No World Concerto (30 page)

The screenwriter calls his wife. He’d like to confess he’s tired, stressed out, but nevertheless, he must somehow muster the effort to finish his work. A titanic effort, he intones dramatically to himself, as if he were a character in one of his scripts. He’d like to confess that things have not turned out as he wanted them to, and that he feels like the world is disappearing under his feet. But he doesn’t want to think about it, let alone confess it to his estranged wife, because he doesn’t have a clue where he’s going to find the titanic effort he needs to continue. While listening to the rings, not counting this time, but waiting until she answers, knowing she probably won’t answer, he thinks about those early days when he walked with a spring in his step and champed at the bit to get back to his desk and write, when he had no trouble mustering the energy to work, the enthusiasm to press forward to the end, when he felt like a professional, someone who didn’t have to teach a gaggle of excessively gifted, excessively creative, excessively annoying brats on the side, most of whom stuck their tongues out at the things he taught them, except for the girl, with whom he dreamed of escaping, of living a passionate life in some faraway paradise. So much time has passed since he left that those days seem like another age, another world. But he knows it’s only been a few weeks, which may not seem like much, but it’s enough for the phone call to not make sense. Or perhaps it does make sense, a twisted kind of sense — warped, in just the same way as the joining in marriage of two people who aren’t right for each other. The screenwriter smiles at his musings and finally hangs up the telephone. He needs to have a rest, maybe get something to eat and take a nap, because he knows he’ll see things differently when he wakes up. Like the girl, he also thinks about going home, although he knows he can’t. If he could start all over again. . he reflects, but then concludes he’d more than likely make all the same mistakes. He’s looking out the window again, thinking about the woman in the building opposite, imagines her watching him through a gap in her blinds. He stares fixedly at her window but resists the temptation to raise his arm. Perhaps it wasn’t her, he thinks, but then figures who else could it have been? He then examines the front of the building one last time. It’s strange he always refers to it as a single building when it’s really composed of two: one with balconies, the other with just windows. Most of the doors leading onto the balconies have blinds and there aren’t any flowers outside. He scans the storefronts along the street: the real-estate agency on the corner, the lingerie store, the bakery, and the shoe and handbag store. All are closed, except for the bakery. He already knows that Sundays are strange. He looks around, considers every detail, as if he’d like to say good-bye even to the pebbles on the ground. But it doesn’t matter, what are stones, flowers, blinds — these things aren’t important. If he manages to get back on his feet, perhaps he’ll decide to settle in this city. It certainly is beautiful, he reflects while looking over the rooftops, as if trying to imagine what a bird would see, or perhaps an aerial photographer. He might even live out his retirement here, he thinks, however many days he has left in this world. But not in a hotel, he simply couldn’t afford it. He’s not like the girl’s father, who’s happy to stay in hotels because he’s rich. Either way, in a couple of weeks, he’ll have forgotten it all, as in the hours after waking from a dream. And yet, despite the futility of hoping they’ll come true, of expecting that even a residue might remain beside him when he wakes up in his bed, he still likes dreaming, and perhaps that’s the reason he writes screenplays. He tries calling the prostitute, but she doesn’t answer. He starts talking into the receiver anyway, imagining she can hear him say he’s being kicked out of the hotel, that he has until tomorrow to pack his bags and leave; imagining she asks him where he’ll go, and him answering that he doesn’t know. Today’s Sunday, and Sundays are always strange. The prostitute asks if the producer knows about his plight, and he tells the receiver, not yet. He’s almost whimpering now. He knows it’s pathetic, but it doesn’t matter, she doesn’t know him that well, and at least she’s acquainted with the ups and downs one experiences in a wayward life. Today’s a strange day, he repeats, he’s being kicked out of his hotel; he’s got twenty-four hours to find somewhere else to stay; writing requires a titanic effort — like crossing a desert, or lifting a skyscraper, or holding up the sky itself. He’s being indecisive, whereas the prostitute in his imagination speaks with assurance, confidence. Indeed, perhaps too much, for she speaks as if she’s even read his script, and plays the film producer in as accomplished a way as she does his lover. It exasperates him when someone offers advice so brazenly about something they know nothing about. She offers him the same counsel as would the producer; she even imitates his voice while doing so. Take a vacation, she tells him. He doesn’t think a vacation is going to help. A vacation. . for Christ’s sake! Yes, he’ll go sunbathing and drink cocktails with all the employees at the bank, indeed all the staff of every business that’s shut for the August vacation, he thinks, including that woman who owns the bag and shoe store: in other words, people who have no mission or purpose in life. The black prostitute, he thinks, envisioning her, doesn’t get to go on vacation either. The producer told him he always spent his vacation working. What’s the black prostitute’s mission in life? Perhaps, like him, she doesn’t have one, or is deceiving herself in thinking her profession will take her somewhere. But he doesn’t want her to know this, for she still trusts in their respective talents. He doesn’t even know whether he’s still imagining the prostitute, or if it’s now the producer, or perhaps the two of them together. He imagines them embracing, and realizes he’s ruined the fantasy. He hangs up the phone, turns out the lights, and lies back on the bed. He feels pathetic for having spent so long speaking to a dial tone. He does it occasionally as a form of penance, but then he always regrets having repented. He smiles at the thought. If he didn’t do these kinds of things, he wouldn’t be himself. He gets out of bed, turns on the light, and goes to the writing desk. There are disorganized heaps of paper everywhere. He tries to put them in order and starts gathering his things. He finds notes in the most inconspicuous corners of the room, even in the mini-kitchen that lifted his spirits on the day he arrived. He collects them all and puts them in a large plastic bag, doing so carefully, as he would his clothes when folding them into a suitcase before a long voyage. These notes have been scattered around the room for days, even weeks, and it seems almost a miracle the cleaning lady was deferential enough to leave them where they lay. He picks up an envelope from the nightstand. It contains his favorite photos of the girl, brief flashes of his happiness, which he’ll take with him when he goes away. It’s been so long since he’s seen her, she’s starting to become a memory, and while the pain of those words that struck him when she promised she would leave had left a dull ache in his chest, now that this too was fading, as everything else seems to fade in his life, as even his memory of her seems to be fading, he hopes these flashes of happiness will rekindle her memory, although without the pain. He wonders if, instead of weeks, he’s spent months holed away in this room. Perhaps he’s been dreaming and it’s only been a few hours. Like the girl, he begins wondering if there really is nothing outside the mind. But he’s starting to feel unwell again, too unwell to pursue this thought, and he considers whether he should go right to bed. He looks around for a calendar to corroborate the number of days he’s stayed at the hotel, but when he picks up his bill, it’s made plain: twenty-eight days in total. He leaves his typewriter and large plastic bag on the floor, next to the door, and lies back against the headboard, contemplating the room, which now looks totally bare. It’s all over, he says loudly, repeatedly, closing his eyes. It’s all over, it’s all over. . A minute goes by, perhaps an hour, perhaps longer than that. He finally got some rest. He’s breathing more easily, and feels as if a weight’s been lifted from his chest. It’s all over, he remembers saying before falling asleep. He wouldn’t mind listening to some music, but not that twelve-tone stuff, which he only listens to when trying to enter the mindset of his characters. For the first time since he arrived, he turns on the radio, which plays something relatively easy on the ears, a waltz. He gets up and starts dancing with his cane. There’s some interference coming through the speakers, as if the sound is traveling from another galaxy, and only a fraction of the signal is managing to cover the distance. When the waltz ends, he turns the radio off, but keeps dancing anyway because he feels buoyant. It’s all over, he chirps to the music of the waltz. He wants to celebrate the fact that a weight’s been lifted, but he can’t make his mind up who it is he’d like to be there celebrating with him. Perhaps the girl, although he doesn’t imagine she’d enjoy dancing a waltz. The girl has the kind of ego that sees itself only in grim and murky plashes, a personality buoyed by the bleak and leaden aspects of life, a face whose only mirror is duplicity and guile. The screenwriter doesn’t have anyone in the neighboring country’s capital to dance with. Now that he’s broke, even the black prostitute has left him for the producer. He sits down and riffles through the phone directory. It’s not exactly true he has no one. He recalls the names of the screenwriters, directors, and assistants who agreed to send him money. All are former friends he hasn’t seen in years, and it occurs to him he never told them of his return to the profession. Then again, it’s probably not a good idea to call them at this hour just to invite them to a waltz and do some catching up. He better let them send the money and leave it at that.

He slept more than he needed to, and his muscles are now stiff. It’s getting dark outside, and the streetlights are already on. Although it’s too early for dinner, he eats the bread and fruit he’s been saving in his pocket since breakfast time, and sits in the chair. There’s nothing interesting on TV, not that he understands much that’s being said. They need to talk more slowly; he’s a foreigner after all. He turns it off and limps to the kitchen to make some coffee. He thinks about the girl and her father, but especially the girl, the would-be author. He thinks it’s amazing that he should be thinking about this in light of his current situation, as if he were still in that state of grace before the girl left him, before he was kicked out of the hotel, before he was broke. He returns to the chair with his cup and lights a cigarette. Now that he’s a little more relaxed, he thinks about the future. He’ll probably have to start looking for a job, but he’s useless at everything that doesn’t involve the movies. Once again, he’s considering the possibility of abandoning his career as a screenwriter, something he’s done his whole life, in favor of a job for which he lacks both experience and skill. His only other option is retirement. He won’t be able to teach again, that’s for sure. Maybe the producer will commission another screenplay. But it’s hard for him to think about writing another script when he’s dwelling on all his own worst qualities. If the girl decides to come back, maybe he could start a new life with her. Perhaps she could pull him out of his financial rut. But that’s a dream. She’s gone. He tries calling her again, but her cell phone isn’t on. Well, damn it! he says. How’s he going to tell her about his imminent departure from the hotel? He’s putting himself in a bad mood. He finishes his coffee and puts out his cigarette and tries taking his mind off it all. He takes a few deep breaths and thinks about something he learned from her. Perhaps if he adopted her mantra, he’d see things differently: life’s a game or something like that. He says it again slowly, almost hearing her voice. It doesn’t change his perception of himself as a failure. Perhaps it would be best to just accept it, try doing something else, perhaps he should enter the confessional where his conscience resides, that voice in the back of his mind that keeps telling him it’s impossible to live a fulfilling life, and admit he was wrong, do penance for having believed otherwise. “I can’t stop thinking that I’ve wasted the best years of my life,” he could say, paraphrasing one of the characters in the novel by the author of lost time, except in his case, not for the sake of a woman, but because he hadn’t realized any of his professional ambitions. If he was a great writer, he’d be able to write about himself, about his failures, transform them into overwhelming triumphs. The best years are the ones that are lost, the ones that are wasted in suffering, in want, for these are the years that are waiting to be retrieved, waiting to one day be written about. The tolling church bells remind him of the time. A piece of fruit, a slice of bread, a cigarette, and coffee hardly constitute a good meal, but at least he’s not hungry. There’s some spoiled yogurt at the back of the fridge, and the leftovers of a meal he doesn’t remember having. He still has a few coins rattling in his pocket. To think, only a few hours earlier he was dancing a waltz. He sits in front of the window, lifts his feet onto the ledge, and lights a cigarette. It’s hard to see the stars above the buildings, especially with all the light pollution, but at this point, he’s not that fussy about the view. He’s happy just to smoke his cigarette and let the evening run its course.

He could wait until midday, that’s the time he has to check out of the hotel, but something’s telling the screenwriter he shouldn’t delay. He has to run through what’s become a ritual for him now, and which he already performed after leaving his house and then his studio apartment: a ritual of renunciation. In a little over a month, he’s started a new life on two occasions. From this point on, maybe he’ll be doing so several times a day. He goes into the bathroom for the last time, freshens up for the last time, looks at himself in the mirror, and takes a deep breath before leaving the room for the last time. The elevator takes its time arriving. He gets the feeling he may be better off taking the stairs. He’d do it if it wasn’t for his damned limp. He grips his cane impatiently and knocks it against the floor a couple of times, the strokes muted by the carpet, rendering the act meaningless. He doesn’t like the muffled thud, he says to himself, because it probably unleashed a cloud of dust mites that are now colonizing his socks and the hem of his pants. He takes the elevator to the lobby. He has no clothes other than the ones he’s wearing. He sold his watch and the briefcase in which he kept his screenplay and his notes. He also sold his other suitcase, the cassette player the girl gave him, his CDs, the twelve-tone book he bought in the music store, and even the book about screenwriters. All his remaining worldly belongings are stuffed in a large plastic bag on the manager’s office floor, next to an old-fashioned portable typewriter. He’ll collect them, along with his documentation, once he settles the bill. The money his son and old colleagues sent didn’t last very long. He collects his things and leaves the manager’s office with his head held high, looking straight ahead, striking his cane against the floor, which reverberates in the vicinity like a battle drum, though his army’s slain, and the drummer’s playing alone. His mind’s a blank, he has no plans; perhaps there’s no longer a place for him in this world. Then, suddenly, of all people, he sees the brilliant composer sitting in a chair in the lobby, and he has with him the soundtrack he’d promised to write. Almost identical, he assures him, to the music in that film about the angels that listen to other people’s voices, not only their speech, but also their thoughts, perhaps those of everyone on Earth. The piece he composed has a melody that progresses by a series of unsettling cadences, incomplete, as though the sound of something that’s approaching, but hasn’t come over the horizon as yet, a veritable No World, he says. He’s only been back from the tour a few days, he says, seeming apologetic about having taken so long, but he didn’t just come to give him the soundtrack, which he insists was just a simple mathematical exercise for him. The exchange between the two of them is brief. Basically, the screenwriter happens to have something of interest to the brilliant composer, and the brilliant composer has money.