B0040702LQ EBOK (10 page)

They reached the bend while there was still a couple of
hours' light left. Impatient to catch sight of their goal, he kept
craning his neck, or stepping out into the middle of the road,
to calm the anxiety that had seized his steps. And again she
stopped suddenly, with her feet together and her mouth open,
staring straight ahead.

`What's wrong?'

He shook her arm, grasped her hand and squeezed it
tightly, an inert hand, through which he could feel flowing
into his own body all the force of her apprehension, a hand
reduced almost to nothing, then, with the countryside steeped
in the sudden silence that is the prelude to the storm, when
you sense that even invisible beings are crouching down to
shelter, then, in another very different place, but, again, behind
him, he felt - he did not see - the flash of lightning, the
simultaneous, contradictory rupture of sea and sky which,
after the mirage, took on a graver, more deceptive look, like a
child trying to hide with his body some damage he has caused,
both sea and sky suddenly made old and worn by a film of
dissolute rust.

He had turned round to look at the walker with his dog -
now incredibly far away, considering he had just crossed their
path, at the moment of crisis - when she emerged from her
trance.

`What about the inn? Where is the inn?' she asked.

It was that insistent question that completed his sense of
disorientation. He walked forward a few steps, leaving her
alone on the road, he climbed up a little mound to look
around in all directions and came back more confused than
ever.

`I think we passed it.'

`It's round that bend.'

`I don't know what we were thinking of. Anyway, let's go
back.'

But she looked at him very oddly; her face was expressionless, but incredulity had invaded her whole body to such an
extent that he could not suppress a gesture of annoyance.

`Let's go,' he said to her, trying to turn her in the opposite
direction to the one they had been following. But she stood
there rigid, staring straight ahead.

`It's no good,' she replied.

`What do you mean, it's no good? Come on, it's getting
late. It's time we went back.'

`It's no good,' she repeated.

`What on earth do you mean, it's no good?'

`I mean it's different. Everything is different. Look how
different it all is. Give me your hand. Look.'

He obeyed, and the lightning flashed again, perhaps as a
direct consequence of the electric charge he had felt when he
touched her hand. It was true that everything had changed;
after the dazzle produced by the lightning, everything around
him, though there was not the slightest perceptible alteration,
was unrecognisable, just as a photograph of a familiar landscape, printed the wrong way round, is hard to recognise
because there is no actual deception.

They took a few light, faltering steps in the direction they
had been following earlier; then he stammered incoherently:

`The inn ... further on, a bit further on.'

`Exactly, a bit further on.'

They stood rooted to the spot, hand in hand and staring
open-mouthed up the road, not moving a muscle or giving
the faintest reaction when the man walking his dog crossed
their path once more, paying no heed to the unusual sight
they presented.

Nor did the dog cast a glance in their direction, but tore on,
straining at the leash.

As for them. . . the last vestiges of their senses did not allow
them to notice that, as well as the dog, the man used a stick,
held out in front in him, almost motionless, above his stiff, rapid steps, he did not look to left or right and his eyes were
hidden behind dark glasses.

© Herederos de Juan Benet

Translated by Annella McDermott

Juan Benet (Madrid, 1927-1993) was unusual in combining
the profession of engineer with the practice of literature.
Benet wrote a large number of novels, short stories and
essays. His style is generally considered difficult, but he is
widely admired, particularly by other writers, and is felt to
have opened up new possibilities for the Spanish novel.
Volveras a Region (1967; Return to Region, Columbia University Press, 1987) was the novel that first brought him to
prominence. Meditation (1969; Meditation, tr. Gregory Rabassa,
Persea Books, 1982) won Spain's Biblioteca Breve prize. `The
Catalyst' is from the book of short stories, Cinco narraciones y
dos fibulas (1972) and is an example of Benet's characteristically demanding style. The limpid and economical `Fables 9,10
and 10a' are from Trece fabulas y media (1981).

At the end of a pleasant June, Enric Espol turned up with his
right hand bandaged, revealing a clenched fist beneath the
gauze. His very presence, full of unfamiliar facets, created a
sense of foreboding, but no one could imagine the full impact
of the blow that had felled him.

His face, which had never before provoked the slightest
interest, now bore the air of melancholy victory so characteristic of modern wars.

The day on which his life experienced this change had
dawned entirely unannounced. He awoke in his customary
foul mood and then walked about his flat, from the bathroom to the dining room and from the dining room to the
kitchen, to see if walking would help him wake up. He
felt a pain in his right side and a slight breathlessness, two
conditions that he had never before experienced jointly
and which increased so rapidly that his sense of alarm
jerked him into full consciousness. Dragging his feet and
leaning on the furniture he found in his path, he returned
to the bedroom and sat down next to the bed, prepared to
die.

Fear covered his entire body. Slowly, health was clambering
up the tree of his nervous system intending to escape out of
his mouth, but, just in time, Espol rebelled. At the moment of
death, he seized hold of something and closed his hand tight
around it, trapping life inside. The pain stopped and his
breathing returned to normal. In a gesture of relief, Espol
drew his left hand across his forehead, because his right hand
now had a new mission to fulfill.

Prudence warned him not to ponder too many different
possibilities. He was sure, right from the start, that there was
only one solution: on no account to unclench his fist. In the palm of his hand, wriggling gently like a little fish or like a
drop of mercury, lay Espol's life.

In order to avoid endangering his life by a single moment
of inattention, he decided to bandage up his hand, and then,
feeling slightly calmer, he drew up a provisional plan of action.
He would go and see the manager of the company where he
worked, he would ask the advice of his family doctor and of
his friends, and he would gradually try to explain the facts to
the people closest to him.

That was when the new Espol appeared. He would walk
along the street, staring into space, his face transfigured (for it
was stamped with a quite understandable look of stupefaction). And although they had grown accustomed to strange
sights, people seemed to sense that his bandage was in some
way different and they would often turn round to sneak a
furtive glance.

Today, halfway through the morning, the manager is listening to the story with growing interest. When Espol tells him
that he will have to leave his job because, being right-handed,
he will no longer be able to wield a pen, he replies:

`Let's not rush things. Sometimes, these things go as quickly
as they come ...'

`This is permanent,' says Espol. `The day I unclench my fist
to pick up my pen, my life will escape.'

`We could move you to the department dealing with the
preparation and setting up of subcontracts.'

`No.'

`And how will you make a life for yourself?'

`I have it here,' he says, showing him his right fist. `This is
the first time I've actually been able to locate it and I must
find a way of making use of it.'

An hour later, his family doctor, coolly attentive, is listening
to the story. He is tired, weary of all the tales his patients tell
him; he merely nods, occasionally asking questions and more
questions: `Do you cough during the night?' `Have you ever
had diphtheria?' and other equally mysterious things. In the
end, he says that it's obviously some kind of allergic reaction;
he prescribes a special diet and 500 units of penicillin. As the consultation is about to end, he mentions a Swiss school for
the partially disabled where they can teach you to write with
your left hand in about six months.

Back in the street, Espol feels the charm of his newly
acquired importance. He goes to his girlfriend's house and
tells her everything. At first, she experiences a rush of maternal solicitude; she insists on applying hot compresses to the
clenched fist and, when Espol refuses to let her, she declares
the bandage horrible and says that she will knit him a mitten
for his fist. The idea appeals to her and, forgetting about him,
she phones her mother:

`Listen, Enric's life was just about to escape, but he caught it
in his hand. Now he has to keep his hand closed all the time so
that it doesn't escape once and for all.'

`I see.'

`And I was thinking that perhaps we could knit him a kind
of bag, in a pale colour, so that he doesn't have to wear the
bandage.'

Her mother shows a discreet interest.

`Hmm,' she says, `like the one we made for Viola when she
hurt her paw.'

Mother and daughter are immersed in their conversation.
Feeling neglected, Espol leaves and is accompanied to the
door by a murmur of. `No, I wouldn't use plain. I'd go for rib
myself ... You knit a few stitches then decrease, knit a few,
then decrease ...'

Walking mechanically across the invisible sands, Espol
heads for his best friend's house. He finds him and tells him
about this singular event. And his friend (why, no one will
ever know) feels jealous and tries to change the subject: `It's
nothing, forget about it. Now something really extraordinary
happened to me - about two years ago in May - one Monday
... While he talks, he is thinking what he would do to
make the most of a situation like that, and the unease he feels
gradually stops the flow of words.

A silence falls, broken by the lightest of breezes rippling
over the dunes. The friend pretends he's bored and doesn't
even listen to his visitor who, as he's leaving, says:

`It's my life, you see. Here, look,' and he raises his fist and
holds it at eye level. `I can feel it right now, like a cricket. If I
squeeze with my fingers, I start to feel breathless again.'

He leaves, because he needs some fresh air. It's a big city,
and he is heading towards the east. On his way, he passes the
shop of a bookseller whom he knows slightly. The bookseller,
who is rather slow-witted, thinks long and hard ... Then, he
goes over to Espol and, with his forefinger, touches the fist.

`Does it hurt?'

`No.'

The man suddenly becomes very excited. With his face
aglow, he takes Espol by the arm and says:

`Since time began, it has always been up to the individual to
do what he thinks best, but, if I were you, I would go up onto
the roof, take off the bandage and, when the first flock of
pigeons flies by, I would open my hand.'

When he returns to the street again, its crowded solitude
casts a shadow over his heart. He is reminded of a familiar
address by the destination on the front of a bus, and he runs to
catch it. A sister of his mother's lives in a house near Parque
del Este. She is an old lady, who likes to live surrounded by
marquetry work, by furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl
and by walls lined with red velvet. She whiles away the hours
making wax fruit and figures of saints, which she places under
glass domes with a mahogany base.

Espol kisses his aunt's hand and launches straight into his
story. At first, his aunt takes a very firm line. She advises him
to stop all this nonsense, to take off the bandage and unclench
his fist this instant.