Read The Tenant and The Motive for Free Online Page A

on top of it and some shelves built into the walls, where books piled up in perfect disorder. A picture window looking out on to a red-brick wall let in insufficient light. There were damp stains on the ceiling.
    Joyce said, ‘I’m going to go get Sue to help us bring your things from the other office, Professor Rota. I’ll be right back.’
    As soon as the secretary had left, Olalde raised his gaze from his papers and looked at Mario with his one eye. Then, as Mario took a seat, he stood up, as far as his stoop would allow, and lumbered towards him.
    â€˜Don’t worry, young man,’ he said in a laboured and complicit English, as if he were confiding a secret. ‘That’s the way things work around here. What are you going to do?’
    Since he thought Olalde wanted to console him, Mario replied drily, ‘I’m not worried.’ Then he thought anddidn’t say: But I should be. He asked, ‘What makes you think I am?’
    â€˜Don’t worry,’ Olalde repeated, ignoring Mario’s question. He went on without sarcasm, ‘Deep down this is paradise. You only have to look around: everything’s clean, everyone’s friendly, everything works – except this office, you understand. I suppose at first it was an accident, but later, when I saw that nothing worked here (pay no attention to whatever they might say, we’ll spend the winter without heating and no one will fix the broken pipes that soak the walls), once I realized that, it was me who requested staying here.’
    With a mixture of pity and scorn, Mario thought: He’s crazy.
    â€˜And tell me,’ Olalde enquired, ‘why have they sent you here?’
    â€˜I requested it.’
    â€˜I see, I see,’ nodded Olalde, twisting his mouth into a grimace that might have been a smile. He clicked his tongue against his palate. ‘You feel hard done by. I don’t blame you: it’s normal not to trust anyone any more. I confess I don’t trust anyone either. And nevertheless I’ll tell you something: this country is full of fantastic people. Yes, sir: enterprising, healthy people, bursting with optimism, a little dull, perhaps boring, I’ll grant you that. But let me tell you something else, the great advantage of this country, something that makes me feel a bit at home, because in Spain the same thing goes on, you don’t have to listen to anyone here, the only thingyou have to do is talk. People talk and talk and talk, but no one listens. You’ll realize that for someone like me that’s a delight.’ He paused pensively and added, ‘Otherwise, I understand, young man, Europeans never get entirely acclimatised: the old civilisation, the experience of centuries and all that. Have you read Henry James?’
    â€˜I don’t have time to read philosophy.’
    â€˜Henry James wrote novels; the philosopher was his brother.’
    â€˜I don’t have time to read novels either.’
    â€˜You don’t have to read them all, man. One’s enough: in reality all James’s novels say the same thing.’
    Mario was glad when Joyce walked in just then with Sue, a typist who worked in the main office. Olalde retreated to his desk and turned his attention back to the papers on it.
    In half an hour they’d completed the transfer of Mario’s things from one office to the other. Olalde, enclosed in a gruff silence, didn’t move from his chair in all of this time. Mario thanked Joyce and Sue, then went over to Ginger’s office, which was on the other side of the hall. He knocked on the door: no one answered. He returned to his office and called a taxi. When he passed Berkowickz’s office, as he was leaving the department, he noticed the door was shut. He stopped for a moment, stuck his ear to the door, held his breath but heard nothing.
    When he got home he phoned Ginger.
    â€˜Brenda? It’s Mario.’
    â€˜Oh. How are