Street of Thieves

All the corpses I washed and put into their boxes justified my petty theft, I thought — but Mr. Cruz had an honest profession, he wasn’t killing these poor people himself, he was charitable, he didn’t bleed the families of the deceased, his prey was the State, the autonomous Community of Andalusia that paid his per diem for the carcasses of my compatriots, but all the riches I saw him accumulating, his gold rings, the chains around his neck, his black shirts, his car, his two huskies with their blue eyes in the sheltering shade of his creeping vines, all that seemed to me to be stolen from the Dead, seemed to belong to those nameless stiffs who had dreamed for a while of a better life, who had thought, like me, that they could make themselves a place in the world, and out of respect for this dream I thought I could appropriate some of his cash, as a little revenge for these poor martyrs who had known the pangs of drowning, experienced agony in the black solitude of the waves.

The more my determination increased, the more the possibility of putting my thoughts into action kept me awake at night; how could I get hold of the key to the safe, when should I run away, how — I had to go by foot to the bus stop, three hundred meters away, and I had to await the pleasure of the very erratic Andalusian intercity transportation system. That’s when I would be most vulnerable, just like in novels. Books and prisons were full of guys who made huge blunders and who were nabbed without any difficulty whatsoever, just like that, at a bus stop or a sidewalk café. That wouldn’t be my way. The bus, the bus station, the 11 PM coach, and the next day I’d be in Barcelona, lost in the crowd.

I couldn’t make up my mind to act. Cruz was hypnotized by the Internet more and more; he stayed late, sometimes till ten at night, exploring videos — he had discovered a site called faces of death where hundreds of violent deaths could be found: a young Iranian demonstrator killed by the forces of order, Egyptian revolutionaries beaten to death by the police, Libyan soldiers burned alive in their Jeep, Syrian children massacred — current events filled the Internet with documents for Cruz.

One particularly dark day, the Strait vomited up an old, very damaged corpse that people walking on the beach had discovered — the judge visited, gave notice that this detritus on the sand could be chucked, the pathologist concluded death by drowning, and Cruz rushed there with his hearse to take charge of the remains before any of the competition: it was very sad and very gruesome, the guy had tattooed “Selma” in Arabic over his heart, that’s all that could be used to identify him: he no longer had a face, at least nothing recognizable, and we quickly, very quickly closed him up in his zinc box so as not to see him anymore. Señor Cruz threw on his rubber gloves, then his mask; he had a little tear in the corner of his right eye, which he erased by rubbing his face against his bicep, arm outstretched. He sighed, turned toward me, without saying anything, he crossed the yard to walk to my hut, the dogs followed him wagging their tails, thinking he wanted to play or give them some food; he re-emerged from the garden shed holding a bottle, I wondered if he had hidden a liter of Scotch there without my ever noticing it, but the container looked smaller than his eternal Cutty Sark. He made a sign to me to follow him into the office; he said in his tiny voice:

“We’ve earned a drink, haven’t we, Lakhdar?”

He sat down as usual behind his screen, shook the mouse, entered his password; I remained standing.

“Sit down, sit down, we’ll have a drink and talk a little.”

I searched for an excuse to escape, but couldn’t find any; I was too exhausted from taking care of the corpse to think — I ended up worn out every time.

I sat on the sofa. I looked at the bottle he had placed on his desk; it was a half-liter glass flask, the label was facing him. Mr. Cruz needed a stiff one; his long face was pale, his eyes red-rimmed. He put on a video, out of force of habit — he stared at the screen for a second before stopping the procession of images of death that I couldn’t see.

“So, Lakhdar, a little whiskey?”

Suddenly he was extraordinarily nervous, he went to the kitchen, returned with two glasses and some ice in a metal bucket.

I didn’t want to annoy him, so I agreed. It might do me good, too.

He immediately seized a bottle of Cutty on the shelf, opened it, poured whiskey into two glasses, threw two ice cubes into each, and downed his in one gulp, even before I could pick mine up. He breathed out an ahhh of relief, poured himself another, handed me my glass before collapsing into his armchair, looking relaxed.