Reflections in the Mirror

by Luis A. Santamaría

  “Free? Who said anything about being free?”

  They both laughed.

  “In that case, what’s your price? I’ll have to see if you’re worth it.” She winked at him.

  “I’m only joking, it would be a pleasure to have some company on the commute.”

  “Sounds great to me. I’ve always thought that people on the train should open up more and not spend all day being so serious. We’re like sheep!”

  “Well then, here are two sheep that are going to flee the flock.”

  Almudena couldn’t stifle the loud laugh that made all the other commuters in the carriage turn and look. She covered her face with her hands from embarrassment. Oscar looked at her enchanted.

  “Tell me, do you study or work?” he asked.

  “Really? Does that old trick work with the rest of the girls?”

  Oscar shook his head and blinked hard.

  “Wait, you’re right, I know I can do better.”

  Almudena smiled.

  “Don’t worry, I was just messing. I’m an engineer. I bet you wouldn’t have guessed.”

  “Engineer! Well, well... Why don’t you think you look like one?”

  “I don’t know, I just don’t. If you saw me at home in a dressing gown and pyjamas, not even close.” Her cheeks went a little pinker. “How embarrassing! I just met you and here I am telling you my evening routine.”

  “No worries. I like naturalness.”

  “Yes, that was clear when you came over to talk to a complete stranger on the train,” she said with a smile.

  He smiled back.

  “So tell me, what kind of engineer are you?

  “Electronic. You know those green boards inside computers? Well, I design them. Well, not ones for computers, ones for planes, but it’s so you get the idea.”

  “Awesome!”

  “Don’t take the mick.”

  “I’m being serious. Your work sounds amazing. But it doesn’t compare to my job, which I’ll have you know is the best in the world.”

  “Yeah? And what would this interesting job be?”

  “I’m a chef, I work in a burger bar,” he said very seriously. “Think of the best burger you’ve ever had.”

  Almudena closed her eyes and thought back.

  “Ok, I’ve got it. Once, in New York...”

  “Well, mine are better.”

  Almudena laughed even louder than last time.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh like that.”

  “See, you probably think that anyone could do my job, but...” Oscar paused to make it more dramatic, “that’s because you’ve never tried my superburgers!”

  “Mmmmm, well maybe one day I’ll come by your restaurant,” she said, licking her lips which Oscar found so endearing it was sensual.

  “Well, maybe I’ll call you and invite you to one.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll take your number and accept your invitation.”

  After a few more stops, the moment to say goodbye came.

  “This is my stop,” said Almudena pointing to the carriage door.

  “Well what do you know? It’s mine too. I should have told you before, now you probably think I’m a stalker and I’m going to follow you.”

  “Are you? I don’t mind, no one would want to follow me to my boring office.”

  At the mouth of the metro, Oscar said:

  “Where exactly is your office? Shit, I look like a psycho again! I swear it’s just curiosity!”

  Another laugh.

  “You’re grand! Don’t worry. Look, it’s that building over there,” she pointed to an immense concrete block.

  “Luckily I’m going the other way, now I can leave without you being suspicious of me. I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow. Your name was Almu...dena, right? Sorry, I’m terrible with names.”

  “I’ll let you off because you’re going to invite me to the best burger in the world. Yes, I’m Almudena but you can call me Almu. And yes, tomorrow you’ll find me on the same train at the same time as always. You know, like a good little sheep.” She accompanied the comment with a flick of the hand.

  From that morning on, they kept meeting in the same train carriage but now they didn’t just look at one another, they chatted. For Oscar, that was the best moment of the day, and he hoped the same went for her. When the train reached its destination, they would say goodbye and go and live their real lives without knowing anything about each other to start it all again the following morning. They didn’t exchange phone numbers or email addresses, because they had a train in common and, for now, that was all they needed.

  On the other side of the conversation Daniel frowned. He was a bit worried about what he had just read, but curious to know the rest of the story at the same time. He carried on reading.

  I know what you’re thinking but I haven’t told you the other part of the story yet. As it turns out Carol and I aren’t going through the best of times. I’m a bit fed up with her as I’m realising more and more that she isn’t as mature as I thought. I really care for her and we have a good time together (and the sex, I can’t even tell you, hahaha) but on the other hand she’s really jealous. She’s really childish. Like the other day, for example, I wanted to take her out for dinner in a nice place and she told me she didn’t feel like it and that she’d arranged to drink in the park with her friends. That might sound like nothing to you but there are loads of things like that. I don’t know, I’m starting to think that maybe this hasn’t got any future, I don’t know if you get me. And now this thing with Almudena has come up and it’s interesting. I’m not saying that I’m going to do anything with her, I’m not one of those guys who cheats on his girl, but it’s making me realise a few things, you know?

  I don’t want to complicate life right now so I’ll let time put things in their place. I think I’ll give Carol another chance, cos maybe it’s just me and we’re actually the ideal couple. But then again, I like Almudena a little more every day, and I’ll admit I can’t stop thinking about her. Obviously, I haven’t told any of this to anyone else, ok? But I know you’ll keep my secret.

  So that’s all for now. I’ll keep you posted with any updates, although I hope next time, you’ll have something to tell me. Miss you...

  Well, I’m off before I get all mushy ;-)

  All the best,

  Oscar

  Daniel had to rub his eyes to contain his emotion. He re-read the email from start to finish with a smile on his face. He relished and scrutinised each and every word, as if he wanted to capture new meanings and feelings.

  Fighting against temptation, he didn’t reply to the email. He didn’t really know what to say to his friend about his love triangle –he felt he’d been away from home for an eternity and didn’t have a clear opinion on the subject–, and he didn’t feel like talking to him about his dad and his depression from his injured knee. They’d chat soon.

  More upbeat than when he’d come in, Daniel got out his chair and left the internet café. With a smile on his face, he hobbled slowly through the narrow streets of the centre while thinking about Oscar and what he’d said in his message. There was something that he didn’t get though: in spite of saying he missed him, Oscar hadn’t visited him. At the end of the day, Buitrago and Madrid were relatively close, less than an hour by car via the motorway.

  Daniel found the square jam-packed with people out for a walk, shopping and eating tapas on the terraces in the fresh air. He sat down at one of them and ordered a beer; the first he’d had since arriving with his dad. Warm rays of sunshine bathed his face, cheering him up. Beer: the answer to all your problems. Are you tired and hot? Have a beer. Do you live with a madman? Have a beer. Has the doctor told you your knee is smashed to pieces and looks like a bag of gravel? You guessed it, have a beer.

  Suddenly, Daniel saw out of the corner of his eye that he had company.

  “What do you want?,” asked Daniel trying to ignore the person who had sat down beside him. He didn’t even turn
to look at him.

  “I want to know if you’re ready.”

  “What? My knee is pitiful, I’m a cripple.”

  “Son, you haven’t come here just for your leg to heal. I’m not as crazy as I look.”

  Daniel looked at him for the first time. The sun’s rays dropped in front of him and made him squint uncomfortably.

  “So what was that? All these weeks ignoring me and watching me rot in this shitty little town were just a test? Are you testing me?”

  “You can’t fool me, I was there when you were born. You’re in an emotional pit that you don’t know how to get out of and you’re so damn arrogant you’re not able to ask for help.”

  Jorge’s expression was different to the previous days, as was his tone of voice. Daniel remained apathetic before the harsh judgement to which his father had just subjected him and kept silent.

  “Do you like music?” Jorge asked.

  Daniel shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t know where this conversation was going.

  “I bet you do,” Jorge carried on recovering his usual tone of voice. “Well, I invite you to sit in your room in the dark with one of your favourite songs and your earphones and savour each of the notes as if they were written for you.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Watch it! I don’t mean listen to a song and that’s it, I mean really listen to it,” he accompanied this last statement squeezing his fist passionately. “Feel it! You’ll be surprised at what you’re capable of feeling by paying a bit of attention to something.”

  “Now you want to show me how to enjoy music?”

  “And the same thing has to happen with love!”

  “With love? Great, we’ve gone from music to love.”

  “I bet you associate love with some idyllic example you got from some book or film. Yeah, I’m sure you do. How many times have you got laid, eh? A lot, I’m sure, you’re a handsome lad.”

  Daniel took a sip of beer. He never thought he’d hear the words ‘get laid’ come out of the refined mouth of his father.

  “But do you know what?” Jorge looked ghastly when he said the next words. “I bet you’ve never looked a woman in the eyes and thought that there’s nowhere else you’d rather be than in that precious moment. No, no you haven’t. You’ve never felt that panic alongside the happiness that comes from loving a woman more than you love yourself, because you’ve got to be brave to love in that way.”

  Daniel felt goose bumps on his skin. That madman who he lived with was cutting his soul up without anaesthetic. With each of Jorge’s words, Daniel felt smaller and smaller until he couldn’t repel a single phrase even if he’d tried. How did that man know so much about him?

  “Answer me this,” continued Jorge: “what does success mean to you?”

  Daniel stuttered without saying a word.

  “Let me guess: Money! Women! One of those sports arenas full of people chanting your name!”

  Daniel looked his father in the eye pleading for mercy.

  “That’s all a load of rubbish compared with building a family, bringing up two sons properly and feeling the warm embrace of your wife after a hard day’s work.”

  Jorge, who was noticeably sensitive then, paused.

  “You’re terribly damaged and your world has tumbled down. You think you’re the unluckiest man on the planet,” Jorge puffed indignant, as Daniel had never seen him in his life. “Listen up: you haven’t had to swallow saying goodbye to your wife in a hospital bed, while explaining how she only has a few days to live. In your precious little life, you’ve experienced something that doesn’t even come close to that level of misfortune, pal. You have no idea what pain is.”

  A tear trickled out of Jorge’s right eye, sliding down his bony cheek and died on his lips. His hands were shaking but he didn’t take his eyes off of his son. Then he stood up so brusquely that the chair toppled over and muttered angrily:

  “Up to you, son. It’s your life.”

  Daniel turned and looked at his father. This time it was he who couldn’t meet his son’s gaze. After taking two steps, Jorge turned and said the final words that Daniel would hear from him that day:

  “When you finally have the guts to take the road in search of happiness, you’ll find that happiness is the road itself.”

  That said, he left and Daniel lost sight of him. He sat unable to move, assimilating up to what point had his father retreated within the depths of his soul to drop that mortal bomb. There he remained for several minutes, alone, mulling over the lesson on perspective, humility and reality that his father had given him. He looked at the splint on his leg and stroked it.

  “I haven’t been laid that many times,” he said to himself and smiled.

  25

  “Life follows a strict yet perfect balance, and that’s how it should be. Everything is compensated and comparable, because everything is relative. Absolute perfection doesn’t exist, nor does complete happiness, just like the deepest chasms have a bottom and the darkest nights are never endless. Life teaches us that it’s necessary to suffer so we can value success and, of course, the more successful a time is, the more one suffers to get there. Everything, absolutely everything in life is governed by the theory of balance. The more you love something or someone, the more sorrow you feel when you lose them. If to achieve something you invest a lot of time and effort, the greater the final pleasure is. Glory wouldn’t exist without defeat, neither would love without hate. They both go hand in hand, and it’s necessary to experience both to understand their meaning. Throughout your life, sometimes you will win and other times you will lose but remember: you must celebrate the victories and analyse the defeats, because they will give you the key to the next success.”

  Lying on his bed was a little eight-year-old listening attentively to his father’s words, his face was partially lit up by the warm light emanating from the bedside lamp.

  “Listen, son: some people decide not to set themselves big challenges so that they don’t have the option of failing, the same way that they prefer not to love someone unconditionally so that they don’t become vulnerable and end up suffering. I’m telling you that life consists of precisely that, winning and loving but also of losing and suffering. Some say the greatest opponent of success is defeat but I think that’s not true: by far the greatest opponent of success is mediocrity! To win you have to risk losing. In this case, living. My advice is that you always make sure to be the best you can be in whatever you do, because on the contrary, failure doesn’t hurt much and that success isn’t all that exciting. Always remember: the second you stop trying to do something because you’re afraid of failing is the second you fail.”

  Overcome by the comforting tone of his father’s voice, the little boy, who didn’t quite understand all that was being explained to him, couldn’t avoid closing his eyes and falling into the most peaceful sleep. His father, disappointed at not being able to finish his lecture, kissed the child on the cheek.

  “Good night, Daniel.”

  Several weeks had passed since Daniel and Jorge had arrived in Buitrago, and Daniel’s leg had surpassed its initial recovery stages.

  Manu came by early every day to do the exercises. As the good weather arrived, his torture began taking place in the garden.

  “Aaaaarrrggghh!” tore the scream from Daniel’s throat which could be heard throughout the whole house.

  “C’mon laddie! Bit more!”

  Lying face down on the yoga mat, Daniel was going through the hardest part of his rehabilitation. Manu forced his knee (now freed from the splint), bending his leg until his foot almost touched the bottom of his back, forming a more acute angle with each round of exercises. Such was the pain that exercise caused Daniel that, one day, he was about to pass out.

  “Jesus, Manu, you’re going to be the end of me,” he protested when Manu let go of his leg. He sat on the mat panting. Beads of sweat trickled down his pale face. “Do you think this is working? It hurts mo
re every day.”

  “Normal. Hurts more every day ‘cos I push you to the max so you’ll be tip top in no time. Dan, trust me, boy-o! You’ll be there before you can say Jack Robinson. C’mon now, don’t be a sissy!”

  “I swear I’ll never understand you a hundred per cent. Anyway, isn’t it about time you lost your accent a little? You’ve been living in the village long enough!”

  Daniel, now getting some colour back in his cheeks, gave Manu a friendly slap on the back of the neck.

  “Living here long enough? Nuffin’ compared to all the time that I still got in this place.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Nuffin’, pay no nevermind to me.”

  “It’s ok, I trust you, but be careful, I reckon one day you’ll do me in.”

  “Well blow me down, what a cry baby!” Manu exclaimed while massaging Daniel’s knee, whose face kept contorting in pain.

  “Manu.”

  “Aye?”

  “Do you think I’ll be able to walk properly?”

  “Walk properly?”

  Manu stopped his massage.

  “Not just walk properly, you’ll be running, jumping and dancing again. Good as new!”

  “Seriously? I’ll run again?”

  Daniel’s face lit up.

  “That’s down to you,” Manu contemplated Daniel in silence, then after a few seconds changed the subject: “C’mon, last exercise of the day!”

  Daniel sighed before lying back down on the mat of horrors as he liked to call it.

  “Uno, dos.... Tres! Up!”

  “Aaaaarrrrggghh...”

  After the session, Manu came across Jorge standing in the doorway leading to the garden. He hadn’t seen him because of the difference in light.

  “How did it go?”

  “Well, if am honest, really well,” answered Manu without much conviction. “Jorge, mate, is it really necessary to push him this hard? Just left your son on the verge of conking out.”

  Jorge folded his arms.

  “If they face death, there is nothing they may not achieve. Soldiers when in desperate straits lose their sense of fear. If there is no place of refuge, they will stand firm.”