Father and Son by Marcos Giralt Torrente

will describe as his time in the desert. It’s a titanic struggle, in which he’s obliged not only to see himself in the mirror of others with less talent but also to wrestle with many people’s lack of faith.
    Between 1984 and 1990, the life he leads with the friend he met in Brazil settles into a pattern. They keep a place in Madrid, one that changes for the better as their joint business ventures prosper. They spend two months of the summer—sometimes three—at the beach and almost every winter weekend in the country. It’s a bourgeois existence that pleases them both, but my father must escape it to immerse himself in painting. It’s hard for him to adapt to such a conventional schedule. Not just where vacations are concerned, but also in daily life.
    Between 1984 and 1990, I go out often with my mother. Her friends are writers, filmmakers, journalists; among them there are plenty of bon vivants and social butterflies. I accompany her to parties and book launches; we host dinners at home.
    Between 1984 and 1990, I become aware of the fragile ground on which my mother and I tread, the little we’re left with if she takes a false step, but since she isn’t faltering now, I enjoy our run of good luck. I reign supreme. Everything around me is lax. I take what I want of what I’m offered. The only person I must yield to is my father, and only where he’s concerned do I feel that I’m deprived of anything.
    Between 1984 and 1990, I become increasingly convinced that my needs are of secondary importance to my father, as am I myself.
    Between 1984 and 1990, there are three men in addition to my father whom I see often enough to count as influences, after whom I model myself. My father isn’t the one in the ascendant, but he has the power to unman me with his aloofness, to drive me mad with his deficiencies.
    And everything happens very quickly. I’m trying to reproduce that quickness now, in memory, aware that no single occurrence that I’ve described will explain who I am. Everything is insufficient or, at best, misleading.
    In 1984, on the answering machine at the house my father shares with the friend he met in Brazil, I record the sound of a toilet flushing. I schedule an automated wake-up call for the middle of the night. In 1984 we fabricate a cast for my mother before the visit of a suitor whom she—as an excuse for not taking a trip with him—has told that she’s broken her leg. In 1984 I ask one of my mother’s friends to review a show of my father’s.
    In 1985 I spend two weeks with my father and the friend he met in Brazil, our only vacation together. This is the summer that people start to talk about AIDS, and when we get back, I come down with a summer flu that I become convinced is a symptom of the disease. My father visits me one afternoon and puts an end to my delusions by taking me for some tests. That same summer, on the beach, I win his startled respect when I hook up with the one girl who catches his eye. What I don’t tell him is that both times we watched the sun come up together, all we did was make out.
    In 1985 my cat has to be put to sleep. It’s my father who takes care of it.
    In 1985 we put my mother’s place up for sale in order to move downtown. Afraid that we’ll squander the money, my father won’t help us in the search for a new apartment until the operation is irreversible, and feeling overwhelmed, I demand his help.
    In 1986 there’s the NATO referendum, and my mother, my father, and I go to vote at the polling place in our old neighborhood, where my father is still registered. He does it grudgingly, as if it pains him to accompany my mother and me.
    In 1986 my grandfather on my father’s side dies without knowing that my parents have been separated for ten years or being aware of the existence of the friend my father met in Brazil.
    In 1986, the day before my father leaves for Warsaw for