‘Three people can eat as well as two, and anyone who’s paying for two might as well pay for three.’
‘Who’s paying?!’
‘You are. Goes without saying that I’m not. I’ve got two hundred pesetas on me, and they’ve got to last till tomorrow. In exchange you will have the pleasure of lunching with two celebrities—myself, and this young lady. Anna Marx. She’s not related to Karl Marx. Or the Marx Brothers either. I gave her the name three months ago as a screen name. She’s a muse of the silver screen.’
‘You’re crazy, crazy. . .’ the girl said, with a hint of irritation at the end of her little wrinkled nose.
‘You can choose the restaurant. . . what did you say your name was. . . Carvalho? Stand next to me. Let’s say that north is over there, south is down this street, and this is east and that’s west. To the north, behind the church of Santa Maria del Mar, we have El Borne, a restaurant run by another Barcelona film director. Self-service, with halfway decent food. French cooking and cheeses ditto. Not bad. To the south, behind this portico, we have a Gallcian restaurant. A bit of a dive. You know what we can expect there, and at this time of day it’s bound to be packed. Continuing round to the east, we have El Raim, home cooking, local recipes, good food. Limited seating, though. To the west, they’ve just opened. . .’
‘I do know the area!’
‘You choose, then.’
‘EI Raim will be full. Let’s go to EI Borne.’
‘Up to you. Don’t complain when they bring the bill, though.’
He gave him a wink and set off in front of him with his arm round his girlfriend’s angular shoulders.
‘You’re crazy, crazy. . .’
Vilaseca was wearing the same clothes that Stanley Kubrick might have worn ten or fifteen years previously when he was shooting Space Odyssey. There was a certain physical resemblance too.
‘I’d paint it lilac and put an Arab souk inside it,’ he said, pointing at the church. They walked round it and saw the prospect of the Paseo del Borne opening before them, a broad, tree-lined avenue that contrasted with the dark, artisanal alleyways of the old mediaeval barrio.
‘Poor Jauma.’
And his eyelids drooped like coffin lids.
‘This gives me an idea for a film. How about this? A top executive gets obsessed with the myth of Gauguin and decides to leave his family and run off to Tahiti. The title could be Gauguin 2, or Tahiti. He takes the tube during the rush hour and reaches a working-class area of town. He decides to adopt the lifestyle of the Tahitians. He takes up with a girl from one of the factories, a tasty number from the industrial suburbs of Barcelona. Nobody knows his real identity. To begin with, he’s happy. But then he comes up against a set of insuperable mental class barriers. The unhappiness that catches up with him also infects the people he’s with. He has introduced a restlessness previously unknown to these Tahitians, and so as not to bring more unhappiness to himself and to them, he decides to commit suicide. Anna will play the young factory girl.’
He removed his arm from her shoulders and put her at arm’s length as if to see her in perspective.
‘I know she looks like just what she is—the daughter of a money-bags who was once a Barcelona councilor. But she plays a very good critical role on film. As for you, I’d say you’d make a good murderer. A sort of Richard Widmark ala espagnole. Hunch your shoulders a bit. That’s the way! Now turn your hands outwards a touch. That’s right. Now walk. Come on. Don’t go all stiff. The trouble with Spaniards is that we all seem to be made of quick-setting concrete. We don’t know how to move. It’s as if we’re incapable of establishing a relationship with the space surrounding us and altering it through movement. The part’s yours if you want it. . .’
‘What part?’
‘The part of Jauma’s murderer.’
‘How do you know he didn’t commit suicide?’
‘Both are equally possible.’
Various people greeted Vilaseca from behind the bar, and Carvalho followed him up the narrow spiral staircase to the two upper rooms that comprised the restaurant proper. On the counter stood several pans full of wonderful looking food, and a serving tray piled high with Basmati rice. Vilaseca dumped his haversack on a table as an indication that it was occupied, and invited Carvalho to accompany him over to the food counter. He loaded a ton of rice and civet of hare onto his plate. Carvalho went for the same, and when they returned to the table they found the girl hunched in her seat, anxiously contemplating her plate, which had on it only a teaspoon of rice and a few bits of goulash..
‘I’m not at all hungry. . . really.’
‘She never eats a thing all day! Breakfast, lunch, or supper, it’s always the same—‘I’m not at all hungry. . . really”!’
Vilaseca had assumed the curious tone of an intransigent father dealing with a recalcitrant daughter, and the girl exploded.
‘So what?! I’m the one who’s eating, and I eat how I like.’
‘Next thing, you’ll be staggering down the street groping at the walls—not in imitation of Monica Vitti, but because you’ll be fainting with hunger. Hey, this food is good. What wine are you offering? I’ll choose—Mumieta, red.’
‘What relationship did you have with Jauma?’
With his mouth full of meat and rice, Vilaseca was unable to say anything, so he gesticulated instead. As the food commenced its downward journey, he declared:
‘Paternal. It was a paternal relationship. He used to tell me off as if I was a little boy. “You ought to make a man of yourself, Vilaseca!” Or words to that effect. I used to irritate him, you see. The total freedom of my lifestyle used to irritate him, because he envied it.’
‘This food makes me feel sick,’ the girl said, looking at her lunch as if it was a plateful of garbage.
‘Why don’t you go for a walk? It’s bad luck to eat next to people with no appetite. Go on—go take a walk!’
The girl left the restaurant sullenly with all the cheap dignity of a slighted character leaving a stage.
‘She’s horribly spoilt. But she’s got a terrific temperament. Especially in front of the camera. She’s ever so sexy. She might not be much to look at, but she’s got that special something. And those two little tits that look like currant buns, when they’re on film, they’re as captivating as the breasts of Manet’s Olympia. As soon as I get some money I’m going to start filming, and this kid’s going to go a long way. Not in the bourgeois sense. I don’t want to make a star of her. I want to create new icons for a new cinema, in tune with the times we live in.’
‘Did you see Jauma often?’
‘Not a lot, recently. I can’t abide paternalism. I wouldn’t tolerate it from my father, so I’m damned if I’d tolerate it from him. He was sort of nervous when I last saw him. Tetchy. Critical. More envious. He was always chatting up the chicks that I go round with, but they’re women for the high seas, and every time I saw him it seemed like his life was on the rocks. Beached, run aground.’
Vilaseca insisted on accompanying Carvalho to visit Argemi. The girl was waiting for them at the entrance to the restaurant, lounging against one of the cars parked in the driveway. She followed them indolently and as soon as she had got into the car and heard what their plans were she began raising objections. Discreetly at first, but when Vilaseca was evasive in his replies she ended up shouting and demanding to be let out of the car.
‘Change your role. Drop the spoilt rich-kid image and act something a bit better. How about Gloria Grahame’s dialogue with Glenn Ford in The Big Heat. You look like Gloria Grahame, as I’m sure I’ve told you a hundred times.
Do you remember Grahame, Carvalho? She was born with the most gorgeous expression in this world. Ambiguous, gentle, lascivious. . . She had the kind of face you need, to be able to carry on an intelligent dialogue. You look a lot like her, Anna, seriously. . .’
�
��I want to go home. I can’t stand your friends. I can’t bear the thought of having to spend five hours listening to you talking about stupid things that only make you laugh, only you. You are boring, and I’m bored.’
‘Best pull up, Carvalho.’
The detective braked and began to park the car. The manoeuvre was still under way when Vilaseca got out, opened the rear door, and told the girl:
‘Get out, then. Go and do what the hell you want. You’ve got the day to yourself.’
The girl got out with all the style she could muster, passed in front of Vilaseca, and pointedly ignored him as she said:
‘I’ll be waiting for you at the Zeleste at eleven.’
‘I’ll be home within two hours.’
‘Well I won’t.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘That’s my business.’
‘Carvalho, I’ve changed my mind. I won’t come and see Argemi. Do me a favour—ask him to ring me one of these days. I’ve got some interesting projects lined up.’ He leaned over more so that only Carvalho could hear him.
‘Forgive me if I don’t come with you. She’s like a kid. I’ve overdone it a bit. I’ve spent the whole morning in meetings that are nothing to do with her. If you need me any time, feel free to phone. You should take more care of your hair, you know! Look at that receding hairline. I was on the verge of going bald myself, and I went to see the doctor just in time. Do you know what it was? Nerves. The routine of daily life. I’d have ended up bald as a coot, and fat into the bargain. So, as you see, I’ve decided to give up having a routine. Phone me. Don’t forget.’
Vilaseca’s generous personal disposition was touching. In his rear-view mirror Carvalho watched as the film-maker decomposed the gesture of a US general bidding farewell to his troops as he sends them off on a suicide mission and adopted the style of a lover concerned for the welfare of his beloved. Carvalho explored his allegedly receding hairline with the tips of his fingers, and tugged at his hair to test its roots.
‘That’s him allover. Full of crazy ideas.’
Argemi’s assessment of Vilaseca matched the one the detective had reached as he drove back from their lunch date. Argemi was stockily-built, with wide shoulders, a good growth of hair which was showing the first signs of greyness, and a deceptively sleepy look from behind his bifocals. He was slow in expressing himself, and had a voice which could probably be frightening when he got angry. He had the air of a man perennially caught napping, who had never got over his anger at being woken up. This impression was reinforced by the way his glasses made his eyes seem smaller, and by the slowness of his movements and his style of conversation.
‘I’m only coming to sign.’ he said, and looked over the top of his glasses to see what effect these words would have on Carvalho. He laughed in order to prompt a laugh from the detective, and got a smile of solidarity. With what looked like an extremely expensive pen he signed his name to a series of documents that were handed to him by a secretary who was young, modest, neatly dressed, and a virgin, as befitted a secretary in a company producing yoghurt—a product associated with images of purity and innocence. Because it is white, because it is recommended for sick people, and because it is cheap, yoghurt is a Florence Nightingale of foods. The hand with the pen in it revealed part of the forest of hair that spread the length and breadth of Argemi’s body, which was the body of a wolf-man with the head of a sweet kid with glasses. The scene could have been a country residence for ladies of leisure in the days of roof gardens and tennis. The walls were lined with pink satin. From the delicately stuccoed ceiling hung a glass lamp engraved with a flight of opaque birds. The glass that encased the cocktail cabinet was also engraved, and all it needed was the presence of Gene Tierney offering a Manhattan to a naval officer and asking his protection as he leaves to conquer Germany and then again as he returns with the world under one arm, as if he had won it in target shooting at a funfair. Argemi’s office boasted an oak parquet floor as solid as the well-heeled English shoes that Argemi displayed, under a heavy wooden desk with two banks of drawers.
He put the top on his pen and arched his eyebrows with sufficient force to be able to keep them up for a while.
‘OK, fire away. I imagine that you haven’t come here just to tell me things about the lovely but crazy Vilaseca. Crazy, he is, quite crazy. . .’
Another personal and infectious laugh.
‘I’d like to be able to live like that madman. . . He lives a hell of a life, a hell of a life!’
He clasped his left hand with his right, sank his head into his chest as if to concentrate better on the person before him, and encouraged him:
‘Go ahead—fire away.’
‘It appears that out of all the friends of his younger days you’re the one who has kept the closest links with Jauma.
‘Am I to conclude from the way you phrased that that you consider me no longer young?’
‘Not as young. . ..
‘Ah, that’s better.’
Once again, an invitation to laugh.
‘I’m involved in re-opening this case, and I want you to tell me anything that might encourage me to keep it open. In other words, anything that might verify my suspicion that Jauma was not murdered for the reasons stated in the official version.’
A long sigh. A slow reflection. Slow movements in search of the back of the chair. A slow resting of his head against one of its wings. A slow return to his initial position.
‘I’m afraid I can’t really help you. I’ve already told the police everything I know about Jauma, and everything that I know fits perfectly logically with the facts of his unfortunate death. I knew him well, very well . . .
He took a Davidoff Special from a Dunhill humidor. With a wooden spill he meticulously applied a flame to the end of the Cigar, and when the sides began to catch he moved it continuously between his fingers until the whole thing was alight. Then he trimmed the other end with a silver Cigar-cutter and inhaled a compact mass of smoke.
‘Oh—I am sorry.’ he said, as if suddenly annoyed with himself for an unpardonable oversight, and he passed the box of Davidoffs to Carvalho. The detective sensed that this was a deliberate manoeuvre, a test to find out whether he appreciated quality tobacco. In fact Carvalho had not taken his eyes off the Davidoff ever since it had appeared in Argemi’s hand like the apple appearing in the hand of Eve. Argemi watched with evident gratification as Carvalho went through the lighting-up ritual, and when both Davidoffs were alight and their perfectly-formed tips were glowing at each other, a mutual bond of connoisseurship had been established between the detective and the entrepreneur. Argemi fondled the beginnings of a waistline as if it was an expensive pet and observed:
‘Jauma didn’t smoke.’
‘But he certainly liked to eat and drink.’
‘And screw! And screw! Don’t forget—he did like a good screw!’
Laughter and smoke arose from Argemi’s half-closed lips as he leaned towards Carvalho to underline this statement, waving his cigar assertively under his nose.
‘We used to go on trips a lot. Sometimes just the two of us, and sometimes with our wives. When you travel together you get to know a person. I could say a lot about Jauma’s erotic obsessions. Not least, I suppose, because I share them myself.’
‘Why did you travel together so often?’
‘Sometimes for business and sometimes just because we enjoyed each other’s company. Jauma’s business and mine had aspects in common, in the sense that Petnay supplied me with particular products via one of its many subsidiaries.’
‘Can you confirm my impression that Jauma had been getting particularly depressed recently?’
‘Absolutely not. Not at all. He was certainly capable of swinging between euphoria and depression, but I’d not noticed any particular change in him recently. Who’s been telling you that Jauma was depressed?’<
br />
‘Nuñez, Vilaseca, and Biedma.’
‘Oh, the left wing! They seem to take a particular delight in trying to show that Jauma, Fontanillas and myself have made a mistake in the kind of life we’ve chosen.’
‘Have you?’
He raised the Davidoff as if it were a chalice about to be consecrated, and nodded towards the cigar in Carvalho’s hand.
‘Do you think we’ve made the wrong choice? The day that you reach maturity is the day when you realize that you only live once. Then you have two choices. Either you decide to live the best life you can, or you go transcendental, go for the hereafter, and turn religious like Nuñez, Vilaseca, Biedma and Santa Teresa de Jesus. Every time I get intimations of mortality, I take a plane and I head for the Princess Hotel in Acapulco. You’ve heard of it, I’m sure. It’s the most luxurious hotel in the world. When I was young and had no money, I used to write poetry and buy myself ties. That used to get me through the depressions. Nuñez,Vilaseca and Biedma believe in the immortality of the soul—not the individual soul, but the soul of the ascendant classes. Note that—“ascendant”! According to them, the class that I belong to is on the way down. Fair enough, I say. But the soul of the bourgeoisie deserves a decent death—with its stomach awash with champagne—Dom Perignon for preference—and its eyes veiled by the smoke of Davidoff cigars. Every morning I breakfast on three decent-sized Iranian caviar sandwiches and a glass of French champagne with orange juice. Then I go for a swim in my indoor swimming pool, or play tennis on my tennis court, or go for a game of golf. When the good weather comes, I race my yacht during the week, and at weekends I lend it to my friends, so as to enjoy the pleasure of being hopelessly envied. I never eat run-of-the-mill food, Carvalho, never! Our senses deserve better than to be subjected to a routine, because it is through our senses that we are living, sentient beings. In my house we eat a la carte. A choice of at least five courses every day, and at every meal. My wife and I are both on a diet, to keep in trim. Nothing miserable, though. Grilled lobster with a caper salad, or a sirloin steak, or maybe a low-fat beef stew. I’ve been sending my cook to special courses on dietetic cooking. You have no idea what my cook costs me! First I have to pay him enough so that he doesn’t just pack his bags and leave. Then I have to shell out even more, to make sure nobody makes him an offer he can’t refuse. I keep his whole family employed in my firm. But there you go . . . a cook is a man’s best friend, Carvalho, and if my cook were ever to die I would be heartbroken. I have five thousand bottles in my cellars at Ampurdan, and about two thousand in Barcelona. Top quality, all of them. The best French vintages you can get. And a few Spanish ones—a few good white wines, because sometimes I have a hankering for a well-chilled Galician vino verde—in spring, maybe, or when I have a real thirst. Tomorrow I’m off to Paris, to dine at the Tour d’Argent, and the following day I’ll be driving to Lyon, to eat chez Paul Bocuse. A voyage of gastronomic moral rearmament. So what do you think? Do you think I’ve chosen the wrong kind of life? Not a bit of it! I live a hell of a life, and I love it! I don’t have a lot to worry about on the business front. I don’t even have to worry about domestic competition, because I’m an exporter. D’you hear that? An exporter. Of yoghurt! The production process, incidentally, is child’s play, and so is the distribution. As for my love life, I could insure it at Lloyds for a billion dollars. I have a sensible wife who knows when to be intimate and when to leave me alone, and who looks as good in a nightdress as she does in evening dress. My children are perhaps not as intelligent as I would have wished, but they’re adequate, and they’re healthy too. I have friendships for every occasion—from the nostalgic pleasure that I get from my university friends, to the occasional high-class wedding reception. I have girlfriends for every occasion too. An old girlfriend from my student days, with the body of a forty-year-old woman, who frees me from my adolescent hang-ups; other girls who may be a bit past their prime, but who have a convertible and a cheque book and a slight resemblance to Jacqueline Onassis that I find increasingly attractive as I get older; the wife of one of my subordinates, which provides me with that particular shot of humiliation and abuse that the sex act sometimes requires; and the wife—or the daughter of one of my friends from the wedding receptions. You could say that I’m a collector. I’m only telling you all this because one should always tell policemen and detectives everything, and also because you know how to smoke a Davidoff. Last week I blew two hundred thousand pesetas buying shirts in London. I shall go back in September in order to replenish my supply of sweaters. I have as much as I need in life, and, thank God, I am not attracted by the sensuality of political power. For some weeks now I have noticed how increasing numbers of business people seem to be getting hooked on politics. They want to be MPs, or senators. Partly because they’re worried that the politicians aren’t looking after their interests. And partly because political power has a sensuality all its own. They know that history books tend to print the names of politicians and cabinet ministers, and that nobody will ever record the fact that I happened to be the owner of Aracata Ltd. This is another aspect of transcendentalism, against which, fortunately, I have been vaccinated. I have written some excellent books of poetry in Catalan, and I’m thinking of publishing them when I reach the age of sixty, for the simple pleasure of forcing the Encyclopaedia Catalaña to dedicate ten lines to me now and probably thirty lines fifty years from now. Take a look at this. I’ve written a likely version of what they’ll write about me fifty years from now. I’ll do you a photocopy so that you can keep it—assuming you want to—and if you live that long you can have a look in fifty years time and see if I was far wrong.’
The Angst-Ridden Executive Page 11