by Javier Calvo
“Mr. Yanel. I have to ask you pay the bill that you have outstanding,” he says. “You have been warned a dozen times.”
“The situation is completely under control.” Yanel barely alters his smile. “I spoke this morning with that man that…” He stops when he sees the Floor Manager from his floor. “Oh, hi. How are you, sir?” He extends his hand to the Floor Manager. The Floor Manager stares at Yanel's hand as if it were a cockroach the size of a hand. “We already spoke this morning.”
“Mr. Yanel,” says the Director of Customer Service. “I am sorry to inform you, but you must pay your bill.”
Eric Yanel theatrically pats his pockets.
“I don't usually bring my cards down so they can sunbathe.” He makes one of those pauses that are made right after a joke. Then his face takes on a serious look. “This could all backfire on you, you know that?” He frowns. “I'm talking about humiliating a client in front of his fiancée and all that. Who knows. My lawyer might find something criminal in all this.”
“Sir.” The Director of Customer Service looks around him furtively. “I must ask you to clear out of your room immediately and pay your bill at the reception desk.”
Iris Gonzalvo lifts her heart-shaped gaze from the deck chair where she has just taken a sip of her Finlandia with cranberry juice, the glass still in her hand, and smiles at the Director of Customer Service with a dramatic smile that looks a bit patronizing.
“He can't pay the bill,” she says. “Because he hasn't got any money.”
A fat kid with a swimsuit printed with characters from a Japanese cartoon show takes a running start across the deck's tiled floor splattered with water. Creating a generalized tremor of swaying fat that jiggles and spills in every direction. When he reaches the edge of the pool he makes a greasy, jiggly leap and, while suspended in the air, hugs his knees so he lands in the water in the posture traditionally known as “the cannonball.” Iris Gonzalvo observes, expressionless, the system of centrifugal waves where the fat kid plunged into the pool. The Floor Manager remains a step behind his superior ranking employee. In addition to the plastic ID badge pinned to his shirt front, he wears a full Floor Manager uniform made up of a blue linen bolero jacket with white pinstripes, matching pants, a white short-sleeved shirt and a corporate tie featuring the establishment's insignia.
“Of course”—the Director of Customer Service brings a hand to the tip of his nose nervously as he says this—“our company is prepared to take all types of legal action.”
Eric Yanel sighs. He places the protector over his eyes and lies back in the deck chair again.
“This is typical,” he says. His hand feels its way, searching for the ten-year-old Macallan on the little aluminum table. He eventually finds it and raises it to his lips. “The typical impression that people have about actors. As if we had money coming out of our asses. Like we never have any cash-flow problems. But it's not like that. It's a job that's filled with sacrifices. A job that requires patience.” He points with his glass of Macallan to the two hotel employees in a vaguely accusatory gesture. “You know? Sometimes I think you have to be very brave to be an actor in this country.”
There is a moment of silence. The fat kid that had plunged into the pool a minute before finally appears on the surface, in the midst of an upsurge of water. With his arms held high. In that radiant arms-held-high pose in which synchronized swimmers come to the surface after successfully concluding a number.
Wonderful World
CHAPTER 3
The Fishing Trophy Room
The Fishing Trophy Room in the Giraut family house in the Ampurdan region is an enormous room located on the second floor. One wall is filled with large windows overlooking the Mediterranean, and there's a bar half hidden in some sort of nook near the door. Trophies from throughout Estefanía “Fanny” Giraut's career in sportfishing cover the walls. Stuffed, mounted fish on wooden plaques with commemorative inscriptions. Six-and-a-half-foot-long swordfish with their nose swords pointing to the other fishing trophies. Photographs of Fanny Giraut at high sea, with her vest filled with pockets and her captain's hat. Lucas Giraut doesn't exactly know why the executive meeting he is attending is being held in the Fishing Trophy Room of their house in the Ampurdan. Or, for that matter, why most of the executive meetings of the heirs to his father's company are held there. In his heart of hearts he suspects that it could be one of his mother's tactics to make him uncomfortable. Somehow his mother is convinced that she's stronger and more powerful inside this room.
Besides Lucas and his mother, a man that they all simply know as Fonseca is present at the meeting. He is Fanny Giraut's lawyer and confidant. Known in the Barcelona law world for his sycophantic loyalty to his client. Known in Barcelona by such terms as “deputy,” “right hand” or even “goon” by those who feel no special sympathy for Fanny Giraut's business project. Fonseca is seated on one of the leather sofas, with a glass of Finlandia and tonic in his hand.
“This is the primary objective of this meeting.” Fonseca frowns at Lucas Giraut, who is standing in front of one of the large windows. “To present you with the business plan for the coming year. Especially the plans for our International Division. Which, as you know, is now fully up and running. And that's why we've called you here. We could have just sent you the plans, you know. But that's not how we want to work with you. That's not the way your mother wants to deal with this delicate situation.” He makes a tinkling sound with the ice cubes in a glass of Finlandia with tonic as he looks toward where Lucas Giraut is standing, with his back to the meeting. “I am referring, of course, to the situation that your father's death has left us in.”
The Giraut family house in the Ampurdan is an art nouveau–style mansion, with three floors and forged-steel balconies, built facing a breakwater a mile away from a small fishing village. The house's name as it appears on the town registry is Villa Estefanía. In the Giraut family, though, everyone calls it the Villa. The man known simply as Fonseca is wearing a fishing vest on top of a wool turtleneck sweater and thigh-high rubber boots. On the temples of his bony face, a thick network of veins swell and deflate to the rhythm of his emotional ups and downs. Lucas Giraut is wearing a turtleneck sweater and thigh-high rubber boots, but instead of a fishing vest he has on some sort of tool belt adapted for fishing. Fanny Giraut wears a wool coat and scarf and rubber boots that only come up to her ankles. All three wear wool hats.
“The International Division,” continues Fonseca. “Fifty men and women with thirteen different nationalities. With promising careers and areas of knowledge that cover the entire market.” A slight note of elegy betrays his speech. A note he seems to suddenly be aware of, given that he frowns and takes a sip of his drink, a quiver of embarrassment showing in the veins of his temples. Then he shrugs his shoulders and continues. “You already know Carlos Chicote, the Director of our International Division. And you are already familiar with our restoration project for the Speyer Cathedral. That project, my boy, is the only thing right now that separates us from a position of dominance. From being the top European company in the field, in terms of capital and resources and client portfolio.” He looks at Lucas Giraut's back with a frown. “That is why we've sent Chicote to Germany with an unlimited line of credit and with exact instructions to have dinner with everyone he should be having dinner with.”
“We want Chicote to have dinner more.” Fanny Giraut observes the glass of Finlandia with ice she holds in her hand with a blank expression. Seated in her favorite leather armchair. Even when she isn't showing any particular emotion, her face is a horrible mask, her lips bruised from the silicone injections and the skin tensed beyond mobility by the face-lifts. It's not a face you can bond with emotionally. Her features aren't features in the general sense of the word. “To go to the bathroom and vomit after each meal if he has to. We want him to have dinner three times a day.”
Lucas Giraut is the only one who isn't seated. He's standing in front of one of the large windo
ws that overlook the breakwater. From there he can see the window he often sat in as a boy with binoculars, watching his father during Fanny's parties. His father would stand in front of the same large window where Lucas is now, drinking a glass of Macallan and smoking a cigarette. The smaller window where Lucas positioned himself to lie in wait with his binoculars is in the part of the house known, within the family, as the North Wing or the Boy's Wing.
“But big victories require sacrifices,” says Fonseca with his brow slightly furrowed. The effort of gauging his words makes the network of veins on his temples reconfigure themselves intricately, generating several localized swelling points. “Not necessarily big sacrifices. Sometimes small sacrifices are enough. Small details that can produce spectacular benefits. If we want to be first in the area of contracts, we have to divert capital. Maybe eliminate a department.” He shakes his glass again, provoking a tinkling of ice cubes. “We need to get behind Chicote. Show him that, from here, we've got his back covered. Set up larger offices in Mainz and put in one of those fish tanks that take up a whole wall in his office. Germans like to see stuff like that.”
“We are working closely with Chicote.” Estefanía Giraut lifts her eyebrows to the middle of her horribly taut forehead in a self-indulgent gesture that is one of the most fearsome in her range of facial quasi-expressions. “We've frozen his salary indefinitely. We've leaked the rumor that we are very unhappy with his performance. We've given out shares in luxury yachts to all the top executives in the company except him. We've spread the rumor that we don't think he's having dinner as much as he could be having dinner. That's my way of reaching out to him.” The way she takes a sip of her Finlandia with ice in no way resembles a human taking a sip. Introducing her bruised lips on the edge of the glass and carrying out some sort of rapacious suction with her appallingly taut cheeks. Just like some forest mammals suck out nests of ants. “I call it negative motivation. Much better than positive motivation, in my opinion. It's never failed me yet.”
Lucas Giraut gives no sign of taking part in the conversation. The Fishing Trophy Room of the house in the Ampurdan was the place Lucas Giraut, as a child, most hated and feared in the entire world. With its six-and-a-half-foot-long sea monsters on the walls. With its sinister photographs of people holding up sea creatures. With its barely noticeable smell of unwashed tackle boxes and something else that Lucas could never quite put his finger on. Something vaguely chemical that could only be smelled in that room. In the beginning, the Fishing Trophy Room's primary function seemed to be to foster the public derision of Lorenzo Giraut. It was there that Fanny Giraut held all her cocktail parties and social events for the Ampurdan circuit. Spreading her guests out over the various leather couches and providing the evening's entertainment with anecdotes of her husband's clumsiness in the art of fishing and the ridiculous situations said clumsiness placed him in. Lorenzo Giraut always attended these social events, and would remain standing by the large window with his glass of Macallan and his cigarette, and drink in silence. While his son spied on him from his window in the North Wing. While the guests laughed behind him. From his window's parapet, Lucas could see his father's figure standing there, showing no sign of taking part in the conversation. He was never sure if his father knew that he was spying on him.
“The International Division is our future,” says Fonseca. “In terms of competitiveness. And the Speyer Cathedral is our flagship. Once we have the contract, dozens more will follow. Within a year, our profits will have multiplied thirty times over. Of course, we need your signature for the restructuring.” A new reconfiguration and anxious swelling of the network of veins on his temples is produced. Creating some sort of bulging membranes that beat briefly on both sides of his forehead. “Given that technically you are still the principal shareholder and president of the company. And technically you are above us. Of course, we would continue to rely on you. With conditions that will be very advantageous to you. You'd only have to go to a few meetings a year. We trust that you'll sign those papers, son.”
“Of course he'll sign.” Fanny Giraut smiles. The silicone and the tautness of her surgically smoothed skin make Fanny Giraut's smiles more like a retraction of the lips, revealing her deathly pale gums. She stares at Fonseca. “The Speyer Cathedral is ours. It's always been ours. See to it that everyone talks about it all the time. Invent meetings. Threaten people. Pay off some German journalists. Punish everyone that isn't talking about it. See to it that people talk about the cathedral as our flagship. Make sure that they use that exact phrasing. Threaten to fire Chicote tomorrow if he doesn't have dinner more. We want him to have dinner more. Until he's had dinner with so many Germans that he has nightmares of beer and sausages and sauerkraut.”
“Your birthday cake is ready,” says Lucas Giraut to his mother suddenly. Without turning around. Without taking his eyes off the breakwater on the other side of the large window. “With all the ingredients you asked for. Six stories high. With the message you asked for. With no mention of your age, of course. The baker assured me that it's the largest cake he's ever made. I had him put it in writing, just as you asked.”
“I should have hired a professional.” Fanny Giraut's surgically taut cheeks withdraw to each side. Her white gums have a texture inexplicably similar to enamel. Her bruised lips plunge into the glass once again, and emerge a moment later. “I've never seen you do anything well. And I doubt you're going to change now.”
“The audiovisual material for the party is ready,” continues Lucas. “The old videotapes have been transferred to digital. The photographs have been adapted for digital projection.”
The most important fishing trophies in the Fishing Trophy Room, those Trophies That Justify a Fishing Life, are on the mantelpiece. Among them is a blowfish stuffed in attack mode. Attacking an invisible enemy with its spines. There is a red tuna six feet and nine inches long. The largest ever fished out of the Mediterranean. There are various gold and silver trophies. Many of them have figures of fishermen or figures of fish and other objects related to the world of fishing.
“My son never learned to fish.” Fanny Giraut makes a vague gesture with her hand around the Fishing Trophy Room. “He's even clumsier than his father, and his father was the worst fisherman I've ever seen with a pole in his hands. Remember when we went out in the boat to fish tuna? Those were the few times that idiot Lorenzo ever made me laugh. The poor bastard was so scared that when they were tying up the chair's belts his face looked like he was being strapped into an electric chair. My husband was gutless.” She pauses and her features come as close as they can to an evocative expression. “Not even jail gave him the guts he never had. In fact, he came out even more ridiculous and gutless. A ridiculous old man clinging to his stupid store and his ridiculous old friends. It would have been fitting if he'd dropped dead in that horrible place, amid all that junk and spiderwebs.” The three-story building and its attached warehouse in uptown Barcelona that houses the commercial activities of LORENZO GIRAUT, LTD., is simply known in the Giraut family as The Store. “Getting rid of him was the best thing I ever did in my life. But it seems getting rid of a son isn't so easy.”
The main discovery that Lucas Giraut made as a child while spying on his father from his window in the North Wing had to do with his father's facial expression. Which was, in essence, an expression of terror. Pure terror. And somehow that terror seemed to be connected to the fact that he was standing in front of the large window. Somehow the terror seemed to derive from the large window itself. Standing in front of the large window with his glass of Macallan in one hand and his cigarette in the other, Lorenzo Giraut's face was a grimace of intense, painful terror. The discovery was described in detail in Lucas's childhood notebooks.
“The band has already been hired,” says Lucas Giraut. “For your birthday party.”
And he arches his eyebrows as if what he has just said gives him some sort of secret gratification.
Wonderful World
CHAPTE
R 4
The Beginning, Strictly Speaking, of the Story
Lucas Giraut rests his chin on the intertwined fingers of his hands and examines, his eyes slightly squinted, the image of Mr. Bocanegra, Show Business Impresario, in the monochrome monitor connected to the surveillance camera in the lobby of the building that houses LORENZO GIRAUT, LTD. Searching for familiar elements in his appearance. Elements that could awaken some childhood memory. Perhaps the coat. Over his shoulders Mr. Bocanegra is wearing a fox, or sable, or perhaps Chinese otter coat, whose cut and overall appearance is strikingly feminine. The image of a man with a strikingly feminine coat definitely seems to awaken some type of memory in the nooks and crannies of Lucas's childhood mind. The images on the monochrome monitor that watches over the lobby are a color halfway between electric blue and the gray scale. Lucas Giraut realizes that Mr. Bocanegra has looked up and is now staring into the lobby camera with an impatient look on his wide, mustachioed face.
“Send him up,” Lucas says to the intern who occupies the lowest rung of LORENZO GIRAUT, LTD.'s hierarchical pyramid.
The intern goes down the stairs that lead from Lucas Giraut's office on the mezzanine to the antique store itself. Giraut looks at the monitor again, sprawled out in his office chair in that rigid way of his. The office that Lucas Giraut now occupies, and which used to be his father's, has one side that overlooks the public sales and showroom. The only furnishing element that has arrived since Lorenzo Giraut's death is the Italian Louis XV–style cartonnier that Lucas uses as his desk. A cream-colored cartonnier with ebony accents and four leather drawers above the writing surface separated by a decorative alcove, the type with compartments that can only be opened by triggering secret inner mechanisms that is technically known in the antiques world as a magic desk. According to most professional opinions, Giraut is the most important collector of magic desks in the country.