Authors: Javier Cercas
‘Anyway, I could tell you lots of similar anecdotes, but they’re not worth waiting for. The thing is that part of me was ashamed of having belonged to Zarco’s gang, and that’s why I kept it secret and was almost frightened at the idea that it might come to be known; but another part of me was proud of it, and almost wanted to publicize it. I don’t know: I suppose it was like having a chest buried in my own garden not knowing whether it contained treasure or a bomb. Otherwise, another possible reason that might explain why my interest in Zarco and other
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lasted so many years was a kind of gratitude or relief, the certainty of the implausible luck of having belonged to Zarco’s gang and having survived it: after all, from the end of the seventies until the end of the eighties Spain had swarmed with hundreds of gangs of rootless kids from the outskirts like Zarco’s, and the immense majority of those kids, thousands, tens of thousands of them, had died due to heroin, AIDS or violence, or were simply in jail. Not me. The same thing could have happened to me, but it hadn’t. Things had gone well for me. I hadn’t been locked up in jail. I hadn’t tried heroin. I hadn’t contracted AIDS. I hadn’t been arrested, not even after the bank robbery at the Bordils branch of the Banco Popular. Inspector Cuenca had left me in liberty instead of arresting me. I’d had, in short, a more or less normal life, something that for someone who’d belonged to Zarco’s gang was perhaps the most abnormal life possible.
‘Until I dug up the chest buried in the garden and realized that it contained both treasure and a bomb. That was at the end of 1999. One day in November Cortés burst into my office announcing at the top of his voice: News flash! Your idol has just landed in the city. My idol, naturally, was Zarco. Cortés was just coming back from the prison at that moment, and told me that, according to what the inmates he’d been to visit had told him, Zarco had been there since the night before; as was to be expected, his arrival had caused a certain stir, because it was a very small prison and he was still a very notorious character. Cortés had also found out that the prison board had assigned Zarco to a cell where he had a personal computer and television at his disposal, and for the moment he had almost no contact with the rest of the inmates. I listened to my partner with a slightly melancholic astonishment: ten, even five years earlier, each of Zarco’s movements was as complicated as those of the top football players or rock stars, so that, when he was transferred to a prison in one of the provinces or when he passed through one of them on his way to trial or to another prison, the directors of the centres would find themselves overwhelmed with petitions for interviews, and his court appearances were held under strict security measures to prevent the harassment of photographers, television cameramen, journalists and admirers and busybodies who pressed up against the police cordons and shouted encouragement to him, blew him kisses, said they wanted to bear his child or clapped rumbas that sang the story of his invented life; now, instead, not even the two local newspapers had devoted a miserable line in the Society section to his arrival. It was one of the differences that marked the gulf between a myth at its height and a myth that’s outlived its usefulness.
When Cortés finished giving me news about Zarco he asked: Well, what do you plan to do? I didn’t have to think before answering. Tomorrow I’ll go see him, I said. Cortés made an affectedly polite gesture and asked, lowering his voice: Should I take this to mean that you plan to offer him our services? What do you think?, I answered. Cortés laughed. You’re going to get us into one hell of a shitstorm, he said, going back to his normal voice. But if you didn’t I’d kill you.
‘Although my partner knew nothing about the relationship I’d had with Zarco, what he said was not contradictory: all Zarco’s relationships with his lawyers had ended badly (and some of them very badly); in spite of that, Zarco was still Zarco and, if the matter was handled skilfully, defending him could still be very lucrative for a legal firm. Besides, I’d often felt tempted to offer to defend Zarco, but, for one reason or another, I’d always resisted; now, when Zarco had just returned to Gerona almost like an archaeological relic or a forgotten wretch, when for everyone else he was little less than a hopeless or closed case after having spent his life in prison and having wasted several opportunities for rehabilitation, I thought it was the moment to give in to temptation.
‘I wasn’t the only one to think so. That very afternoon, while I was working on my submissions for a court appearance the following day, my secretary told me two women were waiting to see me. A little annoyed, I asked her if the two women had an appointment and she said no, but added that they’d insisted on seeing me to talk about a certain Antonio Gamallo; even more annoyed, I told her to make an appointment for the two women for another day, and then asked her not to disturb me again. But I still hadn’t gone back to concentrating on my papers when I looked up from my desk and heard myself repeat out loud the name my secretary had just uttered; I stood up and rushed out to the waiting room. There were the two women, still seated. They turned towards me and I recognized them immediately: one I’d seen in photos recently, alone or with Zarco; the other was Tere.’
‘Our Tere?’
‘Who else? Over those last twenty years I had thought of her sometimes, but it had never occurred to me to look for her or ask about her whereabouts; nor would I have known where to look or who to ask. And now, suddenly, there she was. An intense silence settled on the waiting room while Tere and I stared at each other without moving; or almost without moving: I quickly noticed that her left leg was going up and down like a piston, just as it did when she was sixteen. After a couple of very long seconds, Tere stood up from her chair and said: Hiya, Gafitas. At first I thought she’d hardly changed, perhaps because her lean body and jeans and worn leather jacket and handbag strap across her chest gave her a youthful air; but I soon spied the ravages of age: the tired skin, crow’s feet, circles under her eyes, the corners of her mouth turned down, a sprinkling of grey hairs; only her eyes were just as green and intense as they were twenty years ago, as if the Tere I’d known had taken refuge there, indifferent to the passage of time. I held out my hand mumbling exclamations of surprise and meaningless questions; Tere answered cheerfully, ignored my hand and kissed me on the cheek. Then she introduced me to the woman with her. She said she was called María Vela and that she was Zarco’s girlfriend, although she didn’t say girlfriend she said partner and she didn’t say Zarco but Antonio. I did shake María’s hand. And only then did I actually notice her, a somewhat younger woman than Tere, skinny and plain, short, chestnut-coloured hair, very pale skin, wearing a heavy, poor-quality, black coat over a pink tracksuit zipped up to the neck.
Once the introductions were done, the two women went into my office. I offered them a seat, coffee and water (they only accepted the seat and the water) and Tere and I began to talk. She told me she was living in Vilarroja, working at a cork factory in Cassà de la Selva and studying nursing by correspondence. Really?, I asked. Does that surprise you?, she answered. I found it very surprising, but I pretended it didn’t surprise me. Tere seemed very happy to see me. María listened to us without taking part, but without missing a word of the conversation; I didn’t know if Tere had told her about my former friendship with Zarco and with her, and at some point I pretended that Cortés hadn’t told me of Zarco’s arrival that morning and asked how he was. He’s here, answered Tere. That’s why we’ve come to see you.
‘Then Tere got to the point. She told me they wanted me to defend Zarco at a trial to be held in Barcelona in a few months’ time, a trial in which Zarco would be accused of assaulting two guards at the Brians prison. Of course, Tere took it for granted that I knew, as everyone did, who Zarco had turned into over the years, so she skipped straight to putting me in the picture and backing up her proposal drawing an exultant panorama of Zarco’s situation: she told me that three years earlier they’d managed to get him back to a Catalan prison, specifically the Quatre Camins, and that, after three years of good behaviour and the Catalan government’s new director-general of prisons, Señor Pere Prada, taking an interest in his case, he had just been transferred to the Gerona prison, a perfect prison because María also lived in the city and because it was a small, secure prison with a high rate of rehabilitation; she also explained that Zarco was innocent of the offence with which he’d been charged, handed me a copy of the indictment and his prison record in a cardboard file folder, assured me that his physical condition and his morale were excellent, that he’d stopped using heroin, that he was very keen to get out of prison and that she and María were doing everything they could to get him out as soon as possible. Up till that moment Tere spoke without looking at me, setting out the case as if she had set it out before, or as if she were reciting it; for my part I listened to her while feigning to read through the documents she’d handed me and looking back and forth from her to María. Right, Tere concluded, and we finally looked at each other. We know you have a lot of work, but if you could give us a hand we’d be grateful.
‘She fell silent. I sighed. Tere had beat me to the proposal I was planning to put to Zarco the next day; so, in theory, it was all very easy: both sides wanted the same thing. But instinct told me it wasn’t in my interest to let my visitors know, that what suited me would be to offer a little resistance before accepting, to earn their gratitude letting them think I was making a sacrifice accepting Zarco’s defence, that I was only accepting reluctantly and in any case they should consider it a privilege that I might want to be their lawyer. I put the folder with the indictment in it down on the coffee table and began by asking: Does Zarco know about this? I was about to explain what I meant when María intervened. We would prefer you not call him Zarco, she reproached me in a timid voice with a pained expression on her face. His name is Antonio. He doesn’t like to be called that; and we don’t like it either. Zarco was another person: none of us want anything to do with him. Surprised by María’s reprimand, I nodded, apologized and looked to Tere, but couldn’t catch her eye; she was concentrating on lighting a cigarette. I cleared my throat and carried on, directing my question to María: What I was asking is whether Antonio knows that you two have come to ask me to defend him. Of course he knows, said María, scandalized. I never do anything behind Antonio’s back. Besides, the idea that you should be his lawyer was his. Antonio’s?, I asked. Yes, said María. And since when does Antonio know that I’m a lawyer?, I asked. María looked at me as though she didn’t understand the question; then she looked at Tere, who rubbed the mole beside her nose with the same hand that held her cigarette before answering: I told him. She smiled and said: You’re famous, Gafitas. The papers talk about you all the time. On TV too.
‘That was all I wanted to know: just as I was aware of who Zarco had become, Tere was aware of who I’d become. I don’t know if she read my mind, but she added as if to downplay her words: Besides, there are only three criminal lawyers in Gerona; so we didn’t have a lot of choice. The other two are good, I said, now feeling confident enough to joke with her. Yeah, Tere conceded. But you’re the best. The flattery meant that this time it was me who smiled. Besides, Tere went on, we don’t know them, and we do know you. Not to mention that I’m sure they’re more expensive than you. They don’t interest us. Us knowing each other is not an advantage, I lied. And don’t worry: no lawyer’s going to charge you anything, much less in Gerona. I clarified: At the moment defending Zarco is still good for business. Tere insisted: That’s precisely why we’re not interested in your colleagues. We’re interested in you. And please don’t call him Zarco again: María told you already. Tere’s words were sharp, but not the tone in which she said them; even so, I couldn’t help but wonder if, whether or not María knew that I’d belonged to Zarco’s gang in my youth, Tere and Zarco were thinking they could blackmail me with the threat of revealing that secret past. Tere stubbed out her cigarette, took a sip of water and, opening her arms a little in an interrogative gesture, looked at me, looked at María and looked back at me. Well, Gafitas, will you or not?
‘I don’t know if I thought that I’d got what I was looking for (or that I couldn’t aspire to more), but the thing is I stopped pretending and accepted.’
‘Tell me something: were you scared that Zarco and Tere might reveal that you’d been part of their gang?’
‘Of course not. I might not have liked the idea of them telling, because I didn’t know what consequences it might have, but nothing more. It was one of the risks of defending Zarco; the rest were advantages. They already were before Tere had shown up, for the free advertising for my practice and because I was enormously curious to see Zarco again after more than twenty years (and perhaps also because, at a moment when almost everything bored me and the feeling of misunderstanding and that I was living someone else’s life I was telling you about earlier, I sensed that this unexpected novelty could be an incentive, the change I was waiting for); in any case, Tere showing up, and her being so happy at us seeing each other again, made it all much better. And of course, defending Zarco was risking unearthing a dangerous past, but wasn’t it better to dig it up once and for all, now that I had the opportunity to do so? Wasn’t it less dangerous to unearth it than to leave it buried? Wasn’t I obliged to a certain extent to unearth it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, that in some way I felt in debt to Zarco. I always suspected that before the heist of the Bordils branch of the Banco Popular I had run my mouth off to Córdoba, and that was the cause of the disaster, the reason that Zarco, Gordo and Jou got caught. I told you before. I always suspected that and I always suspected that Zarco suspected it too.’