A Shortcut to Paradise

by Teresa Solana

  Although he’d got the money together to deal with their debt, Ernest felt down for the whole weekend. He was afraid to read the newspapers in case they reported the mugging, and that Saturday only found the energy to flick through the pages of the literary supplements. He felt very tired, and gave a start whenever the phone rang. The aspirins he’d taken didn’t seem to be having any effect and he was still hung over.

  While they were having lunch, his wife heard a news item about the murder of Marina Dolç on the television and made some comment. Ernest paid no attention. He barely tasted the chickpeas with spinach and bacon Carmen had cooked, one of his favourite dishes, and spent Saturday afternoon in bed. He also got up late on Sunday, although that didn’t mean he’d been able to rest, and his wife, who could read his moods, knew something was amiss and decided it was stress-related. She reckoned her husband needed a change of air, although she knew only too well that the last thing they could afford right then was a holiday. She couldn’t drop her work, and he’d plunged top speed into a translation from English he’d been commissioned to do. All the same, Carmen’s common sense told her they had to do something quickly before lethargy turned to chronic depression.

  “Hey,” she finally declared on Sunday evening, seeing that her husband wasn’t cheering up, “why don’t you accept the offer of that grant and go to Tarazona for a couple of weeks? You said you needed to shut yourself away and finish that translation…”

  His friends had done him a favour, and Ernest had a four-hundred page novel to translate from English. True enough, it was no masterpiece, but four hundred pages meant at least three months’ work. Ernest had applied for the grant his wife mentioned in February before he’d had his accident. He’d been translating a difficult novel before the crash and had applied to the Translators’ House for a residency. He’d thought he could polish his prose there in peace and quiet, without his wife, his children or interruptions. Ernest had never visited the Translators’ House, although many of his professional friends had told him about the place.

  It was a small house with only room for five residents, and when Ernest applied in the middle of February, it was full. Places had been awarded and, he was told, his only hope was if someone fell ill. What with the accident, Ernest had completely forgotten Tarazona and had been concentrating on mending his bones. He and his wife hadn’t spoken further about that option.

  Finally, months later, someone dropped out and Ernest received an official letter from the centre offering him a residency. It wasn’t for long and brought in no money, but the fare, accommodation and food were all provided for. When he received the letter, in the midst of their financial crisis, Ernest didn’t have the heart to put everything aside and leave his wife alone in the breach struggling with children and creditors, so he’d turned down the offer. Ironically they were now so poor he couldn’t even allow himself the luxury of accepting the award granted by that strange institution.

  “I know you can’t translate that novel in a fortnight, but the change of air will do you good,” his wife insisted.

  Carmen was hardly delighted by the idea of asking her mother for help with the children during the time Ernest was away, or by the prospect of a fortnight of lonely nights while her husband inhabited a world full of randy foreign women looking for love. Naturally, this was all in her head, because she’d always been the jealous type and still loved her husband as much as on the day their romance began. Nevertheless, Carmen knew Ernest tended to get depressed and needed to do something different from time to time in order to break out of his routine. Perhaps if he spent a few days surrounded by eccentric translators, talking about books and translation problems, it might improve his temper. Now that his body was cured, thought Carmen, her husband had to overcome the psychological fallout from the accident in order to get back to normal.

  “But if I go, I’ll take the train,” declared Ernest, who suddenly felt it would be a good idea to put four hundred kilometres between himself and the scene of the crime he’d just committed.

  Early on Monday morning, Ernest telephoned the Translators’ House and told them he’d changed his mind. By the evening he was packing his bag.

  6

  The Herald, Monday 19 June 2006

  Who killed Marina Dolç?

  Amadeu Cabestany the writer, the main murder suspect, is being held in custody

  Although the case remains open, the police consider it all but solved

  The judge in Number 5 court in Barcelona yesterday announced that the proceedings would remain secret of a case that, according to police sources we have consulted, is considered to be all but solved. The death in tragic circumstances of the renowned writer Marina Dolç on the night she received the Golden Apple Fiction Award given by The Chameleon Press has made a deep impression on the Catalan literary world. The writer, who used to live in Sant Feliu de Codines though she was an Andorran national, had travelled to Barcelona for the prize ceremony and was staying at the renowned Palace Hotel (formerly the Ritz) in Barcelona. Josefina Peña, a friend of the writer, found Marina Dolç’s lifeless body at 2.40 a.m. in her hotel room and informed the police.

  According to the forensic report that this newspaper has seen, death was almost instantaneous. Marina Dolç received numerous blows to the head – between five and seven, according to the mentioned source – and all lethal. The weapon used was the very prize she had received, a heavy bronze statuette designed by the sculptor Eduard Subirachs that represents a hand holding an apple. According to various eyewitnesses, Amadeu Cabestany, who was the runner-up, made no secret of his disappointment when he heard the jury’s verdict and threatened the writer publicly moments before leaving the party.

  These reactions led the police to arrest Amadeu Cabestany that same Saturday morning and place him at the disposal of the magistrates. This newspaper has also learned that coincidentally the man under arrest was also staying at the Palace Hotel and that his room was next to the victim’s. Various eyewitnesses have also declared that Amadeu Cabestany retired to his room in a drunken state some time before the deed was done. Up to the present time, the writer, who continues to protest his innocence and who insists he was being mugged outside the renowned Barcelona Up & Down club at the time of the murder, has still not been able to corroborate his alibi.

  Thirty-seven-year-old Amadeu Cabestany resides in Vic, where he also teaches literature at the Josep Carner Secondary School. Although all the evidence that attests to the writer being the person who committed this crime remains circumstantial, the judiciary believe there is sufficient justification to support such a verdict. Police sources consulted are working on the presumption of unpremeditated homicide and regard revenge as the main motive for the crime.

  The Nation, Monday 19 June 2006

  Obituaries

  Catalan writer Marina Dolç passes away in tragic circumstances

  The forty-nine year old author of enormously successful novels such as The Rage of the Goddesses and Love Is Not For Me was murdered in her hotel room a few hours after receiving the Golden Apple Prize for her novel A Shortcut to Paradise.

  Marina Dolç was born in the Catalan locality of Sant Feliu de Codines in 1957. A prolific and controversial novelist, her novels have been translated into more than thirty languages. In the early hours of Saturday 17 June, the novelist died in tragic circumstances in the Palace Hotel in Barcelona, a city she had visited specifically to receive the Golden Apple Fiction Award promoted by the Chameleon Press.

  RODRIGO JEREZ – The name of Marina Dolç (the literary pseudonym of Maria Campana Llopis) catapulted into the headlines in 1993 on the occasion of the publication of The Rage of the Goddesses, a novel set in Barcelona at the end of the Sixties, which chronicled the amorous feats of a group of rebellious, bourgeois girlfriends in the wake of the fall of the dictatorship and the explosion of the philosophy of “bare all”. She followed this success three years later with Milk Chocolate, a torrid love story of a Catalan woman and a Senegalese
immigrant translated into thirty-four languages, and Love Is Not for Me, which sold three million copies in record time. Although none of her later novels has rivalled the success of Milk Chocolate and Love Is Not For Me, Marina Dolç continues to be one of the female Catalan writers most widely read throughout the world.

  The novels of Marina Dolç were always received with acclaim by readers but not so by the critics, who described her as clichéd, superficial and commercial. However, since 2002, the year the Generalitat of Catalonia awarded her the Cross of St George for her promotion of Catalan language and culture internationally, the critics have looked at her work with fresh eyes. Last Saturday, a few hours before being murdered in the hotel where she was staying, apparently by the hand of the author who was runner-up, the writer received the Golden Apple Prize – one hundred thousand euros from the chair of the jury.

  Marina Dolç was a great patron of Catalan culture and devoted part of the profits from her novels to the support of cultural associations and publications. She was a tireless traveller and since 1999 had been switching between her main residence in the Principality of Andorra, and the magnificent mansions she owned in Tuscany, in Italy, and in her town of birth, Sant Feliu de Codines.

  Today, Wednesday 21 June 2006

  Obituaries

  For Marina Dolç, in memoriam

  Marina Dolç was born in Sant Feliu de Codines in 1957 and died in tragic circumstances in the early morning of 17 June. The writer had just won the VI Golden Apple Prize with her novel A Shortcut to Paradise.

  Carles Clavé* – Marina, I discovered we would never again enjoy your gleeful, silver-toned laughter and stimulating, charming company when a handful of friends and I were celebrating at the Ritz of old the much deserved prize you had just been awarded. Horrendous destiny willed that we were but a few metres from the miserable place where a merciless soul wrenched your life away in its most glorious moment, the night your novel was deemed winner of the most generous prize that can honour a writer in this beloved country of ours. A few minutes before, while we were raising a toast – what irony! – to your good health, you had said you were tired and preferred to retire to your chambers. We protested in vain, we who desired to enjoy your delightful company a little longer. Like Cinderella, a queen for a night, you left the party in order to go to sleep.

  The soirée had been a heady affair, full of moments of joy and gratitude you wanted to share with friends of long standing. I will always bitterly regret not insisting you stayed with us, thus avoiding the unexpected tragedy that today obliges me to pen these sad words of farewell. I could have spoken to you about my latest novel, The Haven of the Wretched, a modest reflection on the perverse nature of the human soul, which I know you would have liked because I had often discussed it with you. On that same evening you promised you would come to the launch of my book, which will take place next Thursday, at half-past seven, in the Rerefons Bookshop, on Carrer Valencia, and I thanked you from the bottom of my heart.

  As I scribble these lines, I cannot but recall the dinner we enjoyed together last summer, when you were so kind as to invite me to your magnificent house in Sant Feliu de Codines. Whilst we savoured a Priorat that was a splendid twilight crimson, amid the scent from the jasmine and roses you so adored, we spoke of our books and our ancient craft as writers that so often goes unremarked. I recall from that summer repast your restless eyes so avid for life, bluer than the turbulent sky above, replete with elongated, silvery clouds that danced cheerfully over our heads blown by the summer breeze. I recall your nervous chatter, the way you liked to enthuse over the small things in life, the contagious optimism that suffused your bewitching laughter. You flattered me when you told me how much you had been moved when reading my novel, The Stench from the Trench, so acclaimed by reviewers, and, Marina, you will never know how our intimate midsummer conversation gave birth to The Haven of the Wretched, the novel I shall launch next Thursday, at half-past seven, in the Rerefons Bookshop on Carrer Valencia.

  You had a conclusion that was true to style, Marina, a conclusion you penned yourself, not suspecting it would come to fruition on the night that was predestined to be one of the happiest in your life. Months before you submitted the work for the prize, you confided in me and granted me the honour of asking me to read the manuscript, something I was only too pleased to do, given that you had requested me to. Thereafter you allowed me to make a number of observations, which you gratefully accepted, and despite the dread despondency that has accompanied me ever since the night of your decease, I feel happy to think that my humble contribution perhaps helped to improve your writing of a few chapters, as you yourself so honestly and sincerely confessed to me in confidence.

  We have been orphaned, Marina. May our wrath strike the wretched hand that clipped your wings so treacherously! At seven thirty, next Thursday evening, unfortunately you will not be there at the Rerefons Bookshop (on c/Valencia), and I and all the good friends accompanying me, with whom I shall then raise a glass of cava, will feel bereft. Nevertheless, I will be comforted by the thought that while I am presenting The Haven of the Wretched in the company of my friend the great poet Joan de Joan, you will be on the road to paradise, taking a short cut, between the stars. Speaking Catalan and charming the angels with your smile and your words that will now be for ever eternal.

  * Carles Clavé is a writer

  PART TWO

  7

  “Good morning, Eduard. Sorry I’m late,” said my brother, gasping for air after opening our office door. “I had to collect a parcel, and there was a bottleneck on Muntaner…”

  “Don’t worry,” I responded with a smile. “Take your time! It’s a beautiful day!”

  “I suppose you mean that it’s hot…” he retorted as he took his jacket off. Apart from being flustered, he seemed downcast.

  “So who got out of bed on the wrong side?” I replied gently.

  “Let’s just say I’m in no joking mood.”

  It was 19 June, and although it was a Monday and only three days to the start of the twins’ and Arnau’s holidays, I was in excellent spirits that morning. We’d spent the weekend in a rural retreat near Olot and the countryside is the best possible rest cure for my wife Montse. The sound of crickets and smell of cowpats have an aphrodisiac effect that oysters and chocolate can only dream of. I was walking on water and it must have showed on my face, because Borja looked me up and down as if he didn’t recognize me. He was carrying a bulky parcel under his arm and, with a deep sigh, left it on top of what was supposed to be our secretary’s desk.

  “So what the hell’s got into you today?” he asked, rather irritated, as if I had no right to be in good spirits.

  “Nothing at all. I just feel happy.”

  “So I gather that you at least had a good weekend…”

  Borja sat down on the sofa with a martyred expression all over his face. He did look tired.

  “I’ve had a really terrible weekend!…” he muttered.

  It was half-past ten and Borja had arrived half an hour late. That was unusual: he usually only arrived late to act big and impress our clients. Although we weren’t currently engaged on a case, we’d agreed to meet at ten to see how we were going to handle the summer and, while we were at it, dust the four designer items in our office. We’d sweated blood for the last three weeks in pursuit of a Barça first-team player whose wife suspected he was giving her the runaround with a slip of a girl of indeterminate nationality. In the end it transpired she was the one deceiving him, a circumstance that enabled us to triple our fee and, in my case, allow myself the luxury of taking my family for a weekend away on full board.

  “What do you mean? Women problems?” I asked, trying to loosen his tongue. “I suppose you’ve had another row with Lola…”

  Lola is my sister-in-law, and she’s got entangled with Borja, though she’s not the only one. In fact, Merche is my brother’s official girlfriend and she’s a married woman who is well established and several years younge
r than Borja. The small, rather trendy attic flat on Muntaner where he’s been living for the last couple of years belongs to Merche, as does the two-tone Smart that Borja drives around. Lola, on the other hand, is divorced and one of those lefty types who’ve recycled themselves into eastern mysticism, New Age philosophy and designer gear. For some reason I can’t fathom, Lola is hooked on my brother, and he eggs her on.

  “Don’t you read the newspapers, or what?” he rapped, looking surprised. “Have you forgotten I was going to accompany Mariona to a literary do at the Ritz?”

  “Not really, as we were out of town the whole weekend…” I replied by way of justification. “You know we left on Friday afternoon and didn’t get back until very late last night…”

  “I tried to ring you on your mobile, but you were out of range.”