T (part one)(Monica Euen) 1

At the town’s cemetery, Ana was watching her father’s coffin descend slowly and be finally placed on top of her mother’s, who had passed away three years before. Many neighbours had come to pay their last respects to this cordial and discreet outsider, who had chosen their town to raise his daughters.
Ana felt her elder sister Laura’s comforting hands on her shoulders. Her brother-in-law, Iván, was there too.
Slightly behind, Darío’s sad eyes contemplated the tears streaming down her face.


2

Ana was walking along the sidewalk, reaching Darío’s house. It was a 1970s single storey terraced house. The façade was modest – most in that street were.
She rang the bell with her right hand. In her left one she was holding an envelope.
Darío opened the door in a tracksuit.
“Did you leave this in my mailbox?” she asked him, with no ‘hello’.
Darío nodded his head slightly. There was not a clearly-defined expression on his face. He seemed to be waiting for Ana’s reaction.
“My father wants you to come with me,” the young woman went on. “He asks me to go to Madrid… with you.”
Darío invited her in with a gesture. They then went into a dark spacious living-room, lit by a sole window next to the door. On the right, there was a white built-in fireplace, incrusted with brown and grey stones, which had never actually been used. Going counterclockwise, a dark wooden cabinet. Fairly close, a yellow glass door, leading to a corridor and to the rest of the house. A wood mounted Velázquez print, “Surrender of Breda”, on the left wall, hanging over a folding table, matching the cabinet, covered with a crochet doily. Near the window, on the right, a round table with a cloth. In front of the fireplace, a cream-colored sofa and two armchairs. Ana sat in one of them and Darío leaned on the arm of the other.
“Your father and I talked a lot lately. He did say something about that.”
“I can understand that he should encourage me to go,” said Ana, a bit more at ease. “Now that they’re gone… I guess it’s his way of telling Laura and me that we have his consent to sell the house. I mean, after all, we both have our jobs in Madrid. And she’s got her home there, her husband, her surgery…”
Darío was looking at her in a seemingly calm way. She paused and, finally, said:
“But, where do you fit in?”
He looked away for a few seconds, upset. Then he turned his eyes to her, avoiding, nevertheless, being the first to speak. So did she, until the silence grew too long.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you; I’m sorry. I guess I’m just jealous,” she made an effort to smile, “of how close you and my father were. You were like a son to him.”
“He loved you both very much, Ana. He and your mother loved you immensely.”
“I know.”
Moments later, she stood up, ready to leave.
“We’ll be in touch, OK?” she told him, barely meeting his eyes.
Darío found it hard not to cover the three steps that separated them and hold her tight.
“Okay.”


3

In a car, on a road skirting a hill, a man in his forties had been driving for a couple of hours. Next to him, his wife was half asleep listening to a chill out music CD their eldest son had given them on their thirty-first wedding anniversary.
Gradually, the woman’s face began to show signs of anxiousness. First, her eyebrows, then her eyes, which she slowly opened. Another car had been following them for a while, along the solitary road, but neither of them had noticed. They were driving slowly, despite the little traffic. The path was narrow, the curves were tight. Moreover, the precipice on their left side, together with the earth wall on their right, urged them to prudence.
Her eyes widely open now, the woman looked out the window, without moving. However, she didn’t seem to watch anything, but rather remain immersed in her own thoughts. Until, eventually, she knew what she had to do - what she was there, in the car, for. Her husband removed his right hand from the steering wheel with the intention of turning up the volume of the song that had just begun to play. She took the opportunity to abruptly leap on him and swerve, making the car fall down the precipice.
The car following theirs somewhat slowed down and then continued on.


4

Laura, Ana’s sister, was a psychologist and had her surgery at home, on the suburbs of Madrid. It wasn’t a very big room, but it was spacious enough to be found comfortable. Grey and pink colors were predominant. It was rather dark now. In the afternoon, the Venetian blinds were half down.
“I’m glad you’ve decided to drop by. Since we settled the sale of the house, we’ve hardly spoken a couple of times… on the phone!”
“I know,” said Ana. “It’s just that I haven’t really been in the mood for socializing this month and, besides, you know… work and everything. I’ve actually spent most of my free time sleeping.”
Laura smiled softly.
“No, really! I thought after Dad’s funeral I would start with another period of staying awake all night, but, not at all… I mean, I feel kind of guilty for sleeping so much and so soundly.”
“I understand what you mean. It’s been more or less the same with me. I may not be sleeping more hours, but I’m definitely sleeping like a log.”
“But then, morning comes and you have the whole day to remember that you are not going be looking forward to any more long weekends to go and see them.”
Laura took her younger sister’s hand.
“And where is your husband?” Ana asked, changing the subject. “Didn’t you say something about an injured shoulder?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact, he’s had to take two week’s off and he might need another month or so to recover. Just before you came, I’d asked him to go for a walk, get some fresh air… He’s just stuck at home all day, and he’s starting to drive me nuts!” Laura concluded with a smile.

5

A middle-aged man was walking down a busy street, taking his five-or-six-year-old daughter by the hand. A little farther, on the sidewalk, there was a motionless mime, fully covered with a sheet, except for his face, and completely painted in light blue. The sheet was also hiding a three feet high platform on which he was standing. In front of him, a bowl awaited the coins.
The little girl pulled softly on her father’s hand.
“Can we go see him, Dad?”
The man softly pulled back, to prevent his daughter from stopping, and they kept on walking, slightly faster.
When they’d left the mime behind, he crouched down to whisper in the child’s ear.
“Sorry, honey. I’m just not crazy about mimes… Doesn’t he look,” he asked her, taking good care not to be heard by the actor, “a bit repellent to you, covered in paint and everything?”
The girl raised her shoulders, not really sure what to think. She would have liked to stay and watch the mime for a while, but she didn’t want to upset her father, so they just continued their walk with no further word about it.


6

That same night, the man was asleep in bed with his wife. The darkness was complete in the bedroom. The door was open and, across the corridor, a moonbeam was the closest light that could be distinguished, coming through their child’s window.
The silence, almost airtight, was suddenly interrupted by a whisper in his ear.
“Luis.”
The man woke up startled. He instinctively turned to look at his wife, expecting her to have called him, but she was still sleeping. In fact, that wasn’t so strange, for he had heard the whisper coming from the other side, and… on reflection, it wasn’t Ángeles’s voice after all. Was it a man’s voice? After a few seconds, he got up slowly and went to check on his daughter’s room. She too was asleep.
He went back and got into bed. He closed his eyes. This little nothing had made him nervous, but he eventually calmed down and began to feel sleepy again.
“Luis.”
This time the fright was greater and he found himself sitting up. His heart was beating very fast. Ángeles was sleeping peacefully. He watched her for some moments, unwilling to believe it hadn’t been she who had said his name. The voice had sounded so near.
He lay down again and rested his head on the pillow. He forced himself to close his eyes. However, he placed his forefinger on the switch of the bedside table lamp. The echo of that androgynous voice kept floating inside his head and, with a rapid pulse, he could feel that, although his eyes were closed, everything around him was whirling.
A few seconds, ages to him, went by, until he heard the whisper again; as clear and close as before. He switched on the light; opened his eyes. And there, kneeling by his bed, with his head just inches away, was the blue mime he had seen that morning. His sharp nose was almost touching his own, and his black pupils, framed by eyeballs that seemed to have been painted with the same shade of blue as his face and garment, were penetrating him from an insignificant distance.
The man felt short of breath and became rigid. The last thing he experienced was an intense pain in the chest, while those phantasmagoric eyes wouldn’t stop looking at him.

7

It was eight o’clock in the morning and Ana was still in bed. The telephone rang.
“Hello?” she answered reluctantly. “Sure,” she went on after a long while. “I’ll get dressed and I’ll …see you there. Bye, bye.”
She got up, still feeling lazy, but quickly.

8

Ana had just poured some sugar on her coffee. There weren’t too many people on the terrace of the cafeteria yet.
“It was two days ago,” Laura was telling her. “She was in the car, with her husband; he was driving. They were going to visit his mother. The police still don’t know what forced them off the road.”
“Had you known each other very long?”
“A couple of months. She was a colleague of one of Ivan’s friends. I remember the first day we met I was shopping at Puerta del Sol, and I saw Iván chatting with some people. I was surprised to find him there and I went up to him. He was with that friend of his and Estefanía. The truth is he and the other guy - I forgot his name now- were truly shocked to see me. I have that theory that what irritates men the most is unexpectedly finding their wives during working hours. It just drives them crazy. It’s like they had that small private domain there… Anyway, she came shopping with me and, from then on, we became the best of friends. Her husband was very sweet too. And their kids. Oh, they’re devastated!”
Ana glimpsed at her watch. She knew it was a very inopportune moment to leave, but she really had to. Besides, her father’s funeral was too fresh in her mind to be able to have a conversation about death without bursting into tears.
“I’m sorry,” she said, standing up,” but I have to get going. We’re really busy at work now. I promise I’ll call you soon again, OK?”
She kissed her sister in a hurry.
“Don’t worry. I should be going now too. Bye, kiddo.”

9

Ana worked as a camerawoman on a TV music program. She liked to wear a grey baseball cap back to front on the set. While she was trying to get a good shot of the pop singer, someone touched her shoulder softly. She turned around and saw it was Darío.
“Hi,” he whispered. “I have to talk to you.”
“Can you just wait a sec?” she said, raising her index finger. “I’ll be right with you.”
“Of course.”
Ana went on filming. Darío stayed near her, watching while she worked. When the performance was over, she checked some things on the camera and handed it to a workmate who came to relieve her.
“You’re aware of the accident.”
Ana had no idea what he was talking about.
“Laura’s friend?” added Darío.
The young woman, who had just stepped a few feet away to grab a bottle of water from her bag, stopped drinking and stared at him astonished.
“How do you know?”
Darío didn’t answer right away. Since Ana had known him for so many years, she had learnt not to be put out by those moments of silence he had from time to time during a conversation. Then, he pointed at a remote part of the set where the hosts were standing.
“I want you to look there for a minute.”
She glanced briefly in that direction, and then turned to look questioningly at Darío.
“C’mon! Just do it!”
Ana turned around; her back to Darío.
-Can you hear me?
“Of course I can!”
-Can you clearly hear what I’m saying?
“Oh, stop fooling around! I’m not at all in the mood for jokes today, Darío. I’m sorry.”
-Now, turn around again and look at me.
She did as told. He grabbed her softly by the arms and, without opening his mouth, she heard his voice.
-And what about now? Can you hear me?
Her expression became very serious.
“Are you a ventriloquist?”
-No.
“Well, then you’re scaring me. Is it a recording? Is it…”
-Telepathy.
“Telep…,” unable to finish the word, she remained looking at him for a long moment. “Do it again.”
-I’m communicating with you through telepathy.
“Awesome! And… And I feel a kind of shiver when you do it. How… How do you do it?”
Darío took her hand.
“We have to talk.”

10

The two friends were walking along a wide avenue, bordering a park. It was a warm sunny day. Darío was walking his bike, beside Ana.
“We should discuss this at length. I should explain so many things to you… But we’re going to have to make it brief because there is no time.”
Darío, who was basically gabbling, stopped abruptly to allow Ana to speak.
“I’m all ears,” was all she said.
Darío was rather disappointed because he had expected her to break in and inevitably put off the explanation he was about to give.
“All right, then. Uhm…,” he went on, when it was obvious he had no other choice. “The first thing you ought to know is that you weren’t supposed to find out… ever.”
“That’s nice.”
“Unfortunately, owing to circumstances, we’ve been obliged to drag you in, although we originally didn’t intend to.”
Again, Darío tried to give Ana another chance to intervene.
“OK,” she said with a poker face.
“Let’s sit down,” said the young man with a sigh.
They made themselves comfortable on a bench and Darío laid his bicycle on the ground next to him.
“Your family and mine have, from distant times, been part of a select group of telepathists. There have always existed people with this type of ability, but it wasn’t until the seventeenth century that they got together to decide how to use it in the best way possible. Unity is strength, and the spirit of this first assembly was very commendable. They decided that, for their own safety, the most sensible thing to do was not to spread what they were capable of doing, and, furthermore, that it was only to be used for good. But, before they could manage to develop a well-organized international –let’s say- network, a rather sizeable section of the group, coordinated by someone called Veek, began to work on their own as informers for wealthy unscrupulous people who wanted to become even wealthier. A small part of that first group refused to prostitute their faculties and so became Veek’s enemies. In order to protect themselves, they learned to hide from other telepathists’ minds. The Veeks, however, have not reached to perfect such ability as we have. Because, you see, telepathists can detect…or… find each other.
You and I come from this good section, which Veek and his disciples eventually came to call the chameleons due to our ability to hide from them.”
“Fascinating,” said Ana, answering Darío’s expectant look.
“You don’t believe me.”
“How do you know I don’t believe you?”
Darío cracked a smile.
“I can read your mind.”
“Yeah, OK. But, the thing is… in accordance with your story, I should be able to read other people’s minds too… which I cannot.”
“Because you haven’t trained your power yet. You’ve got atrophy.”
“Atrophy?”
“It’s asleep. Waiting for you to wake it up and get the stiffness out.”
“And how am I supposed to do that?”
“Well, we must experiment with some…”
“Wait a minute,” interrupted Ana. “Let’s go back to when you said I shouldn’t have found out…”
“My father and your grandfather died while trying to stop the Veeks.”
“The Veeks. So that’s what you call them?”
“We also sometimes refer to them as Group One.”
“Copy.”
“So both our families decided to leave Madrid and take us away from all this to protect us.”
“And you’re a real scream, you know that?”
Darío took both her hands.
“Listen. There’s no time to play around. I heard of all this three years ago; after my mother passed away. Your father knew there was no going back for me, and he decided to tell me everything he knew to help me. He also asked me to watch over you –your sister and you-, trying to make sure you never discovered what you are, unless it was absolutely necessary.”
After a small pause, he picked up the thread of the narrative.
“The Veeks have recently become much more ambitious and dangerous. They’re operating more often and, I’m sorry to say, in a deadlier way. In addition to this, we are becoming fewer and fewer. Our families weren’t the only ones to choose total concealment for protection -which has given the Veeks extra power. The few of our generation that have come to unveil this secret think that there is no other alternative but to start a recruitment campaign –let’s hope short-, at least until things are back to normal… And I have recruited you.”
Silence.
-Now you must learn to read minds, and it has to be this afternoon. We need your help right away.
A shiver ran down Ana’s spine.
“Oooo, all right. But don’t do that again without a warning.”
Darío picked up his bike from the ground and Ana stood up. They began to walk again.
“You definitely can’t read other people’s minds, can you?”
“I never tried,” she answered. “But, hey, I read yours!”
“No, you didn’t. I transmitted to you, which is not the same thing. Why don’t you try? You could go to that newsstand over there, buy anything and see what you receive.”
So she did. She went to the kiosk in the park, bought a magazine and came back twisting her mouth and shaking her head.
“We need a stimulus,” declared Darío. “Smells usually work. Since we haven’t got much time, we’ll go directly to some place where you can be surrounded by different smells and see if we can find one that suits you. I’ll pick you up at your place after lunch. Four o’clock. Don’t be late.”
“You keep saying there’s no time. No time for what?”
“I’ll tell you later,” he answered. “But it’s really important. Don’t be late!”
Ana, resignedly, marched on until she reached a nearby subway entrance and walked down.

11

In the aromatherapy shop there were several shelves of candles on display with different colors and scents. He picked up an orange one and brought it to Ana’s nose.
“Orange.”
She made a face.
“Aagh, no.” She pushed it away and turned her attention to the nearest candles in front of her. She picked one. “Ah, vanilla. I like this smell.” She inhaled. “Oh, yes. Mmmmm. And how will I know if it’s working? Should I go up to the shop assistant and stare at her?”
“I don’t think that will be necessary. Besides, you might scare the shit out of her. The vendor gave you a weird look when you came back from the newsstand this morning.”
Ana squinted her eyes and grimaced.
“We can use the shiver you say you feel when I transmit to you,” went on Darío. “You’ll feel the same –let’s hope- when we find the appropriate stimulus.”
“Well, then I must say it’s not vanilla.”
She picked up two more candles and smelled them. Meanwhile, Darío glanced around the store. There were some undecided customers and a couple that were being helped at the counter. Relaxing background music. He had to admit it had a lot of charm.
After the candles, they turned to the soap. Ana opened a gel bottle and continued the experiment. Then, she capped it again.
“This is a waste of time. My nasal receptors are stunted.”
“Then you must think of something else –a smell that brings pleasant memories or sensations to you…”
“Alfalfa.”
“Alfalfa?”
“Every time I passed by a truck loaded with alfalfa, I always stopped. I love that smell.”
“Alfalfa,” repeated Darío. “And where do I find alfalfa here in Madrid?”
“I’ve no idea. I used to smell it when I was a kid, back in town,” said Ana, with an innocent expression.
“All right. Alfalfa it will be. I’ll search… wherever. You’ll have your alfalfa this evening.”
“Wow. This must be really important.”
“It better work.”

12

Laura was in her surgery with a patient that had just arrived. The door was closed. In a room close by, her husband, Iván, was meeting with a well-dressed man in his thirties. Although he wasn’t wearing a suit, you could tell he was an affluent businessman.
“Have you finally found out if Laura is who we think she is?” he asked Iván.
“I’m not sure yet.”
“Damn it, Iván! You’ve been married to her for six months! Now you’ve been here with her twenty-four hours a day for two weeks! What else do you need? I’m beginning to think you’re useless!”
“I’m almost positive that she isn’t, but I have to be cautious. If I got into her mind, it could give me away, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?”
His interlocutor looked angry and impatient.
“Tomorrow is the Board meeting. They will decide about the financial involvement in the military intervention. We got rid of Estefanía and Miguel Ángel, but there are still three that could vote against the proposal. Fuentes and María Teresa, if alone, will probably give in, but Roberto Cepeda is going to vote against in any case and he’ll drag them with him. This must be avoided –and we won’t be able to do it with a suspected chameleon keeping watch on us! Your marriage, which was intended to investigate her family, has only put us in greater danger because now one of the victims was a friend of hers.” He pointed a menacing finger at Iván. “We had better be wrong about Laura.”

13

Ana opened the door. It was Darío. She invited him in. He was carrying a big parcel under his arm. He came in and left the parcel on a round table, in the living-room. Ana’s apartment was small, and so were the furniture and pictures that decorated it. An unsophisticated lamp hanging from the ceiling covered the package with a yellowish light.
“OK,” said Darío. “Here it is. Alfalfa. The fragrance of love. I spent the whole afternoon going from pillar to post trying to find it.”
“This whole thing seems so absurd.”
“Smell.”
“All right, all right.”
Ana picked up a handful of alfalfa Darío offered her and smelled. She closed her eyes and sighed with pleasure. The young man was anxious to know the result.
“And?”
“What?”
“What do you mean what? Do you feel anything?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Darío fixed his gaze on her.
Can you hear me?
I could hear you before.
“Good!” he exclaimed. “I receive you better. We may have woken you up after all. Now it’s time to tell you what we want from you, why we need you and why we’ve gotten you involved in all this against your father’s wishes.”
They sat at the table.
“Do you remember what I told you about the Veeks? They’re hired by unscrupulous people to solve their “little problems”. We’ve been following one of them, Manuel Laredo, for a while and, lately, he’s been meeting with executives of Castellana-Valenç. Two members of the Board of Directors have recently died under strange circumstances.”
“Laura’s friend?” inquired Ana, associating ideas.
“Yes, she was one of the victims.”
“But I don’t understand why their gift for reading minds can make the Veeks sought-after assassins.”
“They never kill directly. They get into the victims’ minds and induce suicides, accidents… The police can’t possibly track them down or link them in any way whatsoever with the crimes. Only we can stop them.”
“How?”
“Some chameleons,” explained Darío, “are devoted to identify and follow the Veeks. Others, to erase them. And that’s where you come in.”
“Erase them?”
“We’re obviously not killing them. Remember we are the good guys. Besides, there’s no need to. A Veek without telepathy is totally useless –just a hindrance to the rest of them- so they quickly get out of the way to avoid any problems.”
“And how are they erased?”
“Well, it’s kind of hard to explain. An experienced telepathist –a really, really well-trained one- can manage to erase another telepathist’s ability. Then, there are the gifted ones. Your father was one of the best before he retired. They can isolate their own mind from everything else and throw themselves into any person. I know it sounds too complicated –and completely unlikely for a beginner. We don’t expect you to be able to do that, yet.”
“We don’t expect you to be able to do that…yet,” repeated Ana, trying to imitate Marlon Brando’s husky voice in The Godfather. “Are you aware that you sound a bit like the mafia?”
Darío smiled.
“What you have to do is go into the Castellana-Valenç boardroom tomorrow. Early in the morning, there’s going to be an important meeting, where they will decide if they become financial sponsors of a military occupation by several governments, in exchange for future oil compensations.”
“Oh.”
“We believe the two deceased board members were going to vote against. Someone must get in there and ensure that no accidents occur during that meeting.”
“I… have to say it doesn’t seem to me like a very elaborate plan,” confessed Ana, knitting her brow.
“True,” Darío admitted. “This issue has caught us with our pants down.”
“How do you know they won’t try to eliminate the rest of the executives before the meeting? Tonight?”
“Very unlikely. More deaths would cause the meeting to be postponed, and that wouldn’t be advisable for them at this point. Plus, it would be too suspicious. But, tomorrow, someone could faint or feel ill… and the matter is urgent enough for the Board to make a decision without them. Later, those problematic members could be disposed of with the appropriate discretion. In any case, it would be some other Veeks that would be handling that, for they never stay too long in the same place. And maybe by then we will have identified the hirer.”
“Right. Just one more thing…” Ana smiled at her own choice of words. “That Laredo… Is he going to be at the meeting?”
“Yes. He most probably will.”
“He’ll recognize me!”
“Not if you’re a good chameleon. Besides, they surely haven’t got you sussed. At least you have that small advantage. Those of us who have been in this for some time, despite our abilities at hiding, are always on our guard. We’re few and handling several matters at the moment, in different places. You’re our last resort.”
“How am I going to be able to hide my telepathy if I’ve never even used it yet?” asked Ana, placing her hands on her waist.
“You must practice tonight. We should try on someone simple.”
“Someone simple? Oh, I see, a non-telepathist. I think I got your slang now. We could invite,” she added after some seconds of meditation, “my sister and her husband for dinner. You know, my brother-in-law is simple. Laura, on the other hand…”
“Laura is like you: she’s hibernating.”
“Well, then we could invite her to hibernate here tonight, while we use Iván as a guinea pig. They’ll love to be given the excuse to dine out now that they’re spending so much time at home.”
Ana was clearly starting to assume her unexpected role as a secret agent with powers. Skepticism had given way to curiosity and a desire to learn.
“One last question,” she added. “Why me and not my sister? If we are equally gifted -hypothetically speaking… And, besides, she’s the eldest.”
“She’s married,” answered Darío with a playful sparkle in his eyes. “You know, she’d have to spend so much time training with me…”
Ana slightly blushed and concealed a smile.

14

Ana, Darío, Laura and Iván were sitting around the table, which was now no longer round but oval-rectangular shaped for space reasons. The light was dim, and it mostly came from the lamp that was hanging over them. There were also a few candles on the table. Laura picked one of the six small glasses Ana had arranged in an ornamental way.
“What did you put in here?” she placed it under her nose. “It smells like grass.”
Ana picked up another one.
“Just something I like,” she said, smelling it also. Then she looked at Darío.
-I think it’s working. It’s working, right?
-I’d say it is.
-I can hear my sister’s thoughts. She thinks I have dreadful taste in house decoration, and the omelet has got too much salt.
-Well done!
Ana smiled slightly while she picked up her fork. She used the knife to push some food onto it and, when she was lifting the food into her mouth, her eyes rested on Ivan’s, who was sitting opposite her. She realized he was staring at them both.
-Darío, I think Iván…
Darío took Ana’s hand beneath the table.

(Read more on: T (part two))

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