Blue Flowers

by Carola Saavedra

  He walked quickly to his car, almost ran, the package heavy in his hands. He paid for the parking, and went away, away from that place where nothing happened, he thought disappointedly, that static part of the city, a story he’d made up, and which made no sense at all.

  In the car he put the package down on the back seat, covered it up with the jacket he’d brought with him but hadn’t worn, closed the door unnecessarily hard. Just turning on the air-conditioning, he started to feel better already. The cold air on his face, the windows closed, driving unhurriedly down the city streets, a set route, only the landscape changing. And he went back to thinking about the next day, about what he’d do, about what there was still to be done, as though he were sketching out a plan.

  JANUARY 25

  My darling,

  Okay, so I’m sure I’ve done something wrong, something terrible, something unspeakable. Like a killer who has erased the moment of the crime from her memory, and is now just harmonious, gentle, all in balance. But there’s always a trace left behind, a fog remaining. And even if it is erased, we then write over it; even if it’s under a thousand layers, there’s always something that will betray us, some friction, all in spite of the harmonious gestures and the gentle voice. Because however much you might want to, it is never possible to erase the moment of the crime. There’s always that friction, even if only an outline. Even if we later pay visits, bring flowers, write poems. Even if we try to be good. Because there is nothing more dangerous than trying to be good. The certainty that goodness resides in the worst offenses, the greatest injustices in goodness.

  But you must know that, right? Who would know that better than you? You, who I forced to be extremely good. From the beginning, from the first look, however good you were, the worse I’d be, or however bad I allowed you to be, the better I would be, like a mathematical equation, the more negatives there are, the more positives, and everything balanced out in the end. Was there a balance between our actions? An equation that was necessary, instantaneous? The more you were, the less I’d be.

  Because there was no way of being any different. There was something connecting us, as the extremes of a single piece of apparatus, like the mechanics of a seesaw, it was my weight that raised you up, and just one push from me could bring you back down to earth. Nothing I gave you could be yours without you taking it from me, without my visibly lacking it. And, on the other hand, nothing I ripped out of myself could be anything but yours. Nothing, no joy of mine that didn’t mean discouragement, no act of bravery that wasn’t a flight. And so I tried hard to be extremely happy, not for the happiness in itself, which I didn’t care about, but in order that you might suffer, and to take that something away from you and leave a mark, even if that mark were no more than a cut, a lack. I searched nervously for an unknown happiness, just so that the suffering might at last take shape. I ran through the streets in an unsettled happiness, the wind in my face, I ran and kept running, constant acceleration, and however much you suffered, my will was never calmed, my will never gave in.

  I still think of that night every day, that night. Why do we always think about the same things? This will that never gives in. As though the moment continued, happening again and again, as though we were continuing to commit the same crime, all humanity and the whole history of humanity, always the same crime, but there’s nothing new about that, is there? I know that’s my greatest defeat, that even if I try hard to tell you something new, I’ll always just keep saying the same things, even if I make use of the most varied strategies and tell you that they change each time—because time and you and the river passing—even if I make use of the most varied strategies and, like a seductress, tell you there’s something that hasn’t yet been uttered but which I am telling you now. And I say to you: that night, that last night, remember? Still, I will tell you the same things.

  But I’d prefer to start by talking about afterward. Not the precise moment when we were still in the living room, remember? But afterward, when everything had already ended and you went into the bedroom, not a word uttered, you went into the bedroom, lay down on the bed and went to sleep, preventing me from being able to shout, cry, make accusations, point a weapon at you or even leave, or even send you away. For anything I felt or did, you were no longer there, but you were there beside me, as though I didn’t exist. But I did exist. Still dressed, or still half naked, as you had left me, those high-heeled sandals, remember? My torso stretched out on the table. Now, in bed, next to you, I hardly moved, my body had become an ovum, a closed structure, my whole body a spiral turning in on itself, silent, still; I avoided any gesture, any doubt, avoided the casual brush of your skin against mine. The brushing of your skin against mine, however lightly, would be a concession, forgiving you silently, after the end, after everything. But to forgive you would be to make your suffering milder, it would be to make your happiness milder. Hatred was what was needed for extreme violence to be consummated, and for love, finally, to be consummated, too.

  That’s how it often was, what mattered was not the act, however amazing it was, but what came afterward, the two of us lying in bed. And it might be possible to prolong the act endlessly, it might be possible to extend it for a whole stretch of time. The two of us in bed, in my bed, the sheets, your eyes closed. I made my greatest fears eternal and deep, something that kept burning, have I said that already? You never feel the fire at the moment of the flames, just the shock and the memory of other fires, and the expectation of it; only later, once the flames are far off, the flames now extinct, your touch continues to enter deeper. The moment of the crime never exists, didn’t I tell you that? Just the sense of some extreme violence. Just a mark on the skin, just a particular tune that comes back again and again. At the time of the pain, it is never possible to feel the pain, or to understand it, or to say, I’m feeling the pain, now, look: the pain. Only later, in bed beside you, the pain opens, deepens, and this happiness of yours that has become complete; only later in bed, next to me, could your happiness be complete. Because no suffering was possible without it meaning some happiness.

  The day after our first meeting, I remember I went shopping; you know I like shopping. Not in malls, but walking the streets of the city, crowded with people, the sun or the rain or the wind and the cars going by. I bought a hat. A hat without a brim, tight-fitting, an old-fashioned hat, the kind you only see in photos. I bought it at an antiques shop. A shop hidden at the end of a gallery. Maybe not even an antiques shop, just a heap of old furniture; they sold clothes, jewelry, porcelain dolls, the leftovers of some inheritance or other. The place wasn’t well kept, it smelled of mold and cigarettes, and gave the impression that everything there had been left by the side of the street; someone had wandered off and all those objects were just forgotten until somebody else randomly gathered them up.

  At the back of the shop, a very thin, very white, very made-up lady was wearing a velvet suit, her black hair tied back, her skin very white, her mouth painted extremely red, her mouth spilling over its edges, as though it wanted to give the lips an unreal outline, a whole face, as though it wanted to give the face another face. This very made-up lady at the back of the store was like a forgotten mannequin. A mannequin who remained back there, ramrod straight, immutable, while outside, the city, and the cars, and the seasons of the year passed by.

  As soon as I stepped inside, there was the smell of the long thin cigarette she was smoking in a holder. As soon as she saw me, she made some comment about the hat I was looking at, a black hat, vintage, tight-fitting, like those women used to wear in the twenties; maybe it really was from that period. I asked her, but she didn’t answer, she only remarked that my long hair wouldn’t go well with that hat, that my long hair didn’t go well with my face, she remarked contemptuously, adding that my hairstyle was out of fashion, her thin, delicate hands grabbing a few strands, You’ll have to get it cut, she suggested, no, she stated outright, you’ll have to cut it, an unavo
idable act. I said yes at once, almost not thinking, that I’d cut it really short, just to wear the hat. People nowadays don’t have enough style to wear hats, she said, the tone of her voice brusque with clipped enunciation, as though addressing a crowd. I agreed. You have no style either, she went on, looking me up and down disapprovingly; I agreed again. But you could, she said, not attempting to console me. I looked at myself in the mirror, my long hair outside the hat; she was right, this lady, I thought, people have no style.

  Try this, she said, showing me a vintage dress, in a velvet like she was wearing, green, an unusual green, an emerald green, a grayish green (is there such a color?). A bit worn at the sleeves, I noticed, but I did as I was told. I took the dress around the back to the fitting room, and she opened the curtain before I’d even finished doing up the front buttons. The top part of the dress looked like a bodice, and some skill was needed to tie the ribbon that zigzagged across the back. She was annoyed at my delay—You’re very slow, my dear—and she took the ribbon from my hands, tied the back of the dress closed herself, tightening it till I could barely breathe.

  Seeing myself like that, I felt strange. I wanted to laugh, but I looked like an actress in a bit of Poor Theatre, dressed for a role in a long-forgotten period piece. When she saw me, she said, Much better, accompanying the words with a nod of approval, then immediately concluded: The problem is people have no style, she said this several times more. I kept agreeing. Maybe she scared me—I had a feeling that there was no point disagreeing with her. I left the shop with the dress and the hat, paid for with only the vaguest attention to the price; when it was time to pay I said again that, yes, I would get my hair cut, as though apologizing, as though it were a prerequisite for taking the hat. It’s for the best, she answered drily, people nowadays, she went on, as I went out the door and walked quickly away along the empty hallway.

  I threw the dress away very soon afterward, I don’t know why, but even before I’d arrived home. I felt an urgent need to be rid of it, as though suddenly the dress were enclosing a secret, a possibility, so I took it out of the bag and threw it in a trash can in the middle of the sidewalk, spilling out from the top. And at the same time as I feared being discovered, unmasked, I wished with all my strength that someone would see me, someone would see me and save that overflowing green fabric from disappearing.

  I kept the hat for some reason; I have it here with me still, in a box at the top of the closet. I never wore it. I never cut my hair. I always thought I would do it one day. Cut it really short, do it myself, and go out wearing the hat at last. Walking along the sidewalk. Whatever the time of day, even in the heat, even under the most burning sun. Feeling as though that one simple change could mean something much more complex. Like now.

  That last night lying next to you I thought about that day, strange, isn’t it? About that woman, about the dress, about the hat. Perhaps I was trying to tell myself something completely new. Or just to say something without being forced to make use of words filled with meaning. It’s impossible to say anything that doesn’t have meaning, isn’t it? And so even what I’m telling you now, this episode that’s so simple, so trivial, I end up involuntarily bestowing some sense on it, a weight.

  And so I tell you that on that night, next to you, your closed eyes excluding me, that night it was as though, in some way, I finally had cut my hair really short and gone out onto the street in that hat. And running down the streets, the wind in my face, the hat tightly on, I was looking for my reflection at every opportunity and thinking that this whole time, without realizing it, all I’d done had been planning this moment. And there, next to you, I ran, giving myself up to this moment of no return.

  A.

  VII

  The next morning he was still thinking about the previous day, about how there was no point to keeping watch like that. Not even if he were to spend the whole day there, watching the post office and every woman who went in, every woman who came out, always thinking that each one might be her, and always missing her. How many times had he missed her these past few days, waiting in the snack bar, during some conversation or other, a momentary lapse, a distracted glance. How many times had she been in and out without his even knowing? So close and yet, at the same time, a stranger.

  He imagined her tall, very thin, her clothes elegant but discreet, maybe a little vintage, as though she were right out of an antiques shop, a thrift store, a pearl necklace, he pictured her hair tied back, maybe a few strands come loose, light makeup, the quick walk of someone who knows she is being watched, the walk of someone who has no time to waste. Except that nobody was her, even if he spent the whole day there, sitting opposite the post office, in the snack bar. Nobody was her, he thought, rather disillusioned.

  At last, he decided to talk to the doorman. When he came into the building he asked, as though he didn’t really care, it couldn’t matter less, he asked whether the doorman knew the previous resident of his apartment; the doorman looked at him suspiciously, first saying yes, then immediately correcting himself to say no, he didn’t know who he was, he’d only seen him a few times. He thought it would be best to explain himself, so he explained that some correspondence had arrived addressed to the previous resident and that he didn’t know whom to pass it on to; the doorman looked at him strangely—maybe he knew something, he thought—the doorman said he didn’t know the new address either, he didn’t really know who the former tenant was. And again he felt that the doorman was keeping something from him. Then he thought he was surely being paranoid about this whole business with the letters, what secrets could the doorman and the previous resident really be sharing, after all? He thought it best not to insist. There had to be other ways to get to him, he thought, and he immediately remembered the owner of the apartment, the lady he had only briefly met for the handover of the keys. He would phone her that same day.

  He decided to call his ex-wife while it was still early. First, he went into the kitchen and made himself a cup of coffee. He had been eager to try out the machine he’d just bought. He sat on the living room sofa, cup in one hand, telephone in the other. On the end of the line, his ex-wife’s irritated voice:

  “Hi, Marcos, so you decided to reappear at last.”

  He drank a gulp of coffee, put the cup down on the coffee table.

  “Yeah, I was busy.”

  “Yeah, I can imagine, you must really be very busy indeed, I’ve been trying to talk to you for two days, I left you I don’t know how many messages.”

  He looked at the blue envelope on the table, the envelope and the cup, side by side, as though one was not possible without the other, as though in a composition, he thought.

  “Yeah, I was busy.”

  “Sure, but however busy you are, I don’t think you should forget you have a daughter, that next week is her birthday and I’m organizing a party.”

  “Right, I know.”

  “Look, Marcos, I’m not even asking you to help me organize the party, I’m not asking you to do anything, just that you show up for your daughter’s birthday, that’s all, it’s not as hard as all that, what do you think?”

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “Excellent, so don’t forget, next Wednesday, and as for the present, since you never know what to buy, just leave it to me to buy something, the only thing you’ve got to do is show up at her preschool. Next Wednesday, four o’clock in the afternoon. You’d better write it down.”

  He took the envelope carefully, looked closely at it, one more time. The postmark stamped on it.

  “Four won’t be possible, I’m still at work then.”

  “Yesterday I called your work at three and you weren’t there.”

  “I was busy.”

  “Fine, well, next Wednesday you’ll also be busy, at your daughter’s birthday party.”

  Resting the phone on his shoulder, with his hands free now he opened the envelope, the lett
er, five pages, ending, as usual, with just an A.

  “Fine, you can leave that with me, I’ll be there.”

  “Great.”

  “. . .”

  “You know, Marcos, sometimes you’re really hard to handle—is there something going on?”

  Also as usual, at the beginning of the letter, My darling, except that her darling wasn’t him, he thought, unable to prevent the feeling of disappointment, perhaps even rage. It wasn’t him, but in a way it could be. He put the letter back down on the table.

  “No, everything’s fine.”

  “I know you, Marcos, I can sense there’s something going on, don’t you want to tell me what it is? You never know, I might be able to help.”

  His ex-wife seemed to have calmed down, at least the tone of her voice was now conciliatory, almost friendly. He tried to reciprocate, to make peace.

  “No, thank you, there’s nothing going on, really, nothing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  He picked up the cup, took another gulp.

  “I mean, yeah, maybe you could help me, actually. Would you mind having Manuela this weekend?”

  “What do you mean, have Manu?”

  “Just this once.”

  “Oh, I knew there was something going on, it’s that Fabiane, isn’t it?”