Free Tattoo by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán Page B

of flavours that by now were more engraved in his memory than on his palate. He could not get this after-dinner moment of truth out of his mind.
    ‘The best pleasures are always those of memory.’
    He said this out loud, with the result that the waiter came over to see whether he required something more. Carvalho translated his witticism, but could tell from the waiter’s condescending smile and the way he hastily beat a retreat that either he did not agree with Carvalho’s philosophy, or he was fed up to the back teeth with this drawn-out meal, or had not really understood the ultimate meaning of the words. While the waiter offered this plethora of reasons for the lack of communication, Carvalho realised he must be rather drunk, because in normal circumstances he would never have dreamt of trying to intellectually seduce a waiter.
    He left the restaurant without feeling he could ask whether his compatriot was still in the kitchen, even though on the previous occasion he had almost kissed him in gratitude for the turkey with pomegranate stuffing. As he strolled back in the general direction of the station, he glanced at the department store windows. It occurred to him to buy something Chinese for Charo. He walked down the arcaded streets of the centre of the commercial district and bought her a Chinese jacket imported from Hong Kong. After that, he headed straight for the regal quarter. A Dutch flag wasflying from the town hall balcony, showing that a member of the royal family was in The Hague. He gawped like a tourist at the imposing International Tribunal palace. Some animal with copious intestines had shat on the lawn in front of the iron gate. Carvalho’s attention was drawn from the striking pile of dirt to the sight of a parrot on the shoulder of an old Dutch lady who had obviously been imaginative enough to exchange the habitual transistor radio for a real flesh-and-blood creature. Carvalho decided it was time to head for the station. As he walked, he realised that the day had been useful not only because he had learnt about the sexual problems of migrant workers, but also for something more than his excellent lunch. The body given up by the sea at Vilasar de Mar might not have a proper face as yet, but he did have a name and a few details on his curriculum vitae. In fact, Carvalho already knew the only thing Señor Ramón had asked him to find out: the man’s name. All he had to add to the name for a face devoured by the fishes of the Mediterranean was the information he had gleaned from the Murcian tattooist and his workmate in The Hague. He could return to Spain with nothing more than this, but he felt he still owed something to this young man as bold and blond as beer. Something that drove him to continue his investigation in Holland as far as it would take him. A young man whose imagination could not accept the reality around him. The reality was that he was an immigrant worker. His imagination created another world beyond work, freed from the constraints of having to clock in and out at the factory every day. To escape the system he had no problem relying on women to earn money for him. Carvalho was scornful of pimps. He knew from experience they were the worst of the underworld. Just once he had met one with some feelings, a prisoner who was expert at using toothpicks to bind up thelegs of sparrow chicks which each May were found dashed against the paving stones in the yard at Aridel. Carvalho remembered the ponce’s gentleness and patience as he whispered words of encouragement into the supposed ear of the tiny, terrified bird, while his clumsy fingers danced with all the skill of a surgeon round the bits of toothpick he used as splints, and the fine thread he bound them up with. That huge pimp was in jail for having beaten his whore to death.
    But in the case of the young man bold and blond as beer there were some notable and pleasant differences. The most obvious was the hundred thousand pesetas Señor