Читать книгу Southerly - Jorge Consiglio - Страница 6

Travel, Travel

1

After seven hours sitting on a bus he is now standing, as straight as a rod, facing the front garden. He knows the house was built in 1922. He’d remembered that date as a child and has never forgotten it. He looks down. The journey weighs on him, a tingling in his joints. He turns his head to one side, then to the other, hoping – in vain – to relieve the tension in his neck.

He gazes at the flowerbed by the front door and imagines it barren. The soil has hardened. No one has taken care of it nor tilled the soil to allow it to breathe, awakening its potential for plants, insects, any seed hoping to germinate. There are overgrown weeds and the occasional wildflower. He’s never really been interested in gardening; yet, he’s standing by the flowerbed, completely absorbed. He doesn’t blink, or move. He feels removed from any overvalued intellectual thought. A suitcase hangs from one of his hands, an Adidas bag is slung over his shoulder.

It’s half past three in the afternoon. A cool Wednesday. Above the roofs, above the checkerboard paving stones of the plaza, above the street – which is more of a track that narrows to a thread winding through the scrubland – hangs a forgettable sun, like a bauble.

He turns the key twice in the lock and enters the house. At once a strong musty smell hits him. He remembers the way to the kitchen, and there he does what is needed for the miracle to occur: he flicks the switch and the bulbs light up. Then, just as he used to do in this very place, he goes into the dining room dragging his feet. He’s mastered the art of travelling without moving, as if he were on a gliding train. Since everything tires him, he pulls off one of the sheets covering the sofa with a single tug and flops down. He wants to rest for a minute, gather his strength, but ends up falling asleep. He sinks into a deep sleep with his head tilted to one side. Like all men, he snores. His brain is divided into two hemispheres; his heart encased in a thick patina, occasionally distracted by arrhythmia. His mouth is slightly open. The fingers of his right hand gently graze the floor.

2

The silence wakes him. His eyes roll in their sockets and he remembers where he is. The room is a country within another country. He straightens himself up, leans on his elbows, and becomes an exact image of the bureau, the table, the six chairs and all the things that have let themselves go in this place. He has a first name but everyone calls him by his surname; even his wife and his children, he has two. Canedo, they call him. He’s someone who’s sure of himself and his opinions. He looks people straight in the eye and talks straight. He has strived to create a belief system based on sincerity and the idea that certain things are unquestionable. When he speaks about these the strength of his faith can be observed even in the tiniest gesture he makes. Canedo is resolute in his self-belief. He also believes, as he has since he was a child, that speed is the greatest virtue. There’s an episode in his past that explains this. When he was six, his father lost his job. He asked him why and his father responded: ‘In this life you have to be quick off the mark.’ As a kid, Canedo linked speed with skill. Today, faithful to this view, he loves technology: there’s nothing faster than communications technology. He buys the latest tablets and smartphones. He’s not interested in owning a status symbol, but in affirming himself in the present. The first productive thing he does that day is phone the internet company to arrange the Wi-Fi installation. He’ll be online tomorrow.

He sits listening to the lapwings. Light seeps through the cracks in the door. It’s the lethargic hour. He decides to get on with things, get a head start. He jumps up. He has things to do: phone his wife, let her know he got there okay, ask her how the kids are. He must air the house; examine this place that was his more than thirty years ago. Thanks to these chores, the next few hours will go by quickly. He’ll then go and eat something at the service station bar he spotted from the bus. That’s all he’ll have time for today.

3

It’s morning. He goes out through the backyard – a wild rectangle of weeds and two trees – and walks down a concrete path. A phone is stuck to his ear. He’s talking to his wife. He doesn’t pay attention to his surroundings. He could be walking through a desert for all he knows. He tells her that he found the house in a dilapidated state and is going to make some repairs. He wants to sell it as soon as possible and to the highest bidder. He says: ‘I want to resolve this quickly and effectively.’ She responds in monosyllables as she types on the computer. Canedo hears the tapping of the keyboard. That sound makes him wary: the things he’s saying create a strange tension. He speaks about the damp climbing up one of the walls and mentions, at the same time, something he doesn’t quite understand. It’s a side effect, an undesired result. Under his tongue he conceals the pearl of a recurring argument. ‘The kids are at school. Yesterday they brought home a stray cat,’ she says. ‘Yesterday?’ he asks. ‘They’re crazy: a stray cat,’ she says. ‘They’re just kids,’ he says. ‘It’s dangerous,’ she says. ‘They’re your children. Give them some boundaries. They’re crying out for some,’ he finishes. The stem of a plant peeks out of a can of grease. Canedo plays with it. He nudges it with his foot as if testing its resilience; he picks a leaf and brings it to his nose. He inhales. The phone is still stuck to his ear. The smell: camomile, field horsetail, mint. It reminds him of his mother when she used to cure him of the evil eye. She’d use a small pot with water and oil, her eyes would fill with tears, one yawn after another, as she’d babble an incomprehensible prayer.

He feels an urge to interrupt his wife. He’d like to tell her about this sudden memory. His desires mirror his insecurities. Now, she’s talking. She’s telling him something about damp towels; then she lists the problems with the freezer. Canedo says goodbye quickly and hangs up. He goes to the kitchen to prepare mate. He drinks two or three and observes what the sky holds in store. First a change in light, a subtraction. Then, an uncomfortable breeze, like the prelude to a fight. ‘Rain,’ he says. ‘Shit, a lost day.’ He takes a look at the house, which is a disaster, and he has no idea where to start. He shakes his head. He brews another mate. He can see a bunch of clouds advancing from the west. He swipes the screen of his tablet and waits for the applications to load. Up to that point, he’d been enjoying his own company.

4

It is neither hot nor cold. The climate is dry. For Canedo this was no ordinary day of work. He employed strength and skill the whole day. He had trouble getting going, but once he overcame his initial resistance, his memories motivated him. He stripped one of the walls. He replaced two planks of wood on the veranda. His success emboldened him: he tinkered with the precarious electric wiring. He stopped for an hour and a half at midday. He ate some bread and ham for lunch while he Skyped with his wife. Then, he went out for a walk around the town. It horrified him that everything was just as he remembered it, and that this enduring character of things suggested not persistence, but rather apathy.

He walked for three streets under the sun. A flock of sparrows flew from branch to branch. He walked calmly, at a slow pace. He was wearing old trainers and a sweatshirt spattered with paint. Before he reached San Martin Avenue he stopped at a corner shop. The guy behind the counter, the thinnest man in the world, recognised him at once. ‘Is that you, Canito?’ he asked. They hugged. He hurriedly improvised a summary of his life story, barely distorting the facts. He bought biscuits, fruit, cheese, a 1.5-litre bottle of Coke.

It is seven in the evening and the bottle is almost empty. He’s watching a comedy show on the old television set. He’s really enjoying it. He roars with laughter and talks at the telly, letting out a stream of insults praising the actor’s satirical talent. In one scene, he can’t handle it any more: he grabs his stomach and doubles over in laughter. He’s laughing so hard he starts crying. For no apparent reason he is overcome by a sense of wellbeing; a joy that moves through his body like a murmur until, at some point, it is transformed into exhaustion. ‘I’m exhausted,’ he says. He’s drained. He grabs hold of a glass and can feel the blood flowing in his hand. Manual labour makes him real. Today he is more like his true self than ever before. Without a doubt, he inhabits the house that was his childhood. On the oilcloth-covered table are two apples. Beneath the kitchen sink, a puddle of water – which can be glimpsed through some flowery curtains – grows larger and larger.

5

For a week he’s been trying to scrub up the house. Every day he feels better, stronger. He observes himself in the mirror and tries to note, even down to the tiniest detail, how the physical activity is changing his body. Yesterday he started work on the pitch pine in the dining room. He removed three strips. He spent a moment tracing the grain of the wood with the tips of his fingers. He wanted to understand its logic in order to succumb to the natural order. He is obliging with the world. He tries to behave as is proper. He undertakes casual mandates as if they were edicts.