Wonderful World

by Javier Calvo

  Iris takes a few steps back, scared. Everywhere you look, there are only hundreds and hundreds of parked cars. Cars as far as the eye can see. Epically filmed by cameras installed into small aircraft. Manta is already close enough for Iris to be able to see his tightly clenched fists with their white knuckles. His crew cut somehow messy. The slightly reddened whites of his eyes. And in that precise moment, one of the parked cars starts suddenly and hits Manta. Manta goes flying and lands on the hood of a family car parked in the row in front. Setting off the car's alarm.

  The car that has just hit Manta turns abruptly. It makes a U-turn, hitting the fenders of several parked cars and stopping with a screech of its brakes beside Iris. Iris recognizes the maneuver as something she saw Eric Yanel do in a car commercial a year earlier. One of those commercials where Eric would do a spectacular maneuver and then emerge with a helmet under his arm, filmed by an aerial camera, into the company of a pair of models in bikinis. The car window opens. Eric Yanel sticks an arm through the open window.

  “Lucas told me you might need a little help,” he says. With a radiant smile, the kind you see in commercials.

  Iris goes around and gets in on the passenger side. Beneath the vaguely alarmed stares of the families and school groups in the parking lot.

  Wonderful World

  CHAPTER 60

  Plasma Ball

  Mr. Bocanegra pushes the bell of the former ducal palace the tourist guides refer to as the Palau de la Mar Fosca. With a hand behind his back. With a bouquet of flowers in that hand. Hiding a bouquet of flowers behind his back the way people hide something they're about to present as a surprise gift. He combs his scant hair with the fingers of a large, hairy hand and smiles. There is something intrinsically ferocious in his smile. A certain element related to the fact that his teeth are unrealistically large and too shiny to be a real person's teeth. Like teeth painted on with an airbrush. His stance is the one children usually employ when waiting in front of a door, with his legs slightly crossed and his hands behind his back.

  A funny-looking municipal cleaning vehicle seems to have colonized most of the passable area of the street this early Monday morning. Equipped with an enormous hose that looks alive and is connected to something underground. The cleaning crew sweeps the paving stones. They move their heads rhythmically to the music on their headphones and, every once in a while, shout something at each other, the way people shout when they're wearing headphones. Except for one. One of the members of the cleaning crew doesn't seem to be listening to music or shouting at the others. He's not wearing headphones, either. The cleaner who is not like the others is sweeping a corner of the street from which he has a completely clear view of the doorway of the palace known as the Palau de la Mar Fosca. Without looking up. What he's wearing instead of headphones is one of those little ear devices halfway between a hearing aid and a microphone headset. Like those things nightclub bouncers wear. Bocanegra clears his throat with a fist in front of his mouth. The small door inside the two larger ones opens and Marcia Parini appears in the threshold. Wearing a pearly robe. With Bugs Bunny slippers. Although she doesn't have curlers in her hair or a cigarette hanging from her lips, her pale morning face with sheet marks still on it makes you think she should be wearing curlers in her hair and have a cigarette hanging lazily from her lips.

  “You don't look like the furniture delivery man.” Marcia looks at Bocanegra with a frown. The suit Bocanegra is wearing this Monday winter morning is cream colored and has the meticulously triangular point of a red handkerchief sticking out of the breast pocket. Under a fur coat that seems to have been designed to be worn exclusively by a woman. Marcia hugs herself in a gesture that suggests she's cold. Both her and her visitor's breath materialize in the shape of little clouds of steam. Marcia's little clouds of steam seem smaller and somehow less dynamic than the little clouds of steam coming from the corpulent, mustachioed man standing in front of her door. “Unless you've got my blackboard and man's dresser and all the rest behind your back.”

  Bocanegra stares at the bouquet of flowers in his hand with a theatrical expression of surprise. With that overly surprised expression for surprise gifts you've been hiding behind your back while waiting for the recipient to open the door. Like a clichéd joke. The bouquet is wrapped in some sort of shiny paper that crunches when you grab it. Marcia grabs the bouquet by the crunchy lower part and stares at it without any particular expression.

  “How stupid of me, you must forgive me.” Bocanegra combs his scant hair with his hairy hand again in a gesture that somehow manages to not be at all flirtatious. His strangely feminine coat is simply draped over his cream-colored shoulders. “I should have called. But the truth is I didn't have your phone number. And I'm only in town for one day. You must be my nephew's girlfriend. Who, by the way, has very good taste. My nephew. As they say. I'm his uncle Oscar. Lucas's uncle. Although we haven't seen each other in many years. I'm kind of a wayward uncle. That's why we've never met. But I've been meaning to call for some time. And suddenly I said to myself: why don't you pay good old Lucas a visit? Since I'm passing through the city and all. For old times' sake.” His eyes half close as he studies Marcia Parini's slightly swollen eyes. Marcia has the kind of brown eyes that are completely dull and devoid of any idiosyncratic elements. Like standard-issue eyes. As if there wasn't time or money to come up with some real eyes. “The truth is I'm not exactly his uncle,” continues Bocanegra. “You could say that Lucas and I are more like distant cousins. Very distant. Uncle Oscar is what he calls me. Because of the age difference, I guess. It's a joke. You know. Like Uncle Oscar from the Oscar awards and all that. It's one of those family jokes people make. What can I say.” He shrugs his shoulders. Both his smile and his half-closed eyes now contain clear hints of ferociousness. “Family is the most important thing there is.”

  Marcia Parini hugs herself in a gesture that suggests intense cold as well as unexpected conversations with strangers early in the morning in insufficient attire. From under the lower edge of her pearly robe the skin on her legs seems covered in a uniform eruption of little bumps brought on by the cold, which lends her a certain helpless charm. Helpless charm is probably Marcia's strong suit. Her robe is one of those thin silk robes that are no help at all against the cold. The street cleaner who isn't moving his head rhythmically or shouting keeps sweeping in a way that suggests he isn't really paying attention to what he's sweeping, nor is he really committed to cleaning the sidewalk. His head is leaning to one side at a pronounced angle. As if he were surreptitiously listening to something happening on the other side of a door.

  Marcia moves her feet in a vaguely impatient gesture.

  “I'm not Lucas's girlfriend,” she says. The sheet marks are mostly on one side of her face. “My mother and his mother were best friends, before they each got married. He lives in the apartment upstairs. I live in the downstairs apartment. We visit each other a lot. Sometimes it's all a bit confusing. Or at least it was, until two weeks ago.” Marcia Parini's pale little clouds of steam lend her a certain helpless charm. The way she hugs herself over her silk robe gives her a helpless charm. Her helpless charm now emanates in waves toward Bocanegra. “Right now Lucas isn't home. But I could invite you in for a cup of tea. We have a wide selection of teas.”

  Five minutes later Mr. Bocanegra is sitting on a leather sofa, with his fingertips resting on the surface of one of those plasma balls filled with gas whose capacitor emits colored electrical charges when you touch it. Like small, fantastically colored lightning bolts that come out from the middle of the ball toward the hands that touch it. On the glass coffee table in Marcia Parini's living room, besides the plasma ball, there are other objects like a lava lamp, a tranquility fountain and a Chinese checkers board. Without any marbles. Even though Marcia Parini's living room isn't small, the excess of objects makes it a bit claustrophobic. There are also sticks of incense in varying states of consumption on a nearby chest of drawers. Bocanegra moves his hands over the s
urface of the plasma ball. Changing the form produced by the electricity making the gas inside the ball glow. Without taking his eyes off the electric form. The temperature in the living room is also stifling. Like the house had been overheated all night.

  “Did I mention we have a wide selection of teas?” Marcia's voice comes from some invisible place located on the other side of the rectangular horizontal opening that connects the tiny kitchen with the living room. The opening has a varnished wood ledge covered with more little bottles of spices and herbs than Bocanegra has ever seen in one place in his life. Even something that looks like very small logs of firewood. Marcia's voice is mixed with the vaguely metallic sound of a transistor radio or maybe a CD player in the attached kitchen. “I've been a big tea fan for a while now. You can have any kind you want. I think I have them all. I can also make blends. Sometimes I think I have too wide a selection of teas. If you know what I mean. I mean that if they gave me a euro for every euro I've spent on tea I'd probably be rich. This is all to say, ask for a cup. Don't be afraid. You won't catch me off guard.”

  Bocanegra keeps moving his hands over the plasma ball. Contemplating the different configurations that appear inside it. Like heavenly bodies. Each movement of his hands creates changes in the structure and color system. There are no two identical configurations. Not even when he puts his hands in the same place.

  “Do you have a cup of tea?” he says distractedly. Without taking his gaze off the center of the ball.

  “That's not how you do it,” says the voice from the other side of the horizontal rectangular opening to the kitchen. Patiently. “You have to say something like: I want a spicy breakfast tea, one that's strong and fruity. That kind of thing. I could also make you a crêpe. To have with your tea. That's my favorite breakfast.” Her face and upper torso appear in the opening. With her silk robe. With a large glass of Macallan in her hand. She brings the glass to her lips and takes a sip. “I can also give you a whiskey, if you want. I'm not saying it's the best thing for you at this time of the morning. But I don't think it's the worst either.”

  Bocanegra moves his hands over the glass ball with the circular and vaguely sweeping motions that crystal ball readers use. The kind that usually wear turbans. And have little pointy beards. On the surface of the ball, with a backdrop of colored lightning bolts and otherworldly fog, his own distorted face looks at him severely. In that convex, centripetal way faces are reflected onto round surfaces. The tinkling of ice and glasses is heard from the kitchen. Bocanegra looks at the ball with a frown and moves one hand in a kind of wave. The way you wave at your own reflection. As much as he goes over it in his mind, he can't seem to find any metaphorical implication in the nature or workings of the ball. The plasma ball appears to be an element devoid of any metaphoric possibilities. Not relatable to any other element in the universe. Like its own world. A relatively pretty, boring and meaningless world. There doesn't seem to be any lesson here, thinks Bocanegra with the mental equivalent of a sigh. He crosses his legs and smiles at Marcia, who has just appeared with two large glasses of Macallan and ice.

  “I know this may seem strange,” says Bocanegra. He leans the upper half of his body forward without uncrossing his legs to take the glass of Macallan Marcia offers him. Marcia sits in front of him. With a glass in her hand that's identical to her guest's glass except it's missing a couple of large sips of whiskey. Sections of pale, correctly moisturized skin peek out from under Marcia's silk robe. “Since I'm practically a stranger that just showed up without even calling first. I know it's a strange question and all. But tell me, dear. Have you noticed anything strange about Lucas lately? Any change in his behavior? Anything that struck you as strange? Like strange people coming over. Strange people that come at odd hours. People that look like policemen, for example. And forgive me for the strange question. But perhaps you've seen someone prowling around the street. In the little plaza over there. People that look like they're prowling. Pretending to do something else. Like someone reading a newspaper on a corner. Sometimes they wear those little gadgets in one ear. You know.” He raises a large hairy hand to his ear. Bocanegra's ears are small. In marked contrast with the rest of his facial features. “Like those devices nightclub bouncers wear in their ears.”

  Marcia Parini looks over the edge of the glass of Macallan she's sipping. Then she places it among the objects cramming the glass table. The lava lamp and the plasma ball and the Chinese checkers board and a Ganesh elephant and something that looks like one of those fountains with a motor inside that generates a supposedly tranquilizing sound.

  “I haven't seen anything strange,” she says. “Lucas isn't strange. A lot of people think he is, but I don't. He's a good guy. Maybe he does have a few problems. His mother is a difficult woman. And it seems like his father was, too. I mean a difficult man. But I don't care what they say. I don't care if they say he did things with Valentina. I don't care that they want to fire him from his job. I know the real Lucas. Like do you know he saves all the notebooks he wrote when he was a kid? And he has a secret room at work. He never told me but I figured it out.” She takes a sip of whiskey with her brow furrowed. Then she continues talking with the glass in her hand. “What I mean is that he's a special guy. An interesting person. I used to be in love with him.”

  Marcia's body language isn't exactly childlike, or exactly feminine, or even exactly adult. There is something about Marcia Parini that makes Bocanegra not exactly realize that she's almost naked in front of him. Something that seems to contradict the very idea of nakedness. Bocanegra runs a hand along the rocky texture of the upper part of the tranquility fountain on the glass table and gets up from the sofa. With unexpected agility considering his size. He walks with his hands behind his back to a coatrack near the wall and pensively touches a couple of men's coats hanging there. As if the coats reminded him of something he couldn't quite place.

  “Those aren't Lucas's,” says Marcia. “They're my boyfriend's. He moved in with me a couple of weeks ago. That's why I'm expecting a blackboard and a dresser and all that. We're planning to get married. Although he hasn't met my daughter yet. He's a good guy.” She takes another sip on her glass of Macallan. This new sip distinguishes itself from the previous ones with a certain nostalgic glint in her gaze. A mere instant where her gaze stops looking at anything in the room. “He's not a good guy in the same way Lucas is a good guy. Let's just say my boyfriend has less clear ideas about what he wants to do with his life and that kind of thing. In spite of his age.” She shrugs. “But I guess that's my fate. To be with men who haven't got it all figured out.” She stops. She stares with a frown into the bottom of her half-full glass of whiskey. As if she had just seen something inside the glass that shouldn't be there. “Listen, you didn't come about some inheritance, did you? I mean, you're not one of those uncles that show up after twenty years in Australia to leave an inheritance, right?”

  Bocanegra has stopped thoughtfully touching the coats on the coatrack and is now focused on studying the collection of framed photographs on top of a chest of drawers in Marcia Parini's living room. Photographs that are mostly of Valentina Parini. The way Bocanegra is looking at the photographs is: leaning forward. With the upper half of his body at a right angle to his legs and his palms resting on his knees. After a moment he picks up a photograph in which Valentina Parini appears with Lucas Giraut. Both of them very serious. Sitting in a courtyard. Valentina has a Stephen King novel in her hands. Bocanegra brings the photograph over to the window to see it better under the morning light.

  “This is the girl they say Lucas is screwing?” he says. Examining the photograph with a calculating expression. “They seem to be quite close.” Then he looks in Marcia's direction. “Where's the girl now? Wasn't she in some kind of hospital?”

  Marcia doesn't answer. On the reflective surface of the framed photographs on the chest of drawers, Bocanegra can see that Marcia is looking into her glass of whiskey with an indecipherable expression.

&n
bsp; On the other side of the window, holding the city's broom idly in one hand, the headphone-less member of the cleaning crew no longer pretends he's sweeping the sidewalk. Now he has his head slightly tilted to one side and a finger on his ear device and seems to be talking to himself while staring intently at the handle of his broom.

  Wonderful World

  CHAPTER 61

  Doctor Angeli

  Valentina Parini isn't so much sitting in as collapsed into the wheelchair Lucas Giraut is now pushing along a hallway of the hospital that's lit by white fluorescent bulbs. With the upper half of her body fallen to one side of the chair and her head hanging on that same side. One of her alarmingly skinny prepubescent arms hangs in such a way that her knuckles drag on the floor. Picking up dust from the floor of the hospital hallway. Her mouth is slightly open and although a string of saliva isn't hanging from the corner, she does have a dried white stain that indicates she has been drooling at some point. Her state is not technically catatonia, according to the explanation given by the intern in charge of her case, but rather a semi-catatonic state induced by the medicines she's being given.

  Lucas Giraut arrives at a bend in the hallway of the renowned children's psychiatric center that Valentina is about to be released from, and maneuvers the wheelchair to make a ninety-degree turn. He is wearing a gunmetal gray Lino Rossi suit and nonprescription glasses. Beside him walks a shockingly young and svelte nurse, compared to the idea of psychiatric nurses Giraut had been led to believe from every movie about such places he had ever seen. The group composed of Giraut, the nurse and the semi-catatonic girl in a wheelchair takes a new hallway and stops abruptly when a door opens in their path. As a result of the sudden braking, Valentina leans even farther to one side.