Javier Calvo - Wonderful World

“Now I would like to ask you to remember,” says the non-Caucasian lawyer. The way he privately plays with his pen as he talks consists in rhythmically pushing the button that makes the point appear against his chin. Creating a sound similar to a cricket's song. Which the microphone amplifies throughout the entire courtroom. “Can you remember other occasions in which your mother made up stories? I mean stories deliberately made up to damage your professional career or simply to cause you personal problems. Are you aware that your mother has been negatively manipulating the image others have of you? For example, when you were a child. For example, at school. Or perhaps in front of the other kids.” He pauses as he reviews his copy of the interrogation script. The other copy is beside him. On the place at the defense table that Giraut has left empty to sit in the witness area. “I'm sure you can remember concrete examples. Moments in which your mother falsified documents to make you look ridiculous. In which she published false information about you. Or spread rumors.”

“I object, Your Honor,” says a voice from the area of the courtroom that is diametrically opposed to the defense area. A tense voice. That somehow sounds redheaded. If that's possible. “These type of considerations are not only irrelevant to the question at hand. They are ridiculous. These childhood incidents are not on trial here. Mrs. Giraut is not on trial here. And above all, we are not conducting a trial based on personal childhood recollections.”

“Your Honor,” says the non-Caucasian lawyer. With what appears to be complete calm bordering on indolence. “The question is relevant to my defense. And is based on proving the falseness of accusations against my client. Precedents of falsehoods are the argument on which my defense rests, Your Honor.”

From the witness area, Giraut can clearly see Carlos Chicote's scared smile. On the other side of the railing. His curved back. His smiling mouth that is devouring his yellowed cuticles. His smile seems to have fossilized onto his face. His face seems to have entered a terrified vegetative trance state. Giraut realizes that he'd never noticed that Chicote must be more or less his same age. He's that kind of a person. The kind of person that can't be reduced to any sort of chronology outside of the business sphere. The audience in the first few rows also reflects the loss of something unidentifiable during the course of the judicial process. It isn't a mere question of entropic loss of energy. It's not a question of the usual inefficiency of district courts. It isn't a question of dramatic unexpected twists. Marcia Parini is in the audience. Passionately kissing Eric Yanel. Giraut can't see what's going on in the middle rows very well from the witness stand, but he has the impression that Yanel has a hand in Marcia's underwear. Fonseca and Estefanía “Fanny” Giraut's faces are, respectively, a treelike tangle of pulsating blood vessels and a mask partially hidden by sunglasses and a picture hat.

The judge sighs. He scratches his enormous forehead with a finger bent into a hook and finally signals with his vertically asymmetrical head for Lucas Giraut to answer his lawyer's question.

“My mother forged my grades in high school.” Giraut answers with his hands on the railing of the witness area. With his back straight and a namby-pamby look on his hairless round face that doesn't seem to match his tall thin body. “For two trimesters of my secondary schooling. I still don't know exactly how she did it, but I suspect she must have hired someone to break into the school at night. It did no good, of course. I was one of the best students. The principal called me to his office and showed me the forgery. Which was a first-class forgery. He interviewed me with a psychologist present and asked me if I had enemies at school or if I could think of who could be behind what was happening with my grades. Then they gave me back my real grades. My mother had given me five Fs. I don't think I would have been able to go to college. Another time she threw a party for my birthday and showed a video in front of all the guests. Later I found out that she had paid the kids to come.” He squints. His position within the courtroom is a distinct obstacle to his seeing exactly where Eric Yanel's hands are relative to Marcia Parini's underwear and nether regions. “Shall I explain more about the video and the birthday party?”

“Your Honor.” The lawyer of Arab or more likely Hindustani origins makes a gesture indicating to Giraut that he doesn't need to continue. “I have no more questions. I will now give the members of the bench copies of the remaining pieces of evidence that have been mentioned in the hearing. The faxes and internal communication between Mr. Giraut and Mr. Chicote. The full transcription of Valentina Parini's clinical interview carried out by social services. And a selection of videos and written documents relating to the Giraut family in decisive phases of my client's personal growth.”

The lawyer hands the evidence dossiers to a low-ranking subordinate of the court clerk. With his tie indolently loosened. With his sleeves indolently rolled up. With his gold pen indolently held between his teeth. There is a moment of transition during which the audience fills with whispering. Finally the judge bangs his gavel a few times to silence the room. The redheaded lawyer for the plaintiff stands up inside his prosecuting area delineated by a wooden railing. There are doors built into the railings of the specially delineated areas of the courtroom, which are indistinguishable from the rest of the railing when closed. The redheaded lawyer stands up and rests his knuckles on his desk and brings his mouth close to the microphone to speak.

“Mr. Giraut,” he says. In that tone of contained moral indignation. That tone that's perfectly familiar to anyone who has watched a legal hearing or session of Congress on television. “Mr. Giraut,” he repeats. “Please confirm the results of our investigations. If you would be so kind. So that this court can hear them,” he says. His ears are of a color close to purple. Several wide sections of the skin on his face are now of a color close to purple. As opposed to his usual sickly paleness. “On the twelfth of January of this year you appeared at Mr. Koldo Cruz's residence. Who you knew to be a former professional partner and personal friend of your father. Instead of entering his building, you merely deposited an envelope in his private mailbox. The envelope contained a page from an accounting ledger and a letter that you forged. Written by you in the forged handwriting of your mother, with her forged signature. The ledger page confirms business contacts between the late Mr. Giraut and Mr. Cruz in the years between 1971 and 1977.” He pauses. He clears his throat. “I'll remind you that all of the contents of the envelope are in this court's possession, Mr. Giraut. You found your father's accounting ledgers. His second set of ledgers. Which bring to light certain illegal operations carried out by your father. Certain connections with Russian criminal groups. And then you pretended to be your mother in order to extort Mr. Cruz. Because you were trying to incriminate your mother in a case of collusion with fraud and attempt at extortion. I don't need to note the seriousness of such facts.” He stares at the judge's vertically disproportionate face. “I don't need to mention the importance of this evidence in my clients' lawsuit.”

Lucas Giraut senses the expectant gazes of those watching the hearing. Like a single massive gaze focused on the witness stand. Like a small tingling at the back of his neck. He leans slightly forward with his body rigid and his hands resting on the railing and brings his face to the microphone.