Javier Calvo - Wonderful World

He kneels down and gets something from under the table. He places it on top of the table. It is a plastic tray with Pavel's street clothes, along with his watch, his wallet, his keys and his pack of cigarettes.

There is a moment of silence. Commissioner Farina and his lackey smugly contemplate Pavel's terrified expression.

“No,” says Pavel finally. After looking at the plastic tray with his belongings for a long moment. His terror seems almost moral in nature. As if in the tray there were a check for a million dollars in exchange for his letting Farina fuck his sister.

“No what?” asks Commissioner Farina. Leaning a bit over the table as if he was having trouble hearing what Pavel was saying.

“No,” repeats Pavel. “No way. I don't want to leave.”

“You don't want to leave?” Commissioner Farina points with his head around the visitors' room. “This is jail, son. Everyone wants to leave.”

Pavel finds Commissioner Farina a perfect example of the kind of humankind that makes the vast majority of his universal Rastafarian concepts fall apart. A perfect example of the things that he doesn't like about the so-called civilized Western world. When he sees signs of Western decadence of Farina's stature, Pavel starts to feel tired and depressed and in a bad mood that seems to screw him into the chair he's sitting in, there in the middle of the visitors' room. That seems to multiply the force of gravity.

“We want you to leave.” Commissioner Farina opens the thermos and fills a couple of little plastic cups with steaming coffee. “You're going to waste here. I've always thought that you had a lot of potential.” The commissioner waits for his lackey to respond with a sycophantic little laugh. “A kid like you. So elegant. So tall.”

Commissioner Farina takes half a dozen little plastic cups from the pile and spreads them out on one side of the table. Then he takes the croissants and spreads them out on the other side. He takes the thermos and places it at a point equidistant from the group of little cups and the group of croissants.

“Imagine that all these things on the table are your friends.” He points to the group of little plastic cups. “Those are Leon's gang. Russians like you. Lifelong friends. And you've got that little one that's had an operation on his vocal cords. What's his name?”

“Something Duck,” the lackey prompts.

“These ones over here are Bocanegra's gang.” Commissioner Farina now points to the group of croissants. “More recent friends, but good friends just the same. You've got your old friends and your new friends, too. That's life. And what else do we have?” He points to the thermos. “Turns out you also have a sister. A dancer, says the file. I see there's an artistic streak in the family.”

“One day I went to the bar where she works,” says the lackey. Looking out of the corner of his eye at the legs of the woman who is now standing as she ends her visit. “I like those Russian babes.”

Commissioner Farina shakes his head.

“He's kidding,” he says. “We wouldn't do something as disgusting as lay your sister. But let's just say your sister has paid your bail. Your sister hasn't actually paid your bail. I doubt the poor girl knows how to pay someone's bail. That is, if she had the money. And if she even remembered you exist. But just between us.” He leans over the table to say something in a confidential tone. “We forgive you. Arrivederci.” He makes a gesture with his hand as if he were waving good-bye. “And don't you forget to visit us every once in a while.” He smiles with his chubby-cheeked face. “And don't change your cell phone number.”

In Pavel's opinion, the civilized Western world is a giant ocean of shit where everyone ends up drowning, sooner or later. Pavel doesn't really know if the rest of the world is an enormous ocean of shit or not. The only thing he's sure of right now, at that table filled with croissants and little coffee cups, is the basically shitty composition of the civilized Western world in which he currently finds himself. With no little islands in view to grab on to. He also has no doubt that right now he seems to find himself in the middle of the largest concentration of shit he has ever seen in his life.

“This not possible.” Pavel rubs his temples. “It is not good you, not good me. Why would you want them shoot me right here?” He points to the back of his neck. “You profit nothing. You put me out there, okay, you already know who's waiting for me. I went a step too far. Well, I made a mistake.” He slaps both palms simultaneously on his knees in an exasperated gesture. “Let me stay here. I confess everything. I spend twenty years here. The food is bad, that's okay. What you want me confess to? I'm dangerous criminal. Carjacking. Jewelry stores. Whatever you want. I did it all.”

Commissioner Farina stares at him for a moment. Then he gives him a chubby-cheeked smile.

“That was funny, wasn't it?” he says. “You're a funny guy.”

“Bob Marley's a funny guy,” corroborates the lackey. “And they say Russians don't have any sense of humor.”

Ten minutes later, dressed in his street clothes and with a look of absolute desperation on his face, Pavel leaves through the disappointingly small metallic back door for inmates who've completed their sentences. The traffic on the highway is light but continuous. Pavel walks as fast as he can under the blazing midday sun, feeling annoyingly conspicuous in his black clothes, to a phone booth in front of the gas station attached to the prison complex. When he enters the booth, he stares at the numbers on the phone with a perplexed face. When he really thinks about it, any number he could dial means vast risks to his personal safety. He spends a couple of minutes slamming the receiver against the phone's casing with a rage that is not Rastafarian in the least. Until the receiver is nothing more than a twisted broken piece of plastic in his hand. Then he wipes his hands on his pants and decides that this would probably be the most appropriate moment to pick up where he left off with his old life plans, ones having to do with one-way tickets to legendary islands in the Caribbean.

Lucas Giraut's office on the mezzanine of LORENZO GIRAUT, LTD., is dark except for the circle of vanilla-colored light that the only lamp projects on the rosewood surface of his Louis XV cartonnier. The darkness hides the fact that there have been recent changes to the furnishings in the unilluminated areas. Although there is something ineffable in the office's atmosphere that produces the sensation that changes have in fact been made. The lighting, in any case, is clearly inappropriate for the business meeting now taking place in the office between Lucas Giraut and his mother's lawyer. Clearly inappropriate for any type of meeting. The rigid, hard-looking armchair where Fonseca is seated also seems clearly inappropriate. Especially for someone Fonseca's age.

Lucas Giraut is sitting at his desk. Drawing something with his fountain pen beneath the lamp's insufficient light. One of those distracted doodles people make while having a conversation. Fonseca leans over the cartonnier and makes a vaguely threatening gesture with an extraordinarily light and firm hand that resembles the extremities of certain birds.

“You need to sign these documents as much as we do,” he says. “Probably more. That's what I am trying to make you see. And you have to believe me. Without the restructuring plan you're left alone. And in a delicate position. How do you plan on running this company? You have no experience. You know nothing about business. You can't do anything with what you have, son. You have the majority of the stock shares, but your mother has the rest. The money. The houses. The boats. And you can't even do anything with those shares. Put your feet on the floor, son. We're doing this because we appreciate you. Step aside and let the adults take care of adult matters.” He leans his body back again and reclines against the rigid armchair. As if to show that the bottom line of his speech had already been delivered. Then he softens his tone. “Listen. Your mother wants you to know that she appreciates your effort to stand up to her. Contrary to what you may think, your mother knows how to appreciate these kinds of things, things that another kind of person could find irritating. Your mother is a person that appreciates insolence. Like your attempts to sabotage the International Division. Like raising Chicote's salary and giving him all those stock shares. Or generally doing everything that upsets your mother and is bad for our international campaign. What the hell.” He shrugs his shoulders. “Who understands you better than your own mother?”