The Truce (19 page)

Sometimes I talk to Blanca about her. I don't cry or despair; I simply talk. I know there's an echo there. It's Blanca who cries, despairs. She says she can't believe in God, that God has been giving and then taking away opportunities from me; nor does she feel strong enough to believe in a cruel God, an absolute sadist. Nevertheless, I don't feel so spiteful. On 23 September, I not only wrote ‘My God', a number of times, I also said it, felt it. For the first time in my life, I thought I could talk to Him. But God's part in our conversation was weak, vacillating, as if He wasn't too sure of Himself. Perhaps I had almost moved Him. I also had the feeling that a decisive argument existed, an argument that was right next to me, in front of me, and that despite this, I still couldn't recognize it or add it to my plea. Then, after that time limit He had granted me to convince Him had elapsed, after that hint of vacillation and timidity had come to an end, God finally regained His powers. God went back to being the almighty Negation He had always been. Still, I can't feel rancour towards Him, I can't paw at Him with my hatred. I know he gave me the opportunity and I didn't know how to take advantage of it. Perhaps someday I'll be able to understand that unique and decisive argument, but by then I'll already be terribly withered, and at present I'm even more withered. Sometimes I think that if God played fair, He also would have given me the argument I could use against Him. But no, it can't be. I don't want a God who doesn't choose to trust me with the key with which to return, sooner or later, to my conscience to support me; I don't want a God who offers me everything ready-made, like one of those prosperous fathers from the Rambla, filthy rich, was able to do with his snobby, useless little son. No, definitely not that. Now my relationship with God has
grown cold. He knows I'm not capable of convincing Him. I know that He's a distant solitude, to which I never had, nor will ever have, access. So that's how we are now, each of us on our own shore, without hating or loving each other, strangers.

Today, throughout the entire day, while I ate breakfast, while I worked, while I ate lunch, while I argued with Muñoz, I was bewildered by a single idea, which, broken down, led me to have several doubts and ask myself: ‘What did she think about before she died? What did I mean to her at that moment? Did she turn to me? Did she say my name?'

For the first time, I reread my diary from February to January. I have to look for all of Her Moments. She first appears on 27 February. On 12 March, I wrote: ‘When she says: “Mr Santomé, she always blinks. She isn't beautiful, but her smile is passable. Something is better than nothing.' I wrote that, I once thought that about her. On 10 April: ‘There is something about Avellaneda that attracts me. That's obvious, but what is it?' Well, and what was it? I still don't know. I was attracted to her eyes, her voice, her waist, her mouth, her hands, her laugh, her weariness, her shyness, her tears, her honesty, her sorrow, her trust, her tenderness, her sleep, her walk, her sighs. But none of those traits was enough to attract me compulsively, totally. Every attractive trait supported another. I was attracted to her as a whole, as an irreplaceable sum of attractiveness, by chance replaceable. On 17 May, I told her: ‘I think I'm in love with you,'
and she replied: ‘I already knew.' I keep saying this to myself, I hear her saying it, and everything about the present time becomes unbearable. Two days later I said: ‘What I'm boldly looking for is an understanding, a kind of agreement between my love and your freedom.' She had replied: ‘I like you.' It's horrible how much those three words hurt. On 7 June, I kissed her and that night I wrote: ‘Tomorrow I'll think about it. Now I'm tired, or I could also say: happy. But I'm too alert to feel completely happy. Alert about myself, about good luck, and that sole tangible future called tomorrow. Alert, that is to say: distrustful.' Still, what good did that distrust do? Did I perhaps take advantage of it to live more intensely, more eagerly, more urgently? No, by no means. Afterwards, I acquired a particular sense of security, I thought everything was fine if one was conscious of loving, loving with an echo, with repercussions. On 23 June, she talked to me about her parents and her mother's theory about happiness. Perhaps I should replace my unyielding Universal Mother-in-Law with this good image, with this woman who understands, forgives. On the 28th, the most important event of my life took place. I, of all people, ended up praying. ‘May it last,' and to pressure God I knocked on wood. But eventually, God proved to be incorruptible. Still, on 6 July, I allowed myself to write: ‘All of a sudden, I realized that that moment, that slice of everyday life, was the highest degree of well-being, it was Happiness.' But I quickly slapped myself alert: ‘I'm sure the pinnacle is only a brief second, an instantaneous flash, and it's unfair to make it any longer.' I was being dishonest when I wrote that, however; I know better now. Because, deep down, I had faith there would be extensions, that the pinnacle wouldn't just be a point, but a long, endless plateau. But there was no right to extensions, of course not. Afterwards, I wrote about the word ‘Avellaneda', and all of the
meanings it had. Now I think: ‘Avellaneda', and the word means: ‘She's not here, she'll never be here again.' I can't.

There are so many other things in this diary, so many other faces: Vignale, Aníbal, my children, Isabel. None of that matters, none of that exists. While Avellaneda was here, I had a better understanding of Isabel's time, and of Isabel herself. But now she isn't here, and Isabel has disappeared behind a thick, dark curtain of despondency.

In the office I tenaciously defend my essential, intimate and profound life (death). No one knows exactly what's happening inside me. My collapse on 23 September was, in everyone's eyes, an understandable occurrence and nothing more. Now, no one talks about Avellaneda very much, and I don't bring up the subject. I defend her with the little strength I have.

She would place her hand in mine and nothing else was necessary. It was enough to make me feel that I was quite welcome. More than kissing her, sleeping together, more than anything else, she would place her hand in mine, and that was love.

The thought occurred to me the other night and today I acted on it. At five o'clock I rushed out of the office. When I arrived at number 368 and rang the bell, I felt an itch in my throat and started to cough.

The door opened and I was coughing like a wretch. It was her father, the same father as in the photographs, but much older, sadder and more tired. I coughed harder, trying to finally overcome the coughing spell, and managed to ask if he was the tailor. He tilted his head to one side to say yes. ‘Well, I want to have a suit tailored,' I said. He led me into his workshop. ‘Never ask him to tailor a suit for you,' Avellaneda had said, ‘he uses the same mannequin for the size of every suit.' There it was – undaunted, mocking, mutilated – the mannequin. I chose the fabric, recited a few details, and settled on the price. Then he went to the back door and, without shouting, called out: ‘Rosa.' ‘My mother knows about us,' she had said, ‘my mother knows everything about me.' But ‘Us' didn't include my name, my face, my height. For the mother, ‘Us' was Avellaneda and a nameless lover. ‘My wife,' said the father, ‘Mr … , what did you say your name was?' ‘Morales,' I said, lying. ‘Right, Mr Morales.' The mother's eyes had a penetrating sadness about them. ‘He's going to have a suit tailored.' Neither of them was wearing mourning clothes. There was a light, natural bitterness. The mother smiled at me and I had to look away towards the mannequin, because I wasn't strong enough to bear that smile which had been Avellaneda's. She opened up a little notebook and the father started to take my measurements, dictating two-digit numbers. ‘Are you from the neighbourhood? Seventy-five,' the father said. ‘More or less,' I replied. ‘I ask you because your face looks familiar. Fifty-four,' the father said. ‘Well, I live in town,
but I come around here very often,' I said. ‘Oh, no wonder. Sixty-nine,' he said. She wrote automatically, facing the wall. ‘You want the trouser bottoms to rest on the shoes, correct? One-zero-seven.' I have to return next Thursday, for the fitting. There was a book on the table: Blavatsky. The father had to leave the workshop for a moment. The mother closed her little notebook and looked at me. ‘Why did you come to have my husband tailor a suit for you? Who recommended him?' she asked. ‘Oh, no one in particular. I knew that a tailor lived here, that's all,' I replied. It sounded so unconvincing that I became embarrassed. She looked at me again. ‘He works very little now. Since my daughter died.' She didn't say ‘passed away'. ‘Oh, of course. And has it been long?' I asked. ‘Almost four months,' she replied. ‘I'm sorry, madam,' I said, and I, who feels it not quite like sorrow, but more like a catastrophe, a collapse, like chaos, was conscious of the lie, because to say: ‘I'm sorry', to say those words of condolence, so frivolous, so late, was simply frightening, it was almost like saying: ‘passed away'. And it was especially frightening because I was saying it to the only person who could really understand, who could understand the truth.

It was the day of the fitting, but the tailor wasn't there. Mr Avellaneda wasn't there. His wife told me so when I had already entered the workshop. ‘He couldn't wait for you, but he left everything prepared so that I could do the fitting.' She went into the other room and returned with the jacket. It looked terrible on me. So it was true after all, he did use the same mannequin to tailor every single suit. Suddenly, I turned to one side (actually, she slowly turned me with the excuse of placing pins in the jacket and making chalk marks) and I ended up in front of a
photograph of Avellaneda which hadn't been there last Thursday. The blow was too sudden, too brutal. The mother was watching me and her eyes took good note of my sad stupour. Then she placed the remaining pins and chalk on the table and smiled sorrowfully, already sure, before asking: ‘You … are?' Between the first and second word there was a two- or three-second interval, but that silence was enough to subtly reveal the transparency of her question. I felt obliged to respond. And I did, without saying a word; with my head, with my eyes, with all of my being I said: yes. Avellaneda's mother placed her hand on my arm, that arm which still didn't have a sleeve and was emerging from a clumsy stitching attempt. Afterwards, she slowly took the jacket off me and placed it on the mannequin. How good it looked on it. ‘You want to know, don't you?' she said. I was sure she wasn't looking at me with resentment or shame, nor anything that wasn't a wearied, stoical pity. ‘You knew her, you loved her, and must be distraught. I know how you feel. You feel that your heart is an enormous object that begins in the stomach and ends in the throat. You feel miserable, and happy by feeling miserable. I know how horrible that is.' She spoke as if she had met with an old confidant, but there was also something in her voice that was more than her actual grief. ‘I had someone die on me twenty years ago. Someone who was everything to me. But it wasn't a physical death. He simply left. The country, my life; especially my life. That is a worse kind of death, I assure you. Because it was I who asked him to leave, and to this day I haven't forgiven myself. That kind of death is worse, because one remains imprisoned in one's own past, destroyed by one's own sacrifice.' She ran her hand along the back of her neck and I thought she was going to say: ‘I don't know why I'm telling you these things.' But instead she said: ‘Laura was all I had remaining of him. That's why I feel, once again, that the heart is an enormous object in the stomach
and ends in the throat. That's why I know what you're going through.' She brought a chair over and sat down, worn out. I then asked: ‘And what about her, what did she know about that?' ‘Nothing,' she replied. ‘Laura knew absolutely nothing. I am the sole owner of my story. It's a meagre pride, isn't it?' Suddenly, I remembered something and said: ‘And your theory of happiness?' She smiled, almost defenceless, and said: ‘Did she tell you about that too? Well, it was a beautiful lie, a fairy tale so that she wouldn't lose her footing, so my daughter would feel alive. It was the best gift I ever gave her. Poor thing.' She was crying, her eyes aloft, without running her hand across her face; she was crying with pride. ‘But you want to know,' she said. And then she told me about Avellaneda's final days, final words and final moments. But that will never be written down. That is Mine, incorruptibly Mine. That will be waiting for me at night, every night, for when I reclaim the thread of my insomnia and say: ‘Love.'

They love each other, I'm sure about that, Avellaneda used to say about her parents, but I don't know if that's the kind of loving that I like.

Esteban's friend called me to say that my pension is ready. From 1 March I will no longer be going to the office.

I went to pick up the suit this morning. Mr Avellaneda was just finishing the ironing. The photograph filled the entire room and I couldn't stop looking at it. ‘It's my daughter,' he said, ‘my only daughter.' I don't know what I said nor do I care to remember. ‘She died recently.' Once again I heard myself say: ‘I'm sorry.' ‘It's strange,' he quickly added, ‘now I think that I was distant, that I never showed her how much I needed her. Ever since she was little I've been postponing the long chat I had promised myself to have with her. At first I didn't have time, then she started to work, and, furthermore, I'm rather a coward. It scares me a little, you know, to feel sentimental. The truth is that now she's no longer here and I've been left with that weight on my chest, those unspoken words which could have been my salvation.' He stopped talking for a moment and gazed at the photograph. ‘Many times I thought she hadn't inherited a single trait of mine. Do you see any?' ‘A general resemblance,' I replied, lying. ‘There could be,' he said. ‘But when it comes to her soul, she was really like me. Or rather, like the way I used to be. Because now I feel defeated, and when one allows oneself to be defeated, one becomes deformed, and turns into a gross parody of oneself. Look, my daughter's death was a dirty trick played on her, either by destiny or the doctor, I'm not sure which. But I am sure it was a dirty trick. If you had known her, you would understand what I'm trying to tell you.' I blinked my eyes ten times in a row, but he wasn't paying attention. ‘Only a dirty trick can extinguish a woman in that manner. She was (how can I explain?) a pure being, and at the same time intense, and modest about her intensity. She was a delight. I was always convinced I didn't deserve her. But her mother did deserve her, because Rosa is a character; Rosa is capable of
confronting the world. But I lack determination, confidence. Have you ever thought about suicide? I have. But I'll never be able to go through with it. And that, too, is a deficiency. Because I have the whole mental and moral framework to commit suicide, but not the necessary strength to put a bullet in my temple. Perhaps the secret lies in that my brain has some of the needs peculiar to the heart, and my heart has some of the subtleties particular to the brain.' Once again he stopped talking, this time while holding the iron in the air, looking at the photo. ‘Look at her eyes. Notice how they continue to watch, out of habit, and despite her death. They even seem to be watching you.' The remark lingered in the air. I felt out of breath. He was left with nothing to say. ‘Well, they're ready,' he said, carefully folding the trousers, ‘it's a very smooth fabric. See how well they come out when you press them.'