The Cave (22 page)

The following morning, very early as usual, Cipriano Algor drove Marçal back to the Center in the van. He had said to Marçal as they left the house, I don't know how to thank you for all your help,
and Marçal had replied, I did my best, I just hope it all continues to go smoothly, Oh, I'm sure that the next lot of figurines will prove less problematic, I've worked out a few shortcuts to simplify the work, that's the great thing about gaining more experience, I reckon the next three hundred figurines could be on the drying shelves in a week, Well, you can certainly count on my help again if they're ready to go into the kiln in ten days' time when I have my next leave, Thanks, do you know something, if it wasn't for this wretched crisis over the pottery, you and I could have made a good team, you could stop being a guard at the Center and devote yourself to the pottery, Possibly, but it's a bit late for that, besides, if we had done that, we would both be without a job, But I've still got a job, Yes, of course you have. Later on, once they were on the road into the city, and after a long silence, Cipriano Algor said, I've had an idea and I'd like to know what you think of it, What is it, Well, I'm thinking of taking those first three hundred figurines to the Center as soon as they've been painted, that way the Center would see that we were serious about the work and they could put them on sale earlier than expected, which would be good for them and even better for us, we wouldn't have to wait so long for the results, and if everything goes as we hope it does, we could take the next stage a bit more easily and not have to do things in quite such a rush, what do you think, Seems like a good idea to me, said Marçal, and it occurred to him that he had said the same thing about Marta's idea of leaving the dog to be looked after by the woman with the water jug, After I drop you off, I'm going to have a word with the head of the buying department, I'm sure he'll agree, said Cipriano Algor, Let's hope so, said Marçal, and again he was aware of repeating words he had used only a short time before, this happens all the time with words, we repeat them constantly, but, quite why we don't know, we seem more aware of it some times than others. When they were entering the city, Marçal asked, Who's going to paint the dolls, Well, Marta insists that she wants to paint them, she says I can't be saying mass
and ringing the bell at the same time, she didn't put it quite like that, but that's what she meant, But, Pa, paints contain poisons, Yes, I know, And in Marta's condition it doesn't seem right, I'll do the undercoat and I'll use a spray gun, I know it sprays the paint into the air, but it's much quicker, And then, Then we have to apply the paint with a brush, which is quite safe, You should at least have bought a mask, It was too expensive, muttered Cipriano Algor, as if ashamed of his own words, If we could get enough money together to hire the truck to transport the rest of the pottery from the Center, surely we could afford a mask, We didn't think of that, said Cipriano Algor, then contritely corrected himself, Or, rather, I didn't think of that. They were on the avenue now that led in a straight line to the Center, and although it was still a long way off, they could already make out the words on the giant hoarding,
YOU'RE OUR BEST CUSTOMER, BUT, PLEASE, DON'T TELL YOUR NEIGHBOR
. Cipriano Algor made no comment, but Marçal echoed his thoughts, They're having fun at our expense. When the van drew up opposite the door of the security department, Marçal said, Drop by here again when you've spoken to the head of the buying department, I'm going to see if I can get hold of a mask, Like I said, I don't really need it for me, and Marta will only be painting with brushes, You know her as well as I do, you'll get distracted for a while in the pottery and, by then, it'll be too late, Look, I don't know how long I'll be at the buying department, shall I ask for you here, or should I come and find you, No, don't do that, it's not worth it, I'll leave the mask with my colleague at the door, All right, See you in ten days' time, then, Fine, Take care of Marta for me, Pa, Don't worry, I will, you don't love her any more than I do, you know, I don't know if you love her more or less than I do, I just love her differently, Marçal, What, Give me a hug. When Marçal got out of the van, his eyes were wet with tears. This time, Cipriano Algor did not thump his head with the palm of his hand, he just said to himself with a sad half-smile, See what a man's reduced to, asking for a hug like a love-starved child. He
started the van, drove around the block, which was bigger now because of the new extension to the Center, Soon no one will even remember what used to be here, he thought. Fifteen minutes later, he was driving down the ramp into the basement, feeling as strange as if he were returning to the place after a long absence, even though he could see no changes that could objectively justify that feeling of strangeness. After telling the guard that he had come to get some information and not in order to unload, he parked the van at the side. There was already a long line of trucks waiting, and some of the trucks were enormous. It would be another two hours before the reception desk for merchandise opened. Cipriano Algor settled back in his seat and tried to sleep. His last glance through the kiln peephole, before driving into town, had shown that the firing process had finished, now they just had to leave the kiln to cool down, unhurriedly, slowly, like someone walking at their own pace. In order to go to sleep, he started counting dolls as if he were counting sheep, he began with the jesters and counted all of them, then he moved on to the clowns and managed to count every one of them too, fifty of those, fifty of these, he wasn't interested in the spares, the ones that were there just in case any of the others were damaged, then he tried to move on to the Eskimos, but for some reason the nurses got in the way, and during the battle he had to wage to drive them off, he fell asleep. It was not the first time that he had completed his morning sleep in the basement of the Center, it was not the first time that he had been wakened by the sound of engines roaring into life, amplified and multiplied by the echo. He got down from his van and went over to the reception desk, explained who he was and that he had come to sort something out, to talk, if possible, to the boss, It's an important matter, he added. The clerk he spoke to looked at him doubtfully, it was perfectly obvious that neither the matter nor the person standing before him could possibly be important, emerging as they had from a wretched little van with the word Pottery on the side, which is why he said that the boss was busy, He's in a meeting, he said, he would be busy all morning, what exactly did he want. The potter explained what he had to explain, and, in order to impress the clerk, he made sure to mention the telephone conversation he had had with the head of the buying department, and, in the end, the other man said, I'll just go and ask the assistant head of department. Cipriano Algor feared that this would be the wretch who had given him such a hard time before, but the assistant head of department who came out to see him was polite and attentive, and he agreed that it was an excellent idea, Yes, a very good idea indeed, it's good for you and even better for us, while you're producing the next batch of three hundred figurines and preparing for the production of the next six hundred, whether you do it in two stages, as now, or in one, we will be able to observe how the buying public responds, their reactions to the new product, their explicit and implicit responses, it will even give us time to have some questionnaires drawn up to look at two main aspects, first, the situation prior to purchase, that is, customer interest or appetite, whether there is a spontaneous, genuine desire for the product, second, the situation after use, that is the degree of pleasure obtained, the object's perceived usefulness, the sense of pride in ownership, both from the personal point of view and from the group point of view, be it family, professional or whatever, the really important thing for us is to ascertain if the use value, a fluctuating, unstable, highly subjective element, is too far below or too far above the exchange value, And when that happens, what do you do, asked Cipriano Algor simply in order to say something, and the assistant head of department replied in patronizing tones, My dear sir, surely you're not expecting me to reveal to you, here and now, the secret of the bee, But I've always understood that the secret of the bee doesn't actually exist, that it's a mystification, a false mystery, an unfinished fable, a tale that might have been but wasn't, Yes, you're quite right, the secret of the bee doesn't exist, but we know what it is. Cipriano Algor recoiled as if he had been the victim of an unexpected attack. The assistant head of
department smiled and insisted politely that it was a good idea, a really excellent idea, that he would await the first delivery and then they would get back in touch. Feeling intimidated and filled with a sense of foreboding, Cipriano Algor got into his van and left the basement. The man's last words kept going around and around in his head, The secret of the bee doesn't exist, but we know what it is, we know what it is, we know what it is. He had seen the mask fall and realized that behind it lay another identical mask, and he knew that the masks beneath would also be identical to those that had fallen, it's true that the secret of the bee does not exist, but they know what it is. He could not speak of his disquiet to Marta and Marçal because they would not understand, and they would not understand because they had not been there with him, on that side of the counter, listening to the assistant head of department explaining the difference between exchange value and use value, perhaps the secret of the bee consists precisely in provoking in the customer sufficient stimuli and desires so that the use value gradually rises in their estimation, a stage followed shortly afterward by a rise in the exchange value, imposed on the buyer by the wily producer who gradually and subtly undermines the buyer's inner defenses, which are the result of his awareness of his own personality, the same defenses that once, if an unsullied once ever really existed, gave him, however precariously, at least some chance of resistance and self-control. Cipriano Algor is entirely to blame for this laborious and confused explanation, because, despite being what he is, a simple potter with no diploma in sociology and no studies in economics, he nevertheless dared, inside his rustic head, to pursue an idea, only to be forced to recognize, due to the lack of a suitable vocabulary and to a grave and evident lack of precision in the terms he had to use, that he was unable to transpose that idea into a sufficiently scientific language that would perhaps allow us, finally, to understand what he had tried to say in his own language. Cipriano Algor will always remember this moment of bafflement with life and his blundering at
tempt to understand it, when, having gone one day to the buying department at the Center to ask the simplest of questions, he returned with the most complex and obscure of replies, so dark and obscure that nothing could be more natural than that he should lose himself in the labyrinth of his own brain. At least he tried. To his credit, Cipriano Algor will always be able to say that he did everything that a potter could do to try to untangle the hidden meaning behind the sibylline words spoken by the smiling assistant head of department, and although it was clear to him that he had failed, at least he had made it absolutely clear to anyone following behind that the particular road he had taken led nowhere. These are matters for people who know, thought Cipriano Algor, unable to silence his inner disquiet. And, or so say we, other people have done far less and made much more fuss about it.

The package Marçal had left with the guard at the door contained two masks, not one. Just in case the air-purifying system in one of them goes wrong, said the note. And again that plea, Please look after Marta for me. It was almost lunchtime. A wasted morning, thought Cipriano Algor, remembering the molds, the clay waiting for him, the cooling kiln, the rows of dolls inside. Then, halfway down the avenue, with his back to the Center where the phrase You're our best customer, but don't tell your neighbor set out with ironic impudence the relational diagram that defined the city's unconscious complicity with the conscious deception that was manipulating and absorbing it, it occurred to Cipriano Algor that not only had the morning been wasted, but the assistant head of department's obscene phrase had done away with what remained of the reality of the world in which he had learned how to live and in which he had grown used to living, from now on everything would be little more than appearance, illusion, absence of meaning, questions with no answers. I might as well just drive the van into a wall, he thought. He wondered why he didn't do so and why he probably never would, then he listed his reasons. Although inappropriate in
the context of his analysis, after all, being alive is, at least in principle, the main reason why people kill themselves, the first of Cipriano Algor's strong reasons for not doing so was the fact of being alive, this was immediately followed by his daughter Marta, and close behind, so intimately bound up with her father's life that it was as if he had thought of both simultaneously, came the pottery, the kiln and, of course, his son-in-law Marçal, who is such a good lad and really does love Marta, and Found, although it may strike many people as scandalous to say so, and, objectively speaking, it is inexplicable that even a dog can bind someone to life, and then, and then, then what, Cipriano Algor could find no other reasons, and yet he had a feeling that there was another reason, what could it be, then suddenly, with no warning, memory threw in his face the name and features of his late wife, the name and features of Justa Isasca, because, if Cipriano Algor was looking for reasons not to crash the van into a wall and if he had already found enough of them in number and substance, namely, himself, Marta, the pottery, the kiln, Marçal, the dog Found, and even the mulberry tree, which we forgot to mention earlier, it was absurd that the last of those reasons, that unexpected reason, whose existence he had queasily glimpsed like a shadow or a mirage, should be someone who was no longer of this world, it's true that she isn't just anyone, she is, after all, the woman he married and worked with, the mother of his daughter, but, even so, however much dialectical talent you add to the pot, it will be hard to sustain that the memory of a dead person can be reason enough for a living person to want to go on living. A lover of proverbs, adages, maxims, and other popular sayings, one of those rare eccentrics who imagines he knows more than he was taught, would say that there's something so fishy going on here, you can even see the fish's tail. With apologies for the inappropriate and disrespectful nature of the comparison, we would say that, in the case in question, the fish's tail is the late Justa Isasca, and that in order to find the rest of the fish, all one has to do is to grab the tail. Cipriano
Algor will not do so. However, when he reaches the village, he will leave the van at the cemetery gate, for the first time since that other day, and walk over to his wife's grave. He will spend a few minutes there thinking, perhaps to say thank you, perhaps to ask, Why did you suddenly reappear, perhaps to hear someone else ask him, Why did you suddenly reappear, then he will glance up as if looking for someone. In this heat, at lunchtime, that's highly unlikely.