The Man in the White Suit

Twenty years ago, Erik started writing 'The Man in the White Suit', a novel of fantasy but with fact interspersed, and a clear message that we must respect all living things even the horrible cockroach that almost anybody, except Erik, would crush with his/her shoe, a rolled up newspaper, chase with bug spray, anything to take the life of such a disgusting creature. Because, from what I observed, no journalists or TV cameras were at the presentation of his book (I did see someone with a camera taking a home video), I thought I'd dedicate this blog to Erik and his wonderful world of UFO's and beautiful strange beings from other planets and the man in the white suit with the baby chick in his pocket (the chick has special powers too) who teaches a group of friends everything they need to know, things that they aren't taught sitting in a classroom six hours a day. The book is full of drawings of creatures. As different as these creatures may be, they all have one thing in common and which is illustrated on the front cover - the tender look in their eyes. Looking into these eyes filled with tenderness you seem to see yourself  reflected.

I met Erik (full name Herikberto, which is in itself an odd name in Spain and I like to think there's only one Herikberto. He's certainly odd in the good sense, meaning he's very,very talented) when the company where I'd worked  for almost 27 years closed down. Most people who had known this particular language institute for years (it was opened the year I was born) because they had been students there, or knew someone who had been, were naturally shocked and angry that their children wouldn't have a place in the next course and not due to demand. I mean, I can remember years that the queues (lines) to get a place in our school started even before the institute opened at 8 in the morning. Sometimes I was even accused of queue-jumping and would have to explain that I worked there. Erik's daughter was in one of the children's courses I had that last year. Some of my colleagues continued under a different name in the centre of town. I decided to pay myself to work so I began giving private classes. I'm sure this will be the last year I give Helena classes because next year she'll be attending university.

 Anyway, this is how I met Erik and I fear there will be few people in this neighbourhood who don't know him. He's a fantastic person even if he's a bit mad and doesn't stop talking about - you guessed it - E.T.'s. Once when he phoned, I said I didn't have time to talk as my ceiling fan had shorted out the electricity and I was waiting for an electrician to come before all the food in the fridge spoiled. He said. 'I can fix that' and he did, complete with drawings of how he'd made the ceiling fan stable so it wouldn't cause any more short circuits or worse fall on my head. Of course, I had to listen to his stories. At the time he was trying to get another novel published in the US, which unfortunately hasn't happened. I hope 'The Man in the White Suit' and the others that he has to be published are a big, big success. I certainly enjoyed the evening this past week when his novel was introduced. We laughed a lot. Erik's a natural comedian too. The only distraction of the evening was the child that went berserk when an E.T. entered the room and who continued making noise the rest of the evening. Not a result of a distraction, but I might add that it's too bad the novel hasn't been published in English - at least not yet.