‘We arrived in Lloret around four. We drove in on a wide street that led to the centre, flanked by souvenir shops, cheap restaurants, closed discotheques and groups of tourists in flip-flops and swimsuits, and when we came to the sea we turned left and followed a promenade dotted with patio bars that ran parallel to the beach. Finally we turned left again, drove away from the sea for a moment and then came back towards it up a winding road that clung to the cliffs, until we saw a sign that said: La Montgoda. It’s here, said Guille, and Zarco parked the car on a slope, at the entrance to the housing development; then he turned around to face the back seat and started to explain what I had to do while Tere took a comb, an eyebrow pencil and lipstick out of her bag. I don’t know if I understood Zarco’s whole explanation, but when he asked me if I’d understood I answered yes; then he said: OK, now forget everything I told you and just do what you see Tere doing. I said yes again, and at that moment Guille caught my eye in the rear-view mirror. Gafitas is shitting himself, he scoffed. All the bastard can say is yes. Zarco told him to shut up while I turned and looked helplessly at Tere and Tere winked at me while carrying on combing her hair. Zarco added: And you, Gafitas, don’t let it get to you: do what I told you and everything’ll be fine. OK? I was about to say yes again, but I just nodded my head.
‘Once she’d finished getting ready, Tere put her comb, eyeliner and lipstick back in her bag and said: Let’s go. When we got out of the car she took me by the hand and we started walking up the badly paved slope. The housing development seemed deserted; the only noise we could hear was the sound of the sea. When we saw the first house appear among the pine trees, Tere instructed me. Let me do the talking, she said. Nobody’s going to say anything to you, but, if someone speaks in Catalan, you talk. If not, keep quiet. Do what I do. Most of all, whatever happens, stay with me. And one more thing: is what Guille said true? My heart was beating through my ribs like a caged bird; I’d started to sweat, and Tere’s hand was slipping in my soaking wet hand; I managed to say: Yes. Tere laughed; I laughed too, and that simultaneous laughter filled me with courage.
‘We got to the first house, walked through the garden and Tere rang the doorbell. The door opened and a woman who looked like she’d just got out of bed questioned us in silence, with her eyes half-closed against the strong sun; Tere answered the questioning look with a question: she asked if Pablo was home. Unexpectedly friendly, the woman answered that no one called Pablo lived in that house, and Tere apologized. We left the garden and walked down the street. How’s it going? asked Tere. How’s what going? I asked. How’s everything going? she clarified. I don’t know, I said, truthfully. Does that mean you’re not nervous any more? she asked. More or less, I answered. Then stop squeezing my hand, would you, she said. You’re going to break it. I let go of her hand and dried mine on my trousers, but she was soon holding it again. We didn’t call at the house next door or the next one, but at the one after that we tried again. This door opened too, this time an old man in a T-shirt with whom Tere exchanged a series of questions and answers similar to the exchange she’d had with the first woman, only longer; in fact, at one point it seemed to me that the old man, who couldn’t take his eyes off Tere’s legs, was undressing her in his mind and that, instead of trying to cut short the dialogue, he was trying to lengthen it.
‘The third house we tried was the one. Nobody answered when we rang the bell and, as soon as we made sure the villa was empty, that the villa next door was empty and that on the other side of the villa next door there was nothing but a brick wall behind which was a vacant lot full of shrubs, we walked back to the entrance of the development, where Zarco and Guille were waiting for us in the 124. Go up to the end of the street, Tere said to Zarco, who started up the car as soon as we got in. It’s the last house on the right. As we drove into the development in slow motion, Tere answered questions from Zarco and Guille and, after a Citroën with a woman and two children in it passed us on its way out, we arrived at the brick wall at the end, and parked in front of the door with the car facing back the way we came.
‘That’s where the real danger began. As Zarco and Guille walked into the garden and around the house — a two-storey house with a flat roof, a big willow tree shading the entrance — Tere put her bag behind her back, leaned against the hood of the 124, pulled me towards her, wrapped her arms around my neck and wedged her bare knee in between my legs. Now we’re going to do like they do in the movies, Gafitas, she told me. If nobody comes along, we stay here nice and quiet until Zarco and Guille call us. But, if someone decides to come by here, I’m going to snog you to within an inch of your life. So you can start praying that someone comes by. This last bit she said with half a smile; I was so scared I just nodded. Anyway, nobody came past, and I don’t know how long the two of us were leaning against the car, joined in that fake embrace, but shortly after seeing Zarco and Guille disappear beneath the branches of the willow, towards the back of the garden, I was startled to hear in the absolute silence of siesta time a vague crunch of breaking wood coming from the house and then an unmistakable crash of broken glass. Tere tried to calm me down by pressing her knee into my crotch and talking. I don’t know what she talked about; all I know is that at a certain point I started to get a massive hard-on, which I tried to hide but couldn’t, and that, when she noticed my erection, a happy smile revealed her teeth. Fuck, Gafitas, she said. What a time to get horny!
‘Tere had barely finished that sentence when the door of the house opened and Zarco and Guille came out carrying bags. They put them in the trunk of the car, asked me to stay there, keeping an eye out, and went back inside the house, this time with Tere. After a while they came out with a couple more bags, a Telefunken television, a Philips radio-cassette player and a turntable. When everything was loaded into the trunk, we got into the car and drove unhurriedly out of La Montgoda.
‘That was my baptism by fire. Of the return trip to Gerona I remember only that I felt not the slightest relief because the danger had passed; on the contrary: instead I swapped the fright for euphoria, the wild rush of the robbery with adrenaline coming out my ears. And I also remember that when we got to Gerona we went directly to sell what we’d stolen. Or did we sell it the next day? No, I think it was the same day. But I’m not sure. Anyway. That week I still went back to the arcade a few times to help Señor Tomàs (and sometimes, on my way past, to play a few games of pinball before going to La Font); but, when I started going out at night without telling anybody, treating my family with no consideration, further embittering my relationship with my father and multiplying our fights, I stopped going to the arcade entirely, and one afternoon, on my way to La Font, I went in and told Señor Tomàs that I was going on holiday and probably wouldn’t be back for a long time. Don’t worry, son, Señor Tomàs said. I’ll find someone to help me close up. If you like, I said. But you won’t need to. Nobody’s going to bother you. Señor Tomàs looked at me intrigued. And how do you know that? he asked. Privately proud of myself, I said: I just do. From then on I started to go to La Font almost every afternoon.’