The streets were thronged with young Fascists flourishing their splendorous moth-eaten flags. A savage binge of violence was their favorite pastime. Baseball bats splintered by bludgeoning, bloodstained nunchakus, and octogenarian pistols none the less dangerous for their age would appear at nightfall in whatever seemed a suitable spot for a proper declaration of aspirations, display of intentions, and demarcation of territory. The pups of the still unburied Regime, desperately avenging the passivity of their elders, cruelly sank their milkwhite fangs into tender flesh wherever their staves could inculcate the survival of ideals studded with obsolete metaphors. Most were posh little kids who eventually married pampered pussy, forgot airy-fairy bygone glories, and promoted profitable enterprises where they primed their paunches, went bald, and sensibly and civically drove their 4x4s packed with progeny. It was, for example, dangerous to roam dodgy avenues in the Retiro Park after twilight or to walk along the Calle Goya wearing distinctive badges indicating membership in the wrong gang. A punch in the face, the swipe of a machete, or a shot from a pistol could suddenly halt the traffic through the so-called “National Zone.” Under orders from One-Eyed, I started to ask for alms near the church of La Concepción de Nuestra Señora, halfway up the Calle Goya, a place whose congregation comprised the old-style faithful and military widows with their warts and their minks. Wideeyed, I’d concentrate on displaying my poverty on my palm while keeping a look out for undesirable elements or agitators itching to be taught a lesson with a good beating. In the view of those parishioners, only the poor who bowed their heads deserved to commune with their aura and perhaps the pocket coins they threw them out of Christian charity. Esteruelas had posted a contact at a street stall selling Fascist insignia and pennants that set up daily next to the Cafeteria California. He’d instructed me to go to the stall and alert them if I detected any leftists I knew ambling round the vicinity, so they could be taught an exemplary lesson, if the opportunity arose. Naturally enough, I didn’t rush to snitch on every one I spotted; I only squealed on those I disliked, disapproved of, or detested for personal reasons. Luckily they tended not to show their faces in these neighborhoods unless they were roaring for a battle royal; so generally, when I went there, I simply worked at extracting alms in the role assigned to me as the spying beggar. At moments of stellar despair, I even prayed for Blond Juana to err and strut her stuff thereabouts. She never did, and I confess that if I had seen her around there, I don’t know if my avenging mission would have overridden the desire to enjoy her there and then. The future never belongs to us, and though we’d like to shape our way and strive heartily to that end, it will never be given as we wanted.
When I completed my tasks after the final mass of the day, I’d walk around the area of the cafeteria, say hello to Amalio Barrios, the man running the insignia stall, and tell him I was off, so he could activate the other systems of security alerts they had in place to keep it safe, which I won’t reveal now. “Goodbye, kid,” that hard man would say, “do you fancy a ciggy?” and when I held out a hand to take one, he’d smirk and snatch it away. “No, ‘cause you’d smoke it,” would be his little punch line. He wasn’t a bad fellow. His only problem was his intelligence never really came to the boil and he couldn’t glimpse the future awaiting him through all those patriotic cobwebs. Basically it was no bad thing when he, too, was blasted through the air, otherwise God knows how the guy might have ended up. One-Eyed Slim sometimes dropped by the church to keep his eye on his interests and spend a while plotting with locals who were on the same wavelength. I know he met up with Esteruelas now and then in the cafeteria, and that they had dealings with other folk — in the sweet, rancid fug of a private room — about even murkier matters he never disclosed to me. Perhaps he already suspected loyalty is the bastion of the just or a necessity of the weak. The months that had flown by since the Caudillo’s death had put paid to any likelihood he could ever redeem himself. Now he was a leftover man on a stage being dismantled by change, a cadaver adrift from the zeitgeist. There was no hope for them, only a final transit. Adultery and mistresses had just been legalized by the Cortes, and the Spanish, duly informed about the advantages of ballot boxes and cock-a-hoop with the reduction of the age of majority to the innocent age of eighteen, were eager to vote for a brand new constitution, by a margin of eighty-eight per cent. Less than a month before, a couple of high-ranking military officers had been caught plotting, breakfasting amid a galaxy of rampant nostalgia, a coup d’état that would have channeled the fatherland back along a pristine path of justice with public order reinstated and morality rearmed, which would have been no bad thing in terms of the sowing and perpetuation of our miscreant ways; it was not to be. That was the penultimate twist in Spain’s history of darkness. The last would come several years later, complete with a grotesque operetta starring soldiers in period dress, as a newspaper across the pond was quick to point out. The world would once again have learned to speak Spanish.