Authors: Javier Cercas
‘Zarco?’
‘It doesn’t surprise me that you’re surprised; I was surprised too. I didn’t understand why, precisely when we started to glimpse a way out of his situation, his good mood of the initial days evaporated and he seemed increasingly pessimistic and complaining. Much later I understood there were two reasons for this. The first is that by that stage Zarco was mediapathic: he had spent more than half his life appearing in the papers, on radio and television on a daily basis and it was hard for him to live without being the protagonist of the film or appearing in the media; that, I’m sure, is one of the reasons he approved the campaign I proposed to reactivate the popularity of his persona. The problem was that, since he was used to being the centre of attention, he didn’t like it at all that María took over that position.’
‘But María had become the centre of attention to get him out of prison!’
‘And what’s that got to do with anything? A mediapath is a mediapath, don’t you get it? Zarco’s irritation was not rational; the proof is that, if anyone had told him he was irritated, he would have responded that he wasn’t. What was happening was simply that it wounded his self-esteem as a media star that the press had put the focus on María instead of putting it on him. Nothing more. Although that explained only one part of his disgruntlement; the other, which was perhaps fundamental, took me still more time to understand.
‘Actually, I didn’t understand it until one day towards the end of spring. That morning, more or less six months after taking charge of Zarco’s defence, much sooner than we’d imagined, the Barcelona court consolidated all of his sentences into a single thirty-year sentence. It was the news we were waiting for, great news, and, as soon as I received it, I phoned Tere and María to tell them, and in the afternoon I ran over to the prison to tell Zarco. His reaction was bad, but I’d be lying if I said I was surprised. It disappointed me, but it didn’t surprise me. By then, as I said, I had been noticing for weeks that he was tense and nervous, irritable, hearing him complain about everything and rant and rave about the prison, about the persecution a couple of the guards were subjecting him to and the passivity of the superintendent, who (according to him) allowed the persecution to go on. When I noticed his anxiety I rushed to speak to María and Tere, but María said she hadn’t noticed anything and Tere had accused me of exaggerating and, as usual, played down the matter. Don’t pay any attention to him, she said, referring to Zarco. Sometimes he gets like that. It’s natural, don’t you think? I would have gone crazy if I’d been locked up in jail for more than twenty years, almost without setting foot outside. Then she advised me: Patience. He’ll get over it.
‘I followed Tere’s advice, but Zarco’s uneasiness did not pass, at least not over the next few weeks. That’s why I said I wasn’t surprised by his reaction, that afternoon in the visiting room: when he heard the great news I’d gone to tell him, he wasn’t pleased for himself, wasn’t pleased for me, didn’t even cheer up; he just asked in a demanding tone whether the consolidation of his sentences meant he could soon get out of prison. In spite of the fact that he had asked me the same question many times over recent weeks, I answered it once again: I told him that, although we didn’t know when we could get him definitely released, in a couple of weeks we could start requesting day passes and in a few months he might be out on conditional release/probation. He reacted as if he didn’t know the answer in advance and, with a contemptuous look on his face, he snorted. That’s a long time, he said. I don’t know if I can stand it. Clicking my tongue, I smiled. What do you mean you can’t stand it, man?, I asked, with an unworried air. Just a few weeks, a few months, no time at all. I don’t know, he repeated. I’m fed up with this prison. That’s natural, I said. What I don’t understand is why you haven’t escaped yet. But it’s not worth it now: in no time at all, like I said, you’ll start to get out on leave. Yeah, he answered. To go back inside the next day. I don’t want to go back inside. I don’t want to come back to this shit. I’m sick and fucking tired of it. I’ve made up my mind. What have you decided?, I asked, alarmed. I’m out of here, he answered. I’m going to ask to be transferred. I’ll talk to my friend Pere Prada, tell him I’m fed up and I want to be moved. I can’t take it here any more. And then he started cursing the prison, the superintendent and the two guards who seemed to be harassing him. I tried not to let us get buried in the avalanche of complaints, but the way I did so was mistaken: interrupting him every couple of sentences, I carried on joking, I was trying to play down that list of grievances, I assured him that when he started to go out on leave everything would change; finally when he mentioned his “friend” Pere Prada again and I reminded him in a sarcastic tone, as if accusing him of self-importance, that Prada was not his friend but the Director-General of Correctional Institutions, he cut me off: Shut your fucking mouth! Between the four walls of the interview room, Zarco’s order exploded like slander. When I heard it, I thought of standing up and walking out; but, when I started to follow that impulse, I looked at Zarco and suddenly saw in his eyes something I don’t remember ever having seen and that, to tell you the truth, I never expected to see and much less at that moment, something that seemed to me to be the complete explanation of his anxiety. Do you know what it was?’
‘No.’
‘Fear. Pure and simple fear. I couldn’t believe it, and the surprise made me swallow my pride, I shut up and sat back down at my desk. I waited for Zarco’s apology, which was not forthcoming; the only thing that reached me, in the silence of the visiting room, filtered by the glass that separated the two rows of bars, was his laboured and hoarse breathing. I stood up, stretched my legs, took a deep breath, sat back down at my desk and, after a pause, tried to get Zarco to see reason. I said that I understood but that this was not the moment to think of transfers, I assured him I’d speak to the superintendent as soon as I could and demand he put a stop to the guards’ persecution, I asked him to endure it for a little longer, I reminded him that he had within reach what he’d so long been fighting for, I begged him to calm down, not to ruin everything. Zarco listened to me with his head hanging, still furious, still panting a little, although when I finished speaking he seemed to have cooled off; he let a few seconds go by, hinted at a smile that almost seemed like an apology or that I interpreted as an apology, accepted that I might be right and finally asked me to talk to the superintendent as soon as I could so that the harassment of the guards would stop and accelerate as far as possible the granting of weekend passes and conditional release. I said yes to everything, promised that as soon as I left the interview room I would go to see the superintendent and, without any more explanations, we said goodbye.
‘I did what I’d promised. And approximately three weeks later Zarco enjoyed his first weekend pass in a long time.’
‘So do you think it was a blend of jealousy and fear that made Zarco lose his initial optimism, that worried and infuriated him?’
‘Yes. Although the fear was the fundamental thing.’
‘But fear of what?’
‘That took me even longer to understand. Do you know what it’s like to want something and be afraid of it at the same time?’
‘I think so.’
‘Well, that’s what was happening to Zarco: there was nothing he wanted more than to be free, and at the same time there was nothing he feared more than being free.’
‘Are you telling me that Zarco was afraid to get out of jail?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Was Gamallo afraid of leaving the prison? Of course he was! How couldn’t he be? Did Cañas tell you this? And when did he figure it out? Because if he’d figured it out in time, he would have been spared a lot of unpleasantness, and would have spared the rest of us too. And the thing is if you think it through it wasn’t that difficult, eh? Gamallo had been living in prisons for decades; prison life is bad, but over the years you start to master the rules and get used to it, and it can end up seeming like a comfortable life. That’s what happened to Gamallo, who actually didn’t know any other kind of life. For him prison was his home, while liberty was the outdoors: he’d forgotten what it was like out there, what was out there, how to behave out there, maybe even who he was out there.’
‘Cañas basically said that, in theory, there was nothing Zarco desired as much as getting out of jail, but deep down there was nothing he was so frightened of.’
‘He’s right: when he was far from freedom, Zarco did what he could to get closer to getting it, whereas, when he got too close to getting freed, he did whatever he could to get away from it. I think this explains in part what happened. When he came to the Gerona prison at the end of the year, Gamallo was quite a balanced inmate without much appetite for trouble, he rather seemed to want to go unnoticed, to join in with the rest of the inmates and to co-operate with us; four or five months later, when he became eligible to start applying for weekend passes, he’d turned into a gruff, rebellious and angry inmate who was confrontational with everyone and saw enemies everywhere. The prospect of freedom unhinged him. I insist that, if Cañas had understood all this in time, perhaps he wouldn’t have proceeded in the worst possible way, which is how he proceeded: trying to get Gamallo out of prison as soon as he could and by any means possible, instead of being prudent and letting time take its course and letting him mature and letting us prepare him for freedom (supposing we could have done so, of course); and, especially, running that disastrous press campaign that put Gamallo back on the front pages.’
‘Did you tell Cañas all this?’
‘Of course. As soon as I could. As soon as it was clear to me.’
‘When was that?’
‘The second time we saw each other in my office. On that occasion it was he who requested the meeting. Or rather who improvised it. That afternoon I was negotiating with a contractor who was going to carry out some work that we’d been needing to get done at the prison for some time when my secretary interrupted me to tell me that Cañas wanted to see me urgently. I told her it was going to be a while before I finished and to fix an appointment for the lawyer for any day that week, but my secretary answered that Cañas insisted on seeing me immediately and I agreed to let him come in. I cut short my dialogue with the contractor, but as soon as I saw Cañas walk into my office I realized I’d made a mistake and should have made him wait a little longer so he could calm down. I shook his hand and offered him a seat on the sofa, but he didn’t sit down, and we both stood there beside the redundant piece of furniture. The first thing Cañas said to me was that he’d just spoken to Gamallo and had come to present a protest, and the first thing I thought when I heard him was that I wasn’t surprised he’d come to present a protest in Gamallo’s name and that, although he was probably puffed up by the triumph of the media offensive he’d launched in favour of his client and by the political and popular support he’d won with it, Gamallo had managed to infect him with his recent nervousness. I thought of saying to him: For this you kicked up a fuss with my secretary? Although in the end I only said: Tell me.
‘Without further ado Cañas threw in my face the mistreatment to which, according to him, two guards were subjecting his client. He rounded off his complaint with the threat of bringing a lawsuit against my two subordinates, of talking to the director-general of prisons and of taking the case to the newspapers. Then he concluded, emphatically: Either you stop this or I do. Cañas pointed his index finger at me, his eyes wide open behind the lenses of his glasses; the gentlemanly and proud winner of his first visit had disappeared, and in his place was an irate, high and mighty
señorito
, panicking that he might lose. I stood staring at him in silence. He lowered his finger. Then I asked him the names of the two guards and Cañas told me: they were two of my most trusted men (one, head of service; the other a guard who’d been working under me for twenty years). I sighed and again offered him a seat, this time in front of my desk; the lawyer again refused, but I pretended he’d accepted and sat back down. Don’t worry, I said. I’ll open an investigation. I’ll speak to both guards. I’ll find out what has been going on. In any case, I added straight away, leaning back in my armchair and making it turn, let me be honest with you: I was expecting this. Cañas asked me, impatiently, what it was that I expected. I reflected for a moment, tried to explain: I assured him that for some time all my specialists had been noticing a physical and psychological backslide in Gamallo, that for a couple of weeks at that point Gamallo had been refusing the methadone treatment he was on to combat his heroin addiction (which could only mean he’d found a way to get drugs and was using them again), that his relationship with the guards and with the rest of the inmates was getting worse by the day and that the whole prison-management team felt that an important part of the blame for the mess fell on the uproar of the propaganda campaign in favour of a pardon and especially on the unexpected new life that this uproar had given to Zarco’s personality.
‘Up to that moment, Cañas had listened to me visibly holding back his desire to interrupt, but here he could restrain himself no longer. I don’t know what you’re talking about, he said. Zarco is dead. Zarco is alive, I contradicted him gently. He was dead, but you resuscitated him. If that poor woman didn’t spend her days telling fairy stories to journalists, with you by her side, perhaps this wouldn’t be happening. I was referring to María Vela, of course, who Cañas was using as a battering ram in his campaign for Zarco’s freedom; it goes without saying that what I’d told him was what everyone knew, but Cañas did not like to hear it. He took a couple of steps forward, put his hands on my desk, leaned towards me. Tell me something, Superintendent, he spat out. Why don’t you stick to your business and leave the rest of us in peace? Cañas was breathing hard, his nostrils trembled and, rather than speaking, he’d babbled out the words, as if his fury had hobbled his tongue; as you know, I had tried to avoid a confrontation with him since the beginning, but now realized I could not back down. I answered: Because this business is also mine. As much mine as yours, Counsellor. Believe me: I wish it wasn’t, but it is. And, since it’s also mine, I have the obligation to tell you what I think, and I think you’re the one who should leave Gamallo in peace. Whatever life he has left, you are helping him fuck it up. I understood that this truth would really irritate Cañas; I understood that he would reply: The ones who have always tried to fuck up Gamallo’s life are people like you. And he added, standing back up again: Only this time you’re not going to be able to. Having said this, Cañas seemed to consider the interview finished, walked to my office door and opened it, but before going through it he stopped, spun around and again pointed his furious
señorito
’s index finger at me. Make sure those guards don’t bother my client again, he demanded. And another thing: we’re going to start requesting weekend-release passes; I hope you’ll grant them. I asked him if that were a threat. No, he replied. Just a piece of advice. But it’s good advice. Take it. Sure, I said, leaning back in my chair and raising my hands in a gesture both sardonic and conciliatory. What choice do I have?