“Who buys you those red ties?” she asked the man. He had withdrawn his hand, but he was still smiling.
“I pay for them myself, of course,” replied the man calmly. He wasn’t looking at her, but at one of the magazines on the table. “‘Stephanie of Monaco celebrates her thirtieth birthday’,” he read out loud. “How time flies! I didn’t think she was that old! But then,” his smile grew broader and he looked across at her, “she keeps in good shape. Probably all that weight training she does.”
“Wearing a red tie doesn’t change anything. You can’t disguise the smell,” she said. She picked up the Crunchie bar from the table and removed the wrapping.
“What do you mean? That I’m a policeman?” he said, suddenly serious, ignoring the fact that she had addressed him as “tú”.
The new hostess on the bus came over to them with a tray.
“Excuse me, was it you who asked for a coffee?”
“Yes it was, thanks,” she said. She picked up the cup from the tray and placed it on the table.
“Can you bring me one too? Black, no sugar,” said the man, smiling again. He could open or close that smile with the precision of an expert accordionist.
The orange lights flanking the motorway could be seen clearly now. They lit up a large industrial area, and the brightest of the lights marked the tops of factory chimneys. A little further on, the lights of Zaragoza were turning part of the sky red and, from the bus, you could see a single star, the evening star, Venus.
O Venus, evening star, you bring together everything
that the magnificent Dawn will scatter;
you bring the sheep, you bring the goat,
you bring the shepherd boy back to his mother’s side.
The hostess returned with the second cup of coffee. The man thanked her and asked her how much he owed her for the two coffees.
“I don’t want you to pay for me,” she said, putting her hand in her jacket pocket. “I’ll pay for myself,” she added, addressing the hostess.
“What shall I do?” said the hostess.
“Let her pay!” shouted one of the passengers who had just come down the stairs, in a tone of voice that was intended to be jocular. It was the passenger who looked like a boxer, the one who had been talking to the other hostess.
“All right,” said the man with the red tie, placing his money alongside hers. Then he took a sip of coffee and in a low voice he repeated the question that he had asked a few moments before. “Is that what you think, then, that I’m a policeman?”
“That’s exactly what I think,” she replied. She took a sip of coffee and then a bite of chocolate.
“What I’m going to say will sound strange to you, but I’m going to say it anyway. I’m here to help you. As a friend.”
It seemed as if he were going to go on talking, but instead he stopped. Outside the window, the lights of Zaragoza — the lights of the houses, the lights on the aerials — formed a wall here, a wood there, further off a blotch of yellow. The bus slid along giving her a feeling of weightlessness, as if she were flying.
“You can say what you like, but I’m sure you’re a policeman. And you may not be the only one on this bus,” she said, glancing at the man who looked like a boxer. She was speaking in a tone of utter indifference, as if her only concern was to avoid getting chocolate on her fingers.
The video screen filled with coloured stripes. The second film of the journey was about to start. Behind the screen, to the right of the driver’s compartment, a digital clock said it was twelve minutes past seven. Darkness began to fill the inside of the bus.
“Let me finish, please,” said the man in the red tie, holding his cup of coffee with two hands. “I said that I come as a friend, and to prove that, I’m going to tell you the truth. I am a policeman, well, not a policeman exactly, but I work very closely with the police. As you know, the organization of which, until recently, you were a member is at war with the State, and people participate in that war at many different levels. What do you think? Is that a subject that interests you?”
Outside, Zaragoza looked like a city divided in two. One of them was ordinary enough, a mere accumulation of buildings and lights, the other — with its cupolas and towers that seemed etched in Indian ink on the remaining blue of the sky — had an oriental air about it that made her dream fleetingly of a journey to far-off lands. When she was able to, when she could free herself from her persecutors.
The video was just beginning. The screen showed a military parade. The people watching looked like Latin Americans.
“Don’t I even merit a response? I’ve been perfectly frank with you,” said the man.
“Finish your coffee and get out of here. If you don’t, I will,” she replied, screwing up the wrapping from her chocolate bar and stuffing it in the plastic cup.
“Fine. This is just a first contact, and I won’t insist. But I’d like to say something, as a friend, as a true friend. Times have changed, Irene, times have changed a lot.”
A shiver ran down her spine and she turned brusquely back to the window.
Goodnight Irene, Irene goodnight,
Goodnight Irene, Goodnight Irene,
I’ll see you in my dreams.
She knew the song from the tape that Margarita and Antonia had given her for her birthday, and she had the words copied out in one of her notebooks, possibly in several. She liked it, she loved to listen to her own name being sung to her before she went to sleep, and she loved the way the singer said her name, because it removed her from daily reality and transported her to other places, sometimes to Texas or Montana, at others to the streets of her childhood or to unfamiliar regions that she couldn’t quite define. But, suddenly, on that bus, her name emerged from the mouth of a policeman.
Margarita was right, she thought. Losers lose everything. She couldn’t even protect her name.
“You look sad suddenly,” remarked the man with the red tie. “What are you thinking about?”
“About my name,” she said. She picked up the cigarette she’d put down on the table and lit it with her lighter.
“It’s a very pretty name. I like it. I mean it, Irene.”
“I do too normally.”
On the screen, three boys were holding up a taxi at gunpoint and one of them, an extremely skinny youth, was forcing the driver to lie down in the back seat of the car. In the following scene, the shots of a military parade shown at the beginning were repeated, this time showing close-ups of the military and civil authorities presiding over it. All of them — the military, the civilians and the boys who had held up the taxi — looked villainous.
“Don’t be frightened, Irene. I’ve already said that I come as a friend. You can trust me. I won’t just dump you like your former colleagues.”
The man was looking at her over his plastic cup. He had beautiful grey eyes.
“Are you going or not?” she said, putting the books that were still on the table back in her suitcase.
“Don’t worry, I’ll go as soon as I’ve finished my coffee,” said the man with a sigh. “But, to be frank, Irene, you’re behaving like an adolescent. I’ve been examining your case and I know you’ve got problems. You find it hard to accept reality, boring everyday reality, and, on the one hand, that’s good. For many years I felt the same, I even joined a Maoist group, but after a certain age, you can’t go on behaving like that. How can I put it? It’s fine being childish when you’re a child, even at twenty or twenty-two, being a gullible fool is understandable, but at thirty-four …”
“You may have spent a couple of hours studying my file, but you’ve got a few of your facts wrong. I’m thirty-seven.” She paused and put out her cigarette. She didn’t feel like smoking.
“Well, you look much younger I must say,” said the man in the red tie, opening his smile and immediately closing it again.