Wonderful World

by Javier Calvo

  2. This simultaneous pressing unblocks the turning mechanism at the base of one of the knobs on the desk's left pedestal. Said knob can be turned to four different positions, each separated by a 90-degree angle of rotation. The knob must be turned five times, which is to say it must be moved 450 degrees, clockwise.

  3. Then, and with the first knob turned, a second knob be comes unblocked on the right pedestal. This second knob must be turned 270 degrees, which is to say it must be placed in the third position, always counterclockwise.

  4. This third step unblocks a third knob on the left pedestal, but only for a five-second interval. During those five seconds the third knob must be turned five more positions, but this time alternating clockwise movements with counterclockwise ones. Therefore, obviously, the third knob will end up having moved 90 degrees clockwise respective to its initial position.

  5. The fifth step, and undoubtedly the most complex, requires the triggering of a fourth knob that has been unblocked by the third, which must be turned three times counterclock wise but keeping in mind that each turn must be carried out at precise intervals of ten and a half seconds, not including the time it takes to make the turn, so the three successive turns must be done at seconds 11, 22 and 33 of the triggering sequence. Any error in this sequence blocks the entire mechanism. The correct triggering raises the green leather cover on the top and reveals the two-inch-deep secret compartment. Due to the complexity of this fifth step, a stethoscope is just about essential in order to hear the primitive clockwork timers inside the piece of furniture.

  Lucas Giraut is pressing on one of the animal-vegetable motifs of the desk's frieze with a frown when the silhouette of LORENZO GIRAUT, LTD.'s intern appears on the frosted glass door and knocks. Giraut maintains the pressure on the frieze's ornamental motif and extends his other arm as far as he can to push the button that opens the door. The click of the door opening sounds at the same moment as the click of the desk's inner gears when the two ornamental motifs of the frieze give way. The intern enters with two cups of coffee and a little pitcher of milk on a tray and looks at the two men squatting on the office floor with her brow furrowed.

  “Of course,” says the redheaded lawyer, still pressing his hand on one of the animal-vegetable motifs of the frieze, “I feel obliged to take note of the state of this office and of everything I'm seeing here. For legal record.”

  The intern leaves the tray with coffee and milk on top of one of the furniture surfaces covered with towels and leaves without saying anything. Now Giraut begins to turn the desk's knobs, his face gathered in concentration as he listens to the inner gears with the stethoscope.

  “I represent people who are extremely concerned about inappropriate relationships.” The way the redheaded lawyer is squatting, with his arms extended and his hands resting on various points of the desk, makes you think of childhood games involving placing your hands and feet on different colored spots on a plastic rug. “Relationships that are somewhat disquieting. Like that girl, for example. You know what girl I mean. A twelve-year-old girl. Imagine the possible repercussions if some impertinent journalist decided to make public the fact that you have done certain inappropriate things with a twelve-year-old girl. In the event that we went to court on this.” One of Giraut's arms is intertwined with the redheaded lawyer's extended arm. “Which is something, I insist, that no one wants.”

  Lucas Giraut has his shirtsleeves rolled up above his elbows. The jacket of his slate gray Lino Rossi suit is hung over the back of one of the sheet-covered office chairs. The coat the redheaded lawyer who claims to represent Fanny Giraut is wearing doesn't reveal enough of his suit to allow for a suitological analysis. Giraut is now triggering the third knob in the sequence of knobs that open the secret compartment of his new collector's item.

  “We are only looking to put you somewhere safe,” says the redheaded lawyer. “Somewhere where you can't harm yourself. Or anyone else, of course.”

  The leather-covered top of the Victorian magic desk circa 1860 lifts up, revealing the secret compartment. The redheaded lawyer takes a sip of his coffee.

  “I want curtains.” Lucas Giraut stands up and wipes the sweat from his forehead with a meticulously folded handkerchief. “If you stay for a few minutes you can help me choose curtains.”

  In some part of the office a towel-covered telephone rings.

  Wonderful World

  CHAPTER 21

  The Day of the Publisher's Advance Excerpt

  Valentina Parini readjusts her butt on the toilet lid where she is sitting with her legs crossed and her brow furrowed as she tries to concentrate on her reading. And it's not exactly easy. It's dark inside the stall and one of her eyes is covered by the stupid patch they make her wear, and someone is knocking insistently on the stall door.

  “Parini!” shouts the prepubescent voice again from the other side of the bathroom stall door. “Come out already! I know you're in there! This time you're really in for it!” There is a moment of silence, perhaps to give Valentina Parini the chance to answer. Or perhaps the voice outside is considering how far it can go with its threats. “They're saying the principal's going to make the janitor come bust the door down with an ax!”

  Valentina Parini readjusts her green glasses on her nose that's barely big enough to hold them up and sighs. She came down to the first-floor bathrooms at school a little more than half an hour ago, and she knew they would come looking for her. But she didn't imagine that everything was going to happen so quickly. Things must really be bad out there, she tells herself. She goes down to the bathrooms to read every time she gets a chance to slip away, often during basketball practice. Sometimes she can spend two hours locked in a stall before someone comes looking for her. But this time, it's obvious something's different. She's been hearing shouting and commotion in the hallway outside for a while now. On a couple of occasions she's heard her name mentioned in a frantic tone. And finally someone came looking for her. It's Adelfi, the retard. And all this has to happen just on the day that she got the Publisher's Advance Excerpt in the mail. With the first four chapters of Stephen King's new novel.

  “Pariniiii!” screams the voice from the other side of the door. Drawing out the last vowel with exasperation.

  When Adelfi, the retard, came into the bathroom about ten minutes ago, her voice already sounded pretty agitated. After insisting for a while, Adelfi had started to sound frustrated and finally worn out. Maybe she'd get tired of bugging her soon and go back to wherever she came from.

  The Publisher's Advance Excerpt arrived at Valentina Parini's house that morning, in a brown envelope with the publishing house's logo on it. She had taken it out of the mailbox using a long serrated bread knife. It took her almost five minutes to get it out of the mailbox because her hands were trembling with excitement. Then she had only had time to tear open the envelope and admire the barely fifty-page booklet before her mother came down the stairs. Forcing her to hide the Excerpt and the bread knife in her school backpack as fast as she could, before adopting an innocent smile that her mother had looked at suspiciously before deactivating the car doors' locks with the remote control on her key ring.

  The four chapters, which she is now almost done reading in a bathroom stall on the first floor of the Italian Academy of Barcelona, have not disappointed her at all. The story, or at least what the excerpt allowed her to guess at, is reminiscent of The Stand, but with touches of Tommyknockers and even Dreamcatcher. The main character, named Chuck Kimball, is a journalist in Portland, Maine, the author's hometown. Like so many of Stephen King's heroes, he's middle-aged, divorced and has a son. He is also in recovery after a drug and alcohol crisis. One day Kimball arrives at work at the news desk of his local paper and discovers that everyone has started to change. His coworkers and even his boss, whom he's given the nickname “Cosmic Bitch,” are suddenly friendly and filled with team spirit and comradeship. Kimball doesn't know what to do. The same thing happens in the bar he goes to after work, where he
is about to relapse and have a drink, and later with his neighbors. No one seems alarmed by the transformation. The truth starts to come out the next morning, when Kimball discovers that his best friend at the newspaper, Gary Revkin, has disappeared. Everyone on the newspaper staff works as a team to hide his disappearance. They even get mad when he asks about it. Finally Kimball finds Revkin dead inside a garbage Dumpster. His colleagues on the paper seem to have killed him in some sort of collective ritual. There are insinuations of mind control and a race of psychic beings that are like angels.

  A door slamming is heard from outside. Valentina Parini furrows her brow and listens. For a moment she thinks that Adelfi the retard might have left, but she soon hears the sound of more steps and several prepubescent voices talking.

  “Did you find her?” says one of the voices.

  “She's hiding in there,” says Adelfi.

  Valentina Parini feels the sudden attention of several stares, almost like a physical force that pushes the door inward and tries to destroy her.

  “Hey, freak!” shouts the first voice. “You don't have to hide! It's all over! This time they say they're finally gonna put you in the loony bin!”

  “There you can hang out with other freaks like you,” says Adelfi. And she laughs one of those typically teenage laughs. One of those laughs that aren't about happiness or hilarity, but are simply invocations of group complicity. “You'll finally have friends.”

  Valentina Parini snorts, irritated.

  “I'm not hiding!” she shouts.

  The insinuations by her school psychologist that Valentina hides in the school bathroom always manage to infuriate her. Valentina isn't afraid of anyone at school, and she has nothing to hide from. It's just that the bathroom stalls are the only place she can lock herself in from the inside and not have to see anyone. Making them considerably more pleasant than any other place at school.

  More laughter devoid of happiness is heard. More invocations of group complicity that make you think of gregarious carrion eaters in the hyena family. Then an abrupt door slam and a deep silence. Too deep to mean anything but the arrival of an adult to the bathroom.

  “Signora direttora!” shouts Adelfi the retard with renewed enthusiasm. “The freak is in here! I mean Parini! And I'm the one who found her!”

  The soft, dry echo of a slap resounds throughout the entire bathroom.

  Ten minutes later, Valentina Parini is in her homeroom teacher's office, sitting in a chair for adults that makes the tips of her feet hang an inch off the floor. The school psychologist is staring at her with one of her classic severe expressions she saves for those moments when Valentina has committed a serious offense or has exhibited behavior that goes against the spirit of their therapy. To one side of where Valentina is sitting, her homeroom teacher is passing tissues to Marcia Parini and stroking her back comfortingly. Marcia Parini is crying uncontrollably. On a couple of occasions during the last few minutes she's suffered hyperventilation fits, which the psychologist had to help her get through using controlled breathing exercises.

  Valentina frowns behind her green frames, the way you frown when you've just realized that something is going wrong. How did her mother get to school so quickly? It occurs to her that maybe it really has been more than a half hour since she left class to go read in the bathroom. Now that she thinks about it, she is vaguely aware of having read the four chapters of the Publisher's Advance Excerpt more than once. Maybe a few times in a row. Sometimes that happens to her. She has misleading perceptions of time. Especially when she's locked in peaceful, pleasant places like the bathroom.

  “Valentina,” says the school psychologist. Still staring at her, like she's trying to hypnotize her or something like that. “Do you understand why you're here? Do you understand why we had to call your mother?”

  Valentina hates the slow, deliberate way the woman says it. As if Valentina had problems understanding the language she was speaking. Then she gestures with her head to two objects on top of the homeroom teacher's desk. They are the manuscript of Blood on the Basketball Court and the bread knife she used that very morning to get her package out of the mailbox at home. Both from her school backpack.

  “Those are my things,” she says. “They're private property. They shouldn't be there. If you give them back, I'm willing to forget all about this,” she says, remembering the phrase from some movie she saw recently.

  Marcia Parini pauses in her sobbing. For a moment it seems that the pause is some sort of reaction to what her daughter just said. However, a second later it becomes clear that she was just taking in air to cry even harder. From the place where Marcia is sitting comes a torrent of hiccups, sobs and something similar to mooing. Valentina notices that her mother's wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Which means that she left the house in a terrible rush. Marcia Parini is not a person who under normal circumstances would be seen in public dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Actually, thinks Valentina, her mother is a person who would probably rather die than be seen by certain people in jeans and a T-shirt.

  “This is all my fault,” Marcia Parini manages to say between sobs.

  Then she lets out a hiccup and says something that sounds like “thithewit.” The homeroom teacher continues stroking her back and hair comfortingly, passing her clean tissues from a box that can't have many tissues left in it and every once in a while shooting Valentina murderous glances.

  Valentina thinks. She hates to admit it, but maybe Adelfi the retard was right. This time she's gotten into a mess that she can't see her way out of.

  “Valentina.” The school psychologist bathes all those present in a gigantic wave of professional consternation. Her face is gathered in an expression of worry that reminds Valentina of her own face when she really has to go to the bathroom and her mother is in the middle of one of her long makeup sessions. “I suppose you're aware that with these two things there's enough to call the police.” She gestures with her head toward the two objects on the table.

  To Valentina's right, her mother threatens to choke between hiccups. Her face is turning a vaguely bluish color. At some point a piece of tissue has gotten stuck to one side of her nose.

  “What you've written here,” the psychologist continues, “is—is too horrible to paraphrase. It would be horrible if an adult had written it, much less a twelve-year-old girl. Do you really want to do these things to your classmates? And to your basketball coach? Or to me, or to your homeroom teacher?” The string of questions hangs in the air of the school office. Like some sort of foul-smelling gas that no one wants to breathe in. Valentina is aware that three pairs of adult eyes are now watching her expectantly. Even her mother is looking at her above the semi-disintegrated pieces of a tissue. “I can't believe that these atrocities came out of your head. Has someone been giving you ideas, Valentina?” She makes a final theatrical pause. “Has someone told you those things or told you to write them?”

  Valentina crosses her arms in the chair that's too big and makes the tips of her feet hang an inch off the ground. The walls of her homeroom teacher's office at the Italian Academy of Barcelona are covered with symbols of national identity. A tricolor flag with a golden flagpole that ends in some sort of a spear point. A framed portrait of Silvio Berlusconi in a place of honor on the wall, right behind her homeroom teacher's desk. Photographs of stupid places in Italy like the Roman Colosseum and Florence's Ponte Vecchio and that place where supposedly they had chariot races but now all that's left is a big hole. Valentina hates Italians. She thinks they're the stupidest people in the world. Ever since her father went back to Italy, Valentina has often gotten into bed and covered her head with a pillow and spent hours imagining natural disasters that destroy Italy and decimate its population. Giant waves sweeping through narrow streets filled with motorcycles. A river of lava coming down the stupid Scala di Spagna.

  “It's not your fault,” her homeroom teacher is saying to Marcia Parini. In a comforting tone. “It's not anyone's fault. We do what we can to
instill respect and human values in our children. Here, too, in ethics class. Valentina is sick.” She shakes her head sadly. “And we all have to help her.”

  “You admit that you wrote this?”

  The school psychologist brandishes the manuscript pages the way district attorneys in the movies brandish incriminating evidence. The way she rolled them up and now is shaking them in front of her face makes some of the pages come loose from the manuscript.

  “It's not finished,” says Valentina in an apologetic tone.

  “And what do you have to say about the knife?” whimpers Marcia Parini. Her face has become a stiff mask in a color close to burgundy. The swelling brought on by her crying has made it impossible for her to open her eyes more than half an inch. Valentina has trouble believing she can really see through those tiny slits. Now that the box of tissues is empty a shiny glow of snot begins to condense under her nostrils. “Were you planning on using it? On someone at school?”

  The three adult women stare at the girl. The sudden silence causes the normal school noises to come floating in through the windows. The screams of the girls in the school yard. The squeal of sneakers on the basketball court. The engines of passing cars. Even the far-off hum of the guard's television, two floors below. For some reason, the fact that life continues its normal course on the other side of the closed office doors astonishes Valentina. For a moment, it seems that nothing that is happening to her is real. That she's not in her homeroom teacher's office, and if she closes her eyes everything will disappear. And she'll be back in her bed, beneath the blankets, or maybe locked in a bathroom stall at school.

  “I joined Stephen King's Spanish Fan Club,” says Valentina finally. Avoiding the three women's eyes. “They're all idiots. I only did it so they would send me the Publisher's Advance Excerpt….”