Javier Calvo - Wonderful World

“My client has something to say,” says the redheaded lawyer without looking at anyone in attendance. “Something important in terms of what is being discussed here. My client would like to state that we are looking into the possibility of having the defendant's representation deemed unfit. And I would like to personally introduce the idea that we are dealing with someone who is a disgrace to my profession. A regular partner to organized crime and someone who has been involved in several cases of judicial corruption and coercion of juries. We have brought some of the documentation that incriminates him.” He takes a shockingly fat dossier of documents out of his briefcase and puts it on the table. Giraut can't help noticing that his fingers and the back of his hand have pigmentation stains and that the whiter parts look painfully irritated. They even have that texture of flesh that's been scalded with boiling water. “Including indictment certificates and photographic documentation. Mr. Giraut.” He looks at Giraut. “I assume you realize how damaging this professional association is to you. In terms of how your case is going to be received in a courtroom. I don't need to tell you that this could go further. That things do get leaked to the press.”

Giraut interlocks his fingers and rests his chin on the resulting interwoven fists. According to the observations he has been making over the years, Estefanía “Fanny” Giraut considers her only son a mentally weak individual, completely incapable of doing anything worthwhile with his life. With serious problems of introversion close to autism that make him live in an inner world of childish fantasies partially inherited from his father. With a total lack of the mental mechanisms necessary to carry out the natural socialization process that everyone carries out during their prepubescence. As a result of which he has never had what is commonly known as a Circle of Friends. Those male friends that one goes out for drinks with, or plays golf with, and those female friends that could potentially become girlfriends and/or wives. Someone who hasn't gone through those necessary natural phases that are known as the Ages of Man, among which are sexual awakening and the entrance into adult life. A mediocre student. A person who lacks initiative. A thirty-three-year-old total virgin. A misfit, in other words. A failure, because of his congenital deficiency, and definitively ruined by a father who was also defective and a criminal repeat offender. On one occasion, Fanny Giraut made a comment alluding to the fact that Lucas Giraut lacked the sufficient degree of masculinity for carrying out a typical act of coitus with a woman. It is true that Lucas Giraut is a virgin in many more senses than he would be willing to admit publicly.

“Son,” says Fonseca to Giraut, in that serious tone that Fonseca usually adopts when he assumes some sort of quasi-parental role. “You still have time to stop this all. Let's call it a misunderstanding. We are people who love you.” Giraut can't perceive any kind of nervous beating in the treelike network of blood vessels on Fonseca's temples. “No one wants anything to happen that could change the fact that we are people who love you.”

The Arab or Hindustani lawyer removes the pen from between his teeth and his smile, surrounded by his short little beard, grows even closer to the lecherous, evil expression of a villain. Of one of those Arab villains in those American movies centered around the conflict between American freedom and the Arab lack of respect for all that is sacred.

“My client wants to express his absolute indifference to the plaintiff's offer,” he says in a high-pitched voice with a slight Near Eastern accent. “My client would like to make clear that the offer seems to be clear proof of the plaintiff's true intentions. My client is the principal shareholder of LUCAS GIRAUT, LTD. There is no indication of inappropriate relationships. Et cetera. My client wants to make clear that he finds this all to be a waste of time.” He clears his throat. A lock of black curly body hair sticks out of the upper edge of the collar of his shirt. “Regarding the accusations on my person, everything that has been said here in front of witnesses could be the basis of taking legal action. I am a citizen who has never been formally accused of any crime. Now my client and I would like to take our leave. See you at the trial. None of what was said here is going to be overlooked.”

Once Estefanía Giraut called her son A Waste of Time in an Expensive Suit. On other occasions she has referred to him as: Drooling Runt, More Useless Than Sandals in the Arctic, Born Loser, International King of Failure 2003, The First Step Toward the Extinction of the Species, Pile of Genetic Remains and Complete and Utter Idiot. In one of Lucas Giraut's childhood notebooks from fifth grade, Giraut describes in detail how his mother is run over by a cattle train and killed. Including a diagram of the distances at which they found the different pieces of her corpse. For several months, and until the child psychologists sounded the alarm, Giraut was telling anyone who would listen the story of the cattle train and his mother's death.

“Are you threatening me?” Fonseca sends a defiant eyebrow gesture to the non-Caucasian lawyer. A certain palpitating vascular movement is apparent at his temples. “Be more specific. Is Bocanegra going to send his heavies after me? Are they going to shoot me in the knee?”

Lucas Giraut's lawyer has already gathered up his papers from the table and put them away in his briefcase. He has already stood up and is about to leave the meeting room of the plaintiff's law firm. The Legal Mediator lifts her palms in a placating gesture and also stands up. She repeats several times the idea that nothing of what has been said during the ongoing meeting figures in any legal document of any kind. She appeals to the professionalism of those present and she pulls her skirt down, which had inched up as a result of her sitting with her legs crossed. Her facial expression and body language are slightly more tense and slightly less self-assured versions of her conciliatory and quasi-maternal expression and body language. Still seated at the table, Lucas Giraut surreptitiously seeks out the gaze of the sickly-looking redheaded lawyer. From the door, the possibly Semitic or Persian lawyer indicates that the time to leave the room has come. In the pink-eyelashed gaze of the plaintiff's representative, Giraut thinks he has found a mix of professional greed and killer instinct that he finds somehow essentially legal but, at the same time, impossible to disassociate from the basic fact of being redheaded.

Hannah Linus's body movements loosen up until they meld with the waves' aquatic vibration. The water is warm as it can only be after an entire day beneath the subtropical sun. None of the waves are strong enough to disturb her feeling of inner peace. Hannah Linus focuses on the idea that she has finally found a place where no one can bother her in any way. No one can interrupt her idyll with herself in this subtropical island where the sand is white and fine and the sea is always calm. With no jellyfish or sharks or aquatic animals. She lifts an arm and repositions her green plastic eye protector. With no work obligations. Without having to talk to anyone, although that was a personal option she had chosen out of the many on the promotional brochure. The sensation is vaguely sexual. She couldn't exactly say why she finds the sensation sexual, but in general terms Hannah Linus has never been very good at describing her sexual feelings or communicating to other people her sexual impulses. Without even mentioning the fact that those impulses clearly make her uneasy, conceptually.