Javier Cercas - The Tenant and The Motive

In vain he awaited a reaction from the couple. They would change the subject as soon as a silence opened in Álvaro’s monotonous obsessive talk. At first he thought it was just a matter of time but, as they dined together repeatedly and he gradually constrained the conversation to this single theme, the Casareses’ indifference turned into irritation and impatience. One day they jokingly begged him to talk of something else for once and Álvaro, smiling and annoyed, asked for their forgiveness: ‘It’s just that it strikes me as a fascinating subject,’ he said, sounding fascinated. Another time they alluded to the theme as his ‘persecution mania’ and he, feeling they were trying to ridicule him, replied harshly, as if repelling unexpected aggression. On another occasion, the couple took the liberty of inviting the journalist with the eruptive face to introduce an element of variation to their gettogethers, but Álvaro practically ignored her, and that day insisted on talking about the old man more than ever. As they left, the Casareses stood chatting with the journalist for a few minutes on the landing. They confessed they were worried about Álvaro. For a while now he hasn’t seemed well; so much solitude couldn’t be good for anybody.

‘Solitude borders on madness,’ said the man, as if repeating a sentence prepared in advance for that moment.

There was silence. The girl’s eyes — two blue, attentive apples — opened wide.

‘Something will end up happening to him,’ the woman added, with that fatalism that passes for wisdom among the humble.

Álvaro was worried, not only because the couple didn’t react as he’d expected, but also what really exasperated him was that their relationship had improved markedly: the fights had stopped, the dinners at his place seemed to reconcile them even further and their physical appearance had regained its lost vigour. But there was something worse: he was unable to find a fitting finale for his novel, and when he thought he had hit upon one, the difficulties of execution eventually discouraged him. He needed to find a solution.

But it was the solution that found him. He’d been trying to write all morning without any results. He went out for a walk in the autumn light and dry leaves. On his way back, he met the Casareses in the entrance hall, waiting for the lift. They were carrying several bags and, wrapped in brown paper, a long object that widened at its bottom end. Álvaro thought incongruously that it was an axe. A shiver ran down his spine. The Casareses greeted him with a cheerfulness that Álvaro judged incomprehensible or perhaps only artificial; they told him they were coming back from the city centre where they’d been doing some shopping; they commented on the nice weather and said goodbye on the landing.

After a brief tussle, he managed to unlock the door. Once inside he collapsed in an armchair in the living room and, with trembling hands, lit a cigarette. He had not the slightest doubt about what the Casares planned to use the axe for, but nor did he doubt — he thought with a start of euphoria — the ending he’d give to his novel. And then he wondered — perhaps due to that insidious intellectual habit that led one to consider every objective a deception once it’d been achieved — if finishing it was really worth the old man’s death and almost certainly the eventual imprisonment of the couple, because amateurs would commit errors that the police could not fail to notice. He felt a terrible pressure in his chest and throat. He thought he’d call the Casareses and persuade them to abandon their project; he’d convince them it was madness, that the idea hadn’t even come from them: only he, Álvaro, was responsible for these atrocious machinations. He’d convince them they were going to destroy their lives and those of their children because, even if the police didn’t find them out, how would they be able to live with themselves with the weight of this crime on their consciences, how could they look their children in the eye without shame? But perhaps it was already too late. They had made their decision. And he, had he not made his as well? Had he not decided to sacrifice everything to his Work? And if he had sacrificed himself, why should he not sacrifice others? Why be more generous to old man Montero and the Casareses than he was to himself?

Then there was a knock at the door. It was almost midday and he wasn’t expecting anybody. Who could be looking for him at this time of day? With a shiver of fear, with resignation, almost with relief, he thought he understood. He’d been mistaken: the Casares weren’t going to kill the old man, they were going to kill him. In a flash of lucidity, he thought that maybe his neighbours had found out that he could have appealed the dismissal letter and secured Enrique Casares’ job for him, but for some reason unknown to them — although no less despicable for that — had refused to do so, ruining their lives and then amateurishly inciting them to murder old man Montero. But if they killed him, they’d not only get revenge on the one responsible for their disgrace, they could also keep his money — money that perhaps legitimately belonged to them — because now he sensed, through the uncertain fog of his derangement, that it was not impossible, during their latest obsessive encounters, that he would have told them that he himself had recently decided to keep all his savings in a wall safe similar to the old man’s.

He looked out through the peephole. His neighbour was indeed waiting on the landing, but his hands were empty. Álvaro opened the door. Enrique Casares stammered, said they were fixing a window and needed a screwdriver; he asked if he’d mind lending them his for a while; that evening, at the latest, they’d bring it back. Álvaro asked him to wait in the living room and a moment later returned with the screwdriver. He didn’t notice that Enrique Casares’ hand was shaking as he took it from him.

His wife returned it that night. They chatted for a few moments in the dining room. When she was about to leave — the apartment door was half open and the woman grasped the doorknob in her left hand — she turned and said, like someone saying farewell, in a tone that struck Álvaro as perhaps too solemn, ‘Thank you for everything.’

He’d never wondered why there were no smells or sounds, and perhaps that’s why he was even more surprised at their presence, although it was not impossible that they’d been there the other times as well; but the strangest thing was the vague certainty that now no one would keep him from reaching his aim. He was walking across a very green meadow with the smell of grass and fruit trees and manure, although he couldn’t see any trees or manure, just the green, green ground and the neighing horses (white and blue and black) against the stony or steely sky. He was climbing the gentle slope of the hill as a dry wind covered his naked skin in goose bumps, and he turned almost nostalgically towards the valley he was gradually leaving behind like a green wake filled with petrified neighing. And at the top of the green, green hill grey birds fluttered, coming and going and emitting little metallic cries that were also frozen needles. And he arrived at the crest panting, knowing that now nothing and no one would keep him from glimpsing what lay in wait on the other side of the door, and he clutched the golden doorknob in his left hand, opened the white door and looked through.

The next day he wasn’t surprised when the old man didn’t turn up at the supermarket. They were supposed to play chess that morning, but Álvaro didn’t leave his apartment. He smoked cigarettes and drank cold coffee until, towards noon, someone knocked at his door. It was the concierge: the blood had fled her face. It wasn’t very difficult to deduce from her whimpering and exaggerated gestures that she’d found the old man’s corpse when she’d gone up to do her daily cleaning. He sat her down in an armchair, tried to calm her, and called the police.