A Crack in the Wall by Claudia Piñeiro Read Free Book Online Page B

the same crack, except in each successive photo the fissure was longer. He could see that this was something significant but, as in a game of brinkmanship, Pablo closed the album, put it to one side and said.
    â€œAnything else?”
    Jara, perhaps trying to conceal his disappointment, fixed him for a moment with his salesman’s smile and, as though preparing to show him a model even better than the last, made with Indian natural silk and hand-finished, he put the album back into the bag. Then, in what struck Pablo as a deliberate attempt to generate suspense, he slowly opened another of the files where, on an x -and- y -axis graph, a curve had been plotted to represent the growing crack Pablo had just seen photographed. The x stood for the inches covered by the crack’s progress across the wall and the y for the time that had elapsed from the moment it first appeared until that day, the very day on which they were meeting for the first time.
    â€œYou went to the trouble of measuring it this morning, Señor Jara?” Pablo asked him.
    â€œI measure it every day, arquitecto , twice: first at breakfast time and then at night, before I go to bed.”
    Pablo lifted a hand to touch the measuring tapes in the breast pocket of his jacket and imagined this man – perhaps with a tape similar to his own, perhaps with a yellow oilcloth one like dressmakers use, the kind that get hopelessly stretched from measuring so many hips and sleeve lengths, or perhaps with the same plastic ruler Pablo guessed Jara used to plot his x and y lines – up on a chair, measuring the extent of the crack as it made its way along the wall of his home.
    â€œDo you need me to show you anything else, or is that enough?” Jara asked.
    And even though the image of that old fellow wobbling on a chair made him feel a little for Jara, Pablo didn’t forget the objective of this meeting that had obliged him to sit opposite this man, and asked:
    â€œWhat’s the width?”
    â€œThe width?” Jara repeated.
    â€œYes, the width,” Pablo said again, with the confidence that comes from knowing you have made a good play: “Señor Jara, you know that this practice will pay to have your wall replastered, but from what my colleague Señor Borla tells me, you aren’t satisfied with that, correct?”
    â€œAbsolutely correct, it doesn’t satisfy me at all. That crack threatens the structure of my house and it appeared the day after you began digging under the adjacent plot of land. Do you know something? It is through that space that the sun enters my house every morning.”
    â€œI cannot give you back the sun, Señor Jara; you are lucky to have had it for so many years without anyone building next to you.”
    â€œI’m here about the crack, not the sun,” the man clarified.
    For the first time in their meeting, Jara lost his smile; he seemed to be focussing hard, thinking carefully abouthis next move. Pablo saw this and made a pre-emptive strike.
    â€œThe length of the crack is less important than the width. Perhaps you didn’t know that? The crack you’ve shown me in these photographs is certainly long, but it implies no threat whatsoever to the structure of your house – do you understand?” Pablo waited for a reply, but rather than give one, Jara began once again to rock back and forth. So he continued: “Listen, Señor Borla will be happy to plaster over the crack, whether or not he is responsible, as long as our contractors’ work schedules allow it. Please be assured on that count.”
    But Nelson Jara, far from seeming assured, had begun to sweat. A fat drop was rolling down his forehead.
    â€œNo, no, you don’t understand me, arquitecto . A nice bit of replastering isn’t going to do the trick. I know this city’s building regulations and under article…” he paused to put on his glasses before reading from a paper