Javier Calvo - Wonderful World

Pavel tries to imagine the implications of the fact that the guy with the metal plate and the eye patch is Leon's boss while at the same time trying to kick the rats away.

“Don't kill me,” he says finally. “Think of my sister and my poor sick mother.”

Leon smiles a wide smile with a smattering of gold.

“If you don't shut up,” he says, “I swear we're gonna leave you here with Donald Duck. I'm serious.”

Donald Duck holds up his drill sadly. And takes a poignant look at Pavel's knees.

Shortly after the sun sets over the fairground glow of Christmas lights, Lucas Giraut gets out of a taxi on the anonymous block of banks and office buildings where Hannah Linus has her gallery. He leans forward a bit to help Marcia Parini out of the cab. She's wearing a backless sequined evening gown. With a matching bag. All by Givenchy. The Lino Rossi suit that Giraut has chosen for the opening is the brandy herringbone and he's added the festive detail of a white rose in the buttonhole. A girl with a green Lycra minidress and in-line skates skates over to Giraut. She stops in front of him with an expert turn of her legs and skates and hands him a promotional brochure. Giraut looks at it: on the brochure there is the same smiling koala as on the young woman's green Lycra dress. “BIOSPHERE PARK,” says the brochure. Or perhaps it's the smiling koala that's saying it. “THE ENVIRONMENT IS THE MOST EXCITING ADVENTURE.”

Lucas Giraut looks up, but the young woman in the green Lycra dress is already skating away down the street.

“Damn it to hell,” says Marcia Parini. Looking with a frown at the group of people gathering in front of the gallery doors. “Don't tell me that bitch has the same bag as me.”

The scene on the sidewalk in front of the gallery doors is a slightly better-attended and slightly more exciting version of all the openings the important antiques dealers in Barcelona hold. With the same thirty-odd guests. With the same journalists feigning somewhat snide indifference. With the same cluster of surly waiters. The only thing that makes this opening exciting and special, filled with nervous laughter and conversations in furtive tones and clandestine cell phone calls, is that Hannah Linus is at its center. That vortex of envy and illicit admiration and hatred and desire. That gravitational center of the world of Barcelona antiques dealers.

Lucas Giraut and Marcia Parini walk arm in arm along the sidewalk. They enter the group of guests and journalists and surly waiters that mill around the entrance to the gallery. Which has become a forest of waving hands and chins lifted in recognition and drinks that move in silent toasts. Antiques dealers from Barcelona and employees of antiques dealers and specialized journalists. All spread out to create a collective scene that is vaguely reminiscent of the Renaissance pictorial representations of Classical schools. Bathed in the multicolored fairground glow of the Christmas decorations. Lucas Giraut's gaze finds Hannah Linus's above the forest of heads.

“Giraut,” says Hannah Linus when they finally meet up in the opening's gravitational center. Hannah Linus's face is iridescent beneath the colored lightbulbs of the Christmas decorations. They kiss each other on both cheeks while gazing off into the distance. “I was beginning to worry you wouldn't show. I'm really sorry about stealing all those pieces from you.” She shrugs her shoulders. Her face doesn't convey any sign of regret. Or of sarcasm. It is a perfectly neutral face. “But I'm sure you're going to love the exhibition.”

Giraut nods with a weak smile. Looking above the heads. The exhibition is comprised of about fifty religious paintings, wooden sculptures and liturgical objects. The small pieces are in long glass cases that run along the gallery's backbone. The way the glass cases are lit from within projects their light upward onto the visitors' faces. Giving them a diabolical appearance.

“And this is Mrs. Giraut?” ventures Hannah Linus. “Or perhaps the future Mrs. Giraut?”

Marcia Parini seems to crouch down and become rigid under the openly disapproving look that Hannah Linus gives her dress and her figure. The same way certain animals crouch down and become rigid when they find themselves cornered by a larger animal.

“We're not engaged,” she says. In a chilly tone. Then she crosses her arms in a gesture that seems to transmit both anger and modesty. “We're actually neighbors. I live below Lucas.”

Hannah Linus nods, her brow furrowed in a gesture of interest. The gesture is correctly calculated to be experienced by Marcia as a slap across the face. Then she shrugs her shoulders.

“I'll leave you two alone,” she says. “And don't forget to try the venison sashimi with pear. They cost me six euros each.” And she heads off. Not without first taking a perfectly deliberate last glance at Marcia's purse. The same purse that hangs on the shoulder of the wife of one of the other antiques dealers.

Lucas Giraut frowns. He is vaguely aware that Marcia Parini is muttering something under her breath. The waiters and waitresses move with the skill of professionals through the meta-adjacent groups of guests. Carrying round trays filled with cups of Moët et Chandon. Filled with piles of carefully molded venison sashimi with pear. The same round trays of undefinable color that every catering service in the world seems to use. The same round trays that appear in every graphic depiction of waiters around the world. Lucas Giraut can't manage to make out exactly what it is that Marcia is muttering. Or maybe he's having trouble concentrating on what she's saying. His attention now seems to be tracing a wide circle around the room. As if he were searching for something.

“She has hickeys on her neck,” Marcia Parini is saying. In a voice low enough that only Lucas Giraut can hear. As she takes a sip on the glass of Moët et Chandon that she's plucked from a tray. “At her own opening. And the Moët isn't cold enough.”

Lucas Giraut doesn't show any sign of listening to what she's saying. It's becoming more and more clear that he's looking for something as he gazes around the room. His gaze wanders among the meta-adjacent groups of guests. Among the surly waiters and among the minor figures in local politics who roam around looking for respect. Finally his gaze lands on one of the photographers.

It is, as far as Lucas Giraut can see, the largest photographer he has ever seen. In fact, it's one of the largest human beings he's seen in his life. There is something in his mass that suggests supernatural transformations of comic book superheroes due to chemical or radioactive leaks. It's not one of those cases of gigantism that causes an exaggerated lengthening of the bones. He is holding a professional camera with an adjustable telephoto lens in front of his chest and his size makes it seem like a toy. One of those plastic kid's toys in the shape of a camera. There is also something strange about the way he holds the camera, with those hands as big as small mammals. A certain uncomfortableness. Or better put, a certain inadequateness. As if a bird was trying to smoke and hold the cigarette with his wings. The enormous photographer holds the camera uncomfortably and with his brow furrowed and takes photographs of the paintings and the various corners of the gallery. Placing the camera in the right position and then pushing the button with his giant finger and a concentrated expression that suggests his hands aren't up to the task. Lucas Giraut stretches his neck to see above the guests' heads. His first impression was right. The photographer is Aníbal Manta.

“Six euros?” Marcia Parini is saying. With a frown. Chewing on a venison sashimi hors d'oeuvre with her face wrinkled in disgust. “For this?”