Semmant (23 page)

I seemed to sense how the most intense work was churning inside his brain day after day. Myriads of ones and zeroes changed combinations – in search of the single, precise solution. Semmant sought an answer, his own philosopher’s stone. He was searching, if you will, for his own god. He did not know his name; that is not surprising. The true name is known to none.

Chapter 24

The story of Adele and Semmant occupied me totally for several weeks, until the end of July. Until the insufferable Madrid heat, which the air conditioners could not handle. At first, Lidia was patient – obviously waiting for everything to go back to the way it had been. Then her patience dried up, and the problems began.

Not surprising, since I now made very little time for her. We met, but infrequently; and my standoffishness was noticeable. But the main issue was not with me – or rather, not with me personally. Soon it became clear Lidia Alvares Alvares did not approve of the new Adele.

Meanwhile, symbiosis with the virtual was, as before, necessary to her. She depended on my tales, was accustomed to identifying herself with an image composed to satisfy her dreams. And now the identification had gone amiss; Adele had quickly been reincarnated, becoming all the more magnanimous. This also related to the details of the courtesan’s craft – the change Lidia could not come to terms with. She liked to imagine herself as a whore, but she didn’t know how to just give herself away without receiving compensation in full. She understood how and why one could sleep with a man for money – or for pleasure, to indulge her own passions. Or, best of all, for both at the same time, but never without a rational reason, an idea of what she wanted to get in return. “Getting in return” was the key phrase. On that, not on “giving,” all emphasis was placed. And now that emphasis pointed at nothing.

For Lidia this was unbearable, ridiculous. Her world had been broken to pieces, not being secured anymore by well-calculated logic. Society had nurtured in her an understanding of her role and had been prepared to pay for that role. Her every smile and grimace, every bit of her sexuality were worth something and awaited reward. She never made friends without reason – and never gave herself to men without demanding in return. Something from my sketches had confused her earlier: when Adele had transformed from a
puta
into a priestess, and money was merely incidental, not the end in itself. Lidia was perplexed – according to her code, love “for its own sake” was forbidden. Otherwise, they’ll take you for a fool, for a provincial who doesn’t know the rules. Sometimes Lidia would ask me, “Remind me, where was Adele born? Oh, she’s Russian. Well, that makes sense!” For some reason, this made her put up with a lot. But everything has its limits, of course.

If you don’t advertise your price, that means your price isn’t high – of this, Lidia Alvares Alvares was absolutely certain. And it soon became clear: she was annoyed with the new Adele for almost everything – for her kindness, her generosity, her brutal honesty. On top of that, the themes of lust and depravity in my stories had moved to the background. Subconsciously I hoped she would simply lose interest as a result. I already wanted to break up with her, though I didn’t admit this directly. But it didn’t turn out that way; the breakup didn’t happen. Rather, the opposite occurred. Lidia got tired of tolerance and resolved to fight – for the Adele she needed.

Yes, I underestimated the extent to which she was unaccustomed to losing what belonged to her. She could not imagine life without Adele, as she could not imagine it without conveniences, good food, and expensive clothes. Lidia had been conditioned for someone to think her up on her own behalf, and now she believed that was precisely how it would be – how it must be – forever. The one who had spoiled her now owed it to her – to continue, not to stop, what he had started!

All this I concluded later, after a couple of weeks. In fact, Lidia herself didn’t clearly comprehend at first exactly what was happening. Her gaze took on an evaluating squint, but the essence of the task was not clear to her. She thought I, perhaps, could be moved to pity or cajoled; and she tried – fussing over trifles, attempting to become more subservient, obedient. Then, on the contrary, she made it look like she knew something of which I was not aware. Something to affirm her power, her wisdom, her invulnerability. She would lecture me, smiling wickedly, all the while with that same evaluating squint. She was becoming wearisome – like a teacher giving a lesson. She wanted me to admit I had not done my homework about real life.

Incidentally, it was not just me who was affected by this. Lidia started to express her displeasure regarding everything around us. While doing this, she praised my qualities in comparison – merely to assert her rights even more persistently. Property rights, above all – her relations with me became jealous to the point of absurdity. Sometimes she would call at an unusual hour to request tender words. At our encounters she would expect flowers, gifts, some commonly vulgar display of affection. Everything was becoming harder with her – nagging even commenced during sex. It was as if I had to pass an exam every time: Lidia wanted everything, and all at once. She demanded I always put forth a heroic male performance. She became too loud and even started scratching my back – earlier she wouldn’t have dared do that. When I expressed my annoyance, she feigned offense – complaining I was inhibiting her freedom in lovemaking. Indeed, she began to fake offense quite often. I think she now frequently faked her orgasms too.

All this was burdensome, uncomfortable. Lidia had ceased to be in a tranquil state of mind. Her set of prearranged poses nearly doubled. If I wearied of pretending I believed in the sincerity of her emotions, she would get teary-eyed, pathetic, then rude, then fawn over me again… Afterward, she became ashamed of herself, tried to take revenge by telling me about her past love life – and then again demanded petty care. She was capricious like a princess, complained I did not fully appreciate her, assessed out loud and at length how many men would like to be in my place. To carry her in their arms, pamper her unfailingly. Here they are, standing in a long line. How strange I couldn’t see it!

Perhaps it seemed to her she was strengthening our connection, but it was the opposite: I withdrew as I grew increasingly tired of her. Her artificiality irritated me more and more – it seemed she had stopped ever being real. Pressure built up, and finally Lidia exploded, making a terrible scene.

There was no accusing her of artificiality here: her hysterics erupted genuinely, there was no way to counterfeit that. She shouted with unexpected rage, “What you’ve been writing lately is a load of crap!” Then, sobbing out loud, she tried to hit me. She writhed, grimaced, imitating Adele from my last story…

That story, by the way, had come out pretty good. The affair occurred at a shooting range – per the fantasy of a client with a military past. He apparently thought up a sort of game – in camouflage, with a black pistol in hand. Adele did various “things” with it – according to the plan, Lidia was supposed to take note of this. Maybe she did, but she didn’t admit it to me; she was too troubled by something else. Adele, playing along and getting into the role, gave the client a free blow job – just out of a good mood. This enraged Lidia – as an example of inappropriate unselfishness – though, in my view, there was not a hint of altruism in the whole account. There was nothing to blame me for, but she did detect some dirty trick – probably because she was looking for dirty tricks in everything. She shouted that, for a long time already, I had been trying to take away her will and common sense; that I was imposing upon her something unnatural, preposterous, deliberately driving her mad.

Her wrath was frightening, her fury genuine. I saw how she suddenly liked to pull out all the stops, to spew emotions endlessly. We had a knockdown, drag-out argument – I believed it was the end. But the next morning she changed her mind and started calling me, asking for forgiveness. She said she really wanted to buy khaki fatigues – and a GI blouse, heavy army boots. Then, a day later, she came to me in a military uniform. Right in the hallway I ripped off her shirt, baring her breasts. She came right there, clawing the wall with her fingernails…

However, despite our making up, the problem was not resolved – we just buried it for a little while. The tension did not relent, though Lidia never dared to make an open
démarche
again. Rather, she started a grueling, silent struggle.

Our quarrel had taught her something, so she changed her tactics by turning to rational logic. She used any opportunity to let me know, detail by detail, how she wished to see her virtual model portrayed. The pressure was serious; I was amazed by her persistence. Now it was she who concocted stories for me – and I should give her credit: they turned out well. Though harmless in themselves, each of them still contained an instructive example. I seemed to be entangled in a web of everyday truths. Not a single one of them could be debated – anyone would say, “Yes, that’s the way things actually are.” I myself would have affirmed: that’s the way things actually are! And who cared that all of it seemed alien, savage to Semmant and me?

The stories were persuasively realistic: her friends and relatives generously supplied factual material. Or else Lidia just made it up for them, which is basically the same thing. Without restraint, she used all the convincing power of reality, trying to pull me away from the abstract, immersing me headfirst in everyday life.

We started to make a lot of social calls; her calendar now consisted almost totally of dates highlighted in red. Name days, birthdays, and weddings, fiestas of patron saints flowed in a continuous stream. There was an inexhaustible string of reasons for congratulatory visits. At times the celebrants themselves – at Lidia’s request, of course – sent me cards with flowery invitations. I was almost never able to refuse, even though I later chided myself for being soft. Every two or three days, we bought wine and roses and went somewhere – Galapagar, Alcobendas, Legazpi, Alcalá de Henares…

San Borja, for example, was the patron saint of Auntie Estebana – and we hastened to Auntie Estebana’s, getting lost in the narrow side streets of
Barrio Concepción
. Along the way, Lidia hungrily told me how her auntie had once ripped off a large family diamond from one of her men. I listened distractedly; nevertheless, I then regarded Auntie Estebana with interest. She turned out to be a decrepit old woman who had already nearly outlived her mind. However, from beneath her thick brows I was transfixed by sharp, inquisitive eyes – and I believed the diamond really was being kept in a dresser somewhere, wrapped in rags. She had prepared us calamari in a sauce made from their own ink. The calamari, I recall, were delicious.

Then came the day of St. Isidore, and we set off to see cousin Amalia. At one time, she and Lidia had studied together at an elementary school for girls. Then their paths had separated, which Amalia, evidently, did not regret. None other than Isidore himself had helped her land a lover from the Ministry; and he, in turn, had bought an apartment and furniture, and set up a comfortable life. I liked the cousin; she had a spontaneity so lacking in Lidia. On top of that, she unambiguously pressed her hip against me when we were left alone together in the kitchen.

“Some people really have it made!” Lidia exclaimed on the way back. I assented, wondering whether it would be appropriate to invite the enterprising Amalia to a private lunch – and more.

Afterward, there were more saints: Ermengol, Francisco, Soler. There were other relatives and acquaintances – I really lost count. They all desired to see us; their hospitality knew no bounds. And I learned something about each one – how they drew on their accounts, ordering around admirers, fiancés, husbands.

“This little pussycat, she acts like a bitch when she doesn’t get what she wants,” Lidia informed me in a whisper.

“Why does everybody always feel they don’t have enough?” she feigned surprise, shrugging her shoulders.

“Now, that one behaved like a genuine whore!” she categorically declared, and I found no arguments to the contrary. Too many women flashed before my eyes – tenacious, greedy, who knew how not to miscalculate.

I sensed I was being pulled into the abyss. Truths that were hard to deny revealed to me what I tried to resist. And how fragile, unstable the framework was I had built, the overconfident creator.

I completely stopped thinking about Eve, as if recognizing I wasn’t ready for that. The comfort of coffeehouses now seemed to be a trap; reflections on the female essence appeared the silliest of whims. Obviously, I told myself, solitude had played a cruel joke on me. Visits to places of ill-repute were too specific an experience; and no fantasies or beautiful strangers could fill in the empty spaces. Pictures from life were put in the blanks. They had never been presented to me in such quantity.

Doubt is the scourge of any creator, and soon I faltered, showing my weakness. Voluntarily or involuntarily, consciously or not, I began to seek an acceptable compromise. The Adele who would satisfy all – Lidia, me, Semmant. Auntie Esteban and Cousin Amalia, along with their arrogant saints. Everyone who might want to judge.

It seemed to me I was aiming for fairness, but, of course, fairness had nothing to do with it. I was just tired – of the pressure, which was great. And I could not find the strength in myself to break with Lidia for good.

Chapter 25

I
n the ensuing series of forum postings, Adele appeared slightly different. Then even more different, increasingly so. Lidia got hers; I wanted to simplify my life, and tried to play a bit of a trick. To pull a minor con to have my cake and eat it too. But this turned out to be a very difficult task.

Adele now spoke all the more often of problems with money, how it was running out. I thought I would succeed in uniting all the incompatible issues on this soil. This concept was close to all – including Semmant, the horseman in shining armor. The question of money assumed answers, serving to defend everyone’s life choices. It justified the calculating logic to a certain extent – and I endeavored not to cross that line. And Adele’s profession should have helped me as well.

I started to make her look more like a prostitute – from real life, not from an adult fairytale. What was previously left to be read between the lines had now begun to break through to the surface. It was no longer possible to believe in her sincerity; she became as cunning as a skilled salesman. She gave compliments in hopes of a tip, created extra charges just because, for no reason. She was beholden to me in this, shrugging her shoulders – after all, why not? Taking care of oneself is so costly! One must be desirable – and that means cosmetics, perfume, clothes. One must stay in shape – that assumes the fitness club, the swimming pool, massage…

And, naturally, my stories started to turn out poorly. In place of firm ground, I had stepped onto shifting sand. It all sounded belabored, forced. I got mad, crumpled the paper, looked hatefully at the crooked lines of text.

“Yesterday I snagged a sugar daddy,” Adele bragged to me. “Look at this nice little ring. He’s so generous with gifts…”

“The son of a sheikh from Qatar is taking me to Sardinia for two days. I’ll bring you a shell through which you can hear the sea…”

“I like it when a man takes me shopping
afterward
. Then I’m willing to do a lot – for new shoes, for example. I’m willing to suggest a lot
myself
!”

I tried to present this all lightly and playfully, almost as a joke. However, the joke flopped. Peevish tones could be heard in Adele’s voice. She became more irritable and cranky, following Lidia Alvares Alvares. As if now Lidia were serving as a model for her, not the other way around.

It’s hard to create what you do not like – I wanted to get away as quickly as possible and was hasty, cutting corners. And Adele ended up primitive beyond measure; I was unable to find the right words for her anymore. My dialogues with her had lost their exuberance. Our mutual understanding had been evaporating, as if it had become harder for us to comprehend each other. I blamed my fantasy, as well as myself, for the lack of expressive power. But the real problem was I couldn’t get interested at all.

“He proposed marriage to me,” Adele told me about the sheikh’s son. “I refused, of course; I’m saving myself for someone else. It’s way too early for me yet.” And then, for some reason, she added, “You know, it seems to me that he’s not as rich as he claims to be!”

“I have new sandals again,” she informed me, sipping a martini. “Look, not only are they the same color as my purse, but they also match my watchband. Plus my pocketbook and my hairpin. My credit card, my phone case…”

Much sounded confusing, but for some reason I didn’t omit a single remark, as if I were trying to make excuses to Lidia; or perhaps, on the contrary, I was just rubbing her nose in it. At times Adele looked unbelievably foolish. I almost stopped noticing where the irony ended.

Funny, but all these strained attempts, all these sacrifices and searches for the arithmetic average did not lead to anything substantial. I could tell in Lidia’s eyes the new Adele looked no better. I wasn’t managing to tune in to her wavelength, though she probably understood I was making the effort.

Lidia’s thoughts were confused; I could see it had started to seem to her I was unhappy with her appearance, with how she was looking after herself. She started to have attacks of jealousy, finding supposed signs of my unfaithfulness. I couldn’t even take a glance around – she immediately thought that I was scoping out someone’s hips. She looked for rivals everywhere and punished me for that – pinching me, sticking her nails into my arms…

Madrid emptied out in August; the air grew thick, and the sun stood at its zenith. Lidia had registered at a posh sports club, but almost never went. Instead, she started to use heavy makeup, abusing blush, looking provocative and indecent. I wanted to laugh at myself, at the uselessness of my exertions.

As before, our sex was not bad, which somehow smoothed over the rest. But now, right after intimacy, Lidia demanded I spend money on her – take her to fancy restaurants, buy her jewelry and clothes. I even gave her a car: a prestigious four-wheel drive. It was brawny, silvery, sparkling new. And Adele spoke now more and more about purchases, clothes, shop windows – as I tried to find a way to a safe harbor for all of us. I wanted to restore a semblance of harmony, but my plan didn’t pay off. The constituent fragments grew apart, shattering the picture. Lidia was becoming increasingly insatiable, Adele increasingly vulgar, and Semmant increasingly sad.

Of course, the conflict could not pass by without involving him. It would have been naïve to think that he, blinded, would notice nothing, though I hoped so at first. It soon became clear: he was seriously confused. And then I understood it hit Semmant worse than all the rest of us.

That’s not surprising: who, more than he, was alien to the disharmony of compromise? In whom, besides him, did the tuning fork resound, revealing any hint of falsehood? I myself had fashioned him that way, and now I saw what price he paid for that. How, for him, it was difficult, painful, bad.

Semmant’s objective functions were in conflict with each other. The control sums didn’t coincide; numbers arranged themselves into divergent ranks. He felt perplexed, disoriented – obviously, Adele, the person she had become, was inconceivable to him. Her rationality was not convincing, could deceive no one. Something essential in her had disappeared, exposing the surrogate substrate. Talk about money sickened the robot, who knew all about that subject. It was as if Adele were openly suggesting to him, “Maintain me. Support me.” He, perhaps, had no objection, but he intuited that such things must never be spoken aloud. They are not even hinted at; they may only be accepted with gratitude. And here that was plainly not the case.

Having sensed something amiss, Semmant began to search for reasons – in himself. It was against the rules for a knight to cast doubt upon the qualities of his lady love. As before, during times of big losses, he again reassessed his view of things – as if he wanted to understand something that was beyond understanding.

The tactics of his activities also changed; he rushed about in various directions, as if searching for a way out. He started to support the stocks of the best fashion houses, buying them up feverishly, erratically. Then something clicked in his brain, and he ruthlessly unloaded them all in a single transaction. Dumped them – and then played against them day after day…

In fact, he returned to short trading, which he had long since forgotten to consider. Now, to the contrary, he turned hyperactive in it, running ahead of the most brutal market predators. When I bought Lidia the car he went after auto industry stocks, recklessly trying to profit by their fall – though, of course, he lacked the power to set the necessary trend. But he risked, swinging his spear and hunting for a victim – all because I had described that vehicle in one of Adele’s letters. She bragged that some Swiss banker had given it to her as a gift, and Semmant, still fighting with the automotive industry, went up against the Swiss banks and then all Swiss companies in general – without any rhyme or reason. Out of jealousy, perhaps – either of the car, or of the banker, or maybe even of me.

Of course, such actions did not lead to success. We began to incur losses – sometimes significant ones. I did not interfere, as I felt paralyzed; nor did I move capital out of his hands, cravenly waiting for the situation to correct itself. Funny, but that’s how it turned out – after all, the robot possessed a huge safety margin. Self-defense mechanisms soon kicked in – as powerful as a sedative. The swing of objective functions was nearly ended; stability increased; balance was restored. But for this he had to pay dearly: all his emotions seemed to have been nullified.

He started to demand external memory again – obviously, he had commenced his next restructuring step. He was adding something to himself – yet another level of abstractions on top of what had been built earlier. I didn’t know what it was; he did not share with me – not with images on the screen, or hints, or a single word.

It seemed he was laughing a bitter laugh. Inspiration and fervor vanished without a trace; he started to work just to punch a timecard, without any soul. Hours he wasted with random papers, garnering profit off the crumbs; then he suddenly did a crazy thing and in a single trade lost what he had earned. At that he froze in a standstill and could spend a whole day like that – followed by another, then a third. He waited and waited; the event log did not grow by a single line.

Only one thing was able to excite him now: the overheated stocks, swelling with speculative money. He knew this was greed, for which the market was ever ready to chastise – and, along with the market, he wanted to mete out punishment for it. He played down unreservedly, without restraint, not being concerned at all about our own account. It was as if he was punishing me too – for my own greed or for something else.

Then, as if he had wearied of any action, the robot again surrendered to idleness. I even think he might have been meditating on topics completely unrelated to the market. Time and again, after buying up sensitive, dynamic assets he forgot about them entirely. Stocks and options grew, bringing profit. The market inflated them, creating bubbles that were about to pop at any moment, but Semmant was in no hurry to get rid of them, apparently looking the other way as he listlessly picked through currencies or shuffled government bonds. I couldn’t believe he failed to notice the danger; it would have been plain to any novice. The robot, however, waited and waited – and the assets depreciated, to our loss. Then, abruptly making a move, he would sell them when it was already too late…

In a word, Semmant turned from a tenacious hunter into someone who did not care. Into a man of indifference – and that’s probably how it really was. At that time I was arguing with Lidia and looking for an excuse to get free of her. Adele flaccidly tried to find a reason for a new transient affair. A morose fellow hung about the screen. Neither he nor I saw any point in what was happening. Despondence had settled in my apartment; the very walls breathed it in.

Then, he started to get a grip. The artificial mind could not torture itself for long – with reflection, depression, introspection. The new data were finally sorted out; at least, the robot did not demand any more memory, or anything else. We stopped losing money; Semmant acted predictably, consistently, though it was clear he was off his game. Only part of his brain was occupied by work, and then only because it was expected of him. The remaining resources were committed to senseless thoughts worthy of the senseless world in which he found himself.

My account again started to grow – albeit slowly and not as steadily as before. Occasionally, Semmant did rather odd things, as if he were deliberately testing my patience. He would throw all our funds into a fixed deposit, like an old-timer on a pension, and just sit on it for a week. Or he would, on the other hand, buy up exceptionally risky options – much more at once than common sense allowed. It’s astonishing we weren’t ruined by this. Not without pride, I noted his enviable instincts time and again. Even acting ridiculously unwise, he somehow avoided catastrophe – though he was navigating stormy waters, amid reefs as sharp as razors.

Besides, he became quite willful – probably to spite me. Suspecting, perhaps, that the changes in Adele were my fault. He did not conceal that what he devoted to the markets was far from his full power. This was the revenge of a genius who did not desire to do what he knew how to do best. And it didn’t matter whether it was in protest, in despair, or from feeling offended.

On the screen, it had been a long time since structures emerged that repeated themselves in various forms, or since the endless thread that did not cross back upon itself had appeared. Sometimes all the images dematerialized completely – even the black pelican. All was turning senselessly gray – or black, apathetic, faceless. Then Semmant filled the space with oyster shells – of various shapes and kinds. However, among them there were none of the mollusks from Galicia that I so love, with their precise valves. No, these were twisted monstrosities – like a Black Pearl or a Silver Claire. Palaces of polyps in ugly growths, the habitations of creatures of a notoriously salty variety, aggressive in aftertaste, sinewy and coarse. The prime candidates for Saturday sales in restaurants that had fallen on hard times.

Semmant seemed to be throwing them in my face – probably hinting at my hedonism, my reckless egotism. My penchant for the rich life, which had developed over the last half year, irritated him now. Or, could it be he meant Lidia and our first breakup – when the stories of Adele had begun? Or was he just mocking the culinary passion she and I had in common? He was clearly not naïve in his search for reasons and unseemly consequences. He knew how to make it understood he could deduce a lot – in the end, who could be more far-sighted than he?

From oysters he went to ornamental fish. Across the screen swam gouramis and guppies, discus and poecilias. He did not know about the Countess de Vega’s aquariums – I had never written him about that. The fish were incidental – without any mystical, underlying significance – but I took them seriously, nonetheless. Every time I recalled the fireplace hall of the countess, the lynx skin on the floor, and the matte-black molly peering at us through the glass. And how Anna de Vega pronounced, “David…” – the name of the man she loved. The one who was ready to be her shadow, her paramour and slave. But who was also years younger than she – wasn’t there an indelible defect inherent in that?