“Sometimes feeling and thinking are one and the same. The idea is yours, not mine.”
The boss smiled and allowed a dramatic pause, like a schoolteacher preparing the lethal sword thrust with which to silence an unruly pupil.
“And what do you feel, Martín?”
The irony and disdain in his voice encouraged me and I gave vent to the humiliation accumulated during all those months in his shadow. Anger and shame at feeling terrified by his presence and allowing his poisonous speeches. Anger and shame because he had proved to me that, even if I would rather believe the only thing I had in me was despair, my soul was as petty and miserable as his sewer humanism claimed. Anger and shame at feeling, knowing, that he was always right, especially when it hurt to accept that.
“I’ve asked you a question, Martín. What is it you feel?”
“I feel that the best course would be to leave things as they are and give you back your money. I feel that, whatever it is you are proposing with this absurd venture, I’d rather not take part in it. And, above all, I feel regret for ever having met you.”
The boss lowered his eyelids. He turned and walked a few steps toward the cemetery gates. I watched his dark silhouette outlined against the marble garden, a motionless shape in the rain. I felt murky fear grow inside me, inspiring a childish wish to beg forgiveness and accept any punishment in exchange for not having to bear that silence. And I felt disgust. At his presence and, in particular, at myself.
The boss turned round and came over to me again. He stopped just centimeters from me and put his face close to mine. I felt his cold breath on my skin and drowned in his black, bottomless eyes. This time his voice and his tone were like ice, devoid of that studied humanity that informed his conversation and his gestures.
“I will tell you only once. You fulfill your obligations and I’ll fulfill mine. It’s the only thing you can and must feel.”
I was not aware that I was nodding repeatedly until the boss pulled the sheaf of papers from his pocket and handed it to me. He let the pages fall before I was able to catch them and a gust of wind swept them away, scattering them near the cemetery gates. I rushed to recover them from the rain, but some of the pages had fallen into puddles and were bleeding in the water. I gathered them together in a fistful of wet paper. When I looked up again, the boss had gone.
27
I fever I had needed to see a friendly face, it was then. The old building of The Voice of Industry peered over the cemetery walls. I headed there, hoping to find my former master Don Basilio, one of those rare souls immune to the world’s stupidity, who always had good advice. When I walked into the newspaper offices I discovered that I still recognized most of the staff. It seemed as if not a minute had passed since I’d left the place so many years before. Those who, in turn, recognized me, gave me suspicious looks and turned their heads to avoid having to greet me. I slipped into the editorial department and went straight to Don Basilio’s office, which was at the far end. It was empty.
“Who are you looking for?”
I turned round and saw Rosell, one of the journalists who’d already seemed old to me even when I was working there. Rosell had penned the poisonous review of The Steps of Heaven, describing me as a “writer of classified advertisements.”
“Señor Rosell, I’m Martín. David Martín. Don’t you remember me?”
Rosell spent a few moments inspecting me, pretending to have great difficulty in recognizing me, but finally he nodded.
“Where’s Don Basilio?”
“He left two months ago. You’ll find him at the offices of La Vanguardia. If you see him, give him my regards.”
“I’ll do that.”
“I’m sorry about your book,” said Rosell with an obliging smile.
I crossed the editorial department cutting a path among the unfriendly looks, twisted smiles, and venomous whispers. Time cures all, I thought, except the truth.
…
Half an hour later, a taxi dropped me off at the door of the main offices of La Vanguardia in Calle Pelayo. In contrast to the rather forbidding shabbiness of my old newspaper, everything here spoke of elegance and opulence. I made myself known at the reception and a chirpy young boy who looked like an unpaid intern, reminding me of myself in my youth, was dispatched to let Don Basilio know he had a visitor. My old friend’s leonine presence remained unchanged; if anything, with his new attire matching the impressive setting, Don Basilio struck as formidable a figure as he had in his days at The Voice of Industry. His eyes lit up with joy when he saw me, and, breaking his iron protocol, he greeted me with an embrace that could easily have lost me two or three ribs had there not been an audience—happy or not, Don Basilio had to keep up appearances.
“Getting a little respectable, are we, Don Basilio?”
My old boss shrugged his shoulders, making a gesture to play down the new décor.
“Don’t let it impress you.”
“Don’t be modest, Don Basilio, you’ve ended up with the jewel in the crown. Are you taking them in hand?”
Don Basilio pulled out his perennial red pencil and showed it to me, winking as he did so.
“I go through four a week.”
“Two fewer than at The Voice.”