Cormorant Books

Share |

Silver (Preview)

I made my way along the red gravel path that led up the slope to the campus, headed for the hall where the Foundation’s benefit “party” was to be held, with the beneficiaries in attendance.

An American girl — a friend who used to entertain me during many long, tedious hours (I’m not quite sure about this: I think it was I who filled up the empty spots in her agenda, which was packed with thousands of tasks), an enthusiastic and energetic activist on behalf of the Foundation — had not just invited me but requested my “assistance” in “entertaining” and “amusing” both the guests and the beneficiaries. I would gladly have told her “no thanks,” but she had assured me that I would have “lots of fun” and that it would be a unique, original, fantastic “experience,” not only due to the nature of the celebration, but also because it would be a “special” occasion in which a past injustice would be set right — oh yes, and that, in spite of the originality of the beneficiaries, I would not be in any danger. Faced with the threat of losing her favour and being too lazy to look for another companion, I had resignedly accepted.

The gravel crunched beneath my feet. Above me, the glass doors of the reception hall shone in the reflected sunlight. I saw others entering. I checked my watch: things wouldn’t be starting for another few minutes. I stopped, turned around, and looked back over the campus: a desert. Or perhaps it wasn’t: the summer sun shone high above, and a gravel path disappeared among the trees off toward a bench, which was too far away for me to sit down and rest awhile. There was green everywhere, so much green, and the lawn neatly cut, without a single weed — nothing original, in fact, but just what you would expect: shrubbery, plants, flowers, and off to the left a river or lake, with squirrels leaping about and birds chirping. All of this told me that human beings were fine, tolerant creatures, that the world was beautiful and that you only had to know how to live in order to refute the idea that it was a wasteland: it may just have been my feeling.

I sighed. I knew full well what type of “collaboration” was expected of me and what these “parties” were really about. In the fifteen years I had lived in foreign lands, I had been to a number of them. In order to “get my name out” and make myself better known as a film director, I had even sponsored or “lent my support” to many a happy band of mentally handicapped children or paraplegics in wheelchairs. More than once, I had had to “spread a bit of optimism” and deliver some encouraging message of faith and hope, speaking about the unstoppable advance of science and a happy future in which all those who were distractedly or uncomprehendingly listening to me would be as dead as I would. In the end, I would be relieved to see my audience removed from the room and returned to wherever it was they’d been found.

This “methodology” for instilling optimism (if it can be called that) was, and still is, universal, and is applied not only to the mentally and physically handicapped, but also to the elderly, the terminally ill, and all the other people deformed by life whom none of us want to accept — or, as at the party that day, to beings that were “true and original characters.”

The gravel crunched again beneath my feet. I finally arrived at the door, stepped up to the threshold, and pushed it open. I was sure that there wouldn’t be any alcohol — not even a lousy beer — and of course that smoking would be forbidden. From within came the sound of air conditioning and activity — a discreet and serene bustle, a steady murmur and drone of innocuous observations. The beneficiaries, dressed in jeans and seated grasping the end of a cane or a glass in their hands, one or two with an unlit pipe in their mouth, would nod or grunt their assent to delicate observations or to questions probably more delicate still. I felt a bit dizzy: who was benefiting whom? Who was entertaining whom? It was the perfect image of an ideal world created out of nothing but the gentlest of words. Not a bit of violence. When my friend saw me, she hastened over to my side, her eyes glowing with enthusiasm and a folder clutched in her hand, which was shaking with emotion. She opened the folder, looked through some papers, and extracted a file (oh, what admirable organization in which categorization devours everything and all that’s left is to admire it), and then dragged me off to introduce me to the candidate I would have to “entertain.”

“Come on, let me introduce you to Silver. He’s gentler and kinder than a human being.”

I said “Hi” and held out my hand, which he shook softly, bowing his head and grunting softly. His acting or imitation was perfect.

Overjoyed to see that he was in a wheelchair, I went over to get two glasses and a bottle of orange juice (all made of plastic, probably so that in the event the beneficiaries were overcome by some surge in the joy of living, they wouldn’t be able to split each others’ heads open or cut themselves with broken glass). I put them on a tray attached to the wheelchair, grabbed the handles on the back, and pushed him toward the door. My guest of honour or patient or beneficiary — I wasn’t sure what I should call him — weighed a ton. My friend reappeared and, with a worried face, followed me over to the door, giving me various bits of advice and informing me that the “party” would end with the award of something-or-other to someone-or-other, in which Silver was to play an important part. She reminded me not to forget to take him by the benefit and souvenir tables, and asked me to please be back on time so as not to miss the main event, all the while trying to hand me his file sheet, which she insisted I read before trying to communicate with my guest. I opened the door, took the sheet, folded it up, and put it in my pocket; then, leaving behind the unavoidable introductions, the “Hi’s” and “Have a nice day’s,” the “How are you’s?”, and “Really’s,” the “Where are you from’s?”, “How interesting’s!” and questions about what the weather is like in your country or what kind of Indians live there — in short, the whole aura of happiness reigning over a “most agreeable atmosphere” — I aimed the wheelchair down the ramp for the handicapped, gave it a push, and let it carry me along out into the open air and freedom. In my haste to escape, I forgot to take note of the exact time I was supposed to bring him back.

The gravel path that ran downhill was the natural extension of the ramp; the weight I was pushing carried me on past the bench beneath the tree, and I kept pushing on and on until I grew tired. I stopped at a grove of trees, which was too good to pass up: under one of them stood a picnic table, complete with benches, all perfect and planned, offering its refuge in the shade.

With a final effort, I pushed the wheelchair up to the side of the table, put on the brake, and — with a sigh of relief — sat down. I took out a pack of cigarettes and a small bottle of vodka, served myself a drink, added a bit of juice, lit a cigarette, inhaled, sipped my drink, took another drag on my cigarette, and settled down to forget about my charge until it was time to take him back to his padded cage. Once again I tried to lose myself in my reveries so I could float away to someplace — I didn’t know where — far from the campus that, though surely an oasis of learning, for me was the desert of life.

There was a light touch on my sleeve. I looked over at him: his thick hairy finger was pointing to the glass I’d left on the tray. I spoke to him in Spanish.

“Sorry, I guess I’m not too polite.”

I filled his glass with orange juice.

“Salud,” I told him in Spanish and raised my glass. He didn’t touch his. He put out his arm and gestured to the bottle.

“‘Wow!’ as they say around here. Either you’ve had a good teacher or else you learn fast.”

I poured a shot of vodka into his juice. He picked it up and now it was he who raised it to me. We toasted. My repetition of the word salud seemed to have an echo. His imitation was perfect. More than human, he was a caricature of humans themselves; his gestures, pointing first to the pack of cigarettes and then raising his index and middle fingers to his lips, confirmed my initial impression.

“My God, you certainly know how to live. All that’s missing is your being able to talk and having a girlfriend.”

I gave him a cigarette and lit it for him. He inhaled with delight, his eyes half-closed with pleasure, and blew out the smoke with satisfaction. Now that his basic needs had been satisfied, I thought he would leave me alone. I went back to my own drink and cigarette.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Spanish,” a voice said in English. It was a deep, thick voice that emerged from a vibrating chest.

I looked around. Nobody. I turned to him: the fur on his face and head was almost white; his round blue eyes seemed sad; and there was a melancholy smile on his lips — or perhaps it was slightly ironic.

“You’re not from Alabama, are you?” I asked in English, doubtfully, uncertainly.

His smile broadened.

“No, I’m from Gabon, and my name is Silver. But you already know that.” He knocked back his drink in one gulp.

I continued looking at him.