“Son,” says Fonseca to Giraut, in that serious tone that Fonseca usually adopts when he assumes some sort of quasi-parental role. “You still have time to stop this all. Let's call it a misunderstanding. We are people who love you.” Giraut can't perceive any kind of nervous beating in the treelike network of blood vessels on Fonseca's temples. “No one wants anything to happen that could change the fact that we are people who love you.”
The Arab or Hindustani lawyer removes the pen from between his teeth and his smile, surrounded by his short little beard, grows even closer to the lecherous, evil expression of a villain. Of one of those Arab villains in those American movies centered around the conflict between American freedom and the Arab lack of respect for all that is sacred.
“My client wants to express his absolute indifference to the plaintiff's offer,” he says in a high-pitched voice with a slight Near Eastern accent. “My client would like to make clear that the offer seems to be clear proof of the plaintiff's true intentions. My client is the principal shareholder of LUCAS GIRAUT, LTD. There is no indication of inappropriate relationships. Et cetera. My client wants to make clear that he finds this all to be a waste of time.” He clears his throat. A lock of black curly body hair sticks out of the upper edge of the collar of his shirt. “Regarding the accusations on my person, everything that has been said here in front of witnesses could be the basis of taking legal action. I am a citizen who has never been formally accused of any crime. Now my client and I would like to take our leave. See you at the trial. None of what was said here is going to be overlooked.”
Once Estefanía Giraut called her son A Waste of Time in an Expensive Suit. On other occasions she has referred to him as: Drooling Runt, More Useless Than Sandals in the Arctic, Born Loser, International King of Failure 2003, The First Step Toward the Extinction of the Species, Pile of Genetic Remains and Complete and Utter Idiot. In one of Lucas Giraut's childhood notebooks from fifth grade, Giraut describes in detail how his mother is run over by a cattle train and killed. Including a diagram of the distances at which they found the different pieces of her corpse. For several months, and until the child psychologists sounded the alarm, Giraut was telling anyone who would listen the story of the cattle train and his mother's death.
“Are you threatening me?” Fonseca sends a defiant eyebrow gesture to the non-Caucasian lawyer. A certain palpitating vascular movement is apparent at his temples. “Be more specific. Is Bocanegra going to send his heavies after me? Are they going to shoot me in the knee?”
Lucas Giraut's lawyer has already gathered up his papers from the table and put them away in his briefcase. He has already stood up and is about to leave the meeting room of the plaintiff's law firm. The Legal Mediator lifts her palms in a placating gesture and also stands up. She repeats several times the idea that nothing of what has been said during the ongoing meeting figures in any legal document of any kind. She appeals to the professionalism of those present and she pulls her skirt down, which had inched up as a result of her sitting with her legs crossed. Her facial expression and body language are slightly more tense and slightly less self-assured versions of her conciliatory and quasi-maternal expression and body language. Still seated at the table, Lucas Giraut surreptitiously seeks out the gaze of the sickly-looking redheaded lawyer. From the door, the possibly Semitic or Persian lawyer indicates that the time to leave the room has come. In the pink-eyelashed gaze of the plaintiff's representative, Giraut thinks he has found a mix of professional greed and killer instinct that he finds somehow essentially legal but, at the same time, impossible to disassociate from the basic fact of being redheaded.
CHAPTER 35. Hannah Linus: Reprise
Hannah Linus's body movements loosen up until they meld with the waves' aquatic vibration. The water is warm as it can only be after an entire day beneath the subtropical sun. None of the waves are strong enough to disturb her feeling of inner peace. Hannah Linus focuses on the idea that she has finally found a place where no one can bother her in any way. No one can interrupt her idyll with herself in this subtropical island where the sand is white and fine and the sea is always calm. With no jellyfish or sharks or aquatic animals. She lifts an arm and repositions her green plastic eye protector. With no work obligations. Without having to talk to anyone, although that was a personal option she had chosen out of the many on the promotional brochure. The sensation is vaguely sexual. She couldn't exactly say why she finds the sensation sexual, but in general terms Hannah Linus has never been very good at describing her sexual feelings or communicating to other people her sexual impulses. Without even mentioning the fact that those impulses clearly make her uneasy, conceptually.
Hannah Linus is opening her mouth in a tension-releasing yawn and moving an arm to hold her eye protector when her head hits something soft and flabby. Something that judging by the tactile sensation could very well be a butt. Hannah Linus frowns and raises a hand in apology. Her eye protector floats off across the thermal saltwater pool toward the edge lined with relaxing candles. Hannah Linus can't imagine who the idiot is who lined the pool with little candles. She curses in Swedish and makes her way through the floating bodies and the erect bodies of the aquatic therapists toward her eye protector.
Besides Hannah Linus, there are half a dozen clients of the SpaCenter floating in lethargic poses in the pool's salt water. Hannah Linus makes her way with difficulty through the salt water, following the green stain that the artificial waves carry farther and farther off. Through the fog that floats over the heated pool she thinks she can see someone signaling to her from the entrance to the dressing area. According to the Spa-Center's promotional brochure, salt water heated to the exact temperature of thirty-eight degrees Celsius supports most of the body's weight. The vertebrae and muscles relax more easily and the spine is freed from the force of earth's gravity. The complete holistic treatment lasts sixty minutes. And the heated salt water produces an optimum energy-conducting effect. Hannah Linus couldn't care less about what the Spa-Center's aquatic therapy promotional brochure says. Nor is she particularly interested in the emancipation of her muscular and skeletal systems. What she really wants is a place where everyone leaves her alone and where she can shut her eyes and imagine that she has rented an island paradise to get away from it all.
Around her, the aquatic therapists are leading the lethargic floating bodies through the pool with gentle motions and intermittent immersions. Hannah Linus finally traps the green stain that is her eye protector. A few steps away from her, framed by the candle's little flames, a Japanese master of Reiki therapy is laying his hands on a patient to transmit his flow of vital energy.
“Miss,” says someone from a corner of the pool. Hannah Linus squints her eyes to see through the fog. It is a young man with the official swimsuit of the Spa-Center chain, pointing with one finger to his diving watch. “Miss. I think your sixty minutes ended two minutes ago.”