Mr. Gwyn

by Alessandro Baricco

How can you say “there should be,” you’ve been coming to this hotel for sixteen years and you’ve never looked to see where the minibar is?

  No.

  You’re crazy.

  I don’t drink much.

  What about water, you’ve never even felt like having some water?

  I usually bring it with me.

  Jesus, you’re crazy. Do me a favor and go look for this damn minibar. Generally it’s under the television.

  In fact, that seems to be the most logical solution.

  The most logical solution would be next to the bed.

  Wrong. The noise wouldn’t let you sleep.

  But the alcohol, yes.

  Beer?

  Beer? There’s nothing else?

  Nothing alcoholic.

  What a hotel. There isn’t any popcorn, I’m mad about popcorn…

  No, nothing to eat.

  Disgusting. All right, we’ll have to make do with beer. You have one, too.

  But the man said he preferred not to drink, he had managed not to for the whole night, and he didn’t feel like giving in just now. He said he needed to remain lucid. Then he went toward the bed and while he was crossing the room he noticed the light filtering through the curtains. He turned back and with one hand looked for the cords to open them, remembering how absolutely certain it was, although for incomprehensible reasons, that one would pull the wrong cord, the one that opens when you want to close, or vice versa. He said it to the woman, as wittily as he could, and meanwhile he managed to shift the curtains slightly. It was dawn. He looked at the distant sky brightened by an ambiguous light and wasn’t sure of anything. The woman asked if he was hatching that beer, and so he brought it to her. Sit down, said the woman, but in a gentle tone, this time. Just a moment, said the man, and went back to the window. There was that light. He thought it was an invitation, but now it was difficult to understand if it was addressed to him, too. He looked at his watch as if there were some possibility of finding an answer there, and he didn’t get anything useful, except the vague impression that it was the wrong time for a lot of things. Maybe he ought still to have faith, leave the room, get in the car, and drive onto a highway, pressing the accelerator. Maybe it would be more appropriate to get in the bed and find out if the body of the woman was really as desirable as it seemed. But this he thought as if it were someone else’s idea, not his. He heard the snap of a can that was being opened and then the woman’s voice asking if he had always been like that. Like what? Like all in order, said the woman. The man smiled. Then he said no. So the woman wanted to know when he had begun to be like that, if he remembered, and it was for that reason that, without moving from the window, he said that he remembered precisely, he was thirteen and it had all happened in one night. He said that everything had shattered then. In front of his house that was burning, that night, everything had shattered, in the face of that senseless fire. I was thirteen, he said. Then I met a man who taught me to put things in order, and from then on I’ve never stopped thinking that we have no other task but that. There is always a house to rebuild, he added, and it’s a long job, which requires a lot of patience. The woman asked him again to sit on the bed, but he didn’t answer and, as if following his thoughts, said that every night his father listened to the radio and drank a bottle of wine, to the bottom. He sat at the table, placed his gun in front of him, and next to it the bottle. He drank with a straw, slowly, and you couldn’t disturb him as he was doing it, for any reason. He never touched the gun. He liked to have it there, just that. He said that that night, too, everything had been just like that, the night when the fire consumed everything. Then he asked the woman if she had a house.

  Four walls and a bed? Of course.

  Not in that sense. A true house. In your head.

  I’m not sure I understand.

  Something you’re building, your task.

  Ah, that.

  Yes, that.

  I told you, I never finish anything.

  Did you ever start, at least, once?

  Maybe once.

  Where was it?

  Next to a man.

  It’s a good point of departure.

  Well.

  The father of the child?

  Him? Hardly, he was a real dickhead, at the right opportunity he disappeared.

  I’m sorry.

  He didn’t even have a job. Or maybe he did, but something like stealing cars.

  And the other?

  Who?

  The man of the house.

  Well, him…

  Was there something special about him?

  Everything. There’s only him, in the world.

  Meaning?

  There’s no one like him.

  Where is he now?

  Not with me.

  Why?

  Forget it.

  He didn’t love you?

  Oh yes, he loved me.

  So?

  We made a real mess of things.

  Like?

  You wouldn’t understand.

  Why?

  Do you have an idea what it means to be mad about someone?

  I’m afraid not.

  There.

  Try to explain it to me.

  Are you joking?

  Try, just tell me even one thing.

  Why?

  I don’t have anything else to do. I have to wait for the shoes to dry.

  That’s a good answer. What is it you want to know, exactly?

  What it means to be mad about someone.

  You don’t know.

  No.

  The only thing that occurred to the woman was that you understand all films about love, you truly understand them. But that wasn’t easy to explain, either. And it sounded a bit foolish. Involuntarily there returned to her mind many scenes she had lived through beside the man she loved, or far from him, which after all was the same thing—it had been for a long time. Usually she tried not to think about it. But now they came to mind, and in particular she remembered one of the last times they parted and what she had understood at that moment—she was sitting at a table in a café, and he had just left. What she had understood, with absolute certainty, was that to live without him would be, forever, her fundamental occupation, and that from that moment on things would always have a shadow for her, an extra shadow, even in the dark, and maybe especially in the dark. She wondered if that might work as an explanation of what it means to be mad about someone, but looking up at the man standing at the window, there with his suitcase in hand, she saw it as so elementary and final that it seemed to her totally pointless to try to explain. All in all she didn’t have a great desire to, and she wasn’t there for that. So she smiled a sad smile that wasn’t hers and said no, it was better to forget about it. Be kind, she said to the man, let’s not talk about me anymore. As you like, said the man. The woman opened another can of beer and was silent for a while. Then she asked how in the world a person ends up building scales. It didn’t really interest her, but she wanted to put a stop to the silence, or maybe to the memory of the man she loved. So she asked how someone ends up building scales. It must have seemed an important question to the man, because he began to recall when he had first been taught to measure. To measure correctly. He had liked what you did with your hands, to measure correctly. Probably it was then that he had become obsessed with the idea that there was a lack of tools for measuring, and that that was the beginning of any problem. He had to measure two paints and mix them, measure exactly how much it took of one and how much of the other. If you did it right the brush would glide over the wood, and the color would be just right in the morning light and slightly warmer in the light of sunset. He would have liked to explain that this had to do with the task we all have of rebuilding our house, and was in a certain sense the beginning of it, its dawn. But as he searched for the words he looked down at the street and saw that three police cars had stopped at the entrance to the hotel, their blue lights flashing. One policeman had gotten out and was
leaning against the open door, and talking on a radio. The man stopped speaking and turned to the woman, there in the bed. Only in that moment did he notice her eyes, which were pale but gray, like a wolf’s, and he understood where her beauty began. I’m listening, said the woman. The man kept staring at her—those eyes—but finally he went back to looking out the window and began to remember again the two cans of paint, and the thick liquid that came out into a glass measuring cup.

  It took some time to learn, he said finally.

  You’re strange, said the woman. Come here.

  No.

  Why?

  The night is over.

  You’re not still thinking of that damn appointment? They must have given you up for dead by now.

  It’s not that.

  So? Are you afraid they’ll catch you, tomorrow morning, with a woman in an evening dress? I told you I can vanish and they won’t even notice.

  Really?

  Of course.

  Maybe you should do it now.

  I wouldn’t think of it! Why?

  Believe me, do it now.

  What are you talking about?

  Nothing.

  In fact, you know what I’m going to do? What we need is a nice breakfast here in the room, to celebrate.

  Put down that phone.

  What’s the number of the reception desk?

  Don’t do that, please.

  Nine, here, it’s always…

  Put down that phone.

  Calm down, what’s got into you?

  Put it down immediately!

  All right… all right, here, done.

  I’m sorry.

  What’s wrong with you?

  It wasn’t a good idea.

  Certainly it was.

  Believe me, it wasn’t.

  I wasn’t going to ask for two, I’d ask for one, we’d share it, and when they brought it up I’d go hide in the bathroom.

  For a moment the man seemed to think that it might actually work, but that wasn’t in fact what he was thinking. He was about to say something when they knocked on the door, three times. From the corridor a voice said County Police, unemphatic but loud, without hesitation. The man was silent for a moment, then he said aloud, I’m coming. He turned to look at the woman. She was motionless; the sheets had slid down to her hips. The man took off his jacket, went to the bed, and handed it to the woman. Cover up, he said. They knocked again at the door. The woman put on the jacket, looked at the man, and said softly, You mustn’t worry. The man shook his head no. Then he said aloud, I’m coming, and went toward the door. The woman put her hands in the pockets of the jacket and with her right hand felt a gun. She grasped it. The man opened the door.

  County Police, said the policeman, showing a badge. He kept the other hand on the butt of a gun that was hanging from his belt.

  Are you Mr. Malcolm Webster? asked the policeman.

  Yes, I am, said the man.

  I must ask you to follow me, said the policeman.

  Then he turned toward the bed and didn’t seem surprised to find the woman, under the covers.

  The gun? he asked her.

  Everything’s okay, the woman answered. I have it.

  The policeman nodded assent.

  He turned again to the man.

  Let’s go, he said.

  2

  She was a girl, and dressing like a woman made her seem even younger. The makeup, too: the lipstick and the heavy lines around the eyes—pale eyes, but gray, like a she-wolf. She arrived around nine in the evening, with her boyfriend, someone who was evidently her boyfriend, quite a bit older. They must have had a lot to drink already. They hadn’t reserved, and to the hotel clerk they said they had left their documents in the car. The clerk was a man around sixty who had been instructed by the management not to be too fussy and to demand payment in advance. He wasn’t a man who could afford to act on his own, so he gave the two a room on the third floor and asked for the payment. The boy took a wad of bills out of his pocket and paid in cash. While he was doing it, he added some rather crude remarks, because he liked it to be understood that he was a toughie. The girl said nothing. She was standing a little distance away.

  They went up to the room but almost immediately came down again and went out to dinner without saying anything.

  It was a fairly dingy hotel, on the outskirts of the city.

  In the middle of the night the hotel clerk, lying on his cot, heard some noises in the lobby, like muffled voices. He got up to investigate and he saw the two of them leaning against a wall, kissing. The girl looked as if she wanted to go up to the room, but he kept her crushed against the wall and she giggled between one kiss and the next. The boy stuck a hand under her skirt and then she closed her eyes, still laughing. It could have been an amusing scene, but the boy had a manner that wasn’t very nice. The hotel clerk gave a slight cough. The boy turned toward him and then went back to doing what he was doing, as if it didn’t matter to him that someone was looking at him, or as if he liked it. But the clerk didn’t like it, and so he took the key to their room and said aloud that he would be grateful if they would go up. The boy cursed, but took his hand away and used it to straighten his hair. Finally they took the key and left. The clerk remained standing behind the desk, and was thinking that there was something delightful about the girl when she reappeared in the lobby, with a shadow of weariness she hadn’t had before, and said there were no towels in the room. The clerk was sure there were but went to get some in the storeroom without wondering what the story was. He returned with the towels and gave them to the girl, who thanked him politely, and moved as if to go. But after a couple of steps she stopped and, turning to the man, asked a question, as if she had been saving it up for a long time, and in a tone in which there was simple curiosity and a little of that weariness.

  When do night clerks sleep? she asked.

  At night, the man answered.

  Oh.

  In bits and pieces, of course.

  All you night clerks are in bits and pieces, then.

  Yes, in the sense that we have to wake up and go back to sleep many times.

  How did you end up in a job like this?

  I wasn’t in a position to choose. And then I don’t dislike it.

  Certainly being a rock star would be something else.

  Certainly I wouldn’t have the tranquility and the time that I have the privilege of having at my disposal here.

  What?

  I mean that I like it here. I wanted to be tranquil.

  Suit yourself. In my opinion you didn’t have the balls to dream of something better. Good night.

  Odd, it’s the same thing I thought about you.

  Excuse me?

  When I saw you come in, and then afterward, there, in the lobby, I thought it was a pity.

  What was a pity?

  That boy. You with that boy. You, if I may say, are a charming girl, it’s immediately obvious.

  What nonsense are you talking?

  I’m sorry. I wish you good night.

  No, now tell me what you meant.

  It’s not important.

  I’m sure, but now tell me anyway.

  Your boyfriend will be expecting the towels.

  My business. What’s this story of the charming girl?

  You keep your feet right next to one another—attached. Girls don’t always know that if they’re wearing high heels the way to stand, when they’re not moving, is with their feet together. Sometimes it’s the width of a finger, but that’s not the same thing.

  Listen to this.

  They don’t all understand, but you know it, and then all the rest, too, you have a nice way of… of everything. Your boyfriend, on the other hand, is all wrong, no?

  And you—you understand?

  And so I thought it was a pity. I thought maybe you didn’t have the balls to dream of something better.

  You should sleep a little more, you know? You’re really not well.

  It may be.
But certain things can be understood.

  And what do you think you understand?

  Certain things.

  What is it, did you go to school, are you a psychologist during the day, or a fortune-teller?

  No. It’s that I’m of a certain age, and I’ve seen all kinds of things.

  Standing behind the front desk of a hotel?

  Partly.

  What kind of experience is that?

  I’ve had others.

  Such as?

  Having children like you.

  Big deal.

  Does that seem worthless to you?

  Anyone’s capable of having children.

  That’s true. I was in jail. Do you like that?

  You, in jail?

  Thirteen years.

  Are you making fun of me?

  I wouldn’t dare.

  You don’t seem like the jail type.

  No, it’s true.

  Did you end up there by mistake?

  I ended up there for a whole series of reasons that lined up in an anomalous and uncorrectable way.

  I don’t understand.

  I killed a man.

  Shit.

  Your boyfriend is waiting for you.

  You killed a man how?

  I shot him. One shot, just one.

  What aim…

  It was at a few feet, it wasn’t exactly easy to miss. But the fact that I’d fired just one shot helped, in court.

  You give the impression that you didn’t really enjoy it.

  Right.

  Something tidy.

  So to speak.

  Why did you kill him?

  It’s a long story.

  All right, make it short.

  Why should I tell you?

  I don’t know, I’d like to know.

  Let’s do like this…

  Yes, but hurry, I have to go.

  I’ll tell you the story, but in exchange you’ll leave this hotel, right now, without even saying goodbye to the man up there.

  What?

  I said that I would be glad to tell you why I killed him, but afterward, in exchange, I’d like you to leave and go home.

  What the fuck are you talking about?

  I don’t honestly know. But this idea occurred to me. I’d very much like to see you go out that door and find a better place.

  What’s wrong with this place?

  That man.