Javier Cercas - The Tenant and The Motive

Tina stood up and went to the kitchen. After a moment she returned and sat back down on the sofa.

‘Mario,’ said Tina to break the silence. ‘We’re all trying to help you.’

Mario talked very little during dinner; he barely ate, he was a bundle of nerves and his throat felt restricted. Branstyne regarded him with a mixture of compassion and affection. Tina kept the conversation going: she talked about mutual friends, Italy, a grant the biology department had given her, their vacation.

At the end of the meal Mario complimented Tina on her fettuccini. He also promised to come back again another day.

Branstyne dropped him off in front of his house at ten.

‘I can’t pick you up tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I don’t have a morning class and I’ve got a few things to do around the house: you know how it is, having a family is like running a small business.’

Mario nodded. He said, ‘Don’t worry. The bus stops right there.’

He opened the door to get out, then he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around: Branstyne was saying goodbye in a way that said, ‘Come on, we’re all trying to help you.’ Mario held back a violent urge to punch him in the face.

When Branstyne’s car turned the corner, Mario lit a cigarette and walked down West Oregon with faltering steps, leaning on the crutch. It was hot, humid and clammy; the bulbs of the street lights, filthy with mosquito corpses, spread a weak, yellowish light over the pavement. He got to Race, turned left and headed towards Lincoln Square. He went into the Embassy.

It was a small bar, dark and narrow, the walls and floors covered in wood. On the right a succession of wooden tables traversed the room, bathed in the light from the lamps that hung above each one. The bar stretched along the left with metal and wood stools that grew out of the floor like mushrooms. Behind the bar a mirror reproduced the smoky atmosphere of the bar, almost deserted at this hour. A young couple were talking at one of the tables near the door, several husky-looking men were throwing darts at a board, another two men were drinking at the bar, alone.

Mario leaned the crutch against the bar, sat on a stool and ordered a whisky. When it arrived he lit a cigarette. At twelve-thirty, after three whiskies and half a pack of Marlboros, he noticed there was no one else left in the bar, except the bartender. He paid and left.

When he got back to his building he saw a light on in Berkowickz’s apartment. He went carefully up the stairs, making sure they didn’t creak. He paused on the landing, listened closely, held his breath: he heard music, and voices he didn’t recognise.

When he got into bed he realized he was drunk.

The next day he woke up with a dry mouth, his temples pierced by a slight stab of pain. He swallowed two aspirins with a glass of orange juice, shaved, showered with his left foot wrapped in a plastic bag and had just a cup of coffee for breakfast.

He left the apartment. As he was turning the key he heard the door of the apartment opposite open. He turned around: astonished, without understanding at first, he faced Berkowickz and Ginger. They smiled. They said good morning, exclaimed over the encounter with a disproportionate effusion that at first struck Mario as malevolent, later as simply unthinking. Flustered, he stammered something. Berkowickz kept talking as the three of them went down the stairs. They stopped on the porch.

‘Are you going to the department?’ asked Ginger. Her mouth had frozen into a perfect smile. ‘If you want we could give you a lift.’

Mario looked at her with incredulous eyes, almost agonising behind the lenses of his glasses. Ginger didn’t register, or didn’t want to register, Mario’s look, and might have repeated the offer, because he replied, ‘No need.’ Then he lied. ‘Branstyne’s going to pass by to pick me up in a minute.’

Berkowickz took advantage of the silence Mario’s answer had opened up to lament amiably that, despite being neighbours, they still hadn’t found a moment for a quiet chat. ‘I have an idea,’ he said, passing a possessive arm along Ginger’s neck and resting it on her left shoulder. ‘Why don’t you come by my apartment this evening and we’ll have a drink together?’

Mario clumsily looked for an excuse to turn down the invitation. He didn’t have time to find one.

‘OK,’ said Berkowickz, undoubtedly thinking that by saying nothing Mario was consenting. ‘Come by whenever you like: I’ll be home all evening.’

‘See you later, Mario,’ said Ginger, still smiling. ‘We’ll see you at the office.’

He watched them walk hand in hand to Berkowickz’s car. Trying not to think about what he’d just seen, he noticed it had rained overnight: the air was clean and smelled of damp earth, the nine o’clock sun, encrusted in a pure cloudless sky, twinkled on the lawn. Berkowickz and Ginger turned back to wave to him, their hands reaching out of the car windows, as they drove down West Oregon.

Mario took the bus, went into Lincoln Hall, gave his lecture, crossed the Quad, got to the department, picked up his mail, said hello to Joyce, to Wojcik, to Hyun, talked for a while with Olalde, caught the bus again, had lunch and then a nap. None of these activities, however, managed to stimulate his brain enough to stop ruminating over his meeting with Ginger and Berkowickz, nor the engagement, for that very evening, he had with the latter. The first event was easy enough to interpret: since it was now irreversible, he tried to forget it (he couldn’t: Ginger’s smile floated on the lips of the red-headed student, on Joyce’s, on Wojcik’s and Hyun’s, on Olalde’s). Not so the second: in a confusing way he sensed that Berkowickz, perhaps unconsciously, was offering him an opportunity he shouldn’t waste. An opportunity for what? he wondered.

He tried to reflect in an orderly fashion.

Should he show up? He guessed that Berkowickz wanted to talk to him about Ginger, or about the relationship that, to judge from the scene he’d witnessed that morning, linked them or was beginning to link him to her, or about what Ginger had told Berkowickz about him, or about all those things at once. He discarded the idea: he hadn’t noticed the slightest sign of concern or vexation in Berkowickz’s attitude when surprised with Ginger this morning on the landing, nor when saying goodbye to him. Furthermore, if he had any knowledge of the bond that up till then had linked Mario to Ginger — which seemed fairly improbable — it was almost certain he’d prefer to forget it or, more reasonably, that it held no interest for him. At other moments (walking into Lincoln Hall, during class, while crossing the Quad) he envisioned the possibility that Branstyne might have told Berkowickz or insinuated that he, Mario, absurdly attributed the whirlwind of misfortunes that had befallen him to Berkowickz’s presence. Berkowickz would have felt somehow responsible, and perhaps wanted to give him some explanation, or simply make it up to him, gain his sympathy. He also discarded this hypothesis: Either I don’t know how the world works, he thought, or guys like Berkowickz don’t know the meaning of guilt. On the other hand, what interest could the new tenant have in winning his friendship, if he can’t even imagine him as a potential enemy. .? Later he thought that Berkowickz wanted to crush him definitively, humiliating him with an exhibition of curriculum vitae and amiability, intellectual energy and exuberant vitality.

After his nap he tried once again to put his ideas in order. He reconsidered the hypotheses he’d formulated, ventured some more. They all led to a curious operation: each of the motives he managed to ascribe to Berkowickz’s thinking in arranging the meeting metamorphosed into another set of reasons not to go. This led him not to discard the possibility, which at one point had seemed remote, that Berkowickz, just as he’d declared on the porch, wanted to get to know him, to talk to him: after all, it was true they had not yet had a chance to exchange opinions. In any case, he concluded, with a resolution not exempt from satisfaction at the implacable logical rigour with which he’d linked his ideas, what’s sure is that, if I don’t show up, Berkowickz is going to think I don’t dare confront him alone.