Talking to Ourselves: A Novel Read online

  In his recording, I can’t stop thinking about this, Mario said that debts of love also exist, and that we are fooling ourselves if we deny it. He said these debts can’t be repaid, but they can be silenced. And that I, if I understood correctly, did I? had hushed up his debts, so he was going to hush up mine.

  I lock myself in the bathroom to listen to this passage, I hear his voice again, his voice talking to himself, and I can’t believe this voice has no person, a first person without anybody there, that my son is being spoken to by his father and yet Lito doesn’t have a father, that my husband talks about me and yet in the bathroom there is no one but me.

  What did Mario know? This doubt weighs on me.

  Doubt, debt.

  He continued calling, and I picking up. I told him: No. And I hung up. He called again. I picked up again and I said: No. And I hung up again.

  The only good thing about this unhealthy pursuit was that all of a sudden, after several months, I noticed I was getting moist. For the first time since I have been alone. And I was able to touch myself again. And while I was feeling, to cry. Orgasms, none.

  The next time he called I told him to go down on his knees and beg if he really wanted to talk to me. Because I needed to know whether my shame and his were comparable. He said he understood me. I said I doubted that very much. He asked if Lito was at home. I told him it was none of his business. He implored me, in a very gentle voice, just to answer yes or no. I hesitated. I began to murmur: No, but. The conversation ended.

  A few minutes later the doorbell rang.

  I was pleased to see Ezequiel there, kneeling in the doorway. He looked like a religious portrait. I guessed he was sincere, because he didn’t even attempt to come in. He remained still. Silent. Gazing up at me. Like a tame animal. He looked off-colour. He had thinner shoulders and more pronounced cheekbones. I said to him: You’ve lost weight. He took this as a compliment and his face lit up. He made as if to get up. I immediately added: I don’t like it. He shrank back. It is the only time I have ever seen a man who is kneeling fall to his knees.

  Realizing he couldn’t convince me, Ezequiel started to put on his Dr. Escalante face. As though I had a problem and he could diagnose it. I stood firm. When he realized I was serious, that I had no intention this time of letting him inside my house, Ezequiel clutched one of my legs. Only one. I didn’t move a muscle.

  Ezequiel let go. He placed his hands on the floor and stood up. It took him some effort. He stared straight at me. At that moment, I expected him to suffer an attack of wounded pride. To raise his voice to me, to insult me, or something. But no: he began to snivel. And I knew that if he was capable of doing this to himself, then he was capable of doing anything to me.

  I started closing the door. On the other side, Ezequiel began to stammer that he needed me.

  I held the door.

  Without looking out I replied: That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. Now leave my house. And never call again.

  I continued closing the door. The mat in the entrance made a noise as it dragged along the floor. I had the impression of sweeping something.

  Strange to be writing again. The last time was quite a while ago. In the meantime, I have had to reconcile myself to a few things. The first of these being the fact that the world kept going round as though nothing had happened.

  Best not to elaborate too much on my classroom routine (when I don’t teach I get bored, when I teach I get frustrated), the values of my colleagues (how is it possible to teach literature and only read sports magazines?), the hysteria of my female students (will they never stop falling for the boys who treat them the worst?), the hormonal frenzy of my male students (some of them still look at my legs, and at this stage I must confess it is almost a relief), the dilemma of exams (if I give them good grades I feel irresponsible, if I give them bad grades I feel guilty), the equations at the end of the month (I increasingly check the price of things in the supermarket), my quandary about Mario’s pension (using that money depresses me), the emptiness, the emptiness.

  Or taking charge of Mario’s ashes, for example. This is what the people at the cemetery said to me. They said once the storage period had expired, I must take charge of them. This was the language they used. Store them, they said. Can ashes belong to someone? And, more importantly, are ashes someone?

  His half ashes, to be precise: half for me, the other half for his brothers. They wanted to plant a tree, I wanted to scatter them in the sea. In the end we decided to share them out. In two equal parts, we said. The family is a scavenging animal.

  I have always found going to cemeteries difficult. We grow up believing there are only one mother and father, until we discover millions more there, all of them dead. I wonder where my parents want to be buried. Why do I never talk to them about this, to my sister? We all live in an ellipsis.

  Mario and I once discussed our funerals. We spoke of such things when they had no meaning. As soon as they grew in importance, I was incapable of talking about them. Oddly enough so was he. I don’t know whether this was an omission or a decision. Perhaps he wanted to let me choose. But this choice weighs too heavily on me: I would have preferred to do his will. It would have been more generous to allow me to carry out his wishes than to bequeath me all this uncertainty.

  I tried to broach it with Lito in the gentlest way possible (gentle?) in order to have his opinion. His reply touched me and left me confused, because he ultimately agreed with his uncles. He said he preferred a tree, because the roots could grow and grow under the soil and maybe one day, after many years, he would trip over them. I promised him we would go to plant it with Uncle Juanjo.

  I wonder whether a dead person can have a place. Whether marking it preserves their memory or, in some way, curtails it. Who do these places really belong to? To the ones who remember. A place for the dead is a refuge for the living. Yet death, for me, must be more like the elements. In constant motion. A return to every place the departed went to or might have gone. I feel unable to go to Mario’s death, because I live settled in it. Because it is diffused everywhere and nowhere. We will never know the whereabouts of our deceased.

  A tree is motionless. The sea comes back. I was right.

  But a tree grows. The sea doesn’t. They were right.

  But a tree grows old. The sea renews itself. I was right.

  But you can embrace a tree. The sea is elusive. They were right.

  But?

  Yesterday I drove around all day with my half of the ashes, with Mario’s dust on the seat beside me. I headed for the coast in a sort of receptive silence. As though I were listening to the passenger.

  I wanted to remember the sea when I thought of him. To rinse away those final memories, wash his ailing body, flood that shitty hospital with salt.

  I didn’t know exactly where I was heading. I drove along the coast and waited for some sort of sign. No place spoke to me, or they all said the same. It would soon be getting dark. I started to panic. I had the impression the whole coast was turning its back on me.

  As I kept driving, I realized that deep down I was trying to delegate the choice. To delegate it to anything that was beyond my will: chance, magic, the road, the urn. So I stopped the car.

  I looked at the sea, including myself in it. And I thought of Mario. Not in sickness, not as the father of my son, not even as the youth I fell in love with at university. Not in the random coming together of a name, a body, a memory. I thought of him, or rethought him without me. As someone who might not have met me. Who might have lived a parallel life, and, although it sounds naïve, who might be born in a different place. At that moment I looked at the time and thought: Now. It didn’t matter where. This was it, it was now. The ritual wasn’t in a place, it was in the time spent searching for the ritual.

  I took the first turning I came to. It was an ordinary beach, neither pretty nor ugly. It evoked no particular memories. I understood, I thought I understood, that places invaded by the past don’t let anything e
lse in. I stopped the car. I got out with the urn. I walked toward the seashore. I took off my shoes. I looked around. I saw a few joggers in the distance. I wasn’t sure (this seems frivolous to me now, it seemed logical then) whether to keep undressing. One of the joggers started getting bigger. I preferred to wait until he had gone by. And in the meantime I, I did what? Tried to look natural? Gazing at the view with an urn in my arms? I guess this looked more conspicuous than getting naked. The jogger went by. I took off my skirt. I realized I hadn’t waxed my legs. I stepped forward, I wet my feet. The sea was cold. The sky was burning hot. I glanced around me. On one side of the beach another jogger was approaching. I stepped back quickly, I walked away from the water, sat on the sand, and hid the urn between my legs. The jogger ran behind me. I turned to look at him, he looked at me, and disappeared into the distance. I stood up. I ran into the sea. This time I went in up to my waist, raising the urn above my head. I couldn’t see the horizon very clearly, the sun was setting level with my eyes. I waded in further. The waves lapped at my breasts. The light was floating. Everything was haloed. I opened the urn. Only then did I notice the wind, plastering my hair to my face. How was I going to scatter the ashes? But it was too late for misgivings. I was where I should be: in a random place, at the precise moment. I dug my hand into the ashes. I touched them for the first time. They felt rougher and denser than I had expected. In short, they didn’t look like ashes. Although I did feel they could contain Mario, or that Mario could fly away with them. I grasped a handful. I raised my arm. And I started.

  I threw them into the air, they came back.

  As they flew into my face, there was some kind of fulfilment. A, does this make sense?, funereal joy. I felt the current encircling me, and at the same time warning me of a boundary. The sun dipped to the edge. The light fell like a towel. Like the sky was sliding: that was the impression I had. I carried on emptying the urn. I imagined I was sowing the sea.

  It wasn’t sad. I scattered his ashes and pieced myself together.

  Now he can swim, I thought as I left the water.

  Mario

  … in Puerto del Este, I remember the esplanade, I remember the yachts, how they caught your attention, rich people always catch the attention, right?, whenever I see a yacht I think about who cleans the bathroom, and I remember the sun, the bicycles, I remember the people strolling in their swimming costumes, surrounded by light, happy, happy, like they weren’t going to die, you ran through them, I remember.

  For me the last day of our trip was, how can I explain, sad and at the same time a relief, do you understand?, we’d done it, no one could take that away from us, or could they, you’ll think I’m crazy, but I got so nervous while you were swimming, I was watching you from the beach and thinking: what if he gets a cramp?, what if suddenly we lose this memory?, I swear, each time you put your head under the water, I swear, I stopped breathing, I looked at the men closest to me, I saw which ones were strongest, the ones I’d ask for help, because, you see, son, I can’t swim, I was always too ashamed to tell you, and then your head bobbed up once more and I could breathe again, of course nothing happened to you, nothing could’ve happened, you were fearless.

  The rest of the journey was more or less okay, we were late, your mother started calling and then there was that storm, what a downpour, right?, I was worried we’d miss dinner, and that dinner was important, in the end, I admit, I drove too fast, and, to make matters worse, on a wet road, risk is a strange thing, you think you’re being careful, that you’re protecting the things you most care about, and then you accelerate knowing you shouldn’t, and then you regret it, and the next time you accelerate again, I was soaked when we arrived, out of breath, my head was pounding, but I made it, we made it, I think your Mum had had her doubts, she almost looked surprised, her face as she greeted us, she was crying, laughing, she kept hugging us, and yes, she had to heat up the joint, and the three of us made a toast, do you remember?, you even had some wine, and we told your Mum lots of stories, you elaborated everything, it was great, and you gobbled down a superhuman helping of ice cream, what’s in your stomach, shark-in-a-cap?, and you went to bed, and we stayed up talking, and I smoked for the first time in months, and Mum didn’t say anything, and then I just fell asleep, like I’d passed out, and as far as I know I didn’t dream.

  And what else? well, nothing, I got sicker and here I am, it was very soon after you left, do you remember how we said goodbye?, the two of us were in the garage, what a place for a ceremony, huh?, Mum was taking you to your grandparents, she sat in the car, she didn’t get out, she preferred to leave us on our own, the drive would take three hours, and I asked you the time, and you looked at your watch proudly, and then I gave you a hug, a long hug, and I told you not to forget to fasten your seatbelt, that was it, that was all, all I was capable of saying was fasten your seatbelt, I’d even thought up an animal for you, a sea animal I guess, but I totally forgot, I’d imagined this scene so many times, I suppose this is what real goodbyes are like, right?, out of place, clumsy.

  What I haven’t forgotten, you see, is hugging you, I don’t know what you felt, bah, I mean, whether you felt anything, I’m not sure I did right then either, what I know is what I feel now, when I look back, I remember so clearly the heat from your head, the smell of shampoo, the downy hair on the nape of your neck, that vertebra that sticks out more than the others, your pointy shoulders, and remembering these things, experiencing them all over again, is like untying myself, you understand?, and all of a sudden I stop envying healthy people, well, I’m lying, I still envy them, but I also pity them, do you know what the mother of a sick girl told me the other day?, that everyone had, what was it she said?, four dimensions, that we were born whole, and that—come in, yes, come in.

  What was I going to?, oh yes, the four-dimensional thing, so this woman was telling me that we were already whole, that from the beginning our lives contained our birth and death, and that we only saw ourselves grow up or grow old because we perceived ourselves bit by bit, can you believe it?, but that actually the child and the old person exist simultaneously, or something like that, it sounded crazy to me, her daughter is dying and she tries to, to resign herself, you know?, to experience it as something natural, I’d understand much better, I don’t know, if she went round kicking in monitors, pulling out cables, punching the doctors, I think it’s, my forehead’s a bit, I’m going to ask for a thermometer.

  Your mum didn’t want to leave, I had to insist, bah, to force her to, I’ve been thinking, you know?, about what I told you yesterday, about that poor woman, the thing that used to scare me most, was dying young, I was obsessed with reaching old age, I felt entitled, what a fool, right?, what’s strange is to live the way I did when I was healthy, time is never long enough, it always, so to speak, falls short, they say the perfect way to die is in your sleep, without even noticing, I’m not so sure, I think I’d rather feel it, I want to live my death, it’s all I have left, I don’t want it taken away from me, when you reach my age, more or less, perhaps you’ll start to feel protective, and you’re not going to have a father to look after, there’ll be no father to enable you to be that son, I’ll be a lost opportunity, and so now, well, now comes the advice, I feel a bit ridiculous, the ideal thing would be for you to observe me half your life and think: all right, let’s salvage this and this from the misguided man who is my father, and let the devil take the rest, too bad, we can’t, we can’t.

  Enjoy life, do you hear?, it’s hard work enjoying life, and have patience, not too much, and look after yourself as if you knew you won’t always be young, even though you won’t know it and that’s okay, and have plenty of sex, son, do it for your sake and mine and even your mother’s, lots of sex, and if you have children, have them late, and go to the beach in winter, in winter it’s better, you’ll see, my head hurts yet I feel good, it’s hard to explain, and go travelling on your own once in a while, and try not to fall in love all the time, and care about your looks,
do you hear me?, men who don’t care about their looks are afraid of being queer, and if you are queer, be a man, in short, advice isn’t much use, if you disagree with it you don’t listen, and if you already agree you don’t need it, never trust advice, son, travel agents advise you to go places they’ve never been, you’ll love me more when you’re old, I thought of my father the moment we got down from the truck, our true love for our parents is posthumous, forgive me for that, I’m already proud of the things you’re going to do, I love the way you count the time on your fingers when you set the alarm clock, or do you think I don’t see?, you do it secretly, under the covers, so I won’t know you have difficulty working it out, I’m going to ask you a favour, whatever happens, whatever age you are, don’t stop counting the time on your fingers, promise me, octopus.

  It’s getting dark there, in the window, your mum will be here soon, I’ll go on tomorrow, I’m hungry, I’m sleepy, there’s a new nurse who looks a lot like your mother when she was young, her name is Alicia, she’s very kind, she’s going to get me some pasta even though chicken’s on the menu, Alicia is a good name for a girl, don’t you think?

  Lito

  I open my eyes. The sun is in my face. Dad is taking the strips of plastic off the windows. I close my eyes again. I remember I was dreaming something really weird. We were going to the seaside. We who? Actually I think I was alone. I went down to the shore. And I started tearing strips off the water. Like it was an animal’s skin. Below the sea the sun was buried. The more strips I tore, the more light I discovered. Then a fisherman appeared. Or somebody with a sort of tow truck. And he started taking away the bits of sea. Then Dad took the plastic off.

  Good morning, meddlesome marmot, Dad says holding a piece of bread in one hand, ham or cheese? No tomato? I ask. There’s none left, he answers. I lift my body off the mattress. I stretch. Ham and cheese, thanks, I say yawning. Hey, Dad, doesn’t your back hurt? Mine, he answers, I don’t have a back anymore.