Breathing Through the Wound

by Victor del Arbol

  Gloria stepped forward and stopped halfway between Ian and the portrait of Arthur. She looked back and forth between the two of them, as though contemplating a mirror and what it was reflecting.

  “I want to see it,” she said, her voice quiet.

  “See what?” Ian asked casually.

  Dolores the housekeeper had an obsession—a virtue, really—about order and meticulousness. Her parents had taught her that the rich are always suspicious of their servants, that they suspect they’re pilfering money and food, that they’re not hardworking, that they shirk the chores they’ve been given to do. In order to survive in a good house (which was like El Dorado—the maximum aspiration to which people like Dolores aspired), it was crucial to always have an alibi in order to refute all of your employer’s accusations.

  When Gloria asked her that morning about a package that had come four years ago, the reasonable response would have been to say she couldn’t remember; no one could have reproached her for that. Nevertheless, Dolores went up to her little room in the attic and rifled through the papers she kept in a shoebox until she came across the proof of delivery. She went back down to Gloria and handed it to her proudly. The signature on the bottom right of the slip was Ian’s. If you lost that package, it’s not my fault, her expression said.

  “The video Magnus Olsen’s widow sent. We can call Dolores if you want; she tells me she gave it to you.”

  * * *

  —

  I an Mackenzie didn’t need any proof. He remembered perfectly well the day and time the housekeeper handed him a package with no return address. He was at home alone, Gloria and Ian junior had gone into Madrid and he was working on a script he wasn’t quite happy with. After receiving the Medal of Arts from the Queen, his fame as a director had grown exponentially, as had the number of careerists in his life, including many desperate folks who mailed him all sorts of things in the hope of a helping hand. Under normal circumstances the recording would have landed in the pile of CDs, résumés and scripts he received regularly from people looking for an opportunity that would probably never arrive. But that morning Ian couldn’t concentrate on his work. Olsen’s death was hanging over him. The media reported the same version of events as the police: Magnus had committed suicide, unable to cope with the pressure of his bankruptcy and legal problems. The case, therefore, was not going to be investigated. But that didn’t quell his fears.

  He could have taken a few days off to enjoy himself—before he had to return to Australia to tackle the last part of a shoot that would require a great deal of mental effort—but he didn’t. He was hardly sleeping; his arguments with Gloria were becoming increasingly heated, and they were all about the same thing: Ian junior. He needed to get back to filming, get back behind the camera, hop on a bus and cross the Australian desert. At least there he could pretend his life hadn’t changed.

  He popped in the tape and turned on the TV, intending to grant himself a ten-minute distraction. And a whiskey. Then he’d go back to work.

  Nothing could have prepared him for what he was about to see.

  * * *

  —

  He’d never really liked Magnus Olsen. Maybe one reason was because of the rude, almost feudalistic way he treated his beautiful wife. Like the nouveaux riches, he possessed her without actually appreciating her. And that woman was too exquisite a morsel for the Swiss shark. He treated her like an expensive whore, openly stroking her arse in the presence of others, grabbing her by the waist as if she were a stein of beer. Ian felt sorry for her, and he also wanted her, had fantasies he sometimes allowed himself to indulge in, alone in the bathroom.

  Regardless, Olsen was a door that men like Ian had to knock on in order to finance their films. The lie Magnus had invented for himself and was trying to live had not yet seriously begun to crack, and he seemed firmly established in his wealth; besides—and this was sheer luck—he was a real film buff who possessed truly vast stores of knowledge that surprised Ian. Olsen admired him not just because he was starstruck but also because the man sincerely appreciated his work, which inevitably predisposed Ian to get over his reticence about the man’s character. And the lengths Olsen went to in order to get the Taggers’ violin back finally ended up dispelling Ian’s initial doubts. He opened the doors of his house to the man, agreed to give a couple of talks to Dámaso’s film club, and acted as intermediary so that Olsen could gain access to other directors, actors and people in the business. The club was very select—those people had enough money and power that he’d never have to put projects on the backburner over a lack of funding or over bureaucratic red tape.

  It was intoxicating.

  What’s more, his son enjoyed those evening sessions at the club too. He watched him from the projector as they showed a Harold Lloyd film and saw that his son’s eyes were taking in every detail. He asked questions that were surprisingly astute for a neophyte of his age, leaving the other attendees awestruck—and for the first time, Ian saw his son emerge from the permanent silence and cold, withdrawn air he’d had since birth. He seemed like a different child, happier, more centered.

  It had been obvious since he was a little boy that he’d never be like other kids. There was something odd about him, something that occasionally verged on cruelty. One time he’d used barbed wire to tie a puppy to a post and had then watched for hours as the poor animal struggled to get free, tearing its neck to shreds. But at the same time, he could analyze anything his twinkling eyes saw with the sort of candor that was disconcerting in someone so young—like the day he contemplated a desiccated tree and turned to look at his father, saying that things are born in order to one day die and that’s just the way it is. He was seven.

  Ian and Gloria were locked in a nasty and secret rivalry over the boy, each trying to be the one to govern the contradictory forces at play inside him. They sparred without realizing it, pouring their hopes and fears into their son; he was the battlefield on which they waged their war. Ian senior was sure the boy would follow in his footsteps, that he’d find in film a means of expressing whatever it was that tormented him—the greatest minds often verged on the insane, and as long as his genius managed to prevail, his son had enormous potential. Gloria, in turn, put all her faith in music; she tried to force him to be disciplined with the violin and piano, claiming that music activated new parts of the brain, created neuronal associations that her son needed to fill with harmony and order.

  When Ian turned down a class with his mother in order to accompany his father to see a movie with Magnus at Dámaso’s film club, Ian smiled at having won a petty victory over his wife.

  “I didn’t realize what was going on until it was too late,” he told Gloria. He rubbed his face as though washing it with a cloth. “When Olsen called me, I couldn’t process what he was saying. It was as if I’d taken a hallucinogen; my brain could not accept it. I sat there in the hotel room with the phone in one hand, thinking it was a joke. But it wasn’t. That son of a bitch told me what Ian was doing in the club, the terrible things he was taking part in.”

  Nobody’s forcing him, believe me. This is all coming from him, Olsen had said.

  From Madrid, thousands of kilometers away, Olsen had called him in Australia to tell him that his son was a genius. A twisted, perverted genius. I have proof. So you’d better come and take a look. We need to speak and come to an agreement. I don’t like having to do this, Ian; I sincerely admire you. But my life is going down the pan and I need some liquidity.

  “He was blackmailing me. He threatened to send you the proof. I thought I was going to lose my mind, I couldn’t think straight, didn’t know how to react. I got on the first plane I could and went straight to his house.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” She wasn’t attempting to console him, wasn’t saying that together they could have handled anything—gone to the police, hospitalised their son if necessary. No, she was recriminating him for not ha
ving involved her in it, for having kept quiet all those years. Absolute contempt trembled in her voice, but she showed no other emotions.

  Promise me.

  He’d promised. That he would protect Gloria from everything and everyone. Even from herself. His father-in-law had looked at him, one eye cloudy with the gauzy haze over his pupil; the man was going blind. But he could still see—and he’d seen what his daughter’s husband had inside, what he was capable of. Ian remembered the old man’s sad, tragic smile. He was burdened by stories of war, Jews, exile, violins, secret graves. A smile revealed tartar-stained, uneven teeth—the man had always refused dentures and implants—worn down by gnawing his way through life.

  Nothing more was ever said. They never brought it up again.

  When Ian disembarked from the plane from Australia, foggy with lack of sleep, hair standing on end, large purple bags under his eyes, he knew what he had to do.

  Magnus Olsen hadn’t been expecting him so early. It was seven in the morning. He could hear the TV from behind the door, the morning news. Things were happening all over the world, but he didn’t care about any of them. Olsen opened the door, half-dressed, shirt unbuttoned and belt not yet buckled. His hairy gut hung out, belly button like a spider curled up in a hairy black nest, tiny nipples poking out from his sagging breasts. Like a pig. He looked surprised, but not afraid. He looked like he wanted to say, What’s the rush? It’s not that big a deal.

  Ian knew what he had to do and how to do it. He didn’t hit him, though, in his neck, he felt the strain of forcing himself not to. He didn’t say a word. Instead he stood looking at the man’s body, calculating his weight. A hundred and ten, hundred and twenty kilos. Nothing but a ball of fat, he thought. A mass of blubber steamrolling over his happiness. Olsen asked him in. He was still barefoot and his toes left little marks on the parquet. There was fresh-brewed coffee, some half-eaten toast on a plate, and a cigarette smouldering in an ashtray in need of emptying. The television blared in the background, clothes were strewn on the sofa. It smelled of cheap hooker. The only window was to the right, facing the building across the street. Which was far away. A thick wood beam crossed the ceiling, dividing the open-plan space in two. It would take the weight.

  “I know you must think I’m a bastard.” Olsen’s voice sounded respectful and full of sorrow, but his eyes were greedy and scheming. “You have to understand that I have no intention of harming you or your family. It’s just that things have become extremely difficult for me and I need money.” He was moving with his pudgy hands—the same hands that so cockily fondled his wife’s bottom—as if stroking an imaginary ball, talking, defending himself, pretending he was at the end of his tether.

  Ian wasn’t listening. He didn’t need the prologue.

  “I’ll pay you, but I want to see the tape first,” he said, cutting him off.

  Magnus Olsen’s expression was that of a man accustomed to living a life of lies and mistrust. He was a good poker player, and a good poker player never shows the aces up his sleeve until just the right moment.

  “Of course, of course, but I don’t have it here right now. I’m not stupid. It’s hidden in a safe place, don’t you worry. When you pay me, I’ll send it to you. Standard procedure.”

  So he’d done this to others before, Ian thought. Coaxed out other people’s weaknesses and then taken advantage of them. To him it was just a standard procedure. Ian changed tack. He threatened to go to the police. Olsen let out a cynical laugh. They both knew he wouldn’t do that.

  Olsen had become the Damocles sword hanging over his head. Ian could pay him, but there was no guarantee he’d get the tape in return, or that there weren’t more copies, or that he wouldn’t continue trying to extort him in the future. He knew he had to get rid of that parasite.

  It was quick and violent. Silent. And the silence accentuated the surreal nature of the whole thing as Ian pounced, taking the man off-guard and hurling him to the floor with a kick to the solar plexus. Olsen stumbled backward like a disoriented bear. Without thinking, urged on by his instincts, Ian whipped off Olsen’s belt and wrapped it around his neck. He fought back, pawing the air and trying to strike any which way, the blows landing mostly on Ian’s shoulders. For a fat man he struggled ferociously, kicking, eyes popping out of their sockets. But Ian strangled him with a cold determination he never imagined he could possess.

  Killing a human being turned out to be all too easy. And for a long time that discovery troubled him. At night, once he was back in Australia, he’d relive the scene in his mind, the sequence of premeditated movements executed with impeccable discipline. He could see Olsen’s eyes go from disconcerted to irate to fearful and then finally, as the light in them grew dim, to pleading. He felt the pressure of the belt around his knuckles, heard the sound of the leather twisting across Magnus’s trachea, the tapping of his heels on the wood floor and the gurgling of air escaping from his lungs.

  “I didn’t find the tape. I don’t think he had any intention of giving it to me and I didn’t have time to search. I hauled him up to the beam, knotted the belt, and left him hanging.”

  Gloria stared, stunned and stupefied, at the man who had once been her husband, the father of her son, and she did not recognize him. She couldn’t imagine him doing anything like that. He was too handsome, too carefree. He was a genius. Not a murderer. His hands, his eyes, his body were made to create things, images. Not destroy them.

  “When the tape arrived, it was already too late for you and me. I couldn’t explain it to you, you wouldn’t have understood,” Ian said, his voice broken.

  Gloria closed her eyes and pressed her fingers into them, as though trying to force her eyeballs back in, so as not to see anything else. Opening her eyes, she looked for a chair and sat down. Her body was trembling. She looked at Arthur’s portrait, right in front of her, and felt infinite bitterness as she contemplated his immortalized expression. How she hated that man! How she hated the entire world at that moment.

  A few things made sense now. When Ian had returned from Australia, weeks after Olsen’s death, he’d been absentminded and irritable, and though he blamed it on the exhaustion of filming and on economic troubles, Gloria assumed—naively—that her husband was having some sort of affair, when in fact what was weighing on him was his conscience. Sickened, she replayed one horrible evening—the worst they’d had at that point. She had been practicing, going over a few scores. Dolores sat knitting in an armchair. She liked to knit scarves and sweaters, which she then gave as gifts to people, who never wore them.

  Gloria heard shouting coming from the office upstairs. Her husband sounded out of control—he was swearing in English and hurling insults that reverberated throughout the house. In the background she could hear her son’s voice screaming, too, although it was drowned out by his father’s booming voice. They were really fighting.

  “I’ll go see what’s going on,” Dolores had said, looking startled, cocking her head as though that would enable her to hear better.

  Gloria had already gotten up.

  “No, I’ll go.”

  She’d walked upstairs, and on entering the office, she froze. Her husband had Ian junior cornered between the table and a sofa. His arms were aloft and from where she stood, behind them, it was hard to tell whether he was trying to hug him or strangle him. But when she caught sight of her son’s contorted face and his father’s furious eyes, his intentions became clearer.

  Ian junior’s lip was bleeding and he had a mark on his cheek. A few drops of red stained the collar of his shirt. Drops that neither father nor son had noticed but that Gloria honed in on immediately. Incredulous, she barked questions back and forth between the two of them, but neither one answered. Her son wrenched free from the prison of his father’s arms and stormed out of the office, stopping in the doorway to shoot each of them a look a pure hatred.

  “You’re the ones who made me what I am.
I wish you were both dead!”

  Gloria made as if to go after him, but what he said stopped her in her tracks.

  “Don’t even touch me, you Jew bitch. I’m never coming back to this house. As long as he’s here, you can forget about me.”

  His words hit her like a blow to the stomach. The words that hurt and wound and kill the most are those spoken by the love of your life. For a mother, the worst form of betrayal, the worst sort of death, is the contempt of her child. The incomprehensible contempt.

  Ian left, slamming the door so hard it rattled in its frame, but his words lingered on, rooting Gloria to the spot where she stood. She stared down at her feet wondering what they were doing there, holding her up. Slowly, she raised her eyes to her husband, on the other side of the room. He stood with his back to her, wide and broad-shouldered, with large biceps, strong enough to hang a hundred-and-twenty-kilo pig of a man from a ceiling beam. Strong enough to bear the weight of what he’d done in silence. He leaned with his hands and forehead against the wall. As though trapped and trying in vain to push his way out, to escape.

  “What did you do to my son?”

  Ian turned slowly to face her. He couldn’t look her in the eye. At that moment, he wouldn’t have been able to keep up his front, to hide the tragedy already set in motion.

  “It was just an argument. You know what he’s like, he’ll get over it.”

  He might, but she was never going to forget it.

  “Did you hit him?”

  Ian swallowed hard, as though forcing down dry crumbs of bread. Bitter bread.

  He’d never before laid a hand on his son. He’d never killed anybody before either. There’s always a first time—and after that it gets easier.

  “He needs help, Gloria. There is something very wrong with our son.”

  She wasn’t listening.