Berta’s reference to the writer reminded me of something Vicente Rojo had mentioned: the painter Bram van Velde’s comment that ‘once the eye has confronted horror, it sees it everywhere’. But I couldn’t understand what horror my daughter had confronted and why I hadn’t been able to protect her. Instead of asking her about this, we continued arguing about my relationship with the artist she seemed to detest so much.
‘I don’t go to his house, it’s his studio.’
I knew my interruption would annoy her, but I felt the need to defend myself. Suddenly, my daughter had situated herself in a superior position to my own, and spoke with flat, almost bored assuredness, the way someone who has uncovered an important secret would speak to someone like me, her mother, who hasn’t.
‘It’s not his studio. That’s why they won’t let him give painting lessons, because they found out he’s been telling a bunch of lies. That’s also why they told him to remove the painting from the school. You have no idea what’s going on. But Dad knows.’
I didn’t even try to defend myself from this attack. I wanted to know how far she would go, and why she mentioned Pablo. She waited for me to react. I didn’t, and we stood in the hallway looking at the painting for so long that I thought the time had come for me to leave, but then Berta started talking again.
‘Now I understand why that man followed me home, why he gave me that picture in the envelope, and why you interviewed him and brought this painting home. And that’s why I want us to have an ibis for a pet. I’m like the boy in the story, who can only see things through a lens of horror. That’s why there are only ugly things in my life. The psychologist at school told me that’s not true, that there are many things in my life, and many of them are beautiful, but that I only focus on the ugly things. She doesn’t understand anything. First, she says one thing, then the other. First, she says I have to look at all the good things there are in my life, and then she tells me I have to learn to live with ugly things, because they’re important, too. She says that if I’m feeling sad about what’s happening to Mario, there’s nothing wrong with that, and that I should see sadness as a good thing, because it means that Mario is very important to me and is a part of my life, and that will always be important. And she says you and Dad will always be a part of my life, which is a good thing, too.’
At that point, she looked at me searchingly and shrugged her shoulders, furrowing her brow as if she were waiting for me to clarify this apparent contradiction. But I didn’t know what to say. I had the feeling she had already discussed all this with her father.
‘Mario and I wanted to see things differently, that’s why we trained our eyes and made an effort to learn. If we could see the elements that make up an object separately, reality would be completely different and everything would change. Ugly things would cease to be ugly, and people would have to use different words to explain the world. The way we relate to each other would be different, and it would be possible to have an ibis at home.’
‘Why is it so important to have that bird as a pet?’
‘I already told you. To keep me company.’
At night, before going to bed, I saw that I had an email from Isabel, full of her impatience and concerns and doubts about the actual possibility of publishing the article about Vicente Rojo. I didn’t respond. I dreamed again of the magnificent ibis that stalked through the hallway of my home, free of the presence of the painting, and that in its wake it littered the floor with pieces of paper on which Berta had drawn her tiny circles.
There was something theatrical about the declarations of sorrow about Mario’s illness that took place at the school. He had been pulled out of classes to undergo a series of tests, and the vast majority of his classmates turned his absence into an almost sacred matter. It was best not to mention it directly, just in case certain words could awaken the latent possibilities. In any case, his illness created an infinite series of codes and alternate language through which they could show, above all, their fear and disbelief. Such messages were difficult to decode for those of us on the outside of that tragic and sorrowful group.
Berta’s teacher asked me to meet with her again. I supposed that the main topic of conversation would be Mario and the different strategies the students had come up with to cope with this setback. As far as I knew, nothing like this had happened at the school before. I wasn’t wrong. To begin with, the teacher brought me into the strange and sad environment that had overtaken the school. All the students, and all the teachers, too, were having a terrible time with it, but the staff were particularly concerned for Berta, because she was one of those closest to Mario. She said this in a way that made it seem like there was some risk Mario’s illness was contagious. She asked me how Berta was behaving at home and showed great surprise when I told her that she was ‘normal’.
‘What do you mean, normal?’
‘The same as always. Have you noticed anything different?’
The teacher furrowed her brow and gave a start as if a shiver had just run down her spine. That’s when I realised that this woman and I, who must have been about the same age, had always spoken to each other formally, as if we were complete strangers. This seemed like an important detail. I’ve never been good at managing the distance that can open up through the use of language and its formalities.
‘I’ve already told you that we’re concerned. Especially because of that game she used to play with Mario, the fainting game.’
‘Well, I think that game is over now.’
The teacher couldn’t hide her concern and discomfort.
‘Yes, of course it’s over, but perhaps you need to talk to her, because the school psychologist has told us…’
‘I do speak with her,’ I interrupted.
‘With the psychologist?’
‘With Berta. And she also told me what the psychologist thinks of all this. I don’t think for one minute that the fainting game caused that boy to fall ill, or my daughter either. They just want to see reality in another way, to see things differently. They’re fifteen years old, they don’t like what they see and they’re trying to see a different world. I don’t see anything wrong with that.’
My daughter’s teacher was the same age as me, but much skinnier — not a single kilo overweight. She was wearing a casual but well-coordinated outfit: clothes made from high-quality materials, discreet makeup and expensive jewellery. She was still concerned, but she was no longer prepared to tell me how I should talk to my daughter, not now. So I continued talking:
‘Do you know who Jusep Torres Campalans is?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Or Vicente Rojo?’
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.’ Her concern had turned into discomfort. ‘Who are you referring to? Are they students here at the school?’ I remembered the painter’s fury when he had learned that none of the teachers at the school knew who he was, and thought of all the books and catalogues filled with examples of his work sitting on the desk in my study.
‘No, I’m sorry, I got distracted. Jusep Torres Campalans was a painter from Mollerussa, a friend of Picasso’s. He was in Paris at the start of the twentieth century and then he went into exile in Mexico, in Chiapas, which perhaps you might have heard of, thanks to Subcomandante Marcos. That’s what I was thinking about. Forgive me, and don’t worry about Berta, she’ll be fine.’