by Jordi Puntí
Mon cher Christophe,
It is now some weeks since we had lunch together in Paris, and not a single day has gone by when I haven’t reproached myself for that meeting. I should never have agreed to it. I talked too much. You shook up my memory as if it was a glass ball, and now the snowstorm won’t go back to settling at the bottom. Don’t blame yourself, though. In the last few days, thinking hard, I’ve realized the whole thing was a question of self-defense. It was so hard to get over Bundó’s absence! The only way out, eventually and paradoxically, was to leave the brothel in the way I did. After moving to Paris and cutting myself off from the world for a while, I said yes to a man who was convinced that he loved me, and went off to live with him in the provinces, in just another anonymous city. Happiness doesn’t exist but is only desired. You can desire it all your life and you’ll never have enough. I’m not complaining, but I changed my life just as I would have done if I’d gone with him, with Bundó. It was the only way to survive.
Now, Christophe, I’m going to tell you—tell all of you—something intimate that should release me from this pain, or at least ease it. Many years have gone by, but this is the most alive thing that is left to me of Bundó: He was the only man who was ever able to make me confuse sex and love. I hope you will forgive my frankness. The French say that every orgasm is a little death. Yet each visit from him gave me the gift of experiencing little births: He took me back for a few seconds to that patch of perfect, inviolable darkness when you still haven’t been born and the world expects nothing from you.
You see? Things are looking calmer inside the glass ball. I alarmed myself too much. The snowstorm was just a rain of confetti.
Give my best regards to your mother, please. Oh, Mireille! Tell her I often think about her.
I hope that you and your brothers will understand me when I make my final farewell now, with a kiss.
Your Carolina
P.S. They were your brothers, n’est-ce pas, those three Gabriels who were spying on me from the other side of the road when I got into the taxi in front of the restaurant? You are so alike!
Oh dear, she found us out. What more can we say?
Perhaps this is a sign. Maybe it’s time for each one of us to speak for himself. Get ready, Christof: In keeping with strict biological order you have to start.
8
* * *
The Fifth Brother
CHRISTOF AND CRISTOFFINI’S TURN
The first thing you have to do, before anything else, is beg my forgiveness. In front of everyone.”
“Beg your forgiveness? May I ask why?”
“Because you’ve known our brothers for months, Christof, and you haven’t introduced me yet. You haven’t invited me on any of your ‘research’ trips, as you like to call them with your usual pedantry. As if Gabriel wasn’t my father too. I bet you’ve never even mentioned me to them.” He lapses into reproachful silence. “You’ve never told them about me, have you?”
“There’s no time for that now. Get it into your head that this is my turn, I’m the soloist in this concert and I have a lot to say. You should be grateful that I’ve let you come along this time.”
“So you’re going to ignore me and hog the limelight . . . Have it your own way then. But don’t complain later if I clam up and refuse to say a word. You’re winding me up to the point of insurrection. Anyway, you haven’t got a clue how to do a monologue. We always do our gigs together.”
“Okay, calm down. Christophers, listen: This is our brother Cristoffini. He was born in Italy—”
“—in a little village in Sicily, in the middle of the island, and don’t make me go into any more detail. They haven’t made me Favorite Son because they already have one, Don Vito. And don’t make me go into details about that either. It all stays in the family. We might share a father, Christophers, but I’m from a famous lineage on my mother’s side, capito? I’m also the oldest of us five brothers, and, in case you haven’t worked it out yet, that makes me the heir. When you four were born, I’d already spent years with this cardboard carcass”—he taps his head, toc, toc—“dragging it around the world, dressed up in my striped diplomat’s suit and this hat that never goes out of fashion. If I look younger than you, it’s because I’m immortal.”
Cristoffini’s voice rasps out hoarse and asthmatic sounding, as if his vocal cords were made of esparto grass.
“Okay, perhaps I owe you an explanation. Cristoffini and I do shows at weekends. We go to nightclubs, matinee shows, birthday parties, wherever they ask for us. We have a go at the government and famous folk, and make people laugh. Sometimes Cristoffini gets stuck into the audience, and then I have to gag him to stop him from going too far. It’s our pastime and, besides, we make a bit of extra cash.”
“Do you know what our publicity says? Christof and Cristoffini. I let him put his name first only because it sounds better like that. He gets to keep the loot (not much), and I get the fame (lots). How many years have we been doing our show, sonny?”
“More than fifteen. We made our debut when I was in high school, one of those Christmas festivals they put on, remember? Mom came every year, and Dad never came once. To tell the truth, we’ve been very good company for one another over the years. Right, Cristoffini?”
Cristoffini lays his head on Christof’s shoulder, making out that he’s moved by his words, but his mocking expression betrays him. A lurid pink scar follows the contour of his left cheek.
“I know you’re messing with me, as usual.” With a well-aimed shove, Christof extricates himself from Christoffini’s embrace. “Sometimes I think you don’t know how to tell the difference between truth and fiction. It’s one thing for you to play the cynic in our show—we’ve agreed that’s your role—but it’s quite another for you to do it when you’re with the family. I’m sure my brothers—our brothers—know what I mean when I say that we’ve been very good company for one another. Christophers, I’m referring to that sadness that used to descend on us all of a sudden. We’ve already talked about it, right? When we were about eleven or twelve. You come home from school in winter. You’re all alone because Mom’s at work and there’s no news of Dad. You look at yourself in the hall mirror while you’re taking off your coat and scarf, and, all of a sudden, the face of the boy, numb with cold, is darkening with distress. That loneliness didn’t last long, but it was absolutely searing! It came out of you, and it died in the image in the mirror. It was only natural that we wanted to exchange that reflection for a brother who would have helped to fill the silences.”
“If you’d woken me up sooner from my slumbers in that box, you might have saved yourself all that.”
“I’ve apologized for that millions of times,” Christof says in a stage whisper. “Don’t make me repeat it in front of my brothers. Now let me talk about our father, which is why we’re here.”
“Va bene,” Cristoffini says condescendingly. He closes his eyes and nods encouragingly, like a priest about to hear a confession. “Where are you going to start?”
“Well, I could say that when I saw Dad for the first time I was over a year old and he didn’t even know I existed. His appearance made a huge impression on me, and maybe that’s why it’s so prominent among what I like to think are my first memories. We’re standing by the front door, and this tall, thin man picks me up with inexpert hands. No one says a word. I look at my mother, wanting her to comfort me, but she’s so shocked I don’t recognize her and then I start howling.”
“Just a moment, just a moment. Wind the tape back, and get inside your mother’s belly, please. If necessary go back as far as the coglioni di tuo padre. We want to know all the details.”
“If you insist . . .” Christof looks gratified. “Then I’ll have to go back to January 15, 1965, during a move La Ibérica did to Bonn. In the catalogue of pilferage it would appear as Number 47, I’d say, and the pickings were notable for a collection of zarzuela records. At about two in the afternoon, after unloading in the capital of
West Germany, Gabriel, Bundó, and Petroli set out on their homeward journey, but near Koblenz something like a thick white eiderdown wadded the sky. Less than ten kilometers down the road they were slap-bang in the middle of a snowstorm of biblical proportions.” Cristoffini makes the sign of the cross. “They’d got through similar difficulties on other occasions, but this time it was a return trip. With an empty trailer and no ballast, the truck slithered on the asphalt like an elephant on an ice rink. They followed the motorway along the Rhine for a few more kilometers to see if the ominous whiteness in the sky was going to clear, but when they got near Mainz and Wiesbaden, they gave up. It was getting dark, and the only landscape they could make out, increasingly enshrouded in snow, filled them with a very Germanic state of anxiety. Bundó, with his talent for finding good roadside hostels, recalled that some German truck drivers had been singing the praises of a place near Mainz. In those days before Bundó met Muriel-Carolina, he enjoyed chatting with other truck drivers in service areas and exchanging recommendations for the best motels and brothels along the European transport routes. Since he was meticulous about these matters, he marked them with a red cross on the map, writing the names alongside them.”
“Hang on, Christof,” Cristoffini interjected. “A hostel, near Mainz? Don’t tell me it was the Herz-As, that Ace of Hearts dive you dragged me into so you could have a beer when we were on our way back from a gig in Frankfurt?” Christof nods resignedly. “I thought so. How decadent! The stench of spilled beer! Those wooden benches and walls must be caked with thirty years of truck drivers’ vomit, including our father’s and his friends’. And the ladies who were tempting us at the bar (me more than you)—Madonna!—they’ve been at it for three decades . . .” He shuts up for a moment, nodding and pondering in silence. “In other words, to go back to that original night, a mere snowstorm provided the perfect excuse for the three friends to take refuge under the well-warmed eiderdowns of those meretrici. And, meanwhile, Gabriel’s spermatozoa, poor little things, were preparing for the great race of their lives.”
“Don’t go jumping to conclusions, Cristoffini. Listen and don’t interrupt me, please. Let’s not start on that. First of all, if we went into the truck drivers’ hostel that night, it was to do some research, even if you object to the word. Petroli had told us, the four flesh-and-blood Christophers, about the episode, and I wanted to check out the scene. I agree with you, it’s a dump nowadays. Second, for your information, the only one who stayed in the Herz-As that night was Bundó. He couldn’t resist. Sometimes his need to jump in the sack with an easy-going woman was almost a matter of life and death, like eating or sleeping, and it had the side effect of clearing his head. Though the sign of the hostel said Ace of Hearts, which must have called out to Gabriel’s gambling instincts, he and Petroli opted for a more conventional alternative . . . and if you imagine for one moment that my mother, Sigrun, worked in the Herz-As, I’m sorry to disappoint you because she didn’t.”
“It never as much as entered my head, Christof, I swear it. Mothers are sacred.”
Cristoffini blows a kiss off his fingertips. Christof’s managed to read his mind, and, for a moment, Cristoffini’s dummy face seems to be blushing. The scar on his cheek glows like a hot coal.
“So much the better.”
“Keep going. Come on, it’s getting late. So far we’ve got Bundó in the Ace of Hearts chatting up a lady who could also be his mother but she isn’t. That’s clear. She’s not his mother or anyone else’s mother. Now we need to know what’s happened with Gabriel, Petroli, and, more than anything else, the twitchy little critters that are wriggling around inside Gabriel’s balls.”
Christof lights up. Normally he doesn’t smoke but he uses it for effect and to draw out his words. He inhales then blows the smoke in Cristoffini’s face. The latter shuts his eyes, coughing violently, about to split his backbone in two.
“People who spend their lives on the road, in a truck and a long way from home, need to be alone,” Christof resumes. “I call it a refuge. Most of all it’s a mental refuge, though it’s often dressed up as physical need. Locked in the cab day and night, running here and running there all over the map, they get fed up with each other in the end and are dying to escape for a while.”
“Like us two,” Cristoffini chimes in. “Like those times when you bed me down in my cardboard box (because he keeps me in a miserable cardboard box, Christophers!) and go off traveling without me.”
“If I remember rightly, the last time we had a Christophers’ meeting in Barcelona I brought you along.”
“Yes, in your suitcase, keeping your underpants company. And you know very well that I’ve become claustrophobic with age! And then you’re ashamed of me, which is the most horrible thing that can happen between brothers, and you don’t let me leave the hotel . . .”
“Okay, that’s enough talking about you. You’re vanity personified. And now, if you’ll be so good as to let me continue, we have an appointment with Gabriel, Bundó, and Petroli.” Cristoffini’s ready with his riposte but Christof won’t have it. “As I was saying, after six months of traveling together, the three friends had learned to spot those extremely scarce golden opportunities for being alone, and to keep them for themselves. The repertoire included (real or invented) breakdowns of the truck, the breathers after getting rid of a whole truckload of stuff, fortuitous hitches like the customs office being closed at an international checkpoint, a detour because of road works, the ban in some countries against driving on Sundays, or a bad storm. On these occasions we’ve seen how Bundó rushes off to take refuge in the arms of the first tart he can find on terra firma. Our father Gabriel’s refuge is still a mystery: complex, intangible, fleeting, and inaccessible all those years, it might well be that its only manifestation is here in these pages (like footsteps in the snow revealing the passage of an invisible man), and putting the last period in place will be the only way of giving it substance. Right, Christophers? As for Petroli, we know that he tended to prefer older women, but he also thought that paying prostitutes was cheating. He was more partial to the adventure of flirting with housewife-cum-mothers, even if it turned out badly. He admitted that his aspirations tended to be romantic, not to say utterly unrealistic, but the smallest sign of success was so pleasing to him that it gave him the confidence of a Casanova, which lasted for several days.”
“Casanova? Petroli a Casanova? Ma tu sei pazzo! You really enjoy undermining the legend of my compatriot . . . Not even I”—and an indignant Cristoffini stretches out his neck and closes his eyes—“and take note of what I’m saying, I, who have spent many hours locked up in wardrobes or hiding under the beds of mistresses, trembling with fear that the cuckold’s going to discover me (the Italian cuckolds are always little pricks), not even I can compare with the great Giacomo!”
Christof lets him prattle on.
“Listen to the sound of gently falling rain, Christophers. Now you can see why I haven’t introduced him to you before now, right? He might say he’s our older brother but he’s unpresentable!” Christof looks upset for a few moments but then realizes he’s losing it and tries to calm down. “Anyway, he doesn’t give a damn. He always carries on like this, and I’m not going to let him rattle me. As I was saying, outside of Spain, Petroli turned into a sort of Casanova, yes, and he always took refuge in nostalgia. For some sentimental reason, he could only find peace when surrounded by his fellow Spaniards. Thus, with the same devotion that Bundó put into his highway harems, Petroli sought Spanish emigrant associations scattered across Central Europe. It all began with a childhood friend of his who’d emigrated to the south of Germany to work in a metallurgical plant. For the first few summers after that they continued to meet up whenever they went back to the village to visit their parents, but, after the old people died, Petroli lost sight of him. Years later, one day when they were passing close to where his friend lived, he called in to say hello. While Gabriel and Bundó waited in the cab playing cards, the friend took
him to have a glass of wine at the Spanish Workers’ Center. He showed Petroli photos of his wife and German-born kids. For want of practice, his Catalan had lost its native accent. That long half hour of conversation, although it teetered on the brink of sorrow, lifted Petroli’s spirits for the rest of the trip. Thereafter, without needing the excuse of finding a friend, he turned to anyone who would listen in these receptacles of melancholy. He’d walk in glum, unload his troubles onto the first Spaniard he found, and come out a new man. Very occasionally, when his art of seduction worked, he managed to leave the place with some liberated Iberian lady wanting a bit of fun. As you can imagine, it wasn’t long before he could rattle off by heart every club, association, and center where the emigrant workers met. Do you remember, Christophers, what Petroli said when we went to visit him? ‘Those people with their ordinary concerns, ambitions, and attacks of homesickness, made me feel I was in good company. I was almost in the same boat. The only difference was that my frustration didn’t stay still and my adopted country was everywhere and nowhere.’ Petroli’s round included associations of Catalans, Galicians, Extremadurans, and Aragonese. They had evocative names like Centro García Lorca, Hogar del Maño, and La Santa Espina, and they always appeared in industrial cities cut from the same pattern. Eindhoven, Mannheim, Reading, Béziers, Kaiserslautern. Neighborhoods with factories and chimneys, cheap housing, and milky skies.”
“That’s enough. You just want to make us cry, Christof. I hope, for your own good,” says Cristoffini, fingering a bump on his jacket at about rib level, “that you’re not about to do something daft like singing one of those hymns along the lines of ‘Oh, I shall never see again the sunny shores of my land . . . Oh, how I long for you, little birds and my garden’s flowers’ . . . We agree that going to another country to work must have been a drama for all those people but, fuck it, goddammit, let’s not lose sight of Franco’s Spain, which wasn’t exactly a variety show in the fifties.”
