by Javier Calvo
According to the hypotheses laid out in Lucas Giraut's childhood notebooks, Lorenzo Giraut's systematic and inexplicable forgetting of his only son's birthday was somehow related to other inexplicable elements of his paternal behavior. Like the fact that he never directly answered his son's questions. Like the fact that he invented strange explanations for everything. Like the fact that he lived and died without letting his son know basically anything about who his father was.
“I know about the Down With The Sun Society,” says Lucas Giraut. He now seems to be prolifically drawing a group of three figures with their arms around each other's shoulders in a gesture of male camaraderie. All three have long hair. “I've been investigating. I know there were three of them. I know they were friends. And I know that they were together in what they were doing.” He pauses and wipes a lock of straight blond hair off his forehead to admire his drawing. One of the three long-haired guys in the drawing wears a coat whose shape seems to suggest that it is a woman's coat. “I need to know their names. Who they were and what they were doing. That's the price.”
Fonseca leans back and the network of shadows on his face darkens until they fuse almost completely with the darkness.
“There's a reason why no one ever spoke to you about those people,” he says. His distance from the light making him inscrutable. “Why your mother kept you far from certain things. Your father had gotten involved with dangerous people.”
“What did the Down With The Sun Society do?” Lucas Giraut puts the finishing touches on the long, slightly tangled hairdos of the figures in his drawing. “How was it involved in what happened in Camber Sands? Were they the ones who betrayed my father? Is that what happened?”
Fonseca looks fixedly at Lucas, for a long moment, his facial cavities and treelike elements beating in the darkness. Then he sighs. He leans slightly forward to pick up his briefcase from some area in the dark at the foot of his chair and opens it on his lap. He takes out a bulky file and puts it on the table. Then he takes his own fountain pen out of his suit pocket and leaves it on top of the file. He taps the paper a few times with the tip of his finger. The scene seems to be frozen in that moment. The two men stare at each other across the table. The treelike beating of veins in Fonseca's temples can only be intuited. Lucas Giraut's hands have stopped drawing and seem to be resting in an alert state on the cartonnier's surface. It is difficult not to think of duelists watching each other with their pistols held high at each end of a frozen field. It's difficult not to think of opponents in an action film in one of those scenes where the action freezes and the camera turns dizzyingly around the two men. It is difficult not to think about inexpressive chess players from the Eastern bloc. Finally Lucas Giraut lifts his eyebrows. He lifts his chin.
To his surprise, Fonseca lowers his gaze.
“They are named Koldo Cruz and Bocanegra,” he says. And he uncaps his fountain pen. “Lorenzo's childhood friends. They were two-bit thieves. Your father was the brain of the operation. Until they got tired of splitting the money with him.” He opens the file to the first page. “Sign on every page. Here on the bottom. On the dotted line.”
Lucas Giraut's hand opens one of the drawers of his cartonnier and puts away his notepad and then the fountain pen he was drawing with. Then he pushes a button on the intercom on his desk and waits to hear his secretary's voice.
“We're finished,” says Lucas Giraut to the secretary. Without taking his eyes off of Fonseca. “Please escort Mr. Fonseca out.”
The silence is only interrupted by the barely audible click of the intercom button on Lucas Giraut's desk when he removes his finger. The darkness that surrounds the two men in the office is like a feeling of uneasiness on the edge of your visual field. Sort of like a headache. Fonseca's face starts to transform. The branches of arteries on his temples change color and texture and swell up noticeably. The swelling extends rapidly through the rest of the blood vessels on his face. Like the expansive wave of an explosion. Like a porcelain funereal mask that has remained intact for millennia at the bottom of a tomb but splits with cracks when it comes into contact with the outside air.
Wonderful World
CHAPTER 18
Donald Duck
Tied to a chair in a greasy-smelling corner of the warehouse commonly known as LEON'S GARAGE, THE GREASY GARAGE or MR. LEON'S EMPIRE OF GREASE, Pavel confirms that the last vestiges of his Rastafarian desire to come together with all his fellow human beings in universal love are vanishing. He is tied to the chair in the classic posture of prisoners about to be subjected to an interrogation with torture. With his arms immobilized behind his back and his ankles tied together.
Immediately in front of Pavel is Leon. The owner of LEON'S GARAGE. Sitting backward on a chair. With his forearms resting on the back of the chair and his legs extended on both sides. Which is to say in the classic position of someone about to use torture as an interrogation technique. Leon runs a gigantic hand through his greasy hair and exhales a mouthful of Russian black tobacco smoke toward Pavel's bruised face.
Pavel focuses on kicking a rat that is sniffing his foot. The depression and fatigue and bad mood that contact with his fellow human beings usually produces in him now manifests itself as an increase in the pull of gravity on the muscles that hold up his head. A decidedly un-Rastafarian weariness. A sinking feeling of the overall decline of the Western world that surrounds him. Of corruption in the very marrow of the world around him. All of it decidedly anti-Rastafarian.
“I know what you're thinking,” says Leon in Russian. With a high-pitched voice that doesn't match his gigantic arms and bald, vaguely bullet-shaped head. “You're thinking: How could this guy be so elegant? It's not because I flaunt my money or anything like that. I'm one of those people who believe that true elegance is worn here, on the inside.” He brings a hand to his chest. He's wearing a paisley shirt and a mustard-colored suit jacket, which even though they aren't too small on him produce an almost painful feeling of smallness. “It's a simple question of dignity. Like this tie, for example.” He picks up his tie with two fingers. It is red and has a repeating gold saxophone pattern. “This lovely tie was a gift from my daughter. And that's why I'm wearing it. I'm passionate about family. And, after all, how do you want me to dress?” He shrugs his shoulders. “You want me to dress like Donald Duck?”
In Pavel's opinion, an overwhelming majority of the population of the modern Western world are complete idiots. We might be talking about seventy percent. The absolute preponderance of complete idiots is not only an obstacle for the evolution of the human species and the realization of ideals such as Rastafarian universal love. These idiots also make life much more difficult on a day-to-day basis. You can leave your house one morning to buy cigarettes, for example, and never come back as a result of a run-in with some complete idiot.
“Oh, did I just mention Donald Duck?” Leon, the complete idiot, furrows his brow. “Now why would I do that? Well, I wouldn't worry if I were you. I don't see any outlets around here. Although wait.” He rests his chin on the back of the chair he's sitting backward in and looks around at the walls covered with grease and calendars and Russian posters. “Isn't that an outlet over there?” He makes a surprised gesture with his enormous palms. “Who knows. Maybe Donald Duck is around here somewhere.”
Several rats, as greasy as everything else in LEON'S GARAGE, scrabble around at the edges of Pavel's visual field. Pavel can't see them well because of the swelling in his right eye and the dreadlocks falling in front of his left eye. In fact, the only thing he can see clearly from his chair is Leon's square, unibrowed face. Beyond Leon, past the groups of rats that scrabble around and which Pavel can only see as quick little stains on the floor, he glimpses another figure. Someone too corpulent to be Donald Duck. And too far from the lightbulb that hangs from the ceiling of LEON'S GARAGE for Pavel to see his face. The only thing that Pavel can make out about him are his shoes and his pants. Shoes and pants that Pavel can only identify as Really Expen
sive.
“I like your style,” continues Leon. There is something intrinsically greasy about Leon's appearance. Something that has nothing to do with his greasy hair, or even with the extremely greasy condition of LEON'S GARAGE. A certain component of his persona that gives the impression that he would continue to be greasy even right after a hot bath. “I like that black man's hairstyle that you've got. And that guy on your T-shirt, who is he?” He squints his eyes. “It's hard to see with so much blood. Oh, Bob Marley. Of course.” He shrugs. “Bob Marley's not bad. He's got rhythm and all that. But of course, all blacks do.”
Pavel squints and tries to see something more of the man with the Really Expensive shoes and pants in spite of the swelling in his eye and the dreadlocks that hang in front of his face. He makes a mental list of the things that he would like to do to Leon if he weren't tied to a chair in the classic position of prisoners about to be tortured. The list includes, among other things, the rectal insertion of various objects whose morphology makes their insertion into a human rectum very difficult.
“Do you know the joke about the black kid who says, 'Mommy, I'm white'?” Leon stamps out his cigarette with his shoe and goes back to fixing his greasy hair with the fingers on one hand. “It's too much. The black kid goes to the kitchen, where his mother is making dinner, and puts his hands in the flour. Then he rubs his hands on his face and says, 'Look, Mom, I'm white.' And his mother up and slaps him. Then the boy goes into the living room and says to his father, 'Look, Dad, I'm white.' The father punches him. And the kid says, 'I haven't even been white for five minutes and I already can't stand these damn niggers!'” He lets out a laugh. “It's too much.”
The unknown man with the Really Expensive shoes and pants clears his throat to draw attention to the fact that Donald Duck has just appeared on the scene. He's just come in and now seems to be looking for an outlet along the walls near the door. In one hand he carries an extension cord and in the other a drill. Donald Duck's famous drill. His overall appearance, with a sweater full of holes and a filthy Barcelona Football Club cap, seems to indicate he got trapped in an office building as it was being demolished and was forced to survive for days on end among the ruins without changing his clothes. He also seems to be strangely small. Not small like a child, but small like a large child. Around his neck he wears some sort of metallic surgical collar with a battery-operated voice synthesizer, like the type that people who have had an operation on their vocal cords wear.
“Is this for real?” says Pavel.
Donald Duck starts talking with his voice synthesizer, the basically unintelligible buzzing tone of which does indeed sound like Donald Duck's voice. He kneels next to the wall outlet and starts to extend the extension cord until he reaches the place where Pavel is sitting. Finally he connects the drill, tests it and lets out a synthesized sentence whose modulation could very well suggest an angry inflection.
“What the fuck is he saying?” says Pavel.
“He says,” explains Leon, “that he's had a shitty day. One of those shitty days that make you want to drill into things that move and gush blood.”
Donald Duck chatters on with his voice synthesizer.
“He says that drilling works like a painkiller,” translates Leon. “Better than a painkiller.”
Donald Duck chatters on with his voice synthesizer and puts both hands in front of his belly in a broad gesture that suggests that he is holding a very large ball against his belly.
“He says,” translates Leon, “that his wife doesn't wanna fuck. It's one of those superstitions Russian women have when they're knocked up. Something to do with the fact that if you let your husband fuck you while you're knocked up the kid will grow little horns or something. And it's been a couple of months already. Russian women are usually superstitious,” he adds in a wise tone. “That's one of the disadvantages of Russian women. Who for the most part have a lot of advantages. Obviously.”
The imminence of the interrogation with torture doesn't manage to dispel Pavel's sensation of decidedly un-Rastafarian weariness. In some part of his mind circulate images of secluded beaches and jungle settings. Images of him floating faceup on crystal-clear waters under a sky much bigger than any sky he's ever been under before. Letting the late-afternoon tropical sun warm him. Letting the pleasant feeling of warmth and humidity bathe his skin. Soaking his clothes and filtering through his pants. Someone clears their throat. Pavel opens his eyes and blows to get the dreadlocks out of his face.
“I never thought you'd be one of the ones that piss themselves, Pavel.” Leon gestures with his head toward the wet spot that is beginning to spread from Pavel's fly down his right pant leg.
Donald Duck chatters on with his voice synthesizer and places a small drill bit onto his electric drill.
“Donald Duck says he never imagined you'd be a pisser,” translates Leon. “That you're the last person in the world he thought he'd see piss himself.”
Donald Duck chatters on with his voice synthesizer for people who have had their vocal cords operated on and opens up his box of drill bits organized by size on the floor, in front of Pavel's tied-up feet.
“He says he doesn't have to tell you that the pissers are the scum of the earth,” translates Leon. “That even little kids know that.”
Pavel wrinkles his face into a disgusted expression as Donald Duck finishes fitting the bit into Donald Duck's Electric Drill, kneels in front of his crotch and turns it on. In the back of Pavel's mind an idea begins to emerge, an idea that isn't in the least reassuring. The electrical sound comes closer and closer to his soaked right leg. Until the tip of the drill makes the fabric of his pant leg tremble.
“Wait a minute,” he says, speaking up over the whir. He can feel Donald Duck's breath on his damp crotch. “Tell this moron to stop that thing.”
The sound of the drill stops. Pavel can feel the bill of Donald Duck's hat touching just below his belt buckle.
The guy that's too far from the light to be visible clears his throat again and takes a step forward. His torso and face materialize above his Really Expensive pants and shoes. Pavel looks at him with his eyes squinted. Beneath a mop of white hair the vaguely reflective surface of a metal plate appears, where the right part of the guy's forehead should be, and beneath that a black fabric patch covering his right eye. Pavel frowns. It's the same guy. The one from the house. The one that's screwing his sister. Pavel feels a new wave of weariness and negative feelings toward the world in general. Whatever mess Bocanegra has gotten him mixed up in this time, it doesn't exactly look like he's going to be able to get out of it with every part of his body intact.
“I love that you're asking me to wait a minute.” Leon lights another cigarette with a match and shakes the match out with more force than necessary. The size of his arms seems to indicate a muscular strength that is potentially dangerous in most everyday situations. “Because I'm dying to hear what you have to tell me. Now in my life I've seen people up to their necks in shit, but you take fucking first prize. First of all, I find out you broke into a house. And not just any house. My boss's house. Second, you let yourself get caught by the cops. And third, I find out that you are having a coffee with the cops and they slap you on the back and let you go free.” He exhales a new mouthful of Russian black tobacco toward Pavel's bruised face. “So I have three good reasons to leave you here with Donald Duck and come back tomorrow to scrape up what's left of you.”
Pavel realizes that while he was paying attention to Leon's words, a rat has started chewing on the tip of his shoe. Other rats observe from a prudential distance.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” says Pavel, shaking his shoe. “I swear I won't try to escape.”
Donald Duck is adjusting the bit on Donald Duck's Drill as he chatters on with his voice synthesizer that brings to mind cartoon characters. The guy with the metal plate in his forehead and the patch on his eye remains just outside the reach of the lightbulb's light, in such a way that his head goes in and ou
t of the darkness creating a vaguely flickering effect. Leon holds his cigarette between his index finger and his thumb and blows the smoke out with his eyes half closed.
“And yet,” he says with a pensive face, “my boss tells me it's not a good idea to leave you here with Donald Duck and come back tomorrow to scrape up what's left of you. In fact, he tells me that it makes no sense to interrogate you or let Donald Duck get any information out of you because in fact we already know who the idiot is that paid you to break into his house. In fact, and he's got a point, we don't have anything to ask you. What he tells me is that we should untie you and let you go, but that we shouldn't let you get too far. Like when you go fishing. Like when you're fishing and you let out the line, but not too much.”
Pavel tries to imagine the implications of the fact that the guy with the metal plate and the eye patch is Leon's boss while at the same time trying to kick the rats away.
“Don't kill me,” he says finally. “Think of my sister and my poor sick mother.”
Leon smiles a wide smile with a smattering of gold.