The Taxidermist

by Enrique Laso

  "Long time no see!" he exclaimed, trying to be nice.

  "I've been busy," I said, without conviction.

  "Busy, busy... You can always choose what occupies your time," he mumbled, without any intention, but his words sounded to me particularly philosophical and transcendental.

  I climbed the hill and almost felt like I'd gone back in time, to when I'd done it for the first time. I felt my body displacing the body that, a year earlier, had climbed the hill feeling somewhat suspicious, towards the cemetery and the high mountains. The houses on either side of the badly paved road were still mysteriously empty, lifeless, mounted for posterity in silent harmony. I got to the gate and I notices my legs were trembling and my breathing was fast. I spent an hour watching, alert to any detail or movement. One leaf fell from the fig tree on to the swimming pool water, of which I could only see one corner, because the house blocked my view. I imagined its surface, already coloured with filth and enduring the decadence the autumn generated in it. At that time I could understand the taxidermist, what drove him to clean the pool only in the summer. There he could see the darkest part of his soul, that part we all try to hide from the rest of mankind. Without knowing it, I had begun to paint my picture, like Dorian Gray. At that instant, I was perfectly aware of it. I didn't know where, but somewhere was the picture in which the passing time would leave traces of the rubbish my behaviour had engendered.

  I removed myself with the utmost care from the gate, so as not to make the bell ring, and I returned to the city feeling like I had received my last class, without the taxidermist having needed to say a single word.

  XII

  You need to leave many birthdays behind to see how much of a residue a person has left in your soul. You also need, surely, to distance yourself from that person to actually value them and to find them in the deepest, innermost part of yourself.

  For ten years, I heard no news from the taxidermist. Neither did I make any effort to contact him. When I had successfully finished my university course, I accepted a job offer in another, bigger city, more than three hundred miles from home. I would occasionally come back to my city to see my friends and family, but basically for Christmas and the summer holidays. I got into the habit of burying my origins, in every sense, under tons and tons of lies. I had shaped my past in accordance with my interests, and I had worked so diligently at this task, that I even confused my fiction with reality.

  "We've never been in New York together, all three of us..." my mother would say, when I let out one of my foolish inventions.

  "No?" I'd ask, surprised but at the same time, remembering that her and my father were the only people I could not fool.

  "You're mistaken. We went on our own, and you stayed with your granny. How can you not remember? You weren't that young then..."

  Of course I remembered. I remembered everything perfectly well. The problem is that I wanted my past to be different, and the change of city had allowed me to develop one that, although it wasn't entirely false, had been conveniently contrived. Among those voluntary distortions was José: I'd never met him, I'd never been at a taxidermist's and, much less, I'd never been passionate about such a bizarre, peculiar trade. Deep down, it wasn't José I was ashamed of. Not even my past devotion for the mounting of animals. What I could not stand was having to face my defeat, my backing down - without any fight or resistance - to the imposed conventionalism of society. What I really wanted was to soulfully deny to myself that I had betrayed my dreams. The taxidermist represented them, but not just that: he also personified that it was possible to reach dreams, that society is not so decisive and that there is ample opportunity for action on our part. If we are really willing to fight for them.

  I'd become a well-known economist, and I had an important position in a large financial entity. In addition to this, I wrote books about finance and gave talks and conferences in the most prestigious business schools in the country. I was a resourceful man, I made lots of money and my parents were proud of me, but they also felt a bit guilty. This is not something I realised myself, but a matter that my father had once tried humbly to bring up.

  "Have you not considered devoting yourself to taxidermy, now that you are in a good position and can afford to take a year's sabbatical ?" he asked, almost whispering, almost as if he didn't really mean it.

  I stared at him in amazement. I'd never expected that question. Not from him, not after so many years. My right hand started trembling. I had to hold it with my left so as to not betray my nerves. My father, however, was staring at the ground and looked distressed and sad.

  "Please, dad! That was a teenager's folly. It's been so long... I'd almost forgotten that I'd ever wanted to be a taxidermist, you know? What a mad idea, don't you think?" I answered, feeling an elusive, mean, defeated liar...

  My father looked up and observed me. His pupils were contracted, like José's when he did morphine, and watery. He slapped his knees, as if to encourage himself.

  "I've always wanted what was best for you. I swear I did. But now... I don't know... I think there are things that I didn't do well. Enrique, I want you to forgive me. I want you to give a hug to your father and try to forgive him," my father muttered, hunched over in his armchair like a helpless, clumsy child.

  "Don't be silly. There's nothing to forgive, do you hear me? You have always been a great father," I said, hugging him while I felt the warm wetness of his tears on my arms.

  When we begin to deny ourselves, we stop being children, we leave our essence behind and become part of this rather uniform pack that we call modern society. I was one of its alpha-male jackals.

  Occasionally, I would visit a natural history museum in some large city in the world, and I would feel a deep melancholy gripping me. I'd go back to my hotel with the image of any of the mounted pieces I'd seen etched in my mind, and I imagined José working on it at his place, outside, like the day he'd shown me how to preserve the little quail. At night, I could not help but dreaming of his deep blue eyes and his enigmatic, seductive smile. He spoke to me in my dreams, but I couldn't hear his voice, and I could only watch, impotently, the silent movement of his lips.

  One afternoon in late September, I got a call. It was a well-known voice, although it took me some time to place it. It sounded aged and broken by the passing of time.

  "Enrique, I'm sorry to disturb you. Your parents gave me this number..."

  It was Adela, coming back to life from amongst the wreckage of an immense shipwreck called the past. In the anesthetised placidity of my new life, her words sounded like thunder, despite her voice being little more than a whisper, almost devoid of strength.

  "Adela!" I exclaimed, truly happy and thrilled, "What an enormous surprise, I haven't spoken to you in such a long time..."

  Nothing came from the other end of the line, and for a moment I even thought the call had been cut off.

  "Enrique... You said you'd come... We waited for you for so long..."

  She was not the charming woman with not entirely refined manners that I'd known. I couldn't see her but I could tell that the years had not been kind to her and that now she probably was one of those little old ladies who move with difficulty and can hardly fend for themselves. I felt grossly guilty and despicable.

  "I know. To be honest, I have no excuse. I'm sorry Adela, I really am sorry."

  "Don't torment yourself. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter anymore. You must've had your reasons," she said, not a drop of resentment in her voice. She spoke to me like a mother would to her son, forgiving everything.

  "And how come you're calling me now?" I asked, cheerfully, trying to recover the complicity that had brought us close a decade earlier.

  Again, silence sat between us. A possibly longer, certainly more uncomfortable, sad silence. It was a silence that allowed us to make a million speculations.

  "I have to give you something. I have something that belongs to you, and I am in charge of making sure you get it," Adela muttered, crypt
ically yet decidedly.

  "I'm not sure I follow you," I replied, feeling that an abyss was opening under my feet. I was in the air, and I was about to fall hopelessly in to a void that was not physical but very much spiritual, an emotional abyss that could only lead me to a chaos affecting everything.

  "Enrique," she whispered, speaking with infinite affection, "Don José is dead."

  XIII

  Death is unpredictable. It's an event that knows no dates or opportunity, that heeds no-one's particular circumstances. Death does not wait or make concessions; it does not cater for the living beings inhabiting this planet's personal taste. Although death can be summoned before its time is due, and she may also be compassionate and agree to do as we expect. Perhaps.

  I went back to my city on the train; I did not want to exert myself by driving. I remember that perfectly well because it was an endless journey, during which I had time to think of millions of things. I thought, above all, about the taxidermist, but also about my own existence, what my own life had become, and how far I was from my teenage dreams. I sat by the window, my cheek leaning against the cold glass. Cities, towns, landscapes passed before my eyes at breakneck speed. All different, all the same. I thought I saw myself in the eyes of a child who waited for his train on the platform, at a certain station. Yes, it was precisely that child who scrutinised me thoroughly and with a touch of dread: through my eyes he was able to see that I had murdered my illusions.

  My father came to pick me up. He looked older than ever. As I had grown up, he seemed to have gradually shrunk, until he became a friendly condensed version of the man he had once been.

  "He died of cancer, didn't he?" asked my father, for whom speaking about death was increasingly common.

  "No. He'd been ill for many years, but he didn't die because of his cancer. They found him by the swimming pool. It was a morphine overdose."

  "Morphine?"

  "Yes, he had a prescription to ease the pain," I lied, avoiding having to give endless uncomfortable explanations.

  "He was surely tired of living in that condition. Poor man... When is the funeral? Your mother and me would like to come with you. After all, even if we never actually met him, that man was part of our lives for a whole year. We wouldn't want you to be alone."

  I bit my bottom lip. I let a few seconds pass, thinking about what would be best to say.

  "The funeral has already taken place."

  "What?" my father looked at me, surprised. "Then, what have you come for?"

  "He left some stuff for me in his will," I answered dryly.

  My father nodded. He took me home driving very slowly, like only those who have already forgotten the meaning of the word rush can do, and who probably realise the curse it was during all those years in their lives when they lived under its rule.

  "Uh huh... Interesting. And do you know what it is?"

  "I haven't a clue. Tomorrow I'm going to meet the woman who looked after him. She'll give me whatever it is."

  "Would you like us to come with you?" insisted my father, who didn't know how to be with me, now that the last ember of what had been the bonfire of my hopes had gone out forever.

  "No, I'd rather go on my own. "Thank you very much, dad."

  That night I could not sleep for a second. Tucked in the same bed that had seen me grow up, surrounded by the same furniture, pictures and posters of my teenage days, I felt I had suddenly gone back in time. It wasn't really a late Wednesday night; it was a Friday night ten years ago. The following morning would be a Saturday and I'd take a bus at twelve that would take me to the taxidermist's. A slightly luminous haze filled the room, like the mist that clung to the mountains, near the cemetery, on rainy days. When dawn broke, I wasn't a man anymore, I was a young, sixteen year old boy.

  My father lent me his car, and I remember how strange it felt to climb the familiar slope inside a vehicle. I had always climbed it on foot. Time had changed it too. It was now perfectly tarmacked, and there were luxurious, lively rows of terraced housing on either side of it. There were just a few detached houses left in the top area, next to the cemetery, and they looked old and noble, like they belonged to some ancient lineage. I parked before the gate, which was still painted green, although the paint was peeling and the gate had rusty patches. The façade of the house had become darker, duller, like a picture faded by the action of time. Sadly, I noticed that both the bell and the plaque with the taxidermist's name had disappeared without trace. I could only half smile when Adela turned up from one side of the house, with her arms outstretched.

  "Enrique, I'm so happy to see you again! You are a fully grown man now. It's been so many years..."

  I embraced the woman and felt her angular, hard body. She'd lost a lot of weight and her neck had become slightly bent. Her face had been invaded by an army of spots and wrinkles and that, despite not making her ugly, did give the impression of an assumed defeat.

  "Adela, I told you we'd meet again," I said, stupidly.

  The woman didn't reply. She rummaged in a small bag she had hanging from her arm, and gave me a blue envelope she'd taken from it.

  "This is your inheritance," she declared with a curtness that perplexed me. Her look had suddenly become hard and cold. Although I didn't expect it, her attitude was, if I thought about it, completely justified.

  I took the envelope in my hands and tore it delicately. Inside, I only found three things: a cheque made out in my name for a considerable sum, signed by the taxidermist (which showed absolute premeditation), a handwritten letter and a small key.

  "What's all this?" I asked, insecure and nervous.

  "I don't know. I haven't read the letter. He didn't write anything to me," said Adela, a bit hurt. "We are the only heirs, you and I. Everything else, he left to me," she added, although in her voice I noticed that she didn't much care about that.

  "Will you sell the house or will you stay in it?"

  "Neither," she answered, and did not add any more details.

  I took the key from the envelope and showed it to her, shrugging. The Adela before me was barely a distorted reflection of the woman that wandered the memories in my mind.

  "Do you know what this key opens?"

  For a few seconds, she recovered the sweet expression she used to look at me with when I was a boy. It was but a mirage.

  "I know, but I'd rather not have to tell you," she replied, cautiously.

  "I'm afraid I don't understand..."

  "He left me the house, but not everything in it. All the books in the library are yours and..."

  Adela turned towards the façade without finishing the phrase. Her back to me, with the black dress covering her small frame, she looked like one of those widows who spend their days praying in church, renouncing a present that can still be lived for a past that cannot be recovered.

  "And?" I whispered respectfully.

  She turned round again. Her face showed deep worry and a certain resentment.

  "That key opens the door to the loft. All that is in it is yours too."

  I felt my chest swell with pride and, at the same time, guilt. The man I had abandoned and forgotten, after admiring him so deeply and after having received his generous teachings, had not just remembered me in his will, he'd also given me his most beloved belongings: his books and his best pieces. A greedy anxiety run through my body.

  "I am honoured, Adela," I said, somewhat arrogantly.

  "You cannot thank him now," she pointed out, a low blow I wasn't expecting. "But it doesn't matter now. Enrique, I want to ask you a favour. I beg you to do this as a personal favour," she pleaded, grabbing my hands and bending forward.

  "Do what?" I asked, puzzled and a bit uncomfortable with the situation.

  "Throw that key away. Go to the forest and throw it from the top of a mountain and forget about it forever."

  I didn't understand a thing. Adela was nearly kneeling before me, her withered eyes were looking at me like someone with a death sentence would l
ook at their executioner, still hanging on to a thread of hope.

  "But that's impossible. That would be like destroying his legacy. Why are you asking me such a thing?"

  "I'm just begging you..."

  I pulled Adela's arms to help her stand up. I felt her light, almost weightless body, meekly yielding to my will.

  "At least give me a good, solid reason to do so," I said, trying to be reasonable, but without any intention of accepting her request.

  The woman moved away from me and started walking towards the gate. She looked worn out, sulky.

  "The house is open, and will remain so for one week. You have more than enough time to take from it what is yours. After that, I will never let you in again," she blurted, before going down the slope.

  "Adela!" I exclaimed, in a last, vague attempt at reasoning with her.

  I was still shaken. I took out the letter from the envelope that also held the cheque and the key, and I went to read it by the pool. That was the place where the taxidermist had voluntarily met his death, and I wanted to receive his last words in the same place he'd chosen to die.

  «Enrique, when you read this letter, I will probably have achieved my final objective and we'll never have a chance to speak again.

  I've left you some money because I have no idea how you're doing in life, and it may help you. It may even let you reconsider what is that really matters in this, our finite existence.

  I leave you in inheritance all my books, and my collection of pieces, the one I never got round to showing you. I know you will be able to look after it and value it like no one else would. I beg you to complete my library. I'd like you to keep it with all its volumes, like I used to have it.

  Enrique, please, don't ever judge me harshly. Throughout my life, I have given myself to a passion, to an art that has exceeded me enormously, and thanks to which I will transcend, beyond the limits of this body, eaten away by the years. But only my name will remain. Soon I will be no more than dust blown by the wind. Adela is old now, and only you will remain in this world to keep the memory of the man I was, of the things I said, of what kept me alive...