Leaving the Atocha Station

by Ben Lerner

  Finally, Isabel came. It was late afternoon and I was reading “The Waste Land” online, stealing phrases. She said something about my apartment being dirty and arranged a few things and it was clear to me that all she felt for me was pity, convinced, no doubt, that she had broken my heart. After saying something about her work that I didn’t try to understand, she told me she was going to Barcelona, probably in the next few days, and would stay with Oscar until they both returned. I experienced the shape of pain but no pain, and said that while it was a shame I wouldn’t see her more, that I was going to miss her terribly, I wished her and Oscar all the best; indeed, if I stayed in Madrid beyond my fellowship, maybe we could all have a drink together at some point, although I understood if that would be difficult for him. My Spanish had never sounded so fluent. I heard myself saying that before she left I’d at least like to take her to dinner, drinks. She had probably planned not to see me again after this visit to my apartment, had imagined a difficult scene, but now that I was showing myself more or less indifferent to her departure, and capable of almost alarming lightness, she said yes, sure, that would be great. I told her for some reason that I was busy that night but that if she came by the next evening around nine we would have our good–bye celebration. She kissed me on the cheek, said how sweet I was, and left. After a momentary flash of anger, I felt nothing.

  A few hours after Isabel’s visit I walked to the gallery, a half–hour walk, smoking and reciting some of my poems to myself, barely feeling the ground beneath me. It was a warm evening, or I was oblivious to the cold, and the streetlights and shop windows and lights of passing cars were intensely bright; the conversation of pedestrians and the sound of traffic and music from passing cars was intensely loud; I wondered if these were side effects. Teresa wasn’t there, but Arturo was, and appeared very happy to see me. I told him I had been in Granada with someone named Isabel and he smiled at me but asked no questions. Maybe his expression implied Teresa would be jealous. He asked me about my poems and I took four notebooks out of my bag and gave them to him and explained they were just from this week and I wondered which were his favorite poems and if there were any they wanted to include in the pamphlet. He seemed genuinely excited, and I thought to myself that that was both touching and somehow sad, but felt neither touched nor saddened. He said I must come to the opening on Friday for the show of several well–known Spanish painters and he added, maybe significantly, that Teresa would be eager to see me; I said fine. Then for some reason I embraced and kissed Arturo with an ambiguous passion I didn’t feel and walked home. For the first time in many days I was tired and quickly fell asleep.

  When I awoke it was a little after three in the morning and I was perhaps hungrier than I had ever been. I’d been eating very little for two weeks, and the return of my appetite, I assumed, represented a shift in my body’s relation to the white pills. I ate an entire two–day–old baguette and as I ate I checked my e–mail and there was a message in English from Teresa, who had only e–mailed me once or twice in the past, saying that she had heard I was back from “traveling with Isabel” and that she missed me. I felt a small, distant thrill, further confirmation that my body had acclimated a little to the drugs, or that the drugs were already losing their effectiveness, and I went easily back to sleep and slept until the early afternoon.

  After I showered, I went to a jeweler near my apartment and with my parents’ credit card, which I was only to use in emergencies, bought Isabel a hundred–and–fifty–euro silver necklace. It was the first time I’d used the card and it was by far the most expensive gift I’d ever purchased. I asked the handsome woman who sold me the necklace where I should take my girlfriend for dinner as it was our anniversary, what did she consider the nicest restaurant in Madrid, the fancier the better, given the occasion. She said she liked Zalacaín, but that it was probably difficult to get in. Smiling, I asked if I could use her phone to call them and beg. She said of course and I called and they said they could, owing to a cancellation, seat two that night at nine thirty. I thanked them and the woman gift wrapped the necklace and said something about how lucky my girlfriend was as I left.

  I went to the Corte Inglés and bought a dress shirt, a stylish–looking knockoff black suit that they could tailor within the hour, and a pair of Spanish shoes. It all cost a few hundred euros and again I used the card. I went home and took a second shower, rolled and smoked a spliff, read the Quixote for a while, and then put on the suit. When Isabel arrived she seemed impressed by my appearance; I felt handsome, not, as I had expected, ridiculous. After she considered me for a while, Isabel said her own clothes weren’t elegant enough; she hadn’t thought we were going anywhere so formal. I said we were going to Zalacaín as though I went there all the time and she said she had heard of it but would have to go change. I told her there wasn’t time, although there was, and that she looked beautiful, which she did, but I said she looked beautiful with some condescension, as if I doubted she owned sufficiently elegant clothing. We took a cab and were early to Zalacaín and Isabel was visibly underdressed; people were staring at the scarf in her hair and the hostess hesitated before asking for my name. Isabel was too attractive for her casual attire to cause much of a scandal, but I smiled apologetically at the hostess, who smiled back at me as I gave her my name; I could feel Isabel blushing.

  It turned out our table was ready and we were seated and I said to the waiter that my Spanish wasn’t good enough to order so I asked that he just bring us whatever the chef recommended, along with a bottle of his favorite Spanish white; my manner suggested I had made this request in several European capitals and languages. When I heard myself ask for a Spanish wine, which, no matter how expensive, would be several orders of magnitude cheaper than the others, I realized I was not entirely out of my mind, which meant I should stop acting as if I were: I was on track to spend more in one day than I’d spent in the previous two months including rent, and all of it in a manner entirely visible to my parents. How would my ailing mom and fascist dad respond to such acting out was the joke I made to myself; I heard my laughter in my head and it sounded foreign.

  Isabel and I had nothing to say. She was nervous, angry, confused; she didn’t drink the aperitifs they brought us on a silver tray. I drank both of them in a manner that communicated I was entirely prepared to make a scene, whatever scene Isabel might like. But worried she would just stand up and leave, I asked her as though there were no tension in the air if she’d had to quit her job at the language school. She said she hadn’t and I realized she’d told me this already. I told her I was sorry about my insisting on such an abrupt return from Granada. She said it was fine and asked after my poems, how work on the little book was coming. I said good, great in fact, that I had never written so much, and I imagined I saw a spark of interest in Isabel as she perhaps remembered my notes and pondered the possibility that she was, in one way or another, involved in them. I told her I would send her a copy in a tone designed to demolish this fantasy if she had it, my voice suggesting I wouldn’t even remember her by the time the book came out, but her smile made it clear this was not a believable implication, that I was trying too hard to appear indifferent. I softened a little, felt myself sink into my chair, and for a second I feared I might let out the same sob, a sob very close to awkward laughter, that I’d released in Granada. Wine was served for me to taste and, making a face that expressed mild disappointment, a face I often made while reading, I said that it was fine.

  A plate of steak tartare was brought to us and Isabel looked at it with muffled surprise and it was clear she had never imagined eating finely chopped raw beef. I asked her how Rufina was as I served her a punishingly large portion and it was suddenly obvious, much more obvious than I intended, that my clothes and the expensive meal were saying to Isabel: of course I never took our relationship seriously; I am a fabulously wealthy American from the United States of Bush, I have merely been acquiring experience, slumming, etc. I felt a wave of guilt and wanted to
apologize and worried, having felt a wave of anything, that I was headed for a precipice. I could barely make myself eat. Isabel didn’t respond to my question, but I had the sense that, if she were embarrassed, it was only on my behalf.

  Plates were taken away and new ones arrived; Isabel appeared relieved by the familiarity of the artichokes and asparagus wrapped in bacon; I couldn’t taste anything. I was moving at inappropriate speed through the wine. I asked what Oscar was doing in Barcelona and she said either that he was a mechanic or was being retrained for something mechanical or that he sold cars or worked for a car company; I didn’t care. I asked what he looked like and she put her hand on my hand and said let’s not talk about Oscar, let this be our night. I smiled at her and tried to look relaxed but when the next dish was brought, something involving caviar and maybe quail eggs, I thought that I might vomit. I could not attempt a bite and my face felt hot and I could barely drink the wine, but did. I must have looked terrible; Isabel asked if I was all right. In my head I said no, my mom just died, and I laughed aloud and my laugh was aberrant. I said that I was fine, but as I said it, I realized for the first time that I was without my yellow pills; I couldn’t have brought my bag to such a restaurant and hadn’t thought to transfer the yellow pills to my jacket pocket because in the last week of my protracted neuropathy I hadn’t taken any. Still, I reached into the jacket pocket and felt the necklace in its case and began to panic; I was respiring no oxygen when I inhaled; it was like trying to drink through a straw with many holes. I said excuse me, stood on very weak legs, the floor uneven now, and walked to the bathroom, which was as lavish as everything else and smelled like roses. I splashed water on my face and told myself, aloud, to calm down, and for a second I felt better, that this would pass, and then I noticed for the first time that there was an attendant in the bathroom, which again made me feel crazy. The chemical taste I often experienced after panic was already in my mouth, an ominous sign; I spat in the sink despite the attendant, rinsed, but the taste intensified. I felt another wave of nausea and went into a stall and vomited. For a moment it occurred to me that I might be having a medical emergency; if I died, blood tests would reveal to my family that, as the saying goes, drugs were involved. The blood tests, the credit card bill, the notebooks filled with incomprehensible poems—had I tried to kill myself without my knowledge, were those so many suicide notes? I sat on the toilet with my head in my hands and cried as quietly as possible. Fortunately, the crying helped. Eventually I stopped heaving, left the stall, and again splashed water on my face. The attendant asked me if I was all right. I blinked at him, breathed deeply, mumbled something about my family, and deposited a handful of coins in the bowl beside him, which might have been for mints.

  I felt much better now, that is, I felt next to nothing as I returned to the table where Isabel awaited me with genuine concern. I said I was sorry, that I’d had a dizzy spell, but it had passed, and I drank my wine and felt restored. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been gone but the table had been cleared and soon we were served lamb and something involving lobster along with a new bottle of red wine the waiter explained was related to the white. I wasn’t hungry but I was no longer repulsed by the food and as I ate a little I asked Isabel what she wanted to do after dinner. She said she didn’t know and I said that we could do anything she wanted. She thought for a while and smiled and said that she had never spent the night at a fancy hotel. I heard myself say we would stay in the Ritz–Carlton directly opposite the Prado. As I drank more I could eat more and as I grew drunker the money became increasingly unreal. This was accompanied by a wave of benevolence that I directed at Isabel, and I began to speak to her in a Spanish that sounded, at least to me, impeccable.

  “I have been upset since we talked about Oscar. When you told me about him, I realized how much I cared about you, and it’s very hard to know that I won’t be able to see you again,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said, without malice, “but what does it mean that you only realized how much you cared when you heard about Oscar?”

  “I didn’t mean that exactly, but it’s difficult to express myself with subtlety in Spanish,” I said.

  “You are fluent in Spanish, Adán,” she said, maybe sadly.

  “I was angry and jealous and hurt and acting like a teenager,” I ignored her. “But now I just want to tell you how wonderful it’s been to spend time with you, how wonderful I think you are, and how, while it’s painful for me that you’ll be with someone else, I wish you only the best.” I started to reach for my glass to toast her but then thought that would be ridiculous.

  She opened her mouth, but hesitated before speaking, and for some reason it suddenly occurred to me: there is no Oscar. Oscar was a test, it was revenge for my insisting on having a separate social life, for the reading in Salamanca. It was a trap to move me toward some kind of commitment. I was waiting for my emotional response to this revelation to declare itself when she refuted it: “You are very sweet. I will always love you.” Her tone made it clear that she loved a lot of people in a lot of ways.

  Two men cleared our plates and scraped the tablecloth and gave me a dessert menu that I handed to Isabel and I asked if they had half bottles of champagne; they did, I ordered one, and Isabel asked me what I wanted for dessert. I wondered if she’d ever had crème brûlée. She said she hadn’t so we ordered it and they brought chocolate–covered strawberries compliments of the chef with our champagne. I began to make fun of the waiters’ seriousness and Isabel found it hilarious; we were laughing loudly, attracting glances. We had a few bites of the dessert and finished the champagne and were by then quite drunk. I did not look at the check when it came. The waiter returned my card, I signed the receipt, and left a large tip in cash, probably a faux pas.

  They called us a cab and we stumbled into it and I asked for the Ritz, the very name of which struck us both as hysterical, and we made out for the length of the ride. I paid and we went into the hotel and I spoke to the receptionist in English.

  “I’m just in from New York and need a room for the night,” I said, as if the words “New York” explained everything. Isabel seemed impressed by my English.

  The receptionist typed on a computer and said, “We have available to you sir a classic room with a king bed and a balcony.”

  “Remind me how much those rooms are,” I said, my eyebrows suggesting I was only curious how these rates compared to New York, Milan, Paris.

  “They are three hundred and ninety euros per night sir,” she said.

  I considered telling Isabel that no rooms were available, but even without English, she would discern it was a lie. “O.K.,” I said, thinking of my apartment two hundred yards away; my rent was three hundred and seventy–five euros a month.

  I asked if I could pay in advance and did. The receptionist began to say something about luggage, then coughed her way out of it. A bellboy, if that’s the word, led us to our room, which was as fancy as the restaurant, and I asked him in English if he would bring us a bottle of the cheapest white wine they had; he said of course, but refused to return my conspiratorial smile. Isabel slipped off her shoes and opened the windows and said she was going to take a shower. The wine was there by the time she came out of the bathroom wearing one of the hotel’s plush white robes; we drank, made love, and then smoked near the window. I ordered another bottle, my affectedly formal manner on the phone uproarious to Isabel. Then we made love again and smoked again, Isabel now drunker than I’d ever seen her; she held my head in her hands, mumbling something I couldn’t understand, barely Spanish. Finally she passed out and I stood alone at the window, the room dark, and looked across the street at the Prado. I thought of the great artist for a while.

  4

  I WOKE UP IN THE FIFTH PHASE OF MY PROJECT AS IF IN RESPONSE TO a loud noise. Isabel was still sleeping, maybe because of all the wine. I got out of bed, dressed, splashed water on my face, brushed my teeth with the complimentary brush, gargled the designer mouth-wash, and smoked
a cigarette near the window. It was still early, rush hour. A few fire trucks passed by on El Paseo del Prado, sirens blaring. I was hungover, disoriented. Then several police cars passed. I leaned out the window and looked down the street, but couldn’t see anything. I told Isabel I’d be back soon; she shifted in her sleep as I left the room. I took the elevator to the lobby where people were huddled around TVs. I asked the bellboy in English what happened but he was distracted by other guests; I left the hotel and walked into the sun. Or was it cloudy?

  Now trucks full of what looked like soldiers or special police were passing. I followed them toward Atocha, about a ten-minute walk, more and more fire trucks flashing by me, until I arrived at what they call a scene of mayhem. It was cloudy. There were police and medical workers and other people everywhere, many of them weeping and/or screaming, and, as I got closer to the station, more and more confusion. People streamed from the various exits, some of them wounded, lightly I guess, and emergency workers rushing in. I saw, I might have seen, a dazed teenager with blood all over his face and a paramedic who took his arm and sat him down and gave him something that looked like an ice pack, instructing him to sit and hold it to his head. There was an odor of burnt plastic. Someone asked me what had happened. Helicopters beat the air overhead. I wandered around for a few minutes, found a wall to sit against, shut my eyes, and listened.