Javier Calvo - Wonderful World

“I know exactly what you're doing,” says Estefanía Giraut. In a tone of voice that makes one think of pieces of broken jet fuselage cleanly splitting solid roofs. “You can't hide anything from me. And I warn you that things always turn out the way I want them to. It's never been any other way. So don't even bother trying,” she says conclusively, and the loud crash he hears right before the line is cut off allows Lucas to clearly visualize his mother violently slamming down her office phone.

In his later childhood drawings of Apartment 13, the map of its shifting internal geography began to include discoveries of a different nature. By that point the map took up many pages of childhood notebooks. According to the explanations accompanying the drawings, several movable wall panels, covered by curtains and various furnishing elements, hide secret doors that open onto a secondary system of tunnels located inside the walls. The secondary tunnels, according to the conclusions recorded at the end of that second phase, were the true means of transportation between the various levels and rooms of Apartment 13. A second map superimposed on the first. In none of young Lucas Giraut's dreams, according to the annotations, was there any sighting of Lorenzo Giraut inside Apartment 13. Signs of his presence, however, were extensively catalogued in the drawings, mainly in the form of cigar butts and coats hanging on the coatracks.

In his final drawings, which were much more complex and barely intelligible, it was suggested that the tunnels of Apartment 13 could lead far beyond the physical boundaries of the corporate headquarters of LORENZO GIRAUT, LTD.

“You're a fat fuck and a retard,” says Juan de la Cruz Saudade from the door of the corner store in downtown Rome where Aníbal Manta is flipping through Marvel superhero comics translated into Italian. Looking closely at the panels and trying to decipher the accompanying dialogue. “What kind of forty-year-old man reads comic books? What does your wife think about you reading comic books all day?” Saudade pauses and eats a spoonful from the cup of vanilla and strawberry ice cream in his hands, leaning on the doorjamb of the store's door and blocking the entrance with his back. “And what does she think of that potbelly so big you can't even see your own cock? Doesn't she complain when you can't find it? But I guess it doesn't matter. She's probably busy screwing the neighbors while you read comic books. She still screwing the neighbors?” He makes a taunting face while brandishing the little ice cream spoon. “What kind of a man are you?”

Aníbal Manta continues turning pages at top speed. The reason he's gone into the store and is trying to speed-read all the latest issues of the Marvel superhero comic book collections is his casual discovery that the Italian Marvel collections are several months ahead of the Spanish Marvel collections. Spider-Man, X-Men, the Fantastic Four. In Italy they're doing all the things they'll be doing in Spain several months from now. The idea is almost too enormous. Aníbal Manta's gaze tries to capture all the information he can in the least possible time. How did Peter Parker get a new job at a television station? And how is it possible that the Incredible Hulk has managed to neutralize the radiation that makes him turn green in moments of emotional stress? As hard as he tries, Aníbal Manta can't understand a single line of the Italian dialogue. The owner of the store, a tiny sour-faced Chinese woman, watches Aníbal Manta and Saudade with the same expression she'd have if she were looking at a couple of giant rats that had come into her store and started chowing down on the magazines.

“I guess I'd do the same thing.” Saudade finishes his cup of vanilla and strawberry ice cream and throws the empty cup and the little spoon to the ground with a distracted expression. “If my husband was a fat retard that couldn't find his cock and spent all his time reading comic books.”

Manta is still trying to find clues as to how Wolverine ended up in a high-security government prison when Saudade snatches the comic from his hands. Manta looks up, surprised. Saudade grabs the recent issues of all the collections on the rack of Marvel comic books and puts them all on the store counter along with a fifty-euro note. The Chinese woman picks up the bill with a look of disgust. Saudade takes the change and the comic books and leaves the store.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Manta feels that flush coming to his face, the one that always comes to his face moments before the desire to break someone's nose springs to his mind. “I thought we'd already discussed you treating my things with respect. And my feelings about my things.”

Saudade heads off down the Roman street jammed with people under the midmorning summer sun. Manta manages to follow him by searching out the powder blue and white colors of Saudade's Umbro sweat suit. Occasionally bumping into groups of tourists equipped with sophisticated filming devices and provoking irritated reactions in several languages. The desire to break someone's nose begins to spring to his mind. Aníbal Manta knows perfectly well, since it is one of the main themes of his therapy, that the violence that he employs against others during his fits of rage is actually violence against himself. It's the same idea of oneself-as-one's-worst-enemy that characterizes many of Marvel's tormented superheroes, except that his personal case seems to lack all epic or admirable connotations.

Twenty minutes later, they both stop in front of the building where Raymond Panakian's apartment is located, according to the written instructions inside the brown envelope that Bocanegra gave them. Saudade examines the marble façade with its delicate restored detailing, which depicts nymphs in nightgowns and little overweight angels.

“He's a piece of shit filthy rich guy,” he says, and digs some ice cream remains out of his teeth with his finger. “I love sticking it to fancy pants shit for brains rich guys.”

Saudade and Manta go up the marble steps that lead to Raymond Panakian's apartment and stop in front of his door. Saudade unlocks the holster he wears hidden beneath his Umbro sweat suit. He closes his hand around the butt of the pistol and rings the bell. The Umbro sweat suit that Saudade wears is the official sweat suit of his favorite soccer club. A minute passes. Saudade and Manta look at each other. Someone is playing a classical melody on a piano in one of the neighboring apartments. Manta takes a set of picklocks out of his pocket and tries several of them in the lock before getting it open. The piano melody advances cheerfully toward an allegro loaded with arpeggios. They both enter and close the door carefully behind them.

“Mr. Fancy Pants?” asks Saudade, addressing the empty apartment. “Where are you, Mr. Filthy Rich Shit for Brains?”

“I told you what my therapist said,” says Manta. “About how the things you say make me feel. And be careful. Don't make so much noise.”

They both sit in facing armchairs in the living room. Saudade opens a Spider-Man comic book and begins flipping through it distractedly. A clock taller than Aníbal Manta himself fills the room with its rhythmic and vaguely soporific sound. Manta rubs his temples with his fingers and tries to remind himself of the idea that violence toward others is a mask covering violence toward oneself. He tries to remind himself about breaking the link between his emotional stress and his fits of rage and his therapist's oft-expressed conviction that he has the power and the tools to break it.

“What are all these posters?” Saudade points with his head at the wall behind Manta.

Manta turns and looks at the framed posters that cover the walls and which, in spite of being in Italian, are vaguely familiar. One of the posters seems to be a numbered list of twelve maxims.