"The Spanish Game" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cumming Charles)

14. Chicote

When it rains in Madrid, it rains for days on end, driving people from the streets and changing the character of the city. These aren’t the thin, bloodless showers of England; these are subtropical storms accompanied by punchy, umbrella-inverting winds. When I step outside the flat at half past nine on Saturday night, en route to meet Arenaza at Chicote, gusts of rain are sweeping down Princesa so hard that it is an effort to cross the street in search of a cab. I wait in vain under the ineffective shelter of the bus stop and then make a run uphill to the metro at Ventura Rodríguez, shoes and trousers already soaked by the time I make it to the station.

Seven high-school students – two girls and five boys – are smoking cigarettes and listening to music on a concrete bench beside the Legazpi platform, cartons of cheap red wine and litre bottles of Coke littering the ground around them. There is nothing unusual about this: smoking on the metro in Madrid takes place right up to the point at which passengers step onto the trains, and underage weekend drinking – known as the botellón – is a norm. Until they reach an age when they can afford to drink in bars, Spaniards will inebriate themselves on cut-price alcohol and then pool their money for entry into a late-night discoteca. On a (dry) Friday or Saturday night, particularly in summer, Plaza de España comes to resemble the location for a small, informal music festival, as vast numbers of students armed with stereos and bottles of J amp;B converge around the statue of Cervantes, drinking and snogging themselves into oblivion. Tonight they have been driven underground, and it will only be a matter of time before some jumped-up station attendant barrels along the platform and orders them to move on.

It’s a short walk from Gran Vía metro to the entrance of Museo Chicote. The bar is relatively quiet – it’s dinner time – and there’s no sign of Mikel. I take a small, leather-lined booth at the back and order a Rob Roy from a pretty waitress who hangs around for a chat after she has brought my drink. Her name is Marta. She has bobbed black hair and a gentle, possibly mischievous nature.

‘What are you reading?’ she asks.

I brought the ETA book in case Mikel was late, and feel awkward showing her the cover. You never know how Spaniards are going to react to the Basque issue.

‘It’s a book about ETA,’ I tell her. ‘A book about terrorism.’

She nods, giving nothing away. ‘You’re a journalist?’

‘No, I’m just interested in Spain.’

‘Vale.’

To change the subject, Marta asks if I live in Madrid and I lie, for no good reason, telling her that I’m just visiting for a few days. The deceit, as always, is instinctive, although it encourages her to start recommending bars and clubs in the area which she thinks I might enjoy. We are flirting by now – she keeps flattering me with fixed, tickled stares – but in due course her boss gets itchy and calls her back to the bar.

‘See you later,’ she says, and her waist is so supple and lithe as she sways away that I consider cheating on Sofía for only the second time. I had the definite sense that she wanted me to invite her out for a drink after work. Maybe I deserve a steady girlfriend. Maybe it’s time to cast adultery aside and think about having a normal relationship.

Fifteen minutes go by. Gradually the place fills up and a group of German weekenders settle into the booth next to mine, ordering jarras of lager for the boys and margaritas for the girls. Marta makes occasional eye contact from the bar, but it’s increasingly difficult to see her as the crowd swells. By 10.45 Mikel has still not shown and I walk briefly back to the entrance, checking the tables that look out on Gran Vía in case he has sat down in a less discreet section of the bar. I try his mobile phone, but it has been switched off. Perhaps he is ignoring my calls. Either way, it seems unlikely that Arenaza is ever going to come. Towards eleven I have another brief conversation with Marta and order a third and final Rob Roy, at last beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol. Chicote is now crammed and jazz has given way to the tedious electric thump of house music. Twenty minutes later, without saying goodbye to her, I take my coat down from the chrome rack above the table and head out onto the street. The rain, at least, has stopped, and I walk north into Chueca to find something to eat.

Right up to two o’clock in the morning I keep trying Arenaza’s phone. It’s strange, but I develop a growing sense that something has happened to him, an accident or crisis. He did not strike me as the sort of person who would stand up an appointment, particularly one that he himself had been keen to organize; at the very least he would have exercised some charm and gone to the trouble of inventing an excuse. Late on Sunday, Julian happens to ring and in the course of an otherwise mundane conversation about Endiom, I manage to ask him if he has heard from Arenaza. It’s clear that he had no idea he was even coming to town and we hang up shortly afterwards. Eventually I go to bed, convinced that he will either call first thing in the morning, or that I’ll never hear from him again.