EPISODE IX
“It´s better for you to know that superior forces [compared to mine] have been compelling me to synchronise the encounter with Valentina. An encounter bound to be the consecration of my evolving path.”
Mandatum in Rem Suam: Mandate or business which includes an element of self-interest
Nugaró, Colombia, January 19th, 2018
The quintet was dragged into the family home by Valentina´s mother (Valentina in twenty years’ time), a Mistress that effusively greeted Balou by offering him the smile of expectant heirs. Valentina´s house was one of the average middle-class´ of Nugaró: nothing was lacking or in excess. An old fashioned car parked outside, a non-majestic metal front door preceded by three orange steps so steep as to make you stumble, two bedrooms, two bathrooms; a sober white walled living-dining room behind which the rectangular area of the kitchen reared its head, with a wooden bar in between. The metal front door lets you in directly to the living-dining room, leaving behind a front yard deprived of plants and grass. The window of the living-dining room, which overlooks the front yard, had their door shutters closed already. Like a guest of honour, Balou was told to sit down on a couch ranged against the west-oriented side wall; on the other hand were the rest, The Welcome Committee, forming a semicircle around him. A wicked observer might say that Balou was caught in a trap. Silence filled the air, bouncing off from one wall to re-bounce on the opposite. In the backstage there appear to be a conspiracy against Balou the Rebellious, Sacred Geometer accused of drawing heretic designs and later constrained, by frowning judges, to remake them. It was noticeable the effort René was making to keep his emotions under control.
Alba, the only one up for the time being, stood disappointed because Balou refused to taste her Arepas, a Colombian appetizer intended to be ice-breaking.
A car rushing along the street disturbed the order of the day: it would surely be reaching for the hospital.
- What happened at the airport? –asked Alba straight out.
“Will something have happened to Valentina at the airport? –Balou could not wait to know it.
The whole bunch glanced at Balou at the same time, like excited journalists pushing Donald Trump for an answer to a tricky question. Just in front of the Argentinian was Valentina, subdued by allergy. Knowing beforehand it was about to start a harsh questioning, which was naturally of no interest to them, Valentina´s younger sister and her cousin pulled off the semicircle to play darts. The cousin exclaimed before leaving: “what a strange Spanish this man speak!”
Balou asked Valentina to sit down by his side; she nodded, afterward made suggestive academy-learnt body movements as she proceeded gracefully.
Still, Balou placed on hold the curiosity of Alba when he said briefly:
- At the airport that day, Miss, I met your daughter, that´s all I can say for now. I may not enter into details on the encounter unless I talk to Valentina first. There will be further opportunity to talk on the subject, that for sure.
Alejandra, Valentina´s sister, turned around to look at the first foreigner to visit her house. She smiled at him, and then Balou asked her if they could be friends forever and Alejandra, without hesitation, responded positively.
While she wiped her hands on the apron Alba fixed her sight on Valentina: she looked pale consequence of allergy symptoms getting worse. Contrary to what Alba could have imagined, however, Valentina lounged on the overstuffed violet cushion, confident and relaxed, wired to “the here and now”, harmonised with the guest. Nevertheless, they were way too stuck for her motherly taste. So much so that Alba came close to demand Balou to detach from her daughter right away, although she knew inwardly she would have never admonished a stranger before a crowd. How astonished she was in the moment the nonchalant visitor touched Valentina´s forearm in front of everyone! Balou laid his left hand there on purpose; so that everyone assimilates he was giving sympathetic support to victims of allergy, by means of a sweet caress. Ecstasy streamed from Balou´s beatific eyes, which gave a glimpse of his purest cleansing intentions. Alba pondered whether to intervene or to take a picture thereof. But after much soul-searching she did none of them because Valentina gave off a strong smell of comfort, which led to believe that his caresses were being accepted, even she would love too many more. As if Balou were reading the thoughts of Alba in relation to his capability to overstep the mark, he went well further and grabbed Valentina´s right forearm with both hands, quite so softly he scrubbed it as to be mistaken for a massage. Fearful of the reaction of her husband to what was happening in his very nose, Alba closed her eyes. She was expecting the worst, an outburst of anger, broken plates scattered on the floor and so on. Nothing of that sort happened. Temporarily relieved, she raised the eyelids in order to double-check windows were closed; given the circumstances the only thing that was missing was a caustic pedestrian claiming to have seen Valentina embraced by a man, spreading throughout Nugaró the gossip of an inexistent future marriage. What Alba dreaded most was the rumour spread of Valentina being pregnant, thus forced to marry a foreigner just to keep up appearances. A desperate vallenato, named Una Hoja en Blanco, began to play next door in so loud a way as to calm down Alba´s suspicious mind.
I hope this individual –expected Alba inwardly- should not entertain any illusions of finding himself in the right place at the right time…What a paradox, the most enthusiastic, the ideologue of this invitation, her husband René, dossed around struck dumb. They had been married for thirty years; Alba had been tied to René ever since, her husband was brave as long as there are no threats nearby, yet when he acknowledges danger he is possessed by ghosts whose names he knows by heart. It was this distinctive trait of his personality that made Alba fall in love with René so long ago, every time he fell apart due to an overdose of defencelessness huge amounts of fondness reawakened in her. To some extent, René was a son for Alba, with him she put into practise her maternal instincts, later poured onto her real child.
On account of being the special guest Balou was the first to be served dinner, whilst the rest sat round the table waiting for their turns. In order to rectify himself from the Arepas´ Gate, he congratulated Alba for the chicken he savoured with eagerness. At last, appealing to iron willpower, René managed to come out of hibernation and spoke his mind using temperance, but firmly enough, to the guest of honour: Balou. Through a monologue he highlighted the values fostered by his family, which was under –he made it clear- his unique leadership. René sought to convince Balou that the family he had formed together with Alba follows deep-rooted customs; “where newcomers – he was sorry to say it- have no place assured. You know a Roman Catholic conservative family”. René, a retired pilot, sought to convince Balou that his home was neither an assortment of amenities to get free partners, nor a soft landing strip. Balou received the message plus a warning: “To earn merit here –said René impetuously- is a tough job, man. Just in case you have dreams of conquest, I should advice you to show impeccable behaviour”. Balou listened attentively to the short, yet discouraging, sermon, looking straight to René´s eyes. When he realized that the father of Valentina slowed down to catch some air, he replied in a pyromaniac mode, in so a furious manner that René brought into question his mental stability.
- You are wasting your time, and believe me that you shouldn´t. Thank you for letting me enjoy an immersive experience on your family values. Needless to say, I carry them inside my ADN commands; they are part of my genetic code, keystones of my individual program. It´s better for you to know that superior forces [compared to mine] have been compelling me to synchronise the encounter with Valentina, an encounter bound to be the consecration of my evolving path. You can certainly cast doubts about my sayings, I actually give the benefit of doubt to you, but my good intentions are unquestionable; where else could you find better ones? By the way: Valentina does not eat pork, doesn´t she?
- Come, René –Balou reassured him-, don´t be scared, relax, because you are speaking to a dead person. My ego committed suicide the day Valentina and I met.
- How do you know that my daughter cannot stand pork? –Alba leaped into de conversation, fascinated to be in the middle of a battle to see which of both males was stealing the limelight of the discursive scene.
- It´s a familiar secret nobody knows about –she added. Perhaps you have told him, dear?
The model shook her head in the negative.
Alba refused to believe the way Balou addressed to René, using the Spanish much familiar personal pronoun Vos, colloquial, instead of showing respect with the more formal Usted. René agonized over that, even more when the Vos came from a stranger.
- I would rather be burnt at the stake than to be forced to eat pork –said Balou, expressing himself at the speed of light.
Valentina burst into peals of laughter, in spite of her paleness.
When she decided not to cross-question him, Alba shrugged. By the way she moved her hands; one could guess she struggled to make the sign of the cross in the proper manner. For some reason that Alba was unaware of, she liked Balou. “Yet I admit he jumps from one topic to another and sometimes his speeches tend to be chaotic, yeah, there is no doubt he rambles, but immediately afterwards –I don´t know how he does it- he succeeds in getting out of the tangle to go straight to the point, without removing his eyes from his conversational partner” –Alba reflected. She has seldom spotted a Colombian national doing so. It is hard to her fellows countrymen –including her- not to fall into pomposity, experts as they are in the art of running around in circles instead of going into the substance; by contrast, this foreigner helped Alba –a rural teacher, essentially a serial thinker- understand the joy of Colombians at embellishing ambiguous ideas, looping around them, unable to express what they once meant to.
Valentina languished post dinner (she ate nothing), at seeing her condition Balou decided to get back to the hotel. He cut off the evening. Valentina´s eyebrows went up giving him a clear signal of approval of his motion. She was dead tired, ready to dream of a better place where body discomfort would fade magically away.
Balou hasn´t gone unnoticed lately, he makes an impact everywhere he goes. In fact, there is a schism between him and the rest of the world, which drives a wedge within the area of his influence. The night of January nineteenth would not be an exception. Everyone had gone back to their former seats, with the incorporation of Alba to The Judges. And they kept in force the semicircle. There was a resemblance between this Jury and the glorious one formed at the time Socrates was given poison hemlock to drink, far back in Ancient Athens. Tension increased within the family as Balou´s utter craziness gained more and more prominence. Indeed, a high-voltage situation emerging. Who shoulders much of the blame? The Argentinian´s desire to express his sensations outwardly. Balou owned the centre of the ring now, whereas the rest were watchful in the ringside. If truth be told, Balou did not want to leave the house, which felt as if it were his from time immemorial. The fact is evidenced by his reluctance to set the forearm of Valentina free.
- Balou, do you have family or relatives in Colombia? –inquired Alba.
- Listen to me, Alba: you are entitled to know little about me, the very essential, and what is very essential is that my only family is Valentina. In Cali I raised a stepson, out of the only couple I´ve settled with in my whole life, since I´ve always been alone. But not lonely. Civil status? Single, no wife, no biological children. My stepson has his biological father, while he finds a friend in me. I´ve spent five years with Isis, my stepson´s mother, who gave rise to the apparition of Valentina in my own life. But that´s a long story. My father is dead, my mother died in 2010, in Medellín. I have three brothers living in Rosario, my hometown in Argentina, to whom I share a great bond. They all have well-stablished families. To me they represent the starting point, the origin. You know, childhood is commonplace because of what brothers and sisters lived together, besides the fact, in my case, of having suffered our parents.
- You do mean “suffered”? –asked Alba.
- Yes, I mean it. My mother suffered from schizophrenia. If I were to introduce my father to you, I would say: Alba, this is Mr. grumpy.
- That is how the story went.
Valentina died from laughter.
- Sorry to hear that, Balou. Did you share with your Argentinian family what it happened at the airport? –Alba insisted, trying to dig into the topic.
- ¡Other than my stepson and a Chilean friend of mine nobody knows that Valentina exists, nor she means everything to me –shouted out Balou, the frenzy speaker, to the absolute astonishment of the Colombian Sanhedrin-.Valentina is everything to me –he repeated.
- I expect to get a deeper knowledge of your daughter, only that, Miss Alba –added Balou, much calmer-. To become her best friend, her unconditional advisor. Do you get my point? Maybe you´ve learnt from the dictionaries of mysticism that when you long for someone, the feeling is originated in your heart, it comes from a surrendered soul. Whatever thing related to devotion shall not come from the mind. It´s possible for you now to understand the nature of my earlier statements, where do they come from. I think you can grasp the meaning of my words, can you? Moreover, it´s good for you to know that I stepped away from traditions long ago, away from religions of any kind, marriage, courtships, engagements and so on, for they work against the scope of my spiritual path. Speaking of presents, Has Gloria brought them?
There was a moment of confusion as Alba nodded a yes in simultaneous with Valentina nodding a big no. Though it prompted a discrepancy with his question, Balou prevented from being the judge of an affair for which he was not hired. Balou considered his job done by delivering the presents; whether to open them or not it was up to Mother and Daughter altogether or individually.
- Now if you can excuse me –René suddenly reached the centre stage-, it´s time for all to go to sleep. You may know I´m taking Valentina to the Doctor tomorrow early in the morning. We should go to bed, man. I hope you understand.
- If you want, I can escort you to the hotel –René offered to Balou.
- It´s nice of you. Okay, I accept.
Balou proposed Valentina to go with her to the doctor next morning.
- If needed I can stay longer in Nugaró –said Balou to Valentina-. I stand for you if necessary.
- No, thanks. This is not the case. Dad is coming with me.
René patted Balou´s shoulders and ushered him out. He made however no effort to hide a bit of awkwardness through the length of the gesture.
They were outside.
Who would have thought that Balou would never see Valentina again?
This is the first episode of PART TWO, out or FOUR PARTS in a whole.
