Javier Cercas - The Tenant and The Motive

Mario heard Berkowickz and Swinczyc enthusiastically supporting Scanlan’s proposal; he also heard Branstyne doing so. Then other voices joined these. The conversation split in two, multiplied into meanders, until he could only catch unconnected snippets of it. At one moment (but later he thought he really couldn’t be sure), Mario heard Berkowickz say his name, and then Swinczyc’s nervous laugh.

At ten-thirty the guests began to leave; Ginger was the last to go.

The next day he woke up at eight. He shaved, took a shower with his left leg wrapped in a plastic bag and had just a cup of coffee for breakfast. Branstyne came to pick him up at nine-thirty.

‘How’s the ankle?’ he asked, turning left from University Avenue on to Goodwin.

‘Better,’ answered Mario. ‘It’s just a couple more days now.’

‘Last night a bunch of us got together at Berkowickz’s house,’ said Branstyne. ‘We called on you, but you weren’t in.’

‘I went out to run some errands and didn’t get back till late,’ Mario claimed. Then, as if to shake off the uncomfortable silence that had settled over the car, he asked, ‘How was it?’

Branstyne talked about the party until he stopped the car in front of Lincoln Hall. Mario thanked him for bringing him that far. Branstyne said, ‘I’ll come and get you at seven tonight.’

Mario looked bewildered. Lifting his left hand off the steering wheel and raising his eyebrows, Branstyne added, ‘We’ll sample Tina’s fettuccini and have a bit of a chat while we’re at it.’

Mario tried to hide the fact that he’d forgotten about the dinner invitation.

‘Come by whenever you like,’ he said. ‘I’m not going anywhere this afternoon.’

After giving his lecture (once again he couldn’t fill the fifty minutes, and before the bell sounded, he’d dismissed the class) he went to the department office. In his cubbyhole was a note signed by Scanlan, who wanted to speak to him as soon as possible.

He was just about to knock on the boss’s door when he heard Joyce’s voice behind him. ‘Professor Scanlan’s busy.’

Mario turned around. The secretary smiled. Her lips were painted an extremely bright red, which stood out against the whitish pallor of her face and the straw-coloured blonde of her hair; a blue silk ribbon, with white polka dots, held her hair almost at the top of her head, in a sort of ponytail; her hairless brows contributed to giving her a vaguely fishy or reptilian air. Without giving him a single chance to interrupt, answering the questions she herself was posing, gesturing slowly but copiously, Joyce asked about Mario’s ankle and told him about the case of a friend of Winnie’s who’d suffered a similar mishap. Then she changed the subject. She talked openly about Winnie: how she’d been accepted at the University of Iowa, how very young she was to be going to university, that she had a boyfriend called Mike. At some point she assured him that, even though it wouldn’t be necessary until winter arrived, they were already making arrangements to get the heating fixed in Mario’s office. Only when she asked about Olalde did he get the impression that the secretary was waiting for an answer. He could not, however, be certain: just then Scanlan’s office door opened. Berkowickz came out, his face glowing with energy. His lips widened into a smile of solid satisfaction. Under Scanlan’s gaze he greeted Mario with a sportive gesture.

‘You missed a party at my place yesterday,’ he said with an air of cheerful or fake annoyance. ‘It was my fault: I forgot to tell you ahead of time. We knocked at your door, but we didn’t find you in.’

‘I went out to run some errands and didn’t get back till late,’ Mario apologized. Suddenly he thought that wasn’t what he’d meant to say and tried to add something. He couldn’t because Berkowickz beat him to it.

‘See you later,’ he said. And to Mario he added, ‘Let’s see if we can get together for a bit of a chat one of these days.’

Perhaps for no precise reason, Mario thought: Just like a nightmare.

They went into the office. Scanlan sat behind his desk, Mario in one of the leather chairs lined up in front of it. Gently stroking his goatee, Scanlan made some innocuous, perhaps friendly, comments with a cloying smile. Mario got distracted for a moment looking at a poster tacked up on the back wall: it announced a retrospective of the work of Botero. He heard Scanlan clearing his throat.

‘I’m just going to take up a moment of your time: I prefer to inform you personally of the situation,’ he declared. The cloying smile had disappeared. After a brief pause, he continued in an official tone, ‘Next week the departmental committee is meeting. I intend to set out your case there to see whether all together we can find a solution, not for this semester, of course, but maybe for the next or for next year. I can’t promise you I’ll manage it, but of course we’re going to make an effort. For my part, I’m already working on it.’ He paused, cleared his throat again and leaned back in his chair. ‘On the other hand, and this is closely linked to what I’ve just said, I suppose you’re as aware, if not more so, as the rest of the staff, of the effort I’ve been putting into raising the level of this department since I took charge of it. I don’t think I’m talking nonsense if I imagine that everyone is committed to the same goal: it is most definitively to convert the department into a centre of excellence, and that cannot but benefit us all. But, of course, applying for budget increases to enable us to contract new professors is not enough, we also have to be much more demanding of those who are already here, starting with ourselves. And, as I’m ready to see that all these good intentions translate into practical measures, I’m going to put to the committee a new project of departmental regulation. If I’m not mistaken, there should be nothing standing in the way of its approval. The idea behind this new regulation, in substance, is that we fulfil more rigorously what up till now hasn’t been worth the paper it’s written on; that is: the contract of a professor who has not demonstrated the level of intellectual and professional competence the department considers adequate will not be renewed. I know such measures can seem threatening; in reality they’re only intended as a stimulus to everyone. Now then, Mario,’ Scanlan went on, clearly making an effort to adopt a less impersonal or more urgent tone, ‘your contract, if I’m not mistaken, expires in June. I imagine that the committee will meet in the spring. Which leaves you six months, more than enough time to prepare something or finish polishing something up that you’ve been working on all this time: three years is a long time not to have published anything at all. And I must insist this is not a threat, Mario, I’m just stating facts; take it rather as advice from a friend who appreciates you. Work, Mario, get something prepared, anything, and send if off to some journal or present it at some conference, and that’ll be that. Either way, write something, and quickly: I have to tell you that otherwise it’ll not be easy for me to stand up for you to the committee.’

Branstyne came to pick him up at seven. They took Lincoln Avenue, turned left on University and carried on towards the suburbs north of the city. They barely spoke during the drive. They parked in front of Branstyne’s house, a single-storey building, with white walls, big windows, a smooth green roof, crowned with two chimneys (one very small and metal, the other larger, rectangular and made of stone), above which swayed a willow. A gravel path across the garden led to the garage, whose silhouette stood out against a dense mass of vegetation.