A few yards from the entrance to the establishment on the Calle Preciados, the head of a non-authorized demonstration, who was waving a banner with the slogan “Freedom Of Expression, Execute The Fascists” noticed but couldn’t believe a proletarian dwarf was being mistreated, and, spurred on by his longing for social justice by my accusing shouts, he decided to change direction and march on the department store. Chaos, destruction, and wanton looting was the immediate fate of the Galerías Preciados. Rushing to fight my cause, the violent passions of those freedom-loving puppies shattered the brass and glass counters exhibiting the languid universe of fragrances created by Chanel, Dior, Loewe, and Balenciaga. I wondered at the scene, bubbled with satisfaction, then suddenly started to launch out at merchandise left, right, and center with all my might and the handle of an umbrella I’d half-inched, and I was so cock-a-hoop I totally forgot the deep gashes or glittering pearls of blood adorning my face like an ecce homo that’s just be given a fresh lick of paint. Bottles of cologne, wall clocks, lace fans, and cans of lacquer flew through the air until the anti-riot cops piled in swinging their billy clubs, rubber bullets started bouncing off bodies, cans of tear gas suffocated throats, and, as best they could, everyone disappeared down their blessed clandestine burrows. Driven on by my forceful exhortations in the heat of battle, I wanted to teach the guard who’d assaulted me a lesson, breaking both his legs so he’d have something to remember me by and others could have a good laugh; that happened, care of a brawny, bushy-bearded fellow with a mop of matted hair, no doubt straight out of a coal mining nightmare. Not only was the establishment torn apart, its public image was sorely tarnished, and very soon it was expropriated by a democratic government elected with an absolute majority. Some of those who had fought that morning against the brutal ways of capitalism’s lackeys must have contributed, of course, with their reluctant votes, but apart from surface ripples, that did nothing to help the cause of the people; in the long run, after an orchestrated orgy of asset-stripping in which everyone made a fortune, store and company were finally taken over by a rival. Apart from enjoying the heat of revenge, I decided that violence alone can legitimize the arguments of the weak; that all else is but wishful thinking and pacifist prattle — at the end of the day, a load of boloney.
Slim said he didn’t have a dream, but you can bet he was lying. He was a great cynic, a Stoic of deceit encamped in the underworld. As the months went by, he got increasingly involved in politics. He was drawn in by the friendships he’d contrived in higher spheres. They had to have recourse to him, they were so at a loss confronting the changes underway. Slim traipsed the streets, knew what was cooking, and prided himself on being personally acquainted with even the pigeons in the eaves. The Regime’s backwoodsmen and their draconic drive for démodé purges channeled him into a morass of political conspiracy. In exchange for his favors, they guaranteed he could continue exploiting the economic space of poverty and benefiting unpunished from extortion and thievery in the city. Pains in the ass, clinkers for the dustbin of history, tatters from the past. That way of life couldn’t be sustained for any longer without a power structure to prop it up. I knew only too well that Esteruelas was behind this secretive maneuvering and that he was the one extracting the most from Slim’s sneaking around in such a devious, rather than effective, manner. Nonetheless, One-Eyed hardly mentioned the inspector and, after Franco’s demise, seemed to have dropped him off his radar. Public institutions were in a pickle, and everyone was waiting on the adjacent department to take up a definitive position in order to follow suit or criticize. Nobody lurking in the corridors of power dared make a move, raise a finger, or clear out files — just in case — not even those gathering dust and sleeping the sleep of the just in the Movement’s catacombs. Esteruelas was the kind who turned a blind eye to an outrage simply for a chance to climb one step up the ladder, and who prevaricated with his eyes shut. After so many years squandering his youthful ambitions, wielding a billy club from one end of the country to the other, he’d now reached the center of power from which the juicy tidbits were handed out, and he could see the whole system collapsing before his eyes; his great expectations were increasingly going down the chute, and he was more scared than ashamed that he’d lose the little prestige he’d garnered in that swamp hole. I imagine it’s possible he hoped deep down his efforts would shore up a hierarchical society whose orderliness derived from the principle of authority and respect instilled by a regime of repression that constituted the key elements in the manner of understanding society that the cane had inculcated into him from childhood. Achieving that was out of the question, and his concern for the fatherland only led him to a bad end. May God deal duly with his evil doings. As often happens in times of disarray when all that’s rotten rises to prominence, Slim fished his biggest catches from the muddy waters of the Transition. That’s why when a beggar stood up to him or an adversary wanted to pounce on a square inch of his power, a police van, at an order from on high, would turn up and the individual concerned would be beaten to pulp and invited by kicks galore to reside for a while in the Carabanchel jail for, say, endangering the domestic security of the State. Slim’s field of influence was notorious, and, as his figurehead, I spread it thick on the four winds; subsequently, those in our guild looked on me warily, never stood in my way in the slightest, and always maintained a proper distance, for fear I might teach them a lesson they most probably deserved. I went scheming and thieving through the city with a domicile established in the Trinitarian stewpot and a permanent operational base in La Copa de Herrera. As a general rule, and except for the jerks whose wallets we nicked, we dealt with few people who weren’t involved in the brotherhood, and that’s why the mass action surrounding the perfumes and the indignation my mistreatment sparked in those young enthusiasts gave me food for thought for a good long while. Perhaps the world they wanted wasn’t as bad as Slim prophesied. Perhaps the responsibility for oppression and injustice wasn’t theirs or their cause’s but rested in fact on the shoulders of those other guys who’d organized a rotten, bloated society for their own benighted benefit. Perhaps the solution would be to give Francoism the boot for good and start putting one’s trust in the generous, gloved hand offered by democratic freedoms. What I’m telling you may sound infantile and small-minded, but just remember how people at the time were naïve, ill-informed, and had only just stopped believing in God. That Spain I’m describing was very different to the one today that’s so coarse and consumerist and has pushed us into Europe for the bowl of lentils of the new welfarism. Madrid remained an insular city, stinking of miracles and ruffs. The grimy races had yet to hit its streets as Slim predicted they would. It was unusual to come across a Chinese person and even more unusual to stumble into any black people on the Avenida José Antonio. Not even the Moors showed their heads, for fear of being deported back to the mosques of their ancestors in retaliation for the episode of the Green March. The political ban on anything foreign had stopped the mafias from setting up as they had in other latitudes, but South Americans would soon be here touting their cellophane-wrapped roses by night until the Chinese brought their syringes in and sent them packing, and then the heroin trade would transform the social tissue of street life and mess up the terrain for the glorious trade of small-time crooks. In the Madrid I’ve been describing, the guild monopolized the exploitation of all that shady business. Only riffraff who occasionally beheaded a housewife with a carving knife or took a hatchet to an old geezer to steal his wallet might perhaps unsettle the natural order of things now or then; such occurrences were bygone habits from an era doomed to die, and didn’t abound. Slim claimed he had no dreams, but that’s impossible. Everybody dreams, even the dead, who dream of the life that was truncated. A few days ago I had a dream, and you can bet it was a premonition. Let me tell you about it.