the day to be reminded how the town used to be. The seagulls eye the cafes’ stacked tables, a married couple is having a row on a bench underneath a blooming tree, a young man rakes the sand and then arranges reclining chairs in a straight row. And of course there are fishermen out along the coast, lonely and inept silhouettes, always early to rise so they can do something that resembles work and can get sloshed with a good conscience before lunch. He watches one of the boats chugging into the harbour. If it were a car, one might say it was lurching, but he supposes wind and currents take their toll – just as when the wind out near the Dunes lashes against vehicles and practically sweeps them off the road. Changing direction, he heads towards the harbour. This is also the best time of the day to speak to anyone who knows how the tide and the sea push around large objects.
He sees the boat winding round the breakwater and dock among a couple of empty fishing cutters. Working in silence, the men leap about, and one of them fastens the dock lines to the cleats. Erhard studies them to figure out which one is the captain or even the most experienced sailor. It must be the one with the scarf around his neck, or maybe the one wearing bright orange overalls. He picks the one with the scarf, who’s standing on the breakwater now and rinsing out some grey tote boxes.
– Who’s the captain of your ship?
– Who’s asking? the man says, without looking at Erhard.
– A curious soul.
– There aren’t many of those at six o’clock in the morning.
– But it’s almost 7.30 now. Are you the captain?
The man chuckles and points at the boat, where a young man stands jotting a note in the little cockpit.
Since the other man’s farther away, and the motor’s still running, Erhard has to shout. – I have a question for the captain!
A moment passes before the sound reaches the man in the cockpit, and he glances at Erhard. His face is reddish-brown, and his eyes are white, as though bleached of colour by the sun. Erhard recognizes him. Not because he knows him, but because the man grew up near the harbour in Corralejo; he’s one of the kids who sold fish on the street and who used to run around naked on the rocks, showing crabs to the tourists, one of those who cries when the flotilla with the Virgin is sent to sea, because his own father died out there, and because he too will die out there one day. A young fisherman of the old school, a child of the island if ever there was one.
The man hops down from the cockpit and offers Erhard his hand. – Polo, he says. The other side of the man’s face, Erhard sees, is flattened as if it was once injured by a blunt object. Erhard introduces himself.
– I have a question to whichever one of you has the most experience on the sea, Erhard says, and glances around expecting one of the others to look up.
– Ask me, Polo says.
Erhard doesn’t quite know how to formulate his question without making the men laugh. – In all the years you’ve sailed, you have probably seen a little bit of everything. But I’m just a landlubber who randomly ended up on this island, and I don’t know anything about conditions on the sea.
Polo stares at him.
– And I was wondering, well… what’s the strangest thing you’ve seen floating around out there? I’ve read in the newspaper that there’s a massive island of plastic west of Hawaii. Have you ever seen anything strange floating around?
The man studies Erhard as if trying to figure out why Erhard wants to know. – You mean dead people? Like that rich guy’s kid they was lookin’ for las’ week?
Erhard flinches when he realizes what the man means. – No, I wasn’t talking about him. But did you see him or find anything?
– Nope. I told the police that very thing when they ast’d. We’ve not seen a thing. Trust me, we don’t want dead people or whatnot in our nets. Bad for bus’ness, it is.
– What about other things? Like houses? Things from last year’s tsunami? Cars?
– We’ve seen the oddest things, haven’t we? The other men grumble at this. – But nothing we write down or remember. The sea has lotsa secrets and we learn lotsa stuff all the time, but when we’re out there, we’re fishermen, not shipwreck-hunters.
– But many things float, right? Not just boats, rafts, and pieces of wood?
Polo shrugs. – Sure.
– Take a car, for example, that somehow ended up in the water. Can’t it float a few miles or sea miles or whatever…?
Polo laughs. He seems to know that this was Erhard’s question the entire time.
– But it’s possible, right? Erhard says.
– Never seen it. Nope, never seen it.
Erhard glances around at the others, to see if one is itching to tell him something different.
Polo says, – My uncle, who fish’d down near Morro many years ’go, collided with a lorry that lay right below the surface of the water. Twas impossible to see, my uncle said. Wasn’t many who believed him, but he could get real ornery if you told him you didn’t. He said he could remember the Transo Viajes logo because it was vis’ble jus’ above the water. When he rammed the lorry, it sank and my uncle had to repair his boat. It was a ’spensive fix. The insurance wouldn’ cover it. They didn’t believe ’im. The other men on Polo’s boat laugh at the story, which they’ve probably heard many times. Polo eyes Erhard. – So maybe cars float. Who knows?
Erhard watches them work their tote boxes a little while longer, arranging them on a handcart so that they’re ready to roll towards the car park. He nods a thank you to Polo and starts back towards the harbour. On the opposite side of the basin, Polo calls after him.
– Let me know if you discover anything. My uncle’s dead, but it’ll give the fam’ly a little piece a mind to know he’d been telling the truth back when.
Polo makes a sign of the cross. Erhard understands what that means.
The fishermen’s scepticism causes Erhard to believe he’s right. Walking along the harbour, staring at his feet, he fears it may just be his old reckless rebelliousness, which doesn’t like to be corrected, and certainly not by authority figures. If they tell him the car can’t have washed ashore, then he’s all the more certain that the car washed ashore – and didn’t roll down the cliff. He walks all the way out to the Hotel Olympus, the foundering construction project that echoes with drunkards and dogs. When one stands on the plateau which was to hold a lavish swimming pool, one can see across the city and the white line of houses, interrupted only by the fishing museum’s green facade with its gigantic octopus spinning round in the sunlight.
On the way home he buys some bread and some thinly sliced ham at HiperDino. He sets the table. He brings out a bottle of red wine, Raúl’s, then puts it back again. It’s probably ridiculously expensive. He doesn’t even know if Mónica likes wine.
He changes Beatriz’s clothes. She has two jogging suits that he switches between. The first time it was bizarre, and kind of thrilling, but now it’s like changing an overgrown, sleeping baby. Difficult. There’s the hint of a wound where the respirator covers the mouth, so he removes the respirator when he’s in the bedroom and her breathing seems calm, normal. He turns off the device and wraps the mouthpiece and the cord in a knot and hangs it on the rack. Michel had suggested that she could survive a day or two without the respirator. He leaves one light on, but locks the door on his way out.
Then he showers and gets dressed, though he leaves his shirt off to shave. With his electric razor set on the closest shave, it hums and stutters, and soon his skin is blue-white and smooth – as smooth as it can get anyway with his wrinkled cheeks and strangely baggy jowls. He doesn’t like his face clean-shaven, actually, doesn’t like himself that way, but he’s certain that Mónica prefers him shaved. He resembles what he is: an old man with tired eyes.
He leaves to pick them up. At first, he feels like picking up Aaz before Mónica. Both for conversation’s sake and because he thinks the atmosphere might be a little awkward if it’s only him and Mónica in the car. She’s not just any old customer. But right before he makes the turn onto the road leading around the mountain and up to the Santa Marisa Home, he changes his mind and heads towards Tuineje.
At her house, he honks once. She comes running and hops in the car as if it’s raining. She shakes her hair and sets her purse between her legs, and he notices her dress and high heels. She’s wearing tights, too, which you don’t see very often on the island due to the heat and the sand. Mónica is different, he knows, but sometimes she seems stranger in her surroundings than he does.
She seems surprised that Aaz isn’t in the car.
– So he doesn’t have to drive all the way out here, he says, though they both know that Aaz loves the drive. The farther the better.
They drive through Antigua past the glass factory with its two characteristic chimneys. He’s given many people rides, but driving her in a car without a taximeter feels like something new entirely. There’s no static from dispatch, and the Mercedes is silent and precise. It would be a good time to tell her about the boy in the cardboard box. He owes her that much, really, after she helped him find the photos from the beach. And the cafe. Maybe she won’t want to know. Maybe she’ll think the police should handle it. He can’t decide whether to tell her about it.
– Do you always talk this much when you drive a taxi? she says after a few moments of silence.
Erhard laughs.
– I like the silent types, she says. – I used to think that Aaz couldn’t talk at all, but he can. Did you know that? He’s talked in his sleep quite a bit or he’s suddenly shouted at the TV if the turtle doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do. His voice is deep, you might call it bassy. He used to talk all the time. To me and the birds and to people who stopped by. But then one day, he just stopped.
Erhard glances in her direction.
– Maybe it was something he saw or heard. One morning, I simply woke with him crying at my side. This was before he went to live at Santa Marisa. He was five years old. He cried and cried, but without tears. Without a sound. I consoled him as usual. I ruffled his hair and hummed to him. And after that, no more. After that he hasn’t said a word. I’ve tried to get him to… But he won’t. Maybe he can’t. Maybe it’s become too difficult for him.
Erhard considers whether he should tell Mónica that he talks to Aaz. That he’s somehow talked to Aaz every week for months.
They reach the base of the steep street that leads up past Santa Marisa. Erhard can feel Mónica’s eyes on him. Aaz stands at the front gate with his duffel, gazing blankly ahead. When the car drives in front of him, Aaz stares at Mónica in the passenger seat, and she quickly moves to the backseat.
Mónica is impressed by the flat. As he’d hoped. She claps her hands, walking around the living room touching everything as if they’re art objects. She glides a finger across the collection of books – it’s Raúl’s, but Erhard has added a number of his own titles. He explains that Raúl’s things are in storage in the bedroom, and that’s why the door is locked. She accepts this without question, then goes out to the terrace to gaze down at the street. She shouts to Erhard in the kitchen, saying that she’s never been this high up before. Erhard doesn’t quite understand what she means, but guesses that she’s never been in a tall building before. Aaz spends half an hour in the bathroom. While Erhard prepares their sandwiches, Aaz plops in front of the widescreen TV and switches between four or five children’s channels. Erhard didn’t know there were so many channels. But the turtle’s not on. It only airs at 12.30 p.m. on weekdays and only on TV Canaria.
When the food is arranged on the terrace table, Aaz won’t shut off the TV, so Mónica moves the food, drinks, and cutlery to the coffee table, where she and Erhard can sit on the sofa while Aaz lies on the floor with a bowl of calamari. His giant body makes the entire room seem smaller. She tries to speak, but her words are drowned out by the puppet voices on the telly, and Erhard zones out of the conversation – about the personnel at Santa Marisa, which doesn’t permit Sunday visits, and about the rooms there. The residents sleep in bunk beds, often four in one room, and only the noisiest among them get their own room, and none of the rooms have a window that opens. At night there is a great deal of whispering, and one would think the place had ghosts, just as people have been saying for years. Aaz ought to sleep with an adult who’ll hold his hand. Instead, some sort of night watchman sits in the room keeping an eye on them, following them to the toilet if they make it in time. Although Erhard only half-listens, he feels queasy at what he does hear. He leaves his ham in the bread and eats his tomato.
They clear the table together. Just like at Mónica’s place, but this time in the big kitchen, where neither one of them knows where things should go.
– I’ve heard you’re playing detective.
– What? he says, glancing at Aaz in the other room.
– They’re talking about you. Since there’s only one Hermit on the island, you know, and they say the Hermit’s doing police work.
– Who are ‘they’?
– People. The mothers of the island. They’re all married to someone who knows someone who has heard about the boy they found on the beach.
– I’ve asked a few questions. I’m not playing detective.
– Everyone hopes you find the mother, but…
– I’m not searching for any mother. It’s more like a mystery I’m hoping to solve, like a crossword puzzle or one of those Chinese number puzzles you see in the newspapers.
– Why don’t you just buy a newspaper?
– No one abandons a child without a reason. Something must have happened to the mother.
– Some do. Some people just run away from their problems when they become too difficult.
– What’s your point?
– Maybe the mother’s not worth finding. Maybe she deserved to drown or be killed.
– Is that what people are saying?
– I’m just saying that if the police have closed the case, perhaps you shouldn’t think you can solve it on your own.
– You’re afraid something’s going to happen to Aaz, aren’t you?
– Certain people might come after you. Aaz is very fond of you, you know that, right?
– What are you telling me?
– I’m not telling you anything. I’m just concerned for Aaz’s safety.
– It doesn’t have anything to do with Los Tres Papas, if that’s what you’re worried about. This is about a child, not some shipment of pot.
– You know what things are like here on the island.
There’s a knock on the door. Erhard looks at Mónica as if she knows who it is. Whoever it is, they’ve gotten past the buzzer. As long as it’s not Emmanuel Palabras. That would be dreadful timing. In the entryway he listens through the door. He hears something in the corridor, a faint rustling. He opens the door.
– Hiiiii, a short-haired brunette says as if they know each other. She’s one of those Spanish beauties, semi-blonde, who wishes to be a Marilyn Monroe blonde, but gives up because it’s expensive and difficult to dye her hair all the time; she’s wearing a red halter-top, cowboy skirt, opaque stockings, and black knee-high boots with ten-centimetre heels. – I’m your new downstairs neighbour, she says.
Erhard has never seen her before. If he had, he would’ve remembered. – Hello.
– I’d like to invite you to my place for a glass of wine and lunch so we can get acquainted.
– I’m new myself here, he says. Erhard realizes that if this is how he’s supposed to introduce himself to his neighbours, he’s not been showing good manners.
– That’s OK. That’s why I’m inviting you.
– Me?
– Yes. Just a little wine. Totally innocent.
And suddenly she doesn’t seem the least bit innocent. In fact, he’s suddenly aware of her Russian accent and her sexiness, and he’s just to about to slam the door in her face before Mónica sees her. – Can’t right now. I have guests, unfortunately.
– Another time, he hears her say as he closes the door. To his great vexation, he’s completely erect. It normally takes some effort, but right now it irritates him. He forces it back under the waistband of his underwear. What the hell was that all about?
– Downstairs neighbour? Mónica says. She apparently heard the entire conversation.
– Yes, my new neighbour.
– You could have invited her in.
– No thanks. She looked like a prostitute drumming up new johns.
– So what? It wouldn’t be the first prostitute you’ve met, would it? Mónica’s searching for a reaction from him.
– Aaz would blush in shame over such a girl, he says. – Trust me, he wouldn’t have been able to watch much football if I’d let her in.
Mónica stares at Erhard, then laughs. A laugh rising from the pit of her belly. She stands next to Erhard and lays her hands on his upper arm. He gazes directly into her tired, worn face. Like his own.
– Just relax, he says. – I’m not a policeman. Being the director of a taxi company is enough for me.
Her face softens. A little.
Erhard goes into the living room and changes the channel over Aaz’s protests. The football match hasn’t begun yet, and Erhard’s already tired. Still, he decides to bring out the expensive red wine after all.
– No, no, Mónica protests. – Please don’t.
As if he’s about to remove all her clothes in front of her son.
He pours the wine, and Mónica sips it, walking from the sofa to the terrace, discussing the potted plants which have dried out. Erhard hadn’t noticed until now. Finally she sits on the opposite end of the sofa. She doesn’t spread out like Erhard, but sits stiffly, her legs pressed together as if she’s in pain or needs to pee.
The funny thing about watching football with Aaz in the room is that he cheers every time Barcelona has the ball. He throws his arms into the air, urging them to hustle down the pitch. As if to say: The goal’s open! And so are four players you can pass the ball to! Barcelona wins the match 2–0.
Afterward he drives them home. Mónica follows Aaz inside. She disappears through the gate and gives Erhard a look requesting that he not leave her there. As if he would. He notices that three of the letters in the Santa Marisa Home’s sign are worn out or completely rubbed off so that it now reads Santa Mar Home.
Mónica returns and climbs in the car. Saying goodbye to her son has made her sad. He tries to imagine what it’s like to leave an oversized adult son here. Maybe she’s plagued by a bad conscience. Maybe she feels grief for the child she never had.
They drive south in silence. The sun is setting. The island’s unique light, filtered through dust and sea-mist – a greenish tint that wedges between heaven and ocean so that you feel as though you’re floating – causes them both to sit motionless in their seats. The road feels much too short, and now they’ve almost arrived. Erhard turns into Mónica’s driveway. The car crunches over the gravel and they park in front of the house. He wishes he could start the day over and be in a better mood. He feels the urge to tell her about the dream. To explain to her why he’s been so withdrawn. But he can’t. It has nothing to do with his dream, either. That’s just the way he is; he can’t change.
– I’ve had a good day, she says. – Because Aaz had a good day, I can tell.
– They won of course. He likes that.
– And the calamari.
– Right, that too.
Mónica smiles. – That was the first time Aaz and I have eaten out.
Erhard glances down. He hadn’t thought of that. – I’ve never had visitors. So it works out for all of us.
– But now you have your neighbour to invite over.
– I can’t afford that, he says, trying to turn it into another joke.
– Were you nervous?
– About today? No.
– I was. I didn’t sleep last night. I lay there wondering if Aaz would have one of his fits during the meal. Or if he would ruin your carpet. He pees on everything sometimes.
– So do I.
– Thank you for listening today, she says, climbing out of the car.
– You were honest. You said what you were thinking.
She stands with the door open, and he can’t see her face. – You’re a good man, Erhard. It’s the first time she’s said his given name, and it sounds like Jerrar. – Don’t forget that. Even if you don’t find that boy’s mother. But I don’t have room for a man in my life. I can’t. Because of Aaz, you understand. She turns and starts towards the house.
What he understands is that she’s putting an end to something that hadn’t even begun.
He hopes to find Marcelis in his office to discuss with him the two cars he’s chosen. Osasuna’s name is already on the contract, and he’s the one who’ll have to sign.
Erhard hasn’t seen him since their brief conversation in the corridor a week earlier. But the door is closed. Ana’s in there with him, and he can hear them whispering in subdued voices. Erhard stands quietly, listening. As soon as they begin talking business again, he’ll enter. First he hears a sound like the shuffling of furniture, then a grinding noise, like paper being shredded. Something heavy slides down the other side of the door, and it occurs to Erhard that what he’d heard was Marcelis moaning. They’re having a morning shag.
He returns his book to his briefcase and walks through the building as if he has a meeting to attend.
The car dealer is eating his lunch.
– Go ahead, Erhard says, seating himself at the small table in the dealership’s cafeteria.
– We’re not supposed to allow customers in here.
– That’s OK.
Gilberto looks around the room. There’s a dollop of mayonnaise in the corner of his mouth from his sandwich.
– I’m here because I need you to do me a favour.
– Um, Gilberto says, his mouth full of food.
– You need to change the contract so that I can sign instead of Osasuna. He points at the name on the contract.
– I can’t. You know that, Gilberto says, sucking air through his teeth.
– Are you telling me that Osasuna’s name is on every one of our cars? Erhard doesn’t know if it’s true or not, but the expression on Gilberto’s face suggests he’s right. – Which means that the day he quits he can take them with him. In theory.
– No, that’s not true. He’ll have to…
– What do you think Emanuel Palabras would say?
Gilberto looks confused at first. Then a kind of panic appears in his eyes. – But I can’t change the contracts. I wasn’t the one who prepared them. You’ll need to speak with my boss.
– But what do you think Emanuel Palabras would say?
Gilberto throws down his sandwich. – I can’t change the contracts. That’s just how it is, Palabras or not.
Erhard knows that the man can’t change the contract, of course, and he glances down at the table as if he’s considering something. – Then maybe you can help me with another matter?
Gilberto seems reluctant.
– Who ships the cars between islands and to the continent?
– What do you mean? Individuals? Businesses?
– Who’s responsible? Is it a big company or a bunch of small ones? Where do your cars come from?
Gilberto sits up in his chair. – Why do you ask?
– I just want to understand the vehicle-import business, that’s all.
– Does it have anything to do with the boy?
Erhard is no longer surprised that people have heard of his interest in the boy’s parents. And yet he hadn’t expected to run into the gossip here, at a car dealership in Puerto. – Why do you think that?
– Because… because my wife told me that some crazy Norwegian is trying to find the boy’s mother. All the women on my street are talking about it.
– And now you think it’s me?
Gilberto stares at the tabletop. – How should I know? You’re the only Norwegian I’ve met.
– And you’re right. I’m the one.
The car salesman seems relieved. – I’d like to help you, so it’s not that. It’s good that you’re trying to find the mother; she shouldn’t get off scot-free. It’s just that…
There are always two interpretations of the story, Erhard has noticed: either the mother is a criminal who killed her son, or the mother and son were the victims of a crime. He doesn’t know which one he believes. He hopes it’s somewhere in the middle. The real story will emerge one day, and he’ll have to accept it.
– So, Gilberto, who ships the cars?
– To the island? Importaciones Juan y Juan.
– And when you include the other islands and the continent?
– I don’t know. There are a number of import companies.
– Can you find out?
– Maybe. Right now?
– If you can.
With difficulty, Gilberto gets to his feet. Erhard follows him from the cafeteria and across the courtyard, where they walk past a few cars that have been stripped of doors and tyres. – Interested in old wrecks? Gilberto asks when he sees Erhard staring. – Something you can fix up?
– How much? Erhard asks, not because he would know how to fix any of these cars, but because he could buy one for the workshop.
– Those? One hundred euros. The one over there, fifty.
– What’s wrong with it? It looks to be in better shape than the others.
– Some moron put a lawnmower engine in it. If you have a son, he would probably enjoy it.
– No thanks.
They pass through the auto workshop where the mechanic who’d earlier brought Erhard to the cafeteria now sits smoking a cigar, and then enter the display floor. Gilberto waves the smoke away from his nose. – We’re a little behind on the smoking ban. If we banned it, we wouldn’t have any mechanics tomorrow. My apologies. Gilbert sits down crookedly on a shabby office chair, then begins punching keys on a computer keyboard. He moves the mouse around and apologizes for something Erhard can’t see. – You know what, it’s probably easier if you saw it yourself. He spins round in his chair and grabs a little red book. – These things are sent to us once a year, but perhaps it’ll come in handy now. Let’s see.
Erhard spends a few days calling the companies in Gilberto’s book. The conversations are brief, and uncomfortable. There’s something about their industry – their very nature – that causes them to react hostilely when he rings. At one of the companies, the man who answered the phone doesn’t understand how Erhard got the number. At another – a large shipping firm in Spain, TiTi Europe – a woman repeatedly inquires as to whether he’s a reporter for a newspaper that Erhard isn’t familiar with. Every time he rules out one company, he strikes it from the book. Many don’t pick up the phone and he has to call back later.
He’s nearly through the entire list when he realizes that the companies are responding strangely because they don’t want to get mixed up in anything. During each call he asks whether or not they’ve had an accident on board one of their ships in the past three months. None have. In fact, they’ve never had any accidents. In the beginning Erhard crossed off all the companies, but the more that refuse to admit to ever having an accident, the more he knows they’re lying. He’s not sure which companies are lying, but he knows that some of them are.
And he knows why. They have no reason to tell him the truth. When Erhard calls, it’s easier for them to say No, we’ve not had any accidents, than to investigate the matter. TiTi Europe was close to transferring him to their CEO, so he could explain their mistake-free business model. But then the woman changed her mind and lost interest in transferring him. Finally he had to hang up.
He’ll have to do something else to get an honest answer. He needs to start over, but ask a different question. He spends most of the afternoon thinking of another way forward, but he can’t come up with anything. He’s given the vehicle contracts to Ana and expects Marcelis to visit him at any moment, indignant and hurt, the paperwork in his hand.
But he doesn’t. The office is dead, the corridors are empty. And that afternoon, for the first time, Erhard misses sitting in a car without knowing who’ll be his next fare.
He wants to see Aaz again. And Mónica.
His downstairs neighbour still hasn’t listed her name on her door. Every day he hopes to run into her on the way up or down. Just to see her, to ensure that she lives in the house and isn’t a prostitute going door to door. It’s possible her interest in him was completely sincere.
Tuesday. Driving out of the underground car park to the high street, he passes the drab-looking office where, from early in the morning, a young man sits in a light-blue suit talking on the telephone. Erhard had always thought it was just some anonymous travel bureau, but now he sees seventeen sheets of A4 paper taped to the window, with one letter on each spelling out the company’s name: Mercuria Insurance. Insurance isn’t a lucrative business on the island. The residents may be pessimists, but they are sceptical pessimists. Whatever happens, happens. And if it doesn’t happen that often, well, there’s no reason to pay for it not happening. The island’s unique conditions, the wind and weather and the alcoholic population, mean that claims, by and large, are never paid out – and claims are mostly something one hears about when an American tourist collides with a breakwater in his sailboat or an Israeli lands a bacterial infection from a swimming pool. But every now and then, an EU directive goes astray and reaches the island, and then everyone with a boat or who works with transport must suddenly be insured.
Erhard can’t imagine anything worse than being an insurance salesman. Not even funeral directors sell a product that you hope to never use. Every business sector has its own terms and conditions. Taxi drivers are helpers. They rescue busy people, or people who don’t know how to get where they’re going, or who want to get away from some place. As a piano tuner, he saves the beloved instrument; he makes it sound better, bringing order to chaos. Insurance salespeople are the irritating messengers. The one who tells you that, sometime in the future, something awful might happen to you, your family, your car, your house. And if the worst possible thing happened – what you didn’t want to discuss or imagine – they’ll help you out with some money. Money which seems completely meaningless in the big picture, almost like an insult. Buying insurance is like making a huge wager but one with tiny print. It’s a grotesque product for a grotesque era.
Erhard thinks about compensation. Bad luck’s lottery ticket. Just hearing the word compensation almost makes one want to tell half-lies or half-truths. That’s how it is for most people. Maybe even for larger companies in the logistics business?
Erhard swerves into the lot and parks the car, then enters the Mercuria Insurance office. It resembles an office-furniture exhibition in a modern style that Erhard doesn’t like, and it’s illuminated by a row of light-blue fluorescent tubes four metres off the floor, which makes the man at the desk seem pale and bloodless. He is on the telephone but looks up when Erhard enters; he’s clearly not used to customers dropping in. Erhard raises a finger to his mouth, indicating that he’ll keep his mouth shut, while grabbing a business card from the table rack. The name on the card is Jorge Algara. The man continues talking into his headset, but he gestures excitedly with his hand that Erhard can take as many cards as he wishes. He takes only one.
Shortly after eight o’clock, he returns to the top of his list. Direct Logistica SL. He softens his voice and tries to speak without an accent. It’s almost comical.
– Good morning, my name is Jorge Algara. I’m calling from Mercuria Insurance in Las Palmas. I see that you’ve got a large claim to be paid out to you, but I’m missing some details about the incident.
Silence on the other end of the line.
– What do you need to know? she says.
Everyone wants to talk to him now.
Some are still sceptical. Many cannot answer his questions and transfer him to someone who can. But most research their logbooks, explaining to him precise details about their shipping schedules. At first he writes everything down, but after a few conversations he begins to draw a map with dates and times. He asks whether they’ve heard of any wreckage in the area, and requests they provide him with bank account information so the money can be transferred. If they ask for an email address at which they can contact him, he gives them the real Jorge Algara’s address at Mercuria Insurance. When the morning is over, he takes a break and studies his drawing. None of the companies have transported cars to or past Fuerteventura in the relevant time period. None have seen wreckage or any scrap from the tsunami. Just one company had an incident involving a collision near the islands; it was in January, but none of the ships involved were damaged. He’s learned some useful information, but he still has the feeling that people aren’t telling him everything. He examines his list. Nineteen companies left to call.
He sits in the rear of his office talking softly so that Ana can’t hear him, even though he thinks she’s at Marcelis’s desk this morning. But surely she can’t help but notice all his activity. She brings him coffee, despite the fact that he’s told her repeatedly not to, and slips out again in order not to disturb him. He eats lunch with the telephone girls, who’ve grown accustomed to him and discuss the actor Tito Valverde, who plays Gerardo Castilla in El Comisario, Crown Prince Felipe’s divorce, and one of the girls’ dog; he had been staying with a neighbour and was given cat food to eat, which seems to shock several of the girls. Erhard hears their voices, but doesn’t pay close attention to what they say.
He makes more calls. Since the first time he rang TiTi Europe, he’s known that they were withholding information. They were hostile and suspicious. He preps himself to call, walking around his office talking softly to himself. The trick is to get in touch with one of the employees he didn’t speak with last time. When the receptionist answers, he immediately requests to be put through to the accounts department.
– Alfonso Diaz, accounts payable.
– Good morning, Señor Diaz, my name is Jorge Algara. I’m calling from Mercuria Insurance in Las Palmas. I can see that you’ve got a large claim that’s to be paid out to you, but I’m missing some details about the incident. This is again followed by silence.
– I don’t believe so, he says.
He’s the first to begin that way.
– Are you telling me that you’re not interested in receiving a payment in connection to a collision in January?
– We’ve had no collisions in the past fifty-four months.
– Impressive. But you’re right. According to my papers, it was a near-collision.
– A near-collision?
– That’s a word we in the insurance business use.
– Whatever it is, we’ve not been involved in anything, nothing like that. But I’m here in accounts payable. I can transfer you to our traffic supervisor. He’ll have more information for you.
The traffic supervisor is one of those Erhard spoke to last time, and the conversation didn’t go well. If he’s transferred there, it’s over. – It’s accounts payable with whom I need to speak. The other party has just acknowledged its role in the matter and is willing to pay 30,000 euros, at face value. If you would check some information, I will then simply ask you to provide a bank number so the money can be transferred.
The hook is cast. Silence.
– One moment, please. The man on the other end fumbles with the receiver. It’s as if he holds his hand over the microphone, so Erhard can’t hear his conversation. A woman and a man. He hears the word no several times. – Hello, Alfonso Diaz says. – Have you called before? I’ve been told that you called earlier.
Erhard doesn’t know what to say. What would someone say who hadn’t called before? – No. I’m calling from Mercuria Insurance.
– Are you the one who called about the Volkswagen Passat?
– I’m calling from Mercuria Insurance.
– We can’t help you. Then he lowers his voice. – We’re not allowed to provide the information you’re requesting. Don’t you read the newspapers? We don’t operate the Seascape Hestia. I can’t help you.
– So you’re not interested in a payment of…
– Goodbye.
The man hangs up.
Erhard is incensed. He stares at the telephone and can’t help but throw the receiver across the room, until the cord stretches taut and the plastic device falls to the floor and shatters. Goddamn them and their secrets. Are there rules for what one may say – or do they know something about the little boy? He can’t believe it. To abandon a child is too low-class, too cynical, for any company to cover up. No, they’re keeping silent because of something as meaningless as money. These companies, which, even in a recession, earn unimaginable sums importing unimaginable quantities of discount products made by children in Asian sweatshops; these companies, which are controlled by nouveau riche Russians and pampered heiresses who eat Argentinean beef and light their stoves with stacks of euros. Whatever rule, whatever consideration, is about money and making more of it, never less. He has the urge to visit them – no, not visit them – to find their office and break in. Find what he’s looking for and set the place on fire.
The door opens, and Ana pops her head in. She looks at Erhard, who’s sitting against the wall on the far side of the room, then at the floor where the telephone’s smashed to pieces.
– I’d like a new telephone, Erhard says.
– What happened?
She seems shocked, even though she must be used to this kind of outburst from Marcelis, who is known for throwing his pens.
He’s too embarrassed to respond.
She leaves, then returns with a dustpan and a small broom. – Telephones are pretty cheap nowadays, she says.
He says nothing.
She peers down at the fragments and carries them out.
– Thank you, he calls after her. – I won’t do that again.
The door closes.
Seascape Hestia?
It occurs to Erhard that the man from TiTi Europe’s accounts-payable department had actually tried to help him. Seascape Hestia must be the name of a ship. A ship that was located between Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura at the right point in time. The man from TiTi must have known there was something about that ship. He didn’t even have to look it up; he hadn’t enough time for that. He already knew. Something must’ve happened with that ship, perhaps something everyone knows but no one wishes to discuss.
There was also something about what he’d said: Don’t you read the newspaper? The man from TiTi Europe hadn’t been commenting on Erhard’s lack of information. He’d given him a clue: The ship you seek was written up in the newspaper. Or, put another way: Find old news about Seascape Hestia and maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for.
Shipping routes were seldom in the news, unless a ship capsized. But what if there was a collision? Erhard hasn’t even considered researching newspaper archives. It’s a good idea – except that he doesn’t know where or how to start. He would need to study an entire month’s worth of newspapers that are more than forty days old. And local or mainland newspapers? Could he go to La Provincia and request newspapers from January? Maybe the library in Corralejo has a newspaper archive he could rummage through?
He grabs his notebook and jots down Seascape Hestia, so he doesn’t forget the name. While he writes, he realizes that the office – which gets no direct sunlight after three o’clock – has grown dark. He rips out the sheet of paper and shoves it into his shirt pocket, then pulls on his sweater. It’s time to have another chat with Solilla, the bookseller, and to get hold of her friend again.
A flock of labourers emerge from the harbour and walk up the street. They’re not all men, some are women in overalls, still wearing their helmets, their work gloves tucked under their armpits. Standing on an empty construction site behind a linen shop, Erhard gazes across the street at the glass building where the newspaper is housed. It’s a dull yellow structure. The door opens, but apparently because of the wind. Or maybe because they’re electric doors. Diego exits a few minutes later.
He crosses the street and heads seemingly at random towards Erhard.
– Señora Solilla asked me to find everything published in January concerning the Hestia. There were five or six articles, but everything’s online, I think. He glances down at the file he offers Erhard. – This was all I could find. The printer protested a bit. But this must what you’re looking for, I think.
– OK, Erhard says.
– Still the same case? Diego glances down the street to his left, then his right.
– Maybe.
– I don’t know what it is you’re looking for, but if there’s a connection to the dead boy, I hope you can prove it. This might peck some of the rich boys on their toes.
Step on their toes, Erhard thinks to himself. A journalist who doesn’t know his metaphors. – Ouch, Erhard says, suddenly bitter that the journalist doesn’t care to write about the case.
Diego shrugs. – Well, good luck, he says and returns to his office.
A Judas kiss, Erhard thinks.
Back in the car, he opens the file and reads it. There are six print-outs. Four articles about the same subject. The first is one column on the body of the British engineer Chris Jones, who was found in fishermen’s nets off the coast of Gran Canaria. The follow-up article links the engineer to the Seascape Hestia, which sailed from Gran Canaria and was expected in Lisbon two days later, but was now docked in Port Agadir, Morocco. The end of the article references a possible hijacking. Then there’s a long article from El País about the Hestia, and the author is clearly fascinated by the muddled case. The only crewmembers left on board were a Ghanaian captain, who claimed that he’d been brought to the ship by terrorists, while the eight-man crew had abandoned ship. According to Spanish authorities, the cargo had consisted of construction materials, plastics, tinned goods, and European cars. But the cargo hold was empty, and the Ghanaian captain didn’t know when or how that had happened. The last article is very short. It notes that the Hestia was to return to Holland, where it had been registered, and the investigation and search were to continue for the presumed Spanish crew. The Ghanaian captain had been released and not charged with a crime.
Erhard tosses the stack of papers onto the floor of the car. Every time he manages to turn over one rock, he finds new rocks under the first rock. Now he knows that the ship is Dutch. Now he knows that the ship carried European cars. But he can’t solve a crime by reading old newspaper articles. Who the hell knows what happened on board that ship? The dead engineer, the hullabaloo surrounding the Ghanaian captain, the missing cargo – it all sounds like a desperate cash-grab.
The car smells like the box of books that’s resting on the passenger seat. The books once belonged to a cigar smoker. Although there are more than twenty titles, he figures he’ll only read a few of them: Chatwin, maybe Márquez – whom all Spaniards love and hate. He bought the others as a favour to Solilla. Including a novel about a guitar that survives the Spanish Civil War and World War I, only to wind up in Downing Street, in the hands of Churchill’s wife Clementine, who played guitar for Roosevelt’s wife when the Germans surrendered in 1945. Sure, why not? Everything is apparently possible. He has followed the car’s tracks. They didn’t lead up the hill and across the island, but out to sea and north to Holland via Agadir. He starts the Merc’s engine.
He’s out at the house to feed the goats. But he doesn’t feed the goats. The goats are nowhere to be seen and he doesn’t hear their braying or the cracked bell around Laurel’s neck, and he doesn’t see them darting among the rocks, their white spines like chalk lines against a cliff. The house is more rickety now. Even a house can be lonely when its resident moves out. The windows are wasting away like eyes, and a slamming door is a quivering mouth begging him to stay another day, another week. Maybe the house has always looked like this. Even when he loved it, even when he longed for peace from the voices in the taxis and the crush of people downtown. Even then it was like returning home to a snivelling lover who couldn’t live without him. He observes the house, hating everything about it as he, as in a childhood memory, remembers sitting outside in the rocking chair drinking Lumumbas or enjoying a quick sunset meal of potatoes. If not for the two goats, he would never return. Just as he’d feared, his many years out here have made him angry and unforgiving of the house and its dust, its creakiness, and its clothesline that was always too slack.
He throws the goat food on the ground. That usually brings the animals. The rattling of the bucket, too, especially Laurel, the most approachable of the two. Not just for the food, but for the hand that throws the food, a hand to stroke its back. Erhard likes the animals, especially Laurel. He doesn’t have a particularly close relationship with them, but he likes having them around, their random movements – without plan or special needs. One time the two creatures had stood a hundred metres apart and, along with Erhard, formed a triangle. A strange symmetry, which, after a few beers, seemed meaningful.
Wind tumbles across the rocks, and from far away comes the sound of a motorboat or an airplane. Erhard walks around the house. Pausing between the clothesline and a cairn he’d built over the years, he suddenly hears Laurel’s bell chiming in the distance. Like a low gurgle, a tinkling that is barely audible, and yet there it is. Though he doesn’t believe Laurel knows its own name, he calls for the goat. Then he clambers up on a large boulder so he can see across the fields and up the mountain, and loses himself in the greyish-brown landscape. And there, there’s a minuscule movement, a white line, Laurel leaping in the groove between mountain and field.
Something terrible has happened. It happens. It has already happened.
Watching Laurel approach, perhaps looking for food, Erhard’s not sure whether he’s afraid for Hardy, or another, maybe Beatriz. Hardy because he’s not around – and he’s almost always with Laurel. If they ever got too far away from each other, they compensated by trotting closer and standing side by side. This tightness seemed even more intimidating on the barren paddock. The rocks made them appear insignificant and vulnerable when they stood together, chewing on whatever they found: cardboard, straw. If Hardy’s not around, then he’s dead. Both goats are over fourteen years old, so it would hardly be extraordinary if one of them lay down and died. He thinks of Bill Haji. Could a group of wild dogs have attacked Hardy?
He rubs Laurel behind his ear and goes back to the house, casting more food on the ground. Laurel eats calmly, his ears waving like a handkerchief. It makes no sense to grill the goat about what happened to its brother. And yet he asks anyway, repeatedly: Have you seen him? Have you seen something terrible?
His unease doesn’t abate.
He sleeps as if the telephone will ring at any moment, or someone will knock on the door. But the telephone seldom rings. The doctor is the only one who calls. It’s a windless morning, one of those rare phenomena that makes everyone in town stop what they’re doing to recite Hail Marys as they stare out at the water, which looks like blue concrete.
When he leaves the flat, the downstairs neighbour is there, wearing the same clothes as the first time he saw her, which are exactly as sexy as he recalls but also pitiful. She doesn’t have any other clothes, he thinks.
– Let me guess? he says. – You locked yourself out.
– How do you know?
– One knows one’s neighbours.
– Can I stay with you until Rainier comes?
Rainier must be her pimp, Erhard guesses. – Can’t you meet down at Luz?
– Rainier’s the super, she says, as if she’d guessed what he was thinking. – He’ll be here soon. Can I wait at your place?
– Unfortunately, I have to go to work.
– You’re a director, right?
– What makes you think that?
– It’s on your door.
– No, that’s the previous owner, Raúl, Erhard begins to explain before glancing at the door. He’s never seen the sign before. Director Erhard Jørgensen. The worst sign he’s seen in a long time. He doesn’t care to explain the situation to her.
– Say hello to Rainier for me, and ask him why he put up that sign.
She remains standing at Erhard’s door. Her attempts at seduction are amateurish, but Erhard’s afraid that one day he’ll succumb, and he reminds himself that it’ll only make his longing deeper. Just like the other times. His erection almost hurts, and he trots down to the car park.
He picks up Aaz, still uneasy, as if something terrible has happened. Maybe the Boy-Man swallowed his own tongue, or Mónica forced him to move home. But when he drives up the road, Aaz emerges from the gate, one hand in a bandage but apparently in good spirits. He shows Erhard his hand. The pinky. He points at Erhard’s hand.
– No, Erhard says. No, no.
It’s just like you, Erhard.
– No, Aaz, it’s not just like me. You mustn’t…
I know, it was dumb.
– What the hell are you thinking then?
If you can handle it, so can I.
Erhard is completely distressed, he has no idea where he’s going or even where they are. He pulls over to the side of the road; the place seems familiar. He flips Aaz’s hand over. – Did you go to the emergency room? Did the doctor look at it?
Aaz shrugs. It’s just a wound, that’s all.
Erhard doesn’t know what to say. He can’t yell at him, nor does he dare make light of it. He looks him directly in the eye, saying nothing. He maintains eye contact until the Boy-Man’s quavering eyes settle and begin to fill with tears. Then Erhard looks away. And begins to drive.
Erhard’s racing pulse doesn’t return to normal until they are at the airport. Aaz studies the traffic and looks at the planes the way he always does. Erhard tells him about his telephone conversations with the import companies. He also tells him about Solilla and the reporter from La Provincia.
You’ve made progress then, Erhard.
– No, Aaz. I’ve shuffled some pieces around. It’s not the same as making progress.
Imagine. Right now there’s only one person in this entire world who’s interested in finding out what really happened.
– Hard to believe that the police haven’t figured it out long ago. He thinks of Bernal. A cowboy with a lapful of teddy bears.
The police are the good guys. Their job is to find the criminals.
– They don’t have time. Or they can’t. I don’t know which.
Mum says that a person can do whatever he or she wishes to do.
– Your mother’s a very fine woman, Aaz.
Erhard turns up the radio. Stan Getz: ‘Captain Marvel’. From some club recording. Scratchy and shrill, as it should be. He tries to drown out the anger that’s directly underneath his fingers. The island’s police force has pretty much done nothing. They’ve buried the boy. They’ve confiscated the car. Possibly, they made some phone calls. Erhard guesses that they probably haven’t called many people. Not as many as Bernal had said.
The section of road on which they’re driving is one of the most scenic on the entire island. The road curves and dips, then continues down the hill and up through a rocky pass.
Liana says that I’m weak and dumb. She says I’m a cry-baby and miss my mother.
– It doesn’t matter. You’re not weak or dumb because you cry.
Did you cry when you lost your finger?
– No. I’ve never learned to cry. It’s something you have to learn. Your father has to teach you, or your mother.
He goes inside to say hello to Mónica, but she’s on the telephone and absorbed in the call. She wraps the telephone cord around her finger and stares into the kitchen wall. Erhard writes a note to her: Back at 5. Aaz is already sitting in front of the TV and pointing at the turtle.
Ana has bought him another telephone. It’s one of those newfangled kinds with a bunch of buttons and a little display where you can see the numbers when you dial, or when someone’s calling you. The phone requires a manual, but he doesn’t know how to operate it any more than the last one.
She has placed a thick envelope beside the telephone. There’s no name on it or sender. He weighs the envelope in his hand, then peers into the reception area, waving it.
– From Luís, Ana says, when she looks up. – He got a fare to La Provincia. The man gave him a little package for Director Jornson of Taxinaria. He must mean you.
He tears open the package with his index finger. Inside he finds some printed pages, an article like the others. There’s a pink Post-it note stuck to the top. ‘Found this in the printer. BE CAREFUL. D.’
He unfolds the article. It’s a long one, and not from La Provincia but El Sol News. It’s about an amendment to European law in the insurance sector, which is being rushed through parliament. Several insurance companies have forecasted such hefty insurance premiums for the shipping industry that gigantic logistics companies no longer believe they will have the wherewithal to sail fully insured fleets. The issue emerged following the recent spate of hijackings in the waters near the Horn of Africa. In Spain, the problem became acutely relevant in January, when a Dutch-registered vessel, the Hestia – which sails for a Canary shipping company, Palalo – was hijacked off the coast of Morocco. Its cargo was stolen. In this specific case, plaintiffs are seeking approximately 55 million euros in damages. A large sum, to be sure, but not unusually so – especially since it involves motor vehicles and construction materials. The security chief for Palalo notes that insurance doesn’t even cover the actual loss which the hijacking inflicts on the company, in the form of lost customers and negative PR. First and foremost, however, they are seeking damages to compensate their clients’ lost goods and associated costs. In the future, Palalo says it will only sail with insured freight. But the security chief believes that, to a greater degree, individual customers will be forced to insure their own goods, or that insurance will become a direct part of transportation costs. A prospect that could lead to a price increase of up to 15 per cent, which would have to be borne by consumers, who are already hamstrung by the financial crisis. For some products, such price spikes could prove fatal. The problem has been discussed for some time by the largest shipping nations. The EU must now determine whether the states will draw up special hijacking insurance to prevent consumers from being saddled with the bill. The security chief concludes: ‘For us, it simply means that our customers, in the future, will be producers of cheaper goods. But for many of the traditional and slightly more expensive export firms, the consequence may be that they will have difficulty selling their products to international markets. And for the Canary Islands, it might alter the selection of products found on supermarket shelves.’
Although Erhard has seen the headlines about Somali pirates at the kiosk, he hasn’t considered how it would alter everyday life on the island. But it makes sense. He pictures the empty shelves in HiperDino around the corner.
He returns to the beginning of the article. The Hestia, the Dutch ship, was leased by the Canary shipping company Palalo and sailed with goods worth more than 50 million euros. Palalo. He recognizes the name. He believes he remembers it from the book Gilberto gave him. Was that one of the companies that he’d called? He pulls the book from his bag and riffles through the pages, until he finds what he’s looking for: Palalo in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. He doesn’t remember talking with anyone there. Now he sees why. There’s no telephone number. In fact, he’d drawn a question mark next to this company, because they don’t have a telephone number. Only a website.
He calls for Ana and asks her if she can find Palalo’s telephone number. He reads the address aloud.
– OK, she says. And a short time later: – They don’t list their telephone number anywhere. All they have is an email address.
Palalo. He gets to his feet and goes out to Ana. – Do you mind? he asks, peering over her shoulder while she manoeuvres around the homepage. He doesn’t know what he expects to see, but his head is boiling, and he needs to find something to refute his suspicions. – Can you find anywhere where it states who owns the company?
Ana does a few things on the computer. – No, there’s nothing about that here. But maybe I can look it up somewhere else? Boxes expand and shrink on the screen. She types in the word Palalo, and soon after, an overview appears featuring a number of companies. She enlarges the site. Then pauses. – Here’s something. It says here that it’s owned by Palabras ETVE. Was that what you were looking for?
For a moment Erhard stands perfectly still. What is he supposed to make of that? He knows that Palabras, in addition to what he’s most known for – olive-oil production in Spain, with a smattering of the same here on the islands – owns many other kinds of businesses. Some hotels, including half of Las Dunas Beach Hotel in the centre of the protected area on the outskirts of Corralejo, a car-rental dealership, the largest tomato farm on the island, a few packing plants on Gran Canaria, several construction companies, a large chunk of Sport Fuerte, and of course TaxiVentura. And now it turns out he also owns the shipping company whose cargo was stolen from a Dutch vessel and, after a detour, wound up, in part, on the beach in Cotillo with a dead boy in the backseat. It could be a coincidence. It could.
– Thank you, Ana. Erhard returns to his office.
But it could be something else entirely. He looks around. The windows are like filthy sheets, and the light outside is dimmed by yellow clouds. What does he actually know about this office? Who furnished it? Why does the globe stand right there, next to the telephone? Maybe he’s been sticking his nose in things he shouldn’t have for much too long, but what is Palabras’s role?
He spins the globe, searching for a microphone. But it’s just a globe, a ball of shoddy plastic, and he finds nothing. He sets the globe down and investigates the pen holder, letter tray, drawers – all empty. What does he know about surveillance anyway? Other than what he’s read in books? These days, you can probably spy on someone through a computer or a telephone. What does he know? He doesn’t understand any of the electronic gadgets that surround him.
He eyes the telephone Ana gave him. She swept up the remains of the old phone a little too quickly, before Erhard could help her. That someone has kept an eye on him since he got here, he has no doubt. Ever since he visited the Palace that first time with Bernal and rummaged through the newspaper fragments, one thing after another has taken a turn for the strange.
It explains everything. It explains why Emanuel was so eager to replace Raúl with Erhard, it explains Emanuel’s odd friendliness, it explains the flat, the car, and the contrived party. It explains all too well how an ordinary taxi driver could be promoted to director; it explains why he doesn’t need to do anything except dine at the occasional restaurant. It also explains why Marcelis’s name was on the contract, not Erhard’s. They don’t plan to let him keep the director’s chair very long.
And it explains Raúl. Maybe Emanuel asked Raúl to get lost. To vanish from the scene for a while. He imagines it. Raúl would defend Erhard, and the only way he feels he can do that is to leave. To retreat from his father’s game. Maybe Raúl and Beatriz argued, maybe she didn’t want Raúl to go, maybe she believed that Erhard would have to deal with it himself. Maybe Emanuel’s thugs drove Raúl to the airport, Beatriz resisted, and…
He gets to his feet. He can’t sit still knowing what he knows. He shoves the business overview and a few other books into his briefcase and snaps it shut. He heads out to the corridor, then down the stairs.
He feels stupid. So stupid.
Palabras lured him in with the smell of money. Or no, not money. Something indefinable, a kind of award, the feeling that he’d done something with his life. A bitter combination of company lunches, a new car, the director’s chair, a sense of importance, and a flat with a world-class view. Every time he’s gotten something, he’s thought of Annette and the girls. But mostly Annette. Every time he’s thought: Now I can show her that I made it. That in spite of her curses, her hatred, her criticism, and the many thousands of euros he’s sent home to Denmark, he’s picked himself up and become a man. He has grasped the opportunities that have come his way, and tried to make the most out of them. Palabras must have seen his weakness and somehow pulled all the strings to exploit it. The job, the car, the flat. The downstairs neighbour. Mónica. Who knows what Palabras is capable of?
Since there are still two hours until he needs to pick up Aaz, he drives south through the smaller villages, past the villa with its angry piano owner. In the strange, boxy village of Gual he fills his tank and riffles through some books in his briefcase without finding anything of interest. He stares at the note with Palalo’s Internet address.
At the bottom of the briefcase, he finds a business card from one of his customers. He remembers having it handed to him along with the usual farewell: If you’re ever in Düsseldorf or Liverpool or Gothenburg… He remembers him – the man who was in love. He didn’t have the money for the taxi and promised to send it, but he never did. Second Officer Geert Kloewen. The ship’s mate. Another man of the sea. Underneath the name and titles, the card only lists a telephone number and an email address; apparently that’s how it’s done nowadays. Geert was no more than thirty years old. Erhard remembers how he’d waved at him on his way towards the boat, genuinely thankful for the free ride. Maybe he just managed to hop on board before they set sail. They’d probably kept a list of all crewmembers on board and would check each one off, just like in school, when everyone was present and accounted for. Could someone like Geert Kloewen help him find lists from other ships? Like the Seascape Hestia?
He doesn’t like exploiting such things. Geert may owe him a favour, but they don’t know each other, and he might be anywhere in the world. If only he knew someone else with knowledge of ships or who has connections to a shipping line. Normally he would ask Raúl or maybe even Emanuel Palabras. But he’ll have to find another network.
He thinks of the Aritzas, whose piano he tunes on New Year’s Day. André is the gentle engineer-type, who came into too much money and spends it on all-too-expensive purple shirts and fine things for the house, including the Steinway – the piano for people who don’t know anything about pianos. His wife, Reina, has tried a few times to explain to Erhard where their money comes from. Something to do with shipping, computers, satellites. They’ve been unbearably arrogant to Erhard, and yet at the same time kind and loyal customers year after year for nearly a decade, since the first time the piano-playing niece came to visit. It would be hard to ask them for help. But it’d be better to call them than to call Geert, a complete stranger. If he offers to tune the Aritzas’ piano for free from now on, perhaps André will drop that sourpuss he’s had the past few years and help Erhard.
He starts the engine and drives to Mónica’s place.
He hopes for a friendly reception, maybe even a warm one – Mónica giving him a clumsy embrace – but he doesn’t dare expect anything. She isn’t the type. He calls out to her and Aaz, then enters through the front door. They’re out in the garden, where he’s never seen them. He watches them from behind the netting. Mónica’s absorbed in her plants, Aaz is sitting in a chair gazing at the twittering birds. She’s heard him, he thinks, but she doesn’t say anything.
– I can pick up food at Xenia’s place, he says.
– I don’t want to make a habit of it, she says, plucking a large white flower with bright yellow petals.
Erhard can’t determine whether she’s being serious or teasing him. He decides to believe she’s teasing him, then walks down to the restaurant with its confusing name, Taberna del Puerto, where Xenia is the manager, cook, and waitress, while her son assists in the kitchen. It’s tourist food, but it’s tolerable. He buys grilled fish for Aaz, steak for himself, and, for Mónica, a salad with shrimp and one mussel – which he decides must be a mistake.
Spending time together is easy when food is involved; they sit staring at their plates. Erhard can handle the silence, but Mónica sighs loudly and wishes, perhaps, that he would say something. She drinks red wine. After she’s done eating, she carries her wine glass outside and shows Erhard her succulents. He listens at first, but he prefers to study her long fingers as she strokes a cactus without pricking herself on the needles. Some of the plants have been used as love potions, she explains, still without looking at him. When they reach the far end of the garden, he interrupts her to go to the loo.
– Oh, by the way, may I use your phone to make a quick call?
– Use the one in the hallway, it’s quieter there.
Aaz is watching television.
It seems as though his favourite television show is always on.
Erhard pulls out his notebook and punches in the Aritzas’ number. The line clicks.
– Hello, he says, though no one has answered. He hears a hollow, metallic sound, as if thousands of miles separate the two phones.
– Hello, this is Reina.
She sounds tired. It hadn’t occurred to Erhard that someone might be sleeping at this time of day. – This is Erhard Jørgensen, the Piano Tuner.
There’s a long pause. – Oh yes, she says, before evidently pulling the phone away and muttering something else.
– Is Señor Aritza home?
– One moment.
– This is André.
He sees Mónica through the window. He turns to face one corner of the room, then lowers his voice. – Good afternoon, Señor Aritza. I’d like to make an arrangement with you. He’s decided to sound professional. But he doesn’t want to be falsely polite any more.
– What kind of arrangement?
– I understand that you have tight connections to several shipping companies.
– We service the largest shipping lines in Spain, so yes.
– And you probably know a lot of people in the industry.
– I meet with politicians and many of the biggest players in the arena. Tell me why you want to know?
– I need to find the crew list from a particular vessel.
– I can hardly hear you, Jornson. Speak up.
– I need to find the crew list from a particular vessel.
Aritza clatters with the phone, perhaps because he sat down once he realized the conversation would take longer than anticipated. He’s a large man who has difficulty breathing. – May I ask why?
– That’s not your concern.
Silence. – What do you need my help for?
– I believe you may know someone I can call, someone who knows someone who knows someone.
– Señor Jornson, I don’t believe we’ll need, how may I put it?… help with the piano any longer.
It wasn’t what he’d expected Aritza to say. It must be because of the strange thing he’d witnessed the last time Erhard visited them: André Aritza’s arm around his niece. – Have you spoken with your wife about the last time I saw you?
Aritza laughs. Deliberating on just what to say, Erhard thinks.
– I have a friend in something called IMO. If anyone knows anything, it’s him.
Erhard ratchets up the pressure. – I expect you to do everything you can to help me.
– I don’t know whether one is allowed to share such information with a third party.
– Just find a person I can talk to, Erhard says, and prepares to hang up. Mónica has sauntered up the black-gravel path and is now standing in front of the main door. She’s able to hear his conversation.
– How about you stop by my office tomorrow? We’ll get this all sorted out.
– I’d rather have a telephone number now, Erhard says, trying to be firm. But it’s hard. André Aritza is more practised at this kind of thing.
– Meet me Friday morning, then I’ll help you.
He gives Erhard the address.
– I’ll be there at ten o’clock, Erhard says, before hanging up. He’s nearly wiped out.
When he returns to the garden, she tells him about the plants, as if he’s ordered a lecture she’s determined to deliver. Some of them hardly need water at all, she says. Being a gardener and having plants that are so dismissive is a real challenge. She insists on taking care of them. Following her, he notices her buttocks behind the thick fabric of her dress. She pauses at a table lined with pots of various colours. Every kind of plant: bristly, climbing, round, sharp. There are some with spikes, others with soft stems and long petals, even some with hair. He runs his hand across a plant that resembles a pale-green rock. She tells him its Latin name, which Erhard quickly forgets.
– We shall not be needing you any more, she says, not to the plant but to Erhard.
– If it has anything to do with my…
– It has nothing to do with you. The nuns suggest that I visit him every other Saturday instead. Now that he’s so grown, his social life at Santa Marisa is the most important thing for him. It will calm him, they say.
– He needs to see his mother. You two need to spend time together.
– And we will. I’ll visit him on Saturday afternoons.
– I can drive you. I don’t do anything on Saturdays.
– It’s easier for me to take the bus. I’m used to it.
He needs to stop suggesting other ways to assist her now. Needs to give her space. – I can drive you home. The bus doesn’t go to Tuineje Saturday after siesta.
She ignores him. Which feels worse than a categorical rejection. – They play bingo every other Saturday, and I can play with them. They say he’s lucky, that he wins every time. They don’t know how he does it; no matter what board he has, or whether he has one board or three, he wins. She tears the leaves from a dry little tree stump, whose long leaves stick up like antennae. – Liana thinks it’s best for him. She thinks he needs all the stability he can get. These past few months, he’s begun wetting the bed. Again. He needs to be comforted now, always needing to be around the sisters, not the other children as he used to. He’s more and more isolated in his own world. Except when he plays bingo.
– That’s not my experience.
– That’s how he is here at home. He’ll only sit watching that television. It irritates me. He looks at that turtle more than he looks at me.
– I don’t see him that way. He seems lively, open.
– He likes you, he likes to drive.
– And he’s tired of the sisters. All they talk about is the Will of God. And morning prayers.
– How do you know that?
– He told me.
– I’m not in the mood for jokes.
– They’re his words, not mine.
She glares at him. – You’re a strange man, you know that? I don’t know whether you are the world’s dumbest man or the sweetest or the smartest, or whether you’re just out of touch with reality. You’re a source of light and a light extinguisher. You are this and you are that. You’re a taxi driver, and you’re a director. But what are you, actually? Who are you, and what do you want with him? You’re a disruptive figure in his life, you know. He’s not sure what to make of you. But he needs to know what you want, and whether he can count on you, and whether you’re sincere or just helping out to make yourself feel better. You are easy to like, but impossible to love.
Erhard is struck dumb. No one has spoken to him like that in nearly twenty years. In all those years, no one has cared for him enough to do so. All at once, he feels both quite misunderstood and quite understood. Her accusations allow him to be full of mistakes, untidy and rough, but also the opposite: with room for greatness, generosity, and freedom.
Something causes him to step forward and press himself against her chest. Though he hardly recalls what he’s supposed to do next, he stops worrying about getting it right, and simply lets himself be driven by a completely surprising urge to kiss her. He’s certain it’s the wrong thing to do. If things will ever be good between them, this is not how it’ll happen. Turning to align his lips to her rather expressionless face, he leans close to her bosom and gets a whiff of her scent, not her perfume, but a mix of the warm aroma of her work with the plants and a strong odour of sweat and fear. He’s surprised that she doesn’t pull away; he expects her to slap him at any moment. He presses even closer, so that she’s forced to arch backwards across the table with the pots of cactuses, silently regarding him without resisting. He’s crossed the boundary now. No matter how she reacts, he’s altered their relationship. If she slaps him or rejects him, he’ll be embarrassed. If she gives in or returns his kiss, he’ll be embarrassed later. There’s no future, no plan, no meaning in anything besides the kiss he’s trying to plant on her lips. He can’t remember when he last put so much of his own integrity into such a tiny space. Not since he slammed the door that final time back home in Denmark has he known so keenly what he wanted out of life. And just like back then, it’s with a feeling of triumph and panicked anxiety, mixed and shifting like the light through the wine glass – which now topples over, splashing red wine onto the pale wooden table. He doesn’t care. Even better, neither does she. She acquiesces. He almost can’t believe his luck at how far things have gone. For a moment he feels a child’s giddiness, Scrooge McDuck swimming in his mountain of gold coins, giddy over his unbelievable good fortune, then swiftly put in his place by his inner auditor, who tells him that it’s OK, that it’s his turn to collect some of the randomly distributed rewards in life’s lottery, followed by perfect silence, astonishment, almost gratefulness. And then he feels her full lips against his, salty and parted, softer and warmer than goat’s milk. Beneath him she shoves pots and plants to the floor, accidentally kneeing his crotch, and he’s about to give up. But then her hand glides through his hair, forcing his face to balance on the edge of hers and returning him to the breathless space where all he hears is the smacking of her lips and, in the background, the turtle on the television. He’s floating now. Suddenly there’s so much he wishes to do that he runs out of breath at the mere thought. He keeps reminding himself to kiss her gently, not to chew on her lips. Even though he has an urge to bite into them like tender chicken. Even though he feels the urge to suck them into his mouth and stick his tongue through her worn, crooked teeth. Already she’s moaning, as if he has licked her down there for hours, though all he’s done so far is to get his hands underneath her snug-fitting, uncooperative dress. They’re both probably thinking the same thing – that the Boy-Man will stay put until they turn off the television; they can continue what they’re doing so long as they hear the television. Erhard’s back aches. It’s not accustomed to this position. He props his elbows on the table to lean over her, to get more of her. She tastes of smoke, maybe she smokes on the sly, maybe she stood behind the white hedge and had a fag while he talked on the telephone. Or it’s the shrimp from the salad, smoked or grilled with barbecue seasoning. Her cheeks are so paper thin that he thinks they’ll split from the corner of her mouth up to her ear, but she just seems to open wider, gobbling him up with a desperate hunger he knows all too well. Passion is like a dazed experience of skin. He stares into the triangular area encompassing her cheeks, ear, and eye, and tries to breathe its scent, but it’s gone, and he knows that it won’t return. Such is his sense of smell; it tunes in and out, preferring to smell something once and never again. Unexpectedly, her fingers begin working the buttons of his trousers, which he sometimes struggles with himself. She twists and turns to see. The setting sun is no help. She jerks away from the kiss and lowers her head to get a better look, but it apparently doesn’t help. Just frustrates her more.
– I can’t see anything, she says.
He has the urge to brutally tear off his buttons and zipper, but in truth he wants to buy some time. He’s not erect and knows that it can take time – if he becomes erect at all. He’s at the apex of his desire, and he can’t imagine being more turned on; he fantasizes his tongue’s journey through each wrinkle of her neck, along the broad path between her breasts, between the folds of her belly – he’s not naive enough to believe she doesn’t have a little belly like him – and through the rough mound of bush to the lips of her coal-black labia, loose and swollen, so that his tongue hardly comes into contact with them before she screams in shock. He’s so bloody close to ejaculating, even if his cock hasn’t gotten the message, that he feels water or something wet dripping from his asshole, and he doesn’t know whether he should laugh or cry.
– Help me, she says. She’s on her knees, her glasses on, and worrying the obstinate button as if she’d just locked herself out of her house.
– I’ll start, he says, hoisting her up on the table again so he can lift the hem of her dress. She resists briefly, then arches her back. To his surprise she lifts the dress herself and pulls it off, dropping it to the ground, where it lies between overturned plants, soil, and a tiny shovel. He doesn’t know what he expected to find under the dress. He doesn’t know whether he feared or hoped that Mónica has lived a chaste life, that her years as Aaz’s mother indicated a totally sexless life. But the sight of the woman he thought he knew – who in the half-light is lying in what appears to be purple panties or lingerie, as the fashion magazines call it, is at once almost heartstoppingly beautiful and so unforgivably sinful that he can’t understand why his dick doesn’t react. He can’t recall ever having such a strong desire to consume someone. He wants to begin on her rough toes, to continue up her thighs – which are fuller and less pale than he’d expected – and channel all his energy towards her vagina, trapped behind the silky fabric like a hedgehog under a swimming cap. There’s no hair sticking out from under the lace, no dark path up to her navel like on the prostitute Afrodita, whose grotesque crotch had been a kind of punishment that Erhard had felt was deserved for old men wanting a quickie. Her breasts are held firmly in check by a small bra, and as a result, they bulge over the edge and seem large, and the dark surfaces of her nipples jut out over the minimal lace edge like an advertisement for what’s inside the packaging. There’s movement in his trousers now, an involuntary tension in his dick, but it’s not enough, not something to show off. Leaning into her vagina, he doesn’t want to think about his erection. He’s got one chance to penetrate her, and he doesn’t want to ruin it with his old penis. Upon closer inspection, her panties are pretty, a shimmery blue, and a dark patch spreads from the lower half near the stitching, then along the sides and finally upward. At first he thinks it’s her menstruation, but he doesn’t care what the hell it is, whether it’s marmalade, blood, or sap from the Tree of Knowledge. He’s going to lick it and eat it and consume it on his way to her exposed, waiting pussy. But it occurs to him that she probably doesn’t menstruate any more, and again he feels something shift at the thought that she’s at least as engrossed, horny, and in the clutches of the pent-up coupling instinct as he. He pushes her panties aside so that he can see her vagina. They’re less elastic than they appear, and it takes some effort.
There’s movement now in his underwear, and he wishes that he had selected them with more care when he’d changed the day before yesterday, knowing that they’d be pulled off him this evening by a woman. Unthinkable yesterday, unthinkable now, but ultimately meaningless now. For the sight of her muff, trimmed or maybe just naturally, absurdly, exquisitely bristly and lacking a single superfluous hair nestled around the two fiery-red lips, isn’t something he remembers Annette ever offered him. With Annette, sex was a kind of education in which she kindly guided them both to a good climax, crawling on top of him as the conclusion of a fine evening. He doesn’t remember either of them ever losing their minds or fucking the hell out of each other, like he wishes to do with this woman, whose name he can’t even remember right now. Right now he can only penetrate her with his tongue. The bristly hair. The tart tang of her wet sex. And finally her labia – more compliant than a juicy melon and a hundred times more intoxicating than an absentminded whore’s mechanical cock-sucking. He’s not sure if she tastes fresh, or even if she’s clean for that matter. He’s forgotten how it tastes. But he knows she tastes forbidden, enchanting, as if nature has mixed a drink for the persistent fool who can’t get enough of just seeing and touching a woman. There’s a depth, a reality in her chemical acridity that seems right to him. He’s so absorbed in her taste that he only now hears her whimpers – as if they’re emerging not from her mouth but her lungs. It’s like the purring of a cat, a supersonic rumbling she herself doesn’t even notice. When he increases pressure on her labia just a little bit, or slips his tongue into her, the sound increases by a margin. But if he goes around her labia through her pubic hairs that scratch his tongue, dodging her clitoris – which has risen almost a centimetre above her labia – her whimpering subsides by a margin. He doesn’t know what it means, but as he fills his mouth with her, he tries to create a balanced distribution between the deep and the loud. And he feels her body responding, kicking into gear. The sounds come at closer intervals, she responds in kind and without delay. He’s never been a great lover or viewed himself as one, but this is something else. For once it’s as if his age has made him better. His cock has released him from servitude; he’s so curious for what he sees, tastes, and hears that he’s totally in the moment – awestruck, probing, panting – and every time he does something, it only intensifies the feeling, and he can practically taste her adrenalin.
He feels a sharp cramp in his legs and is forced to change his position, which causes her to grab his hair and pull his head right into her crotch until he can hardly breathe. The cramp flares up, but it passes quickly. She releases him, clutches the edge of the rickety table, and gathers up her legs, enclosing him within a new kind of silence, interrupted only by the swooshing of the blood under his skin. She begins to shift around. A few plants fall to the floor. The soft flesh of her thigh against his ears. He’s never experienced anything like this before. During their fifteen years of marriage, he’d never known Annette to be as unrestrained and strong as this woman. With the women he’d been with before Annette, he wasn’t interested in anything else but penetrating them, letting his cock fill them. Still, he has no doubt. Everyone knows when a climax is coming, and Erhard recognizes it with fear and excitement; fear for what’s to come afterward, and excitement for nature’s incredible reward. There’s nothing to do. They’re on their way. The table jiggles underneath them. She begins to mutter to herself. It sounds like Basque, but may just be a Spanish dialect he doesn’t recognize. A flurry of words, curses, or hoarse battle cries. He doesn’t know which, but they merge with the choir emanating from her lungs, braiding into one voice. His tongue is sore. He responds by sticking it in deeper. He’s good at this. Her thighs chafe against his ears. Is his entire head inside her now? Liquid, skin, hair, and labia surround him. It’s as though he hears her organs shifting, making room for something. Her entire body groans, like an animal on its way through a forest not found on this island; the wood in the table begins to give, a cactus pricks his hip, but it no longer matters. His cock is erect now, it wants out. This is new. His tongue is buried in her vagina; he hears her whimpering again, hollow and low. And finally, her thighs fall to the side, the entire scaffold. They’re beneath the open, purple sky, riddled with cactus, juice dripping from her sex, the turtle laughing on the television, Mónica screaming. The table collapses, and he licks her all the way down, his cock exploding, heat pouring out of him, unaccustomed and rich in pain, and he falls into a chaos without form or meaning.
They laugh, crawling among the pottery shards and the broken wood, and he lays his head tiredly on her rounded belly. She does not protest.
– You’ve got the devil’s tongue, she whispers.
They laugh again. He’s spent, unable to think. They fall silent. The television’s still blaring inside. How long has it been since he ended his telephone conversation? The sun has dipped below the horizon, and the little rock fence throws a shadow across the garden the size of a man. The temperature may have dropped a tad.
He doesn’t understand it. His luck. His observations. His complete surrender to her. He doesn’t understand how a woman can offer him so much when he doesn’t deserve it.
Nor does he understand why he feels such destructive guilt towards Beatriz. It’s too bizarre and confusing, but he’s disgusted by everything he’s gone through. He’s not sure whether it’s because he’s been with another woman. Or because he hadn’t thought of Beatriz a single time – which is something new for him. Every pore closes, his enthusiasm hardens. It’s like window shopping at a going-out-of-business sale: everything is tallied, put aside, closed down. A terrible thing to witness. He doesn’t know what to do, or if he needs to do anything. Should he fall in love with the woman he just made love to? Can’t he settle on loving the woman hiding in his flat, regardless of her condition?
He gets to his feet and goes inside the house, having not removed so much as his t-shirt. She remains behind in her underwear. His clothes show no sign of what just transpired, except for some kind of wet, irritating stain on his trousers, though he doesn’t know exactly what it is. Maybe just some urine.
– I need to go, Erhard says.
When he enters the living room, he sees that something’s wrong. The only light in the room is from the glowing television, which is showing the same kids programme. Aaz is sitting, turned, in his chair. And gazing directly, unwaveringly, at the door. It’s as if he’s staring directly into Erhard’s eyes, but of course Erhard doesn’t know what he’s thinking. He wants to say something, but no sound emerges. Although he’s not sure they’re staring at each other in the darkness, that’s how it feels. Slowly Aaz spins his chair around without facing the television again.
Erhard remembers that he needs to take the Boy-Man with him. For once, he’s afraid of the ride. For the first time, the Boy-Man seems as unpredictable as a gorilla. He sees Mónica getting to her feet out in the garden.
As he lets himself into the flat with trembling hands, he hears his neighbour rattling her door downstairs. Only a few hours have passed since he was home, but it doesn’t feel that way.
He stands in the bedroom doorway watching the tiny, blinking apparatus on the table and the IV rack with the drainage bag, which are connected via a tube to the humped bundle lying shapelessly under the blanket. What was it that she said? He almost can’t remember, but of course he remembers it quite clearly. The words have a frailness to them, as if they can’t be said or spelled without breaking in two. The less he tries to remember them, the better he hears them. This makes him believe in them, but maybe he hears only what he wants to hear? Maybe he would like her to talk to him?
A sudden impulse causes him to turn on the lights and pull the blanket from Beatriz, and now he can see her lying flat on the mattress in her sequined jogging suit. He crawls beside her and places a finger on her left eyelid, lifting it so that he can see her eye. The pupil shifts like a loose shirt button.
He wants to call out to her. Where are you, Beatriz? Are you in there? But he can hear the desperation himself. All of a sudden he understands what it was all about.
Up until now, he has felt he was doing a kind, unselfish act – saving her from death, taking care of her, waiting for life to return to her. Up until this moment, he’s dreamed of waking her up with a kiss, breaking the spell. But what he’s doing is not kind, it’s not for her sake, and it doesn’t have a happy ending. This has all been about Erhard and his hopeless attempt to sacrifice so much for Beatriz that she couldn’t reject him later, when he would require something in return. One final opportunity to sweeten his existence with a woman who would normally never fall for him.
And, in all fairness, he’s been curious. What do the words mean? And what will she tell him when she wakes up? She’s the only one who knows the truth about the night that Raúl disappeared. Though Raúl will never return, Erhard needs to know whether he was the one who hit her, or whether it was all just some unfortunate accident. Whether Raúl has fled from a crime or a stupid, all-too-human mistake. He needs to know. Partly to understand the person he’d believed to be his friend, but whom he didn’t know at all, and partly to reclaim trust in his own judgement.
While he’s looking into her eye, he feels unbelievably selfish. All the suffering he’s put her through. The degrading dehumanization of being in a coma, every day growing more and more distant from the person she once was and will never be again. Family and friends have said their goodbyes. He’s the only one she has: a miserable old man who has decided that she is to live – for his sake, for his ego, for his curiosity.
– I’m sorry, he says. He repeats the apology over and over. Until he lies down on the bed and falls asleep, finally close to her, finally not thinking about sex.
Erhard knows where Aritza’s office is. It’s in Puerto, east of the Selos District. In something called Parque Occidente. A few years ago, no one wanted to live or work in the area, but now it’s the exact opposite. Young people with money have arrived. Erhard doesn’t understand what they all do for a living, but one of the island’s most expensive restaurants has opened on the street, and the area is packed with big cars and high-end rental vehicles. The only reasonable explanation for Parque Occidente’s transformation is the view. The Selos District is surrounded by auto workshops, cheaply constructed buildings, and the remains of the old harbour district. Parque Occidente is nearly the same, except for what’s called the fourth flank, which opens towards the sea. Erhard is on his way into one of three drab structures linked in a horseshoe pattern. They have been furnished as luxury offices with a communal lobby, an indoor fountain, and a lounge redolent of freshly ground coffee. He enters the lift and presses the button to the fourth floor, and he’s carried soundlessly upward. He stares through one glass wall across the harbour to the sea.
The lift opens to a large office with more than thirty tables, sofas, plants, meeting rooms behind red glass, and computer screens. Plenty of computer screens. People – many of them Indians – are clustered around a pair of long tables, and a number of young men wearing hats. Just as he exits the lift he sees a sign listing the businesses located on this floor, including Eawayz, Aritza’s company, to the right. As he strolls down the hall, he sees Aritza inside a glass office, his back turned. He’s facing the sea and talking on the telephone. Erhard waits at the door until Aritza sees him and waves him in, concluding his conversation with bye-bye.
– Good morning, Aritza says, glancing at his mobile. Erhard sits down on a soft, red, ball-shaped chair. Aritza sits down, too, and now looks at Erhard. – Whatever you think you know, you’re wrong. It’s nothing, it was nothing. You saw nothing.
– I hope not. For your wife’s sake. And your niece’s.
– My wife doesn’t give a shit. She’ll laugh at you if you run to her with such a story.
– Then why are we meeting here?
– What is it that you want?
Erhard scrutinizes him. – To be honest, I’ve come to you because I don’t know anyone else with connections to the shipping industry and logistics. I’m guessing there is sensitive information a person needs a clearance to obtain.
– You could’ve just asked me nicely.
– That’s what I’m doing.
Aritza leans back in his chair. – You want to talk with my friend Robbie, Robert Jamieson.
– I want to talk to someone who can help me find crewmembers of a particular ship.
– Right. But you see, I’ve already spoken to Robert. He says that the ship you’re looking for, the Seascape Hestia, was hijacked.
– I know that. That’s why I’m looking for the crewmembers.
– Robbie tells me the authorities are also searching for these crewmembers.
– OK. That sounds right, Erhard says.
– So why are you looking for them?
– It’s nothing criminal, I assure you.
– It’s already criminal. A ship was hijacked. A man was killed. The crew and cargo vanished.
– But I’m not asking for your help to do anything criminal.
– You say you’re looking for a person?
– Someone from the ship who can tell me what happened.
– There doesn’t appear to be anyone who can. All the crewmembers are gone. What are you planning to do?
– I don’t know.
– So, if I help you, you will not…
– I hadn’t planned on saying anything. As long as you get divorced and marry your niece.
André Aritza stares at Erhard in alarm. – I…
– Relax. Just help me with this. You can do whatever you wish in your private affairs.
– And you’ll promise me that you won’t harm my friend or get him into trouble? We’ll call him together.
– I’d like to talk to him by myself.
Aritza nods. He glances at his mobile, then lifts it to his ear. His face suddenly changes. – Hey, Robbie, it’s André. OK. I’ve talked to him. He’s all right. Yes. No, he won’t do that. Yes. OK. Here he is.
Aritza hands the telephone to Erhard.
– Good morning, Erhard says.
Static on the other end of the line. A very British voice speaks. – Good morning. André tells me you are searching for a ship’s crew.
– Yes. But not for the reason you probably think.
– Right.
– A boy died here on the island. I believe his death is connected to the ship.
– A boy? Do you mean the engineer?
– No. A 3-month-old boy.
– What does that have to do with the hijacking of a ship?
André Aritza looks a little confused.
– I don’t know yet.
– OK. I do not know about a 3-month-old boy. André requested that I find some information on the ship you are looking for. The Seascape Hestia?
– I just need one of the crewmembers, someone I could call or something.
– Do you know anything about maritime law and administration?
– No, Erhard says. – I don’t know anything about that.
– According to maritime law, any person who signs on to a ship must be listed in a register. In England we do that more or less digitally, but the system isn’t standardized. In many countries, crew lists are simply a photocopied sheet of paper with names written in illegible handwriting. In Spain you have it both ways. Valencia and Algeciras, two of the larger ports, have a pretty good handle on it. But even though Las Palmas and Santa Cruz are also relatively good, ships from those ports often sail under the flag of Dakar or Abidjan, and one does not quite need to have one’s papers in order there. Not always, in any case.
– So what does that mean for the Seascape Hestia?
– Up till October 2008, the Dutch shipping company which owns the Seascape Hestia was in charge of registering its seamen. But in 2009, the vessel arrived in Spain and was repeatedly leased to Spanish companies that did not have the same strict requirements. There have been relatively few hijackings on this side of the African continent, so there was not a whole lot of focus on registrations.
– So the company which sailed the ship when it was captured has the list?
– They have an old list, written five days before departure. And several of the names on the list, a so-called IMO FAL number 5, were not on board.
– They found the captain?
– Yes, he and three of eight crewmembers were on the list, but the rest were not. The list was outdated when they set sail. But even if it had been complete, you would not be able to find any of them. In addition to the captain, the other three whose names are known are all missing. The remainder know nothing about the Seascape Hestia. Except for one, an engineer by the name of Chris Jones.
The name sounded familiar. – What happened to him? Erhard asked.
– He was supposed to be on the ship, but he was replaced at the last moment by someone he does not know. But when the authorities found the body of an engineer carrying his papers, they believed it was him, of course.
– But it wasn’t him?
– No. Chris Jones seems to have been reading the newspaper account of the hijacking at a pub when he saw his name.
– So no one knows who was actually on board the ship?
– It is shoddy and irresponsible, but it shows just how messy the rules are.
– Or that someone purposefully forgot to fill out the paperwork, Erhard says, thinking about the stolen vehicles that were last seen in Holland.
– The Canary Islands’ police know more than we do at the moment. They have questioned quite a few of the locals in Port of Santa Cruz, including a colleague of mine several weeks ago. She told me most of what I am telling you now. Much of it is off the record. So no list, no names.
– OK, Erhard says.
– Unfortunately.
– OK.
– May I speak with André again? the Englishman says.
– In a moment. Can you get me information on Chris Jones? His telephone number?
– But he was never on board the ship.
– I’d like to speak with him.
The man is quiet for some time. – André tells me that you are pressuring him about something. I do not care to know what, but if I find Chris Jones’s information for you, you will forget what you think you know about André Aritza. Do you understand?
– I need the telephone number today.
– I will find the number and give it to André today.
– Thank you. Erhard hands the mobile back to Aritza and rises, with some difficulty, from the chair. – The Englishman is all yours. He’s promised to get me a telephone number today. Call me at this number when he gives it to you.
Erhard lays his business card on the table. Aritza picks up his mobile and steps away to talk.
In the afternoon, he has a meeting scheduled with the director of the water amusement park, but he can’t stomach the thought of it. Since the door to Osasuna’s office is closed, he asks Ana to change the meeting to next week. She makes a few clicks on the computer. He tells her that if a man named André calls, she shouldn’t take a message but send the call directly to him. He’s not sure if he can trust her.
– Emanuel Palabras called and was looking for you, she says.
– What did you tell him?
– That you weren’t here.
– Good enough.
– Should I call him for you, now that you’re here?
– No. I’ll call him myself. His suspicion returns that she reports his activities to Palabras or even just Osasuna. – I’ll call him shortly.
– Remember to plug your phone in, the new one.
– Right, he says, and goes back to his office. Which now feels smaller than his old Mercedes. He drops to his knees and plugs the phone into the creaky outlet. The line beeps. After finding a book, he tries to read while staring at the dark-green telephone.
Around 3.30 p.m. the telephone buzzes. It’s Aritza. He gives Erhard an address on Tenerife. – We have nothing more to discuss, he says.
– I asked for a telephone number.
– You’re a piece of shit. Robbie spent hours finding that address for you. There is no telephone number. The man is evidently ill.
Erhard falls silent. He doesn’t know what to say.
– But I hope you find out what happened to the boy. Children are the salt of life.
It sounds strange coming from Aritza’s mouth.
– Not for everyone, Erhard says.
Back to Tenerife. The flight doesn’t even take an hour.
He sits rigidly in his chair and stares out the window. A large, invisible wave carries them from one island to the next. The motor is silent, and all is quiet; the small plane’s personnel whisper, and they don’t serve drinks. They don’t serve anything at all; they just walk up and down the aisle smiling and reassuring, looking lovely, even the men. Not like the last time he was on a plane. That too was seventeen or eighteen years ago. He was so blotto that he believed they were about to take off when they landed on Fuerteventura. This is only the fourth time in the intervening years that he’s left the island and the second time within the last month. But this time it’s on the company’s dime. A true pleasure. Part of a little white lie that Erhard has a lunch meeting with a shipping firm.
When he sailed to the island, he fell in love with Santa Cruz. From above it resembles the big city that it never became. The palms are grey, and the buildings are plastered with advertisements. From the plane he can see a large ad on the roof of the airport terminal, for a new perfume made with lime and anise: a young couple clutches one another, their arms indistinguishable.
He takes a taxi directly to the address and is dropped off at a little square with some booths and a newspaper kiosk. It’s a sluggish Sunday, and he has an urge to eat grilled lamb at a shawarma bar that reeks of cinnamon and burnt grease. Behind the counter, a Moroccan man is rotating the spit and the flat, dark meat. The meat sizzles, attracting a swarm of men with thick black beards wearing what looks like undergarments, along with some taxi drivers.
He enters a filthy, dilapidated entranceway with dove shit on the stairwell. He hears the birds above him in the rafters, but he doesn’t look up. Instead he goes calmly up the stairs to the fourth storey. The letter C. There he finds a flimsy white door that seems as though it’ll fall apart if he knocks on it.
From the fourth-storey balcony he gazes across the road at a large oval track behind a tall fence. He raps on the door. Twice. Three times.
– Come the fuck in.
Erhard opens the door cautiously. – Chris Jones? My name is Erhard Jørgensen.
– Come on in! No need to shout! Chris Jones shouts. He’s pissed. Laughing. – My God, now that I’m dead everyone’s trying to find me.
– I guess I’m lucky you’re not out to sea, Erhard says, when he sees the man in the bed. The room is dark and there are dog posters on every wall.
– Hell no, I’m on disability. On the state’s bill. The good life.
He would shake Erhard’s hand, but he’s eating carry-out chicken from a bag. He notices Erhard’s missing finger, but says nothing.
Erhard looks around for a place to sit, but finally leans against the wall instead.
– I was lucky. Isn’t that what people say? Could you ask for a better life than this? A view of the dog track. Grilled chicken. Homemade whisky.
Jones points at a shelf above the toilet door in the centre of the room. A row of five bottles of brown liquid with a label Erhard doesn’t recognize.
– You were supposed to have been on the ship that was hijacked? Erhard asks. It’s only been a few weeks, but the man already resembles something that has grown out of cracks in the wall. Decay works fast.
– Everything was set. Hell, I had all my things on board. But some asshole hit me on the head when I came out of a, ugh, nightclub. And by the time I woke up, the ship had sailed and my life was ruined. End of story.
– Who hit you?
He laughs again. – The police want to know that too, but fuck if I know. I didn’t see who did it. And I didn’t ask. It’s that simple. I’m guessing it was that motherfucker who was found with my papers on him. But that’s just a wild guess.
– Why would anyone want to take your place on board that ship?
– He was probably one of the goddamn pirates, don’t you think? Are you a journalist or what? If you are, I’d like five grand to be part of your little story.
– I’m not a journalist, and I don’t have that kind of money.
– Then why the fuck did you come here and disturb me?
– I’m looking for a missing person.
– I can’t help you. Bloody fucking hell, don’t you get it? I got beat up.
He throws his empty chicken bag at the rubbish bin, but misses.
– You must hear rumours. From your friends or others you’ve sailed with. Seven seamen are missing, as well as a multimillion dollar cargo.
– This isn’t a gossip mill. My sister’s the only person who cares to visit me, and those shitty newspapers don’t know fuck all about what happened anyway. They didn’t know I wasn’t the dead man, but some other guy. Just about killed my old Mum.
– But your friends. They must’ve heard something? I’ve driven a taxi for years, and taxi drivers gossip more than housewives, if you know what I mean.
Chris Jones laughs guardedly, as if he’s missing a tooth or two. – Hell, I know what you mean. Who are you anyway?
– I’m just an old man who’s trying to find someone from that ship, that’s all.
– An old man. A curious old man. But I like that. As long as you’re not the police. Or from the newspaper.
– I promise you, I’m not from either.
– Hand me one of those, he says, pointing at the whisky bottles. Erhard retrieves one for him, and the man pours whisky into a dirty cup that’s standing on a footstool next to the bed, and he gives it to Erhard. He himself raises the bottle to his lips and chugs a quarter of the liquid.
– What happened to your finger? Jones asks.
He doesn’t seem embarrassed to ask the question. It’s liberating when people ask Erhard.
– My punishment for a crime.
– Fuck me, what’d you do? Look at another man’s wife in the wrong country or something?
– Not exactly, but something like that.
– United Arab Emirates?
– Denmark.
– What? The Danes don’t do that.
– I did.
It takes a little time before Jones realizes what Erhard means. – That’s brutal, he says softly.
They drink.
– Last week, Jones says, after he’s wiped his mouth with the blanket. – I met one of the lads that I sailed with. Simao. We share a common interest in dogs. Jones whirls his finger around at the posters. – He came up here and sat in that very chair you’re in, stiff as a board he was, feeling real bad about what had happened to me. Then all of a sudden he told me about the Hestia. He knew exactly what happened and where they were all hiding and shit.
– Hiding?
– He told me the crew was mixed up in something and was hiding from the police and shit.
– Mixed up how?
– No idea. He was probably just showing off. That’s what everyone does. Every sailor has sailed around the world a thousand times, scoring some pussy at every port. Braggarts. Many of the sailors are tiny little men, assholes who don’t care to leave the ship when it reaches the wharf. As long as they’ve got fags and alcohol and Coke, they’d rather stay in their small cabins fucking each other. The scum.
– Huh, Erhard says.
– But Simao said something interesting. He said the cargo had been brought back here. The entire fucking thing returned to where it had started. I’d never heard that. Everyone thinks it vanished in the dark heart of Africa. Blame it on the niggers, you know.
– Interesting, Erhard says, though he’s unable to determine exactly what it means.
– It’s fucking organized, that’s what it is. Rich men in their offices, laughing all the way to the golf club. Isn’t that what people say?
– Where can I find your acquaintance? The braggart.
– If he’s not out to sea, then you’ll find him at one of the dog tracks, you know, the ones with the super-skinny dogs chasing each other?
– Which one?
– The big one north of here.
– What else is he called besides Simao?
– Simao. He doesn’t have another name. It’s just like Pelé. He has only one name.
– If I do you a favour, will you do one for me?
– That sounds naughty, Chris Jones laughs.
– If you find out where your friend Simao is right now, I’ll find out who beat you up.
– I know who beat me up. It was the asshole who took my papers.
– But you told me yourself he wasn’t alone.
– I’m busy at the moment, he says, waving the bottle.
– It’ll be here tomorrow. Or one of its four friends.
– It’s hard to say no to an old man like you.
– That’s right, Erhard says.
The container ship is called the Nicosia, and he can barely read the name – it’s been worn down by bird shit, wind, and the elements. It’s approximately fifty metres long. The wooden gangway is rickety; it looks all wrong, frail, next to the black wall of steel that forms the hull of the ship. He’d figured he could just begin by shouting for the crew, who would be busy on board, but there’s no one around. So he saunters up the gangway as if it’s all he’s ever known.
Even when he’s on board he doesn’t see anyone. The deck is filled with cranes and containers and thick cables with pulleys that fasten the containers to the ship. It reeks of iron or even blood. For a moment Erhard wonders if he’s bit his tongue, but it’s the deck that smells of metal, it’s the peeling containers, it’s the chains that form the railing in several sections, creaky, swinging in the wind. He walks along the railing in search of a door. Maybe the entire crew is having a meeting below deck. Maybe they’ve not reported to work yet. Find the ship’s bridge, Chris Jones had told him.
He sees a door under the stairwell leading up to the roof of the top deck. It’s a small door that’s raised twenty centimetres above the floor, so that it resembles a closet door, and he expects to find shelves filled with torches and ropes and various other equipment. Erhard doesn’t know much about the work, and nothing at all about life at sea. Since many of the seamen he’s met – including Chris Jones – are alcoholics, drug addicts, violent, or just plain odd, he figures it must be a depressing, demanding life: boredom, the constant pitching of the sea, the creaky hull, awful food served on pitiful metal trays. Not to mention all the horny seamen in too-small beds.
It’s not a closet but a long corridor that runs six or seven yards straight ahead and disappears into the floor. But he’s not going below deck. He walks straight ahead until he turns a corner and sees a steep stairwell up to the wheelhouse that rests like a bird house at the top of the windowless box that is the ship’s hull. It’s more or less what he’s looking for.
He climbs the stairs and peers through the door window. The room, which looks like what people would call the bridge, is filled with work tables and large, square computers. Sunlight filters through the tinted windows that run the entire length of one wall, allowing Erhard a view of the ship’s bow, the other ships in the harbour, and even the ocean as seen through a gauzy coffee-brown haze that makes the morning sun seem tired. Someone is sitting at a narrow table, his back to Erhard, leaning over a newspaper or some papers. Cautiously Erhard opens the door. The person at the table doesn’t seem surprised, and doesn’t even react. Somewhere a radio is tuned to a pop-music station.
– Good morning, Erhard says.
It turns out to be a short, Arabic-looking woman with silky-smooth hair and a hat. She glances down at Erhard’s shoes. They’re cheap trainers, he knows. Not the shoes of a director. Even though he’s promised Emanuel several times, he’s not bought himself a pair of proper shoes. – And you are?
– I’m looking for Simao.
She points to the corner, to another door. – He’s asleep in there. But he needs to get up. We sail in forty-five minutes.
She turns and goes back to her reading.
He pushes open the door. The little room is pitch dark. By the light from the door he sees a bunk bed and a small man with a full black beard. As Erhard enters, the man wakes up and shifts beneath his blanket, like a child. – Simao?
– I’m awake, Simao says, though he doesn’t sound it.
– I’ve never said anything like that, he says repeatedly.
Erhard has just tucked 200 euros into the pocket of his tattered shirt. Anything over 100 euros would get the asshole started, Chris Jones had said. He’s probably got debts he can’t pay back that have accumulated over the decades; his life is in the hands of the only ones in the gambling world who don’t actually gamble, the masterminds who sit in run-of-the-mill offices and move millions of euros between the islands and never pay taxes. The dog-racing sheet is poking out from under the mattress. Erhard had expected posters on the wall. Of a girlfriend or a child or topless women in mermaid costumes. Or dogs like at Chris Jones’s place. But maybe the bunk isn’t Simao’s, just a communal galley the sailors use when on duty. Simao has gone out on deck. To smoke, Erhard discovers, while he explains to Simao why he’s here.
– I’ve got a few questions for you. If you answer them all, I’ll give you two hundred more. I know what you’ve said about the Seascape Hestia. Just tell me the same thing, that’s all I’m asking.
Simao gazes across the harbour. – Has gettin’ beat up made that poof stupid? I told him that so that he wouldn’t feel bad about… About…
Erhard ignores this. – I’m not a policeman, and I’m not a government official. Nothing like that. I won’t tell anyone that I’ve spoken to you.
They’re standing in the shade between a line of containers. Simao lights a second fag even as he holds the first. He flicks the smoking butt over the railing and into the water, then pats his shirt pocket for the 100-euro note.
– It’s been weeks now. I was fucking stuck in Casablanca. Waiting for my buddy Ramón, who had promised me he’d be there, innit. But he doesn’t show up. I’m at some bar, and I run into a ship’s mate I know. He’s pissed and high, you know. We have a few shots, and we discuss how to find him a woman. But he’s not really into it, tells me his wife will skin him alive if he cheats on her, and so we end up at some local guy’s. Smoking, innit. All of a sudden he tells me he’d been part of the crew that had sailed out to empty that Canary ship that everyone was talking about. Everyone’s looking for that ship’s crew who had all sailed on to West Africa, but no one knows this guy was on board that other ship and he’s totally whacked wondering if he should tell somebody. But I tell him he shouldn’t, cause then he’d be mixed up in some serious shit.
Erhard’s not surprised. – Why did you believe him? What if he was just making it up?
Simao looks at Erhard as if he’s an idiot. – You just know. When a sailor’s pissed enough, he don’t lie.
– What if he was just trying to be entertaining?
– Entertaining? Simao tilts his head back as if deeply offended. – Are you implying something?
Erhard doesn’t know what the man means. – No, I’m just saying he might have lied to you.
– He wasn’t lying, old man.
– What did you say his name was?
– I haven’t told you his name. How should I know?
– You were drinking together, and you’ve sailed with him before, but you don’t know his name?
– Shit, what’s it matter what his name is?
– Is he Spanish?
– Yeah, for fuck’s sake.
– Did he meet others there? Was he alone?
– We had some shots with a few locals, a few blacks, but otherwise no.
– And you say the pirates abandoned them in West Africa?
– The pirates, yeah.
– What?
– Yeah, the pirates abandoned them in Casablanca.
Erhard suddenly understands the man’s slightly off-kilter body language. The way his middle finger rubs his right-hand thumb. He’s not talking about a drinking buddy, he’s talking about himself. He was the one on board the ship. But Erhard decides not to press too hard yet. – There weren’t any pirates, were there?
– Yeah, bloody hell. I’m telling you’re there were lots of pirates.
Erhard sizes up Simao. He’s still a young man. A boy, really. Thirty-something. That could work to Erhard’s advantage – that Erhard seems like a strict father figure. He stares directly into the boy’s eyes.
Simao covers his face. – Stop that. I don’t know fuck all about what happened to Chris. I swear I don’t know who beat him up or who pushed the fake Chris overboard.
He seems to be telling the truth, but Erhard is sceptical. – But there were no pirates?
– Fuck me. No, there were no pirates. Never was.
– Only the crew?
– It was supposed to seem like the ship had been seized by pirates. Some of the Hestia’s crewmembers punched each other to make it seem like the pirates had done it. We laughed about it at first. Until Señor P decked one crew member so hard that he lost a tooth.
– What about your buddy? Did he punch someone too?
– No, he didn’t. There were four on board. They would’ve been offed if not for the ship.
– What do you mean?
– The ship they were on was a different kind of ship, and none of the crew were familiar with it.
– So what happened to the cargo?
– Most of it ended up here. The crew was dropped off in Casablanca.
– The crew went to port in Casablanca, but the cargo came back to Tenerife?
The man nods, then inhales so that the cherry on his cigarette turns bright red. – Except for Señor P. He went back to wherever he was from.
– Is it even possible to transfer cargo when not in port?
Simao chuckles. – You’ve sure got plenty of questions, old man.
– I told you as much. Remember my contribution to the dog track.
Simao eyes Erhard distrustfully. – If you’re not Chris’s good friend then he owes me a fucking apology. He tamps out his fag and lights a new one. This time he takes a normal breath before raising the cigarette to his mouth. – You can move cargo, sure, but it’s not easy. It’s dangerous, innit.
– How so?
– Out on the open sea the ships sway and might ram into each other, the cranes too, and you might drop your cargo into the water. It’s not good.
– Sounds difficult. Does it take a long time?
– Yeah, if there’s a lot that needs to be transferred.
– If there weren’t any pirates, what happened to the engineer they thought was Chris Jones? The guy the fishermen found? The newspaper wrote that he resisted the pirates.
– They wrote Chris was the one who’d been thrown overboard, and I believed it. But I hadn’t even seen Chris on board. I mean, I, uh, my friend said it was total chaos. It was New Year’s Eve. Fireworks were going off along the coast, and you could hear the explosions above the wind. The water over there was fucked up. That’s why Señor P was called in. He knows the sea better than anyone, innit.
– So Señor P was the one who pushed the engineer overboard? The fake Chris Jones?
– That’s what they said. He arrived on the ship right before it happened. He was drunk as a skunk, muttering strange things.
– Strange how?
– Lad was angry. He kept saying lad was angry. That the money was burning a hole in his pockets. Crazy shit.
– Lad? His own son?
Simao laughs. – What does I know? I talked to him only once.
– Why haven’t you mentioned any of this to the police? They’re looking for the crew, and believe they’re holed up in some basement with a bunch of Moroccan pirates. Families are missing their fathers.
– I’m sorry about Chris and that chap that fell overboard. But I’m not getting mixed up in any of this.
Erhard decides the time is now to press him. – They paid you, didn’t they?
– I haven’t done anything illegal.
– Withholding information is illegal.
– In what country? I’m sailing under the Cuban flag.
The lie is much larger than Erhard had thought. – You were on board the other ship, and you transferred the cargo.
Simao squirms as if he’s been asked to chug vinegar.
Erhard presses on. – Say yes. I won’t tell anyone, and you’ll get another 100 euros for your little dog.
– He’s not a little dog, Simao says sharply. – He’s an Azawakh.
Erhard hands him a 100-euro note. – How did you move the goods?
Simao looks down the row of containers. – We were supposed to meet north of Alegranza, but ended up sailing very far south, just to the west of Lanzarote. The Hestia was delayed. It was bad enough to begin with, but it just got worse.
– How?
– Apparently, the plan had been to find the same-size ship, but our captain hadn’t found one like the Hestia. He’d just hired ours, the La Brugia, because there were only four of us on board. But our ship wasn’t a container ship – it was a general cargo ship, like this one. So the two ships were unequal, and moving the cargo was fucking difficult.
– And then what happened?
– We sailed directly towards Casablanca, while the Ghanaian man steered the Hestia towards Agadir, innit.
– Was anything brought to Fuerteventura?
– No. Well, the Hestia sailed that way. It went north around Isla de Lobos after we separated. But the Ghanaian man didn’t go into port. His ship was empty. I saw it with my own eyes.
– So you transferred everything?
– Yeah. It was hard as hell. There was lots of shouting, and some of the containers were smashed.
– Smashed?
– Yeah, when they were lifted over the ships. They’re just like egg shells if you hit them in the right place.
– On the Hestia or on your ship?
– I didn’t see it. I was below deck. Down in the cargo hold. They were arguing about where we should drop anchor, with the wind and the current, innit. It took a long time. The Ghanaian guy talked to someone over the radio. An hour later, Señor P came on board. Pissed and vicious, he was, but he was familiar with the waters. He was from Fuerteventura. Knew the sea like the back of his hand, he said. Then they began to transfer the cargo. Shortly after that Chris Jones, or whoever the hell he was, fell overboard.
– What did you do when you found out?
– Not a damn thing. What could we do? We were busy. I sure as hell didn’t want the same fate. I did my job. But I was real glad it wasn’t Chris but some other guy. Though I didn’t know that until I’d returned to Tenerife, innit.
– What’s the P for in Señor P?
– Easy now, Gramps, I don’t know any more than that. If you keep asking me questions like that, I’ll have to ask you for a bridge.
– Bridge?
– A 500 note.
Erhard decides it must be some kind of dog-racing term. – I don’t have any more, he says. – Just tell me what the P is for?
– Fuck off, Gramps.
Erhard knows that he’s just trying to reassert his self-respect, and he can’t really blame him for that.
– Thanks for the chat, Erhard says, and starts towards the gangway. Remembering something, he walks back to the containers. Simao is about to light his tenth cigarette. Erhard hands him his business card. – If you feel the urge to help a little boy who’s gone missing, call me. But don’t leave a message.
– What. A boy? What does that have to do with this?
– There was a 3-month-old boy on board the Hestia. And his mother.
Erhard is gambling now. He still doesn’t know whether or not they were on board.
– There’s was no boy. Or mother. I know that much.
– Call me if you think of anything else. I won’t give you any more money. The next thing you tell me is free.
Erhard leaves. He hopes that Simao will run after him and tell him the name of ship’s mate, but he crosses the gangway and is back on the dock before he turns to see that no one has followed him.
He walks down a broad boulevard towards the city, but grows tired and hops into a taxi that’s parked in front of a hotel. He gives the driver one of the few addresses he remembers in Santa Cruz: 49 Calle Centauro. With a little more than three hours before his return flight, there’s too much time to wait at the airport, and too little time to take a ferry. He might as well sit at a cafe, doing nothing. He pays the driver, who promptly thrusts the bills into his wallet as if he’s afraid Erhard will snatch them from him. Maybe there are more robberies here; it’s a bigger island, with more tourists.
Although he doesn’t recognize the street, he decides to stroll around the area. He skirts the fence that encloses the container park. There’s quite a bit of traffic in there. Huge lorries, fork lifts, and tow trucks that spit brown smoke out of long exhaust pipes. Another forest of containers. In a flash he pictures the containers being raised onto lorries and ships and into cargo hulls and then onto new lorries and new container parks. A flurry of traffic and goods exchanging places, units shifting around in a vast chain of supply and demand, need and desire, habits. A toothpick from China jammed into an olive from Gran Canaria and set in a martini from Italy, and a vodka from Poland in a champagne flute from Thailand in the hand of an Englishwoman from Portsmouth. The invisible underbrush of infrastructure. Like going to the loo, it’s not something people discuss. It’s simply there. But sometimes, you have to study the poop to determine the diet.
When he reaches the guardhouse, he stops a moment to watch the big lorries exit the park. An African man sits inside the guardhouse.
– Would it be possible for me to meet the supervisor here?
– Supervisor?
– Palalo, Erhard says, quickly showing the man his business card. – I’m here to inspect our containers.
– Where did you say you’re from again?
– Palalo.
He stares at a little computer that’s affixed to the inside of a cabinet. – There’s no supervisor. But you can talk to Binau, our manager. He’s out there somewhere, in the park. I can call him.
– Don’t worry about it. I’ll find him myself. Where are our containers?
The man checks his computer again. Then he points down one of the corridors between the containers and the rows of storage units which resemble enormous shelves. Erhard nods, then goes through the gate into the park, passing the lorries and the cranes. Noise fills the air, men shouting all around him. The soil is hard clay. Every now and then, a forklift pulls up in front of him and hoists a pallet from one of the shelves six metres above the ground, then drives over to a waiting lorry. He heads in the direction the man had pointed, but he doesn’t know what he’s looking for, or when he’ll know he’s found it. When he sees a short man wearing ear muffs, he stands beside him until the man notices him.
– Palalo, Erhard calls out to the man, who hasn’t removed his ear muffs.
– Over there, the man says, glancing down at his mobile phone.
– Those? Erhard points at four red containers standing side by side.
– From there all the way down, the man says, his eyes still trained on his mobile. His gloved hand indicates a point right behind Erhard, down a corridor the length of two or three football pitches.
He heads that way, as much as anything to get a sense of the containers, to immerse himself in their dizzying quantity, and to try to disappear in them. He hopes to run into one of the workers, but there’s no one around. He spots a number of new containers with built-in locks, but most of the containers are the old kind, with a bar fastened by a padlock. Some of the containers are stacked, while others are lined up in rows. Some are divided by a clearing between the red and blue containers, a space ready to be filled.
He reaches the corner where the fence bends, then continues up the hill and down to the harbour. He sees, on the other side of the fence, rocks and a stone marker. From the hilltop he catches sight of some houses and a tennis court, two players dashing back and forth. There’s a small shed on his side of the fence, four posts with a tin roof and a back wall. Inside is a chair and a wooden box. Some equipment hangs on the back wall: ear muffs, a torch, a hammer, bolt cutters, a saw, a roll of cable, a pair of coal-black work gloves no one would ever wish to stick his fingers into. Well, Erhard wouldn’t anyway. He looks around. Although he can still hear the lorries, there’s no one about. He grabs the bolt cutters and proceeds to the containers, then snips the locks one at a time. Once he’s cut fifteen, he returns to the shed, hangs up the bolt cutters, and glances around again. Still no one. Then he opens the first container. And the next. And then another. Each is filled to the brim with lamps and blankets and boxes, bicycles and bags of clothes and electrical cords. Some items rest on pallets, others simply lie on the floor; some are strapped down, others jammed in.
But in the twelfth and thirteenth containers he finds what he’s looking for: a car, a Seat Leon. It’s parked on a set of springs and held in place by thick straps that crisscross the container. He retrieves the bolt cutters and clips the locks on the next twenty containers.
In all, he finds fourteen vehicles. Seats, Skodas, and Volkswagens.
When he opens a container and finds a black Volkswagen, his breath catches. Though it’s a different model, the make and colour assure him that he’s heading in the right direction. He crawls through the straps and over to the driver’s-side door, and he’s just able to squeeze into the front seat. The car smells strongly of nylon or leather, like it would at a car dealership. It’s dark inside and almost feels cosy. The key is in the ignition. He peers down at the odometer, but it’s one of the new digital kinds that doesn’t work unless the motor is running. He turns the key, but nothing happens. So he slides out again and exits the container as if he has been inside the belly of a whale, tired but proud.
He closes all the containers and collects the locks, then tosses them over the fence, where they disappear among the rocks. He walks along the fence to gaze down at an empty corridor between the containers, so he can get back without being noticed by too many. He reaches the construction site and suddenly recognizes the place, even though it was dark the last time he was here. To his left is a gaping hole in the fence and the entrance to Café Rústica’s kitchen. This is where the dishwasher helped him. He crawls through the hole and walks down the alley.
He orders a Mai Tai to see whether or not they’ve followed his advice, but it still tastes too sweet. The girl who serves it to him is friendly, but she doesn’t flirt.
– It was all I could find, she says, dropping two postcards on the table. The postcards are ads for the cafe. DJ Sundays and happy hour, or what they call Rústica hour. Mai Tais for one euro. No fucking wonder.
He jots down a note: He knows where the car came from. He knows which ship it was on. He knows, perhaps, how it got to Fuerteventura. He knows where the newspapers came from. He knows, perhaps, where the girl – it must’ve been a girl, not a woman – who abandoned her baby was from.
Because he’s so lost in thought about her, he stares at the girls in the cafe, as if he expects to find her among them. As if he can see who among them gave birth then starved her baby. He thinks of Mónica. For some reason he thinks about her as a young woman, with Aaz as a boy, a tiny child at his mother’s breast, suckling, feeding like a sick kitten. Or maybe he’s thinking of Annette with Lene, the youngest, sitting on a faded-blue sofa on the first floor of Bispebjerg Hospital, showing her off to anyone who stopped in, while he stood behind the glass attempting to place a call at a payphone that kept spitting out his coins. A mother is so beautiful he could cry right on the spot. He thinks of the young mother laying her child inside the cardboard box: her trembling nervous hands fumbling as they swaddle the squirming child in newspapers; she’s putting her child into the box knowing that it will die. A mother is so beautiful. It all begins with her, her words that raise the child, and her hands that hold the child. A mother is so beautiful and yet so dangerous. She decides whether the child will live and for how long. One day, a month, a decade. He looks at one of the girls, the kind whose belly will one day, maybe soon, expand and she will become a mother; she’s balancing rubbish bags and cardboard that have to be taken out back. In truth she’s a little too small for this kind of work, frighteningly pale and thin, sickly. With red hair like a German. She pauses. One of the bags is filled with bottles and is too heavy. Erhard gets to his feet to help her. She tells him no thanks but smiles gratefully. He grabs the larger bag and follows her down the bar, through the kitchen, and out back. After he’s thrown the bag into a container with other bottles, she thanks him again.
– I’m not very good at this job, she says. I’m too small and I can’t remember all the things I’m supposed to.
– You’re great at it.
– Don’t tell the boss. That I can’t manage.
– Do you mean Ellen?
The girl startles. Then nods.
– Not that I know her, Erhard says. – I met her once.
The girl seems relieved to hear that. – She stops in around four o’clock. She can’t see me standing here.
– Why don’t you quit?
– This is the best job I’ve ever had. If only I could figure out what I’m supposed to do. I desperately need this job.
Erhard doesn’t have it in him to ask her why she needs this job so badly, but the girl tells him anyway. She’s three months behind on rent to her girlfriend, who wants to go home and so on.
Erhard glances down at the cardboard box beside the girl’s arm. It’s an ordinary box, but it resembles the one that the newspaper fragments were in. The same size, the same corner flaps. The same skinlike colour.
– Have you ever heard of any of the waitresses here getting pregnant? he asks the girl.
She hesitates. – No, I…
– Do you ever gossip about a girl who waitressed here and then got pregnant?
– No. Not as far as I know.
– What about the other cafes nearby?
– There really aren’t any others. But there was one girl who had an abortion a few months ago.
– Does that happen often?
– I don’t think so. There are many Catholics here, after all. Mostly it’s the English, you know, who do that kind of thing.
Erhard hadn’t thought about that. – So what happened to her?
– She had an abortion and came back to work.
– Here?
– Yes, but she doesn’t work here any more. She went home.
The girl glances up at a window above the cafe. Three windows, actually, large and with no signs of life. A ruined sunscreen covers one window; it’s one of those kind of aluminium plates that reflect the sunlight. In another is a desiccated flower, which was once a long-stemmed rose.
– Because of the abortion?
– I don’t think so. She didn’t seem bothered by the abortion. I lived with her. She didn’t sleep at home very often, if you know what I mean.
– So why did she leave? And when?
– Probably a few weeks ago, maybe more. The end of January.
Erhard feels the wind being knocked out of him.
– Are you sure? This is important.
The girl studies him. She’s not pretty, but she has freckles, a rarity among native islanders. Her mother or father must have come from the UK. – Well, she had the abortion in November. She was living in my old flat then.
– Other than her, you don’t know anyone who’s been pregnant? No strangely large bellies or sudden illness or anything like that?
– No, the girl says. She’s clearly beginning to lose interest and glances towards the door.
– You should get back. Thanks for talking to me.
She runs inside through the kitchen. Erhard returns to his seat. He considers retrieving the cardboard box that resembles the one from the car, but it’s not the specific box that’s interesting. What’s interesting is that, during a certain period of time, there were cardboard boxes and Danish newspapers less than 300 metres from where the car in all likelihood was parked. He’s on to something, he’s certain. He empties a packet of salt in his Mai Tai and stirs it with his straw. It helps a little.
Shortly after 4 p.m., he watches someone park a large car across the road and the manager, Ellen, enter the cafe wearing sunglasses. She should remember him, he thinks, but she doesn’t. Not all cafe owners remember quite as well as taxi drivers. She sets down her bag and immediately begins to boss the girls around. The music is turned down. She upbraids the small, pale girl because she’s drinking Coke behind the bar, practically whispering, so that only Erhard notices. The five other guests are eating breakfast and watching television, unperturbed.
Erhard goes up to the bar and tries to catch Ellen’s attention, but she’s busy wiping the worktop near the sink and throwing away lemon rinds. – Preparing for a visit from the union? he says.
She whirls round and peers at him a moment. – You again, she says.
– Yes. I’m still trying to find a young mother.
– To each his own.
He ignores this comment. – You haven’t thought of any employees or job applicants with a large belly one day and a flat belly a few days later, have you?
She seems to pretend to consider. – Crown Princess Kate, perhaps.
– What?
– Nothing. No, I still haven’t.
– How long have you been renting out the upstairs flat?
– We let select employees use it.
She doesn’t blink once. Pure poker face.
– So VIPs or what?
– Yes.
Erhard laughs. He laughs for such a long time that Ellen finally starts laughing, too. – That’s far-fetched. You know that.
– It’s only a temporary solution for those girls who can’t find a place to live.
– I’m guessing that all they pay is a symbolic rent?
– Let’s talk about something else, she suggests.
– Anything new from your friend Hollisen?
She gives him a sharp look. – No. I’ve told you that.
– Maybe he sent you a postcard or something.
– No one sends postcards any more.
– I see.
– And if you’re still hoping to help your friend, then you should search someplace else. Hollisen won’t be back.
– You know that even though you say you haven’t heard from him?
– Yes, she says. She stares at him. – He’s dead.
– How’d he die?
– Don’t know. But people I know, and who he was in contact with, haven’t heard from him in months. Not a single word. And that man is always in some kind of a fix, financially, sexually, even mentally. So two months’ radio silence is as good as… Her light-hearted tone of voice is gone again. – He must be dead.
– But you’re not sure. Maybe he was just captured by some muse on a Greek island and has forgotten everything?
– The only muse that could have captured that man was the Big Groove.
The expression is a little old-fashioned, and that’s how Erhard knows it. – Was he an addict?
– C’mon. I don’t remember your name, but let the man rest in peace.
– But you don’t know that he’s dead.
– A woman knows. Plus, he hasn’t touched his bank account, and he had several hundred euros in that account. Trust me, Søren wouldn’t let the account idle like that. That man didn’t know restraint. She smiles at the thought. – Even though he didn’t have much money, he always spent what he had partying. Bad habits from his days playing with golden boys.
Erhard scrutinizes her.
– OK. I opened one of his bank statements that came a few weeks ago. He took out small sums until 2 January, and then never touched the account again. There’s no activity at all. That sets off alarm bells.
– What do you think happened?
– Who knows? Maybe he drank himself to death or had a disagreement with one of his gangster buddies.
– Are you being serious now?
– Yes. He was always a little nervous about that. The last I saw him, he wore sunglasses.
– When was that?
– December.
– The last time I was here you said you hadn’t seen him in a year.
– I didn’t really see him, you know. He just stood out there staring at the cafe.
– I’m not a policeman, I don’t care about your little business or whatever it is, I just want to find a friend, who… who’s missing. And Hollisen is somehow involved. Was he staring at the cafe or the flat above it?
She doesn’t respond, but walks into the kitchen and returns with a croissant in her mouth. – It was the end of December. I remember, because it was right around the anniversary of my taking over the cafe. I was putting decorations in the windows, and suddenly there he was. He was wearing sunglasses, and seemed nervous. Normally he would come over. I was kind of a big sister to him.
– What was he doing? Why didn’t he come over?
– How should I know?
– You didn’t go over to him?
– I figured he was tripping or something.
– Did he meet with anyone, or talk to anyone?
– No. Just like that he was gone. I thought he’d return after a few days, but he never did.
– Do you have a photograph of him?
She pulls out her mobile phone and presses a few buttons. It’s one of those new smart devices that most young people have. She hands him it to him. On the screen is an image of a young man around forty. He’s smiling, pointing at the too-tight t-shirt that he’s wearing over another t-shirt. Rústica’s logo is printed on the shirt in ornate lettering. He looks like a handsome boy who’d become a tired man. Like one of countless people he knows on Fuerteventura, surfers who refuse to remove their wetsuits, party girls who don’t care to return to the suburbs, bartenders who don’t wish to take a day off. Like Raúl might have looked if his father hadn’t been one of the island’s wealthiest men and kept him under wraps. He looks like Erhard himself seventeen years ago.
– There are several photographs here. Ellen sweeps the first image aside, bringing a second forward. – Staff party, one of many. He came of course. That was back when…
He’s the same happy boy in several of the photos. But with each one he seems sadder. This insistence on happiness which doesn’t seem genuine. He stands in front of the camera with all the pretty girls, but also the cooks and the dishwashers and, apparently, even regular patrons. The party was held in the cafe and spilled out onto the street.
– Were you a couple?.
– No. Almost. But you don’t date your little brother, do you? Besides, he fell in love every time some hussy bothered to listen to him for more than five minutes.
The photographs speak their own precise language. In several he’s kissing girls on their cheek, and in one he’s kissing a woman’s cleavage.
– What about this one? he says, pointing at an image in which he’s holding a ponytailed girl’s waist and lifting her off the floor.
– Lily, she says. – No, she wasn’t Søren’s type. He tried to get her fired. She says she refused to give him a blowjob on his birthday. It wouldn’t surprise me.
– The creepy type. The girl, I mean.
– A fucking bitch, if you ask me. A lesbian, probably, and ambitious. There aren’t many go-getters like her on the islands.
Erhard can think of a few. – She’ll soon be president of Tenerife.
– Too late. She’s back on Fuerteventura. She inherited a restaurant or something from her grandfather.
– What’s the place called?
Erhard thinks of Bill Haji, but so far as he knows, he wasn’t a grandfather and he didn’t own a restaurant. He owned nightclubs and one cocktail lounge down at Corralejo’s harbour.
– I don’t know the name of the place.
Erhard continues studying the photographs. He recognizes the girl who served him that last time he was on the island.
– That’s Millie, the American. Søren liked her. He loved the chubby ones.
– Enough to have a child with her?
– Ellen laughs. – Millie? No, she was, she is, the self-righteous kind of American: all talk, no action. She’s in the States now, but she’ll be back next summer.
– Do you know all the girls who work for you?
– Yes, most of them. I have many seasonal employees. Girls who just come for a single summer. I’m a kind of mother figure to many of them. Young girls who bring so much emotional baggage from their parents. I know that I’m tough and probably not well-liked by many of them, but at least they know where they stand with me, and I try to teach them a little and give them some responsibility.
– Would they tell you if they suddenly became pregnant?
Ellen considers. – Yes, but they would also know that I think getting pregnant is stupid. We shouldn’t put ourselves in a worse position than what we’re already in.
– Do you mean women?
– I recommend sex before marriage, lots of it. Enjoy it. Sample the goods. But for God’s sake use condoms or pills. Once you have a child, there’s always someone who controls you. You can’t decide your fate.
What about sex after marriage? What about sex with an older woman on a garden table? His Mai Tai is empty. It’s a quarter to five. He has to return to the airport. He throws some euros on the table.
– Speaking to you has been, what can I say, riveting, Señorita Ellen. Have a nice day. He heads out onto the street and towards the water. When he reaches a broad boulevard, he flags down a taxi and climbs into the backseat. He notices everything the driver does, but he doesn’t say a word. There’s nothing worse than having a know-it-all taxi driver as a passenger.
As he’s heading down the FV-1, a giant raindrop pelts the windscreen. Erhard studies it calmly, curiously, then notices the dense, grey clouds. Normally he loves the clouds, but for some reason they seem foreboding today. He snaps on the radio and, a few minutes later, hears the DJ on Radio Mucha discuss the weather. When he lived in the old house, he used to hurry home and lash everything down, making sure the tarpaulin covered the roof if he heard rain. If the goats were nearby, he would let them into the shed. The rain made them nervous. Hardy was known to run great distances to find shelter. His instincts might drive him more than three miles south. But the roof is repaired now, and Hardy – who knows where that wretched animal went? Besides, he doesn’t live there any more. He’s a director now. Although he anticipates more rain to fall, none does, and he manoeuvres the vehicle soundlessly into the basement beneath his building. The windscreen is once again dry.
He’s exhausted and impatient in the lift. Even though Beatriz has been alone for only a few hours more than usual, he feels bad. He’s witnessed firsthand how she can fill her drainage bag with so much urine that the pressure alone makes it difficult for her to pee. All in all, it’s not easy keeping someone alive. It almost seems as if she doesn’t wish to live. As if she’s trying to make things as hard as possible for him. It’s tough to ignore the doctor’s admonishment. It’s inhuman, what he’s doing. It’s undignified. He almost agrees with the doctor, but he knows the turning point could come at any moment. The doctor says there’s a chance she will survive. A chance. If that’s true, what else can he do but assist her, regardless how small that chance might be?
He pulls out his key and lets himself in. He notices that the door mat, a thin, black rubber mat, has been knocked out of place. He checks the extra key, but it’s still taped under the stairwell. Maybe the doctor stopped by without telling Erhard?
He locks the door behind him, then hurries to the dark bedroom. He hears a strange beeping sound. He runs his hand along the wall and finds the switch that turns on the two reading lamps. The respirator’s warning lamp is blinking and the IV rack has been knocked over. Erhard’s side of the bed is made, but Beatriz’s is empty.
Then he sees her right hand. Still attached to the IV, it’s raised clumsily in the air, so that it appears she’s waving at him. She’s lying on the floor.
He hops onto the bed and grabs her as if she’ll disappear if he doesn’t. She’s curled in an impossible position between tubes and cords, but her eyes sparkle. Both of them. Her mouth quivers, and her hand almost feels warm.
– Bea! My Bea.
She doesn’t respond. Erhard shifts closer, so that he can see her face, her eyes. At first he thinks her pretty face is still pretty, that it still surprises him with its straightforward simplicity, no make-up, no earrings. But then he sees that it’s all ruined. That there’s nothing left to save. He doesn’t know what has changed, but her face is like a mask. As if her eyes and the person behind her face belong to someone else entirely. She blinks. Her eyes have a glossy sheen to them, and her pupils are slightly dilated as though in darkness. They are the eyes of a living being, just not the person he knows. He wants to say her name, to embrace her, if for no other reason than to do so one final time, but it doesn’t seem important. There’s nothing left to embrace, just cells. Assisted by machines, the body breathes, but it’s not Beatriz. Still, as a polite gesture, he strokes her coarse, greasy hair.
– E.
Erhard’s nearly certain that it was the machines that beeped. Her lips don’t move, but a sound emerges from between them. – E.
– Bea, is that you, Bea? Are you there, Bea?
He stares at her lips. They’re parted slightly, and dry. As if she can’t lick them.
– Em…
– Can you hear me, Beatriz? Nod or say yes if you can hear me.
– E.
– Beatriz, who did this? Who hurt you?
– Ema. The sound emerges as if it’s been forced over her tongue with great effort. Her eyes have begun to flicker. He can’t bear it. All the pain in them. Tears well in Erhard’s eyes.
– It’s important that you answer me, Beatriz. Try. Who did this to you?
– E.
Then the sound stops abruptly.
A few seconds pass. Erhard doesn’t dare move. Her eyes remain open, immobile. Erhard sees the red lamp glowing above the bed.
With some difficulty he crawls over and picks up the telephone. He has memorized the doctor’s number, but his fingers struggle to press the big square buttons. It rings far too many times before the doctor answers. Erhard is so relieved he begins to shake.
– Michel, it’s me. She’s talking.
Silence on the other end of the line. – No, he says simply.
– But now she’s… she’s gone again, and the machine is making noise, beeping.
– Is everything in working order?
– No, she fell out of the bed and is wrapped up in tubes and cords.
– Get her back in bed, stabilize her, and let her rest. She might wake again. It may have been her body sending a signal.
– A signal? What do you mean?
– Some patients wake up for a short period during a coma, just before they get a blood clot in the heart or the brain.
Sometimes he despises the doctor’s cool assessments.
He slams the receiver down and pushes himself out of bed, then crosses to the other side of the bed, so he can lift her up. He checks the catheter and the cords, as he’s been taught, places the mouthpiece over her lips, and hears the respirator kick on. Her pulse is low and irregular. The beeping ceases, but the red warning light that illuminates the top of the monitor continues to blink. Her pyjamas have been torn, and he can see her beige-coloured chest, her flabby breasts. Erhard feels terrible; he’s sickened by the sight of his friend, and by the fantasies he entertained about her body. As if her body was what he’d wanted, not her. But now he can see that it was the other way around: since only her body remains, he understands just what it was he’d lusted after. Even her skin is grey like cheap flour.
The drainage bag is nearly full; he finds a new one in the loo and unfastens the old one.
Ema. Her speech had been unintelligible and stuttering, but impossible to mistake. Ema. He wishes she was in a private hospital, far away from here, from Ema, from him. It’s too late for regrets, but maybe he could take a different tack. Maybe he could…
There’s a knock at the door. A cautious, rhythmic knock.
He has no idea who it might be. But it has only been, at most, five minutes since he returned. He sets down the drainage bag and sits quietly, expecting footsteps to trundle down the stairwell, or the lift door to open and close. But he hears nothing. Cautiously, he emerges from the bedroom and crosses to the front door. Another knock.
Erhard retreats a few steps and turns away from the door. – Who is it? he shouts from the living room, so that it sounds farther away.
– Señor Director, are you home?
A dumb question. It’s the downstairs neighbour. She knocks again.
– One moment, he says. He closes the bedroom door. He doesn’t know what to think about this neighbour. If she’s a hardboiled prostitute she seems almost comically naive. But she’s suspiciously persistent. She could be doing some house calls. Or maybe she’s just lonely.
He opens the door, but only enough to peer out.
– Am I disturbing you? Are you alone?
She laughs. She’s wearing the same clothes she wore the other times he’s seen her. She appears to be under the influence of something; her nose is crimson.
– It’s OK.
– Are you alone? she repeats.
– Yes, I…
A man suddenly appears. He’d been hiding along the wall and now forces his way into Erhard’s flat. He grabs Erhard’s shirt and shoves him against the wall. But Erhard slides free and stumbles down his corridor, the man at his heels. Erhard’s surprised, but not shocked. His neighbour’s strange questions seemed like a warning of some kind. He has seen this man’s face before: a narrow, bearded face concealed by dark sunglasses – like someone from an old Italian comedy. All he’s missing is a straw hat and a cigar. He’s lean and muscular, and there’s an angry, controlled force in his hands that have just torn Erhard’s shirt to tatters and now reach for Erhard’s throat and shoulders.
Erhard backs up against the bedroom door; here, the long corridor is dark. He sees the girl behind the man’s shoulder, unperturbed, watchful, as if she’s waiting for this to be over with. He doesn’t even bother calling for help. She’s the only one who can hear him, and she won’t help him at all.
He wants to ask why. Why are you doing this? But he already knows the answer. The man is there to get rid of him. It has something to do with the boy. It has something to do with the ship and the sailors and Emanuel Palabras. Maybe this man is the boy’s father? Or the boy’s mother’s boyfriend? Maybe he’s one of the men from the ship? Maybe he’s been sent by Palabras himself, just as his neighbour was probably bought and paid for by Palabras from the very day Erhard moved in. The most confusing thing is that he’s seen this man before. What if he’s been following Erhard for a while? What if he saw him on a plane or in Santa Cruz or in the rearview mirror on his way to the office or down the street? Or what if he was some interesting-looking customer he noticed at Silón’s shop? Shit, for all he knows the downstairs neighbour is the boy’s mother.
It has been at least eight years since Erhard was in a fight. Even then, it didn’t turn out too well for him. Even then he was too old to do much damage. He’d split his eyebrow and hurt his knuckles. Today might be much worse. Today it’ll hardly be a fight – more like a wrestling match. What’s important is sheer strength and durability. Erhard can’t compete with this compact, muscular man. Through the man’s light-blue shirt he can feel his arms like steel pipes, and he can smell him, too: roasted chestnuts, or smoke, and sweat on the far end of the sour spectrum. The sweat of adrenalin. He tries to recall the man’s face beneath the sunglasses, but – despite Erhard’s ability to remember faces – he can’t place this man.
Erhard wriggles from side to side, trying to knock the sunglasses off so that he can see his eyes – he pictures blue eyes – but the man resists him. It’s not really a wrestling match, because the man’s not interested in fighting. He’s holding a strip of hard plastic, and he tries to loop it around Erhard’s throat. Twice he misses, and the strip sweeps through Erhard’s hair. The third time he finally slips it over Erhard’s head and down to his neck.
– Fucking dog! Erhard shouts, throwing punches with all his might at the man’s face and managing to pry the strip away from his neck.
But the man quickly shields himself with his elbows and forearms. Suddenly, the bedroom door swings open and both men stumble into the dark room. Erhard has a small advantage because he’s familiar with the space; he steps to the side and hears the man thump against the low bed rail. He leaps at Erhard and once again wraps the strip around Erhard’s throat, harder this time, and friction alone causes his skin to burn. Erhard cries out, drained. The man crosses his arms and yanks on the strip of plastic, tightening it. Erhard feels a burst of pain, and now he’s frightened, surprised at the man’s brutality. He almost wants to give up. Giving up seems the easier path. In a way it already is over; he can’t win. He glides down the wall and the man constricts the strip even further. Erhard lets go of the man’s hands. As long as he doesn’t gasp for breath, he keeps his panic at a distance.
The girl switches on the bedroom light and shrieks. – What the hell?
She must have seen Beatriz.
– What the hell is that? she screeches like a banshee.
The man turns his head slightly and looks down at the bed. For a moment the strip around Erhard’s throat goes slack, allowing Erhard to gasp for breath. His fingers and brain tingle with oxygen until the man turns his attention back to Erhard and now, in earnest, twists the strip. Erhard imagines it slicing through the loose, old flesh of his throat like a cheese slicer.
When Erhard drops his hand to the nightstand, he touches something warm and soft that at first he thinks is Beatriz. But then he realizes what it is and, sparked by the energy from his last burst of oxygen, he lifts the drainage bag and smashes it against the man’s face. His sunglasses fall to the floor, and the warm liquid splashes on his head, runs into his eyes and down his neck. At first it doesn’t seem to affect him, just irritates him, then all of a sudden his face begins to twitch. Under the light of the lamp Erhard sees his blue eyes, and he remembers those eyes. He has seen them before.
The man’s eyes darken and he squeezes them shut, screaming shrilly. The stench is stronger than urine. It’s a sickening, hideous, rotten odour, and anyone would flee from it.
After a few moments, the girls screams again. – What the hell is that? But she doesn’t stand in the doorway long enough to find out. Erhard hears her footfalls, her curses and screams. – You said it would be easy, you said…
Erhard doesn’t listen any more. He gets to his feet without knowing where this energy reserve was stored, and shoves the man back, back, back. The strip of plastic drops to the floor and the man, absorbed by the stinking wetness that clings to him, stumbles backward to gain his footing. With all his might, Erhard shoves the man against the edge of the doorframe. He hears the man’s ribs crack, and the air exiting his body with a dry pop. The man gasps for breath and stands vulnerably as Erhard – not knowing what else to do – picks up the IV rack that’s leaning against the wall and smashes it into the man’s head, the five metal wheels landing with a solid plunk. Erhard regrets it immediately. Watching the rack travel towards the man’s confused face, he thinks, Shit, I’m going to kill him, I’m going to kill him now.
The rack slams against the man’s head like five baseball bats simultaneously striking him, and blood gushes from his face. Erhard expects to see him fall to the floor, but he drops to his knee and turns, half-stumbling, half-running out of the bedroom and into the corridor. Erhard considers all the knives in the kitchen and somehow finds enough strength to chase the man, shouting and screaming angrily, desperately, even using a few choice Danish words – words he hasn’t uttered in years.
Just as the girl’s about to open the front door, she screams at the man stumbling towards her and following her out. Bloody fuckin’ ’ell, Erhard hears the man say in a low, furious voice while the pair run down the stairwell. He considers chasing them, but doesn’t know what the point of that would be. Beatriz has, in a way, saved him. He closes the door and locks it, then hustles back to the bedroom to rearrange all of her equipment. The foot of the IV rack is broken beyond repair; two of the wheels are bent, but if he clamps the rack under the bed, it will still stand. He slips into the bed beside her and begins to feel his pulse racing, then falling. The memory of the strip of plastic around his throat slowly fades, as if the blood cells in his skin are only now returning to normal. The stench of urine fills the entire room, but he doesn’t care.
It occurs to him what it means.
It means he can no longer stay in the flat. Surely the man will try again. And maybe he’ll get others to assist him next time. He will return. He will be better prepared. Humiliated now, he will be angrier than Erhard could handle.
Erhard can’t go back to the house. It would be too easy to find him there. He would be alone and exposed. He needs to keep busy, and close to others. That would be best. The only way. Better yet would be if he disappears, if he boards a plane or a boat as quickly as possible.
But what about Beatriz?
He needs to move Beatriz before something happens to him. The doctor won’t take her, he knows. He has to find a place for her where she can be taken care of if he’s not around. He thinks of a few options, but none are any good. He wishes Emanuel Palabras was an option. It’s his daughter-in-law, and he has the means to take care of her better than Erhard ever could. But Palabras. The heavy-set man in his bathrobe-like Bordeaux silk jackets is a manipulating, shameless devil. Erhard doesn’t know why he’s done it or how, but it’s surely no coincidence that his name crops up everywhere. He’s the man pulling all the strings.
Erhard wants to stand up and do something, but he can’t. He continues to lie there, stiff and immobile, feeling weeks of exhaustion weighing him down on the bed, extinguishing everything.