‘She fell silent. I did the same. I was upset and didn’t want to argue with Tere: I just wanted to get the matter out of the way swiftly, without giving her time to use any wiles to make me vulnerable again and make me accept her suggestion. I sat in one of the armchairs, beside her, still on the sofa, watching me expectantly and almost still, except for her left leg moving with its unstoppable piston rhythm. Look, Tere, I began. I’m going to tell you the truth. I’m fed up with this story. I’m fed up with Zarco and with you. With both of you. You tricked me when I was a kid and you’re deceiving me now. You think I don’t know? You think I’m an idiot? Zarco was right: I have made a ridiculous fool of myself and been a dickhead and a wanker and let myself be used. And I’ve suffered a lot. I loved you, you know? And I suffered like an animal when you left me. I don’t want to suffer any more. It’s over. Understand? It’s over. I don’t want to have anything more to do with you. Not with you and not with him. Don’t ask me to defend him again because I’m not going to. No way. I don’t want to know anything more about Zarco. And, if you had any sense, you’d do the same. He’s made you make a fool of yourself too. He uses you too whenever he feels like it. But have you really not figured out what a fucking son of a bitch he is, as well as a pathological media whore? Tere had been stroking the mole beside her nose, her head had slumped between her shoulders and her eyes fixed on the parquet and her gaze turned inwards. Meanwhile I went on cursing her, more and more upset, her and Zarco; I swore at them until I realized Tere was saying or murmuring something. Then I shut up. Tere repeated: He’s my brother. An absolute silence filled the room. I’d heard perfectly, but I asked: What did you say? Tere looked up at me: her green eyes were empty, inexpressive; three very fine lines had just appeared on her forehead. That he’s my brother, she repeated. His father was my father. We don’t have the same mother, but his father is my father. She looked at me, touched the mole beside her nose and shrugged in a gesture that seemed like an apology, but she didn’t say anything else.
‘I didn’t know what to say either, so I stood up from the armchair and took a few steps towards my desk; when I got to it I turned back towards Tere. Is that true? I asked. Tere nodded. It can’t be, I said. Tere kept nodding. Nobody knows, she explained. My mother and his mother. And me. No one else. What about Zarco? I asked again. Zarco neither, she answered. My mother told me we were sister and brother when he showed up in Gerona, not long before we met you. She told me because Zarco and I were always together, she knew we loved each other a lot and she didn’t want anything to happen between us. She fell silent, pensive, or perhaps as if not knowing what else to tell me, or not wanting to tell me. I asked another question: Why didn’t you tell Zarco? What for? she answered. It was enough for one of us to know. And I could live with it, but he might not have been able to: he’s weaker than you think. And had you. .? I asked. I realized Tere was crying: big fat tears started rolling down her cheeks, falling onto her shirt and leaving little wet spots. I had never seen her cry. I sat in the armchair, beside her, I held one of her hands: it was damp and warm. We were just kids, she said. We didn’t know what we were doing, nobody ever told us anything, you know? She kept crying, without mopping up her tears, as if she hadn’t noticed she was crying, and I understood she wouldn’t say anything else.
‘For a while we sat in silence; I ran my fingers over her knuckles with my mind blank: I didn’t even think that here was a real misunderstanding, only a resolved misunderstanding, and that now, probably, everything did fall into place. When Tere stopped crying and started wiping her face with her hands I stood up, left the office, came back with a packet of Kleenex and gave her a few. Sorry, she said as she dried her eyes. I don’t know why I told you that. She finished tidying herself up, looked at me. Then she looked away and we were quiet for a while longer. She blew her nose and dried her tears; I had been left speechless. At a certain point she said: Well, I do know why I told you. What I told you is the truth: Zarco has nobody; you and I are all he has left. And he’s ill. She turned back towards me, her eyes still shining: You’ll help him, won’t you?’
Chapter 10
‘When Gamallo got his pardon and the conditional release and left the Gerona prison with everyone’s felicitations, I hoped it would be the last I’d see of him. A short time later he committed another crime and was sent to Quatre Camins Prison, but still I hoped. I was mistaken. His lawyer was to blame for everything.
‘After Gamallo was released, Cañas and I still saw each other, almost every time he visited one of his clients at the prison. As I told you before, we’d had a clash over Gamallo, but thanks to that my opinion of him had improved and now our relationship was excellent, so, if we bumped into each other on his way in or out of the prison (sometimes even in town), we’d say hello and chat for a while, though we always avoided talking about Gamallo. However, things must have got pretty complicated for Cañas when, shortly after Gamallo got sent back to Quatre Camins, that nutcase started accusing him on television of being complicit in the barbarities Gamallo had done to her. . I mean his wife. But, anyway, I imagine Cañas will already have told you all this; I only know what everybody knows. The thing is that for a while I didn’t see him. I asked about him and was told he was having health problems, though nobody specified what kinds of problems he was dealing with; then there was also a lot of talk about his involvement with the girl who visited Gamallo, it seemed to become the talk of the courthouse for a while, and ended up reaching me. Later, after some months (many months, maybe more than a year), Cañas reappeared: he started visiting his clients again, our paths started crossing again once in a while here and there and we went back to talking about anything except Gamallo again, until a moment arrived when I almost forgot Gamallo or when I stopped associating Cañas’ name with that of Gamallo.
‘It was around that time that Cañas showed up in my office again one afternoon. Years had gone by since he’d last done that and I thought he was coming to talk to me about one of the inmates. We chatted for a while and, when I thought he was going to leave and that it had just been a courtesy call or something like that, the lawyer put me right: he told me he’d come to see me because he’d agreed to defend Gamallo again and because he was going to put in an application for his transfer from Quatre Camins to Gerona Prison. I couldn’t believe my ears. You’re incorrigible, was all I could manage to say. Cañas smiled. You’re mistaken, he answered. I’m just a lawyer. And Gamallo is my client. I’m just doing my job. Sure, I said. Though I think you’re the one who’s making a mistake. In any case, I added, I appreciate your informing me of what you plan to do. Well, Cañas said then, and his smile turned a bit mischievous, a bit childish. Actually I haven’t come just to inform you. He took a sheaf of photocopies out of his briefcase and put it on my desk as he said: I’d like you to support the application. I looked at the pile of pages, without touching it. The decision to transfer an inmate rests with Correctional Institutions, but Cañas knew that the opinions of the prison superintendents (that of the receiving prison and that of the current one) were important; he also knew it wasn’t going to be easy to convince me to support his move, so he had come to the meeting prepared. He explained what the sheaf contained: the main thing was a report from the superintendent of the Quatre Camins prison supporting Zarco’s transfer, and a series of reports from various specialists; according to Cañas, only one thing could be deduced from these reports, and it was that the Zarco of today bore very little relation to the one who had first come to the Gerona prison, because the illness, the years and his own errors had taken away the strength and the halo of youth and converted him into an inoffensive inmate. Cañas ended up playing a sentimental tune. He said, more or less: When he arrived here last time, Gamallo was coming to recover his freedom; now he just wants to be allowed to live his final years in peace. I don’t think anyone has the right to deny him that.