His scarf covering nose and ears, Ringo walks home along deserted streets, stealthy and resentful in the feeble glow from the streetlamps, under the bare branches of the lime trees along the Paseo del Monte, fingers perfumed with the smell of roast coffee furiously pounding the keyboard in the clear early morning air.
*
In mid-December, without warning, the cold becomes so intense that in the evening the interior of the Rosales bar is little more than a patch of pale yellow light. The window where Ringo sits to read occasionally frames hurried, stooped figures passing by in the street, blurred silhouettes that mingle with the persistent phantoms of his imagination. Because in the past few days, in addition to the arrival of the cold and his night-time job roasting coffee beans, several things have happened that have acquired a special resonance in the bar. The first is that, thanks to his improved health and good behaviour in the San Andrés asylum, ex-councillor Ramón Mir has been given a fortnight’s leave to spend the Christmas and New Year holidays at home with his wife and daughter. For some time now it’s been said he doesn’t recognise either of them, that he’s completely nuts, beyond all recovery, but this does not seem to be the case; not entirely, at least. One rainy afternoon he is seen getting out of a taxi leaning on Violeta’s arm. He is pale, much thinner, with lifeless eyes, but he still has the same air of a bellicose bird of prey, and his hair is combed impeccably, with more brilliantine and dark stickiness than ever. Señora Paqui says he felt dizzy in the taxi, and that was why he looked ill, but that his head is a whole lot better, that the treatment is working wonders, and this is why he has been allowed to spend these precious holidays with his family. That and because of his good behaviour.
“It’s not true,” says Agustín, who is so fat it’s never clear whether he is standing or sitting behind the counter. “No dangerous madman is let loose for good behaviour.”
“He’s been let out with the permission of the military authorities,” comments Señor Carmona from the card-players’ table. “Or of the Falangists. His own people, at any rate.”
“That’s not true either,” says the tavern-keeper, setting up three thick glasses for their coffee and aniseed. “Who can guess the real reason?”
“His own private mental nurse will have done it,” says Señor Rius, dealing the cards slowly and carefully. “As a councillor and cook with the Blue Division, I bet he has his own nurse, and he’s the only one who can give his consent …”
“No, wrong again! The permission and consent came from his wife! That’s obvious!” insists Señor Agustín, serving the card-players their drinks. “And why? Because she thinks her husband is so loopy he no longer has any idea of what’s going on. If not, why would she bring him home, when she’s still hoping her lover boy will put in another appearance again … Have you ever seen a family as crazy as that one, and all because the husband went off to Russia to fight?”
“That’s enough, Agustín, please!” his sister protests. “Poor Vicky. It was her daughter who got him out of there. And you can say what you like, but they have cured him. He doesn’t look the same.”
“I never thought he was completely mad, Paqui,” says Señor Car-mona. “But it’s true, he looks a different person.”
“A different person, my eye!” Señor Agustín explodes. “He’s the same old troublemaker as ever. It’s true he doesn’t go round boasting, or shouting and arguing with people, but he comes in here twice a day demanding his glass of Tío Pepe and pretending he’s somewhere else when it comes to paying. He always used to leave without so much as a thank you, and he wants to do the same now, because of his pretty face and his blue shirt, the scoundrel. He may be another person, but whenever he can he tries to take advantage … Yesterday he came in with the idea he could carry on charging his quota for Social Assistance, and wanted a donation for his youth camps in return for not reporting me for selling Virginia tobacco. The same dirty tricks as when he was a councillor. And I’ve heard he’s been doing the same in other taverns in the neighbourhood.”
Señor Agustín insists that when Mir is speaking directly to you he shows glimpses of the abusive, bossy fellow who was such a pain in the arse, the vestiges of the arrogant attitude many people happily thought was a thing of the past following that pistol shot on the steps of San José de la Montaña, but it seems they were wrong.
“There are still those who look down at the ground when he passes, friends, if you hadn’t noticed. Because crazy or in his right mind, he’s just the same as ever.”
Seeing him walk along the street, slowly and in a pensive mood, or standing at the counter in the Rosales bar, staring at his glass of sherry without showing the slightest interest in the other customers or any desire to talk to anybody, not even to scold the youths rowdily playing table football, he does indeed seem like a new man. His gaze is more troubled, he is much thinner, and he wears loose clothes that aren’t his, a corduroy jacket that looks as if it belongs to somebody else, sometimes with a black beret pulled down over his ears; but what is really new about him is his self-absorbed manner, his slow, unspontaneous gestures, as if he was deciphering what he should do or say in the air. However, as it doesn’t take long to discover, this apparent formality does not prevent him enjoying the fortnight of freedom he has been given, or to surprise everyone with several forays outside his home. He attends services at Las Ánimas, and midnight Mass with his daughter, even the solemn ceremony of the Nativity of the Poor, standing erect at the foot of the altar surrounded by the Congregation of Pious Ladies, and also turns up for the nativity play put on by the church theatre group. But in spite of these regular pious appearances, commented on and celebrated by the faithful, other reports and rumours, even if they are scurrilous bar-room gossip, claim that while the ex-councillor has always been a hypocrite and a Holy Joe he is also a rogue and a womaniser, or to put it more precisely, a shameless whoremonger. A few days before Twelfth Night, there are ribald comments in the Rosales bar to the effect that he was seen in the Quimet on the Rambla del Prat in the company of a tart, with a guitar in his hands, catching the peanuts she was launching towards his mouth. Roger and the eldest of the Cazorla brothers confirm this: they were there and split their sides laughing at his behaviour. The gossip also is that he was seen in Panam’s, a low dive on Las Ramblas, and El Quique — well, El Quique swears he can’t be that off his head, because he has two or three condoms in his pocket, and he’s seen them.