Love in Lowercase (5 page)

After a boring essay-writing class, I gave a lesson on contemporary literature to my fourth-year students. There were eight of them, quite a nice group, and they were fluent in German, even though it was a struggle to get them to read a whole book.

Since this was an introductory course, we spent two weeks on each author. I gave a short presentation with some biographical information and a few details about the works we were studying. I gave the students a subject to prepare and asked them to talk about it in class.

This is the way they teach humanities in Germany. In Spain, however, it's hard to get students to take any initiative. Most of them prefer the traditional method, in which the lecturer dictates the same notes year after year and the students scribble away, never once raising their heads.

That day, the paper was on Franz Kafka. Many students feel intimidated by him because of the common prejudice that his books are difficult, but I argued that nothing could be further from the truth. In order to demonstrate this, I wrote on the blackboard the first sentences from two of his key works,
The Metamorphosis
and
The Trial
.

One morning, as Gregor Samsa woke from a fitful, dream-filled sleep, he found that he had changed into a monstrous insect.

Someone must have been slandering Josef K., because one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.

Before giving my students their assignment, I talked briefly about Kafka's life, skipping the obvious facts, such as his problems with his father. Instead, I focused on some of the more insignificant details—for example, the fact that he had an uncle in Madrid who got to be director-general of a railway company. I also told them that Kafka used to sleep every afternoon for four and a half hours, and that at the end of his life he dreamed of opening a restaurant in Tel Aviv and working there as a waiter.

I guess this is gossip culture infiltrating the classroom, but if you want to interest students you have to put yourself on their level.

I devoted the last twenty minutes of my lesson to Kafka's correspondence. Apart from his unfinished novels, he sent the women who loved him hundreds of wonderful letters. Probably the best among them were those he wrote to Milena Jesenská, who had translated some of his works into Czech.

Unlike Kafka, she wasn't Jewish, but after the German army occupied Czechoslovakia she was deported and imprisoned in the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she died in 1944. One could almost say that Franz Kafka was lucky to have died of tuberculosis twenty years earlier.

Their love was doomed because, among other things, she was married. However, this didn't prevent them from meeting a couple of times or stop Kafka from writing her the following words:

Dear Frau Milena, the day is so short, what with the time spent with you and a few trivial things it is almost over and done with. There's hardly any time left to write to the real Milena, since the even more real one was here the whole day, in the room, on the balcony, in the clouds.

Kafka's love letters must have put me in a romantic mood, because when I left the class I decided to return to the crime scene.

It was 1:00 p.m., the same time as when we had met. The intersection where it happened was only a few minutes' walk from the university. This time I felt no emotion. The street looked like any other street, with its never-ending traffic of buses, cars, and motorbikes.

This street is much worse when Gabriela's not crossing it
. I laughed at my own observation.

On the other side of the street there was a small bar with a terrace, at the beginning of Carrer Bergara. I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to sit there for a while to see if the miracle might happen again. While I was heading for the only free table, I remembered the joke about the drunk man who, on his way home at night, looks for his keys next to a lamppost, not because he lost them there, but because there's more light. I was doing much the same, but only to prolong a dream.

Although it was sunny, I was surprised to see that two out of the three tables on the terrace were occupied in the middle of winter. An elderly couple was sitting at one of them—Scandinavians, by the look of it. I guess a temperature of five degrees and icy gusts of
wind must have been like summer for them. A bearded man of about forty in a gray overcoat, wide-brimmed black hat, and white scarf sat at the other table, holding a thick, spiral-bound manuscript.

I took my seat at the free table in the middle and asked for a vermouth. From there I had an excellent view of the intersection, although there was no guarantee I'd be able to catch Gabriela if she turned up.

What a coincidence, Gabriela!—
I'd say—
The other day I was devastated I didn't have a chance to say hello
.

Me too. Isn't it a miracle that we've met up again after so many years?

It's chance that brought us back together again. But sometimes one has to help it along, like God
.

Well, that doesn't matter. The most important thing is that we're together now, isn't it?

Yes, nothing will separate us now
.

As I imagined this conversation and began to feel emotional, I noticed that the bearded man was openly staring at me. I tried to stare him down, but he didn't flinch. He seemed to be mesmerized by my presence.

I conceded defeat and looked down at the manuscript on his table. It was a thick book of more than three hundred pages with the following title, written in large letters:

THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Must be a nutcase
. I paid and stood up to leave my observation post. The man in the hat kept studying me, and even as I walked away I could feel his lunatic's gaze boring into my back.

I had a sandwich on the run for lunch, as I didn't want to waste too much time: back home I had an ambitious domestic program that included two loads of laundry, vacuuming the living-room rug, and cooking dinner for the whole week.

I was also keen to work on my Kafka notes. I wanted to be on the ball when my students started their oral presentations.

After three Metro stops I was in Gràcia, the only neighborhood in Barcelona where there is more space for pedestrians than for cars. When I passed the Verdi movie complex on my way home, I stopped to see what was showing. Then I bought a newspaper and a bottle of sparkling water.

I could now lock myself away until the following day.

—

When I walked through the door, I saw that my answering machine was flashing. There were two messages. I pressed the
PLAY
button.

“Good morning,” said a man's voice. “My name is Paco Liñán, and I'm calling about the cat. I'd like to see it before I make up my mind. My phone number is . . .”

I deleted the message. I'd decided that the cat wasn't going anywhere. Mishima, strutting around the living room, his tail held high, seemed to know that already.

“Hello,” said the second message. “This is the vet speaking. Since you haven't brought the cat in yet, I thought I'd phone you to remind you about the vaccinations. If you come, I won't charge you for the visit.
Ciao
.”

Good girl
.
We might yet have that hot chocolate and those ladyfingers together
.

I took the vegetables out of the fridge and set them out on the kitchen counter.
Oops, we have a problem
.
One onion isn't enough
. Unfortunately, onion soup can't be short of onions.

I went upstairs to ask Titus if I could borrow one or two from him. I rang the bell, but this time the door didn't unlock with a buzz. I rang again. Silence.

I noticed a piece of paper sticking out from under the door. I immediately knew that the note was for me and that it wasn't good news.

Samuel, they've taken me to the Hospital Clinic. I need help urgently, and you're the only one who can provide it.

I had forgotten the hospital was such a labyrinthine and Kafkaesque place, full of dismal corridors and flickering neon lights. It took me half an hour to find the room that Titus shared with an old man with one foot in the grave.

When he saw me, he raised his hand with a smile. Unshaven, wearing green pajamas, Titus seemed to have aged ten years in one day. Seeing him in such a sorry state, with a drip in his arm, filled me with sadness. I tried to counter that feeling using Titus's own magic formula.

“So you've decided to take it easy at last. But this hotel doesn't have many stars.”

“Stop it. I've had a bout of angina, but I'm not going to die just yet. I'm glad you've come.”

A buxom nurse came in to attend to his roommate.

“You've got everything here,” I joked. “Why did you say that I was the only one who could help you?”

“What I have to ask you has nothing to do with the hospital. It's a much more serious matter.”

I sat down beside him.

“You know I make my living as an editor,” he went on. “I
can't slack off, even if I'm locked up here. They're saying I'll have to stay at least three weeks because there's a risk I may have another attack.”

“Then you'll have to rest, no? If you need money, I can—”

“Thank you, but it's not about money,” he interrupted. “It's about how I can get out of this mess. At my age, I can't fail to deliver. If I do, the publishers will give me the boot.”

“I don't understand.”

“You soon will. Two days ago I was sent a job by a pigheaded publisher. He's one of those people who won't tolerate delays. If he discovers that I'm ill, he'll find another editor, and I won't be asked again. I want him to keep sending me work when I get out of here.”

“What have I got to do with all this? Do you want me to talk to him and tell him about your situation?”

“No! That's exactly what must be avoided. He must think that I'm working and that I'm going to meet the deadline. This is the first job in a batch of three, you see. If I don't deliver on time, I won't be asked again.”

“I can't see how—”

“I'm asking you to take on the job for me, Samuel.”

“What? You mean cobble together one of your inspirational books?”

“That's right. I'll supervise the job from here to make things easier. You can take my keys and use my office. You'll find the document in the computer.”

If Titus hadn't just cheated death, I'd have gotten up and left. You can't really ask an academic who works with footnotes and critical bibliographies to do something like that.

“What's the title of the work?” I asked.

“
A Short Course in Everyday Magic.
”

On my way home I felt overwhelmed by what I'd let myself in for. As if I didn't have enough on my plate, what with preparing classes, correcting papers, and doing my housework! Now I also had to turn into an editor . . .

Before going into my apartment, I went upstairs to Titus's place. I opened the door and switched on the light in the hallway. At the end of it, the picture of the wanderer overlooking the sea of fog. I stopped to look at him.

All this to be even lonelier than I already was
.

I'd read in the newspaper that 20.3 percent of the households in my country were occupied by only one person. I was part of that statistic, a “home man,” the article said, a snail attached to a house in which there is only room for one.

OK, so now I was going to have two homes and two parallel lives. In my place I'd still be Samuel, lecturer in German Studies, and upstairs I'd spend a few hours every day being Titus. The worst of it was that I was taking on this split personality with disconcerting composure.

Whatever next!

I gazed at the old man's desk in the waning afternoon light. Everything was there: the laptop, the science book, the train set.
Three books were scattered on the rug as if they'd fallen from Titus's hands when he had his bout of angina.

I knelt to pick them up. One was a collection of the most famous aphorisms by Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. The other two were biographies of Alan Watts and Thomas Merton.

I decided to take them home so I could start preparing for my new role. I wouldn't start working on the book until the following day, assuming I was able to do something about it.

—

At about eight o'clock that evening, I started to feel anxious. The recent events were a bit too much for me. The three books—my new bedtime reading—lay on my bedside table.

Suddenly I had a strong urge to get out of my apartment, even though I hadn't done any of the chores I intended to complete. They were showing one of my favorite films at the Verdi,
The Misfits
. I checked the newspaper to see if I had enough time to get there for the penultimate screening. I grabbed my coat and went out, with the feeling that I was running away from myself.

—

Before going into the auditorium, I hung around in the foyer reading a leaflet about the shooting of the film. What turned out to be Marilyn Monroe's last film—with a script by her husband, Arthur Miller—was a series of madcap events and disasters from start to finish.

The filming lasted 111 days. Apart from the blonde bombshell, the movie starred Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift. It soon became apparent that, like the characters they were enacting, none of the actors were in great shape.

Every day Marilyn arrived on the set hours late because she was taking so many prescription drugs that it was impossible to
wake her up. It seems that she felt betrayed by her two lovers, John F. Kennedy and Yves Montand—not to mention Miller himself, who'd used her to make a comeback. When she eventually arrived on set, she wasn't much use because she'd forgotten her lines, or her expression was so blank that the director—John Huston—decided to call it a day.

At fifty-nine, Clark Gable wasn't in the best of health. This didn't stop him from downing two bottles of whiskey and smoking three packs of cigarettes every day. A true gentleman of the old school, he never got worked up over Marilyn's late arrivals. When she arrived, he merely said: “Let's get to work, honey.”

As for Montgomery Clift, he was hooked on alcohol and drugs. His face had been disfigured in a car accident, and he was also trying to deal with his repressed homosexuality.

Faced with all this, John Huston lost interest in the film and spent his nights in a casino, going in at eleven and leaving at five in the morning. He racked up such huge gambling debts that—they say—he stopped shooting and sent Marilyn off to a hospital so he could sort out his own mess.

It was a miracle they managed to finish filming on November 5th, 1960. It must have been a grueling experience, because Clark Gable died of a heart attack a few days later. It was also Marilyn's last film. She took a lethal overdose not long afterward. To cap it all,
The Misfits
was a box-office disaster.

The leaflet ended with a eulogy for Marilyn written by the poet Ernesto Cardenal:

Lord / receive this young woman known around the world as Marilyn Monroe / [ . . . ] / who now comes before You without any makeup / without her press agent / without photographers and without autograph hounds / alone like an astronaut facing night in space.