Antonio Hill - The Good Suicides

“By the way, why did you meet up with Manel?”

“Want to know the truth?” Brais lowered his voice. “I went to see him for the same reason we’re here now. To find out if he’d betrayed us, if it was he who was sending that damned photo.” He continued without the other man insisting. “And if it was him, to make sure he stopped.”

They got out of the car in silence, and César was walking toward the house rapidly, cursing the cold, when Brais added, “Earlier I talked about regrets. Know what I’ve found out? They’re limited, and they fade. And something else: if they are confronted by fear, better that they lose. It’s called survival.”

Similar notions were going around and around in Sílvia’s mind, fear and survival, as she contemplated the newspaper page where, in broad strokes, the company’s image was being destroyed. The article didn’t name names, but the headline “Young, free and … dead,” was a poisoned dart aimed at the heart of Alemany Cosmetics.

She’d spent the morning answering some emails and ignoring others, in an attempt to minimize the effects of the catastrophe. A company even indirectly causing the suicides of its employees-three in only five months, to be exact-became a kind of living toxin. Moreover, if the name of said company was linked to concepts like beauty, well-being and health, the irony reached surreal proportions.

At five in the afternoon, a little before César and Arjona left for Octavi’s house, Sílvia decided to log out of her email, switch off the computer and focus. Something that it seemed was going to be impossible, because scarcely ten minutes later her brother entered the office, very differently to the morning when he’d burst in brandishing that very newspaper as if she and all the people in the company were a bunch of disobedient kids and he a justly furious boss.

“How is it going?” he asked her.

“I suppose it could be worse … at least nobody is talking about the products as such, just the company in abstract.”

He nodded.

“Yes. People demand our products for their name, not the cosmetics lab.”

“Is that what you told your buyers?” She couldn’t help being sarcastic.

Víctor sighed.

“Something like that. Sílvia … this has to stop as soon as possible.”

“What do you want me to do? Offer a bonus to everyone who promises not to throw themselves off their balcony?”

He sat down on the other side of the desk.

“Don’t change the subject, Sílvia. Is there anything I should know about that weekend?”

“That you should know?” She shook her head, perhaps out of tiredness, perhaps out of pure disdain. “All there is to know, and you should be clear on this without needing to ask me, is that I would never do anything that could put our company in danger. Never. It’s you who seems not to feel the least regard for it and is ready to sell it to the highest bidder.”

“You’re just like Papa,” he replied, and the scar left by sad truths could be heard in his voice. “The company is a thing, Sílvia. You can love it, but it’s never going to love you back. Being satisfied with that is pathetic.”

“Yeah. I’m sure Paula returns your affection with interest.”

“Leave Paula out of this-she has nothing to do with it.”

“Oh no?” Sílvia was going to make an unpleasant comment, but she bit her tongue. “I’ll tell you something, Víctor: the company is not a thing. It’s alive, with people, projects, ideas … and of course you get back what you put into it. More than with people.”

Víctor looked at her as if he wished to understand her, as if for an instant he could get inside her body and mind, feel and think as she felt. As children it was like that, more or less: there was a strong bond between them, something that felt unbreakable then. Now, the distance between them was so great he didn’t have the spirit to cross it.

“I don’t know when you started confusing life with work … This is a business, nothing more. Difficult times are coming, we both know that. It’s much wiser to sell now at a good price than hold out until the storm comes. And it will come, I assure you.”

“It’ll come, yes. But don’t try to deceive me, Víctor. You’re not selling out of prudence, or fear of the future; you’re doing it out of boredom, a late attack of immaturity … The desire to do what you didn’t have the balls to do at eighteen. I assure you, youth’s not catching, Víctor. However much you sleep with it. Not catching, and you can’t live twice.”

The conversation had come to the cliff edge, that place where stances were so irreconcilable that to continue talking would only cause injury. Víctor knew it, so he rose and went to the door. Before leaving, he turned to his sister.

“At least I’ve taken care of you, so you could keep your role and responsibilities. When you left, you didn’t even look back. Not thinking for a second about how things would be for me …”

She was about to answer, to claim in her defense that she was only seventeen, that he could have done the same, that it wasn’t her fault that he’d opted for obedience and that she regretted-yes, she’d always regretted it-leaving him in a hostile home, at the mercy of a cold, demanding father, but once more, pride won out.

“Well, you got your reward, didn’t you? Papa left you practically everything.”

“Exactly. And because of that I’m the one who gets to decide, not you.”

The office door closed behind him and Sílvia was alone, paper spread, and for a moment she thought perhaps none of it was worth it. If the words she said aloud insisted on betraying her true feelings, maybe it was better to shut up forever. Forfeit the match. Sleep.

“Well, well, more visitors.” Octavi Pujades’ tone was unmistakably scathing. “Poor Eugènia will think she’s already died, with so many people wandering through the house.”

He didn’t invite them into the sitting room, or to sit down, or to have an alcohol-free beer. He came out on the porch despite the evening cold. And it was he who spoke first.

“This morning some Agent Fort was here. A very friendly young man, asking me questions about Amanda. By the way, I know what happened because Víctor called me yesterday afternoon, but I find it curious that none of you bothered to tell me.”

Both César and Brais felt like schoolboys being suddenly reprimanded by a strict tutor. “It’s not important. I thought you’d forgotten me. Now I see you haven’t.”

“I’m sorry, Octavi,” said César. “I was sure Sílvia would have told you.”

Octavi smiled, and in doing so his expression became even sharper, more tense, as if the skin of his cheeks was going to tear.

“César, César … I’m afraid I’m no longer the object of Sílvia’s devotion. Now that I think about it, I suppose she sent you. She doesn’t trust me anymore, does she?”

Brais took a step forward; not too much but enough to bridge the gap that separates a chat from a threat.

“Enough of the sarcasm, Octavi. I haven’t come here to waste my time.”

“And why have you come? To beat me up? Kill me, perhaps?”

The two were so close, and the difference between the contenders so evident, that César stepped in between them.

“Hey, enough. Octavi, no one distrusts you-”

“Tell that to this thug. You like intimidating people, do you, Brais? Does it make you feel like more of a man?”

“Octavi, please!”

The only light on the outside of the house, a cast-iron lantern hanging on a corner, illuminated the three faces. Three faces covered by masks ranging from confusion to suppressed rage, fear to indifference.

In the distance a couple of dogs howled, as if all these emotions reached them on the night air.