by Pablo Tusset
Pbl> Woung: [email protected]. That’s my metaphysical club email.
Puck> This is getting boring.
>>Jhn: why don’t you tell all those funny things you told me in private about Pbl.
Woung> Incidentally, Pbl and Jhn, I heard about a student in Richmond who is interested in writing a thesis about the ideas that you exchange on the site. Right now he’s trying to get the Philosophy Department to accept the idea, and it looks like they will. I’ve heard some very attractive versions of that Invented Reality theory of yours. You’re very much the rage in the humanities departments on the East Coast. I was there this winter.
Jhn> I don’t know what you’re talking about, Puck. I haven’t sent you any private message.
Pbl> Puck: I think we can safely say you’ve gotten caught with your pants down.
Jhn> If Pbl drank a little less and worked a little more we’d be able to publish something coherent, but as of now we don’t even have a formal definition for the theory, it’s just a pile of email messages scattered across the net. I wouldn’t mind if you put me in touch with this student, though. Maybe he can help us assemble it all. We could use an intern.
Puck> Ah, who cares, anyway? … you’re really boring you guys. I’m going. Maybe I’ll find Oberon in the wood …
– Puck left the chat at 17:26 (GTM + 1)
Jhn> What a pain in the arse, that sprite.
Pbl> [Private, to 121, Jhn] Günter, I have to clarify something for you. Your help and the help of your friends is extremely important. I know it sounds insane, but this is the short version of the story: we are trying to determine the origins of a 14th century poem that (pay attention) contains information as to things that have happened in the six centuries that followed. Woung is working with us: he is a specialist in Medieval English Literature, and in fact has just confirmed the age of the text. We know that the domain worm.com has something to do with the poem and we think that if we can get to the system where it originated we can gain access to more information. Do you understand how important your work is to us? Experts all over the world are involved but we need a crack tech team. In a way, we’re trying to obtain information about the future. So please, send me an email when you have some information. I’ll be waiting for your message. And be discreet, please, this can’t get out to too many people, just inform your closest colleagues.
In the end, I guess I did get a little carried away, but I figured my words had done the trick. For a thirteen-yearold kid, adventure is still a possibility, no matter how mental it may seem. At the very least, he did promise to do something that afternoon, and to send me an email as soon as he had any information. As far as everyone else, the message mania went on like that for a few more minutes, but I’d already gotten all the information I could for the moment, and so I disconnected as soon as my minimal sense of courtesy permitted it. As always, my investigative efforts had proven fruitless: on one hand, The Stronghold did seem genuinely ancient, but on the other hand I wasn’t so sure that that was such a weird thing. And it is true that the entire history of philosophy is a continuous process of formulation and reformulation – behind every supposedly contemporary idea you can always find some precursor.
The fact is, the mental stew I had cooked up had gotten pretty potent by then. I had to cool off, detox somehow, and given that there was nothing left for me to do from home, I figured that I would pay the visit I had promised my family. At the same time I could check in and see if my father had found out anything interesting vis-à-vis the Robellades Junior accident.
I was just walking out the door when the phone rang.
‘Heeeeey, how are you?’
Just what I needed.
‘Well, you know. Here, answering the telephone.’
‘So? What do you have to say for yourself?’
‘I have nothing to say, Fina. Absolutely nothing. I’m simply waiting to hear why the hell you’re calling me.’
Before she would tell me, I had to apologise for being so unkind and then I found out that José María was going to be coming home late from the office, and so she had decided to make a date to see me. That is, of course, as long as I behaved as if she were the one doing me the favour. But I had other plans that evening.
‘I can’t, Fina. Let’s hang out tomorrow, if you’re free.’
‘Oh … and may I ask why you can’t today?’
Shit. More improvising.
‘Well … I have a date.’
‘A date? You? Not with some tramp?’
Totally on the fly, I followed her lead:
‘She’s not a tramp.’
‘I knew it … One day you suddenly turn up in a posh sports car, dressed up like some flashy thirtysomething, running around dropping loads of cash … but that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that you don’t even crack jokes like you used to anymore. You’re … fogged out.’
‘I know. I thought, shit, at my age this sort of thing couldn’t possibly happen to me.’
I said it in a little lamb voice, as if I was chagrined by it all.
‘That little slut … so who is she, if I may ask?’
‘I met her at my mother’s birthday dinner. Our parents are friends. I’m meeting her for dinner … and then a few drinks, maybe …’
‘Really. Well, after I hang up, you will never hear from me again. So you dump me for the first amateur whore that crosses your path, is that it?’
‘Fina, come on, it’s just part of life …’
‘That’s a low blow. You made me a promise, or don’t you remember? You promised me that if you fell in love with anyone one day it would be me.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Fina. What kind of promise is that?’
‘Your kind of promise, obviously. And now you’re giving me that “I’ve-fallen-for-the-bitch-daughter-of-my-parents’-best-friends bit” …’
‘I have said nothing of the sort. And don’t call her a bitch.’
‘Why not? After all, she did seduce you like she would a … a teenager. You get all dressed up, put on expensive cologne, and start acting all … absent. And what? Have you fucked her already, or is that what you have planned for tonight?’
‘Fina, please …’
‘“Fina, please …” You know what I say? I’m going to go out on the town tonight. By myself. I have admirers, too, in case you weren’t aware.’
Anyway.
Once I got downstairs, I advised my Guardian Angels of my plans. They were still in the Kadett, playing cards to pass the time. The motorcycle dude was nowhere to be found. I supposed that, now that I had stopped trying to dodge the surveillance, my FH had relieved him of his duties. I didn’t feel like walking over there, though, and briefly considered taking Bagheera out, but a taxi was scooting past the Kadett just at that moment and so I stopped it, almost as a reflex. I’ll never know if that taxi saved my arse or put me in even more serious danger that day, but I guess I did live to tell about it.
I found neither Mariano the doorman nor the uniformed security guard in the vestibule of my parents’ building. The battalion of gorillas had escalated to another level entirely: two of them were pacing up and down the street, two more were parked in front of the building, and two more were stationed up above, at the door to their apartment – and who knew how many others there were that I couldn’t see. They all seemed to be connected by walkie-talkie, or telephone, or some contraption that stuck out of their ears. One of the goons downstairs asked me to take the service elevator upstairs. Apparently the access to the front door was now wired to some kind of electronic set-up, but it looked as though the drawbridge was up. The bigger of the two goons upstairs had to ring the door around twenty-five times, until my Mother’s Highness finally answered, an entirely unprecedented move on her part. Her appearance, however, was business as usual: blouse with exotic embroidery, enough make-up for watching the telly, the usual hanging-around-the-house pearls. She didn’t even seem as nervous as one would expect her to be. Was it V
alium? The sauna? Gonzalito’s expert massage technique?
‘Ah, Pablo José, come in, come in, dear. This is madness, you know. We are now without a kitchen maid. Your beast of a father fired her this morning – I’ll tell you all about that later. And I don’t know what is with Eusebia, she refuses to answer the door.’ She stepped toward the service hall and raised her voice to call out, ‘Eusebia, didn’t you hear the doorbell?’ Then she turned back to me. ‘That moustache is really not very becoming on you, Pablo, José,’ she said as she offered up her cheeks for me to kiss. ‘You look like a football referee, a big fat football referee … You must promise me that you’re going to go to a fitness club, darling. And that you’ll shave off that awful moustache.’
In the middle of all this, I heard a toilet flush and the sound of water taps from down the service hallway. After a few seconds, Beba appeared, smoothing out her skirt.
‘Didn’t you hear the doorbell, Eusebia?’
‘Of course I heard it: half a dozen times, but I was in the toilet taking a pee.’
‘Oh. I’ve said it to you before and I’ll say it again – just tell us you were in the toilet, there’s no need to get specific about what you’re doing in there. The other day you said the same thing in front of Mrs Mitjans.’
‘If you don’t want to know, don’t ask … Anyway, what’s the big deal: Mrs Mitjans never takes a pee? God … is she a hen or something?’
Part One of the family encounter was my mother’s show, and she led me into the living room as quickly as she could. We sat between two polychromatic pantocrators (when she had bought them there was no convincing her that pantocrators were not meant to be displayed in pairs), and I settled in to patiently listen to her version of the events that had transpired over the past day. In short, the long-suffering spouse and mother sitting before me was the victim of a triple conspiracy: that of her obstinate and intolerant husband, that of her obstinate and impertinent cook, and that of her obstinate and insensitive sons – most especially The First, whose obstinacy and insensitivity was made even worse by the fact that he had not even bothered to ring her on the phone. So. Once my mother had told me her side of the story, I figured it was all right for me to start in with my own investigation:
‘Mom. Have you spoken recently with a Mr Robellades?’
‘Mmm … no.’
‘Nobody has telephoned asking after Sebastian?’
‘I don’t know … your paranoid father has been in the library day and night answering the telephone himself. See the little light? It’s been that way all day long.’
She was pointing to the phone on the end table, and she was referring to the calls to the apartment’s ‘social’ line.
‘And you haven’t spoken to anyone about the issue I mentioned to you the other day – about Ibarra … that rude man who is putting us through all this?’
‘No. Just to Gonzalito and Mrs Mitjans. And maybe with one or two other friends. But I haven’t breathed a word of it to your father, I promise … Oh, yes. Now I remember, yes. A man did call asking after your brother … a very strange man …’
‘Strange how?’
‘I don’t know, darling. Strange. He kept repeating the same thing over and over again … I don’t remember what, but it was awfully irritating. He asked after Juan Sebastian and I told him he was up north travelling.’
‘Up north travelling? That’s all? You didn’t say anything about Ibarra?’
‘Who?’
‘Mom. For God’s sake. Ibarra. The rude man.’
‘How could I have mentioned him if I can’t even remember his name?’
Ugh. Enough. Clearly, the part of Robellades’ report that involved the Ibarra story came straight from my mother. I decided not to press the issue any more – if she noticed some hole in the story, I would have to start making up more lies.
The next phase of the family encounter was with Beba, in the kitchen. As soon as she saw me walk in she wiped her hands on her apron and planted the two kisses she doesn’t dare to proffer in the presence of my mother. She was getting ready to make little balls out of the croquette batter sitting on the counter.
‘What are you waiting for, to talk to your father? Go, go, start making me those croquettes while I start on your mother’s meal. All she eats now is fish that’s half-raw and plants … seawheat, she calls it … how could she want to eat seawheat when she’s got home-made croquettes? Plus, without the kitchen maid, she’s got me doing double time …’
I washed my hands and began sculpting little oblong clumps with the béchamel-and-cod mixture. It never occurred to me that this might be the last time I’d ever make Beba’s croquettes for her. She went hunting through the refrigerator and took out a bunch of little bowls with seaweed. Among them I noticed two varieties that were the same as the ones that had garnished the lobsters the night the Blascos had come to dinner.
‘Good Lord, how disgusting. Where I come from, they wouldn’t feed this slime to the pigs on the farm. Can you tell me why this lady can’t just eat what everyone else eats …? Oh, and those boys outside? I have to make them something, don’t I?’
She was referring to the gorillas stationed at the front door.
‘Don’t worry. They’re on shifts.’
‘And what if one of them has to work the dinner shift?’
‘Don’t worry about that, Beba. My father will take care of them.’
This comment evidently pushed some button of hers, because she suddenly got all dramatic on me.
‘Holy Mary, mother of God, what has happened to this home? You would think, at my age, all I want is a little bit of peace and quiet … and look at me now … trapped.’
‘Beba, stop exaggerating.’
‘But that’s what we are, trapped … Lucky for me that boy outside is such a dear, he even went downstairs to get my medicinal water …’
‘C’mon, be patient, it’s just a few days, that’s all.’
She was not convinced by my attempt to minimise the seriousness of the matter. She pursed her lips as she dropped little bunches of seaweed into a mixing bowl and shook her head back and forth.
‘No.’
‘No what …?’
‘Something’s not right about all this … now I’m getting mad, too. Look, it’s been a week and your brother hasn’t come by, or called, or breathed! It’s as if the earth swallowed him up. Something’s happened, I know it …’
That was about when the crying fit started. She didn’t even try to keep on talking, she just pressed her lips closed and continued, quite doggedly, piling up the bunches of seaweed until the big, fat tears started rolling down her cheeks. I put the croquettes aside, made a vague motion of wiping my hands free of the batter and gave her a squeeze. Her eyes were still all welled up and she resisted surrendering to my hug but finally she let herself go and bawled her eyes out.
‘Come on, silly, don’t cry. If something really bad happened, you’d know about it. Plus: Sebastian’s tough, with all that judo and tae kwon do, you know him … he’s liable to crush anyone that breathed on him wrong.’
No good. In addition to soaking my shirt, what Beba really needed right then was a convincing explanation that would assuage her fears as to The First’s whereabouts. And since that was what she needed, that was what I gave her. Luckily my extemporaneous talents, while not always brilliant, do tend to work at crucial moments.
‘Beba, don’t be frightened. Listen: Sebastian can’t call because he’s in jail … Preventive jail.’
I just said it. Blurted it out, just like that – I could smooth it over afterwards. Her first reaction was to quickly extricate herself, look me straight in the eyes and, very alarmed, ask me what had happened. By the time I said something to the effect of “oh, it was nothing, they arrested him by mistake for forty-eight hours and he wasn’t allowed to make more than one phone call”, she realised that he was at least in one piece. Then I went on to tell her that he’d been arrested in Bilbao, where he had gone to sor
t out the Ibarra business (I filled her in on the Ibarra details, too). I also told her that he had been arrested for industrial espionage (she said that sounded very ugly but not as bad as murder or larceny), that the accusation was completely bogus and that FH’s lawyers would get him out of there in a few days and arraign the judge that had been in charge of it all. I think I convinced her, although I did have to assure her that The First had a private cell, that he was eating well, that he wasn’t too cold or too hot and that the guards were very amenable. She still had a knot in her throat, but at least she had an image of The First in an attractive, Lego-type jail, which wasn’t quite so tragic. Beba is very sensitive to anything related to either of us. Of course, I warned her that she had to be extremely hush-hush about it, because we didn’t want the information to get to my mother, who would just get all upset. I also told her not to mention a word of it to my father, because then he would know that I had disobeyed his orders to keep my mouth shut.
Etcetera.
By the time my mother came into the kitchen, Beba was through with her crying jag and had washed her face clean, and now we were back at work on the croquettes.
‘Pablo José, what on earth are you doing in here? I thought you were in the library with your father … Eusebia: have you prepared the seaweed salad?’
‘No. And you know what I say: whoever wants to eat seawheat can prepare it himself. She can kiss my ass.’
Part three of the visit was with my Father’s Highness, in the library. I found him in his element: white shirt, sleeves rolled up, tie loosened, half-smoked cigar in his mouth, no plaster cast or crutches in sight. He looked like his old self: that difficult synthesis of Winston Churchill and Jesús Gil. He was talking on the phone, seated at his rather motley-looking desk, filled with family portraits (including me, at the precise moment of receiving a consecrated host with the expression of an expectant cannibal on my face), blue leather desk accessories, invoices, receipts, reports, catalogues, cards … no computer in sight, just an old typewriter on a little cart with wheels. Continental: mother-of-pearl keys, black enamel frame and gold vegetable-dye details. If Mr Microsoft could see him, he’d have a seizure.
