Javier Cercas - The Tenant and The Motive

He went down to visit her again. He explained that there are moments in a man’s life when he is not himself, when he flies off the handle and is unable to control himself. In those ill-fated instances, nothing he does or says should be taken as representative, but rather as a sort of malevolent manifestation of a momentary wretched temper. For this reason he begged her to excuse him if, at any time, his conduct towards her had not been as gentlemanly as she had every right to expect from him.

The concierge accepted his apology with delight. Álvaro hurried to add that he found himself at a particularly delicate point in his career just then, something which not only might explain his possible bursts of bad temper, but also demanded his total and exclusive commitment to his work, making it absolutely impossible for him to cultivate and enjoy her company for some time. Nothing was more disagreeable to him, but he was obliged to postpone their friendship until circumstances became more favourable. This, of course, should not prevent their relationship, despite developing on a strictly superficial level, being ruled by an exemplary cordiality. Bewitched by Álvaro’s florid self-exonerating rhetoric like a snake by the sound of the charmer’s flute, the concierge willingly agreed to everything.

The chess games continued in old man Montero’s apartment. Álvaro was pleased to note they always remained under his control: he decided the exchanges of men, foresaw the attacks, dictated the mood of play and doled out a calculated alternation of victories and defeats that kept up the rivalry and invited intimacy between the two adversaries. Gradually the pre- or post-match conversations grew longer until they began to take up more time than the game itself. He was initially surprised to observe that the old man consumed startling quantities of alcohol for a man of his age, which gave him a disordered and obsessive loquacity. Álvaro awaited his moment.

Old man Montero spoke mostly about politics. He had always voted for the far right and thought democracy was an illness only weak nations suffered from, because it implied that the ruling elite had declined their responsibility and left it to the amorphous masses, and a country without an elite was a country that was lost. Furthermore, it was based on a fantasy, universal suffrage: a concierge’s vote could not be worth as much as a lawyer’s vote. Álvaro nodded and the old man was soon bitterly criticising the government. His darts, however, were mainly directed at the right-wing parties. He felt they’d backed down from their principles, had reneged on their origins. Álvaro was occasionally moved by the emotional rancour of his reproaches.

He also talked about his military past. He’d fought in the battle of Brunete and at the Ebro, and he recounted moving tales of memorable deaths, bombardments and heroism. One day he told how he’d seen General Valera in the distance; another, he described a provisional ensign dying in his arms, bleeding to death as they took him to a first aid post far from the front line. Once in a while tears would fall.

Álvaro understood the old man’s mistrust wasn’t directed at concrete individuals, but was a general animosity against the world, a sort of festering reaction of generosity betrayed.

His only daughter lived in Argentina; sometimes she wrote to him. For his part, he was keeping his life’s savings to leave to his grandchildren. One day, in the midst of alcohol-induced exaltation, and after a mention of his heirs, he assured Álvaro with pride that he had much more money than his modest life might lead one to suspect. With similar pride, he declared his distrust of banks, mean inventions of usurious Jews. Then he stood up (there was an intoxicated sparkle in his viscous eyes) and revealed a safe built into the wall, hidden behind an imitation of a neutral landscape painting.

Álvaro shuddered.

After a few seconds Álvaro reacted and said that for some time he’d been kicking around the idea of withdrawing his money from the bank and putting it in a safe, but he hadn’t made up his mind to do so because he wasn’t entirely convinced they were secure and he’d been very lazy about going to a shop and finding out. With as much enthusiasm as if he were trying to sell it, the old man extolled the virtues of the strongbox and took his time over an explanation of the workings of its simple mechanism. He claimed it was much safer than a bank and said he only closed his when he left the house.

That very day, Álvaro invited the Casareses to dinner.

At nine on the dot they arrived at his door. They had dressed up for the occasion. She wore an old-fashioned violet-coloured dress, but her hairstyle was elegant and the shadow of make-up darkening her lips, eyelids and cheeks paradoxically enhanced the pallor of her face. He was stuffed into a tight suit, and his enormous belly only allowed one button of the jacket to be done up, leaving exposed the flowered front of an Asturian baptism shirt.

Álvaro was about to laugh to himself at the Casareses’ pathetic appearance, but he quickly realised that this dinner represented an important social occasion for them and he felt a sort of compassion towards the couple. This filled him with great self-confidence, and so, while they had the aperitif he’d prepared and listened to the records he’d recently acquired, he found topics of conversation that alleviated the relative initial awkwardness and relaxed the stiffness that gripped them. They talked about almost everything before sitting down at the table and Álvaro couldn’t help but notice that the woman nervously smoked one cigarette after another, but he refrained from making any comment.

During the meal, the man talked and laughed with a booming cheerfulness that seemed excessive to Álvaro and, in spite of her haggard appearance, the woman was visibly pleased at her husband’s contagious vitality. Álvaro, nevertheless, conscious of the respect he inspired, did not release the reins of the dialogue, and although he tended to be inhibited when faced with a personality more vigorous or excessive than his own, he succeeded in bringing the conversation on to his terrain. He talked of daily life in the neighbourhood, of the strange relationships that grew up between neighbours, invented some dubiously diverting discord among the concierges. Then he concentrated on his relationship with old man Montero: their long chess matches, the conversations that preceded and followed them, the taciturn initial mistrust only gradually mellowed by time and with difficulty. He also took his time enumerating the many details that made the man eccentric. Over coffee and cognac, he enquired discreetly about his neighbour’s employment situation. The couple turned gloomy. The husband said it was all still the same and he still didn’t know how to thank him for all the trouble he’d taken. Álvaro said he considered himself paid by the satisfaction he received from fulfilling an obligation as friend and neighbour. He said, for his part, he’d made enquiries within his limited sphere, but without results. In his view, the situation didn’t look set to improve, at least not in the short term. In any case, he would continue with his enquiries and, as soon as he heard of any job, tell him immediately.

They carried on chatting for a while, arranged to get together again on the following Tuesday and said goodnight.

He threw himself into feverish activity that week. Now he also wrote at night: when he got home from the office he took a shower, ate a light supper and shut himself back up in his study. As the novel approached its end, the rhythm of his writing slowed down, but at the same time his certainty grew that the chosen path was the right one. In order not to waste the two mornings a week he went upstairs to the old man’s place, the previous evenings would find him in bed very early, so he could get up at five the next morning and have almost five working hours at his disposal before confronting the chessboard. The Casareses’ arguments were getting worse and it wasn’t difficult for him to detect, the next time they came to dinner at his place, that the hostility between them had increased. That day they didn’t arrive dressed as if for a religious celebration. This presupposed a greater level of trust, which not only allowed him to conduct and express himself more naturally, but also permitted the resentment the two of them had been harbouring lately to eventually rise to the surface. Álvaro again dominated the conversation and it hardly took any effort to centre it, now almost without pretence that it was merely a chance turn in the wanderings of the dialogue, on old man Montero. He again mentioned his eccentricities, explained in great detail the location of the wall safe, described its simple mechanism and assured them it contained a great fortune. Later, he spoke about the old man’s poor health and absolute isolation; he made a special point of emphasizing the almost mathematical exactitude of his comings and goings each day, the unwavering nature of his daily routine; lastly, he said that he only closed the safe when he was about to leave the house.