“Shall I begin?” he said.
I nodded. Julio took out a pad of paper and settled back into his chair.
“Here are some photos of Diego,” Rodolfo said, handing us a small stack of black-and-white surveillance photos. Diego walking out of his apartment. Diego on the phone at his window. Diego playing soccer in the park.
Rodolfo brushed cookie crumbs off his shirt and continued. Diego lived in an old apartment building in a gentrifying neighborhood. He spent most of his free time playing soccer with friends and drinking beer at a bar near his place. Rodolfo briefed us on when Diego usually went to bed and when he awoke. He told us what he bought at the grocery store and what books he checked out from the library.
“Here’s what I think,” Julio said. “Let’s give him a new friend, and then we’ll set up a big meeting. Group encounters seem to work best with young people.”
I nodded and made a note on my legal pad. We discussed the logistics of giving Diego a new friend. I would have to pick one of my actors to play the role.
Just as Julio and Rodolfo were gathering their papers, the phone rang, and my secretary picked up. She buzzed me, and I picked up the phone.
“Sorry to disturb,” she said. “It’s a woman on the phone for you—Elena.”
I covered the receiver and looked over at Julio and Rodolfo. “I should take this,” I said, nodding towards the door. I waited until Julio and Rodolfo left the office. I took a deep breath and got back on the phone. “You can put the call through. My meeting is done.”
There was a click and then her voice. “Javier?”
“Yes, speaking. Who is this?”
“It’s Elena.”
“Elena, Elena …”
“We met at the barbecue earlier this week.”
“Of course, yes.”
“You mentioned at the party that maybe you wanted to have dinner this weekend?”
“Oh, this weekend is awfully busy,” I said. “But maybe a late dinner on Saturday would work for me. And for you?”
“Well yes—”
“Great—I’ll put you through to my secretary and have her take down your address. I’m in a meeting right now.”
I wished her a good day and put the call back through to my secretary. I got up and went to put on my jacket. I needed a walk and maybe a drink. My secretary looked up at me and gave a little wave as I walked through the reception area. It was unseasonally cold outside, but I didn’t mind much.
SIX
The next day, I was at the Acting Studio. The studio was a large vacant warehouse in an industrial part of Santiago. I had twenty or so students, almost equal parts women and men. The youngest was 15 years old, and the oldest was 72. That was good—we needed a wide range for most Manipulations.
The deal was simple: I gave the students dramatic instruction, and, rather than putting together an end-of-the-year theatre production, they performed on the most unrelenting stage of all: the real life Scenes that made up each of our Manipulations. I was careful to have each student sign a non-disclosure agreement. I also ensured that they knew next to nothing about each Manipulation.
“Let’s set up a party scene,” I said. “Get into small groups of two to five, but no talking aloud. I’m going to go from group to group. When I get to your group, you have to start up as if I’m interrupting you in mid-conversation.”
The students quickly shuffled around and formed their groups.
“One more thing,” I called out. “If I come over to you and say another student’s name into your ear, you’ve go to go over to them, introduce yourself, and try to get their phone number.”
“Piece of cake!” the 72 year-old said. Viejo is what they all called him—“old man.”
“Action!” I said.
I watched the students engage with each other—most were now able to be lively and animated without being overdramatic. One of them would be Diego’s new friend. Pancho was just the right age, and he had the confidence and easy demeanor necessary for the job. I walked up to him as he was chatting away.
“I need you for a Manipulation.”
He grinned and nodded his head.
“How well can you play soccer?” I asked.
SEVEN
Elena lived in a brick apartment building in a nice part of town.
A doorman opened the door for me.
“And who might you be calling on?”
“Elena.”
“Elena what?”
“I don’t know her last name.”
The doorman made a face. “Well,” he said, “we have two Elenas in this building.”
“What are their ages?” I said.
“I would never divulge that kind of information.”
“Listen,” I said, stepping closer to him, “I’m going on a date tonight with an Elena. She lives in this building. She’s about my age and has curly, black hair. Give that Elena a call this very moment, or you’ll be fired by tomorrow morning at the latest.”
The doorman glared at me and went over to the phone. He came back a moment later. “She’ll be right down,” he said. Then he went over to the elevator and stood beside it. A few minutes later, the doors opened, and the doorman held out his hand to help Elena out.
“And don’t you look lovely,” he said to her. I shook my head and tried to ignore the way he craned his neck to look at her as she walked toward me.
“For you,” I said, handing her the roses. María Paz had insisted.
“Oh, they’re beautiful!”
She signaled the doorman over and handed him the flowers. “Put these in water, if you don’t mind,” she said. “I’ll take them up to my apartment when I come home.”
I winked at the scowling doorman. Then I opened the door for Elena and followed her out.
I took her to my favorite restaurant, a sparsely decorated place with a wood-fired brick oven and traditional Neapolitan pizzas.
“There’s no menu,” Elena said.
“They make only the one kind of pizza.”
The waitress brought my usual bottle of wine. She knew me by name but had never seen me with company before.
Elena and I chatted about this and that, and, before I knew it, the waitress came by and placed a large pizza between us. It was a thin-crust pie topped with tomato, buffalo mozzarella, basil, and olive oil. I picked up a slice and hoped Elena would not use her fork and knife.
“Do you want to play a game?” Elena said.
“What game?”
“It’s called ‘There’s something you should know about me.’ ”
Setting my slice down again, I wiped my fingers on my napkin. I could feel the sense of control abandoning me and migrating across the table to this woman who sat there in front of me.
“Let’s hear it.”
“I have a son,” Elena said.
I took care to not slow down my chewing. I had trained myself to never unwillingly show surprise (or any other emotion, really). Every facial expression should be carefully chosen and executed.
“What’s the boy’s name?”
“Claudio,” she said. “He’s twelve.”
“And his father?”
Elena shrugged and showed me her bare ring finger. I started to ask something, but she interrupted me.
“It’s your turn now.”
“Something you should know about me,” I said.
Elena nodded.
I placed my fingers on the stem of my wineglass and slowly rotated it. “I was married once,” I said finally.
“You were married,” she said. “And then what?”
Any time I answered that question, I could feel the ground shake and crack, until I was left standing alone on my own little island. I carefully tilted my wineglass until a rivulet of wine ran over the edge and down onto the tablecloth. I looked up. Elena was watching my hands.
“I should get someone to clean this up,” I said.
EIGHT
The evening news and weather report was over. I was standing a block away
, waiting for Diego to emerge from the building. He came out and began his usual walk home. I walked a block ahead, and when I got to where Pancho was waiting, I walked by him without a glance. Then I sat on a nearby bench to watch.
Pancho waited until Diego was half a block away and then went over to where a street vendor stood. He bought a bag of peanuts and laughed loudly at something the vendor said. Diego looked over at him. Pancho stepped away from the vendor and fiddled with his change until Diego was a short distance away. He put the wallet in his back pocket, but there was a considerable and deliberate hole in the pocket, and his wallet went straight through, landing right at Diego’s feet. Pancho began walking away.
“Hey,” Diego said, picking up the wallet. He jogged over to Pancho and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Here,” he said. “You dropped this.”
Pancho’s eyes opened wide, and he made his mouth slightly agape. A little overdone, is what I would say to him at our feedback session later. He thanked Diego profusely, and then said he’d buy him a beer. He mentioned that he was just on his way to get a drink at the XYZ—where Diego happened to be a regular. Diego agreed, and I sat on the bench until they were out of sight.
Pancho had been instructed to be friendly and outgoing, to pretend he didn’t know Diego was on television, and to buy Diego a beer or two. At some point, he was to mention that he was searching for a game of pick-up soccer, in hopes that Diego would invite him to join his Thursday evening game.
The ease with which children and young people make friends makes me envious. On my first day of school, I didn’t know a single boy or girl. I went outside during recess, and a boy kicked a soccer ball at me. I kicked it back, and, by the time the bell rang, we were best friends. These days, my friends were all either co-workers or family—neither of which make ideal friends.
NINE
Waking up in someone else’s home is like traveling in a foreign country. I had no idea where anything was or how to behave appropriately. I could hear Elena in the kitchen—opening and closing the refrigerator, humming a little bit to herself. I went to the bathroom to wash up and then walked into the kitchen. Elena was writing something on a piece of paper. She was focused—her eyebrows drawn together in concentration.
“Good morning,” I said.
She looked up. “My goodness,” she said, coming over to where I was standing. “Your hair is a mess, and you’re dressed like a slob.” She patted down my hair and tucked my t-shirt into my underwear. Then she stood back to admire her work.
“There’s coffee,” she said, gesturing towards the table. “Bread, jam, cheese.”
She picked up the piece of paper she was writing on when I had walked in. “I was writing you a note. I have to go to work, and I didn’t want to wake you up.”
“Let’s hear it,” I said. My voice wasn’t fully awake yet.
Elena cleared her throat and held the note out at arm’s length. “There’s coffee on the table. Help yourself to anything in the fridge. I had fun last night—you were cuddlier than expected.”
I frowned. “It was cold.”
“I liked it,” Elena said.
I was hungry and hadn’t slept nearly enough. “Come here,” I said, pulling her towards me.
“Absolutely not,” she said, kissing me on the cheek and darting away. “I have my makeup on already.”
She slipped into her shoes and out the door. I sat down heavily and slathered a slice of bread with jam. I unfolded the newspaper and tried to read, but there was nothing that was capable of holding my attention.
TEN
Meanwhile, Pancho and Diego played soccer together twice and went to the bar. Upon finding out that Diego was single, Pancho had expressed disbelief and implored him to get a girlfriend so they could spend time as a foursome with Pancho’s girlfriend. The stage was set, and I called Laura to tell her the plan.
The XYZ was nothing fancy—just a good place to get a drink. It was fairly well-lit, with a great atmosphere, and they didn’t try to drown out your conversations with loud music, either. It was the perfect place to run a Manipulation. I was sitting at a table with one of my students. His name was Marcelo—he was nothing more than a placeholder. Marcelo was sitting with his back to the action so I could look over his shoulder while pretending to converse with him.
Diego and Pancho were sitting at a table not far from mine, working their way through a pitcher of beer. When Pancho got up and walked towards the washroom, I ordered another drink.
“Do you smoke?” I asked Marcelo.
“No.”
I went to the vending machine and bought a pack of cigarettes. “You do now,” I said, tossing them onto the table.
Marcelo picked up the pack and carefully removed the cellophane wrapper.
Pancho emerged from the washroom and walked back to his table. On the way, he walked by a table of four. I couldn’t hear the conversation, but I knew it by heart—I had written it. “So good to see you—it’s been too long!” “Hey, why don’t you and your friend join us?”
Pancho returned to his table. He yelled something in Diego’s ear and pointed at the table of waving strangers.
That evening, on his way to the bar, Diego had walked by a trio of attractive women. They had smiled at him. A man had walked up to him at the bar when he first arrived to compliment him on his extraordinary weather predictions and to thank him for a particular prediction that had—no exaggeration—saved his marriage. All these people were students of mine, helping to prime the conditions for a positive first meeting between Diego and Laura by making sure Diego was in a great mood. We called it “giving someone a good day.”
We had given Laura a good day, too. One of my students—Viejo—had pretended to be struggling with going up a few steps at the subway. She had offered to help him. He had told her that her generosity was like a sunflower blooming in this barren yard of a city. Outside the bar, she had been stopped by a handsome man who told her he was in a loving relationship and was definitely not trying to make a pass at her but that she was a beautiful and graceful woman, and he just wanted her to know that.
Marcelo was coughing. I handed him my glass of water.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Put it out.”
He looked at me through teary eyes.
“Practice at home,” I said, “until it looks natural. Then, never smoke one of those things again unless you have to.”
“Yes, sir.”
One of the strangers at the table of four was Laura. The other three were students of mine—two men and one friendly but deliberately unattractive woman. Laura ignored Diego for the first twenty minutes, as per my instructions. Then she went off to get another beer, and someone who happened to be sitting by Diego took her seat. Everything was going as planned—Laura would return to the table and find her seat taken, and then she would sit by Diego. But, just as she was approaching, Diego peered into his empty glass and got up. He went to the bar and talked to the bartender, who immediately began mixing a drink. Laura went and sat next to Diego’s empty seat. She frowned and looked over at me. I avoided eye contact and looked back at Diego. Things had taken a turn for the worse—he was now engaged in a conversation with an attractive woman who had sat down next to him. She kept tossing her hair back and laughing at everything Diego said. I was mentally running through a number of possible approaches to remedy the situation when Diego began walking towards the washroom. I got up and followed him in there.
The washroom was dimly lit and foul-smelling. I slowly washed my hands while Diego peed at the urinal. Our eyes met in the mirror as he pumped soap onto his hand.
“That woman you were talking to,” I said.
“Natalia?”
I laughed.
“Sure—if that’s what she’s calling herself now.”
Diego frowned.
“A friend of mine,” I said, “actually, the guy I’m having a beer with right now, took her home not too long ago.”
“I just met h
er,” Diego said. “Just now.”
“I’m not one to talk about these things. I value discretion as much as the next guy.”
Diego looked at me curiously.
“But if you’re looking for crabs,” I said, “I’d suggest you try going to a seafood restaurant instead.”
“But she—”
I held up a hand. “Make your own decisions, buddy. I’m just—from one man to another—sharing some information that I’d want to know if I were in your shoes.”
He thanked me and left the washroom. I stayed behind for a few seconds. When I returned to my table, I looked over Marcelo’s shoulder and saw that Diego had returned to the table. The poor girl was at the bar, pouting, and Laura was happily chatting with Diego.
I closed my notebook and downed my drink. It was time to leave.
ELEVEN
Elena called me at the office the next day. I was having a rough afternoon.
“You don’t sound yourself,” she said.
I grunted. “It’s nothing.”
“Let me cheer you up.”
I don’t like it when others try to cheer me up, but she persisted.
“I’ll come by the office and pick you up in an hour,” she said.
I had just stepped out of the building when she drove up. She took one look at my face and started laughing.
“What?” I said, crossly.
She tilted the rearview mirror towards me. I looked into it.
“Sir Frowns-a-lot,” she said.
This did not get a smile from me.
“Okay,” she said. “This calls for an intervention.”
She pulled out into the highway heading out of town.
“Where are we going?” I said.
“We can never know these things,” she said.
I wanted to know where we were going and what we were going to do when we got there—but Elena refused to tell me anything. She stopped the car at a truck stop and told me to wait in the car. She came back with a paper bag oily with fried-chicken pieces and another with roasted potatoes. We ate hungrily. I don’t think anyone had ever ordered food for me before, and I didn’t care for it. But she smiled at me—her wide lips faintly greasy—and I felt something in me give.
Human Solutions Page 2
