The priest shook his head.
‘God has abandoned this country,’ he said.
‘Don’t worry then. As soon as he sees what’s brewing north of the Pyrenees, he’ll come back with his tail between his legs.’
The priest kept quiet for a long time. They finished off the ersatz coffee and Fermín, to cheer up the poor priest, who seemed to look gloomier with every passing minute, poured himself a second cup.
‘Do you really like it?’
Fermín nodded.
‘Would you like me to hear your confession?’ the priest suddenly asked him. ‘I’m not joking now.’
‘Don’t be offended, Father, but I don’t really believe in that sort of thing …’
‘But perhaps God believes in you.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘You don’t have to believe in God to confess. It’s something between you and your conscience. What is there to lose?’
During the next couple of hours Fermín told Father Valera everything he’d kept to himself since he fled from the castle over a year ago. The priest listened to him attentively, nodding every now and then. At last, when Fermín felt he had said it all and the stone slab that had been suffocating him for months without him realising had been lifted, Father Valera pulled out a flask of liqueur from a drawer and, without asking, poured what was left of it into a glass and handed it to Fermín.
‘I was hoping for absolution, Father, not a reward of a swig of cognac.’
‘It comes to the same thing. Besides, I’m no longer in a position to forgive or to judge anyone, Fermín. But I think you needed to get all that off your chest. What are you going to do now?’
Fermín shrugged.
‘If I’ve returned, and I’m risking my neck by doing so, it’s because of the promise I made to Martín. I must find the lawyer and then Señora Isabella and that boy, Daniel, and protect them.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll think of something. Any suggestions?’
‘But you don’t even know them. They’re just strangers that a man you met in prison told you about …’
‘I know. When you put it that way it sounds crazy, doesn’t it?’
The priest was looking at him as if he could see through his words.
‘Might it not be that you’ve seen so much misery and so much evil among men that you want to do something good, even if it’s madness?’
‘And why not?’
Valera smiled. The priest took the glass with the untouched drink from Fermín’s hands and knocked it back.
‘I knew God believed in you.’
7
The following day, Fermín tiptoed out of the flat so as not to disturb Father Valera, who had fallen asleep on the sofa with a book of poems by Machado in his hand and was snoring like a fighting bull. Before leaving he kissed him on the forehead and left the silverware – which the priest had wrapped in a napkin and slipped into his suitcase – on the dining-room table. Then he set off down the stairs with clean clothes and a clean conscience, determined to stay alive, at least for a few more days.
That day the sun was strong and a fresh breeze swept over the city. The sky looked bright and steely, casting long shadows as people walked by. Fermín spent the morning strolling through streets he remembered, stopping in front of shop windows and sitting on benches to watch pretty girls go by – and they all looked pretty to him. Around noon he walked over to a café at the entrance to Calle Escudellers, near the Los Caracoles restaurant of such happy memories. The café itself was notorious among those with fearless and undemanding palates for offering the cheapest sandwiches in town. The trick, said experts, was not to ask about the ingredients.
Sporting his smart new clothes and an armour of newspapers packed beneath them to lend him some bulk, a hint of muscles and low-cost warmth, Fermín sat at the bar, checked the list of delicacies within reach of modest pockets and began negotiating with the waiter.
‘I have a question, young man. In today’s special, peasant’s bread with mortadella and cold cuts from Cornellá, does the bread come with fresh tomato?’