The Giraut family house in the Ampurdan is an art nouveau — style mansion, with three floors and forged-steel balconies, built facing a breakwater a mile away from a small fishing village. The house's name as it appears on the town registry is Villa Estefanía. In the Giraut family, though, everyone calls it the Villa. The man known simply as Fonseca is wearing a fishing vest on top of a wool turtleneck sweater and thigh-high rubber boots. On the temples of his bony face, a thick network of veins swell and deflate to the rhythm of his emotional ups and downs. Lucas Giraut is wearing a turtleneck sweater and thigh-high rubber boots, but instead of a fishing vest he has on some sort of tool belt adapted for fishing. Fanny Giraut wears a wool coat and scarf and rubber boots that only come up to her ankles. All three wear wool hats.
“The International Division,” continues Fonseca. “Fifty men and women with thirteen different nationalities. With promising careers and areas of knowledge that cover the entire market.” A slight note of elegy betrays his speech. A note he seems to suddenly be aware of, given that he frowns and takes a sip of his drink, a quiver of embarrassment showing in the veins of his temples. Then he shrugs his shoulders and continues. “You already know Carlos Chicote, the Director of our International Division. And you are already familiar with our restoration project for the Speyer Cathedral. That project, my boy, is the only thing right now that separates us from a position of dominance. From being the top European company in the field, in terms of capital and resources and client portfolio.” He looks at Lucas Giraut's back with a frown. “That is why we've sent Chicote to Germany with an unlimited line of credit and with exact instructions to have dinner with everyone he should be having dinner with.”
“We want Chicote to have dinner more.” Fanny Giraut observes the glass of Finlandia with ice she holds in her hand with a blank expression. Seated in her favorite leather armchair. Even when she isn't showing any particular emotion, her face is a horrible mask, her lips bruised from the silicone injections and the skin tensed beyond mobility by the face-lifts. It's not a face you can bond with emotionally. Her features aren't features in the general sense of the word. “To go to the bathroom and vomit after each meal if he has to. We want him to have dinner three times a day.”
Lucas Giraut is the only one who isn't seated. He's standing in front of one of the large windows that overlook the breakwater. From there he can see the window he often sat in as a boy with binoculars, watching his father during Fanny's parties. His father would stand in front of the same large window where Lucas is now, drinking a glass of Macallan and smoking a cigarette. The smaller window where Lucas positioned himself to lie in wait with his binoculars is in the part of the house known, within the family, as the North Wing or the Boy's Wing.
“But big victories require sacrifices,” says Fonseca with his brow slightly furrowed. The effort of gauging his words makes the network of veins on his temples reconfigure themselves intricately, generating several localized swelling points. “Not necessarily big sacrifices. Sometimes small sacrifices are enough. Small details that can produce spectacular benefits. If we want to be first in the area of contracts, we have to divert capital. Maybe eliminate a department.” He shakes his glass again, provoking a tinkling of ice cubes. “We need to get behind Chicote. Show him that, from here, we've got his back covered. Set up larger offices in Mainz and put in one of those fish tanks that take up a whole wall in his office. Germans like to see stuff like that.”
“We are working closely with Chicote.” Estefanía Giraut lifts her eyebrows to the middle of her horribly taut forehead in a self-indulgent gesture that is one of the most fearsome in her range of facial quasi-expressions. “We've frozen his salary indefinitely. We've leaked the rumor that we are very unhappy with his performance. We've given out shares in luxury yachts to all the top executives in the company except him. We've spread the rumor that we don't think he's having dinner as much as he could be having dinner. That's my way of reaching out to him.” The way she takes a sip of her Finlandia with ice in no way resembles a human taking a sip. Introducing her bruised lips on the edge of the glass and carrying out some sort of rapacious suction with her appallingly taut cheeks. Just like some forest mammals suck out nests of ants. “I call it negative motivation. Much better than positive motivation, in my opinion. It's never failed me yet.”
Lucas Giraut gives no sign of taking part in the conversation. The Fishing Trophy Room of the house in the Ampurdan was the place Lucas Giraut, as a child, most hated and feared in the entire world. With its six-and-a-half-foot-long sea monsters on the walls. With its sinister photographs of people holding up sea creatures. With its barely noticeable smell of unwashed tackle boxes and something else that Lucas could never quite put his finger on. Something vaguely chemical that could only be smelled in that room. In the beginning, the Fishing Trophy Room's primary function seemed to be to foster the public derision of Lorenzo Giraut. It was there that Fanny Giraut held all her cocktail parties and social events for the Ampurdan circuit. Spreading her guests out over the various leather couches and providing the evening's entertainment with anecdotes of her husband's clumsiness in the art of fishing and the ridiculous situations said clumsiness placed him in. Lorenzo Giraut always attended these social events, and would remain standing by the large window with his glass of Macallan and his cigarette, and drink in silence. While his son spied on him from his window in the North Wing. While the guests laughed behind him. From his window's parapet, Lucas could see his father's figure standing there, showing no sign of taking part in the conversation. He was never sure if his father knew that he was spying on him.
“The International Division is our future,” says Fonseca. “In terms of competitiveness. And the Speyer Cathedral is our flagship. Once we have the contract, dozens more will follow. Within a year, our profits will have multiplied thirty times over. Of course, we need your signature for the restructuring.” A new reconfiguration and anxious swelling of the network of veins on his temples is produced. Creating some sort of bulging membranes that beat briefly on both sides of his forehead. “Given that technically you are still the principal shareholder and president of the company. And technically you are above us. Of course, we would continue to rely on you. With conditions that will be very advantageous to you. You'd only have to go to a few meetings a year. We trust that you'll sign those papers, son.”
“Of course he'll sign.” Fanny Giraut smiles. The silicone and the tautness of her surgically smoothed skin make Fanny Giraut's smiles more like a retraction of the lips, revealing her deathly pale gums. She stares at Fonseca. “The Speyer Cathedral is ours. It's always been ours. See to it that everyone talks about it all the time. Invent meetings. Threaten people. Pay off some German journalists. Punish everyone that isn't talking about it. See to it that people talk about the cathedral as our flagship. Make sure that they use that exact phrasing. Threaten to fire Chicote tomorrow if he doesn't have dinner more. We want him to have dinner more. Until he's had dinner with so many Germans that he has nightmares of beer and sausages and sauerkraut.”
“Your birthday cake is ready,” says Lucas Giraut to his mother suddenly. Without turning around. Without taking his eyes off the breakwater on the other side of the large window. “With all the ingredients you asked for. Six stories high. With the message you asked for. With no mention of your age, of course. The baker assured me that it's the largest cake he's ever made. I had him put it in writing, just as you asked.”