Javier Cercas - The Tenant and The Motive

They went into the dining room. From the kitchen they could hear the clinking of glasses, cutlery and saucepans, as well as a delicate smell of pasta. Tina soon appeared wrapped in a brown apron, her hair dishevelled, her smile radiant. Mario thought she looked lovely. They kissed hello.

‘Dinner will be ready in a minute,’ said Tina. Looking at Mario with shining eyes she added, ‘It’s going to be absolutely delicious.’ And she went back into the kitchen.

‘We’ve got time for a drink,’ said Branstyne. ‘What would you like?’

‘A dry Martini,’ answered Mario.

Branstyne prepared two dry Martinis with ice. He handed one to Mario and sat in an armchair, facing him.

‘So, how’s the situation, then?’ he asked as if picking up a recently interrupted conversation where they had left off.

‘What situation?’

‘Your position in the department.’

Mario was annoyed by Branstyne’s brusqueness, by the way he’d almost rushed to raise the issue, as if he’d only been invited to dinner to talk about it. What for? he wondered, in confusion.

‘Bad,’ Mario admitted, suddenly feeling like talking. ‘How would you expect it to be? In reality things couldn’t be any worse since Berkowickz arrived.’ And as he said this he was also thinking it for the first time.

‘What’s Berkowickz got to do with it?’

‘He’s practically fired me,’ said Mario as if to himself, without intending to answer Branstyne’s question.

‘Berkowickz fired you?’

‘No,’ said Mario, returning to the conversation. ‘Scanlan. I spoke to him this morning: now I know that in June they won’t renew my contract.’

‘That can’t be,’ Branstyne declared with conviction. ‘Those kinds of things are decided by the committee, and the committee can’t rescind a contract just like that. They’d have to wait at least until Christmas.’

‘Whether at Christmas or in the spring, it doesn’t matter,’ said Mario. ‘The main thing is the decision’s been made. Scanlan dominates the committee, and it’ll do what Scanlan wants. Today he told me I’m a mediocrity, that I don’t publish enough, basically, that I don’t measure up. He called me in to humiliate me, Branstyne, and also to cover his back, to be able to fire me with impunity, almost with a clear conscience. . What gets me is that he’s such a cynic’

‘It’s his job.’

‘To be a cynic?’

‘To make the department function according to regulations.’

‘And for that he has to fire me?’

‘For that he has to make sure those regulations are respected.’

‘Now you’re starting to sound like him.’

There was a silence.

‘Everything’ll work out,’ said Branstyne at last, in a conciliatory tone.

‘Don’t be an idiot, Branstyne,’ said Mario, no longer repressing the fury pounding in his temples. ‘Nothing’s going to work out here because there’s nothing to work out. At this point I’ll be happy just to make it to June without them cutting my salary again.’

Tina came into the dining room, made herself a Martini and went to sit on an arm of the chair where Branstyne had fallen silent. Since the silence persisted, Tina asked, ‘What were you talking about?’

‘A mutual friend,’ answered Mario. ‘Daniel Berkowickz. Since he arrived here the whole world’s been smiling on me. First it was my ankle, and from then on it hasn’t stopped. I used to be paid a salary; now I get a third of a salary. I used to think I had a secure job; now I know I won’t last long in it. I used to have an office; now I’ve got a sort of stable that can only be called an office so as not to offend the Chinaman and the nutcase I share it with.’ He paused. He looked at his Martini, the pieces of ice floating in the liquid. He added, ‘I also used to have a girlfriend.’

‘But it was just as if you didn’t,’ said Tina softly. ‘You never paid her any attention.’

Mario didn’t say anything; he kept his gaze fixed on his glass, swirling it gently to move the ice around. Branstyne, sunk ever deeper into his armchair, seemed unwilling to emerge from the silence in which he’d enclosed himself. Tina drank a sip of her Martini without taking her eyes off Mario. She asked, ‘What’s happened with Ginger?’

‘I suppose she got fed up,’ said Mario. ‘The truth is she didn’t give me much explanation.’

‘And don’t tell me you’ve decided to fall in love with her now.’

‘I probably already was before,’ Mario ventured, raising his eyes and looking at Tina with a malicious or ironic expression that she didn’t understand. ‘Only I didn’t know it.’

Tina stood up from the arm of the chair and went to sit down on the sofa, beside Mario’s armchair.

‘Look, Mario,’ she began in possibly an admonishing tone. ‘Forgive me for being direct, but someone has to be with you. What you’re saying is fine for someone under twenty years of age. After that it’s pathetic, if not worse. Only adolescents and idiots insist on wanting what they don’t have and not wanting what they have. Only adolescents and idiots are incapable of appreciating something until they’ve lost it.’ She stopped for a moment; then she went on. ‘You know perfectly well you made Ginger suffer terribly. What she’s done is only sensible: I confess in her place I would have done the same thing myself, except much sooner.’

‘You seem to think people are conspiring against you or something,’ Branstyne intervened in support of Tina, sitting up a little in his armchair and crossing his legs. ‘It’s ridiculous. Tina’s right: only a teenager thinks things like that. As for Berkowickz, I’ll tell you one thing: he does appreciate you. As for the rest (and I’m telling you this because I appreciate you as well), you should follow his example, but not just from the academic point of view: Berkowickz is a lively, energetic, enterprising guy who knows how to see the good side of things and get the best out of them. I’m being sincere: I’m delighted that he’s here, it’s as if a breath of fresh air has come into the department. And as for Scanlan, you already know my opinion: he’s only trying to do the job he’s taken on to the best of his abilities. Scanlan’s the boss and he has the right to raise the level of the department; everyone would be harmed if he didn’t. That’s the way things are, Mario,’ Branstyne concluded emphatically, ‘and there’s nothing you can do about it.’

Mario contained the urge to leave. He gulped down the last of his Martini. For a moment he thought he was appearing before a tribunal that couldn’t or didn’t want to tell him what he was accused of. He thought: Just like a nightmare.

‘In any case,’ Branstyne continued, perhaps made impatient by Mario’s silence, ‘I don’t think the situation’s all that serious, at least not yet. What you have to do is buckle down, Mario, get to work. Tell me: how long’s it been since you published something? A year, two, three?’

‘Three years,’ said Mario. ‘Three years and two months, to be precise.’

‘Three years,’ Branstyne repeated, shrugging his shoulders and looking at Tina. He turned back to Mario. ‘Frankly, I don’t understand how you can complain about Scanlan. What you should do instead is get something together and try to publish it somewhere.’

‘I don’t have anything ready,’ Mario admitted.

‘The Association Conference isn’t till January,’ said Branstyne. ‘You’ve still got four months: more than enough time. And whoever gives a paper at the Association Conference can speak anywhere else. It’s just a question of goodwill, Mario, of making a gesture. I’m sure that if you do Scanlan will find a solution; the only thing he’s asking is that you give him a reason to look for one.’