by Simon Kinch
I woke the next morning and lay in the sunlight breaking through the studio window. Judging that I’d already missed most of the morning, I decided it wasn’t worth wasting an afternoon in the folds of the sheets as well, and pulled on a T-shirt and jeans without showering. I passed a cashpoint, then perused a few bars, looking for one that would serve an early lunch, and settled on a simple-looking restaurant, with wooden tables in the sun. I ordered a beer and skimmed the menu. When the waiter came out with a caña, I sent him back for Russian salad, a tapa of cheese, and pork in whiskey. By the time he’d returned a second time with my food, I’d finished the first beer.
While I was eating, I remembered trudging back home from the jetty the day before. I recalled my train of thought: the breaking bubbles, the bench in Portbou, Clara, Alyson and lastly the realisation that I hadn’t called my parents in months. I went over these thoughts, in order, again and again. Everything came back to me, up until the point of that wrenching emptiness. I picked at the Russian salad. Why could I recall – why could I feel – everything, only up until that point? I’d been on the brink of despair the day before, yet today I couldn’t feel it: I couldn’t recapture its weight.
I chewed the pork slowly, finished off the cheese and gulped down the dregs of my second beer. I was feeling a little sleepy and, besides, the sun was giving me a headache, so I counted out enough to cover my bill and headed back to my studio.
THIRTY-FIVE
It was Monday morning and Robert hadn’t arrived yet. At some time mid-morning, I asked Edith where he was. He had called in sick, she told me. I nodded and headed back to my desk, but not before I caught Laura’s glance. She smiled and I attempted a smile back, but felt my face wrinkle awkwardly, because if there is ever a time I find it difficult to smile, it’s Monday morning. I thought about going over to explain this, but instead decided to go and sit back at my desk.
It momentarily crossed my mind that maybe Robert could be faking illness, maybe to spend the day with his children, to extend his weekend a little. But, recalling his normal expressionless look, the short, curt answers he always gave me and that unbreakable gaze into his computer monitor, I quickly realised this couldn’t be the case. His was a life dedicated to earning money for his children, not spending time with them and, even if he were to deny this as theory, if he were to say his ideals were far from this, it was at least true in practice. His dedication to his children was one from his office desk and, at least, when he returned home every evening, sapped of energy, he knew the paycheck that would arrive at the end of every month would feed them, clothe them and take them skiing once or twice a year.
At quarter to one, Laura collected me from my desk and we went to lunch. We sat at a small table, in two miniature armchairs, with two coffees in corrugated paper cups and two triangular sandwiches in triangular packets in front of us. Laura was unusually quiet, so I had to make most of the conversation. Doing so made me realise that she was far better at making conversation than I was, which made me feel a little embarrassed and then a little annoyed. I wondered if something was troubling her, but didn’t ask. I then began thinking about the burrito place, of sitting at the square table near the door, of my lunches alone, my only interaction with the shop owner, who had learned my name. I looked down at my triangular sandwich. Laura asked me how my work was going. I didn’t really feel like saying, but it was better than letting the conversation go stale. I tried to make it sound a little more important than it was, and mentioned that Robert was off sick. Then, in place of asking her if anything was the matter, I complimented her on her top, even though I didn’t like it that much.
THIRTY-SIX
I wrenched open the shutters of Señora Rosales’ office. Again, flecks of dust seemed to float upwards, in flows and currents, dancing in the sunlight.
Getting rid of the telephone was a little more complicated than I had anticipated. The cabling passed through some kind of square, plastic piping behind the desk, which then ran towards some sockets on the wall. I stood for a moment, studying the set-up, before grabbing a biro and cracking open the plastic casing. With a sharp tug, the cable started to reel in.
A row of box files lined the shelf above. I took down the nearest, labelled Mayo 2011, and emptied the contents onto the desk: receipts, invoices, printed correspondence, a few Post-it notes. The file itself had a kind of greeny, marbley, tortoiseshell effect, an artefact from several decades before. I placed the phone, with its cable coiled round itself, into the empty box and reshelved it. An odd sense of closure enveloped me. That act – that disconnection – would be the end of Austrian couples standing awkwardly at the entrance of their rented holiday apartments, blank looks across their faces; no more barked enquiries about peak season availability from Holland; no further afternoons sat at Señora Rosales’ desk, drinking my way through a bottle of wine, coffee cup by coffee cup, expecting that call from Extremadura that would never come.
A small metal key cabinet was affixed to the wall next to the door. Inside, about ten sets of keys, each numbered, each with a street name on the key ring. On the bottom right hook, a whole bunch of keys, all attached to the same single key ring, surely her master set. Each key was numbered, each corresponding to a numbered key within the cabinet. All except one. I unhooked the master set, pocketed one of Señora Rosales’ business cards from her desk and closed up the office.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Robert is back at work. Mid-morning, I go to his office, clutching a pile of purchase orders for him to sign off. While he sifts through the pile, I ask him how his weekend was, just so as not to have to stand there in silence. He mutters something about the weather. He doesn’t mention his children, nor does he mention being that ill. I take the signed copies back from him and head towards the photocopier, leaving without any conclusive evidence of where he might have been the day before.
Laura is already at the copier. She flashes me a smile. There’s a tiny sparkle in her eye, obviously unintended, but I catch it all the same.
As invisible as these lines are, Laura knows the limits of professionalism, the constraints of circumstance. The flashed smile was little more than she might give to any other co-worker. But for us, such details – a stolen smile, a meeting of eyes – touch on subtext, a subtext only we know. In that moment, with the two of us standing either side of the copier, I am caught wondering if I am at all able to convey the same to her, if my gestures allude to that same something we have, or if she receives my signals in the same way as the stale, icy rapport we all share in this office.
Laura feeds another document into the top of the copier and asks me what I did last night. I imagine the braches of the tree outside my bedroom window, the birds landing one by one, the baseball falling again and again into my hand. ‘Not much,’ is all I can muster. If I were quicker, I could have recalled some film I’d seen last week, or some book I’d once read.
Laura takes her copies and slides them through her hands atop the machine, to straighten them out.
‘I’ll catch you later, Granville,’ she says, smiling. The sparkle in her eye has gone, but she was never in control of that anyway.
The purchase orders have to be filed away in date order. Shelves of box files line the far end of the office. I sort the orders into piles and pull down their respective tombs. A box file on the bottom shelf catches my eye. It has a kind of tortoiseshell effect and a worn label, with May 2011 written in faded ink. I stand for a moment, staring at it, a little confused by its allure. Checking nobody is looking, I pull it out. Oddly, holding it before me, it feels far heavier than the other files, as if some foreign object may be present. I click it open and begin to rifle through.
Purchase orders, invoices, a few printed-off reconciliations. Nothing more. With the file cradled in one arm, my other hand now pushing its entirely predictable contents back into order, I can no longer remember what I had expected to find. I close it up and place it back on
the shelf.
THIRTY-EIGHT
It’s mid-afternoon when I get to Avenida de la Buhaira. I stand in front of an apartment block and double-check the address on Señora Rosales’ business card.
It must be twenty minutes or so since I last saw anyone on the city’s sidewalks. The supermarkets have emptied, the last few ingredients for lunch having been picked up an hour ago. The school gates have closed, mothers and fathers having been and gone, their kids having traipsed behind them as they headed home. Pigeons still peck at the baked earth, seeking leftover crumbs under empty park benches. I sift through the cluster of keys in my hand, pinching that unnumbered key between my fingers and letting the rest slip down the key ring.
The entrance consists of a small foyer. A marble effect covers the walls, floor and ceiling. A couple of large pot plants stand in different corners. The oppressive heat of the street has disappeared, but the same humidity stifles the air.
I take the stairs to the third floor. The apartment door is right at the end of the landing. Upon reaching it, I lean in towards the door with my ear. Not a sound. I try the same unnumbered key in the lock. It clicks open.
A deep red light fills the apartment, the sun beating against the drawn curtains. There are no immediate clues to someone having left in a hurry. Every surface of every unit shines pristinely. Dining chairs are tucked under the table. The sofa cushions have been plumped.
I look down at my scuffed Nikes. Not wanting to leave any trace of my visit, I slip them off and slide them underneath a cast-iron table by the door. A telephone sits on top. My mind is drawn back to that very first conversation with Señora Rosales, conducted over the phone. I imagine her next to the table, phone in one hand, the other forcing on her own shoe with a stamp.
Venturing further into the apartment, I begin to peruse. A particularly large unit spans one wall, lined with ornaments, crockery and a few bookshelves. My eye scans each row. Novels by Cortázar, poetry by Bécquer.
I begin pulling down any spine that in any way resembles an address book. The first is a blank, unused notebook. The next, a double-leafed book of receipts, dating back to the mid-nineties. Continuing along the shelf, I come to a box, stood upright. I slide it out and place it on the display top of the unit. Inside, I find a thick wad of bills – twenties, fifties . . . a bill of two hundred, even. I instinctively count the pile. Some twelve hundred euros.
I make my way through to the apartment’s bathroom. Standing in front of the mirror, I run the tap and push my hands under the stream. The water starts off lukewarm, but quickly cools as colder water is drawn up from below the building. Cupping my hands, I begin to splash my face repeatedly. I stare into the mirror. Droplets dot my face. Those twelve hundred euros race around my mind. A train ticket as far as those funds would take me. A few months’ rent, a little space of my own. I turn off the tap and pat my hands dry on the hand towel, doing my best not to crease it in any way.
Back in the lounge, I tuck the money back into its box and replace it on the bookshelf. I slip on my shoes, leave the apartment and lock the door behind me.
THIRTY-NINE
I took the 67 down to West Towne Mall. Eighth-graders filled the bus, goofing about, bickering, poking cellphones and craning over each other to see whatever so-and-so had sent back. In the end I got off a couple of stops early. Better the walk than the suffocation.
In the mall, I half-heartedly browsed a few clothes shops. A bomber jacket momentarily took my fancy. Between two fingers, I began to massage the sleeve material. The nylon slipped right through my grip, the sleeve falling away. I walked away, not bothering to check the price tag.
I joined the queue at the pretzel stand. Two girls stood in line in front of me, staring at their cellphones. There was a college-aged guy at the counter, all pleasantries and white teeth. I told him it’d just be a pretzel and sweet mustard. He picked up on my tone and didn’t say anything else until he’d finished wrapping up the pretzel in a paper bag. I rounded the bill up to the nearest buck and walked off.
I found a bench in one of the mall’s atriums. A fountain shot up from the middle, with gleaming, fake ferns dotted around the centrepiece.
From the paper bag, I tore off a chunk of the pretzel and began chewing it slowly. Currents of shoppers flowed past, from the entrances of the mall to the arcades, from sports retailers to burger joints, out of the electronics shops and into the computer game stores. I caught a glimpse of the eighth-graders who were on the bus, the girls dragging reluctant boys into a clothes store. A three-year-old, pushed along in a stroller, threw his blanket overboard, sending his mother back to retrieve it. Shifting their weight awkwardly from foot to foot, men stood bored as their partners browsed rails of womenswear, trying their best to look even more indifferent than they actually were.
I sat there for what must have been half an hour. Caught up in their weekend shopping, not one person looked my way, not one caught my eye. The arcades of the mall formed a theatre, the cast as tired as the plot, the characters presenting themselves only in flashes. Before long, each disappeared: to the shops at the other end of the mall, perhaps; outside, to their waiting cars, to fill the trunks with the day’s purchases; to the very same pretzel stand I had found myself at, maybe, leaving with a small paper bag folded at the top and a paper ramekin of sweet mustard to carry alongside.
FORTY
I spring up sharply, unaware I have fallen asleep, and take a moment to get my bearings. My bed sheets have come loose at one end and are crumpled up beneath me. I don’t remember falling asleep, but it must have been some time after finishing and clearing away my lunch. I go to the studio balcony and look down to the street. It is dusk already and the passageways are beginning to fill. The old waiter in the cafe opposite is clearing away glasses and plates.
There is some wine left open from two nights before on the desk. I pour a short glass. The first gulp is sour and acidic, but I finish the glass, before heading down into the streets.
I find a small plaza that I have passed before, but have never sat in. Here, there are two bars facing each other. One is tiled on the inside, with a long stainless steel bar and a handful of metal tables outside. It is half-full, of couples and families. I see one woman emerge from inside the bar with a large plate of shrimp. The other bar has a neat row of small wooden tables and is empty, apart from a young couple at the end table.
I take a seat at one of these wooden tables. A waiter comes out immediately. I order a beer and a dish each of anchovies and potatoes. He returns promptly with my beer and a basket of bread. The couple share a bottle of white wine. They are clearly on a first date. She seems unrelaxed, whilst he is sitting upright, almost too upright, scared of making the slightest faux pas. He fixes a nervous smile. The waiter brings out my anchovies and I turn my attention away from this couple.
A tall man comes into the square, walking slowly, with his hands clasped behind his back, yet his gaze fixed ahead. As he gets closer, I am taken aback when I realise this is the moustached gentleman from the guesthouse, the one who carried the caramel-coloured suitcase. I silently put down my fork and take a sip of my beer. He is approaching the very restaurant that I am sat outside.
He carefully pulls out a chair and steps between it and the table. He lightly tugs the sides of his trousers to straighten them, and takes his seat. The waiter brings out a bottle of red wine and a single glass. The gentleman tastes the wine, before nodding to the waiter in agreement. Through all this, he does not look across at me, nor at the couple on a date.
I try not to glance over, at least not too often. The gentleman appears quite happy sitting alone, looking out across the square.
He finishes his first glass of wine and then turns to me. ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ I am again taken aback, both by this coincidence and his politeness. I shake my head. He takes out a cigarette and points the packet towards me, to offer me one. I feel I could do with a sm
oke, but shake my head.
I focus on my food. The fried anchovies have gone cold, but the potatoes still have some heat. I take a small scoop from each plate and eat them together.
The gentleman is finishing his second glass of wine when a woman joins him. She has her hair tied back tightly in a bun and wears a dark dress, with floral detail. She is forty or so, I tell myself. The waiter brings out another glass and, as soon as he has, the moustached gentleman pours her a glass of wine, then reclines again in his chair. She doesn’t speak and, instead, takes a metal case from her handbag, withdrawing her own slim cigarette. The gentleman offers her a light.
They sit in silence. Her gaze is fixed on a spot on the table near the stem of the wine glass. His bottom lip is twitching a little, as if he is chewing it from the inside. He reaches for her hand on the table and cups it for a moment, before she pulls it away and rests it on her handbag. The gentleman repositions himself in his chair.
The waiter comes out, to the table of the awkward young couple, who by now have given up speaking to each other. He starts gathering up their plates and, sensing the discomfort of their silence, asks them how their food was. The relieved young man jumps straight into conversation, his date remaining as mute as she had been before. As this most mundane of tragicomedies unfolds, I notice the woman with the moustached gentleman has begun to speak to him, although without making eye contact. I strain to hear what they are saying, to catch any tone or inflection of speech that might reveal what he has done – what she has done – what either of them has done – but everything is drowned out by the waiter’s clumsy conversation and clearing of the table. The gentleman is nodding. Something is being agreed. I cannot make out a single sound for the racket being played out a table or two down. When I look back, the gentleman is shaking his head and now it is him who is refusing to make eye contact.