Iosi Havilio - Paradises

It was said that the Dutch people who had bought the club with the polo fields and stables were offering a lot of money for the surrounding land. The idea was to put together an immense country club with a golf course in the middle, right where we were. Everything together in one single complex, almost as big as the adjoining psychiatric hospital, but not quite. Jaime had laughed when he remarked on it: They’re going to end up throwing the loonies out in the dirt. But he never said anything about selling the farm, didn’t even mention it, he seemed determined to resist.

Six weeks after the burial, just when I was starting to wonder how long I could take care of the house alone, lacking the will to cut the grass, with the scrub growing and advancing, but above all unable to imagine a way to make money to pay the bills, a very tall man appeared, claiming to be a representative of the firm. He dragged us from sleep one heavy morning, the sky covered in storm clouds. Beeping his horn. First it woke Simón, who began to whimper and kick me. I opened the shutters slightly and peered through the slits, taking care not to be seen. On the far side of the gate, perpendicular to the track, a red car was parked. I spent a while trying to guess who it could be, I didn’t recognise the car or the man standing next to it, and all the hypotheses that occurred to me were discouraging. I left it for a while in the hope that he would get tired and go away. But the guy seemed determined, or else he knew we were there, because he persisted, blasting the horn ceaselessly. I got dressed in the first thing I found, a raincoat of Jaime’s, and went outside with Simón protesting in my arms. Inevitably, I kept guessing all the way to the gate. The man, sunglasses, lots of grey hair, formal but clearly a country type, reached into the car to take out a briefcase when he saw me approach. We made our greetings across the wire fence, not touching, with a nod of the head. Sorry to call so early, but I had to catch you at home, that was how he began. Then he shot out: Do you know who owns this land? Satisfied by my silence, the man started talking again: That was what we assumed, you have no idea about anything, do you? So much the better, why would you want to complicate things with other people’s stories, he said and handed me his card: Agent. While the man flicked through a sheaf of papers in the briefcase he had opened on the bonnet, I wondered what those stories might be and who these other people were. This is what it’s all about, he said, proffering a printed sheet that I took a few seconds to accept from him, Simón’s weight making it impossible for me to move my arm.

I tilt my neck to read the heading: Eviction Agreement . I raise my eyes in search of answers and the man rotates his finger for me to keep reading. I scan the text from top to bottom, right to left, and random words leap out at me: OPEN DOOR, The Occupier, The Owner, Camino de la Legua, cancellation, debt, reinstate, farm, single instalment. Several spelling or typing errors also catch my eye: peanal for penal, retension for retention, divergense for divergence. The man is clearly impatient because he takes the sheet from my hands and puts on a pair of magnetic self-assembling glasses: It says here thirty days, but we can talk about that, it could be forty-five, even sixty, and in respect of the rent owed, taxes, rates, etcetera, you’ll see that we’re offering you total debt relief. Look, he said, I suggest you get this sorted quickly, I’m saying that from my heart. It’s best for you; sign on time and don’t complicate things. If you make a decision, then we’ll get the parties together and talk money. I can assure you they’ll offer you a tidy sum. I thought about saying: There must be some mix-up, or even, Are you sure it’s this land, this house? I thought that someone else in my place would have told him where to go, would have screwed up the paper and thrown it in his face. Before taking his leave, he suddenly became very familiar with me, saying in a low voice, as if someone could hear us in the middle of the countryside: A word of friendly advice, think of something that makes you happy — here’s the means to do it. The guy got into the car, reversed and drove off, raising a cloud of dust.

That night, after giving the matter a lot of thought, I called Jaime’s brother. I told him about the agent, the eviction agreement, I mentioned the money. He wasn’t surprised. He sighed heavily. I warned him about this, he said, and launched into a monologue that sounded overacted to me, full of clichés and formulas that gave me the feeling that it was directed not just at me but also at whoever was standing near him: That’s life, sometimes nothing, then everything happens at once. It’s the same old rotten story, I wouldn’t get involved if I were you, and another thing, sooner or later they’ll make you crack. A pause and he continues: Things aren’t going that well for us either, it’s an uphill struggle. What do you want me to tell you? that’s what he says and I stay silent, with a But on my lips and the telephone in my hand. It was the last I heard of Héctor.

Several days passed with no sign of the agent and I began to think they’d been mistaken or moved to pity. Perhaps it was just to size me up, a test. Of course they’d found out about Jaime’s death and believed they could catch me with my guard down, an estate agent’s strategy. But no, the man returned during the week with two blond men, I could have sworn they were father and son. These gentlemen have to take some measurements, said the tall man, and I opened the gate in no mood to resist. The agent settled himself in the kitchen. As he spoke, I could see the other two entering and exiting my field of vision through the window. They took photos and notes, they joked. Have you given it any thought? I shrug. He writes on a bar napkin that he removes from his trouser pocket and shows me: 5,000. How about that? He raises his eyebrows and on top of the five he now firmly marks a six. I don’t know what to say. The blond guys enter and the man scrunches up the paper and hides it in his clenched fist.

The agent almost lost his composure, his eyes narrowed with childlike annoyance and he was, it seemed to me, on the verge of hitting the table. But he contained the violence with three short breaths and a thought seemed to strike him. He switched tension for threat. I’ll leave you my number, think about it, look, time’s running out and later on things may take a slightly more, let’s say, drastic course. Take it as a piece of friendly advice. He insisted on being my friend.

After that second visit, things started to precipitate, by coincidence or necessity. An accumulation of episodes that weren’t so much serious as significant ended up driving us out. First it was the water pump, which I forgot to turn off, causing it to burst and spark. From that point on, I had to go back and forth to the stream or the pond filling buckets. And then water complicated our lives in another way, this time from above. A strong wind, the kind they call gale force on the radio, made the canvas and plastic take flight as if they were paper. The following morning we woke up to a space of open sky in the middle of the house, between the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, a patio complete with armchair and fireplace. I no longer had the strength to climb a ladder in search of a solution. To tell the truth, the thought didn’t even cross my mind. For a few weeks, the final weeks, we shut ourselves in the bedroom, sleeping, eating, watching television. I only crossed the strange furnished garden to go for a pee or to boil some noodles in the kitchen.

Ultimately, it was the dogs. Packs of hounds we heard at night-time that brought us close to terror. Unhinged, barking and getting into interminable fights. They were nothing like those more or less inoffensive prowling dogs to which we occasionally threw scraps, bones or rice. This was something else, wolf howls that kept us from sleep.