They greeted the women and knocked on the door of number seven. The latter looked at them, recognized their business and policemen’s airs, had no doubt heard of Rafael’s disappearance and returned to their washing only when the door opened.
“Hello, María Antonia,” said the lieutenant.
“Hello,” the old woman replied, and her eyes had a scared, hunted-animal look. The Count knew she was barely sixty, but life had dealt her such hard knocks she seemed more like eighty, long-suffering and with no will to keep going.
“I’m Lieutenant Mario Conde,” he said, showing his card, “and this is Sergeant Manuel Palacios. We’re responsible for your son’s case.”
“Please do come in and ignore the mess, I’m like that…”
The room was smaller than Tamara’s father’s library yet contained a double bed, a cabinet, a sideboard, an armchair, a dressing-table chair and a colour television on a small wrought-iron table. A curtain hung down by the television, and the Count imagined it must hide the way to the kitchen and perhaps an inside lavatory. He tried to see the mess she’d warned about and saw only a blouse draped on the bed and a linen bag and ration book on the sideboard. In one corner of the room stood a Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre lit by the blue flame from a languishing candle.
The Count sat down in the chair, Manolo took the armchair and María Antonia teetered on the edge of her bed and asked: “Is it bad news?”
The Count looked at her and felt ill at ease: that luckless woman’s life must gravitate round her son’s triumphs, and Rafael’s absence perhaps robbed her of her only reason to exist. María Antonia seemed extremely fragile and sad, so much so that the Count caught himself sharing her sadness, and he wanted to be far from that spot, immediately.
“No, María Antonia, there’s no news,” he said finally and repressed his desire for a smoke. There were no ashtrays in the room. He decided to fiddle with his pen.
“What an earth has happened?” she asked, although she was really talking to herself. “I don’t understand it at all. What can have happened to my son?”
“Madame,” said Manolo, leaning towards her. “We’re doing all we can, and that’s why we’ve come to see you. We need your help. OK? When was the last time you saw your son?”
The woman stopped nodding and looked at the sergeant. Perhaps she thought he looked very young, and she rubbed her long bony hands gently together. The room was damp, and the cold sticky.
“He came at midday on the thirty-first to bring me my New Year present, that perfume over there,” and she pointed to the unmistakable bottle of Chanel N° 5 on the sideboard. “He knew my only weakness was for perfumes and was always giving them to me as presents. For Mother’s Day, for my birthday, for New Year. He used to say he wanted me to smell sweeter than anyone else in the barrio, just imagine. And at night he called my neighbour’s phone to wish me good luck. He was at that party he’d gone to, and it must have been around ten to twelve. He always rang me, from wherever he was, last year he called from Panama, right, I think it was Panama.”
“And did he have lunch with you?” continued Manolo, shifting his skinny rump onto the edge of the armchair. He liked asking the questions and when doing so he’d hunch up, like a cat whose fur was bristling.
“Yes, I made him beans and sausage, the way he liked it, and he said neither his wife nor mother-in-law could cook them the way I did.”
“And how did he strike you? The same as usual?”
“What do you mean, comrade?”
“Nothing in particular, María Antonia, did he seem at all nervous, worried or different?”
The old lady looked up at the Virgin and then rubbed her legs, as if trying to relieve pain. Her hands were white, and her nails spotless.
“He was always stressed by problems at work. He said: you won’t believe this, mummy, but I’ve got to spend the afternoon at the office, and he left around two.”
“And did he seem anxious or on edge?”
“Look, comrade, I know my son very welclass="underline" I gave birth to him and brought him up. He ate the beans and sausage at around one, and then we both washed up and lay on this bed and talked, as we always did. He liked stretching out on this bed, my poor son. He was always tired and sleepy, and his eyes would shut as we spoke.”
“And what time did he leave?”
“At around two. He washed his face and told me he was going to a party that night, that he had lots of work on, and gave me two hundred pesos so you can buy yourself something for New Year’s Eve, he said and he went to clean his teeth and comb his hair and gave me a kiss and left. He was as loving towards me as ever he was.”
“Did he always give you money?”
“Always? No, just occasionally.”
“Did he mention any problems he was having with his wife?”
“He and I never spoke about her. It was a kind of agreement between us.”
“An agreement?” asked Manolo, leaning forward even more on the edge of the armchair. The Count thought: “Where’s he taking this?”
“The fact is I never liked that woman. Not that she’d ever done anything, or that I had anything special against her, but I think she never cared for him as a husband should be cared for. She even had a maid… Forgive me, this is family business, but I think she always looked after Number One.”
“And what did he say when he left?”
“He said he was going to work, as usual, that I should look after myself and sprayed me with the new scent he’d brought me. He was always so kind, and not because he was my son, I swear, just ask any of the old neighbours around here, and they’ll all tell you the same: he turned out much better than anyone could have imagined. This isn’t a good barrio, I can tell you, and I came here when I was still single and I’m still here, where I married, gave birth to Rafael, brought him up by myself in the direst of circumstances and, forgive me, I don’t know what you think, but God and that Virgin over there helped me make a good man of him. They never had to call me from school, and in that drawer you’ll find more than fifty diplomas he won as a student, his engineering degree and certificate for getting top marks in his year. All his own effort. Haven’t I a right to be proud of my son? His destiny turned out so different to mine, or his father’s, who never got to be more than a plumber. I don’t know where my boy got his intelligence from, but when you think how fast he climbed the ladder and how he no longer lived in a rooming house and had a car and travelled to countries I didn’t even know existed and was somebody in this country… My God, what an earth has happened? Who can want to hurt Rafael who never hurt anybody, anybody at all? He’s always been a revolutionary, from when he was a young boy. I remember how he was given responsibility at secondary school and was often president, at high school as well as university, and nobody from the ministry helped him. Nobody was levering him up; he got where he got, by himself, one rung at a time, by working very hard. Just for this to happen. But God can’t punish me like this. My son and I don’t deserve it. What has happened, comrades? Tell me, say something. Who can want to threaten my son? Who can have hurt him? For God’s sake…”