Zig Zag

by Jose Carlos Somoza

  "We haven't really seen each other the last four years..." Lopera went on. "I don't know, maybe I feel like he's changed. He's more ... more sure of himself. I mean, he's a genius, there's no doubt about that, a genius to the third degree, since his father and grandfather are geniuses, too. His father's a cryp ... a cryptographer who works in Washington at some national security organization or something ... His mother's American, she's a math teacher in Baltimore. She was nominated for the Fields Medal last year." Elisa was impressed, against her will. The Fields Medal was awarded in the United States every four years in recognition of outstanding mathematical achievement in the best and most promising mathematicians in the world; it was almost like a Nobel. She wondered how she'd feel if her mother had been nominated for the Fields Medal. But right then, all she felt was rage. "They're divorced. And his mother's brother..."

  "Wait, let me guess ... Won the Nobel Prize in chemistry?" Elisa quipped, feeling petty. "Or maybe Niels Bohr is his uncle?"

  Lopera emitted that weird sound again; it had to be a laugh.

  "No. He's a programmer for Microsoft in California... What I meant is that Ric's learned a lot from all of them. He's like a sponge. When you think he's not paying attention, he's actually analyzing everything you do and say ... He's a machine. How far up Claudio Coello do you want me to drop you off?"

  Elisa told him not to take her all the way home, but he insisted. Stuck in a lunchtime traffic jam in Madrid, they had plenty of time to stop arguing and stew in silence. She spied a couple of books on top of the glove compartment, half hidden under some dog-eared folders. She read the title of one: Mathematical Games and Puzzles. The other one was weightier: Physics and Faith: Scientific and Religious Truth.

  As they were making their way up Claudio Coello, Lopera broke his silence.

  "You sure pissed Ric off when he saw you beat him on the entrance exam." And he burst out with another gurgle-giggle.

  "Really?"

  "God, yes. He's a sore loser. A very sore loser." Suddenly Lopera's expression changed. It was as if he'd thought of something else, something he hadn't considered until right then. "Be careful," he added.

  "Of what?"

  "Of Ric. Be very careful."

  "Why? Can he sway the Fields Medal selection committee, so I'll never get the award?" Lopera ignored her sarcasm.

  "No. He just doesn't like to lose." He stopped the car. "Is this your building?"

  "Yeah, thanks. Hey, listen, why do you say I should be careful? What do you think he'd do?"

  Instead of looking at her, he stared straight ahead, as if he were still driving.

  "Nothing. I just meant that... he was surprised you came in first, that's all."

  "Because I'm a girl?" she asked hotly. "Is that it?" Victor seemed embarrassed.

  "Maybe. He's not used to ... coming in second." Elisa bit her lip to keep from answering. Me either, she thought. "But don't worry," he added, trying to cheer her up, or maybe to change the subject. "I'm sure Blanes will appreciate you. He's too good not to see that you're good."

  That softened her a little, and she resolved not to hate Lop-era. When she got to the door of her building, she thought that maybe she'd been rude to him and turned back around to wave, but he'd already driven off. She stood there a minute, lost in thought.

  The scene made her recall the night before, with Javier Maldonado. She glanced up and down the street, almost as a reflex, but no one was spying on her. She saw no graying men with big mustaches. Albert Einstein. Of course! Einstein is Valente's grandfather, and last night he was spying on me. That must be it.

  She smiled and walked to the elevator, deciding that it had been a coincidence. Coincidences were not only possible, they were mathematically probable. Two men with similar features stare at her in one night. Why not? You'd have to be paranoid to stress out about that.

  While she was riding up to her floor, she thought about Victor Lopera's weird warning.

  Be careful of Ric.

  It was absurd. Valente didn't even know she was alive. He hadn't looked at her once.

  06

  THE date was set for Saturday afternoon; they were meeting at a cafe she'd never heard of, near Atocha Street. "You'll like it," Maldonado had promised.

  He was right. It was a relaxed place with dark walls and felt like an old theater, mainly because of a red velvet curtain hanging next to the bar. She loved it.

  Maldonado sat waiting for her at one of the few occupied tables. Elisa couldn't deny that she was thrilled to see him after the wretched week she'd had.

  "I called you a bunch of times yesterday, but the line went dead every time someone picked up."

  "The phone wasn't working. It's fixed now, though."

  The phone company said it was a "systems failure," but, said Elisa, the one who really had a "systems failure" was her mother, who had been climbing the walls, her restrained voice slightly louder than usual as she threatened to sue them for damages ("I have very important clients who call me at home, in case you didn't realize..."). They assured her they'd send out technicians that very Saturday, and they'd kept their word. And only then did Marta Morande" calm down.

  Elisa ordered a Diet Coke and watched, amused, as Maldonado pulled a stack of papers from his backpack.

  "More questions?" she joked.

  "Yeah. Do you mind?" She told him she didn't as soon as she realized he was serious. "I know it's a pain in the ass," he apologized, "but this is what I do, what can I say? And I really appreciate your helping me out, honestly ... Good journalism is the product of accurate information, patiently compiled," he recited in a dignified tone that surprised her.

  "Of course. I'm sorry..." I screwed up, she thought. But Maldonado's shy smile dissipated her fears.

  "No, I'm sorry. I'm just a little uptight because the year's almost over and I have to hand in my report ASAP."

  "Come on, then," she said encouragingly. "Let's get a move on. Ask away, leave no stone unturned."

  Still, their conversation was forced and unnatural at first. He asked formulaic questions about her free time, and she replied hesitantly, as if it were an oral exam. Elisa realized they were both sorry they'd had to start the night with such a different tone than they had at the party. But once Maldonado became interested in her active lifestyle, things picked up. Elisa told him she did everything she could, which was true: weight lifting, swimming, aerobics ... He stared at her.

  "Well, that explains your physique."

  "What's up with my physique?"

  "It's a perfect physique for physics."

  "That was terrible," she groaned.

  "You asked for it."

  Then they talked about her childhood. She told him she'd been a lonely child and that she'd lived inside her head, even when she was a little girl, even when she was playing. She'd had no choice, since her parents hadn't wanted any more kids and never paid much attention to her, preferring to spend their time working on their own problems. Her father ("He was a Javier, too") had become a physicist during times when things were "even worse" than they are now. Elisa remembered him as a friendly guy with a dark, bushy beard, but that was about it. He'd spent part of his life in England and the United States researching weak interaction, the force emitted by some atoms when they disintegrate, which was (at least in physics) all the rage in the seventies.

  "He spent a long time studying something known as 'CP symmetry violation' caused by kaon ... Come on, don't give me that look," Elisa laughed.

  "Who me?" Maldonado asked. "I'm just taking notes."

  "That's kaon, with a 'k,'" she corrected, pointing to Maldonado's notes.

  She was getting more and more into this. Unfortunately, she had to talk about her mother, too. Marta Morande, a mature, attractive, magnetic woman, owner and operator of Piccarda. Uncover your beauty... at Piccarda.

  She found it hard to talk about her mother and feel even slightly amused.

  "She comes from a family that's always had money, always t
raveled. I swear I wonder what my father ever saw in her. The thing is, I'm sure that if my mother had been a different kind of person, my father wouldn't have left me alone so much. She was always saying that she had to 'enjoy' life, that she couldn't lock herself up and throw away the key just because she'd married a 'brainiac.' That's what she used to call him. Sometimes even in front of me. 'The braniac's coming back tonight,' she'd say." Maldonado had stopped scribbling. He was listening intently. "I think my father decided it was too much of a hassle to go through with a divorce. And, besides, his family was very Catholic. So he just pretended not to notice, and let my mother get on with her life." Elisa looked down at the table, smiling. "I have to confess, I decided to study physics to annoy my mother, who wanted me to go into business and help her run her famous beauty salon. And boy did I annoy her! That really got her. She stopped speaking to me and moved to her summerhouse in Valencia while my father was out of town. So I was left in Madrid, alone except for my paternal grandparents. When my dad heard, he came straight back and told me he'd never leave me. I didn't believe him, though. A week later he went to Valencia to try to get my mom to sign an agreement. On his way back, a drunk driver crashed into him head-on, and that was the end of that."

  She was cold and rubbed her arms. She wasn't actually uneasy talking about it and thought it had probably done her good. After all, who had she ever been able to talk to before this?

  "Now I'm back living with my mom," she added. "But we've carved out our own spaces at home, and we both try not to cross the line into each other's territory."

  Maldonado was doodling. Elisa realized that their initial tension could easily creep back in and decided to take another tack.

  "But still, the time I spent on my own in Madrid did me a lot of good. It gave me the chance to really get to know my grandfather, who was the greatest guy in the world. He was a teacher and he loved history. He'd tell me all about ancient civilizations, and show me books..."

  Maldonado seemed more interested in this topic and started taking notes again.

  "Do you like history?" he asked.

  "Thanks to my grandfather, I love it. Though I don't actually know that much about it."

  "What's your favorite historical period?"

  "I don't know," Elisa thought about it. "The ancient civilizations fascinate me: the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans. My grandfather was really into Imperial Rome. You start thinking about those people, they left so many things behind and then they disappeared forever, and..."

  "And what?"

  "I don't know. I like it."

  "You like the past?"

  "Who doesn't? It's like something we've lost forever, you know?"

  "By the way," Maldonado said, as he'd just remembered. "We haven't discussed your ideas about religion. Do you believe in God, Elisa?"

  "No. Like I said, my father's family was very Catholic, but my grandfather was smart enough not to burden me with all that. He just instilled me with his values. I never believed in God, not even as a little girl. And now ... this will probably sound weird, but I think of myself as more of a Christian than a believer. I believe in helping others, in sacrifice, liberation, in just about everything Christ advocated, but not in God."

  "Why would that seem weird to me?"

  "Doesn't it?"

  "You don't think Jesus Christ was the son of God?"

  "No way. I don't even think there is a God. What I think is that Christ was a really great guy, and really brave, and he knew how to teach people values..."

  "Like your grandpa."

  "Yeah. But he wasn't as lucky as my grandfather. He was killed for his ideas. And that's something I do believe in: dying for your ideals."

  Maldonado took notes. Suddenly, it occurred to her that those questions were so specific that he must be asking them for personal reasons rather than for his report. She was about to say something when suddenly he put his pen away.

  "That's it for me. Do you want to take a walk?" Maldonado asked.

  They strolled up to the Puerta del Sol, the very center of Madrid. It was the first Saturday in July; the evening air was warm, and the plaza was crowded with people pouring out of the closing big department stores. After walking in silence, Elisa pretending to be more concerned with avoiding the crowds and gazing at the statue of King Charles III than with talking. Maldonado finally said something.

  "So how're things with Blanes?"

  That was what she'd been afraid of. If she was going to be honest, she'd have to say that her pride had been not just wounded but almost slain, that it now lay abandoned in some intensive care unit in the depths of her personality. She was no longer trying to shine; she wasn't even bothering to raise her hand, no matter what the question was. She just listened and learned. Valente Sharpe, on the other hand (who still hadn't even deigned to look at her), shone more each day. Classmates had started asking him questions, as if he were Blanes, or at least his right-hand man. And if he wasn't yet, it was only a matter of time, because even Blanes himself asked for his opinion on things. "Valente, nothing to say about this?" And Valente Sharpe would respond with glorious exactitude.

  Sometimes she thought it was just envy. But that's not it; it's more a void. I'm deflated. It's as if I trained for a marathon and then wasn't allowed to run it. It was quite clear who Blanes was going to take with him to Zurich. So all she could do was try to learn as much as possible about that beautiful theory and come up with another plan for her professional career.

  She wondered if she should tell Maldonado all this, but then thought she'd probably already told him enough for one night.

  "Good," she said. "He's an excellent teacher."

  "Still want to do your dissertation with him?"

  She hesitated before answering. An enthusiastic yes would just be a lie, but a curt no wouldn't be honest, either. Emotions were like quantum uncertainty, she thought.

  "Of course," she said coolly, leaving her true feelings hanging in the air.

  They'd walked across the plaza to Madrid's famous statue of the bear and the strawberry tree—"el oso y el madrono"— the symbols of the city. Maldonado asked her if they could stop at one of the ice cream parlors there to indulge one of his few "weaknesses," a chocolate-dipped cone. She laughed at his childlike tone when he ordered it, and even more at his obvious delight in devouring it. As they stood there in the plaza, Maldonado savoring his treat, he suggested they have dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Elisa accepted immediately, glad that the evening was not yet over.

  She spotted the man just then, purely by chance.

  He was standing by the entrance to the ice cream parlor. Gray hair, big gray mustache. He was holding an ice cream cone, nibbling at it every little while. This guy didn't look as much like the second man as he did the first one. In fact, he looked like he could be the brother of the man from the party. Or maybe—she couldn't be sure—it was actually the same guy, just dressed differently.

  No, it couldn't be. Now she saw that his hair was curly, and he was thinner, too. It wasn't the same man.

  For a second she thought, This is not unusual; there's nothing wrong with this picture. It's just a guy looking at me who looks like some other guys who were looking at me. But suddenly it was as if the floodgates had opened and a whole slew of irrational thoughts rushed into her mind, making a racket and causing a scene, like coked-up party crashers. Three different men who all look the same. Three men watching me.

  "What's wrong?" Maldonado asked. She couldn't lie. She had to say something. "That man."

  "What man?"

  When Maldonado turned around, he wiped his hands on a napkin and no longer looked at Elisa.

  "The guy standing by the ice cream parlor. He was giving me a weird look." She really didn't want Maldonado to think she was seeing things, but now she couldn't stop herself. "He looks a lot like another guy I saw at the party at Alighieri, who was also watching me. It could be the same guy."

  "Really?"

  Just then, the m
an turned and strode off toward Alcala Street.

  "I don't know, I just got the feeling he was spying on me..." She tried to laugh it off but couldn't. Maldonado wasn't laughing, either. "Maybe I'm wrong."

  He suggested they go to some quiet bar and talk it over. But there were no quiet bars around there, and Elisa was too jittery to walk far. So instead they decided to go to the Chinese place and have dinner. It was still early, and there weren't that many people in the restaurant yet.

  "Now. Tell me exactly what happened the other day. Every detail," he said once they'd sat down at a quiet, out-of-the-way table. He listened carefully, and then asked her for a detailed description of the man she'd seen at Alighieri. But before she could finish giving it, he interrupted her. "Hang on ... Gray hair, mustache. I know that guy. It sounds like Espalza; he's a statistics professor. He gave some guest lectures in my sociological stats class, but I know him more because he's in the teachers' association and I'm in the students' association..." He paused and then adopted that mischievous look that she loved. "He's also divorced and has a reputation as a perv. He's always ogling gorgeous students. He must have really been slobbering over you..."

  She suddenly wanted to laugh.

  "You know what else happened, that same night? When you dropped me off at home, this other guy with a mustache was staring at me..." Maldonado widened his eyes comically. "And that guy today had a mustache, too."

  "Why, it's a... a mustachioed conspiracy!" he murmured, feigning alarm. "A-ha, now I see!"

  Elisa burst out laughing. How could she have been so stupid? There was only one explanation: finishing college and starting Blanes's course had taken a toll on her nerves. She laughed until tears streamed down her face. Maldonado's expression changed abruptly as he stared at something behind her.

  "Good God!" he said, sounding scared. "The waiter!" Elisa turned to look, wiping the tears from her cheeks. The waiter was Asian, but (and this struck Elisa as unusual for an Asian man) he wore a big, black bushy mustache. "Another mustache. And this time it's a Chinese mustache!"

  "OK, OK," she laughed again. "Enough already."