The Truce (17 page)

I have four days of holiday. I don't miss the office. I miss Avellaneda. Today I went to the cinema alone. I saw a western. I enjoyed myself until halfway through; after that, I became bored with myself, with my own patience.

I asked Avellaneda to miss a day at the office. I, her boss, authorized her to do it and that's enough. She stayed in the apartment with me all day. I can imagine how angry Muñoz must be, with two fewer people in his section, and all of the responsibility resting on his shoulders. Not only can I imagine it, I can understand it. But it doesn't matter. I'm at an age when time seems to be, and is, irretrievable. I have to desperately hang on to this reasonable happiness that came to look for me and found me. That's why I can't become magnanimous, generous, and start thinking about Muñoz's problems before my own. Life runs out, it's running out right now, and I can't bear that feeling of escape, of expiration, of finality. This day with Avellaneda isn't eternity, it's only a day, a poor, insignificant, limited day, which we've all, from God on down, have denounced. It's not eternity, but the instant which, after all, is its only true substitute. So I have to clench my fist, I have to use up this abundance without any reservations or foresight. Then maybe afterwards, the real leisure will arrive, the guaranteed leisure, and perhaps later there will be more days like this one, and then I'll think about this distress, this impatience, as a ridiculous waste of energy. Maybe, just maybe. But this ‘meanwhile' has the comfort and guarantee of what is, of what it's becoming.

It was cold. Avellaneda spent the entire day with her jersey and trousers on. She looked like a boy with her hair tied back. I told her she had the face of a newsboy, but she didn't pay much attention to me. She was busy reading her horoscope. About a year ago someone read her horoscope and predicted her future. Apparently, her current job, and me, especially, would be playing a role in that future. ‘A very kind, mature man, a little reserved, but intelligent.' How about that. That's me. ‘What do you think? Can the future be predicted just like that?' Avellaneda asked. ‘I don't know if it's possible, but, either way, it seems like a trap to me,' I replied. ‘I don't want to know what is going to happen. It would be horrible. Can you imagine how frightening life would be if one knew when one was going to die?' ‘I'd like to know when I am going to die,' said Avellaneda. ‘If it were possible to know the date of one's own death, one could regulate the rhythm of one's life, exhaust oneself more, or less, according to the remaining balance.' That would seem frightening to me. But the prediction says that Avellaneda will have two or three children, that she'll be happy, but that she'll end up a widow (humph), and that she'll die of a circulatory illness, in her eighties or thereabouts. Avellaneda is quite worried about the two or three children. ‘Do you want to have children?' she asked. ‘I'm not too sure,' I replied. She realizes that my response is caution in the flesh, but when she looks at me I know she would like to have children, at least one. ‘Don't become sad,' I say, ‘if you become sad I'm capable of ordering twins.' She knows what I think, suffers because of it, and clings to the prediction. ‘And don't you care about widowhood, even though it would be a clandestine widowhood?' I asked. ‘I don't care, because my faith doesn't extend that far,' she replied. ‘I know you're indestructible, that predictions pass near you and don't touch you.' Nothing more than a young woman perched on the sofa, with her legs curled underneath her, and the tip of her nose red from the cold.

During my holiday I wrote every day. Now it's an uphill battle to return to the office. This holiday has been a good appetizer before my retirement, though. Today Blanca received a spiteful, violent letter from Jaime. The paragraph he directs at me says the following: ‘Tell Dad that all of my love affairs have been platonic, so that when he has nightmares in which my filthy person appears, he can turn over and breathe easy. For now.' There's too much hatred in one place for it to be true. In the end I'm going to think that this son loves me a little bit.

Avellaneda and Blanca were seeing each other without me knowing about it. Blanca let a small remark slip and everything came out into the open. ‘We didn't want to tell you because we're learning quite a bit about you,' said Blanca. At first I thought it was a bad joke, but later I felt moved. I didn't have any other choice but to imagine the two women exchanging their respective incomplete images about this simple man that I am. A kind of jigsaw puzzle. There's something curious about all this, of course, but there's also affection. For her part, Avellaneda felt very guilty, apologized, and for the hundredth time said that Blanca was wonderful. I like that they're friends; for me, through me and because of me, but sometimes I can't help feeling superfluous. Actually, I'm an old-timer being taken care of by two girls.

The party is over. Back to the office tomorrow. I'm thinking about the sales reports, the soft eraser, the carbon-copy books, the chequebooks, the manager's voice – and my stomach turns.

I was welcomed back like a saviour; that is to say, with all the issues they hadn't been able to resolve. It looks like they had a visit from an inspector and he made a huge fuss about something stupid. Muñoz, the poor man, drowns in a glass of water. I found Santini to be more effeminate than usual as he made several lewd and silly faces at me. Could these also be platonic? They say that because I turned down their promotion, they're going to bring in an assistant manager from another company. Martínez is raging mad. Today, for the first time since the Suárez uproar, the Valverde woman made an appearance. She moves her rear end with an enthusiasm worthy of a better cause.

For the first time, Avellaneda talked to me about her old boyfriend. His name is Enrique Ávalos and he works at City Hall. They saw each other for exactly one year, from April of last year to this past April. ‘He's a good man. I still have respect for him, but …' said Avellaneda. I realize that I was always afraid of this explanation, but I also realize that my greatest fear was that it would never come. If she dared to mention it, it was because the subject was no longer that important. In any case, all of my
senses were hanging on that ‘but', which sounded like celestial music to me. This is because Ávalos had had his advantages (his age, his looks, the mere fact of meeting her first), but perhaps hadn't known how to profit from them. My advantages began with that ‘but' and I was prepared to make good use of my advantages, that is to say, to undercut poor Enrique Ávalos' position. Experience has taught me that one of the most efficient ways to defeat a rival in the vacillating heart of a woman is to praise that very rival, to become so understanding, so noble and tolerant, that one even feels moved oneself. ‘Really, I still have respect for him, but I'm sure I wouldn't have been even moderately happy with him,' said Avellaneda. ‘Well, why are you so sure? Haven't you said that he's a good man?' I asked. ‘Of course he is,' she replied. ‘But that's not enough. I can't even complain that he was too frivolous and I too profound, because neither am I so profound that a good deal of frivolity would bother me, nor is he so frivolous that he wouldn't be moved by a truly deep sentiment. The difficulties were of a different kind. I think the most insurmountable obstacle was that we didn't feel we were able to talk to one another. He exasperated me; I exasperated him. It's possible that he loved me, who knows, but the truth is he had a special ability for hurting me.' How wonderful. I had to make an enormous effort to prevent the satisfaction I was feeling from swelling up in my cheeks, to take on the preoccupied look of someone who truly regrets that her relationship had ended in disappointment. I even had the strength to plead for my enemy: ‘And did you consider whether or not you shared the blame? Perhaps he hurt you simply because you were always expecting him to hurt you. Living for ever on the defensive is, surely, not the most effective way to improve your life together.' Then she smiled and said only: ‘With you I don't need to live on the defensive. I feel happy.' And that was greater than my powers of containment and pretence. The satisfaction I was feeling
spilled out from all of my pores, my smile stretched from ear to ear, and I no longer cared about devoting myself to destroying for ever the still surviving prestige of poor Enrique, a marvellous defeated man.

Muñoz, Robledo and Méndez spoke insistently about Avellaneda; how well she had worked during my holiday, how good a fellow worker she'd turned out to be. What's happening? How did Avellaneda behave during that time so that those callous men now behave so emotionally? Even the manager called me, and among other matters we discussed, dropped the following absent-minded question on me: ‘How is that young woman you have in your department? I have good reports about her work.' I formulated some measured praise in the most conventional tone in the world. But The Crab continued, adding: ‘Do you know why I was asking? Because maybe I'll bring her in here as a secretary.' He smiled mechanically, and I smiled mechanically. But, underneath my smile at least, there was an abundance of expletives.

I think we both feel the same way about this: we have an overwhelming need to tell each other everything. I talk to her as if I were talking to myself; actually, it's even better than if I were talking to myself. It's as if Avellaneda were part of my soul, were curled up in a corner of my soul, waiting for my revelations, demanding my sincerity. On her part, Avellaneda tells me everything too. In another time, I know I would have noted: ‘At
least that's what I think.' But now I can't write that, simply because it wouldn't be true. Now I know she tells me everything.

I saw Vignale in the pastry shop. He was quite hidden away in the back, sitting at a table with a very flamboyant girl. He greeted me with a sweeping gesture, as if to confirm that he'd thrown himself into these affairs on a large scale. The way they looked, from afar, made me feel sorry for them. Suddenly, I found myself thinking: ‘And what about me?' Of course, Vignale is vulgar, pompous and crass … But what about me? How do I look to whoever might observe me from afar? Avellaneda and I don't go out very often. Our life together takes place in the office and in the apartment. I'm afraid that my resistance to going out with her is, more than anything, based on a guarded fear of looking bad. No, it can't be. There was a moment during which Vignale was talking to the waiter when the girl shot a harsh, scornful look at him. Avellaneda could not look at me like that.

I met with Esteban's friend. It's practically assured that I'll be able to retire within four months. It's curious: the closer I get to my retirement, the more unbearable the office is. I know there are only four months of entries, counter-entries, balance sheets, order accounts and sworn declarations remaining. But I would give a year of my life for those four months to be reduced to
zero. Well, on second thought, I wouldn't give a year of my life because now my life includes Avellaneda.

We made love this afternoon. We've done it so many times, and yet I still haven't recorded it. But today was marvellous. Never in my life, not with Isabel nor with anyone, have I ever felt so close to bliss. Sometimes I think Avellaneda is like a shoe last which has positioned itself in my chest and is expanding it, conditioning it to feel more each day. The truth is that I ignored that I had those reserves of tenderness in me. And I don't care that this is a word without prestige. I have tenderness and I'm proud to have it. Even desire becomes pure, even the act most definitively devoted to sex becomes almost immaculate. But that purity isn't prudishness, it isn't pretence, it isn't pretending that I'm only concerned with my soul. That purity means loving every centimetre of her skin, breathing in her scent, surveying her abdomen, pore by pore. It means bringing the desire to its summit.

The staff of the Sales Department have planned a cruel trick to play on someone named Menéndez; a naïve, mysterious and very superstitious young man who joined the company as part of the group of new employees that included Santini, Sierra and Avellaneda. It turns out that Menéndez bought a lottery ticket for tomorrow's draw. He said that this time he wasn't going to show the ticket to anyone, because he had the feeling
that if he didn't show it to anyone the number was going to come up as the big winner. But this afternoon, when the bill collector from the Peñarol Athletic Club came to visit him, Menéndez, upon opening his wallet to pay him, left the ticket on the counter for a few seconds. He didn't notice, but Rosas, an idiot who is in a permanent state of vigilance, took a mental note of the number on the ticket and immediately gave a verbal accounting of it. The trick the staff have planned for Menéndez tomorrow is the following: in concert with the neighbouring lottery ticket salesman, they've arranged for the number, 15.301, to be written down on the blackboard in the first-prize column at a pre-determined hour. But only for a few minutes; later he'll erase it. The salesman liked the notion of the trick so much that, contrary to what the staff expected, he agreed to collaborate.

It was tremendous. At two forty-five, Gaizolo arrived in the office from the street and in a loud voice said: ‘Fuck, goddamn it. I had been playing number 1 up until last Saturday, and it just comes out today.' The first predictable question came from the back of the office: ‘So the last digit of the number is 1? Do you remember both numbers?' ‘01,' replied Gaizolo, in a bad mood. Then, Peña leaped up from behind his desk and said, ‘Hey, I played 301,' and quickly added, turning towards Menéndez, who works in front of the large window: ‘Go ahead, Menéndez, take a look at the blackboard. If 301 came out, then I really hit the jackpot.' Menéndez appeared to turn his head as slowly as possible, with the attitude of someone who is still restraining himself so as not to be deceived. He saw the large and distinct figures, 15.301, and for a moment remained paralysed. I think that at that instant he had weighed all the possibilities and had
consequently rejected every possibility of trickery. No one but him knew the number. But the itinerary of the trick ended there. The plan required that, at that moment, the entire staff would break the news to him that they had played a practical joke on him. But no one had expected that Menéndez would leap up and run to the back of the office. One witness's version is that he entered the manager's office (who at that moment was meeting with the representative of an American firm) without knocking, practically threw himself on him, and before the manager could channel his shock, planted a loud kiss on his bald head. I, who was too late in noticing this last turn of events to prevent it, went into the office after him, grabbed him by the arm, and pulled him out by force. There, among the boxes of bolts and pistons, and while he shook with several bursts of loud, energetic laughter that I'll never be able to forget, I practically shouted the truth at him. I felt horrible doing that, but there was no other choice. I've never seen a man collapse in such a hopeless and sudden manner. His legs gave way, he opened his mouth without being able to close it, and then afterwards, only afterwards, covered his eyes with his right hand. I sat him down in a chair and then entered the manager's office to explain the episode to him. But the idiot couldn't bear the fact that the American representative had witnessed his humiliation, and said: ‘Don't bother offering me an unbelievable explanation. That imbecile is fired.'