B0040702LQ EBOK

by Margaret Jull Costa;Annella McDermott

  `My friend,' he said, `I'll be honest with you. As a fat man, your future in show business looks pretty bleak. Let's not fool ourselves. The public preferred you thin. I know that before too long you'll be having money troubles and I'd like to help you out. Sell me Villa Nemo, submarine included, and then go off on a trip, a trip round the world.'

  I was just about to ask him about the submarine when his monocle fell out. I stooped to pick it up for him, but he ground it angrily into the earth. Then, he did a few eccentric tap dance steps and fell flat on his face on the grass. Something strange happened to me then, for when I saw him fall onto the grass, I felt an enigmatic impulse rise up inside me, an unstoppable desire to turn a somersault in the air and to perform a circus number with the baron at the end of a party which, it must be said, had turned out to be positively soporific.

  `Take my advice, as a friend,' said the baron as he got to his feet, `and sell me your house.'

  And then he clapped me hard on the back and disappeared into the night. My agent was at my side and could not believe what he had seen.

  `Brilliant, absolutely brilliant,' he said. `Did you see the wit and elegance with which he crushed his monocle? Underneath, the baron is a high-voltage comedian. If you could go back to being as thin as you used to be, though alas, I fear you never will, you could be one of the most successful double acts the cinema has ever seen.'

  `You're not saying ...'

  `Why not? I'm talking about those odd pairings of actors who only gave of their best because, how can I put it, because there was something odd in each of them that triggered the growth or the emergence into the light of the hidden electricity lurking deep inside the other. An electrifying double act.'

  `I see,' I said, coolly saying goodbye to two former lovers who had become firm friends, `do you mean like Laurel and Hardy?'

  `Exactly, and Abbot and Costello too.Your thinness and the baron's extravagant fatness could have made you into a very successful double act. Unfortunately, the partner you need now would have to look very different from the baron. That was what I wanted to talk to you about.'

  He led me to a bench in one corner of the garden, near the swimming pool. And there, while I watched the painful parade of ex-girlfriends bidding me farewell with the most wounding and taunting of smiles, he showed me an album full of photographs of thin actors who might be able to save my career if I joined forces with them to form a double act.

  `Wouldn't a better solution be to ask the baron to slim down until he's reed-thin?' I said, joking, depressed by the parade of mocking girlfriends and by the fatigue brought on by the lateness of the hour.

  `Well, it's your funeral,' he said threateningly, saying goodbye with a look that told me he would take no further interest in my career.

  But the following morning, apparently recovered and as if wanting to give me one last chance, he turned up again at Villa Nemo with his album of photos of thin actors.

  `Look at this one,' he would say, pointing to one.

  `And look at that one,' I would reply, taking it all as a joke. But the joke did not last long. In the days that followed, I ended up doing try-outs with many of those thin actors, tryouts that always ended in utter disaster. Seeing that there was not a single actor in the whole country with whom I could form an electrifying double act, we put advertisements in the papers. But that didn't work either. Then my agent suggested that perhaps the actor I was looking for lived abroad and that perhaps (and here began my downfall) he wasn't an actor at all, in which case, I would have to seek him in the street, or rather, in the streets of the world.

  `You must exhaust every possibility,' he said. And that reasoning carried me far off, it even took me to the streets of Hong Kong, in pursuit of a thin man who turned out to be a complete non-starter. Just when I was despairing of ever finding a partner and was already in deep financial trouble, my mother, may she rest in peace, came to my aid:

  `In Calle Rendel,' she said, `in the bookshop with the same name as the street, there's a skeletal assistant with a most unpleasant face and a name that would be more at home in a cakeshop. He's called Juan Lionesa and he might just be the man you're looking for.'

  Some hours later, Juan Lionesa stood before me - his dark hair, cut pudding-basin fashion, framing ruddy cheeks and an expression of mingled tedium and mystery. I had just asked him for a copy of The Divine Comedy and I found myself studying him from head to toe. He, instead of looking for the book, did exactly the same, that is, he subjected me to a close visual inspection that verged on the embarrassing, then he said:

  `Didn't you used to be Brandy Mostaza?'

  That `used to be' rather shook me.

  `And you,' I replied, `never used to be anyone, which is much worse.'

  `Oh, come on! You're not going to tell me my little observation offended you?'

  I hate the word `observation' and that pedantic, impertinent bookseller's ugly face. I gave him a rather angry look and silently, roundly cursed him, but he barely batted an eyelid. Suddenly, something extraordinary happened. When he did finally get round to attempting to locate a copy of The Divine Comedy, he glanced over at a (rather empty) shelf and stood for a moment in profile to me. I saw then, that in that position, Lionesa's features, his left profile, were curiously like mine in the days when I was thin and successful. His left profile, reminiscent of a heron on heat, was enough to make the most serious-minded of mortals laugh. Unwittingly, Lionesa possessed the essence of the comic quality that I had lost, the secret of my former success, a real gold mine. My mother had been absolutely right.

  `Listen,' I said in a very confidential tone of voice, `I need to talk to you alone, outside the bookshop, do you understand? It's about a matter that might interest you. And since you obviously don't have a copy of The Divine Comedy, give me something else, something by Jules Verne, for example.'

  He arched his eyebrows and the expression on his face changed radically, as if the reference to Jules Verne contained some transcendental message. And then, slowly and very respectfully, he said in a low voice:

  `The cake will travel by balloon.'

  I could merely have assumed that he was mad or that he was simply making fun of me, but for some reason I had a sudden hunch that those words might be a form of password (and they were, but not the kind I imagined). At first, I thought that Lionesa had sensed in me a being who, in many respects, complemented him and, because of that, he had invented a secret language just for the two of us, words that allowed us to understand each other, but prevented anyone else from understanding what we were talking about.

  `The cake will travel by balloon,' I said, thinking that by my reply I was doing no more than recognise the strange electrical current that seemed to unite us, thinking too that with those words I was acknowledging the status of the secret language that had just sprung into being between us.

  `The cake will travel by balloon, and I'll be at Jacob's Bar at half past eight,' he said. Shortly afterwards, I left the bookshop with a copy of Five Weeks in a Balloon under my arm. I read the first few chapters while I was waiting at Jacob's Bar for Lionesa, who arrived punctually. He was wearing dark glasses and had his coat collar slightly turned up. He greeted me from a distance, with a lift of his eyebrows, but when he came over to me, he acted as if he didn't know me. He sat down on my left, at the bar, presenting me with his anodyne right profile. He ordered a beer and just when I was thinking he was about to ask me about the matter that had brought him there, he acted as if he expected nothing at all from me, except the cake that was supposed to be travelling by balloon.

  'OK,' he said, still not looking at me, addressing me as `tu' and keeping his head absolutely still, `when I finish my beer, pass me the cake, and good luck, comrade. Ali, one piece of advice. Next time, try to be a bit cleverer and more discreet and make sure you get the password right.'

  So it was a password, but not the kind of password I had expected. I had stepped right into the eye of a hurricane, doubtless a plot or some
sort of espionage ring. I cursed myself for not having simply disappeared before, when I left the bookshop. I was angry with myself for not guessing that Lionesa was a conspirator awaiting some secret message about Jules Verne or about a balloon.

  While he was slowly drinking his beer, which I would have to pay for, I was weighing up how best to extricate myself from that particular mess and I finally decided that I would simply say that, for reasons beyond everyone's control, the cake would be delayed for twenty-four hours. And, bold as you like, I told him; no one has ever looked at me like that, with a look, first, of utter astonishment, immediately superseded by one of terror.

  `There's no need to look at me like that, just because there won't be any cake until tomorrow,' I said loudly, out of sheer nervousness.

  That was how I talked when I found myself in difficulties. I would either go off at a tangent or race madly ahead. Lionesa, however, seemed unable to believe what was happening, while everyone else in the bar was under the impression that drink had just brought about the birth of a friendship between two complete strangers; one drunk even rewarded us with a smile and a burst of loud applause. It was obvious to me that the marked difference in our physical appearance made us an attractive pair. Lionesa was clearly not of the same opinion, indeed everything seemed to indicate that he saw in me someone who, for whatever reason, had just set him a deadly trap.

  The strange electricity between us meant that suddenly, like someone throwing out the main ballast from a balloon, I lost all my nervousness and transferred it to him. I felt very calm then - I would go so far as to say that I have never felt more serene - and I decided that there was no reason to get alarmed and that the most practical thing would be to put the record straight and tell Lionesa the whole truth. I explained that I had gone to the bookshop because I was looking for a thin man to work with me in films which were guaranteed to be a great success if only I could find the ideal partner.

  `And that ideal partner is me, is that what you're trying to say?' he asked with such a degree of aggression and distrust that I thought he might kill me.

  `Yes, of course. Please, you must believe me. I've got no interest in politics whatsoever. There's been a misunderstanding, that's all. I came into the bookshop because my mother told me that the man I was looking for worked there. I've been all the way to Hong Kong in search of the man who could help save my career. And now all I've got is my house, Villa Nemo, because I've lost everything else trying to relaunch my career. I need you to join forces with me, to be my artistic partner. Otherwise, IT have to sell Villa Nemo and I'll be out in the street. Help me, please.'

  `Take a good look at me,' he said and in his coat pocket there appeared what might well have been a gun. `I'm pointing a gun at you, so cut the crap, pay for the beers and just walk out of here ahead of me, and no funny business.'

  It was like a nightmare. I paid for the beers and we went out into the street. Lionesa hailed a taxi and, as he did so, we were walking so close to each other, that our legs and overcoats became entangled and we both tripped and fell to the ground. I managed to trap Lionesa's tie beneath my great bulk, but he sprang up, slightly flustered, and again pointed his gun at me. Everyone in the street was laughing and enjoying the spectacle, which confirmed me in my view that I had found my ideal partner and that, if only politics and that wretched gun had not got in the way of our rise to stardom, we could have been an electrifying double act.

  When I got into the taxi, I realised how difficult it would be to escape once the taxi was moving, since I could barely get my body through the door and Lionesa himself had to heave me into the cramped interior. As we were driving through the city, past the area around Parque Rendel, I was filled by a feeling of profound melancholy. I looked sadly out of the window wondering if I would ever again see those trees I had so often felt drawn to. And I wondered too if I should bid farewell to life. Even in the most desperate situations, I have never lost my sense of humour. I'm one of those people who believes that life is utterly laughable and that life itself is made up of pure laughter and that, although we may have no idea what awaits us at the end, the best strategy is to go to it laughing, with a tragic lack of seriousness. Perhaps that was why I was able to look at Lionesa in a relaxed manner and say with a broad smile:

  `May one know where you are planning to kill me?'

  I saw the taxi-driver trying not to laugh. It was clear, or so I thought, that from the very first, he had found us irresistibly funny, well, not everyone hails a taxi in a twosome, rolling around on the ground. To conceal how much he had enjoyed our circus act and how much we had made him laugh, or perhaps simply in order to participate in what must have seemed to him a great festival of humour, the taxi driver cleared his throat and said to Lionesa:

  `Excuse me, it was the corner of Juarez and Verlas you wanted, wasn't it?'

  `No, it was the corner of Verlas and Juarez,' replied an angry Lionesa, who did not seem entirely himself. His uncertainty and the half-hearted laughter that had taken hold of me (I kept thinking that I was about to die and I found the idea highly amusing) encouraged me to move closer to him as soon as we stopped at a traffic lights. I was, and still am, a great actor. I leaned forward in a strange manner, thrusting my chin forward and showing my teeth. I reckoned that Lionesa would not be prepared for that. My face, normally soft and bland, hardened into something resembling a stone mask, deathly white to start with, but deepening to a dark red that spread out from my cheekbones, and finally became black, as if I were about to choke. I thought Lionesa would be unable to bear it and would faint, but he didn't, he simply sat there looking at me strangely.

  `Such a pity, we would have made a mint,' I said and headbutted him hard. I came down on top of him with my whole weight, stone mask included. He lost consciousness. After some strenuous bodily manoeuvrings, I managed to get out of the taxi and take refuge amongst the people thronging the entrance to the metro. I glanced back and, seeing no one following me, I gave a sigh of relief. I got into a carriage on line 5 in the belief that I was travelling towards freedom. Poor fool, I didn't know what still awaited me.That same night, minutes after talking to my agent, who did not believe a single word I said, the phone rang in Villa Nemo and a criminal voice informed me that they had kidnapped my mother. If I went to the police to tell them about either the kidnapping or the plot, they would kill first my mother and then me. If I did not pay them a million dollars in ransom money, I would never see my mother alive again. When I had paid them and they had set her free, little would have changed, except that my mother could be with me once more, although if I subsequently went to the police with the story, I could not be with my mother, since, as well as being a million dollars poorer, I would also be dead, and dead men don't live with their mothers.

  I had no option but to sell Villa Nemo to Baron de Mulder. I told him that I needed the money in order to go on a long trip.

  I always knew,' he said, `that sooner or later you would get rid of Villa Nemo, which is a house intended for a large family like mine, not for a confirmed bachelor like yourself. You would be better off travelling and having a purely functional apartment where, instead of throwing parties for multitudes, you could have intimate suppers for two,' and he winked lewdly, `don't you agree, my friend?'

  `I haven't thrown a party for ages,' I said. `Not since I got back from Hong Kong.'

  With the money the baron gave me for the house, I paid off the ransom and they returned my mother to me, but she was a changed woman. Since I was now ruined, I had to go and live with her, and she spent all day every day blaming me for the kidnapping.

  `You got into bad company,' she would say. `You can't fool me. You got yourself into some mess or other, and I was the one who had to pay. The proof is that you won't go to the police.'

  It was useless explaining to her that I suspected it was a band of thugs of the kind who enjoy killing for killing's sake. Going to the police would only provide them with the opportunity for a cruel reprisal. My mothe
r didn't believe me. Besides, however much I declared my innocence, events conspired against me. My mother and I began getting visits from members of the revived cult of British wizards demanding information about unguents that would help them to fly and so forth. In the end, my mother lost all patience and disinherited me. Tormented by remorse, she began to age rapidly and, though she no longer spent her days reproaching me, she wouldn't talk to me either, but passed her time writing down in a red notebook the salient details of all the funerals that passed by beneath her window When she had noted down thirty-three interments and some eighty or ninety different details, she herself died. She may well have died of grief for having so unjustly disinherited me, for she knew that she was leaving me destitute. It could not.be said that life was exactly smiling on me, but, nevertheless, I remained true to my principles and I smiled back at life.

  Moreover, I got a taste for the streets, and I became an interesting vagabond, simulating madness, which proved most profitable, because people took pity on me and gave me money. My madness consisted in walking all over the city carrying a pair of drumsticks and with them beating out on the pavement a rhythm as emphatic as it was meaningless, leaning clumsily forwards as I advanced along the street, drumming hell out of the cement. My new life, including nights spent in the metro, became a source of great satisfaction to me. It was marvellous not having to read newspapers or receive visits from British wizards, to pass the Rendel bookshop occasionally and make a V-sign at them through the window, as an anonymous tramp. It was wonderful being able to earn a living doing street theatre, a daily rendition of the most refined madness an obese actor could manage.