Time Is What It Is

Chapter I of The Ministry of Time

An unofficial novelization

Based on the screenplay by Javier Olivares and Pablo Olivares

Adapted by me :3

-

PRÓLOGO

Flanders, 1569

When the sun rose over the Belgian countryside, the battle— more accurately, the massacre— was already over. Something had gone horribly wrong. The Spanish army was the most advanced in the world, handsomely financed, its tercio structure decades ahead of its time. And yet hundreds of dead men, almost exclusively soldiers of the Spanish army, were lying in the earth, the colors of their uniforms, faces, hands now the color of the mud. A team of men went around picking up the bodies. As they hoisted life after wasted life into their cart, they had to wonder to themselves— Who allowed this to happen?

At the site of the Spanish army’s camp, a Belgian castle conquered and occupied, the captain Fernández summoned his direct subordinate, Alonso de Entrerríos, to testify on the disaster on the battlefield. This meeting would have been routine, mundane, even constructive under different circumstances. Before the battle occurred, Fernández had it in his mind that he would meet with Alonso afterward to discuss what worked, what didn’t, and how to improve their strategy, whether to call for reinforcements, whether to advance even further. But now he knew the meeting he’d imagined would be impossible. Instead of sending a messenger to Alonso, telling him to report at his earliest convenience, Fernández sent two soldiers, armed, with orders to bring the man to him immediately— by force, if necessary. Fernández knew someone had to take the blame for the outstanding SNAFU, and if he knew one more thing, it was that it wasn’t going to be him.

The moment Alonso’s battered, mud-stained boots made contact with the Spanish army camp grounds, they suddenly found themselves escorted by guards to the room where the anxious officer waited. His back to the door, Fernández turned as he heard the sextet of boots enter the room.

‹Thou attackedst before it was time!› accused the captain. ‹Why didst thou do it?›

Alonso was a serious, once wiry but now emaciated man. Thirty and some years old, battle-weary, muddied and bloodied, he replied, ‹Because thou didst order it so.›

‹Hast thou witnesses who can attest to what thou sayest?›

‹If the dead could speak, I would.›

‹Thou liest,› said the captain, picking up a rod from the table behind him. He turned back to Alonso and yelled, ‹Thou liest!›

He moved to strike Alonso with the stick but Alonso grabbed it mid-swing and held it firm. Quietly but threateningly, Alonso replied, ‹I never lie.›

The captain looked at him as if he were mad.

‹Arrest him!› he yelled.

But before the soldiers could, Alonso grabbed the captain and exploded into rage. ‹They all died for thee!› he yelled. ‹All of them!›

The two guards could barely restrain the tall Alonso as he elbowed and kicked and bit with all his might. He knew there was no hope for him, but he had to do everything he could to give the traitorous Fernández what he deserved. One guard stepped away, and picked up a chair by the door. While Alonso was attacking the captain, he neglected to watch his back. The guard raised the chair and hit Alonso over the head. He fell to the ground, unconscious.

One month later, Alonso was in Seville, shackled to the wall in a gloomy dungeon. His uniform had been traded out for thin, worn rags, and his face was now hidden by the long, tangled beard and hair of a prisoner. Even so, he lowered his gaze. His wife, Blanca, had come to see him. She was upset, to say the least.

‹Why didst thou attack him? He was thy superior!›

‹There are times when a man must do what he must do,› said Alonso. He knew that if he had to live that day over again, and if there was no way he could prevent the catastrophic battle from happening, the only thing he would change would be to give Fernández one extra kick in the groin. Maybe two.

‹Damned pride…› said Blanca. She took his head in her hands. ‹Because of it, tomorrow thy captain will be in his bed, and thou on the gallows.›

‹Then on the gallows will be a man with honor, and in the bed a scoundrel.›

Alonso lifted his head, composing himself. He smiled tenderly at his future widow. ‹Blanca, cry not. I’ve had a good life. I saw the world… I loved… I fought for my country. I have no regrets.›

He paused for a moment. ‹Do one thing for me.›

Blanca nodded.

‹Continue thy life,› said Alonso, ‹don’t look back.›

Blanca hesitated. Alonso didn’t notice as she brought her hand to her belly.

‹Alonso… I… ›

Before she could finish the thought, the jailer yelled from outside the cell, ‹Your time’s up! Out!›

As the jailer entered the cell, Blanca looked at Alonso, and kissed him, empty of all hope. The jailer grabbed her and pushed her towards the door.

‹Forget me, I beg of thee,› called Alonso.

‹It won’t be easy,› said Blanca.

And then Alonso was alone. His head dropped back down, and he was absorbed in his own mind, until an unknown voice brought him back to Earth.

‹Art thou Alonso de Entrerríos?›

Alonso recomposed himself. In front of him was a monk, whose face was obscured by a black hood.

‹Thou wastest time, Father,› said Alonso. ‹What I have to say to God I’ll tell Him tomorrow in person.›

The monk took off his hood, revealing a serious, middle-aged face. He was clean-shaven, with eyebrows that seemed perpetually quirked— but this of course was not what Alonso would remember most about him. ‹I’m not here for confession,› said the monk. ‹I’ve come to take thee out of this place… if thou wilt accept mine offer.›

Alonso’s eyes widened.

‹Wouldst thou like to work for a secret office of the Crown?›

‹A spy?› said Alonso, perplexed.

‹Something like that. Special assignments in strange places… Thou wilt be dead to the world, including Blanca, thy wife.›

At this, Alonso lost the smile that had creeped its way onto his face… but all the same, he offered his hands so that the monk would free them. The monk had keys, and seeing Alonso’s gesture, he opened the shackles.

‹Thou must be very powerful,› said Alonso as the chains came off. ‹Knowing how much these people like executions, it’s strange to me that they would cancel this one.›

‹It won’t be canceled: they’ll have their execution.›

The monk whistled in the direction of the door. Through it, two guards dragged in someone bound with rope and with a sack covering their head. Alonso watched, and, rubbing his reddened wrists, asked.

‹Who is it?›

The monk said, ‹For all intents and purposes, thyself.›

Alonso doubted… but finally reached down to take the sack off the prisoner’s head: there on the ground, bound and gagged, was the captain Fernández. Alonso exploded into laughter, incredulous. The captive captain looked up at him in despair.

‹Can I stay to watch the show?› Alonso asked the monk.

The monk flicked his wrist, appearing to examine the tight-fitting bracelet he wore upon it. Alonso saw that one link on the bracelet was bigger than the rest— a dull green rectangle with mysterious marks on it absorbed the monk’s interest. Alonso could have sworn one of the marks disappeared and then appeared again in an instant. The monk concluded: ‹We don’t have time.›

‹What is that?› asked Alonso, still peering at the watch. The monk, no slave to explanation, walked out the open cell door.

‹Let’s go!›

Alonso, astonished, followed him.

*

Barcelona, 1880

As the afternoon wore on, Amelia started to worry that the professor giving the lecture she was attending did not know what he was talking about. Amelia had devoured books since she was a girl, fascinated by literature and history. She was the only woman in the room— in fact, the only woman in the university’s entire student body. Her presence at the university was a testament to the vast knowledge she had accumulated even before enrolling in her first classes. Unfortunately, not everyone there fully appreciated what she had to share.

The lecture was on the Golden Age of Spanish literature, and the lecturer seemed to be having trouble with the idea that works of high art might take inspiration from the lowbrow.

‹Overall, I deny the influence of any contemporary author on Lope de Vega, glory of Spanish letters,› the lecturer declared. ‹Because the former drinks from profane sources, and our Lope from the deepest roots of our faith…›

As the other students passed notes and shuffled papers, Amelia raised her hand, polite, but determined.

‹Yes, miss?› said the professor.

Amelia spoke fast, the words firing out of her like a machine gun. ‹I’m sorry, but the influence of Orlando Furioso on Lope de Vega is obvious, especially in the theme of madness in relation to love.›

The professor dismissed this. ‹Nonsense.›

‹Characters like Rodomonte and Orlando himself are taken as a model for Lope. You can see it in works like—›

The professor cut her off, coldly. ‹Will you let me continue with the class?›

Amelia stopped and, after a moment, shrank back into her chair, though she did not lower her gaze.

‹The Golden Age demonstrates the glory of our literature,› continued the professor, again at lecturing volume and cadence, ‹represented in Calderón, Lope, or Cervantes’ grandiose Don Quixote. A literature at the height of what Spain was then: the first world power…›

A note made its way unexpectedly to Amelia’s hand. She unfolded the paper and read it silently:

Amelia, come out to the hallway: it’s urgent.

She lifted her head, and the door to the classroom closed just as she turned to look. Not unalarmed, she gathered her notes, got up and hurried out to the hall.

What she found waiting for her there took her by surprise: a thin, attractive woman of about forty years, with blonde hair and a gaudy-colored dress. She had her back to the door, and as Amelia entered, the woman turned towards her and smiled eagerly, as if she’d been looking forward to meeting her for a long time. Amelia stared for no more than an instant.

‹Pardon… who are you?›

‹Someone who knows just how important you are,› said the mysterious lady. She added, ‹Not like all those men.›

Amelia found herself blushing.

‹I’d like to get to know one of the first university women in the country,› she continued.

‹Are you a journalist?›

‹Something like that,› said the woman. She reined in her smile. ‹Tell me, what did your mother say when you said you wanted to study here?›

‹She said I’d lost my mind,› said Amelia. ‹She doesn’t think women have any use for an education.›

‹And your friends?›

‹More or less the same. With them you can only talk about husbands, children, and the fashions of Paris. It’s hard to find a woman who you can talk to about art, politics, or important things.›

‹Well, times are changing, aren’t they?›

Amelia opened up like a book. ‹Sometimes I think that women are our own worst enemies. But that has to change. I’m convinced that in some future, women will be able to do the same as any man.›

‹So am I.›

The mysterious woman removed a flask from the small purse she clutched. She unscrewed the cap and said, ‹Shall we drink to that?›

She took a big gulp and offered the flask to Amelia, who took it, with a more timid sip.

‹If my mother heard us…› Amelia began. She shook her head. ‹She’s committed to finding me a husband… so that I marry and have children.›

This particularly piqued the woman’s interest. ‹And you don’t want to…?›

‹I don’t need a man,› said Amelia proudly.

The woman looked at her for a moment.

‹You don’t know the joy that that gives me…›

She moved in fast— and suddenly her lips were on Amelia’s. Amelia, for her part, was not experiencing the joy. She went stiff as a stone. The woman noticed her apprehension, and stepped back.

Flustered, Amelia stuttered, ‹Need— I don’t need men… but the case is I do like them.›

The woman looked at her and sighed.

‹Oh well.› She picked up her little purse. ‹Let’s see if this interests you more…›

She opened the bag again, and this time removed a wholly unfamiliar artifact. A black rectangle of glass, smooth and rounded at the edges, out of which colored light and soft, strange sounds emanated in response to the woman’s touch.

‹That… what is it?› asked Amelia.

The journalist who was not really a journalist pressed the strange shiny thing to her own ear. ‹Your world is too small for you, my dear— and that we can fix.› Turning away, she said to no one Amelia could see, ‹Angustias? Pass me over to the boss, darling…›

Amelia’s eyes were wide to begin with. Now she wouldn’t shut them for anything in the world.

*

Madrid, 2015

It was a typical night at a typical neighborhood bar. The local regulars drank their drinks, shot the breeze, watched the game playing on the TV mounted to the wall. On the wall behind the counter hung a scarf branded Atleti, for one of Madrid’s many soccer clubs, and a poster of Koke, one of its many famous players.

At a table, two paramedics in their yellow SAMUR uniforms dined on snacks and beer, attempting to wind down as the end of their shift approached. One of them was Julián. Only in his early thirties, he nevertheless had deep lines etched in his face and, tonight as on most nights, very little appetite. The other was Ramón. He was a little older, a lot heavier, and where Julián had short but poofy curls and a five-o-clock shadow, Ramón had a metalhead’s long greasy locks and well-kempt beard. While Julián stared into space, hardly having touched his little dish of nuts, Ramón picked at his tortilla de patata with the contempt of a hungry man confronted with food that is just not good.

‹Tortilla de patatas is like the IBEX-35 of a bar,› declared Ramón, referencing an index of the Madrid Stock Exchange. ‹If the tortilla is good, the bar is good.›

Julián didn’t answer.

‹And this tortilla is a disgrace.›

‹Everything was better before,› Julián said nostalgically.

‹Why are you so committed to coming here?›

Before Julián could make any unenthusiastic response, the radio transmitter they had rested on the table crackled to life: ‹Fire downtown,› said the staticky voice. ‹It’s a hostel.›

Julián got up automatically. ‹Let’s go.›

Ramón, still seated, started to protest. ‹Julián, for fuck’s sake, our shift is over in ten minutes and we’ve just been drinking!›

But Julián was already outside. With another curse, Ramón grabbed a handful of tortilla and grudgingly followed Julián out the door.

Downtown, the lights of sirens and the flames in the burning building colored the light of the night. By the time Julián and Ramón arrived in their ambulance, a fire truck and another ambulance had already been parked in front of the hostel. One firefighter, covered in ash, was being treated by a paramedic with an oxygen mask on the sidewalk.

Nearby, the light of the fire illuminating his face, was Ramón and Julián’s supervisor, talking to another firefighter in front of the building. Ramón approached them. ‹Jefe, how is it?› he asked his boss.

‹Not as bad as it seems,› he replied, with the attitude of having done most of his job already. ‹Inhalation of smoke, some attacks of nerves…›

As they talked, Julián looked up at the building, which was nearly completely engulfed in flame. Behind a window on the second floor, there were two figures. Their characteristics were obscured by the smoke but Julián could see their silhouettes clear as day. ‹There’s still somebody inside!› he shouted.

‹Impossible,› said the firefighter. ‹Everyone has been evacuated. We’ve searched top to bottom.›

Julián pointed to the window, and the three other men looked up. But by then, the silhouettes were gone.

Nobody else was making any move to go into the building. Julián realized that if he was going to help those people in the window, he would have to do it on his own. He saw a firefighter’s smoke protection mask on the ground, grabbed it, and ran towards the building. His companions became alarmed. The firefighter yelled after him, ‹It’s about to cave in!›

But Julián didn’t turn back.

With the mask on his face, Julián entered the burning building and made for the stairs. At the top, he turned the corner into the room he saw through the window. Through the sooty mask he could see that the whole room was on fire and could collapse at any minute. Quickly his eyes searched for people in need of help. Then he saw, lying on the floor, two men— strangely, both were dressed like Napoleonic soldiers.

‹Here! I’ve found them!› Julián yelled. He went to try and revive them, but when he checked for a pulse, he couldn’t find one. He heard footsteps, and realized that someone else had entered the room. Thinking it was his partner, he yelled again. ‹Quickly! There’s no pulse!›

When he turned around, however, he saw that the new arrivals were not firefighters or SAMUR, but two other men, one uniformed like the men on the floor, and the other in civilian clothes of the same era. They stared at him, motionless, for a moment. Then there was a great cracking noise, and the three conscious men looked up. The ceiling had broken. The last thing Julián saw was the wooden beams heading right for his face.

***

For the next full day, Julián lay sedated in a hospital bed, coming in and out of consciousness. When he opened and closed his eyes, hours would pass before they opened again. Barely he perceived fragments of what was happening around him.

Open. A nurse is doing something Julián doesn’t get to observe. Close.

Open. Ramón, with he and Julián's supervisor, is at the foot of the bed. They talk in low voices.

‹This can’t go on, chief… Sooner or later something was going to happen. Nobody wants to work with him, he’s a danger, to others and to himself.›

The boss snorts.

‹After what happened with his wife…› says Ramón, ‹he’s not the same.›

‹Who would be?› The supervisor looks down at Julián. ‹Some shit luck you’ve had, kid…›

Close.

Open. Two strangers, dressed formally— a man in a suit and tie, and a woman in a blazer and skirt— are in the room. The man, next to the door, is reviewing a hospital clipboard, Julián’s medical history. The woman, seated by the bed, is looking at Julián.

Close.

***

The next day, Julián was fully awake, and the doctor told him he was free to go. Midday light entered through the window of the hospital room as Julián, now on his feet and dressed, prepared his bag to go home. He went over to the window to open it, but found that he couldn’t. It was locked.

‹Don’t bother. It won’t open.›

Julián turned around and saw his supervisor had entered the room.

‹Doctor’s orders,› said the boss.

Julián smiled. ‹They think I’m going to jump, or what?›

‹We’ve received a complaint from the Fire Department.› The supervisor was dead serious. ‹Many of their men risked their lives because you disobeyed an order from the firefighter in charge of the operation.›

‹There were people inside!›

‹There was only you, Julián,› said the boss.

He paused, to make sure Julián understood this point. Julián’s heart rate started to rise.

‹This isn’t the first time,› his supervisor continued. ‹Your colleagues say that working with you is like working with a suicide terrorist.›

‹But I know what I saw!›

‹You are out of service until further notice,› the boss said gravely. ‹You need to talk to a specialist…›

Julián sat down on the bed, crushed. The boss came over and put a hand on his shoulder.

‹Think of it as a vacation…› he said, more gently. ‹Didn’t you used to do photography? Do that.›

As his supervisor left the room, Julián replied under his breath.

‹Not anymore.›

-

UNO

WELCOME TO THE UNDERGROUND

2015

In the living room in Julián’s apartment, one wall was covered in photos. They were polaroids, almost all of them pictures of Julián and his wife, Maite, over the course of the years.

Julián had taken a few of them down and sunk into an armchair to stew and stare at the photos in his hand. The most recent one was taken in 2012— Julián and Maite had taken a trip east to see the ocean in the summer, and there they were, with the clear horizon, blue on top and on the bottom, in the background. The oldest photo was dateable by the couple’s youth and the look of the nineties, taken at the same bar he’d been at just two nights ago. It was a selfie, before selfies were a thing: you could see that Julián took it, stretching out his arm and aiming the camera at himself and his companion. In every photo they were happy. Julián absorbed himself in the memories the photos held. When a knock came at the door, he didn’t react.

Another knock. Julián, reluctantly, got up and opened the door. There were two people he didn’t recognize, though they seemed vaguely familiar— a man with light brown, thinning hair and quirked eyebrows in a suit and tie, and a woman with long blonde hair, a blazer, a formal blouse and pencil skirt. Both wore sunglasses and expressions like stone. Their dress and demeanor evoked the men in black.

‹I know you from somewhere,› said Julián.

The man said, ‹We’re here to talk about what you saw in the fire.›

Julián remembered them now. ‹From the hospital, right?› He turned, letting them in. ‹They don’t waste any time sending in the shrinks…›

Julián didn’t look at them as he made his way back to the chair. He had little enthusiasm for seeing anyone today. As he walked over to sit back down, his guests entered and closed the door behind them. Without waiting to be invited, the man sat down on the couch across from Julián.

‹I suppose you already know everything about me,› said Julián.

‹Emergency Services paramedic, highly valued by your superiors,› recited the man in front of him. ‹Honored by Civil Protection for your actions during 11-M, the terrorist attack. Married to your college girlfriend, Maite, deceased since three years ago from a traffic accident; the perpetrator fled.›

The woman did not sit. She took off her sunglasses and wandered through the room, taking a good look at everything around her. She saw the photos on the wall.

‹Is this her?›

Julián nodded, somber. The two mysterious strangers exchanged a look. The man continued:

‹Since then, you’ve suffered bouts of depression, and possibly self-destructive tendencies, but you refuse to be treated.›

Julián was annoyed. ‹If you already know everything, why—›

The woman interrupted. ‹Talk to us about what you saw in the fire. In your report you say you saw two unconscious men, dressed like soldiers from the era of Napoleon…›

‹It doesn’t matter,› said Julián. ‹You don’t believe me.›

The woman took something out of her purse, and lay it on the coffee table in front of Julián. He froze: it was a photo of the two bodies he saw, laying in what looked like a morgue. Julián stared at it, relieved and, at the same time, alert.

He looked up. ‹You guys aren’t psychiatrists…›

The man said, ‹Would you care to accompany us? We need a description of the other two men you saw.›

With a new, reckless expression on his face, Julián agreed.

The mysterious visitors did not offer their names until Julián asked. The woman was Irene, the man, Ernesto, or so they said. The three arrived by car at an old, two-story building, in an unfrequented corner of the old center of Madrid. Its façade was dilapidated: in fact, it was surrounded by fences, scaffolding, and warning signs. To the surprise of Julián, Ernesto knocked on one of the giant, somewhat splintered wooden double doors.

‹Here?› Julián asked.

A security camera to the side of the doorframe buzzed, slowly moving its lens to point in their direction. Then, with a clunk, the great door unlocked itself and opened with a creak.

The three entered and greeted a security guard, to the side in a little booth with a window. He nodded to them, but said nothing, and they moved forward down the dimly-lit, construction-debris-strewn hall. In front of them were now the doors to a freight elevator. They went in and Ernesto pressed a button. The doors closed but the elevator did not move. Instead, the doors in the back of the elevator opened. They went through.

They were in what appeared to be an ancient Roman cloister. It was well preserved, but incomplete— the row of columns that would have been in front of the elevator doors was missing, and some other columns were halfway knocked down or eroded by time.

Julián said, ‹But… this… What is this?›

‹Calm down, you haven’t seen everything yet,› said Irene, with just a hint of a smile.

In the center of the cloister was a well. The three went towards it. Ernesto pulled a lever, and part of the wall of the well opened up. Inside of the well, metal slats emerged from its walls, and the well became a spiral staircase going down into the ground. Julián was stunned. Irene went down the stairs. Ernesto gestured for Julián to go in front of him.

At the bottom of the stairs, Julián found himself at an intersection of two hallways, these ones clean and much newer than the outside of the building would suggest. One corridor ended only about a dozen meters straight out from where he was standing. On the far end, a short set of stairs connected it to a raised, circular platform, beyond which he couldn’t see anything but darkness. The other hallway ran perpendicular to this one, and stretched out in both directions. Through these hallways ambulated many people, some rushed, some less so. Many wore suits… but others were dressed to the times— all the times: waistcoats, turbans and bonnets, frills and trenchcoats, doublets and pinstripes all mingled with each other, walking and talking, waving, bowing, hat-tipping as they passed. As strange as it seemed, the fluorescent lights, the attitudes of the passers-by, and the occasional clipboard and manila file seen clutched in their hands, gave the place the feeling of an office environment. Julián’s jaw dropped. A short, rotund lady of some fifty years approached the new arrivals. She wore modern office clothes, with the addition of two small pearl earrings, a ribbon tied in a bow around her neck, and a look of being somewhat quick-tempered.

Nodding to an engrossed Julián, ‹New?› she asked Ernesto.

‹Yes. The sub-secretary is waiting for us,› he replied. He motioned for Julián to follow him. ‹This way.›

The little lady kept on walking, and Julián, Ernesto and Irene turned in the opposite direction into the long hallway. When they reached the end, they made another turn, and Irene led them to an unassuming door on the right side of the hall.

They let Julián go in first, then entered just behind him and closed the door. Inside the room, on two metallic stretchers lay the bodies that Julián had seen in the fire, illuminated by overhead lamps.

‹Yes, these are them,› Julián said. ‹Did they come from a costume party?›

Out of view, an unfamiliar voice spoke. ‹No. They came from 1808.›

The light of the overhead lamps made it so that Julián could only see a silhouette. As the figure came closer, the light revealed a square, suited man, with salt-and-pepper hair and just the slightest of lazy eyes. He gave off a clean-cut manner, an aura of the 1950s.

‹Julián Martínez?›

Julián nodded, dazed: one surprise after another had left him mentally exhausted. The neat new man extended his hand.

‹Salvador Martí. Pleasure to meet you.›

‹I don’t know if I’m under conditions to say the same…› said Julián. He turned back to the cadavers. ‹You say they’re from 1808… The bodies have been preserved like this for two centuries?›

‹No,› said Salvador. ‹They died two nights ago of smoke inhalation. We believe they came from 1808 no more than twenty-four hours before…›

‹And now we know they didn’t do it alone,› finished Irene.

From a table to the side, Ernesto picked up a map of Madrid and showed it to the others. It was a double map: an up-to-date diagram of the city, on transparent paper, superimposed on an old one. On the top map there were marks and annotations.

‹We found this map in the clothes of one of the bodies,› said Ernesto.

‹It could be that the marks indicate why they’ve come to the 21st century,› said Irene.

Julián’s confusion increased. ‹What is this, a joke or some shitty new psychological method?›

Salvador, Irene and Ernesto looked at him.

‹Come with me,› Salvador said. ‹I’m going to show you something.›

Salvador brought Julián out into the hallway and back toward the spiral staircase. During their trip, they passed by more employees. Most were in suit and tie, but among them were a soldier from the Spanish-American War, in his uniform of rayadillo, a guy in a frilled collar, a cape and puffy pantaloons, and a Falangist in a blue shirt.

‹Ten more hours per month, and on top of that they cut our salary?› said the guy in the frill to the Falangist. ‹Makes me want to go back to the 16th century!› As they passed Salvador, each gave him their brief salutations.

‹What, another new one?› said the soldier. Salvador nodded and continued onward.

They turned the corner, and made their way down the short corridor that ended in the raised platform. On the platform was a reception desk. A porter sat there, reading a Marca magazine. The issue he read was from more than 15 years ago— the cover story was that Club Atleti had won the Liga tournament… of 1996.

‹Morning,› said the porter, without looking up from his paper.

The platform, surrounded by protective railing, hung over a void. An astonished Julián leaned out over the railing and saw that this was some kind of subterranean tower, a great hole which penetrated at least twelve stories down into the ground. Another, bigger spiral staircase descended from the platform into the hole, and at regular intervals, narrow planks of metal connected the staircase to passageways bored into the walls of the structure.

‹All governments have secrets,› said Salvador. ‹Ours has only one… but it is very old. Our secret is this ministry.›

‹And what ministry is this?› asked Julián.

‹The Ministry of Time.› Salvador approached the stairs. ‹Follow me… Be careful, don’t slip,› he said as they began their descent. ‹The fall is unbelievable.›

Periodically, thin wrought-iron arcs would emerge from the railings of the staircase, crossing from one rail to the opposite, over Salvador and Julián’s heads. From these arcs hung gas lamps reminiscent of 19th century streetlights, illuminating the way down into the void. When they reached the first bridge into the walls of the hole, they took it, and entered a hallway lined with old wooden doors.

‹Here Spanish public servants from different eras work with the mission to make sure history doesn’t change— This way,› Salvador directed. ‹Our agents travel to the era where there has been an alteration in time, and correct it.›

Julián stopped walking. Salvador, seeing this, also stopped.

Mockingly, Julián said, ‹Right. So a time machine exists, and what’s more, it’s Spanish…›

‹A time machine?› Salvador almost laughed. ‹Don’t talk nonsense, man. Time machines don’t exist… What exists are the time doors.›

Salvador opened the door in front of which they had stopped. A jet of daylight came out. Julián was stunned.

Through the door, Julián could see he was looking out from a casemate over a view of an esplanade. Down there, Iberian workers, under the supervision of Roman officers, labored on the construction of an aqueduct.

Salvador closed the door and continued to walk calmly down the hall. Julián, in a state of shock, followed.

‹The origin of the Ministry goes back to the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. A rabbi, in exchange for not being expelled, told them the secret of a network of doors that connected different eras of the past of the Spanish kingdoms.›

Salvador stopped in front of another door.

‹It’s not a very edifying story. The rabbi was not expelled, but the Inquisition burned him as a witch.›

‹But—› Julián started.

Salvador made a gesture that he stay quiet and opened another door. This time, barely any light came through.

In a salon in a royal palace, the family of King Phillip IV appeared about to pose for a picture— it was like a behind-the-scenes of their famous portrait, Las Meninas, though the great painter Velázquez was absent from the frame. Distracted, they didn’t realize that in the doorway behind them were Julián and Salvador.

Salvador closed the door. ‹Velázquez always runs late…›

Julián leaned against the wall about to lose his senses. Salvador gestured to the doors.

‹These doors are under the control of the Ministry. They’re… we say they’re official. But there are other… hidden ones.›

Julián made a connection. ‹The guys from the fire…›

‹There are people who want to disrupt time for their own benefit. And that could be terrible. Imagine if the Romans had access to machine guns? Or if Al Qaeda could contact Boabdil?›

‹Right now I can imagine anything…› Julián got to thinking. ‹Can you travel to the future?›

‹No: time is what it is, son.›

‹Then, if you can travel to the past, you could improve our present.›

‹That is dangerous.› Salvador paused. ‹Our history may not be the best possible, but it could be worse. This is why we need your help.›

Julián looked at him, surprised.

‹Right now, two men from the 19th century roam free in Madrid, we don’t know in search of what. And you are the only one who’s seen them.›

***

Salvador’s dispatch was a typical higher-up’s ministry office, with a few extra quirks. It was situated on the ground level of the Ministry, with large windows that provided a strategic view of the cloister, right on the other side of the glass. On the wall to the left of the entrance to the office hung a series of portraits, Salvador’s among them. Aside from Salvador’s desk, office chair, and two armchairs on the other side of the desk, there was also a couch and coffee table off to the side, and all around the room were various relics and artifacts of times past: a knight’s helmet, an arrowhead, a small work of ancient pottery on a little pedestal. Julián was now seated in an armchair, somewhat uneasy. Behind him, controlling the situation, stood Salvador.

‹The brunet had a large nose, dark eyes,› said Julián. ‹Thick eyebrows…›

A young artist, dressed to the custom of the 17th century, was seated in the other armchair, drawing in charcoal.

‹The other… the blond… was taller, light eyes… I… I’m sorry, I don’t remember more.›

‹Do you have enough, Diego?› asked Salvador.

‹Worry not, sub-secretary…› said the artist.

Salvador made a gesture to Julián, who got up. The two went aside together at the window, while the artist continued to draw.

‹We begin the search immediately,› said Salvador. ‹You enlist tomorrow.›

‹I enlist tomorrow… where?›

‹Here. Welcome to the Ministry of Time.›

Julián shook his head. ‹No… no…›

Salvador sighed, bored. ‹Your psychological examination specifies that you are not fit to continue working as a paramedic.›

‹They haven’t given me the tests yet—›

Salvador gave him a folder. ‹They’re here. Read.›

Julián began to read silently. Then his face changed. He read it out loud now, with a raised voice: ‹‹Due to his demonstrated self-destructive tendencies, he constitutes a danger to himself and those around him, due to which we advise his commitment into a specialized center…›› Julián looked at Salvador, horrified. ‹Who wrote this?›

‹I did.›

Salvador sat down at his desk. The 17th century guy continued his drawing, unbothered.

‹Sometimes, things aren’t how we want them…› said Salvador, paternally. ‹You know this well: you don’t live the life you’d like to live, nor with whom you’d like to live it.›

Julián didn’t respond: he knew Salvador was right.

‹We’re giving you another life. Not a common one, but another,› said Salvador.

‹So… either I work for you…›

‹…or you enter a psychiatric hospital.›

A silence came over the two. The artist got up.

‹It’s done.›

He left the sketch on the table, made a bow proper to his era, and left. Julián looked over at the sketches… and froze.

‹They’re them… they’re them exactly… He’s very good,› said Julián, following the artist out with his eyes.

Salvador got up, not very impressed.

‹He better be fucking good… he’s Velázquez.›

***

Two men stood in the middle of a busy central Madrid street. One was dark-haired, with big eyebrows, a big nose, and a big dark blue overcoat. The style of the coat was ambiguous enough that the only thing that really distinguished him from perhaps an otherwise-average overcoat enthusiast would be his great 19th century sideburns and wild-eyed, lost expression. This was Benito, a Spaniard through and through, even if his papers weren’t exactly up-to-date. His companion was taller, with light eyes, a thin nose and dirty-blond hair. His outfit was more outstanding. Under his open coat was displayed, for all the world to see, an officer’s uniform, characteristic of Napoleon’s army. This was Thibaud, a Frenchman. You could tell it from his accent, and perhaps too from the disgust with which he regarded his new, unmistakably Spanish surroundings— but disgust could just as easily have been his personality from the start. In any case, the two had found in each other strange bedfellows, both estranged, dumbstruck and overstimulated by the whirlwind of the 21st century city. Lights, noises, cars, people talking on their phones… it was too much sensory information, at too high a speed.

‹It’s… incredible…› said Benito.

‹I’ve fought in Austerlitz,› said Thibaud. ‹I’ve crossed the snowy Alps and the Egyptian desert… And I never was so afraid as I am now.›

A little down the street, Benito spied two strange guys. Two metalheads, that each afternoon planted themselves in front of a mythical record store that had closed years ago. He went over to speak to them, then paused when he arrived, unsure of how to start.

‹Do I know you from somewhere?› one of the metalheads asked him.

‹No, no…› said Benito. ‹I beg your pardon, sir. Do you know of some place where we could find books?›

‹The bookstore,› said the metalhead, dryly. He motioned with his head to the store right in front of them: La Casa del Libro. Benito stopped and stared at it. Thibaud, for his part, stopped and stared at a pair of young women wearing shorts and t-shirts.

Benito and Thibaud approached the bookstore. The place was pretty upscale— its doors were plexiglass with metal handles that could be pushed or pulled. Thibaud ignored these, and pushed the glass itself, just a little bit harder than he needed to. The two entered the store noisily, looking all around them and drinking in the wonders— the bright fluorescent lights, the modern architecture, and the occasional baffling LCD screen. Behind a counter, a salesclerk put references from a stack of books in his computer.

‹Excuse me,› said Benito, approaching the counter. ‹Do you have any volume about a conflict there was between France and Spain, around 1808?›

The salesclerk didn’t bother to look up from his screen. ‹War of Independence. History, second floor.›

Benito and Thibaud looked at each other, unsettled, and turned in the direction of the stairs.

‹War of Independence…› said Thibaud in a low voice. ‹Not a great start…›

***

The cafeteria in the Ministry was almost empty. Lunchtime had passed, and the few diners who remained were there looking for a little privacy. Velázquez was at a table alone, looking at a catalog of Picasso while he ate an apple. He turned the page to see a painting from his cubist era, a still life of apples. He looked at what he was eating… and gave it another bite, to make it more cubist. Julián watched him, still in shock. He was sharing a table with Ernesto and the woman they’d met earlier with the ribbon around her neck— Angustias, Salvador’s secretary— who was crocheting.

Irene entered the cafeteria and sat with them. She offered Julián an orange.

‹No, thanks,› said Julián.

‹You should try it,› said Irene. ‹There aren’t oranges like this anymore. They bring us them from a Valencian farm in 1887.›

Julián looked at the orange perplexed. ‹Later at home…› He went to take the orange and put it in his jacket pocket, when Ernesto stopped him, grabbing his arm.

‹You can’t take anything from another time out of the Ministry,› he said, admonishingly.

Julián didn't expect to. Ernesto let go of him, without taking his eye off him.

Meanwhile, at his table, Velázquez drew on a paper napkin his bitten apple, influenced by Picasso— advancing three centuries ahead of his own work.

‹Don’t worry, son,› said Angustias. ‹The first days are the worst; then one ends up getting used to it, right Irene?›

‹Not me,› said Irene. ‹I saw the heavens open up. A woman, and born in 1930, you tell me what I could have aspired to…›

Julián looked at her without believing. ‹1930? My grandma was born that same year… And you look…›

‹Younger than I really am, surely,› said Irene with a wink.

‹I started as the widow of an agent, when my Ramón died, may he rest in peace,› said Angustias, not stopping her crocheting.

Shaking, Julián said, ‹And when was that?›

‹In the war.›

‹The Civil War?›

‹No, son. The one in Cuba.›

Julián gulped. He turned to Ernesto, but Ernesto looked away, avoiding the question.

‹But if you come from so far…› Julián started.

‹Right. How could it be that I look forty when I’m over a hundred?› said Angustias. When Angustias said forty, Irene didn’t bother hiding a smile.

Julián nodded for her to go on.

‹Time doesn’t pass through the doors. Otherwise how would this orange be so fresh when it’s older than me.›

Irene was clearer, more didactic. ‹I recruited Velázquez in 1634, when he was thirty-five. He set foot in the Ministry for the first time in 2013. Now he’s thirty-seven years old. In 1636 and in 2015.›

‹Your life is your life,› Ernesto said. ‹You go from one era to another, but you keep getting older. Like every living person. The Ministry is not the fountain of youth.›

‹I wish it was…› said Irene. ‹We’re only simple public servants, not superheroes.›

‹But since you can go to the past, you can know what came of your lives…› said Julián. ‹And how… how you died…›

There was a silence.

‹I don’t know and I don’t want to know,› said Angustias. She motioned to Velázquez. ‹I leave that to the famous ones, who get in the history books.›

Salvador entered the room, accompanied by two others: The first was a tall, thin man in a cape and a wide-rimmed hat with a feather in it, a rapier hanging at his hip. The second, a young woman in a long, rigidly-structured dress with lace at her neck and wrists. Both of them wore the exact same face of fright as Julián. Here was an opening for Ernesto to change the subject.

‹Now here is the boss with the newcomers…›

The group approached the table.

‹Julián,› said Salvador, ‹I would like to present you to those who will be your companions.›

Julián looked at them. ‹Today’s my day. First I meet Velázquez,› he gestured to the artist at the table behind him, ‹and now Captain Alatriste,› he said, looking now at the man with the serious-looking sword and the less-than-serious-looking hat. He certainly looked like Alatriste, the fictional 17th century hero, only perhaps less movie-star-like, with his thin, battle-hardened face, chronically furrowed brows, and terrible smell. This man was more a medievalized Danny Trejo than a swashbuckling Viggo Mortensen.

He regarded Julián with annoyance. ‹You confuse me with another.›

‹Julián Martínez,› said Salvador, terse, presenting Julián; then the young woman, ‹Miss Amelia Folch,› and finally the man, ‹Don Alonso de Entrerríos.›

And what should have been a simple meeting became a mess of protocol: Julián extended his hand to shake it with someone else’s, while Alonso executed a bow, and Amelia presented the back of her hand in the vain hope that Julián would kiss it. Salvador sighed.

‹Better I leave you to get to know each other,› he said. Salvador made his way towards the door. Ernesto and Irene accompanied him. Julián, Alonso and Amelia were left alone, with the exception of Velázquez and his apple, and Angustias and her crochet hook, not knowing how to act.

‹Sir, can I ask you a question?› said Alonso to Julián. He nodded.

‹Who is this Alatriste for whom everyone confuses me here?›

***

Through the hallways Salvador, Ernesto and Irene went, crossing paths with various public servants of yesterday and today. Ernesto had a worried expression.

He said to Salvador, ‹Are you sure about putting them together? They’re very different.›

‹That’s the idea,› said Salvador. ‹Alonso is a veteran of the Tercios of Flanders. A perfect soldier. Put him in front of a marine, man to man, without any more technology than a knife, and it wouldn’t take him half a minute.›

‹It’s going to be hard for him to work with women,› said Irene.

‹His values are old,› said Salvador. ‹But that has its good side. His sense of honor, of his word… you don’t find that anymore. And he’s a patriot.› He greeted with a gesture two employees, an Andalusian and a Falangist, as he spoke. ‹Amelia is the brain. She’s modern, intelligent… She sees what others don’t. If she’d been born in the 21st century, she could have been whatever she wanted.›

‹Now she has that possibility,› said Irene.

‹If everyone in this country were as noble as Alonso and as advanced as Amelia, we’d be singing a different tune.›

‹It’s not them who I doubt,› said Ernesto.

Salvador stopped. His companions, too. ‹Julián?› said Salvador. ‹He doesn’t have anything to lose. That can be good. What’s more, someone who works in Emergency Services in Madrid, today… is life insurance on any trip to the past.›

-

DOS

THE SHENANIGANS BEGIN

2015

In the bookstore, surrounded by volumes taken out from the shelves, Benito and Thibaud couldn’t believe what they were reading.

‹Six years of war!› said Benito.

‹And we lost it!› said Thibaud. ‹But… how is this possible? La Grande Armée, the best army in history…› Thibaud motioned to another book. ‹And then we lost in Russia… and everywhere. Listen to what Napoleon said: ‹‹It was all because of that damned Spanish war…›››

They each were turning over their own thoughts, when Thibaud arrived at a conclusion.

‹We have to return.› He started to take books. Benito did the same. They strode with purpose out of the bookstore… tripping the alarm at the exit with their stolen goods.

‹Hey!› a security guard yelled. Benito and Thibaud ran like the wind… And that was all Ernesto could find out, looking at the footage of the store’s security camera.

When the theft of the books was reported to the police, the Ministry’s investigators were gifted an amazing lead— two men in 19th century clothes were spotted in Madrid, and importantly, they were captured on camera.

Ernesto displayed the security tape on a computer monitor for his colleagues to see. He rewound it until he found the frame in which he could best distinguish the faces of the two men. To his right, Julián nodded.

‹That’s them.›

On the left were Irene and, astonished before the spectacular technology, Alonso and Amelia. Alonso fearfully poked the screen with the end of his index finger, and pulled his hand back rapidly.

Amelia, in a low voice, said to Irene, ‹My father brought me to a theater in Paris… they projected images… but this…›

Suddenly, Amelia winced.

‹Are you well?› asked Irene.

Amelia nodded, forcing a smile. Ernesto looked at all of them.

‹We’re going to the bookstore.›

Irene smiled. ‹Miss Folch, Mr. Entrerríos… it’s time for you to get to know the 21st century!›

***

The streets of Madrid had always been unforgiving— but more than any other period in history, the time that brought out the worst in Madrid’s residents… was rush hour.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!

Irene was a fantastic multitasker, skilled at maneuvering in a traffic jam and yelling at other drivers on the road at the same time.

‹Why don’t you go do the dishes?› a man shouted at her as he was cut off.

‹If you want we can get out of the car and you can say that to my face,› Irene said. ‹Come on, tough guy!›

In the back seat were Amelia and Alonso, now dressed in modern street clothes, each next to a window. Amelia watched with mixed terror and childlike awe the spectacle of the 21st century from the inside of a moving car.

Alonso raised and lowered the window of the car door as if he were watching a miracle— until another, greater miracle left him astonished: a motorcycle of magnificent cylinder capacity passed on his side, rock music blaring.

Julián was squished between the two, smiling at the looks on the faces of his new companions. In the passenger seat, Ernesto kept his serious face on, unmoved until he made a gesture to what was now in front of them. ‹We’ve arrived.›

In the bookstore, Ernesto went to interrogate the salesclerk, leaving the rest of the party to gawk at their surroundings. Alonso was still uncomfortable: with his clothes, and with everything around him. Meanwhile, Amelia admiringly drank in the environment of the bookstore. As Julián and Irene watched, she stopped in front of the section on 20th century history. She looked at it with a certain fear.

‹You don’t know anything about what those books say, do you?› said Julián.

Amelia shook her head.

Irene said to her, ‹In the Ministry there’s a library, and you have internet…›

‹Inter… what?›

Julián said to Irene, ‹I’d like to see how you explain that to her…›

‹Huy!› Irene exclaimed. ‹They learn fast. The problem is when they get hooked on social media…›

Julián smiled. Amelia continued not understanding anything. Ernesto returned to the group and made a gesture for Alonso to join.

‹They’ve taken books,› said Ernesto, ‹all related to the War of Independence. And one of them spoke with a French accent.›

‹They want to know what happened,› said Irene, ‹before it happens… and get ahead of the events.›

‹Like the first Terminator?› said Julián. Amelia and Alonso looked at him without understanding. Julián thought to begin to explain it, but upon opening his mouth he found he didn’t know where to start, and waved his hand. It doesn’t matter.

‹They want to prevent Spain from winning the War of Independence?› asked Amelia.

‹Forgive me, but… what independence?› Alonso asked.

‹Ours,› said Ernesto.

‹An… an empire like Spain…› said Alonso, incredulously, ‹fighting for its independence?›

‹Man, empire shmempire,› said Julián.

‹Two centuries after… you,› Amelia began to explain, ‹France invaded us…›

‹No… that can’t be…› Alonso said, shocked. ‹The world was ours…› He looked at Julián, dead serious. ‹Now… are we sovereign, or do we pay tribute to someone?›

Julián, dead silly, said, ‹Yes. To the European Central Bank.›

Alonso and Amelia each raised an eyebrow.

‹Let’s return to the Ministry…› said Ernesto. The group all made their way towards the exit. As Alonso passed through the store, however, one stack of books caught his eye: El Capitán Alatriste by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, in mass-market paperback. He looked around to make sure that no one was watching… But Julián caught him.

‹Go and take it,› said Julián, with a smile. ‹I’ll pay.›

***

In a small, cheap hostel room, Thibaud, almost in a trance, watched TV, while Benito paced around the room in despair.

‹It’s going to be a massacre… for nothing!› said Benito. ‹France will lose the war… and that will be nothing more than the beginning of the end of the revolutionary dream. No one wins… you will lose everything… and we will return to absolutism, to obscurity…›

‹Don’t worry, mon brave…› said Thibaud. The program he had tuned into was a serious drama. A man in a ski mask with a handgun paced a city street. When he found his target, he shot— once— twice— nine times the gun went off, and nine bloody holes appeared in the victim’s body. His friend cheered him on. Kill him, dude! Kill him! It was the power of the gun that transfixed Thibaud. ‹None of that has to happen,› he continued. ‹That is why we have come to this century.›

Benito looked at him blankly. He still did not understand.

***

In a corner of the Ministry cafeteria, Irene plopped a box of tampons down onto the table. Amelia, seated across from her, was red as a tomato.

‹How embarrassing, my god…› Amelia covered her face with her hand.

‹Don’t worry,› said Irene, ‹the same thing happens to me, when I change eras my cycle goes out of control…›

‹But… it’s prohibited to take things from other times out of the Ministry…›

They looked sideways towards the door, where Alonso, Julián, Ernesto and Salvador were.

‹You take a few, and if anyone says anything to you, you send them to me,› said Irene. She took out a tampon. ‹Let’s see, I’ll explain how you put this…›

Unaware of the comedically graphic gestures happening in the background, Ernesto spoke with the rest of the group.

‹We’re searching the area. You can return to your homes. Tomorrow, meeting at 10.›

‹In that case, sirs…› Alonso took a bow of goodbye, and left.

Julián said, ‹Alatriste and her… do they live here… now?›

‹Oh, no!› said Salvador. ‹Each lives in their time, in their home…›

Ernesto pointed out, ‹Not Alonso. He had to leave Seville.›

‹Right,› said Salvador. ‹Now he lives in Madrid, about a hundred meters from here… but five centuries ago.› He smiled at Julián. ‹I’m sure that he’ll arrive sooner walking to the 16th century than you will by metro to your house.›

In the hallways of time doors, down in the pit, there was little activity. Alonso followed the directions he was given to arrive at the right door. When he got there, he took the knob and looked around him. The whole ordeal was unbelievable, but he didn’t have the energy to bother with not believing it. He gave himself the sign of the cross— if the time doors were witchcraft, better he protect himself from it; if they were divine, better he give thanks. Then he opened the door and went through.

He found, on the other side, nighttime in the old city of Madrid… as it was in the 16th century. With no electricity or gas, the light out on the street was comparatively withered. The streets were dirty, but it was nothing Alonso wasn’t used to. A man dressed of the era passed by. They greeted each other touching the brim of their hats. Once he passed, now free of anyone’s gaze, Alonso opened his jerkin to check that his new pocket edition of El Capitán Alatriste was still there.

That night in the Folch household— in 1880— Amelia sat at her table in her bedroom, looking at the tampon as if it were the strangest artifact she’d seen in her life… It may well have been.

From downstairs, her mother called. ‹Amelia! Dinner is ready!›

‹I’m coming, Mother!› called Amelia back, without looking away from the tampon. She gulped.

It was time to act.

***

That night in 2015, Thibaud ran into the middle of the road on a dark, empty street, obligating a municipal police car to brake just in front of him.

‹Help! Help!›

He ran to the window and addressed the two policemen in the car, in distress.

‹What’s wrong?› asked one of the policemen.

‹Mon ami est mort!› cried Thibaud. ‹My friend! Help!›

Sure enough, Benito lay motionless on the sidewalk. The police got out of the car and approached him, while Thibaud stayed behind, beside himself.

The first policeman kneeled next to Benito. ‹Call an ambulance!› he said to his partner.

But as soon as they turned their backs to the Frenchman, Thibaud took out of his bandolier a flintlock pistol.

Clickity.

Ka-Boom.

The policeman that had just been on his feet lurched forward— shot in the shoulder, though Thibaud had been aiming for the middle of his back— and fell. The other turned around, spooked and surprised, but still kneeling.

Clickity-Ka-Boom.

A smoking hole appeared in his chest, and he fell back, almost right on top of Benito, who was now getting to his feet, alarmed. Benito and Thibaud convened on the first policeman, who lay groaning but inert in the road. While Thibaud reached down to take the policeman’s pistol off his body, Benito looked at him horrified.

‹What have you done? The plan was to take their guns, not to kill them!› said Benito.

Thibaud looked with fascination at the gun. Then he looked back at Benito. What was worth more, the most powerful weapon he’d ever held in his hand, or a Spaniard, his enemy, trying to tell him what to do?

Thibaud took aim. ‹Adieu, mon ami.›

No click. Just BLAM.

The shot was exquisitely precise.

***

Still at his desk, the Ministry porter looked at his watch. It was eight.

‹For your first day, they sure made you stay late,› he said to Julián, who was looking out over the platform.

‹I have a meeting at ten tomorrow, but I wanted to familiarize myself with the place.›

‹Buah! Here, not a creature stirs until nine, in the mornings.› He paused, and picked up his magazine. ‹And whoever says nine, means nine-thirty, quarter to ten.› He trailed off, absorbed again in his 1996 Marca.

Julián came closer to the desk. ‹Do you read it every day since ’96?› he asked.

The porter lifted his gaze from the magazine. ‹Are you an Atleti guy?›

‹I’m not into soccer,› said Julián, gesturing to the Marca, ‹but I remember that day like it was yesterday.›

‹Heh! For me it was yesterday. Or tomorrow.› The porter gave Julián a conspiratorial look. ‹There’s a door… number 58… it goes to the men’s restrooms in the Callao Galerías Preciados, at ten in the morning of that day, which was—›

‹Saturday,› Julián interrupted.

The porter smiled. ‹Saturday. As for me, any time I have a bad day… at work or at home… Or if we lose against Real Madrid again, I take my bag, door 58 and onward! to the stadium.›

‹But I don’t understand it… If Atleti won the Liga last year, why go to the one they won in ’96?›

‹Because that game I saw with my father, may he rest in peace.› The man returned to absorbing himself in the Marca. ‹Forty times I’ve seen the game, and every time I enjoy it more.›

The porter looked up again to say something else, but Julián was gone.

Down in the hallways of time doors, Julián stood in front of door 58. The porter had given him an outrageous idea, and now his heart felt like it was coming out his mouth. He tried to calm himself. With a deep breath, he took in air, and opened the door.

*

1996

Julián emerged from a stall in a restroom. On the door of the stall was a sign: Out of service. He turned his head and looked all around like a tourist, hardly believing where he was. There was a man at the sinks, washing his hands, with a lit cigarette in his mouth. He took one cautious look at Julián, and left the restroom without bothering to dry. Julián looked at his watch, and set off with haste.

His destination: a typical neighborhood bar of Madrid— the same bar he would be at the night of the fire nineteen years in the future. As he entered the bar, Julián stared at everything incredulously: the advertisements, the bar’s logo, the beer tap… everything was old. The prices were in pesetas, not euros, and the people smoked unworried. Julián ordered a coffee cut with milk and sat at the counter. He was just taking the first sip of his cortado when his heart skipped a beat: reflected in the mirror behind the counter, he saw Maite— the Maite of 1996, still only a college girl— enter the bar. She sat at a table, and the waiter went to attend to her. His heart racing, Julián observed everything, with his head lowered, through the mirror.

‹What can I get for you, miss?› said the waiter.

As Maite spoke, Julián, at the counter, said the same words quietly to himself, in perfect sync: ‹A coffee, with extra milk, in a glass.›

The waiter went to get the coffee. Julián, nervous and emotional, could not take his eyes off the reflection of Maite in the mirror. He saw her face light up as she greeted someone who just entered the bar.

‹Julián!›

There he was, the same Julián, but nineteen years younger. Old Julián hid his head more, livid— his moment alone, unnoticed, with Maite had now been taken from him, and the advent of his own younger self was unsettling at best, terrifying at worst. What would happen if they saw him? The young Julián, bouncing with energy, sat at the table next to the girl. He carried a box wrapped in gift wrap.

Maite giggled nervously, like a little girl. ‹Is it for me? What is it?›

Young Julián gave her the package. ‹Here you go. Felicidades.›

She opened it. The Julián at the counter's eyes started to moisten. It was a Polaroid camera.

‹No!› Maite’s eyes were like dinner plates. ‹Dude, what’s come over you!› She and young Julián kissed each other loudly on the cheeks.

‹Be careful, it’s loaded,› said young Julián.

‹A photo together, come on!› said young Maite.

The boy took the camera, turned it around, and extended his arm, aiming it so it captured the two of them, with the interior of the bar in the background. She took him by the arm, they brought their faces close together. Flash!

The photo came out and the boy started to shake it. Then, without prior warning, Maite threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips. He froze, and tears started to fall from the Julián at the counter.

Maite noticed young Julián’s surprise. As old Julián mouthed the same words to himself, she said teasingly, ‹As if I had to wait for you to decide…›

The boy dropped the photo, still undeveloped, on the table, and returned the kiss. It was a first kiss: long, soft and isolated from the rest of the world. Julián, the one at the counter, could barely watch the scene in the mirror, partly from emotion, and partly for modesty.

‹Everything ok, chief?› The waiter reappeared in front of him, suddenly.

Julián recomposed himself. ‹Yes, all good. How much?›

‹A cortado? Not a lot. Eighty pesetas.›

Julián took money out of his wallet, only to find he had only euros.

‹Shit.›

He looked at the waiter, and saw that he was looking the other way. Hastily, and hiding his face so it couldn’t be seen by the couple kissing, he left the bar without paying.

‹Hey, you!› yelled the waiter. ‹Ah, fuck me… for eighty pelas…›

Everyone in the bar looked towards the door, except the two kids at the table, who kept kissing. The photo on the table was almost defined. It was the same that, nineteen years later, was hanging on the wall of Julián’s apartment. Only now, there were two Juliáns in the photo: one, young, next to Maite, and another, older, in the background, his back turned to the camera.

-

TRES

THE BELLY OF THE BEAR

2015

Julián returned to the Ministry convulsed and pale. He closed the door and leaned on it, exhausted, and smiled.

Down the hallway, just out of earshot of Julián, Alonso and Ernesto emerged from a different door.

‹I’m impressed,› Ernesto said to Alonso.

‹I am a soldier,› Alonso replied.

‹Yes, but from the 16th century. The pistol you just did the shooting test with is from the 21st.›

‹An arm is an arm.›

From the side of his eye, Alonso saw Julián leaning against his door. Ernesto did not; he was looking at his watch.

‹Come, it’s five to,› said Ernesto. He started walking towards the spiral staircase, away from Julián. Alonso followed him, not taking his eye off Julián, who, after a moment, began to follow them out.

In a few minutes, Salvador, Ernesto, Irene, Julián and, still dressed as in their centuries of provenance, Alonso and Amelia, had all convened in Salvador’s office. On the table were photos of the dead bodies of Benito and the two municipal policemen, taken at the scene of the crime.

‹According to the forensic report, the two policemen were shot with a collector’s gun,› said Salvador.

Irene said with a let me guess attitude, ‹From eighteen-hundred-and-something?›

Salvador nodded. He picked up a photo of Benito, and showed it to Julián.

‹Yes, it’s one of them,› said Julián.

‹He died from a shot from a regulation Municipal Police gun,› said Salvador.

‹They defended themselves?› posited Ernesto.

Salvador shook his head. ‹There are no traces of gunpowder on the fingers of the police.› He paused. ‹And their guns have disappeared. The one who stole the policemen’s guns shot his companion and fled…›

‹To his era?› said Amelia.

Irene looked at her and nodded.

‹Gentlemen, miss…› said Salvador, ‹this is your first job in the Ministry. You have to go to 1808…› He looked at Ernesto.

‹Door 21.›

‹You must find where the hidden door they have used is, and prevent those guns from being used, probably to change the course of history,› said Salvador.

Julián, Amelia and Alonso looked at each other, overcome.

Ernesto took out his phone, and made a call. ‹Cornejo? I’m sending you two men and one woman… clothes from the early 19th century… tell the hair department too…›

Irene gave Amelia the map found in the fire. She showed her where a mysterious X had been drawn on the translucent overlay. ‹We’re guessing that this mark corresponds to where the door they used to come to the 21st century is.›

‹Why art thou giving her the map?› asked Alonso.

‹Because she is in charge,› said Salvador.

‹What?› said Alonso. ‹A woman… this is madness…›

Ernesto struck him down with a look, and Alonso lowered his gaze. Amelia had never had to do something this big before. To her surprise, Salvador seemed to have finished with his instructions, and had sat down to read reports.

‹But…› said Amelia, ‹what do we do?›

‹You will know: you’re in charge,› said Salvador.

‹But what is the plan?› said Amelia.

Salvador lifted his gaze from the papers, fed up. ‹People, we’re Spaniards: improvise.› And he returned to absorb himself in the reports.

***

Coming out of the dressing room, Amelia, Alonso and Julián looked at themselves with a mixture of prejudice and embarrassment: they looked like they’d come out of a painting by Goya. With Amelia in a bonnet and low-cut dress, and the men with cravats and sideburns, everyone was uncomfortable.

‹For the love of God…› said Amelia, ‹I look like my grandmother.›

‹Everyone says that on their first mission,› said Irene.

‹But it’s that… I’m… I’m not ready.›

‹Everyone says that on their first mission too. Let’s go…›

The three freshman time-travelers, accompanied by Irene and Ernesto, made their way down the staircase into the pit.

When they arrived at door 21, Ernesto said, ‹Alonso, do you have a moment?› They walked a little bit aways from the rest.

Irene addressed Julián. ‹You look very calm for this being your first trip… Here.› She took out a smartphone of the latest generation. ‹If you need anything, our number is in the address book.›

‹There’s coverage in the 19th century?›

‹With this, yes.› She showed him. ‹Dial the number, hash, the date you’re calling… hour, asterisk, day, asterisk, month, asterisk, year… hash.›

Julián raised his eyebrows, and took the phone. ‹And it has a camera?›

‹And games. Listen: don’t use it while you go through a door or it goes crazy. And once in a while it freezes.›

‹And what do I do?›

‹Turn it off and on again.› She gave an envelope to Amelia. ‹An agent will be waiting for you, Carrasco. Give him this envelope.›

Ernesto returned with Alonso. ‹It’s time,› he said.

‹Good luck,› said Irene.

Julián, Amelia and Alonso were left without knowing what to do. Irene gave them a gesture, let’s go! Alonso crossed himself, opened the door and went through. Amelia and Julián followed him.

*

1808

On the other side of the door was… emptiness. Amelia, Julián and Alonso each fell as they stepped foot through the doorway, and with a yelp, they landed, fortunately only a few meters down, on top of some bales of hay. They were in a small courtyard, surrounded by brick and mortar walls. The wooden roof covered about half the yard, and looking up, they could see the trapdoor they fell through hanging open. Hay and dirt lined the floor, picked at by a couple of chickens, and the air was thick with the smell of manure. The three pulled themselves together as much as they could.

‹Everything alright?›

The three expeditionaries looked: there across the yard was a heavyset man, dressed in simple clothes of the era. He was sitting calmly with a bandana on his head and a straw in his mouth, and without apparent intention to help. ‹As if I haven’t asked the Ministry so many times to put a ladder. One day we’re going to have a disaster…›

Julián and Alonso shared a peeved look, wanting to give him an answer.

‹Carrasco?› asked Amelia. The man nodded. Amelia approached him and showed him the double map, indicating the mark. ‹We need to get here.›

Looking at the map, Carrasco said, ‹That’s the Bear’s Inn. It’s not very far, on horse you arrive in less than half an hour.›

‹Thou dost not expect that the lady ride a horse!› exclaimed Alonso.

‹I know how to ride a horse…› said Amelia.

‹Well I’m sorry, but I don’t,› said Julián.

Alonso and Carrasco looked at him incredulously. ‹Thou knowst not how to ride a horse?› asked Alonso.

‹Well, to walk where you’re going, it is a little far,› said Carrasco, scratching his mutton chops.

From behind a wall, they heard the aforementioned horses neigh. Julián swallowed saliva: it looked like there was no other option. Amelia remembered the envelope, and gave it to Carrasco. ‹Here, this is for you.›

Carrasco opened the envelope, read its contents… and his face changed.

‹What do you mean they’re taking away the Christmas bonus! What is this!› he said, offended.

While Carrasco let himself be taken away by curses and demons, Alonso and Amelia understood nothing of what he said.

They heard neighs again, and Julián shook his head, nervous but resigned to his equestrian fate.

‹Well, let’s go… off to the races…›

As expected, it took a little while to get Julián used to the horse, not to mention getting him onto the horse. Once the three were all astride, things went relatively smoothly, Julián being very careful not to go too fast.

As they rode in the direction of the inn, the three travelers stopped on the road and stared. At barely a hundred meters from them, it was clear the town they were passing had been the pasture of flames. There was hardly anyone left on foot, and the smoke rising from the blackened buildings darkened the sky.

‹The French have passed through here,› said Amelia.

‹In my era this would have been impossible…› said Alonso. He looked at Amelia. ‹If we complete our mission, France will never win this war, yes?›

Amelia nodded.

‹Then let’s go!!!›

Alonso dug in his spurs and took off at a gallop.

‹Just where is that man going so fast?› said Julián. He and Amelia continued at their previous pace.

***

The façade of the Bear’s Inn was modest. It was nearly hidden from the main road by a grove of trees out in front. If they hadn’t had the map and Carrasco’s directions, the three travelers might never have found it. The door to the inn had a great medieval-looking bear painted on it in blue, standing on its hind legs, claws at the ready to attack, in profile. As night fell, the door opened and Amelia, Alonso and Julián— with his legs newly and annoyingly bowed— entered through it. It had taken them nearly twice as long as necessary to arrive here. Alonso gave Julián a contemptuous look.

In contrast to its quiet outside appearance, the tavern of the inn was filled with a din of regular folks of the era mixed with Napoleonic soldiers. There was lively chatter, the clinking of glass, the strumming of guitar. The three stood fascinated by the scene. Amelia was the first to react, and signaled the bar of the tavern.

‹We should ask for rooms.›

Julián nodded and the three walked towards the bar. Behind it was a well-built man in his fifties, the owner of the inn.

‹Are there accommodations?› Julián asked him.

‹I only have one bedroom and a storage room left. The bedroom, for you and your wife, and the shed for your servant.›

The three looked at each other, not very comfortable, but…

‹Agreed,› said Amelia.

The man took out a book and opened it. ‹I need your names,› said the man. He signaled to the French soldiers. ‹They make me.›

‹Amelia Folch,› said Amelia.

‹Alonso de Entrerríos,› said Alonso.

‹Curro Jiménez,› said Julián.

Amelia and Alonso looked at him, and Julián shrugged. The owner took down their names, and made a gesture in the direction of the tables. ‹Have something to drink while they prepare your rooms.›

The three walked over to a table. Julián took the cravat from around his neck. Surreptitiously, he took out his phone, wrapped it in the cloth, and started to take photos of the place.

Alonso observed two French soldiers occupying a table. They were rather drunk, and making a big noise of it. They were also, importantly, armed.

‹To have to put up with this…› said Alonso, ‹from foreigners…›

‹Above all, we mustn’t call attention to ourselves,› said Amelia.

A young and pretty waitress approached their table and left a bottle and three glasses.

‹I leave you this to kill the time, the rooms are ready now,› she said.

They thanked her, and Alonso put himself to serving the wine. The waitress turned to return to the bar, but as she passed in front of the soldiers she was grabbed by the belt by one of them, who made her sit on his lap.

‹Viens ici, belle!›

She tried to get back up. ‹I’ll be right back, mesié, the tavern is full!›

Everyone was looking now. The Frenchman ignored her reply and tried to force a kiss from the girl, putting his hands on her. She slapped him, and the soldier returned the slap.

‹Chienne!!!›

Alonso cursed the man exceptionally under his breath, and got up.

‹When a lady says no it means no, here and in Paris!› he declared. Alonso went towards the soldiers.

In a hushed but alarmed voice, Amelia said to Julián, ‹What part of not calling attention was not clear?›

The two soldiers forgot about the girl— who took this opportunity to run towards the bar— and faced Alonso, unsheathing their cutlasses. Alonso, far from intimidated, took a bottle and broke it against the table, making it his weapon. Julián and Amelia gave a start.

‹Two Frenchman are very little for a Spaniard!› said Alonso, somewhere between valiant and ridiculous.

‹We’re going to die here…› Julián said, putting his head in his hand.

The Frenchmen approached Alonso, and he stood his ground. The confrontation seemed inevitable.

‹It would seem more fair to me if we were two for two,› said a new voice.

Everyone looked at the new participant: a man of thirty and some years, well-dressed, well-built and muscular, with black hair, and a mustache that connected with abundant sideburns.

‹If you don’t mind, of course…› he said to Alonso.

‹It would be an honor.›

The Frenchmen each faced one opponent. The tavern-goers caught in the middle left the scene. But then, another man, in a French officer’s dress uniform, burst into the room. It was Thibaud, who regarded the French soldiers with a terrible mood. Just behind him was a woman of aristocratic demeanor and attire, unmistakably Spanish. She was in her forties, with medium brown hair piled high atop her head, olive skin, and a strong jaw. She watched, as if trying to remain clandestine, from behind Thibaud as he addressed the situation.

‹Qu'est-ce qui passe ici?› exclaimed Thibaud. ‹What’s going on here?›

The soldiers’ faces changed— suddenly their drunkenness had passed, and they stood at attention.

‹This man has hit a lady. And he’s going to pay for it,› said Alonso.

‹That won’t be necessary,› said Thibaud, ‹I’ll take care of it…› To the soldiers, ‹Allez immédiatement au quartier!›

The soldiers left the tavern. But Julián’s face had also changed— his eyes went wide.

‹It’s him! The guy I saw in the fire!› he whispered to Amelia, who returned the face.

Julián surreptitiously took a photo of Thibaud while he reprimanded the soldiers, his lady companion observing by his side. Amelia stared fixedly at the man that had come to help Alonso.

As it became apparent that the danger had passed, the tavern slowly came back to life. Thibaud went to apologize to the waitress…

‹I beg you accept my apologies, mademoiselle.›

… while Alonso introduced himself to the stranger with the sideburns…

‹Alonso de Entrerríos, at thy service…› Alonso said, and executed a bow of reverence.

‹Eusebio Castañeda…› the man said cautiously, surprised by the big show, ‹likewise…›

… and the innkeeper came to the travelers’ table with another bottle. He wiped the dust off of it with his apron and set it down on the table.

‹My best claret, don Curro,› he said to Julián. ‹On the house.›

The aristocratic lady was now sitting at a table in a quieter corner of the tavern, and Thibaud went to join her. From their table, Julián and Amelia watched Alonso and his new friend, whose shoulder Alonso had already thrown his arm around. Amelia wouldn’t stop staring at him, trying in vain to figure something out.

‹What’s up?› Julián asked her.

‹I’ve seen that man before…› said Amelia. ‹But how can that be…› she turned to Julián, ‹if I won’t be born for 50 years?›

At their table, Thibaud and his companion talked secretively.

‹Are you sure that it’s him? He said his name was Eusebio Castañeda,› said Thibaud, quirking an eyebrow at the same mysterious man.

‹It’s a fake name, I assure you,› said the lady.

‹Thank you for your information,› said Thibaud, feeling more optimistic. ‹With it we will achieve victory.›

There was a silence. The lady looked down at the table, her eyebrows furrowed. She seemed far away, worried.

‹What’s wrong?› asked Thibaud.

‹I was thinking about Benito,› she said. ‹He was a good man.›

‹Yes…› Thibaud said, his eyes shifting around. ‹A great loss.› He looked back up at her, dryly. ‹But in war many men die.›

She looked at Thibaud seriously, right in his eyes. ‹Yes. Perhaps too many.›

***

Alonso, Amelia and Julián walked through the hallway of the inn towards the rooms, and spoke in low voices.

‹We should enter the Frenchman’s room while he’s below,› said Alonso, hunched over for the benefit of his shorter companions.

‹Tomorrow, better,› said Amelia. ‹When he goes out. We’ll have more time.›

A corner of Alonso’s mouth pulled back as he went to respond, but Julián could see what was coming, and cut him off. ‹She gives the orders.›

Amelia blushed, and Alonso grumbled. They arrived in front of a door.

‹My lodgings,› declared Alonso, now standing tall and dignified. ‹Go with God.›

‹Goodnight,› said Amelia and Julián, and they continued on their way.

Alonso swallowed his anger. He was about to enter his room, when he realized that the door was already open. His ears pricked: there was someone inside. He put a hand on his dagger and pushed the door open fast—

But to his surprise, on the rickety old bed of straw— which, moreover, was almost the only thing in the small and austere closet of a room— was the waitress, waiting for him, her naked body covered only with the bedspread.

‹Relax, you don’t need the knife,› she said, startled but undeterred.

Alonso was startled too. ‹But… what dost thou here, madam?›

‹Ay, I love the way you talk… like a knight of the olden days.›

The girl lifted the bedspread a little and pat the bed, inviting him. Alonso didn’t have to think about what to do next. He went to the bed and gave her a long and deep kiss that left her almost breathless. She removed her mouth for a moment.

‹Sweet Virgin! What ardor! Has it been so long since you’ve been with a woman?›

He thought about it and smiled.

‹Centuries!›

***

In Julián and Amelia’s room, Amelia lifted the covers of the bed while Julián put his coat and a pillow on the floor, a modest distance away. Naturally, they both stayed fully dressed.

‹If my mother saw me sleeping with a man, she’d faint,› said Amelia.

Julián smiled. ‹You’re going to sleep like four meters from a man…›

‹I must seem old-fashioned to you,› said Amelia, color rising in her cheeks.

‹Woman, you were born a century before me! You don’t say!›

Amelia couldn’t avoid laughing. Nor could Julián.

‹Well I’m very modern, believe it or not!› said Amelia. ‹I’m the only woman in the university. And I’m still single. At my age, all my friends are married with children.› She paused. ‹And you, are you married?›

Julián’s expression changed, but he turned away, managing to hide it. ‹I was. She died.›

‹I… I’m sorry…›

‹Don’t worry.›

They stayed in silence a few instants. He continued preparing his bed.

‹Life is very strange,› said Julián. ‹A few days ago I thought nothing was worth the effort. When they made me work in the Ministry, I thought it was madness…›

‹You weren’t the only one.›

‹…and yet, now I know that they’ve given me my life…› After a moment, he decided to end it there. ‹Good night.›

He lay down and put out the oil lamp. Everything was left in darkness.

***

The next day, in the tavern, the man who may or may not have been named Eusebio Castañeda ate breakfast alone at a table. At another table, before a more than copious breakfast of the era, Amelia didn’t take her eyes off him. Julián, next to her, didn’t take his eyes off the food.

‹I know him…› insisted Amelia to herself.

Alonso arrived with a smile from ear to ear. He sat down and stuffed a roll of bread in his mouth.

‹I know which are the lodgings of the Frenchman,› said Alonso after swallowing, in a quiet but enthusiastic voice. ‹Thibaud, he’s called. He’s a high command of the invaders.›

He signaled with a nod to Thibaud and his fancy companion, who had just appeared in the room.

‹She is his lover, or so it seems. A traitor. Dolores de Villamejor, ‹‹Lola.›› An aristocrat who lived in the Indies.›

‹The Indies?› said Julián.

‹The Americas,› corrected Amelia.

Alonso lowered his voice more. ‹She has a room at her disposal all year… whether she occupies it or not.› He served himself more food.

‹All this you found out last night?› asked Julián.

‹While others sleep, I serve the homeland,› said Alonso, dignified and proud.

Just then, a yawn came over him that he couldn’t suppress… and a few meters behind him, next to the bar, the waitress did the same. Amelia took note.

‹Well I hope you left the homeland satisfied, because I’m going to need your friend in order to enter the Frenchman’s bedroom.› Amelia signaled with an expression to the waitress. Alonso turned to see her. She crossed her gaze for an instant with Alonso’s— and immediately lowered it, blushing.

***

The waitress and Amelia, the second now dressed in work clothes the first gave to her, entered Thibaud’s empty room with the waitress’ keys. The two carried bedsheets and cleaning implements.

‹Hale, you do your thing,› said the waitress, ‹and now since I’m here, I’m going to put some clean sheets.›

Once they entered, Amelia locked the door and started to search: she opened the door of the closet to see what was inside, felt up the walls and opened drawers… The waitress, while she made the bed, watched her, intrigued.

‹Soooo… I’m not trying to stick my nose where it doesn’t concern me but… what is it you’re searching for?›

‹A door,› said Amelia, without looking at her.

‹Well here there’s no other door but the one we came through.›

‹Ya…› Amelia said to herself, frustrated she couldn’t seem to find anything.

The girl continued with the bed. As she fluffed up a pillow, something solid fell to the floor. The waitress looked at it surprised. ‹Uy, what a strange book…›

Amelia looked, and jumped like a spring. It was a modern book: Guerrillas: The Spanish People in Arms Against Napoleon (1808-1814). Amelia snatched it.

‹It’s just that it’s French,› said Amelia, grasping for a cover story. She looked in the last pages: Printed in 2007. She hid it from the eyes of her companion, who, on the other hand, didn’t show much interest.

‹It’s not like I know how to read,› the waitress said as she continued fixing up the room. ‹Letters, nothin’ more. What for? Just ta clean and have children…›

Disconnected, Amelia opened the book to a page marked with a sheet of paper as a bookmark. It was a chapter dedicated to Juan Martín Díez, El Empecinado. She turned the pages, until she found a photograph of a portrait of the guerrilla, painted by Goya. Amelia suppressed a shout.

‹It’s him!›

Sure enough, the man with mustache and abundant mutton chops depicted by Goya was the man who helped Alonso the night before, and whose face called out to Amelia so.

The waitress made a gesture for her to be quiet: they heard footsteps.

‹Careful, there are Moors on the coast…› the waitress said in an urgent whisper. She took the book from Amelia and put it back in the bed. The footsteps sounded each time closer. The waitress was nervous, but Amelia was terrified.

‹He’s seen me in the tavern!› said Amelia. ‹What do I do?›

Amelia and the girl looked at each other. The door unlocked and opened.

Thibaud found the waitress on her feet, and another young girl kneeling and scrubbing the floor without lifting her head.

‹Give it some spirit, we don’t have all day!› said the waitress, telling Amelia off. ‹Hale, the mesié has arrived, we’ve been caught! Pardon her, mesié, the new girl isn’t right there yet…› She turned back to Amelia. ‹Come on, go out to the corridor, so stone-dead like you are!›

The girl obeyed, and the waitress went out behind her, annoyed. Thibaud was left alone and thrown just a little off-balance.

In the tavern, alone at a table, the mutton chop man— Juan Martín Díez— looked nervously at his pocketwatch. Amelia entered, and nearly did a double-take as she passed him. She found Alonso and Julián at another table. She sat down and leaned in to tell them the news.

‹He’s El Empecinado.› She motioned to Juan Martín, just a few meters away.

‹Who?› said Alonso.

Amelia looked at Julián. ‹You know who he is, don’t you?›

Julián’s eyes widened, and he decided to duck the issue. ‹Yes, but better you should tell it…›

‹He was…› Amelia said to Alonso, then corrected herself, ‹is… will be… the one who understood how to defeat the French. Not with a conventional war, but by guerrilla warfare.› When she looked for understanding, she saw that Alonso’s face was blank. ‹The French army was much superior. So instead of fighting it in battles, they fought… everywhere, without notice, they don’t let them have a moment’s rest. They attack and then leave, quickly.›

Alonso looked again at Juan Martín, now with extra admiration.

‹In other words,› probed Julián, ‹the Frenchman knows that in the future El Empecinado will organize the guerrillas, and he wants to get rid of him beforehand.›

‹Exactly.›

‹Seriously, you guys should see the first Terminator…›

Amelia didn’t acknowledge this last thing. ‹We have to talk to him.› She got up and approached El Empecinado’s table and stood, looking at him with a serious face. El Empecinado looked up, surprised.

‹Is there something I can help you with, miss?›

‹Can we go outside for a few minutes?›

Confused, but ever the gentleman, Juan Martín acquiesced.

A minute later, in the grove of trees just outside the inn, Juan Martín, tense, looked suspiciously around him, uncomfortable with the company of Julián, Amelia and Alonso.

‹Ma’am, I’m telling you you’re mistaken. My name is Eusebio Castañeda…›

Amelia negated. ‹You are Juan Martín Díez, and they call you El Empecinado.›

‹And you’re in grave danger,› Julián added.

‹I insist, you confuse me—›

Amelia was firm. ‹I know perfectly well who you are. I know that you fought in Roussillon, that you live in the country in your wife’s hometown, that you rose against the invaders when French soldiers violated a girl in your town…›

El Empecinado looked at her astonished. Alonso, too.

‹… that Goya made you a portrait…›

Juan Martín, for the first time, didn’t know what she was talking about. ‹Who made me what?›

Julián realized, and spoke in a low voice in Amelia’s ear. ‹Um… I think Goya hasn’t painted anything yet…›

‹Oh…› Amelia got back on. ‹It doesn’t matter. What matters is that your life is in danger.›

The man regarded them, alert. He lowered his head, and his voice. ‹Let me ask you all a question. Are you Spanish?›

‹Of course I’m Spanish!› said Alonso. ‹Spanish as they come!›

Amelia nodded. Julián looked at them.

‹I am…› he said, with the cadence of a sports chant, ‹español, español, español…›

‹Then you know that everyone’s life is in danger, not just mine.› Juan Martín looked at his pocket watch. ‹But it may be that we win this war soon. Very soon.›

El Empecinado closed his watch, put it away, and straightened up. ‹I have an appointment that I cannot miss. If you’ll excuse me…›

He went back inside, through the tavern in the direction of the rooms. The three watched his leave. Amelia was about to say something to Alonso, but he didn’t give her time to speak. ‹Worry not… I’ll not take my eye off him,› he said, and followed secretly behind.

Juan Martín inspected the corridor as he moved towards the rooms of the inn. He passed the waitress, who he greeted with an expression.

‹Good morning, don Eusebio,› she said.

The man continued on his way until he arrived at the door of a room. He rapped rhythmically with his knuckles, in a species of password.

The door opened, and El Empecinado passed through. Down the hall, the waitress turned around— and found Alonso, come out of nowhere. She startled.

‹Jesus!›

Alonso asked her for silence with a gesture.

‹Which room is this?› asked Alonso in a low voice.

‹Doña Lola’s, the marquess,› she answered, also low.

Alonso made a gesture to disappear, and she left, quickly and silently. He advanced stealthily toward the room… when he heard two dull explosions.

The explosions passed unnoticed and unrecognizable to everyone in the tavern— except for Julián, who got up like a spring. Amelia, seated next to him, looked at him unsettled.

‹They’re gunshots!› said Julián. He took off running. Amelia followed.

In Lola’s room, the light dimmed by a half-drawn curtain, the door was left half-open. On the ground, in a puddle of blood that was still growing, lay Juan Martín. He was badly hurt, and confused: he looked at his own bloodied hand.

‹What… what’s happened to me…?›

From the shadows emerged Thibaud. He carried in his hand the gun stolen in 2015 from the municipal policeman. He approached El Empecinado, disposed to give him the death blow.

‹I beg your pardon, monsieur. I’ve still not mastered these new arms.›

At close range, Thibaud aimed at El Empecinado’s head.

BLAM!

‹I have,› said Alonso.

Thibaud, surprised, was a second late in realizing that he had received a shot through the heart. Incredulous, he tilted. As he fell, Alonso was revealed behind him, in the doorway, also with a modern pistol in his hand.

Julián and Amelia arrived at a run. Julián’s eyes scanned to identify who seemed in the gravest condition. He threw himself down to attend to Thibaud, searching for a pulse, but to no avail. ‹He’s dead.›

‹I know,› said Alonso. He knew his aim was true.

Julián went to help El Empecinado. Amelia noticed Alonso’s pistol, while he collected the Frenchman’s.

‹Where did your pistol come from?› she asked.

‹They entrusted it to me before we came,› he said, putting away both guns.

Julián opened El Empecinado’s military jacket. The bullets had landed in his stomach, all his clothes were soaked in blood. Julián ripped a swath of cloth from his shirt and blocked the wound with it, taking Alonso’s hand and pressing down with it.

‹Lola…› Juan Martín said, weakly. ‹Lola…›

‹That harpy has sold us out!› said Alonso.

‹No!› El Empecinado grabbed Alonso, gripping him with his full strength, his voice a gurgling death rattle. ‹She’s a patriot! She came to warn me that I was in danger… She told me I had to…› El Empecinado’s consciousness faded.

‹Press hard!› said Julián to Alonso.

Concentrated on saving Juan, Julián and Alonso didn’t hear the thumps coming from inside the large wooden closet. But Amelia did.

‹Chsssssss!› Julián and Alonso looked at Amelia, who was asking for silence. Julián got up and the two of them approached the closet. Amelia opened it, and from inside fell, like a bale of hay, Lola, in her undergarments, tied up and gagged. Julián managed to catch her before she fell to the floor. He took out her gag and Lola took in air.

‹Are you alright?› asked Julián. Lola nodded. She signaled to Thibaud.

‹He found out I was going to see Juan, and…› She saw El Empecinado. ‹Is he… dead?›

‹No, but he’s very bad,› said Julián. He gently put Lola down and took Amelia aside. ‹I need a doctor… from my time,› he said in a low voice.

‹Take him to our room, I’ll stay with her.›

Julián took El Empecinado by the feet, and Alonso grabbed him under the arms, while Amelia helped Lola out of her bonds.

*

2015

In the cloister of the Ministry, Ernesto paced nervously, while Irene watched.

‹They should have given us signs of life by now,› said Ernesto.

‹Calm down,› said Irene. ‹You’ll see that everything turns out alright—›

Ernesto’s phone rang. The screen displayed Julián’s name.

‹It’s them.›

Irene’s smile said told you so. Ernesto answered the call.

‹What’s happened?› he said into the phone.

*

1808

In his room in the inn, Julián tried desperately to contain the hemorrhage of an unconscious Empecinado, while Alonso held the phone, which much discomfort and prejudice, to Julián’s ear.

‹Do you know who El Empecinado is?› said Julián into the phone.

‹Of course…› Ernesto’s voice came through.

‹Well I’ve got him here, with two bullet wounds from a gun they won’t manufacture for two hundred years.›

‹Can you bring him here?›

‹Forget that. He’s lost a lot of blood. He won’t last the journey on a cart to the door.›

‹Understood. A mobile ICU will arrive this minute.›

Faster than Julián had thought possible, a cacophony of footsteps was heard thumping down the hall. Four men— Carrasco, and three others dressed to the style of the time— advanced through the corridor. Two of them carried a voluminous trunk.

There were two bangs against the door. Alonso opened it and the newcomers entered. One of them steered himself directly to Julián, next to an unconscious Juan Martín, and extended his hand.

‹I’m Doctor Morales. Situation of the patient?›

‹He has two bullet wounds, but only one exit hole. Vital organs don’t seem to be affected, but he’s lost a lot of blood.›

While Julián and Morales talked, the two others, Morales’ assistants, opened the chest and went about removing a defibrillator, bags of plasma, a drip, medical tools, a generator… Alonso couldn’t tear his eyes away.

‹Conscious?› asked Morales.

‹In and out. Delirious,› said Julián.

‹Very well, we’ll take care of it.›

The doctor and the assistants occupied themselves with the wound, a tube, a drip, and disinfectant. Julián got up and stood next to Alonso.

‹Don’t worry. He’ll make it,› said Julián.

‹Because of thee, not me.›

Julián pat his shoulder. Amelia entered the room.

‹Is Lola alright?› asked Julián.

‹She says she is, but I prefer that you see her,› said Amelia. ‹I told her you were a doctor.›

Julián suppressed a smile. ‹I wish my mother could hear you.›

Julián made his way down the hall. He was about to arrive at Lola’s room, when he heard a strange tone— the sound of a phone call. It was coming from Lola’s room. Julián’s mind raced. He approached the door as quietly as he could, then kicked it open.

There, for an instant, was Lola, her back to the door, a cell phone held up to her ear. As Julián entered, she turned quickly and hid the phone behind her back. He came closer and she backed away until she hit the table behind her.

‹I can explain,› she said. Julián couldn’t see it, but there was a clay vase on the table hidden behind Lola. She stealthily wrapped her free hand around its neck.

‹How?›

Without warning, she raised the vase and hit him over the head with it.

***

‹Julián! Julián!› It was Amelia’s voice.

Julián came to. Amelia and Morales were kneeling on the ground, by his side. Behind them were Alonso and Carrasco, standing next to the closet.

‹Lola…› said Julián, ‹isn’t who she says she is…›

‹Ya,› said Carrasco. The rest of the party nodded, and Julián looked at them quizzically, not understanding how they all knew. ‹Give me a hand?› Carrasco asked Alonso.

They grabbed the wardrobe in which Lola had previously been tied up and dragged it away from the wall. Behind it was a door that appeared to be blocked off. But Carrasco opened it easily, and made a gesture to Julián that he take a look. Still in pain, Julián approached. He and Carrasco stuck their heads through the doorway.

*

2015

On the other side was a bedroom— modern, but charred. Julián recognized it. He, Carrasco, Amelia and Alonso stepped into the room.

‹I’ve been here before…› said Julián, ‹in 2015.›

‹And in 2015 we are,› said Carrasco. ‹You all stay here until the Ministry comes to get you by car. Dressed like that you can’t go out in the street.›

‹And the door?› Alonso pointed out. ‹We have to seal it.›

‹I’ll take care of it,› said Carrasco mysteriously, and he turned and went back to the inn, closing the door behind him. It was a wonder that the force of the door shutting didn’t collapse the roof of the crispy hostel right on top of their heads.

***

Tired, still dressed in their early 19th century costumes, and now with a fine layer of ash on all their heads, Julián, flung down in an armchair, Amelia, seated upright, and Alonso, standing at ease, debriefed with Salvador, who was seated behind his desk in his office. Ernesto and Irene were also there, flanking either side of the team.

‹Either cell phones were invented earlier than I thought or that woman travels through time like us,› said Julián.

‹Well the second sounds better to me…› said Salvador. ‹Ernesto, bring in Velázquez. We’re going to have to send a sketch of her to every agent.›

‹That’s not necessary,› said Julián. ‹I have a photo.› He took out his phone to look for it.

‹Vaya,› said Salvador, ‹I see that you’ve taken up old habits.›

Julián gave Ernesto the phone, and Ernesto’s quirked eyebrows became even quirkier. The photo was one Julián had taken in the Bear’s Inn tavern. There was Thibaud, and next to him…

‹Lola?› said Ernesto, disbelieving. ‹Lola Mendieta?›

‹You know her?› asked Amelia.

‹We thought she had died on a mission in the Carlist Wars,› said Irene.

About a thousand questions were swirling in Amelia’s head. She had to pick one. ‹What did she want in 1808?› she asked.

‹Money. It’s evident,› said Irene. ‹She sold the secret to the French.›

Julián shook his head. ‹El Empecinado, before he lost consciousness, told us that she had gone to tell him to flee.›

Salvador looked at Ernesto. ‹Make copies of this photo and send them to all the offices.›

Ernesto left. Salvador regarded Alonso, Amelia and Julián. ‹Gentlemen,› he said with a nod of approval, ‹good work.› He let them go.

Julián, Alonso, Amelia and Irene walked together out of the office and through the cloister, the first three feeling left with more questions than answers.

‹Madam,› Alonso asked, ‹may I ask after the health of he who is called El Empecinado?›

‹He’s well, recuperating in a hospital,› said Irene.

‹And he doesn’t realize he’s not in 1808?› asked Amelia.

‹Half the time he’s sedated,› said Irene. ‹What’s more, we have a part of the hospital to ourselves; no one knows what happens there.›

‹And in which hospital can you do this without raising suspicious?› asked Julián.

‹In the 12 de Octubre hospital,› said Irene with a smile. ‹Why do you think it always has areas closed for construction?› Julián appeared to finally understand something he’d always asked himself.

For his part, Alonso was happy.

‹They’re going to save him,› he said. ‹And he’s going to throw the French from Spanish soil. Is it not so?› he asked Amelia.

‹Yes…›

‹His king will be proud of him.›

He noticed that Amelia was looking away, wearing a grim expression.

‹For what hast thou such a face?›

‹His king ordered him to be executed,› she said. ‹Him and many others who fought for Spain.›

Alonso stopped. Affected, he sat down on a low wall of the cloister. Amelia stayed with him.

‹In thy time is the story of El Cid still read?› asked Alonso.

‹Of course,› said Amelia.

‹Nothing has changed since then.› He quoted the twelfth-century poem, a legend of a hero banished by his king: ‹God, what a noble vassal, if he but had a worthy lord.›

Alonso was profoundly sorry. Amelia put her hand on his shoulder. And to her surprise, Alonso returned the gesture, taking her hand in his, without looking.

But Amelia, the woman that she was, could do two things at once— she noted with concern the conversation happening just a few steps away.

‹Hey, is there any kind of list that has all the doors, and where each one goes?› Julián asked Irene.

‹Yes. The directory…› said Irene. ‹But it changes every week. Although there’s also an app for your phone, which is more useful, honestly, and you don’t have to do calculations.› Julián looked at her surprised. ‹Time passes here and in the past, in each door. Every day, every minute…› She took out her directory. ‹Here, take it. I’ll fix myself up with Ernesto’s.›

Irene continued on her way, but Julián stood still. He looked at the little book in his hands like it were the most important thing he’d ever held in his life. And it was.

*

2012

In the bedroom of Julián and Maite’s apartment, the digital alarm clock on the nightstand marked 00:45 hours, DEC 03, 2012. On one side of the bed slept Maite— no longer the adolescent in the photo at the neighborhood bar, but the grown woman captured in the most recent photos on their wall. The door to the bedroom opened: it was Julián— the Julián from 2015. He looked at his wife. Maite wasn’t disturbed.

He couldn’t avoid beginning to cry, though he strained to keep it silent. Fully dressed, even with his coat on, he lay down on the bed. He hugged Maite from behind, and she smiled without opening her eyes.

‹It’s cold…› she whispered, still asleep.

‹Very…› said Julián, softly.

Maite turned and wrapped herself in the hug. Julián breathed in her smell.

One second of absolute peace passed.

Then he got up, looked at her sweetly, and turned to leave.

The unexpected gave him a shock as he left the apartment— there on the other side of the door, in 21st century threads, waited Amelia and Alonso.

‹What are you doing here?› he said in a low voice as he joined them outside, closing the door gently behind him.

‹Julián…› Amelia said, ‹you can’t return here… with her…›

‹Leave me alone.›

Alonso grabbed Julián by the shoulders.

‹Thou wilt come with us,› he said into his ear, ‹and come willingly.›

Julián struggled for a moment in vain.

‹It’s better that she doesn’t know,› Amelia said, low and sad. ‹You know that, right?›

Amelia and Julián looked at each other in the eyes, only a palm apart.

With an expression, Julián admitted that she was right. He was defeated.

It was very cold outside. Amelia and Alonso, unfamiliar with the area but trusting Julián to cooperate, let him lead them to the one warm place he knew would be open at this hour— the neighborhood bar. Inside were only the waiter and the last barfly of the night. It was a very Hopper image, though somewhat shabbier. The three sat at a table, Amelia and Alonso still shivering, their jackets fastened tight against the cold. Julián, on the other hand, seemed like he was barely there.

‹You’re crazy…› said Alonso, hushed, and putting in extra effort not to say thou. ‹What if you had met… yourself?›

‹Impossible. That night I was on duty,› said Julián. He paused. ‹It was a bad night. And the next morning wasn’t better: I had an argument with Maite.›

There was a silence.

‹When did your wife… die?› asked Amelia.

‹She died… She will die twenty days from now. The 23rd of December, just before noon. Hit by a car.› Julián paused. ‹I was in the ambulance in the area… I was the first who arrived to help her. At least she didn’t suffer, she died on impact.›

Julián looked out the big windows. His face contorted.

‹I can’t warn her?›

‹All of us have to die,› said Amelia.

‹That morning… we fought. And we never talked to each other again. Fifteen years together, and the last thing we did was shout at each other. I loved her… I still love her. It’s not fair.› He looked down at the table, his voice softer now, almost a whisper. ‹It’s not fair.›

Amelia looked away, uncomfortable. Suddenly they heard the ringing of a cell phone— the waiter’s. Alonso startled. The waiter answered his phone:

‹Yes, woman… I’m coming home…› He looked over at the last remaining people in the bar with antipathy. ‹After I take out the trash.›

Amelia, watching the barman talk on his phone, got an idea.

‹Julián… that gadget that Irene gave you…›

Julián’s face slowly lit up. Alonso was not amused.

‹Are you mad?›

-

EPÍLOGO

On the Gran Vía, in the center of Madrid, Julián’s phone displayed the date and time: 11:30 hours, August 16, 2015.

Sitting on a bench, isolated from the rest of the colorful summer crowds, Julián looked at the phone, not sure whether to call… until he did it. On the screen the digits appeared:

609657551#08:50*23*12*2012#

*

A cell phone sounded off on the nightstand in the bedroom in Julián and Maite’s apartment. To the side, the digital alarm clock marked 08:50, DEC 23, 2012. Maite, just finishing dressing, picked up.

‹Yes?›

*

Julián didn’t answer. He opened his mouth, and it seemed like he was going to speak… but he couldn’t do it.

*

‹Hello?› said Maite.

*

‹Maite…›

*

‹Julián? What number are you calling from?›

*

‹Eh…› Julián pulled himself together. ‹They gave us one for the ambulance, they send it through a switchboard. Listen… I’m sorry for this morning…› He strained so that Maite wouldn’t notice how emotional he was.

*

‹Fuck, it’s just… it annoys me that ability you have to turn things around.› She was still upset.

*

Julián didn't answer. He couldn’t.

*

‹Julián?›

*

A pause.

*

‹I love you.›

*

Surprised, Maite was silent.

*

‹I love you more than anything in the world. Sometimes… you think it’s understood, and you don’t say it… but I don’t want you to forget. Never.›

*

Maite sat on the bed, perplexed. She shook her head, put her shoes on, and smiled.

‹You and me should argue more often…›

*

Julián dried his tears and smiled.

*

‹Where are you? I hear a lot of commotion.›

*

‹On the Gran Vía.›

*

‹Hey… You’re not there to buy something for me, are you? We agreed this Christmas there wouldn’t be any presents, eh… we don’t have enough to spend, we need to save.›

*

‹No, relax… No presents.›

Julián got up from the bench and started walking toward the crowd on his right side. As he turned, he lost his chance to catch what was meant to be hidden from him. Hardly a dozen meters away to his left, spying him through sunglasses, her brown hair newly cropped and her lips painted a 21st century coral, was Lola Mendieta. She took another sip from her paper cup of coffee, and as she watched Julián stroll blissfully away, she lifted her phone to her ear. Lola made a call.

FIN.

*

Juan Martin Díez, El Empecinado

Francisco de Goya, oil on canvas, 1809