“It’s not álvaro.”
His emphatic reply drew the attention of the corporal, who forgot the things on the desk and turned a disconcerted face toward him. “What?”
“It can’t be álvaro. My husband went to Barcelona yesterday afternoon to see a client. He’s in marketing and public relations. He’s been working for weeks on a project for a Catalu?a hotel group. They set up several promotional events, and this morning he had a presentation to make. So he couldn’t possibly have been in Lugo. There must be some mistake. I spoke to him last night, and the only reason we didn’t talk this morning was, as I said, his meeting was very early and I don’t get up early, but I’ll call him right now.”
He brushed past the corporal on his way to the desk, ignoring the officers’ exchange of knowing looks. He fumbled through the mess on the desktop. The spoon rattled against the glass; the rim was indelibly stained with coffee. He located the cell phone, tapped a couple of keys, and listened, his eyes fixed on the sergeant. She watched him with a pained expression.
Manuel stayed on the line until it stopped ringing. “He must be in his meeting,” he explained. “That’s why he didn’t pick up.”
The sergeant rose. “Your name is Manuel. That’s right, isn’t it?”
He nodded as if accepting a formal accusation.
“Manuel, come here. Have a seat next to me, please.”
He went back to the sofa, the phone in his hands, and did as he was told.
“Manuel, I’m married too.” She looked down briefly at the muted gleam of his wedding ring. “And I know from experience, especially because of my profession, that we’re never entirely sure what our partners are doing. It’s something a person has to learn to accept. There’s no use being tormented by uncertainty. Surely your husband must have had a reason for not telling you. We’re certain it’s him. No one answered because our colleagues in Monforte have his phone in custody. They’ve had your husband’s body transported to the medical examiner’s office at Lugo Hospital. And we have positive identification by a relative. There is no doubt whatsoever. We’re talking about álvaro Mu?iz de Dávila, age forty-four.”
He’d kept shaking his head as Sergeant Acosta spoke, attributing her incorrect assumptions about álvaro to the tarnished brilliance of his wedding ring that afforded her the opportunity to pontificate about marriage. He’d spoken to álvaro just a few hours ago. álvaro was in Barcelona, not in Lugo. Why in hell would álvaro be six hundred miles away, all the way across the country, in Lugo? Manuel knew his husband, he knew where álvaro was, and there was no way álvaro was on some damned road in Lugo. He hated pronouncements about couples, he hated absolutes more than anything, and he was starting to hate this smart-ass little sergeant.
“álvaro doesn’t have any family,” he countered.
“Manuel . . .”
“Okay, I suppose he comes from a family just like everybody else, but he hasn’t been in contact with them for a long time. Nothing at all, zero. It’s been like that forever, since long before álvaro and I met. He’s been completely independent since he was very young. You’re all mistaken.”
She was patient with him. “Manuel, your name and phone number are on the Aa speed dial on your husband’s phone.”
“Aa speed dial?” he repeated in confusion.
He remembered now. They’d set it up years ago. Aa was the key combination the public safety authorities had invented. It linked to the name and number of the person to be informed in case of an accident. He checked the contact list of his own phone and there it was: Aa linked to álvaro. He stood there for a time examining carefully each of the letters of that name. His vision blurred with the weight of his unshed tears. He flailed about, seeking some other life preserver.
“But no one called me . . . They’d have had to phone me, wouldn’t they?”
The corporal seemed almost pleased at the opportunity to explain. “They used to do it like that, until a couple of years ago. They telephoned the indicated person, and if there wasn’t anyone specified they called the number marked ‘home’ or ‘parents’ and informed them. But it was very traumatic for the recipients. More than once those calls provoked heart attacks, accidents, or . . . unintended consequences. We’re trying to do it better. Now the standard procedure requires a positive ID; you notify the post closest to the residence of the deceased, and we always come as a pair. One is always an experienced officer, as in this case, and we deliver the information personally or escort the individual to identify the body.”
So this whole parade of Sit down and keep calm wasn’t real. It was standard operating procedure for the delivery of the worst possible news. The officers were merely following a protocol. His protests were pointless, because there’d never been any possibility of appeal.
For a few moments they sat motionless and silent as statues. At last the corporal gestured to the sergeant, who said, “Maybe you’d like to call some relative or friend to go with you.”
Manuel looked at her, confused by the suggestion. The idea seemed as foreign as if she were speaking underwater or from another dimension.
“What do I do now?” he asked.
“As I told you, the body is at the medical examiner’s office at Lugo Hospital. There they can tell you what steps to take, and they’ll release the body for burial.”
Pretending an assurance he was far from feeling, he got up and went to the door, obliging the officers to follow him. He promised to telephone his sister as soon as they left. He knew he had to look like he was in control of himself if he wanted to get rid of them. He shook their hands and withstood the sharp glances that weren’t quite in keeping with their affable farewells. He thanked them again and shut the door.
He leaned his face against the warm wood, certain that they were listening on the other side. From this angle he noticed something he’d never particularly paid attention to before: the narrow hall opened to the living room in just the way a long-stemmed flower reached for the light. This was the home he’d shared with álvaro for the past fifteen years; seen from this neglected vantage point it seemed immense. The light that flooded through the window threw the outlines of the furniture into sharp relief and spread a liquid brilliance that made it seem to dissolve into the walls and ceiling. That was the precise moment when the beloved familiar space ceased to be his home and turned into an ocean of frozen sun, an infernal arctic night that made him feel like an orphan again, as he had that other far-off night in the hospital.
He’d told them he was going to call his sister. He smiled bitterly at that. If only he could. Vertigo rose through his chest like a hot, unwanted animal squirming in his lap, and his eyes filled with tears at the knowledge that the only people he wanted to telephone were both dead.
He suppressed the urge to weep, went back to the living room, took the same seat as before, and picked up his phone. The screen lit up and offered the option of telephoning álvaro. He stared at it briefly, let out a long breath, and looked for another number in the contact list.
Mei’s sweet feminine voice answered his call. Mei Liu had been álvaro’s secretary for more than ten years. “Oh, hello, Manuel, how are you? How’s your latest novel going? I’m biting my nails, I’m so impatient. álvaro told me it’s going to be incredible—”
“Mei”—he interrupted her chatter—“where is álvaro?”
There was a sudden brief silence on the other end of the line. Manuel knew she was about to lie to him. He even had one of those flashes of clairvoyance that reveal the stage machinery that moves the world. The mechanism that mercifully remains hidden from us for most of our lives.
“álvaro? Why . . . he’s in Barcelona.”
“Don’t lie to me, Mei!”