Electrico W

by Hervé Le Tellier

  They came up to me and Irene let go of his arm to take off her sunglasses and feign astonishment. I could tell she was forcing her laughter, wriggling exaggeratedly, aping herself. Her expression felt as false as a magazine cover girl’s as she gazes at her own reflection in the lens.

  She sat facing me with a smile on her lips, and her first words were “Well, where is she then, this Lena, this Lena I’ve heard so much about?”

  Her tone was mocking, spiteful, but the sound of her voice still had an effect on me.

  “Are you hiding her from us? Are you afraid someone’ll steal her, or I’ll tell her things you don’t want her to hear?”

  The blood drained from my face and I felt like slapping her, or just saying nothing, getting up and leaving. But I managed to look amused.

  “You could say hello before launching your attack, my sweet.”

  “I’m not your sweet, my love. And I never was.”

  I was about to reply but, infuriated, Antonio blurted, “Have you finished your little private war, the pair of you?” Then he turned to me and added more soothingly, “Has Lena left already?”

  “Just this minute. You must have walked right past her.”

  “She was that fat blond thing,” Irene chuckled, “the one whose jeans were cutting her up the ass.” She laughed out loud.

  “Irene,” Antonio sighed, “what’s gotten into you?”

  “Nothing, nothing at all. I’ll stop. There. Shall we make peace? My sweet …”

  She held out her hand to me with the forced smile of a poisonous child. I took it and, before she could snatch it back, kissed it, quickly and chastely, in the crook of her palm. It was a gesture of revenge, a form of assault, subjecting her to the touch of my lips; and yet, despite being driven by vengeance, I couldn’t help savoring the sweet warmth of that hand, its ripe perfume. Irene was so surprised that she surrendered her hand to me, as if it no longer belonged to her, and I even thought for a moment that I could keep it, that open hand, for an eternity. I let it go, stirred and embarrassed in equal measure, and to disguise my emotion I managed to laugh and say, “There, peace is sealed.”

  Irene stood in silence, disconcerted. Antonio seemed indifferent, he hadn’t noticed anything. He ordered three coffees, and the waiter leaned toward me, looking very worried: “Can I clear away the other cups now, sir?”

  WE SPENT THE afternoon wandering aimlessly around Alfama, then headed down toward Rossio. Irene was seeing Lisbon for the first time, and made naive pronouncements about cities and docks and sailors.

  From time to time she took Antonio’s hand and sometimes, at the Santana viewpoint for example, she even huddled in his arms. But Antonio kept her at a distance. He probably did it for propriety’s sake, out of tact toward me. Perhaps also because of Aurora and my presence, which forbade him the cowardly hypocrisy common to men. But also, perhaps, because the way Irene smothered him with her wheedling affection made him uncomfortable, as if he could tell that her primary aim, and I believed this to be the case, was to wound me.

  I talked about Pinheiro, and Antonio and I agreed to go to the hospital the following day. I left them at about four-thirty, claiming I was meeting a friend.

  “A friend, really?” Irene asked sarcastically.

  I didn’t reply, making do with a smile.

  “I’ll leave you, then. Tomorrow at the hotel at about ten?”

  “Won’t you have supper with us this evening? Aren’t you staying at the hotel?”

  “No. I can’t. Sorry. See you tomorrow.”

  I shook Antonio’s hand and gave Irene a little bow.

  “Madame …”

  “No more hand kissing, then?”

  I shook my head and, to get away as quickly as possible, stopped a taxi that was heading the other way.

  “Where are you going?” asked the driver. I hadn’t thought about that. I was about to give the address for my studio when I remembered old Custódia.

  “Pragal.”

  “Whereabouts in Pragal?”

  “I don’t know. Does Estabelecimento Custódia mean anything to you?”

  “No.” He looked at me apologetically. “Would the rail station in Pragal be okay?”

  “Yes. That would be great.”

  The taxi set off and passed Antonio and Irene. They were holding hands. She freed hers to give me a little wave, and I thought I detected a note of sincerity in it.

  IT WASN’T EASY finding Custódia’s premises. It was just a long, narrow, dark shop on the corner of a tiny street. On the dirty shopfront window were the words

  EST CU TOD A. MARCE AR A

  in discolored letters. The last R was about to abandon its post too, and I smiled as I remembered the notice there used to be above the wooden seats on the Paris Métro, one whose words had filled a few fruitful hours in my teens:

  THESE SEATS ARE RESERVED

  FOR DISABLED EX-SERVICEMEN

  Armed with a good scraper, I had devised a simple literary technique, striving to extract some meaning from that sentence. I found I could turn it into an abstruse culinary recommendation:

  HE EATS SE ED

  FOR ABLE SERVICE

  or a sensational headline:

  HE S E E S RED

  FOR D SE X VICE

  Although my uncontested favorite was the darkly Magrittian:

  H ATS ARE SERVED

  OR BLED

  This game was interrupted by an on-the-spot sixty-franc fine for vandalism, when I had only just embarked on the onomatopoeic poetry of:

  THE SEA RE RE R E

  I didn’t know where to go next with this poem, but had calculated that there were about seven hundred different solutions. Fewer than the number of Métro cars, no doubt, and some of them impossibly obscure. But what sort of Iliad could anyone get with EST CUSTÓDIA. MARCENARIA?

  The cabinetmaker’s metal shutter wasn’t lowered but the door was locked. I knocked on the glass several times, then, when no one came, decided to take a walk around.

  As I passed the local tasca I spotted old Custódia. He was sitting at the end of the room with a glass of red wine, his blue work overalls gray with wood dust. He sat drinking in silence. His paper was open to the financial pages, but he wasn’t reading. I went in, stood at the bar and ordered a coffee.

  Custódia looked older, more stooped, more tired than at the cemetery, well into his sixties perhaps. His hands were worn and rough but still strong, I pictured Duck’s pretty face being struck by them. Four old boys were having a noisy game of cards, using matches to keep score, and staking cigarette butts as bets. Custódia wasn’t paying any attention to them. Sitting there bringing his glass to his lips, his eyes were expressionless.

  When I asked the waiter if he knew where the cabinetmaker was, he called across the room: “Hey, Ruiz, I’ve found you a customer.”

  The cardplayers paused for a moment to stare at me, and the old man turned to look. I took a step toward him, but he made up his mind to stand.

  “What do you want? I’m closed at this time of day.”

  “Closed? At five o’clock?”

  Custódia shrugged and headed for the door, in spite of everything. I fell in step behind him. Just before stepping outside, he smacked his hand on the bar to catch the waiter’s attention.

  “Leave the glass. I’ll be back.”

  “Shall I fill it up?”

  “That’s right.”

  THE INSIDE OF Custódia’s shop was like its exterior. The color of the walls was unidentifiable beneath a layer of filth, the floor tiles hidden by sawdust and wood shavings. Chisels and moldings were strewn over the workbench, and the air had an intoxicating smell of turpentine and wood glue.

  “What’s it for, then?”

  “I need a piece of furniture … a set of shelves. I wanted to get an idea of the price.”

  “Do you have the measurements?”

  “More or less …”

  Custódia headed for the door.

  “Not more or less,�
�� he said with a shrug. “I don’t work in more-or-less-ness. I need it spot on. I’ve seen too many of you awkward customers who give me the wrong dimensions and then say I’m dishonest. Come back when you’ve got the measurements. I’ll give you a price then.”

  He reached for the door and I quickly replied, “Wait, wait, I’ve got your measurements for you. It’s … six feet by two feet six inches.”

  “Is that the height, the six feet?” Custódia asked, staring at me harshly.

  A sketchy plan to find Duck gave me the strength to carry on with my ploy.

  “Well, that gives you six shelves inside. I’ll put four runners in it for you. Is that okay? And how deep do you want it?”

  “Um … six inches.”

  “That’s pretty deep. Anyway … Have you made a decision about the wood?

  “I don’t know, what about pine?”

  “That’s not wood,” he sneered.

  “In … in oak, then … What do you think?”

  “It’s for the customer to decide. Oak’s hard to cut, but it’s no worse than anything else. For the thickness, will three-quarters of an inch do, and half an inch for the shelves?

  “Will that be enough?”

  “Of course that’ll be enough. Otherwise, I’d suggest something thicker.”

  “Aren’t you writing any of this down?”

  “No,” he said flatly. “Oak, six feet, two feet six inches, six inches. Three-quarters of an inch thick, half an inch for the shelves. There’s really no point. Do you want them mortised? With moldings?”

  “Whatever’s simplest,” I said weakly.

  “It’s no more complicated. Anyway … When’s it for?”

  “As soon as possible. When could you do it for?”

  “The day after tomorrow if you want. I’m not going to lie, there’s not much work anymore, with all this self-assembly furniture. It’s been years since anyone’s asked me for shelves. So I’ve got the time, and the wood in stock. But you’ll have to pay half up front. For the oak.”

  “How much will it be?”

  Custódia named a figure that struck me as exorbitant and I wrote out a check without a moment’s hesitation. He looked at me oddly.

  “You want to pay the whole lot now?” he asked.

  “If you like,” I replied, not understanding. I took out a second check, wrote out the same figure for the balance, and handed it to Custódia, who tore it up without a smile.

  “No, we missunderstood each other. The first check was enough. That pays me for everything,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re a funny kind of a guy, you really are. Do you have no idea of prices or what?”

  “Can you deliver it?”

  “Is it in Pragal?”

  “No. Lisbon. By the docks.”

  “Do you have a business card with your number? In case there’s a problem?”

  “No, I’ve only just moved,” I explained, and wrote my address and telephone number on a scrap of paper. Custódia put it in his pocket without looking at it.

  “Right, I’ll deliver it the day after tomorrow, in the afternoon, at about three o’clock. Make sure you’re there, won’t you?”

  He turned away and walked off toward the back of the shop. As I left, I’m pretty sure I heard him fart.

  BACK IN LISBON, I bought paper, charcoal, and a dark wooden frame, and went back to my studio. By nine o’clock I had enlarged and traced out the portrait of Duck, but back to front to alter the shadows and perspective. I drew her almost naked, hidden by fine tulle, hinting at the outline of her small round breasts. To age her by ten years, I accentuated her features with charcoal. It wasn’t an exact likeness, but was all the better for that. At ten o’clock it was hanging on the wall.

  I opened Contos aquosos. My only discipline was to translate at least two of them a day. That evening I finished three, including one particularly absurd one, sent to someone called Ursula in January 1971:

  When January 12 falls on a Sunday, the Picardy village of Abelvilly still to this day celebrates it as the Feast of the Gulerian, when this creature is hunted for the tender meat on its large fleshy ears. The gulerian is a patagrade with a bright orange pelt, similar to a badger in size and a tortoise in mobility and agility, specific to that part of the Caux region and sadly extinct since the first Feast of the Gulerian in the year of grace 1197.

  Obviously, each of Montestrela’s short stories contained another story which, if not secret, was at least masked from all except the addressee. Perhaps, given that he wrote one a day, he was referring to a trip to Picardy with this Ursula on another January 12, in 1971, for example. What did the gulerian stand for? I didn’t have the keys.

  At about eleven o’clock the temperature had not yet dropped, and I decided to look in at the hotel. Just for a few minutes, to return the photo to Antonio’s wallet and pick up some notes. I think I also still hoped to catch a glimpse of Irene, if only for a moment. They weren’t in the bar, I thought they might have gone out for supper, and I hurried up to the room.

  I opened the door to my suite. Antonio hadn’t closed the double doors between our two lounges, and I saw the sliver of light under his bedroom door. I took one step into the dark room and closed the door discreetly behind me. I saw his coat over a chair, took out his wallet, put the photo back and lay the coat down again. After that, there were just the noises.

  The bed creaking, the regular animallike squeak of the springs, a woman’s voice I didn’t recognize, Irene’s voice, moaning, repressing a cry and then failing to contain it, like a cry of pain, and there’s that man’s bass, unrecognizable, whispering such huge words, words that belong to moments no one should ever hear, words I can’t even transcribe here.

  I stand there, thunderstruck, rooted to the spot, I’m the foot soldier who’s still standing, panting, his guts blown away by a cannonball, who doesn’t yet understand that he’s dead.

  I can hear the heavy breathing, the tension of bodies violently seeking their own pleasure, my chest full of lead and mud. I must leave. I manage to tear myself away from the terror in that room, stumbling in the hallway, crushed, racing down the stairs. I narrowly miss falling ten times, but I’m too desperate to get away to fall completely. I go through the lobby and my flight only stops in the small grayish courtyard in front of the hotel, in front of a bellboy who daren’t come over to me. I lean my back against the bare stone and crouch down, my head slumping onto my knees, shivering. The noise and bustle of the city doesn’t reach me, there’s nothing left inside me except for these incoherent sentences going around in circles.

  I blot out all thoughts of that night. But what’s the point? At dawn I went back to the hotel, confronted their faces and their eyes, but it wasn’t the same bellboy. Anger authorizes resignation and rebirth. I was like a soldier whose fear has been utterly consumed under a deluge of fire and who, because he’s no longer capable of anything, becomes capable of everything.

  DAY SIX

  MANUELA

  I waited a long time in the breakfast room, leisurely perusing the Diário de Notícias newspaper, then rereading it. They didn’t come down, I went through to the lobby and sat in an armchair, resting my head against the leather and closing my eyes.

  My father was walking up a stone spiral staircase, he was in pajamas, with mules on his feet, I was following him, holding a candle, wearing a tuxedo and worried about getting it dirty in that dark dusty-smelling stairway. The stairs went on forever, I avoided getting too close to the walls as if hands might leap out of them and clutch at me. My father went up without a sound, without even breathing, I was afraid he might turn around to look at me with his cadaverous stare, blank, accusing, and empty. A hand gripped my shoulder, I jumped in terror. And woke up.

  Antonio shook me, smirked in amusement, went to pour himself a coffee, then thought again and poured a second cup which he brought over to me.

  “Sleep well, Vincent? You don’t look like you did.”

  “A neighbor kept snoring. Irene
?”

  “She’s still in bed. Big sleeper. We’ll call her later. Come on, we’re going to deal with Pinheiro.”

  I folded up the Diário and followed Antonio.

  THE PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL was a large tall 1950s building with plain architecture, covered in unhealthy ochre-colored stucco that was coming away in large flakes. Ricardo Pinheiro was locked in a padded cell in the security department. A pointless precaution given that, since his arrest, he had tried nothing against himself or his guards.

  Dr. Vieira was a short bald man in his sixties, on the chubby side, jovial-looking, with an extinguished cigar wedged permanently in the corner of this mouth. Gray overalls would have turned him into the archetypal hardware dealer, but the white equivalent failed to make him look like a psychiatrist. Scarlet tie, pink-and-turquoise Jacquard sweater: Vieira had plenty of taste. Bad taste but a lot of it, as someone once said. He was talkative too, and I think that, after greeting him, I didn’t need to ask a single question. He was proud of his patient, as the director of a zoo would be of a recently acquired rare specimen.

  “So, are you here to ask me about our national celebrity? Watch out, don’t forget I’m seeing you in my capacity as an expert witness, not in my capacity as practitioner, right? And for the record—and I insist on this ‘for the record’—I’m a psychiatrist. I don’t want any trouble. I won’t breach confidentiality. We’re agreed on that.”

  I nodded.

  “Perfect. Pinheiro may not be our first serial killer, but he’s the strangest of all. Obviously, because soldiers and doctors don’t fit in with statistics, killing is kind of our job, isn’t it?”

  Vieira pushed his glasses up his nose, loosened his collar, and led us into his office, which was cluttered with files. He sat in his chair, I took the other one, and Antonio got out his camera.