Wonderful World

by Javier Calvo

  “Miss Gonzalvo,” Lucas Giraut starts to say.

  “Iris,” she interrupts.

  “Miss Iris.” Lucas Giraut contemplates the contents of his plate with a vaguely devastated expression. Something that appears to be a bone-colored cube surrounded by a garland of herbs, with no apparent relationship to its designation on the menu. “What I'm trying to say is that I'm willing to help you. In the terms that you yourself suggested. It is true that there is an opening. I've been looking into it. Mr. Yanel has not only stopped showing up for work meetings. He doesn't answer his cell phone, either. One could say he's disappeared without a trace. And that has made the people he works with a bit nervous, naturally. And I want it to be clear that I'm not saying that you have anything to do with what's happened.” Giraut looks at his companion's plate. The soup on Iris Gonzalvo's plate is the same color as the employees' uniforms. In it float shavings of something unidentifiable. He clears his throat. “In spite of the fact that you showed up at my house practically the same day as the disappearance occurred. In any case, I can help you to get that job. It doesn't have anything to do with a film. I've already told you about Mr. Bocanegra. And the sort of work he does. Bocanegra is the man Mr. Yanel worked for. And my partner in the project we're in the middle of now. I could create a spot for you. However, there is something I want to ask you for. Something that you could do for me. That is, if it's okay with you.”

  Lucas Giraut buries his spoon into the bone-colored cube. The texture of which looks like the texture of flan or of a soft pudding. The suit he is wearing that night is a tobacco-colored suit with dark pinstripes. From Lino Rossi's new line.

  “You want me to fuck you,” says Iris.

  She tries a spoonful of aseptic red-colored soup. In that blank way that one takes medicine or tastes something tasteless.

  “Listen.” Lucas Giraut makes an annoyed face. Or his version of an annoyed face. A simple fleeting nuance of worry mixed with an element of impatience. “I'm not explaining myself well here. I know this is going to sound ridiculous to you. Like the typical story pulled from a movie or some novel, some thriller. It's still hard for me to come to terms with sometimes, I assure you. But Mr. Bocanegra has a gang. Like a gang of gangsters. That steal very valuable paintings and all that. And then there's another gang. The boss of that other gang is named Koldo Cruz. Most of its members are Russian, from what I understand. And I think that these two gangs are at war. Wait.” He lifts a hand to keep Iris Gonzalvo's reaction in check. She has begun to have the trace of a vaguely mocking smile. “I know that this all seems silly. But I have a theory. My theory is that in the beginning there was only one gang. A long time ago. Thirty years. They called themselves the Down With The Sun Society. And there were three of them, that's the most important part. There was Mr. Bocanegra and Koldo Cruz, and my father, too. Who was something like the brains of the gang. And then something happened, I don't know exactly how, but it must have been something terrible. Someone betrayed my father. He went to jail. He was never the same again. You could say I never knew him. You have to understand. This is very important for me. I'm talking about my father.”

  Iris Gonzalvo blinks. Her soup-eating style consists of bringing the spoon to her mouth with the precise amount of soup and introducing it into her mouth with only a slight separation of her lips and with nothing even remotely resembling a slurp or that unpleasant pursing of the mouth that some people do when eating soup. Without that gaze off into the distance or into oblivion that some people have when eating that makes one think of people's animal origins.

  “Miss Iris.” Giraut lowers his voice. “I want to take revenge on the people that betrayed my father. I have some idea who they were. That is my project. And I'd like for you to help me. If you don't mind, of course.”

  There is silence at the table where Iris Gonzalvo and Lucas Giraut are seated. Allowing the background noise of the restaurant to invade the space between them. That sarcastically sophisticated murmur of expensive restaurants. On the wall closest to them there are photographs of guinea pigs and laboratory animals before and after having been inoculated with artificially mutated organisms in an attempt to find new vaccines. On the walls there are panels explaining the contents of each photo. Right behind the hanging crocodile, in the direction his three-foot-long tail is pointing, there is a series of framed photographs, in black and white, of blind animals from the area surrounding Chernobyl's nuclear power station. At first glance, one wouldn't notice anything mutant or special in the anatomy of the crocodile that hangs from the ceiling. Nor would one see anything that explains why so many people would want to dine in a restaurant with such decoration. In any case, it seems clear that the Atomic's strategy of surrounding diners with unpleasant or potentially nauseating images is the key to its success. A success echoed in reviews around the world. On many television channels. With pixels covering the photographs' contents. The last word in Barcelonian design. With imitations already up and running in Tokyo and Chelsea. Iris Gonzalvo finally leaves her spoon by the side of her plate and shrugs her shoulders.

  “I have no idea what you're talking about,” she says. “But I understand the part about your father. Fathers are important. Mine was a tall, very handsome man. And I was his favorite daughter. Because I was the prettiest and all that. I guess it's because of my father that I am the way I am. And because of him that I'm here right now. I mean that I do everything I do because of men. For men. If it weren't for men, I wouldn't be an actress. But I am what I am. And I guess men are the audience for what I am.” She makes a gesture that could indicate helplessness. Iris's gesticulation isn't exactly a question of nuances. It's more defined by what's missing. Like the silhouettes created by atomic explosions. “And I guess it's all my father's fault. And that I wanted him to like me all the time and that kind of thing.”

  One of the waitresses, with the restaurant's trademark blank expression, asks for permission to remove their plates and bring their second courses. Both Giraut and Iris have chosen something called The Manhattan Project, according to the embossed menu in the shape of a nuclear mushroom. Among its ingredients is something called Projectile Squid Sashimi.

  “Miss Iris,” says Lucas Giraut, once the waitress has gone.

  “Lucas.” She interrupts him again. Now that she's not wearing sunglasses, her eyes are large and green and have those kinds of large, thick lids that give the impression that her eyes are never fully open. “I think it would be better if you just left out the 'miss.' It will make things easier if we're going to end up fucking.”

  Lucas blinks.

  “That isn't what I'm trying to suggest,” he says. “You are mistaken as to my intentions. I'm not doing this so I can sleep with you.”

  Iris takes out a pack of English tobacco from her purse and places a cigarette between her lips. She waits for Giraut to take out a lighter and light it for her, protecting the flame with the palms of his bony hands. Then she exhales a mouthful of smoke.

  “You're a good guy,” she says. “A bit odd, maybe. But that's to be expected, considering you're an antiques dealer and all that. You aren't like all the other men I've met, that's for sure. You still haven't tried to fuck me. You haven't offered me drugs or tried to impress me. And I don't think you're into guys. I'm good at seeing that kind of thing. I don't know why I like you. It must be intuition,” she says. She pauses while one of the waitresses places their second courses on the table. The raw squid in the dish known as The Manhattan Project really are shaped like torpedoes or projectiles about to be launched from a plane. “I think we can work together. I'm not saying that you're doing what you're doing just so you can fuck me. That's clear for the moment. My romantic relationship with Eric has been a pretty negative experience. That doesn't mean I'm doing things out of spite or to try to make him feel bad.” She pauses. There is nothing in her attitude that suggests she has any intention of eating her second course. “Although I have to admit that I chose this place so we would be seen togeth
er. A lot of Eric's friends come here.”

  Lucas Giraut looks around him. Since they arrived at the Atomic restaurant, which is full at dinner hour, he's had the feeling that the other customers have been watching Iris Gonzalvo. Although they've only known each other for a few days, he has already realized that this seems to happen everywhere she goes. Like a vortex. Like some sort of magnetic force field that moves along with her. Causing reactions at neighboring tables and in practically everyone that crosses her path. The most shocking photographs at Atomic aren't in the main room. They are in the wide, well-lit hallway that leads to the bathrooms. A series of photographs showing different types of burns and wounds on victims of nuclear explosions. The location of said photographs is a question that isn't explained by any of the restaurant reviews that Giraut has read. Now he notices a man who is staring at Iris Gonzalvo. The man takes a pair of glasses out of his pocket and puts them on so he can see her better. He blinks several times and furrows his brow. The man is dressed entirely in white. His white suit has scallop trim and frills embroidered into the lapels and the sleeves that give the suit a certain Mexican air without actually making you think of Mexico at all. His face is unrealistically tan.

  “I don't know who that woman that came to your apartment the other day was,” says Iris Gonzalvo. “But she wasn't your girlfriend. I can always tell these things. An ex-girlfriend, maybe.”

  The tall man dressed in white has stood up and is now walking toward their table without taking his eyes off the low-cut back of Iris's dress. Iris follows Giraut's gaze as the tall man dressed in white stops beside their table and crosses his arms.

  “Santi.” Iris looks at the man with a cold smile. “What a wonderful surprise. Let me introduce you to my friend Lucas Giraut. This is Santi Denís.”

  “Terrific.” The face of the guy with the white suit is one of those artificially tanned faces where the entire complex system of facial wrinkles has transformed into a moving network of white lines. The effect is reminiscent of how spiderwebs are depicted in comic books. “As far as I'm concerned you can screw the king of Spain if you want. I was expecting a slightly more remorseful attitude after you lied to the security guards at my party and snuck into my bedroom. But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about. In fact, the less I talk to you the better. Your asshole boyfriend owes me a lot of money. I haven't had his face broken yet only because I can't find him. But you.” He uncrosses his arms and sticks a big tan finger into Iris's bare shoulder. “You do know where he is. And I'm not going to make a scene here. As much as I'd love to give you a good beating. But give him a message for me. He has twenty-four hours to give me my money.”

  According to the restaurant review of Atomic that appeared in one of Barcelona's biggest newspapers, the place “descends to the kingdom of the atavistic as it confronts food and death. There is nothing in this place that doesn't bring you back to death's primal impulse and the fear that it arouses, from the employees' surgical garb to the hanging crocodile and the allusions to unnatural births and deaths. The masterpiece is undoubtedly the images of mutagenic explosions in the hallway leading to the bathrooms, where the nutritional act/mutated birth finds its parallel in the elimination/death by disintegration.” Iris Gonzalvo exhales a final mouthful of cigarette smoke and stubs out the butt in the saucer that holds the table's candle. She looks at Lucas Giraut with a slightly tense half smile and shrugs her shoulders.

  Wonderful World

  CHAPTER 37

  A Bench in the Park

  The park on the outskirts of Barcelona where Matilde Saudade and her son Cristian have agreed to meet with their husband and father, respectively, is one of those parks on the outskirts of Barcelona with a cement floor and rusty metal constructivist sculptures. The only places in the park where the color gray doesn't prevail are those places where the wastebaskets are overflowing with fast-food wrappers, soft-drink cans and pornographic magazines. An irritated-looking pigeon alights on the ground in front of the bench where the three members that comprise the Saudade family unit are seated, and pecks at the grime on the cement floor. Looking to either side with an irritated expression. The three members of the Saudade family unit have been sitting for five minutes in silence on a metal bench in the park that gives its name to their neighborhood. Juan de la Cruz Saudade takes a pack of Fortuna cigarettes from the pocket of his powder blue and white sweatshirt and puts one between his lips. The new year has brought with it a cold snap that the press is calling Siberian. Siberian cold snaps are inexplicable, but relatively normal, occurrences in Barcelona's climate. Matilde Saudade extends a hand in a silent request for a cigarette but her husband has already put the pack back in his pocket.

  “I talked to my mother and my sisters.” Matilde Saudade sighs, sitting on the bench in a vaguely childlike position, swaying her legs, grabbing the edge of the bench with her hands and looking at her feet. “They say I have to give you another chance. The last chance. Honestly, I don't understand why I have to give you another chance. I don't see any difference between this time and the ones before. Or why I have to let you come home.”

  Matilde Saudade's most characteristic facial trait is a nervous tic that makes her compulsively wrinkle her forehead at regular intervals, as if she were surprised about something approximately every half second. The tic also makes everything she says sound slightly hesitant. As if she herself didn't believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. Matilde Saudade is wearing white stretch jeans and high-tops and a sweatshirt of a well-known sports brand that is actually an imitation of that brand's sweatshirts. Saudade's sweat suit is the official Umbro sweat suit of his favorite soccer club. The way the three members of the family are seated is the following: (a) Matilde Saudade on the right side of the bench, grabbing its edge with her hands and not looking directly at her husband or her son; (b) Cristian Saudade in the middle, covering his ears with his hands; and (c) Juan de la Cruz Saudade on the left side of the bench. Not so much seated as lounging with his legs open very widely and his head resting on the part of the back of the bench where most people rest their backs, smoking with large puffs and exhaling the smoke in his son and wife's general direction.

  “Come home?” Saudade frowns. “But you're the one who left home. Taking my son with you, by the way. Must be one of those illegal things.” He searches for the words. “Abandoning the home or something like that. I think it's seriously illegal. And I have a right to see my son, don't I?”

  “And I have a right to break that bitch's face.” Matilde looks up and wrinkles her forehead spastically. “And the bitch up and reports me for breaking her face. Her bitch-ass face.”

  The irritated-looking pigeon that landed in front of them is now moving its head from one side to the other to look alternately at Saudade and his wife. With an element of irritation in its gaze that seems to contain elements of repressed rage. Eight-year-old Cristian Saudade is still sitting in the same position: covering his ears with his hands and with his eyes tightly shut. Saudade exhales smoke from his cigarette and makes an annoyed face.

  “Here we go again,” he says. “We've talked about this a thousand times. About your imagining things. Didn't I have my friend Aníbal call you and swear there was no one but you?” He pauses and adopts the tone of emphatic indignation that he always adopts when he suddenly thinks of a point in his favor in the middle of an argument. “Aren't you ashamed to make up all this shit in front of our son? These kinds of things get stuck in kids' heads. They can turn into fags.”

  Juan de la Cruz Saudade and Matilde Saudade both look at their son Cristian, who is sitting between them with his eyes closed and his hands over his ears. Matilde pats him on the shoulder.

  “Why don't you go play?” Matilde says when he takes his hands off of his ears. “And leave me and your father alone for a little while?”

  Eight-year-old Cristian Saudade stares at his mother impatiently.

  “How can I go play?” he says. “I don't know anyone in this park. W
hat am I gonna play?”

  Matilde Saudade shrugs her shoulders as her son covers his ears with his hands again. Juan de la Cruz Saudade is smoking with that satisfied expression of someone convinced he's winning an argument.

  “If it's all in my imagination,” says Matilde, “then who's that English bitch whose face I broke?” She pauses and a proud tone creeps into her voice. “They had to put four stitches in her head.”

  Juan de la Cruz Saudade throws his cigarette butt to the ground beneath the pigeon's gaze filled with repressed rage. He shrugs his shoulders.

  “She's not English,” he says. “And it's normal that you have to vent your anger on somebody once in a while.” His tone of voice has taken on that vaguely condescending tinge of someone forced to concede a minor dialectic point to their opponent. “It's not easy being a woman. Especially when your period is about to come. It's not me who says so. It's the doctors.”

  A group of teenagers of Latin American descent occupy a metal bench located right in front of the metal bench where the Saudade family is seated. They place a large portable sound system on the ground and then someone pushes the PLAY button on the compact disc player. A hip-hop song at full blast invades the park's relative silence. The pigeon that was watching the Saudades flies off with a furious expression toward another area of the park, one that is free of urban subcultures. The teenagers begin to move to the music's vaguely jungle rhythm and to improvise rhyming lines of rap while a couple of them are rolling hash joints. They are all wearing enormous pants and some sort of handkerchiefs knotted around their heads that are morphologically similar to giant condoms.

  “My brother says he's going to break your face,” says Matilde Saudade, raising her voice to be heard over the hip-hop music. “If he sees you on the street.”