Necropolis (23 page)

Gunard went back to his studio feeling somewhat confused and without holding out any hope, but just before midnight there was a knock at his door, and there she was. She kissed him and said, quick now, this first time will have to be very quick. They made love on the carpet and when they had finished she leaped to her feet, adjusted her clothes and went to the door. I'm taking your telephone number, she said, I'll be in touch very soon, goodbye. And she left.

Gunard sat on the couch in the studio, naked, unable to believe what had happened and with an angel in his throat, to quote Rilke.

For the first time, he felt there was something that could distract him completely from the world, from his own world, and so he sat naked on the couch for the next two days, waiting for Cécile, unwilling to get her smell off him.

She did not come. Instead, Renate showed up. Gunard opened the door without putting anything on, like some mad satyr. Renate looked at him with contempt and said, well, you're making progress, at least you aren't dressed like a woman, and he said, you don't know who I am, and sank into complete silence. He refused to tell her if he was coming home or if he wanted to ask for a divorce. Nor did he speak when she asked him, as tactfully as she could, what exactly did you see that night in Edvard's car? At last Renate left and he was able to return to his couch and his thoughts, which were all of Cécile's body and her smell and the way she pronounced every syllable before she had left. He went over and over her words, “I'll be in touch very soon”; he made an effort to see her as she had said it, analyzing her facial muscles, the way she pushed her lips forward in a smile, the kiss she blew him on her index finger, the noise of the door as it closed.

Two more days passed and Momsen, who until now had never given him any advice on anything other than chess, decided to help him, saying: Gunard, a man sitting on a couch waiting for a woman is a classic situation, what you're doing now has been done at least once by most of our fellows, that's why I understand you, that feeling of being at the bottom of an abyss, the rapid heartbeats, the loss of appetite, and the conviction that if that person doesn't return, a slab of granite will fall on our head and we'll be buried in a wave of grief and solitude, I know that, it stops us breathing and puts us in a highly sensitive state, any story reduces us to tears, the words of every song hurt us, we can't go to the movies and concentrate, the whole universe is a metaphor for that person we're yearning for, who doesn't come, that's the way it is, you're experiencing something tremendously human that has inspired a great deal of poetry and art, because although it's unpleasant to live through, once we've overcome it, it becomes a source of ideas, esthetic ideas, even scientific ones, and it's the best inheritance we can leave ourselves, always remember, there's nothing worse than the frivolity and foolishness of those who have never suffered, those whose fears are abstract concepts, no, my friend, what truly moves us men, what drives us to dig in the magma where what doesn't yet exist can be found, what makes us search for what we lack or what we are not, is the fear of going back to those solitary hours, the fear of being unable to breathe, the fear of losing the certainty that the world, after a night in darkness, will return to the light because there is somebody close: all that is at the origin of creation, don't forget that chess is an esthetic, use this experience to make yourself strong.

When Momsen had finished, Gunard said, I'm sinking, Theodor, I can't help sinking, farther and farther down, I don't want to avoid it, I'm not the one who chose to be like this, it's the situation and it's Cécile and it's what grew in me after being with her, something inside me that's alien, like an illness we can only cure with waiting and silence, because there's no substance or bacteria that needs to be cured, the organism is healthy, I don't want to do anything to stop the fig tree growing and choking me, why should I? the idea of death through love is something we only understand when we're on the verge of dying for love, Theodor, thank you for your advice and experience, they've been very useful to me today.

After the talk with Mr. Momsen came the longed-for prize. There was a rap at the door, and when he opened it the world starting turning again, the planets resumed their orbits and their muffled noise, and night and day stopped being the two faces of a frozen sphere. Gunard's heart swelled to the bursting point when he heard Cécile say, forgive me, my husband forced me to go with him on a ridiculous journey to Venice, but all I did was think about you, the surge of the canals brought me your voice, I demanded a separate room in the Hôtel des Bains to think about you in the middle of that vast ontological lagoon, I couldn't stand being with him, I don't want to be touched by anyone but you, touch me, kiss me, come inside me.

They rolled on the floor and made love as they had the first time, until night fell and they phoned out for something to eat, and sat on the couch, eating pizza and drinking Burgundy.

They stayed like this for three days until there was another knock at the door and Gunard heard Renate's voice through the air vent, but he did not let her in. She wanted to know if he was planning to come back home, if he was planning to leave little Ebenezer, if he thought his marriage wasn't worth the bother of an explanation, and added: I haven't the slightest idea what you thought you saw that night in Edvard's car, but it must have been a hallucination, the product of your obsession, don't you think?

Gunard opened wide the door of his study, pointed to Cécile lying naked on the cushions, and said, let me introduce the new woman in my life. Then, turning to Cécile, he said, this is my ex-wife, I hope you get along well. Renate looked at him with eyes full of hatred and said, how long have you been screwing this whore? Cécile got in ahead of Gunard–although he had not in fact planned to answer–and said, madam, I've been here for three days and we've made love twenty-two times. Before these three days, only once, last week. Don't worry, this is new, believe me.

Renate glared at her, turned to Gunard, and said, I don't know how you're going to justify this to your father, and then, much to everyone's surprise, Gunard said, he already knows, my father already knows, and he fell silent again. Renate was terrified when she heard that and only managed to say: now I understand. Then she walked out, slamming the door, and Cécile and Gunard embraced.

The next person to arrive was the banker Seymour W. Maeterlinck. He had learned Gunard's address by bribing his wife's chauffeur and now here he was, in front of the two of them, accompanied by his lawyer. Maeterlinck came straight to the point, and said, very well, I see you've decided to make a new life for yourself, I shan't stand in your way, I will only ask you to sign a few papers, Mr. Heep? The lawyer, Uriah Heep, handed her a folder of documents and said, madam, please sign here, at the bottom, next to your name.

Cécile looked through the documents, nodded in agreement, and signed them, until she came to one particular document, and said, don't be cynical, Seymour, the house in Amalfi was chosen and decorated by me, to which the banker replied, indeed it was, my dear, but I paid for it, so sign, Mr. Heep thinks a monthly allowance of 25,000 euros will be sufficient, and she said, if Mr. Heep thinks that, then it must be right, although I would be inclined to go for double that figure myself. Then the lawyer Heep said, I understand, madam, but there is a problem, which is that if you don't agree I'll have to accuse you of adultery, there are many witnesses, not to mention the fact that you are here today, in front of us, half-naked. You'd also have to pay the legal fees, which seems rather pointless, so my advice to you is to stop arguing and accept the 25,000. Cécile thought it over for a moment or two and signed. Before he left, the lawyer Heep said, I wish you all the best in your new life, madam, and if at any time you have legal problems don't hesitate to call me. Heep held out his hand to Gunard. It was damp and cold to the touch, like a reptile's. That was the image he kept of the lawyer Uriah Heep.

Three months later, Renate and Gunard agreed on a divorce and the young Swede was able to devote himself to Cécile. But Switzerland, and in particular Zurich, was hostile territory. There were unexploded bombs beneath those sidewalks and squares and they contained too many disturbing memories. Where to go? Gunard would go to the ends of the earth in order not to be separated for a single moment from the woman he loved. Cécile, whose family had emigrated to Switzerland during the Nazi era, had never seen it as her country, the fact that she had been born in Zurich was purely fortuitous. What she dreamed of was a thin strip of land in the Middle East, a fragile space of which she had heard thousands of stories and to whose defense she always sprang with passion: Israel, the land of the Jews. That was the place Cécile suggested, and Gunard, who was not himself Jewish, said, all right, we'll go where you say, the best thing is to get away from this city, and the shadow of these clouds and these mountains, and that was what they did. They sent their belongings by sea and flew to Tel Aviv and then to Haifa, the city of the gardens of Bahaullah, and settled in an apartment with a view of the port and of Acre, and there they began a new life, she as a rich immigrant receiving visits from a multitude of relatives and friends, and he devoted to chess, sitting on the balcony, breathing in the air of the Mediterranean and bathed in the golden reflections of the sun, because it was still September.

One afternoon when Cécile was out and he was contemplating the vague outline of Acre and the bay from his table, he felt something very deep, as if inside him a little goblin had opened a door and switched on the light of a grotto where antique objects and old masks lay, dusty and twisted but still there, intact. He went into the bedroom and opened Cécile's closet. Twenty minutes later, he was wearing a purple dress and a pair of nylon stockings. He made up his eyes and lips and put a pin in his hair, which gave it a strangely volcanic effect, and sat down on the balcony in that costume to observe the swell of the sea, the slow movements of the boats and the clear air that appeared to shine on the water. He felt a disturbing happiness, a hurricane that was born in his chest and was struggling to come out, and so he gripped the iron bars of the balcony and cried out loudly, until the veins rose in his neck, and he cried not a word but a brazen lament, a song that was to split his life in two, this side, the side of the balcony in Haifa and Cécile and the view of Acre, being the part where he planned to stay for the rest of his life, leaving everything else behind. He was conscious that there were people he loved, like little Ebenezer, but that's life, at times it can be cruel and incomprehensible.

Imbued in these thoughts, he continued observing the landscape, and a moment later what he saw had stopped being the horizon of the Middle East or the profile of Acre or the gardens of Bahaullah. His imagination had taken him to Orplid, the distant city of stalactites, but as he walked along one of its avenues, there came a tremor, and the air filled with smoke and dust, and when he looked at the ground he discovered that it was covered in rubble and the remains of corpses, with mutilated arms and legs and faces frozen by death in a desperate attitude, the infinite solitude of a corpse, and then, as he walked up the main street, lined with demolished palaces, he realized that he was not alone, that behind him a group of shadows was beginning to climb. He was at the head of a silent retinue of people dressed in cloaks and hoods, carrying long sticks and advancing with difficulty, and he continued his march, seeing the highest hills in the middle of the city, where a dome still glittered in spite of the fires. With great effort, he led the group and began the last ascent up a blackened staircase that crossed the remains of a garden of charred birches and a layer of ash where there should have been grass and flowers. As he reached the top and sighted the palace, and the group caught their breath before entering the temple to register its destruction, a deafening bust of gunfire coming from the darkest part of the night decimated them, and Gunard, faced with such sorrow, fell to his knees and raised his arms and looked down at his own body now torn to pieces, destroyed by shrapnel, and then heard a voice saying, what are you doing? why are you kneeling?

Cécile covered her face with one hand, hiding an expression of surprise. Her eyes filled with tears, she let out a fierce laugh, and said, what the hell are you doing with my clothes? Gunard was still recovering from his terrible daydream and could only reply, I'm sorry, it's the way I have of getting close to certain things, ideas or premonitions, it's the only way I can unravel them, and she said, you look very pretty, come help me make dinner, my God, the wind is starting to get cooler, don't you feel cold? Cécile did not make any kind of scene on learning of his clandestine enthusiasm. It seemed not to bother her, in fact she found it amusing, so they continued their life in Haifa, she devoted to her visits and he joining a local chess club, starting to play again and, much to his surprise, winning tournaments, because the general level was lower than his.

He began to feel again that in order to enjoy life he did not need to go far, to be a Grand Master or gain prizes or anything like that. In the little chess club in the harbor area of Haifa he learned that, apart from Cécile, the one really important thing was to have time for his whims, a comfortable space in which to live quietly and privately, and a clean environment where he could breathe freely. Greatness, as it was traditionally understood, seemed to him a prison. So he devoted himself to simple things, which is another way of saying that he led a happy life.

Four years later, he applied for Israeli nationality, in order to join his destiny to that of this strip of land and to be even closer to Cécile. One condition, though, was that he undergo military training, which he accepted immediately. A year and eight months later, he was another man, weathered by the sun, with well-toned muscles, a strong man always to be seen on the beaches of Haifa or in the restaurants of the harbor area. He started to play in tournaments in Tel Aviv as an Israeli, because it gave him pleasure to think that he was sharing the life of six million people who had come from the four corners of the earth with the idea of a country of their own, such as he had found in Cécile and they both had in Haifa.