by Javier Calvo
Iris Gonzalvo watches as the building that could be a windmill without giant blades becomes smaller and smaller in the distance. Through the mist. The image of someone mounting a half-naked riding instructor as if the instructor were a horse filters into her mind. Smacking her on the ass with a riding crop. She blinks to make the image disappear. She sighs and pulls a pack of cigarettes from her purse. She stands up. Before the questioning gazes of the two balding men with freckled, vaguely plastic skin.
“My bosses are very busy men.” She brings another cigarette to her lips and carries out the same gesture of asking for a light that makes her breasts compress and project forward while at the same time making her skirt retract toward her waist. Mr. Fleck and Mr. Downey simultaneously raise their hands to the inner pockets of their suit jackets in search of their lighters. There is a moment of silence as she lights the cigarette. Then she releases a mouthful of smoke and looks at first one and then the other. “And even though you don't believe it, they aren't interested in hearing stupid stories about spiritual leaders and dark ceremonies. Because we are in business. So go home and explain to Travers why you didn't get his beloved little paintings.”
Mr. Fleck and Mr. Downey look at each other with worried faces. Iris Gonzalvo reaches out her hand that isn't holding the cigarette toward the handle of the compartment's tinted glass sliding door. On the other side of which you can see the silhouette of Manta's back. A silhouette larger than many clothes closets. One of the blond men puts his palm against the door. Effectively blocking it from opening. Iris stares at the freckled back of the hand. With her purse over her shoulder. She takes a drag on her cigarette and releases a mouthful of smoke with her gaze fixed on the door and on the hand blocking her way.
“We all know what Arnold Layne really is,” says the man whose hand is resting on the door. He gestures to Iris in the direction of the seat and waits for her to sit back down. Then he shakes his head. “And the kind of limitations it has when selling artistic material. Due to its very nature. That hasn't changed since the sixties.”
“You guys are a band of two-bit thieves,” says the other. “Basically, we're the only possible buyers for your paintings.”
“Barcelona isn't even on the international map,” adds the first.
Iris Gonzalvo takes the cigarette from her lips with a perfectly manicured hand. She feels none of the tension associated with danger that you supposedly feel when you get involved in the international crime world. What she feels has more to do with pieces finally falling into place in the enormous windmill puzzle of the cosmos. Through her mind float images of herself up on a giant stage. A stage much larger than the crappy stages at The Dark Side of the Moon. Filled with that horror movie smoke that looks like fog, the kind rock musicians used in the eighties. Standing on a stage filled with smoke, with an enormous bouquet of flowers in her arms, and offering her hand to a crowd driven wild with desire. A crowd made up of men that undress her with their eyes and clap wildly and throw both men and women's underwear onto the stage. Some seem to have their dicks in their hands. Behind the stage, a giant screen shows giant images of her. Sitting on a blue sofa. The sofa from the living room of Monica's apartment on Friends. Surrounded by the rest of the characters on the show. Discussing issues related to potential pregnancies and unexpected changes of sexual orientation.
“Your bosses don't have the kind of contacts in America or Japan that they'd need to move this kind of material,” says one of Mr. Travers's employees. Sitting down again on the seat in front of Iris in the Talgo compartment. Wiping the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. “Which means that you're bluffing. Which isn't very smart given the circumstances. I don't even think your bosses would agree with the way you're handling this negotiation.”
Iris shrugs her shoulders. She takes a long drag on her cigarette with her brow furrowed and stands up again. She opens the heavy sliding door and steps out lightly before the questioning and vaguely alarmed face of Aníbal Manta.
Manta catches up with her at the end of the aisle. He grabs her by the arm.
“What's going on?” he says to her. The pressure he's putting on Iris's arm causes her to stare at him with an expression of hate and pain. “Where do you think you're going?”
A voice makes them both turn. Coming from the compartment's still-open sliding door. Through which sticks out a vaguely blond and partially bald face.
“Miss DeMink.” The face traces a worried smile. “I think we can discuss your price. Although only as a provisional hypothesis. Without any firm commitment.”
Iris looks at Manta with a defiant smile. Manta lets go of her arm.
Wonderful World
CHAPTER 55
Fanny's Testimony
In the middle of the third hearing of his trial, sitting in the District Court's witness area, leaning slightly over the railing that separates his area from the rest of the room, Lucas Giraut confirms that something seems to have disappeared from the internal dynamics of his trial. Something almost impossible to identify. Something that has nothing to do with the trial's tension or any uncertainty about its outcome. Of course it has nothing to do with the sickly-looking lawyer's fervent attempts to change the course of that dynamic. On the other side of the railing, Carlos Chicote is sitting with his back curved. Rabidly chewing his nicotine-stained cuticles. Like some sort of accidental shipwreck survivor of the real questions that are being settled around him. Clinging to his scared smile. Which is like a facial floating plank of wood. The last stronghold of his businessman's identity.
“So then you are saying,” says Giraut's lawyer of Hindustani or possibly Arab origin to Giraut. Talking into his microphone. Leaning indolently on the railing of the area reserved for the defense. With an indolence that somehow seems related to that indefinable something that Giraut's trial has been gradually losing over the three sessions. “You are saying that you met Mr. Chicote for the first time approximately a year and three months ago. At a birthday party for your mother. An event entirely unrelated to company business. That in fact you never worked with Mr. Chicote. That in fact Mr. Chicote has never worked in the building that houses LORENZO GIRAUT, LTD., in Barcelona. That you have never worked in the same workplace. What you are saying before this court, in other words,” he says. With his tie indolently loose around the collar of his shirt. With his jacket indolently placed over the back of the institutional chair. “Is that you've only seen Mr. Chicote in person half a dozen times in your life. Before this trial began. That before this trial you had only seen Mr. Chicote on six occasions. And on none of those occasions did you deal with company matters. I want the bench to take good note”—he holds up a sheet of paper indolently for the bench members to see—“that Mr. Giraut was able to remember and precisely date every one of his encounters with Mr. Chicote. Including details regarding the date and place and motive for each encounter.”
A court employee approaches the defense area to take the sheet of paper the non-Caucasian lawyer is holding up. The facially top-heavy judge is not leaning his head indolently on his hand. Nor has he taken off his shoes under his desk. Yet, there is something in his general attitude that seems to suggest the same indolent indifference of people who take off their shoes in public, or doodle on the paper in front of them, or rest their head wearily on the palm of one hand. The judge takes the paper that the court employee brings him and passes it to the court clerk, seated to his right on the bench. The clerk nods and passes it to a lower-ranking member of the judge's bench.
“Now I would like to ask you to remember,” says the non-Caucasian lawyer. The way he privately plays with his pen as he talks consists in rhythmically pushing the button that makes the point appear against his chin. Creating a sound similar to a cricket's song. Which the microphone amplifies throughout the entire courtroom. “Can you remember other occasions in which your mother made up stories? I mean stories deliberately made up to damage your professional career or simply to cause you personal problems. Are you
aware that your mother has been negatively manipulating the image others have of you? For example, when you were a child. For example, at school. Or perhaps in front of the other kids.” He pauses as he reviews his copy of the interrogation script. The other copy is beside him. On the place at the defense table that Giraut has left empty to sit in the witness area. “I'm sure you can remember concrete examples. Moments in which your mother falsified documents to make you look ridiculous. In which she published false information about you. Or spread rumors.”
“I object, Your Honor,” says a voice from the area of the courtroom that is diametrically opposed to the defense area. A tense voice. That somehow sounds redheaded. If that's possible. “These type of considerations are not only irrelevant to the question at hand. They are ridiculous. These childhood incidents are not on trial here. Mrs. Giraut is not on trial here. And above all, we are not conducting a trial based on personal childhood recollections.”
“Your Honor,” says the non-Caucasian lawyer. With what appears to be complete calm bordering on indolence. “The question is relevant to my defense. And is based on proving the falseness of accusations against my client. Precedents of falsehoods are the argument on which my defense rests, Your Honor.”
From the witness area, Giraut can clearly see Carlos Chicote's scared smile. On the other side of the railing. His curved back. His smiling mouth that is devouring his yellowed cuticles. His smile seems to have fossilized onto his face. His face seems to have entered a terrified vegetative trance state. Giraut realizes that he'd never noticed that Chicote must be more or less his same age. He's that kind of a person. The kind of person that can't be reduced to any sort of chronology outside of the business sphere. The audience in the first few rows also reflects the loss of something unidentifiable during the course of the judicial process. It isn't a mere question of entropic loss of energy. It's not a question of the usual inefficiency of district courts. It isn't a question of dramatic unexpected twists. Marcia Parini is in the audience. Passionately kissing Eric Yanel. Giraut can't see what's going on in the middle rows very well from the witness stand, but he has the impression that Yanel has a hand in Marcia's underwear. Fonseca and Estefanía “Fanny” Giraut's faces are, respectively, a treelike tangle of pulsating blood vessels and a mask partially hidden by sunglasses and a picture hat.
The judge sighs. He scratches his enormous forehead with a finger bent into a hook and finally signals with his vertically asymmetrical head for Lucas Giraut to answer his lawyer's question.
“My mother forged my grades in high school.” Giraut answers with his hands on the railing of the witness area. With his back straight and a namby-pamby look on his hairless round face that doesn't seem to match his tall thin body. “For two trimesters of my secondary schooling. I still don't know exactly how she did it, but I suspect she must have hired someone to break into the school at night. It did no good, of course. I was one of the best students. The principal called me to his office and showed me the forgery. Which was a first-class forgery. He interviewed me with a psychologist present and asked me if I had enemies at school or if I could think of who could be behind what was happening with my grades. Then they gave me back my real grades. My mother had given me five Fs. I don't think I would have been able to go to college. Another time she threw a party for my birthday and showed a video in front of all the guests. Later I found out that she had paid the kids to come.” He squints. His position within the courtroom is a distinct obstacle to his seeing exactly where Eric Yanel's hands are relative to Marcia Parini's underwear and nether regions. “Shall I explain more about the video and the birthday party?”
“Your Honor.” The lawyer of Arab or more likely Hindustani origins makes a gesture indicating to Giraut that he doesn't need to continue. “I have no more questions. I will now give the members of the bench copies of the remaining pieces of evidence that have been mentioned in the hearing. The faxes and internal communication between Mr. Giraut and Mr. Chicote. The full transcription of Valentina Parini's clinical interview carried out by social services. And a selection of videos and written documents relating to the Giraut family in decisive phases of my client's personal growth.”
The lawyer hands the evidence dossiers to a low-ranking subordinate of the court clerk. With his tie indolently loosened. With his sleeves indolently rolled up. With his gold pen indolently held between his teeth. There is a moment of transition during which the audience fills with whispering. Finally the judge bangs his gavel a few times to silence the room. The redheaded lawyer for the plaintiff stands up inside his prosecuting area delineated by a wooden railing. There are doors built into the railings of the specially delineated areas of the courtroom, which are indistinguishable from the rest of the railing when closed. The redheaded lawyer stands up and rests his knuckles on his desk and brings his mouth close to the microphone to speak.
“Mr. Giraut,” he says. In that tone of contained moral indignation. That tone that's perfectly familiar to anyone who has watched a legal hearing or session of Congress on television. “Mr. Giraut,” he repeats. “Please confirm the results of our investigations. If you would be so kind. So that this court can hear them,” he says. His ears are of a color close to purple. Several wide sections of the skin on his face are now of a color close to purple. As opposed to his usual sickly paleness. “On the twelfth of January of this year you appeared at Mr. Koldo Cruz's residence. Who you knew to be a former professional partner and personal friend of your father. Instead of entering his building, you merely deposited an envelope in his private mailbox. The envelope contained a page from an accounting ledger and a letter that you forged. Written by you in the forged handwriting of your mother, with her forged signature. The ledger page confirms business contacts between the late Mr. Giraut and Mr. Cruz in the years between 1971 and 1977.” He pauses. He clears his throat. “I'll remind you that all of the contents of the envelope are in this court's possession, Mr. Giraut. You found your father's accounting ledgers. His second set of ledgers. Which bring to light certain illegal operations carried out by your father. Certain connections with Russian criminal groups. And then you pretended to be your mother in order to extort Mr. Cruz. Because you were trying to incriminate your mother in a case of collusion with fraud and attempt at extortion. I don't need to note the seriousness of such facts.” He stares at the judge's vertically disproportionate face. “I don't need to mention the importance of this evidence in my clients' lawsuit.”
Lucas Giraut senses the expectant gazes of those watching the hearing. Like a single massive gaze focused on the witness stand. Like a small tingling at the back of his neck. He leans slightly forward with his body rigid and his hands resting on the railing and brings his face to the microphone.
“I don't know anyone named Koldo Cruz,” says Giraut. “As I stated in my previous declarations. I never even heard that name before this trial. I have no knowledge of my father's business operations. Beyond the accounting ledgers and records I received from Mr. Fonseca. My father and I weren't very close.” His voice starts to show nuances of perplexity and some degree of filial confusion. “Although I would have liked to know him better, of course.”
“There is no proof.” The definitely non-Caucasian lawyer speaks indolently in front of his microphone. With his pen between his teeth. With his shirtsleeves rolled up or, maybe, with one of those shirts that come rolled up. With one of those hems sewn into the sleeves. “There are no serious facts because there are no facts. There are no facts to refute. There are no fingerprints of any kind on that letter. The security camera at Mr. Cruz's home did not record any image of my client. The prosecution is basing his argument on mere conjecture. Not legal evidence, in short.”
When the Hindustani or Semitic lawyer finishes his intervention there is none of the indistinct whispering the audience always does in courtrooms on television shows and in the movies. That whispering that always seems to suggest a mix of shock and malicious conjecturing. The only sounds coming fr
om the audience are sporadic coughs and the clearing of throats and the occasional rustle produced by someone changing position on the benches.
“The witness Lucas Giraut may return to his seat,” says the clerk's voice amplified by the speaker system. “The defense calls Estefanía Giraut to the stand.”
A rustling of papers and pages turning spreads through the courtroom. Lucas Giraut enters the defendant's area through the section of the railing that functions as a door and closes it behind him. The new witness silently walks up the two steps to the witness stand. With her dark glasses. With her picture hat. With a stole over her shoulders. With the horrible, static mask that is her face sticking out under the glasses and the hat. Sections of unnaturally taut and shiny skin. As if instead of skin she had some kind of plastic substance that imitates skin in some old horror movie. One of those old horror movies from when special effects were in their infancy.
Fanny Giraut sits in the witness chair of the district courtroom. Giraut thinks that his mother has just placed her butt on the surface of the chair that is still warm from his own butt. For some reason the idea gives him some sort of small involuntary shiver down his back. Estefanía “Fanny” Giraut looks out at the audience area. She does not clear her throat. She does not cross her legs. She doesn't do any of the semiconscious gestures or nervous noises associated with someone who has just taken the witness stand. Her face resides in a kingdom beyond all expressiveness.
“The defense may begin its questioning,” say the speakers in a synthetic version of the clerk's voice. “The witness is reminded that she is under oath.”