Wonderful World

by Javier Calvo

  Juan de la Cruz Saudade stares at his wife with a perplexed expression.

  “Your brother is gonna break my face?” he says, as if his wife's statement involved some sort of enigma. “Mine? But he works in a restaurant. How tall is your brother? And when has he ever broken anyone's face?”

  “He works in a pizzeria.” His wife wrinkles her forehead in three consecutive expressions of surprise. “And he doesn't work in the pizzeria. He delivers the pizzas on a motorcycle. I mean he's strong. And at least my brother worries about me. He worries about what happens to me and all that.”

  The Latin American teenagers continue rehearsing dance steps that make them seem, alternately, like robots, marionettes and people with central nervous system disorders. The vaguely rhyming sentences that they rap in time to the music are peppered with the words “respect,” “brother” and “city.”

  “I worry about you,” says Saudade, lighting another cigarette. “I'm worried right now.”

  Cristian Saudade takes his hands off of his ears.

  “Grandma says that if she has to put up with our shit one more day,” he says, “she's going to be the one to pack her bags and get as far away as possible.” He pauses and looks with a thoughtful expression at the group of teenagers that are moving like people with central nervous system disorders. “She says that she knew that all this was going to happen when my father hooked up with that chick on your wedding day.”

  “That chick,” corrects Matilde, “is your aunt.”

  The teenagers are now passing the joints among themselves and taking nervous drags on them while they nod to the rhythm of the music and raise their thumbs to indicate urban subcultural satisfaction.

  “She also told me that if I want pizza,” continues Cristian, “I should ask my mother or my pig of a father for money and go buy some pizza. But nobody ever gives me money.”

  Saudade looks at his wife with a triumphant expression.

  “You see?” he says, now almost shouting to make himself heard over the music from the portable sound system. “The kid wants to come home. You're wrecking a home with these things you imagine.” He looks at his son and puts a patriarchal hand on his shoulder. “You want your mother to let you come home, right?”

  Eight-year-old Cristian Saudade looks alternately at his father and at his mother.

  “No,” he says. “I don't know.”

  The joints seem to have stimulated the dancing skills of the group of Latin American teenagers, some of whom have put on gloves and have started to rehearse break-dance movements on the ground. The others clap rhythmically and some imitate the sound of rhythm boxes with their mouths. A couple of them now look out of the corner of their eyes at the strange family group seated on the bench in front of them with a child in the middle who is covering his ears with his hands. Juan de la Cruz Saudade puts out his cigarette and spits on the ground between the legs of his powder blue and white sweatpants. One of the Latin American teenagers shyly approaches and offers the Saudades the joint he's smoking. The gesture seems rich in connotations of subcultural sociability and universal chemical brotherhood. Saudade stares at him with an incredulous expression.

  “You want me to break your legs, asshole?” he shouts at the teenager who is offering him the joint. “Take that shit away from my son!”

  Half a minute later the group of teenagers, with their jungle dances and their portable sound system, have disappeared without leaving a trace beyond a vague rhythmic pulsating of the park's cement. A couple of irritated-looking pigeons alight on the area surrounding the Saudades' bench. Flapping their wings irritably and shooting hateful looks.

  “I'll give you one last chance.” Matilde scratches her head nervously. “You can come home, but with certain conditions. You have to follow some rules. First of all, no seeing that bitch. Second, no other bitches neither.” She thinks for a moment. As if she had forgotten the rest of the rules and was searching for them in her memory. “And that's it. Two rules.”

  Cristian Saudade turns his head slowly toward his father, without taking his hands off his ears, and watches him in silence. Matilde looks at her husband with rhythmic gestures of surprise in her face. With something similar to expectation. With her hands in the side pockets of her knockoff sweatshirt. The situation is generally one of family expectation. With two pairs of eyes observing the patriarch of the family unit. One of those moments that seem crucial to the future evolution of the bloodline. Saudade pulls his back up against the back of the bench. He lifts his feet and clears his throat in acknowledgment of the special relevance of the present family moment.

  “Baby,” his tone is simultaneously contrite and obsequious, the standard universal tone of Husbands Returning to the Fold, “I know I did terrible things a long time ago. But it's those guys I work with, you know. Aníbal and Bob Marley and the rest. Bob Marley is that Russian I told you about. I think they're a bad influence on me.” He pauses and looks at his wife, who is rolling her eyes while at the same time convulsively wrinkling her forehead. “They're always trying to make me be like them. You know what I mean. I'm almost positive they've put stuff in my drinks plenty of times. Ecstasy and shit like that.”

  Matilde Saudade hugs herself against the cold. The new year has just started and at a few minutes to noon the park seems to be empty except for the Saudades. Matilde Saudade makes a gesture with her hand toward the pack of Fortunas that her husband has in the pocket of his sweatshirt. Saudade snorts impatiently and offers his wife a cigarette.

  Wonderful World

  CHAPTER 38

  Darts

  “Are you completely sure we've never met this girl before?” Mr. Bocanegra takes a pensive drag on his cigar. Pursing his mouth and mustache in the shape of descending curves. His gesture is closer to suspicious than perplexed. “Because I think I've seen her before. Her face, her tits.” He shrugs. “Those things I think I could forget. Even her ass. But not those legs. I am almost positive I've seen those legs before. I recognize them even in this light. I don't think anybody could forget those legs.”

  Lucas Giraut and Aníbal Manta follow Mr. Bocanegra's gaze past the bar of the Eclipse Room at The Dark Side of the Moon. Beyond the groups of customers drinking at the bar and toward the vicinity of the darts area. Where Iris Gonzalvo is playing darts in the company of half a dozen men. And leading the game in points, judging by the scores written on the chalkboard beside the dartboard. Winning the game in progress by a spectacular margin. A margin that any experienced dart player would undoubtedly deem humiliating. Although none of Iris Gonzalvo's rivals seem particularly humiliated. Most of them surround Iris Gonzalvo with sycophantic expressions and are lighting her cigarettes or bringing her glass after glass of Finlandia and tonic and clapping and cheering each one of her throws. The way Iris Gonzalvo throws the darts isn't that vaguely comical way that many women throw darts: she doesn't stick the tip of her tongue between her lips or let out nervous giggles or roll her eyes in self-parody every time one of her throws misses the board. The way she throws darts is self-assured and elegant. Bending her arm at the precise angle and with no more motion in her body than a slight swaying of the hips that reveals a triangular section of very pale and slender thigh through the side slit in her skirt.

  Mr. Bocanegra, Lucas Giraut and Aníbal Manta are watching Iris Gonzalvo with contemplative faces.

  “Where did you say she came from?” Mr. Bocanegra exhales a mouthful of cigar smoke that rises up between the bar lights of the Eclipse Room. In the shape of incandescent spirals.

  The Eclipse Room is the most popular and most crowded area of The Dark Side of the Moon. Seven thousand and five hundred square feet of carpeted floor and velvet sofas and mirror balls and quality wood panels and statues. The statues, according to Mr. Bocanegra, are the element that sets The Dark Side of the Moon apart from just any old place. That gives it a different atmosphere from other adult entertainment spots. Because the statues, according to Bocanegra, transport you to other worlds, f
antastical worlds. Like those gardens filled with statues that you see in movies. Or like those psychedelic gardens on the covers of British rock records from the seventies. If you want to create a special place, says Mr. Bocanegra, put in all the statues you can.

  “She's an old friend of mine,” says Lucas Giraut. He takes a cigarette out of his embossed case and taps it against the palm of his hand softly before putting it between his lips. “She's an actress. Maybe you've seen her in a commercial on TV.”

  Aníbal Manta looks at Iris Gonzalvo with his brow furrowed. The bar stool he's sitting on is too small for him, just like the bar itself. Producing the strange sensation that he is the only adult seated at a child-sized replica of a bar in an amusement park for kids.

  “She looks familiar to me, too,” he says. “Almost like I know her from here. Like she'd been one of our girls.”

  “I vouch for her,” says Lucas Giraut. He takes a drag on the cigarette with his soft and slightly namby-pamby face. “She's exactly what we need. We have an opening. The sale operation starts in a few days. Mr. Yanel isn't in any condition to run the operation, because of his depression. She can do it. Almost better than Yanel.”

  A silence filled with sips on their respective drinks, pensive drags on their cigars and cigarettes, and surreptitious glances at Iris Gonzalvo's legs once again hovers over the three men at the bar. The way Iris Gonzalvo is playing darts, in the center of a ring of men that applaud her movements and attend to all of her needs, seems to be altering the very nature of the game itself. It's something in the way she throws the darts. Taking a couple of sips of Finlandia with tonic between dart and dart. Or perhaps licking a pinch of salt from the back of her hand just before downing a shot of tequila in one swig and biting a lemon wedge. There is something unyielding in the way she plays. As if the board and the darts and the cycle of turns were no longer just a simple game. As if it were an oracle. An arcane code. An astral or solar system for figuring out the universe. And the men that are playing with her seem to sense that on a very profound level. They seem to be worshipping their high priestess. That barely visible swaying of her hips is discernible on a deeper level and seems to be transforming into the very center of the universe.

  “Fuck.” Mr. Bocanegra wipes off a few drops of sweat that have started to drip off his exceptionally shiny bald head. “I wish she did work here. That girl has talent. Damn.” He loosens the knot in his tie a bit. “Bring her a drink.” He gestures toward Aníbal Manta. “The most expensive drink we have. Send them downstairs for it if need be.”

  Aníbal Manta leaves his empty drink on the bar. The bar of the Eclipse Room at The Dark Side of the Moon is circular and has multicolored lights. And in the center of the bar there is an elevator.

  A burst of laughter comes from the darts area. Pavel is trying to throw a dart with his right arm, which is in a sling. Exaggeratedly leaning his body forward to compensate for his lack of mobility. He finally makes his throw. Whistles and applause are heard. The dart traces a weak downward parabola and sticks between someone's feet. Now insults are heard among the whistles.

  Lucas Giraut watches how Aníbal Manta approaches Iris Gonzalvo and whispers something in her ear. The other dart players clear their throats and look away and feign interest in other things. Iris Gonzalvo nods blankly at whatever it is that Manta is telling her. She takes the large glass of Finlandia that one of the other dart players offers her and takes one of those sips that look like just a slight wetting of the lips but which actually lower the level of the drink considerably. Finally she looks toward the spot at the bar where Giraut and Mr. Bocanegra are and nods again. She raises her glass toward the owner of the establishment. Although she has stopped playing, her gestures continue to have that same oracular quality. Giraut suspects that the sensation could be due to Iris Gonzalvo's sexual appeal. To that ineffable and almost otherworldly quality that very sexually attractive people have. That quality that always makes you think that no matter how much you look at them, you are always missing something essential about them. That almost magical resistance to your gaze.

  The men move aside as Iris walks to the bar. They watch each of her movements with animal attention. With that mix of caution and aggressiveness with which animals pay attention. Iris Gonzalvo's sex appeal and her ineffable aura produce a certain sensation that she is in a film, walking in slow motion. With that otherworldly elegance that slow motion bestows.

  Finally she arrives at the bar. She puts a hand on Lucas Giraut's shoulder. An intimate gesture. No one present perceives the almost imperceptible shiver Lucas Giraut makes under her hand.

  “Lucas tells me your name is Iris,” says Mr. Bocanegra. In a vaguely wary tone. As if for some reason that information didn't seem altogether convincing.

  Iris Gonzalvo puts her empty glass in Aníbal Manta's enormous hand. Manta stares at the glass. Then he looks at her. With an incredulous expression.

  “I guess Lucas has brought you up-to-date on the kind of business we're dealing with.” Bocanegra doesn't wait for her to nod or give any sign of having registered his words. “We aren't the kind of company that advertises in the yellow pages. In fact, we don't advertise anywhere. Fuck, even calling us a company is a bit much. We are a gentlemen's club. In other words”—Bocanegra's face transforms into an expression of open cruelty—“people don't put the jobs they do for us on their résumés.”

  “I've already brought her up-to-date on those things.” Lucas seems to have unconsciously moved away from Iris's hand. “She knows that we don't have time to waste and that she's going to have to start studying her role.”

  Mr. Bocanegra lets out a grunt.

  “In our line of work we deal with strange people,” he says. He makes a wide gesture with his glowing cigar. “People who also aren't interested in advertising themselves. Eccentric people. Sometimes even paranoid. You have to understand how this world works. Collectors are passionate people. I myself collect statues. They're people who are forced to break certain laws and take advantage of other gray areas that the law doesn't mention. That doesn't mean they hurt anybody, most of the time. But they are forced to tread carefully. To sleep with a pistol under their pillows, to use a metaphor. I hope you are following me attentively, kid.” He points to Iris with the incandescent tip of his cigar. “Because I don't look kindly on you just pouting your lips and showing me a bit of leg every once in a while instead of really thinking about what I'm saying.”

  Iris Gonzalvo doesn't seem intimidated. In fact quite the opposite. Her smile widens a bit. Her body settles a bit more comfortably on the stool. Her crossed legs uncross and cross again in such a way that the pale section of leg that's visible grows before the men's eyes.

  “Tell me about this Mr. Travers,” she says. Taking the glass of champagne that Aníbal Manta offers her. “The buyer.”

  “If I knew everything there is to know about Travers,” says Bocanegra, “I wouldn't be sitting here in front of you and selflessly offering you the most expensive bottle of Krug that I have in my wine cellar. More expensive than all the clothes any of us are wearing, including my friend Mr. Giraut. Because Travers isn't a guy who lets people know anything about him. That's how these guys protect themselves. That's how they become almost untouchable. There are people who have found out things about him, sure.” He shrugs his shoulders. “But they've disappeared without a trace. And I don't think they went anywhere very pleasant.”

  “We know that Mr. Travers has a house in Paris,” says Giraut. “A palace in the center of the city. He does most of his business from there. The security system is almost as expensive as the house itself, or that's what I'm told. The truth is we don't have enough information yet.”

  “Travers is a rich fuck.” Mr. Bocanegra waits for the waitress to serve him a cup from the bottle of Krug opened especially for this executive meeting. The waitress's expression as she serves the champagne is one of reverential fear. Like the face of someone handling something equipped with detonators and col
ored wires and a plutonium core. “Not rich like those guys in Fortune magazine or Forbes. Rich like the people that aren't in those magazines. You know what I mean. Let's just say there are two kinds of rich people.” He pauses. He picks up the glass and takes a sip.

  “We've been lucky enough to find out some things about Travers from my father's diaries,” says Lucas Giraut. By this point he has moved far enough away from Iris that she's taken her hand off his shoulder. Now he is sitting in his familiarly rigid style on the bar stool. “He's an eccentric. We don't really know what kind of pieces he collects. My father's diaries say that they're extremely rare pieces. We can guess what some of them could be. Things that disappeared from the market, for example. But in general his collection is a mystery. Completely undocumented. And of course, we don't know where it is held. They say that Mr. Travers owns dozens of properties. And there's something else.” He clears his throat. “Mr. Travers is supposedly a well-known occultist. Of course, that adds to his legend.”

  Iris Gonzalvo nods. Seated on either side of her, Lucas Giraut and Mr. Bocanegra exchange a glance. A glance too brief to be considered communication by anyone. Anyone but them. Somehow, Giraut understands what Bocanegra is thinking. Based on that single fleeting glance. They both seem to have perceived that certain something Iris Gonzalvo has that makes her strange. Beyond the questions associated with her sex appeal. And Giraut has also noticed the way Bocanegra is now looking at Iris. He isn't perplexed, that's for sure. Mr. Bocanegra's facial and gestural peculiarities don't allow him to express anything even close to perplexity. His features are too anchored in a strong, firm base of cruelty and power. His jaw seems made to destroy things. His mustache only bends into voracious expressions. His bald head is too wide and too shiny not to provoke associations with tyrannical leaders of the ancient world.

  No, thinks Lucas Giraut, as the silence and the throat clearing seem to indicate that the conversation is drawing to a close. Bocanegra is not perplexed as he looks at Iris. Or suspicious. He's looking at her with something similar to genuine curiosity. Which is something Giraut has never seen on Bocanegra's face before.