City of Mirrors

Barcelona
December 1959

1

Cold. A cold that bites the skin, cuts the flesh, and slices through the bones. A damp cold that clamps one’s muscles and burns one’s insides. Cold. For that first moment of consciousness it’s the only thing he can think of.

It is almost pitch-dark. Only a thin sliver of light filters through from above, a breath of deathly light that clings to the shadows and hints at the limits of the space in which he is confined. His pupils dilate, and he’s able to make out an area the size of a small room. The walls are made of bare stone. Moisture oozes from them and glistens in the gloom, as if dark tears were sliding down them. The floor is made of rock and sodden with something that doesn’t look like water. There is a powerful stench in the air. He notices a row of thick, rusty bars, and beyond them some steps leading up in the dark.

He’s in a cell.

Valls tries to stand up, but his legs won’t support him. After barely a step his knees buckle, and he falls to one side, hitting his face against the floor, cursing. He tries to recover his breath. He remains there for a few minutes, dejected, his face glued to the slimy film that covers the floor, giving off a metallic, slightly sweet smell. His mouth is dry, as if he’d swallowed earth, and his lips are chapped. He tries to touch them with his right hand, but realizes he can’t feel his hand, as if there was nothing there below the elbow.

He manages to prop himself up with his left arm. Raising his right hand in front of his face, he looks at it against the light, a yellowish gleam that tints the air. The hand is shaking. He can see it shake, but he can’t feel it. He tries to open and close his fist, but his muscles don’t respond. Only then does he notice that he is missing his index and middle fingers. In their place are two dark stains: shreds of skin and flesh dangle from them. Valls wants to scream, but his voice is broken and he only manages to produce an empty cry. He lets himself slump backward and closes his eyes. He starts breathing through his mouth to avoid the strong smell that poisons the air. As he does so, he is reminded of something from his childhood: a faraway summer in the country house his parents had outside Segovia, and an old dog that went down to the cellar to die. Valls remembers the nauseating smell that took hold of the house, how it was similar to the smell that now burns his throat. But this is much worse; this hardly allows him to think. After a while, minutes or perhaps hours, he is overcome by exhaustion and falls into a troubled drowsiness, somewhere between sleeplessness and sleep.