“So what now?”
“What now, what?”
“Aren’t you going to invite me around for a drink at your place?”
It was an invitation, no, it was a demand, he thought for a few moments. And she hadn’t even waited till they’d gotten to the car. The easiest thing would be to say yes, to take her to his room, to his bed, but at that moment the easiest thing seemed much more difficult to him. A refusal wouldn’t make things any better, but on the other hand he didn’t want things to get any better. He thought about that morning. He didn’t want it. All the same, it would never be easy to say no to a beautiful woman, and yet, at the same time, there was always a certain narcissistic pleasure to be had in saying no to a beautiful woman. He ought to say no more often. As an act of revenge.
“That’s not going to work out today, Fabiane.”
He inhaled deeply, a pause for breath, tried to arrange things in such a way that they didn’t seem too important.
“I’ve got to be up early tomorrow, a meeting,” he said, playing with his napkin.
A meeting was a fairly well-worn excuse, he could have thought of something better, more convincing, but the truth was he really did have a meeting the following morning. Sometimes it was best not to tell the truth. Now it was too late; he’d already said it.
“A meeting . . .” Fabiane looked at him in disbelief.
“Right, a meeting. And also, I’m really very tired, don’t take it the wrong way.”
His own voice didn’t ring true to him—“Don’t take it the wrong way, Fabiane”—he never talked like that. She seemed to notice this, she probably felt rejected, repelled, all the same she decided to pretend that it hadn’t affected her.
“No, of course I won’t take it the wrong way. It’s for the best, I’ve got to be up early tomorrow, too.”
She seemed to be trying to think fast while she talked, maybe trying to come up with the best response, a few words that would rescue her from that discomfort as quickly as possible, that would restore her poise, her elegance, the manner she had of being the kind of person who drank champagne. He offered:
“I’ll call you later, we can arrange to meet up on the weekend. What do you think?”
“Sure, let’s arrange that.”
He knew it was a lie, he wouldn’t call, of course. She knew it, too.
The night was over before ten, at least it was with Fabiane. He left her at home, saying goodbye to her in the car outside her building. He gave her a quick kiss, trying to strip the moment of any dramatic coloring. She went inside without looking back. He pressed down on the accelerator carefully, as though afraid of being surprised, or worried that any noise might alert her, make her turn suddenly and come back toward him, knock on the window, her lips moving without his being able to hear her. But she didn’t turn around. And he drove home thinking perhaps he had been unfair.
The truth was, he’d arrived at the restaurant already expecting not to enjoy it, whatever she said, not wanting it, so that events would take their course. And Fabiane, who knew nothing of the last few days, had no way of defending herself. He was probably being unfair. Now, sitting on the sofa in his apartment, he thought it was better this way, imagining that that had been their last meeting, but perhaps it wasn’t, perhaps there was still room for others, but in any case, he would not be seeking her out again.
JANUARY 23
My darling,
It would be easier if it was only about the violence, the blood, the marks on my body after I saw you. And then I could love you or hate you deeply. But no. There were other nuances, other moments, sometimes there was a gentleness and I’d think, Where did this submissive manner of yours come from, this defenselessness, where could it have come from, all of a sudden.
There was something in you, some gentleness that moved me, as if you were also suffering the whole time. I would look at you in surprise and wonder. Why were you suffering? Those precious moments, after all the violence, all the hatred, that gentleness when you would lay your head in my lap and suffer, and I’d be there, scared of making any false move, any sound, any gesture that might snuff out that moment, that forgiveness, that silence uniting us. I would stroke your face very gently, the tips of my fingers over your brow, your temples, your eyes, the soft tips of my fingers on your long closed eyelashes, and I’d think, God, how beautiful your face was. Sometimes you’d fall asleep, your head still there in my lap—you always fell asleep quickly—and I’d be there beside you, my insomnia keeping me company, my vigil. Your face isn’t a child’s face in the way a man’s face is when he’s asleep, I’ve told you this before; a man when he’s asleep is a man disarmed, a boy-man, but not you, in your face that uneasiness lingered, that distress. I’ve always been alarmed that someone can suffer in their sleep when everything is supposed to be so calm, as though that deepest suffering finally showed itself during your sleep, I used to think with your head in my lap for hours at night until dawn. I kept watch over your sleep, your nightmares, like a child, I was filled with that warmth, with that love, just thinking, I, who would give you anything; I, who could do anything, could carry you in my body and give birth to you and cradle you in my lap and feed you, and whisper an old song, something to soothe you, the tips of my fingers, still damp from my tears or from some other desire of my own. A love that was so great, do you understand?
That’s right, there were other small moments and details, too. There always are. The secrets hidden in those cracks of the outward appearance, in the flaws of this character we’ve invented. And the following day, in the mirror, besides the marks and the pains, there was that gentleness, that gentleness inscribed there, and something incredibly beautiful, something that fascinated me, and that changed everything, it changed everything, do you understand?
But maybe you won’t understand, or maybe you’ll think I’m just repeating the same old things, something I’ve been saying for a long time. It’s possible. And now I’m thinking, I wonder whether I really am saying what I’m saying? Maybe I’m being naive, maybe I think I am exposing myself, naked, fragile, talking to you about affection and gentleness, when in reality I’m destroying you, gladly, willingly. Maybe I’m being naive, maybe I think I am reconquering you—could I be reconquering you? When in reality what I’m doing is preparing something that will gradually move us further apart, something that will divide us definitively and move us further apart. Or, even worse, what guarantee do I have that what I say to you, what I’m making such a great effort to say to you, doesn’t include other whims, other impulses, snaking their way in? The meanest, vilest things, without my wanting them to, without my knowing, get away from me; there’s always something that gets away and betrays me. How to control the worst in me? Is it me, naive, destroying you, gladly, willingly, imagining that this is a kind of love?
And how am I to know, after all? How to know whether you’ve made it this far, this letter in your hands, if you had the courage, yes, because you’d need courage, you’d need courage to bear all this waiting and receive all this love, even if it’s only a deception. And all these words that are always something else, how is it possible to know?
Writing is full of misunderstandings, just like speech. Not like a look, which is always revealing—there’s nothing more revealing than a look, a distant look in the midst of such a great love, a wicked look during a declaration of innocence, or a clingy look when the body goes away. Could there be a way of saying things without the meaning getting away from us, is there any way of controlling our words? I could, for example, write a footnote to each line in this letter, an explanation for each line, telling you the source, where all this has come from—the pain, the doubt, your gentleness—a note telling you that where it says “table,” it was really a room, and where it said “street,” it was really a bed, not just any bed, but my bed and sheets, remember? I wonder whether your sheets and mine would be the same? And just to reas
sure myself, I’d send another note, for that day, that night, the last night, remember? And still the doubt remains, are our recollections of those days the same? And even, was it you, was it really you? Memory tends to deceive, memory and time and the desire for things to be the way we think they were, was it you, that day, that night, those sheets? The footnote at the bottom of the page would explain it all to you once again: where it says “hate,” it was love, such a great love. And, if possible, I’d add some text to explain not only the words, but also to guide your reading. There, where there are simple, banal words, you would read instead something very beautiful, something unexpected, to make you come back, to make you love me and come back. Or even if you don’t love me, let this reading be a kind of love, too. And we are left with this hope.
I say that because I’m constantly alarmed at this impossibility between us. There was between us, always has been, a whole chain of falsely drawn conclusions, of misunderstandings.
At times there was some everyday reason for these misunderstandings. The two of us walking on the street, chatting, the street full of couples chatting about things that were obvious, everyday, and suddenly one of us would use a poorly chosen word—it was something I said, or didn’t say, how was I to know—and suddenly nothing was as it had been, and your hand that had previously caressed my arm, your arm that had wrapped gently around me, the two of us chatting, your hand, your hand now squeezed me hard, your fingers digging into my arm, the skin losing its color, like that day at the rental place, remember? But many other days, too, we were someplace or other and it didn’t even need to be your fingers squeezing my arm, it could be anything, the palm of your hand on my face, the sound and burning heat of the palm of your hand on my face, visible for a long time afterward, as though at every moment the gesture was being renewed, and was being renewed now, now, at this moment as I write to you, I bring my fingers to my cheek trying to feel it again, that pain, that burning and throbbing, the skin turned red. Where can it have come from, that hatred of yours? And then where did all that gentleness come from? And why is it that these movements, disparate as they are, merge together, at every moment, in me, in you? I think about that even now.
One day, it was maybe two, three weeks after our first meeting, our first look, I remember, I think it was during dinner, just any old day, right at the beginning, remember? I’d been spending the afternoon cooking and you arrived somehow strange, threw your backpack onto the sofa and said nothing, that silence of yours. I kept talking to calm you down, to calm myself down, talking about the food, about the ingredients, the supermarket, perhaps just to lessen my anxiety and—why not—my fear, I kept talking, and I asked you questions, remember? I couldn’t stop doing that, asking questions, not because I expected an answer but like a child, my hand seeking out yours, have I told you that already? At first you replied in monosyllables, later not even that, but I kept talking, my hand seeking out yours, insisting. I set the table, put the food on the table, as you sat silent in front of the television, I told you dinner was ready, and you sat there, unmoving in front of the television, remember? When you sat down at the table at last, the television was still on so I got up, turned it off, said something like: I don’t like having dinner with the TV on, something like that. You said nothing, there was only your look and the distance it imposed. I could barely get the food down my throat with the feeling that I’d said something wrong again, something awful. You were serious as you ate, silent, as if you hated me, or as if you were suffering. Where could it have come from, all that suffering? I asked you something again about the food, the ingredients, the supermarket, I don’t remember exactly, do you? But I know there was a last question, and suddenly your hand pushed the plate off the table, the noise of the plate and the food on the plate falling off the table, the noise of the plate, and the food on the floor next to the table, and you, I remember your words exactly, you raised your voice and said, in that tone that always used to paralyze me: Will you shut your fucking mouth. Will you shut your fucking mouth. Those words look so strange to me written here, like another language. And I thought that was an unbearable violence. Those words, the whole gesture that went with them, the plate and the food spread across the floor.
I stayed there unmoving, tears streaming down my face, how many times did I have tears streaming down my face; I always repeat myself. And I stayed where I was, while you went back to sitting in front of the television; how much time went by while you were in front of the television and I sat there, looking at my plate that was still on the table, tears streaming down my face? And that was a violence, I thought and kept thinking, a violence.
Until I got to my feet at last and began to clean up what was left of that day, of that dinner. The plate and the food spread across the floor, and everything that was left over from that gesture of yours and those words of yours, “your fucking mouth,” wasn’t that it? How much time went by? I don’t know, maybe an hour, maybe a year, I don’t know. All I know is that when I finished cleaning up, your gesture, your words, you were still there in front of the television, and I was sitting in a chair in a corner of the living room, my legs tightly closed together, hands on my knees, as though I were being punished, as though I’d done something terrible. I sat there for hours on that chair; time seemed to have stagnated. I was alarmed to see you like that, it was the first time I’d seen you that way, and I had this desire to get up, to leave or, more logically, to send you away, it was my house, my sofa, my television, how was it possible? Still I sat on that chair, legs together.
Until you, still sitting on the sofa, looked at me with contempt and said: Come on, stop crying, come sit here. You said it like someone granting a concession, like someone finally granting forgiveness, Come sit here, as though I were the guilty one. I got up, almost happy, have I told you that already? At that moment I was almost happy, when I got up off the chair, it surprised me, how was it possible? I walked very slowly toward you, my back aching, my whole body aching from those words of yours, from that gesture, my body suddenly felt heavy, and I was dragging it, while you were sitting there, Come here, you were saying, it was a rescue, a command.
I approached slowly, and when I made as if to sit down next to you, at that same moment you pulled my arm, hard, fitting me into your lap, surprising me. It was such a great love, what I felt for you, such a great love. I’d been through hell, and now you were holding out a hand to me and all was well again. And it was a desperate kind of happiness, could there be any such thing, a desperate happiness? All was well again and I hugged you and kissed you longingly, furiously, I tore off your clothes and hurt my fingers tearing off your clothes, the expectation of your naked body, your skin, like never before, and finally, seeing you naked, your naked body, How could it be so beautiful, your naked body, I thought, how was it possible, that beauty, that arrogance? I shed my own clothes, hardly giving myself enough time, and lifted up my skirt and opened my legs and sat on your lap, sat slowly on your lap, my legs open, my gaze clinging to yours, my body a perfect fit as it descended. I felt something like a fall, a weakening, the meeting of our nudity, the precision of your skin on the most delicate outlines of my skin, and the brushing of my breasts against your chest, against your mouth. I embraced you deeply and kissed you, more and more, my tongue caressing yours. I arched and unarched my body, whispering promises and incoherent words in your ear, saying the most obscene words in your ear and scratching you, gripping and biting and squeezing you, feeling the sweat running down my face, and my body arched and unarched and seemed all liquid, all flow, all blood. And I was nothing but a slow, endless moaning. And at each moment I thought, How was it possible? How could such things be possible, this abyss, this happiness?
A.
V
He thought about the difficulty he’d had in focusing for the minutes in the car that morning, perhaps longer, when he was shut away in the car, in the garage, the difficulty he’d had in starting the day, after the h
ours dragged past as he asked about something at a meeting at work, in English, an incredibly important meeting, in a suit, in a tie, first thing in the morning. He’d acted like an idiot, he knew, his thoughts distant and fragmented, his colleagues throwing him questioning looks: So what was that about? someone had asked him discreetly as they left. Nothing, he replied, escaping as quickly as he could, leaving no time for any more questions.
So what did he mean by his behavior, then? That was what everyone was wondering, that was what he was wondering himself—was he planning to get fired? Other people would have lost their jobs for much less, but he had all that efficiency, that punctuality, that responsibility. He had been on edge for several days now. And he also felt a certain inexplicable irritation. A kind of bad mood. He went to the restroom, took off his tie, loosened his collar, washed his face, an attempt to wake up once and for all.
On the way to his office, he registered the intern who always walked past him unnoticed, but today he stopped by her desk. He looked at her closely. Daniela seemed just out of adolescence, her face elastic and rounded, smiling at anyone who passed. He came a little closer, but her attention was on her computer.
“Daniela, what do you think about receiving letters?”
She looked up, intrigued.
“Letters?”
“Yeah, letters, I don’t mean e-mails, faxes, text messages. I’m talking about letters on paper, the kind you send in the mail.”
She still didn’t react. He insisted:
“Have you ever received a personal letter?”
“I don’t remember, maybe, why?”
“And what did you think?”
“About what? About the letter?”
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