Santiago Gamboa - Necropolis

Sabina paused and sipped at her wine. Her cheeks had flushed as she spoke and she seemed dazed. She again looked me in the eyes and said, I suppose you must be asking yourself why I’m telling you all this, aren’t you? I was about to agree, but noted that, like the others, her question was rhetorical, a prolepsis, because she went on, obviously I didn’t ask you here only to tell you about our battles, but because we want you to join us, to fight at our side, to join Eve Studios as a creator of stories, beginning with the story of José Maturana, a story with great potential. We’ve imagined a movie that tells that adventure, that goes back to the beginnings, to the great secrets of life, that asks questions about the divine and the human and shows us a way, do you follow me?

I said yes, and Sabina filled my glass again.

Before I could say anything, Kay spoke up, saying: we are willing to give you a check for two hundred thousand euros, right now, so that you can start work on something that could be called, as a working title, The Passionate Pastor, something like that, I even think it would be a good idea to include the word Christ in the title, what do you think, darling? and she said, I don’t know, I like “pastor,” or even “priest,” it would arouse more morbid curiosity because it includes the idea of pedophilia in its semantic field, which would allow us to make it more combative and accusatory, but there’ll be time to discuss that.

Kay continued: anyway, we’re interested in the story and we believe you’re the best person to write it, given that you were here and saw him. By the way, did you have the opportunity to meet him? I said yes, I had spoken with him at the opening cocktail party, but did not say anything about Jessica or the book or of course the message. We could see about that later.

Good, said Kay, you knew him, you remember his voice, his figure, his style, that will make it possible for you to recreate him in verbal and at the same time philosophical terms, and I say to you right now, don’t worry about inventing sex scenes, we have some very talented people who specialize in creating them from any text, I assure you you’ll be surprised, they would be capable of making a sex scene from the opening chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason, that’s why what you have to provide is a literary version that holds up by itself, that’s all we need; the publication rights will be yours, all that matters to us is the adaptation rights, and if it turns into a box office hit you’ll receive royalties, do you understand? We only ask that you deliver it within six months, do you think you can do that?

While I was thinking of a way to accept the commission that would not reveal my precarious situation, Kay interrupted me: we know you’ve been out of circulation for more than two years for health reasons and haven’t published anything in quite a while, but contrary to what others might think, in our eyes that makes you an even more attractive proposition for this project, since we assume you’re less influenced than the others by all the shit that’s been dumped on us in the last two years when you were absent, and believe me, there was a lot of shit; and as far as the previous shit is concerned, I assume that being alone will have allowed you to cleanse yourself, and that’s important, it means that in your subsequent work that wisdom you’ve acquired with distance will manifest itself, that translucent condition of the soul, do you accept our offer?

It was the first contract I’d had in front of me since my illness, one related, moreover, to something that had already become an obsession. I accept, I said, I’ll write the story of José Maturana within six months.

Kay stood up, went to his study and came back with a folder. He took out a contract with my name printed on it and said, please read it, and if you agree print your initials on each page and sign the last. He handed me a pen, I wrote EH on all the pages and signed at the end. When I had done that, he opened a checkbook from Citibank and wrote me out a check for two hundred and one thousand euros, explaining that the extra thousand was to cover bank and postal charges. He blew on it to dry the ink and handed it to me, then shook my hand. Sabina gave me a kiss and again filled the glasses for a toast.

Then we ate herrings and smoked salmon with vodka. We talked about cinema and literature, Cassavetes and George Cukor, the epigrams of Svellenk, Kristin Lavransdatter. I asked Kay if there really was a newspaper in Norway called Morgenbladet, as mentioned on the first page of Knut Hamsun’s Hunger, and he said, of course there is, I read it every day, it’s the national newspaper.

As he talked about a film version of a book by Daphne du Maurier we started to hear explosions, with increasingly shorter intervals between them. The fifth one made the building shake and Kay said, damn, that fell close to here. The sky lit up and its glow entered the room through the glass dome. The suite was flooded with bluish electric light, which made our faces look ghostly.

The subsequent explosions ruined the atmosphere of the dinner, so I put down my knife and fork and announced that I was going back to my room, which seemed to relieve them. It looked as if it might be a difficult night. When I was already at the door, Kay handed me a card with all the information I needed to contact them, and said, call any time you need something or have any doubts, our way of working is based on trust and friendship. I thanked him. When I said goodbye to Sabina I saw two purple rings around her eyes, and an inflamed vein or nerve just under the skin throbbing in her face like a small uneasy heart.

As I walked out into the corridor, the explosions continued.

The lights were flickering so much that it was impossible to walk more quickly. I passed marble-clad reception rooms, wide staircases with handwoven carpets, polished doors, but there was not a soul about. The hotel was one huge abandoned house and from outside came the noise of the bombs, as if a loudly howling wolf was eating what remained of the night.

My body is torn to shreds and my skin red-hot, said Marta when I entered the room. She was dancing about naked, completely drunk. But I’m happy, I want to spend my life with this burning, these pains that emerge after pleasure, oh, I want to sing, I want the walls to let my voice through and everyone to hear me and know about my happiness, I want the angels of this holy city to celebrate with me, instead of the bombs and the fires, I want the last judgment to find us singing, let’s drink, the world is going to end! I feel calm and fulfilled, I’m sorry, I think I’m in love. .

She went into the bathroom and from there called out, don’t wait for me, I need a long restorative shower, then you can tell me where you were and what you’ve been doing, what time is it? what does it matter where the hands of the clock are, the important thing is where we are, don’t you think? I said something but she had stopped listening, so I started making notes on my dinner with Kay and Sabina, trying not to think about the explosions. To cheer myself up I looked at the check from Citibank, a figure I had never before seen in relation to money, let alone money that would soon be mine. I was doing this when something novel and unforeseen happened. Another shell roared, the building shook, and the electricity went out. I stood up and went out on the balcony. There were a few flashes still visible, but the whole city was in darkness. I gazed for a while at that thick blackness, feeling slightly dizzy, and heard voices from the lower floors. People were opening windows and, like me, coming out on the balconies.