In a grade-four notebook he learnt his full name: Alfredo Walter di Fiore. He also learnt that his teacher had felt certain that, with dedication and effort, he would be able to overcome his present difficulties and come up a winner. The reading material proved to be even less revealing. The only indication of some sort of passion (perhaps simply a question of chance) was a pair of books on accountancy. Nicolas also found My Mountains, poems by Joaquin V. Gonzalez; The Citadel by Cronin; three or four westerns; one Harlequin novel; Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts; a history book by Bartolome Mitre; Don Quixote; several special issues of Fantasy Magazine; a women’s weekly; three issues of The Reader’s Digest; a botanical handbook for high schools; a third-year accountancy primer; Heidi; Everything you ever wanted to know about Accountancy; Everything you ever wanted to know about the Great Ideas of Mankind; Everything you ever wanted to know about Your Digestion; The Thirsty Nymph; and Little Men.
There were no letters anywhere. He found the photograph of a fat, rather plain girl. For Alfredo, Love, Always. He also found a pad of receipts with several pages torn out. On receipt number 43 was written in pencil — the handwriting resembled his own—‘love,’ ‘dove,’ ‘heart,’ ‘dart,’ and a bit further down, ‘Why don’t you all go fuck yourselves.’
By 7:00 he had managed to put the facts into some sort of order: either this was a dream, or this was really happening. If this was a dream, was it possible that, within the dream itself, he was considering the possibility of its being a dream? Yes, of course, things like that do happen in dreams. But do reasonings like this also happen in dreams? By 7:20 he had accepted that this was really happening. He went out for a walk.
At the corner store he asked the man to let him have a packet of cigarettes on credit. The man agreed with a sly conniving smirk. At the entrance to a bookstore, he stopped himself from smiling at a teenager loaded down with parcels and rolls of wallpaper because he was unaccountably afraid that his smile might seem stupid or obscene. He carried on with a vague feeling of guilt. He heard the parcels and the rolls of paper fall to the ground behind his back. Without thinking he turned around, retraced his steps and picked up the teenager’s belongings. ‘Thanks,’ she said. And something happened: she looked at him.
Nicolas had been looked at as Nicolas.
Only then did he smile at the girl. You might take all away from me… And yet… The quotation crossed his mind. He was a student of higher mathematics, lover of Musil’s books, old fan of Tarzan’s films at the Medrano Theatre, and he was smiling at a girl.
She rearranged the parcels and the rolls of paper, thanked him once again, warmly, and went on her way.
Nicolas realized that the stars had come out. He managed to find a couple in the Centaur constellation. You might take all away from me! Everything — the rose, the lyre!… And yet, one thing will still remain! Something in his heart sang out.
It wasn’t as if he were suddenly happy, though. Those he had loved, the things he had shared, that which until yesterday had been his past: where would he look for them now? He felt utterly alone. But he was himself. And not all the blonde women in the world, not all the gentlemen suffering from gout, not all the red-faced men who lean against doorways would ever be able to dispossess him of this feeling (so like a song, like the happiness of someone singing), this feeling of being himself on a clear evening in July.
He decided that there was only one way out and that he would proceed along that way. He would be Alfredo Walter di Fiore, and he would make Alfredo grow vaster and more powerful than all the blonde women and all the men with gout. He would do for Alfredo Walter di Fiore what he might never have done for Nicolas Broda. Because, ever since his Tarzan days, he had waited for a test, for that heroic or herculean act that only he would be able to undertake. And now he would undertake it.
That very night, as soon as he got home, he took the first step. ‘I need to talk to you,’ he said to Chelita. ‘I think you never actually knew me.’ The look in her eyes changed from scorn to surprise, and Nicolas knew he would succeed in his brave efforts. He spoke like an idiot who in the end was not an idiot but in fact had a tortured and contradictory soul. Crushed by life itself, crushed by a family who had pampered him since childhood, all of them, she also, yes, don’t start crying now, she also had a part in it — he was fed up and had decided to put an end to all this and start again from scratch. He was letting her know that he was going to study maths. Maths? He, study maths? Yes, maths, he had always dreamt of studying maths, and he was sure that he would make a success of it. He had been secretly preparing himself, he had read many books without letting anyone know, and he was firmly convinced of what he was saying. He was also letting her know that very soon, as soon as he found a new job, he was going to go off and live on his own.
At last she admired him. She felt ashamed and sorry, and wanted to apologize. He didn’t need her apologies but allowed her to kiss him and even give him a little hug. He went off to bed as if he’d been to a party.
It wasn’t until the next morning, when he woke up and thought about everything that had happened, that he was able to peel the wool off his eyes. He realised that he had barely taken one first step. Ahead lay a long and difficult path.
A great uneasiness swept over him. Suddenly he felt that he would not have the strength to continue. No, he said to himself, I mustn’t let myself go to pieces. One by one he repeated the decisions he had made. Slowly and through sheer will power he began to recapture the enthusiasm of the previous night. It occurred to him that enthusiasm is an incomprehensible state of mind when one is not feeling enthusiastic. He recalled that Weininger had said something similar about genius.
He heard a noise and looked up. Someone was opening the door to his room.
Nicolas saw a tall, thin woman walk in, her hair grey and dishevelled. The woman approached the window and lifted the blind. She turned towards Nicolas’ bed.
‘Nine o’clock, Federico,’ she said.
Then she walked up to a sort of desk, drew a finger across its surface and peered at it. ‘Again everything in here is covered with dust,’ she said.
Before leaving the room she looked at him once again and then told him to hurry. She reminded him that last night he had promised to get up early and paint the kitchen ceiling.
EVERY PERSON’S LITTLE TREASURE
The inner door barely opened. The face of a grey-haired woman appeared in the crack. Smiling. Ana was unexpectedly reminded of a book illustration. Was it from Alice in Wonderland? A smiling cat that disappeared. Not all at once: little by little it rubbed itself out, first the tail, then the body, and finally the head, until only a giant rictus was left hanging in the air. This was similar, but the other way round. As if the smile had been there before the door opened. Waiting for her.
‘How can I help you, Señorita?’
The woman’s question did not, however, suggest that she had been expecting her visitor. Odd, considering all the publicity there had been, but never mind. Ana put on what she thought of as her bureaucrat’s voice.