The Cave (10 page)

Cipriano Algor looked for a quiet street where he could pass the time until he could go and pick up his son-in-law at the entrance to the security section. He parked the van on a corner from which, three large blocks away, he could see a sliver of one of the vast Center façades, the inhabited part as it happens. With the exception of the doors that open onto the outside, there are no other openings to be seen, just impenetrable stretches of wall and it is not the vast hoardings promising security that are to blame for shutting out the light or stealing the air from those who live inside. In complete contrast to those smooth façades, this side of the building is peppered with windows, hundreds and hundreds of windows, thousands of windows, all of them closed because of the air-conditioning inside. Normally, when we do not know the exact height of a building, but want to give an approximate idea of its size, we say that it has a certain number of stories, which might be two, or five, or fifteen, or twenty, or thirty, or whatever, either fewer or more, from one to infinity. The Center building is neither that small nor that big, it makes do with the forty-eight stories visible above street level and the ten floors concealed below. And now that Cipriano Algor is parked here, let us ponder some of the numbers that will give an idea of the size of the Center, let us say that the width of the smaller façades is about one hundred and fifty meters, and the larger ones slightly more than three hundred and fifty, not taking into account, of course, the proposed extension to which we referred in detail at the beginning of this story. Proceeding a little further with our calculations and taking the average height of each story to be three meters, including the thickness of the floor separating each one, that would make, including the ten subterranean stories, a total height of one hundred and seventy-four meters. If we multiply that number by the one hundred and fifty meters in width and the three hundred and
fifty meters in length, we will get, allowing, of course, for errors, omissions and sheer confusion, a volume of nine million one hundred and thirty-five thousand cubic meters, give or take a centimeter, give or take a comma or two. The Center, and there is no one who does not, with astonishment, recognize this, is really big. And that, muttered Cipriano Algor to himself, is where my dear son-in-law wants me to live, behind one of those windows that can't be opened, they say it's so as not to upset the thermal stability of the air-conditioning, but the truth is quite different, people are free to commit suicide if they choose to, but not by hurling themselves one hundred meters down into the street, such despair would attract too much attention and awaken the morbid curiosity of passersby, who would immediately want to know why. Cipriano Algor has already said, not once but many times, that he will never agree to go and live in the Center, that he will never give up the pottery that belonged to his father and to his grandfather, and even Marta herself, his only daughter, who, poor thing, will have no choice but to accompany her husband when he is promoted to resident guard, had acknowledged two or three days ago with gratifying frankness that only her father could make the final decision, without being submitted to pressure from third parties, even if they tried to justify that pressure with claims of filial love, or out of that tearful pity which old people, even when they themselves reject it, seem to arouse in the souls of well-brought-up people. I will not go, I'd rather die than go, muttered the potter, aware, however, that these words, precisely because they seem so categorical, so final, might be pretending a conviction which, deep down, he did not feel, might be disguising an inner weakness, like an as yet invisible crack in the thinnest wall of a water jug. That mention of a water jug was clearly the best possible reason for Isaura Estudiosa to return to Cipriano Algor's thoughts, and that was indeed what happened, but the route taken by that thought, or reasoning, assuming any reasoning took place and it was not just an instantaneous flash, drove him to a rather embarrassing conclusion,
formulated in a dreamy murmur, That way I wouldn't have to come and live in the Center. The look of annoyance that appeared on Cipriano Algor's face as soon as he had uttered these words will not allow us to turn our backs on the fact that, despite the evident pleasure he takes in thinking about Isaura Estudiosa, he can nevertheless do nothing to prevent that apparently contradictory shift in mood. There would be little point in wasting time explaining why he likes thinking about her, there are things in life which define themselves, a particular man, a particular woman, a particular word, a particular moment, that is all we would have to say for everyone to understand what we meant, but there are other things, and it might even be the same man and the same woman, the same word and the same moment, which, viewed from a different angle, in a different light, come to signify doubts and perplexities, troubling signs, a strange presentiment, and that is why Cipriano Algor's pleasure in thinking about Isaura Estudiosa suddenly faltered, it was those words that were to blame, That way I wouldn't have to come and live in the Center, which is the same as saying, If I married her, I would have someone to look after me, a further demonstration of something that does not require demonstration, in short, the things a man finds hardest to recognize and confess are his own weaknesses. Especially when those weaknesses appear at the wrong time, like a fruit attached only tenuously to the bough because it was born too late in the season. Cipriano Algor sighed, then looked at his watch. It was time to go and pick up his son-in-law at the door of the security services department.

The dog Found did not like Marçal. There were so many things to tell, so much news, so many highs and lows in hopes and spirits, that during the journey from the Center to the pottery, it did not even occur to Cipriano Algor to mention to his son-in-law the dog's mysterious arrival or his equally unusual behavior since. Nevertheless, a love of truth, pricked on by a narrator's natural scrupulousness, will not allow to go unmentioned one brief resurfacing of that remarkable episode in the potter's faulty memory, this, however, did not get any further because marçal, with more than justified resentment, interrupted his father-in-law's story to ask why the devil neither he nor Marta had thought to inform him of what was going on at home, the idea of the dolls, the drawings, their attempts at modeling, It's as if I don't really exist for either of you, he remarked bitterly. Caught out, Cipriano Algor mumbled some excuse citing the intensity and concentration inevitable in all artistic creation, the extreme unfriendliness with which the person who answered the phone responded to calls from the family members of guards living outside the Center, and, finally, a few decorative, halfgarbled words to pad out his speech and bring it to a close. Fortunately, the sight of the burned-out truck helped divert attention from a dispute that could easily have evolved into a family quarrel, which, let it be said, it will not, although marçal Gacho is determined to take up the matter again when he is alone with his wife in their bedroom and behind closed doors. With visible relief, Cipriano Algor left the subject of clay dolls in order to explain the suspicions that the fire had aroused in his mind, a view to which Manual, still angry about the lack of consideration with which he had been treated, responded rather brusquely in the name of deontology, ethical awareness, and the high standard of behavior for which, by definition, the armed forces in general and the administrative and police authorities in particular have always been known. Cipriano Algor shrugged, You're just saying that because you work as a security guard at the Center, if you were a civilian like me, you would see things differently, The fact that I work as a guard at the Center doesn't make me a policeman or a soldier, retorted marçal, No, it doesn't, but you're pretty close, on the border, Oh, I suppose now you're going to tell me that you feel ashamed to have a security guard from the Center sitting here beside you in your van, breathing the same air, The potter did not reply at once, he regretted having given in yet again to the stupid and gratuitous desire to provoke his son-in-law, Why do I do it, he asked himself, as if he didn't already know the answer, this man, this marçal Gacho wanted to take his daughter from him, indeed he already had taken her away, irremediably and irrevocably, by marrying her, Even if, in the end, I get tired of saying no and go with them to live at the Center, he thought. Then, speaking slowly, as if he had to drag each word out one after the other, he said, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you, I didn't mean to be unpleasant, but sometimes I can't help it, it just comes out, and there's no point asking me why, I wouldn't be able to give you an answer or, if I did, I'd just be telling you a pack of lies, because there are reasons, if you look you'll always find them, there's never been any shortage of reasons, even if they're not the right ones, no, it's the changing times, it's the old who age a day for every hour, it's the work which isn't what it used to be, and we, who can only be what we were, suddenly realize that we're not needed in the world, always assuming we ever were, of course, but believing that we were seemed to be enough, seemed sufficient, and that belief was, in a sense, eternal for as long as we remained alive, which is, after all, what eternity is. marçal said nothing, he merely placed his left hand on his father-in-law's right hand, which was holding the steering wheel. Cipriano Algor swallowed hard, looked at the hand which, gently but firmly, seemed to want to protect his, looked at the oblique, jagged scar that cut across the skin from one side to the other, all that remained of a terrible burn which, by some astonishing stroke of good fortune, had not reached the veins beneath. Inexperienced and inept, marçal had wanted to help in stoking the kiln in order to impress the girl he had been going out with for a matter of only a few weeks, perhaps to impress her father too, to show him that he was a grown man, when, in fact, he was only just out of adolescence and when the one thing in life and in the world about which he felt he knew all there was to know was that he loved the potter's daughter. No one who has at some time in their life known such certainties will have any difficulty whatsoever in imagining the feelings of enthusiasm that filled him as he dragged the logs one by one from the woodshed and then fed them into the kiln, the supreme prize for him at that moment would have been Marta's delight and surprise, her mother's benevolent smile and her father's grave, reluctant look of approval. And suddenly, though no one ever found out why, for such a thing had never happened before in the memory of potters, a flame, slender, swift and sinuous as the tongue of a snake, erupted with a roar from the mouth of the kiln and cruelly bit the hand of the boy, so near, so innocent, so unprepared. That was the origin of the Gacho family's secret antipathy for the Algor family, who had not only acted with unforgivable negligence and irresponsibility, but had also, according to the inflexible Gacho mind, flagrantly abused the feelings of an ingenuous lad by making him work for nothing. It is not only in villages far from civilization that the human cerebral appendage is capable of generating such ideas. Marta frequently dressed marçal's hand, she frequently consoled and cooled it with her breath, and the couple were so steadfast in their desires that, after some years, they were able to get married, though this did nothing to unite the families. At the moment, their love appears to have gone to sleep, but never mind, this seems to be the natural effect of time and life's anxieties, but if ancient knowledge serves for anything, if it can still be of some use to modern ignorance, let us say, softly, so that people don't laugh at us, that while there's life, there's hope. For it is true that however thick and black the clouds over our heads, the sky above the clouds is permanently blue, but then again the rain, hail and lightning always fall downward, and indeed, when faced with such facts, it is hard to know quite what to think. marçal has withdrawn his hand, that's how it is between men, manly displays of affection have to be quick and instantaneous, some people put this down to masculine modesty, and perhaps they're right, but it would have been much more manly, in the full sense of the word, and certainly no less masculine, if Cipriano Algor had stopped the van and embraced his son-in-law right there and then and thanked him for that gesture with the only possible words, Thank you for placing your hand on mine, that is what he should have said, instead of taking advantage of the seriousness of the moment to complain about the ultimatum imposed by the head of the buying department, Can you believe it, he gave me two weeks to take away the whole lot, Two weeks, Yes, two weeks, and with no one to help me either, I'm only sorry I can't lend a hand, Well, you can't, of course, you haven't got time and it wouldn't do your career much good to be seen working as a porter, and the worst thing is that I have no idea what to do with a load of pots that nobody wants, You might still manage to sell some, We've got more than enough at the pottery, In that case, you really have a problem, We'll see, I might just leave it here by the roadside, The police wouldn't let you, If this old crock wasn't a van but one of those dump trucks, nothing could be easier, I'd just have to push a button and, hey presto, in less than a minute, there it would all be in the gutter, You might get away with it a couple of times, but the traffic police would be bound to catch you at it in the end, Another solution would be to find a cave out in the countryside somewhere, it wouldn't have to be a very big cave, and put everything inside, can you imagine how funny it would be if, in a couple of thousand years, we were to listen in on the debates of archaeologists and anthropologists about the origin of all these earthenware plates, mugs, and dishes, and why there were so many of them and what possible use they could have been in an uninhabited place like that, It may be uninhabited now, but in a couple of thousand years it's quite possible that the city will have spread as far as here, remarked Marçal. He paused, as if the words he had just uttered required him to go back and think about them, and then, in the perplexed tone of one who, without quite understanding how, has reached a logically impeccable conclusion, he added, Or the Center. Now, knowing, as we do, that in the lives of this particular father-in-law and son-in-law the vexed question of the Center has been anything but easy, it seems odd that the security guard Marçal Gacho's unexpected allusion to the Center should have had no further consequences, that the dangerous remark, Or the Center, should not have immediately sparked off another argument that would repeat all the old misunderstandings and the usual litany of recriminations, tacit or explicit. The reason that both remained silent, always assuming that it is possible for us, observing from the outside, to uncover what, in all probability, was not even clear to them, was the fact that those words, spoken by Marçal, especially given the context in which they were pronounced, constituted a genuine novelty. Some will say that this is not the case, that, on the contrary, by admitting the possibility that the Center could, at some point in the future, as part of the process of unstoppable territorial expansion, do away with the fields that the van is now driving past, the security guard Marçal Gacho is himself underlining and secretly applauding the expansionist potential, in both space and time, of the company that pays him his modest salary. That interpretation would be perfectly valid and would settle the matter once and for all if it were not for that almost imperceptible pause, if that moment of apparent suspension of thought did not correspond, if you will permit such an audacious suggestion, with the appearance of someone quite simply capable of thinking differently Were that the case, it is understandable that marçal Gacho proved unable to advance along the road that opened up before him, since that road was destined for someone else. As for the potter, he has lived long enough to know that the best way of killing a rose is to force it open when it is still only the promise of a bud. He therefore stored away his son-in-law's words in his memory and pretended not to comprehend their real meaning. They did not speak again until they reached the village. As he usually did when he brought his son-in-law back from the Center, Cipriano Algor stopped at the door of Manual's disagreeable parents, just time enough for marçal to go in, kiss his mother and his father, if his father was at home, find out how they had been since last he saw them, and leave saying, I'll drop by tomorrow when I've got more time. In general, five minutes was more than enough for this routine of filial sentiment to be accomplished, other news and more substantial conversation would wait until the following day, sometimes over lunch, sometimes not, but almost always without Marta's presence. Today, though, five minutes was not enough, nor ten, and almost twenty minutes had passed before marçal reappeared. He got quickly into the van and slammed the door. His face was very serious, almost somber, with an adult hardness of expression for which his young features were not prepared. You took a long time today, is anyone ill, is there some problem with the family, asked his father-in-law kindly, No, it's nothing, I'm sorry to have kept you waiting so long, You're annoyed about something, Like I said, it's nothing, don't worry. They are almost home, the van turns left in order to begin the climb up to the pottery, and as he changes gear, it occurs to Cipriano Algor that he drove past Isaura Estudiosa's house without giving her a thought, and it is then that a dog comes running down the hill, barking, marçal's second surprise of the day, or the third, if the second was the visit to his parents. Where did that dog come from, he asked, He turned up a few days ago and we let him stay, he's a nice dog, we've called him Found, although, if you think about it, we were the ones who were found, not him. When the van reached the top of the drive and stopped, a few things happened all at once, or at minimal intervals of time, Marta came to the kitchen door, the potter and the security guard got out of the van, Found growled, Marta ran toward marçal, marçal ran toward Marta, the dog gave a deeper growl, husband embraced wife, wife embraced husband, then they kissed, the dog stopped growling and attacked marçal's boot, marçal shook his leg, the dog would not let go, Marta shouted, Found, her father shouted too, the dog released the boot and tried to grab marçal's ankle instead, marçal aimed a fairly gentle kick at him, Marta said, Don't hurt him, marçal protested, He bit me, That's because he doesn't know you, Not even the dogs know me here, these terrible words left marçal's mouth as if he had sobbed them out rather than merely spoken them, each word filled with unbearable pain and sorrow, Marta threw her arms around her husband's neck, Don't ever say that again, and of course he didn't, there are some things that are only ever said once and never again, Marta will hear those words in her head until the last day of her life, and as for Cipriano Algor, if we wanted to know what he was doing at this moment, the easiest response would be, Nothing, were it not for the revealing fact that when he heard what marçal said, he immediately looked away, so he did do something. The dog had backed away toward the kennel, but halfway there, he stopped, turned, and stood there looking. Now and then a growl would emerge from his throat. Marta said, He doesn't know about people embracing, he must have thought you were attacking me, but Cipriano Algor, in order to clear the air, offered a more trivial suggestion, Perhaps he's just got it in for uniforms, it wouldn't be the first time. marçal did not respond, he was caught between two feelings, regret for having spoken words that would stand for all time as a public
confession of a deep-seated sorrow kept hidden until then, and an instinctive intuition that the fact of having uttered those words might mean that he was about to leave one road and follow another, even though it was still far too soon to know where it might lead him. He kissed Marta on the head and said, I'll go and change my clothes. Evening was coming on fast, in less than half an hour it would be dark. Cipriano Algor said to his daughter, I talked to the man in the buying department, Of course, what with all the fuss about the dog, I almost forgot to ask how the interview went, He said that he might be able to give me an answer tomorrow, That's quick, It's hard to believe, isn't it, and even harder to believe that the answer could well be yes, but that's what he seemed to be saying, Let's hope you're right, Alas, the only rose without thorns I know is you, What do you mean, what's all this about roses and thorns, I mean that every good piece of news is generally followed by some bad, And what's today's bad news, I've got two weeks to remove any crockery of ours that they still have in the warehouse, Well, I'll come and help you, No way, if the Center gives us the order, we'll need every spare moment we have to make the final models, create the molds, work on the modeling, do the painting, load and unload the kiln, besides, I'd like to deliver the first part of the order before we remove all our stuff from the warehouse, just in case the man changes his mind, And what are we going to do with those surplus pots, Don't worry, I've sorted that out with Manual, I'll leave them in the countryside somewhere, in a cave, and if anyone wants them they can have them, With so much moving about, most of them will get broken anyway, Probably. The dog came over and touched Marta's hand with its nose, as if asking her to explain the new composition of the family unit, as people used to call it. Marta scolded him, Just you behave yourself from now on, and I'll tell you one thing, if it comes to a choice between my husband and you, I'll always choose my husband. The last bit of shade cast by the mulberry tree was gradually shrinking to nothing as it began to form part of the darker shade of approaching night. Cipriano Algor murmured, We'll have to be careful with marçal, what he said just now came as a real body blow, It was a body blow and it really hurt. The light above the kitchen door came on. marçal appeared in the doorway, he had changed into the ordinary clothes he wore around the house. The dog Found looked at him closely, and, head up, advanced a few steps toward him, then stopped expectantly. marçal went over to him, Are we friends now, he asked. The dog's cold nose lightly brushed the scar on his left hand, We're friends. The potter said, You see, I was right, our dog Found doesn't like uniforms, Everything in life is a uniform, said marçal, the only time our bodies are truly in civilian dress is when we're naked, but there was no bitterness in his voice now.