“Yeah, I’d been working on a plan, and now that I’ve seen the reactions of my wife and daughter, I’m sure it’ll work.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Look, neither the prior nor any of the brothers is going to say anything if we ask them directly.”
“And?”
“You’re this famous writer.”
“Okay. And?”
“You’re famous, right? I didn’t know it because I don’t read that kind of stuff, but other people know who you are. Take a look at the way my wife and daughter reacted. A colleague told me even the captain asked you to autograph a book.”
Manuel nodded.
“You got to admit, then, that people respond to celebrities. And that’s what you are.”
“Okay, great, but I don’t know where you’re going with all this.”
“How’d you like to go undercover into the seminary?”
AN IDIOT STARES OUT AT THE SEA
He got up early even though the night had run very late and he’d written for several hours after that. He was stimulated by the idea that at last he had a plan, something to do on his own initiative. It was nothing like the previous day’s feeling of helpless inertia, following Nogueira’s instructions but convinced nothing would come of it.
He phoned Gri?án to set up a meeting. They agreed on noon.
He called Mei. She could hardly believe it. She wept and laughed at the sound of his voice, telling him over and over how sorry she was about the way things had turned out. It took quite a while to calm her down and assure her that he was feeling better, he’d forgiven her, and he wasn’t holding any grudges.
“Listen, Mei, in fact I’m calling to ask a couple of favors.”
“Of course, Manuel. Anything.”
“álvaro was enrolled in the school of the Salesian Brothers in Madrid from the age of twelve. Call them and ask them for the exact dates. Tell them he died, you’re his secretary, and you need the information for the obituary.”
“All right,” she replied, sounding as if she were taking notes. “That’s one thing. What’s the other?”
“I need to talk to my agent. And, well, you know, álvaro always took care of that.”
“Manuel,” she sighed, “I didn’t want to bother you, but in fact both your agent and your editor have been calling, trying to contact you.”
“Did you tell them anything?”
“No, Manuel, and that was really hard. You’ve been away for more than ten days now. Manuel, everybody here at the firm has been taking care of business, and of course the employees all know. I was practically prostrate, in tears all day long. I couldn’t hide it. But everything’s starting to get weird. What are we going to tell our clients? He’s been gone so long now that some of the employees are asking who’s in charge. They’re wondering what’s going on.”
Manuel didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t been expecting this. He had no answers.
“Manuel, I understand you don’t have time to deal with all that. But I really need some guidance, something I can tell them.”
He felt an icy chill go down his spine, as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over him. He froze in place, unable to respond. He tried to think. álvaro’s agency wasn’t very large. Four employees, maybe five. He couldn’t remember.
“How many people work there?”
“Twelve, including me.”
“Twelve?” he repeated stupidly.
“Yes.” She didn’t say it, but Manuel could imagine what she was thinking: Didn’t you know, Manuel? Weren’t you paying attention? How is that possible? This was your husband’s business; you attended company parties and had meals with us, Manuel. You should have known!
“Tell them not to worry. I’ll call you later and we’ll talk,” he promised. “But right now I need my agent’s private number. I don’t want to call her office.”
He jotted down the digits and ended the call, all too keenly aware of reproaches Mei hadn’t voiced but which were echoing through his mind. Because the answers were all negative. No, I didn’t know how many employees álvaro had; I wasn’t aware how much the firm had grown. I didn’t know that in no time at all the five or six employees had become a dozen. I didn’t know how much they were billing. As for the list of clients, the only time he recalled having seen their names was on the meeting schedule álvaro kept posted on the refrigerator.
He saw the worn copy of The Man Who Refused on the nightstand, the same one he’d autographed for álvaro more than twenty times during the course of that scorching hot bookfair in Madrid. He’d taken the title from an ancient Basque tale about the food of evil. According to legend, whenever we deny a true thing, that thing becomes the fodder for dark forces. The thing denied dissolves, fades, and disappears. In the folktale a peasant lies and denies having an abundant harvest, so the denied portion becomes the lot of evil. If cattle give birth to ten heifers but the farmer tells his neighbors there were only four, the other six belong to evil and die soon afterward. The same curse affects a foresworn bastard child or a denied lover, and woe upon whoever claims that a hidden treasure doesn’t really exist.
Everything denied becomes fodder for evil; when renounced by the legitimate owner it fades away as the dark underside of the universe collects its due.
The publication of The Man Who Refused came less than seven years after the dark night his sister closed her eyes forever. Soon after her death he felt the urge to write. That was a first for him; he’d never before considered writing fiction about his childhood, his parents, his sister, and their miseries. He’d kept the promise she’d pressed from him: he refused to be vulnerable to her demise. He’d suppressed tears at her passing, for each time they welled up he heard her insisting, “Don’t ever cry. When you were little you wouldn’t let me sleep, and if you weep, I won’t rest in peace.”
There came a morning when he discovered to his horror he could no longer see her face or recall her scent. Those memories had been erased, because in his determination to deny, pain had dedicated him to no. That no was devouring him. It was making him disappear as if he’d never existed. On that day of revelation he began to write.
For five months he bled onto those blank pages, and those months of tears and anguish left him completely exhausted. He chose the title The Man Who Refused because the manuscript contained everything he’d tried to suppress and put into writing everything he’d denied for so long. It was a hit and was still his bestselling novel. He never spoke of the events that had driven him to write it, and he swore to himself he’d never write anything like it again.
He looked toward the shabby desk in the corner of his room at the inn. Brilliant white pages covered with dark close-written lines were piled on the dark wooden desktop. Even at that distance he saw clearly the title he’d inscribed at the top of each page: Of Everything He Refused. Those four words had presented themselves spontaneously, almost as if a spirit had dictated them. They constituted the continuation of his earlier novel and an admission he hadn’t been telling the truth. The title echoed álvaro’s call for him to look at reality without flinching. They were an exhortation to sincerity, the most profound declaration of love ever made. He had rejected that call like some willful child, and his adamant reaction had barred álvaro forever from being completely open.
He rummaged through the stacked manuscript pages until he located the photo álvaro had kept in the safe, the photo Manuel had been avoiding because it made him acutely uncomfortable. Now he understood why.