Story of a Sociopath

  “I’m going to insist, Thomas. Give me a yes or a no.”

  “I need to think about it.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you two days. If you don’t call me within two days then I’ll take it that you’re opting out. But if you’re in, then I don’t want you to come to me with bullshit. You’ll have to work for GCP and get on with Leopold Lerman, and you’ll have to keep Schmidt informed of every step you take.”

  “I need a week.”

  “A week? You need a week to decide if you’re going to work with me?” Roy was getting ever more agitated.

  “This is the most difficult decision I’ve ever had to make. I need to go over the pros and cons carefully.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “All right, don’t believe me, but give me a week.”

  Roy fell silent. I could hear his breathing on the other end of the telephone. Knowing him as I did, I imagined that he was considering whether to end our relationship, maybe even hang up on me.

  “I don’t trust you, Thomas. I don’t know what you’re playing at,” he said.

  “I don’t trust you either, Roy, but I need a week. If you don’t want to accept that, it’s no problem—we’ll each go our own way.”

  “A week, not a day more.”

  After talking to Roy I decided to get drunk. I think I must have finished a whole bottle of whiskey. I woke up on the living-room floor. It was cold, but I was so drunk that I didn’t think I could stand, so I stayed where I had fallen. That’s how the maid found me the next morning. I had forgotten that she was due to come.

  “Mr. Spencer! Are you all right? Goodness!”

  I held on to the edge of a table and pulled myself to my feet as best I could.

  “I’m fine. Do what you need to do. Do it quickly and get out,” I managed to say in a drunken nasal voice. Then I spent a long time in the shower. My head hurt and I wanted to throw up.

  When I left my room, shaved and dressed, the maid had already gone. She had only straightened up the living room. The right thing to do. Drunks are unpredictable.

  I called Philip Sullivan to find out if Neil had taken the job. He had, but he didn’t know how long it would take for him to discover information about Roy’s partners. I insisted to Philip that I needed to know in under a week.

  “What you want isn’t easy to do. Neil will get the information, but it’ll take time.”

  “Roy’s given me a week to make up my mind.”

  “You’ve got a lot to lose. You could set up your own agency and not have to work for anyone,” he insisted.

  “I could go back to New York as well.”

  “Yes, you could go back to New York. That wouldn’t be a bad idea either. Ah, and Cathy’s told everyone that you rang her up last night and invited her to dinner. They’ve had a good laugh at your expense.”

  “I just wanted to screw her.”

  “That’s not a good idea, given that she’ll never forgive you for the Green business.”

  “It’s thanks to me that she’s working for Scott and Roth now,” I reminded him.

  “She’s a practical girl,” Sullivan said, with mild irony.

  —

  I felt alone. I had nothing to do. I didn’t want to go to museums. I decided to leave. It was a Tuesday. I had a week before I had to give Roy an answer, so I bought a ticket to Madrid. I don’t know why I chose that city. I guess I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to visit the city my mother’s forebears had once left. That is, if there was a drop of Spanish blood left in her body, because given the color of her skin, and mine, it was clear that her ancestors had bred with blacks and Indians.

  Madrid surprised me. I don’t know why, but I thought it would be small and backward, and I instead came to a large city that swallowed travelers whole.

  As he was driving me to my hotel the taxi driver gave me endless recommendations, from restaurants to fashionable bars, and he even mentioned a couple of places that, he said, had stunning girls.

  The hotel was in the city center, near a mildly bohemian district called the Barrio de las Letras. I thought it would be something like the Latin Quarter in Paris.

  The concierge added a few suggestions to the taxi driver’s. I asked him when the bars closed and he smiled.

  “Madrid never sleeps.”

  “But it’s nine o’clock already,” I said, dubious.

  “That’s early for here—too early. It’s even too early to eat dinner. Younger people go out later, at around midnight.”

  I left the hotel ready to discover a city that I didn’t know if I would like.

  I fell in love. Yes. I fell in love with Madrid. I had been born in New York, I had lived in London, and I had seen the world. Berlin, Paris, Vienna…All of them are doubtless more attractive, but Madrid has something that they lack: it is an open city, where nobody cares where you come from, who you are, what you want, or where you’re going, and where people talk to you without knowing you, and welcome you into their lives.

  I went to a bar that was rowdy enough for me to pass unnoticed. I sat at the bar and ordered a whiskey. The bartender looked at me strangely but he served me at once.

  “You surprised him,” I heard someone say.

  I turned around and found myself face-to-face with a young woman who was looking at me with a smile. She was with a group and no one seemed to think it odd that she had spoken to me.

  “Surprised? All I did was order a whiskey.”

  “That’s why. Almost nobody drinks whiskey. Well, older people.”

  “What do people drink here, then?”

  “Gin, cocktails, beer, wine…Where are you from?”

  “I’ve just gotten here from London,” I replied.

  “But you’re not a Londoner…”

  “I’m from New York.”

  She looked me up and down until she seemed satisfied that I might be from New York.

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know Madrid?”

  “No, it’s my first time here.”

  “I’m Ivonne.”

  “Thomas.”

  She introduced me to her friends. A varied group. Ivonne explained to me that she was Parisian and that she lived in Madrid and taught French at a language school, as did two of her friends. The others all did other things. They were celebrating the fact that one of them had just gotten a job.

  “José works for a car company, Pablo teaches Spanish to foreigners, Matthew teaches English, Ana just got a job as a secretary at a multinational corporation, Blanca’s a piano teacher.”

  There were a lot of people in the group and I lost interest in finding out what all of them did. I don’t know how it happened, but I quickly found myself caught up in their conversation.

  I remember that they were talking about the advantages and drawbacks of globalization. I started to have fun. This was a new situation for me. And I was even more surprised when they said that they were going to another bar. Ivonne invited me to go with them. I accepted immediately.

  I don’t know how much I drank that night. All I know is that it was the most enjoyable night I can remember. I decided to imitate them, ordering beer at one bar and wine at the next. At the third bar, José, the one who bought and sold cars, said to me sotto voce: “Hey, you should eat something or you’re going to get drunk. The key to drinking is to keep a full stomach.”

  I followed his recommendation, although I admit that by the end of the night the alcohol had gotten to me a little. Ivonne and José offered to take me back to my hotel.

  The next morning I was woken by the insistent beeping of my cell phone. It was Ivonne. I didn’t remember giving her my number, but I must have done so.

  “Does your head hurt?” she said by way of greeting.

  “A little,” I replied.

  “Who drinks like that? You drank a lot, and that’s compared to us, who aren’t lightweights. What are you going to do today? If you want, Blanca and I could come and give y
ou a tour of Madrid. She finishes her classes at one and I don’t have any classes until five. What do you think?”

  Blanca drove a Mini Cooper. They gave me a tour of Madrid and then took me to a bar to eat. They got me to order what they were having, paella, and a bottle of red wine that the three of us drank.

  “Well, I’ve got to get to class, see you tomorrow,” Ivonne said as she got up to leave.

  They had already asked for the bill and refused to let me pay it, for all that I insisted, so we split it.

  I needed another coffee to shake off the wine, and Blanca ordered another as well.

  “What do you want to do now?” she asked.

  “I don’t know…I don’t know anything about the city, or Spain in general, for that matter.”

  “And why did you come here?”

  I told her that I had a free week before I had to decide whether to take a job, and that without knowing exactly why, I’d decided to spend it in Madrid.

  “Well, you’re a New Yorker with Spanish ancestry, aren’t you? Where are your parents from?”

  The question upset me but I couldn’t get angry because Blanca had asked it so naturally. I paused for a few seconds. I didn’t know her at all, so I changed my official version a little.

  “My mother is Hispanic and my father is a typical American WASP. I’m a mixture.”

  “Well, it’s clear that your mother’s genes are stronger than your father’s.”

  “Yes, it looks that way,” I said, holding back my anger.

  “I was born in Paris, but I’m Spanish. My parents were emigrants. They went to work in France and it went okay for them, and they saved until they had enough money to come home. Now they run a little supermarket in Salamanca. That’s where we’re from.”

  “Salamanca?”

  “Don’t you know where Salamanca is? It’s a wonderful city! It’s less than two hours from Madrid. It’s got one of the most important universities in Europe.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about Spain.”

  “It’s always seemed odd to me that the education system in the U.S. is so…I don’t know…apart from the elites, normal people don’t seem to know all that much. We complain about our education system here a lot, but any child knows where New York is.”

  “And how come you ended up studying music?” I asked, a little annoyed by her opinions about Americans’ supposed lack of culture.

  “It’s my passion. My mother loves singing and she insisted that I take piano lessons. I studied the violin as well, in Paris. Ivonne and I met each other at the conservatory there. She was studying the piano but she dropped it. Her parents had insisted, but she didn’t like it enough. We’ve been friends since we were ten years old.”

  “And Ivonne prefers living in Madrid to living in Paris?” I asked with surprise. Madrid was like the end of the world to me, a spot lost on the edge of the map of Europe.

  “Of course! Paris is wonderful, a unique city, but it doesn’t have enough sun. When we were younger Ivonne would sometimes come with us to Spain during the summer holidays. And now that she’s graduated with a degree in translation and interpretation she’s come to Madrid. She’s lucky to have a job at a language school, but the best thing would be if she got a job at the French consulate. I hope she manages it.”

  “And you live here alone?”

  “Now I do. I used to share an apartment with Ivonne, but she and Pablo are together now. We’re having dinner together on Saturday, okay? You should come. You’ll meet the rest of the group that way.”

  “How long have you been teaching piano?”

  “I don’t just teach piano. I compose as well. I have very good hours at the conservatory—nine to one. The rest of the day is for me. I have some friends who work in theater: I’ve composed music for their plays. Experimental theater. There’s a rehearsal this afternoon. If you want, I’ll take you to see it. It’s a small theater, in the older part of Madrid. You’ll like it.”

  I did like it. As a matter of fact, I liked everything; everything surprised me. Blanca introduced me to her friends, who accepted me as though they’d known me all their lives. No one seemed to care who I was or what I did. They treated me like just another member of the group. That would have been impossible in London or New York. Of course, I was in Madrid partially because I had not been able to find anyone to have a drink with in London despite having lived and worked there for several years. I had been in Madrid for a little under two days and already I knew more people than I had ever known in London. We left the theater, having promised to come back on Friday for the premiere.

  It was as if everything that was happening to me was unreal. Either I had fallen in with a group of eccentrics who rubbed shoulders with anyone they happened to run into, or else Spanish people were very unusual.

  I spent the rest of the week making my way into the soul of this city, led by Blanca and Ivonne who, luckily for me, did not leave me alone for any length of time. I almost forgot about Roy. But a call from Philip Sullivan brought me back to reality.

  “Our friend has found out some things. It’s not a lot, but it’ll be enough for you.”

  He couldn’t tell me more over the phone. It was as if he were afraid of something, and he refused to name names or to say anything that might get him in too deep. We agreed to meet at my apartment on Monday afternoon. He would come, he said, with “our mutual friend,” meaning Neil.

  The call annoyed me. I didn’t want to go back to reality. I liked Madrid more with every day that passed. Or rather, I liked the people who lived there. I’ve never met more accepting people than the Madrileños.

  “Will you come back?” Blanca asked me when I said goodbye to her after the dinner at her apartment.

  “I’d like to, but I don’t know. I told you that I’ve got a job lined up.”

  “You can always get away. London is two hours away from Madrid.”

  “And Madrid is two hours away from London,” I answered with a laugh.

  “All right, we’ll come to see you. Is there room in your apartment?”

  “I’ve got a guest room. It’s not big, but it’s not bad.”

  “Excellent, I haven’t been to London for a couple of years.”

  I knew she would come. Spanish people are like that. They don’t have the same sense of shame that we Anglo-Saxons have. Yes, I’m calling myself an Anglo-Saxon here. In spite of my mother’s genes, I was brought up in New York, where people rarely invite you back to their house for no reason. And they do so even less in London.

  The dinner at Blanca’s apartment was enjoyable. No formalities. No one felt like a guest, but rather as if they were in their own house.

  On that trip to Madrid I almost managed to reconcile myself with my Hispanic origins, but couldn’t because I sensed a subtle difference between being Spanish and coming from a Latin American country. There, it was the same as in New York: the Latin Americans I saw in Madrid worked as bartenders or cabdrivers, cleaned people’s houses, or looked after children and the elderly. The maid who tidied my room, the porter who helped me with my suitcase, the street sweepers I saw on the way back from Blanca’s house…they were all Latin American.

  I asked myself whether Ivonne and her friends would have welcomed me in the same way if I had been a Latin American immigrant. I said to myself that yes, they would have, that Ivonne had known nothing about me when she spoke to me. But I didn’t want to deceive myself either. There are differences that are obvious to anyone. I don’t look like I earn my living with my hands. Blanca herself had said to me: “You can see that you’re posh. When Ivonne started talking to you I said that you looked like you were a rich Mexican or Colombian.” And so, despite what Spanish people say, appearances can be deceptive.

  I liked Blanca. I thought about her on the flight back to London. I asked myself if she could ever be a substitute for Esther. I wasn’t going to fool myself. There was no way I could confide in Blanca the things I had told Esther. She would h
ave been shocked and would have told Ivonne and the rest of the group about me. So there was only one possibility left: to have some fun with her. Yes, we could share a bed and go out at night, go to the theater or a concert, but I would never be able to reveal to her my true self.

  —

  London seemed grayer than ever. The sky was covered in clouds and it was raining heavily. It was barely three o’clock in the afternoon and it was as if the day were drawing to an end. Blanca was right, it’s the light that makes Spain special. I had left Madrid under a perfect blue sky.

  The maid must have come back to my apartment because everything was in its place. Thank goodness.

  Philip Sullivan and Neil Collins arrived at five o’clock. I had decided to offer them coffee or tea instead of a drink.

  “If you don’t mind, you could pour me a drink.” Neil ordered me rather than asked.

  I did so. Without asking, I poured Philip a cup of coffee, which was what I served myself.

  “Brian Jones and Edward Brown are two lawyers who work as a front for various companies,” Neil started to explain.

  “I know that already,” I said impatiently.

  “They are retained whenever there’s a problem, anything that needs to be sorted out outside of legal or official channels. They look for the necessary people, even though they never show their faces. If, say, a waste management company wants to set up in a forested area, they’ll do a study of the economic and political implications and the media landscape. That’s the first thing they’ll do. Then they hire two or three of the PR firms that work for them. These firms do the same thing that you did for Roy. And once the land is taken over, their employers have the green light to do whatever they want. They’ve got subtle methods. No unnecessary violence.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked in surprise.

  “Well, in the case of the waste management firm, they ran a clever campaign about the jobs they were going to create. They sometimes try to buy favorable coverage in the media. If they have to defend the installation of a residue incinerator that will contaminate a huge area, they’ll do so by claiming that the jobs it creates are essential, and then they’ll publish a large number of opinions from select experts to the effect that there is no danger to the forests or the rivers from the installation in question, because today’s technology has built-in safeguards.”