The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra by Pedro Mairal Read Free Book Online Page B

said.
    “Don’t play the fool, Juan. You want your painting, I want my white horse.”
    “Have you got the painting?”
    “No, but I know who has. Bring me my whiskey and then we’ll see.”
    “How much whiskey?”
    “The forty cases you owe me.”
    “OK, I’ll bring them tomorrow,” I said, rising from my seat once more.
    “Stay where you are.”
    I sat down again.
    “Do you know why I feel like killing you? How long have we known each other, Juan?”
    “How long?” I asked.
    “Since we were this tall. We were like brothers. The whole day together in the river. We were partners. Then you wanted to split up. I accepted that, didn’t I?”
    He paused for me to answer, but I said nothing.
    “Did you know that Ibáñez and Vázquez wanted to kill you?”
    “No.”
    “I made them swear they’d leave you alone. But when you shut the shed on me ... that really made me mad, che. I don’t know how I ever forgave you for that.”
    The old man fell silent, looked me in the eye, and then said:
    “So you owe much more than a little white horse, Juan. You owe me your life.”
    I didn’t say a word. There was the sound of shuffling feet in the corridor. It was Jordán’s granddaughter.
    “Messing about with that shotgun again, granddad!” she said, and snatched it from him as if she were taking a toy from a child. She glanced at me, lifted the kettle from the stove, and said:
    “Did he scare you with the gun? Don’t worry,” she whispered. “My brother filed down the hammer. Let me see your hand, granddad,” she said out loud, and began to check his bandage. “You’ve been playing with it, haven’t you? You have to leave the bandage alone. And be careful with that kettle. The handle is loose, mind you don’t go burning yourself again.”
    “I’ll be leaving now. ’Bye,” I said, rushing for the door.
    The dog snapped at me on the way out, but by now, after being so scared I was going to die, I felt almost friendly towards it.

21
    I cycled to the telephone office to call my brother. I don’t know why, but now that the danger had passed I couldn’t stop shaking. I could hardly dial the numbers. When Luis answered, I told him I’d met Jordán. He barely remembered who I was talking about. I explained that Jordán had stolen the missing roll out of revenge because Salvatierra wouldn’t let him use the shed to store contraband goods any more. Luis didn’t understand a thing. I was so anxious I stumbled over my words. “I think dad was a smuggler,” I said. Luis grew mad at this: he told me I was crazy, that I should be more careful about what I said, and asked where I was phoning from. It was an absurd conversation.
    When I reached our old house, I found it impossible to stop thinking about it. Mom was staring at me from her portrait on the wall. She had never wanted to even hear about Jordán and his gang. Whenever she knew they were in the shed, she would send me or my brother to fetch Salvatierra. She was always against his friendship with them. Salvatierra had known them since childhood, so it must have been hard for him to distance himself from them. In the end, my mother succeeded in getting him to shut the shed door to them. Her powers of persuasion were slow and gradual, but she always won eventually.
    She liked to tell us she was a descendant of the caudillo Francisco Ramírez. I’ve never been able to draw up a proper family tree for that side of the family. My maternal grandfather died soon after my mother was born. Supposedly, he was Ramírez’s great-nephew. There’s no way of knowing for sure. The fact is that my mother claimed she was related to him, and the way she treated the two of us and our father sometimes seemed to corroborate it. Over the years she grew increasingly dry and harsh. My sister’s death hardened her forever. We never saw her smile again.
    As long as she didn’t interfere with his task of painting, Salvatierra usually let her have her way. Was that why