Abelian Group (152 pages) is Cid Cabido’s third novel and relates the activities of a group of six or seven friends over a period of a week. The story is narrated by one of the members of the group in the first person. An “Abelian group” is a group whose members are commutative, that is the result of applying a group operation to two members of the group does not depend on the order in which they are written.

In the first chapter, it is the morning of the first day, and the members of the group ask for an audience with the civil governor. They have no problem in being admitted, after all they are not armed or anything. They are aware that there is an armed man behind the door, but they pay no attention to him and suggest to the governor that he abandon his post and leave everything to them. At this point, six men take up position behind the members of the group, presumably they have been silently summoned by an alarm button beneath the governor’s desk. The governor asks if they have the necessary authority to replace him, they say that they have, and after a moment of tension, which could be used by an experienced film director to exploit the acting qualities of his actors and highlight the differing expressions of tension, the governor agrees to leave. The members of the group remain in his office and order in a succulent breakfast that includes a box of cigars. They then sack (it may have been relieve of their duties) all the civil governor’s employees, close all the doors and windows, and leave the building. As they are sitting in a park opposite, a man comes up to ask if he and his family can take up residence in the building now that he doesn’t have a job. They say that’s fine so long as there are various families and the space is equally shared out. The group then enters a laundry to get away from the cold. The girl on duty asks if she can help them, they say no, she goes off to talk to a woman who appears to be the owner and shows by her expression that she isn’t happy they’ve come in to escape the cold. So one of them takes off his socks, the others follow suit, they put them in a basket to be washed and are given a receipt. One of them offers the girl a cigarette, she accepts, and they start chatting.

They don’t want to wait for the socks to be ready, so they ask what time the laundry will close and leave. The girl agrees to come with them when she finishes work. Of course, outside their feet are cold, so they enter a clothes shop to buy some new socks, which are supposed to cost between two or three thousand, but all they have (or all they are prepared to give) is one thousand. One of them takes the shop assistant to one side and persuades her to sell the socks for the amount they have. The shop assistant even agrees to let one of the members of the group use the phone so he can call his mother, but the line is engaged or there is no answer. Since they have three or four hours before picking up the girl from the laundry, they decide to leave the city for a while, they stop a car, persuade the driver to let them have the car and offer to drop him off somewhere. They then drive out of the city on the motorway and stop at a service station. They order food and drinks in the cafeteria and fill up with petrol. A woman comes to ask for the money for the petrol, they say they don’t have it, she goes off for reinforcements. They enjoy their meal, but feel the motorway tolls are so high this should really include the price of their meal as well, which of course they’re not going to pay for. They leave the service station and return the car to its owner, a man called Edelmiro, who insists they come upstairs to meet his wife. They are served drinks, they tell the girl from the laundry to catch a taxi and come round, Edelmiro is a little nervous that the police might come because of the incident at the cafeteria. The girl arrives, followed by the police, who say they have a warrant to arrest Edelmiro and search the premises. They don’t know anything about the incident at the cafeteria, though. The police go upstairs, the others, including the girl from the laundry, seven or eight, borrow the police car because there’s no way they’ll fit inside a taxi and drive around the city. The girl has brought their socks, a dozen families have taken up residence in the civil governor’s building, so everything seems to be in order, until they hear a voice on the radio saying a police car has been stolen. They object to this, they had only borrowed the car on account of the lack of public transport, but they decide to leave the police car and continue on foot. One of them goes to stay the night with the girl from the laundry, they are now a couple, while the others return to Edelmiro’s apartment, find nobody there and settle down for the night.

In the second chapter, the six or seven members of the group meet up in the centre and decide to visit some offices. They enter one office, listen in to the employees’ conversations, then they are taken aside by one employee who thinks they want to find out about work in an office for a university project. He says that each day is the same, the work is tiring, he even takes it home sometimes and shuts himself in his study at home if he wants to be alone. He has three children, but feels he doesn’t know them very well. Another employee asks them what they’re doing there, they say they just want to have a look around and see what happens in an office, he says they can’t do that, people have work to do, and they leave. Outside, they come across a film set in which a man and a woman emerge from a manhole and enter a building while being shot at. Nobody asks what they’re doing there, and certainly they find it more interesting than the work in an office. They then enter a bar and listen in to the jokes and banter of the group of people working on the film, but one of them objects to them listening in and ends up knocking one of their group over the head with a wine bowl. He falls to the ground, his head bleeding. The others defend him and then take him to emergency. In the hospital, they overhear a conversation between a man and a woman, saying there’s a group of beasts on the loose who entered some offices and turned everything upside down, then beat up a poor, defenceless man on the crew of a film. There isn’t even a civil governor to defend them in this situation because the governor’s building has been taken over by squatters. The wounded man recovers and they return to the laundry, where it is warm and the girl is sympathetic (she’s especially pleased that her own boyfriend is uninjured). Later, all seven or eight of them, including the laundry girl, enter a police station, disarm the guard at the front of the building and tell everybody to leave. They then enter the superintendent’s office, but he is not there. They ask his deputy how many prisoners are being kept in the police station, he takes them down to the dungeons, where they come across Edelmiro, who is unconscious, his arms handcuffed behind the chair, having been tortured and interrogated by three men. They release Edelmiro and the other prisoners, including Edelmiro’s wife, insist the deputy superintendent take Edelmiro to the hospital to be adequately attended to, ask one of the last policemen left in the building where the explosives are kept, set up the explosives using timers and retire to an area of the city where there are bars and discos. In half an hour there is a loud explosion (or series of explosions), the police station is no more, and the group goes back to drinking.

In the third chapter, it is the third day by now since the group relieved the civil governor of his duties, and they are without money. They don’t want to borrow from their family or to work or to beg for handouts. Kidnapping is another option, but this involves hiding and feeding the victim while waiting for the ransom to arrive. They decide to hold up a bank the following morning, when the banks are open, and then go shopping for a van they can use for transport. They wonder what to do for the rest of that day, but can’t think of anything. This leads them to consider the option of collective suicide and to question what they’re going to do in life, even if they do have some money from the bank and a van for transport. The only thing that can take your mind off things is to have a family, but that’s a form of treason, passing on your perplexity to the next generation. If there’s no sense to life, then why did they dismiss the governor, who seemed pretty comfortable in his office with his furniture from the fifties? In order to be different, they wonder whether it’s a good idea to retire to a desert island, but decide that’s a bit passé. Perhaps they could go and live on top of a mountain, but without relying on outside help for food and supplies. They would have to find six or seven women prepared to go with them and leave civilization behind, but that could take years. They wonder what they could eat up there – wildcat, boar, salmon? But how would they live without bread, milk, wine? They would have to set up a village, plant crops and hold elections, going to the capital to demand better transport links. And the lack of women would remain unresolved. They decide that the best thing is to keep on doing nothing they don’t want to do and order in some more food, sure of only one thing: that they’re not going to pay the bill.

In the fourth chapter, they decide to leave the city for a while. They go to a bus stop, where they board a minibus and persuade the driver to leave the other passengers at another stop and accompany them to the countryside. They then walk for a couple of hours, and the driver invites them to come and visit him in his village a little outside the city and to try his chorizos and ham, his homemade wine and brandy. He tells them about his family and how he misses the old rural life, when there were no tractors, but only the creaking of wooden carts. One of them phones his mother from a phone booth, says he has no money, but it’s not a problem, and he will go and visit her on Sunday (but not which Sunday that is). The laundry girl’s boyfriend gives her a call and learns that there are lots of different versions about the destruction of the police station circulating, but nothing is being said about the civil governor’s building any more. They find a place to eat, the owner of the restaurant claims to have been at sea, but looks far too refreshed to have been there long. Of course, they leave without paying, even though the bus driver appears to want to. The bus driver is afraid he will lose his job. He wants to go and pick up the minibus, but is worried because when he returns the bus, he won’t have the normal day’s takings, so one of them gets a crowbar and busts open a couple of phone booths, giving him the coins. The bus driver leaves, the others walk along by the sea, then suddenly start running for no particular reason. They reach a village just as a thunderstorm breaks and enter a house, where they are hospitably received, but the noise of the storm is so great that they think the only refuge they can find is a hundred metres under the sea. The narrator is reminded of Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream.

In the fifth chapter, they have stayed the night in the village. For as long as there are people who work and live badly and others who don’t work and live well, they prefer not to work. They return to the city, where it is time to rob a bank, though they are worried about doing this without a getaway vehicle (they need the money from the bank to buy a vehicle). They reach the bank and are taken upstairs to see the director, who receives them amicably and offers them a drink. They have a discussion about Munch and his painting. When they mention the subject of money, or the lack of it, one of the employees bursts out laughing. The director asks them how much they want and calculates that they will need five million for a van and three million for food and fuel over six months, which the others suggest rounding up to a nice round ten million in all. The director asks them what they’re going to offer as surety, they say they have no money, no property, no job, so there’s nothing they can offer, they just want the money. The director invites them to a good lunch, he’s fed up of working in the bank anyway, he’ll meet them there. But on the way to the restaurant they realize one of their group is missing and they return to the director’s office to fetch him. They then go to the employee’s house, where they help in the garden and have a bonfire. The employee’s husband offers them an old van they can use, which will take them to China and back if necessary, only that it consumes a little more fuel than is usual nowadays. They discuss the advantages and disadvantages of living in a self-sufficient commune. The husband suggests there is a gap between their desire to have everything and their willingness to work to achieve it. They sit down to dinner.

In the sixth and final chapter, they decide to visit the house of the one who kept calling his mother, to celebrate the 71st anniversary of the founding of the family firm. The house is a rich one, they eat and drink and then go upstairs in order to get changed for dinner, where there will be bankers, businessmen and local politicians. The discussion over dinner is about money, in terms that imply large amounts of money, which the others are unable to contribute to. After the dinner, there is a dance. The members of the group are rather interested in striking up a conversation with the four sisters of the one who has taken them to his house. The narrator ends up dancing with one of them, having made it clear with his look that he’s open to any kind of edifying dialogue with her. After the dance, she takes him upstairs to a room where there is a sculpture of a goat inside a tyre, like that of the American artist Robert Rauschenberg, and a piano. In the middle of their lovemaking, they have a discussion about whether it is possible to do something meaningful with one’s life. The narrator thinks that only a privileged minority can afford to do this, while the girl believes there are people who are capable of renouncing a comfortable life in order to do what they really like, artists and painters and the like. After their lovemaking, the narrator falls asleep and, when he wakes up, the girl has disappeared. He thinks he smells burning in the house and tries to warn people there is a fire, to no effect. He goes outside and finds the rest of the group waiting for him in the van.

It is early in the morning of the seventh day. They drive away and at a certain distance get out of the van to relieve themselves, only to see that the house of their friend really is on fire, perhaps because one of them who smokes cigars has left a burning stub in one of the bedrooms. They decide to drive to the bank director’s house, where they give him a call from a nearby phone booth. He agrees to come with them to the bank and on the way they go to pick up the financial controller. The director finally manages to convince the controller to come along, but on the way he jumps a light and smashes into a baker’s van. The director has a cut in the head and has to be taken to hospital. Meanwhile the controller accompanies the others to the bank. Their idea is to take the money and then embark on a trip to some countries in the north. They would like to get going as soon as possible. They go down to the safe, where they remove as many banknotes as they can carry. The financial controller also takes a fistful, but ends up getting locked in the safe. The others get in the van, leave the city and head towards the north.

Abelian Group is a very successful novel which won the prestigious Blanco Amor Prize for novels in 1999. It has been translated into Spanish by Sara Cid Cabido and published by Alianza Editorial in the year 2000. The narrative mixes strict realism, attention to detail, with a finely tuned sense of the absurd (and also of the cinematographic possibilities of the scenes being described). Obviously, much of the attraction of the novel resides in the humorous style in which it is told. Six or seven people, we never find out exactly how many they are, decide to veer away from the norm, to challenge convention (such as the convention to do an honest day’s work) using arguments that are sometimes accepted and sometimes not. They come across allies and enemies, those who come around to their way of thinking and join them for a time, and others who prefer to remain on the margins. The novel is a piercing, fluently written critique of the routine that rules people’s lives.

Synopsis © Jonathan Dunne