2. Funeral in Barcelona (11 pgs.) – Champions Renaissance

ACT I - CHAPTER 2

FUNERAL IN BARCELONA

Sunday August 20, 2017

Mountain of Montjuic

Barcelona Spain

The coffin was black, closed and had a small open window. Behind the glass was the amphora with his ashes. Next to him lay his gold medallion, with the inscription A is A, next to a photograph of him that showed his wide smile.

Alexandre said goodbye to Ronald Williams with his family in the cemetery of Montjuic.

Before traveling, his parents decided to cremate their son after seeing photos of the charred body. The police had taken them to the scene of the accident. The vehicle had caught fire after falling into a thirty-meter ravine. His unrecognizable torso and head showed his charred bones. Its gold chain and his medallion surrounded the vertebrae of his neck; his watch, his bracelet, even the bare bones of his wrist. His cell phone was charred, as were its wallet and documents. His ashes and personal effects would fly to London with his family, where he had been born twenty-three years ago.

His teammates wore a white shirt, black suit and black tie. On one side the family members formed a semicircle and on the other they completed it with a pulpit in the middle. The great green peaks of Montjuic hill overlooked Barcelona.

The first to speak was Gregorio Díaz or “Greg”, as they called their coach.

“We say goodbye to Ronald Williams, a friend, the team captain, a great midfielder. We will remember his great disposition, his precision of play.”

Alexandre was not listening to his words but to his mother’s sobs when his sight was lost on the horizon of Barcelona. He recalled Ronald’s last call the day before his accident when he told him, If anything happens to me, keep your promise to finish the book. Then he added, Be careful what reads the same in both directions. He didn’t give him time to ask and the next day he sent him a coded text message:

dpejhp-fo-qfoesjwf

He never imagined that the last thing he would hear from his friend would be that strange message.

Alexandre remembered when they decided to learn how to hack for fun. They competed to improve and became very good. They played who was the first to detect a failure in the computer systems of different institutions. They used to sit next to each other, each in front of their computer, and they sent the solutions to the webmasters signing themselves as, “The Angels”.

They realized they could hack the information systems that controlled the cities’ infrastructure. They could cut power grids, divert trains and planes, but they never caused any damage.

The last time they had competed was to infiltrate Japan’s central bank. Ronald had detected two errors and had sent them along with the solutions to the webmasters, in just half an hour. Alexandre was impressed by the advantage he had gained.

Is Scotland Yard training you? Alexandre remembered that he had asked him.

The CIA, he had responded by continuing the joke.

They were two curious and intelligent minds who sought the most demanding challenges. Hacking was difficult, but they realized that the biggest challenge was philosophy, so they decided to study it. They read many books and began to invent football metaphors to understand complex things in a simple way.

Understanding philosophy in football metaphors seems like a joke, Alexandre remembered that Ronald had once told him, but you know, between jokes, the truth emerges. On another occasion he had told him, In addition to playing well with our feet, we must learn to play well with our heads.

They fell in love with the culture of ancient Greece and read its leading philosophers. They discovered that the ideas of Plato and Aristotle were opposite and irreconcilable.

They liked the Law of Identity so much that each one had made a gold medallion that in the center said: A is A. He recalled that the more philosophers they read, the more contradictions appeared. What had started as fun soon turned into desperation. At one point they realized that they were in a swamp of quicksand in which, as they tried to get out, they sank deeper and deeper.

When they resolved a contradiction, soon after, two more appeared, to the point that they were lost and stuck for a long time.

Sometimes I feel like something wants to destroy my mind. Alexandre remembered what Ronald had once said to him after reading Kant.

It seemed as if something wanted to keep the common people in ignorance. They didn’t like that.

You have to read Galt’s speech! This novel will help us get out of the philosophical swamp! Alexandre remembered that occasion when he said that, kissing the book as if it were a gold mine.

They didn’t agree on everything with Rand, the author. But they were with its other book on objective epistemology. The last one had been essential to start getting out of the swamp. They continued to learn and read classical philosophers and other authors such as Eduard B. Tyler, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins.

When Ronald went to London for a month to recover from an injury, he returned with a sense of urgency he didn’t have before. He got very angry with Alexandre when he arrived late to the philosophy meetings they both had.

He remembered a dialogue that he would never forget, when he had said, Alexandre, are you going to help me or not? This is not a game! It is dangerous!

Why dangerous?

Because it will destroy the hidden brain of the world. Alexandre remembered that he had said it very seriously and had added, I can’t tell you what I found in London, I will only tell you that rulers who deceive the ruled will not get away with it. I am real, because I love reality. I will destroy false premises and they will not see me coming. We must write a book that will last for millennia. There at his funeral, remembering his words brought tears to his eyes. He had said it with a firm, calculated voice that contrasted with the fury in his eyes that would have made the devil himself flee from hell. But the dialogue had not ended there and he remembered.

Will you help me write the book?

Yes.

Can you keep the secret?

Yes.

Don’t even think about telling Victoria that you would put her in danger!

I won’t tell anyone anything.

Do you promise me you’ll finish it if something happens to me?

But what are you saying!

I’m being serious! Do you promise me?

Yes, I promise.

Will you write it at any price?

Yes. At whatever price.

He remembered that conversation had occurred only four months ago and at the end they had shaken hands as a sign of commitment. Neither Ronald nor Alexandre imagined that the price would include his life.

Greg continued to highlight Ronald’s qualities: his joy for life, his positive attitude and great self-confidence.

In the locker room, Greg had confessed his secret to success: faking an emotion of triumph until the emotion created reality.

Reality obeys your emotions and that is demonstrated by quantum physics, Alexandre remembered what he had said once. He didn’t mind being contradictory in the least and he demanded that they “tune in” to his emotion. They had to follow him without thinking because, according to him, then the team would be invincible. He tried to act friendly, but everyone knew he was a dictator and he had no genuine empathy. They never respected him, but they did fear him.

Greg once got very angry with Ronald after his harangue for them to play with their hearts because he said, I disagree, Greg, I’ll play with my head, Alexandre smiled as he remembered. What a moment that was! He had told him very calmly and that day they won 4 to 1 because their teammates ignored Greg’s shouts and followed Ronald.

Greg hated those who had their own opinion and he used to impose his ideas, but he couldn’t handle Alexandre or Ronald.

How are we going to be one team if each of you wants to think for yourself? he remembered Greg saying that in the dressing rooms. How can he say such stupid things? Alexandre remembered moving his head to the sides. And his typical harangue? Pathetic! Then he remembered, sighing, when he said, You have to leave your mind off the court. I am the only brain and you are my body; each of you dies and becomes something bigger: the team. Here you don’t have to think, here you have to obey. Is it clear? I put on the music and you dance without asking. If some of you wants to be an individual, you better play tennis.

He remembered that Greg had once gotten so angry with one of his backstage assistants, a short, thin man, that Greg grabbed him by the lapel and lifted him a foot off the ground. The man sued him and Greg paid him a fortune.

The locker room was divided regarding its ideas. He left the player who did not follow him on the bench, except for Ronald and Alexandre, since their talents had no substitute.

We are not followers, we are thinkers, he smiled as he remembered how much it bothered him to be told that.

Coming out of his memories, Alexandre noticed Greg coming down from the pulpit and another man coming up.

“Dear family and friends. We are deeply saddened by Ronald’s early departure. We know that his joy is safe in heaven,” said Franco Gambino, leader and owner of Club de Los Reyes, the best football club in Barcelona, where Alexandre and Ronald were starters.

It was hard to believe that Franco Gambino, in his early seventies, was such a strong man. He represented fifteen years younger. Everyone knew that he had many political contacts in the press and in senior positions in companies and institutions.

“In public he is an exemplary Catholic. Always elegant, with collar and tie, he goes to catholic mass every Sunday where he confesses and receives communion,” said an interview from a magazine of the rich and famous that had published the story of his life. He had made large donations of money to the church which had given him a free pass to the Vatican Library. He visited the Pope regularly to discuss the history of religions. On his nightstand he had a Bible and a Quran. The photos showed him as a large man, just over five feet tall, blue eyes and weighing 80 kilos, with thick gray hair and a square face. In a photograph he appeared showing off his excellent physical condition training with the team.

In the interview he confessed that his great fortune had started with a hotel chain in Europe and Asia that he later lost and sold to competitors. He promoted a globalized world that, according to him, would be better because there would be no wars. His most famous saying was: “to make omelettes you have to break eggs.”

Another photo showed the gold chain around his neck from which hung a large medallion, also made of gold. “I inherited it from my father and he from his and so on.” That medallion was his true treasure, the relic of the Gambino dynasty, a family descended from the senators of ancient Rome.

In the interview he denied the rumors of alleged dark businesses. “I have been to court many times, but they have never proven anything.” In one photo, the entire page showed him in his white limousine and his armed driver, the bodyguard who followed him everywhere. In another image he appeared with his current family and children and his fourth wife, a young and beautiful Polish model. In his four marriages he had had more than fifteen children, five of whom had been men. He proudly said that he had a very close relationship with them. Another photo of him showed the Villa Gambino located near Milan, where he lived with his current family, but he complained that he could not enjoy it, since he spent most of his time between Barcelona and Paris, where he had business. He thought it was funny that some people called him “the Corleone of football”.

When Gambino finished speaking, Alexandre checked the messages on his cell phone to delete those that came from unknown numbers, something he did regularly. There were several and he deleted them. He read one that said: “RONALD: PENDRIVE BEHIND CASA MILÀ SOCKET”. It had arrived three hours ago, evidently by mistake, and regretted the unfortunate coincidence of names. His hand erased it while his mind did not register his action. When he finished cleaning his cell phone, his view was lost in the Barcelona skyline.

When his eyes returned to the place, he began to observe the beautiful women and remembered the drag that Ronald had. What I like most about you are your big green eyes and your white teeth when you laugh which framed by your red lips highlight your beautiful face and your brown hair that crowns your stylized figure that is as tall as the trunk of the tree where I right want to be under. He never forgot that the perfect description of him had neither periods nor commas. What a way to kill ourselves laughing when we read it! Alexandre remembered. It had been written to him by one of his many fans who fell in love with his physique, athletic and slim, but not that tall, since he was only six feet tall.

Sports journalists said that his skill and precision of play were admirable. He had achieved it like the great footballers: following his passion from a very young age.

Alexandre had also followed his passion since he was a child when his father gave him a football ball. He never forgot that time they practiced shooting at the goal at the Arc de Triomphe.

His father enrolled him in a football school when he was five years old and they both enjoyed every new thing he did with the ball. His family supported him until his parents died in a car accident when he was eleven years old. They were traveling alone and crashed head-on into a truck while returning from Lyon and, since then, he had lived in Paris with his uncles who hated football and loved rugby.

In a local match he was discovered by a “recruiter” from the Club de Los Reyes de Barcelona. He took it to a test and shortly after signed the contract with the permission of his uncles who initially opposed it. It had been in Barcelona that he met Ronald, who had been recruited in London, and their friendship began immediately.

Victoria Reynolds watched Alexandre from afar. The expression on his face showed the same intelligence as the day she had met him. At that moment she remembered the last night of lust and his skin crawled, Oh! My love! I, Aphrodite, was fascinated by your naked body! Oh, my beloved Apollo! I remain submissive to your thin, muscular and fibrous silhouette; to your Greek face; to your broad forehead; to your long and angular eyebrows; to your eyes blue as the sky; to your fair, but tanned skin; to your abundant ash blonde hair; to your angular face and wide mouth; to your teeth white as snow; to your red lips, which melt me when you kiss me; to your big and strong hands when you hold me naked and… I am yours! She felt those words all over her body and thought, I would love your mind even if your body was as Socrates.

His eyes searched for Victoria and he discovered that she was looking at him mischievously from the opposite end of the cemetery terrace. I love you too, beautiful Viking, he thought, feeling her gaze. She looked at her long curly hair that reached to her waist. It seemed to be made of threads of gold that fell on her hips. Tall, her tight black dress defined elegant curves that seemed to want to move.

He winked at her and she responded immediately. Alexandre remembered when he had met her at a university party in London and that same night their romance had begun. She was studying aeronautical engineering at Cambridge, where a tribute had been paid to his father, a prominent physicist. He and her Danish mother, also a physics academic at the same university, had received medals of honor for their outstanding careers. They had married in Copenhagen and moved to Cambridge when Victoria was three.

The “engineer in jeans” is going to assault you, thought Victoria, staring at him and still with goosebumps, ready to walk the long distance from the other end of the terrace.

Like an army ready to win an easy battle, Alexandre watched as her long legs and firm thighs began their march. Her steps were sure and carried the rhythm of wild Africa, like that of a lioness looking for her male, with simplicity, sweetness and determination. Her large, light green eyes, with a dark green circle at the edge, did not look away from him. Nothing else existed at that time.

She showed her large eyelashes that flirted with him from a distance, like careless butterflies, under the elegant dark eyebrows of a blonde that highlighted her intelligence, full of tenderness and mischief, expressing a happy and clean soul, harmonious and free, confident and serene. She desired him from afar, and her moist lips, thinner than thick, charged with eroticism and joy opened, leaving her snow-white teeth naked.

After that army of curves crossed the courtyard, she took his hand, as a sign of support, and to mark territory. He squeezed her hand, grateful for her presence. Alexandre would not rest until he solved the mystery of Ronald’s death and the last coded message that he had sent him on the day of the accident.

“I’m so sorry,” said a very famous television sports journalist woman who approached them. Alexandre shook her head in gratitude.

“The media promised to be discreet and respect the family’s privacy, but the police are asking a lot of questions. Tomorrow I will publish his story. It will be called, ‘The Story of a Hero’.” she added.

“Thank you,” Alexandre said and couldn’t stop his eyes to be full of tears.

“Thank you,” Victoria added.

“Thank you for being who you are. We will miss Ronald. Goodbye,” she said, bowing her head, then turned and left.

“I am very sorry. I knew you were called ‘the philosophers’. It’s going to be difficult for everyone to recover from this hard blow,” said Franco Gambino, appearing by surprise and giving Alexandre a hug.

“Thank you,” Alexandre said, somewhat uncomfortable by the hug.

“Did Ronald know something?” Gambino asked.

“About what?” Alexandre asked.

“Nothing in particular,” Gambino replied, “but if you want to talk about a book, call me. I have access to the Vatican Library,” he said, handing him his card and saying goodbye.

Alexandre felt a chill run down his spine and his eyes remained fixed, staring into infinity. Victoria noticed the tension of the moment.

“What he wanted to say?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered.

“How strange,” she said, looking at the ground.

“Yes. It’s strange,” he replied, thinking that Gambino’s words seemed like a threat.

Alexandre put Gambino’s card in the left pocket of his jacket. After removing his hand, a woman stumbled next to him and he caught her so she wouldn’t fall. Her thin waist and pronounced curves were caught in his left arm. His eyes remained very close to her and a delicious perfume wafted from her wavy red hair. He stared at her for a split second that seemed forever. She was very beautiful.

“Oh! I’m sorry!” exclaimed when she regained her balance, “You trip everywhere in these heels.” She walked five steps, stopped, then turned around and walked back. “I am very sorry for Ronald’s death,” said solemnly, “but he is alive,” she added, “his spirit lives here among us.”

“Thank you,” said Alexandre.

Her thin, oval face had freckles and a Greek profile. Her thick lips accompanied her large calypso eyes that competed in beauty with Victoria’s green eyes.

“Thank you,” Victoria said, trying to figure something out.

Alexandre was unable to respond to her condolences as she turned around and left.

As he watched her statuesque figure recede into the background, his vision met Franco Gambino, who was leaving the cemetery with another man who was putting something yellow in his palm.

The light was falling in Barcelona. They said goodbye to Ronald’s parents and the rest of the team, and then headed straight to Alexandre’s apartment. It was the 18th floor of a modern building with a beautiful view of Barcelona and the Mediterranean Sea in the background. Victoria liked the four rooms and their wooden floors with high walls and white ceilings. The large integrated kitchen, with its black granite bar, was a favorite place where he and Ronald held their philosophy talks. Victoria cooked something and then they headed to the bedroom.

The next day, upon returning from taking Victoria to the airport, Alexandre entered his bedroom and, grabbing his jacket, which was still on the couch, reached into his left pocket to pull out Gambino’s card. Next to him he found a paper with a kiss mark in red rouge and a text that said: “I’ll wait for you tomorrow, Monday. Come incognito, alone, on foot and without cell phones”. It was a woman’s handwriting and her lips were thick.

He frowned, thinking about how the note had gotten there. He turned the paper over and behind it said: “IMPORTANT: Look for the yellow envelope in the first trash can, on the left, leaving Casa Milà at 10 p.m. Punctual”. Alexandre thought, It was the redhead at the funeral who put this note in my pocket! Who is she? Why the kiss? What could be so important? Why incognito and without a cell phone? A yellow envelope in a trash can?

He left quickly to arrive an hour before training to practice shooting at goal from long distance as he usually did every morning at his club.

Everyone was having a hard time getting used to Ronald’s absence. Greg tried to lift their spirits and told them that they would win the championship as a posthumous tribute.

When that day was ending, Alexandre decided to go to the mysterious meeting, but armed. Was it a trap and would they kill him just like Ronald? Would he know the redhead? He remembered his statuesque figure and felt a mixture of fear and desire. He drove to Casa Milà and parked several blocks away. He left his cell phone in the car. He walked with a hoodie and sunglasses so that no one would recognize him. When he looked at the trash can, there was the yellow envelope. He saw it and passed by. He looked everywhere to see if he could find the redhead, but he didn’t see anyone. He took out the envelope and it said “OPEN AND READ NOW.” He opened the envelope and read.

“I cannot reveal my identity, but you can tell me Ricardo. I’m risking my skin and that of my family. All this must be totally secret. I don’t have conclusive evidence, but everything indicates that Ronald was murdered. He told us that he wanted to write a book and we decided to help him, but I think dark forces murdered him because they don’t want him to write it. If you decide to write it, we will help you. Come back next Monday at the same time and leave your response in the same place in an envelope with a big ‘yes’. It is very likely that they are following you so do not leave traces. NOW BURN THIS NOTE AND GO.”

He took out his gold lighter and after burning everything, crushed the ashes under his sneakers.