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“Security problem in the North Access,” he says in a tone of professional efficiency. And he puts a hand on Fonseca's shoulder. “I have to go.”

The members of the band are singing about the fact that Emiliano Zapata was a man with exceptional moral qualities. A man that committed himself selflessly to the cause of liberating the poor. Which is why the Indians from every town and of every stripe went to fight by his side. Lucas Giraut makes his way over to the spot where the Director of the International Division is furtively licking his fingertip and places a paternal hand on his shoulder. Chicote looks at him, his fingertip still in his mouth and an expression of primal terror in his eyes. The suitological analysis that Giraut carries out on his black Armani suit with silk tie and sixteen-karat cuff links indicates a lack of corporate self-confidence and a sycophant's anxiety to create a public image of aggressiveness and success based on self-confidence.

“Don't pay any mind to what you've heard,” he says to him. “About your salary getting frozen and you being fired for poor performance. I am the president of this company. My mother and Fonseca work for me. That's how my father put it in his will, even though everyone thinks he went crazy.”

Chicote tries to mitigate his expression of terror with an anguished smile. His alopecia follows that irregular and frightening asymmetrical pattern of nervous alopecia.

“I've decided to raise your salary.” Giraut lowers his voice to a tone appropriate to corporate secrets. “Perhaps we could add a bonus stock option package. And maybe you could also have a yacht share.” He frowns. “I don't remember exactly. Send me a report of your activities when you get a chance. To my secretary.”

Chicote begins a labored string of sycophantic thank-yous, vows of corporate loyalty and manifestations of respect on a personal level. Giraut nods with a distracted look while he waits for him to finish. Then his eye is drawn to something located at the other end of the party.

“Security problem in the North Access,” he says. He downs the contents of his glass and leaves it on a small table. “I have to go.”

Lucas Giraut makes his way through the party guests. Several institutional figures drink and converse amicably in meta-adjacent groups while moving rhythmically to the music. The entire city extends with a servile air at the feet of the sumptuous pool deck. The mayor of Barcelona is doing what appears to be some sort of festive Brazilian dance to the delight of the other members of his group.

Lucas Giraut gets to the sofa where Valentina Parini is seated with a glass of Coca-Cola and he sits down beside her.

“You're not on the guest list,” he says. “I know because I made the guest list.”

Valentina Parini takes a sip of Coca-Cola and shrugs her shoulders. One of the lenses of her green plastic glasses is covered with a patch.

“It's because of my new punishment.” Valentina rolls her eyes but you can only see one of her eyes rolling because of the patch. “My mother won't let me stay home alone. Two days ago I set the kitchen on fire. Accidentally,” she adds quickly, very serious. “It wasn't an attack strategy. I just forgot the burner was on.” She shrugs her shoulders. “The good thing is that there won't be any crêpes for a while. When my mother gets mad at me she stops making me crêpes.”

Lucas Giraut nods and points at her eyeglasses.

“It looks good on you,” he says. “The patch.”

“I look retarded,” says the girl. Then she points with her head toward the people standing in the party. “There's a lot of people and all that. But I know why they came. They're afraid of your mother.”

On the stage, pushing and pulling various levers and buttons on his accordion, the lead singer of the band hired by Lucas Giraut is requesting in song that the little sparrows sing out that General Zapata was shot down in a conspicuously treacherous way. The three accompanying musicians accompany his request with professionally optimistic smiles.

“I've been testing the Low-Flying Airplanes Attack,” says Lucas Giraut to Valentina Parini, who continues to sip on her glass of Coca-Cola while watching the meta-adjacent groups of party guests with her one eye. “Here, at the party. It works pretty well. I guess that's because we're so high up on a hill. Gives it that dramatic touch.”

Valentina Parini stares at him and a gloomy look comes over her face.

“Everything is going wrong,” she says in a tone that transmits the weary ennui of an adult more than teenage irritation. “Worse than wrong. My homeroom teacher sent another report to the principal saying that my attitude is antisocial and aggressive. And the principal called the school psychologist again. And this time the school psychologist said I have a borderline personality. I looked it up on the Internet.” She makes a derisive face. “It's nothing like my personality. The thing is, my homeroom teacher called my mother again.” She looks up from her Coca-Cola and at Lucas Giraut with her only visible eye. “Because now they're friends, you know. I think they go out at night looking for husbands together.”

Lucas Giraut takes his headset off and puts it in the pocket of his suit jacket.

“My mother has a borderline personality,” he says, lowering his voice a bit. “And you're nothing like her.”

It looks like he is about to say something else when he's interrupted by a hand on his shoulder. He turns and stares into Fonseca's face, who in turn is looking at him with that virile severe expression of male stars from Hollywood's Golden Age. The networks of veins on his temples are belligerently swollen.

“I just spoke with the hotel manager,” says Fonseca. Staring at Giraut. “He assures me there is no security problem in the North Access. In fact, there is no North Access. And I hope this doesn't have anything to do with those documents you have to sign.”

Valentina Parini is staring at her nearly empty glass of Coca-Cola with an expression of concentration. Lucas Giraut takes out his silver cigarette case embossed with his initials and offers Fonseca a cigarette.

CHAPTER 8. Ummagumma 2

The plaque on the gate of the house in Pedralbes with the electrified perimeter in front of which Pavel is digging into his backpack is gilded and impeccably polished in that way that suggests the existence of someone whose specific job it is to maintain all of the gilded surfaces in the house impeccably polished. The impeccably polished gold plaque reads “UMMAGUMMA 2.” Pavel takes a small aluminum hammer out of his backpack and wraps it in a rag and gives the security camera right above the plaque a couple of whacks. Several pieces of the security camera fall to the ground at his feet. The gate with the gold plaque is in the middle of a brick wall topped with an electric fence. On the brick wall to the right of the house's mailbox and right beside a sign that reads “POST NO BILLS,” someone has posted a promotional poster that reads “ONLY EIGHTEEN DAYS UNTIL THE WORLD RELEASE OF STEPHEN KING'S NEW NOVEL.”

The street in the neighborhood of Pedralbes where Pavel now kneels to put the hammer back in his backpack is one of those tiny Pedralbes streets where you can show up at any hour of the night and do something like break a security camera with a hammer without having to worry about anyone seeing you. The night is an improbably cold mid-December night. Pavel, however, doesn't seem to register the improbable cold. Some noteworthy elements of his appearance, besides his wearing a flannel shirt open on top of a Bob Marley and The Wailers T-shirt in spite of the cold, are the fact that he is exaggeratedly tall and exaggeratedly pale and wears his hair in dreadlocks. Not those acceptably long dreadlocks that fall in a cascade. Pavel's dreadlocks are those pointy ones still in the growing phase that someone seeing them from a distance could confuse with an Afro.

Pavel puts the aluminum hammer back in the backpack and takes out a black plastic case filled with tools and electronic equipment. A cloud of white steam materializes in front of his face each time he breathes. He uses a screwdriver from the case to unscrew the number panel whose combination opens the lock and then uses some wire cutters to cut the cord that joins the numerical lock with the house's alarm. Finally he connects an electronic device to the wire-filled inside of the lock and pushes a couple of buttons that set off a series of electronic beeps that sound like the screech of a modem. The lock on the barred door opens with a metallic click. The only sign that Pavel is feeling the effects of the cold is the fact that now and then he rubs the palms of his gloveless hands together.

A minute later Pavel crosses the yard of the three-story house with his shoulders hunched and a tranquilizer dart gun in his hand. A big dog with short hair and erect ears cuts him off. Pavel stops and stares at the dog. The dog stares at Pavel, wagging his tail amicably. With an expression of peaceful curiosity in his canine eyes. Pavel shoots him with a tranquilizer dart anyway.

Strictly speaking, one can't say that Pavel likes his line of work. Or the people he has to work with. Or much less the people that fate has chosen to be the victims of his line of work. Or the city of Barcelona. Although it's true that he didn't like Moscow, either, before he moved to Barcelona. In fact, there aren't many things that he really likes. He himself has never really understood why. As a boy, the only moments in which he can remember having experienced anything close to true satisfaction were the times he filled the old, enormous bathtub of his old, enormous post-Soviet apartment and immersed himself for hours imagining that he was a shark. Until his father or some other adult in the old collective apartment kicked the door open and forced him out of the collective bathtub by beating him with a hanger. Theoretically speaking, Pavel is a firm believer in the teachings of the Rastafarian philosophy. In the idea that the Rastafari have to work spiritually for the redemption of humanity. And yet, he almost never finds practical occasions in which to apply said theoretical concepts.