Gran Vía is a Madrid setting where the novel’s clandestine work takes on concrete form: scattered photographs identify a formidable figure, while nearby divided offices offer a way to move parcels without drawing attention. The avenue links recognition to logistics, turning a familiar urban district into part of the machinery of covert action.

Recognition through the photographs

During a late-July meeting, the narrator and Manolo review photographs of men they might encounter at a gathering organized by Messerschmidt. The narrator initially treats the exercise almost as a diversion from Manolo’s intensive lessons on Nazism, but the indistinct portraits begin to run together. One image remains unmistakable: on a porter’s table in a building on Gran Vía, the narrator had recognized the facial scar associated with a Mensur, or student fencing duel.

Manolo corrects the narrator’s identification of the man in the photograph: he is Otto Skorzeny, who, Manolo says, should not be in Madrid. The distinction makes the image more than a clue in a stack of portraits. It establishes that the narrator has already fixed Skorzeny in memory and can recognize him among the other men whose identities and presence matter to the planned gathering.

A discreet address for parcel traffic

Gran Vía also serves as the example the narrator gives when proposing a safer arrangement for collecting and distributing parcels. A courier who repeatedly receives several shipments from the same sender at different addresses—or from different senders at one address—may attract suspicion. The parcel might be opened and its contents taken, or the courier might become alarmed and call the police.

To avoid that pattern, the narrator recommends renting an office in a district that is neither especially expensive nor especially cheap. Around Gran Vía, he explains, large former apartments have been divided into smaller offices. Many share a porter, but most have no porter at all. The narrator knows the routine from frequent parcel collections in such premises: if no one answers the bell, the agency’s employees leave a note beneath the door and depart, with no practical way to identify or reach the client.

The office as cover

The proposed office would remain largely unoccupied between deliveries. When a shipment arrived, the person responsible would unlock the door, wait for the agency’s messenger, hand over the parcel, lock up, and return only when another delivery required it. Because nobody could tell whether the office was used every day, its intermittent activity would be less conspicuous.

Rolf approves the plan without raising an objection. In these episodes, Gran Vía is not merely a recognizable Madrid landmark: it is a working geography of observation and concealment. A building there supplies the image through which the narrator identifies Skorzeny, while the district’s divided offices offer a practical means of making covert exchanges look like ordinary, irregular business.