beneath the branches of the willow, towards the back of the garden, I was startled to hear in the absolute silence of siesta time a vague crunch of breaking wood coming from the house and then an unmistakable crash of broken glass. Tere tried to calm me down by pressing her knee into my crotch and talking. I don’t know what she talked about; all I know is that at a certain point I started to get a massive hard-on, which I tried to hide but couldn’t, and that, when she noticed my erection, a happy smile revealed her teeth. Fuck, Gafitas, she said. What a time to get horny!
‘Tere had barely finished that sentence when the door of the house opened and Zarco and Guille came out carrying bags. They put them in the trunk of the car, asked me to stay there, keeping an eye out, and went back inside the house, this time with Tere. After a while they came out with a couple more bags, a Telefunken television, a Philips radio-cassette player and a turntable. When everything was loaded into the trunk, we got into the car and drove unhurriedly out of La Montgoda.
‘That was my baptism by fire. Of the return trip to Gerona I remember only that I felt not the slightest relief because the danger had passed; on the contrary: instead I swapped the fright for euphoria, the wild rush of the robbery with adrenaline coming out my ears. And I also remember that when we got to Gerona we went directly to sell what we’d stolen. Or did we sell it the next day? No, I think it was the same day. But I’m not sure. Anyway. That week I still went back to the arcade a few times to help Señor Tomàs (and sometimes, on my way past, to play a few games of pinball before going to La Font); but, when I started going out at night without telling anybody, treating my family with no consideration, further embittering my relationship with my father and multiplying our fights, I stopped going to the arcade entirely, and one afternoon, on my way to La Font, I went in and told Señor Tomàs that I was going on holiday and probably wouldn’t be back for a long time. Don’t worry, son, Señor Tomàs said. I’ll find someone to help me close up. If you like, I said. But you won’t need to. Nobody’s going to bother you. Señor Tomàs looked at me intrigued. And how do you know that?, he asked. Privately proud of myself, I said: I just do. From then on I started to go to La Font almost every afternoon.’
‘But you didn’t have to: you’d paid Zarco back the favour in La Montgoda and you were even.’
‘Yeah, but there was Tere.’
‘You mean you joined Zarco’s gang for Tere?’
‘I mean that, if it hadn’t been for Tere, I most likely wouldn’t have done it: although I’d arrived at the conclusion that she wasn’t the girl for me, I wanted to think that, while we were near to each other, what had happened in the Vilaró arcade washrooms could always happen again; and I think I was willing to run any risk in order to keep open some possibility of that happening again. That said, you’re a writer and must know that, even if we find it very comforting to find an explanation for what we do, the truth is that most of what we do doesn’t have a single explanation, supposing that it even has any.’
‘You told me before that robbing the house was a rush. Does that mean you enjoyed it?’
‘It means what it means. What do you want me to say? That I loved it? That the day I stole stuff in La Montgoda I discovered that there was no way back, that Zarco’s game was a very serious game, where everything was at stake, that I could no longer be satisfied playing the Rocky Balboa pinball machine, where I had nothing at stake? You want me to say that playing that game I felt I was getting even with my parents? Or you want me to tell you that I was getting revenge for all my humiliations and the guilt that had been accumulating over the last year and that, as Batista represented absolute evil for me, this game that liberated me from Batista
‘Tere had barely finished that sentence when the door of the house opened and Zarco and Guille came out carrying bags. They put them in the trunk of the car, asked me to stay there, keeping an eye out, and went back inside the house, this time with Tere. After a while they came out with a couple more bags, a Telefunken television, a Philips radio-cassette player and a turntable. When everything was loaded into the trunk, we got into the car and drove unhurriedly out of La Montgoda.
‘That was my baptism by fire. Of the return trip to Gerona I remember only that I felt not the slightest relief because the danger had passed; on the contrary: instead I swapped the fright for euphoria, the wild rush of the robbery with adrenaline coming out my ears. And I also remember that when we got to Gerona we went directly to sell what we’d stolen. Or did we sell it the next day? No, I think it was the same day. But I’m not sure. Anyway. That week I still went back to the arcade a few times to help Señor Tomàs (and sometimes, on my way past, to play a few games of pinball before going to La Font); but, when I started going out at night without telling anybody, treating my family with no consideration, further embittering my relationship with my father and multiplying our fights, I stopped going to the arcade entirely, and one afternoon, on my way to La Font, I went in and told Señor Tomàs that I was going on holiday and probably wouldn’t be back for a long time. Don’t worry, son, Señor Tomàs said. I’ll find someone to help me close up. If you like, I said. But you won’t need to. Nobody’s going to bother you. Señor Tomàs looked at me intrigued. And how do you know that?, he asked. Privately proud of myself, I said: I just do. From then on I started to go to La Font almost every afternoon.’
‘But you didn’t have to: you’d paid Zarco back the favour in La Montgoda and you were even.’
‘Yeah, but there was Tere.’
‘You mean you joined Zarco’s gang for Tere?’
‘I mean that, if it hadn’t been for Tere, I most likely wouldn’t have done it: although I’d arrived at the conclusion that she wasn’t the girl for me, I wanted to think that, while we were near to each other, what had happened in the Vilaró arcade washrooms could always happen again; and I think I was willing to run any risk in order to keep open some possibility of that happening again. That said, you’re a writer and must know that, even if we find it very comforting to find an explanation for what we do, the truth is that most of what we do doesn’t have a single explanation, supposing that it even has any.’
‘You told me before that robbing the house was a rush. Does that mean you enjoyed it?’
‘It means what it means. What do you want me to say? That I loved it? That the day I stole stuff in La Montgoda I discovered that there was no way back, that Zarco’s game was a very serious game, where everything was at stake, that I could no longer be satisfied playing the Rocky Balboa pinball machine, where I had nothing at stake? You want me to say that playing that game I felt I was getting even with my parents? Or you want me to tell you that I was getting revenge for all my humiliations and the guilt that had been accumulating over the last year and that, as Batista represented absolute evil for me, this game that liberated me from Batista
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