The Angst-Ridden Executive Read online

  ‘Pepiño—you still in the land of the living?’

  ‘I need your help, Pedro.’

  ‘Same old Pepiño—straight to the point. What’s up?’

  ‘I need you to prepare me a report on a multinational. Petnay, in fact. Their operations worldwide, and particularly in Spain. I want what’s public knowledge, and what’s not.’

  ‘Read any book about the fall of Allende and you’ll know all you need to know about Petnay. At least as regards the international side of things. For Spain, I should be able to help. We have people here who specialize in multinationals. What’s it all about? You getting back into politics?’

  ‘No way!’

  ‘Maybe we can take this chance for a bit of time together? How about a trip to the mountains, for old time’s sake, Ventura?’

  ‘Ventura?’

  ‘You don’t mean you’ve forgotten your nom de guerre . . . ?!’

  Bromide set about Carvalho’s shoes, and before the detective could say a word he had them shining like new.

  ‘You go round like a rich man, you eat like a rich man, and you spend like a rich man, but your shoes look like a dustman’s sandals!’

  ‘Dustmen don’t wear sandals.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Listen. Pin back your ears and pay attention, because this could make you rich. A man’s been found dead, near Vich, with no underpants on and a pair of women’s knickers in his pocket.’

  ‘Did he run a sausage factory?’

  ‘What do you make of it?’

  ‘Had he been stabbed?’

  ‘No. Shot.’

  ‘Unusual. It sounds something to do with pimps, but usually they tend to use knives. Do we know who the knickers belonged to?’

  ‘Wake up! If they knew whose the knickers were, they wouldn’t need a private detective, would they! Keep your ears open, Bromide, and see if something turns up.’

  ‘What kinds of girl would you say he was involved with?’

  ‘Expensive. He was the sort of man who needed to be discreet, and he probably had two or three regular lays.’

  ‘Pepe, I’ve been in this city for the best part of forty years and I know it like the back of my hand. My kidneys might be shot to hell, but I have very good eyesight. This would be the first time I’ve ever heard of high-class pimps using guns. Beating someone up, yes—but guns. . . ? There’s something odd about it, Pepe. If you were talking about cheap whores, OK—but not when you’re talking about the classy end of the market. No, it doesn’t sound right to me.’

  ‘I want you to keep your ears open for anything you can find out.’

  ‘As soon as I finish with you, I’ll go to the gents. I’ll piss what I have to piss, then I’ll wash my ears out, and I’ll listen all you like.’

  ‘Why did you go to the doctor’s?’

  ‘To take him a Cigar, what do you bloody think?! I went because I’m ill, very ill. Understand? My kidneys are fucked, my stomach’s playing up, and look at the state of my tongue.’

  Carvalho suddenly saw a tongue appear down by his knees. It had been ravaged by all the nicotine in the world, and was covered with a white and yellow film.

  ‘Put it away—you’re making me ill!’

  ‘Here I am, telling you that I’m ill, and you don’t even care! The doctor told me I had to go on a bloody diet. Grilled meat, salads and fresh fruit!’

  ‘I ask you—me, when all I usually have is a vermouth, a tapas of this or that, and a black coffee to get me through the day. I get by on a hundred pesetas a day. If you ask me, they don’t think. They wear their brains out studying to make themselves a career, and when they’ve finished their clients can go fuck themselves, because all they’re interested in is the money. Say what you like, but that’s the way it is. Look at my brother-in-law. He was feeling a bit rough, so he went to see the doctor. The doctor told him he had cancer. “Don’t give me that. . .” says my brother-in-law. Anyway, three months later he was dead. If you ask me, the reason was just because he knew he had cancer. Thousands of people pop off just like that, because one minute you’re fit as a fiddle, and then you go to the doctor and he tells you you’ve got cancer, and the next thing you know you get a cancer from worrying. They never actually cure you of anything, Pepe—particularly not when you get to my age. All they do is tell you what you’re going to die of.’

  ‘I thought you were going to see the doctor about the bromides.’

  ‘That creep?! He’s been my doctor since. . . let me see. . . since the Social Security started, since the days when concierges used to go round dressed like Marshal Goering. I’ve told him about the bromide hundreds of times, and he just ignores me. Why do you think so many people are dying these days? It’s because of the downers the government puts in the water.’

  Bromide looked round to make sure nobody was listening.

  ‘Why do you think Franco lasted so long? Because we were all confused. Our heads were in a mess, and it was all because of the bromide they were putting in our water. And in the bread.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like bread or water.’

  ‘Well in the coffee, then. Anyway, what’s coffee made from, wine? The water in your coffee—that’s where the bromide gets you! I’m telling you, Pepiño, if I had any power in politics—which I haven’t—I would make it my business to denounce the scandal of how they were using the bromides under Franco. I thought we were supposed to be living in changing times? Can you imagine a greater abuse of human rights than forcing a whole population to take bromides?’

  With his brush in one hand and his rhetoric in the other, even when he was down on his knees polishing people’s shoes Bromide’s gestures and features took on a certain senatorial dignity.

  ‘I’m going to put you up for the next elections. We’ll collect signatures in the barrio, and you’ll be Senator for the Ramblas.’

  ‘And I’ll represent the whores, and the tramps, and the private detectives.’

  ‘Be careful you don’t overdo the bromide business, though. They might take you for a Green.’

  ‘What’s a Green?’

  ‘They’re the people who protest about pollution. . . air pollution, river pollution, that sort of thing.’

  ‘That’s peanuts compared with this bromide business. Why should I worry about whether or not there’s trout in the rivers? How many trout have you eaten in your life, Pepe? Come on, how many?’

  ‘Twenty or so.’

  ‘Jesus—and you kick up all this fuss for twenty trout!’

  ‘Bromide, the last thing I need is an argument with you about ecology. Forget it. Let’s get back to the corpse, eh?’

  ‘I know, I know. . . mind your own business. . . That’s always the way it is with you “gentlemen”. The minute someone steps on your territory, it’s “Hey, you, Bromide, get back where you belong.” And that way people end up staying silent all their lives, even though they have things to say. As I live and breathe, I wrote a letter to General Munoz Grande, because people said he was an honest man, and he was my commanding general during the Russian campaign. I told him—man to man, old soldier to old soldier—everything I knew about the bromides. Well, you didn’t want to know, and neither did he.’

  A thousand-peseta note emerged from Carvalho’s pocket. Bromide caught it without interrupting the violin-bow action of his brush, and he gave it a look that said he would find it a safe resting place.

  ‘Don’t worry—your word is my command..

  When the final flourishes were over, Carvalho stretched his legs, admired his shoes, and descended from the throne. He deposited fifty pesetas in the shoe shine’s hand, and made his way past the darkened billiard tables. A light hood hung over the table in the corner, where the balls were conscious of their colour as they rolled—sumptuously faded whites and menacing reds. An ageing hustler was chalking his c
ue with ritual solemnity as his frog-like eyes lined up the next shot. He had a billiard-player’s pot belly. The sort of pot belly that has to be hoisted up before every shot so as to get it over the edge of the table. The player took a measured walk round the table while his opponent sipped a glass of pastis without taking his eyes off the green baize. There’s no way of telling whether the light is coming down from the conical metallic lampshade onto the green baize, or vice-versa. What is certain is that this little theatre is created by the darkness, and the fat billiard player drives a ball, follows its crisp course, and as he watches it collide and click against the others he raises his hand in the hope of preventing some unforeseen deflection of the ball and in order to reach for the magic cube of blue chalk which will give aim and desire to the tip of his cue.

  Jauma and Rhomberg were waiting for him outside the Holiday Inn in Market Street. Carvalho took one more turn round the parking lot in his VW and finally found a space, whereupon he was greeted effusively by Jauma, who, paradoxically, was claiming to be depressed.

  ‘The prospect of a sightseeing trip doesn’t really appeal to me. Just as well that we get back to Vegas at the end of it. I’m a born gambler. Are you a gambler, Carvalho?’

  ‘No. I sometimes visit the casinos, but once I’ve lost ten dollars in the fruit machines I call it a day. As for roulette and that sort of thing, I don’t really understand them.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘They don’t interest me. As I say, it’s all Greek to me.’

  They left Rhomberg at the Avis counter sorting out the car hire. Jauma sat in the front passenger seat, and Carvalho sat—or rather sprawled—in the back. Every now and then he would interrupt Jauma to point out something interesting about the San Francisco that they were now leaving to go to Los Angeles, but the reluctance with which this information was received was so obvious that he opted for a state of silent somnolence. He awoke to find himself being shaken by a smiling Jauma, who was pointing at something out of the window. The car was parked at a gas station, and the spectacle was that of Dieter Rhomberg in conversation with the two young Chicanos who ran the place.

  ‘Observe the infinite patience of the pure-bred Aryan.’

  Rhomberg seemed to be trying to explain something, and the Chicanos were listening with puzzled interest. Rhomberg’s hands waved in a more or less easterly direction, and then tried to trace a shape in the air. The Chicanos repeated his gestures.

  ‘He looks like an explorer trying to enlighten the natives.’

  Judging by the flora and the openness of the countryside, Carvalho concluded that they had traveled a fair way south, and were probably approaching Carmel.

  ‘Is it far to the beach from here?’

  ‘No. I’d quite fancy having lunch there. Dieter! Dieter! Leave them in their state of ignorance and let’s get a move on.’

  Dieter shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of didactic impotence and returned to the car.

  ‘What were you talking about?’

  ‘They were asking me where Europe is.’

  Rhomberg had an air of resignation tinged with irritation that seemed to strike Jauma as funny. He laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks.

  ‘I don’t see what’s so funny. They asked me if I was in the movies, and I told them that I was from Germany. They asked me where Germany was. I couldn’t believe it! “Didn’t you go to school?” Yes, yes, they’d been to school. “Fine. Didn’t they teach you where Germany was? “No.” “It’s in Europe.” Well, they’d heard of Europe, but it could have been in the Indian Ocean or the Arctic Circle for all they knew. “Germany, Germany!” I said. “Brandt. . . ! Adenauer. . . !” Nothing doing. “Hitler” —oh yes, they knew that Hitler was something to do with Germany. Then they asked me whether Germany is smaller than Mexico or the United States. I ask you! What kind of geography do they teach in this shit country?’

  ‘Rhomberg’s indignation reminds me of the eminent geographer Paganal in The Sons of Captain Grant, when he discovers that the British colonial teachers had taught their geography in such a way that the natives believed that the whole world was British. The viewpoint of the colonizer and the viewpoint of the colonized. When you work for a big multinational, the world takes on quite different geographical divisions. I could draw you a map representing Petnay’s growth over the years, which would stretch over four continents. One of the managers of the British section described it to me one day, as follows: when a Petnay executive farts in Calcutta, the smell can be smelt in Chelsea. I thought it would have been the other way round. When an executive farts in Chelsea, it’s a dead cert they’ll smell it in Calcutta. You have no idea what goes into a company like Petnay. They gather more information than most governments, and they’ve got as much political pull as the State Department. The Petnay Empire. Capital: San Francisco.’

  ‘I thought Petnay’s headquarters were in London.’

  ‘That’s just for show. The real HQ is in San Francisco.’

  Rhomberg looked at Jauma reproachfully, but Jauma’s eyes were on the passing countryside, as if he was reading the text of his speech off it.

  ‘I find it very relaxing to take a pleasure trip in the company of a socialistically-inclined senior executive and an intelligent fellow countryman. Did you know that Spaniards make the best foremen in the world? Would you agree that this is to be our role in the brave new world?’

  ‘When I was younger I used to think that Spaniards were cut out to be only executioners or their victims. I wasn’t aware of our role as foremen.’

  ‘Oh there’s no doubt of it. The history of Spain’s economic and political emigration is full of foremen. From the nineteenth century onwards Europe and America were supplied with excellent foremen in the shape of Spanish political and economic émigrés. My father went into exile in 1939, and he was a forestry overseer in the south of France, until he had to run from the Germans, from Dieter and his pals.’

  Rhomberg’s grunt indicated the routine disapproval of a person reacting to an overworked joke.

  ‘That’s interesting—my father went into exile in ‘39 too, and he also ended up as a foreman. In a quarry near Aix-en-Provence.’

  ‘You see? And I’ve got the explanation. In part it relates to your theory about Spaniards being either executioners or victims. The victim ones are particularly suited to being foremen in foreign countries. They’ve got the fears of a born loser, the determination of a survivor, and the hardness of a person who knows he can’t turn back. I’m the same. I’m a foreman. And Dieter is an inspector of foremen.’

  ‘Are you a loser, a survivor, a man who can’t turn back?’

  ‘I would say so, yes. Almost all the students in my year at the Law Faculty have ended up either as labour lawyers of such standing as to merit a ten-line entry in the Encyclopaedia Sovietica, or as affluent business lawyers. I was a wanderer, who dedicated himself neither to “defending the working class” nor to making a brilliant social career. I’ve got a survivor’s instinct, and I’ve got myself a foreman’s position in the most powerful multinational in the world. I can’t go back. It would mean going back to square one: taking the children out of a nice school with trees round it where they learn French up to the age of ten and English from eleven onwards, not to mention having to give up my chalet, my fifteen-metre yacht, and membership of my golf club. What would Reclus and Quimet do without me?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Reclus and Quimet. They’re the two sailors that I’ve hired for my yacht. I keep the boat in the marina at L’Estartit, and I use it once in a while to go for a quick trip to the Medas islands—which, by the way, you can reach just as easily by rowing, or even swimming.’

  Spring was multiplying the flowers on the low fences surrounding the wooden houses that were built in the so-called Californian style. Houses of dark, seasoned timber, each with a seal of individuality, in contrast with the mile after m
ile of prefabricated chalets that they had left behind on entering Carmel. The eucalyptus, orange and lemon trees would have given the place an almost Mediterranean air were it not for the more northerly light, which gave things a sharper edge. As far as Carvalho was concerned, the way this landscape ran down to great long beaches and white sand was as mock as Californian or New York State champagne—a sea and beach that seemed to go on forever, in a bright, unbroken stretch of blue, with rhythmic rolling waves which the arrival of spring would convert into mobile tracks for surfboarders. The beauty of the scenery was also an obstacle to an imaginative transfer to the Mediterranean. Beautiful sands, with not a scrap of litter in sight; beautiful gardens, watered daily; beautiful Anglo-Saxons, white as the sand on the seashore, and always casually dressed, as if life for them was always casual.

  The outcome of the phone call to San Francisco was that Carvalho opened the fridge in his office and downed a glass of chilled orujo.

  ‘Rhomberg doesn’t live here any more.’

  ‘Since last night?’

  ‘Not for several months.’

  ‘I rang last night and someone told me that he’d gone out, but that he’d be back to sleep.’

  ‘Error. He left for an unknown destination.’

  ‘Are we talking about the same person? Dieter Rhomberg. He works for Petnay as an inspector.’

  ‘Used to work. He stopped working for Petnay as of two months ago and left for an unknown destination.’

  ‘Didn’t he leave a forwarding address?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who are you? Who am I talking with?’

  ‘That is none of your business, sir.’

  And she hung up on him. The woman’s voice was different to the one that had spoken to him the night before. Dieter Rhomberg had disappeared in the space of twenty-four hours, which had now turned into two months. Another glass of orujo made it clear that he should not venture a third. Concha Hijar was quite surprised to hear of Dieter Rhomberg’s sudden disappearance.