“Give it to me.”
“What do you want, the picture?”
“Yeah.”
He handed the sheet back to her. He was still thinking about Felipe, the cat she had been given right after the separation, a goggle-eyed black cat. His ex-wife, hoping to compensate for any trauma and maybe even to distract the girl, had gotten her the animal, a cat with a person’s name. The girl had chosen the name herself, and where she’d gotten “Felipe” from he would never know; it was just one of those kid things, his ex-wife explained with an ironic smile. Fine. Felipe. No one had notified him, no one had asked his opinion. His ex-wife made him feel like a stranger.
He looked at his daughter, a redhead with very pale, curly hair, three years old. He could hardly believe it when he thought about it, that he was the father of a three-year-old girl, how could such a thing have happened. Being a father was like waking up one day on a different planet, with no warning, no time to prepare, nothing. Waking up one day completely normally and all of a sudden being a father, with all the demands of being a father. In truth, he was never going to get used to it. And now here she was, here by his side on weekends. He had tried to explain that he didn’t have the time, too much work he said, but his ex-wife complained, Don’t forget she’s your daughter, too. Sure, he wasn’t going to forget. And so there she was, and soon the girl would get bored of drawing, and that rain outside was going to be a problem; on sunny days at least there was the beach. He had to think of getting something to eat, a pizza.
“Manuela, what do you think about us going out for a pizza?”
The girl ignored him, focused on her sheet of paper. He remained silent, he never knew what to say to his daughter, and he thought she looked at him with suspicion. She cried each time her mother left. He felt awful; the girl didn’t like him. His ex-wife explained that it was because he didn’t like the cat. And it was true, he really didn’t like the cat—he’dnever had pets, a cat, dog, hamster, parrot, those animals that are good for nothing but racking up bills and creating messes. He wouldn’t have known what to do with a cat, but his ex-wife managed to make him feel guilty for not wanting his daughter’s beloved cat to get his apartment all dirty.
It’s very complicated being a father. Who’s to say that children are necessarily going to like their parents? he wondered sadly. Children ought to come with an instruction manual. Pregnant women, too. During the pregnancy he’d gone with his ex-wife to a parenting course, all the men so proud, stroking their partners’ bellies. Those huge bellies, all out of proportion. There he was, feeling quite wrong about it from beginning to end. He couldn’t find it beautiful, that belly, his wife with her legs swollen, her round face; she seemed strange to him, as though he didn’t know her, or as though she were hiding something from him the whole time. His wife would complain that he was distant, that he wasn’t paying her any attention, that he wasn’t interested in the pregnancy, in the baby, that he didn’t even touch her. But no one had asked his opinion, after all. One day she had just shown up pregnant, happy—she’d prepared a special dinner just to tell him, pregnant and happy with a radiant smile. And then weeping because his smile hadn’t been as radiant as hers. Women were like that, he thought, when they wanted something they didn’t care, they didn’t ask, they just went off and did it, and then they felt deeply disappointed when other people didn’t share their excitement. The girl was still drawing.
“Aren’t you hungry, Manuela? Let’s go get a pizza, that ham pizza you really like, don’t you want one of those?”
“No.”
The girl shook her head as though needing to accentuate her no with a gesture. Lying there on the rug, her colored pencils scattered all over the room, with a drawing pad he’d given her as a present, all her attention was focused on another portrait of Felipe.
He picked up the letter again. It had arrived that same day, that morning. He had just woken up, and taking advantage of the fact that the girl was still sleeping, he’d put on a T-shirt, a pair of shorts and flip-flops, picked up an umbrella and gone down to buy something for breakfast. He hadn’t even looked in the mailbox, and only on the way back had he remembered that thing he’d ordered online. Not yet. But there was the letter.
It was a light blue envelope, with the name of someone who wasn’t him written in a careful, rounded hand, and underneath it was his address, written exactly right, and at the top was a stamp commemorating something he couldn’t make out, franked by the mail, dated the previous day. In the place where the sender’s name would normally go was merely the initial A., no address, no other clue. He couldn’t remember the last time he had received a letter, he thought, perhaps when he was a kid, a teenager, maybe he’d never received a personal letter, and he found this idea kind of funny, imagining that this really might be his first. And if it really was his first, it wasn’t addressed to him, he thought, as he stored it away in the plastic supermarket bag.
When he had come into the apartment that morning, he shut the door and put everything down on top of the table. The girl must still be asleep. He took the envelope, examined it again, a heavy envelope; clearly a long letter, he thought. He left it on the side table, next to the phone and the previous days’ correspondence. He went over to the kitchen, put the water to boil, set the table for when the girl woke up, arranged what he had bought: bread, cheese, jam. He rarely ate anything himself before midday but his ex-wife never tired of giving him all manner of instructions for the girl: that she should eat properly, that she shouldn’t have too much junk, always the same. When the coffee was ready, he poured himself a cup and went into the living room. He took up the letter and sat at the table.
Of course he shouldn’t open a letter that wasn’t for him. But it could be important, he thought. Yes, it was definitely something important. It wasn’t some anonymous letter, the addressee might have been well aware of who A. was. Who would go to all the trouble of writing a letter in this day and age? Most likely a woman. And then there was that rounded handwriting. And yet, how could he even be sure it really was a letter? It could be anything, a document, a magazine clipping. Yet, for some reason, he was sure it was a letter, he knew it all along. Just as those thoughts began to appear, he was simultaneously assailed by a certain feeling of unease, the recollection of nosy old ladies leaning out of their windows, asking where have you been, where are you going. Best to forget the whole business. He would hand the letter over to the doorman, he’d know what to do with it, most likely the addressee was the former tenant of the apartment, he hadn’t been here long, after all. No doubt the doorman knew who the person was, how to track him down. He put the letter back onto the table and decided to read the newspaper.
He was already on his second cup of coffee when the girl woke up. She came into the living room, tottering slightly.
“Hey, Manuela, good morning.”
The girl didn’t reply, she headed for the TV and sat down on the sofa, not yet fully awake. On the screen were fantastical beings, hybrids, chimeras, nothing he could recognize. If cartoons had only been the same as the ones parents watched as children, communicating with kids would be a whole lot easier. Conversation would come right away, naturally, a mix of eagerness and nostalgia, without that anxiety, that effort to do something the child would find interesting. Without the need for a cat getting the apartment all dirty. There had to be some kind of training course, How to Talk to a Child. Nobody ever thought of things like that.
“Come over here, Manuela, let’s get some breakfast.”
The girl didn’t reply, her eyes glued to the TV.
“Come on, you can go back to watching your cartoon later.”
She was ignoring him, he thought a little impatiently, were all children like this? What was he supposed to do, force her to sit at the table with him, argue, turn authoritarian, an attitude he himself had so often criticized in his own parents? And if she were to cry, that would be even worse, for sure
. She was an atypical child, she almost never cried, she was hardly any trouble at all, but she had that look in her eyes, a challenging look that made him feel uncomfortable, inadequate. How was it possible that a three-year-old girl should manage to make him feel that way, his own daughter? It was as though she demanded something of him, something he had no idea about and had no way of giving to her. He felt guilty. Maybe that’s what it is, he thought, guilt. He chose instead to go to the kitchen himself; he prepared her a glass of chocolate milk. He came back, this time trying a more determined tone of voice.
“Here, Manuela, drink this.”
The girl did as she was told, she took the glass and started drinking. He considered making her say thank you but decided against it. He wasn’t the only one at fault, after all, there was also her mother, his ex-wife, who wasn’t bringing her up right. He’d say this to her as soon as he got the chance. He sensed that any moment now the girl was going to spill the cup of milk on the sofa. She was distracted from the whole world. He went back to reading the paper. From time to time, he thought about the letter again. He spent the whole morning like this. The girl watched TV, the glass still half full on the coffee table, while he read the paper, wondering whether or not to open the letter.
He ended up opening it. He took the envelope and sat down at the dining table. The girl had given up on TV and decided to do some drawing, she’d scattered the colored pencils all over the rug. He opened the envelope carefully. White paper, five sheets printed from a computer, he looked unhurriedly for the signature, also typed, just the initial. He found it odd that the letter hadn’t been handwritten, after all what was the point of going to the trouble of going to the post office to send a letter if it wasn’t for that intimacy, real handwriting, those little revelations, like on the envelope, he thought, feeling strangely cheated, it was denying him a confidence, that rounded handwriting. The same hand that had written his address and that name that wasn’t his. The black ink on the blue envelope, ink from a fountain pen, he knew, not from a ballpoint, maybe that was it, that detail, he’d recognized it at once, the fountain pen, fingers that always ended up getting stained, maybe that was what made him so curious. It ought to have been handwritten, he thought, a little disappointed. He began to read; the letter was addressed to someone she called “my darling.” It was a love letter.
JANUARY 20
My darling,
I’ve spent the day thinking about the letter I wrote yesterday, about your reaction. Did you read it, I wonder. Nervously opening the envelope while you were still in the elevator, or maybe you threw it away, before you’d even arrived back home, the envelope intact, or maybe you tore it up, the pieces in the trash can out in the hallway, along with all the other pieces of paper, advertisements, scribblings, newspapers, everything that nobody wanted, or maybe you just left the envelope still closed on the table, the day going by and the envelope on the table, silent. I’ve spent the day thinking. And if you really did read it, if you arrived home, opened the envelope and read it, what happened? Did you hear me, I wonder? Did you understand even the most unexpected parts of my narrative, did you understand, I wonder? Did it bring us closer? Did those memories, something of ours, return to existence, or is it maybe only me, all me, the desire, the writing, the reading. Perhaps I call out to you, and you go on, never looking back. And I keep on thinking whether there was something that could have caught you, there, where you are, wherever you are now.
It is also possible you didn’t like it, that maybe you hate me even more now. That I made you recall our last day, our trip to the rental place, forced you to remember and maybe you don’t want to. Maybe you’d just rather keep looking ahead into the future, to whatever’s coming. Believing that separation is an ending, not an eternal moment, as I would like to believe.
You are someone different, someone who walks down the street without ever looking back. Maybe you hate me now, even more, and you’ll never read this second letter, maybe you’ll never read anything of mine ever again. But all the same, there will always be the hope that you’ll return in, who knows, a whole week, or even months, years, to the envelope you’d forgotten, tossed away somewhere, weeks, months, years, until, who knows, one day, a careless lapse, a slip, an unthinking moment, and this letter will be opened, and all the world that it contains will open, too. It was saying to you the whole time: Remember? And even if I’m wrong, and you throw them away, one after another, resolved, unforgiving, throw away this one and those still to come. Yes, because there will be others. How many? I don’t know yet. But there will be others, every day, in your mailbox, every day, waiting for you, the envelope closed with all its possibilities. Then even if you throw them away, one after another, there will always be another closed envelope and the expectation of the closed envelope’s own language.
But I’d rather imagine that things aren’t like that. I prefer something much simpler: you as you are now, sitting in an armchair, or on a dining chair at the table, or on the sofa, with this letter and a cup of coffee. The phone ringing. Your hands and this letter. Only this. The minimum necessary. I’ve always thought it’s necessary to be uncomplicated when there is something important to say. Is there really something important to say? you must be asking yourself. A revelation, a secret? I answer yes, there are things you don’t know, there are always things one doesn’t know, however transparent the other person might be. However quiet, there is always something unexpected, something that might surprise you, and make you smile or suffer.
A small revenge. What is revenge, after all, but a strange declaration of love, somebody taking revenge is always somebody who’s saying: Separation, separation is a half-finished gesture and your name is repeated over again. Your name, unfinished, suspended in my mouth, that’s revenge, a love that never ends.
So that was what happened, a small revenge, yesterday. I’m saying it was yesterday, but it could have been earlier, any other day following your absence, and so I’m saying, because I’m the one telling the story: yesterday I went back to the rental place. I tell you this almost in secret, fearfully perhaps. I went to the rental place for the first time since that day; there was the same door, the same movies, the same man behind the counter, but something had changed, something in me. I picked up that exact same movie from last time, remember? The one I suggested—was I trying to tell you something? But you didn’t want to see; you grabbed my arm so hard the pressure of your fingers lingered for a long time. That movie, that character, the actor who does or doesn’t look like you. But it’s all the same now, and I got the movie. Was that cruel? Perhaps. And it was like I was betraying you—that’s strange, isn’t it? It was like I was deceiving you, like I was taking revenge, or worse, like I was taking revenge and smiling about it. See how everything’s changed? I felt happy, a disturbance, an excitement; I was practically running, glowing, in the middle of the street, feeling like I’d stolen something valuable and was getting away without anybody noticing, unharmed. And I was smiling, glowing, for no reason at all.
I could tell you that when I arrived home, I put the movie in the machine. I pressed Play, and out came a whole unfurling of scenes with that actor and that character, everything you wouldn’t acknowledge, which could have been you. And I could say that I spent that whole time in front of the television feeling happy at all those things that would have made you smile and suffer. I could say all this—but no. I could even lie—but no. For some reason, the movie alone awoke the sense of some danger, an unspecified fear. So I put the disc back in the case, closed it, and there it stayed for a long time on top of the table, while I sat in front of the empty noise from the television, the television devoid of images. My small act of revenge, infantile and foolish. I could lie. But no. Because revenge is never enough, like love. What’s the difference?
All that nonsense of going to the rental place to pick up the movie was only the start of the things I didn’t do, and which I could do to hurt you, to wound
you. I could confirm so many things, things you’re afraid of, couldn’t I? I could tell you, for example, every detail, every minute detail, of the clothes I was wearing—that red dress, remember? You always liked seeing me in red, it looked so good on me, the dress that left my back bare, the dark red dress, carmine red, my back bare, my black hair untied, which you used to compare to a dark curtain, like night? I could tell you all the details about that red dress, the untied hair, the way you liked me to wear it, isn’t that how it was? And I could, for example, tell you I washed my hair with the finest essences, the finest oils, spent long hours in front of the mirror. I put my makeup on carefully, my body still damp, perfumed myself all over, as though going on a date, as though for a lover, my body gentle and precise. Then I put on the sandals with the straps, the ones with the extremely high heels, the ones that after a few hours make my feet and legs hurt horribly and that I only wore to please you, remember? I would do anything to please you. The sandals you liked so much because you knew what discomfort they caused me, the straps squeezing my toes and the heels on which I struggled to keep my balance. And so I tell you all this, my body perfumed, the dress, the makeup, the sandals wobbling around the house, the noise of my footsteps on the floorboards when you arrived and I went to let you in, the noise of my footsteps and my nervous breathing until I got to the door and opened the door and saw you, smiling, as though all of it were obvious, the fact that I should be getting myself ready for you. But this time I wasn’t walking toward the door and you weren’t waiting for me and thinking it obvious; there was only me and the carmine-red dress and the movie on the living room table, the movie I didn’t fully watch but its existence, its presence, was enough to mean something. A small act of revenge, a confidence, because the other person, however submissive, however transparent, always has something unexpected within them, something that might make you smile or suffer.
Blue Flowers Page 2