Wonderful World

by Javier Calvo

  Pavel picks up his second glass of whiskey on the rocks from the bar and shakes it in a vaguely unconscious way. Making the ice tinkle against the glass. The black woman with the ample ass has taken a seat. Expanding the ampleness of her ass. Expanding her ass in a movement similar to an overflowing that threatens to make her tight red pants burst.

  “Tell me what you want to know.” Pavel gets up from his bar stool with a weary gesture. The deep red and blue tie hangs from his pocket in a way that doesn't quite suggest a tail. “And I'll tell you if I can tell it to you.”

  “They've talked to me about this new guy.” Leon lifts his eyebrows. “Some kind of antiques dealer. Seems he's the son of someone who was important here many years ago. And they told me about those stupid little paintings that are worth so much money to some people. And I have some idea where they might be. And I also think that all this has something to do with the fact that you broke into my friend's house. So what I want to know is: everything. Where those little paintings are going and when. So I can be waiting there. With Donald Duck and the rest of the boys.”

  “I've only seen the antiques dealer a couple of times.” Pavel walks up to the dirty glass screen of the jukebox and starts pushing buttons on the panel. “At Bocanegra's club. And I don't know anything about the paintings.”

  Leon plants an enormous hairy finger on the jukebox's dirty screen. The finger is pointing to the face of a black guy with his mouth open very wide in some sort of chemically induced expression of enthusiasm. With his eyes open unrealistically wide. With an overall expression of chemically induced enthusiasm whose effect is vaguely terrifying. An enthusiasm that surpasses all known limits of the healthy and normal.

  “Louis Armstrong.” Leon taps on the glass screen with his fingertip a few times. “A genius of modern music. It can take a little while to get used to his voice. It's not like Russian voices. Russian voices are strong. Masculine and all that,” he says in his high-pitched voice. “You know what I'm talking about. But, hey, Armstrong came to Russia. As an American cultural ambassador. And he made a lot of people happy.” He nods with a satisfied expression on his bullet-shaped head.

  He puts a coin in the machine and punches a numerical code into the panel. A slight buzzing is heard, similar to a bicycle chain. The buzzing every jukebox in the world makes when changing from one song to another. Pavel keeps making the ice in his glass tinkle languidly. After a moment the opening bars of a Louis Armstrong song are heard.

  “Of course, what people say Louis Armstrong's music means is stupid,” says Leon. While he moves his head to the rhythm of the song. The rocking of his head and hand is that stereotypical rocking that people associate with classical music lovers listening to chamber music in the smoking salons of their homes. “All that crap about the joy of being alive and waking up to see a new day. Bullshit. It's not about birdies in the sky and the joy of living. You just have to go out on the street. I don't see much blue skies or birdies singing or happy people frolicking. The truth is the weather sucks and the birdies are dead. No, sweetheart. What Louis Armstrong is saying, like the genius he is”—he makes a pause obviously designed to create a certain sense of mystery or paradox about to be revealed—“is that the world is wonderful because the world is horrible. And therein lies his great wisdom. The crazies who get on a bus with a bomb and kill all the passengers. Or that gigantic wave that was on every TV news show. Those are the things that make the world wonderful.” He nods and begins tracing arabesques of cutaneous grease with the tip of his hairy and vaguely phallic index finger on the dirty glass screen of the jukebox. “A world like us. For us.” He looks at Pavel's face. “Isn't it wonderful?”

  The soft winter breeze that enters through the open windows of the bar on the Rambla del Raval carries a characteristic Barcelona port odor with it, a mix of the smell of overflowing sewers, rotten fish and urine. No one in the bar or its surroundings seems aware of the odor. Pavel has finished his second glass of whiskey on the rocks.

  “I'm a locksmith,” he says, looking at the bartender and pointing at his empty glass again. “Bocanegra only uses me to open doors. Or to get into places he can't get into. What makes you think he'd explain his plans to me?”

  Leon stares at him for a long moment. His expression no longer reminds one of passengers put out by inconvenient flight delays.

  “Maybe Bocanegra is very happy with his new little friend the antiques dealer,” he says. “But that's not the way things work. You can't just put a new fish into the tank without the other fish getting nervous. Without making waves. This city is my fish tank. It belongs to me and the people I represent,” he adds, and although he doesn't move or turn toward the exit or make any motion that suggests he is about to leave, something in his tone and his general attitude seems to indicate that somehow he's no longer in the bar with Pavel. “And we're going to have to explain that to him. With your help, of course.”

  Pavel drinks his third whiskey in one gulp and tries to imagine the implications of Leon showing up in his favorite bar of the Rambla del Raval. The implications of the fact that he knows where to find him and that he also knows about things like the paintings. Particularly the implications having to do with his own personal safety. As for Leon, he's no longer in the bar.

  Wonderful World

  CHAPTER 41

  The Somnambulist in an Ambulance

  The landscape at dusk is truly Parisian. A landscape of palaces and eighteenth-century mansions in a popular middle-class Jewish neighborhood in the city center. Barely a mile north of the river. The landscape is Parisian in the way that certain overflow channels of clogged sewers are. Certain dogs that do their business in the middle of the sidewalk. Certain women that shout from the door of a café. The sun is just setting over the rooftops that look like forests of eighteenth-century chimneys. Iris Gonzalvo shivers inside her Adeline André red leather coat and takes a drag on her British cigarette while looking through the forged-iron fence of Mr. Travers's palace. On the other side of the fence, a dog is doing his business in the middle of the sidewalk. With his gaze lost on the horizon. The dog is tied with a leash to the hand of a woman with two other leashed dogs who is having a shouting match with someone in front of a café door. Iris Gonzalvo doesn't like to hear shouting in French. It makes her think of Eric Yanel. She takes a drag on her cigarette and releases a thick white cloud where the steam from her breath mixes with the smoke from her cigarette. Through the cloud she can see the horribly French face of the guard at the door. Becoming more and more defined as the smoke dissipates.

  “This is your pass.” The guard with the horrible French face hands a magnetic card to Iris Gonzalvo through the window of the guard box. His horribly French face consists basically of a nose shaped like a pepper jammed into a pale sponge riddled with pockmarks. “But he'll have to wait here.” He makes a signal with his head in Aníbal Manta's direction, who is waiting with his enormous arms crossed over his chest about six feet behind Iris. “Those are the rules. You have to show the pass to anyone who asks to see it.”

  Iris takes her pass and sticks it in her purse. Then she looks toward where the guard in the box is pointing. The guard box is at the entrance to the courtyard of Mr. Travers's Parisian palace, at the end of a porticoed entrance for cars separated from the street by a forged-iron railing. The palace's main entrance is at the other end of the courtyard, past an ornamental fountain. And beyond some arches under which someone is polishing the bodywork of a Rolls-Royce. A second guard is signaling to Iris Gonzalvo with his hand from the staircase of the main entrance. Although he is too far away for her to see him clearly, Iris has the impression that the second guard carries a submachine gun.

  Iris looks at Aníbal Manta, whose face is covered in sweat in spite of the fact that he is only wearing a trench coat over his suit. The fact that Aníbal Manta sweats so much in weather situations that are not extreme could be due to his enormous body mass. Manta looks back at her with a grim expression. With a grim ex
pression on his sweaty red face.

  “He says you're going to have to wait here,” she tells him, and takes a pensive drag on her cigarette from behind her dark glasses. On the other side of the fence, the woman with three dogs is still shouting with someone invisible at the door to the café. One of her dogs has started to bark furiously at another dog that is passing by. The sound of the barks is added to the other shouts, barks and car horns of that Parisian winter evening. “Call Barcelona on the satellite line. Tell them that I want Mr. Giraut ready by the phone. He might have to authorize bank movements and that kind of thing.”

  The second guard escorts Iris Gonzalvo through the main entrance to the palace's hallway. Her purse and red Adeline André coat are passed through one of those metal detectors with a conveyor belt like they have in airports. Then a woman with the same security company uniform runs a portable metal detector over the twists and turns of her body and pats down the parts where there could be something hidden. During this process, Iris is vaguely aware that her image is visible from different angles on the different monitors in the bank of monitors that one of the guards is watching attentively.

  “Miss DeMink, I presume,” says a voice behind Iris Gonzalvo as she is putting her coat back on and gathering her personal effects that have come out on the other side of the metal detector.

  Iris Gonzalvo turns. There are two men standing by a spiral staircase. She isn't sure how long they've been there. They could have just arrived or they could have been there the whole time. The spiral staircase is marble and has a giant balustrade and is covered with a dark red carpet. Iris has no idea which of the two men spoke to her. They are both simply there. Looking at her. The strangest thing, however, is not the fact that they're just standing there doing nothing at the foot of the staircase, nor that perhaps they've been there the whole time watching her. The strangest thing about the two men is that, in spite of not being identical, they give off the exact same feeling. They are both blond and suffer varying degrees of alopecia. They both have freckles on their faces, one more than the other. Neither of them wears glasses. They both could be any age between thirty-five and forty-five. They both look like that guy in C.S.I. That redheaded guy that solves all the cases. It's not that they look so much like him. They just give you the same feeling.

  “Mr. Travers?” she says. Looking at each of them alternately.

  The two blond, freckled, balding men smile at the same time. Something in their simultaneous smiles tells Iris that they are used to giving people the same puzzling effect. Almost as if their silent and vaguely theatrical appearance at the foot of the marble staircase had been meticulously staged to that effect. As if it were some sort of theater trick they were used to doing.

  “We are Mr. Fleck and Mr. Downey,” says one of them, without specifying which of the two is speaking. Somehow, it seems to Iris Gonzalvo that the fact that the two men aren't related makes the situation even stranger. “You can say that we're Mr. Travers's legs. Our boss has problems traveling. So we travel for him. Although tonight our job is to make you as comfortable as possible.”

  Iris Gonzalvo turns her back to one of the blond, balding men so he can help her take off her coat again.

  “Mr. Travers can't walk?” she says, taking a cigarette from the gold case the other man is offering her. “Is he very old? Or in a wheelchair?”

  One of the men lights her cigarette. She lifts her chin and releases a mouthful of smoke toward the ceiling of the vestibule. There is a scene painted on the ceiling featuring something that looks like Egyptian gods. Those Egyptian gods with weird staffs and animal heads.

  “Mr. Travers's problems are more spiritual.” The man who just spoke smiles again. “Mr. Travers is a very spiritual man. As you will soon see.”

  “It would be more precise to say that Mr. Travers has problems leaving the house,” says the other. “His spiritual problems get worse when he leaves the house. Any of his houses.”

  “Please, follow us,” says the first man. “Mr. Travers is very excited about the possibility of acquiring your wonderful pieces. We are all excited. The photographs you sent were wonderful.”

  Iris Gonzalvo rolls her eyes behind her sunglasses and follows the two men up the stairs. Even the way they go up the stairs seems strangely synchronized. Leaning their respective hands gently on the balustrade, one of them two or three steps ahead of the other. Both peeking back with a smile over their shoulders the way people do when they want to make their guests feel as comfortable as possible. On the last landing is the largest statue that Iris Gonzalvo has ever seen in her life. It depicts a life-size Roman chariot with a charioteer at the reins and a group of rearing horses. Both the charioteer and the horses are broken and missing pieces the way ancient statues do. One of the two men points to black double doors. With some sort of climbing plants carved into them.

  “The doors are of Etruscan alabaster,” explains Mr. Fleck, or maybe it is Mr. Downey. “First century BC. Mr. Travers will now receive you in his smoking salon. And, please”—he places a hand gently on Iris's arm—“remember what we said about his spiritual problems. Be careful in there. Mr. Travers's special condition makes him a very delicate person.”

  Iris Gonzalvo stubs out her cigarette in a standing ashtray. Finally she walks between the two men and pushes the doors open.

  The first thing that draws her attention on the other side is the smell. A smell of something like incense that inundates the room and makes it hard to even breathe. Iris Gonzalvo brings a hand to her mouth and waits for her eyes to get used to the half-light. She seems to be in a room so big that the far end gets lost in the distance. The only light comes mostly from a small reading lamp covered with a cloth and the fireplace that burns in a remote corner of the room. Mr. Travers, if he's there, must be hiding in the dim light. Iris wonders if everyone in that place is fond of dramatic entrances. Of surprise appearances in scenes out of gothic novels. She stands beside the door for a moment, almost waiting for a section of the wall to turn and for the owner of the house to appear from the other side with a book open in his hands and a malicious smile. Then she shrugs her shoulders. If he wants to play hide-and-seek, she doesn't have a problem with that.

  “Mr. Travers?” she asks the darkness. Trying not to give her voice that vaguely singsong tone that children use when playing hide-and-seek to call out to their hidden friends.

  She walks past a table larger than any table she's seen before, and covered by what looks like a diorama of a World War II battle. She walks past bookcases jammed with old editions. Past taxidermied animals. Past wooden rocking horses and other antique toys. Past glass cases filled with old coins and nineteenth-century signs. Finally she gets to the fireplace. In that part of the room the objects' shadows dance nervously against the walls. Like nervous animals. The flames in the fireplace are high. Someone has stoked them very recently. Iris Gonzalvo stares at the rug in front of the fireplace and the three cats that sleep curled up on it, united in a strange furry ball without any visible heads or tails. Then her gaze moves toward the slippers beside the cats, goes up the legs that lead to the armchair in front of the fireplace, and finally rests on the man seated in the armchair who is looking at her with a calculating expression.

  “My oh my,” says the man in the armchair with a British accent. “You are quite a beauty. There were no women like you the last time I was in Spain. There were pretty women, sure.” He purses his lips in a dubious expression. “But nothing like you, I can assure you.”

  Iris Gonzalvo makes a gesture similar to a smile. With her arms crossed over her chest. One of the cats has woken up and is looking at her with that face cats have when looking at someone who's just arrived. Without curiosity. Without fear. Without sympathy. Without anything that can be associated with any kind of feline emotion. The man in the armchair is fat and has long curly hair and a puffy face and a weary look.

  “Please, have a seat.” Mr. Travers points to an armchair in front of his. “Make yourself
comfortable. I suppose those ruffians Fleck and Downey haven't even made you a drink.” He gets up heavily from the armchair. A cascade of something like crumbs of food falls from the front of his frayed wool sweater. “They must have already told you that I don't go out much.”

  Iris Gonzalvo moves a pile of books and boxes that is in the armchair. The room's dim light, plus her sunglasses, makes her visual field some kind of abstract composition of faint splotches. Finally she sits and takes the drink Travers holds out to her. She takes a polite sip. Port. Whoever this nutcase is, he keeps acting like he just escaped from a vampire movie.

  “It's been a very long time since I've heard anything from Arnold Layne.” Travers collapses once again into the armchair in front of the fireplace. “Almost thirty years. Heavens, you weren't even born, I'm sure. Then everyone that was seriously into collecting rare pieces had heard of Arnold Layne Experts. And that society with the funny name. What was it called? Down With The Sun?” His puffy face twists into an expression that could indicate nostalgia. Something in his long, dirty curly hair makes him look somewhat like an over-the-hill transvestite. “Do you have any idea what I'm talking about, Miss DeMink? Do any of these names ring a bell?”

  Iris Gonzalvo begins to feel a burning desire to light another cigarette. After all, one of those blond guys had said this was the smoking salon.

  “I'm not authorized to reveal the names of the people I represent,” she says finally. “You understand.”

  Mr. Travers nods. He leans forward a bit and starts searching in a pile of papers on top of the little table beside the armchair. The shadows of his body and arm dance nervously along with the rest of the shadows in the room. To the rhythm of the high flames. Finally Travers pulls a business card out of the pile. He stares at it with a frown.

  “Penny,” he reads. “What is your name short for, Miss DeMink?”