3 Novellas: Home / Leaving for Jerusalem / The Nobel Prize

by Mois Benarroch

  The second page indicated that it was published in 1984, but didn’t specify whether it was a rerun or a first edition. When I read it I did not like it too much. I’m not even sure I reached the end. I found the novel too commercial and thought that the plot did not go anywhere. It looked like a German film from the twenties. It was supposed to be scary but I wasn’t really frightened, nor did I find a way of identifying with the characters. I remembered reading some of his other books, maybe three or four till I lost interest in his writings; apparently he published a novel a year.

  I read in the book jacket that Pisces had already published several books, and that at the time he was in the process of publishing The Destar Trilogy from which he had already published the first book Milo and had also published The Minoestar Quartet, from which he had published two novels: Lights and More Lights and Monday and Other Sundays. All these books were published by Crucigrama.

  6.

  The next day I left early and ran into Pisces just after breakfast. I wanted to ask the writer some more questions. I went directly to the big room but he wasn’t there, and. I asked a nurse about a writer named Pedro Pisces

  "Probably Pablo, but with him you never know."

  "Yes."

  "He is having a treatment. He will soon end it, because this gentleman here should follow him in a few minutes."

  It took almost half an hour. When he entered the room he seemed dazed and medicated. He did not recognize me. He sat on a couch that looked comfortable.

  "Hello. I’m here to continue the interview from yesterday."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "The interview that we stopped yesterday, Aren’t you the writer Ruiz Person?"

  "Me?"

  "Then who are you?"

  "I am a poor man, a man who wants to confess, I’ve killed someone, many years ago, I’ve killed a woman, because my family said that I couldn’t do anything and that I was a spoiled son, so I decided to do something, I had to do something so they would realize I could do something, and that something was killing someone, with my own hands. I don’t know what you think of the idea, neither do I know what I think about it today but in those days it seemed like a good idea, and one day I took a woman with me to a hotel and killed her there. I remember it well, I chose an easy prey, she was five feet tall, and I with my six feet was much stronger."

  It was clear that he had some sort of a complex about being short, (he was a short man — no more than five feet six, even less, but I decided not to interrupt), – it was not very difficult.

  "I choked her with a scarf she wore over her throat, but it wasn’t so easy, a woman who is going to die reveals great strength within her, but that was not enough to oppose me. When I realized what I had done I tried to revive her, but did not succeed, she was completely dead, I took her pulse, checked her breathing and there was no life in that little body, I regretted my mischief, I cried and I went straight to the police and confessed. The thing that happened next is what has driven me crazy all these years, the police went to the hotel, to the room where I killed the woman and found no one there. Nobody saw me coming with a woman, it was a 480–room hotel and that can happen, but then no one saw her leave although I gave an accurate description of how she looked like. I was released. Two months later I went to confess to a priest and asked him to warn the police, but the police started to take me for a fool. Not only was this woman not found but no body was found in the next two months in the city or around the city. A year passed and another and another, and I was haunted by the day they would come to arrest me. And afterwards I was haunted because that day didn’t come. I started searching. I paid private investigators. I became interested in the trafficking of women, of white women and others, nothing. That woman was gone, or worse, when I killed her she had ceased to exist even in the past, I thought I might even do it again, maybe I have the gift of killing not only a person but also their past, not only a body, but their existence, but I didn’t do it again. Until I came here and even here nobody believed me, they give me drugs but what I want is to pay for my crime."

  "Aha… well!"

  "What?"

  "No, I was expecting something else."

  "Like what? That I do a striptease in the middle of the room, or that I shit on the couch?"

  "Not that much. An interview with a writer."

  "I cannot do that, here there is no writer. I am a simple guilty man that no one believes. What do you think I should do to make someone believe me?"

  I did not expect that question. What did I know about guilt? And even less did I know what to do. But this I told him:

  "Drink a glass of water and calm down."

  "Never thought about that, but I will give it a try."

  He asked for a glass of water from a nurse. I later discovered that her name was Eva, that she was Kochinian and did not speak French.

  "I do not know what the problem is with this man, nobody knows what the matter is with this man, are you his brother; you look pretty much alike, one day he wakes up as the nicest person in the world and the most charming of all, and the next day no one can stand him."

  He drank a glass of water and told me it didn’t soothe him. He was as guilty as before.

  "Drink some more, small sips at a time, and you’ll see how it starts to take effect in a few minutes."

  Then he got nervous and started shouting, he would kill them all, all those who were in the room, he was guilty of a crime. Everyone was screaming, until Eva and two nurses came over and took him away.

  7.

  The next morning Pisces, Raul or Pedro or Jorge, whatever his name was, was hysterical. Or more accurately, she was hysterical. But she didn’t shout. That day she was the mother of a kidnapped baby.

  "That’s why I’m here, but there is no justice in the world, I kidnapped my son and I was hospitalized, you must help me."

  "I can try."

  He put his ear next to mine, and when he realized that there was no point in doing this, he turned to the side and put his mouth almost inside my ear.

  "My husband is involved; I think he sold our baby."

  He spoke with a high pitched voice, slightly hoarse, as high as he could. It was, after all, a woman’s voice. And if I closed my eyes it could be the seductive voice of woman in a cabaret or in films from the fifties. A femme fatale voice. He looked as fragile as a woman who needed help, and in spite of having an almost old man in front of me, bald and ugly, he aroused my masculine side in me to defend a woman who needed help.

  "Look, I know what’s wrong."

  "You know it all, everyone knows what happens to me, and I do not need another one to know it. I just want to see my baby."

  "But what I know is going to help you."

  "Yep ... Here we go."

  She began to mourn. I gave her a tissue from a pack that was on a nearby table. And turned back to say, "OK, what choice do I have? Every fool knows how to help me except myself, and then I’m the crazy one."

  "Look, it’s complicated. I was not sure how to explain, or what I should explain – whether it makes sense or not, I don’t know, it must have some logic, but now that I’m going to explain it, it doesn’t seem very logical, it is logical in my head, but if you want to explain it to another person it becomes illogical, and then it seems crazy, insane, so well, the thing is."

  "That makes sense to me, you don’t have to be logical to convince. Sometimes something illogical is more convincing than something logical."

  I was happy he said something, and I noticed that he did it with the same cabaret voice, without missing any syllable. I was relieved that I was stopped and that he interfered with my speech.

  Well, to the point, – now all I wanted was to shake the thing out of me. "Look, you are not you, you’re not a mother, you don’t have a baby, what you are is a character in the mind of a writer, you are the writer, and your madness is not that you have stolen a baby."

  "Kidnapped."

  "Kidnapped a ba
by, the thing is that you think you’re one of your characters. See take a look at the mirror and tell me if you’re a woman or a man."

  Of course he did not believe a word I said. It was obvious from the expression on his face, but when I said the last sentence he took it as an order and went to the bathroom. He returned within a few minutes and said:

  "A woman."

  "Well, you’re so convinced that even the mirror is deceiving you. Let’s ask those here — I went to a lady who was beside me and I asked. The person who is here with me, is it a man or a woman?"

  She began to analyze the case as if it were an abstract painting and could not decide, and then I realized I had screwed up because a man further down the hall said it was clear that it was a man, but at the same moment the woman who was sitting with him said it was a woman, the man began to shout at the woman that she was an extremist feminist and saw nothing but women and that even to him she talked as if he was a woman, while the 20 patients who were in the room shouted "man" and "female", until I said enough, and everyone became silent and the first woman beside me said as waking from a dream:

  "I can’t tell. Today things are not so simple."

  I turned my body toward Pisces.

  "Well, forget it, it has nothing to do with my explanation, the fact is that you are a writer and your madness is that you think you are a character."

  "I do not think that this is not important, but you can’t say I’m a man who is believed to be a woman, you see, here I have more people in favor of me being a woman than a man, so you can’t be that sure."

  "Here everybody is crazy."

  "Maybe, but it’s more likely that they will believe that I am a woman without her baby rather than a character in the mind of a writer, you see, everyone will think you’re crazy, you could be hospitalized. And worse, you may even be released only after I am released."

  "Well, I already told you it was logical until you explained it, I know. I know that there is something unreal about this. But I’m not crazy."

  "Don’t be so sure, look, let me call the doctor ... Doctor ... here, Tell him what you told me…"

  I heard them behind me as I was walking out of the door quickly. The last thing I needed was to be hospitalized. Eva greeted me as I left.

  8.

  I did not return the next day, nor the day after, I feared I would be taken for a fool. I decided I should read all his books, 37 novels, and other stories, poetry, essays, and that was the last thing I wanted. What little I read of Pisces I disliked and now I was more interested in the character of the writer who becomes his own characters than in the writer himself.

  However, without much forethought, I found myself on the way to a used bookstore asking for his books.

  "Raul and Jorge, and one more, Pedro, all Pisces, but I am told they are all the same author, .said the seller."

  "Whatever you have."

  "And another thing I heard is that he published a few novels under pseudonyms. One of the pseudonyms is apparently Fon Franco. And I have that one; it is called "The Beautiful Brandy."

  "What idiot would name a book with that title!"

  "Let me go to the basement to see what books I have, it is very uncommon to ask for his books, I think the only one who buys them is him ... or his family."

  It took a while. He came back with three books.

  "Look, I could not find The Beautiful Brandy; maybe my partner has sold it. But there is another one by Fon Franco, I had no idea we had it. There are too many books." This one is called The Jerseycito. I have no idea what it is about. And two by Pisces, one by Raul and one by Jorge. The second volume of the trilogy Destar: Ki Will and another novel: Big Cat’s Eyes.

  "Haven’t heard of it, I know about the trilogy. I read something about it."

  "You can give me your phone number and I will call you if something pops up."

  I paid for the books, they were not so cheap, but I decided not to haggle. I do not know how to haggle.

  "One more thing," I said.

  "Tell me."

  "Who are those who buy the books?"

  "There are all kinds; there are teachers and housewives..."

  "No, I mean the books of Pisces."

  "Ah ... OK. Of course. Women, I think ex–wives, I do not know why, two ex–wives, and a son, perhaps a son, in his thirties, always the same people, every month or so one of these three show up, never all three of them together in the same month, and they buy whatever I have."

  "Do you think he is still alive?"

  "No, in the books, on the lapels, it says he died ten years ago."

  "It may be a lie."

  "Everything in a book can be a lie."

  9.

  I took a weekend vacation with my wife to the Rosen Sea, she worked hard and it was even more difficult because I did not earn any money. It’s not easy being a writer’s wife. As for me, I felt guilty and therefore whenever I had any money it was spent traveling to surprise her and take her somewhere, on vacation. Soon, we ran out of money and the situation deteriorated again. On Monday I went to the clinic, and asked Eva when she would finish working and whether she could have a cup of coffee with me. I did not talk to Pisces this time, I was scared, but I saw him from the reception talking to a nurse, I think he said his driver was a thief and that he was going to fire him. Eva told me she could meet in an hour and I could wait for her at the Aromatic coffee shop which was a ten minute walk. She could spare me half an hour and then she had to go home.

  I waited. She arrived on time, and went straight to the point.

  "I know what you’re going to ask me. Pisces is not a patient of mine but what I know is that he checked in two years ago. I have only been working here for a year, so it’s more or less what I know, two years or so, and he was hospitalized by choice. Doctors do not know exactly what he has, but the diagnosis is Paranoid Schizophrenic Personality, well, like most of our patients, it seems that’s all they say."

  "And who pays the bills? It must be expensive."

  "They are paid by bank transfer, he must have enough money. I think he signed a monthly transfer when he entered the hospital."

  "And what about releasing him?"

  "He does not even ask. It looks like he feels great in the clinic ... One day he is someone and the next day he is someone else, every day he wakes up a different person, some days he is lovely."

  "Does he go back to the same personalities?"

  "Yes, sometimes yes, but never on consecutive days, it’s just like what you saw, the woman with the kidnapped baby, in those days he is given a sedative because it gets unbearable, when he is a writer or a judge or something like that he is very friendly and funny."

  "Does the name Fon Franco mean anything to you?"

  "It might, though he never mentions his name: when you ask him he is convinced that everyone around knows who he is on that day."

  "She got up, asked if I was paying the bill and with a smile on her face said she was in a hurry. She said that everything was confidential and that no one had to know we ever spoke about this subject, and she informed me that we could meet another day. Eva, a very pretty woman, with blond hair and brown eyes, of medium built, worn out, somewhat overweight, gave me the impression of being divorced for a long time."

  10.

  The next day I went straight into the matter and asked him:

  "Do you know who Fon Franco is?"

  "That day he was dead serious and looked like a college professor."

  "Sure, who doesn’t know that, he is a famous writer, he won a Planeta prize."

  "And Raul Pisces?"

  "Pisces is another famous writer who won the Planeta."

  "And Roberto Bolaño?"

  "Coach of Atletico Madrid."

  "Very good. And Cesar Aira?"

  "President of the Dominican Republic."

  "And Esther Bendahan?"

  "Another writer who won the Planeta."

  "And Mois Benarroch?"

  "Another P
laneta."

  "And Adolfo García Ortega?"

  "Fan of Real Madrid."

  "What’s the name of your wife?"

  "Pedales."

  "What about your son?"

  "Magallanes."

  "What’s your name?"

  "As always."

  "And what is your name?"

  "Como, it’s an abbreviation of Giacomo".

  "Surname."

  "Siempre. Spanish for Sempervirens, the Cypress. Called Cupressus Sempervirens. Which means evergreen. Always green."

  "Capo Verde."

  "That’s it. Very green."

  "How long have you been here for?"

  "Some time now, and I was just leaving, I have many chores to do, and I have the whole accounting of this institute on my shoulders."

  He left. I went and didn’t see Eva. As I was passing through the main gate the guard greeted me, saying Sir and Miss.

  I walked a few steps and saw a woman standing next to me. Young, slim, athletic.

  "Thanks, she said."

  "That, well, that’s nothing."

  "Thanks for helping me out."

  "I did not help you at all."

  "Yes, you did, the guard thought we were a couple."

  "Maybe."

  "He did. So thank you."

  "We walked and talked, and she continued."

  "As a reward for how good you are, if you want you can fuck me."

  I thought that I did not understand what she had said. She looked very good, but at my age she was not the kind the women who was on my radar of sexual intentions. Maybe she was another psychiatric case. Seeing my surprise, she said.