Free The Heart Has Its Reasons by María Dueñas Page B

audience was enjoying the heated discussion.
    â€œYou’d defend yourself much better in that domain than I would, no doubt about it,” Zarate replied. “Your peculiar fondness for that gory spectacle is well known, as I understand. Perhaps it’s another example of the stagnant stereotyping to which I’m referring.”
    â€œAnd you no doubt see it as my clear support of stale Francoism? Because it’s the only piece of nonsense left for you to say.”
    â€œDon’t trivialize the matter, Professor Carter, please. We’re carrying on an intellectual debate.”
    â€œI’m not trivializing at all, my friend. You’re the one who brought up the old clichés of Spanish culture. Although you’ve missed a few to complete the perfect postmodern Hispanist’s catalog of demons. How about the Guardia Civil’s three-cornered hat?”
    This last comment came out of his mouth in Spanish, and while ninety-nine percent of the audience didn’t understand it, I had to make an effort not to laugh out loud. Daniel Carter must have noticed something in my face from the distance because, raising an eyebrow almost imperceptibly, he shot me a knowing wink.
    â€œI’d appreciate it if you resorted to arguments of weight, Professor Carter.”
    â€œI don’t need for you to lecture me as to what type of arguments I should resort to, thank you,” Carter replied, resuming a calmness devoid of any trace of banter. “You are the only one who from the very beginning perverted this discussion, manipulating it to turn a simple personal situation that is beside the point into an alleged disagreement of intellectual proportions.”
    The chairman was ready to counterattack, but Daniel Carter, in whose patience a certain boredom could be discerned, decided to unilaterally consider the issue closed.
    â€œWell, my friend, I think we’d better leave it off here.” And adding emphasis to his words with a sonorous slap on the table, he concluded, “I think we’ve bored the audience plenty with our little dialectic dispute. Let’s allow our moderator to wind down the debate, because if we don’t, we’ll be wallowing in it until next year’s Oscar nominations, when the favorite candidate will be a movie on the sorrows of an orphan in Uzbekistan and we will have forgotten the reason why we were arguing on this long-ago day.”
    Perceiving a slight flash of irritation on Luis Zarate’s face, I intuited that he would have liked the skirmish to continue until he had thrashed his opponent. But he was unable to do so, and with no prospect of a clear winner or a harmonious conclusion the debate was simply closed.
    The moderator thanked everyone for attending and the hall once again filled with noise, movement, and light. While we all got up, the panelists began descending from the stage. Daniel, in the distance, signaled for Rebecca and me to wait for him as he headed toward us, making his way through the crowd.
    However, he had to pass Luis Zarate, who at that moment was exchanging a few words with two professors from the Department of Linguistics. I thought they’d avoid each other or that at most they’d greet each other coldly. But to my surprise, Daniel stopped beside him and gave his arm a light squeeze.
    If the two phrases that he spoke had been in English, they most likely would have been indistinguishable among the dozens of voices around me. But perhaps because he chose my native tongue, his words reached my ears with perfect clarity.
    â€œDon’t take things so seriously, kid. Get your head out from all those papers and get a fucking life.”

Chapter 9
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    W hile Daniel Carter said good-bye to several colleagues who didn’t want to let him go, we exchanged a few words with our chairman on our way out of the event. If the debate had irritated him in any way, he didn’t show it. Neither did the last remark his