A Shortcut to Paradise (30 page)

Oriol didn't flinch but kept gazing at that garden which only existed in his head and which, in some way, resembled the bucolic landscape from Van Eyck's polyptych he had personally admired some time ago in Ghent cathedral. Oriol had always been struck by the strange atmosphere of peace emanating from the central panel of that retable, the solemn, ritualistic silence suffusing that tumultuous scene. A silence broken only by the slow drip of blood condemned to flow eternally from the wound of the Mystic Lamb, proudly standing up on the altar… Now, as he observed that garden stretching out beyond the bars, which he alone could see, Oriol wondered whether to make a bouquet of white lilies or a more daring item of red roses. He finally decided on roses, which he felt were more appropriate. He knew the countess liked them and they were also his favourite flower, though he couldn't remember when such a preference dated from.

While the other inmates watched television in the recreation room, irritated one another or simply sat there doing nothing, sedated by their respective medications, Oriol informed the nurse of his ideas concerning the trim his hair needed. He also spoke to her excitedly of the other preparations he'd been pondering in connection with the visitor he was expecting that afternoon. He was disappointed when the nurse told him (albeit very nicely) that he wouldn't be seeing a barber for a couple of weeks and that she couldn't go out and buy him a bottle of his favourite eau de Cologne because bottles and alcohol, even if in the form of eau de Cologne, were banned from the ward. Nor could she get him a tie. As he should already know, there was no need of ties or belts in that place. And however passionately Oriol tried to tell her that a visit from Countess Lucrècia Berluschina de Castelgandolfo merited a little relaxing of the strict rules reigning over that institution, the nurse was equally pleasant and inflexible and soon after returned with a small plastic glass of tap water and a red pill that Orol didn't recall being part of his usual intake. He didn't offer any resistance and meekly swallowed it, smiling all the time, though the sewery tang of that tepid water was nothing like the refined taste of the Perrier water he'd drunk for years. Even his disappointment at the nurse's lack of understanding couldn't spoil Oriol's day. In a few hours, he would be taking tea in the garden in the company of his beloved countess, conversing with an elegant, refined and seductive society lady. He'd sprinkle a little water over his hair and comb it back, he decided resignedly. He trusted that the velvety roses he was intending to give her would at least be the scented variety.

“Sureda is acting oddly today,” the head nurse informed the doctor, who was absorbed in trying to get his computer to work. “We gave him the usual, just in case.”

“We have a meeting of the control committee today. And the councillor's visiting this afternoon… Moreover, three or four staff are away, as you know,” the doctor replied, his eyes glued to the screen. “It's not the best of days… Do you think he'll try to commit suicide again?”

“I don't know. In fact, he seems positively elated. He said somebody or other is paying a visit this afternoon. Let's hope he doesn't start the others off!…” the nurse added quite negatively.

But Oriol Sureda was at peace. Serenely at peace. It was true he sometimes had all manner of strange thoughts that would torment him and cause him to suffer one of those violent attacks that could only be subdued by medication administered intravenously. But that wasn't the case today. The thoughts that sometimes besieged him came in the form of hazy, disturbing memories that plunged him into a mood of deep despondency. Over the last eight months, the time he had spent in that institution, the disorder provoked by those memories had led him to attempt suicide on a couple of occasions. Evidently he had failed. He was tormented by images of a misspent life, split into two Oriols, that his brain strove to forget. Every now and then, however, thanks to the zeal of his psychologists and their therapies, those images struggled with renewed vigour to find a place in his consciousness and suddenly surfaced amid painful flashes of lucidity. Oriol rebelled and tried desperately to keep them in the shadows of his mind, locked and bolted in a corner of his brain, where they couldn't hurt him. At moments like that, when his memory hurled out fragments from his previous life, Oriol screamed out loud, impotent and deeply wounded. He recalled the jibes, the contempt, the lies and pettiness with which he had always treated others and that had caused him to lead a solitary life, without friends, without affection. For years Oriol had striven to erect a wall of arrogance and indifference around himself that one of the two Oriol Suredas cohabiting inside his head had finally demolished.

Everything was different now. He no longer lived alone, or wrote those savage, acid reviews or was forced to read those boring books he hated. Within those walls everyone was full of concern for him, whether he slept well, was hungry, whether he was happy or distressed. Oriol felt that the staff of Can Brians even treated him affectionately, as if they disregarded the savage crime that had led to him being admitted into that psychiatric institution that was a wing of the prison. Oriol couldn't remember the murder they accused him of, but there were lots of things he no longer remembered. Not that he tried very hard. He didn't want to go backwards; he didn't want to go back to being that Oriol Sureda he had come to hate. At last he could allow himself to be vulnerable, at last he could cry, sing, shout and give vent to everything he was feeling, and he was never alone. He could spend awhile rereading the novels of Marina Dolç, without having to hide away, he could converse with her characters, even agree a time to take tea with them. As he'd been so insistent, the doctor had agreed to let him keep the manuscript of Marina Dolç's last novel, the one that had won the prize, and out of all the characters created by that writer who the other Oriol had cursed so
often, the countess had been his favourite for months. Countess Lucrècia Berluschina de Castelgandolfo, so sensual, agreeable and understanding, was unlike any of the women who had rejected him in the course of his life.

The inmates went out into the yard to exercise in the mid-morning and he amused himself cutting imaginary roses in the non-existent garden all around. After a lunch of frozen greens and two pieces of breaded meat with chips, he went back to his room. He cleaned his teeth, sprinkled a little water over the little hair he had left and combed it. While his colleagues took a siesta or masturbated leisurely, staring at the ceiling, he sat down next to the window and waited for the countess, with that imaginary bouquet of roses on his lap. He was impatient but in no hurry. If he had too much of anything, it was time. Time that extended or shortened according to the medication they gave him or his unpredictable changes of mood.

The countess arrived three hours later, at around five, fortunately just as the doors were reopened to allow the inmates to take more exercise in the yard. She was cheerful and charming, adored his roses and regaled him with anecdotes about her last journey to Paris and the fiestas she organized at her residency in Rome. She invited him to accompany her on her next trip to Provence (this would be in the autumn) and he was delighted to accept because he had no other commitments in the autumn. They spent a good couple of hours together, chatting and sipping tea, like two old friends who haven't seen each other for ages. They spoke of future projects, laughed and swapped secrets, both cocooned in the same complicated dream in that corner of the world contrived from remnants of fiction. When one of the nurses said it was turning cold and he should go inside, Oriol and the countess said their goodbyes, nostalgia already striking in their hearts, with a polite kiss on the cheek, and she promised to come back to see him soon, when one of the auxiliaries took his arm and led him inside. Oriol was upset at being led away like that, but didn't resist. He was too happy and didn't want to dispel that twilight magic with a row or a protest he knew would be in vain. Perhaps he might have a bad day tomorrow, as the nurse had predicted, perhaps those memories he so struggled to forget would come back to haunt him in a few hours, but that afternoon, while he was taking tea in the garden with the countess, bathed in the fragrance from the roses and the melancholy light of that spring crepuscule, Oriol had understood the meaning of an uncomfortable word that had always been a stumbling block in his vocabulary. A word that had tiptoed through his life, that he had read thousands of times in thousands of books but had never been able to pronounce without it snagging on the road or path that had to carry it from his brain to his lips. Now that word flooded over him like the mellow light, like the strong scent from those roses he remembered smelling early one morning blended with the stench of death. Night had descended over his mind as well, and he wasn't clamouring for the light.

Inside, in the dining room, the other inmates were growing impatient as the insipid smell of dinner wafted from the kitchen and the auxiliaries struggled to keep order and make their voices heard in the middle of that tumult of curses and obscenities. Oriol said nothing. Sitting on his chair, he smiled a docile, vacuous smile
and silently savoured the taste of that brave new word he had just vanquished. Within those white walls that isolated him from his darkest demons, a prisoner of the drugs he was obliged to take to fend off the nightmares and darkness that often accompany clairvoyance, for the first time in his life, Oriol Sureda was happy.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

The author of this novel had no desire to parody, describe or recreate any real-life situation or person. All the characters that appear are her inventions and any similarity with reality that might strike the reader is simply a coincidence.

BITTER LEMON PRESS
First published in the United Kingdom in 2011 by
Bitter Lemon Press, 37 Arundel Gardens, London W11 2LW

 

 

First published in Catalan as
Drecera al paradis
by
Edicions 62, Barcelona, 2007

 

Bitter Lemon Press gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance
of the Institut Ramon Llull and the Arts Council of England

©Teresa Solana 2007

English translation ©Peter Bush 2011

 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.

 

The moral rights of Teresa Solana and Peter Bush have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988

 

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

 

eISBN : 978-1-904-73879-4

 

Typeset by Alma Books Ltd
Printed and bound by
Cox & Wyman Ltd. Reading, Berkshire
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