The Hermit (33 page)

45

He’s back on Fuerteventura after lunchtime. He finds his car parked alone in the small car park next to the harbour. A seagull’s on the roof. He shoos it off and drives northward, wondering how he’ll avoid screwing everything up. It’s up to him now; he can’t resort to his old methods of problem-solving.

He arrives fifteen or twenty minutes late, and he spots Aaz standing at the door of Santa Marisa’s, along with Liana, one of the nuns. He steers the car up alongside them and Aaz climbs in. The nun lowers her head to the window and taps on the glass with her thin finger.

– It’s very upsetting to him. You need to be punctual. He doesn’t like to wait.

– I’d arranged with Mónica that I would pick him up at 3.15 today.

– It’s bad enough that you changed the appointment. He knows how to tell time, you know.

– I know that, sister.

Each time Erhard talks with the nuns, they say something that makes him feel like an idiot.

– But the worst of it is that you’re fifteen minutes late. It’s 3.30.

– I’m sorry. He hates these kinds of petty arguments. He hadn’t planned to be late, after all. It just happened.

– I’ll let his mother know you’re running late. She’s probably worried.

– Thanks, Erhard says. He prefers that Mónica not be told.

They leave Corralejo and head through Las Dunas. Erhard sprays washer fluid on the windscreen. Aaz likes that, laughing as if everything were normal. He holds absolutely no grudges and it’s liberating to be around him.

– I’ve been over the water. To Tenerife.

Oh, what were you doing there?

– Trying to find the mother, you know, of that little boy.

You learn anything?

– I don’t know. Maybe.

What does it look like over there? Is there sand and rocks like here?

– There are green palms, just like they have at Santa Marisa. Cliffs rise from the water. And the wealthiest residents build their houses along those cliffs. There was a beach with white reclining chairs, where men rake the sand in the evening, and a small bay where I sat with an old friend and watched the sea turn black, and we talked about you.

Aaz glances at Erhard. The boy understands everything.

– Some day you can go with me on the boat and cross the water to the big island. When Liana isn’t so angry any more. Maybe your mother will want to come along.

Erhard wishes to tell him about Emanuel’s job offer. About the better days ahead. But he’s suddenly afraid it’ll only confuse Aaz and make him nervous if he says too much about such changes. He needs to consider what he says before he speaks.

When they drive through Antigua, they laugh at a man chasing a hat caught in the wind.

He’d like to let Aaz walk in by himself, but Mónica is standing outside, waiting. Erhard gets out of the car with Aaz and nods apologetically at Mónica, trying to absorb the worst. Aaz brushes past Mónica and into the house.

– Did Liana call?

– What happened?

– I was just delayed.

– I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself tangled up in, but I hope it doesn’t mean that Aaz can no longer count on you.

– I’m not tangled up in anything.

– It’s OK if you call me and ask me to change the time like you did yesterday, but don’t start forgetting your commitments and arriving late and…

– I’m not tangled up in anything.

– You show up here early in the morning, then suddenly you’re going on a trip. Something is going on.

– It won’t affect Aaz in any way.

– You won’t be late again?

– I promise.

His promises are piling up, he thinks.

– Did it have something to do with that address I found for you?

– Yes.

– Is it something illegal?

Erhard laughs.

She repeats her question.

– No. It’s… it’s… something good. I’m looking for someone.

– The girl in the photograph?

– No. She just helped me with something, he says. It would be foolish to involve Mónica in this, he thinks. But in reality he’s afraid to tell her what he’s up to in case he doesn’t find the mother. – I’m just looking for an old friend who’s gone missing.

– Hmm, she says, dubious. – Who?

– Raúl Palabras, he says, because he can’t think of anyone else.

– Is he your friend?

– Yes.

She stares at him at length, and he suddenly feels old. As if she’s judging him for the first time, really
seeing
him and his wrinkled face. – It doesn’t matter what you do and who your friends are. As long as you don’t let my son down. As long as you don’t do it again. Tears well in her eyes.

He wants to lay his hand on her shoulder. But she’s already on her way back into her house.

– I was going to invite you to an early dinner, she says, but I guess that doesn’t matter any more. Just be here at eight o’clock.

It’s the first time she’s ever given him an order like that.

He doesn’t even care to defend himself. There’s no way he can eat dinner with them. The doctor was at his house the night before and then again this morning, but it’s time Erhard went home and filled the generator with diesel. He slumps back to his car.

He hasn’t argued with a woman in seventeen years. Not since Annette. In a way, it’s familiar and exhilarating, but still trite and annoying. Like playing Ludo with different rules. There are no established truths and nothing to refer to, only a feeling that everything they’d discussed had nothing at all to do with what their conversation was actually about. He wants to drive off and never return.

Or he wants to do precisely what he’d promised her. What he’d promised Aaz.

A bloody maelstrom of emotions and thoughts swirls in his head.

46

As he’s filling the generator with diesel, he hears the telephone ring inside the house. A rare event. Since he hasn’t even filled half the tank, he ignores the call.

After he goes inside, empties the drainage bag, and affixes a new one, the telephone rings again. He can’t just drop the bag he’s holding. He studies Beatriz, and can’t shake the feeling that he’s let her down. Several days have passed since he last stood at her bedside and spoke to her. He doesn’t know what to say, so he just stands there growing tired as the machine regulates her shallow breaths.

The phone rings a third time. He glowers at the green plastic device and lifts it reluctantly.

– Where have you been? Emanuel Palabras blurts out.

– South.

– I’ve talked to Marcelis.

– Did you fire him?

– Easy, my friend. I’m just telling you what I’ve done. Now that the air has been cleared, we can put the shop in order.

– I haven’t accepted your offer yet.

– But you will.

This irritates Erhard. He has a strange feeling this is how things will play out: Papa Palabras will dictate how they do their work. But he won’t let his irritation control him.

– Yes, he says.

– Good, my friend. Good.

Erhard wants to know more about the business and its finances. Wants to look through the company’s books. Palabras doesn’t understand why – it’s not something Raúl ever cared about – and he thinks it’s a waste of Erhard’s time. Raúl has been gone for more than ten days, and before that he was derelict in his duties, so Erhard needs to get down to business.

– What do you expect me to do?

– Keep an eye on the lazy drivers, sign some good contracts. You’ll have to figure it out.

– I have some experience with accounts, from the old days.

Silence.

– You never cease to amaze me, Piano Tuner.

– I’ll need a thorough review of the finances if I’m going to work with Marcelis.

– Surely the man can set aside a few hours to take you through it? During a nice lunch, Emanuel adds, then shifts topics. – I want you to move into Raúl’s flat. I’ll pay the rent. You can live there until we sell the place in a few months, when the market’s better. By then you’ll have saved up some money and can buy your own. They say the housing market will improve this year.

Erhard doesn’t know what to think. – What about Raúl? What if he returns?

– Don’t say his name again.

– He’s your son, Palabras.

– He’s dead.

– Nobody knows that for sure. The police say he left the island, but you know him. He might be in Dakar, or Madrid for that matter. It’s only been, what, eleven days? He’s been gone for a month before.

– He’s dead. The flat needs to be cleared, and all his shit hauled away.

Erhard can’t tell whether Palabras knows for certain Raúl is dead or has simply made a decision. – Can’t you just pack it all up and store it?

– Why are you defending him?

Erhard stares into the darkness of the pantry. – How did he die?

– He took his own life after bringing shame to his father.

That doesn’t sound like Raúl, Erhard thinks. He wouldn’t kill himself or regret doing anything against his father. – How do you know?

– Why do you keep digging around in something that doesn’t involve you, Piano Tuner? I’m telling you, I don’t want to hear anything more about him.

– I can’t move into his flat with all of his things, it’s too strange. What about all his papers and cookbooks? And his collection of eighties records and photos and wine?

– I don’t want to hear anything more about him. Drink the bloody wine and throw the rest out. Get someone to take the shit away. Do whatever you wish. Move in if you want. If you prefer your
majorero
cave out in Majanicho, fine. As long as you’re presentable and punctual at work. And don’t be stingy when you go out to eat with clients.

– I’ll think about it, Erhard says. He already has the key to the flat. But he doesn’t tell Palabras. He doesn’t say that he’ll happily trade the cave for the flat. Moving into the flat would make everything easier. Beatriz could return to her own things, and get a nice bed, and he wouldn’t have to run around keeping an eye on the generator. If Raúl doesn’t return any time soon, or if he really is dead, it doesn’t make Erhard a bad person if he lives a good life for a few months. Just until Beatriz is doing better, and he has the money to buy something else. Something worthy of a director.

– Seize your opportunity, Piano Tuner. I’ll arrange a meeting with Marcelis. If you have any problems with him, call me.

Palabras hangs up.

Erhard pours himself a glass of wine, then goes out and pulls some trousers, underwear, and towels from the washing machine. They’ve been sitting in the machine for too long, and now they smell. He hangs the clothes on one of the lines. Laurel’s munching on a piece of fabric that appears to have come from one of Erhard’s shirts. This happens every now and then. The clothes blow off the line, vanish, and the zipper or buttons turn up in the goats’ shit. He fills a cup with feed and scatters the pellets on the ground; the goat shuffles away from the clothesline and over to his food. Erhard hopes it’ll attract Hardy, who might be close by, perhaps resting behind a large rock, but he doesn’t see a trace of him.

He thinks about Bill Haji and the wild dogs.

Could the wild dogs be getting more desperate for something to eat? Could they capture and devour a goat? Maybe if it was injured or stuck between two rocks. He glances at the ground where someone has dug into the hard soil – one of the goats? Everything happens for a reason. There’s a story behind everything. Just as the car on the beach and the cardboard box and the newspapers have a story, a series of actions, regardless of how incomprehensible they might seem.

A mother abandons her child only if there’s a reason, an underlying pressure. She’s not evil or selfish. Maybe
because
she’s a good person, so realistic about herself and her situation that she wants to spare the child from the pain of growing up. It’s a crime, yes, but one committed out of love, out of an altruistic consideration for the child’s welfare. The most probable reason the boy was left in the box is that his mother drowned herself after having parked the car down on the beach. Perhaps she was at Rústica, grabbed some random newspaper, and stuffed it into her purse. He’s not sure how the newspaper is connected, but he’s sure there is a connection.

He drives for a few hours, then picks up Aaz at precisely eight o’clock. Mónica says nothing. She seems to study Erhard’s face slyly, so he won’t look her into her eyes.

– She thinks I’m an idiot, doesn’t she?

You were late, that’s all
.

– She doesn’t think I’m an awful person?

She’s too proper to tell anyone that
.

– That’s the problem. She’s too proper. Does she have any faults or irritating habits you can’t see?

She likes wet kisses
.

– That’s what mothers do when they kiss their kids.

She’s not a good cook. She burns the sancochado and the fish tastes awful
.

Erhard laughs. – I can’t even make sancochado. I’ve never tried.

I haven’t either
.

– What else? What does she like to do?

She likes to take care of her weird plants. Succulents, oleanders, birds of paradise. She talks to them and waters them with a little green canister that looks like an oil tin. She can revive a dead plant. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. A dry stem became a large red flower. It’s like in the nuns’ Bible. She can wake the dead with her fingers
.

– She’s a special lady, no doubt. And so is Sister Liana. Look, she’s waiting for us.

Sister Liana says nothing, but shoos Aaz through the gate like a stray goat.

He packs his best clothes. He counts his underwear and scoops up the white ones without holes, then packs his CDs and six books he hasn’t read. It takes some time to choose among them. He packs everything into a single cardboard box along with the cigar box of photos. He empties the fridge. Standing in the doorway staring up the hill, he toasts Laurel and listens to the wind and the roof, which continues to bang.

Finally he fills the boot with the IV, the catheter, and the respirator, then hurries to carry Beatriz to the car. He lays her across the backseat, underneath a blanket. He shuts off the electricity and unplugs the generator in the shed. It grows dark and quiet. Almost as if the house, originally a shepherd’s dwelling, wasn’t here. The cattle rancher lived on the other side of the mountain with his family, and he let his cattle roam freely. But the goats always came over to this side of the mountain, the less windy side, and so the cattle rancher built this house for his son who took care of the goats. When cattle prices fell at the beginning of the eighties, and the huge farm was sold at auction to a real-estate company, the new owners decided to rent out the shepherd’s house for a price that attracted the worst kinds of people. The goats came with the place, but the new renters were unable to care for them. Erhard knows nothing about tending goats, but he likes these two creatures, and he feels the need to take care of them even though he’s moving downtown.