Javier Cercas - The Tenant and The Motive

‘Thanks again for everything,’ he said, already at the door.

And then, thinking he was lying, he added, ‘I’ll come back another time.’

When he got home he felt relieved, but his relief soon turned to anxiety. The vast repugnance the woman caused him was not sufficient reason, he told himself, to endanger a project so arduously and protractedly elaborated. The value of the information he could obtain from the concierge far outweighed the price he’d need to pay with the sacrifice of his stupid scruples. Furthermore — he concluded, to instill himself with valour — the differences that, on all fronts, distinguished one woman from the next were merely adjectival.

The next morning he returned to the concierge’s flat. This time there was no need for formalities. Resigned, Álvaro carried out his mission with phoney enthusiasm in an enormous, rickety old bed, with a wooden headboard from which hung a crucifix, which, in the midst of adulterous euphoria and from the effect of the corresponding jolts, fell off its hook and landed on Álvaro’s head. He refrained from making any comment whatsoever and tried not to think at all.

Now the room was in semi-darkness: only a few lines of yellowish light striped the floor, the bed, the walls. The smoke from their cigarettes thickened as it floated through the rays of light. Álvaro talked about the various tenants in the building; he said that the one who most intrigued him was Señor Montero. The concierge explained (her voice momentarily acquired a slight pleasantness to Álvaro’s ear) that the old man had lost his wife a few years back and had then moved into the flat he now occupied. She didn’t know for certain, but suspected he was close to eighty years old. He’d fought in the civil war and, once it was over, stayed in the army, although he never rose from the ranks. The new military regulations caught up with him and he’d had to take early retirement. That’s why he hated politicians unwaveringly. As far as she knew he never had visitors; she didn’t know if he had any relatives, although every once in a while he received letters with South American postmarks and feminine handwriting. His only acknowledged passion was chess. He unashamedly declared himself to be an excellent player. He had been one of the founders of a chess club, which was quite far away from where he now lived, and that had forced him to space out his matches because at his age he was no longer up to great excitement. This had contributed to embittering his character even further. It was not impossible that she was the only person he had any dealings with, as she went up to his flat daily to clean, prepare a little food for him and take care of other domestic matters. But she’d never become too friendly with him — something which didn’t interest her — nothing beyond the trust that could be implied from her knowledge of those superficial details. She admitted to treating him with a certain deference, but she recognized that he was harsh and mistrustful with the rest of the tenants.

‘Imagine,’ continued the concierge, whose brisk transition from the formal to the familiar form of address instigated a verbal intimacy between them that, for some reason, bothered Álvaro even more than the physical one. ‘He pays me each week from money he keeps in a wall safe hidden behind a picture. He says he doesn’t trust banks. At first I didn’t know where he got the money from, but since he’s so proud of the safe, he ended up showing me.’

Álvaro asked if she thought he kept a lot of money in it.

‘I doubt his pension stretches very far.’

Against the perfect whiteness of the sheets, the concierge’s skin looked almost translucent. Her gaze was fixed on the ceiling and she spoke with a tranquillity Álvaro had never seen in her, the tree of veins at her temple barely showing. She turned towards him, resting her cheek on the pillow (her eyes were a sickly blue), and kissed him. Making a supreme effort, like a long-distance runner who feels his legs weaken within sight of the finishing line and, pulling himself together, with one last disproportionate exertion, Álvaro complied.

The woman sank her satisfied face into the pillow. Álvaro lit a cigarette. He was exhausted, but soon began to talk of the other occupants of his floor. He said he was curious about them: it was almost a crime that after two years of living in the same building he barely knew them by sight. The woman turned over, lit a cigarette, stated the names of his neighbours and talked about the two women who’d had to leave the building a while ago for not paying their rent. She told anecdotes she thought were funny but which were actually just grotesque. Álvaro thought: ‘On veut bien être méchant, mais on ne veut point être ridicule’. He felt satisfied at having recalled a quote so appropriate to the moment. These trivial satisfactions filled him with pleasure, because he thought that all of life could be reduced to an indeterminate number of quotes. All of life is a cento, he thought. And then he immediately wondered: but who would undertake the critical edition?

A smile of beatific idiocy illuminated her face as the concierge chattered on. She spoke of the Casares family, who lived in flat C on the second floor. A young couple from the north who seemed moderately happy, with a moderate, friendly manner, and moderately healthy finances. They had two children. Álvaro sensed that they were the kind of people whose normality kept them immunue to gossip and exasperated concierges. He assured her he remembered them and urged the woman to go on talking about them. The concierge explained that the husband — he wouldn’t be more than thirty-five — worked at the Seat plant, on the afternoon shift, so he started around four and finished at midnight. The woman took care of the house and children. The concierge reproached them (she spoke of all the tenants as if she were a decisive part of their lives) for educating their children above their means and social status. Perhaps living in the upper part of the city made them feel obliged to make undoubtedly excessive extravagances. Álvaro thought the concierge’s voice sounded like it was infected with the kind of rancour happy people inspire in resentful, mediocre people.

Álvaro stood up abruptly, got dressed without a word. The concierge covered her naked body with a robe; she asked him if he’d be coming back tomorrow. While adjusting the knot of his tie in front of the mirror, Álvaro said no. He peered out through the peephole to make sure the entrance hall was empty. The concierge asked him if he’d be back another day. Álvaro answered: ‘Who knows?’ He left.

He waited for the lift. When it arrived and he was about to step in, he noticed Señora Casares, weighed down with packages as well as her shopping trolley, struggling with her key in the lock of the main door. He rushed to her aid. He opened the door and picked several of her bags up off the ground.

‘Thank you so much, Álvaro, I’m so grateful,’ said Señora Casares, almost laughing at the situation she found herself in.

Instead of it making him uncomfortable, Álvaro was flattered by her informal way of using his first name, although he couldn’t help but be surprised by it, given that it was the first time they’d ever spoken. By the time they got to the lift, it had gone back up. Señora Casares joked about being a housewife; Álvaro joked about being a housekeeper. They laughed.

Irene Casares is slight, of medium height and with a neat, meticulous appearance. Her manners seem studied, but not false, perhaps because her naturalness comes from a sort of delicate discipline. The features of her face seem strangely toned down, as if softened by the sweetness that emanates from her gestures, her lips, her words. Her eyes are clear, her beauty humble. But there is within her an elegance and dignity that her somewhat vulgar appearance doesn’t quite disguise.