“I’ll see you tomorrow, then, around seven,” concluded Clara. “Do you know the address?”
· 5 ·
THERE WAS A TIME, IN MY CHILDHOOD, WHEN, PERHAPS BECAUSE I had been raised among books and booksellers, I dreamed of becoming a novelist. The root of my literary ambitions, apart from the marvelous simplicity with which one sees things at the age of five, lay in a prodigious piece of craftsmanship and precision that was exhibited in a fountain-pen shop on Calle Anselmo Clavé, just behind the Military Government building. The object of my devotion, a plush black pen, adorned with heaven knows how many refinements and flourishes, presided over the shop window as if it were the crown jewels. A baroque fantasy magnificently wrought in silver and gold that shone like the lighthouse at Alexandria, the nib was a wonder in its own right. When my father and I went out for a walk, I wouldn’t stop pestering him until he took me to see the pen. My father declared that it must be, at the very least, the pen of an emperor. I was secretly convinced that with such a marvel one would be able to write anything, from novels to encyclopedias, and letters whose supernatural power would surpass any postal limitations—a letter written with that pen would reach the most remote corners of the world, even that unknowable place to which my father said my mother had gone and from where she would never return.
One day we decided to go into the shop and inquire about the blessed artifact. It turned out to be the queen of all fountain pens, a Montblanc Meinsterstück in a numbered series, that had once belonged, or so the shop attendant assured us, to Victor Hugo himself. From that gold nib, we were informed, had sprung the manuscript ofLes Misérables.
“Just as Vichy Catalán water springs from the source at Caldas,” the clerk swore.
He told us he had bought it personally from a most serious collector from Paris, and that he had assured himself of the item’s authenticity.
“And what is the price of this fountain of marvels, if you don’t mind telling me?” my father asked.
The very mention of the sum drew the color from his face, but I had already fallen under the pen’s spell. The clerk, who seemed to think we understood physics, began to assail us with incomprehensible gibberish about the alloys of precious metals, enamels from the Far East, and a revolutionary theory on pistons and communicating chambers, all of which was part of the Teutonic science underpinning the glorious stroke of that champion of scrivening technology. I have to say in his favor that, despite the fact that we must have looked like two poor devils, the clerk allowed us to handle the pen as much as we liked, filled it with ink for us, and offered me a piece of parchment so that I could write my name on it and thus commence my literary career in the footsteps of Victor Hugo. Then, after the clerk had polished it with a cloth to restore its shiny splendor, it was returned to its throne.
“Perhaps another day,” mumbled my father.
Once we were out in the street again, he told me in a subdued voice that we couldn’t afford the asking price. The bookshop provided just enough to
keep us afloat and send me to a decent school. The great Victor Hugo’s Montblanc pen would have to wait. I didn’t say anything, but my father must have noticed my disappointment.
“I tell you what we’ll do,” he proposed. “When you’re old enough to start writing, we’ll come back and buy it.”
“What if someone buys it first?”
“No one is going to take this one, you can be quite sure. And if not, we can ask Don Federico to make us one. That man has the hands of a master.”
Don Federico was the neighborhood watchmaker, an occasional customer at the bookshop, and probably the most polite and courteous man in the whole of the Northern Hemisphere. His reputation as a craftsman preceded him from the Ribera quarter to the Ninot Market. Another reputation haunted him as well, this one of a less salubrious nature, related to his erotic leanings toward muscular young men from the more virile ranks of the proletariat, and to a certain penchant for dressing up like the music-hall star Estrellita Castro.
“What if Don Federico is no good at fancy-pen stuff?” I asked, unaware that to less innocent ears, the phrase might have had a salacious echo.
My father arched an eyebrow, fearing perhaps that some foul rumors might have sullied my innocence.
“Don Federico is very knowledgeable about all things German and could make a Volkswagen if he put his mind to it. Besides, I’d like to find out whether fountain pens existed in Victor Hugo’s day. There are a lot of con artists about.”
My father’s zeal for historical fact checking left me cold. I believed obstinately in the pen’s illustrious past, even though I didn’t think it was such a bad idea for Don Federico to make me a substitute. There would be time enough to reach the heights of Victor Hugo. To my consolation, and true to my father’s predictions, the Montblanc pen remained for years in that shop window, which we visited religiously every Saturday morning.
“It’s still there,” I would say, astounded.
“It’s waiting for you,” my father would say. “It knows that one day it will be yours and that you’ll write a masterpiece with it.”
“I want to write a letter. To Mommy. So that she doesn’t feel lonely.”
My father regarded me. “Your mother isn’t lonely, Daniel. She’s with God. And with us, even if we can’t see her.”
This very same theory had been formulated for me in school by Father Vicente, a veteran Jesuit, expert at expounding on all the mysteries of the universe—from the gramophone to a toothache—quoting the Gospel According to Matthew. Yet on my father’s lips, the words sounded hollow.
“And what does God want her for?”
“I don’t know. If one day we see Him, we’ll ask Him.”
Eventually I discarded the idea of the celestial letter and concluded that, while I was at it, I might as well begin with the masterpiece—that would be more practical. In the absence of the pen, my father lent me a Staedler pencil, a number two, with which I scribbled in a notebook. Unsurprisingly, my story told of an extraordinary fountain pen, remarkably similar to the one in the shop, though enchanted. To be more precise, the pen was possessed by the tortured soul of its previous owner, a novelist who had died of hunger and cold. When the pen fell into the hands of an apprentice, it insisted on reproducing on paper the author’s last work, which he had not been able to finish in his lifetime. I don’t remember where I got that idea from, but I never again had another one like it. My attempts to re-create the novel on the pages of my notebook turned out to be disastrous. My syntax was plagued by an anemic creativity, and my metaphorical flights reminded me of the advertisements for fizzy footbaths that I used to read in tram stops. I blamed the pencil and longed for the pen, which was bound to turn me into a master writer.
My father followed my tortuous progress with a mixture of pride and concern.
“How’s your story going, Daniel?”
“I don’t know. I suppose if I had the pen, everything would be different.”