Herve Le Tellier - Electrico W

“What do you want? I’m closed at this time of day.”

“Closed? At five o’clock?”

Custódia shrugged and headed for the door, in spite of everything. I fell in step behind him. Just before stepping outside, he smacked his hand on the bar to catch the waiter’s attention.

“Leave the glass. I’ll be back.”

“Shall I fill it up?”

“That’s right.”

THE INSIDE OF Custódia’s shop was like its exterior. The color of the walls was unidentifiable beneath a layer of filth, the floor tiles hidden by sawdust and wood shavings. Chisels and moldings were strewn over the workbench, and the air had an intoxicating smell of turpentine and wood glue.

“What’s it for, then?”

“I need a piece of furniture … a set of shelves. I wanted to get an idea of the price.”

“Do you have the measurements?”

“More or less …”

Custódia headed for the door.

“Not more or less,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t work in more-or-less-ness. I need it spot on. I’ve seen too many of you awkward customers who give me the wrong dimensions and then say I’m dishonest. Come back when you’ve got the measurements. I’ll give you a price then.”

He reached for the door and I quickly replied, “Wait, wait, I’ve got your measurements for you. It’s … six feet by two feet six inches.”

“Is that the height, the six feet?” Custódia asked, staring at me harshly.

A sketchy plan to find Duck gave me the strength to carry on with my ploy.

“Well, that gives you six shelves inside. I’ll put four runners in it for you. Is that okay? And how deep do you want it?”

“Um … six inches.”

“That’s pretty deep. Anyway … Have you made a decision about the wood?

“I don’t know, what about pine?”

“That’s not wood,” he sneered.

“In … in oak, then … What do you think?”

“It’s for the customer to decide. Oak’s hard to cut, but it’s no worse than anything else. For the thickness, will three-quarters of an inch do, and half an inch for the shelves?

“Will that be enough?”

“Of course that’ll be enough. Otherwise, I’d suggest something thicker.”

“Aren’t you writing any of this down?”

“No,” he said flatly. “Oak, six feet, two feet six inches, six inches. Three-quarters of an inch thick, half an inch for the shelves. There’s really no point. Do you want them mortised? With moldings?”

“Whatever’s simplest,” I said weakly.

“It’s no more complicated. Anyway … When’s it for?”

“As soon as possible. When could you do it for?”

“The day after tomorrow if you want. I’m not going to lie, there’s not much work anymore, with all this self-assembly furniture. It’s been years since anyone’s asked me for shelves. So I’ve got the time, and the wood in stock. But you’ll have to pay half up front. For the oak.”

“How much will it be?”

Custódia named a figure that struck me as exorbitant and I wrote out a check without a moment’s hesitation. He looked at me oddly.

“You want to pay the whole lot now?” he asked.

“If you like,” I replied, not understanding. I took out a second check, wrote out the same figure for the balance, and handed it to Custódia, who tore it up without a smile.

“No, we missunderstood each other. The first check was enough. That pays me for everything,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re a funny kind of a guy, you really are. Do you have no idea of prices or what?”

“Can you deliver it?”

“Is it in Pragal?”

“No. Lisbon. By the docks.”

“Do you have a business card with your number? In case there’s a problem?”

“No, I’ve only just moved,” I explained, and wrote my address and telephone number on a scrap of paper. Custódia put it in his pocket without looking at it.

“Right, I’ll deliver it the day after tomorrow, in the afternoon, at about three o’clock. Make sure you’re there, won’t you?”

He turned away and walked off toward the back of the shop. As I left, I’m pretty sure I heard him fart.

BACK IN LISBON, I bought paper, charcoal, and a dark wooden frame, and went back to my studio. By nine o’clock I had enlarged and traced out the portrait of Duck, but back to front to alter the shadows and perspective. I drew her almost naked, hidden by fine tulle, hinting at the outline of her small round breasts. To age her by ten years, I accentuated her features with charcoal. It wasn’t an exact likeness, but was all the better for that. At ten o’clock it was hanging on the wall.

I opened Contos aquosos . My only discipline was to translate at least two of them a day. That evening I finished three, including one particularly absurd one, sent to someone called Ursula in January 1971:

When January 12 falls on a Sunday, the Picardy village of Abelvilly still to this day celebrates it as the Feast of the Gulerian, when this creature is hunted for the tender meat on its large fleshy ears. The gulerian is a patagrade with a bright orange pelt, similar to a badger in size and a tortoise in mobility and agility, specific to that part of the Caux region and sadly extinct since the first Feast of the Gulerian in the year of grace 1197.

Obviously, each of Montestrela’s short stories contained another story which, if not secret, was at least masked from all except the addressee. Perhaps, given that he wrote one a day, he was referring to a trip to Picardy with this Ursula on another January 12, in 1971, for example. What did the gulerian stand for? I didn’t have the keys.

At about eleven o’clock the temperature had not yet dropped, and I decided to look in at the hotel. Just for a few minutes, to return the photo to Antonio’s wallet and pick up some notes. I think I also still hoped to catch a glimpse of Irene, if only for a moment. They weren’t in the bar, I thought they might have gone out for supper, and I hurried up to the room.

I opened the door to my suite. Antonio hadn’t closed the double doors between our two lounges, and I saw the sliver of light under his bedroom door. I took one step into the dark room and closed the door discreetly behind me. I saw his coat over a chair, took out his wallet, put the photo back and lay the coat down again. After that, there were just the noises.

The bed creaking, the regular animallike squeak of the springs, a woman’s voice I didn’t recognize, Irene’s voice, moaning, repressing a cry and then failing to contain it, like a cry of pain, and there’s that man’s bass, unrecognizable, whispering such huge words, words that belong to moments no one should ever hear, words I can’t even transcribe here.

I stand there, thunderstruck, rooted to the spot, I’m the foot soldier who’s still standing, panting, his guts blown away by a cannonball, who doesn’t yet understand that he’s dead.

I can hear the heavy breathing, the tension of bodies violently seeking their own pleasure, my chest full of lead and mud. I must leave. I manage to tear myself away from the terror in that room, stumbling in the hallway, crushed, racing down the stairs. I narrowly miss falling ten times, but I’m too desperate to get away to fall completely. I go through the lobby and my flight only stops in the small grayish courtyard in front of the hotel, in front of a bellboy who daren’t come over to me. I lean my back against the bare stone and crouch down, my head slumping onto my knees, shivering. The noise and bustle of the city doesn’t reach me, there’s nothing left inside me except for these incoherent sentences going around in circles.