D had read in some magazine that thing about a happy worker being more productive and committed to the business. So, every now and then, instead of going to visit hardware stores, we would go to E’s cinema, the university cinema. We would go in the mornings, not at the time it was open to the public (Monday to Thursday continuous showings from 4 p.m.; Wednesday cheap night), so the cinema was always empty.
I don’t think D and E ever planned these visits. We went, and E was simply there. We got comfortable in the middle of the space, the lights went out, and it started: first the sound, and, seconds later, the film.
For as long as that form of remuneration for my early commitment to the trade lasted, we watched:
The Kid (twice).
Paper Moon (twice).
The Red Balloon (three times).
And a strange animated short film called The Sand Castle (once), which I never saw or heard mentioned again. Maybe I imagined it.
In any case, in all those films we cried, dried our tears, and noisily blew our noses, using two white, perfectly ironed handkerchiefs that D always carried in his pocket: one for him, the other for me.
Spurred by our taste for drama in dealing with the films—and with life—we asked for them to be replayed, using a method of my own invention that consisted of whistling and yelling, “Curtain turn!”
The phrase escaped all logic and grammar, but E understood that we wanted him to show the film again.
“No trouble at all. Quite the contrary; in times like these one appreciates an enthusiastic public,” he would say.
It was when we stepped out after seeing The Kid for the second time that we spotted my mother at a distance.
She was in one of the university quadrangles with a group of people, who were all talking in a serious, disciplined way. I recognized her leather jacket and her backpack with its red star.
What was my mother doing there? My mother, who had left university years ago?
What was my mother talking about with that group of people?
Who were those people?
It was possible that my mother—who, when viewed from this far away, looked like one of my dolls—had also seen us and would add another question to the list:
What were we doing there, on a workday for D, and a school day for me?
After reaching that point, we would have three options:
One: Keep adding questions to the list: What were human beings doing on Planet Earth? What was the meaning of life?
Two: Talk to my mother and try to figure out an answer together. But an answer would have obliged us to give details about my parallel education, and my mother to tell us about her unknown friends.
The third option was to forget the whole thing. Maybe it wasn’t my mother after all; maybe it was a woman who resembled my mother, someone who had my mother’s tastes, someone who even wore the same clothes as my mother but was in fact someone else.
I vote for option three. I didn’t say it, but I thought it.
I vote for option three. D didn’t say it, but he thought it.
Fine, we agreed, in the room for silence that friendship allows. Because at this stage D was both my employer and one of those friends who understands that, most of the time, a good silence is more valuable than a good piece of advice.
So, we quickly crossed the university quadrangle, D with his black leather sample case, and I with my nurse’s carry case.
On getting into the Renault we each lit a cigarette. And in recognition, I think, of the fact that I had grasped the complexities of human beings at such a young age, D showed me how to blow smoke rings.
Small rings that crossed the city, expanding and dissolving in the distance.