An Englishman in Madrid by Eduardo Mendoza & Nick Caistor

Author:Eduardo Mendoza & Nick Caistor [Mendoza, Eduardo & Caistor, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION / Literary
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2015-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

23

“Sorry to bother you at this time of night, Don Alonso, but I thought I ought to inform you that the individual in question has finally been located and arrested. He’s being brought here at this very moment.”

At the far end of the line, Don Alonso Mallol, the director-general of Security, sighs as he hears Lieutenant-Colonel Marranón’s report: he is pleased at the news, but it will doubtless mean he will be unable to have a quiet dinner at home, as planned. He replies:

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Lieutenant-Colonel Marranón hangs up and rolls a cigarette, frowning. He is not happy either about having to get a mackerel sandwich sent up from the café downstairs. The cause of all this fuss will have to pay for our bad tempers, he thinks, lighting the cigarette and straightening the papers on his desk in order to give his boss a good impression. He calls his secretary Pilar in and tells her what is going on. The plump shorthand typist raises her sturdy arms resignedly. She does not seem annoyed, although for years her husband has been unable to work because of a chronic illness, meaning that the weight of earning their livelihood, doing the household chores and looking after an invalid has fallen on her shoulders. Doing overtime is very inconvenient: she will have to call a neighbor and ask her to deal with supper and her sick husband until she gets home. Yet the plump stenographer never complains or loses her good humor. The same cannot be said of Captain Coscolluela, whose temper is growing worse by the day. The captain is a man of action; he was used to combat and the military life, but now because of his wound he has to be patient for long hours at a time, and to waste his energies in annoying paperwork.

Don Alonso Mallol appears in the office sooner than expected. He is wearing an elegant navy blue overcoat with black velvet lapels and a bowler hat. When he received the call he was at an event in the Ateneo, and to avoid the traffic in the city center chose to walk the short distance to Security Headquarters. That afternoon Catholic students demonstrated in Puerta del Sol against the ban on religious teaching, and some stragglers are holding everything up, he explains as with the colonel’s help he leaves his coat and hat on the stand.

“What I want to know is if they’re already Catholics, why do they need to be taught it?”

“What they want is to avoid studying and cause trouble,” the lieutenant-colonel agrees.

Señor Mallol and his subordinate sit down. The director-general takes a cigarette from his cigarette case and offers one to the colonel, but not to Pilar. Inserting his own into a long holder, he lights it and does the same for Marranón. The two men smoke in silence for a while.

“So where the devil had our man got to?” Señor Mallol eventually asks.

“You’re not going to believe it, Don Alonso.

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