The things we notice

Bea finally gets to open the door. With her left hand she untangles the key from the lock, her right arm holding the heavy shopping bag that slips down. Closes with a shove, throws the keys onto the shelf and heads into the kitchen.

“Xavi?” She calls hesitantly. No answer. Goes through the corridor with the feeling that there is no one home.
Yet he should be home. She has seen the car in front of the door.
Unusual: Xavi always parks quite far away, in the avenues on the other side of the park, to force himself to have a brisk fifteen-minute walk while going to work in the morning and when he returns in the evening.
She puts the grocery bag on the table. Begins to extract the contents, then changes her mind. Crosses the living room, sees the lit up crack of the door to the bedroom.
“Xavi?” She asks again, before gently pushing the door. Maybe he’s sleeping.

He isn’t sleeping. Sitting on the bed, dressed, shoes and all, loosened tie on the open collar, black tuft covering his eyes, scissors in hand and dozens of pieces of paper scattered around him.
“What are you doing?”
“Mm?” He says, without looking up, still cutting the pieces of paper.
Bea rests on the edge of the bed, while Xavi continues to write notes on those leaflets, places and replaces them around him. Bea stretches her neck. They are written in tiny hasty handwriting. She can not decipher the words.
Without looking he reaches out to meet her hand, holds it absently, continuing with the left to refine the mysterious order of the sheets. Mumbles something in a low voice.
“Laz’win?”
“What?”
He lifts his face. He is elsewhere, she can see. Repeats more slowly:
“Glass of wine?”
She looks around, sees no bottle, no glasses. Xavi now sports a smile. Bea gets up. She smiles, too.
“Ah, it’s me that has to go get it. Very romantic”.
She goes to the door, turns around.
“White?”
“It’s up to you”.
“Just get out of my way, huh?”
Xavi has not abandoned his smirk. ”Quiet, Beatrice. One moment and I’ll explain”.

She returns with a tray. Wine, crackers, cheese. She has skipped lunch, feels dizzy already. Puts it on the bedside table and bites a cracker.
She is also carrying the videocamera. Xavi does not mind, he is used to it. It was he who bought it, asking her to film their moments together, make short videos to be posted each week on a YouTube channel. A compromise between fun, therapy and promotion of his image.
Now he is standing. He had taken off his shoes and tie. Bea gives him the wine.
“A glass for your thoughts. Let’s see why you skipped your health walk. Which  you didn’t miss – I want to remind you with purely statistical intent and without criticism – either when you were late on my birthday, or when the heating pipe broke and I was calling you in tears”.
“You weren’t in tears,” he replies taking the glass,”You never cry”. He gets a disdainful raised eyebrow.
Then he points to the bed and says: ”My game”.
Beatrice again raises her eyebrows looking at the bedspread strewn with tiny white squares”. They ran out of tin soldiers at the store?”
“I mean, I invented this game”.
She withdraws her head with a heron gesture as she does when puzzled.
“Ah! And why?”
“I don’t know why. I got this idea”. He makes one of those gestures that don’t explain anything. Then he takes a larger sheet that was on the bedside table and Bea had not noticed. Four pages put together with scotch tape to form a board, filled with signs and texts.
“I’m speechless,”she muttered, bending to observe it. All this does not belong to the Xavi she knows. The Xavi she knows, she thinks, is very little.
“A sort of Risk, Monopoly. Let me see”. Bea turn on the camera, starts filming while finishing her question”. So today you got out of work, said to yourself why don’t I create a game, and ran home to do this“.
“Something like that. A game of strategy, yes. It’s called Fathers and Sons“.
Beatrice shakes her head. For some reason that bothers her.
“Want to see how it works?”He hands her one of the tiny sheets. She takes it, agrees to read aloud, keeping the camera on him, without interrupting her shooting. She is used to it.

“All my life my father wanted me to dedicate myself to law. In truth, I hated it, and I always thought that if I ever had a son, I would have encouraged him to devote himself to one of the fine arts, such as music”.

“Now read that”.

“All my life my father wanted me to dedicate myself to music. In truth, I hated it, and I always thought that if I ever had a son, I would have encouraged him to engage in a socially useful and practical activity, such as architecture”.

Bea stops reading”. Identical. Music instead of law”.
“Exactly. The first one you read is the father, the second the son. This is the first rule of the game. Children always oppose the will of the Fathers”.
“OK. So far I get it,” Bea is taking a close-up of Xavi’s mouth in contact with the rim of the glass. “True enough”.
“Second rule: Each player draws a family to belong to. From these cards, see? Now I draw my family… Here. Echeverría. Every family has strengths and weaknesses, property, wealth, alliances, enemies. Some families may be more congenial to your playing style than others, but since it is your family, you don’t get to choose”.
Bea takes another cracker. Xavi continues.
“What is a family? A chain of fathers and sons. Where the children are always opposed to the fathers. A chain made of succession and disagreement”.
“Yes, of course. The opposition only concerns the details of the trade and is apparent. In fact they are all united by the same rule: do the opposite of your father”.
“Bravo. Right. Structure is everything; details, nothing. Who remembers this, wins. This rule allows predictability, some control over strategies.
The third and final rule: I have to draw a goal from another deck of cards. These I have not prepared yet. However, things like… Winning a war against the nation of Bea. Or, one of the members of my family has to marry one of the members of yours”.
“So,”Bea says, ”It will not be you and me getting married, but our grandchildren”.
“That’s right. At this point,”says Xavi who has started to walk up and down the room, “The family Echeverría has three hundred years – ten generations – to win the war. Then it gets more complicated. But this is the principle”.

He stops. Seems to remember in that moment that Bea is his girlfriend, who he met a few months ago,  that they are in love, that she has just returned home, it’s their time together. He approaches, embraces her from behind. Blocks her hand trying to aim at him with the camera. Starts with a lower tone.
“The point of the game is to reach your goal knowing that every child will oppose his father. Using this opposition as a strength“.
“Fathers. Children. Are there daughters?” Bea asks, trying to dodge by Xavi who kisses her neck.
“Of course. They too are rebellious. With some added complication. In addition,” he says with a plaintive cry when Bea trying to break free with a nudge “The more children you have the more complicated your strategy becomes. They too will have children…”

“Looks like your job,”says Bea, thoughtful, finally free from the grip after their ritual fight, picking up the glass, pointing the camera again.
“In what way?”
“Bringing people who disagree to a common vision and goal”.
“Hmm, I had not thought of that” he says, his head down. One of those quiet, unmistakable signs of Xavi. Today he does not feel like talking about his work.
This too is unusual. Xavi always has a story for her, every night. A problematic impossible situation that he was able to solve with a twist. He is a real champion, the man considered the most capable in the world in his field. The craft that he has invented and which made him rich. The books he has written on the subject, the consulting firm he created. Harmonize and strengthen departments of companies in crisis, because they are growing, because they are merged into larger groups, because they have lost sight of their goals. A quick and tremendously effective system to reduce costs and inefficiencies.

“So you do not know why you invented it. To relax from work you create a game that is similar to your job. Now what will you do? Want to sell it? Or will you produce a beautiful elegant packaging and give it to your customers at Christmas?”
“I had not thought of that. Not a bad idea, you know? Even if…  When they become good at playing it they’ll think they can do without my advice”.
“Xavi, all those who consult you have already tried themselves. In every way. If they consult you, it is because they are on their knees. They understand – reluctantly – that they can not do without you”.
“Is it the same for you?”
“I’m too young to be on my knees. I have not tried all alternatives to Xavi. There is still a lot of research to be done in this field. We are at the beginning” she says, shooting his eyes, then only one eye, following the contraction and dilation of the pupil, the changes in the color of the iris. Xavi seems utterly impassive, perhaps deep in thought. He immediately says:
“It’s true: the game looks like my job. To win you need to plan. Count on the fact that children will do the opposite of what the fathers say. That each child will do the opposite. Count the generations. Trying to make a soldier of your son, knowing that he will refuse, but his nephew could become one. And at the same time you must abandon your plan in a moment, as soon as an unexpected event appears”.
“Sounds like the stories you tell me from work. A testament. The wisdom of Xavi, condensed into a game”.

Bea sits on the edge of the bed.
“How was your father, Xavi? Did he too, want you to be something at all costs?”
Xavi empties his glass, throws himself across the bed, now without bothering about ruining the order of the notes he had so carefully aligned. Stretching his arm he reaches for the bottle on the tray, fills up his glass again. Bea continues to shoot. He pours a little to her, even if her glass is still full.
“In a certain sense. He was a chemist in a company that produced plastics. A man in a white uniform, glasses hanging around his neck and lots of pens in the breast pocket. The boss’s darling. Adored him, followed him like a shadow. Never took vacations, never asked for raises. You know the type.
He was a creative man, the author of all the patents of that company. Had he been on his own, he would have become rich. He was inventive in matters of chemistry, but not in those of life. He could not imagine anything different for himself, and he could not imagine anything different for me.
In high school, during the summer vacation, I went to work with him. I checked accounts, in silence, for hours: hated that. It was obvious that the future he had imagined was all there: I would study chemistry and would become his clone, in the same company. As soon as I set foot in that place – I was seventeen – I immediately saw the business potential of my father. I told him that he should go on his own, create his own studio, get well paid for his inventions”.
“And he…?”
“Ah, I do remember that moment. We were in the kitchen, right after dinner. He stared at me with his mouth half open. He took a handkerchief. Cleaned his glasses. Put them back. Then he went into the bathroom. He forgot to answer me. If he had  taken on board what I said, his world would have collapsed. He could not afford it. At that moment I realized that that would be my job. To show people the possibilities that they are not able to see. That do not want to see. Since then I have met many like him. Reluctant to change for the better, attached to their misfortunes”.
“You too, Xavi, you know, sometimes forget to answer. I have to say, I do understand your father. In this case it is the son who is trying to force his father to be like him”.
“He had a magnificent opportunity before him and…”
“Great for someone like you. Not for him”.

Xavi is not responding. Turns on the bathroom light, stands in the doorway looking at himself in the mirror, forcing his hair back with a slow movement. Bea stands on the bed to shoot the reflection of his face, along with his back, and the hands that now rest together on the back of the neck.
“He was taller than me. I have his nose. Nothing else, it seems to me”.
“What did he say when you did not want to follow him?”
“Nothing. What could he say? I was independent, I moved into my new apartment the day of my eighteenth birthday. Paid by me. After two years I was already earning twice his salary. After five, I would get more in one year than he earned in his entire life”.

Xavi turns the light off, comes back.
“And your father, Bea?”
“Oh, my father” she says. ”Easy to describe. Handsome man. Black hair, like yours. A little bit like you. A man who loved his whores. Compulsive liar. He was lying casually on his relations in a way that was clear even to me, when I was very small and did not know yet what a betrayal is. My mother had become numb to it all. I remember her always with her head down. She cooked and cleaned, spoke only of unimportant things. She knew she would be interrupted. My father interrupted her, always. Rarely let her finish a sentence. This is something that does not escape me in conversations, ever. Men interrupting women. Men do not see it, women are used to it. You, Xavi, you know why we are together now? Because you never interrupted me. It’s rare”.

“It is like my game,” Xavi said with a bitter smile”. Because your father used to interrupt, you are with a man who doesn’t. Fathers and Lovers”.
“Don’t you think that we all seek the copy of our father or mother, Xavi? I look around and when I meet someone who looks like my father – maybe revised and corrected – then I take him into consideration as a partner?
“Well, you did say that I resemble him. And, I’m twice your age… Anyway, as a rule it seems a bit hazardous. I would not put it in my game”.

“All the men I’ve been with are like my father”, said Bea assertively.
“In different ways. One, a shameless liar like him. Another, his way of speaking, the same jokes. As if each of them was an experiment…”
“To finally get to me”.
“Careful, now you have interrupted me. No, darling, not to get to you. An attempt to recreate a scene, something from my childhood that I do not remember but yet is the core of my desires. The hidden scene in which I was happy with my father..”.
“Enough, Sigmund…”
“I’m not finished. You interrupted me again. You listen. Don’t I look like your mother?” Bea asks, and immediately notices the gaffe. His mother, who died young after fifteen years a recluse in a psychiatric hospital. The depression from which Bea is coming out of only now. An undeniable similarity. He just touched two of their little domestic taboos.
Xavi does not speak, seems tense. Maybe he is just uncertain whether Bea has finished, does not want to be accused of interrupting again.

Sitting on the bed, resting her arms behind her, Bea begins to speak. Now she looks straight ahead, she is no longer facing him.
“Today I saw some kids on the tram. Very young. Foreigners. They spoke a language that I could not identify. Who knows, Swedish, Estonian. One of the males was courting the prettiest girl. Beautiful, blonde, the thinnest hair, transparent skin, seemed to be made of nothing. She was standing right in front of where I was sitting. She had a wool coat, colorful, was so near that brushed my knees. I was mesmerized by the structure of the wool. All those colored yarns. I kept staring at them for a long time”.
Xavi silently fills both glasses. She did not turn to look at him, and continues:
“Sometimes it is weird the things we notice. That guy talked and talked. Caressed her shoulder in a certain way, I can not really describe it. His fingers rubbed on the wool in such a way that I was tempted to try myself, to feel the sensation of the touch of her coat. He had certain movements. A certain expression. Like my father. And like you. Together. Too bad I did not understand the words”.
She turns to him.
“I saw where you and he resemble my father, you understand? I realized you are like my father. So strange that today you came out with this game”.

Bea is silent. Fixes her memories. She does not mention the feeling that those young people have given her. That boy, that expression, left her nauseated.

Sitting on the tram, she understood. She recalled the scenes of Xavi courting her. When they met in that crowded airport. His smile, the perfect things he said. Caring and attentive. An impeccable courtship. On the other hand he is an expert at leading people where they do not want to go. A salesman. A natural. A master in adapting to the minds of others and persuading them. How did he convince her -so bashful and stubborn- to go and live with him after just a few weeks. How did invite her with quiet ease into his world full of money, travel, gifts and possibilities.
We find all similarities normal. Physical ones, like the red hair Bea inherited from her mother. Habits, phrases, attitudes. We wake up to recognize them only when they become unusual. When we go to the other side of the world and see how they eat, how they touch each other, the jokes they laugh at. How they do not know that their every gesture, so normal for them, fills us with wonder.
The familiar is invisible. The things that we do not notice are the ones that define us.

Bea knows that the boy in the tram is a liar. Like her father. An invisible liar, because he was so awfully familiar. She recognized his lies only because she could not hear his words.
A liar like Xavi. Now she knows. Another manipulator, her life is full of them. It is she who looks for them, they that always leave her with that mixture of attraction and discomfort.
Men, almost identical to her father. True, Xavi does not interrupt. There is the difference: more attention to individuals, planning skills, meticulous attention to details. His way of giving the minimum amount of information always, even about the most trifling events. To keep himself in power. All those secrets. His mother, the mysterious wife from whom he has just divorced. His properties. All the things that can’t be mentioned.
Xavi is not guilty of anything, except of putting her in a certain state. Uncomfortable, afraid to talk about certain things. A hostile wall when she tries. The nights spent wondering what she is doing wrong, while trying to sleep next to him.
That sense of anxiety when Xavi is approaching, and is about to talk to her.
Bea never wanted to listen to these feelings. Imagination, she thought. She saw in them the shadows of her own depression threatening to come back.
It is not her. It is Xavi. She has no more doubts. He can not help but smother her, it is his nature.
They are not made for each other. Their embrace is suffocating. She must leave.

She brings herself back. Xavi is right there, looking at her, speaking.
“Wake up, come on. What are you waiting for? Let’s play it. Don’t you want to try this thing?”