Private Life (9 page)

They lived in a standard neighborhood, whose houses were designed with no imagination and according to geometric principle in such a way that a vertical line traced from the roof to the storefronts would run through five frying pans with their corresponding omelets, or five married couples making love, or five cooks singing the same tango. What Don Tomàs wanted to bring to life in his office was that very personal and slightly wacky decorative mishmash you would find in the old mansions, in which generations of sedimentation had produced clashing styles and stockpiles of absurd pieces. Some of the pieces of furniture in Don Tomàs’s office came from his grandfather, some from his great-grandfather, some he had bought himself, and others had been inherited from a cousin who went off to the Philippines or an aunt whose taste leaned toward aberrations like seashells and stuffed birds. All of this was crammed into a too-small room that twisted like a contortionist to make space for the little paintings, the holy pictures, the documents signed by the king, or the family portraits. And it still had to struggle to make space for the bust of a pope to breathe or for a view of the mountains of Montserrat made of fingernails, rabbit hair, and beetle shells to peep out – this last the work of a slightly crazy Lloberola uncle. Don Tomàs’s furniture was all made of the most accredited mahoganies and jacarandas, with tiles and incrustations, but it was tubercular and worm-eaten, with a patina of tears and disappointments, bloated by the rhetorical wind of two hundred years of Lloberolas. The effect caused by the jumble in that room in the apartment on Carrer de Mallorca was one of overstuffed incongruity.

In the big old house on Carrer de Sant Pere més Baix, all that planed and polished wood engrafted with metals and nacre, gleaming with exotic varnishes and gums, affecting potbellied protuberances or Gothic spires, had a reason to exist and a reason to take up space because the big old house was just like that furniture, and the walls and the decorations supported each other and gave each other meaning. A meaning that was a bit absurd, as we have already noted, but with its elements of grandeur. In that apartment on Carrer de Mallorca, the only thing left was the absurdity, exaggerated even more by the meager space and the agglomeration of the pieces. To the eyes of an outsider who didn’t know what it was all about, every piece of Don Tomàs’s historic furniture, every memory loudly clinging to every stick of wood, would resemble a wretched gang who had taken refuge from a fire in the first convenient place they had found. You couldn’t tell if they were crying, begging, or brazenly showing off their cracks and worm holes because they knew perfectly well that they were done for.

Presiding over the bric-à-brac of tradition hung a painting yellowed with linseed oil that portrayed Don Tomàs de Lloberola i de Fortuny, the Marquès de Sitjar i de Vallromana, stiff inside the uniform of the Order of the Knights of Saragossa. The painter had captured his physiognomy on his deathbed, and though he had done all he could, the portrait came out with the
Dies Irae
already grazing his lips. Fortunately he had daubed his galloons with silver and his lapels with an impulsive red, and he had lingered over the curls of
the gray forelock and turned the sideburns hiding the dead flab of his cheeks into furling escaroles.

The jowls of the Marquès de Sitjar rested uncomfortably on a high, rigid military collar, so stiff you could slice bread with it. It appears that the marquis had only donned this asphyxiating item of clothing on two occasions: the day he was married and the day he was carried to the cemetery.

Beneath that portrait, in a ceremonial friars-chair, sat the grandson of the Marquès de Sitjar, Don Tomàs de Lloberola i Serradell. The grandfather’s braided uniform had given way to the grandson’s colorless, shapeless suit jacket with the odd stain. Don Tomàs’s shirt collar was unbuttoned, and he had sort of swaddled himself in a silk scarf of a hardy and indeterminate shade. He still had all his whitish hair, which he hid under a scholar’s cap. Over his moustache, streaked in salt and pepper, advanced the prow of an enormous red nose with cratered skin and aggressive nostrils. It was the nose of a peasant from the time of the
remences
, the late medieval uprising of the indentured servants. Don Tomàs’s milky blue eyes defended themselves behind gold eyeglasses, and his long monastic cheeks and receding chin sank with a bit of coquetry into the cool fabric of the scarf that swathed his neck, as if dipping into a silken bath. Don Tomàs was a tall, swollen, apoplectic man, slow to react, whose movements were sluggish and whose breathing was fatigued. An indefatigable cougher, he cleared his throat out of mere habit, because in point of fact, there was nothing there to clear.

Frederic’s visit surprised him in the midst of one of those earthshaking coughing fits. Wiping his mouth with a handkerchief, Don Tomàs peered over his glasses, wrinkled his brow, made a face and then quickly bowed his head, looking askance at his son with an expectant and wary expression. Frederic walked over to his father’s desk, and Don Tomàs extended his hand, which Frederic kissed not with effusion but rather with some repugnance.

“Hello, my boy! One might think you had all been brought up in an orphanage. You don’t seem to recall that you have a father, or that your father has been ill, and very ill at that …”

“But, Papà, I didn’t know anything about it. Mamà just told me right now.”

“Oh, you didn’t know. You didn’t know. Must we tell you everything? Your wife was here just the day before yesterday. Didn’t she have the sense to tell you? That’s right, poor old granddad … Everyone likes to kick a man when he’s down. Father has a headache? It will go away! And your sainted mother, putting up with it all. You only have a thought for us on the day of your monthly allowance. No better than a servant, a man with no love of hearth and home, just waiting around to come into what little you all haven’t already spent on me. Oh, Lord, if I could only …”

“Papà, please, for the love of God, don’t get started. Then you wonder why we don’t come to see you.”

Frederic had said that because he just couldn’t take it anymore, but he realized he had got off on the wrong foot and tried to make a fresh start.

“If you only knew what headaches and worries Maria and I have to face. While you, in all honesty, only complain about unimportant things. I don’t know what has you in such a foul humor. I can assure you, you are looking quite fine, magnificent, in fact. Indeed, my first glimpse of you made me very happy.”

“How would you know if I am looking or feeling well? Do you think you can play games with me? Don’t I know best how I’m feeling? It’s only natural; old people and sick people are a bother. But let’s not get into that. I know very well that gratitude cannot be forced, much less the gratitude of one’s own children …”

“Papà, please, I have children, too. And believe me, I repeat, I have a lot of headaches that you … Right this moment, if you only knew … I came over here expressly to tell you, to confess to you …”

“To confess to me? What could you have to confess to me! What have you done now, eh? What have you done? Frederic, my son, you’re too old for this. Do you understand? Too old! And I would rather not know …”

“Papà, believe me. I feel more alone than you. I have no one. My wife …”

“Your wife, hmm, your wife. There’s a ninny for you.”

“She is the way she is. She is not to blame …”

“All right, son, get on with it, tell me what’s bothering you … But be mindful, child, be mindful! If you want to see me dead … If you’ve had enough of your old father …”

“Please don’t talk that way, Papà. It’s just not right. Do you think I’m made of stone?”

“No, you’re not made of stone. But when it comes to headaches, you certainly have given me your share …”

“Are you starting again?”

“No, no, go on. Go ahead and tell me: what is on your mind?”

“I am very sorry to have to confess this to you, as you can imagine. But there is no other way. The problem is a promissory note …”

“A promissory note? Another wretched promissory note?”

“Yes, just that. A note I accepted, which comes due the day after tomorrow. I have tried to get an extension but the creditor will not agree to it unless I have another signature, do you see? He wants a guarantor.”

“A signature. From whom?”

“Imagine how it pains me to have to say this, to have to bother you with this, especially now, when you are not feeling well. But they have me under the gun. I could go to prison … It is just a question of the signature. I will pay it down the road; I will have the money. I swear to you there isn’t the slightest danger.”

“There will be no swearing, do you hear me? I don’t know what has happened to you young people. You speak without the least bit of respect …”

“Papà, forgive me. But I beg you in the name of what you most love. I am trapped. I am being squeezed. If you could just be my guarantor …”

“And what credit do I have? Who am I, poor devil? You are asking me to underwrite a debt? This is too much, believe, me, too much. I can’t do it, do you understand? I can’t …”

“But, Papà, I assure you there is absolutely no danger …”

“And what is the amount of this note?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary …”

“How much?”

“Fifty thousand pessetes …”

“Fifty thousand pessetes? Have you gone mad? My son, what is to become of you? What is to become of us all? No, Frederic, no. This is all my fault, oh yes, all my fault …”

“But, Papà, I will have the money. This has just come at a bad time …”

“What about your father-in-law?”

“My father-in-law is of no use to me. I don’t have the heart to ask my father-in-law for anything. Can you imagine …”

“So, naturally, the whipping boy will have to be your poor old father. Isn’t it enough to have done everything you’ve already done? You’re not going to stop until I am even poorer than I am now, destitute, begging alms. Is that what you want? That’s what all of you are after! Fifty thousand pessetes! Let’s imagine the note comes due again, and once again you cannot pay. What, then? What will be left of our household?”

“Papà, there will be plenty left! Fifty thousand pessetes is a trifle! I’m telling you again, there is absolutely no danger …”

“No, no, no, and no again. The time has come to turn off the faucet, do you understand? It is pointless to go on: I will not sign the note. Go find one of those rich friends of yours, find anyone, but under no circumstances will I do it.”

“What can I say, Papà? Frankly, I think your attitude is a bit … unfair.”

“Unfair! Unfair, you say? Unfair! Are you not ashamed of yourself, at your age, with three children of your own, to have come to be such a good-for-nothing, a degenerate …”

“Papà, please, you can’t go on like …”

“Can’t go on? Am I wrong, by any chance? Is this what brings you to visit your ailing father? Is this what reminds you of your poor mother? This nonsense will be the death of me. Haven’t you done enough? You’ve been doing this all your life. You will never change, never, it’s no use, never!”

“That’s enough, Papà, enough! Enough sermons! I’ve come to ask for your help, not your sermons. I’ve heard enough sermons …”

“You don’t want sermons, eh? Well, you’ll just have to put up with them. Because I am your father, and I have every right. Do you hear me? They don’t want to hear sermons! What nerve. Spoiled, pompous little brats. Believe me, I would never, but never, have dared to address my father in the tone in which you address me. I know, times change. Today there is absolutely no respect for age. The elderly, let them die. Parents, poor things, don’t count at all. Shame on you! We sacrifice in every way for them, we satisfy all their desires, we give them everything they want and then they dare to raise their voices. Don’t dare say a word, for they’re made of sugar – they might melt! They take offense! Their father offends them! I tell you, I would rather die than see such things, that’s a fact. I would rather die. Yes, may our Lord Savior deliver me soon, I’m not meant to … I’m not meant …”

“Believe, me, Papà, you do not understand. You deserve every respect, but frankly you must take a bit more stock of things. You don’t understand, and when you get this way …”

“When I get what way! I declare! What way? You are so shameless as to come and ask for fifty thousand pessetes because, truth be told, this note is just a bit of nonsense; when the day comes they will be at my throat and to avoid a trial I’ll have no recourse but to pay, you understand, pay and pay again. For forty years I’ve done nothing but pay, and I am an old man who cannot earn a living, and I have no more money! Much less for your degenerate vices!”

“Papà, for the love of God, I beg you! You know, I have a slow fuse, but …”

“A slow fuse! What you have is debauchery! Between the allowance I give you, your earnings from the bank, and the remains of your wife’s dowry, you should be living like royalty! Fifty thousand pessetes! You useless idler! Do you think I don’t know that you spend your days and nights gambling at the Eqüestre, and other things I prefer not to know because my ears would burn with shame. My father taught me that I should die before yielding to such frailties. And I say frailties out of kindness, do you hear? A Christian, a Catholic, a gentleman, a decent man, a family man would not …”

“Enough, Papà! Enough!”

“Enough! That’s not the half of it! You are a bad son. Do you hear what I say? A bad son! Look, look here, this is your great-grandfather. Do you know who this man was? He was a man of conscience. You know the story of Uncle Manuel, don’t you? You don’t? Well, Uncle
Manuel committed a heinous act, the kind pious persons refrain from mentioning, and my grandfather, the gentleman you see here in this portrait, who was his father, chose never to forgive him. He didn’t even forgive him on his deathbed. He condemned him! Do you hear me? He damned him to hell. Uncle Manuel spent his whole life with the sting of his father’s malediction in his heart. What do you think of that! And Grandfather was a saint, an upstanding man, of the kind that are no more in Barcelona. No more. Do you understand me? So now, listen closely: what do you want? What do you expect of me? Do you want to be the Uncle Manuel of our family, do you want to be the family disgrace? Do you want your father to condemn you?”