terrible sag of lifelessness, being lifted out of the ruins.
She couldn’t bear the sight of any more. These cameramen must be robots to handle this horror. She turned the TV off and sat in the silence of the office.
The images had jolted her. The lid seemed to have slipped back over the darkness welling inside her chest. Her hands trembled, but she no longer needed to bite on the ball of tissue. The shame of her first consultation with Alicia Aguado came back to her. Consuelo pressed her hands to her cheekbones as she remembered her words: ‘blind bitch’. How could she have said such a thing? She picked up the phone.
Alicia Aguado was relieved to hear Consuelo’s voice. Her concern raised emotion in Consuelo’s throat. Nobody ever cared about her. She stumbled through an apology.
‘I’ve been called worse than that,’ said Aguado. ‘Given that we’re the most inventive insulters in the world, you can imagine the special reserves that are drawn on when it comes to psychologists.’
‘It was unforgivable.’
‘All will be forgiven as long as you come and see me again, Sra Jiménez.’
‘Call me Consuelo. After what we’ve been through, all formality is out of the window,’ she said. ‘When can you see me?’
‘I’d like to see you tonight, but it won’t be possible before 9 p.m.’
‘Tonight?’
‘I’m very concerned about you. I wouldn’t normally ask, but…’
‘But what?’
‘I think you’ve reached a very dangerous point.’
‘Dangerous? Dangerous to whom?’
‘You have to promise me something, Consuelo,’ said Aguado. ‘You have to come directly here to me after work, and when our consultation is over you must go straight home and have somebody—a relative or a friend—to be there with you.’
Silence from Consuelo.
‘I could ask my sister, I suppose,’ she said.
‘It’s very important,’ said Aguado. ‘I think you’ve realized the extreme vulnerability of your state, so I would recommend that you confine yourself to home, work and my consulting room.’
‘Can you just explain that to me?’
‘Not now over the phone, face to face this evening,’ she said. ‘Remember, come straight to me. You must resist all temptations to any diversion, however strong the urge.’
Manuela Falcón sat in Angel’s big comfortable chair in front of the television. She was now incapable of movement, with not even the strength to reach for the remote and shut down the screen, which was transferring the horror images directly to her mind. The police were evacuating El Corte Inglés in the Plaza del Duque after four reports of suspicious packages on different floors of the department store. Two sniffer dogs and their handlers arrived to patrol the building. The image cut to a deserted crossroads in the heart of the city, with shoes scattered over the cobbles and people running towards the Plaza Nueva. Manuela felt pale, with just the minimum quantity of blood circulating around her head and face to maintain basic oxygenation and brain function. Her extremities were freezing, despite the open door to the terrace and the temperature outside steadily rising.
The telephone had rung once since Angel had left for the ABC offices where he hoped to put his finger to the thready pulse of a convulsing city. She’d had the strength then to answer it. Her lawyer had asked whether she’d seen the television and then told her that the Sevillana buyer had pulled out with an excuse about her ‘black’ money not being ready and that she would have to postpone the signing of the deed.
‘That’s not going to stop her from losing her deposit,’ said Manuela, still able to raise some aggression.
‘Have you been listening to what Canal Sur have been reporting?’ said the lawyer. ‘They’ve found a van with traces of a military explosive in the back. The editor of the ABC in Madrid was sent a letter from al-Qaeda saying that they would not rest until Andalucía was back in the Islamic fold. There’s some security expert saying that this is the start of a major terrorist campaign and there’ll be more attacks in the coming days.’
‘Fucking hell,’ said Manuela, jamming a cigarette into her mouth, lighting it.
‘So that 20,000 deposit your buyer might lose is looking like a cheap way out for her.’
‘What about the German’s lawyer, has he called yet?’
‘Not yet, but he’s going to.’
Manuela had clicked off the phone and let it fall in her lap. She smoked on automatic with great fervour, and the nicotine surge enabled her to call Angel, whose mobile was off. They couldn’t find him in the ABC offices, which sounded like the trading floor in the first minutes of a black day for the markets. Her lawyer called again.
‘The German has pulled out. I’ve called the notary’s office and all deed signings have been cancelled for the day. There’s been an announcement on the TV and radio, the Jefe Superior de la Policía and the chief of the emergency services have told us to only use mobile phones if absolutely necessary.’
The workshop was in a courtyard up an old alleyway with massive grey cobbles, off Calle Bustos Tavera. Marisa Moreno had rented it purely because of this alleyway. On bright sunny days, such as this one, the light in the courtyard was so intense that nothing could be discerned from within the darkness of the twenty-five-metre alleyway. The cobbles were like pewter ingots and drew her on. Her attraction to this alleyway was that it coincided with her vision of death. Its arched interior was not pretty, with crappy walls, a collection of fuse boxes and electric cables running over crumbling whitewashed plaster. But that was the point. It was a transference from this messy, material world to the cleansing white light beyond. There was, however, disappointment in the courtyard, to find that paradise was a broken-down collection of shabby workshops and storage houses, with peeling paint, wrought-iron grilles and rusted axles.
It was only a five-minute walk from her apartment on Calle Hiniesta to her workshop, which was another reason she’d rented somewhere too big for her needs. She occupied the first floor, accessed via an iron staircase to the side. It had a huge window overlooking the courtyard, which gave light and great heat in the summer. Marisa liked to sweat; that was the Cuban in her. She often worked in bikini briefs and liked the way the wood chips from her carving stuck to her skin.
That morning she’d left her apartment and taken a coffee in one of the bars on Calle Vergara. The bar was unusually packed, with all heads turned to the television. She ordered her café con leche, drank it and left, refusing all attempts by the locals to involve her in any debate. She had no interest in politics, she didn’t believe in the Catholic Church or any other organized religion, and, as far as she was concerned, terrorism only mattered if you happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In the studio she worked on staining two carvings and polishing another two, ready for delivery. By midday she had them rolled in bubblewrap and was down in the courtyard waiting for a taxi.
A young Mexican dealer, who had a gallery in the centre on Calle Zaragoza, had bought the two pieces. He was part Aztec, and Marisa had had an affair with him a few months before she’d met Esteban Calderón.
