The Prisoner of Heaven: A Novel (12 page)

‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Fermín. It goes against your natural tenderness.’

‘Go to hell.’

‘I’m on my way. Cigarette?’

‘I don’t smoke.’

‘They say it helps you die faster.’

‘Bring it on then.’

He didn’t manage to get beyond the first puff. Martín took the cigarette from his fingers and gave him a few pats on the back while Fermín seemed to be coughing up even the memories of his first communion.

‘I don’t know how you can swallow that. It tastes of singed dogs.’

‘It’s the best you can get here. Apparently they’re made from cigarette stubs picked up in the corridors of the Monumental bullring.’

‘The bouquet suggests it’s more likely from the urinals.’

‘Take a deep breath, Fermín. Feeling better?’

Fermín nodded.

‘Are you going to tell me something about that cemetery so that I have a bit of offal to throw at the head swine? It doesn’t have to be true. Any nonsense you can come up with will do.’

Martín smiled as he exhaled the fetid smoke through his teeth.

‘How’s your cellmate, Salgado, the defender of the poor?’

‘Here’s a story for you. I thought I’d reached a certain age and had seen it all in this circus of a world. But, early this morning, when it looked like Salgado had given up the ghost, I hear him get up and walk over to my bunk like a vampire.’

‘He does have something of the vampire,’ agreed Martín.

‘Anyway, he comes over and stands there staring at me. I pretend to be asleep and when Salgado takes the bait, I see him scurry off to a corner and with the only hand he has left he starts to poke around in what medical science refers to as the rectum or final section of the large intestine,’ Fermín continued.

‘What did you say?’

‘You heard it. Good old Salgado, still convalescing from his most recent session of medieval amputation, decides to celebrate being back on his feet by exploring that long-underrated area of human anatomy where Mother Nature has decreed the sun doesn’t shine. I can’t believe my eyes and don’t even dare breathe. A minute goes by and Salgado looks as if he has two or three fingers, all the ones he has left, stuck in there in search of the philosopher’s stone or some very deep piles. All of which is accompanied by a low, hushed moaning which I’m not going to bother to reproduce.’

‘I’m dumbfounded,’ said Martín.

‘Then brace yourself for the grand finale. After a minute or two of prospective digging, he lets out a Saint John of the Cross-type sigh and the miracle happens. When he removes his fingers from anal territory he pulls out something shiny that even from the corner where I’m lying I can certify is no standard faecal arrangement, pardon my French.’

‘So what was it, then?’

‘A key. Not a spanner, just one of those small keys, the sort used for briefcases or a locker in the gym.’

‘What then?’

‘Then he takes the key, polishes it with a bit of spit – because I imagine it must have smelled of roses – and then goes over to the wall where, after making sure I’m still asleep, a fact that I confirm through finely rendered snores, like those of a Saint Bernard puppy, he proceeds to hide the key by inserting it in a crack between stones which he then covers with filth and, I dare say, some collateral resulting from his explorations in his nether parts.’

For a while Martín and Fermín looked at one another without speaking.

‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ asked Fermín.

Martín nodded.

‘How much do you reckon the old crap shooter must have hidden in his little nest of greed?’ asked Fermín.

‘Enough to believe that it’s worth his while to lose fingers, hands, part of his testicular mass and God knows what else to keep its whereabouts secret,’ Martín guessed.

‘And what do I do now? Before I let a snake like the governor snatch Salgado’s little treasure – to fund hardback editions of his collected works and buy himself a seat in the Royal Academy of Language – I’d rather swallow that key, or, if necessary, even introduce it into the ignoble part of my own digestive tract.’

‘Don’t do anything for the time being,’ Martín advised. ‘Make sure the key is still there and await my instructions. I’m putting the finishing touches to your escape.’

‘No offence, Señor Martín, since I’m extremely grateful for your counsel and moral support, but you’re getting me to put my head and some other esteemed appendages on the block with this idea of yours, and considering the general consensus that you’re as mad as a hatter, it troubles me to think I’m placing my life in your hands.’

‘None taken, but, if you don’t trust a novelist, who are you going to trust?’

Fermín watched Martín walk off down the yard wrapped in his portable cloud of cigarette-stub smoke.

‘Holy mother of God,’ he murmured to the wind.

13

The macabre betting syndicate organised by Number 17 continued to thrive for a few more days during which Salgado sometimes looked as if he were about to expire and then, just as suddenly, would get up, drag himself to the bars of the cell and declaim at the top of his voice the stanza: ‘You-fucking-bastards-you’re-not-getting-a-penny-out-of-me-you-fucking-sons-of-bitches’ and variations on the theme, until he screamed himself hoarse and collapsed exhausted on the floor, from where Fermín had to lift him and take him back to the bed.

‘Is old Cockroach succumbing, Fermín?’ asked Number 17 every time he heard him slump to the floor.

Fermín no longer bothered giving medical updates on his cellmate. If it happened, they’d soon see the canvas sack passing by.

‘Look here, Salgado, if you’re going to die, do so once and for all, and if you plan to live, I beg you to do it silently because I’m fed up to the back teeth with your foaming-at-the-mouth recitals,’ Fermín told him, tucking him up with a piece of dirty canvas. In Bebo’s absence, he’d managed to obtain it from one of the jailers after winning him over with a foolproof strategy for seducing young girls – by overcoming their resistance with carefully measured doses of whipped cream and sponge fingers.

‘Don’t give me that charitable crap. I know what you’re up to. You’re no better than this pack of vultures willing to bet their underpants that I’m going to croak,’ Salgado replied. He seemed ready to keep up his foul mood to the very end.

‘I’m not one to argue with a man in his death throes but I’m letting you know that I haven’t bet a single
real
in this gambling den, and if I ever wanted to give myself over to vice it wouldn’t be betting on the life of a human being. Although you’re as much a human being as I’m a glow-worm,’ Fermín pronounced.

‘Don’t think for a minute that all that talk of yours is going to distract me,’ Salgado snapped back maliciously. ‘I know perfectly well what you and your bosom friend Martín are plotting with all that
Count of Monte Cristo
business.’

‘I don’t know what you’re babbling about, Salgado. Sleep for a bit, or for a year, since nobody’s going to miss you anyhow.’

‘If you think you’re getting out of this place you’re as mad as he is.’

Fermín felt a cold sweat on his back. Salgado bared his smashed teeth in a smile.

‘I knew it,’ he said.

Swearing under his breath, Fermín curled up in his corner, as far away as he could get from Salgado. The peace only lasted a minute.

‘My silence has a price,’ Salgado announced.

‘I should have let you die when they brought you back,’ murmured Fermín.

‘As proof of my gratitude I’m prepared to give you a discount,’ said Salgado. ‘All I ask of you is to do me one last favour and I’ll keep your secret.’

‘How do I know it’s the last?’

‘Because you’re going to get caught, just like everyone else who’s tried to leg it out of here, and after they’ve riled you for a few days you’ll be garrotted in the yard, as an edifying sight for the rest of us. And then I won’t be able to ask you for anything else. What do you say? A small favour and my complete cooperation. I give you my word of honour.’

‘Your word of honour? Man, why didn’t you say so before? That changes everything.’

‘Come closer …’

Fermín hesitated for a moment, but told himself he had nothing to lose.

‘I know that son-of-a-bitch Valls has put you up to it, to find out where I’ve hidden the money,’ he said. ‘Don’t bother to deny it.’

Fermín shrugged his shoulders.

‘I want you to tell him,’ Salgado instructed Fermín.

‘Whatever you say, Salgado. Where is the money?’

‘Tell the governor that he must go alone, in person. If anyone goes with him he won’t get a
duro
out of it. Tell him he must go to the old Vilardell factory in Pueblo Nuevo, behind the graveyard. At midnight. Not before, and not after.’

‘Sounds like an episode from
The Phantom
, Salgado, one of the bad ones …’

‘Listen carefully. Tell him he must go into the factory and find the old guards’ lodge, next to the textile mill. When he gets there he must knock on the door, and when they ask him who’s there, he must say: “Durruti lives”.’

Fermín chuckled.

‘It’s the most idiotic thing I’ve heard since the governor’s last speech.’

‘You just tell him what I’ve told you.’

‘And how do you know I won’t go there myself? If I follow your cheap melodrama and passwords I could take the money.’

Avarice shone in Salgado’s eyes.

‘Don’t tell me: because I’ll be dead,’ Fermín completed.

Salgado’s reptilian smile spilled over his lips. Fermín studied those eyes, eaten away by his thirst for revenge. He realised then what Salgado was after.

‘It’s a trap, isn’t it?’

Salgado didn’t reply.

‘What if Valls survives? Haven’t you stopped to think what they’ll do to you?’

‘Nothing they haven’t done to me already.’

‘I’d say you’ve got balls, if it wasn’t for the fact that you only have a bit of one left. And if this move of yours doesn’t pan out, you won’t even have that much,’ Fermín suggested.

‘That’s my problem,’ retorted Salgado. ‘So what’s it to be, Monte Cristo? Is it a deal?’

Salgado offered him his one remaining hand. Fermín stared at it for a few moments before shaking it reluctantly.

14

Fermín had to wait for the traditional Sunday lecture after mass and the brief period in the yard to go over to Martín and confide in him what Salgado had asked him to do.

‘It won’t interfere with the plan,’ Martín assured him. ‘Do what he’s asking you to do. We can’t risk a tip-off at this point.’

Fermín, who for days had been hovering between feelings of nausea and a racing heart, dried the cold sweat dripping down his forehead.

‘Martín, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but if this plan you’re preparing is so good, why don’t you use it to get out of here yourself?’

Martín nodded, as if he’d been expecting that question for days.

‘Because I deserve to be here, and even if I didn’t, there’s nowhere left for me outside these walls. I have nowhere to go.’

‘You have Isabella …’

‘Isabella is married to a man who is ten times better than me. All I would achieve by getting out of here would be to make her miserable.’

‘But she’s doing everything possible to get you out …’

Martín shook his head.

‘You must promise me one thing, Fermín. It’s all I’m going to ask you to do in exchange for helping you escape.’

This is the month for requests, thought Fermín, nodding readily.

‘Whatever you say.’

‘If you manage to leave this place I want you, if you can, to take care of her. From a distance, without her knowing, without her even knowing you exist. I want you to take care of her and of her son, Daniel. Will you do that for me, Fermín?’

‘Of course.’

Martín smiled sadly.

‘You’re a good man, Fermín.’

‘That’s the second time you’ve told me, and every time it sounds worse to me.’

Martín pulled out one of his stinking cigarettes and lit it.

‘We don’t have much time. Brians, the lawyer Isabella hired to act on my case, was here yesterday. I made the mistake of telling him what Valls wants me to do.’

‘The business about rewriting that garbage of his …’

‘Exactly. I asked him not to say anything to Isabella, but I know him, and sooner or later he will, and Isabella, whom I know even better, will fly into a rage and come here to threaten Valls with broadcasting his secret from the rooftops.’

‘Can’t you stop her?’

‘Trying to stop Isabella is like trying to stop a cargo train: a fool’s errand.’

‘The more you talk about her the more I’d like to meet her. I like women with spirit …’

‘Fermín, let me remind you of your promise.’

Fermín put his hand on his heart and nodded solemnly. Martín continued.

‘As I was saying, when this happens, Valls might do something stupid. He’s driven by vanity, envy and greed. When he feels he’s been cornered he’ll make a false move. I don’t know what, but I’m sure he’ll try to do something. It’s important that by then you’re already out of here.’

‘As you know, I’m not too keen on this place …’

‘You don’t understand. We’ve got to speed up the plan.’

‘When to?’

Martín watched him at length through the curtain of smoke rising from his lips.

‘To tonight.’

Fermín tried to swallow, but his mouth felt as if it were full of dust.

‘But I don’t even know what the plan is yet …’

‘Listen carefully.’

15

That afternoon, before returning to his cell, Fermín approached one of the two guards who had escorted him to Valls’s office.

‘Tell the governor I need to talk to him.’

‘What about?’

‘Tell him I have the results he was waiting for. He’ll know what I mean.’

Before an hour had passed, the guard and his colleague were at the door of cell number 13 to fetch Fermín. Salgado watched the whole thing eagerly from the bunk as he massaged his stump. Fermín winked at him and set off, escorted by the guards.

The governor received him with an effusive smile and a plateful of delicious pastries from Casa Escribá.

‘Fermín, dear friend, what a pleasure to see you here again, ready for an intelligent and productive conversation. Do sit down, please. And enjoy this fine selection of sweets brought to me by the wife of one of the prisoners.’