by Pablo Tusset
‘I was waxing my legs,’ Fina said as she sat down. That was her excuse for arriving two hours late. She said it shyly, but that was a well-practised tactic on her part.
‘How’s your husband?’
‘He’s in Toledo. A Hewlett-Packard product demonstration.’
‘Why didn’t you go with him?’
‘I didn’t feel like it. Anyway, he’s better off going alone on those things. That way at night he can go to a topless joint with the competition and get wasted while discussing inkjet versus laser printers. If I go, I ruin the topless bit and they end up having to talk business in a regular bar.’
‘That dress is a knockout.’
It had to be said, what the fuck, why else had she spent two hours getting all dolled up?
‘You like it? It’s been in my closet forever, I just never wear it.’
‘Well, it’s not only the dress; it’s you. You’re not looking too shabby.’
‘Oh … I can’t remember the last time you said such sweet things to me.’
‘I can’t remember the last time I saw your body looking like that.’
‘Only because you haven’t tried …’
Touché. The only way out of that one was a stupid joke. I assumed the face of a fly-man wracked with bodily spasms.
‘I’m saying … I’ll hurt you if you stay.’
‘Huh?’
Fina hadn’t seen the flick. I tried again, this time with a bright-eyed-American-youngster look on my face singing in the corresponding accent.
‘Que seraaaa, seraaaa, whatever will be, will be …’
She laughed out loud this time, raising her hand to cover her mouth. When the fit subsided, she asked me to make the face again.
‘Please, please, please,’ she begged me. I said no. She insisted. I started to get nervous. She laughed even more at the idea of making me nervous … Luckily, Luigi appeared with our beers. He pulled a chair over and sat down next to Fina.
‘And your husband …?’
‘In Toleeedo.’
‘Toledo? What the hell is he doing in Toledo with a wife like you here?’
I intervened on behalf of poor José María.
‘And what the hell are you doing bothering us here with a wife like yours at home?’
‘Well, the wife I’ve got isn’t half as hot as this little lady.’
‘Next time I see her, I’ll let her know you said that.’
‘Bah. You think she doesn’t know already? So,’ he said, turning back to Fina, ‘in Toledo, huh? Well, I’m right here, you know? At your disposal for whatever you might need.’
That was when Fina decided to play the intriguing-female act.
‘Oh, really? And what sort of services are you offering?’
‘Full service. No charge.’
‘God, if that isn’t the last thing on earth anyone needs …’
‘Don’t be so sure. Men like me are in high demand.’
‘Right. For making livestock feed, for example.’
‘You stay out of this. I was talking to the young miss here.’
‘Young Mrs, if you don’t mind. I’m a married woman.’
‘Yeah, but with a husband in Toledo, that’s like having an uncle in Alcalá.’
‘He’s back on Friday, you know.’
‘That gives us two days …’
Seeing as how Luigi had his work cut out for him, I went over to the bar to get cigarettes and finish my beer. By now I was about eight or ten in and I was starting to get drunk, but the night was still very young. From the look of things, the next two hours would be occupied by Fina’s usual round of heartfelt confessions and Luigi’s subsequently lewd comments. Yes, we were in for it: Luigi was liable to come and sit at our table every chance he got between serving up sandwiches and beers. Roberto, on the other hand, always exercises a bit more restraint: he’ll come to the back occasionally to smoke a cigarette, or to answer a call on the mobile hanging from his belt, but he doesn’t make a habit of sitting down with the clientele. More regulars entered the bar and approached our table; we would then exchange a few trivialities, and if the conversation wasn’t lurid enough, they’d eventually move on. The only time Fina and I were alone was in between these interruptions, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, because conversation interruptions can sometimes actually help you keep track of whatever you’re discussing – e.g. the hen that moves forward along a white line, etc. And after all, Fina is a woman – e.g. a black hole – which means that if you don’t cling to the edge of things you’re likely to disappear forever, swallowed up by the abyss. Two-thirty in the morning had come and gone by the time we left in search of another watering hole, and that was only after the obligatory vodka shot and the comical farewell scene between Fina and Roberto and Luigi. I was actually able to pay for everything, including what I owed him from that morning, but the night-caps at the Bikini were going to have to be Fina’s treat. This was, as always, the moment when Fina would use me for support, and she hung from my arm, resting her cheek against my shoulder as we walked up Jaume Guillamet. The result of this manoeuvre is a slow, zigzagging advance which is very easily mistaken for the aimless reverie of two people in love.
‘You’re so cosy,’ she said, grabbing my deltoids with the full force of her palm.
‘Right. That’s because I’m fat. If you weren’t so fixated on losing weight you’d be cosy, too.’
‘Oh, no. I still have ten pounds to lose yet.’
‘Don’t be silly: ten pounds of tits and arse degraded by the heat that contributes to the universal entropy …’
‘The what?’
‘Do you have any idea how long it has taken nature to bestow you with those knockers you so despise? You don’t mess with the cosmic order, sweetheart.’
‘That’s only because you like fat chicks. Anyway, weren’t you the one who said I was looking so cute?’
‘Yeah. But before, you were unbelievably fucking cute. The unbelievably fucking is exactly what you lost.’
That night I very purposefully guided our steps toward Jaume Guillamet, crossing diagonally to save the extra walk around to the traffic light at Travessera. Inevitably, of course, I focused my attention on the house at number fifteen, with its brick wall and its little garden, and as we passed in front of it I noticed something.
‘Wait a second,’ I said to Fina, as I tried to disentangle myself. I circled round the car that was parked in front of the entrance and as I separated the tall grass in front, I looked at the lamp post that rose up alongside it. Once again, there was a red rag tied to the post, only this time it was fully clean, as if it were brand-new.
I don’t know what possessed me at that moment – alcohol-fuelled humour, I suppose – but I untied the rag from the post and tied it around Fina’s neck, and we continued to walk up the street.
‘Danger: top-heavy frontal load,’ I joked, in a Magilla Gorilla voice.
Fina laughed her head off. I did too, but not that much, really, because there’s a limit to how much you can believe in chance occurrences like that red-rag thing. Of course, looking back now, it wasn’t until the following day that the real paranoia set in.
VENISON LIVER PATÉ
My alarm rang. It had to be my alarm: what else could make such a horrendously cacophonous bleeping noise? My operating system, however, is calibrated so as not to wake up quite so easily. I am filming a saga of slumberous events: onscreen is a vast meadow of white, an infinitely long sheet of white paper. Tiny lightning rays that are somehow more like little baby tornadoes fall slowly down upon the paper ground, perforating it. At first they come down weakly and are widely-spaced, a slight annoyance that forces me to move forward carefully so as not to sink my foot into a hole. But the rain continues its attack, and the floor grows more and more pockmarked, making my advance more and more difficult.
Total anxiety. I slam down on the alarm clock.
I was lying in bed, uncovered, with my shirt still on and my pants only halfw
ay down. At least I had made it into the bed, the beginning and end of all my travels. But I had actually managed to set the alarm clock. Now I faced a truly desolate bedroom panorama. Brutal hangover. Headache. Burning in the stomach. And many holes, including Fina, the blackest of them all. Then there were all those borzogs that perforated the ground with their bionic legs; and then the thunder of a million drills being drilled into my head. Finally I made it to another hole – the drain in the sink, to whose spout I clung with desperate thirst. Twelve o’clock. The best thing that can happen to a hunk of butter is to get spread on a croissant. But there were no croissants to be had. There’s always something missing. Thursday June 18, the International Day of Non-Existence. My only consolation was the thought that I was about to collect the rest of that money from my brother and so I shaved, drank some coffee, smoked a joint, put on the previous night’s clothes and walked out into the street in an attempt to adjust my life to something that might seem something like a movie script: action, dialogue, and as little brain-wasting as possible.
Luigi was already up and ready for action.
‘Up at the crack of dawn, eh?’
‘No talking. Please. A coffee, if you don’t mind.’
‘What time did you get to bed?’
‘No idea.’
‘So you didn’t get any action …’
‘Don’t fuck with me today, Luigi, I’ve got to go to my parents’ house and I have to get in the mood, you know?’
‘You really must be low on cash, huh.’
‘No, it’s my father. He broke his leg. So listen, I got to go, have to stop by the office to settle an account. I’ll pay you later, OK?’
Luckily it wasn’t too sunny and I was able to arrive at Miralles & Miralles without having to jump around looking for the shady side of the street. But as I climbed the staircase, each step I took pounded away at my temples. At the reception desk, as always, was Maria.
‘Is my brother visible?’
I looked up toward the glass wall in front of his office. I couldn’t see him through the metal blinds; the light wasn’t even on in there.
‘He didn’t come in this morning. It looks like today is absence day for everyone …’
‘He hasn’t come in at all?’
The news came as such a shock that I didn’t register the ‘absence day’ bit, so very parallel to my International Day of Non-Existence and the proliferation of giant holes everywhere around me.
‘Your sister-in-law called in. He’s sick. Flu, or something like that. She said he had a high fever, couldn’t even get out of bed. He must be pretty bad.’
‘And how do you all plan to get by without His Excellence?’
‘Who knows? Everything here has to pass through his office. For the moment, Pumares is stalling everything he can. And to complicate matters, your brother’s secretary hasn’t turned up, either. Didn’t even call in.’
I left Maria with her telephones and left the office in a foul mood. All I had left in my pocket was a bit of loose change and so, not knowing exactly where to go, I took a walk around the block. After briefly weighing my options, I decided to go to my parents’ house first and then pay the obligatory visit to my Poor Sick Brother afterward. I knew he had to have money at home – he always has a fairly healthy wad of bills in his wallet, not to mention his Magnificent Credit Card. For the moment, I couldn’t face the prospect of either my Father’s Highness or my Mother’s Highness – much less the two of them together, the double attack – and so I detoured at my apartment just long enough to fire up a joint and shake some of the hangover out of my system. I sat on the couch and as I smoked I prepared another joint in anticipation of the ten-minute martyrdom that lay between me and my parents’ house.
The main residence of my illustrious parents rises up above the western fringes of the Diagonal and takes up the two top floors of one of the poshest buildings in the neighbourhood. You’d have to get to the heart of Pedralbes to find something comparable in attitude and status. The doorman wears a uniform with a silver cap, to give you an idea of things. Mariano Altaba is his name – that is, Mr Altaba according to my father’s standards for addressing staff: always in the formal, always with utmost respect. I guess this is what makes him feel less guilty when they hand-deliver him his mail and carry out his trash in exchange for a salary that barely amounts to his subscription to Hunting & Fishing magazine. My father is one of those people who feels guilty for having money, but not so guilty to want to give it up.
Mariano (or rather Mr Altaba) was not alone. His companion was a massive uniformed security guard who gave me a good once-over; it appeared he wasn’t quite sure what to make of me. Clearly the building’s Distinguished Residents’ Committee had resolved that their geostationary satellite alarm system was not enough to protect themselves against the great unwashed. Luck was on my side, though: Mariano made the appropriate gestures indicating that he knew me and the jury set me free.
‘Pablo, boy, what kind of rumpus are you concocting these days?’
He didn’t even bother putting on the little silver cap that he takes off when nobody’s there. I only lived with my parents in that flat for a couple of years, from age sixteen to eighteen, but Mariano surely still remembers the situations I would cook up in the summertime, when the old folks would decamp to Llavaneras with Beba and their Magnificent Oldest Child, leaving me in peace and in charge of their winter residence. I responded to his greeting with a cordial pleasantry and went upstairs in one of those lifts that leave your balls hanging suspended in mid-air every time the brake starts to kick in. I remember one especially insane night when we went behind the Barsa football stadium in search of a hooker willing to jerk Quico off in that supersonic vertical vehicle. We ended up having to hire two girls because nobody was willing to go off alone with three guys. Our brilliant idea was that Quico would come just as the lift lurched to a halt. We made three attempts in half an hour and finally hit bingo on the third try. The negative, though, was that everything got all gunked up and we had to spray the mirror with Windex to clean it all off. The very same mirror in which I now found myself reflected, fifteen years older, sixty pounds chubbier and perhaps, after all is said and done, a bit wiser.
I reached the fourteenth and final floor, got out and rang the service bell. I knew Beba would answer it anyway, so I figured I would save her the trip to the front door. She was having a bit of trouble with her legs lately.
‘Pablito!’
‘Beba!’
‘Ohh, look how tubby you’ve gotten!’
‘Only to keep up with you, Pussycat. Gimme a hug.’
I grabbed her and even tried to pick her up and give her a little spin, though without success. I got her about halfway up, an effort which made her giggle.
‘Pablo! You’re going to drop me!’
I let go. She grabbed my hand and brought it to her lap – Beba has a lap, even when she’s standing up – and dragged me into the kitchen. As I walked past the ironing room I recognised the maid of the moment – it was the same girl who was there the last time I came around, which surprised me. About twenty years old. Still holding on to me, Beba pulled out two chairs and we sat there face to face, hand-width apart.
‘Now, when was the last time you came to see us, stranger?’
‘I think I came by at Christmas.’
‘What? And it’s already the end of June. Bad, bad boy. You came to see your father?’
‘Yeah. Well, to see everyone. But they told me that my old man got pretty banged up.’
‘Mmmm … don’t be difficult, he’s in one of his moods …’
‘And Mom?’
‘The same as always. Seems she’s taken up French lessons.’
‘Wasn’t she doing some furniture restoration thing?’
‘She dropped it. She couldn’t take the smell of the varnish. Said it gave her migraines. I mean, migraines, for God’s sake. She’s gone mad, totally mad. Now she’s doing French. She bought a computer with d
isks that talk and so now the one who’s gone mad is your father. Don’t go telling him I said that, but …’
