Authors: Leopoldo Gout
Ghost Radio (16 page)
“This story is about me,”
said the caller, “but even more it's about a man who was my friend for many years, Norbert Gutterman:
This happened a long time ago when I worked in downtown New York. This would be around ten years ago now
,
and at the time I was still trying to make it in middle management at Emigrant Savings Bank. We usually worked from eight to five
,
but I would stay longer on most days
,
trying to impress my bosses
,
you know. I rode a packed train at seven in the morning
,
and came home on a nearly empty one
,
at eight or nine in the evening.
I rarely had free time
,
and when I did I usually spent it at bars or at home watching soccer games on Telemundo. One Sunday morning
,
on a whim
,
I decided to head into Central Park
,
I'm not sure why. Fresh air
,
maybe. I was carrying the newspaper under my arm
;
I figured I might find a nice spot in the sun and read the financial section. As I made my way down one of the paths
,
I noticed a man sitting by himself at one of those outdoor chess tables
,
kind of isolated in a small plaza under a couple of oak trees. He was thin
,
older
,
wearing a brown suit that was threadbare but clean
,
and he held an old-fashioned briefcase on his lap. Even though he was outdoors
,
he conjured up images of thick leather-bound books and wood paneling. You might even say that with the crisp creases in his trousers and the defined shadows and lines in his face
,
he resembled a well-preserved antique book himself.
He looked up as I passed
,
and waved me over
,
which surprised
me. I hadn't found people to be that friendly in the city
,
and except for the women professionals I occasionally dated
,
I tended to avoid contact outside of work. I wondered if maybe he was looking to hustle me. Something about him
,
his posture or his hair that curled a little at the neck or his shoes
,
reminded me of premature unemployment
,
living alone, and for a reason I can't explain, of pickles and onions floating in a jar.
I needn't have worried. He looked down at the chessboard in front of him
,
the pieces all laid out and ready
,
and asked
,
“Care for a game?”
I almost shook my head and walked away
,
but something made me stay. Pity or curiosity maybe.
So we played chess. He tested my game, let me joust a couple of moves
,
and then beat me with a simple queen pin. He told me his name was Norbert. He was a Polish immigrant
,
a translator by trade
,
specializing in Eastern European poetry and history
;
I asked him if he'd done anything I might have read.
“From the look of you
,
I doubt it,” he said.
It was embarrassing
,
but true. I hadn't read a good book since college
,
and as for poetry
,
well, I didn't think nursery rhymes counted.
It was actually fun
,
but at last I excused myself. One of those chance encounters
,
I figured
,
a story that would be remembered for a few weeks or months and then forgotten. As I walked away
,
Norbert called after me
:
“Next week
,
then?” I laughed and waved patronizingly.
The following weekend
,
I was busy
,
on a conference call most of the day. Afterward
,
I was exhausted
,
drank a six-pack watching football
,
and went to bed. But I couldn't stop thinking about that chess game
,
half in
,
half out of the shade
,
my opponent considering his moves carefully
,
the way I imagined he picked words out of the back of his mind before he laid them down on the page. The next week
,
I went back. Norbert was there
,
reading
;
he didn't mention
our missed appointment
,
and after that, I went to the park every Sunday. Sometimes I would even beg out of weekend meetings or put off projects until Monday. That weekly game was like a tropical island in a sea of work. It was my one genuine human contact
,
a time when I could sit in the quiet of the park
,
reveling in the shouts of children
,
the sprinkle of fountains in the distance
,
and just live and breathe and think. It was a friendship with no strings attached.
It seemed like Norbert didn't do much work anymore
,
but every week
,
he'd be sitting there
,
with a book in a different language
,
or maybe a sandwich
,
always on rye bread with raw onions. We'd talk about poetry and history
;
he'd tell me stories of his childhood in Poland. And we'd admire the women that jogged or walked past us. Norbert
,
you see
,
was a great lover of women. He had so many different anecdotes that I often accused him of fabrication
;
inside
,
though
,
I didn't doubt him.
After we got to know each other better
,
I occasionally invited him to join me outside of the park
,
for dinner
,
for coffee
,
for a local poetry reading or play. He always said he was busy
;
although it was obvious he was being evasive
,
I figured that maybe there was a part of his life that he wanted to keep private
,
whether it was a dingy apartment
,
a wifeâmaybe he lived in a rest home. Or maybe
,
he didn't even have a home. I didn't have his phone number
,
or address. We only met in the park at that table. Now and then we took a turn around the pond to watch the fish rise to catch flies as dusk moved in.
Eventually
,
I quit my job. I think my meetings with Norbert had a lot to do with it
;
I started to dread going to the office
;
I lived for those days in the park. I'd applied to graduate school, and a place in Baltimore accepted me into a writing program. The weekend before I was to move
,
I sat down at the chess table and told Norbert that this would be the last time I'd see him. He took the news quietly. We played chess in silence and sat for some
time
,
until I had to go. I looked back at him as I walked away
;
he was sitting with his hands in his lap
,
looking after me
,
wistful
,
as firmly planted as the oak that hung over him like an awning.
It was in my second year of school that I found myself searching the aisles of a used bookstore
;
I needed an obscure text for an independent-study project
,
and I hadn't been able to find it in the school library. As I was browsing
,
I came across a small
,
yellowed book
,
the kind that they used to print in the seventies. The cover read
, The Minsk Publishers in 1952,
in black on white. This volume didn't fit in with the cloth-and leather-bound hard covers next to it
,
and I flipped through the first few pages. The author was Ignacy Chodzko
,
an unfamiliar name
,
but underneath were words that caught my eye
:
“translated from the Polish by Norbert Gutterman.” I was thrilled. It felt like I had been looking through a keyhole for years and the door had suddenly been thrown wide in front of me.
I leafed through the book that night. It was on odd history of Poland
,
but I could hear Norbert's voice in its words
,
the careful pacing that imbued everything he did. It felt like a window into his mind
,
a validation that he had a rich
,
vibrant history of which I was only the latest chapter.
In the back
,
I noted with some excitement
,
was a page titled “About the Translator.” A moment later
,
the book fell from my fingers and landed
,
pages spread
,
facedown on the floor. I picked it up again
,
my hand shaking a little
,
and reread the first few sentences
:
Norbert Gutterman (1901â1984) was one of the most prominent translators of the twentieth century. Born in Poland, he lived in countries all around the world, making his home in New York for many years. He moved to Cuernavaca, Mexico, in the 1980s, where, in June 1984, he passed away of natural causes.
That was ten years ago. Since then
,
my experiences with Norbert are never far from my mind. At worst
,
I thought I'd gone crazy. In my better times
,
I think fondly about the man I'd met and wonder who he really was.
Well
,
I moved back to New York two years ago. What can I say? I just couldn't stay away. My first weekend back in town
,
I hurried out to the park. I had to know whether my Sundays in the city had been a dream.
I return to our table often and just read books and wait. I have started many games waiting for him. Sometimes I catch the faint odor of pickles and onions and think he has come to play chess.
At eight in the morning
(which, by Joaquin's schedule, was midnight), the telephone rang.
“Yes?” Joaquin roared, with what little energy he could muster.
“Hi, I want to share a story with you,” the voice said, imitating the style of
Ghost Radio
.
“What?”
“A story. I've got a story for you.”
“Wrong number,” he said. He moved to hang up, but his arm stopped when he realized he recognized the voice.
“No, Joaquin. I've got the right number. I want to talk to you and I prefer to do it in the intimacy of your home, but we can continue to follow the program's format. Would that make it be more comfortable for you?”
“Who is this?”
“Someone who wants to share a story with you.”
“Look, I don't know how you got this number, but this isn't the right time or the right person. Have a nice day!” Joaquin slammed down the telephone. He felt sure that hanging up that way would solve things.
He couldn't get back to sleep. Alondra raised her head.
“Don't tell me that's what I think it was. Someone found our number and wants to give us a little home delivery?”
“It looks that way. Let's hope he doesn't keep calling back.”
“Let's hope,” she said, her head dropping back down onto the pillow.
The room was almost pitch black thanks to the heavy curtains they had installed so they could sleep late. Joaquin stumbled away from the
bed, smacking his knee on the way. His hands felt puffy; his face like a giant scab ready to fall off, and an acrid, acid taste filled his mouth.
He entered the bathroom, flipped on the light, and looked at his face in the mirror. It didn't look like a giant scab; but two-day beard, baggy eyes, death-white lips, and tightened skin made him look about fifteen years older. Not much of an improvement.
“At least fifteenâmaybe more,” he said out loud.
Quietly, he left the bathroom and stumbled into the kitchen. He fired up his latest toy, the Saeco Primea Touch Plus, a gift from the station. While the espresso dripped into the cup, the telephone rang again.
This time, Joaquin checked the caller ID:
J. Cortez
, followed by a number that meant nothing to him.
He quietly thanked technology for making it possible to catch red-handed all the imbeciles who harassed people from behind the anonymity of their receivers. Imbeciles too stupid to know that any phone could block caller ID.
“I believe in the microchip,” he said to himself as he picked up the receiver, “and you are now officially
fucked
. Yes?”
“Joaquin, it seems we were cut off.”
“Yes, we were. Because I hung up the telephone. Look, Mister”âhe glanced at the display againâ“J. Cortez, I don't know you, I don't feel like talking to you, especially at this time of day.”
“I just want to tell you a story.”
“Can't you understand that this is neither the time nor place? Be so kind as to never call here again.”
“A friend of mine had a terrible accident when he was a teenager. His life was left in tatters. It seemed like the end, like they'd seal him up in a wooden casket and bury him next to the rest of the victims. Instead, he recovered and life went on. Years later, he had another close call and was left pulverized, burned to ashes. But just when everyone again thought they'd be sweeping him into a little box and putting him away with all the other relics, he got back on his feet and kept going. They thought this guy was either very lucky, or had a guardian angel, but actually he
had a secret. He was a vampire who sapped the life energy from others, a parasite who could survive anything by stealing the inner flame of those around him.”
Joaquin listened, disconcerted, furious, and afraid, all at the same time. Was this nonsense? A biting accusation? Or the truth about his life?
“All right, you've told your story. Now what do you want?”
“Not my story. Yours.”
“I don't like people invading my privacy.”
Thousands of his listeners knew that Joaquin had survived the automobile accident in which his parents had died, and those who dug a bit could easily find out about the events surrounding Gabriel's death.
“What do you want?” Joaquin asked again.
Then he heard a click as the caller hung up.
Joaquin tossed the cordless handset onto the counter.
“Fuck you very much,” he said under his breath.
The perfect espresso he had prepared for himself was cold. He hated cold coffee. He watched its thick layer of
crema
ânot too light, not too darkâdissolve. The coffee was dying.
He took a sip of it anyway, as he analyzed what had just occurred. But his thoughts were muddled, too many strange things had been happening to him. None made sense.
He'd never received a call like this one, and no matter how enraging it was, all he felt was a big hole in his chest.
Alondra came out of the bedroom. She held on to the doorframe as if the building were shaking.
“Was that the same idiot?” she said, shading her eyes, which carried traces of mascara.
Joaquin nodded.
She walked into the kitchen, pulling down her T-shirt until it covered her belly button.
“Your coffee.”
“What?” Joaquin shook his head.
“Your coffee, it's cold.”
“Yep.”
He raised the cup and drank it in one swallow.
The whole time they'd lived together, Alondra had never seen Joaquin drink a cold espresso. This time, he didn't even blink.
Then he took a pen and wrote down the number next to
J. Cortez
on the caller ID.
“What are you going to do?”
“Look for the guy.”
Alondra shook her head.
“Alondra, I have to do this.”
Alondra said nothing. She sat down beside him and waited. He stared at the piece of paper as if it were a code he could crack, or one of those “Where's Waldo?” pages.
“Are you going to make me a coffee, or will I be forced to go to Starbucks?” she said.
Joaquin leaped to his feet and prepared her an espresso with impeccable
crema,
worthy of a commercial with a living room bathed in morning light. His mind was elsewhere, not distracted or absentminded from drowsiness. Truly elsewhere.
Alondra's warm and sensual body and the intimacy of their home looked unreal to Joaquin, as unreal as the set for that imaginary coffee commercial. He felt cut off from this modest paradise, expelled by J. Cortez. Somehow that man's words had penetrated his hard shell. The shell that protected him during his communion with the dead. The call crushed all this with a single devastating blow.
When she'd finished her coffee, Alondra stood up.
“I'm going to take a shower. Want to join me? It'd do you good; it might even wash away those bags under your eyes.”
Joaquin hesitated, but he really couldn't waste any more time. He needed to go.
“No, you go ahead. I've got something to do.”
He dialed the number. Let the hunt begin.
The telephone rang around nine times before a harsh voice with a strong Spanish accent answered.
“Hullo.”
“Who's speaking?”
“Pastor Cuahtémoc Illuicamina, at your service.”
“Pastor whatsit, what did you say your name was?”
The voice on the telephone patiently repeated itself.
“I believe you called me a moment ago,” Joaquin said, although he knew it wasn't the same voice.
“And you areâ¦?”
“Answer me this: Didn't you just call me to tell me a story?”
“I haven't a clue what you're talking about.”
“I've got your number on my caller ID. âJ. Cortez'; that's you, right?”
“I already told you, I'm Pastor Cuahtémoc Illuicamina, of the Temple of Christian and Toltec Redemption.”
“Of what redemption?”
The pastor repeated himself again.
“Well, you won't find redemption by making crank calls.”
“I didn't call you. I don't even know who you are.”
“Then someone used your phone to call me. Who was it?”
“No one's used this telephone.”
Joaquin didn't want to argue. He had proof the call came from this number. He'd go there and show J. Cortez the proof. With a little luck, showing up in person would end the harassment. He'd confront the pastor and warn him not to mess with him anymore.
Armed with both the name and telephone number, he easily found the address for the Temple of Christian and Toltec Redemption with a couple of quick Google searches. It was just an apartment, located in one of the slums at the edge of town.
He dressed quickly, not waiting for Alondra to finish her shower, and in five minutes he was in his car, driving toward a rendezvous with Pastor Illuicamina.
The building was in an enormous block of housing projects. Joaquin went up to the seventh floor in an elevator covered with graffiti and looked down a dark hallway for number 713. The apartment's front door was ajar, and he heard voices coming from inside. As he approached, a small boy, maybe eight or nine, peeked out. Behind him, Joaquin saw two overweight women sitting at their kitchen table, listening to the radio. Joaquin smiled at the boy, but as he got closer, the boy slammed the door. It was strange; Joaquin felt sure he had heard Watt's voice in the apartment, although there was no
Ghost Radio
broadcast at that time of day. He shrugged; he had bigger concerns at the moment.
He knocked firmly on the door to the improvised temple. A short, portly man wrapped in an old bathrobe, who looked about fifty-five, opened the door.
“Can I help you?” he said with the tone of a decadent mariachi.
“I'm the guy who called a while ago.”
“Uh-huh,” the man said skeptically.
“I want to solve the mystery of the calls I received. I say mystery, because according to my caller ID, they came from your telephone, and since you say you didn't make them, I'm going to help you find out who did. It's for the good of both of us.”
“But no one here is going around making obscene phone calls to people.”
“Let's talk,” Joaquin said, brusquely entering the temple-apartment without asking permission. Caught off guard, the man let him pass.
Inside was a small, one-room apartment. Dusty furniture sat in odd places, and covering all available surfaces was a a strange array of objects: porcelain figurines, Kwik Kleen bottles filled with suspect liquids, dollhouses, plastic soldiers, blank paper, unsharpened pencils, myriad flashlights, old religious magazines from past decades, a partially disassembled radio, fruit, crucifixes, dried tortillas. As Joaquin took in the chaos, he thought to himself: What a pathetic and embarrassing place. Who could live here?
However, he quickly realized that the paraphernalia and arrange
ment of the furniture followed a specific pattern. There was logic in the chaos. The bric-a-brac had been organized with maniacal, childlike precision, with the delirious fervor of one who supposes that objects have secret powers if you combine them correctly. And something else about it grabbed his attention. It reminded him of something. Something he could not name.
“My friend, you've arrived at a bad time. As you can see, I was about to have a bath and then give a service.”
“This won't take much of your time. May I sit?”
The call had put Joaquin into an implacable mood; he had never behaved like this with a stranger, much less a man of the clothâeven if in this case that cloth was Toltec-Christian.
“I've no idea who might have called you,” said the pastor.
“Try to think. If I can't figure this out, I'm going to have to go to the police,” Joaquin replied, picking up a disgusting headdress covered with ketchup stains. Ketchup stainsâ¦or blood.
“Might have been the boy, but I don't think so. Doesn't do such things.”
“Boy?”
“One of the members of my congregation. Sometimes lends a hand with administrative matters.”
“There. We already have a clue. What's this boy's name, and where can I find him?”
“Barry. He'll be here soon.”
“How soon? Maybe we should to go get him,” Joaquin said, continuing to pick up and fidget with the items on the table, chairs, and floor.
Even as he kept touching them, he felt certain that he should leave them aloneânot just because his hands were getting dirty, but because by intervening in the order-disorder that presided over them, Joaquin thought he might unleash something he couldn't fully comprehend: something evil. Why would he have such a thought? It seemed crazy.
Joaquin wasn't prone to credulousness or fear of charlatans, but as he spoke to this pastor, he got the distinct impression that very strange things could happen in this place.
“I have no idea where he might be.”
“Well, we're going to have to find him.”
At this point, the preacher's tone of voice changed. He took on a mournful expression and said:
“You've come to kill me. I've seen this in my visions.”
Then his eyes rolled up in his head and he recited what sounded like a prayer.
“I didn't come here to kill anyone; I just want to be left alone.”
The man raised his head and continued his strange prayer, incantation, or whatever it was.
“Sholotl
,
xelatl
,
dominum budadl
â¦
”
“Enough already. I haven't come here to hurt anyone.”
The man ignored Joaquin, raising his voice and repeating a mantra of strange words that sounded vaguely familiar. Joaquin went over to him. When he was only a step away, the preacher sprang up onto his toes and punched him in the face.
Joaquin moved, but not quickly enough. The man's fist glanced off his cheekbone with enough force to knock him off balance. He fell back, slamming hard into a drawer filled with broken toys, and pain shot through his spine.