The Swimmers Read online

  These are Sebastian’s ideas, or at least they have been since he and Jonás have known each other. Later, as they settled into their friendship, Jonás went back and read his earlier writings, some from before Jonás was even born, where he discovered how a very young Sebastian had already displayed, in his first articles on the visual arts, a well-founded and rigorous thinking, despite being so boyish as to verge on lewdness. Thus, when Ingrid—the only gallery owner who believed in Jonás’s talent—managed to put together his first show, the one thing she was sure of as she started setting up her space was that Sebastian had to see Jonás’s photographs, the sooner the better.

  Chapter 20

  When Ingrid agreed to be his agent, Jonás felt like the world was smiling back at him: he and Ada had moved into a reasonably-priced three-bedroom apartment on the north side; he had just been hired as a photographer at the newspaper and was making enough to lead the life he had always dreamed of: he could spend his days spying on others’ existence and photographing it, while studying the theory and works of the great virtuosos.

  Ingrid and Jonás arranged a meeting. He arrived first, despite his tendency to be tardy; he took up a strategic post on one of the sofas situated toward the back, where he could watch not only the whole café, but also the goings-on outside; and then he spotted her as she entered: elegantly at ease, with an air of coquettish abstraction, dressed in a colorful, feminine outfit, with blonde hair, straw-colored to the point of transparency, shining with skin bronzed by the elements. But it was her eyes, those chestnut eyes with their grayish clarity, a rainy mist overflowing a tiny garden plot, which had succumbed to a permanent darkness; and it was also her eyes that told Jonás during their conversation, with a single weary blink, that they had dwelled in the abyss—although they had made it back, they had survived and were there now, casting off the desperation that had sunken its sharp blades into the tender heart of their former joy.

  It was then that Jonás experienced his golden age. In a certain way, it began with the appearance of Ingrid, who unveiled horizons he could have barely imagined up until that time. But it wasn’t about exhibiting, it wasn’t just seeing his name written on a sign next to the gallery entrance; it was feeling like part of a world, something far off that had existed well before him, which until then he had only seen in his books, through his intimate efforts to dissect the works of others. She explained to him that this was the beginning, that he must submerge himself in the search for not only a personal language, but something even deeper than his own intentions: the difference that was already perceptible in his gaze, his discernment of a parallel reality, one less apparent, in need of protection and care during this precocious stage when it flowed so freely. And so, during their meeting, they both experienced something of a reciprocal beginning; while for him it meant his first individual show, after Ingrid’s complimentary reaction to his original batch of photographs, the coordination and accompaniment of Jonás’s first steps as a fine-art photographer signified something of a rebirth for the gallery owner as well.

  Chapter 21

  After talking to Sebastian, Jonás falls back asleep. When he opens his eyes several hours later, he discovers an unfamiliar sun with a whiteness that is hurtful even beneath his eyelids, a disquieting storm that hasn’t yet gotten around to exploding, like an electric mist above the turrets which occupy—from his bed, with his sheets up to his shoulders—the entire vertical frame formed by the parted curtains. He’s never liked blinds, he can’t stand them; they leave him gasping for breath with an internal anguish not unlike those episodes of anxiety he suffered when he still lived with Ada, when even the emergency room doctors were unable to help him reestablish his natural respiratory rhythm. At the time he reasoned that he had undoubtedly preferred to sleep with the blinds raised ever since he was a child not just because he enjoyed waking up to that sunny calm, but also because he was lulled into a more comfortable and secure sleep with that unprotected openness stalking him from behind the window.

  He dreamed of Ingrid, of the happy days following the opening of his first individual show; it was her voice, trebly and tranquil, elegant and temperamental, that awoke him from a denseness that had grown increasingly unstable. He recalled the night they all stayed up until dawn in his former home, toasting to his show, back when Jonás could still fall asleep with ease and Ada’s eyes, surprised by all the old stories liberated by the champagne from Ingrid’s lips, could steal the clarity from a sunny day.

  He would have liked to get up much earlier, because the same clarity suspended above the stained glass windows of the turrets reminds him that he made plans to go swimming with Sergio at two, and he still has an hour’s subway ride ahead of him. He takes a quick shower, and after clearing his head, he stands there a few minutes with the hot jet of water concentrated on his back, exactly halfway up his spinal column, where he can sometimes feel a tension that’s too painful to bear; it has caused more than a few pulled muscles since he started swimming, when his father succeeded in regaining the wayward rectitude of his back, not yet fully grown; after that, Jonás continued swimming alone, until Sergio talked him into going together. It wasn’t until his final months with Ada that he discovered the true cause of that old injury, which had left him on occasion practically unable to breath, suffocating in an infinite and perpetual night.

  He feels the hard impact of hot water, relocating it by slowly moving his shoulders, and then he raises his arms and clasps his fingers together over his head, his back stretching from habit, settling into his full height. He gets dressed in a rush, checks his backpack, and sticks the keys to his mother’s apartment in an inside pocket. He locks the door, wishing he had a little more time: he’d like to look for Leopoldo at his table as he walks by the Hotel Ángel. He’s struck by an odd sensation upon grabbing that set of keys for the first time; a bit of conversation, or even silence, would do him good before heading to the subway, but Jonás knows that sitting down with Leopoldo, even just for a coffee, would mean at least thirty minutes, cutting into his swim time and forcing Sergio to either reduce his rhythm or keep swimming beyond his allotted time so Jonás can cover a decent distance. Despite it all, he decides before the elevator reaches the ground floor that should he run across Leopoldo, he’ll stop in, even if it’s just for a minute.

  When the automatic door opens, Marius’s face gives him a start; the doorman wasn’t expecting to bump into anyone in the elevator either, and he jumps back too, with his impeccable blue bowtie and a bucket with the pungent odor of bleach. Jonás recalls when they crossed paths yesterday, Marius dressed in his street clothes instead of his uniform, and he notes that the contrasts with the tranquil man he sees spending the day behind the door under the stairs are not limited to his outfit: something in his attitude of passive and unwavering prudence had been slightly altered, maybe there was a more commanding rhythm in his steps, a martial echo that’s undetectable at the moment, as if a certain habitually hidden pride, a hint of superiority, had yielded—upon coming in to work again—to that easy, agreeable submission which Marius typically exhibits, immersed in his novels or stretching his legs on the white entryway stairs.

  “You gave me a fright! I thought the elevator was empty. Good morning.”

  “Hi, Marius. What’s up?”

  “I was just headed to scrub down the second floor.”

  Jonás nods and says goodbye to the doorman with a movement of his right hand, while the left comes to rest once more on the backpack slung over his shoulder. Now he notices: he feels off this morning, and this discomfort grows in him as he studies Marius’s peaceful demeanor, with an amiability that today seems rough-edged, although he couldn’t pinpoint the reason. There’s nothing different about him, save his unaccustomed appearance from the day before, when they ran into each other and Marius failed to recognize Jonás despite the fact their eyes had met; he was probably so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn’t even realize it. Jonás walks down the steps where the doorman o
ften stretches his legs, and he inspects himself in the mirrors to each side: he sees his fleeing body in his raincoat, as if his agile legs had fallen prey to an agitation that was unfamiliar to him, especially at that time of day, without having had a drink. In the mirrors they lack their usual erect and athletic vitality, steady in their downward stride; instead, he sees a double inhabiting his own body, eyes that are his eyes, looking at him incredulously, perhaps without recognizing him.

  “Oh, I almost forgot! I wanted to ask you about something; do you have a minute?”

  “I’m in a bit of a rush.”

  Jonás stops short and looks at Marius. He studies his affable expression from the front door, without opening it, and wonders what the doorman could want from him, and why he hasn’t answered him with an urgent excuse.

  “It’s nothing. Just—I have a brother who lives outside the city, to the south. There’s a bus that stops across the street here which practically takes you right to his doorstep.”

  That’s all well and good, thinks Jonás in the rising ebb and flow of his irritation, hoping that the pause doesn’t grow too prolonged.

  “He’s an important man; not like me. And he wants to have his portrait done.”

  “Well, that shouldn’t be a problem. I know some studios where he can have it done at a very affordable rate. I also have a few painter friends who specialize in that sort of thing. Their paintings are so realistic, they almost looks like photographs.”

  “Yes,” stammers Marius, lowering his eyes to the bleach-filled bucket, “but my brother wants you to take his portrait. He found out you live here and he’s completely determined.”

  “Well, he can be as determined as he wants, but I don’t do that anymore. How did he find out I live here, anyway? Someone must have told him, I assume.”

  “Sorry. He found out on his own. He just showed up and asked me if the Jonás Ager whose name was on the mailbox was the photographer. I didn’t even know until yesterday that my brother cared about photography.”

  “So your brother was here yesterday?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine, well now you can tell him you’ve asked me. I don’t do portraits.”

  “He said for you to name your price.” Marius advances down the stairs and holds out a business card. “He just wants a few artistic shots inside his greenhouse, with the plants. They’re his passion, and he wants his portrait taken with them. I’m sorry about all this,” Marius’s eyes sink to the marble floor, “but he’s been very insistent.”

  Jonás takes the card from the outstretched, hesitant fingers and starts to slip it into his pants pocket. He thinks to himself that this morning’s antagonistic mood—in spite of his pleasant phone call with Sebastian—has made him respond harshly to a request which, at the very least, could give him some practice, something not entirely negligible considering his lack of inspiration; what’s more, he could make a little money if he charges the going gallery rate, with no obligation to pay Ingrid her commission.

  “I’ll think about it,” he responds, opening the door. “That’s all I can say.”

  Jonás gives the card a glance and turns to Marius, visibly surprised. “Sulla Montesinos? Your brother’s name is Sulla, and your parents named you Marius?”

  “Yeah. My father was an Ancient History professor. I think the names turned out to be apt. Although Marius and Sulla weren’t twins like us, or even brothers. But they did have the same contradictory fortunes as Sulla and me.”

  Chapter 22

  As he heads out into the street, Jonás can’t resist the temptation, and he looks furtively into the café of the Hotel Ángel. He makes out only the waiter, with his white button-down waist jacket, his shaved head shining under the white halogen lights as he stands engrossed in the newspaper on the other side of the bar, indifferent to a clientele that hasn’t materialized. Normally at that time, around midday, the café in the Ángel isn’t exactly full, but neither is it empty: never as occupied as mid-afternoon, for example, or first thing in the morning, but full enough to divert the waiter whose name Jonás has never bothered to retain, perhaps because the first time he spotted him on that long-ago afternoon—in the company of the girl from the rental agency who showed him the apartment, well before he sat down for breakfast with Leopoldo—he had already noted in the waiter’s presence an inward sign of underlying aggression, a latent tension that unnerved him.

  Jonás turns around and walks toward the subway entrance at Arco del Sur. There he just has to take Line 15 twelve stops and get off at Matheson, where he’ll change over to Line 20; six stops later and he’ll be at Estadio. With a little luck, he’ll cover the route in forty-five or fifty minutes, but normally it’s an hour. It’s not as though he feels much like swimming today; it’s one of those days where the real effort takes place out of the water, and maybe that explains why—he’s noticed it from the start—he was in such a hurry to leave home: so as not to think too much about this disinclination. He doesn’t feel weak or weighted down, however: on the contrary, that second stretch of morning sleep after Sebastian’s call has done him good, reviving him after the night’s difficult transit; for months now, the bed has been for him a sort of potholed highway. But Sebastian’s serene yet solid and corporeal voice, that enthusiasm of his, able to discern a fresh trace of pleasure in any urban manifestation of creativity or leisure, affected Jonás’s mood like a tranquil pond as he fell back asleep. Later, when he awoke, he was hit by this sense of unease laid bare by the encounter with Marius and his strange request. Now the straight, subterranean path to the pool, cutting through the city’s subsoil, seems to him almost inhospitable and disheartening; he thinks of how he’ll be submerged within the hour, how strong he feels today.

  As he walks down the escalator and boards the train, a hint of a smile appears upon his face, confirming Sebastian’s energizing, rejuvenating effect. Surely, over these last few years, his friend must have harbored that possibility of once again exhibiting Jonás’s art, no matter how much his photography has been devoted on a daily basis to his work for the paper. It was Sebastian who kept that possibility alive: calling Jonás whenever he was in town, dining with him and telling him all about the most important international exhibitions, the latest talents, or the newest stylistic departures of contemporary masters, bringing him catalogues or sending them by mail, or even inviting him to speak at some of the many conferences Sebastian continues to organize, trying to stir something in Jonás, stagnated in this sonorous nothingness. His case, and Sebastian knows it, is particular: he is no longer a neophyte who demonstrates great promise, what is usually referred to as a young hope; but neither has he done his best work. Something got in the way, surely his own weakness, or at least this is what he thinks.

  Sebastian, on the other hand, has always maintained that the paths to composition—and especially in photography, with its unfiltered, all-seeing relationship with the instant—can be infinite, and that Jonás’s current silence, long and drawn out but silence all the same, may be the beginning of a language, or a transition into a new and more conscious vision, one with no need for trial and error, as if the tests have been implemented inwardly, as if he has continued to take pictures with his sight. But Jonás also knows that if it weren’t for Sebastian’s continuous attention—his constancy in keeping him updated on the latest trends, referring discreetly to his true capacity as an instigator of active images, a photographer who has lost, only for a time (who can say whether excessively prolonged or not) that inviolable pillar of vocation—he would have abandoned himself completely to inactivity, he would have made do with covering his weekly assignments for the paper, he would have contented himself with his swimming.

  Before, when he lived with Ada, he had other ambitions. For a second they had even considered buying a small two-bedroom apartment together in that same neighborhood to the north, a bit more central but still near the pool, especially after she got a position as Assistant Professor in the Paleontology Department: a
real achievement considering her young age. Jonás had consolidated his place at the paper, and for a moment he cherished the fantasy of finding somewhere better, aspiring to live more comfortably, forgetting the nomadic cadence that had accompanied his gaze and all the biographies he had read on the more or less eventful lives of those action photographers over a whole century of conflicts, who had travelled with their heavy equipment and a savage urge to discover the best shot, or to invent it. Jonás had often envisioned such an existence, but then, nearing the midway point of his relationship with Ada, he began to consider the advantages of focusing on life with another person, a life like Sergio’s, with a stability that would conserve his intuition and help him live more at ease. This was the time when his works were selling most steadily at the gallery; his photos inspired a certain curiosity among several important collectors and he made a bit of money. How he then spent it all on something or other, he can’t really recall, especially later, when Ada left and the entire city assumed a nocturnal guise.