by Pablo Tusset
For the intrepid web surfer who chose to load the page despite the ominous warning, the site had another initiation test prepared. Once the adagio was through, a chorus of voices came on singing ‘worm, worm, worm’, like a voodoo club about to sacrifice someone amid the echoes of their otherworldy howls. The screen had morphed into a black background with red and gold cabalistic symbols, and the visitor who wished to continue was asked to fill out a personal information form. Once finished, ‘Worm’ would send a password to the email address provided on the form. This tactic is pretty standard practice for dissuading the majority of visitors – people don’t usually like giving out their email addresses just like that. I, however, have a collection of mail accounts at a variety of different servers, and it’s about equal to the number of fake names I use on the street, so no problemo, as they say. I filled in the blanks – Pablo Molucas, thirtysomething years old, a fictitious Barcelona address, a random telephone number, [email protected] – and hit enter. Instantly a dialogue box popped up saying ‘OK.’ In a few minutes, it said, I would receive a message with a password. I opened up another Navigator window and went to Hotmail, entered pmolucas and my password, and checked my In Box. Nothing had arrived yet.
I poured myself another coffee and lit a joint to kill time. It was almost hot. For the first time since the previous autumn I opened the living room window, and a mixture of air, carbon monoxide, and heavy industrialised metal fumes wafted into the room. After a few seconds the entire room smelled like bus exhaust fumes – but they were fresh, comforting fumes, and the atmosphere that had hung in the room for the past winter in comparison seemed downright stale. I love the smell of Barcelona – I don’t know how people can survive in the country, with all that raw air drilling away at your lungs. I felt so content that I stood there and leaned out the window for the duration of the joint. Twilight in late June. Above the death rattle of the traffic, I could already hear the sound of a few firecrackers that some kids, unable to wait for the San Juan holiday, had fired off. Actually, I’m not a big fan of firecrackers, or fireworks, or any of those pyrotechnical displays that supposedly bring us back to the ancestral rites of traditional sun-worship, or some such bullshit. They always seem so progressive and modern to me, all that pseudo-populist paraphernalia.
I returned to the Hotmail window and refreshed. I had one email waiting in my In Box. ‘re: Worm Key’ it said. I opened it and read the following message: ‘Tell the WORM you are pmolucas_worm.’
All that mystery, and this was it? Anyway. I went back to the page with the chorus of ghouls and entered ‘pmolucas_worm’ in the little box, though it only led me to the third step in the initiation process. This was all starting to feel like an Indiana Jones movie, and so I decided to give them exactly fifteen more minutes of my time – any more and they could all to go to hell. This time, a message appeared telling me that if I wanted to continue on the site I had to read a text passage and answer a series of questions about what I had read. First I looked at the questions, to see if they could be answered without reading the thing, and despite the fact that the possible answers were limited by a drop-down menu with multiple-choice answers, they all made references to very common first names and asked for specific facts relating to a story I had never heard of before. For example, what Lord Henry was carrying in his hand when he met the Queen. That sort of thing, twenty questions in all. I tried first by picking answers at random from the drop-down menus, but when I hit enter, all I got was an unequivocal ‘Read The Stronghold and try again’, and was then returned to the questionnaire page. The Stronghold was the text they wanted you to read in the earlier frame. I wasn’t very sure what ‘stronghold’ was supposed to mean, and so I clicked on the right-hand button on my mouse to enlist some help from the Babylon translator. ‘Fortress,’ it said, or ‘strong fort.’ Very interesting. For the moment, I chose to click on the link that said ‘Download The Stronghold, 1kb’, and saved it on my hard drive. Once the transfer was complete, I disconnected and opened it in Word: seventy pages of text, divided into stanzas. Too many. I thought about skimming over a few verses onscreen, figuring I could avoid reading the entire thing. I had my reasons: I was hungry, I had a Magnificent Brother to rescue, and this wasn’t exactly the time to dive into a discourse of esoteric gibberish, most especially if it was written in that convoluted English pock-marked with unintelligible monster words. But there was no way around it: even before I got through half a page, I got the sense that I had hit the bulls-eye with this one.
It went something like this: rainy night, someone arrives at the door to a citadel. The entrance has an awning that protects the visitor from the rain, an iron doorknocker in the shape of a hand curled around a ball, blah, blah, blah, four or five other atmospheric details and then – attention, please – a red rag tied to the lantern that illuminates the threshold.
Very coincidental. Too coincidental. So I had no other choice but to fill up the paper tray and print the entire document. It would easily be half an hour before it was ready, but I decided to be patient and wait to have it all down on paper so as not to waste away my eyes on that medievalesque madness.
In the meantime, I sat down in the living room to think about how in the hell I was going to spend the following few hours. I had to eat something. I always have to eat something. Sometimes this is a marvellous thing because I actually feel like it, but other times it is nothing more than the bother of an empty stomach, or else the signs of physical weakness forcing me to interrupt my drinking or smoking or some other enjoyable activity. One thing is for sure, though: when I have money in my pocket it’s always easier to resolve the matter. And at that particular moment I had money. All I had to do was get myself over to a restaurant and order. The Vellocino de Oro, for example – why not? I might even be able to find something else out about my Magnificent Brother, who seemed to have been abducted by a cult of fanatics – worm, worm, worm, etc. Clearly it would be better to show up with a date. Preferably a woman. When attempting to get information out of a waiter, it’s always far less suspicious when you do it as a couple, and in any event it’s always more entertaining than eating alone. Fina, though, was not a possibility – eating two days in a row with her could very well prove slightly indigestible, and if my memory served me right, it was Saturday, a likely reconciliation day with good old José María.
The more plausible alternative, then, was Lady First. With her, it would be even easier to get in good with the restaurant staff. They knew her: her, her husband, and her husband’s lover. The Lalala trio.
I went back over to the phone and rang her.
‘You were right: Vell Or is a restaurant.’
‘I figured as much.’
‘Listen, I was thinking maybe we could go there for dinner. That way you can get out of the house and at the same time try and find out if Sebastian and Lali were there after I last spoke to him. What do you say?’
‘Well, the children … Veronica leaves here soon, at seven.’
‘Why not just ask her to stay until midnight? Afterwards, if you want, I can drive her home.’
‘On a Friday? She must have some kind of plans for tonight.’
‘Ask her.’
She moved away from the phone for a moment and I waited. From the sound of her voice, she seemed kind of amused by the invitation. After all, she had been holed up in that apartment for three days already.
‘Pablo. Veronica says all right.’
We agreed that I would pick her up at ten. That gave me four hours to kill. I hung up and sat there, staring at The First’s mobile. Would I be able to get all the information I needed out of that thing, all alone, no instruction manual? Where the hell had I seen another model like it? I tried to visualise the scene. Suddenly a hairy hand came into view, rubbing it with a delicate touch, a thick silver ring on the thumb, short beard around a pair of lips just like Edward G. Robinson’s. I even thought I could make out a strange accent, a voice kind of like Cantinflas … ah, that was
it. Roberto. That resolved the telephone issue, but it was a task I knew I should leave for later. Right now, my time would be better spent by taking a look at the text that my printer was currently spitting out.
And so that was what I did.
I should point out – now that we are getting to know each other, you probably expect as much – that ever since I decided to repress my bourgeois interests in literature, reading has become a terrific bore. In fact, advertising is about the only thing capable of providing me with some degree of aesthetic satisfaction, as well as a profound sense of moral well-being, a kind of spiritual peace. I say this to give an idea of how unexcited I was about reading that damn document all in one go, and to warn you that I have no intention of summarising the insane story that I so copiously read that day for the first time. Moreover, in the last few months I have had to bust my arse reading the thing so closely that I could practically repeat it word for word if I had to, and if I manage to record the conclusion of this story, perhaps it will be clear why. And anyway, at this point I am completely saturated by the thing. I will only say that it recounts the trials and tribulations of Lord Henry, a young gentleman who, one rainy evening, arrives at the door of the Fortress, grabs the red rag hanging from a post and knocks on the door. From there, he enters this edification, a kind of castle of infinite dimensions, and embarks on a Kafka-esque plot which includes only six characters, strongly archetypal ones at that: the King, the Queen, the Wizard, the Troubadour, Lord Henry (who turns out to be a kind of crown prince) and a Lady Sheila (who functions as the betrothed princess). Of course, the infinite fortress immediately reminded me of Mr Kurtz and the knitting brigade, which only served to confirm, once again, the oracular quality of my dream life, but it also reminded me of something else, something even more important. It was extremely obvious that this entire, absurd tale only had meaning when seen as an allegory, and in that case the various episodes could be interpreted as the exposition of a series of historical-philosophical systems, specifically in their more metaphysical variants. The odd thing, though, was that the writing did seem genuinely medieval, and as I read it I half-expected the author to start in with the Ionic philosophers and end up around Francis Bacon (or Kant, in the event the author was a guy with a vision for the future). But no: he continued on for centuries and centuries, all the way down to Russell, Wittgenstein, and even further on. But – attention, please – how much further can you get than Wittgenstein?, the pre-university student may ask. Well, for example, John Gallagher and Pablo Miralles (as opposed to Baloo, who is more a moralist than a strict metaphysic). I don’t mean to get heavy but, to give an example, toward the end of the poem I found something very evocative of a certain Theory of Communication whose defence had forced an extremely renowned Semiotics guru (who can’t bear people who disagree with him) to leave the Metaphysics Club, indignant. Pure avant-garde. And in verse, no less. Signed by some guy named Geoffrey de Brun.
Seriously flabbergasted, I tried to make some sense out of my thoughts – I had been reading for three hours straight, smoking one joint after the other, not to mention the Cardhu-and-aspirin breakfast. I reread, at random, some verses in an attempt to find the trap, but my English is exclusively contemporary and as soon as something sounds vaguely like Laurence Olivier doing Hamlet, it’s instantly medieval to me. The next step, then, was clear: I would have to send the thing to John and ask him to read it and, if he found something strange about the narrative form, ask him to send it on to someone able to perform some serious linguistic stomach-pumping on the document.
At that, I got up from the sofa, approached the computer, rapidly wrote out a message for John and attached The Stronghold to the email. I logged on, sent it to him, and then returned to the sofa to light my umpteenth joint. It was eight in the evening. I had over an hour to kill. I was thirsty, so I got up with the intention of going into the kitchen for something to drink, but after a second my arse was back down on the sofa, victim of a sudden drop in blood pressure. And since fainting, to me, is an unacceptable manifestation of weakness, I took advantage of the moment instead to take a little twilight nap in the living room and save my image just in case anyone had installed secret cameras in my living room.
Appearances have to be kept up. In the end, they’re all we’ve got.
THE INCORRUPT ARM OF ST CECILIA
There is something magnificent about falling asleep, but there is also something equally grand about waking up, feeling that the world is, in some way, a new place. To be awake all the time must be utter madness: I heard somewhere that a cat subjected to sleep-deprivation torture will eventually develop suicidal tendencies. I don’t know if that has been proven, but I believe it. And if it hasn’t been proven, it wouldn’t be due to a flawed hypothesis, but rather a flawed cat that simply didn’t fulfil it. I know that, so it is, as John would say.
I was starving, but my brief siesta had at least restored some of my strength. Eight-thirty. Definitely enough time to take a shit. Then I felt like showering again. Clearly, I had gotten caught in some kind of compulsive hygiene cycle. Well, whatever: it wasn’t anything serious, so I gave in to it. Anyway, dinner with Lady First at a twenty-five-star restaurant definitely called for a bit of personal grooming and outfitting and I actually dedicated a whole minute to selecting the shirt I would wear. I had already used the black and the aubergine, which left seven immaculate specimens from which to choose – plus the Hawaiian number, but that didn’t seem appropriate for the occasion. I tried the orange one, and the man I saw reflected in the mirror was none too shabby-looking: I looked like I could be the Flintstones’ gas-meter guy. Or no, better yet – Bill Gates’s gas-meter guy. I even rehearsed a few rapper moves, as if I were some dude arguing with a traffic cop in the middle of the Bronx. Then I recited the Our Father in English, as an improvised underground rap lyric. I knew my histrionic side would come out sooner or later – I have to eat, crap, sleep and act like an idiot at least once a day. If not, I start feeling under the weather. I can go without drinking, on the other hand, for up to forty-eight hours, and without fucking, much more.
I gave myself a splash of the expensive cologne and went out to the street, remembering to bring with me The First’s mobile and the keys to the Beast.
I made my way to Luigi’s bar at a leisurely pace.
Roberto had already begun the night shift.
‘Roberto, you wouldn’t happen to have one of these walkie-talkie things, would you?’
He craned his neck a bit to see what I was talking about and nodded yes.
‘Uh-huh,’ he said.
‘And does it have a memory that saves the calls it receives, like with the number and everything?’
This marked the beginning of a lengthy discourse on the topic. I can’t reproduce it exactly because I didn’t understand most of what he said, but I do recall him discussing the differences between receiving a call from a regular phone, from a mobile (pre-pay or monthly calling plan), from a Spanish transmission station, from a European satellite, and on. A frighteningly complicated mess.
‘Okay, Roberto. Focus. Now, if I want to find out the number of the last call this thing received, what the fuck am I supposed to do?’
He snatched the mobile from my hands, hit the little button that lights up the display and after a few moments pronounced: ‘It’s blocked. You need a password.’
This did not seem like a good sign.
‘And so …’
‘Well, if you don’t have the password you can’t access that part of the telephone book. Unless you buy another phone card.’
Immediately he launched into another technical lecture, on mobile phone cards and satellites, and this time I let him ramble on as my mind wandered onto something else. It was a long shot, but maybe Lady First knew the goddamn security code. In any event I didn’t have time to think about it much more because, all of a sudden, the phone began to ring, peep-peep, some queer sound that nevertheless jolted me. Roberto stopped cold and gave t
he mobile back, his face looking shocked at my own shock. I thought fast: I have to answer it – it could be a lead, I told myself – I can’t let it ring and not know who called. So I hit the little button that had the little picture of an unhooked telephone receiver.
‘Yes?’
‘Pablo José! Would you mind explaining what you are doing with your brother’s telephone?’
My Mother’s Highness: categorical tone of voice, somewhere between shocked and reproachful, like when I was little and she would catch me snooping in The First’s bedroom for something meaningful to steal from him. For a second I was afraid that she was going to order me out of there im-med-i-ate-ly and threaten to tell my Father’s Highness.
‘Well, you see … Sebastian lent it to me.’
‘He lent it to you …? Where are you two?’
‘I’m alone … here, near the flat.’
‘Now, don’t tell me that you went all the way to Bilbao and back just to get your brother’s mobile phone.’
‘No, no. He left it at the office. He must have forgotten it.’
‘Didn’t you just say he lent it to you?’
‘Yes, well, over the phone he gave me permission to use it.’
I still felt as if I was trying to get out of some childish prank I had played.
‘Pablo José, don’t you dare lie to me. I despise it when you lie. Maybe you can fool your father, but not me. You know that. I have been calling this number for two days straight and nobody has picked up, not once. And now suddenly you appear at the other end of the line … What do you mean Sebastian called you and not me? Will you please explain ex-actly what kind of a game you are playing, or would you like me to have a fit this instant?’
