With a mixture of pity and scorn, Mario thought: He’s crazy.
‘And tell me,’ Olalde enquired, ‘why have they sent you here?’
‘I requested it.’
‘I see, I see,’ nodded Olalde, twisting his mouth into a grimace that might have been a smile. He clicked his tongue against his palate. ‘You feel hard done by. I don’t blame you: it’s normal not to trust anyone any more. I confess I don’t trust anyone either. And nevertheless I’ll tell you something: this country is full of fantastic people. Yes, sir: enterprising, healthy people, bursting with optimism, a little dull, perhaps boring, I’ll grant you that. But let me tell you something else, the great advantage of this country, something that makes me feel a bit at home, because in Spain the same thing goes on, you don’t have to listen to anyone here, the only thing you have to do is talk. People talk and talk and talk, but no one listens. You’ll realize that for someone like me that’s a delight.’ He paused pensively and added, ‘Otherwise, I understand, young man, Europeans never get entirely acclimatised: the old civilisation, the experience of centuries and all that. Have you read Henry James?’
‘I don’t have time to read philosophy.’
‘Henry James wrote novels; the philosopher was his brother.’
‘I don’t have time to read novels either.’
‘You don’t have to read them all, man. One’s enough: in reality all James’s novels say the same thing.’
Mario was glad when Joyce walked in just then with Sue, a typist who worked in the main office. Olalde retreated to his desk and turned his attention back to the papers on it.
In half an hour they’d completed the transfer of Mario’s things from one office to the other. Olalde, enclosed in a gruff silence, didn’t move from his chair in all of this time. Mario thanked Joyce and Sue, then went over to Ginger’s office, which was on the other side of the hall. He knocked on the door: no one answered. He returned to his office and called a taxi. When he passed Berkowickz’s office, as he was leaving the department, he noticed the door was shut. He stopped for a moment, stuck his ear to the door, held his breath but heard nothing.
When he got home he phoned Ginger.
‘Brenda? It’s Mario.’
‘Oh. How are you?’
‘Fine. Is Ginger there?’
‘I haven’t seen her all morning. Do you want me to give her a message when she gets home?’
‘No, that’s OK,’ Mario hesitated. ‘Just tell her I called.’
‘I’ll tell her,’ said Brenda. ‘How was your vacation?’
‘Really good,’ Mario lied, to avoid explanations. ‘And yours?’
Brenda spoke passionately about California.
XI
At five o’clock on the dot a taxi dropped Mario off in front of Scanlan’s house. It was a one-storey, rectangular building, long and low, with an expanse of cream-coloured walls, interrupted only by the pale wooden front door, and a big picture window on the right. In front of the house were clumps of hydrangeas and chrysanthemums and an ample lawn watered by constant sprinklers. Two slate pathways cut across it: one led directly to the front door, the other, parallel to the first, ended at a shed or garage made of dark wood, with a red door, in front of which were parked two cars of European design.
Scanlan’s wife came out to meet him on the path. She was wearing a very tight black dress. Ash-grey highlights lightened her short, straight hair here and there. Her hands had more rings than fingers. Whenever he saw Joan, Mario reflected that years of shared life eventually conferred on couples a similarity that had something depraved about it: Joan moved her hands with the same quick, almost nervous precision with which Scanlan moved his. They also shared that sort of resignation that softens the faces of people who’ve given up the struggle to camouflage the ravages of time and taken refuge in the consolation of a dignified old age.
‘How are you, Mario?’ Joan greeted him, taking his arm. ‘David just told me about your ankle. If he’d told me earlier I would have come and picked you up at home.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Mario. ‘I’m starting to get used to it. To taxis and to the ankle.’
Joan laughed deafeningly and said without irony, ‘The best people get the worst luck.’
They went inside. In the living room there were two tables covered with canapés and drinks. Beyond them was a glass door giving on to a garden with flowerbeds, potted plants and hammocks. Scanlan was standing in the middle of the living room serving punch and talking to a group of graduate students. Mario raised his eyebrows in greeting, and forced an awkward smile. Joan offered him a glass of wine and asked, ‘How was your vacation?’
‘By the second week I didn’t know what to do with myself,’ answered Mario, feeling immediately, almost physically, that he’d been there before and given the very same reply. He thought: Everything repeats itself.
‘The same thing happens to me,’ Joan assured him. ‘That’s why I never like going away from home for more than two weeks in a row. And then only when there’s something definite to do. Luckily, David shares that opinion. This summer, in fact. .’ She stopped for a moment to look out the window in front of them, which gave a view of the entrance: several guests were getting out of a car. Setting her glass on a shelf, she said, ‘Excuse me for a moment,’ and went out to greet the recent arrivals.
Mario went to the library. Wojcik, a Polish semantics professor, tall, bony and impersonal, was talking to a young man with olive-coloured skin and exaggeratedly thick lips. They were sitting in two armchairs, face to face, and each had a glass of wine in his hand. They stood up when they saw Mario come in; he had no choice but to approach them. Wojcik introduced him to the young man, who seemed to have arrived in the department with a grant from the Indian government. His English sounded to Mario like Russian at first. While they were talking the library kept filling up with guests. At some point, Mario excused himself from Wojcik and the Indian. He went to the living room, said hello to a few familiar faces, and looked around for Ginger: he didn’t see her. He felt uncomfortable among so many people. He opened the sliding door that opened on to the garden and went outside to smoke.
Olalde was stretched out in a hammock, at the bottom of the garden, with his gaze lost in a bed of gladioli. From his lips hung a disparaging cigarette. Mario lit a cigarette and went over to him.
‘Excellent bibliography,’ Olalde was muttering, ‘excellent bibliography.’
Sensing Mario’s presence, he stood up. ‘And what do you think of these parties, young man?’ he asked without looking at him. ‘I’ve spent God knows how many years in this country and I have yet to find a better pastime.’ Gesturing and projecting his voice, he began, ‘I’ve just read your latest book, Professor So-and-so. Excellent bibliography, excellent bibliography. I’ll not deny it, Professor Something-or-other, and I’ll tell you something else: Professor What’s-his-name copied it unashamedly in his latest tome, which is otherwise filled with errors. Indeed, Professor Something-or-other, I also read your last article and I must admit I was impressed by the scientific honesty with which you refuted the ridiculous hypothesis of that lamentably slapdash Professor What-have-you, according to which the progenitor of Pitarra was twenty-seven years old at the moment of the writer’s conception, when it is quite obvious, as revealed by the data you contribute with your habitual modesty, that she was twenty-five.’ Olalde took a drag on his cigarette, exhaled the smoke through his nose, smothered a giggle and went on. ‘Mass of mediocrity: they find merit in reading what no one wants to read, they puff up like turkeys when they speak, and think they have the right to express their opinions on everything because they know how to distinguish a thirteenth-century manuscript from a fourteenth-century one. What I don’t understand is why this country insists on isolating them in these paradisical concentration camps called universities, hundreds of miles from anywhere, in the middle of the desert, as they say. I imagine that it used to have a certain rationale: you know, the danger of infecting society with pernicious ideas and all that. But now, tell me, how the hell are they going to infect society now when they haven’t an idea in their heads, not a single one; they’ve got dates and facts and statistics, but not a single idea. And don’t go thinking I consider myself any different, no, sir. I’ve passed the stage of self-indulgence; when you get to my age only idiots and those with a calling for slavery condescend to indulgence.’ Olalde paused, as if an idea had just crossed his mind, then smiled in a way meant to look meaningful. ‘Yes, sir, I’m just like them, except in one detaiclass="underline" while they’re blinded by drunken vanity and completely unaware of the insufficient, petty lives they lead, I realize that we are the real barbarians.’