‘So you did as Redondo had done? You dropped everything and left?’
‘No, I didn’t leave. I stayed, not because I wanted to but because I didn’t even have the energy to leave. What happened was I went to a doctor who diagnosed depression, and for more than a year I underwent psychiatric treatment and a massive diet of antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication. As time passed, I began to recover gradually: I continued in treatment and, although I didn’t give up the psychotropics, I reduced the doses and managed to return to work and more or less resume my old life. It’s true that during that period I felt like some sort of survivor, but it’s also true that I began to think with increasing frequency that the worst was over and that, since I’d already made all or almost all the mistakes a person can make, what I did from there on in I could almost only get right. It was naive: I’d simply forgotten that, no matter how bad things got, they could always get much worse.’
‘Does that mean you heard from Zarco?’
‘Bingo. One day in May or June of 2004, almost three years after seeing him for the last time at the gates of the Gerona prison, I received a letter from him. It was the first sign of life I’d had from him since the press reported his final arrest. The letter came from the Quatre Camins prison and was written by hand, with careful rounded handwriting and in the formal tone of a request; I read it twice: the first time I thought Zarco was using that handwriting and that tone to impose a professional distance between us (or perhaps to tell me without saying so that he was annoyed with me for all the time I’d wanted nothing to do with him); the second time I guessed that he used them because they were the only ones he knew. Zarco began with an overly formal salutation, and then immediately asked me to be his lawyer again; then he gave the reasons for his request: he stated that days earlier, in the prison yard, a skinhead had given him a beating that had left him almost unconscious and that, while they were transporting him to the emergency room of Terrassa General Hospital, two members of the Catalan police force had stopped the vehicle, made him get out and brutalized him. Now he was back at the prison, isolated from the rest of the inmates in a hospital unit, and he wanted me to denounce the two beatings; as well as taking charge of this case, he also wanted me to defend him against a charge of insubordination, and most of all he wanted me to start proceedings to get him readmitted to Gerona Prison and do whatever necessary to get them to accept him. At the end of his letter, Zarco managed to wrench a pitiful note out of his orthopaedic handwriting and inform me that he was ill, begging me to help him through this rough patch and asking me to get in touch with Tere so she could bring me up to date and fill me in on the details.
‘I don’t know if I finished rereading Zarco’s letter more furious than incredulous or more incredulous than furious. It was like a message from an alien. I thought it was incredible and infuriating that, after having cost me two years of work and having betrayed my trust and that of all those who had supported the campaign for his liberty, he didn’t offer the slightest excuse or show the slightest sign of remorse. I thought it was incredible and infuriating that he showed no sign of feeling guilty, or even of remembering his own outrages, and instead was still trying to present himself as a victim. Most of all I thought it was incredible and infuriating that, after having deceived me and making Tere deceive me, having treated me like a dickhead and a wanker and having forced me to make a fool of myself, he would still come to me using the same old bait and believing I would bite for a third time (although I couldn’t help but notice that the letter didn’t contain Tere’s address or phone number, so I could get in touch with her). All this meant that I didn’t feel the slightest pity for him or the slightest cordial impulse towards him or his situation; just the reverse: I knew that ninety-five per cent of my feelings of absolute futility and drought and desiccation and failure that had dragged me into depression should be attributed to Tere’s deceit and her having left me, but at that moment I realized that the remaining five per cent should be attributed to my absurd attempt to take responsibility for the actions of someone who didn’t take responsibility for his own actions and to save someone who deep down didn’t want to save himself; and I also realized that the best thing I could do would be to stay away from him. From him and from Tere. The result of this reflection was that I didn’t even answer Zarco’s letter. And the result of this result was that I suddenly felt buoyant and independent, as if someone had just taken a lead collar I didn’t know I was wearing off my neck.
‘That happened on a Monday. The following days were euphoric. I started showing up for work with the same joy as in the early years, I flirted with a young attorney at the courthouse and a couple of times went to the Royal for a few beers with Cortés and Gubau after work. This state of light-heartedness vanished suddenly on the Thursday morning, when Tere showed up unannounced at the office. She’d barely changed in those three years: she was dressed in her eternal teenage style — jeans, white shirt and handbag strap slung across her chest — and her hair was still damp and uncombed; she seemed very happy to see me. I, however, could not and did not want to hide my annoyance; without even saying hello I asked: What are you here for? Instead of replying, Tere gave me a fleeting kiss on the cheek and, before I could invite her in (or not), stole into my office. She sat down on the sofa. I followed her, closed the door and stood across from her. Zarco’s written to you, hasn’t he? she said straight off the bat. I answered her question with another question: Did he tell you that? No, she answered. He gave me the letter and I left it in your mailbox. At that moment I understood why Zarco’s letter didn’t have Tere’s address or phone number: it had been written for her to hand to me in person. And why didn’t you come up and give it to me? I asked. I didn’t want to overwhelm you, she answered. I thought you should have a few days to think it over. I nodded and said: No need. There’s nothing to think about. I’m pleased to hear it, she said. Don’t be pleased, I said. I don’t plan on falling into the trap again. What trap? she asked. You know what trap, I answered; then I added a half truth: Being his lawyer. It’s not a trap, she said. And I don’t understand why you don’t want to help him. The question isn’t why I don’t want to help him, I argued. The question is why should I help him. Because if you and I don’t nobody will, she answered. He’s completely alone. Well, he’s earned it, I replied. When we tried to help him it did no good at all; or rather: all it did was fuck us all up and make us waste our time and money. As far as I know, the only one who got fucked over was him, replied Tere. Oh, yeah? I said. I was about to reproach her for leaving me, I was about to tell her about my depression; I spoke of María. What’s wrong? I asked. Don’t you watch TV, don’t you see any magazines, don’t you go outside? Have you not heard about the mountains of shit María has piled on top of us? That’s water under the bridge, replied Tere. It wasn’t true, but almost; although over the last year María hadn’t disappeared from the media, her star was fading: she still showed up on the odd chat show and sometimes appeared in the gossip magazines, but she was no longer a relevant figure in the media circus, her story and her celebrity were wearing out and, in spite of her efforts, she seemed incapable of reviving them. Tere continued: Besides, it was all lies. Not all of it, I corrected her. Almost all, she conceded. And nobody pays her any attention any more. They didn’t before either. Don’t you realize it’s all a comedy and everybody knows it’s a comedy?