The old man nodded. A hawk was making spirals in the desert sky outside, the shadow of the bird flickered momentarily across the room.
'I'm sorryI wasn't there for you, David, when your momand your dady'knowwhen it happened.'
'Sorry?'
'You know. Thecrash, what happenedI'm so damn sorry about all of it. I was stupid.'
'No. Come on, Granddad. Not this again.' David shook his head.
'Listen. Davidplease.' The old man winced. 'I gotta say something.'
David nodded, listening intently to his grandfather.
'I gotta say it. I could'veI could've done better, could've helped you more. But you were keen to stay in England, your mom's friends took you in, and that seemed bestyou don't know how difficult it was. Coming to America. After the war. Andand your grandmother dying.'
He trailed into silence.
'Granddad?'
The old man looked at the afternoon sun, now slanting into the room.
'I got a question, David.'
'Yes. Sure. Please.'
'Have you ever wondered where you come from? Who you really are?'
David was used to his Granddad asking him questions. That was part of their relationship, how they rubbed along: the older man asking the grandson about younger things. But this was a very different question unexpected yet also very acute. This wasn't any old question. This was The Question.
Who was he really? Where did he really come from?
David had always ascribed his sense of rootlessness to his chaotic upbringing, and his unusual background. Granddad was Spanish but moved to San Diego in 1946 with his wife. She had died giving birth to David's father; his father then met his mother, a nurse from England, working at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
So, for the first few years of David's life there had maybe been a certain sense of who he was an American of Anglo-Hispanic parentage, a Californian but the Latino surname and the dark Spanish looks still marked them out, as a family, as not quite your normal one hundred percent Americans. After that they'd moved to Britain, and then to Germany and then Japan, and then back to Britain with his father's career in the US Air Force.
By the end of this world tour, by the time he was ten or twelve, David hadn't felt American, British, Spanish, Californian or anything much. And then his mum and dad had died in the crash and the sense of being cut off, of being alone and anonymous and floating, had only worsened. Alone in the world.
Granddad repeated the query. 'SoDavid? Do you? Do you ever think about it? Where you come from?'
David lied and shrugged and said, No, not really. He didn't feel like getting into all that, not right now.
But if not now, then when?
'OK. OK,' the old man stammered. 'OK, David. OK. And the new job? Job? You like that? What are you doing, I forget'
Was Granddad losing it again? David frowned, and said:
'Media lawyer. I'm a lawyer. It's OK.'
'Only OK?'
'NahI hate it.' David sighed at his own candour. 'I thoughtat least reckoned it might be a bit glamorous. You knowpop stars and parties. But I just sit in a dismal office and call other lawyers. It's crap. And my boss is a tosser.'
'AhAhAch' It was a wrenching, old man's cough. Then Granddad lay back and stared at the ceiling. 'Didn't you get a good collegecollege degree? Some kinda science, no?'
'WellI did biochemistry, Granddad. In England. Not a lot of money in that. So I turned to law.'
Another hiatus. The light was bright in the room. At last his grandfather said:
'David. You need to know something.'
'What?'
'I lied.'
The silence in the room was stifling. Somewhere in the hospice a gurney rattled.
'You lied? What does that mean?'
He scrutinized his grandfather's face. Was this the dementia, reasserting itself? He couldn't be sure, but the old man's face looked alert as he elaborated.
'Fact, I'm lying now, sonI justjust can'tget past it, David. Too late to change. A las cinco de la tarde. I'm sorry. Desolada.'
This was perplexing. David watched the old man talk.
'OK I'm tired, David. IIINow I need to do this. Please look in thereLeast I can do this. Please.'
'Fact, I'm lying now, sonI justjust can'tget past it, David. Too late to change. A las cinco de la tarde. I'm sorry. Desolada.'
This was perplexing. David watched the old man talk.
'OK I'm tired, David. IIINow I need to do this. Please look in thereLeast I can do this. Please.'
'Sorry?'
'In the bag at the endof my bed. Kmart. Look see. Please!'
David got up smartly, and went to the assorted bags and luggage stored in the corner of the room, beyond the bed. Conspicuous in the rather forlorn pile was a scarlet Kmart bag. He picked it up, and scoped inside: there was something papery and folded at the bottom. Maybe a map?
Maps had been one of David's passions as a child, maps and atlases. As he unfolded this one, in the desert light from the window, he realized he was holding a rather beautiful example.
It was a distinctly old-fashioned road map, with dignified shading and elegant colouration. Soft grey undulations showed mountains and foothills, lakes and rivers were a poetic blue, green polygons indicated marshland beside the Atlantic. It was map of southern France and northern Spain.
He sat down and scrutinized the map more closely. The sheet had been marked very neatly with a blue pen: little blue asterisks dotted those grey ripples of mountains, between France and Spain. Another single blue star marked the top right corner of the map. Near Lyon.
He looked at his grandfather, questioningly.
'Bilbao,' said the old man, visibly tiring now. 'It's BilbaoYou need to go there.'
'What?'
'Fly to Bilbao, David. Go to Lesaka. And find Jose Garovillo.'
'Sorry?'
The old man made a final effort; his eyes were blurring over.
'Show himthe map. Then ask him about churches. Marked on the map. Churches.'
'Who's this guy? Why can't you just tell me?'
'It's been too longtoo much guilt, I cannot, can't admit' The old man's words were frail, and fading. 'And anywayEven if I told you, you wouldn't believe me. No one would believe. Just the mad old man. You'd say I was mad, the crazy old man. So you need to find out for yourself, David. But be carefulBe careful'
'Granddad?'
His grandfather turned away, staring at the ceiling. And then, with a horrible sense of inevitability, the old man's eyelids fluttered shut. Granddad had fallen back into his fitful and opiated sleep.
The morphine pump ticked over.
For a long while, David sat there, watching his grandfather breathe in and breathe out, quite unconscious. Then David got up and closed the blinds; the desert sun was almost gone anyway.
He looked down at the map sitting on the hospice chair; he had no idea what it signified, what connection his granddad had with Bilbao or with churches. Probably it was all some ragged dream, some youthful memory returning, between the lucidity and the dementia. Maybe it was nothing at all.
Yes. That was surely it. These were just the ramblings of a dying old man, the brain yielding to the flood of illogic as the final dissolution approached. Sadly, but truly, he was crazy.
David picked up the map and slid it into his pocket, then he leaned and touched his grandfather's hand, but the old man did not respond.
With a sigh, he walked out into the hot Phoenix summer night, and climbed into his rented Toyota. He drove the urban freeway to his motel, where he watched soccer on a grainy Mexican satellite station with a lonely sixpack and a pizza.
His grandfather died early the following morning. A nurse rang David at the motel. He immediately called London and told his friends he needed to hear some friendly voices. Then he called his office and extended his 'holiday' by a few days, on the grounds of bereavement.
Even then his boss in London sounded a little sniffy, as it was 'only' David's grandfather. 'We are very busy, David, so this is exceptionally tiresome. Do be quick.'
The service was in a soulless crematorium, in another exurb of Phoenix. Tempe. And David was the only real mourner in the building. Two nurses from the hospice showed up, and that was it. No one else was invited. David already knew he had no other family in America or anywhere for that matter but having his relative loneliness underscored like this, felt notably harsh indeed cruel. But he had no choice in the matter. So David and the two nurses sat there, together and alone, and exposed.
The ceremony was equally austere: at his grandfather's request there were no readings, there was nothing except for a CD of discordant and exotic guitar music, presumably chosen by his grandfather.
When the song was done, the coffin trundled abruptly into the flames. David felt the briskness like a punch. It was as if the old man had been quick to get off stage, eager to flee this life or keen to be relieved of some burden.
That afternoon David drove deep into the desert, seeking the most remote location, as if he could lose his sadness in the wasteland. Under an ominously stormy sky, he scattered the ashes between the prickly pears and the crucifixion thorns. He stood for a minute and watched the ashes disperse, then walked to his car. As he returned to the city, the first fat raindrops smacked the windscreen; by the time he reached his motel a real desert storm had kicked up jagged arcs of lightning volting between the black and evil clouds.
His flight was looming. He began to pack. And then the motel phone trilled. His ex girlfriend maybe? She'd been calling on and off the last couple of days: trying to elevate David's mood. Being a good friend.
David reached for the phone and answered.
'Uh-huh?'
It wasn't his ex. It was a breezy American accent.
'David Martinez? Frank Antonescu'
'Uhhello.'
'I'm your grandfather's lawyer! First of all, can I say I'm so sorry to hear of your bereavement.'
'Thank you. Uhm. Sorry. UhGranddad had a lawyer?'
The voice confirmed: Granddad had a lawyer. David shook his head in mild surprise. Through the motel room window he could see the desert rain pummelling the surface of the motel swimming pool.
'OKGo on. Please.'
'Thank you. There's something you oughta know. I'm handling your grandfather's estate.'
David laughed out loud. His granddad had lived in a heavily mortgaged old bungalow; he drove a twenty-year-old Chevy, and he had no serious possessions. Estate? Yeah, right.