Carlos Gamerro - The Islands

‘You’re pleading,’ Canal intervened. ‘Remember what we talked about.’

‘You’re right,’ said César, wiping the sweat from his face with one hand. ‘I’m talking about the past. This is the present. So many times I dreamed of having this big talk with you, Daddy, before you died and we wouldn’t be able to any more. Telling each other everything.’

His words were losing their marrow, becoming dry and hollow. He looked around him for professional guidance.

‘Am I doing all right?’

‘Not bad.’

‘You’ll tell me if you think I’m doing anything wrong, won’t you.’

‘You’re doing fine, you’re doing fine. Now ask him to dandle you on his knee.’

‘Now you’re going to start criticising me? Thirty years, thirty years and I finally say something to him without him criticising me, and you honestly think I’m going to let you? Nobody’s going to criticise me ever again, understand? All my life, “Look at your brother Fausto, look how your brother Fausto does it, Fausto knows how!” If Fausto does it so well,’ he said, bringing the bared teeth of his weasel’s snout close to his father’s face, ‘so how come he’s been eating penguin shit for the last ten years while I’m still alive and kicking?’

Perplexity made Tamerlán’s eyes grow wider. César realised he’d hit the target.

‘He never came back. We made it all up to drive you insane.’

Tamerlán’s convulsive answer came across merely as faint undulations over the surface of the silver tape.

‘It was brilliant, you understand? One day in a session I happened to say “If only Fausto would come back so I could kill him properly” and I hadn’t got to the end before we knew what to do. Easy-peasy. We picked up some piece of offal from the street and disguised him as a person. When we finished, he looked a lot like what my brother might look like today; then we prepared his ritual death. A revolutionary therapeutic approach. You don’t know the things I said to the poor man before I pushed him out! He was so pissed he didn’t understand a thing. Remember, Cleo?’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘If you swallowed the bit about Fausto the murderer and César the saviour, we were going to wait a few months before the next phase. Enjoying your adulation. But your friend here forced us to speed things up. Fat favour he did for you. Can’t you see, Daddy? It isn’t enough for me to kill you here, in my heart. The chain has to be cut, Daddy. The chain has to be cut!’

He went quiet, swallowing hard, his Adam’s apple working like a misfiring piston. He went up to his father and ripped the tape off his mouth so violently that Tamerlán’s pores filled with blood.

‘And what are you going to cut it with? This shitty plan? Only a silly prat like you could come up with something like that. The only thing you’re proving is that your brain’s in your arse, as I’ve always said it was.’

‘That’s a lie! It was a brilliant plan! Doing your utmost to save me, drawn in deeper and deeper with every step till you fell at my feet. And only then, more out of compassion than anger, would I finish you off and clean up.’

‘Really? So if everything turned out so well for you, why are you the one trembling and not me?’

‘I’m stronger, you understand! You need me and I don’t. Need you , I mean! Not any more! Without me your life is over, without you my life … begins.’

‘Like fuck. I don’t need you to be my son. I’ll adopt one — this guy, for example,’ he said pointing at me, ‘and he’ll be a lot better son than you.’

‘This one? This one?’ he said, pointing at me with the gun.

‘César, don’t get distracted,’ chimed in Canal, my saviour.

‘Wait. Wait. I have a better idea. A clean slate. I’ll separate from your mother and inseminate some hungry little bitch. I’ve got all the balls you haven’t.’

‘Oh yeah?’ César snatched up the scissors that Canal had left on the desk and, clicking them like castanets, began to flamenco round his father. ‘What if I snip them off, eh? What if I snip them off?’

‘Why don’t we all calm down a little?’ intervened Canal, his self-assured double bass beginning to slide audibly towards the violins. The session was starting to get out of hand.

‘Acknowledge it. Acknowledge I’m right,’ stammered César in supplication. ‘For once in your life you have to acknowledge me!’

‘The one who has to acknowledge you’re a useless piece of shit is you .’

‘Don’t delay any longer. The time has come to act,’ Canal urged.

For a moment César looked at him with more terror than at his father. Canal had taken a contraceptive out of his jacket pocket and was holding it out to him. César watched him, transfixed:

‘But … I’m the one with AIDS …’

‘It’s for the DNA, you stupid cunt. You don’t want it to come out in the papers that you fucked your old man — before you killed him.’

César took the contraceptive as if it were a gun for his turn at Russian roulette. He tried to tear it open with his fingers, then lifted it to his mouth, tugging at it with his teeth, but managed nothing more than to bite off a couple of scraps of plastic and spit them out to either side.

‘I can’t,’ he said eventually, letting the arm holding the contraceptive fall to his side.

‘What do you mean you can’t?’ For the first time Canal looked disconcerted.

‘I won’t be able to.’

‘But we’ve been working for months on this. Your therapy …’

‘What therapy, Cleopatra? You spent it wanking at all the most morbid bits! Look, you convinced me and I agreed to everything, but now … I won’t even be able to get it up. Why don’t we just chuck him out and get it over with? It makes no difference,’ he begged.

‘It does make a difference! It makes all the difference! It’s something that’s never happened before. For the first time in history we’re about to kill the father! You have to drive a stake through his heart, like with vampires! Otherwise he’ll always come back to life! I’ve been training you to commit the most enormous act in Human History! We’re on the threshold of the superman and you want to turn back! Didn’t you want to be the superman?’

‘No. You wanted it. The only thing I want is the money. Oh. And to see him dead. If you’re such a sucker for the superman, why don’t you fuck him?’

‘I’ve grown out of that,’ he said without thinking. ‘César, please. Listen to me, it’ll only take a minute. Remember. “A few small inches for a man …” You stick it in, you pull it out. Just the tip. You don’t even need to come. Go on. Just do it for me. It’s no big deal’

‘I hate it when you grovel.’

‘Hey, while you sort out your little tiff can someone untie me and bring me my clothes? I’m cold.’

‘You’d better start bracing yourself for the big jump. You know where.’

César was pointing at the window that Fausto — the fake Fausto — had fallen through.

‘And who’s going to throw me? You? You haven’t got what it takes.’

‘I won’t need it. You’re going to do it yourself. Don’t you see what’s happening? Like in a game of chess, I’ve been cornering you till you have no option but to throw yourself out. Checkmate, Daddy-o. You’re finished.’

Tamerlán kicked the board.

‘I’m not throwing myself out! Chess my arse! You want the king, you’ll have to take it!’

‘That’s what I’ve been saying,’ intervened Canal, addressing Tamerlán and referring to César.

‘See how pig-headed he is?’

‘Don’t talk about me! I forbid you to talk about me in front of me!’