A Crack in the Wall Read Free

“She’ll have been asking for him all around the neighbourhood. I bet she’d already been to the café, the butcher, the concierge at his building.” And in a final attempt to reassure her he makes a stab at metaphor: “Marta, let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill.”
    His eyes are open wider than usual, and Borla waits to see the effect of this idiom. When neither Marta nor Pablo says anything, he continues:
    â€œLook, I don’t think that girl’s going to come back asking for Jara, and if she does we’ll tell her the same thing – that we don’t have a clue where he is.”
    Borla speaks these last words with a conviction aimed at ending the discussion and, without waiting for any reaction from the others, he takes the initiative: he walks over to Marta, picks up her handbag and hands it to her, helps her to put on her linen jacket and, as she puts her arm through one of the proffered sleeves, says again, with emphasis:
    â€œThere’s no danger, Marta, don’t worry.”
    Then Borla opens the door and ushers them out of it, switches off the lights – which is usually Pablo’s job – and stands waiting for them outside, signalling an end to the working day without a thought for the tumult these actions provoke in Pablo Simó, who finds himself obliged to gather up his things in a hurry and bundle them away without due respect for his usual daily ceremony. Although the tape measure, the pencil and the notebook leave with him, they are not in the places that have so long been assigned to them, and that, Pablo senses, cannot be a good omen.
    They leave the office, the three of them walking briskly and talking of interchangeable banalities that could equally concern the unseasonably warm mid-March weather as the fact that the days will soon be getting shorter. They alighton whatever subject will allow them to pretend that the afternoon ended when Borla said to Marta, “Would you like a lift anywhere?”, that the door never opened, that there was never a girl in jeans, white T-shirt and black trainers asking fateful questions about Nelson Jara. All they have to do is stroll a few steps to the corner, where Pablo will say goodbye to the others and walk the remaining blocks to the underground station and Marta will get into Borla’s car, and each one of them will continue on to wherever they have to go.

3
    The underground journey doesn’t give Pablo Simó much of a chance to occupy his mind with other thoughts, and as he passes through the intermittent light of stations back into the darkness of the tunnel, he can’t help but think of Jara. Since the thoughts are inescapable, he makes an effort at least to picture him alive. Jara entering the office laden with files and papers; Jara choosing the worst moments to be a pain; Jara waiting for him, crouching in the dark passage outside the old office. Jara with his double-entry tables, Jara with his documents highlighted in fluorescent yellow, Jara in his worn suit, Jara and his shoes. They were ugly shoes – he thought as much the first time he saw Jara enter the office carrying a bag full of files, notes and case studies, but he didn’t say anything until the afternoon Jara tripped over some rolls of masking tape that Marta had left beside her desk. Helping him to his feet, Pablo was transfixed by those shoes made of rough, unyielding and shapeless leather, with lots of pleats at the toe, like the crimped edge of a pasty. He couldn’t help asking:
    â€œWhy do you wear those shoes, Señor Jara?”
    â€œBecause I have flat feet, arquitecto ,” the man replied.
    They didn’t look like orthopaedic shoes, though perhaps they were, but leaving aside the pleating and the bad-qualityleather, the laces were pulled tight and tied with a double knot, and they were badly polished. Jara had gone to the trouble of applying polish – you could see that –