Medardo Fraile - Things Look Different in the Light & Other Stories

We talk about all kinds of things. For example, the new bus that the boss has been promising us for over a year and which never arrives, and which I won’t see now because I’m leaving. Or how many passengers could you fit into the old Chevrolet — was it only sixteen or more? The cute girl who caught the bus to Los Molinos yesterday. The continuing feud between Paco and Manolo, who are the company’s longest-serving employees. The fair in San Sebastián de los Reyes, Valdemorillo or Navalcarnero. Whether business is going well or badly. The cold or the heat. Whether the boss will treat us to a celebratory chicken supper on 18 July again. How Matías, the new boy, isn’t a bad little flamenco singer. How Manolo has been saying that the fields are crying out for water. And how, according to Paco, the rain has ruined the crops.

Anyway, at some point in the conversation, Luis almost always gives a little smile, raises his eyebrows, stares down at his knees and says: “I read a novel once…”

Let me explain. Some topic always crops up, whether to do with the company or with something else entirely, something that reminds Luis of that novel he read. In the last three years, I don’t think we’ve talked about anything important, or unimportant, that Luis hasn’t already found — in richer, livelier, more memorable form — in that novel. Be it fishing, hunting, football, theatre, cinema, the pools, monsters; millionaires, the poor, politicians, tombolas; war and peace; the unfortunate, the fortunate, gamblers, women, adventurers, historical figures; the concierge at No. 54; Algeria, Germany, North America, Russia, Spain; the Galicians, the Catalans, the illiterate, teachers, maids, aristocrats, office workers, businessmen, horses, greyhounds, tigers, lions, aircraft, ships, motorbikes, cars, trains, villages, cities; the moon, space, the sea, the land; volcanoes; marriage, apartments; the lottery, the radio; priests, fathers, sons, bullfighters, soldiers, our fellow countrymen in general.

Whenever there was a pause while Luis rummaged around in his memory before saying: “I read a novel once”, the air would grow dense, would stop to listen, and the faded orange paint on the partition walls that separate us from the public — and which smell of madeleines, grease, white bread, baskets of figs and, for some strange reason, when it rains, of fresh printer’s ink — would grow somehow brighter, because there, in that novel, was the very thing we were talking about, only better, loftier, more poignant and full of unforgettable feeling, interest and detail.

I’ve often thought that the book must have been Don Quixote, but then I decided it couldn’t be, because, whatever they may say, Don Quixote isn’t much read outside of schools, perhaps because it’s too good. I haven’t read it myself. And I can’t imagine Luis reading it. At other times, I thought it might be a detective novel or an adventure story, but people who know about these things never read such books and presumably with good reason. I suppose, basically, they’re always the same; there’s a plot, sure, but they’re really just a way of passing the time, books to be read on the Metro. In the last three years, I’ve come up with all kinds of possibilities: Salgari, for example, or Jules Verne, although he wrote mainly fantasy stuff. Or Zane Grey or James Oliver Curwood. For a long time I thought it might be Blasco Ibáñez, because his books are a bit meatier and he’s almost as famous as Di Stefano the footballer. But Blasco Ibáñez, it seems, spoke out of turn, and his work is pretty much ignored now. That’s what Jaime the Valencian told me anyway, and it’s true that nowadays you almost never hear his name even mentioned. So perhaps it was Blasco Ibáñez. I don’t know. Although a novel like the one that Luis once read could really only have been written by God.

I’ve read a fair bit myself, and it’s true that every now and then I’ve read a novel I simply couldn’t put down, but I’ve still never come across anything like Luis’ novel, in which he saw and experienced everything just that bit more intensely than other people. It’s never far from his mind. I’ve sometimes wondered why he’s never read anything else, having been so lucky that once; or perhaps he thought it was so marvellous precisely because it was the only novel he’d read. Or perhaps he tried reading other books, but was disappointed. I’ve also suspected that it’s out of sheer modesty that Luis attributes to that novel all the good things he thinks, imagines or feels. Because he never goes any further. He says: “I read a novel once…”, then smiles, stares down at his knees or into the distance, makes a vague, contented gesture, as if to say: “Need I go on?” And the subject is dropped or, rather, it continues to grow in the silence, and we, or at least I, feel diminished, embarrassed, bereft, because I haven’t read that novel or a novel like it, and I’m left waiting for something more, something that never comes. And I always forget to ask the question I most want to ask.

But I didn’t want to leave La Campurriana without asking him: “Luis, what novel was it that you read? What was it called? Who wrote it?” Today — my last day here — I asked him several times. But he couldn’t remember.

HE COULD HEAR ONLY the sound of running water in the bathroom. He was sitting by the window in an old rocking chair, reading the newspaper. Now and then, he gazed absently out at the sky and yawned. The soft glow of evening reached as far as the corridor. A light was on in a bedroom inside the apartment. It had been on for more than an hour — a soft, tenuous light, as if from a bedside lamp. He heard the bathroom door close and, shortly afterwards, the sound of water filling the bath stopped. Now he could hear gentle splashings and tricklings and soapy cascadings. He folded up the newspaper and placed it on his knees. He yawned again and glanced up at a calendar on the wall: Saturday, 5 April. He closed his eyes and fell instantly asleep. The newspaper gradually slid off his lap and onto the floor.

When the light came on, he opened his eyes.

“I must have fallen asleep,” he murmured, rubbing his face with one hand and stretching slightly.

Then he picked up the newspaper, tossed it onto the table, got to his feet and lowered the blind; then, drawing the rocking chair closer to the table and the light, he sat down again and began to read the back page.

“So, what do you say? Shall we have supper?” she said, leaning in the doorway, her hair caught up on the top of her head, her freshly washed body wrapped in a soft, clinging bathrobe.

“Yes, if you like,” he answered, his words distorted by another long yawn.

She came into the room and lowered the blind properly. A few of the slats hadn’t quite closed. Then she turned on the radio and waited, bending her head towards it and looking up, until the distant, burbling thread of a trite little tune and a presenter’s voice made themselves heard and immediately filled the whole room. She carefully tamed the voice until it was warm and gentle, like a familiar caress, like the slow, soft touch of bathwater on thighs. The sharp, wild, blithe music of Saturday — the music of the Saturday-night variety programmes — brought the apartment back to life.

Now, intermittently, beneath the music, he could hear the clatter of pots and pans in the kitchen, drawers opening and closing, the occasional sudden gush of water in the sink or a chair briefly scraping the floor. And, all the while, the Saturday melody was filling the shadowy corners of the apartment like a long, silent, surreptitious puff of smoke.

They sat down to eat.

“Do you know, I dozed off.”

“Don’t you recognize this music?” she said, looking up at a point above his head. Her face brightened and she smiled slightly: “It’s the music your nephew, Roberto, used to like.”