The Hermit (35 page)

– Did you ever get in touch with the hairdresser’s daughter? The computer expert?

– It wasn’t important.

– You were looking for a photograph?

– I found another way.

– Oh well, Cormac says, seemingly satisfied.

Erhard has an idea. – Do you know anything about my new colleague, Marcelis Osasuna?

Cormac begins to roll another cigarette. – The union-buster? he says without looking up. – If you’re not friends with him, I’d tread carefully.

– I don’t know anything about that.

– Remember the Servicio Canarias strike?

Erhard shakes his head.

– The lorry drivers struck a deal after refusing to work for eleven days, because they wanted a fired colleague rehired. Your man Osasuna stopped the negotiations without getting the guy his job back.

– So he wasn’t the director?

– Maybe he was the assistant director or something fine like that? And there was that issue with the rubbish dump.

Erhard remembers that one. Some locals had opposed Taxinaria’s plans to use the construction site west of dispatch for reserve car parts and tyres. A woman who lived behind the area had, for many years, tried to gain permission to use the area to build a playground for the neighbourhood children and to have all the construction materials removed in order to create a garden. But the county continued to delay the decision, and then all of a sudden her application was rejected. – What did he have to do with that?

– The parrots all said that it was Señor Osasuna who’d caused the county to support business interests, if you know what I mean.

The rumours on the island were tiresome, but sometimes there was truth to them. He might as well play along. – Did the parrots say anything about Osasuna’s wife?

– Probably a little.

It’s clear that Cormac hadn’t heard this one before.

Erhard tosses out a handful of titbits. – Something about the wife not liking Fuerteventura so they only see each other on the weekends? And he has a close relationship to his secretary, who has moved into the office?

– Something like that.

– He’s only human, Erhard says.

– Aren’t we all?

Erhard picks up his bags. – Have to get home now.
Buenas
.

–
Buenas
.

He cuts the tomatoes and cheese into small slices, then eats at Beatriz’s bedside. On Saturday morning, the locksmith arrives and curses and groans for two hours, but finally manages to exchange the lock for a powerful three-point lock and gives Erhard three keys that cannot be duplicated. Erhard affixes one of the keys to his keychain and hides another in a glass of sardines in the fridge. The third key he tapes underneath the hall stairwell. In case the doctor or someone needs to come check on Beatriz.

He opens a bottle of champagne and blasts the cork over the balcony. He passes the entire weekend shifting from the telly to the terrace to Beatriz’s bedside. He remains in a state of constant buzz, barefooted. He shaves his face in the bathroom with its many lamps. Saturday, he spends a lot of time finding a football channel on the large flat-screen. There’s a receiver under the telly which needs to be set at 23. As soon as he does so, the sports channel appears. He leaves the television on and listens to the commentators argue as he prepares food and organizes Raúl’s CD collection. He doesn’t throw anything out, but stacks what he doesn’t like and shoves it all into a little cabinet under the stereo. During siesta, he sleeps for half an hour beside Beatriz, and Saturday night he also crawls in under the blankets next to her, falling asleep to the plopping sound of the catheter.

The doctor stops by on Sunday. He examines Beatriz, then says he doesn’t believe Erhard knows how to take care of her. He stands on the balcony polishing his sunglasses, speaking in a subdued voice. She’s not properly washed and now has bedsores on her left side. Get someone to help you at the very least, the doctor suggests, but Erhard refuses. He doesn’t want anyone else involved. His brief meeting with Cormac reminded him how quickly stories circulate. He’s certain the doctor will keep his mouth shut, but only because he’s in a moral bind and doesn’t care to admit it to anyone.

The doctor strongly recommends that she be transferred to the hospital. It is unlikely that she’ll awaken. She appears to have had a severe swelling of the brain, which has decreased some, but not completely. He doesn’t use the words brain-dead, but Erhard can tell that’s what he means. She might be suffering silently, Michel says. But Erhard thinks he’s just being a coward.

– I take full responsibility for her, Erhard says. – She’s not going anywhere. She has to stay here. If she’s brain-dead, then she’s brain-dead. A hospital can’t change that. If she’s suffering, I’ll give her some painkillers. You can get them for me. If she ever wakes up, if she ever emerges from this state, she’ll do so here.

The doctor seems to accept Erhard’s position. He would like to continue to check in on her, but he doesn’t want to guarantee anything. Erhard shows him where he hid the key underneath the stairwell. Afterward they drink beer in front of the telly, watching golf being played at some lush course in Spain. The doctor likes golf.

47

He stands quietly at the door for a moment. Even though it leads into the reception area, he sees Marcelis’s name on the door. Just as he’s about to grab the knob, the door swings open.

– It’s Jørgensen, Ana says loudly, stepping aside to allow Erhard to enter. – Ana Lorenzo, administrative assistant. She offers her hand, which is cold as ice. Behind her, the entire office is a mess.

– You’re too fucking early, Marcelis shouts from his desk. Erhard reminds himself to act like Marcelis’s equal. Don’t blink, don’t flee, don’t get tongue-tied.

– I’m right on time, Erhard says. He wants to ask what has happened, but doesn’t want to seem too curious. He fears the two of them have just had a good shag on the secretary’s desk, scattering papers and folders onto the floor. But he can tell by the open filing cabinet and the way Marcelis is running around his office lifting stacks of paper that something else is going on.

– What did the accountant say?

– I didn’t call him. But he couldn’t have been the one here on Friday, Ana says.

– Go call the bloody accountant. Maybe he stopped in.

Ana’s just about to say something, but gives up and instead dials the number. Erhard sidles past her and into Marcelis’s office. He’s busy emptying the archives while cursing out the janitors, the accountants, Ana, and anyone who moves things out of place.

– Are you ready? Erhard says, pressing forward purposefully.

– Fuck no, I’m not ready. Someone removed all my account files, all the shit I was supposed to show you.

– You want to meet another day?

– Just wait until we’ve heard from the accountant. It was probably him. Ana?

Ana enters. – Alquizola hasn’t been here since September.

– What about the janitors? Marcelis asks. – They’re always moving my shit around so that I can’t find anything.

– We’ve cut the janitorial service on the weekends. They’re only here on Thursday and Monday afternoons.

Silence.

– What about your stupid moving boxes? When are you planning on moving all your shit? They’ve been here for, what, five months now? The files are probably in one of them.

Ana hurries out of the office. Marcelis sinks into a chair. Erhard doesn’t know what to do. – I’m sure they’ll turn up, he says.

– Welcome, Marcelis says mirthlessly. – Good way to begin.

– There are copies, right? Don’t you always make copies?

– Yes, but they’re also fucking gone. There are two files. The original papers and the copies. I don’t understand it.

– I thought people put those kinds of things on computers nowadays.

– That’s what I fucking thought too, but that fuckface José Alquizola, our accountant, doesn’t use computers. He does everything by hand. I hope he drops dead.

Ana stands in the doorway. Erhard hopes she’ll announce that she’s found the files. – I’ve searched all of my boxes and they’re not in there.

– I know, my dear. That was just something I said.

Marcelis removes some papers from a chair so Erhard can sit down.

– I’ll stand.

– Are you planning to stand in your new office, too? I’m getting it ready for you next door.

Raúl’s office. It could only be his. Erhard has that strange feeling one gets when something completely wrong is about to happen. As if his entire body is shielding itself from becoming the kind of boss that he’s made fun of for decades.

– Office? he says.

– Now that you’ve got his car, you damn well can’t impersonate a director in the break-room. You need an office. Or would you like to sit in here with me? Marcelis closes his door. – As long as you don’t get any funny ideas about having additional privileges any time soon, if you know what I mean?

– I don’t know what you mean.

Marcelis points to reception. – It’s not exactly a secret, I’m aware. Even my wife probably knows. So don’t even think about using it against me.

Erhard had considered doing something along those lines, but then decided not to pursue it.

– Palabras said you don’t know anything about running a business.

– I’m just a taxi driver, Erhard says, though he actually understands a great deal more than he lets on. He wants to hear Marcelis’s explanations, to know whether or not he’s being honest about the most important aspects of the business and its finances. – I’d like you to explain everything.

Marcelis stares at Erhard sceptically. – It’s not rocket science, it’s not even very interesting. But OK. If we’re going to do it today, then we won’t be able to use the budget and actual figures. I’ll just explain how we manage our accounts when the drivers bring us their books and that kind of
Business for Dummies
bullshit.

Marcelis raises the lid of a flat cabinet, revealing a whiteboard. He draws a house and some arrows with money, then adds some boxes and arrows back and forth as he explains how it all works. Ana enters with espressos and some pastries filled with red jelly. Erhard learns that the rumour is true: some drivers get a cut of sixty percent, while others only make forty percent. At TaxiVentura Erhard had himself earned seventy percent for the past six years. He could have earned more if he’d negotiated better. But Erhard found Barouki difficult to talk to, and he wasn’t comfortable negotiating and didn’t want to ask for anything. Now he sits there watching Marcelis explain Taxinaria’s finances, and how it influences liquidity, how the late delivery of drivers’ books requires financing at the start of each month, and how they’ve tried to sell their garage and maybe rent TaxiVentura’s. And it occurs to Erhard then that he’ll never drive a taxi again. This is where he will sit from now on. In a chair. Alongside Marcelis and others like him. Participating in meetings. Talking. Making decisions. Even though he hopes Raúl will somehow return one day, sunburnt and gaunt after months bingeing on drugs, he feels the thrilling winds of real change. It makes him dizzy. He wants to hold on to something. He asks for something to drink.

– We don’t drink until after five o’clock, Marcelis says, without glancing at Erhard. As if he’d been waiting to say just that.

48

This is his first longish drive in the silver-grey Mercedes. He would exchange this vehicle with his old car anytime, but the ride is phenomenal. The car glides so quietly through Las Dunas that he can practically hear the kitesurfers.

He orders a black coffee at Miza’s place, then sits at the table flipping one of the business cards Marcelis had printed for him in his hand – apparently to amuse himself. A temporary one, Marcelis said. You’ll get proper ones on proper paper, of course. The temporary business cards were printed on thin paper with Taxinaria’s blue and gold logo in the corner and his own name and title, Chief Operating Officer, in cursive underneath. He shows it to Miza, who congratulates him and lays homemade almond cookies on his saucer. Erhard doesn’t quite know what the title means.

He’s surprised at how easygoing Marcelis was. Maybe Marcelis thinks they’re on the same team now. Erhard recalls that time Lars Bo Römer jumped from B1909 to Aarhus GF and was booed every time he played in Copenhagen. Can a person change his affiliation just like that? During Marcelis’s review, Erhard felt like an infiltrator behind enemy lines – whose assignment was to flush out Marcelis. He listened carefully for holes, vagueness, hesitation, evasiveness, and any attempt to turn Erhard’s lack of experience into a reason for simplistic explanations. But Marcelis had been, despite the confusion surrounding the missing files, surprisingly thorough, even though he obviously couldn’t dive deeply into every detail in a single afternoon. Afterward they’d gone into Erhard’s new office, which Marcelis had had fitted out with some furniture and wall paintings.

– I had the aquarium removed, Marcelis said. – That was Raúl’s. And the bar in the corner. He was a little too fond of whisky, if you ask me. Is that your kind of thing, too? Are you also into the finer things?

Erhard shook his head and peered out the window at the courtyard below, where two drivers stood talking. Two new faces among the many Erhard had yet to meet. Behind the courtyard he could see the red mountaintop rising into the sky. Yet another cloudless day.

– What will I actually be doing here? Erhard asked.

Marcelis looked at Erhard and began to laugh. – Good question, he said, picking up the business cards that lay on the table, handing them to Erhard, and explaining that he could start passing them out left and right. – Figure out what you can, and do as much of it as possible. But maybe you can begin by figuring out what we do with the cars. We’ve just scrapped a cab, and we need to buy a few new ones. We’ve got an agreement in place with an importer, but I don’t know if it’s the best deal for us. You know what’s required, so maybe it’s a good assignment for you. I’ll send you some emails detailing our current agreement.

He’d pointed at a large, square computer monitor that covered most of the desk. It wasn’t the right time to ask,
How do I read emails?
Afterward, Erhard guardedly asked Ana what he should do, and she printed out some papers for him: summaries of car prices and payment conditions. On the top sheet was the name of a car importer.