The Best Thing That Can Happen to a Croissant

by Pablo Tusset

  ‘Well, do you remember how they told you that Dad had called Sebastian from the hospital after he was hit?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, that wasn’t exactly true. When Sebastian arrived at the hospital they were still taking x-rays of Dad’s leg. At that point he still hadn’t had a chance to call anyone. It was Ibarra who phoned Sebastian to tell him what had happened.’

  I waited a moment to gauge her reaction, to see if she got the drift.

  ‘The rude man?’

  ‘The very one.’

  ‘And how did he know what had happened?’

  ‘Well, that’s exactly what Dad is all worried about.’

  ‘I don’t get it. If that man is so worked up about your father, why on earth would he have bothered to tell Juan Sebastian that he got into an accident?’

  My Mother has always been even denser than I am when it comes to following movie plots. Sometimes I think that the shortcoming is hereditary. On the other hand, both of us are pretty good at inventing stories, all you have to do is listen to the excuses she dreams up to justify her Visa bills to my father. They’re worthy of a soap opera.

  ‘He wasn’t making a courtesy call, Mom. He called to make it very clear that the accident was no accident. That he was behind the whole thing.’

  ‘Good lord! Do you mean to say that he was driving the car?’

  ‘Nooo … what I mean to say is that he hired a couple of goons to scare Dad.’

  I could hear the rush of air as she sucked in her breath. She was clearly frightened now, and with good reason. Of course, it would have been far worse to have told her the truth … All right, Mom, listen: not only did they ram into Dad but someone has kidnapped Sebastian and his lover, but we can’t call the police because they’ll just make a bigger mess out of all this, and that’s why I, your wayward son, have to take charge of the situation, with the assistance of your daughter-in-law who, by the way, is sexually frigid, probably a drunk, and finds girlfriends for your irreproachable older son. No. Lying was definitely the better option. And that was what I needed, to have her sufficiently scared so that she would stay home for a couple of days. Of course I couldn’t just leave her hanging – all the Valiums in the world wouldn’t calm her down for long in that case.

  When she finally digested the information she spoke again, this time in a pained voice.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this? Don’t you think I have a right to know about this sort of thing?’

  ‘I talked it over with Dad, and he didn’t want you to get frightened. So he asked me not to say anything. He’d rather you think it was some maniacal fantasy of his.’

  ‘And how did you find out?’

  Ooh. How did I find out?

  ‘Uh … I was in Sebastian’s office when the call came in about the accident.’

  ‘But you just told me on the phone that you found out because Juan Sebastian had called you at home.’

  Beeep. Mistake.

  ‘I said that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I figured it was better to pretend I didn’t know anything until I got to talk to Dad.’

  Luckily my Mother was far too perplexed to look for inconsistencies in my line of defence.

  ‘Have you called the police?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Sebastian is taking care of that. For the moment he’s trying to trace Ibarra’s phone call in order to have something substantial to give to the police. Obviously he can’t prove anything against them, but we warned Ibarra that the police have been following his activities, and that should be enough to stop him from trying anything else against Dad. In fact, they’re most likely perfectly satisfied with having broken his leg. I doubt they’ll try to do anything else, but we just want to be sure. The whole thing should be resolved in a couple of days.’

  MH no longer seemed very interested in my explanations.

  ‘Sebastian. I have to speak with Juan Sebastian so that he can explain what the devil is really going on here.’

  Danger.

  ‘You won’t find him, Mom. He’s in Bilbao.’

  ‘Bilbao? And what in Heaven’s name, pray tell, is Juan Sebastian doing in Bilbao? For God’s sake, this sounds like some secret plot …’

  ‘He went to Bilbao specifically to look into the phone call from Ibarra. He wanted to do it himself. According to the computer connected to his office’s phone box, the call was made from Bilbao.’

  MH, just like the telemarketing girl, is one of those people who believes that computers can actually do that sort of thing.

  ‘Well, it’s all the same. I’ll call him on his mobile.’

  Shit. The mobile. In all likelihood, he still had it. In reality, I assumed that Lady First had already thought of calling him on the mobile, although I didn’t remember her mentioning it.

  ‘I don’t think he’ll answer it. I think he disconnected it, to avoid getting interrupted by the office.’

  My mother, at that point, held the phone away from her ear for a moment to call out to Beba.

  ‘Eusebia, what on Earth is going on with that Valium? I’m going to have a fit if you’ve turned against me too …’

  In the background I could hear Beba answer her.

  ‘I am not giving you one more Palium because you took the last one only two hours ago. If I give you one more you’re going to keel over. If you want I’ll make you a tea and that’s it.’

  ‘Eusebia! Don’t tell me you’re getting smart, too. Or is it just that everyone in this house has lost all respect for me?’

  I decided to get back in the fray.

  ‘Mom. Listen. You have to promise me that you won’t breathe a word about any of this to Dad, all right?’

  ‘Of course I won’t say a word. If he hasn’t deigned to tell me anything, I’m not going to let on that I know anything either … And I am still plenty ticked off that he sent me to the kitchen, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Fine. And one more thing: promise me that you’ll stay put in the house with Eusebia for a couple of days.’

  ‘Well, this afternoon I have a canasta game, but I suppose we can move it here if we have to. Good god, this is like a spy novel … It won’t be dangerous for my friends to come here, will it? Mrs Mitjans will be beside herself when she finds out.’

  ‘No, no, there’s nothing to worry about. But better not mention any of this to anyone, okay? And remember, above all, not a word to Dad. And forget about Sebastian until he gets back from Bilbao. I imagine you can survive a few days without your favourite son?’

  ‘Do me a favour and drop the sarcasm, Pablo José. I am not in the mood for your issues with Juan Sebastian … My God. I think I need a massage. Right now. I’m going to call the gym so that they can send someone up. Gonzalito, I need Gonzalito …’

  ‘That’s right. Have a sauna at home and then get a massage. And don’t worry about anything. I’ll make sure to keep you informed. D’accord?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said da-kord. All right?’

  ‘Pablo José: do you know that I find that you are behaving extremely oddly?’

  I hung up as she was about to sip her tea and call her Gonzalito, a bodybuilder with about a hundred kilos on his frame – distributed far differently from my own – and gayer than a pink satin hat. That’s the latest fad: at this rate we’re all going to end up queers. As I hung up I realised how tense I had gotten from the conversation. So I prepared another joint, flopped down on a chair and smoked it with relish before I took my second important step of the day. I looked at my reflection in the television set once again. Superficially nothing was very different. Once again it was me, in my robe, and with the same living room chaos surrounding me on all sides. Yet, nothing was the same. Everything was much worse. Or maybe much better. I’m never quite sure how those things work. The point is, everything was different now, and my inner peace had most definitely been perturbed.

  I got moving, so as not to enter a vortex of self-reflection.

 
; Out on the line, my clothes were as damp as they had been half an hour earlier. I unhooked the brown pants and a white shirt that seemed to match pretty well and brought them into the living room. In the storage room, I rummaged about for a hair dryer. Found it. It was part of the domestic equipment my mother had sent me after I had moved in to one of my father’s buildings after having gotten thrown out of my last apartment for lagging on the rent. It must have arrived along with the Corte Inglés delivery, with all those blenders, choppers, juice squeezers, electronic scales, robot dehumidifiers, gadgets for regulating the temperature of my shower gel, videotape rewinders, and all those things that my mother thought were of utmost importance to electrically domesticate her son the savage. The hairdryer, like everything else, was still unused, still in its corrugated carton box: an imposing machine, the shape of an elongated snail. It came with an attachment that allowed it to stand on its own, and I hooked the thing up: that way, as the dryer oscillated left and right, I could spread the clothes out on a chair in front of the blower and forget about the issue. Breakfast time. Steak and fried eggs, which took me half an hour to prepare and eat. After finishing, I checked in on the clothes: still wet despite the nautilus airblower. I tried with an iron. My efforts were rewarded: the shirt was rendered almost dry but the pants proved to be a bit trickier. I stopped trying, and ended up, as always, hunting through my closet for some forgotten item with which I might cover my nether regions. I opted for the bottom half of a dark-blue Dacron suit with a zipper that almost made it up to the button. With the help of a belt and a shirt with the tails sticking out, I could hide my little bang-up job and head out to the street. It was after one when I checked myself out in the vestibule. Not exactly Cary Grant, but I’d seen worse.

  It took me almost fifteen minutes to reach The First’s family home, given that I was focused on taking very tiny steps so as to prevent my zipper from opening mid-trip. But I was a man on a mission; there was no stopping me. I entered the building, beneath the suspicious gaze of the blue-bathrobed doorman, and took the lift up to the top floor. Veronica opened the door. This time her t-shirt read ‘Department of Biology’ which confirmed my hypothesis regarding her political inclinations. In her arms she carried the toothless creature whom I wasted little time in greeting. Veronica then pointed toward the kitchen and there I found Lady First coating various hake fillets in an egg-and-flour batter. She looked me up and down, rather brusquely. My fashion decision had inspired a stupefied horror that she could scarcely hide.

  ‘You cook?’ I asked, by way of a greeting.

  ‘Of course. What did you think?’

  ‘I thought that elegant people didn’t touch food with their hands.’

  ‘Whoever told you I was elegant?’

  ‘You look the type.’

  ‘Well, now you know. Can I get you something to drink?’

  ‘I could do with a beer.’

  ‘Take a look in the refrigerator – I can’t, my hands are all sticky.’

  I opened the door and hunted for the beer and glass according to her instructions and then leaned against the doorjamb observing her as she handled the fish. She seemed a little subdued. Of course, that was to be expected if the story she told me the day before was true.

  ‘All right. So tell me about these ideas that you’ve come up with.’

  I lit a cigarette to stall for time.

  ‘I think we should hire a private detective,’ I said, finally.

  She stopped what she was doing for a minute and just stared at me, her eyebrows raised.

  ‘A detective?’

  ‘Well, this is what they’re for, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea. This is not your typical infidelity case. I don’t think a detective would be useful at all.’

  I had expected some resistance to the idea, and I had already prepared a convincing argument.

  ‘Look, Gloria. I’m going to be straight with you. I don’t want anything bad to happen to my brother, but I’m not particularly interested in getting mixed up in his problems, know what I mean? So he disappeared. All right then, we have to find him, and to a certain point it’s logical that you would come to me for help. But I think the best thing we can do is turn the case over to a professional. I can’t come up with anything better than that. I already told my mother some cockamamie story to explain away his absence for a few days, so that she wouldn’t get too alarmed. And I’ll tell my father some other story if I have to – basically I’ll try to steer the trouble toward the office. But aside from that I don’t think there’s anything else that I can really do.’

  ‘What did you tell your mother?’

  ‘That Sebastian had to go to Bilbao to wrap up some business.’

  She stood there thinking for a moment.

  ‘And it didn’t strike her as strange that he didn’t stop by to see her? Sebastian goes over there every two or three days, and always before he goes away on a trip.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I already figured something out to keep her calm and quiet. I told her that you went with him, so don’t call her because as far as she’s concerned you’re in Bilbao. I thought that would make things easier for you: if she doesn’t try talking to you, you won’t have to lie to her.’ That last part was bullshit, but I thought it convenient, given the circumstances.

  ‘She didn’t ask you about the children?’

  ‘No … she must’ve assumed your parents were looking after them. Don’t they take care of them when you two go away?’

  ‘Yes, sometimes. But it’s odd that she wouldn’t ask after them.’

  ‘Well, she’s a bit frazzled, what with my father’s accident and all.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Fine. I saw him yesterday. He got distracted on the street, checking out some girl’s cleavage, and a car that was turning a corner hit him. He’s being completely impossible, but it’s nothing. He’s just grumpy because of the plaster cast.’

  ‘I would have liked to see him …’

  But I wasn’t interested in continuing the discussion about my Father’s Highness.

  ‘So, well, what do you say about the detective?’

  ‘What do you mean, what do I say? I don’t like it at all. I’d rather you look into the situation yourself. Firstly because we can’t just let any stranger go poking through Sebastian’s papers, and secondly because I don’t care to reveal the details of my marriage to anyone.’

  ‘Well, we don’t have to tell him the whole truth. And if you want, I’ll deal with going through his papers.’

  She abandoned one of her hake fillets, leaving it on the tray mid-batter, and turned to me.

  ‘I don’t get it: what use is a detective that doesn’t know what’s going on?’

  ‘There are plenty of possibilities that aren’t occurring to us. Those people know where to look, I don’t know, airports, hotels … They have contacts – with the police, for example. In two days they can cover way more than we can in a month. Plus, we can get him to tail your friend the secretary, what was her name?’

  ‘Lali.’

  ‘Lali. We can hire the detective on her account, you know, say we’re friends or family or something. That we’re worried about her. He can start sniffing down that trail, see what he comes up with. That way we can get ahead on things until the envelope you mailed arrives. Then we’ll take it from there.’

  She turned back to the flour, utterly unconvinced by my proposal.

  ‘I think it’s mad. And I don’t know … awfully contrived.’

  ‘Okay, but in any case we can’t lose anything by trying. At the worst, all we lose is the money for his fee. That was why I asked you if you had money in the house. Plus, I need some for myself. Yesterday Sebastian was supposed to have paid me for some work I did for him. How are you doing money-wise?’

  ‘I have about five hundred euros in the house. But I also have credit cards. If you want I can give you Sebastian’s cash card. I have a copy of it here, with
the PIN number, too.’

  ‘Would there be enough to pay for a detective for a couple of days plus some money for me?’

  ‘Well, it’s his pocket money, but yes, I suppose so. He usually has some extra money in the account for unexpected expenses. Take what you need and you can settle accounts with him afterwards … when he comes back.’

  ‘Perfect. Listen, one other thing. I was thinking, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for me to have a car, more than anything just in case I need to move around to do some investigating. Do you have Sebastian’s car keys?’

  ‘Which car?’

  ‘I thought you only had one car.’

  ‘No, we just bought another one, one of those SUVs, with adaptable seats, for the kids, you know …’

  ‘I’d be better off with the BMW.’

  ‘We don’t have it anymore. Sebastian treated himself to a sports car.’

  ‘Do you mind if I use that?’

  She shook her head. It seemed there was something else she was concerned about.

  ‘Listen, I’m not altogether convinced about your detective idea. What are you planning on telling him?’

  I made like I was thinking aloud.

  ‘Well, um, I don’t know … Maybe you could pretend to be Lali’s sister and I’d be her brother-in-law. You wouldn’t really have to act, just lie about a couple of minor details.’

  ‘Oh, sure. If you think lying about the two of us being married is just a minor detail …’

  ‘Well, do you have a better idea?’

  Silence. Half-turn, back to the hake filet and the batter. This was the moment to make it easy for her, convince her once and for all.

  ‘Listen, I’ll deal with calling a detective agency and making an appointment for us to meet here, all right? Trust me, I’d feel much better if we do it. How about at eight tonight?’

  Finally she relented.

  ‘All right, all right. Whatever you say.’

  ‘I’ll call you to confirm. And uh, if you don’t mind, could I get the car keys and the cash card? I have to go now, I’m a little pressed for time.’

  She rinsed her hands off and went out into the hallway toward what I imagine was the executive suite. I downed my beer as I waited for her in the kitchen, not because I was so polite but rather because I wanted to avoid the frightening prospect of running into one of her Adorable Children again. I would have loved to have seen the bedroom of Lord and Lady First – generally speaking, the conjugal bedroom offers a wealth of privileged information – but I held back. After a few minutes she returned with a La Caixa cash card and one of those remote control car keys, both of which seemed to promise great things.