Traces of Ink

by Antonio J. Fuentes García

  —Raquel, I need to ask you a favor —he threw it.

  —Could it be that I have sex with you? She exclaimed taking carefully that nobody heard her—. Because that is past, and it didn’t go through very well.

  Jonás was surprised that she had touched that topic just in that moment. Really, that woman seemed to read the mind.

  —No, isn’t that— he pretended to be disgusted—. Although I think if it happened again, this time I could better.

  —That is the big problem with men— she came nearer and sat beside to him—. You always think that you can do better, and it is not like that. That doesn’t happen to us women, that is why we are at the forefront of the world.

  —She stared at him, and he realized that in his face Jonás was worried. Although she had to be hard, in fact she suffered for every one of her employees, despite that before she would burn in the flames of a pyre than admitting it.

  —What happens to you? — she was interested affectionally—. You know that although sometimes I get bad tempered...

  —I know, you’re so sweet.

  —Don’t cross the line —she answered with a smile—. If you need something, just tell me.

  —You will see, these six months I’ve been a little bit...

  —Asshole?

  —Yes, that, I am going through a bad patch.

  —That largemouth of friend that you have has told me— she revealed—. I am sorry for your grandfather.

  —Thanks —he answered gratefully—. The fact is that my father doesn’t stop harassing me for something related to my grandpa’s testament. I really don’t know for sure, but I have received certain notifications that I have not bothered to open.

  —I know.

  Jonás stayed looking at his boss’s deep blue eyes, astonished at that revelation.

  —How do you know it?

  —That conceited father of yours called to my office and explained me the situation. Something related to the testament’s reading.

  —And what did you tell him? — Jonás started to notice that he was shaking in anger.

  — I answered him kindly to get into his affairs— she snapped—. Nobody calls to my office and gives me orders. He wanted me to give you some free days. Who would have believed that presumptuous!

  Jonás felt that the irritation was decreasing as he imaged his father’s face bumping to a person as Raquel, who was not easy to intimidate.

  —Well, it was that— she finished—. I don’t want to go, and I don’t want to see haw the hyenas share the corpse, bit if it was necessary...

  —Take it for granted.

  They said goodbye to each other and Jonás went out of the editorial office with one direction in mind.

  Chapter 6

  The taxi left him in the in one of the multiple stops that were all along Josefa Valcárcel street. He paid and put on a coat, raising up the flaps to protect himself from the capital’s cold. Jonás didn’t like the winter, but for some strange marketing reason —or wishes unfulfilled from childhood—, the month of December was his favorite. Although he didn’t want to be there, Christmas’ decoration and the store’s lights that have been hanged up put him in a good mood. He went along the street looking from time to time at the numeration, since he knew the building very well, he needed it to distract the mind. He passed in front of a building with a giant advertisement of L’Oreal, and he noticed the great amount of police’s cars that were parked in front of the DGT. He doubted when he arrived into the address that he was looking for, but in his head the decision was already taken. He crossed the wide glass doors and went to the reception. There he indicated his name and to accelerate the process nuanced that he was Mr. Ulloa’s son. The girl looked at him strangely, because the first surname in his identification card prayed Millán. Jonás stayed there looking at her and he argued shrugging that it was family’s things. The receptionist looked again at the DNI and shrugged too. She picked up a phone and spoked briefly in such a low tone that Jonás couldn’t hear even a word.

  —Very good, Mr. Millán —snapped the girl—. You must go upstairs to the third floor and take the...

  —I know the place— he cut gently—. I have visited my father before.

  He omitted to say that he had spent three horrible months during the summer in that building doing the practices after finishing the career, by courtesy of his respected parent. The receptionist smiled at him and went back to whatever she was hiding in the counter, and that Jonás couldn’t see from his position. He walked through the pompous hall, and there waited for an empty lift (he had to let pass up to three that were crowded), and he arrived at the floor that was well known to him. He greeted politely the people he crossed and went into his father’s office without calling. In the door it prayed “Antonio J. Ulloa, chief in redaction and communication”.

  Antonio José preserved —in spite his age—, a thick hair where the silver strands began to win the game to the natural black. A face, perfectly shaved and the tailor-made Italian suit completed an immaculate image. When Jonás broke into his office, his father was examining with a magnifying glass attached to a flexible arm a pastern full of letters. Jonás knew all too well that he was choosing the typography for some important headline. The man not even bother in taking off the view of the magnifying glass, and Jonás said to himself that things with his father always went by the same way, that they’ll never change. Antonio José was, to be sure, accustomed to being interrupted in his office, but his huge narcissism imposed to the one that invaded his redoubt to wait in silence until the great boss could help him. Jonás didn’t follow the rules.

  —Stop doing it — he asserted— stop doing it your bloody mind.

  Jonás syllabled with anger the words —as if he were spitting them—, but he didn’t rise his voice. His father’s head continued for some seconds look through the magnifying glass until he inclined it a few millimeters and continued studying another typeface. Jonás felt increasing his anger inside him. That man had harassed him on the phone during the last four weeks, and even he had allowed himself the luxury to call his boss and suggest her to give him some holidays that he didn’t had asked for, and now that he was there he humiliated him and treated him like one of his scholarship holders.

  He approached the table with two quick strides and violently pulled the articulated arm that held the magnifying glass. His father raised his head, slowly, as if he had been waiting for that reaction, and fixed his eyes in those of his son. He got up slowly, without diverting attention from his son’s face, and closed the door of his office and locked it.

  —How you dare? — spitted with anger—. You know the rules of my office

  —Don’t come to me with Big Man nonsense— Jonás dropped it, and he felt sorry to have said so as soon he heard himself—. You have called my boss.

  In Antonio José Ulloa’s face there was a shining barely concealed fury, and Jonás could recognize in that man the person that for years had frightened his mother and himself.

  —It was necessary— he seemed to calm down—. You didn’t answer my calls.

  —If I don’t answer it is for some reason‼6 he replied ironically—. Let’s see, you are a smart guy, why do you think it can be?

  Antonio José went around the table again and left himself down in the design leather chair giving a sigh. He put the magnifying glass again over the different typesetting, but he stopped when he saw that Jonás came rage red to the table.

  —If you bother me again or...

  —Or what? —he got up menacingly—. What are you going to do Jonás?

  Jonás felt stupidly threatened, as if he again had five years old. It was true that his father exceeded in some centimeters Jonás’ height of one and eighty meters, and even that between them there were twenty-two years, Antonio José’s musculature was noticeably superior due to his good physical training, to which he dedicated a couple of hours daily. Jonás stepped back a few steps, but he recovered when he realized that thing
s weren’t the same as when as a child he had to run to hide from his father if he dared to disobey.

  —You would not like to see that I’m no longer a child —he said and added—. Antonio José.

  —well don’t behave as if you were! —he exploded—. We have taken more than six months to read the will, and as those pen-pusher lawyers and proxies say it can’t been done without you!

  He went around the table where he had left leaning the magnifying glass and the pastern with the forgotten typographies and faded off with Jonás.

  —Don’t ask me why, but the old man left written that if you weren’t present, it could not be proceeded with his last wills reading.

  —I give them up— sentenced—. Call the lawyers and tell them that I want nothing, that they don’t need me for the reading because I want nothing.

  —It cannot do it like that— he was exasperated—. You are a direct beneficiary, your name appears in the will, and it was a clause expressly decreed in that way too. You can give up what you want, but you must be in the reading for it to take place.

  —Well I’m not going to go— he sentenced.

  Antonio José breathed deeply and gave a step backwards that put him a few meters from his son’s face, that however he was not threatened.

  —Jonás, I want to finish this issue —for his voice tune he could have seemed sorry, but Jonás knew that his father wanted to get a new victory—. Let’s make the famous reading and let your grandfather rest in peace, do you want so?

  During a few seconds he was tempted to fall in his game, but that grandpa’s way of talking, seemed indecorous for him.

  —Daddy speak with property— he disagreed—. What you want is to finish eating the corpse.

  His father’s face became purple, and his lost that condescension that they took automatically when he spoke to his son. He put a hand on his chest and imprisoned him hard against the wall.

  —That old man dishonored the whole family, he squandered a fortune that was not his and made your grandmother and me eat shit in quantities that you could not even walk —he spitted frothing his son’s face, and his dark eyes became bigger, and now they seemed two blackish wells—. Well yes, I want to bury him and smelt his properties in a fiery pot.

  Jonás could not sustain his father’s fury, not for the excessive strength that he professed still at his fifty-two, but for the confusion that this revelation had caused him.

  —We had everything— he continued. Jonás tried to break away, but his father reinforced on him all the strength that he had—. He worked in a very good newspaper and enjoyed a well-deserved reputation. My mother frequented the best Madrid’s circles, and I attended to a good school, where I learned the Republic’s rules and to fulfill our country. Do you know Jonás? The political regime was strict, but if you were faithful they rewarded you.

  Jonás couldn’t believe it. It was the first time that he listened his father to profess all that background in a loud voice. He felt fear of that man again as when he was a child.

  —And suddenly —he continued—. He leaves his work to dedicate to search ghosts.

  —You don’t know what you are saying —Jonás panted—. Grandpa was a ...

  —An idiot, that was he was! —he roared, possessed by an uncontrollable wrath—. He started to work in that feuilleton, to persecute joke cases and to bother the high places. The doorkeepers’ newspaper they called it!

  He started to laugh frenetically. Jonás felt how his father’s arm was stuck a little more in the neck´

  —He started to sign those crazy articles about murderous Marquises and green little men that visited our world —white foaming stayed attached to the corners of the lips—. He founded that association that extorted the rich and asked them money for not publishing humiliating articles about their intimacies.

  —The only thing that grandpa did was to become a real journalist — Jonás counterattacked—. And that its why he was stabbed.

  —He was stabbed for extorting! — he bellowed out of himself—. And with that he only obtained that my mother died in misery and I had to take my wife’s surname to be able to find work!

  —You are lying —Jonás sobbed, that reluctantly he was behaving like a child at his father’s reprimand.

  —No, it isn’t a lie. Your grandfather bothered many people during his gold years. Extorted, founded a corporation named Tiempos Libres, and when he got a noticeable power he associated with the wrong persons.

  —He was stabbed for investigating cases, like a real journalist does —he remade himself—. Not like you, that you seat in this business place and write what you are told.

  —You are such an asshole as he was —he answered with scorn—. Your grandfather didn’t left journalism because he was stabbed.

  Jonás stopped struggling and kept his eyes on those of his father, that seemed to recover a bit of his everlasting pretended self-control. He released his son and returned behind his table. He straightened his suit and sat down again. When he talked again, he didn’t even bother in looking his son.

  —Tomorrow you are going to tell your boss that you are taking some holidays’ days —he ordered in an unstressed and cutting voice, unprovided of nuances—. And on Friday you will be with your mother and me in the reading of that shitty testament —he raised his eyes, and with a calm that minutes ago seemed impossible that he could have kept, he sentenced—. And believe me, if you are not there, I’ll see that your life becomes a hell as mine was.

  Jonás left the office in a rush as much possible he could do it, and when he looked again through the opened door, his father was again occupied with the magnifying glass, so calm as they were talking about the weather. He hated him more than he had hated anyone in his entire life.

  ****

  Once he stopped again to check the departure hour, impatient for that that hadn’t began yet. There were few days left for Christmas, so the Atocha’s station was crowded with people with their luggage big presents wrapped in cellophane with bright colors. Jonás had thought to spend that Christmas Eve with Mar, the girl that he had been dating for some time and with he was beginning to settle down sentimentally. Things between them didn’t began as you wish to start a relationship, but in the last five months they have reached a stability that both liked. There were three days left for Christmas Eve and he was thinking in being with her when the moment arrived.

  The doors of the train opened, and the crowd rushed in mass between the different wagons. Jonás waited until all the whole people was in and decided to look for a free seat. Although that morning’s cold that you felt in the capital he had started to sweat —although he knew very well that was not due to the weather—. For Jonás, those situations in which he found himself in a closed space, surrounded with small crowds that became true self-control tests. He didn’t suffer from claustrophobia, properly said, but he had never liked to combine poorly ventilated spaces and crowds the same phrase.

  In the end he found a perfect place in one of the wagon’s corners, one of those places that almost nobody seemed to want due to its wrong placement respect the views, and that for Jonás was the ideal spot. He unleashed the front tray and connected the notebook. Despite the fact Raquel had forced him not to stick his nose in the newsroom and concentrate himself in relaxing and giving solution to his family problems, Jonás had no intention in obeying her orders. He quickly typed his password and acceded to the newsroom’s private web page, from where the different articles could be managed. Jonás had used that option in a multitude of occasions —specially when he had to send Raquel the reports and he was away to take them in person to the office—, but he had known recently, that in the newsroom his companions weren’t very friendly to that application. Some continued to use the E-mail as a more “technological” method, and the great majority not even that. He loved those dinosaurs from the old school, that was why he continued working in the newsroom. He had had differences with Raquel, but he understood her point of view and accepted
it.

  The newspaper had been founded by Miguel Muñoz in 1979, and during more than two decades it had enjoyed popularity in certain sectors dur to its originality at the time to treat some thorny issues and the fact of having a sharp tongue. Mr. Muñoz had been characterized for not marrying to no testament, and on top of that not to incline the editorial’s balance according to his political or social ideas. That had worked very well up to the digital era. Muñoz was not a technological man, and he stood firmly in his plates and copies ideas as only arguments to take the newspaper forward. That had led to a financial crisis that had been to crush down his life’s work. What did cost him was his health. Several heart attacks and a pacemaker had finished with Don Miguel’s management in front of the “Interventor”, which his daughter Raquel had taken in charge.

  Raquel was an enterprise’s animal, a woman tanned in the corporative world and its different nooks, but totally neophyte I the editorial theme. She had left the spinal column and the contents thanks to a deal with her father, but she had given a twist to the company’s financial method. She found sponsors to which she sold them some profitable advertisement spaces, opened the digital version, from which she charged a commission per visit and changed a little the face of the old format. Giving it a more youthful appearance. Even so, she was obliged to take some new decisions, because the debts that her father had generated in the last years kept on surpassing the obtained incomes. One night, in a bar gathering with Jonás, a conversation about the huge and succulent incomes that television provides, and that led to an idea that saved her father’s newspaper. She hired a very good cameraman that had been left without work due to the cuts of the great chain and put Jonás in the front of the news’ section. In the beginning he said no, arguing that he was a journalist not a presenter, but Raquel made the situation very clear. After a few months of testing in the newspaper’s internet channel, Raquel sold her first reports to a private chain. From that moment, several work teams made reports that they sold them for different chains and some other that it could not be dispatched, she hanged it in the page of the “Interventor”. Jonás had complained in several times that that wasn’t journalism and that Don Miguel would have loved for his newspaper, but Raquel always objected that for not going down to hell you had to deal with the Devil. Don Miguel appeared there from time to time, but he seemed to become older about twenty years in the last months and he hardly spoke a word. Raquel had managed to clean the newscast, and even the printed edition continued to maintain her father’s editorial line, she had confessed to Jonás that in more than one occasion that she knew she had sold herself to the highest bidder, and that was killing her father.