I imagine that my father often wondered about my motives, but I suppose he fell prey to the same assumptions as others and took my gradual slide toward literature as proof of my devotion to my mother’s family. An homage to the grandfather rather than to the father.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The comparison was there to be drawn. In the early eighties, when my father was going through the period of depression that distanced him from painting, on sleepless nights I sometimes asked my mother whether he would ever be able to recover and make a name for himself, and she always reassured me that it would be the same for him as it had been for my grandfather, her father, who was in his sixties before he received the honors he had previously been denied. I listened to her, conscious of my grandfather’s greater tenacity, of my father’s fragility, but despite these reservations, in a comparison of the two of them my father came out on top. My grandfather was too established, too unassailable by now, too self-satisfied, and despite his great learning, too provincial in certain intolerable ways for my inordinately anticonventional taste at the time, whereas my father was a bohemian and had my grandfather beat in eclecticism, rebellion, curiosity, and everything that an adolescent who reads Rimbaud might admire. His lack of money, the absence of the legitimizing umbrella of success didn’t undermine his prestige in my eyes, but rather endowed it with an aura of doomed romanticism. Not even the incipient signs of bourgeois lifestyle, when they came, were an obstacle. I explained them away by telling myself that—as in so much else—he was the victim of outside agents. That his true nature was other.
The kind I wanted for myself.
This was at the beginning, of course. Later, it was different.
Later, everything got more complicated. With great sacrifice and hardly any outside encouragement, he devoted himself more assiduously than ever to painting and he began his long fight to recover the ground he’d lost. By dint of hard work, he managed to make a place for himself. Once again he showed in galleries vying to be top-of-the-line, returned to the art fairs, relaunched a quiet international career, and won the occasional prize, while, in the face of his seeming indifference, I finished my studies and did everything I could to become a writer. In the mid-nineties, when I published my first book, the skepticism with which he’d greeted the dawning of my interest in writing was replaced by a surprised recognition of my determination, and later, as I faced up to increasingly tough challenges, by an undisguised pride that at times betrayed glimpses of his enduring dissatisfaction with the path I’d chosen, as well as a pained suspicion—beginning with my first novel—that I was denouncing him in literary form. Nevertheless, he continued to be someone who’d risen from the dead and whose every step required enormous effort, while I was all promise, with everything handed to me on a silver platter. And sometimes, very occasionally, though he immediately made fun of himself for it, he revealed jealousy of the greater media attention that my work received, as well as of the reputation and respect I had begun to gain among people in his world—art critics, for example—without seeing that it was in part the result of social skills that he lacked. I remember one fateful afternoon when he discovered—in a hack-job encyclopedia distributed for free by some newspaper—that while there was a brief biographical entry for me, there was none for him. I could see that he was hurt by this, although his happiness on my behalf was undiminished.
I was pettier. The sadness I felt at seeing the expression on his face, my near-immediate repentance, my regret at his anticipated disappointment, my admiration of his painting, and my sincere belief that he was more deserving—infinitely more deserving—than me, don’t excuse the fact that deep down, even if in a muffled and hidden way that I instantly denied to myself, I took some pleasure in his distress.
How vexing for my father, whatever the case. What an uncomfortable fate to have in your own family, in the person of your only child, a disgruntled and suspicious notary who, thinking he knows you, makes an accounting of your weaknesses, your deficiencies, and your broken promises.
But he bore it with dignity, I must say. He permitted himself only the occasional dig. He celebrated my smallest triumphs, and he apparently forgot everything there was to be forgotten: the exaggerations I made, the unconscious blunders in which I discounted his influence on me, and—especially—the misjudgments of him to which some of my literary preoccupations might have given rise. For someone so private, so reserved, this must have been agonizing.
And there we were, each the mirror of the other, practitioners of similar careers, connected by the telephone line. Watching each other from afar, sometimes in anger, sometimes in hopes of reconciliation, sometimes in a precarious state of bliss. There we were, the two of us: he in his studio listening to music while he struggled with a painting, and I in my apartment struggling against myself as I listened to music.
What a trial for my father, despite an underlying current of satisfaction in my successes, to see the uncertainty that so tormented him taking shape in his son’s future. What a trial to see everything perpetuate itself, so that in addition to the consequences of having chosen a profession as insecure as painting, he should be further burdened by the consequences of my having chosen a similar profession. How much better it would have been for him if I had embarked on a stable and well-paid career in which personal advancement was based on worth and not on the marketing of a capricious thumbs-up or thumbs-down. A real profession, not the irresponsible prolongation of childhood that is the nature of artistic endeavors. A profession that would bring me swift returns so that I could overlook his failings.
It’s easy to imagine that my father, always worried about money, wouldn’t have wanted me to live with the same fear, and not just because he presumed that if I wasn’t in need, I would be less likely to blame him for anything. He knew life’s ups and downs: he had gone from being a nearly established artist in his thirties, in the pay of a successful gallery, to a period of drought in which he had to dream up other jobs to survive, and then on to an intrepid rebirth in which, while developing a mature and powerful oeuvre, among the greatest of his generation, and despite his recovered prestige, he hadn’t managed to make himself known beyond a small circle of insiders, which translated into respectful but modest reviews each time he had a show, almost no public promotion by important museums, and scanty sales compared with other artists. He knew that in professions like his, either you’re a success or you can’t pay the electric bill, and he knew that talent, with few exceptions, isn’t what gives you an edge, that it’s other qualities, like luck or the ability—not so common among the gifted—not to rouse hatred, prejudice, or envy, which doesn’t mean being invisible, but does mean being inoffensive to the egos of those who possess only ego and a tiny bit of power; he knew all this and also how devastating it can feel to be undeservedly brushed aside, and he would have preferred that I not run the risk.
I’m not talking only about material limitations; I’m talking about obstacles to the satisfaction of the artist’s exposed vanity, about the recognition, necessary recognition, that my father came close enough to touch and that consequently needled him as late as May 2006, when, in an entry in his diary, he put it this way (I quoted part of this earlier, but I can’t resist setting it down in its entirety): “Silence since April 6, and now it’s May. I was planning to write something about my state of things but whenever I start, the why? gets to me. Now I’m listening to old Gilbert Bécaud songs after slopping paint on an 8 × 6 canvas that will go to join all the others that I don’t know what to do with […]. I have strange feelings in my stomach and my gut and the tiredness has let up a little.” He goes on for a brief paragraph talking about me, about the peace—he says—that I’ve brought him lately, and he continues: “To paint is to make something that didn’t exist before. It isn’t to erase or to forget; it’s to make and to live, so I plan to keep doing it. The paint on this canvas will turn into something that even I can’t know; everything will evolve until a
certain something appears that demands my recognition and acceptance.”
It moves me to imagine my father, sick by now, writing this entry in his diary. Alone in his studio, trying to “make something that didn’t exist before,” something provocative and suggestive out of some splotches on a canvas. It moves me that he still had the strength not to “erase or to forget,” but to “make and to live.” What’s more, it makes me proud. But what do we do with the doubts? What do we do with the feeling that we’ve been denied something (or lost it ourselves because in our foolish confidence we let it pass by) that others with less talent enjoy?
Though he may have appreciated my determination and the disdain with which I faced potential failure, my father can’t have wanted that fate for me. No father wishes such things on his child: to have no rest, to be always pursuing foolish challenges, to be besieged by thoughts that we don’t know how to express any way other than by means of the skill that we’ve parlayed into a career and that, mistakenly or not, constitutes our way of being in the world.
That’s right: I’m no longer talking about recognition, the affront of comparisons, worldly triumphs; I’m talking about that image of my father in his studio on the eve of his death, determined to “keep making.” Death and life mingling, as always, but shaded by something that supplants life by merging with it and moreover aspires to triumph over death itself. Something that doesn’t allow us to be entirely in any one spot. An itch of unease and doubt and rare hope that in lonely flashes of hard-won inspiration seems to make everything worthwhile. Is it worth tying yourself to a desk, feeling the pull of the rope at your neck each time you venture away from the place where, amid jars of paint, you give your obsessions free rein? How is it possible that a disguise we put on to get through life becomes so confused with life itself that in the end it’s one of the main taxes to add or deduct from the final balance as we prepare to leave life behind? And at what point does it begin to hurt when you feel the pull of the rope and you ignore it? At what point do we begin to regret everything that we can no longer fix? Is it always this way?
* * *
The worst comes without warning but also without deception. When it comes, we try not to see it, but deep down we know that it’s come, it’s here, and in the end everything we do to try to escape it just prepares us to accept it (the constant invoking of something, if only to reject it, accustoms us to it, so that by the time it becomes irrevocable, it’s the only reality we know). We were no different. When the worst came, none of us who were close to my father wanted to acknowledge it. Friends, acquaintances, everyone abetted us. Somebody had been given the same diagnosis, or knew someone who had been, who had recovered. Even the doctors allowed us to fantasize about the exception, the best possible outcome. It’s a parallel reality: willful denial. You hear what the doctors say, you memorize all the possibilities, and what you’re left with in the end is the most desirable one. You hear hollow statements like “There are no statistics” or “There’s always room for surprise,” on the basis of which it’s impossible not to speculate, even about a complete recovery. Though you know better, though the look with which these things are said essentially rules it out. There’s room for surprise, yes, the look says, but it’s best not to expect it. And since you don’t want to take their word for it, you consult other doctors, seek out second opinions, recruit anyone who has a doctor friend who might be able to help you, and at the end of the road, you’re back where you started, with fewer days left to live intensely.
It’s 2005 that’s the fateful year.
In 2004 I’m living three hundred miles from Madrid, in a town in the province of Valencia, where, after sitting for her examinations, my wife has gotten a job teaching philosophy. Though both of us try to look on the bright side, it isn’t easy: we face several years in limbo until she can enter a transfer lottery. My wife feels guilty, and I’m not always able to hide my frustration.
In 2004 I get angry with my father for the last time, about the painting he offered to sell after visiting me in Berlin. I find a buyer, and he keeps his word and gives me half the money, but it bothers me that he needs to justify it to the friend he met in Brazil by telling her that it’s the wedding present he didn’t give me when I got married a year ago.
Between 2004 and 2005, I make many calls to the contractor, the architect, and the town hall to finalize the preparations for the rebuilding of the house my mother and I have bought in Galicia as a place for her to live when she retires.
Between 2004 and 2005, I have the feeling that I’m facing changes that will upend my life, and I’m not always optimistic about them. It unsettles me to have left Madrid when my mother is preparing to move away; it unsettles me not to know how long my wife and I will have to live in furnished rental apartments; it unsettles me that my bond with my mother, crucial until now, will become less tight; and it unsettles me that the huge effort I put into my books, the outflow of time and mental energy, isn’t be properly rewarded. For the first time, everything seems about to fall into place (my mother’s fate is almost resolved, my wife’s and mine is taking shape), but I feel tired, and I’m afraid I won’t be well-fortified enough for the fast-approaching future.
In February my new novel comes out, and over the next few months I travel frequently to Madrid from my Valencian exile. I make myself available for the few publicity activities; I visit my mother’s younger brother, who has cancer; I go out at night; and I travel to Galicia to deal with the contractor.
In April my uncle dies and my father attends the burial with my mother and me. He’s affected by my uncle’s death, but I also notice his impatience. He isn’t at ease, he can’t remove himself from the picture, he views any misfortune as a threat.
In May we don’t see each other, and at the beginning of June he calls to say that he’s already left the city for the summer and he invites my wife and me to visit. The ritual of past years is repeated. I don’t turn him down flat, but both of us know that I won’t go. It bothers me that he hasn’t let me know in time to give us the chance to meet in Madrid. My summer, shorter than his, is spent in Galicia, in the town where we’ll at last begin work on my mother’s house in September.
Upon our return everything begins to happen quickly. My wife is back at her school on September 1, and I follow her a month later. Various matters—and a bit of foot-dragging—keep me in Madrid. The novel hasn’t done as well as expected, and after the quiet of summer, my hopes give way to discouragement. Except for work assignments, which I complete with more haste than diligence, over the course of the month all I do is flail about, losing myself in the chaos of anxiety, the labyrinth of possibilities. I go out too much at night, and I’m in no mood to shut myself up with another book, something that I inevitably associate with the place where my wife is waiting for me. My wake-up call comes in the form of a stumble at six in the morning in a bar that passes for underground; whether it is or not, what it most resembles is a black hole that you reach already defeated by the responsibilities of the approaching day and from which you emerge hours later with the certainty that once again you’ve behaved like an idiot. That night I sit down on a sofa near the door to talk to a Russian who says something to me, and as I’m getting up to join the friends I’m with, I trip and split open my chin. To judge by the scar, the cut probably needed stitches. But all I do is cover it with a napkin, and when I leave the place an hour later, I head not to a clinic, but home.
I say that this is my wake-up call because from now on I get hold of myself, and though I’m still in low spirits, I begin preparations for my departure. Among other things, I say goodbye to my father and invite him again to come and visit us. He doesn’t reject the offer, but he’s so vague about when he might be able to come, without offering any convincing reason, that it’s as if he had. Still, we’re in a good place. Not just any good place, but one that I expect to be permanent, ever since three years ago in Berlin when I made the decision to wall off the problem between us, remove it from ou
r interactions. Tired of mistrust, I’ve decided to try giving up my eternal touchiness, which I believe is justified but which dooms us to a difficult relationship, subject to shifts in mood, silences, and mutual trepidation. It’s taken me three years to prove to him that our lunches are no longer minefields; with some incredulity he’s gotten used to the fact that my hitherto rare visits to his house have become rather more frequent; and just this fall, when he has less than two years left to live but we don’t know it yet, I have the feeling that he’s finally let down his guard. Since his return to Madrid I’ve visited him twice, and I’ve even gone so far as to inform him of my unsettled state. I tell him about staying out too late, and he responds, surprised that I’m confiding in him but scrupulously playing the role that he believes I want him to play. He invokes his own example and assures me that he regrets the time he’s wasted in his life. He tells me that he hasn’t worked as much as he should have and that the things we pursue in periods of confusion are worthless: vain distractions that sooner or later fade. He tells me that I have talent, a promising career, a wife who supports me, and that it’s absurd to lose any more time. All of this he says in a low voice, not so much to prevent the friend he met in Brazil from hearing us as to stress the importance of what he’s saying and leave no room for doubt. It’s a curious situation, something completely new. My father—whom I’ve never allowed into my private life, as punishment for all the times he failed me—is giving me advice and for the first time unabashedly donning the mantle of father. Even better, leery of the authority I’ve granted him, he’s acting more like an occasional confidant than a father. It’s the only way. I’m thirty-seven and he’s sixty-five, and though his presence in my life may have been constant, it’s been so at a comfortable distance, on a very secondary level: he hasn’t shared the tribulations my mother has had to endure on my account; he hasn’t known the daily uncertainty that children bring; he hasn’t seen me suffer or cry; he’s had little to do with my hopes or my joys; he doesn’t know my friends; he doesn’t know me.
Father and Son Page 8
