13 Crossing a Wasteland #2
“Different how?”
“I don’t know, I wasn’t there. Happier, or sadder, or just . . . different.”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at, Gina. It was a long time ago. How many years has it been?”
“The wedding? It was in 1981 right before the summer.”
“Just imagine. Barcelona hadn’t even hosted the World Cup or the Olympics yet.” He kicked the ball out-of-bounds like the mediocre soccer players on the TV screen. “Happier, sadder . . . I don’t see why this matters now, Gina.”
“It’s nothing, really. I just thought about it when I saw the photos, and I realized I need to know more things about Mama.”
“Or are you trying to tell me something?”
For a moment, Gina was reminded of that dry tone of her father’s that she hated.
It was a reproachful manner, the one he took on, her father who, back in the day when she was Edu’s age, would have made her eat in the laundry room for pushing aside a pea, or sent her out onto the landing if she had broken a Bavarian vase with a ball, or scolded her for wearing a dead woman’s clothes when she was a teenager. They repelled each other, like magnets.
“No, no . . . I just wanted you to tell me things about Mama.”
“Anything in particular? Something you think you know, and I don’t?”
“That’s not it, Dad, dammit.”
At that moment, both of them realized that the other knew something.
Maybe only a small part of an incomplete story.
But the father had no intention of reconstructing the puzzle, and the daughter was not convinced it was entirely worth unraveling the thread.
Like one of the sacred Thursday poker games, it was all about bluffing and hiding your aces.
Neither of them knew what the other knew about Paulina’s four days in Paris, but both had the feeling that the other knew more than they themselves did.
Having read and reread Jean-Pierre’s three letters, Gina did not want to betray her mother, even though she thought she might have already gone too far.
And Manuel, inclined to keep details to himself, was not willing to dive back into a chapter he had long since considered closed.
He decided to end the conversation with a closing argument.
“I have only good memories of your mother. Not a single thing otherwise. Not one. Ever. Of course, living together has its problems, you’ll see one day, but she always rose to the occasion.
Always. I think I did too. What happened in Paris?
I don’t know. And I don’t care. Paulina was happy, she loved you madly, she loved me, and the three of us had a wonderful time together.
It didn’t last long. It was much shorter than any of us would have liked or needed, but until the day your mother died, the relationship was perfect.
You don’t remember because you were very little, but we had a ritual you loved that you would ask us to repeat from time to time during the day.
You were just starting to talk. You must have been two, three, or four at the latest, I think.
You adored it. Your mother or I would pick you up, the three of us would hug each other in a little circle, bounce a bit like we were picking our feet off the ground, and shout: ‘We are a family, we are a family, we are a family.’ You had a blast. You tried to say it in your own way, but could only do the vowels.
We thought you were adorable. You hugged us tight and asked us to do it again and again.
Your mother, you, and I were a family. We were.
Don’t you understand? And whatever happened in Paris—if anything happened, which is something I don’t know or want to know—was just four days.
Four days don’t amount to much. They don’t make a mark on an entire life. We can agree on that, can’t we?”
A clear reveal. Biel understood that Manuel more or less knew everything.
Gina was sure that her mother had given her father an explanation, maybe out of remorse, maybe to lessen the burden, maybe to evaluate future options, maybe because she had been acting strangely, maybe because she had been caught.
But how much? She didn’t know. And never would.
But both decided that time had wiped the slate clean.
For her father, it was maybe for the best. If they wanted to know more about that story, it was up to each of them to investigate.
“Biel, there’s a lead you can follow since you live in London. That is, if you feel like it, of course.”
“Well, since we’re here now, why not?” He couldn’t hide it. They had gone almost twenty years without seeing each other, he had lost all his hair, but he was still hopelessly into Gina. And she was ready to take advantage of it.
“Years ago, many years ago, not long after my father dragged you out naked from under my bed, I met a Welsh guy. A man, really. A bus driver in London. We spent a weekend in Salou, and I never heard from him again. Never. It was the best for us both, I guess. It was three days of fun and goodbye, end of story. How did I meet him? This part is important for you to know. Mark showed up at my house—you’ll like this—with one of my mother’s business cards.
With her business card in his hand. Paulina Homs, this and that, Rambla de Catalunya, her postal code, her phone number, the whole thing. ”
“A business card, wow.” He took a cigarette from a pack and offered one to Gina. Was it jealousy that was starting to gnaw at him?
“No, thanks. On the card, ‘call me’ is written in French . . . ‘Appelle-moi.’”
“But why did your friend have the card?” He lit up the cigarette.
“Hold on. That’s what we need to find out. He told me he found it inside a book. First order of business: Which book?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“No. And that’s an important clue. Second: Where did he buy the book?”
“Could your mother have given him the book?”
“No way. He told me he bought the book, and inside . . .”
“What’s your English friend’s name?”
“Don’t call him English, that’ll mess it up. Welsh. His name was—is, I guess—Granger. Mark Granger.”
“In London alone, there must be . . .”
“But there can’t be more than three who are bus drivers, the red double-deckers, the old-school ones.”
Biel let out a breath to communicate he’d be looking for a needle in a haystack and couldn’t make any promises.
“Gina, I’m a lawyer, not a detective. I’ll do what I can, but . . .”
“Wait, Biel, there’s something you need to know, in case you find him.” How could she explain this now? “Mark doesn’t actually know my name. If you tell him you’re coming on behalf of Gina from Barcelona, he won’t know who I am. He thinks my name is . . . Paulina.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah, look, it’s complicated, but that’s just how it is. He showed up with my mother’s business card. I couldn’t say no, the lie got bigger and more bitter, and after three days I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that . . . You get it, right?”
“Not really. I mean, yes, I get it—I’m not stupid—but sometimes you . . .”
“It’s good to role-play once in a while, isn’t it?” Gina became affectionate to butter him up.
“And if I look for Mark Granger and I find him, then what?”
“What do you mean, ‘then what’?”
“Will you and I fuck again one day?”
“Biel, please . . .”
“What?” He protested dramatically. “It wouldn’t be the first time . . .”
“You’re pretty desperate, aren’t you?” She said maliciously, “I bet you haven’t done it again since my father caught us.”
“It’s been twenty years, woman . . .”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
They laughed. But she didn’t say no. And holding on to that hope, and remembering the silent orgasms of his former classmate, Biel was set to head back to the city with a concrete assignment and an uncertain reward.