I

ADELA

Adela crosses her arms, leans her left shoulder against the doorframe and, a touch alert and distrustful, glances over at the young man waiting alongside her a short distance away, next to the lowered shutter of the building. At this precise moment, their looks coincide. It’s a split second of mutual frankness, barely sufficient time to register any particular details in the other’s appearance. Even so, it’s enough for them to categorize each other. They both then stare in front, ignoring each other in silence, one at either end of the metallic mesh.

If we move a little away from them, if we place ourselves, for example, on the other side of the street, the scene is completed by the sign stretching above their heads all along the façade, in large, white letters painted on a blue background. On one of the edges, on the righthand side of the banner, appears the drawing of a lorry in 3D and, at the other extreme, the silhouette of a black vehicle, so stylized they could pass as childish caricatures of a toy car.

But let’s get back to Adela. Her eyes are large, almond-shaped, chestnut-brown, slightly misaligned perhaps on account of her shortsightedness. If we pay a little more attention, it is possible her tear ducts are somewhat irritated due to an excess of mascara since, she’s not sure how, she went back to sleep after the alarm on her phone went off and, when she awoke, she had to get ready in a rush, otherwise she would have missed the bus, and that’s no way to make yourself look nice, let alone to do your eyeliner properly. She didn’t even have time for a coffee.

Now, maintaining this posture, leaning against the rounded corner of stone, it seems she relaxes and lets her absorbed gaze run over the roofs on the other side of the street, frowning ever so slightly, as if rummaging through something important in some remote nook of her memory.

And yet all of this is false. In reality, Adela isn’t thinking about anything. Not even about her children, who, when she left, were still asleep at home, her sister would pop round later to pick them up and take them to the match. No, she isn’t thinking, she doesn’t want to think about anything specific. Only the rain on that unpleasant morning, or the virulence of the gusts of wind that are unleashed from time to time, or the traffic, its unusual absence, or the minutes to go before they open, or about all of this together, which is more or less the same as not thinking at all. Hers is mere theatre, an empty mask, a simple scenic cover, a sweet substitute to hide from the world the fears that unsettle her, her uncertainties, to hide them from this young man waiting, like her, against this inhospitable metal barrier.

Furthermore, despite the apparent determination with which she has just performed her last movements, the final pose she has adopted is obviously uncomfortable. In fact, she has placed all the weight of her body on one hip, with one foot on the pavement and the other on the stone threshold, a single span above street level. If, the way she is, she could see herself in a mirror, no doubt she would think she looks grotesque, pathetic even. She really hasn’t liked herself recently. Apart from the enforced adaptation to the difference in height, for a while now her waist hasn’t exactly been out of a fashion magazine and the trousers she put on are a tad tight, she bought them a couple of years ago, when she still had time to engage in a dialogue with the scales. All the same, she has nothing to worry about, right here and now there’s nobody around except for this slip of a lad standing next to the wall, at the other end of the mesh, with a cap worn back to front, nodding along to the rhythm being imposed by his earphones. Which is why it’s better to stay like this, to be quiet, supposedly indifferent and relaxed, even though her jaw is going stiff and her toes are subject to clandestine tension, scrunched up as they are inside her socks. Once again, she focuses on maintaining her precarious inner balance, on gripping the unease that results from her own image, from her imprecise appearance, from what others might think.

It’s still not eight. It’s Saturday morning. It’s getting cold. They really could think about opening.

It’s certainly cold, but luckily it’s not raining at the moment. When it did pour down was during the night. It was windy. It blew a storm. Added to the insomnia that has been disturbing her first few hours of rest was the sound of water pinging against the windows in the early morning. And yet it wasn’t the storm’s fault that she woke up late, she’s not going to deceive herself. It’s the loneliness, the anguish, it’s the panic she feels when she has time in the dark to think about the dizzying spiral in which for some time now she has been immersed. That’s why she doesn’t want to dwell on things. It calms her to let her mind go blank. Or at least to try this. In moments of crisis, the first thing you have to do is relax. This isn’t the advice of some psychological specialist. It’s her intuition. She did this only a short while ago, when she was walking from the bus stop, dragging her feet through the fallen sycamore leaves, leaves that pile up, amassing water in the nooks and crannies left by parked cars, the same leaves that mercilessly soaked her shoes. Had she had time to foresee this that morning, she would have worn boots. She’s useless when it comes to those things… Those and many others, she mutters to herself, that’s how it goes, she clicks her tongue without realizing, at the other end of the shutter, the young man might be listening. She has put her foot in it so often in life. If she could only go back in time… But she doesn’t want to keep going on about it, she’s already complained enough and knows this doesn’t achieve anything except to bog you down even further.

She glances in one direction, then the other, where the young man is leaning, though this time she stares at him with sufficient ostentation to make it clear she’s not taking an interest, even if he does happen to be in the centre of her field of vision. The young man looks away, she cannot tell whether in defeat or to express the same lack of interest. She doesn’t really care anyway.

She doesn’t really care, that’s right. She’s just looking. On this grey street on the Tambre industrial estate, the only sound is the occasional roar of the engines of cars changing gear, on mute, as they move away from the roundabout, which is on the right, some twenty yards from where she is still waiting for someone to open the door and rescue her from the unpleasant sensation she is experiencing. She twists around to make sure the stone corner on which she is resting is not stained as a result of the grease the channels on shutters always release, and then leans back, more lightly this time, just in case, she didn’t see anything at the top of her sleeve, but she might just end up spoiling her leather jacket. That was all she needed, to ruin this article of clothing, at the present moment the most valuable in her wardrobe. Which is why she doesn’t linger any longer. She makes a determined effort to stand upright and move away from the wall to prevent any accidents happening. Just a couple of steps, enough not to have to meet that young man’s eyes again. Let him understand after the second look all she feels is indifference. She opens her bag and rummages inside. She’s not searching for anything, just wasting time, keeping her hands busy. She rummages around until she finds her cigarette packet. She doesn’t really feel like it, but decides to light a cigarette. It’s her protective shield, the easy recourse of a mechanical action, the inoffensive ritual beneath the aesthetic vacuity of the aroma of Winston.

Because, to tell the truth, Adela doesn’t enjoy smoking. She never has. In fact, she rarely lets the smoke go down to her chest. When they were going out, Suso always offered and she accepted, more out of apathy than desire. She doesn’t even reach the category of what is termed a social smoker. Even so, bringing the flame close to the cigarette and watching the whirl of bluish smoke from the first exhale is a kind of narcotic liturgy that helps her regain control of the situation. It’s the fragile wisdom of her tightrope walker’s inner being. The drags she takes are brief, nervous, and her fingers seem to respond to spasmodic movements that reveal tension, or perhaps it’s just a lack of skill.

Early twenties, thereabouts, that’s what he is. He must be something like that, the young man, while Adela is closer to forty than thirty. Thirty-six, to be exact, it was her birthday last week, even though she doesn’t look it with that childish face and youthful style under which she has always disguised her uncertainties. For that reason, if she has an impulsive curiosity for that man at the present moment, it’s not because she feels any kind of attraction, that’s water under the bridge. She has enough problems as it is. Stop that. If push came to shove, he could almost be her child. Slow down, Adeliña, don’t exaggerate, you’re not that much older. Ten years? Something like that, she calculates. Or less. What really grabs her attention is the meticulous skater apparel he is wearing, the back-to-front cap, the low-rise trousers, she can’t imagine how he walks anywhere, and also that attitude of disdain which makes it look as if he’s going to spit at anyone who pauses to observe his outlandish appearance. When on arriving she gave him a generous greeting, just to be nice, just to show off her natural affection, he responded with a sort of reluctant, indecipherable grunt that left her feeling stunned, halfway through her smile. A bad start if that young man was going to be one of her classmates. And yet, when you thought about it, better like that. The less bulk there is, the greater the clarity, if she’s here at this hour of the morning, on a damp, cold Saturday like this, it’s not exactly to engage in public relations with stupid, impolite guys like him. She would stick to her own thing, finish the damn course as soon as possible, and continue on her way. She has quite enough looking after her business, the children, work, she barely has enough time to breathe. She gives thanks for Reme, her sister, who, since she’s unemployed, takes them to and from the school bus and to their training sessions and activities. Otherwise they would have to stay with their grandmother, what choice does she have, albeit she’s always complaining, the old lady has less and less patience and is always moaning about the aches and pains in her legs and knees. Without Reme, she just wouldn’t get by.

With an unconscious gesture, Adela shakes her left hand so her watch drops down to her wrist and sees there are still a few minutes to go before eight. She just hopes they will at least be punctual. She moves away from the entrance and the oblique gaze of that extravagant simpleton, advancing to the edge of the pavement in order to drop the cigarette end through the grille of the storm drain that is right there, half blocked by leaves. She doesn’t want him to notice, but she is starting to get impatient. She glances up and down the road again and, while blowing out the last wisps of smoke, finds the same sleepy, silent street as earlier. Nobody to look at. Just the odd solitary car or delivery van. At weekends, there isn’t much movement on the industrial estate. In the end, she goes back to rummaging in her bag and stuffs some chewing gum in her mouth.

In the past, a little more than a year ago, Adela was the perfect housewife. Now, to cap it all off, she delivers newspapers. As a young woman, she had accepted the role of “wife of” and implicitly renounced being what she had been, the happy-go-lucky girl who let herself be carried along by her friends in lengthy card games after class, in the same café as always, incombustible groupie on nights of dancing and fun in summer, attending the concerts of her favourite orchestra in different towns of the country, a specialist when it came to raking through market stalls in Padrón on a Sunday, in search of bargains and almost perfect imitations, so she could dress fashionably without spending money she didn’t have. Needless to say, she also had to renounce the job at the kindergarten where she had been taken on. When it came down to it, with the children they were going to have, she was hardly going to have time to look after others. Because, that’s right, Suso wanted a whole tribe of miscreants jumping around him soon. Six, at least, he would say with wide open eyes in the beginning. In the beginning, in the end they stopped at the second, a seller of electrical appliances’ salary didn’t stretch any further. And there was no way she was going to get a job outside, with all the work that needed doing at home. Don’t even think about it, Suso would say. Besides, when it came to bringing money home, that was his responsibility, it was the least he could do. The woman, at home. She would have quite enough to do with the general housekeeping, the shopping, changing nappies, washing piles of clothes, hanging them out to dry, ironing his shirts, working as he did face to face with the public he always needed to be nickel-plated. And with the passing of the years she also got used to swallowing a couple of shows each afternoon, when the little ones went to sleep or left for their grandmother’s, so she could collapse on the sofa, exhausted from so much hullabaloo. The most she could expect was a coffee once a week with her friends, a simple and nostalgic recollection of times gone by. And sometimes not even that. As the years went by, she felt more and more smothered by this role.

It was around this time, however, that everything went south and she discovered her Suso, the Susiño of her youth, the man she had married, the one who wore the shirts and ties she ironed ever so carefully, at the end of the afternoon, almost every day, when he left the shop, was secretly slipping into the house of one of her best friends. She caught them at it. A snatched phone call, unintentionally overheard, an anxious wait sitting on the stairs of that building, and the discovery had been complete. He couldn’t deny it. He didn’t even try. She didn’t even look at the other’s face, stupid bitch. How much pain then. How much rage. How much suffering.

That was then, a couple of years earlier. Not anymore. She doesn’t suffer now, she’s over it. All the same, when it happened, she cried a lot. Her mother counselled resignation, suggested she endure a bit, men did these things, and she should be a little more long-suffering. Adela went crazy with all this advice coming from her own mother. It struck her as an insult, a humiliation. More long-suffering? What do you mean, long-suffering? Even more than she had been? She had what was necessary. It wasn’t pride, it was dignity. Dignity, mother. I’m amazed you should be the one telling me to put up with it and look the other way. You’ve no idea how much it hurts. She wasn’t prepared to overlook the deceit and didn’t feel like forgiving anything. She sent Suso a message to drop by the house and pack a suitcase when she wasn’t there, to deposit the keys in the hallway and leave quickly, for good, to go and live with the other, let her wash his undies. The paperwork was a bit of a pain. Thank God for that lawyer who helped her so much.

That said, it’s no good crying over spilt milk. Time has passed, and she doesn’t miss Suso at all. She doesn’t forgive him or feel any nostalgia for him. In which case, she can’t have loved him all that much. Despite the unpleasantness, she’s glad in a way she got rid of a man like that. Perhaps in the future she’ll meet someone with whom it’s worth having another go. But not immediately, after all, it’s not so bad being without a partner. The other day, she found out Suso and the slut are living together, she also got separated, and they’re expecting a child. They want to get married and everything. Fine then. Let them do what they like. So long as he pays for all the documents. As things stand, she blows neither hot nor cold.

Yeah. In the past, Adela was the perfect housewife. The perfect idiot, more like. It hurts to call herself that, but after the experience she has been through, this is the only objective way of interpreting reality. She works hard now, very hard, but she’s not stupid like before. She delivers newspapers in the early morning. And in the afternoons, for some months now, she has been looking after an old lady, since with what she gets from Suso for the children and the little the delivery company pays her she doesn’t have enough to maintain herself and the two whippersnappers. Which is why she placed an advertisement on the board of a bakery, responsible woman available to care for children or old people in the afternoons. Utmost seriousness. The next day, she was already receiving calls. The truth is she is sometimes so exhausted when she reaches the old lady’s house that she falls asleep next to her in front of the telly, with those dumb, soporific chat shows the dear old biddy insists on watching.

After a protracted interval, she decided to go out with her friends. It was a hen night. The usual modest person’s mixed grill. One or two drinks in a pub, more perhaps. Just to wish them well. And she drank. There was no denying it. Besides, what the hell, she needed to release a little pressure from her body. She was really exultant. She even had a dance with her friends, and this guy started flirting with her on the dance floor.

She got caught. At a roundabout, on the way home, when she was a dog’s sprint from her house. Blow as hard as you can, that civil guard with a St Bernard’s expression had said, and she had done so a little fearfully. Harder, he had insisted, in a more authoritative tone this time. So, then she had really blown. What to do? After that, a short walk along the roadside and back to the test. It wasn’t much, 0.3, but it was positive again. What rotten luck. Those were the few points she had left. So, just as her fingers were touching happiness, she fell down that unexpected precipice. She almost lost her delivery job. Luckily, it was Reme, once more, who stepped into the breach. She had no problem going with her to the warehouse on the industrial estate each morning to pick up the bundles of newspapers, so they could do the route together. Today, in fact, she took charge of the whole thing, had she had to go with her, she wouldn’t have had time to arrive on time for the first session. She was also afraid she might lose custody of the kids. Reason told her Suso had absolutely no interest in dealing with the children, especially now, when he was expecting another with that lowlife. But she’s still worried. She wants to get this over and done with as soon as possible. There are four intensive sessions of six hours each, this Saturday, next Friday and Saturday, and the last day, Friday of the week after that. Then, sit the Department for Transport’s exam. She should manage.

About time, thinks Adela. A woman with a sleepy expression approaches on the pavement, automatically removes a bunch of keys from her bag, and, without looking at anybody or bothering to greet them, she rummages in the lock, noisily lifts the metal shutter, and opens the door to the building.

Adela and the young man waiting on the other side of the entrance draw close. She is about to cross the threshold – the brute didn’t even gesture to let her go first – when she sees a young woman quickening her pace and, on reaching her, giving her a smile that fastens ostentatiously lipsticked lips. She returns the greeting with a degree of comfort. Even if it’s only about the weather, at least she’ll have someone to talk to.

It’s now eight o’clock on the dot. A damp, chilly breeze is blowing, which whimsically lifts the leaves on the road. A shudder runs down Adela’s back as she closes the door of the driving school behind her.

*   *   *

II

PACO AND ADRENALIN

There are no two ways about it. Paco de Flora has always lost his head over speed. Just knowing he will soon be on the asphalt, the adrenalin starts sweeping down his veins like lightning, and his heart accelerates like a runaway horse. What to do? It’s more than he can handle. However hard he tries to grip the reins of that impulsive impetus, of that abrupt, overflowing visceral incontinence, he cannot control the biochemical reaction that fizzes through his body. It’s enough to stroke the steering wheel with his fingertips, to slowly turn the ignition, to hear the rhythmical beat of the pistons, his foot pressing softly, but firmly on the tip of the accelerator, for him to be completely transfigured, to become intoxicated with that entrancing music coming from an engine that has yet to set the car in motion, as happens to an alcoholic, who only with the smell of wine already feels a hint of dizziness and starts staggering about, the pleasure knots his insides and merges with the fumes of petrol, with the almost imperceptible sliding of the stick as it slips on the oil in the gearbox, this time yes, moving already, the gravel crunching beneath the wheels, as when a jockey lashes the hind quarters of the mount with the whip and starts galloping as fast as the steed will go, as fast as he can in first gear, then second, two thousand revolutions, and third, three thousand, the engine roaring, neighing, mane flowing in the air, and fourth, and fifth, three thousand five hundred, and then sixth, until the pedal, like the spurs that dig into the animal’s flanks, sinks as low as it can go, man and horse, man and machine, working as one, the rider’s skin barely touching the long-suffering stud’s sweaty hair.

Then Paco de Flora turns into pure electricity, his five senses magnetized, focused exclusively on the dizzying road that accelerates past the windows, over the windscreen, transporting him to a fourth dimension, as if he were levitating like an astronaut floating weightlessly, except that, instead of being in a space capsule, he experiences this feeling in the cabin of his old, souped-up, second-hand Jaguar.

What happens to Paco with speed is an addiction. He doesn’t need the diagnosis of some knowledgeable specialist to corroborate this with indecipherable technicisms. He knows it, and it’s been like that for some time.

When he was a child and his feet could hardly reach the pedals, he would race down slopes on an old bike without brakes, when he wasn’t doing this on his brother’s skateboard, who never wanted to lend it to him because he would scratch it all over, or on the go-kart he had put together with a few poorly sanded pieces of pinewood, a rope for steering, and four worn tyres from one of his father’s lorries. He did this purely for the pleasure of feeling the wind pummel his cheeks, of imagining he was incorporeal, that lightness in the pit of his stomach that birds must feel when they’re about to take flight. On not a few occasions, he ended up with grazed knees, scratched elbows, bruised arms after smashing into a wall. Or worse, as happened once, after colliding with the car of some neighbours his family hadn’t spoken to in years on account of a land dispute which went back to the time of his grandparents.

Then, during adolescence, there were other speeds Paco longed to discover. He was always anxious to experience new vertigos.

On the same day he turned fifteen, he took the test and got a moped licence. But the Yamaha 50 cc his family gave him wasn’t enough, he couldn’t go as fast as he wanted. So, he sought out the friendship of men who had turned eighteen and had bigger engines. The one he liked best was a Honda CBR that belonged to a friend in a neighbouring village. Paco insisted on borrowing it. He even offered money to be allowed to take it for a spin. He was desperate to experience the pleasurable sensation of rotating his wrist, revving the engine to the maximum, imagining the smell of burnt rubber as he rounded a corner, his leg millimetres away from stroking the tarmac, like the drivers in the grand prix he watched on TV on a Sunday morning.

It was also around that time he discovered the joy of skiing, when on a school trip he came into contact with snow for the first time and, during the initial session, leaving the group behind, shot down the riskiest slopes like a kamikaze pilot, to the astonishment of the instructors who called to him from the tranquil area where debutants were taking their first steps. Turning a deaf ear, his legs as flexed as possible, the sticks rooted in his armpits, the whole of him in an aerodynamic position, he revelled in the sensation, both strange and agreeable, of shooting down slopes like a racing car, the skis whistling sharply as they lifted those dull puffs on the soft layer of recently fallen snow. At the end of the day, he accepted the reproach without opening his mouth. And needless to say, the following day, did exactly the same again.

A few months after that, during the summer holidays, he similarly got hooked on the subtle, slippery speed of aquatic vehicles, all day coming and going from Rianxo to the other side of the estuary, stopping at the house his parents had rented only at lunchtime, or to sleep, when there wasn’t enough light to stay on the water. Nothing like the brusque lightness of the four-engine speedboat of a guy from town, the son of a smuggler perhaps, zooming along with propellers barely touching the surface of the water. Or with the silent speed of the surfboard’s sail. Or with the unpredictable voyage over waterfalls or turbulent rapids he would discover with friends when kayaking or rafting on the country’s rivers, the Miño, the Ulla, the Tambre, in the autumn of that year.

And yet, be it at sea or on a river, aquatic sports did not sate his thirst for speed as much as when he boarded a wheeled machine.

As is logical, his father started to become concerned. Paco was grown up by now and yet he rarely went to a party, never to a disco, a campout, a concert with friends, and, most worryingly of all, he reflected to himself without daring to confess it to his wife, who would have boxed his ears: he never seemed to be in a relationship. It was about time he got involved with some girls, at his age, he had already discovered the hardness of the Simca 1000’s reclining seats. Besides, despite his odd appearance, he certainly wasn’t what you would call ugly and, while he could be a bit rough around the edges, getting a kind word out of him was like getting blood from a stone, deep down he was a good boy. Certainly, either he was late maturing, which was entirely possible, today’s youth had gone doolally, all the blessed day with that device in their hands, listening to music on earphones, or the blame lay with that blasted interest in engines and those motocross races Paco de Flora had just started attending.

The fall he suffered at the age of eighteen, which kept him in a bed with weights for two long months, his legs and his right arm in plaster, marked a before and an after in his amorous relationship with motorbikes and competition. This wasn’t as a result of a process of protracted personal reflection, taking advantage of the enforced rest, but because of a firm family ultimatum. So long as he lived in that house, there would be no more motorbikes. Not even to go to school. And there was an end to it. The year wasn’t going all that well, he had five subjects left over from his first evaluation, and what with the convalescence there didn’t seem to be a way out, the university exam was coming soon, and it might be a good idea to repeat the last year. So, he didn’t put himself forward for anything, in June or September. Better to start again, he had argued.

All the same, Paco never got his high school diploma. The following year, he started with a large supply of energy. But all that eagerness to study was a deciduous mirage. It was still autumn when the leaves of that hopeful initial energy began to rot, strewn across the tedious pages of notes, photocopies, and what he considered to be exceedingly voluminous textbooks.

Seeing another failure approaching on the horizon, to avoid matters getting worse, one day, after lunch, he armed himself with courage and informed his parents that the business of university wasn’t for him. What he really fancied was to complete a vocational course in mechanics and start working. He didn’t want to get a degree, all that Platonic philosophy and those syntactical analyses were no use to him. His father shouted, swore, lifted his hands to heaven, in a rage asking himself what it was they had done so badly to deserve such a nightmarish son. His elder sister was on the cusp of finishing Pharmacy, his brother was already getting top marks in his second year of Law, and this devilish child, what did he want? To end up like him, in a tizzy with lorries all day long? To spend his life getting his hands greasy in an engine’s innards? Paco listened patiently, in silence, his eyes fixed on the tablecloth, focused on the breadcrumbs with which he kept his serene fingers engaged. When his father ceased his tirade, he calmly repeated the same arguments, using the same words he had meticulously chosen before deciding to speak his mind. With Flora, his mother, it was worse. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t stop weeping whenever he was in front of her. A month must have passed before they deigned to speak to him.

And yet every cloud has a silver lining. Once the family storm had passed, the months remaining until the start of the next year he dedicated to messing about with English at an academy, since a knowledge of languages was always useful, he argued, and stopped you wasting time, though the real, unconfessed reason was that he had a growing interest in rap and wanted to understand his favourite singers’ lyrics better. He also used that summer to get his driving licence, he’d have to sooner or later, his father had agreed without much conviction. Finally, in September, he signed up for the intermediate vocational training cycle he was interested in, which was Electromechanics.

This time, Paco didn’t let them down. Apart from a few sticking points with Transmission and Braking Systems, where it seemed the teacher had it in for him and which he had to repeat at the end of the summer, he got through both courses without too many problems, and, despite being offered a contract at the dealer’s where he had been doing his work experience, decided to carry on studying, so he could get his advanced qualification in Automotive Technology. His parents witnessed this evolution with a degree of distrust, in silence. They simply couldn’t believe it. Although mechanics wasn’t the future they had dreamt for their son, in the end they weren’t altogether unsatisfied. If he had an interest in cars and this made him happy, then why not? Lots of youngsters who obtained a university degree, some with good marks, were unemployed or working as waiters in London. With the letter of marque afforded by his studies, his father couldn’t stop him setting up a workshop in a corner of the garage on the ground floor of their house, where he saw to the complete maintenance of lorries. Nor could he say no when he was practically given old cars and took them to pieces. All in the name of gaining more experience.

But his love of speed was still there, hibernating, latent on the inside, and, as he gradually lost interest in motorbikes, so he gained interest in four-wheeled vehicles. When a driver who worked for his father offered to sell him his Jaguar for a pittance, Paco de Flora didn’t hesitate. He took out the six thousand euros his grandmother had given him from the sale of a hill and, from that moment onwards, spent the hours his classes permitted him with his head stuck in the bonnet, fixing here and tuning there. He only came up from the garage from time to time to shut himself in his room and play a car game on his computer, anaesthetizing himself with those circuits that included hair-raising descents in a permanent zigzag. How he wished he could enter a real circuit and perform those sharp turns in a real vehicle.

There can be no doubt that Paco has a thing for speed. He likes the technology of cars, studying them, taking them apart. He is impressed by the final assembly where every screw, every washer, every fuse, every connecting rod or injector, has its carefully defined function. He is amazed by the balance achieved by that anonymous engineer who fell to thinking about a new model, how to do something different with a combination of weight, suspension, power, and also aesthetics. And yet, that said, what really matters to him is not the genesis, or the mechanics in and of themselves, or even the aerodynamics, but the final product the device offers, which is nothing other than speed. This is why Paco does not enjoy driving, he enjoys going fast. It’s not that he’s a fan of danger or forbidden fruit. It’s simpler than that: he is addicted to the pleasure that comes from pressing down on the accelerator.

And so, needless to say, he got caught. It was about time, he had been pushing the pedal as far as it would go for years. He was driving at 190 on the AP-9, the section between Santiago and Padrón, early one morning. It wasn’t so bad. He hadn’t been drinking or taking something. He doesn’t do that kind of stuff. He never did. The alcohol meter showed 0.0. Besides, he hadn’t put anyone in danger, there were hardly any cars on the motorway at that hour. What need was there for a control post at that point, at half past three in the morning? They only do it to steal people’s money, the way they do with taxes on petrol, to scratch a poor man’s pocket. Dangerous driving, apparently. But there wasn’t even any traffic!

It was the first time he had been caught. A six-hundred-euro fine plus six points, which was more than he had left, since the previous month he had lost three points for talking on a mobile and, just after he got his licence, two times three for not wearing a seatbelt. The worst thing was he would be six months without driving. And, on top of that, another four hundred euros for that damn course he has no choice but to attend, which he doesn’t feel like at all.

Paco waits at a prudent distance from the counter while those two women finish talking to the assistant. One of them, the one who was waiting with him in front of the driving school’s lowered shutter, finishes signing some forms. The two of them then immediately climb the stairs next to them. He goes over to the desk. The woman gives him some papers to sign as well.

“And the bank payment slip? Listen, boyo, without that piece of paper you’re not getting into class…”

Paco shoots daggers at the driving school secretary. Does she think he’s stupid? He is offended by the informality and also by the question, as he searches for the document from the bank in the inner pocket of his jacket, without taking his eyes off her. What does this imbecile think, that he was hoping to register without paying? And who was she to call him “boyo” with such confidence? Perhaps she thinks because she’s behind a counter and has a computer in front of her, she’s more than me… Try working without that device and doing it all by hand. Paco unfolds the receipt he was given at the savings bank where he made the payment and, without saying a word, slams it down on the counter. She smiles softly, as if amused by the reaction she has provoked. Paco de Flora glares at her.

“Anything else?” he asks in the most insolent tone he can muster and, before the woman’s negative response, continues, “So, do I have your permission to continue?”

“You may…”

Without waiting for a reply, he climbs the stairs and goes through the only open door on the upstairs landing of the premises. Inside the room, the two women who preceded him are settling in the second line of chairs. Paco opts for the back row. Perhaps, if he sits there, he can disconnect a bit. She was dumb, that lady… Patience, there’ll be time to pay it back, not now. He has no choice right now but to make do.

*   *   *

III

THE SECRET WORLD OF MARITÉ

Marité turns fifty today and knows with certainty that nobody is going to congratulate her. She will not receive the standard call from a relative who lives far away and has the unusual virtue of remembering all the family members’ birthdays, one of those retired cousins who have all the time in the world and call only to make it clear he does, you may not, he does remember you, your date of birth, and a succession of childhood details he lays before you every year and assumes you, ungrateful, cold, have already forgotten.

No friend will send her a short message, a missive by mobile to express circumspectly and concisely a pleasant desire for happiness. For the simple reason that, when it comes to friends, she doesn’t have any. Not even work colleagues, because Marité is an assistant in a discount store in her town – the kind of establishment where they sell everything and which formed the homegrown predecessor of Chinese dollar stores – and, apart from the boss and his wife, who, except when it is necessary to talk to customers, hardly ever speak, even to each other, no one other than her has worked there in the last thirty-six years. Besides, she doesn’t even have a mobile. Nor does she need one.

It goes without saying that neither cousins, uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces – she’s the only daughter of an only daughter who never got married – nor her bosses or other people she comes into contact with on a daily basis – customers, representatives, and suppliers, the checkout girl at the supermarket where she does her weekly shop on a Saturday, the baker, the butcher, the neighbours who have just built a chalet next to her house – ever knew, or had a reason to know, when it was her birthday.

El Corte Inglés isn’t going to send her one of those automatically generated cards to congratulate her, since she frequents large stores only very occasionally, she doesn’t have a loyalty card, and there’s no way they could have any information, since she always pays in cash. She will also be free of congratulations and festive icons from a bunch of unknown friends on Facebook, because she doesn’t have a profile, she doesn’t even know what that is, it has never occurred to her to buy a home computer, the one in the shop is for management and accounting programmes, and she only uses the connection to the Internet to place orders for the shop on the suppliers’ pages.

No. Nobody is going to congratulate Marité. But, to tell the truth, whether she is congratulated, whether she receives presents, or not, matters very little to her. She’s used to it. Her indifference is not a dishevelled reaction that functions as a parapet to confront with dignity the apathy and indolence with which she is treated by the world around her. It’s just that, jokes aside, to be completely frank, she doesn’t care. That’s it. Nothing else. She is in the habit of celebrating personal milestones all on her own.

When her mother was alive, towards the end, it came to the same thing. Alzheimer’s had turned her into a sort of mummified doll, clinging most of the day to a sofa and a neighbour’s cares, Marité would shower her with affection, emotional spasms the old woman only seemed to respond to with an imperceptible vibration of her facial muscles and the odd tear. She died ten years ago already – how time passes!, she thinks with vertigo – and, since then, her pillow is the only one to receive the unconscious caresses of her cheek. She can’t even remember the last time someone hugged her.

In the meantime, she is going to celebrate it the way she always has done. When she gets home from this first session at the driving school, there awaits her a healthy handful of prawns from the estuary – three hundred and seventy-eight grams, it said on the scales at the fishmonger’s – a white seabream that is half prepared – clean, slices of lemon embedded in its sides – and only needs putting in the oven. Plus a couple of mini bottles of Codorníu she left to chill in the drawer just below the freezer.

She will then get changed, put on her fitted black dress, the one she keeps for important occasions, and add the finishing touches in the mirror, taking care to position the necklace over her bosom that her mother inherited from her grandmother, and she inherited from hers, so ancient it gets lost in the family’s memory, back to the times when her ancestors tried their luck in Argentina and bought this kind of jade cameo. After that, she will place the needle of her record player on the first track of her favourite bolero album, spread out one of the tablecloths her mother embroidered – poor thing, she was really quite good at it – covering exactly one half of the dining room table, and around two superimposed plates meticulously position a fork, a spoon, the fish knife, and, in front, the little teaspoon and glass for cava. For dessert, some crème brûlée she prepared the night before, when she got back from work. Perhaps, only when she finishes, when she starts clearing away the table, with the emanations from the sparkling wine, she might feel a tiny hint of loneliness, the kind of rust that creaks on the hinges of sentiment. But her sadness will not last long, since tonight they’re showing Combination Meals on Galician TV, one of her favourite series. No one is going to spoil this party.

Of course, that will be when she gets home. Now she enters the driving school classroom through the door the dry secretary indicated to her, upstairs, second on the right, she had said, the only one that’s open, after Marité had identified herself at the counter, shown a copy of the bank deposit – three hundred and ninety-six euros and twenty cents – and received a laminated folder containing five blank sheets and a complimentary biro, courtesy of Sardsa Ltd, the Santiago Region Driving Schools Association.

Viewed from the doorway, there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly special about the room. Apart from the desks and chairs destined for course attendees – five rows, four chairs per row, twenty places in total, each with its own computer – the teacher’s desk, positioned to one side to avoid obstructing a screen – or a whiteboard, Marité still doesn’t know exactly what it is – and a projector anchored to the ceiling, there is nothing before her that merits her attention. She observes that there aren’t even some simple bookshelves to interrupt the languid monotony of the walls. Inside, there are only two women chatting in the second row, and, in the last row, at the back of the classroom, a young man with a reversed cap and some earphones. Marité emits a muffled greeting, not expecting any response, she really doesn’t feel like talking to anybody. It’s the shell’s escape route, the technique she always uses, say hello and look down.

She decides to sit in the middle of the classroom, on the last chair in the third row, the one that is furthest from the entrance.

The classroom is well lit by neon tubes. There are six recessed light fixtures in the false plaster ceiling, two tubes in each, twelve in total. That said, on the wall to her right, which presumably faces the back of the building, three skylights let in the subdued clarity of morning, each with four vertical bars and one horizontal, she deduces – correctly – to prevent any visits from thieves. Needless to say, three by four, twelve bars, twelve by two, twenty-four gaps for the natural light to come in, an imprisoned light which presumably, in the afternoon, when the day finally breaks, will let itself spill in misshapen squares that turn into rectangles, and then oblique, asymmetrical, phantasmagorical parallelograms which will keep on getting longer as the sun goes down. This prediction of geometric rupture unsettles her.

Marité, when she doesn’t want to be disturbed by something that obsesses her, or when she’s in a situation she finds awkward, or when she’s bored, something that happens often in the shop, focuses on counting, on obtaining an exact result from an enumerable series. This is not a recent recourse. She’s been doing it ever since she was little and learnt to calculate without papers with Dona Mariana, the local schoolteacher. The only alternative she concedes to simple linear calculation is geometric variation, reducing the surrounding reality to logical, predictable figures in order then to turn them as well into numbers. Two, four, six sides of a parallelepiped, six faces, four angles each, twenty-four.

Whether or not it has volume, Marité calculates everything that is put in front of her. She counts chairs, she counts bars, or people, or vehicles passing the shop window during the tedious hours of afternoons when not a single customer deigns to enter the shop. She counts whatever there is, she counts nails, screws, nuts, washers, she counts drawing pins, all sorts of hinges, she counts everything just to keep her head occupied, rolls of duct tape, transparent tape, packing tape, Sellotape, pairs of laces, of gloves, of shoes, ounces of soap, hooks, zips, whatever it is, any material in a series is good for applying the electrical currents of her calculating brain.

In reality, Marité structures her whole life on the basis of meticulous arithmetic, the superposition of exact operations, if not geometric figures, though they must be lacking any hint of asymmetry. This is why she cannot bear the idea of the disproportionate figures the waning light from the skylights will project, come evening, on the central desks, her own included. She knows on course days when they meet in the afternoon – two Fridays, the second day and the last – this uneven anomaly is going to blind her if she has to live it during a moment of tension. Better not to think about it, she can’t breathe.

Which is why she got flustered the morning before with Avelina, the fishmonger, because of the imprecise weight, she hadn’t wanted three hundred and seventy-eight grams of prawns, but three hundred and fifty, exactly three hundred and fifty, even if she wasn’t going to be charged for the excess, it’s not the same, though she wasn’t going to argue about the result, it made her feel awkward, and besides there were lots of customers awaiting their turn, nor was it a question of going to war because of a surplus of twenty-eight grams, everybody’s in a hurry, and no doubt somebody would start muttering. Even so, she had felt like it. Had it been a fish, she could have understood, it’s difficult to make the necessary adjustments, but when it comes to prawns, she could easily have removed a handful, four or five, let’s say, and the weight would have been what she asked for.

Text © Manuel Portas

Translation © Jonathan Dunne