Father and Son (7 page)

In eighteen years we spend only part of a summer together: the two weeks previously mentioned, which he asks me to book months in advance. Those two weeks aside, we spend no more than ten nights under the same roof. Gone are the days when he picked me up from school. Now our life is reduced to a lunch or two a month. Except for the dinners he has with friends after his openings, I don't know what he's like at an evening meal. I haven't seen him drunk. Or first thing in the morning. We meet when the day has already begun. He usually chooses Tuesdays because that's when he meets some of his painter friends for drinks. He picks me up and we go to a neighborhood restaurant. Then he naps in a chair at my apartment, with the TV on, and leaves around five. We never have dinner. At most, if we're on very good terms, we spend part of the evening together. Once or twice—hardly ever—we go to the movies. Once or twice—if it's been a long time since we've seen each other—I go out for drinks with him and his friends.

In many ways we're two strangers. He doesn't know me outside of our contrived lunch dates, and I have a very limited idea of his life. I get tiny snatches of it, isolated instants over a plate of food. I don't know what he does for fun. I don't know what he's like at home before he goes to bed, what he does, whether he reads or watches television. I don't know who most of his new friends are, what his plans are until they aren't plans anymore but realities. I don't know anything about him, and I have to fill in the gaps with stolen glimpses. Because of this, and because I often have the feeling that he hides information from me so as not to hurt me, I don't miss a thing when we're together. I'm alert to body language, to a hand reaching too often for the bread, to a clearing of the throat, to lips pasted together. I retain everything he says, and it's easy for me to detect contradictions.

And then, too, there are long stretches during which no news is exchanged, during which we don't call each other. It happens when I'm nursing a grudge about something and he—rather than confronting me, getting me to talk, defending himself—beats a retreat. He doesn't call me and I don't call him. And so on, until one of us relents and takes the first step. Usually, he's the one. The phone rings and I hear his voice. The tension is palpable. It's clear that there are a thousand other things he'd rather be doing, clear that he has no intention of trying to address the cause of our impasse, that he intends to leave things as they are, not advance them, only resume the interrupted status quo, clear that he's afraid of my reaction, aware that only the smallest recrimination, the tiniest sarcastic remark would be enough to prompt a new outburst and a new standoff.

We never manage to get past the problem between us. It's always there beneath the surface. Catastrophe looms. It's not relaxing for us to be together. We study each other, measure our words, speak in generalities, talk about the weather, talk about family, talk about our work, talk about politics, and almost never talk about ourselves, he striving to keep the conversation on neutral ground, and I tongue-tied, testing ways to obliquely introduce my demands. Most of the time I don't address them head-on. When I do, he lets a second or two go by, his displeasure evident in the longer silence, in his change of expression, and if I persist, there might be a confrontation. Confrontations are always the same: after my initial complaint, he parries with an excuse, I ratchet up the pressure, he defends himself heatedly, and I respond in kind until it becomes impossible to take things any further without making a scene and we're silent for the rest of the meal. When we leave the restaurant, either each of us goes his own way, or, if I'm feeling remorseful, I walk him to the Metro trying to pretend that nothing has happened.

And we part. Upset, both of us. I let off steam at home and he probably works out his frustration by subjecting the friend he met in Brazil to an afternoon of ill humor. Though sometimes he must not be able to avoid talking, it's hard for me to imagine that he tells her everything; he can't want to make trouble. A vicious circle—my father, the friend he met in Brazil, and me; the grudges of each constantly feeding off those of the others.

After a fight, I know that it's on his mind for days, but I have no idea to what extent it affects his life. I suffer the effects hugely. I work myself up; I egg myself on. Alone, I envision revenge; when I'm out, I'm carried away by euphoria. I talk more than ever, I drink more than ever, I'm always the last to leave, I contrast myself to him in the arrogance of my youth. But if I feel vulnerable, at a loss, I do none of this, instead lapsing into a state of tortured apathy; sometimes I cry. Or I alternate between the two states, euphoria and prostration. Or I throw myself into writing as if I'm competing with him in a stupid race.

The rope is always taut. There's never a slackening of tension. He suffers and I suffer, but we can't let it snap, can't do without each other.

More often than I should, I think about his death. I wonder whether anything will have changed by then. I wonder whether he'll be capable for once of acting according to the convention between fathers and sons. What will happen to his things? What will happen to his paintings? If he can't do right by me while he's alive, he won't do right by me in death either. And I get angry. Especially because I know that he's simply blind to the risks. He takes it for granted that everything will turn out right without any effort on his part. I get angry because he doesn't realize that if, as he argues, his failure to comply with his paternal responsibilities has some unfathomable cause rather than being due to neglect or disregard, he should at least make sure that what he has to leave—his paintings, his belongings—will reach my hands.

He says that the friend he met in Brazil covers most of their common expenses, but I do the math and it seems to me that ever since he gave up renovation work, he makes enough from painting to support himself.

He says that the friend he met in Brazil put down more money on the house where they live, but I include as part of his contribution all the unpaid work he's done for her and all the sought-after paintings by other artists that he's sold, paintings that back in the day he was savvy enough to buy or that were given to him by their more established creators.

He says that the friend he met in Brazil is generous with him, but I'm convinced that while his own money is frittered away on their daily necessities, she's saving for herself. If the family car breaks down, it's he who buys the next one. If there are repairs to be made at home, he pays for them; ditto if they take a trip. As I see it, she squeezes him, controls him, and manipulates him, but my father doesn't realize it, and what's worse, since he's oblivious to how the money is used, he feels permanently in debt. It doesn't surprise him, or at least he doesn't show it, that she makes him sign papers. It doesn't surprise him, or at least he doesn't show it, that they're always short of cash.

All of this, accurate or not, runs repeatedly through my head when I'm frustrated with him; and because it's my view of things and not his, if at any point I make some mention of it, he gets irritated, cuts short the conversation, and obliquely accuses me of self-interest. What he refuses to see is that what I want is for him to stop feeling indebted, because it's his indebtedness that comes between us. What he refuses to see is that even when I talk about money, what I'm really talking about is feelings. What he refuses to see is that I need to have proof that I matter to him.

I don't trust anything, and that's also part of the problem between us.

There's only one area, in fact, in which there is no risk of conflict: I'm proud that he's a painter; I admire his work. Where it's concerned, I'm always ready for a temporary truce. He knows this and appreciates it, and in his own way he takes advantage of it. If he has a show coming up and we're not on terrible terms, he often asks me to come to his studio. He suggests it timidly, but he makes it plain that I'll be letting him down if I don't come. It's not a tactic to bring us together; I think he really does value my judgment. I deduce this from the unhurried way he shows me the paintings, waiting silently to hear what I have to say, taking his time to respond. It's a tradition that dates back to his crisis, when I insisted that he return to painting and I even permitted myself to be tough on the initial results. I'm careful, I never offer a solely negative opinion, but I don't hide what I think.

One afternoon I mention that almost all his paintings repeat the same compositional scheme, with a figurative motif—usually a photograph taken from a magazine, distorted and painted over—around which the space of the painting arranges itself. I refer to it in passing, but it makes an impression, since the next few times he makes joking reference to the
figurita central
, as I innocently called it, and some time later his painting evolves toward a fractioning of the canvas that, by multiplying the
centers
, puts an end to the very notion of center.

I like it that he's a painter. I admire him, I visit his studio, I tell him what I think about his paintings, I help him maneuver the biggest ones out the window when the handler from the gallery comes for them, but I'm not entirely impartial either. It's in my interest to foster that complicity. I sense that he doesn't have it with the friend he met in Brazil, and I don't want to fail him as I imagine that she fails him.

And meanwhile, life goes on.

In 1991 I spend two weeks in Mexico with a friend who's attending a writers' conference.

In 1991 I steal books from bookstores.

In 1991 I dress in vintage blazers and I almost always wear a scarf knotted around my neck, something that he misses no chance to make sly fun of when he sees me.

In 1991 I flirt with a waitress at one of the late-night bars where I'm a regular, but it's another waitress—mistakenly believing herself to be the object of my attentions—with whom I end up in bed.

In 1991 I hardly ever go to class, and when I do, I show up late, sometimes without having slept, often hungover, often feeling dirty.

*   *   *

Today, as I write this in the late spring of 2008, I ask myself whether I've properly gauged the play of memories with which I aspire to approach an impossible objectivity. My feelings aren't always the same, times change, and occasionally I notice that I'm leaving something out. I've talked, for example, about my father's family, but I realize that I haven't described him, that I've hardly said anything about what he was like.

*   *   *

He wore glasses and was a skinny boy who stood out in the rough squalor of the schools of postwar Madrid. He wasn't fearful, but he preferred his own realms: his grandparents' house in the summer, his girl cousins on his mother's side of the family, the French edition of
Elle
, to which his older sister subscribed and which, in addition to the usual fashion stories, ran reviews of books, music, and art. Once, talking to me in the hospital about those days, he said that he remembered himself as always being sad.

“After your mother died?” I asked.

“Always.”

Adolescence strengthened his body, and in his youth, it was his unexpected beauty, the effect it had on women, as well as the decision to be an artist, that gave him confidence. He became a painter, lived in different places, but the boy in glasses crouched inside of him and occasionally returned to seize control, paralyzing him whenever life most resembled a schoolyard.

*   *   *

He kept a diary of trivial events—what he had done, whom he had seen, his progress on his current painting—recorded in brief entries and occasionally shaded with faint strokes that provided glimpses of his state of mind. Often he crossed out several days in a row and wrote
fight
or
pissed.
It was as far as he would let himself go, on the off chance that eyes other than his might read what he had written. The fights were usually with the friend he met in Brazil, but also with me.

*   *   *

He had a tendency to gain weight. He liked food and drink, and because he was vain, he was permanently dissatisfied with his weight. He was a competent cook, but he was just as happy to eat the worst junk, with which he soothed the anxieties that gnawed at him.

He had a weakness for fried food and for anything in béchamel sauce; he preferred meat to fish, but he had a great fondness for cod and anchovies and also eggplant; he liked cured meats, pasta, meat loaf, meatballs; he liked cabbage, beets, tuna, liver with onions; he didn't care for any other kind of offal and he didn't much like salads, most seafood or shellfish, or any raw fish. He liked Chinese food and Indian food and Mexican food and hamburgers and sausages. He liked wine and beer.

*   *   *

Almost every evening he had a drink, but as far as I know, he didn't favor a particular liquor. He chose based on what was available and on the fluctuation of his tastes. Rum, whiskey, gin, bourbon …

*   *   *

He smoked for a while, but he was one of those smokers who is always trying to quit, and finally he did quit.

*   *   *

He was humble with the meek and contemptuous with the arrogant, but humility and contempt alike were expressed from the grips of a nervous agitation, so that neither was perceived by its recipients with total clarity, blurred by the haste with which he hid himself or dealt a blow.

*   *   *

He was impatient and, as a result, often committed injustices. In speaking to a waiter or concluding a conversation.

*   *   *

He could tell a good jacket or a good shirt when he saw one, and he knew the ways of high society, having grown up with them, but his pride and his masculinity barred him from pretending to be something he wasn't. Tending to a pair of handmade shoes or a bespoke suit with the calculated care of someone who can't replace them as frequently as he'd like, taking refuge in appearances, being frugal to strategic effect, donning some disguise would have run counter to his convictions and his character.