“A respectable woman has no need of arithmetic or the ability to read,” he says, having considered his response for several paces. “All you need to know is how to sew, how to iron and how to make a stew.”
“There are other things in life, Father. Education …”
“With everything you’ve learned, from your mother, in that fine house where you work, and from watching the ladies and gentlemen, you have more than enough education for when you marry and have your own house.”
Mari Paz’s laugh is soft, silvery. A laugh that brings a childlike freshness to the air. The freshness of the little girl that Felipe Mojarra has almost forgotten.
“Me, marry? Come now, Father. Don’t even think of such a thing.” Her tone is at once artless, affronted and vain. “Who would want me?… Besides, a woman does not have to marry. Look at Señorita Palma—she is still single. And she is so elegant and serious, she is … I don’t know … such a lady.”
In spite of himself, the salter finds that the girl’s warm tone and her laughter move him deeply. We should leave nothing behind, he thinks again, suddenly gripped by a nameless panic. He looks at his daughter, unsure whether to kiss or scold her; in the end, he does neither. Instead, he simply tosses away the stub of his cigar and shifts his rifle to his other shoulder.
“Come on, finish your fritter.”
LEANING OVER THE parapet of the city wall next to the Royal Jail, Rogelio Tizón gazes out at the sea. To his left, beyond the Puerta de Tierra, misty and yellow, is the long, low line of the reef leading to the mainland, to Chiclana and the Isla de Léon. To his right, the sky is cloudless. The air seems fresher, though even now a dark band of cloud is once again looming over the horizon. In this direction, the sweeping panorama of the city moves from the uncompleted new cathedral, taking in the watchtowers of the houses, the Capuchin convent, the low squat dwellings of the Viña district and the distant ocher point of the San Sebastián castle, with its lighthouse protruding into the mouth of the bay.
“Fancy a little sea bass, Señor Comisario?”
Along the wall overlooking the sea are a dozen regulars who make their living using rod, bait and line, selling their catch from door to door at the inns and the lodging houses. One of them, a gypsy named Caramillo from El Boquete—a regular informer and a member of the mob who dragged General Solano through the streets during the uprising in 1808—has come over and is politely offering Tizón one of the three large fish floundering at the bottom of his bucket.
“It would be my pleasure to give it to you, Don Rogelio. I can bring it to your house later, if you like.”
“Get out of my sight, Caramillo. Off with you!”
The man meekly retreats, limping slightly. He seems to bear Tizón no grudge for the beating seven or eight years ago that left him with one leg half an inch shorter than the other. But the comisario has no appetite for fish or meat, nor for dealing with riffraff. Not this morning, anyway—not after the little chat he had an hour ago, at the Harbor Master’s Office, with Governor Villavicencio and the General Intendant García Pico. The day had started out well enough. After a cup of coffee in the Café del Correo, leafing through El Censor General and El Conciso (one servile, the other liberal) to see how the Tyrians and Trojans are getting along, and then a shave at the barbershop on the Calle Comedias—gratis, as usual—the comisario made a lucrative tour of his usual stomping grounds. He visited his best shark-like smile on a couple of bars where the owners’ uneasy conscience and the need to appease the relevant authorities made it possible for him to line his pockets without much resistance. Thirty pesos is a tidy profit for a single morning’s work: a hundred reales from an ironmonger on the Calle de la Pelota for having an immigrant widow with no official papers residing and working—in every sense, malicious neighbors insisted—on the premises; another five hundred from a silversmith on the Calle de la Novena for receiving stolen goods, to whom Tizón bluntly offered a choice between lining his pocket and the unpleasant alternative of a 9,000-real fine or six years in Ceuta prison.
But after that, things had turned black. Twenty minutes in the office of the military and political Governor of Cádiz were enough to ruin Rogelio Tizón’s mood. He had gone to the governor’s office to speak to García Pico concerning a matter which, for reasons of discretion, neither the governor nor the Intendant were prepared to discuss in writing. There is no room in the current climate for pointless risks or blunders.
“We still can’t prove anything for certain,” Tizón explained uneasily as he sat at the governor’s imposing desk. “Obviously, we can prove that he is a spy … but for the other matter we need more time.”
Listening, General Don Juan María de Villavicencio brought the tips of his fingers together in an almost pious gesture. He bowed his venerable, gray-haired head over his black necktie, his gold-rimmed spectacles dangling from the buttonhole of his frockcoat. Finally he spoke.
“If he has confessed to being a spy,” he said curtly, “you should turn him over to the military authorities.”
Cautiously, respectfully, Tizón explained that this was not the issue. In Cádiz there was no shortage of spies—or people suspected of spying—so one more or less would make no difference. There was, however, serious evidence linking the prisoner to the murdered girls. Something that put matters in a very different light.
“Is this certain?”
The comisario’s hesitation was barely noticeable. “It is very probable,” he said coolly.
“Then what are you waiting for? Get me a confession.”
“We are working on it,” Tizón said, allowing himself a wolfish smile of thinly veiled self-satisfaction. “But the new policing regulations impose certain limitations …”
But when he turned toward García Pico, expecting to get his support, Tizón’s smile drained away. Solemn, the Intendant was determined to stay out of the fray, not to get involved. Not here, at least. Not in front of the governor. The one thing clear from his expression was that he seriously doubted that Rogelio Tizón would feel constrained in any way by policing regulations, or any other damn thing.
“What are the chances that the suspect is indeed our murderer?” asked Villavicencio.
“Reasonable,” said Tizón. “But some aspects are unclear.”
The governor eyed him suspiciously. An old dog. A sea dog, thought Tizón, smiling at his own joke.
“Has he admitted anything?”
Another wolfish smile, more ambiguous this time.
“Some things, yes … but not much.”
“Enough to take the matter before a judge?”
A careful pause. Feeling the heat of García Pico’s anxious gaze, Rogelio Tizón made a vague gesture and said, not yet, señor. It might take a couple of days. Or a little longer. Then, having spent the whole interview on the edge of his seat, he leaned back in his chair. He was beginning to feel hot; he was glad he had taken off his coat before coming in.
“For your sake, I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Silence. The governor’s coldness was in stark contrast to the temperature of his office. As though a lifetime at sea had permanently chilled Villavicencio to the bone. The fire burning in the hearth, beneath a huge painting of a naval battle of uncertain outcome, gave off a scorching heat, yet Villavicencio seemed cool and comfortable in his thick frockcoat. His pale, delicate hands protruded from the striped cuffs—a watchmaker’s hands, thought Tizón—and on the left one he still wore the emerald given to him by Napoleon at Brest, a point of pride or perhaps a reminder of his social standing. After a moment’s hesitation, the comisario dismissed the idea of taking out his kerchief and mopping his brow. The gesture might be misinterpreted.
“In any case,” he said, “the public needs a culprit. And we have him: a self-confessed spy, suspected of … Well, it can all be arranged. I know a number of journalists.”
The governor waved his hand contemptuously.
“I know them too. Rather better than I might like
… But what if he is not our man? What if we announce our news and then tomorrow the real murderer kills again?”
“This is why I did not make the arrest public, señor. Everything has been handled discreetly. Even the spying has not been mentioned yet … For the moment, this man has simply disappeared off the face of the earth.”
Villavicencio nodded distractedly. All of Cádiz is aware he will not be in this post much longer: he is one of the most eligible candidates for the new Regency, to be elected in the coming weeks. He will almost certainly be replaced as governor by Cayetano Valdés, who is currently commanding the fleet that is defending the bay: a tough, experienced sailor, a veteran of the battles of Trafalgar and San Vicente, with a reputation for being brusque and plainspoken. That is why this matter needs to be settled now, thought Tizón. With Valdés as governor, a man with considerably less political sophistication than Villavicencio, there would be no question of insinuations, equivocations or half measures.
“I expect everything to be done according to form,” said the governor suddenly. “I mean your investigation.”
“My investigation?”
“The interrogation. I assume it will be conducted without any intemperance and … um … unnecessary violence.”
García Pico finally opened his mouth. He was shocked, or attempted to appear so. “Of course, señor. That would be unthinkable …”
Villavicencio paid him no heed. He looked Tizón directly in the eye. “In some respects, it is a good thing that you are responsible for these proceedings … Military jurisdiction is less flexible. Less …”
“Pragmatic?”
I couldn’t help myself, Tizón thought. A pox on that filthy tongue of mine. The two men glowered at him. His sarcasm had not passed unnoticed.
“The new laws,” said the governor after a pause, “stipulate that the period of detention be limited and the interrogation methods restrained. All this will be set down in black and white in the new Constitution … But anything concerning this particular prisoner will not be official until the two of you make it public.”
García Pico was not best pleased by this use of the plural. Out of the corner of his eye, Tizón saw the Intendant squirming uncomfortably in his chair. And moreover, the governor went on, as yet no one had informed him of the matter. Officially, of course. There was no need to shout it from the rooftops. Making this affair public would put everyone in a difficult position. There would be no way back.
“On that point, you need have no worries,” García Pico said quickly. “Technically, this arrest has not yet taken place.”
A patrician, approbatory silence. Villavicencio moved his fingertips apart, nodded slowly, then brought them together again with the precision he might bring to regulating the micrometer of a sextant.
“This is not the time to lock horns with the Cortes. Those liberal gentlemen …”
He fell silent, as though there were nothing more to add; Tizón realized that this was neither a confidence nor an omission. Villavicencio was not one to make such a slip, nor to share political confidences with his subordinates. He was simply reminding them of his position with regards to the debates conducted at San Felipe Neri. Although the Governor of Cádiz was scrupulously impartial, it was no secret that he sympathized with the royalist diehards and, like them, trusted that King Fernando would return to restore order and wisdom to the nation.
“Of course,” said García Pico hurriedly. “You have nothing to fear.”
“I shall hold you responsible, Intendant.” The stern look was not directed at García Pico, but at Tizón. “And you, of course, Comisario … There must be no public statement before the matter is resolved. And not a word in the newspapers before we have a duly signed confession.”
At this, without stirring from his seat, Villavicencio gave a wave with the hand bearing the imperial emerald—a cursory dismissal, immediately understood as such by García Pico and the comisario, who got to their feet. The gesture of a man accustomed to giving orders without words.
“It goes without saying,” said the governor as they were getting up, “that this conversation never took place.”
They were halfway to the door when he unexpectedly spoke again.
“Are you a religious man, Comisario?”
Tizón turned, bewildered. There could be nothing casual about such a question coming from the mouth of Don Juan María de Villavicencio, a seaman with an illustrious career, a man who attended mass and took communion every day.
“Well … um … like most people, señor … More or less.”
The governor gazed at him almost curiously from behind the vast, imposing desk. “In your shoes, I would pray that the spy you have under arrest does turn out to be the killer of those girls.” He pressed his fingertips together again. “That no one kills another girl … Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Cunning old bastard, thought Tizón, though his face remained impassive. “Perfectly,” he answered. “But as your Lordship said, it would be wise for us to have someone in reserve. Just in case …”
Villavicencio raised his eyebrows with studied grace. As though racking his brains to remember.
“I said that? Really?” He glanced at the Intendant as though appealing to his memory of events, but García Pico made an ambiguous gesture. “I certainly do not remember expressing myself in such terms.”
Now, standing by the sea wall, the memory of his conversation with Villavicencio unsettles Rogelio Tizón. The certainties of the past days have given way to the qualms of the past hours. Together with the governor’s words and the deferential, logical attitude of García Pico, this has left him feeling vulnerable; like a king on a chessboard watching pieces disappear that might have allowed him to castle safely. And yet these things take time. If his position is to remain secure, he must proceed with caution. This is his strategy. Haste is the most terrible of all enemies. Objectively, one dram more or less on either side will tilt the scale—the limit between the possible and the impossible, between certainty and delusion—as surely as a hundredweight.
There is a distant explosion somewhere in the center of the city. The second one today. With the cloudless sky and the change of wind, the French have begun shelling from the Cabezuela again. The blast, muffled by the buildings in between, has Tizón worried. It is not the bombs or the damage they might cause—he has long since grown accustomed to those. But they are a constant reminder of how weak his position could be—perhaps how weak it is, he thinks anxiously—in this game he is playing: this house of cards that might be brought down by the news he most fears, a piece of news that, in some strange sense, he awaits with a mixture of curiosity and anxiety. The confirmation that he has made a mistake would relieve him of the agony of uncertainty.
The comisario steps away from the parapet and the city walls, taking a route that in recent days he has taken so often it has become a routine: slowly retracing the path between the six sites where the girls were murdered, attentive at every step to the slightest change in air or light, in the temperature, the smells, the sensations he experiences. Calculating and recalculating the subtle chess moves of an unseen adversary whose complex mind, as unknowable as the idea of God, merges with the map of Cádiz, a singular city ringed by the sea, buffeted by the winds. It is a city whose physical form—the streets, the squares and the buildings—Rogelio Tizón can no longer see; he sees only a mysterious terrain, menacing and abstract as a fretwork of whip marks: that same disturbing tracery he glimpsed on the skin of the murdered girls, and which he recognized—or thought he recognized—in the map Gregorio Fumagal says he burned in the stove of his workshop. The secret plan of an urban space which seems to correspond—in every line and curve—with the mind of a murderer.
WHILE COMISARIO TIZÓN is brooding about the trajectories and parabolas of bombs in Cádiz, Pépé Lobo—moored off Los Lances beach at Tarifa, forty-five miles southeast of the city—watches the plume of spray that a 12-pound French bomb has just thrown up,
less than a cable’s length away from the bowsprit of the Culebra.
“Don’t panic,” he reassures the crew. “It’s just a stray shot.”
On the deck of the cutter, anchored at four fathoms with all sails furled and flying the ensign of the Spanish Navy, the crew watch the pall of smoke drifting along the ravine on the far side of the town walls. Since nine o’clock, under a leaden sky, the French infantry have been making an assault on the breach to the north of Tarifa. The continual rumble of rifles and cannonfire can be clearly heard a mile out, borne on the offshore wind that holds the Culebra with the beach off its starboard bow, the town on the beam and Tarifa island to stern. Near the cutter, anchored broadside on—the better to aim their gun batteries—two English frigates, a Spanish corvette and several gunboats carrying cannons and howitzers are firing at intervals on the French positions; the white smoke from their gunpowder drifts toward the corsairs as they watch the battle. There are a dozen other smaller vessels moored nearby: feluccas and tartanes, waiting to see how things play out. If the enemy breaks through the powerful defenses of the town walls, these vessels will have to rush to help evacuate the local population and any survivors among the 3,000 Spanish and English soldiers who have been defending the town tooth and nail.
“The French are still piling into the breach,” says Ricardo Maraña.
The first officer, who has been peering through the telescope, now passes it to Pépé Lobo. The two men are standing in the stern of the cutter, next to the tiller. Maraña, hatless and dressed, as always, in black, wipes the corners of his mouth with a kerchief which he stuffs into the sleeve of his jacket without so much as a glance. With one eye closed and the other pressed to the lens, Pépé Lobo scans the coastline from Santa Catalina Fort, almost in line with the Guzmans’ castle, all the way to the smoke-shrouded ramparts and the suburbs razed by the shelling. On the far side are the hills from which the enemy attack was launched, dotted with agave and prickly pear and sudden flashes of red from the artillery fire.