Wonderful World: читать книгу онлайн полностью и бесплатно

Lucas Giraut and Marcia Parini walk arm in arm along the sidewalk. They enter the group of guests and journalists and surly waiters that mill around the entrance to the gallery. Which has become a forest of waving hands and chins lifted in recognition and drinks that move in silent toasts. Antiques dealers from Barcelona and employees of antiques dealers and specialized journalists. All spread out to create a collective scene that is vaguely reminiscent of the Renaissance pictorial representations of Classical schools. Bathed in the multicolored fairground glow of the Christmas decorations. Lucas Giraut's gaze finds Hannah Linus's above the forest of heads.

“Giraut,” says Hannah Linus when they finally meet up in the opening's gravitational center. Hannah Linus's face is iridescent beneath the colored lightbulbs of the Christmas decorations. They kiss each other on both cheeks while gazing off into the distance. “I was beginning to worry you wouldn't show. I'm really sorry about stealing all those pieces from you.” She shrugs her shoulders. Her face doesn't convey any sign of regret. Or of sarcasm. It is a perfectly neutral face. “But I'm sure you're going to love the exhibition.”

Giraut nods with a weak smile. Looking above the heads. The exhibition is comprised of about fifty religious paintings, wooden sculptures and liturgical objects. The small pieces are in long glass cases that run along the gallery's backbone. The way the glass cases are lit from within projects their light upward onto the visitors' faces. Giving them a diabolical appearance.

“And this is Mrs. Giraut?” ventures Hannah Linus. “Or perhaps the future Mrs. Giraut?”

Marcia Parini seems to crouch down and become rigid under the openly disapproving look that Hannah Linus gives her dress and her figure. The same way certain animals crouch down and become rigid when they find themselves cornered by a larger animal.

“We're not engaged,” she says. In a chilly tone. Then she crosses her arms in a gesture that seems to transmit both anger and modesty. “We're actually neighbors. I live below Lucas.”

Hannah Linus nods, her brow furrowed in a gesture of interest. The gesture is correctly calculated to be experienced by Marcia as a slap across the face. Then she shrugs her shoulders.

“I'll leave you two alone,” she says. “And don't forget to try the venison sashimi with pear. They cost me six euros each.” And she heads off. Not without first taking a perfectly deliberate last glance at Marcia's purse. The same purse that hangs on the shoulder of the wife of one of the other antiques dealers.

Lucas Giraut frowns. He is vaguely aware that Marcia Parini is muttering something under her breath. The waiters and waitresses move with the skill of professionals through the meta-adjacent groups of guests. Carrying round trays filled with cups of Moët et Chandon. Filled with piles of carefully molded venison sashimi with pear. The same round trays of undefinable color that every catering service in the world seems to use. The same round trays that appear in every graphic depiction of waiters around the world. Lucas Giraut can't manage to make out exactly what it is that Marcia is muttering. Or maybe he's having trouble concentrating on what she's saying. His attention now seems to be tracing a wide circle around the room. As if he were searching for something.

“She has hickeys on her neck,” Marcia Parini is saying. In a voice low enough that only Lucas Giraut can hear. As she takes a sip on the glass of Moët et Chandon that she's plucked from a tray. “At her own opening. And the Moët isn't cold enough.”

Lucas Giraut doesn't show any sign of listening to what she's saying. It's becoming more and more clear that he's looking for something as he gazes around the room. His gaze wanders among the meta-adjacent groups of guests. Among the surly waiters and among the minor figures in local politics who roam around looking for respect. Finally his gaze lands on one of the photographers.

It is, as far as Lucas Giraut can see, the largest photographer he has ever seen. In fact, it's one of the largest human beings he's seen in his life. There is something in his mass that suggests supernatural transformations of comic book superheroes due to chemical or radioactive leaks. It's not one of those cases of gigantism that causes an exaggerated lengthening of the bones. He is holding a professional camera with an adjustable telephoto lens in front of his chest and his size makes it seem like a toy. One of those plastic kid's toys in the shape of a camera. There is also something strange about the way he holds the camera, with those hands as big as small mammals. A certain uncomfortableness. Or better put, a certain inadequateness. As if a bird was trying to smoke and hold the cigarette with his wings. The enormous photographer holds the camera uncomfortably and with his brow furrowed and takes photographs of the paintings and the various corners of the gallery. Placing the camera in the right position and then pushing the button with his giant finger and a concentrated expression that suggests his hands aren't up to the task. Lucas Giraut stretches his neck to see above the guests' heads. His first impression was right. The photographer is Aníbal Manta.

“Six euros?” Marcia Parini is saying. With a frown. Chewing on a venison sashimi hors d'oeuvre with her face wrinkled in disgust. “For this?”

Aníbal Manta raises one hand and makes a gesture toward the other end of the room. Some sort of signal. Ambiguous enough so that no one would recognize it if they weren't waiting for it. Lucas Giraut looks in the direction of Manta's signal. It only takes him a second to recognize the surly-faced waiter in uniform that receives the signal on the other side of the room. His characteristic wave of blond hair has been plastered down with gel and stuck to his skull. His unhappy expression has been replaced by a professionally surly face. But there's no doubt about it. It's Eric Yanel. With a tray professionally raised in the air so people can take glasses of Moët et Chandon.

“She has it set up well,” Marcia is saying. She has finished her first two venison sashimi hors d'oeuvres and now reaches out a hand to grab the third with her slightly greasy fingertips. “I won't deny that.” She shrugs her shoulders. “The gallery isn't bad. But your place is much bigger.”

Lucas Giraut continues looking around the gallery. Finally he looks up and his eyes find a staircase leading to a locked upper floor. In the landing halfway up the stairs a group of guests has gathered. Or better put, the party's inner circle. The people closest to Hannah Linus.

The first thing that Giraut sees is the hand that's grabbing Hannah Linus's butt. As she chats with a couple of guests from her inner circle. Giraut's gaze follows the strong arm that grabs her butt until he reaches the shoulder and then the face. The face is looking at him with a snide smile. As he grabs Hannah Linus's butt in a way that Lucas Giraut finds inappropriate to the circumstances. Saudade's face looks at him with a snide smile and makes an obscene gesture with his tongue and then articulates in silence something Lucas Giraut could swear included the words “Mr. Fancy Pants, Esquire.” A small shiver runs up Giraut's spine.

“You aren't listening to me, are you?” says the voice of Marcia Parini. “You haven't heard a word I've said since we came in.”

Giraut looks at her.

“I'm not very good at parties,” he mumbles. He looks at his hand and discovers he's holding a glass of Moët et Chandon that Marcia must have put there some minutes before. He takes a sip. “But I think I'll be better once we see the paintings I told you about. The St. Kieran Panels.” He pauses as if he didn't quite know what to say next. “I think that will perk me up.”

Marcia stares at his face and her expression slowly transforms into one of amusement. One of those amused expressions that many women use when contemplating signs of male eccentricity. Just like they're looking at a small, stupid, harmless animal.

“Of course,” she says finally. “I'm sure those paintings are really great.”

Lucas Giraut takes Marcia Parini's hand. Together they head away from the sculpted wooden crucifixes and the polychrome virgins. Leaving behind the crucifixes inlaid with jewels. Leaving behind the tunics and cloaks with swastikas and other Celtic signs assimilated by Irish Christianity. Leaving behind the rooms filled with paintings and large sculptures taken from dimly lit apses. Leaving behind the last meta-adjacent groups. Leaving behind Aníbal Manta's gigantic body, which is pressing the button on his camera with an uncomfortable expression. And as they leave behind all these things, the spatial layout of the things in the gallery seems to reconfigure in a more profound way. The party no longer seems to be organized around a system of meta-adjacent groups surrounding an inner circle. Now Lucas Giraut and Marcia Parini can see the entrance to the room where the St. Kieran Panels are hung. Covered by a curtain so that no outside light enters. As tradition dictates, the four paintings are hung in a room where the light has been lowered to a minimum. Giraut reaches the entrance and stops cold.

Marcia Parini stops behind him. They both stare at the entrance curtain for a moment. Somehow it is easy to understand Giraut's gesture as one of reverence and respect toward the tremendously rare and sublime art objects.

Things are not like they used to be. At least from Lucas Giraut's perspective. The entire gallery seems to now be organized around a black, pulsating center: the room closed off with a curtain. Which somehow gives the impression that it shines from within. That the curtains aren't there to keep outside light from getting in but rather to keep something more powerful from getting out. Something like the black light of a radiant, pulsating black lamp. Something that, if one opens the curtain, will bathe the entire gallery with its radioactive glow and will blind everyone and make all those present fall to their knees and cover their eyes.

Marcia Parini takes Lucas Giraut by the hand. Giraut sighs deeply. And opens the curtain.

CHAPTER 20. The Winter of Our Discontent

“I don't know many people that would paint their office walls this color,” says the redheaded lawyer who is sitting in an armchair covered with towels in Lucas Giraut's office on the mezzanine of the headquarters of LORENZO GIRAUT, LTD. All of the office furnishings are covered by sheets and towels of different sizes and colors. The redheaded lawyer gestures with his head toward a wall that has recently been painted black. The way he makes his comment suggests an element of sarcasm mixed with something else. Something similar to a veiled threat. “But I've been given to understand that there is a vein of eccentricity in your family. Something having to do with your father and the way he decorated places, and with the fact that he didn't like windows.” The redheaded lawyer smiles in a way that suggests an expression of mild pain. “Correct me if I'm wrong.”

The Louis XV cartonnier in Lucas Giraut's office is covered with a sheet. The shelves have been taken down from the walls. The way in which everything is covered with sheets and towels suggests a house being renovated.

Lucas Giraut is on his knees next to the latest addition to his collection of magic desks, with his stethoscope in his ears. A mahogany Victorian magic desk, circa 1860, with nine drawers, a frieze of vegetable and animal decorations and a green leather writing surface inlaid into the top. The end of Giraut's stethoscope without ear tips hangs over the front of his shirt like some sort of cybernetic elephant trunk. Giraut leans over one side of the Victorian desk and finishes applying a label with nonabrasive glue to its green leather surface. The label reads: REF. 3522. MAHOGANY VICTORIAN DESK 9 DRAWERS. VEG./ANIMAL FRIEZE, BRONZE KNOBS, 183 X 107 X 8 °CM, PRIVATE COLLECTION OF LUCAS GIRAUT. Then he smooths the sticker onto the surface of the desk with his fingertips. The new Victorian desk has a large main drawer in the front, two small drawers on either side of the main one and three graduated drawers on either side of the twin pedestals. To anyone trained in deciphering magic desks, the distance of about two inches between the upper edge of the main drawer and the leather-covered top is an obvious indication of the location of the secret drawer. Giraut knocks his knuckles along the top of the desk as he applies the stethoscope to the animal-vegetable frieze two inches up and furrows his brow with a vaguely medical expression.