The Tenant and The Motive

by Javier Cercas

  In August he took up his new position. He didn’t like the university or the department to which he was assigned. Nevertheless, since he knew he’d be staying there for a while, he hastened to make friends, something he managed almost immediately, thanks more than anything to the open and congenial disposition of the rest of the professors in the department.

  On one of the first days of the semester a graduate student burst into his office. She was of medium height, with long straight hair, dishevelled in an orderly manner, blue eyes and fleshy cheeks. She was wearing a lilac T-shirt that strove to contain the vigour of her full breasts, and a white miniskirt, which trimmed her hips and revealed her pale, somehow childish legs. Her name was Ginger Kloud. They spoke for a while; Mario noticed her eyes shone and guessed she was about twenty-five years old. When she left his office, Mario had agreed to supervise her thesis.

  Ginger attended one of Mario’s classes. They chatted often. He treated her in a slightly off-hand but flirtatious manner: he was aware of being rather attractive to her, and this fact, perhaps paradoxically, flattered him at the same time as it made him feel uncomfortable.

  At the beginning of October Ginger invited him to a party at her house. They drank whisky, danced, smoked marijuana, chatted.

  The next day, when he woke up, Ginger was still at his side.

  From then on they saw each other frequently outside of class. Mario, in spite of that, still kept a certain distance between them. At first that attitude came naturally to him: he did not want to fall into another emotional dependency. Later he cultivated it consciously, because he observed that distance was an instrument of domination: Ginger would continue to be dependent on him as long as he kept it up. He also discovered that the situation afforded him a constant well-being and brought back the balance he’d lost when he separated from Lisa: he enjoyed all the benefits of Ginger’s devotion and withdrew from all the concessions and subjugation that investing his affection in her would have entailed. At the beginning Ginger readily agreed to the tacit conditions Mario had imposed: she declared that she didn’t want their relationship to go any further than close friendship. Later, although she still told him about the occasional affairs of the heart she found herself involved in, she began to complain of the scant attention Mario paid her and the inconsiderate way he treated her. Finally, since she was unable to overcome the barrier he’d placed between the two of them, she became obsessed with Mario: in a single evening, with barely a transition, she would sleep with him, get annoyed, cry, contradict herself, insult him and leave the house slamming the door behind her, while Mario took refuge behind an indifferent silence. Hours later a telephone call from Mario would reconcile them.

  This went on for almost a year.

  The night before Mario left for Italy on vacation, they went out to dinner. He thought as they said goodbye that he was going to miss her.

  During the month-long vacation he missed her: he wrote her a postcard from Nice and another from Amsterdam, where the airplane made a stopover, as well as several letters from Turin. In one of them he wrote: ‘It’s as if I’m condemned always to want what I don’t have and never to want what I have. Managing to get something is enough to make me lose interest in it. I suppose that ambition is born of things like this, but I’m not even ambitious: I lack the energy to desire constantly.’ In another letter he confessed: ‘I’m only capable of appreciating something once I’ve lost it.’

  By the second week in Turin he wished Ginger had come with him. At one moment he thought he was in love with her. Another time he told himself he’d soon be thirty and, if he were to get married again, Ginger was undoubtedly the right person.

  By the time he landed in Chicago, back from his vacation, he’d decided to propose to Ginger.

  XIII

  The next morning Branstyne came by his house at nine-thirty to pick him up. Mario heard a car horn, looked out the window of his study, saw a car and went out.

  ‘How’s the ankle?’ asked Branstyne, turning left from University Avenue on to Goodwin.

  ‘Fine,’ answered Mario. ‘Sometimes I get the impression that when they take the bandage off and the crutch away I won’t be able to walk.’

  Branstyne smiled. ‘When does it come off?’

  ‘They told me to go back on Sunday,’ Mario explained, ‘but I’ll probably go before that. I think the swelling’s gone down.’

  Branstyne dropped him off at the door of Lincoln Hall. Mario thanked him for bringing him that far.

  ‘If you want, I can come by your place at the same time tomorrow,’ said Branstyne. ‘I’ve got another class at ten.’

  Mario accepted. They said goodbye.

  He went into Lincoln Hall. The corridors were crammed full of students. He went up to the second floor and into Room 225: some students were already waiting for the class to begin. Mario sat down behind the teacher’s desk, which was on a wooden platform, leaned the crutch against it and took some papers out of his briefcase. When the bell rang, twenty-four pairs of eyes were upon him.

  He introduced himself. In a confusing way he explained the course outline he proposed to follow and the evaluation methods he’d be using. Then he opened the floor to questions; since there weren’t any, he concluded the class. The students began to leave. As he was putting the papers he’d taken out of his briefcase back into it, he noticed a young woman with bulging eyes and red hair was looking at him mockingly as she passed his desk. For a second he was sure he’d seen her somewhere before, thought he was about to recognise her, but couldn’t. By the door the young woman joined another student, shorter and thicker-set than her, and both of them burst out laughing. He couldn’t help feeling slightly ridiculous. He finished collecting his things and left.

  In the Quad (a vast square of grass enclosed by the university buildings and criss-crossed by cement paths that joined one building to another), under a hard, brilliant sun, reigned the usual quiet of class time: just here and there the odd student, dressed in shorts and baggy T-shirts, sat in the sun or talked with eyes half closed. Others read leaning up against tree trunks; others threw baseballs or plastic disks that glided lazily just above the lawn; very few walked along the cement paths. These last, however, as soon as the bell marking the end of class rang, turned into a heaving throng of students hurrying towards the building where their next lecture was: then the air filled with shouts, music, conversations, greetings. When the bell rang ten minutes later, this time marking the beginning of the next class, the Quad went back to being like a millpond.

  Mario entered the foreign languages building. He went up to the fourth floor, picked up his mail from the main office and went to his office. Neither Olalde nor Hyun were there. He arranged books and papers in the desk drawers, on the shelves, in the filing cabinet. Then he went to Ginger’s office and knocked at the door: no one answered. In the main office he found Swinczyc, who offered to drive him home. Mario accepted.

  He phoned Ginger from his apartment. He suggested they have lunch together. ‘I want to talk to you,’ he said. Ginger came to pick him up half an hour later. They went to Timpone’s.

  ‘What did you want to talk to me about?’ asked Ginger, her eyes glued to the menu.

  ‘Nothing special,’ Mario admitted. ‘I just thought we could chat for a while. It’s been quite difficult lately.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ginger agreed. ‘The truth is I’ve been pretty busy. The start of term is always like that.’

  The waiter came over; they both ordered steak and salad. Ginger was wearing a brown leather skirt and a very loose-fitting pink shirt; her shiny hair flowed over her shoulders. Mario thought: She looks lovely. He went on with the interrupted conversation, saying without resentment, ‘Me, on the other hand, I’ve got more free time than ever.’ He paused, then added, ‘Scanlan has taken two of my courses away.’

  ‘And he’s given them to Berkowickz,’ Ginger continued for him. ‘Branstyne told me, but it didn’t take a genius to predict it.’

 
‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Since he didn’t want to argue, Mario changed the subject. Ginger was soon talking about the party at Scanlan’s house, about the possibility of finishing her thesis that very year, of the interest Berkowickz had shown in her, the suggestions he’d given her. Then she brought up the possibility of applying to the department for a grant; if she got one she could give up the classes she was teaching and devote all her time to her research. When they finished eating, Mario tried to take her hand; she pulled it away.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Mario, looking her in the eye. ‘Everything’s been going wrong since I got back.’

  ‘As far as I remember it was never going well.’ Ginger’s voice sounded different now, thinner.

  ‘In one month you’ve changed.’

  ‘I’ve changed.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You said it.’

  ‘Why don’t you leave off the verbal fencing and tell me once and for all what’s the matter?’

  ‘I’ve changed,’ Ginger said again. ‘I don’t love you any more.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘I don’t love you,’ she repeated with more conviction, as if urging herself on. ‘And I don’t want to go back to things as they were.’

  ‘Everything will be different now.’

  ‘It’ll be exactly the same,’ she said. ‘And even if it were different it doesn’t matter. I don’t love you any more. And I don’t want to talk about this again.’

  They paid and left.

  XIV

  Wednesday after class (he’d finished before time because he felt tired, weak and maybe a bit uncomfortable or embarrassed by the bandage and the crutch leaning against the blackboard), he went home by bus. When he alighted on West Oregon he noticed a young woman with bulging eyes waving to him from a parked car on the other side of the road. At first he thought it was the redheaded student whose attitude had disconcerted him the previous day, at the end of class; as he crossed the street he realized it wasn’t her.

  ‘Sorry,’ the young woman apologized when Mario was a few feet from the car. ‘I thought you were someone else.’

  Mario thought he’d experienced a similar situation that week, but he couldn’t remember when. He thought: Everything repeats itself.

  After lunch he took a nap. He woke up with his mouth feeling furry and a faint buzzing in his temples. In the bathroom a face criss-crossed by pillow lines looked back from the mirror. He washed his face and brushed his teeth, then made coffee. In the dining room, he tried to read, but soon realized it was futile: he couldn’t concentrate. He went to the kitchen, opened a can of beer, turned on the television and stretched out on the couch. He switched from one channel to another with the remote control, without spending much time on any of them. At about six he thought he heard footsteps and voices on the landing. He turned the volume on the television down as low as it could go, got up off the couch, held his breath and pressed his eye against the peephole in the door: he didn’t see anyone, but he heard a hushed noise, of music or conversation, coming from Berkowickz’s apartment. He went back to lying on the couch, turned the television back up, and went back to switching from channel to channel. After a while he got tired of the TV. He went to his study and pushed one of the armchairs over to the window at the front of the building, on West Oregon: pouring through the window came a clear light, not yet rusted by the setting sun.

  He tried to read. A while later, lifting his eyes from the book, he saw David and Joan Scanlan parking their car in front of the building. Instinctively he moved the chair back from the window and hid. Scanlan and his wife entered Mario’s building. He thought: They’re going to Berkowickz’s place. He went to the dining room carefully, taking a little weight on the injured foot, so as not to make a noise with the crutch. He looked out through the peephole and saw Scanlan and Joan knocking on the door across the hall. Berkowickz opened straight away and invited them in. Later he saw Swinczyc and his wife arrive, Branstyne and Tina, Deans, Wojcik and several other professors; he also saw a couple of graduate students go in.

  It was completely dark when he guessed that all the guests had arrived at Berkowickz’s party. Mario went to the kitchen, opened a bottle of Chablis, stretched out on the couch and turned the TV back on; for a while he sat there smoking and drinking. He thought that at some point it might occur to Branstyne, or to Swinczyc, or to Berkowickz himself, to knock on his door and invite him to join the party. Then he sprang up, turned off the television and the lights in the kitchen, his study and the dining room. He sat back down on the couch, in the dark, glass of wine in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. A faint grey light came in through the windows; each time he took a drag on his cigarette the ember lit up his face momentarily. Some time passed, after which he heard voices on the landing, maybe recognising Tina’s. They knocked on the door. He held his breath, kept still. He heard Branstyne’s voice: ‘He must’ve gone out.’ Someone whose voice he didn’t recognise made some comment. He thought he heard laughter, and then a door slamming. Almost immediately he heard noise on the landing again. He stealthily sneaked over to the door, looked out through the peephole: he saw Phyllis, Swinczyc’s wife, and Tina carrying glasses and bottles; Ginger was carrying a tray behind them. For some reason he wasn’t surprised to see her. I bet she was the first to arrive, he thought.

  He realized the party was moving out on to the porch. Hopping on one leg he reached his study, opened the window that gave on to West Oregon – beneath which, covered by a wide overhang, was the porch – and raised the screen. He sat in the armchair and got ready to listen. At first the voices mingled together indiscriminately. Later, listening more closely, he distinguished, or thought he distinguished, Scanlan’s voice, then Berkowickz’s: unanimous laughter blended them all again. A moment later he made out some of what Berkowickz was saying about a conference. He mentioned some well-known names, joked at the expense of a professor with an unpronounceable surname, then a lump of different voices cancelled out Berkowickz’s. Mario went to the dining room, grabbed the bottle of Chablis, a glass, an ashtray and his cigarettes. When he sat back down by the window, an absolute silence reigned on the porch, broken only by the occasional cars that passed by on the road. Then he began to hear Scanlan’s voice clearly: with a sort of friendly conviction he spoke of the efforts he’d been making to raise the level of the department. He said he was confident he could count on everyone’s support, for everyone would benefit from the department becoming a centre of excellence. He affirmed that the only way of achieving this was to raise the level of the teaching staff, selecting rigorously and subjecting degrees of competence, one way or another, to periodic tests that would oblige everyone to remain at a high level. He assured them that, in spite of the fact that contracts currently in effect required professors to deliver a series of publications before the department would renew their contracts or offer a permanent position, they all knew this proceeding had up till then been discharged with an undoubtedly excessive tolerance, which was ultimately as prejudicial to the department as to the individual involved. Finally, he declared that at the next committee meeting he intended to present a concrete project reflecting all those demands. From here on in, he concluded, he hoped to begin a new era.

  Mario heard Berkowickz and Swinczyc enthusiastically supporting Scanlan’s proposal; he also heard Branstyne doing so. Then other voices joined these. The conversation split in two, multiplied into meanders, until he could only catch unconnected snippets of it. At one moment (but later he thought he really couldn’t be sure), Mario heard Berkowickz say his name, and then Swinczyc’s nervous laugh.

  At ten-thirty the guests began to leave; Ginger was the last to go.

  XV

  The next day he woke up at eight. He shaved, took a shower with his left leg wrapped in a plastic bag and had just a cup of coffee for breakfast. Branstyne came to pick him up at nine-thirty.

  ‘How’s the a
nkle?’ he asked, turning left from University Avenue on to Goodwin.

  ‘Better,’ answered Mario. ‘It’s just a couple more days now.’

  ‘Last night a bunch of us got together at Berkowickz’s house,’ said Branstyne. ‘We called on you, but you weren’t in.’

  ‘I went out to run some errands and didn’t get back till late,’ Mario claimed. Then, as if to shake off the uncomfortable silence that had settled over the car, he asked, ‘How was it?’

  Branstyne talked about the party until he stopped the car in front of Lincoln Hall. Mario thanked him for bringing him that far. Branstyne said, ‘I’ll come and get you at seven tonight.’

  Mario looked bewildered. Lifting his left hand off the steering wheel and raising his eyebrows, Branstyne added, ‘We’ll sample Tina’s fettuccini and have a bit of a chat while we’re at it.’

  Mario tried to hide the fact that he’d forgotten about the dinner invitation.

  ‘Come by whenever you like,’ he said. ‘I’m not going anywhere this afternoon.’

  After giving his lecture (once again he couldn’t fill the fifty minutes, and before the bell sounded, he’d dismissed the class) he went to the department office. In his cubbyhole was a note signed by Scanlan, who wanted to speak to him as soon as possible.

  He was just about to knock on the boss’s door when he heard Joyce’s voice behind him. ‘Professor Scanlan’s busy.’

  Mario turned around. The secretary smiled. Her lips were painted an extremely bright red, which stood out against the whitish pallor of her face and the straw-coloured blonde of her hair; a blue silk ribbon, with white polka dots, held her hair almost at the top of her head, in a sort of ponytail; her hairless brows contributed to giving her a vaguely fishy or reptilian air. Without giving him a single chance to interrupt, answering the questions she herself was posing, gesturing slowly but copiously, Joyce asked about Mario’s ankle and told him about the case of a friend of Winnie’s who’d suffered a similar mishap. Then she changed the subject. She talked openly about Winnie: how she’d been accepted at the University of Iowa, how very young she was to be going to university, that she had a boyfriend called Mike. At some point she assured him that, even though it wouldn’t be necessary until winter arrived, they were already making arrangements to get the heating fixed in Mario’s office. Only when she asked about Olalde did he get the impression that the secretary was waiting for an answer. He could not, however, be certain: just then Scanlan’s office door opened. Berkowickz came out, his face glowing with energy. His lips widened into a smile of solid satisfaction. Under Scanlan’s gaze he greeted Mario with a sportive gesture.