The Complete Stories (5 page)

I asked him, trying to smile:

“Come back? Why?”

“Your education . . . It’s not yet complete.”

I came to my senses, fell into an intense gloom that left me slack and empty for several moments. Yes, I was forced to recognize, he had never even been disturbed in the least by my presence. But, again, that coldness of his somehow excited me, built him up in my eyes. During one of those sudden exaltations that had become frequent with me, I wanted to kneel near him, abase myself, worship him. Never again, never again, I thought, frightened. I dreaded not being able to bear the pain of losing him.

“Daniel,” I said to him softly.

He raised his eyes and, seeing my anguished face, narrowed them, analyzing me, comprehending me. There was a long minute of silence. I waited and trembled. I knew that this was the first truly alive moment between us, the first to link us directly. That moment suddenly cut me off from my entire past and in a singular premonition I foresaw that it would stand out like a crimson spot on the whole arc of my life.

I was waiting and as I did, all my senses on edge, I’d have wanted to freeze the whole universe, afraid that a leaf would stir, that someone would interrupt us, that my breathing, some gesture would shatter the spell of the moment, make it vanish and cast us back into the distance and into the void of words. My blood beat muffled in my wrists, in my chest, in my forehead. My hands ice-cold and clammy, almost numb. My anxiety left me extremely tense, as if on the verge of flinging myself into a maelstrom, on the verge of going mad. At a slight movement from Daniel, I nearly exploded into a scream, as if he had shaken me violently:

“And what if I come back?”

He met this phrase with displeasure, as always when “my animal intensity shocked him.” He fixed his eyes on me and his features underwent a gradual transformation. I flushed. My constant concern with piercing his thoughts hadn’t granted me the power to penetrate the most important ones, but I had honed my intuition for the minor ones. I knew that for Daniel to take pity on me, I would have to be ridiculous. Another person’s hunger or misery moved him less than a lack of aesthetics. My hair was down, damp with sweat, falling across my flaming face and the pain, to which my physiognomy, calm for years and years, was still unaccustomed, was probably contorting my features, lending them a touch of the grotesque. At the gravest moment of my life I had become ridiculous, Daniel’s punishing look told me as much.

He remained silent. And, as if at the end of a long explanation, he added, in a slow and serene voice:

“And besides, you know me far better than you’d need to live with me. I’ve already said too much.” Pause. He lit his cigarette unhurriedly. He looked deep into my eyes and concluded with a half-smile: “I would hate you the day I had nothing more to say to you.”

I’d already been so downtrodden that I wasn’t hurt. It was the first time, however, that he’d openly rejected me, myself, my body, everything I had and was offering him with my eyes closed.

Terrified by my own words that dragged me along independently of my will, I proceeded with humility, trying to please him.

“Won’t you at least answer my letters?”

He had an imperceptible moment of impatience. But he answered, his voice controlled, softened:

“No. Which doesn’t mean you can’t write me.”

Before I took my leave, he kissed me. He kissed me on the lips, which didn’t ease my worry. Because he was doing it for me. And I wanted him to feel pleasure, to be humanized, to be humbled.

Mama recovered quickly. And I had gone back to Jaime, for good.

I resumed my previous life. Yet I moved like a blind woman, in a kind of stupor that shook itself off only when I wrote to Daniel. I never received a word from him. I no longer expected anything. And I kept writing.

Once in a while my state worsened and every instant grew painful like a small arrow lodged in my body. I thought of fleeing, of running off to Daniel. I would fall into feverish fits that I tried in vain to control through household chores so as not to alert Jaime and the maid.

A state of lassitude would follow in which I suffered less. Yet, even during that phase, I never relaxed completely. I carefully scrutinized myself: “would it return?” I would refer to the torture with vague words, as if I could hold it off that way.

In moments of greater lucidity, I’d remember something he once told me:

“You must know how to feel, but also how to stop feeling, because if an experience is sublime it can equally become dangerous. Learn how to cast the spell and then break it. Pay attention, I’m teaching you something valuable: the magic that is the opposite of, ‘open, Sesame.’ The best way for a feeling to lose its perfume and stop intoxicating us is to expose it to the sun.”

I had tried to think about what had happened clearly and objectively so as to reduce my feelings to a rubric, with no perfume, no subtext. It seemed vaguely like a betrayal. Of Daniel, of myself. I had tried, nevertheless. Simplifying my story in two or three words, exposing it to the sun, seemed really laughable to me, but the coolness of my thoughts didn’t spread to me and it rather seemed an unknown woman with an unknown man. Oh, those two had nothing to do with the oppression that was crushing me, with that painful longing that made my eyes go blurry and troubled my mind . . . And even so, I had discovered, I was afraid to free myself. “That” had grown too much inside me, leaving me full. I’d be helpless if I were ever cured. After all, what was I now, I felt, but a reflection? Were I to eradicate Daniel, I’d be a blank mirror.

I had become vibratory, strangely sensitive. I could no longer stand those agreeable afternoons with the family that once amused me so.

“Sure is hot, huh, Cristina?” said Jaime.

“I’ve been going over this stitch for two weeks now and I just can’t get it right,” said Mama.

Jaime broke in, stretching:

“Imagine that, crocheting in weather like this.”

“The hard part isn’t the crocheting, it’s racking your brain trying to figure out that stitch,” Papa replied.

Pause.

“Mercedes will end up engaged to that boy,” Mama announced.

“Even as ugly as she is,” Papa replied distractedly, turning the page of his newspaper.

Pause.

“The boss has now decided to use that delivery system of . . .”

I would disguise my anguish and make up some excuse to step away for a moment. In the bedroom I’d bite down on my handkerchief, stifling the cries of despair that threatened my throat. I’d collapse onto the bed, my face buried in the pillow, hoping that something would happen and save me. I was starting to hate them, all of them. And I longed to abandon them, to flee that feeling that was growing by the minute, intermingled with an unbearable pity for them and for myself. As if together we were victims of the same, inevitable threat.

I’d try to reconstruct Daniel’s face, feature by feature. It seemed to me that if I could remember him clearly I’d gain some kind of power over him. I’d hold my breath, tense up, press my lips together. One second . . . One more second and I’d have him, gesture by gesture . . . His figure was already taking shape, nebulous . . . And finally, little by little, crestfallen, I’d see it vanish. I got the impression that Daniel was fleeing me, smiling. However, his presence wouldn’t leave me entirely. Once, while I was with Jaime, I had felt him and blushed. I had imagined him watching us, with his calm and ironic smile:

“Well, look what we have here, a happy couple . . .”

I had trembled in shame and for several days could hardly stand the sight of Jaime. I thought of Daniel, even more intensely. Lines of his stirred up a whirlwind inside me. The odd phrase would rise up and haunt me for hours and hours. “The only attitude worthy of a man is sorrow, the only attitude worthy of a man is sorrow, the only . . .”

From a distance, I was starting to understand him better. I’d recall how Daniel didn’t really know how to laugh. Once in a while, when I’d say something funny and if I caught him off guard, I’d see his face seem to split in two, in a grimace that contradicted those wrinkles born solely from pain and reflection. He’d look both cynical and childish, almost indecent, as if he were doing something forbidden, as if he were cheating, hiding from someone.

I couldn’t bear to look at him, in those rare instants. I’d lower my head, annoyed, filled with a pity that hurt me. He really didn’t know how to be happy. Maybe he’d never been taught, who knows? Always so alone, since adolescence, so far removed from the least overture of friendship. Today, without hatred, without love, with no more than indifference, how much kindness I could show him.

But back then . . . Was I afraid of him? I just felt that all he’d have to do was show up, a single gesture would make me follow him forever. I used to dream of that instant, I’d imagine that, by his side, I would free myself from him. Love? I wanted to go with him, to be on the stronger side, for him to spare me, like one who seeks shelter in the arms of the enemy to stay far from his arrows. It was different than love, I was finding out: I wanted him as a thirsty person desires water, without feelings, without even wanting to be happy.

Sometimes I’d allow myself another dream, knowing it was more impossible still: he’d love me and I’d have my revenge, feeling . . . No, not superior, but equal . . . Because, if he wanted me, it would destroy that powerful coldness of his, his ironic and unshakable scorn that fascinated me. Until then I could never be happy. He haunted me.

Oh, I know I’m repeating myself, that I’m rambling, mixing up facts and thoughts in this short narrative. Nevertheless, it’s taking me so much effort to marshal its elements and put them on paper. I’ve already said that I’m neither intelligent, nor cultivated. And merely suffering isn’t enough.

Not speaking, with my eyes closed, something beneath my thought, deeper and stronger, apprehends what happened and, in a fleeting instant, I see it clearly. But my brain is feeble and I can’t manage to transform that vivid minute into thought.

It’s all true, nevertheless. And I ought to acknowledge still other, equally true feelings. Often, while thinking of him, in a slow transition, I’d see myself serving him like a slave. Yes, I’d admit, trembling and afraid: I, with a stable, conventional past, born into civilization, felt an excruciating pleasure in imagining myself at his feet, a slave . . . No, it wasn’t love. I horrified myself: it was debasement, debasement . . . I’d catch myself peering in the mirror, searching for some new sign in my face, born of pain, of my vileness, and that might guide my mind toward those tumultuous instincts I still didn’t want to accept. I was trying to unburden my soul, tormenting myself, whispering through clenched teeth: “Vile . . . despicable . . .” I’d answer myself, a coward: “But, my god (lowercase, as he’d taught me), I’m not guilty, I’m not guilty . . .” Of what? I never said exactly. Some awful and powerful thing was growing within me, some thing that paralyzed me with fright. That was all I knew.

And confusedly, faced with the memory of him, I would shrink back, unite myself with Jaime, drawing him close to me, wanting to protect us both, against him, against his power, against his smile. Because, knowing he was far away, I’d imagine him watching my days and smiling at some secret thought, the sort whose existence I could only guess at, without ever managing to penetrate its meaning. I sought, after a long while, over a year, as if to justify to myself, to Jaime and our bourgeois life, how he had taken over my soul. Those long conversations in which all I ever did was listen, that flame that lit up my eyes, that slow gaze, heavy with knowledge, beneath thick eyelids, had fascinated me, awoken in me obscure feelings, the aching desire to immerse myself in something unknown, to attain something unknown . . . And above all they’d awoken in me the sensation that palpitating inside my body and spirit was a deeper and more intense life than the one I was living.

At night, unable to sleep, as if speaking to someone invisible, I’d say to myself softly, defeated, “I agree, I agree that my life is comfortable and mediocre, I agree, everything I have is trivial.” I felt him nod benevolently. “I can’t, I can’t!” I’d shout to myself, this lament containing the impossibility of no longer wanting him, of carrying on like that, of, first and foremost, following the grandiose paths he’d started to show me and where I was getting lost, puny and helpless.

I had learned of ardent lives, but had returned to my own, dull one. He had let me glimpse the sublime and insisted that I too burn in the sacred fire. I was thrashing around, with no strength. Everything I had learned from Daniel only made me realize how trivial my everyday life was and despise it. My education hadn’t ended, as he’d so accurately put it.

I felt alone in the world, I tried to escape in tears. Yet my attitude in the face of suffering was still one of bewilderment.

How did I find the strength to destroy all that I had been, to hurt Jaime, to make Papa and Mama, old and tired already, so unhappy?

In the period leading up to my decision, as in certain illnesses just before death, I had moments of respite.

That day, Dora, a friend, had come over attempting to distract me from one of those headaches that I used as an excuse to surrender freely to melancholy, without being disturbed. It was a remark of hers, if I’m not mistaken, that launched me toward Daniel by other means.

“Darling, you should have heard Armando talking about music. You’d think he was talking about the best meal in the world or the most gorgeous woman. Going on and on, like he was gnawing on every little note and spitting out the bones . . .”

I thought of Daniel who, on the contrary, made everything immaterial. Even the one time he’d kissed me, I had imagined it didn’t involve lips. I trembled: not wanting to impoverish his memory. But another thought remained lucid and undisturbed: he used to say that the body was an accessory. No, no. One day he’d glanced with repugnance and censure at my blouse that was heaving after I’d been running to catch the bus. Revulsion, no! He’d said to me, continuing another cold thought: “You eat chocolate as if it were the most important thing in the world. You have a horrible taste for things.” He ate like someone crumpling a piece of paper.