Father and Son (6 page)

It's odd, in any case, that in my previous books I was able to explore in depth thoughts that he inspired, and that now, face-to-face with him, I miss fiction.

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From 1984 on, our lives hardly change. My father has become a problem for me. One among others. My mother weighs on me, for example. I feel the weight of her loneliness and my loneliness with her. But even here he's somehow implicated. It's his absence that heightens the loneliness.

After a very difficult year in which we go into debt and survive thanks to the help of my grandfather, between 1984 and 1990 my mother embarks on a new period of prosperity. Now she works in publicity, and again we spend without a thought for the future.

Between 1984 and 1990, I finish school and start college.

Between 1984 and 1990, I keep a list of the women I've slept with.

Between 1984 and 1990, I discover a love of late nights and I go out to bars where I meet other noctambulists like me.

Between 1984 and 1990, I not only read and write: by now I'm dreaming about becoming a writer. My father observes from a distance. He doesn't show much interest, and when he does, I can't tell from his tone, part incredulous and part skeptical, whether he approves or whether—as it occasionally seems—he's trying to discourage me. Nevertheless, when in '88 I publish my first article, he carries the clipping around in his bag for days to show to his friends.

Between 1984 and 1990, he continues to fix up places with the friend he met in Brazil. In personal matters, after endless bargaining, each of them has ceded enough to put their relationship on a solid footing.

Between 1984 and 1990, he gets past the worst of his crisis and returns tenaciously to painting after four years in which a new generation of artists has established itself. He shows in less prestigious galleries; he tries to find a niche for himself. He doesn't always manage to attract the notice of the influence peddlers, the speculators in early fame, but he regains the respect of his fellow painters. He shows in 1984, in 1986, and again in 1987. These are the years that a critic of his work will describe as his time in the desert. It's a titanic struggle, in which he's obliged not only to see himself in the mirror of others with less talent but also to wrestle with many people's lack of faith.

Between 1984 and 1990, the life he leads with the friend he met in Brazil settles into a pattern. They keep a place in Madrid, one that changes for the better as their joint business ventures prosper. They spend two months of the summer—sometimes three—at the beach and almost every winter weekend in the country. It's a bourgeois existence that pleases them both, but my father must escape it to immerse himself in painting. It's hard for him to adapt to such a conventional schedule. Not just where vacations are concerned, but also in daily life.

Between 1984 and 1990, I go out often with my mother. Her friends are writers, filmmakers, journalists; among them there are plenty of bon vivants and social butterflies. I accompany her to parties and book launches; we host dinners at home.

Between 1984 and 1990, I become aware of the fragile ground on which my mother and I tread, the little we're left with if she takes a false step, but since she isn't faltering now, I enjoy our run of good luck. I reign supreme. Everything around me is lax. I take what I want of what I'm offered. The only person I must yield to is my father, and only where he's concerned do I feel that I'm deprived of anything.

Between 1984 and 1990, I become increasingly convinced that my needs are of secondary importance to my father, as am I myself.

Between 1984 and 1990, there are three men in addition to my father whom I see often enough to count as influences, after whom I model myself. My father isn't the one in the ascendant, but he has the power to unman me with his aloofness, to drive me mad with his deficiencies.

And everything happens very quickly. I'm trying to reproduce that quickness now, in memory, aware that no single occurrence that I've described will explain who I am. Everything is insufficient or, at best, misleading.

In 1984, on the answering machine at the house my father shares with the friend he met in Brazil, I record the sound of a toilet flushing. I schedule an automated wake-up call for the middle of the night. In 1984 we fabricate a cast for my mother before the visit of a suitor whom she—as an excuse for not taking a trip with him—has told that she's broken her leg. In 1984 I ask one of my mother's friends to review a show of my father's.

In 1985 I spend two weeks with my father and the friend he met in Brazil, our only vacation together. This is the summer that people start to talk about AIDS, and when we get back, I come down with a summer flu that I become convinced is a symptom of the disease. My father visits me one afternoon and puts an end to my delusions by taking me for some tests. That same summer, on the beach, I win his startled respect when I hook up with the one girl who catches his eye. What I don't tell him is that both times we watched the sun come up together, all we did was make out.

In 1985 my cat has to be put to sleep. It's my father who takes care of it.

In 1985 we put my mother's place up for sale in order to move downtown. Afraid that we'll squander the money, my father won't help us in the search for a new apartment until the operation is irreversible, and feeling overwhelmed, I demand his help.

In 1986 there's the NATO referendum, and my mother, my father, and I go to vote at the polling place in our old neighborhood, where my father is still registered. He does it grudgingly, as if it pains him to accompany my mother and me.

In 1986 my grandfather on my father's side dies without knowing that my parents have been separated for ten years or being aware of the existence of the friend my father met in Brazil.

In 1986, the day before my father leaves for Warsaw for an artists' conference in Eastern Europe, he informs us that in his absence my mother will receive a petition for divorce. We let him know that we're unhappy that he's chosen to do it this way rather than opting for a consensual divorce, and after my mother informs him that given the circumstances, she won't make it easy for him, I walk him to the Metro in silence. My mother's resolve lasts scarcely a few weeks. After discussing it with me, she calls a lawyer and gives him the go-ahead to take my father for all she can get, but when we have my father on the ropes, we relent. Before this, I write him a letter that the friend he met in Brazil intercepts and that earns me her deepest hostility, in which, with a temerity that ashames me now, I ask him not to marry her.

In 1987, when I happen to be in my father's neighborhood with a friend who's an aspiring painter, I stop by his place to ask him to show us his paintings. No one answers the buzzer, but just as I'm about to give up, he comes walking down the street with the friend he met in Brazil. They're dressed up; he's nervous and she's beaming. I immediately guess that they've gotten married, which he confirms days later.

In 1987 I take my college entrance exam, and in the fall I begin my degree in philosophy. My father doesn't hide his surprise when I tell him and asks how I plan to make a living.

In 1987 I have a girlfriend and she's a writer. She's older than I am and pretty wild, which means that neither my mother nor my father likes her, and although my mother pretends otherwise, my father doesn't bother. During Easter, when the friend he met in Brazil is out of town, he invites my girlfriend and me to spend a few days with him in his country house. He makes fun of everything she says, sets traps for her, is condescending to me, and tells unflattering stories about when I was little. At some point I get the sense that he's competing with me.

In 1987 my father and the friend he met in Brazil buy a place together and for the first time both of their names are on the title. My father explains that neither I nor her children will be given the keys, and he promises that everyone will be treated equally. In the same conversation he tells me that they're going to draw up a document in which both of them will agree which household items, paintings, and furniture belong to each. When he gives it to me weeks later, I discover that what was hers is still hers and the only things that will now be shared are his.

In 1988 I spend two months in London, staying with an old girlfriend of his. I'm there to learn English, but all I do is sit at a library, where I read the
Iliad
and the
Odyssey
in Spanish and try in vain to write.

In 1988 my dog has to be put to sleep. Again it's my father who takes care of it, though this time my mother and I are with him.

In 1988 my writer girlfriend cheats on me with a friend of my mother's whom we put up when he comes to Madrid, and months later she leaves me to go to America with an ex-boyfriend. I find out that my father, who got the news from me, has told the whole story to some friends, and when I get upset, he defends himself by attacking her so harshly that I'm deeply offended and abandon him in the middle of the street.

In 1989 he presents me with a painting from a recent exhibition, giving it to me behind the back of the friend he met in Brazil.

In 1989 I ask him to teach me to drive. He gives me one lesson, and days later, explaining why he can't give me more, he says that the friend he met in Brazil has told him that it could be bad for the car.

In 1989, during the summer, while my father and the friend he met in Brazil are away, her son moves into their place. When my father finds this out from me, he sends me the keys and asks me to make an appearance there. Days later, when he gets back, he tells me that he's changed the lock and I don't need to return the keys. He assures me that there will be no more unequal treatment.

In 1990 my mother leaves the publicity agency where she's worked since 1984 and opens a graphic design studio.

In 1990 the friend my father met in Brazil goes away on a trip and I see my father a number of times. One afternoon I introduce him to a friend I've fooled around with a time or two and whom I've tried to steer in his direction. Shortly afterward my friend tells me that they're having a clandestine affair, and a few days later, in need of an alibi, it's my father who brings me up to date. The friend he met in Brazil suspects, and he's given me as the unlikely excuse for his constant absences. At one point he asks me to call her and confirm that he's with me; at another point it's she who calls in tears to try to get information out of me. Meanwhile, when these difficulties cause the relationship to languish, one night I run into my father's lover and we end up in bed. I can't relax, I'm beset by a kind of vague remorse, but I let her fellate me and in the morning I penetrate her briefly.

In 1990 I travel to Russia by train. When I return by plane, my mother and my father are waiting for me at the airport. My mother is eager to see me, and my father can't wait to hear what I have to tell. That same evening, back at home, I take a phone call in front of both of them from a Russian woman, and my father makes fun of me when he hears me call her “love.”

From 1984 to 1990 and for years to come, the feelings are all the same; nothing changes.

I live with my mother. I see her morning, noon, and night. She's the one who pays for my education, who clothes me, feeds me. She's the one who notices when I lack something, who comes up with solutions and tries to grant my wishes. She's the one who teaches me how to behave in public, who sets me on the right path, who convinces me otherwise when I announce that I don't want to go to college. Very little that happens to me goes unnoticed by her. She's the one who straightens me out, who rallies me when I need it, and I do the same for her when I can. We face setbacks together, without help. My father isn't around; my father is an intermittent presence. My father creates capsules of time outside of daily life. If I manage to get past his defenses, I can share my worries with him, but without his knowing what my life is really like and without the fortification of material assistance, his advice is out of place, inadequate. I don't even grant him the authority to offer it to me in the first place. Most of the time I don't ask for it. I keep him at arm's length.

Bitterness and resentment plague me constantly. What do I blame him for? For everything. For not seeing me enough, not calling enough, not remembering my birthday, not giving me presents, for vanishing when he knows that my mother and I are in trouble, for spending the summers away and traveling when I don't get to, for failing to keep his promises, for believing that he has more cause for complaint than I do, for thinking that this excuses him, for settling, for presuming that I should accept his capitulation, for seeing me in secret, for giving me things in secret, for giving me money in secret, for thinking that his love is enough, for removing himself from the picture, for delegating everything that concerns me to my mother, for not setting himself up as an alternative to her, for giving me no option, for letting my mother be the sole center of my little life.

Though he does make some effort. Impulsive efforts that he almost always abandons. He's aware of the problem between us and he's jealous of the preference I show for my mother, but he isn't able to put things right. The same old strategies don't work anymore. He tries to have me come and visit him, but I feel strange at his house. He tries to have me spend the occasional weekend with him in the country, but it's the same there. In both places, not only am I conscious that my presence is an inconvenience for the friend he met in Brazil, and not only are restrictions imposed on me that don't apply to her children and that he doesn't protest, but in addition I sense an underlying tension that makes it even more difficult for me to fit in. At home, with my mother, I'm independent, almost an adult. My mother counts on me, relies on me for almost everything, and I assume responsibilities, look out for our mutual interests, and, as a result, enjoy a certain standing. As far as my father is concerned, though, I'm still a child. He hasn't watched me grow up, he casts around for the right tone to take with me, and the friend he met in Brazil is no help. Any difference of opinion or complaint that I voice, no matter how fair, is easier to deflect if it can be chalked up to immaturity. Immaturity and my mother's influence. This is the equation to which I see myself constantly reduced. So I ignore his invitations, which anyway aren't as frequent as they should be.