EPISODE XXVIII
“God Almighty, give me greatness of spirit to forgive”
Damage: It´s the consequence that derives from an action which undermines the morality of a person or causes a detriment to his assets.
Rosario, Argentina, February 9th 2018
The access stairway to the house resembled, for its length, those which interconnect the halls of the Palace of Versailles and the Vatican. Its wide marble steps were white-colored dappled with irregular black stripes. On the way up close to the double-wing wooden entrance door there was an old bike parked, laced up to the handrails of the stairway with a thick rusty padlock. He who comes into the house and then climbs up this dog-legged stairway might properly be led to think that he was entering an old-fashioned reformatory of the Victorian England. The two-storey building consisted of a ground floor where the stairs begin their journey upwards; Alejandra occupied the first floor for herself; while in the second were the rooms for rent. It was evident that Alejandra works as an artist, as she has left her personal hallmark in every room by making a conscious effort to combine chromatic effects with furniture and appliances, resulting in a visual impact which would cause insensitive and tasteless people to appreciate her decorative inventiveness. Mirrors spread everywhere, hand-embroidered cushions and seat cushions were scattered about the floor (most of them for the exclusive use of her pets: two dogs and a cat). Next to her bed Alejandra had placed a recycled bathtub which is now serving as a sofa; the right wall that escorts the pathway along to the first floor was studded with photographs from the forty-three countries visited by Alejandra during her wandering life. A second stairway, far less majestic than the one that gives access to the building, communicated the first floor with the second –that of the tenants. “With little resources a lot of things can be done” –stated Alejandra every time she was asked about her decoration feats, suggesting that in order to create the setting she ever dreamt of, a larger budget of imagination was required in relation to the financial one. At the first floor, diagonally from Alejandra´s bedroom, behind an internal courtyard full of hanging flowerpots, it could be seen a pretty small furnished bedroom available for special guests and/or dear visitors. Balou established his residence there from 9th of February onwards. Balou guessed that Alejandra bestowed him the dignity of special guest and not that of a simple tenant, because during the celebration of her fiftieth anniversary of birth The Loser Titan had danced with one of her favourite aunts, whose marriage was foundering. And at least for a couple of hours Alejandra´s aunt managed to get away from matrimonial distresses and worries thanks to the comfort of close dancing bodies, thanks to the company of the writer, months before of her passing away sunk in sadness and desperation. Maybe Alejandra paid tribute to the Loser Titan´s gentlemanness by lodging Balou for free, kind of a courtesy for his unselfish assistance to her aunt, despite being endowed with no talent for dancing at all.
Balou settled in to the new bunker after sending Juan José an Isis back to Cali (the boy had to resume classes after the school break); and he had also dismissed his brothers so they could meet again their corresponding householders´ obligations. Since lonesomeness, in this phase of the trip, appeared absolutely essential and instrumental to the redemptive objectives set past his visit to Lucas Iráizoz. Balou regarded Alejandra´s guesthouse as the ideal site to undertake the process of bringing his spirit back to normal, away from prying eyes, standing in providential fellow company of two dogs and a cat, the latter as old as a hill. Given that his encounter with the second-floor tenants would just happen ten days before his depart for Cali.
In the second floor converged the rooms for rent with an open-air rooftop, a place where one could go to in the night and lie there watching the stars. The rooftop was reputed to be the nerve centre where dirtiness and neatness are put together: on one side there stands the clothesline, a clothes drier for the use of the tenants; on the other, under the laundry hangs there is a cosy tile-floor giving shelter to the faeces of the pets. Balou would satirise the confluence which takes place at the guesthouse, neatness with dirtiness, degrees of hygiene the tenants must adapt to, for dogs and cats were assigned the rooftop as their sanctuary for defecation.
- So, what´s coming next? –Balou wondered, during the first night lying on his private astronomical observatory.
“What should I do when a river of my hydrographic system overflows and causes damages to its banks? The overflowing may largely be due to two reasons: firstly, to a permanent riverbank-widening; in second place, to a temporary course expansion of the river followed by a reverse movement once the swelling begins to subside. The riverbanks are at the edge of collapsing up-to-now, the shorelines are underwater due to the stream-power, streams which reminded the width of the river´s golden age. What should I do then? I shall make the river get back on track, yet this has not been a choice among many available but the only feasible one under these circumstances. If Valentina had found a way to stem the rising tide, then a permanent widening would have ensued, while the old shores would have been replaced by new ones. But this possibility has been discarded by other realms of existence. The former riverbanks are thus to be reestablished in concept of payment for the damages that have been done, and so becoming the tangible evidence of my willingness for reparation. It´s already decided. I won´t miss out the opportunity of undertaking these initiatives in order for the world to attest that my compensational deeds have rendered fruits. The water of my river went over the bend, that´s a fait accompli, it grew rapidly to become a storm, and in the same way Von Humboldt put a name to the sea current he struggled against at the Pacific Ocean, so do I: the time has come to dub the undercurrent which is accountable for my river´s sharp rise, in order to honor the destruction caused by the overflow and subsequent utter demolition of my bond with Valentina.
Last January nineteenth, during Rene´s questioning Balou was about to carry out a counter-questioning to Valentina´s family, but bearing in mind that it was a farewell he addressed to René only one question:
- Hey dude, does your family profess a religion?
- Yes, we do, we are Catholics.
- Practitioners?
- We go to church every Sunday.
At learning this, Balou sprawled out gently on the sofa holding a broad smirk. In light of the well-known love and forgiveness tandem, bedrock of catholic precepts, in the near future René the believer might be willing –the writer thought– to take profit of the chance to grant him forgiveness, to put into practice the catholic precepts with him; the question is: “Would René be quite as magnanimous as to forgive me?” Just to make the point clear Balou started sending audio messages to Valentina´s father, to whom he proposed to schedule a meeting for next march, take a coffee together, and once they were face-to-face, man versus man, Balou would make an unreserved apology to René for the outrages committed: poetical, verbal, door-demolition unsuccessful missions, and all other sorts and variety of means Balou made use of to draw nearer Valentina. Reluctant to leave the mystery unsolved (as the goal of maths is to reduce uncertainty), Balou did some research until he spotted a facebook public account of René. Upon glancing down at his numerous latest posts, one of them overwhelmed Balou above the rest: it was a picture with a black background, where a little girl praying in repentance stood out at the right upper corner, whereas the remaining space of the image was filled out with a quote written in block letters which reads as follows:
“God almighty
Give me faith to continue moving forward
Greatness of spirit to forgive
Give me patience to understand and to restore hope
Give me serenity to accept what it´s not subject to change”
“Would René be seeking, through this post, to understand me? –Balou deluded himself–. Would he be expecting an act of repentance from me?”
As he stretched out on the tile-floor of the rooftop, with due regard not to disassemble the mandalas of faeces formed by the defecations of Puffy and Perdido, the pet dogs of Alejandra –painstaking job so to speak–, Balou made a comprehensive list of persons with whom he had an unfortunate, regrettable behaviour, to whom he owed an apology, for they deserved it according to unwritten rules which are enforceable anytime reprehensible conducts arise. To him, the top leaders of this ranking were, in all certainty, Monsieur Houdet and René.
On the basis of an ever-expanding hectic pattern, ideas and thoughts sprang out from Balou´s consciousness like holographic stampedes, as he waited for Houdet´s and René´s answers.
“I envisage a tribute to Valentina, a multidimensional homage conceived to transcend space, time and my authorship altogether, constituting the tangible proofs of atonement (to make amends for the damages caused) its materialisation in the outside world. I will play the limited role of instigator, the bamboo cane through which the ancient music in the pines is bound to pass, the stave where God will stamp his messages over, in order for me to transmit them to Valentina. My assignment should be to put the fragrance Valentina bathed me in, on the map; and since I foresee never to meet Valentina again, the tribute shall be named “Demolishing Nostalgia through an open-up heart surgery” after the destructive rising tide and after all which is invisible to the naked eye.
Let the music play! Let party till the end of the night with all the bells and whistles! –Balou shouted out to the constellation of Orion, mixing quotes from Colombian writer Andrés Caicedo and Armenian master George Gurdjieff. The forgiveness party started out when Houdet answered back Balou´s message and agreed on a skype reconciliation meeting. It was the fifteenth of February two thousand eighteen, birthdate of Valentina.
Even though to a destruction phase a reparation is ensued (according to a universal law), at another level destruction comes along simultaneously with a construction phase. So, it was in the case of Balou, who broke everything around the riverbanks into million pieces, rushes and flowers were uprooted; likewise, the sentimental ties (in progress) tumbled down as Valentina was being dragged away by the tide, placing her out of reach. In the meantime, Balou set up a holly site of worship founded on the nostalgia of Valentina´s depart. It was inside that sanctuary that Balou bowed down himself before the altar, to face Monsieur Houdet:
-You are better? –Houdet shot, in an attempt to ease the tension, clear for all to see.
- It never became worse, Marc. Where did you get that from? Needless to say, I overshot the mark by throwing a set of insults towards you, specifically when I resigned in short notice to the job and left my position vacant. My relinquishment took place in zero notice as a matter of fact. That´s undoubtedly true. For all things which implied having crossed the line, I offer you my sincere apologies…
- I willingly accept these apologies.
- Yet I´ve set in motion the process of apologies, I cannot unsay about the content of the farewell letter I am sure you have read.
Both cameras were on.
Balou refrained himself a little bit just to note a quick blink coming from Houdet´s eyes, which was clearly an indication of his thorough recent reading of the deposition.
- I drafted that letter for objective reasons, everyone being part of the company and those engineers and consultants who quit it, both supported its content. It is not my own insight; I want to make it clear.
Noticeably, Houdet flashed a crooked smile to the Argentinian writer. “Does Monsieur Houdet have a self-perception? In case yes, which was it? –Balou couldn´t wait to know the answer.
- Are you going to rejoin us in the company?
- Are you joking, Marc? Forget it. I never look back; the process of apologising is intended to look ahead. The first thing to do upon arrival in Cali, is to hand my position over to you or to my successor, since that´s the way it should have been. In such a way as to comply with the guidelines for exiting the company that I myself drew up when I led the Human Resources department. Regardless of inhumane heartless resources there may be nearby.
Balou´s words insinuated no sarcasm.
- So, what are your next steps? –the curiosity awakened in his ex-boss.
It seemed clear to Balou that Marc André Houdet shared the same concerns as those boiling in his head at the astronomic observatory of the guesthouse.
Balou was about to tell Houdet what the reason behind the tantrum was, namely, that by the time he wrote the farewell letter on January twenty sixth there was no doubt his approach to Valentina had been turned upside down for ever. Opposite to the former direction. Helplessness coupled with a brainless-guided businessman called Marc André Houdet, provided Balou with the breeding ground for letting his rage work out. Houdet unintentionally contributed to create a suitable environment for Balou´s loss of temper. Nevertheless, the reparations concerning Houdet and Valentina were two entirely differentiated paths of healing. Therefore, he decided to tell to his ex-boss nothing about the three songs he composed in honour to Valentina, as part of the musical tribute underway. Nor about his plans to travel to San Marcos Sierra, Córdoba, to have his astrological chart done. Since Houdet´s lineal way of reasoning, still more exacerbated than that of Valentina´s, definitely conspired against the likeability for the Belgian to grasp even a small share of the internal process Balou was going through. Ultimately, Balou wouldn’t have been able to explain to a man who disregarded the existence of the spirit –to which he ascribed the character of a utopic mental construction– his journey towards spiritual recovery. The only possible construction for Marc were his anaerobic biodigesters. Apart from the futility of such an attempt, the hypothetical explanation would have taken time, a resource Marc André Houdet lacked by default, as he always claims and boasts of being busy. For these reasons Balou responded succinctly:
- Taking into account that I´ve already offered my apologies to you and you´ve already accepted them, we could say that the objective of this meeting has been attained. Hence, I recommend you to tackle now the issue of my overdue payments instead of worrying about the next steps I should take. And tackle the issue of the rest of the consultant´s overdue payments as well. This debt is really a core issue for all of us, unpaid workers. Remember the final nice words of my letter of farewell. You needed my apologies? you got them; I need the money I don´t have, which is just the money you owe me. It´s not fair that you have gotten my apologies while I get nothing from you in exchange. Don´t you think so? I advocate for keeping a balance of forces. Otherwise, the law of the three should be applied upon you in its full extent, and trust me it´s not the best choice for you to make. Marc, bring some order to the equation, can you? You´ve gotten something from me today, it´s my turn to get something from you within a fortnight.
Like a modern Socrates staring at the Palace of Knossos in Iraklion, Houdet mulled over on Balou´s speech with the hands under his chin.
- Alright. I think that I may pay you five hundred euros within a fortnight.
- You may?
- I will pay you five hundred euros within a fortnight.
- That sounds quite better. By the way, the bank transfer will suit me well for my next trip to the province of Cordoba. So, should I rely on you Marc?
Soon after the brusqueness of Balou acquired such an overtone to make Houdet believe something like “I´ve put the blame on the Belgian side”, a silence swept into the meeting. Despite his discomfort, Houdet took recourse to a friendly manner when he decided to close down the conversation.
- Well, boy, Malaysia is experiencing a boost I would like to take profit of, basically to afford the payment of five hundred euros you´ve asked me to wire you. To that end, I need to put myself down to work –said Houdet in French–. So, this productive short conversation should end right away. At least we could have a civilised dialogue today. I am pleased for the accomplishment.
- So long! See you soon in Cali, Adolfo.
- I´ll be there next month –Balou let him know.
- I´ll be there too –Houdet nodded in the affirmative–. I have to pay a visit to my little wife –he added.
It bothered Balou so much that his ex-boss called “little wife” a woman who only played the instrumental role of a smokescreen to help keep his sexual orientation hidden in the closet.
- If we happen to meet on march in Cali, it would be great to wrap up this process of apologies and forgiveness the best way, that is to say in person. Do not forget that by offering apologies to you I am merely closing the chapter with no remorse on board, for the reparation only concerns the manner in which I resigned to Bio-Rasta but the substantial background of my resignation remains inarguable, even in the event you look for advice from a lawyer to defend you from my accusations.
Marc André Houdet then took his bottle-lens glasses off, rubbed his eyes and turned off the camera. And thus, the meeting came to an end.
Balou meditated for a short while before triggering an internal monologue: “What a better world we would make in case more Valentinas and less Marcs were around, for in this new situation the secret services would be of no avail, wars would stop, there would be no mafias and everyone would bring food home and peace to their hearts. Inequities and imbalances emerge only when people of the type of Marc André Houdet multiplies. And of my type”.
During February 2018 hot weather prevailed in Rosario, with temperatures rising up to forty degrees Celsius sometimes, even if it cooled down in the nights. Balou got into the habit of sending messages of forgiveness (either emails or WhatsApp) to the victims, as he lied on the rooftop tile-floor. Every night Balou, now turned into Adolfo Sammartino the accountant, audited the excremental balance of mandalas, after each count it always startled him to report one more defecation than the previous audited balance, which not only proved that the shits were collected sporadically, but it also pushed Balou to conclude that, in reality, the lineal daily growth of pet´s evacuations was nothing but a disguised sign by which fate reminded him to release an additional daily apology to those wounded by his behaviour. “The universe has chosen unconventional methods to enforce me to fix my huge fuck-ups” –Balou yielded to the evidence. And this is how Isis, Zulma, Tomás, Valentina, Juan José, Galvis Moscoso, the Galactic Advisor, Gloria, the owner of the lodge in Nugaró, Neila and Kathy, would be getting a brief opuscule as indemnity, a deep-rooted necessity for all of them. Each of the listed individuals made part of Balou´s public life, albeit in different spheres: Isis, Tomás, Juan José and Valentina were affectional bonds; Zulma and Neila, work colleagues; Kathy belonged to the literary field; Galvis Moscoso to the mental health; the galactic advisor came from the spiritual milieu and Gloria from the tourism sector. When adding René and Houdet to the list, we end up having twelve people eligible to be forgiven.
For the second time there happen to be a trigger for the decoding process which structured and defined the essence of Balou, by means of the twelve.
