The Lost Origin Read Online Free PDF Page A

my sister-in-law were ignoring me and focusing their gaze on a spot behind my back. Two guys with funereal expressions were coming toward us. One of them, the older one, was dressed in street clothes with a white coat on top; the other, small and wearing glasses, wore the complete uniform, including the clogs.
    “Are you family members of Daniel Cornwall?” the latter asked, pronouncing my brother’s whole name with a correct British accent.
    “She is his wife,” I said, standing; the older one came up to my shoulder and the other was completely below my sightlines, “and I’m his brother.”
    “Good, good….” the older one exclaimed, hiding his hands in the pockets of his coat. That gesture, which bore a certain similarity to that of Pilate, didn’t please me. “I’m Dr. Llor, the neurologist who examined Daniel, and this is the psychiatrist on call, Dr. Hernández.” He took his right hand out of his pocket, but it wasn’t to extend it to us, but to point the way toward the entrance to the floor. Maybe he didn’t approve of my image, with the earring, the goatee, and the ponytail; or maybe he found Ona’s orange streak deplorable. “If you would be so kind as to come into my office for a moment, we can speak comfortably about Daniel.”
    Dr. Llor situated himself unhurriedly at my side, letting the young Dr. Hernández accompany Ona and Daniel a few steps behind. The whole situation had something illusory about it, something false, like virtual reality.
    “Your brother, Mr. Cornwall…,” Dr. Llor started to say.
    “My name is Queralt, not Cornwall.”
    The doctor gave me a strange look. “But you said that you were his brother,” he muttered in irritation, like someone who’d been vilely deceived and who was wasting his valuable time on an outsider.
    “My name is Arnau Queralt Sañé, and my brother is Daniel Cornwall Sañé. Any other questions?” I offered sarcastically. If I had said that Daniel was my brother, why this ridiculous suspicion? As if in the whole world there existed only one unbreakable family model!
    “You’re Arnau Queralt?” the neurologist asked, surprised, suddenly stuttering.
    “Last time I looked I was,” I replied, pushing a bit of hair which had come loose from my ponytail, behind my ear.
    “The owner of Ker-Central?”
    “I would say so, unless something unexpected has happened.”
    We had arrived at a green-painted door that exhibited a small plaque with his name on it, but Llor didn’t invite us in.
    “My wife’s nephew, who’s a telecommunications engineer, used to work for your company.” By his tone I guessed that the roles had just been changed: the weird-looking guy wasn’t just some slob anymore.
    “Really?” I replied disinterestedly. “So, what about my brother?”
    He leaned on the door handle and opened it obsequiously. "Please, come in.”
    The office was divided into two distinct areas by an aluminum partition. The first, very small, had only an old school desk full of folders and papers on which rested an enormous sleeping computer; the second, much larger, exhibited a formidable mahogany desk below the window and, on the other side of the room, a round table surrounded by soft armchairs upholstered in black leather. There was no room left on the wall for more photographs of Dr. Llor with celebrities or framed press clippings in whose titles his name stood out. The neurologist, giving Dani a pat, pulled out one of the chairs from the table so that Ona could make herself comfortable.
    “Please…,” he murmured.
    The diminutive Dr. Hernández positioned himself between Ona and myself, dropping onto the table, with a dry thump, a bulky folder that he had been carrying under his arm. He didn’t seem very happy, but really, no one was in that place so what difference did it make?
    “The patient Daniel Cornwall,” Llor began in a neutral voice, extracting a pair of glasses from the front pocket of his coat and pushing them on, “presents