Then he turned to the photo archive, as suggested.
Lucas had said that both he and álvaro had been enrolled at the age of four, so depending on the cutoff dates for the classes, álvaro would have first attended with the class of 1975–1976 or that of 1976–1977. Manuel reviewed the kindergarten class lists and found álvaro’s name under a school photo of a child with hair carefully parted on one side who had a big smile for the photographer. He further satisfied his curiosity by identifying Lucas Robledo. He had to smile at the little face with enormous eyes and a surprised expression. He also found Santiago. Unlike his elder brother, Santiago seemed thoroughly intimidated by the photographer.
Manuel worked his way forward through the photo archive to 1984, the year when álvaro left the school. He searched for álvaro’s student file. The accompanying photo showed a young teenager with the same confident gaze as in the photo Herminia had given him. Only the first semester of grades was recorded, and they were remarkably high. There was one further note: Transferred to another school.
Manuel decided to use other search criteria. He typed transfers but got no hits; he checked departures and turned up a number of files. He swiped through them and saw that the contracting firm had made the mistake of filing transfers, expulsions, and deaths together.
He found álvaro’s report cards with grades and teacher comments for each subject. The last of them went only to early December, and the rest of the card was blank. Disconcerted, he worked his way back chronologically, studying the report cards, and thought he recognized a name. He realized why it seemed familiar when he checked it against the notes he’d jotted down the night before during the conversation with Lucas. Verdaguer—that was the monk officially reported to have died of cancer but who was suspected of committing suicide.
He noticed that the order in which the contractor had placed the files corresponded to the chronology of the departures. He paged back further and found that December 13 was a remarkably interesting date. On the same day Brother Verdaguer’s death was recorded, álvaro was transferred, and a Brother Mario Ortu?o left the establishment.
He opened Ortu?o’s file and found no photo. Brother Mario, in charge of the infirmary, had witnessed the death certificate for Brother Verdaguer. His signature appeared just beneath the illegible scrawl of a local physician. Much to Manuel’s surprise, the certificate stated the cause of death as self-inflicted.
So despite the rumors and what everyone suspected, it appeared there’d never been any official attempt to cover up a suicide.
Brother Mario Ortu?o had made a “voluntary departure” that same day.
His file showed he’d been born in Corme, A Coru?a, the youngest of three brothers. He’d entered the monastery as a novice at the age of nineteen; he’d remained in the institution until the day he witnessed Verdaguer’s death certificate. álvaro was expelled the same day, leaving school directly from the infirmary.
Manuel scribbled the information in one of his notebooks, closed the file, and then called out to the librarian. “Brother Julián, what’s a ‘voluntary departure’ of a monk?”
The young man came over, intrigued by the question, and took a look at the screen. “It’s rare, but sometimes it does happen. That’s when a brother decides to renounce his vows and leave the order.” He took a seat next to Manuel and did a quick search. Brother Ortu?o’s file appeared. “Well, for example, as you can see in the case of this brother, he had a crisis of faith. I assume it must have been very serious. In most cases an effort is made to counsel the individual and bring him back, or perhaps transfer him to another house of the same order, or prescribe spiritual exercises. But here the prior decided to send this brother home.” He went back to the work he was doing with his laptop.
Manuel pretended to work for a while longer, flicking forward through the images and stopping briefly at random until he was sure the brother-librarian was absorbed anew in his tasks. Then he typed infirmary into the search field. Hundreds of hits popped up. He did a secondary search for álvaro, but none of the infirmary files were associated with his name. He tried the date instead, and a document appeared. He examined it and couldn’t suppress a gasp of surprise. The resolution of the image was good, and he could read the infirmary roll of admissions and discharges. The pages were ruled so that admissions and corresponding departures were recorded on the same line. Beneath the boxes for date and time was a line for the class year and the name. There, in elegant handwriting reminiscent of bygone times, the record read simply Mu?iz de Dávila. Under that in a larger space entitled Diagnosis the same calligraphic script appeared:
The child shows evidence of significant the initial examination disoriented and confused a slight fever, though incompatible eight o’clock,
Therefore I recommend that he be Given the circumstances
I can state that the child by his primary care physician or a specialist, I earnestly request and am confident that for the health
This being my solemn obligation, I so declare and record it, and I pray that God may guide us.
Signed:
Brother Mario Ortu?o
The record filled a whole page. Considering Ortu?o’s precise handwriting, it must have been extremely detailed, but the record had been censored with the sort of ominous heavy black markings that he recalled having seen used only on records of summary executions during the civil war and in intelligence reports from the First World War.
He checked behind him to make sure that the librarian was still busy and then captured the image with his cell phone camera. He spent the next half hour swiping through blurry photographs in search of Mario Ortu?o. He felt an urgent desire for a good look at the man who’d written an infirmary report so horrific it had been censored almost in its entirety. He wanted a picture of the monk who’d voluntarily renounced his vows after writing a report of which only fragmentary passages remained: The child shows evidence of significant . . . That man had left the monastery the same day álvaro was withdrawn from school, and those few words constituted the only remaining record.
He couldn’t get the phrase out of his head: The child shows evidence of significant . . . Was the shock of seeing the dead body serious enough to prompt the heavy censoring of that report? Yet there’d apparently been no effort to cover up the suicide. Was this the document that To?ino had found and for which he expected to get a princely payment? Or to be more precise, had To?ino gotten his hands on a document that provided the missing information?
Manuel looked over at the long stretch of metal shelving crowded with cardboard boxes that extended out of sight into the darkness. Even if an uncensored copy of this report did exist, he didn’t see how To?ino could have found it here. The likelihood was simply too remote. No, whatever he’d discovered, the document had to have come from elsewhere.
“Do you know the prior’s nephew?”
“To?ino?” The surprise in the brother-librarian’s voice made Manuel want to bite his tongue.
“I don’t know his name; in fact, I don’t know him at all.” Manuel had to improvise. “But this morning I stopped in the village, and a woman there asked me if I was the prior’s nephew who was working at the monastery.”
“Yes, sounds like To?ino; there’s not another nephew. But I don’t know how anyone could have taken you for him. He doesn’t look at all like you.”
“He was working here?” Manuel asked in what he hoped was an indifferent tone.