by A. G. Porta
He slept more than he needed to, and his muscles are now stiff. It’s getting dark outside, and the streetlights are already on. Although it’s too early for dinner, he eats the bread and fruit he’s been saving in his pocket since breakfast time, and sits in the chair. There’s nothing interesting on TV, not that he understands much that’s being said. They need to talk more slowly; he’s a foreigner after all. He turns it off and limps to the kitchen to make some coffee. He thinks about the girl and her father, but especially the girl, the would-be author. He thinks it’s amazing that he should be thinking about this in light of his current situation, as if he were still in that state of grace before the girl left him, before he was kicked out of the hotel, before he was broke. He returns to the chair with his cup and lights a cigarette. Now that he’s a little more relaxed, he thinks about the future. He’ll probably have to start looking for a job, but he’s useless at everything that doesn’t involve the movies. Once again, he’s considering the possibility of abandoning his career as a screenwriter, something he’s done his whole life, in favor of a job for which he lacks both experience and skill. His only other option is retirement. He won’t be able to teach again, that’s for sure. Maybe the producer will commission another screenplay. But it’s hard for him to think about writing another script when he’s dwelling on all his own worst qualities. If the girl decides to come back, maybe he could start a new life with her. Perhaps she could pull him out of his financial rut. But that’s a dream. She’s gone. He tries calling her again, but her cell phone isn’t on. Well, damn it! he says. How’s he going to tell her about his imminent departure from the hotel? He’s putting himself in a bad mood. He finishes his coffee and puts out his cigarette and tries taking his mind off it all. He takes a few deep breaths and thinks about something he learned from her. Perhaps if he adopted her mantra, he’d see things differently: life’s a game or something like that. He says it again slowly, almost hearing her voice. It doesn’t change his perception of himself as a failure. Perhaps it would be best to just accept it, try doing something else, perhaps he should enter the confessional where his conscience resides, that voice in the back of his mind that keeps telling him it’s impossible to live a fulfilling life, and admit he was wrong, do penance for having believed otherwise. “I can’t stop thinking that I’ve wasted the best years of my life,” he could say, paraphrasing one of the characters in the novel by the author of lost time, except in his case, not for the sake of a woman, but because he hadn’t realized any of his professional ambitions. If he was a great writer, he’d be able to write about himself, about his failures, transform them into overwhelming triumphs. The best years are the ones that are lost, the ones that are wasted in suffering, in want, for these are the years that are waiting to be retrieved, waiting to one day be written about. The tolling church bells remind him of the time. A piece of fruit, a slice of bread, a cigarette, and coffee hardly constitute a good meal, but at least he’s not hungry. There’s some spoiled yogurt at the back of the fridge, and the leftovers of a meal he doesn’t remember having. He still has a few coins rattling in his pocket. To think, only a few hours earlier he was dancing a waltz. He sits in front of the window, lifts his feet onto the ledge, and lights a cigarette. It’s hard to see the stars above the buildings, especially with all the light pollution, but at this point, he’s not that fussy about the view. He’s happy just to smoke his cigarette and let the evening run its course.
He could wait until midday, that’s the time he has to check out of the hotel, but something’s telling the screenwriter he shouldn’t delay. He has to run through what’s become a ritual for him now, and which he already performed after leaving his house and then his studio apartment: a ritual of renunciation. In a little over a month, he’s started a new life on two occasions. From this point on, maybe he’ll be doing so several times a day. He goes into the bathroom for the last time, freshens up for the last time, looks at himself in the mirror, and takes a deep breath before leaving the room for the last time. The elevator takes its time arriving. He gets the feeling he may be better off taking the stairs. He’d do it if it wasn’t for his damned limp. He grips his cane impatiently and knocks it against the floor a couple of times, the strokes muted by the carpet, rendering the act meaningless. He doesn’t like the muffled thud, he says to himself, because it probably unleashed a cloud of dust mites that are now colonizing his socks and the hem of his pants. He takes the elevator to the lobby. He has no clothes other than the ones he’s wearing. He sold his watch and the briefcase in which he kept his screenplay and his notes. He also sold his other suitcase, the cassette player the girl gave him, his CDs, the twelve-tone book he bought in the music store, and even the book about screenwriters. All his remaining worldly belongings are stuffed in a large plastic bag on the manager’s office floor, next to an old-fashioned portable typewriter. He’ll collect them, along with his documentation, once he settles the bill. The money his son and old colleagues sent didn’t last very long. He collects his things and leaves the manager’s office with his head held high, looking straight ahead, striking his cane against the floor, which reverberates in the vicinity like a battle drum, though his army’s slain, and the drummer’s playing alone. His mind’s a blank, he has no plans; perhaps there’s no longer a place for him in this world. Then, suddenly, of all people, he sees the brilliant composer sitting in a chair in the lobby, and he has with him the soundtrack he’d promised to write. Almost identical, he assures him, to the music in that film about the angels that listen to other people’s voices, not only their speech, but also their thoughts, perhaps those of everyone on Earth. The piece he composed has a melody that progresses by a series of unsettling cadences, incomplete, as though the sound of something that’s approaching, but hasn’t come over the horizon as yet, a veritable No World, he says. He’s only been back from the tour a few days, he says, seeming apologetic about having taken so long, but he didn’t just come to give him the soundtrack, which he insists was just a simple mathematical exercise for him. The exchange between the two of them is brief. Basically, the screenwriter happens to have something of interest to the brilliant composer, and the brilliant composer has money.
The screenwriter strikes the cane hard against the pavement as he walks. A pedestrian appears to challenge him with a stare, upbraid him for this cudgeling to his ears, but once the screenwriter works up the moxie to scold him back, the man’s already too far away to hear the tirade. He leans against a wall directly in front of a telephone booth and has a rest, waiting for his pulse to die down. With the money the brilliant composer gave him, he managed to buy back most of the things he’d sold. Unfortunately, he must now carry them all in his large plastic bag, which, along with the typewriter, is weighing him down. He can’t call his wife, but it doesn’t matter, there’s no way she managed to survive. It’s been a month since he left her bound and gagged on the bed, and no one, not even a woman, could last that long in such a predicament. Why call her, he asks himself, if she can no longer hear the phone ring, knowing it’s him taunting her, reminding her she’s going to die all alone in the marriage bed, like a dog. The handles of the typewriter and the plastic bag are digging into his hands. No, he’d never do that to a dog. He puts his belongings on the ground and thinks about the black prostitute. He wouldn’t mind seeking refuge in her arms and crying a little. If he wasn’t practically done with his screenplay, he’d probably do so. But he feels invigorated and wants to continue his work to the end. He’d like to make a few calls, he thinks while staring at the telephone booth, but he can’t. The brilliant composer gave him just enough to buy back his things, little more. Once again, he’s left with just a few coins rattling in his pocket. What a rip-off. Those photographs are worth millions. As he approaches the river, he starts asking passersby for spare change. He needs something to eat, even a slice of bread will do, a single slice of bread folded around a piece of cheese, or something. He could have sold himself to the highest bidder, but he wouldn’t
have known how to organize the auction, and in attempting it, would have probably ended up in jail. By midday he’s content at having received quite a bit of change. The cheapest food is at a place mainly frequented by indigent immigrants. He takes his meal, which is wrapped in a paper bag, and heads for the park to eat under a tree. A beggar sits down beside him. The screenwriter wonders why, with all the available seats, he chose to sit right there. The beggar would like him to share his meal in exchange for some of his wine. The screenwriter doesn’t quite understand why this gesture is being made until the beggar asks him how long he’s been living on the street. Then the screenwriter hands him what’s left of the meal, and goes away, dragging his leg and belongings behind him, struggling to hide the fact that he’s crying. He needs to find a phone to call his son. He needs to ask for more money. He doesn’t even remember where he spent the money he already sent him. According to the bill, he paid for twenty-eight days at the hotel. But the sums don’t add up, because he thought he’d already paid for that as well as other services. He must’ve spent the rest somewhere, he thinks while tearing the bill up and letting the pieces fall to the ground. He finds a phone booth and dials his son’s number. He’s not at home, and his daughter-in-law isn’t being very helpful. In the old days he’d have barraged her with insults, but now his situation’s desperate. I need to speak to my son, he whispers weakly into the phone. She keeps saying she doesn’t know where he is, or when he’ll be back. The woman’s intractable, even the modulation in her voice is unwavering when she answers him, and the words strike the screenwriter as rehearsed. I’ve had to resort to begging in the streets! he says, raising his voice, before lowering it again for a final supplication, Please, I need to speak to my son. She says she needs to go, and he should try calling again later in evening. The screenwriter struggles to compose himself, but manages to concentrate his fury into a strong knock of his cane against the floor. He won’t call again. His son can keep his damn money. If he does call, he says to himself, it’ll be to suggest he go check on his mother; to collect the present waiting for him on the bed. His mouth waters when he imagines the look on his son’s face after opening the bedroom door. The screenwriter decides to finish his script once and for all, although all this will prove is that he’s able to keep a deadline, and that this is a reflection of the kind of man he is.
It is night, and he has no idea where he’s going to sleep. He feels a little less agitated, having managed to collect some change, but with his mobility already hampered by a limp, the weight of the typewriter and the large plastic bag only worsens the claudication. When he was young, he’d have accepted the situation as providing a wellspring of experiences to draw on later, when he came to write about suffering — for they’d help him to do so more convincingly. But if he were young now, he wouldn’t be talking about suffering at all; he’d be too busy looking for a job so he could afford a roof over his head: a means of securing himself against future suffering. Perhaps he shouldn’t have stayed in a hotel, he thinks, rebuking himself, however cheap it was. He could have rented a room or an apartment. All he really needs is a desk and bed, and something to keep the rain off his head. He could’ve cooked his own meals instead of eating at so many restaurants. So he pursues this line of second-guessing, knowing he’d always commit the same errors again, because it’s the kind of man he is. The screenwriter returns to the vicinity of the hotel, near the local church where he’s often seen friars and chaplains speaking to the homeless. Maybe they’ll know where he can spend the night. On arriving, however, he discovers the church is closed, and when he goes looking around the neighborhood, sees no sign of a priest, nor any of the homeless who used to roam around or sit on the church steps. He’s beginning to despair, and yet he ignores the ways of the homeless, those well-established shibboleths and practices for procuring room and board. Instead, he tries pushing the door; then he tries knocking against it a few times with his cane; then he tries looking through the keyhole. Finally, he gives up, and returns to the steps to sit down. Right now, the only place he’ll find any sign of life is in the plaza where he usually has a coffee. He’s tired of walking around holding out one hand asking people for spare change while carrying the typewriter and large plastic bag in the other. He has a hard time getting there, and has to stop several times for a rest, but at last he finds himself exhaustedly flumping into a chair at the café in the plaza. The price of a coffee and a sandwich exhausts all his funds, and he makes them last as long as he can, until closing time, when he asks one of the waiters if he can leave his typewriter and large plastic bag in the premises until the following morning. He’ll be around to collect them first thing, he says. No problem, the young waitresses have often seen him at breakfast time having his coffee, and some of the older ones also recognize him, although he rarely came in the evenings. The plaza’s almost empty once he sits down beside the fountain, quite close to a miserable vagrant primped in rags. He doesn’t appear conversationally inclined, for his mouth’s periodically stopped by a bottle of liquor. His face is an arid landscape that’s been battered by meteors, and all the dirt there makes his complexion seem darker than it is. The screenwriter stands up. If he must sleep next to a tramp, he’ll do so under a bridge where the owner of the café and the waitress he likes won’t see him. He’d rather they think of him as a bohemian writer who’s down on his luck than a derelict hobo who begs for spare change. He thinks about the girl. All in all, wherever he ends up tonight, it won’t be a good place for her to visit him.