Javier Calvo - Wonderful World

The redheaded lawyer seems to be one of those redheads whose skin and hair give him a perpetually sickly appearance. His facial epidermis has that rosy and perpetually irritated appearance, as if it had just been scalded with boiling water. His hands have pigmentation spots and his wrists are covered with a sickly-looking layer of fine hair. The redheaded lawyer did not take off his coat when he came into Lucas Giraut's office. Which makes any sort of suitological analysis on Giraut's part difficult.

“I have mostly come to convey a message, one of concern,” says the redheaded lawyer, with one of those smiles of his that looks like an expression of mild facial pain. “Concern about certain behaviors that remind one of that vein of eccentricity in the family. Behavior that is incompatible with the presidency of a company in the process of international expansion. I represent people who love you, Mr. Giraut. People who love you personally. People who are now worried.” He gestures toward the ceiling of the patriarchal office under renovation, which has also been painted black. The lamps have been taken down from the ceiling and are in a corner. Covered with sheets. Creating a lighting situation clearly insufficient for any type of meeting. “I am referring to your attitude toward furniture, Mr. Giraut. Toward furniture and curtains and windows. Something that has already caused your family a great deal of pain in the past. Imagine how concerned the people who love you are when they see these things starting to happen again. The black walls and the darkness and the opaque curtains and the furniture moved to the middle of the room.”

“Help me.” Lucas Giraut frowns and pushes on a vegetable motif in the frontal frieze of the Victorian desk. “Put your hand here. And push,” he says. “I've been waiting for some time for my mother to try to divest me of my stock holdings. So I'm not surprised that she's questioning my mental health.”

The redheaded lawyer sighs and gets up from the towel-covered armchair. He kneels down beside Giraut. The basic difference between the Louis XV cartonnier and the Victorian mahogany desk has to do with the degree of complexity of the mechanisms that unlock the openings to their respective secret compartments. It's what the experts call N-Grade of a magic desk. In technical jargon, the mahogany desk circa 1860 is a Grade 5 magic desk. That means it takes five steps to open its secret compartment. The particular opening of the Victorian magic desk requires a series of operations with the bronze knobs of the different drawers and with the animal-vegetable motifs on the frontal frieze as well. The specific mechanics of the Victorian desk are the following:

1. First of all, you have to press two different animal-vegetable motifs on the frontal animal-vegetable-themed frieze, namely, an oak leaf and the inner part of a bird's wing that exactly replicates, in reverse, the leaf's structure according to the classic trompe l'oeil technique. The two animal-vegetable motifs must be pressed simultaneously.

2. This simultaneous pressing unblocks the turning mechanism at the base of one of the knobs on the desk's left pedestal. Said knob can be turned to four different positions, each separated by a 90-degree angle of rotation. The knob must be turned five times, which is to say it must be moved 450 degrees, clockwise.

3. Then, and with the first knob turned, a second knob be comes unblocked on the right pedestal. This second knob must be turned 270 degrees, which is to say it must be placed in the third position, always counterclockwise.

4. This third step unblocks a third knob on the left pedestal, but only for a five-second interval. During those five seconds the third knob must be turned five more positions, but this time alternating clockwise movements with counterclockwise ones. Therefore, obviously, the third knob will end up having moved 90 degrees clockwise respective to its initial position.

5. The fifth step, and undoubtedly the most complex, requires the triggering of a fourth knob that has been unblocked by the third, which must be turned three times counterclock wise but keeping in mind that each turn must be carried out at precise intervals of ten and a half seconds, not including the time it takes to make the turn, so the three successive turns must be done at seconds 11, 22 and 33 of the triggering sequence. Any error in this sequence blocks the entire mechanism. The correct triggering raises the green leather cover on the top and reveals the two-inch-deep secret compartment. Due to the complexity of this fifth step, a stethoscope is just about essential in order to hear the primitive clockwork timers inside the piece of furniture.

Lucas Giraut is pressing on one of the animal-vegetable motifs of the desk's frieze with a frown when the silhouette of LORENZO GIRAUT, LTD.'s intern appears on the frosted glass door and knocks. Giraut maintains the pressure on the frieze's ornamental motif and extends his other arm as far as he can to push the button that opens the door. The click of the door opening sounds at the same moment as the click of the desk's inner gears when the two ornamental motifs of the frieze give way. The intern enters with two cups of coffee and a little pitcher of milk on a tray and looks at the two men squatting on the office floor with her brow furrowed.

“Of course,” says the redheaded lawyer, still pressing his hand on one of the animal-vegetable motifs of the frieze, “I feel obliged to take note of the state of this office and of everything I'm seeing here. For legal record.”

The intern leaves the tray with coffee and milk on top of one of the furniture surfaces covered with towels and leaves without saying anything. Now Giraut begins to turn the desk's knobs, his face gathered in concentration as he listens to the inner gears with the stethoscope.

“I represent people who are extremely concerned about inappropriate relationships.” The way the redheaded lawyer is squatting, with his arms extended and his hands resting on various points of the desk, makes you think of childhood games involving placing your hands and feet on different colored spots on a plastic rug. “Relationships that are somewhat disquieting. Like that girl, for example. You know what girl I mean. A twelve-year-old girl. Imagine the possible repercussions if some impertinent journalist decided to make public the fact that you have done certain inappropriate things with a twelve-year-old girl. In the event that we went to court on this.” One of Giraut's arms is intertwined with the redheaded lawyer's extended arm. “Which is something, I insist, that no one wants.”

Lucas Giraut has his shirtsleeves rolled up above his elbows. The jacket of his slate gray Lino Rossi suit is hung over the back of one of the sheet-covered office chairs. The coat the redheaded lawyer who claims to represent Fanny Giraut is wearing doesn't reveal enough of his suit to allow for a suitological analysis. Giraut is now triggering the third knob in the sequence of knobs that open the secret compartment of his new collector's item.

“We are only looking to put you somewhere safe,” says the redheaded lawyer. “Somewhere where you can't harm yourself. Or anyone else, of course.”

The leather-covered top of the Victorian magic desk circa 1860 lifts up, revealing the secret compartment. The redheaded lawyer takes a sip of his coffee.

“I want curtains.” Lucas Giraut stands up and wipes the sweat from his forehead with a meticulously folded handkerchief. “If you stay for a few minutes you can help me choose curtains.”

In some part of the office a towel-covered telephone rings.

Valentina Parini readjusts her butt on the toilet lid where she is sitting with her legs crossed and her brow furrowed as she tries to concentrate on her reading. And it's not exactly easy. It's dark inside the stall and one of her eyes is covered by the stupid patch they make her wear, and someone is knocking insistently on the stall door.