The Speed of Light Read online

  'Of course,' he answered. 'But he's too intelligent for me. Actually I'm afraid he's too intelligent to be a good novelist. He's always demonstrating how intelligent he is, instead of letting the novel be the intelligent one.' Taking a sip of coffee, he leaned back on the sofa and carried on, 'And speaking of novels, I suppose you must've started turning into a cretin or a son of a bitch by now, huh?'

  I stared at him, uncomprehending.

  'Don't make that face, man,' he laughed. 'It was a joke. But, really, isn't that what all successful guys end up turning into?'

  'I'm not so sure,' I defended myself. 'Maybe what success does is just bring out some people's inner cretin or son of a bitch. It's not the same. Besides, I hate to tell you but my success is so minor, it's not even enough for that.'

  'Don't be so optimistic,' he insisted. 'Since I've been in Spain two or three different people have already told me about your book.Malum signum.By the way: did Paula tell you that even I've read it?'

  I nodded and, to save myself from the humiliation of asking him what he'd thought of it, in one motion I finished off my coffee and put a cigarette between my lips. Rodney leaned over with his rusty old yellowing Zippo he'd brought back from Vietnam.

  'Well, actually I think I've read them all,' he said.

  I choked on the first drag.

  'All of them?' I asked once I'd stopped coughing.

  'I think so,' he said after lighting himself a cigarette as well. 'In fact, I think I've become a notable expert on your oeuvre. Oeuvre with a capital or small O?'

  'Go to hell.'

  Rodney laughed again happily. He really seemed glad that we were together again; I was too, but less so, perhaps because Rodney's provocations wouldn't allow me to entirely discard the paranoid fear that my friend had travelled all the way from the United States just to ridicule my success, or at least to take me down a peg or two. Maybe to rule out this fear once and for all, or to confirm it, since Rodney didn't seem willing to go on, I asked, 'Well, aren't you going to tell me what you thought of it?'

  'Your latest novel?'

  'My latest novel.'

  'I thought it was good,' said Rodney, making an uncertain gesture of assent and looking at me with his cheerful, brown eyes. 'But, can I tell you the truth?' '

  Of course,' I said, cursing the hour I'd decided to travel to Madrid in search of Rodney. 'As long as it's not too offensive.'

  'Well, the truth is I liked the first one you wrote more,' he said. 'The one about Urbana, I mean. What's it called?'

  'The Tenant!

  'Yeah, that's the one.'

  'I'm so pleased,' I lied, thinking of Marcelo Cuartero or Marcelo Cuartero's student who had written about that book. 'I have a friend who thinks the same. I thought he was the only one who'd read it. In his review he more or less said there was an immense gulf in universal literature between me and Cervantes.'

  Rodney let out a guffaw that revealed his whole mouthful of bad teeth.

  'What I like about it is that it seems like a cerebral novel, but it's actually full of feeling,' he said afterwards. 'But this latest one seems full of feeling, but it's actually too cerebral.'

  'Exactly the opposite to what the critics who didn't like it thought. They say it's sentimental.'

  'You don't say? Then I'm right. These days, when some halfwit doesn't know how to attack a novel, they attack it by saying it's sentimental. The halfwits don't understand that writing a novel consists of choosing the most moving words to provoke as much emotion as possible; nor do they understand that sentiments are one thing and sentimentalism something else entirely, and that sentimentalism is the failure of sentiment. And, since writers are a bunch of cowards who don't dare take issue with the halfwits in charge and who've banned sentiment and emotions, the result is all these well-mannered, cold, pale, lifeless novels that seem like they've come directly out of some avant-garde civil servant's office to please the critics . . .' Rodney took a greedy drag on his cigarette and seemed lost in thought for a few seconds. 'Listen, tell me something,' he added, then suddenly looked me in the eye. 'The nutcase professor in the novel is me, right?'

  The question shouldn't have caught me off guard. I'vealready said that in my Urbana novel there was a semi-hopeless character whose eccentric physical appearance is based on Rodney's physical appearance, and at that moment I remembered that while I was writing the novel, I often imagined that, in the unlikely case that he read it, Rodney would unavoidably recognize himself. I suppose to gain time and find a convincing reply that, without straying from the truth, wouldn't hurt Rodney's feelings, I asked, 'What professor? What novel?'

  'What novel do you think?' answered Rodney.'TheTenant.Is Olalde me or not?'

  'Olalde is Olalde,' I improvised. 'And you're you.'

  'Throw another dog that bone,' he said in Spanish, as if he'd just learned the phrase and was using it for the first time. 'Don't give me that old story of novels being one thing and life another,' he went on, back in English now. 'All novels are autobiographical, my friend, even the bad ones. And as for Olalde, well, I think he's the best thing in the book. But, in truth, what I think is funniest is that you saw me like that.'

  'How?' I asked, no longer trying to hide the obvious.

  'As the only one who really understands what's going on.'

  'And why do you think that's funny?'

  'Because that's exactly how I saw myself.'

  Now we both laughed, and I took advantage of the situation to change the subject. Of course, I was eager to talk to him about Vietnam and my frustrated attempts to tell his story, but because I thought it might be counterproductive to be too hasty or premature and could put him off broaching a subject he'd never wanted to talk about with me, I opted to wait, sure that the night would eventually afford me the opportunity without turning that friendly reunion into an interrogation and without Rodney conceiving the not entirely baseless suspicion that I'd only come to see him to pump him for information; so, trying to recover in the late summer night of that Madrid hotel the complicity of those winter evenings in Treno's — with the snow lashing the windows and ZZ Top or Bob Dylan coming out of the speakers — I started talking about Urbana: about John Borgheson, Giuseppe Rota, Wong, the Chinese guy and the sinister-looking American, whose name we'd both forgotten or never known, about Rodrigo Gines, Laura Burns, Felipe Vieri and Frank Solaun. Then we talked at length about Gabriel and Paula, and I summed up my life in Urbana after he disappeared and also my life in Barcelona and Gerona after Urbana disappeared, and finally, without my asking, Rodney told me with a few extra bits what Paula had already told me: that he'd been living in Burlington, Vermont for almost ten years, that he had a son (called Dan) and a wife (called Jenny), that he was employed at a real estate agency; he also told me that in the next few days he would find out if he'd got a position as a teacher in a public school in Rantoul, something he fervently desired, because he very much wanted to go back to live in his home town. As soon as he pronounced that name I realized my opportunity had arrived.

  'I know the place,' I said.

  'Really?' asked Rodney.

  'Yeah,' I answered. 'After you stopped teaching at Urbana I went to your house to look for you. I saw a bit of the city but I spent most of the time with your father. I thought he would have told you.'

  'No,' said Rodney. 'But that's normal. It would have been strange if he had told me.'

  'I hope he's well,' I said, for something to say.

  Rodney didn't answer straight away; suddenly, in the yellowish light of the floor lamp, surrounded by the darkness of the foyer, he looked tired and sleepy, maybe abruptly bored, as if nothing could interest him less than talking about his father. He said, 'He died three years ago.' I was about to resort to some hackneyed consolation when Rodney interrupted to save me the trouble. 'Don't worry. There's nothing to be sorry for. For years my father did nothing but torment himself. At least he doesn't any more.'

  Rodney lit another cigarette. I thought he was going
to change the subject, but he didn't; with some surprise I heard him carry on, 'So you went to see him.' I nodded. 'And what did you talk about?'

  'The first time we didn't,' I explained, carefully choosing my words. 'He didn't want to. But after a while he phoned me and I went back to see him. Then he told me a story.'

  Now Rodney looked at me with curiosity, raising his eyebrows inquisitively. Then I said, 'Wait here for a minute. I want to show you something.'

  I stood up, hurried past the receptionist, who started up from his snooze, got in the elevator, went up to my room, grabbed the three black document cases, went back down to the foyer and put them on the table, in front of Rodney. With an ironic glint in his eyes and voice, my friend asked, 'What's this?'

  I didn't say anything: I just pointed to the document cases. Rodney opened one of them, contemplated the pack of chronologically arranged envelopes, took one, read the address and the return address, looked at me, took the letter out of the envelope and, as he tried to decipher his own handwriting on the rough US Army paper, since the silence was lengthening I asked, 'Recognize them?'

  Rodney looked at me again, this time fleetingly, and, without answering, left the letter on the table, picked another envelope, took out another letter, started to read that one too.

  'My father gave them to you?' he murmured, waving the one he had in his hand. I didn't answer. 'It's strange,' he said after a couple of seconds.

  'What's strange?'

  'That they should be here, in Madrid,' he answered, not taking his eyes off the letters. 'That I wrote them and now I don't understand them. That my father should have given them to you.'

  Slowly he put the letters back in the envelopes, put the envelopes back in the document case, asked, 'Have you read them?'

  I said I had. He nodded indifferently, forgetting about the letters and sitting back again on the sofa. After another pause he asked again with apparent interest, 'What'd you think?'

  'What, of this?'

  'Of my father,' he corrected me.

  'I don't know,' I admitted. 'I only saw him twice. I couldn't form an opinion. But I don't think he was sure of having done the right thing.'

  'In relation to what?'

  'In relation to you.'

  'Ah.' He smiled weakly: on his face not the slightest trace was left of the vivacity that had animated it until a few minutes ago. 'You're mistaken there. Actually he was never sure of having done the right thing. Not in relation to me or in relation to anybody. That type of person never is.'

  'I don't understand.'

  Rodney shrugged; by way of explanation he added, 'I don't know, maybe it's true there're only two types of people: the sinners who always think they're righteous, and the righteous who always think they're sinners. At first my father was the first type, but then he turned into the champion of the second. I imagine that happens to lots of people.' He pushed a nervous hand through his messy hair and for a moment seemed on the point of laughing, but he didn't laugh. 'What I mean is that after a certain point in time my father didn't give me many chances to feel proud of him. Of course, I didn't give him many chances to feel proud of me either. So I suppose it was all a damned misunderstanding. But, well, these things happen to everybody.' He sighed, still smiling as he put out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. Starting to get up from the sofa, he gestured towards the clock on the wall by the stairs: it said five o'clock. 'Ah well, I'm starting to babble. This story is of no interest to anyone any more, and I'd better get a bit of sleep, don't you think?'

  But I wasn't prepared to let that occasion escape. I told him to hang on a second, that the story interested me. A little surprised, Rodney questioned me silently with a sort of malicious naivete. Then, aware it was now or never, all in one go I told him his father had summoned me to Rantoul precisely to tell me about it, I told him what his father had told me and asked him why he thought he'd done so, why he'd given me his letters and Bob's as well. Rodney listened to me attentively and settled back into his seat; after a long silence, during which his gaze was lost beyond the ring of light we'd stolen from the darkness of the room, he looked at me again and burst out laughing.

  'What's so funny?' I asked.

  'Either you've changed a lot or that's a rhetorical question.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'You know exactly what I mean,' he answered. 'What I mean is that after talking to my father you left my house convinced that what he wanted was for you to tell my story, or at least that you had to tell it. Am I wrong?'

  I didn't blush; I didn't deny the truth either. Rodney moved his head from one side to the other in a gesture that resembled reproach but was actually mockery.

  'The presumption,' he muttered. 'The fucking presumption of writers.' He paused and, looking me in the eye, said, 'And so?'

  'And so what?'

  'So why haven't you told it?'

  'I tried,' I admitted. 'But I couldn't. Or rather I didn't know how.'

  'Yeah,' said Rodney, as if my answer had disappointed him, and then asked, 'Tell me something? What is it that my father told you?'

  'I already told you: everything.'

  'What's everything?'

  'What he knew, what you'd told him, what he imagined, what's in the letters,' I explained. 'He also told me there were things he didn't know. He told me about an incident in a village, for example. My Khe it was called. He didn't know what had happened there, but he explained that after that incident you spent some time in hospital, and then you re-enlisted in the army. Anyway, that's in the letters too.'

  'You've read them all,' Rodney said almost as a question.

  'Of course,' I said. 'Your father gave them to me to read. Besides, I've already admitted that at some point I wanted to tell your story.'

  'Why?'

  'For the same reason any story gets told. Because I was obsessed with it. Because I didn't understand it. Because I felt responsible for it.'

  'Responsible?'

  'Yeah,' I said, and, almost without realizing it, added, 'maybe a person isn't only responsible for what they do, but also for what they see or read or hear.'

  As soon as I heard myself pronounce that sentence I regretted having said it. Rodney's reaction confirmed my mistake: his lips curled instantly into a cunning smile, which soon vanished, but before I could put things right my friend began to speak slowly, as if possessed by a sarcastic and controlled rage.

  'Ah,' he said. 'Nice phrase. You writers sure like your pretty phrases. There's a few in your last book. Real pretty. So pretty they almost seem true. But, of course, they're not true, they're just pretty. The funny thing is you still haven't learned that writing well is the opposite of writing pretty phrases. No pretty phrase is capable of expressing truth. Probably no phrase is capable of capturing truth, but . . .'

  'I didn't say I wanted to tell the truth,' I interrupted him in irritation. 'I just said I wanted to tell your story.'

  'And what difference is there between the two?' he answered, trying to catch my eye with a sad air of defiance. 'The only stories worth telling are the true ones, and if you couldn't tell my story it might not be that you're not capable of it, it might be that it can't be told.'

  I held my tongue. I shouldn't have held my tongue, but I did. I should have said: 'That's a pretty phrase too, Rodney, and perhaps it's true.' I should have said: 'You're wrong, Rodney. The only stories worth telling are the ones that can't be told.' I should have said one of those two things, or perhaps both of them, but I didn't say either and I held my tongue. I was sleepy, I was hungry, I felt the night was beginning to turn to dawn, but most of all I felt the astonishment of being embroiled in that conversation that I'd never imagined I could have had with Rodney and that I thought we were only having because Rodney secretly knew he owed it to me, and maybe as well because, against all expectations, time had ended up cauterizing my friend's interminable wounds. I let a few seconds go by, lit a cigarette and after the first drag heard myself say: 'What happened in My Khe
, Rodney?'

  We were almost whispering, but the question resounded in the quiet of the foyer like a shot. I'd been asking myself for fourteen years, and during that time I'd found out a few things about My Khe. I knew, for example, that nowadays it was a vast tourist beach located fifteen kilometres from Quang Ngai, in the Son Tinh district, not far from the port of Sa Ky, a ribbon of land seven kilometres long, squeezed between a dark forest of poplars and the clear waters of the Kinh River, of which I'd seen many photographs that showed the same anodyne images of summery idleness as any beach in the world: women and children paddling near the calm shore, the gentle slope of very fine sand scattered with red plastic tables and chairs, a crest of rolling hills in the distance placidly cut out against a sky as blue as the sea; I also knew that thirty-two years earlier there'd been a village beside that beach and that one day in 1968 Rodney had been there. But although I had imagined many times what happened in My Khe — with my imagination by then corroded by reportage, history books, novels, documentaries and films about Vietnam — I knew nothing for certain. I thought Rodney had read my mind when he asked with a sort of resignation or indifference: 'Can't you guess?'

  'More or less,' I answered, sincerely. 'But I don't know what happened.'

  'You don't need to,' he assured me. 'What you imagined is what happened. What happens in all wars happened. No more, no less. My Khe is only an anecdote. Besides, in Vietnam there wasn't just one My Khe, there were many. What happened in one happened more or less in all of them. Satisfied?'

  I said nothing.

  'No, of course not,' guessed Rodney, hardening his voice again, and then went on as if he didn't want me to understand what he said but rather what he meant. 'But if it means that much to you I can tell you something that'llleave you satisfied. What would you prefer? I know lots of stories. I've got an imagination too. Tell me what you need to make you think your story tallies and make yourself believe you understand it. You tell me and I'll tell you and we'll be done, okay? But before that let me warn you about something: no matter what I tell you, no matter what I invent, you're never going to understand the only thing that matters, and that's that I don't want your pity. Understand? Not yours or anybody else's. I don't need it. That's the only thing that matters, or at least it's the only thing that matters to me. You understand, right?'