the funeral parlor, for the most part people whom I knew Jacobo had despised with all his heart. Yet there they were, sobbing occasionally, inventing exploits and memories, embracing one another as and when they arrived, heading outdoors in pairs for a smoke. Whenever someone dies, a sort of public battle over grief breaks out immediately. Among the deceased’s acquaintances, there are three or four who vie with one another to see who was his truest, closest friend and, by extension, who is most entitled to feel distraught and to be on the receiving end of the most heartfelt condolences. This contest is not always fought on the surface; one must follow it between the lines, in demeanors and conversations. The candidates focus their efforts on rebuffing and clamping down on any attempt to lighten the mood, frowning on all those feeble stabs at humor that are inevitably always made among those gathered together, as a way of letting off steam, seeking solace in the thought that the one who is no longer with us would have been a thousand times happier to see us laughing than to know we are this crestfallen, or something along those lines, or proposing a toast, sometimes even going so far as to perform the time-honored farce of filling a shot glass for him, amid nervous laughter and tears, before belting out his favorite song at the top of their lungs. The candidates refuse, under any circumstances, to play along, and will if they can prevent the rest from doing so, for it turns out that they, unlike the others, are grieving for real, and are in need of consoling, a little more attention, the heartfelt kisses of the others’ girlfriends, if possible, and even for one of those girlfriends to refuse to leave them alone when night falls—you guys go ahead if you like.
Without ever saying so in quite so many words, the candidates’ quarrel essentially comes down to two things, always the same two: how close they were to their lost friend and how recent and meaningful their last encounter was. This was what three of the frontrunners were squabbling over when I made my entrance in the room.
“It’s unbelievable, not a week has passed since I last spoke with him.”
“Four days, in my case.”
“Two in mine. In fact it was he who called me. He needed to talk. He seemed, how can I put this, strange, and believe me, I know him well.”
A civil war. The dead man being dead and therefore out of the running, for the spoils that go to the deceased are a prize that belongs to a different plane, the one singled out as his closest friend will for once take his place, before a far from sparse crowd, as the protagonist of something big, something serious and even solemn, and not without a certain degree of social cachet, no matter how fleeting. I’d have liked to wander over and tell them that their quarrels were unwarranted for I knew for a fact, based on plenty of conversations with Jacobo, that he had nothing but the deepest contempt for the three of them in equal measure, without further distinction, and that the absolute, utter indifference he felt toward each of them was matched only by that he felt for the other two.
I preferred to say nothing and to leave them there, cheerful in that crestfallen huddle, now all set to broach the time-honored chapter—which could well take the name “But How In God’s Name Did We Fail To Notice”—in which their remarks had already moved on to the subject of how guilty each of them felt deep down, for perhaps they should never have allowed him to take off alone to Zaragoza under such circumstances, as despondent as he seemed, drinking more than ever (they lowered their voices at this point), his nerves shot to pieces, at war with the world. As if their opinions had ever counted for anything, as if there were ever the remotest possibility that Jacobo might at any stage have paid them the slightest heed. They say that, by all accounts, it was dreadful. They say that the whole house was
Without ever saying so in quite so many words, the candidates’ quarrel essentially comes down to two things, always the same two: how close they were to their lost friend and how recent and meaningful their last encounter was. This was what three of the frontrunners were squabbling over when I made my entrance in the room.
“It’s unbelievable, not a week has passed since I last spoke with him.”
“Four days, in my case.”
“Two in mine. In fact it was he who called me. He needed to talk. He seemed, how can I put this, strange, and believe me, I know him well.”
A civil war. The dead man being dead and therefore out of the running, for the spoils that go to the deceased are a prize that belongs to a different plane, the one singled out as his closest friend will for once take his place, before a far from sparse crowd, as the protagonist of something big, something serious and even solemn, and not without a certain degree of social cachet, no matter how fleeting. I’d have liked to wander over and tell them that their quarrels were unwarranted for I knew for a fact, based on plenty of conversations with Jacobo, that he had nothing but the deepest contempt for the three of them in equal measure, without further distinction, and that the absolute, utter indifference he felt toward each of them was matched only by that he felt for the other two.
I preferred to say nothing and to leave them there, cheerful in that crestfallen huddle, now all set to broach the time-honored chapter—which could well take the name “But How In God’s Name Did We Fail To Notice”—in which their remarks had already moved on to the subject of how guilty each of them felt deep down, for perhaps they should never have allowed him to take off alone to Zaragoza under such circumstances, as despondent as he seemed, drinking more than ever (they lowered their voices at this point), his nerves shot to pieces, at war with the world. As if their opinions had ever counted for anything, as if there were ever the remotest possibility that Jacobo might at any stage have paid them the slightest heed. They say that, by all accounts, it was dreadful. They say that the whole house was
Similar Books
