I didn’t even let him finish.
“Would I put you in a tight spot if I said no?”
“Not at all; it was only an idea. I can propose it to some other colleague. Or even I could participate.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not at my best right now, if you know what I mean.”
“Don’t worry, it happens to all of us once in a while . . .”
We began to gather up our trays and left them on the trolleys, since it was time to get back. Luis kept talking the whole way, monopolizing the conversation without asking me anything or waiting for me to speak, aware that I had little desire for conversation.
“So you’re in Rebecca’s hands now; she’ll give you all the details regarding the continuing-education course if in the end you’re up for it. Do let me know, okay?” he said as we exited the elevator.
I forced a smile, muttered another okay in response to his, and turned to head back to my office. A hand on my wrist, however, stopped me before I began to walk. “If at some point you feel like talking, you know where to find me.”
He turned down the hall toward the conference room and I went in search of Rebecca, still a little confused by that unexpected gesture. Perhaps I wasn’t as alone as I thought. Perhaps the solution lay in filling my life with new affections instead of continuing to lament the lost ones.
I found her door closed, with a yellow Post-it reading: I’m off to lunch, so I returned to my office to continue working. Mulling over the course proposal, I still felt the unexpected hand of Luis Zarate on my skin. Then I remembered Alberto’s call.
But I resisted once more. I forbade myself to think about his settlement proposal, forbade myself to ask how this could be happening to us.
Fontana’s papers became my refuge once again. I plunged into them for a long time, using them as a painkiller, until the rapping on the door brought me out of my absorption. On looking up, I found Rebecca’s ever-pleasing face.
“I know you wanted to see me, and I know what it’s about. Here’s all the information.”
I asked her to sit down while I removed a bunch of documents from the only other seat in the small office apart from my old armchair.
“Have you ever been to Spain, Rebecca?” I asked without even knowing why. Perhaps because, despite our current friendliness, I’d never considered how much she actually knew of my country, or perhaps because at that moment I needed to have recourse to something that would give me a sense of warmth.
She was slow to answer my simple question, taking off her glasses first and then wiping the lens with the end of her shirttail.
“Once I was about to go, many years ago. I had a Spanish friend, you know? A great friend. She lived here in Santa Cecilia and we’d organized a trip to spend the entire summer in Spain. But something unexpected happened that spring and we were never able to go.” She raised her eyes. “One of these days I just might try again.”
We returned to the subject of the course project. I was practically convinced that I was going to accept, and we spoke of dates, time slots, and possible participants until we realized that it was almost five: time to start wrapping up the day. Rebecca gathered her papers and began to leave. Standing at the doorway, she paused, regarding me with a half smile, her eyes tinged with nostalgia.
“She was a wonderful woman. Her memory still lingers here.”
Chapter 8
* * *
The following week the department was covered with signs announcing the National Hispanic Heritage Month debate, so we all saved the date.
“You’ll be there, right?” Rebecca asked on the day of the event, popping her head briefly into my office at noon.
“I suppose so. And you?”
“Of course, I never miss it. I’ll come pick you up.”
The lecture hall was practically full, and everyone was still settling in. The stage, however, remained empty except for a couple of technicians busy installing microphones in front of nine empty chairs. I was relieved that none of them would be mine.
We bumped into Luis Zarate, who was chatting in the hall with colleagues and students. On seeing us, he broke away from the group and came over.
“I trust you’ll find it interesting, maybe even fun. I would have loved you to participate, Blanca. Perhaps some other time.”
“Some other time, for sure,” I said, knowing full well that such a time would never come. “Are you on the panel?”
“I’m afraid so; I have no other option. I hope I won’t bore you . . .”
I was convinced that he wouldn’t. He had the gift of gab, was quick and clever in his conversations, and had a considerable amount of knowledge. I had growing proof of this because we saw each other often: meeting in offices and hallways, or at lunch in the cafeteria.
Rebecca and I sat at the end of one of the first few rows. Soon the lights dimmed and the panelists took the stage while the room slowly fell silent.
Luis Zarate, dressed in black as usual, sat in the third chair from the right, where I would have no doubt been sitting had I accepted his invitation. The last panelist to cross the stage in a few long strides was Daniel Carter, the university’s former professor whom I’d met in Meli’s Market. Wearing a jacket but no tie, he looked self-assured, with that contagious energy of someone recently arrived. Before taking a seat he went around giving the other speakers handshakes, affectionate gestures, and a quick hug or two. But he was unable to exchange a word with our chairman: when he passed by Luis Zarate, the latter seemed absorbed with writing something in his agenda.
“Why is your friend there?” I asked Rebecca in a murmur as Daniel finally sat down next to the moderator.
“They always invite a visiting professor who has something to do with the Hispanic world, just like Zarate invited you.”
“Wasn’t he only passing through?”
Although it was impossible for him to have heard me, just then he spotted us and gave us a quick wave.
“He’s thinking of staying longer than he initially intended,” Rebecca explained in a quick whisper.
There were no more explanations: the moderator had started introducing the various participants. A Guatemalan painter, a professor from the Art Department, dressed in a huipil covered with embroidered flowers and birds. A young, skinny Argentinian professor with a blond goatee, a specialist in international economic relations. A mature journalist, just back from Ecuador, where her daughter worked for the Peace Corps. A graduate student about to finish her dissertation regarding relations between the United States and Chile during the Allende period. Along with my two acquaintances, plus two other participants whose affiliations I didn’t catch.
The debate flowed smoothly. In deference to the majority of the audience, English was for the most part the language used, although everyone peppered it with Spanish when references or evocations so required.
They spoke of domestic and international issues related to the Spanish-speaking world, and offered opinions and forecasts regarding the twenty-first century. The subjects were wide-ranging: Hugo Chavez’s rise to power in Venezuela, Pastrana’s dialogues in Colombia with the FARC guerrillas, Clinton’s increasingly flexible policies toward Cuba, the Latin invasion of pop music, and finally the chances of an Oscar nomination for Pedro Almodovar’s film All About My Mother. That was when the sparks flew.
“Mention of that prize gives me great satisfaction,” Zarate said as soon as the subject was raised. “And not only because of the recognition it would confer on the wonderful creative quality of the filmmaker himself but, fundamentally, because it finally confirms what some of my colleagues have refused or have been unable to appreciate in recent Spanish cinema.”
No one replied; all the speakers waited for him to continue, not quite understanding his meaning.
“I’m referring to,” he went on, “the reactionary position taken by a specific sect
or of our Hispanic studies academic community.”
His panel colleagues remained silent. Until, unexpectedly, Daniel Carter slowly unglued his back from his chair, leaned forward, and, instead of speaking to the public, turned to him.
“Out of mere curiosity, Professor Zarate, might that assertion have something to do with myself?”
“I don’t think that Professor Zarate’s intention was to—” the moderator tried to intervene.
“Because if that were the case—and forgive me, Raymond, please,” he continued, interrupting the moderator while raising his hand so that he’d be allowed to continue, “—if that were the case, perhaps you could be more direct and explicit instead of hiding behind what must be for the audience some confusing rhetorical posturing.”
“You’re totally free to interpret my words as you please, Professor Carter,” Luis Zarate answered with a trace of haughtiness.
“Then explain yourself more clearly so that you’ll be free from subjective interpretations.”
“All I’ve tried to say is that perhaps such a nomination would encourage some academic researchers to reconsider their assessment of Almodovar’s output—”
“I don’t think anyone in our profession has ever questioned the quality and originality of Pedro Almodovar’s movies.”
“—assessment of Almodovar’s output as well as other productions of equal interest, I repeat, as a cultural product worthy of the most thorough scientific study,” Zarate continued, completely ignoring his interlocutor.
The far-ranging debate had suddenly devolved into a sort of corrosive ping-pong match between two lone players. The public, meanwhile, kept up with the nimble exchange of opinions without a clear idea of where it was all leading.
Despite the sophisticated dialogue, I began to sense something more. Something personal, carnal, human. It slithered beneath each of their interruptions, although neither one of them mentioned it outright. Something must have happened at some point in the past to give rise to the palpable hostility between the veteran visiting professor and the chairman of the Modern Languages Department.
The dispute amplified. Luis Zarate attacked with an incessant sputter of words and very little body language: static, backed only by the movement of a pen that he occasionally jabbed against the table to stress his point. Daniel Carter, for his part, accompanied his words with more generous gesticulations as he leaned back in his chair with the apparent ease of someone with a good number of battles under his belt.
“What I’m trying to say is there are lots of academics who are still stuck in old social criticism,” Luis Zarate insisted, “as if no advances have been made in either research methodology or Spanish culture since Carlos Saura or the publication of Time of Silence by Martin-Santos. As if the Marxist compromise was still alive and Spain was still a country of brass bands, castanets, and bullfights.”
“Good God, Zarate, don’t tell me we’re discussing bullfights today . . .”
Perhaps it was the tone more than the comment itself that brought a peal of laughter from the audience. I looked around and noticed that, far from being annoyed, most of the audience was enjoying the heated discussion.
“You’d defend yourself much better in that domain than I would, no doubt about it,” Zarate replied. “Your peculiar fondness for that gory spectacle is well known, as I understand. Perhaps it’s another example of the stagnant stereotyping to which I’m referring.”
“And you no doubt see it as my clear support of stale Francoism? Because it’s the only piece of nonsense left for you to say.”
“Don’t trivialize the matter, Professor Carter, please. We’re carrying on an intellectual debate.”
“I’m not trivializing at all, my friend. You’re the one who brought up the old clichés of Spanish culture. Although you’ve missed a few to complete the perfect postmodern Hispanist’s catalog of demons. How about the Guardia Civil’s three-cornered hat?”
This last comment came out of his mouth in Spanish, and while ninety-nine percent of the audience didn’t understand it, I had to make an effort not to laugh out loud. Daniel Carter must have noticed something in my face from the distance because, raising an eyebrow almost imperceptibly, he shot me a knowing wink.
“I’d appreciate it if you resorted to arguments of weight, Professor Carter.”
“I don’t need for you to lecture me as to what type of arguments I should resort to, thank you,” Carter replied, resuming a calmness devoid of any trace of banter. “You are the only one who from the very beginning perverted this discussion, manipulating it to turn a simple personal situation that is beside the point into an alleged disagreement of intellectual proportions.”
The chairman was ready to counterattack, but Daniel Carter, in whose patience a certain boredom could be discerned, decided to unilaterally consider the issue closed.
“Well, my friend, I think we’d better leave it off here.” And adding emphasis to his words with a sonorous slap on the table, he concluded, “I think we’ve bored the audience plenty with our little dialectic dispute. Let’s allow our moderator to wind down the debate, because if we don’t, we’ll be wallowing in it until next year’s Oscar nominations, when the favorite candidate will be a movie on the sorrows of an orphan in Uzbekistan and we will have forgotten the reason why we were arguing on this long-ago day.”
Perceiving a slight flash of irritation on Luis Zarate’s face, I intuited that he would have liked the skirmish to continue until he had thrashed his opponent. But he was unable to do so, and with no prospect of a clear winner or a harmonious conclusion the debate was simply closed.
The moderator thanked everyone for attending and the hall once again filled with noise, movement, and light. While we all got up, the panelists began descending from the stage. Daniel, in the distance, signaled for Rebecca and me to wait for him as he headed toward us, making his way through the crowd.
However, he had to pass Luis Zarate, who at that moment was exchanging a few words with two professors from the Department of Linguistics. I thought they’d avoid each other or that at most they’d greet each other coldly. But to my surprise, Daniel stopped beside him and gave his arm a light squeeze.
If the two phrases that he spoke had been in English, they most likely would have been indistinguishable among the dozens of voices around me. But perhaps because he chose my native tongue, his words reached my ears with perfect clarity.
“Don’t take things so seriously, kid. Get your head out from all those papers and get a fucking life.”
Chapter 9
* * *
While Daniel Carter said good-bye to several colleagues who didn’t want to let him go, we exchanged a few words with our chairman on our way out of the event. If the debate had irritated him in any way, he didn’t show it. Neither did the last remark his opponent had thrown at him in private seem to have annoyed him. Or at least that was the impression he gave.
“That’s what the university is for, right? To stimulate debate and critical thinking,” he joked before leaving. “By the way, Blanca, have you decided yet if you’ll take on the course?”
“I was going to tell you tomorrow that I have. It seems interesting; I think I’ll like it.”
“Then I count you in. Rebecca will take care of the formalities.”
We watched him leave, apparently alone. From the corner of my eye, however, I saw that farther off, in the semidarkness, one of the young professors from the department, whose name at that moment I was unable to recall, was waiting for him. Together they headed toward his Toyota with license plates from Massachusetts and disappeared into the night.
“I thought I’d never get away,” Daniel announced as he finally approached us. “I’m very happy to see you again, Blanca: you’re the only truly authentic one in this convoluted debate regarding the Spanish essence, which the rest of us only know secondhand. What’s in your fridge,
Rebecca?” he then asked, rubbing his hands vigorously. “Something tasty so that you can invite Professor Perea and myself over for dinner?”
I was surprised by his comment as well as by his spontaneous self-invite—because of the evident regard he seemed to have for me despite our hardly knowing each other; and because his self-invite, not merely glib, included me without even consulting me. I raised no objections, however, for his proposition was infinitely more stimulating than what awaited me that night: a bland omelet accompanied by a couple of isolated episodes of some outdated television series.
“A wonderful piece of Alaskan salmon,” Rebecca answered. “And I think there are still two or three bottles left in that case of merlot you brought from Napa.”
“That settles it. Shall we walk there now?”
As we made our way to Rebecca’s house nearby, we spoke of the event that had just taken place. Without taking sides with either him or Luis Zarate, I confessed to Daniel that his unexpected comments on the stereotypical Spain almost had me in stitches.
“You probably served as my inspiration.”
I didn’t react, not knowing what to say.
“Seeing you in the audience from up there,” he then clarified, “suddenly brought a thousand images of your native country to mind, and not only the stale ones that your chairman and I mentioned.”
“As long as you didn’t picture me playing the castanets in a long-tailed gown in the shadow of an Osborne bull,” I retorted in Spanish, unable to hold back.
He laughed heartily and then translated for Rebecca what I’d just said.
“That Spain that your chairman pretends to anchor me in, and that I myself discovered in depth at the time, with its lights and shadows, has been buried for decades,” he went on.
“Fortunately,” I pointed out.
“Yes, fortunately. What we cannot do is deny that it existed and that, like it or not, it has contributed to shape the country you’ve got today.”