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Fiction

Confession

By Care Santos
Translated from Spanish by Megan Berkobien
An exasperated writer sends a pesky journalist to his final deadline in this short story from Spain's Care Santos.

I admit it: I once killed a journalist.

I’ve tried to forget it, to keep quiet, to pretend, but it doesn’t make sense to continue deceiving myself. No one can escape their memories.

The recollection of that unlucky wretch follows me, by day and by night. And when I say that it pursues me, I mean exactly that: when I open my eyes at dawn, frightened by some presence that I don’t recognize as real, I find that fool by my side, watching me with those bulging eyes, devising nightmarish questions for me. I can’t take it anymore. Perhaps the place I’ve chosen for this confession might prove surprising to some. Those who have at one time or another accused me of foolishness, of being a trivial and frivolous person, will feel justified at last. I believe that none of that really matters much now; the stories exist, independent of what we contribute to them. And the places—like the events—choose you, so that you can better fill them with meaning.

Anyway, I don’t want to beat around the bush. In my defense, I should say that we aren’t dealing with one of those hardened journalists, someone who is always found searching for the right word or sniffing around where the things that actually interest us happen. No. This reporter belonged to an expendable class of cultural journalists, one of those specialists dealing in rehashed press notes, in the distortion of statements and in the savage copying of previous articles, fished from the Internet and always penned by someone more brilliant. Moreover, he wasn’t technically a headline journalist. Merely an intern, he was one of those recent arrivals to the Culture section from the womb of the School of Information Sciences—Ha! Sciences?; Ha! Information?—who still confuse horoscopes with art criticism. And what’s worse: not because they are inexperienced, but rather because they will never, in their fucking lives, have the mental capacity to tell one thing from the other.

What’s more, he belonged to that subclass of interviewers who never record a conversation, taking notes instead. They usually seat themselves across from you brandishing a square notebook and a plastic pen, firing off questions like someone hurling stones into a well and spending the rest of the time scribbling at full speed in their notepad, frowning and without looking you in the eyes even once. Sometimes they implore:

“Could you speak a bit slower, please?”

When that happens, I make an effort to express myself as quickly as possible. It has been proven that the amount of your words that they are able to retain on the fly while you make an effort to propose a rational argument really makes no difference. It doesn’t matter what you say, because they will interpret it  as they please, and what’s worse, they will shape your speech like they would their own. Then, the next day, all the readers leafing through the newspaper will be thinking to themselves what an idiot you are, and how, if she hardly knows how to conjugate and that the secrets of the agreement between subject and verb remain unknown to her, could she have the nerve to publish a book?

Aficionados of morbid details, you will be asking yourselves what method I used. Needless to say, I had never done it before, so I had to think about it beforehand, although that lasted all of three-hundredths of a second. I could have smashed the glass ashtray that rested on the table between us against his head, I could have slit his throat with the glass that he was drinking tonic out of. Save for those weapons, I had nothing else at hand, and so I opted for the old standby, which always provides good results: I grabbed hold of him by the neck and I twisted until he exhaled his last breath. It happened just like that, without further ado, as I took advantage of his confusion (what journalist could foresee that his interviewee would behave that way?) and his smallish stature (he couldn’t have weighed more than 155 pounds  or stood more than five feet four inches).

Strictly speaking, I should admit that it wasn’t as easy as I had believed it would be. He kicked his legs up, writhed in pain, tried to scratch me with his chewed fingernails, tried to defend himself by throwing the tape recorder at me (the one he had not connected so that he wouldn’t waste his precious time having to listen to the recording), he launched one of his moccasins in the air, and even tried to attack me with the plastic pen, but none of that mattered much. I squeezed and squeezed and squeezed, until I saw an intense flush come over his cheeks and I realized that his tongue had started to droop, flaccid, between his jaws. Then I threw him down. He fell with a muffled plop against the soft rug. I looked to my left and right; I was alone in that corner of the café. I put down five euros for the drinks and left the place, adjusting my woolen scarf around my neck.

It’s fine, I agree—I was somewhat brusque. It had everything to do with blind rage. I proceeded with the same vehemence with which I find myself now hammering down on this keyboard, in an effort to expel this out-of-sorts confession that has burned in my memory all this time. I can’t understand how I could have waited so long, and without going crazy at that. Eight and a half years. That much time has passed since I abandoned the intern’s sickly cadaver on the blood-colored rug in the Gran Hotel España in Oviedo, and I left to walk the streets, to recapture the city that had always seemed beautiful and that all the nonsense about the book tour had forced me to forget.

***

It’s paradoxical, but I know virtually nothing about the life of that unfortunate man, except that I ended it. Months after that evening when the rain fell over Oviedo, I learned that he had a girlfriend, which then turned out to be two (exclusive loves don’t exist). His editor thought him an idiot, which helped ease my conscience at the time (“One less idiot in the world,” I thought, “they should give me an award for this, and not for writing novels”); he maintained an unnaturally close relationship with his father (his mother had died when he was just a boy).

His name was the only thing that was clear to me from the start, although I won’t say it here—not out of respect (that would be ridiculous, at this point) but rather out of decency. We’ll call him M.M. (and beg pardon of all of you who, I know, hate characters known only by their initials; I hope that in this case you can understand there’s no other option). Thanks to the fact that I knew his name from the very beginning, I could carry out the necessary inquiries in order to know how much I had verified (one of his two girlfriends had a blog where she liked to explain all her trivial observations, the majority of which also concerned him as well).

As for what I did after the murder, I wouldn’t know how to put it into words. I’ve already said that I took to walking the streets skirting the cathedral, quite happy and much calmer than I had been in weeks, since the book tour had begun. I entered la librería Cervantes to browse the shelves when I happened upon my friend Concha Quirós. Straightaway I thought that she might notice something strange in my appearance, a tell-tale trembling or pallor, I don’t know, the type of thing that in detective novels always represents the definitive clue to solving the case. To my surprise, nothing special happened. We had a conversation about the marvelous bookstore and about my desire to quit traveling and return home, where I would be able to continue writing at my own leisure, with a certain calmness that I had needed to learn to hide away from predators. Concha agreed with me.

“Believe me, I pity all of you,” she said. “So many cities and so many different people, with you all having to explain the same thing again and again…it’s like a divine punishment.”

How correct Concha Quirós always was, I thought. And how beautiful the name of this woman; Concha, Quirós. Two words that are a pleasure to pronounce. Like pul-pa, like tán-talo, like plantí-grado.

She was the only good thing that happened to me that evening. When she gave her statement to the police, Concha Quirós said that she hadn’t noticed anything strange about me. I never knew if she did it to protect me or because I had really managed to deceive her. I’d like to take advantage of this occasion to thank her for it, as I couldn’t do in person like I would have wished.

***

That Asturian dawn, in room 307 of the Gran Hotel Regente, I had my first contact with the ghost of the dimwit who I had killed. Behold an infallible axiom: if someone was an idiot in life, he will continue to be one after death. That pitiful individual was condemned, by my hand, to being a scruffy intern and pea-brain for all eternity. Similarly, I had to put up with his vengeful spirit and to resist his nudges during the rest of my human existence.

It started with something simple: he sat himself down on the bed, at my side, and asked the same question all night. It was the question that had made me decide to throw myself at his neck, after vacillating some. It’s understandable that, as he had died with that question lodged between his lips, it became something that he couldn’t leave on Earth as he departed for the afterlife. He had carried it with him and repeated it with the persistence of a horsefly. He had done it one thousand four hundred eleven other times. Do I know this for some concrete reason? Of course—I have counted them. I had to entertain myself somehow, while that dead dimwit stared at me, and bombarded me with a curiosity never to be satiated again.

It would be four in the morning when he shifted gears and let out the sentence that he wouldn’t stop repeating until dawn:

“What do you think about Women’s writing? What do you think about Women’s writing? What do you think about Women’s writing? What do you think about Women’s writing? What do you think about Women’s writing? What do you think about Women’s writing?”

What a sadistic punishment.

From then on, my life turned into hell on earth. Not because I found my bones in prison, after a rather short police investigation and an extensive trial that brought my defense lawyer to the brink of depression (although only after negotiating a drastically reduced sentence on the grounds of temporary insanity, and, among other things, contrition). No, no, just the opposite, my imprisonment is a pleasure: I have finally found a convincing excuse to say “no” to all of my obligations and I have stopped judging panels, attending literary roundtables, talks in secondary schools, and literary festivities organized in praise of others, all of which had robbed me of my free time in the past. In the Wad-Ras prison, moreover, I feel understood and well-treated; I teach literary workshops to a dozen enthusiastic students and I have more time than ever to write. Moreover, I receive company, enjoying the odd conjugal visit, with permission to leave on the weekend (this privilege, only for the past two months).

The problem is something else. The problem is that it doesn’t matter what happens during the day, which people I meet, which places I set foot in for the first—or last—time. The small or large banalities that season the day-to-day life of the only living woman author imprisoned for homicide don’t matter much, because at night I keep bumping into the intern’s vengeful and stubborn spirit. Keep in mind that I killed him eight and a half years ago. Which brings the count to three thousand one hundred and two nights that I’ve spent in his less-than-desirable company.  One can understand that I haven’t been able to rest, to forget, to recover. Let alone find a partner. Starting a family is an unthinkable undertaking for me.

I had a husband when all of this happened—as some might remember—but he left me a while after I was sentenced, unable to understand nor able to ask questions. Since I only enjoy two nights a week outside these walls, it’s not easy to find someone willing to converse night after night with the idiot, who inexplicably has the habit of firing off questions at my lovers as well. This has happened, at least, with the few men who have shared my bed so far. I feel sorry for one in particular, who got up to take a piss in the middle of the night and returned asking me why there was a strange gentleman with rings under his eyes in the middle of the corridor, who just finished asking him his opinion about the outlook of contemporary Spanish fiction. By morning the ghost was no longer in the corridor, though the lover wasn’t in my bed either.

I think you can see that there’s very little time left between now and my descent into madness. And, as those who have had contact with ghostly presences know, the beings of the afterlife have infinite patience. It’s because clocks don’t matter much there where they live. The case is that they can permit themselves a calendar-proof tenacity. They always go out with their own. Perseverance eventually conquers all—as long as it’s taken to the necessary extreme—they seem to want to teach us.  

Well, anyway. Here I am, a shell of my former self. Award-winning novelist and madwoman. Wherever I am—be it my dear cell in Wad-Ras prison, hotel, home, camping, or a friend’s house—I will always share my bed with the journalist from La Nueva España who never stopped interviewing me. What’s more, he’s always doing so at four or five in the morning, when I have finally managed to get to sleep and forget his presence, when I am immersed in a happy dream where I have a husband, three children, and a house with a dog, rug, and dryer, in that moment the sadistic man shakes me with his lifeless hands, grabbing me by the shoulders mercilessly, forcing me to face my sleeplessness with his bulging eyes  and the spit that he has been spitting out for three thousand one hundred two nights, only missing one, with the urgency of a drowned man and his incurable stupidity, so much so that I killed him for it:

“You’re Ángela Vallvey, right? Would you mind spelling your last name for me?”

 

English Spanish (Original)

I admit it: I once killed a journalist.

I’ve tried to forget it, to keep quiet, to pretend, but it doesn’t make sense to continue deceiving myself. No one can escape their memories.

The recollection of that unlucky wretch follows me, by day and by night. And when I say that it pursues me, I mean exactly that: when I open my eyes at dawn, frightened by some presence that I don’t recognize as real, I find that fool by my side, watching me with those bulging eyes, devising nightmarish questions for me. I can’t take it anymore. Perhaps the place I’ve chosen for this confession might prove surprising to some. Those who have at one time or another accused me of foolishness, of being a trivial and frivolous person, will feel justified at last. I believe that none of that really matters much now; the stories exist, independent of what we contribute to them. And the places—like the events—choose you, so that you can better fill them with meaning.

Anyway, I don’t want to beat around the bush. In my defense, I should say that we aren’t dealing with one of those hardened journalists, someone who is always found searching for the right word or sniffing around where the things that actually interest us happen. No. This reporter belonged to an expendable class of cultural journalists, one of those specialists dealing in rehashed press notes, in the distortion of statements and in the savage copying of previous articles, fished from the Internet and always penned by someone more brilliant. Moreover, he wasn’t technically a headline journalist. Merely an intern, he was one of those recent arrivals to the Culture section from the womb of the School of Information Sciences—Ha! Sciences?; Ha! Information?—who still confuse horoscopes with art criticism. And what’s worse: not because they are inexperienced, but rather because they will never, in their fucking lives, have the mental capacity to tell one thing from the other.

What’s more, he belonged to that subclass of interviewers who never record a conversation, taking notes instead. They usually seat themselves across from you brandishing a square notebook and a plastic pen, firing off questions like someone hurling stones into a well and spending the rest of the time scribbling at full speed in their notepad, frowning and without looking you in the eyes even once. Sometimes they implore:

“Could you speak a bit slower, please?”

When that happens, I make an effort to express myself as quickly as possible. It has been proven that the amount of your words that they are able to retain on the fly while you make an effort to propose a rational argument really makes no difference. It doesn’t matter what you say, because they will interpret it  as they please, and what’s worse, they will shape your speech like they would their own. Then, the next day, all the readers leafing through the newspaper will be thinking to themselves what an idiot you are, and how, if she hardly knows how to conjugate and that the secrets of the agreement between subject and verb remain unknown to her, could she have the nerve to publish a book?

Aficionados of morbid details, you will be asking yourselves what method I used. Needless to say, I had never done it before, so I had to think about it beforehand, although that lasted all of three-hundredths of a second. I could have smashed the glass ashtray that rested on the table between us against his head, I could have slit his throat with the glass that he was drinking tonic out of. Save for those weapons, I had nothing else at hand, and so I opted for the old standby, which always provides good results: I grabbed hold of him by the neck and I twisted until he exhaled his last breath. It happened just like that, without further ado, as I took advantage of his confusion (what journalist could foresee that his interviewee would behave that way?) and his smallish stature (he couldn’t have weighed more than 155 pounds  or stood more than five feet four inches).

Strictly speaking, I should admit that it wasn’t as easy as I had believed it would be. He kicked his legs up, writhed in pain, tried to scratch me with his chewed fingernails, tried to defend himself by throwing the tape recorder at me (the one he had not connected so that he wouldn’t waste his precious time having to listen to the recording), he launched one of his moccasins in the air, and even tried to attack me with the plastic pen, but none of that mattered much. I squeezed and squeezed and squeezed, until I saw an intense flush come over his cheeks and I realized that his tongue had started to droop, flaccid, between his jaws. Then I threw him down. He fell with a muffled plop against the soft rug. I looked to my left and right; I was alone in that corner of the café. I put down five euros for the drinks and left the place, adjusting my woolen scarf around my neck.

It’s fine, I agree—I was somewhat brusque. It had everything to do with blind rage. I proceeded with the same vehemence with which I find myself now hammering down on this keyboard, in an effort to expel this out-of-sorts confession that has burned in my memory all this time. I can’t understand how I could have waited so long, and without going crazy at that. Eight and a half years. That much time has passed since I abandoned the intern’s sickly cadaver on the blood-colored rug in the Gran Hotel España in Oviedo, and I left to walk the streets, to recapture the city that had always seemed beautiful and that all the nonsense about the book tour had forced me to forget.

***

It’s paradoxical, but I know virtually nothing about the life of that unfortunate man, except that I ended it. Months after that evening when the rain fell over Oviedo, I learned that he had a girlfriend, which then turned out to be two (exclusive loves don’t exist). His editor thought him an idiot, which helped ease my conscience at the time (“One less idiot in the world,” I thought, “they should give me an award for this, and not for writing novels”); he maintained an unnaturally close relationship with his father (his mother had died when he was just a boy).

His name was the only thing that was clear to me from the start, although I won’t say it here—not out of respect (that would be ridiculous, at this point) but rather out of decency. We’ll call him M.M. (and beg pardon of all of you who, I know, hate characters known only by their initials; I hope that in this case you can understand there’s no other option). Thanks to the fact that I knew his name from the very beginning, I could carry out the necessary inquiries in order to know how much I had verified (one of his two girlfriends had a blog where she liked to explain all her trivial observations, the majority of which also concerned him as well).

As for what I did after the murder, I wouldn’t know how to put it into words. I’ve already said that I took to walking the streets skirting the cathedral, quite happy and much calmer than I had been in weeks, since the book tour had begun. I entered la librería Cervantes to browse the shelves when I happened upon my friend Concha Quirós. Straightaway I thought that she might notice something strange in my appearance, a tell-tale trembling or pallor, I don’t know, the type of thing that in detective novels always represents the definitive clue to solving the case. To my surprise, nothing special happened. We had a conversation about the marvelous bookstore and about my desire to quit traveling and return home, where I would be able to continue writing at my own leisure, with a certain calmness that I had needed to learn to hide away from predators. Concha agreed with me.

“Believe me, I pity all of you,” she said. “So many cities and so many different people, with you all having to explain the same thing again and again…it’s like a divine punishment.”

How correct Concha Quirós always was, I thought. And how beautiful the name of this woman; Concha, Quirós. Two words that are a pleasure to pronounce. Like pul-pa, like tán-talo, like plantí-grado.

She was the only good thing that happened to me that evening. When she gave her statement to the police, Concha Quirós said that she hadn’t noticed anything strange about me. I never knew if she did it to protect me or because I had really managed to deceive her. I’d like to take advantage of this occasion to thank her for it, as I couldn’t do in person like I would have wished.

***

That Asturian dawn, in room 307 of the Gran Hotel Regente, I had my first contact with the ghost of the dimwit who I had killed. Behold an infallible axiom: if someone was an idiot in life, he will continue to be one after death. That pitiful individual was condemned, by my hand, to being a scruffy intern and pea-brain for all eternity. Similarly, I had to put up with his vengeful spirit and to resist his nudges during the rest of my human existence.

It started with something simple: he sat himself down on the bed, at my side, and asked the same question all night. It was the question that had made me decide to throw myself at his neck, after vacillating some. It’s understandable that, as he had died with that question lodged between his lips, it became something that he couldn’t leave on Earth as he departed for the afterlife. He had carried it with him and repeated it with the persistence of a horsefly. He had done it one thousand four hundred eleven other times. Do I know this for some concrete reason? Of course—I have counted them. I had to entertain myself somehow, while that dead dimwit stared at me, and bombarded me with a curiosity never to be satiated again.

It would be four in the morning when he shifted gears and let out the sentence that he wouldn’t stop repeating until dawn:

“What do you think about Women’s writing? What do you think about Women’s writing? What do you think about Women’s writing? What do you think about Women’s writing? What do you think about Women’s writing? What do you think about Women’s writing?”

What a sadistic punishment.

From then on, my life turned into hell on earth. Not because I found my bones in prison, after a rather short police investigation and an extensive trial that brought my defense lawyer to the brink of depression (although only after negotiating a drastically reduced sentence on the grounds of temporary insanity, and, among other things, contrition). No, no, just the opposite, my imprisonment is a pleasure: I have finally found a convincing excuse to say “no” to all of my obligations and I have stopped judging panels, attending literary roundtables, talks in secondary schools, and literary festivities organized in praise of others, all of which had robbed me of my free time in the past. In the Wad-Ras prison, moreover, I feel understood and well-treated; I teach literary workshops to a dozen enthusiastic students and I have more time than ever to write. Moreover, I receive company, enjoying the odd conjugal visit, with permission to leave on the weekend (this privilege, only for the past two months).

The problem is something else. The problem is that it doesn’t matter what happens during the day, which people I meet, which places I set foot in for the first—or last—time. The small or large banalities that season the day-to-day life of the only living woman author imprisoned for homicide don’t matter much, because at night I keep bumping into the intern’s vengeful and stubborn spirit. Keep in mind that I killed him eight and a half years ago. Which brings the count to three thousand one hundred and two nights that I’ve spent in his less-than-desirable company.  One can understand that I haven’t been able to rest, to forget, to recover. Let alone find a partner. Starting a family is an unthinkable undertaking for me.

I had a husband when all of this happened—as some might remember—but he left me a while after I was sentenced, unable to understand nor able to ask questions. Since I only enjoy two nights a week outside these walls, it’s not easy to find someone willing to converse night after night with the idiot, who inexplicably has the habit of firing off questions at my lovers as well. This has happened, at least, with the few men who have shared my bed so far. I feel sorry for one in particular, who got up to take a piss in the middle of the night and returned asking me why there was a strange gentleman with rings under his eyes in the middle of the corridor, who just finished asking him his opinion about the outlook of contemporary Spanish fiction. By morning the ghost was no longer in the corridor, though the lover wasn’t in my bed either.

I think you can see that there’s very little time left between now and my descent into madness. And, as those who have had contact with ghostly presences know, the beings of the afterlife have infinite patience. It’s because clocks don’t matter much there where they live. The case is that they can permit themselves a calendar-proof tenacity. They always go out with their own. Perseverance eventually conquers all—as long as it’s taken to the necessary extreme—they seem to want to teach us.  

Well, anyway. Here I am, a shell of my former self. Award-winning novelist and madwoman. Wherever I am—be it my dear cell in Wad-Ras prison, hotel, home, camping, or a friend’s house—I will always share my bed with the journalist from La Nueva España who never stopped interviewing me. What’s more, he’s always doing so at four or five in the morning, when I have finally managed to get to sleep and forget his presence, when I am immersed in a happy dream where I have a husband, three children, and a house with a dog, rug, and dryer, in that moment the sadistic man shakes me with his lifeless hands, grabbing me by the shoulders mercilessly, forcing me to face my sleeplessness with his bulging eyes  and the spit that he has been spitting out for three thousand one hundred two nights, only missing one, with the urgency of a drowned man and his incurable stupidity, so much so that I killed him for it:

“You’re Ángela Vallvey, right? Would you mind spelling your last name for me?”

 

Confesión

Lo confieso: una vez maté a un periodista.

He tratado de olvidarlo, callar, fingir, pero ya no tiene sentido continuar engañándome a mí misma. Nadie puede escapar de su memoria.

El recuerdo de aquel infeliz me persigue, de día y de noche. Y cuando digo que me persigue me refiero exactamente a eso: cuando abro los ojos de madrugada, asustada por alguna presencia que no reconozco como real, encuentro a mi lado a aquel bobo, observándome con los ojos saltones que ya tenía en vida, formulándome preguntas de pesadilla. No puedo soportarlo más. Tal vez a alguien pueda resultar sorprendente el lugar que he elegido para esta confesión. Quienes alguna vez me habéis acusado de meliflua o sinsustancia tendréis por fin vuestro merecido. Yo opino que en realidad nada de eso importa mucho: las historias existen, con indiferencia de lo que aportemos a ellas. Y los lugares, como los sucesos, te escogen para que los cargues de sentido.

En fin, no quiero irme por las ramas. En mi descargo debo decir que no se trataba de uno de esos periodistas curtidos, que siempre descubrimos afilando la palabra justa o husmeando allí donde ocurren cosas que de verdad nos interesan. No. Aquél pertenecía a la clase prescindible de los informadores culturales, uno de esos especialistas en el refrito de las notas de prensa, en la distorsión de las declaraciones y en la copia salvaje del artículo anterior, pescado en Internet, y siempre firmado por alguien más brillante. Además, técnicamente ni siquiera era periodista titular. Apenas becario, uno de esos recién llegados a una sección de Cultura desde el útero de la Universidad de Ciencias de la Información —¡ja!, ¿ciencias?; ¡ja!, ¿información?— que aún confunden el horóscopo con la crítica de arte. Y lo peor: no porque sean inexpertos, sino porque nunca, en toda su puta vida, tendrán la capacidad suficiente para discernir del todo una cosa de la otra.

Además, pertenecía a esa subclase de entrevistadores que jamás graba conversación alguna, sino que toma notas. Suelen sentarse frente a ti enarbolando un cuaderno cuadriculado y un bolígrafo de plástico, lanzan una pregunta como quien arroja una piedra a un pozo y pasan el resto del tiempo garabateando a toda prisa en su cuaderno, con el ceño fruncido y sin mirarte a la cara ni una sola vez. A veces imploran:

—¿Podrías hablar un poco más despacio, por favor?

Cuando eso ocurre, yo me esfuerzo por expresarme lo más rápido posible. Tengo comprobado que da igual la cantidad de palabras tuyas que sean capaces de retener al vuelo mientras tú te esfuerzas en razonar. No importa qué digas, porque ellos interpretarán lo que les plazca y, lo que es peor, le darán a tu discurso la forma del de ellos. De modo que al día siguiente, todos los lectores de las páginas de Cultura de su diario se preguntarán cómo una idiota como tú, que apenas sabe conjugar y que desconoce los secretos de la concordancia entre sujeto y verbo, puede haber tenido el atrevimiento de publicar un libro.

Los aficionados a los detalles morbosos os estaréis preguntando qué método utilicé. Sobra decir que nunca lo había hecho antes, de modo que tuve que pensarlo, aunque fuera durante tres centésimas de segundo. Podría haber lanzado contra su cabeza el cenicero de cristal que reposaba sobre la mesa que nos separaba, o podría haberle rebanado el pescuezo con el vaso de tubo de la tónica con hielo que estaba tomando. Salvo estas armas, no tenía a mano ninguna otra, de modo que me decanté por lo de toda la vida, que siempre da buenos resultados: le agarré por el pescuezo y se lo retorcí hasta que exhaló su último aliento. Así, sin más, aprovechando la ventaja que me daba su desconcierto (¿qué periodista podría prever que su entrevistado se comporte de ese modo?) y su menguado tamaño (no debía de pesar más de cincuenta quilos ni medía más de un metro sesenta).

En rigor a la verdad, debo reconocer que no me resultó tan fácil como yo creía. Pataleó, se retorció, intentó arañarme con sus uñas mordisqueadas, trató de defenderse arrojándome la grabadora (que no había conectado para no tener que perder su precioso tiempo escuchando la grabación), hizo volar por los aires uno de sus mocasines y hasta trató de agredirme con el bolígrafo de plástico, pero nada de aquello le valió de mucho. Apreté, y apreté y apreté, hasta que vi asomar a sus mejillas un rubor intenso y me di cuenta de que su lengua caía, fláccida, entre sus fauces. Entonces le solté. Cayó con un plof sordo sobre la mullida alfombra. Miré a ambos lados. Estaba sola en aquel rincón de la cafetería. Dejé cinco euros por las consumiciones y salí del lugar, ajustándome la bufanda de lana.

Está bien, lo acepto, fui algo tosca. La ofuscación es lo que tiene. Procedía con la misma vehemencia con que ahora estoy aporreando el teclado para vomitar esta confesión destemplada que durante todo este tiempo ha ardido en mi memoria. No me explico cómo he podido esperar tanto, y sin volverme loca. Ocho años y medio. Ese es el tiempo que hace que abandoné el enclenque cadáver del becario sobre la alfombra de color sangre del Gran Hotel España, de Oviedo, y salí a callejear, a recobrar una ciudad que siempre me pareció hermosa y que toda aquella pamplina de la promoción me había obligado a ignorar.

* * *

Es paradójico, pero no sé apenas nada de la vida de aquel infeliz, salvo que yo le puse fin. Meses después de aquella tarde en que llovía sobre Oviedo, supe que tenía una novia, que luego resultaron ser dos (no hay amores excluyentes). El jefe de sección de su periódico le consideraba un idiota, lo cual en algún momento me ayudó a tranquilizar mi conciencia («un idiota menos en el mundo —pensé— deberían darme un premio por esto, y no por escribir novelas»); con su padre mantenía una relación cercana a la antropofagia (la madre había muerto cuando él era un chaval).

Su nombre fue lo único que tuve claro desde el principio, aunque me lo reservaré no por respeto (sería ridículo, a estas alturas) sino por pudor. Digamos que se llamaba M. M., por si a alguien le sirve de algo saberlo (y perdón a todos aquellos que, lo sé, odiáis los personajes que se nombran sólo con iniciales, espero que en este caso sepáis comprender que no puedo hacer otra cosa). Gracias a que supe su nombre desde el principio pude llevar a cabo las pesquisas necesarias para saber cuanto acabo de constatar (una de las dos novias tenía una bitácora en Internet donde le gustaba explicar todas sus nimiedades, la mayoría de las cuales le afectaban también a él).

Acerca de lo que hice después del asesinato, no sabría precisarlo. Ya he dicho que me lancé a callejear por los alrededores de la catedral, muy contenta y mucho más tranquila de lo que había estado en las últimas semanas, desde que comenzó la promoción. Entré a echar un vistazo a los anaqueles de la librería Cervantes y hasta me encontré con mi amiga Concha Quirós. De inmediato pensé que me notaría algo raro en la mirada, un temblor o una palidez delatoras, no sé, ese tipo de cosas que en las novelas negras siempre constituyen una pista definitiva para resolver el caso. Para mi sorpresa, no ocurrió nada especial. Mantuvimos una conversación distendida y agradable acerca de su maravillosa librería y de mis deseos de dejar de viajar y regresar a casa, donde podría seguir escribiendo con esa tranquilidad que he tenido que aprender a guardar de los depredadores.

Concha estuvo de acuerdo conmigo.

—Créeme que os compadezco —dijo— tantas ciudades y tantas personas distintas y vosotros explicando siempre lo mismo… es como un castigo divino.

Qué acertada está siempre Concha Quirós, pensé. Y qué bonito nombre el de esta mujer: Concha, Quirós. Dos palabras que da gusto pronunciar. Como «pulpa», como «tántalo», como «plantígrado».

Ella fue lo único bueno que me pasó esa tarde. Cuando declaró a la policía, Concha Quirós dijo que no me había notado nada raro. Nunca supe si lo hizo por protegerme o porque realmente había conseguido engañarla. Aprovecho esta ocasión para agradecérselo, ya que no pude hacerlo en persona, como habría deseado.

* * *

Una vez, cuando yo misma trabajaba en la sección de «Cultura y espectáculos» de un rotativo con mucho más pasado que futuro, me enviaron a entrevistar a Mariano Antolín Rato. Había escrito una novela llamada Abril Blues en cuyas páginas la capital era un lugar con catedral —en aquellos tiempos la Almudena seguía en obras perpetuas— y hermosas playas de arena blanca y fina. La había publicado Anagrama y Antolín Rato recibía a los periodistas en la editorial, de la que guardo un vago recuerdo de cuartos repletos de papel, moquetas polvorientas y sofás de polipiel (aunque, ahora que lo pienso, es posible que los sofás fueran auténticos).

Yo tenía entonces dieciocho años y una vida muy ajetreada. Por las mañanas estudiaba Derecho y por las tardes me las daba de periodista. Debí de ser la redactora en plantilla más joven de toda Barcelona. Casi todos los días salía de trabajar pasadas las once y cogía un taxi —con cargo al periódico— que me llevaba hasta mi casa, a treinta quilómetros. Al día siguiente me levantaba a las seis para llegar a la Universidad a las ocho de la mañana, a tiempo de conseguir un asiento en las demasiado concurridas aulas de los primeros cursos de carrera.

De todo esto, claro, Antolín Rato no sabía nada. Tal vez de haberlo sabido habría actuado de otro modo. El caso es que yo me planté frente a él con su libro y un cuaderno en la mano y espeté aquella frase-lugar común entre los habitantes del azaroso universo del periodismo cultural:

—Lo lamento mucho, pero me han dado su libro hoy mismo y no he tenido tiempo de leerlo.

Mariano Antolín Rato, a quien recuerdo con un bigote grisáceo al estilo de Pablo Abraira, me miró sin perder la calma y replicó:

—No te preocupes. No tengo prisa. Ahí tienes un sofá muy cómodo —señaló el único que había—, donde puedes instalarte a leer. Cuando termines, charlaremos de lo que quieras.

No me atreví a replicar. Leí el libro de cabo a rabo sentada en el sofá de Herralde que, para colmo, estaba en el recibidor, de modo que frente a mí desfilaron uno por uno los tres o cuatro colegas que estaban citados después que yo. Cuando terminé, me confesé preparada para realizar mi trabajo. Antolín Rato me atendió con la amabilidad que merecía alguien bien preparado, y todo acabó mucho mejor de lo que había empezado.

Por lo que a mí respecta, aprendí una lección elemental: nunca te atrevas a decirle a un escritor que sólo has podido ojear su libro. Un escritor es alguien obsesionado hasta la enfermedad con ese trabajo que tú sólo has ojeado; es alguien que ha invertido veinte años de su vida en algo a lo que tú ni siquiera estás dispuesto a sacrificarle un par de horas. Y, lo que es peor, ni siquiera estás dispuesto a mentirle para fingir que lo has leído y —lo que sería deseable— que te ha fascinado. Permite que te dé un consejo: si alguna vez entrevistas a un escritor sin haber leído su libro, procura que no se note.

Conste que no digo todo esto por la novela de Antolín Rato. Abril Blues, contra todo propósito, me gustó. No será por las agradables circunstancias en que la leí, ciertamente.

Moraleja: Como se sabe desde antiguo, se aprende a ser fraile ejerciendo de monaguillo.

* * *

Aquella madrugada asturiana, en la 307 del Gran Hotel Regente tuve el primer contacto con el fantasma del bobo a quien había asesinado. He aquí un axioma infalible: si alguien ha sido idiota en vida, sigue siéndolo después de muerto. Aquel lamentable individuo estaba condenado, por mi culpa, a ser becario desaliñado y memo para el resto de la eternidad. Del mismo modo, yo lo estaba a soportar la venganza de su espíritu y resistir sus envites durante el resto de mi existencia.

Comenzó por algo sencillo: se sentó en la cama, a mi lado, y formuló durante toda la noche la misma pregunta. Era la pregunta que me había decidido por fin a lanzarme a su cuello, después de algunas vacilaciones. Se comprendía que, ya que había muerto con ella en los labios, se convirtiera en algo que no podía dejar en tierra al partir hacia una vida ultraterrena. La había traído consigo y la blandía con la persistencia de un tábano. Lo hizo mil cuatrocientas once veces. ¿Lo sé por algún motivo en concreto? Por supuesto. Las conté. En algo tenía que entretenerme, mientras el bobo muerto me miraba de hito en hito y me acribillaba con su curiosidad que ya nunca se saciaría.

Serían las cuatro de la madrugada cuando cambió de registro y soltó la frase que ya no habría de dejar de repetir hasta el amanecer:

—¿Qué piensas de la literatura femenina? ¿Qué piensas de la literatura femenina? ¿Qué piensas de la literatura femenina? ¿Qué piensas de la literatura femenina? ¿Qué piensas de la literatura femenina? ¿Qué piensas de la literatura femenina? ¿Qué piensas de la literatura femenina?

Qué sádico castigo.

Desde entonces, mi vida se convirtió en un infierno. No porque di con mis huesos en la cárcel, después de una investigación policial corta y un juicio bastante largo que llevó a la depresión a mi abogado defensor (aunque después de conseguir una pena bastante rebajada alegando enajenación mental transitoria y, qué cosas, arrepentimiento). No, no, todo lo contrario, mi reclusión es un gusto: por fin encontré una excusa convincente para decir que no a todos mis compromisos y dejé de asistir a mesas redondas, reuniones de jurados, charlas en centros de secundaria y fiestas literarias organizadas en loor ajeno, que tanto tiempo me robaban. En la cárcel de Wad-Ras, además, me siento comprendida y bien tratada, imparto talleres literarios a una docena de entusiastas alumnas y tengo más tiempo que nunca para escribir. Además, recibo visitas, disfruto de algún que otro bis a bis y de permisos de fin de semana (esto último, sólo desde hace un par de meses).

El problema es otro. El problema es que no importa lo que me ocurra de día, a qué personas conozca, qué lugares pise por primera —o por última— vez. No importan las pequeñas o grandes banalidades con que se aliña la cotidianeidad de la única escritora viva condenada por homicidio, porque por las noches vuelvo a toparme con el espíritu vengativo y tenaz del becario. Recuerden que les dije que le maté hace ocho años y medio. Lo cual eleva a tres mil ciento dos las noches que he pasado ya en su nada deseable compañía. Comprenderán que no haya podido descansar, olvidar, reponerme. Y mucho menos encontrar pareja. Fundar una familia es para mí una empresa impensable.

Tenía un marido cuando todo ocurrió —como algunos recordarán— pero me dejó poco después de mi condena, incapaz de comprender y ni siquiera de preguntar. Desde que disfruto de dos noches a la semana fuera de estas paredes, no es fácil encontrar a alguien dispuesto a departir noche tras noche con el memo, que inexplicablemente tiene la costumbre de acribillar a preguntas también a mis amantes. Eso ha hecho, por lo menos, con los (pocos) compañeros de cama que he tenido. Compadecí a uno en concreto, que se levantó a mear en mitad de la noche y regresó preguntándome por qué un señor muy raro y ojeroso que estaba en mitad del pasillo acababa de preguntarle su opinión acerca del panorama actual de la narrativa española. Por la mañana el fantasma ya no estaba en el pasillo, pero el amante tampoco estaba en mi cama.

No creo que sea difícil comprender que entre lo que les cuento y la locura sólo media un poco de tiempo. Y, como sabrán aquellos que alguna vez hayan tenido contacto con presencias espectrales, los seres de la otra vida tienen una paciencia infinita. Será porque allí donde viven el reloj ya no importa mucho. El caso es que pueden permitirse una tenacidad a prueba de calendarios. Siempre se salen con la suya. La constancia todo lo consigue, siempre que se lleve al extremo necesario, parecen querer enseñarnos.

Pues bien. Heme aquí, convertida en el despojo de lo que fui. Narradora premiada e histérica. Esté donde esté —mi querida celda de Wad-Ras, hotel, domicilio, cámping o casa de amigo— siempre comparto tálamo con el periodista de La Nueva España que jamás terminó de entrevistarme. Y siempre, a eso de las cuatro o las cinco de la mañana, cuando he conseguido por fin dormirme y olvidar su presencia, cuando me hallo sumergida en un sueño feliz donde tengo marido, tres hijos y una casa con perro, alfombra y secadora, en ese momento el muy sádico me zarandea con sus manos inertes, agarrándome sin piedad por los hombros, me obliga a enfrentar mi somnolencia con sus pupilas saltonas y espeta aquello que lleva espetándome tres mil ciento dos noches, sin una sola falta, con urgencia de ahogado y estupidez incurable, desde que lo maté por hacerlo:

—¿Tú eres Ángela Vallvey, verdad? ¿Te importaría deletrearme tu apellido?

 

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