The Angel's Game (9 page)

14

The doctor’s surgery was on a top floor with a view of the sea gleaming in the distance and the slope of Calle Muntaner, dotted with trams, which slid down to the Ensanche between grand houses and imposing edifices. The place smelled clean. The waiting rooms were tastefully decorated. The paintings were calming, with landscapes full of hope and peace. The shelves displayed books that exuded authority. Nurses moved about like ballet dancers and smiled as they went by. It was a purgatory for people with well-lined pockets.

‘The doctor will see you now, Señor Martín.’

Doctor Trías was a man with a patrician air and an impeccable appearance, who radiated serenity and confidence with every gesture. Grey, penetrating eyes behind rimless glasses. A kind, friendly smile, never frivolous. Doctor Trías was a man accustomed to jousting with death, and the more he smiled the more frightening he became. Judging by the way he escorted me to his room and asked me to sit down I got the feeling that, although some days before, when I had begun to undergo medical tests, he had spoken about recent medical breakthroughs in the fight against the symptoms I had described to him, as far as he was concerned, there was no doubt.

‘How are you?’ he asked, his eyes darting hesitantly between me and the folder on his desk.

‘You tell me.’

He smiled faintly, like a good player.

‘The nurse tells me you’re a writer, although here, on the form you filled in when you arrived, I see you put down that you are a mercenary.’

‘In my case there’s no difference at all.’

‘I believe some of my patients have read your books.’

‘I hope it has not caused permanent neurological damage.’

The doctor smiled as if he’d found my comment amusing, and then adopted a more serious expression, implying that the banal and kind preambles to our conversation had come to an end.

‘Señor Martín, I notice that you have come here on your own. Don’t you have any close family? A wife? Siblings? Parents still alive?’

‘That sounds a little ominous,’ I ventured.

‘Señor Martín, I’m not going to lie to you. The results of the first tests are not as encouraging as we’d hoped.’

I looked at him. I didn’t feel fear or unease. I didn’t feel anything.

‘Everything points to the fact that you have a growth lodged in the left lobe of your brain. The results confirm what I feared from the symptoms you described to me, and there is every indication that it might be a carcinoma.’

For a few seconds I was unable to say anything at all. I couldn’t even pretend to be surprised.

‘How long have I had it?’

‘It’s impossible to say for sure, but I presume the tumour has been growing there for some time, which would explain the symptoms you told me about and the difficulties you have recently experienced with your work.’

I took a deep breath and nodded. The doctor observed me patiently, with a kind mien, letting me take my time. I tried to start various sentences that never reached my lips. Finally our eyes met.

‘I suppose I’m in your hands, doctor. You’ll have to tell me which treatment to follow.’

I saw his despairing look as he realised I had not wanted to understand what he was telling me. I nodded once more, fighting the tide of nausea that was beginning to rise up my throat. The doctor poured me a glass of water from a jug and handed it to me. I drank it in one gulp.

‘There is no treatment?’ I said.

‘There is. There are a lot of things we can do to relieve the pain and ensure maximum comfort and peace . . .’

‘But I’m going to die.’

‘Yes.’

‘Soon.’

‘Possibly.’

I smiled to myself. Even the worst news is a relief when all it does is confirm what you already knew without wanting to know.

‘I’m twenty-eight,’ I said, without quite knowing why.

‘I’m sorry, Señor Martín. I’d like to have given you better news.’

I felt as if I had finally confessed to a lie or a minor sin, and the large slab of remorse that had been pressing down on me was instantly removed.

‘How much longer do I have?’

‘It is difficult to determine exactly. I’d say a year, a year and a half at most.’

His tone clearly implied that this was a more than optimistic prognosis.

‘And of that year, or whatever it is, how long do you think I’ll still be able to work and cope on my own?’

‘You’re a writer and you work with your brain. Unfortunately that is where the problem is located and where we will first meet limitations.’

‘Limitations is not a medical term, doctor.’

‘The most likely outcome is that, as the disease progresses, the symptoms you’ve been experiencing will become more intense and more frequent and, after a time, you’ll have to be admitted to hospital so that we can take care of you.’

‘I won’t be able to write.’

‘You won’t even be able to think about writing.’

‘How long?’

‘I don’t know. Nine or ten months. Perhaps more, perhaps less. I’m very sorry, Señor Martín.’

I nodded and stood up. My hands were shaking and I needed some air.

‘Señor Martín, I realise you need time to think about all the things I’ve told you, but it is important that we start your treatment as soon as possible . . .’

‘I can’t die yet, doctor. Not yet. I have things to do. Afterwards I’ll have a whole lifetime in which to die.’

15

That night I went up to the study in the tower and sat at my typewriter, even though I knew that my brain was a blank. The windows were wide open, but Barcelona no longer wanted to tell me anything; I was unable to finish a single page. Anything I did manage to conjure up seemed banal and empty. It was enough to reread my words to understand that they were barely worth the ink with which they’d been typed. I was no longer able to hear the music that issues from a decent piece of prose. Bit by bit, like slow, pleasant poison, the words of Andreas Corelli began to drip into my thoughts.

I still had at least a hundred pages to go for my umpteenth delivery of those comic-book adventures that had provided both Barrido and Escobillas with such bulging pockets, but in that moment I knew I was never going to finish it. Ignatius B. Samson had been left lying on the rails in front of that tram, exhausted, his soul bled dry, poured into too many pages that should never have seen the light of day. But before departing he had conveyed to me his last wishes: that I should bury him without any fuss and that, for once in my life, I should have the courage to use my own voice. His legacy to me was his considerable repertoire of smoke and mirrors. And he asked me to let him go, because he had been born to be forgotten.

I took all the finished pages of his last novel and set fire to them, sensing that a tombstone was being lifted off me with every page I threw into the flames. A moist, warm breeze blew that night over the rooftops and as it came in through my windows it took with it the ashes of Ignatius B. Samson, scattering them through the streets of the old city, where they would always remain - however much his words were lost forever and his name slipped from the memory of even his most devoted readers.

The following day I turned up at the offices of Barrido & Escobillas. The receptionist was new, almost a child, and didn’t recognise me.

‘Your name?’

‘Hugo, Victor.’

The receptionist smiled and connected to the switchboard to let Herminia know.

‘Doña Herminia, Señor Hugo Victor is here to see Señor Barrido.’

I saw her nod and disconnect the switchboard.

‘She says she’ll be right out.’

‘Have you been working here long?’

‘A week,’ the girl replied attentively.

Unless I was mistaken, she was the eighth receptionist Barrido & Escobillas had employed since the start of the year. The firm’s employees who reported directly to the artful Herminia didn’t last long because as soon as Lady Venom discovered that they had one ounce of common sense more than she had - which happened nine times out of ten - fearing she might be overshadowed, she would accuse them of theft or some other absurd transgression and make one scene after another until Escobillas kicked them out, threatening them with a hired assassin if they let the cat out of the bag.

‘How good to see you, David,’ said Lady Venom. ‘You’re looking very handsome. You seem well.’

‘That’s because I was run over by a tram. Is Barrido in?’

‘The things you come out with! He’s always in for you. He’s going to be very pleased when I tell him you’ve come to pay us a visit.’

‘You can’t imagine how pleased.’

Lady Venom took me to Barrido’s office, which was decorated like a chancellor’s palatial rooms in a comic opera, with a profusion of carpets, busts of emperors, still-lifes and leather-bound volumes bought in bulk which, I imagined, were probably blank inside. Barrido gave me the oiliest of smiles and shook my hand.

‘We’re all waiting impatiently for the next instalment. I must tell you, we’ve been reprinting the last two and they’re flying out of the window. Another five thousand copies, how about that?’

I thought it was more likely to be at least fifty thousand, but I just nodded enthusiastically. Barrido & Escobillas had perfected what was known among Barcelona publishers as the double print run, and theirs was as neatly arranged as a bunch of flowers. Every title had an official print run of a few thousand copies, on which a ridiculous margin was paid to the author. Then, if the book took off, they would print one or many undercover editions of tens of thousands of copies, which were never declared and for which the author never saw a penny. The latter could be distinguished from the official edition because Barrido had them printed on the quiet in an old sausage plant in Santa Perpètua de Mogoda, and if you leafed through the pages they gave off the unmistakable smell of vintage pork.

‘I’m afraid I have bad news.’

Barrido and Lady Venom exchanged looks but kept on grinning. Just then, Escobillas materialised through the door and looked at me with that dry, disdainful air he had, as if he were measuring you up for a coffin.

‘Look who has come to see us. Isn’t this a nice surprise?’ Barrido asked his partner, who replied with a nod.

‘What bad news?’ asked Escobillas.

‘Is there a bit of a delay, Martín, my friend?’ Barrido added in a friendly tone. ‘I’m sure we can accommodate—’

‘No. There’s no delay. Quite simply, there’s not going to be another book.’

Escobillas took a step forward and raised his eyebrows. Barrido giggled.

‘What do you mean, there’s not going to be another book?’ asked Escobillas.

‘I mean that yesterday I burned it, and there’s not a single page of the manuscript left.’

A heavy silence fell. Barrido made a conciliatory gesture and pointed to what was known as the visitors’ armchair, a black, sunken throne in which authors and suppliers were cornered so that they could meet Barrido’s eyes from the appropriate height.

‘Martín, sit down and tell me what this is about. There’s something worrying you, I can see. You can be open with us - we’re like family.’

Lady Venom and Escobillas nodded with conviction, showing the measure of their esteem in a look of spellbound devotion. I decided to remain standing. They all did the same, staring at me as if I were a pillar of salt that was about to start talking. Barrido’s face hurt from so much smiling.

‘And?’

‘Ignatius B. Samson has committed suicide. He left a twenty-page unpublished story in which he dies together with Chloé Permanyer, locked in an embrace after swallowing poison.’

‘The author dies in one of his own novels?’ asked Herminia, confused.

‘It’s his avant-garde farewell to the world of writing instalments. A detail I was sure you would love.’

‘And could there not be an antidote, or . . . ? ’ Lady Venom asked.

‘Martín, I don’t need to remind you that it is you, and not the allegedly deceased Ignatius, who has a contract—’ said Escobillas.

Barrido raised his hands to silence his colleague.

‘I think I know what’s wrong, Martín. You’re exhausted. You’ve been overloading your brain for years without a break - something this house values and is grateful for. You just need a breather. I can understand. We do understand, don’t we?’

Barrido glanced at Escobillas and at Lady Venom, who nodded and tried to look serious.

‘You’re an artist and you want to make art, high literature, something that springs from your heart and will engrave your name in golden letters on the steps of history.’

‘The way you put it makes it sound ridiculous,’ I said.

‘Because it is,’ said Escobillas.

‘No, it isn’t,’ Barrido cut in. ‘It’s human. And we’re human. I, my partner and Herminia, who, being a woman and a creature of delicate sensitivity, is the most human of all, isn’t that right, Herminia?’

‘Indeed,’ Lady Venom agreed.

‘And as we’re human, we understand you and want to support you. Because we’re proud of you and convinced that your success will be our success and because in this firm, when all’s said and done, what matters is the people, not the numbers.’

At the end of his speech, Barrido gave a theatrical pause. Perhaps he expected me to break into applause, but when he saw that I wasn’t moved he charged on unimpeded with his exposition.

‘That is why I’m going to propose the following: take six months, nine if need be, because after all this is like a birth, and lock yourself up in your study to write the great novel of your life. When you’ve finished it, bring it to us and we’ll publish it under your name, putting all our irons in the fire and all our resources behind you. Because we’re on your side.’

I looked at Barrido and then at Escobillas. Lady Venom was about to burst into tears from the emotion.

‘With no advance, needless to say.’

Barrido clapped his hands euphorically in the air.

‘What do you say?’

I began work that very day. My plan was as simple as it was crazy. During the day I would rewrite Vidal’s book and at night I’d work on mine. I would polish all the dark arts Ignatius B. Samson had taught me and place them at the service of what little decency and dignity was left in my heart. I would write out of gratitude, despair and vanity. I would write especially for Cristina, to prove to her that I too was able to pay the debt I had with Vidal and that even if he was about to drop dead, David Martín had earned himself the right to look her in the eye without feeling ashamed of his ridiculous hopes.

I didn’t return to Doctor Trías’s surgery. I didn’t see the point. The day I could no longer write another word, or imagine one, I would be the first to know. My trustworthy and unscrupulous chemist supplied me with as many codeine treats as I requested without asking any questions, as well as the occasional delicacy that set my veins alight, obliterating both pain and consciousness. I didn’t tell anyone about my visit to the doctor or about the test results.

My basic needs were covered by a weekly delivery which I ordered from Can Gispert, a wonderful grocer’s emporium on Calle Mirallers, behind the cathedral of Santa María del Mar. The order was always the same. It was usually brought to me by the owners’ daughter, a girl who stared at me like a frightened fawn when I told her to wait in the entrance hall while I fetched the money to pay her.

‘This is for your father, and this is for you.’

I always gave her a ten-céntimo tip, which she accepted without saying a word. Every week the girl rang my doorbell with the delivery, and every week I paid her and gave her a ten-céntimo tip. For nine months and a day, the time it took me to write the only book that would bear my name, that young girl, whose name I didn’t know and whose face I forgot every week until I saw her standing in the doorway again, was the person I saw the most.

Without warning, Cristina had stopped coming to our afternoon meetings. I was beginning to fear that Vidal might have got wind of our ploy. Then, one afternoon, when I was waiting for her after about a week’s absence, I opened the door thinking it was her, and instead there was Pep, one of the servants at Villa Helius. He brought me a parcel sent by Cristina. It was carefully sealed and contained the whole of Vidal’s manuscript. Pep explained that Cristina’s father had suffered an aneurysm which had left him practically disabled, and she’d taken him to a sanatorium in Puigcerdà, in the Pyrenees, where apparently there was a young doctor who was an expert in the treatment of such ailments.

‘Señor Vidal has taken care of everything,’ Pep explained. ‘No expense spared.’

Vidal never forgot his servants, I thought, not without some bitterness.

‘She asked me to deliver this to you by hand. And not to tell anyone about it.’

The young man handed me the parcel, relieved to be free of the mysterious item.

‘Did she leave an address where I could find her if I needed to?’

‘No, Señor Martín. All I know is that Señorita Cristina’s father has been admitted to a place called Villa San Antonio.’

A few days later, Vidal paid me one of his surprise visits and spent the whole afternoon in my house, drinking my anisette, smoking my cigarettes and talking to me about his chauffeur’s misfortune.

‘It’s hard to believe. A man who was as strong as an ox, and suddenly he’s struck down, just like that. He doesn’t even know who he is any more.’

‘How is Cristina?’

‘You can imagine. Her mother died years ago and Manuel is the only family she has left. She took a family album with her and shows him photographs every day to see whether the poor fellow can remember anything.’

While Vidal spoke, his novel - or should I say my novel - rested face down on the table in the gallery, a pile of papers only half a metre away from his hands. He told me that in Manuel’s absence he had urged Pep - apparently a good horseman - to get stuck into the art of driving, but so far the young man was proving hopeless.

‘Give him time. A motor car isn’t a horse. The secret is practice.’

‘Now that you mention it, Manuel taught you how to drive, didn’t he?’

‘A little,’ I admitted. ‘And it’s not as easy as it seems.’

‘If the novel you’re writing doesn’t sell, you can always become my chauffeur.’

‘Let’s not bury poor Manuel yet, Don Pedro.’

‘That comment was in bad taste,’ Vidal admitted. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘How’s your novel going, Don Pedro?’

‘It’s going well. Cristina has taken the final manuscript with her to Puigcerdà so that she can type up a clean copy and get it all shipshape while she’s there with her father.’

‘I’m glad to see you looking happy.’

Vidal gave me a triumphant smile.

‘I think it’s going to be something big,’ he said. ‘After all those months I thought I’d wasted, I reread the first fifty pages Cristina typed out for me and I was quite surprised at myself. I think it will surprise you too. I may still have some tricks to teach you.’

‘I’ve never doubted that, Don Pedro.’

That afternoon Vidal was drinking more than usual. Over the years I’d got to know the full range of his anxieties and reservations, and I guessed that this visit was not a simple courtesy call. When he had polished off my supplies of anis, I served him a generous glass of brandy and waited.

‘David, there are things about which you and I have never spoken . . .’

‘About football, for example.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘I’m listening, Don Pedro.’

He looked at me for a while, hesitating.

‘I’ve always tried to be a good friend to you, David. You know that, don’t you?’