by Val
7th September 1998
HOW COULD I have guessed that Jaime had been looking through my personal papers and knew exactly how much money I had? We have never talked about money: for him it’s taboo, and I have no problem with that. I have nothing to hide, but at the same time, I have not talked to him about my economic situation. The fact is that when the famous episode of the legal seizure of his goods was about to take place, the money Jaime needed was exactly the amount I had in my account. Jaime knew how much I had saved down to the last cent.
After the money crisis, things calmed down, and Jaime went on travelling for his work and for family reasons. I had no savings any more, but between my salary and what he earned, we lived well. Jaime continued to pay our outgoings, and every month he scrupulously gave me the money for the rent. We were living a second honeymoon, and the problem we had faced had only served to bring us closer together, and make our love all the stronger. That was what I thought, at least.
Today I set off for a famous fashion show in Italy, which my firm and I needed to attend. I knew Jaime was very much against the trip, especially following the argument we had over my boss’s supposed intentions towards me. But Jaime did not stop me going. Until now I haven’t given him any reason to feel jealous. I see the world through his eyes, and I live completely and exclusively for him. I’ve left my sordid sexual existence behind, and I no longer have any contact with my men friends.
When we arrived in Milan, a business associate of Harry, my boss, came and took us to our hotel. As we were driving into town, he told us there was a small problem about the rooms. All the hotels in the city were full, and the only thing he had managed to find for us was a large suite that we would have to share. I did not mind sharing a suite, as long as there were two beds in two different rooms. And that seemed to be the case, because when we got to the hotel we found that we could occupy the suite without being in each other’s way at all, apart from sharing the bathroom. It was simply a matter of getting organized.
I told myself I was not even going to mention these arrangements to Jaime, because I knew he wouldn’t understand. I did call him, though, to say I had arrived safely.
‘Which hotel are you in?’ he asked all of a sudden.
‘The Westin Palace. Why?’
‘Just to know. Give me the phone number and the number of your room. I’ll call you, because it’s very expensive. I can see your boss is treating you like a princess: it’s a lovely hotel!’ he said.
I told Harry my boyfriend was about to call back, and warned him not to pick up the phone. I did not want to have to explain why it was Harry who had answered. Fortunately for me, Harry is a wonderful boss who understands these domestic matters perfectly.
A quarter of an hour later, Jaime was on the line.
‘Who had the idea first?’ he asked out of the blue.
‘What idea?’ I had no clue as to what he was talking about, but I feared the worst.
‘Let me put it another way. Who fucked who?’ he said, a sarcastic edge to his voice.
I couldn’t say a word.
‘Do you think I’m stupid? I spoke to the receptionist and asked him to put me through to your boss. By some extraordinary coincidence, he has the same room number as you. I called back, and they confirmed you are sharing a room.’
My heart started pounding. How could I convince him that things were not what they seemed?
‘Jaime, I can explain. The thing is . . .’
‘I don’t want to hear your excuses. I want his version. Put him on!’
‘No, Jaime! The two of us should talk about this. He’s nothing to do with it . . .’
‘Put him on!’
He was shouting so loudly that Harry, who was next to me, understood what was going on and asked me to pass him the phone.
When I heard Jaime shouting at him as well, I was so ashamed I did not know where to put myself. Harry looked at me, then concentrated on what Jaime was saying, only occasionally responding with a ‘yes’. There are not many bosses as understanding and charming as he is . . . I could tell that not only did he understand exactly what the situation was, but that he felt even worse about it than I did. As Jaime went on shouting over the phone, he was calmly smoking a cigar; and when the diatribe was over, he handed me the phone. Jaime wanted to give me precise instructions.
‘Your beloved boss is going to find you another hotel. Once you’ve moved, you are to phone me with the new number and your hotel room. If he is a gentleman, he will find you something, however full the hotels are in Milan. I’ll be waiting for you to call.’
He hung up. My tears started to fall onto the purple carpet of the suite. I tried to stammer out an excuse for what I had put Harry through. He went on chewing on his cigar, then stubbed it out and said to me, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll sort this out right now.’
He made a few calls, and an hour later his associate took me to another hotel, about five hundred metres from the Westin. I did not call Jaime straight away, and by the time I did, he was furious. I told him the hotel phone number and my room number, and a few minutes later he called me back.
‘What did you tell Harry?’ I asked him, just as furious as he was.
‘Just sufficient to make him behave properly. But I’ll have to talk to him face to face when you two get back, so that he never tries anything with you again.’
This made me even more indignant. I didn’t know what to say, but I felt extremely sad. The worst thing was that I felt guilty about what had happened. We spent most of the night on the phone: he talked and talked about his philosophy of life, love, and above all about how much I still had to learn. I listened without saying a word. After we hung up, I found it impossible to get to sleep. I felt so humiliated and so ashamed towards Harry that I burst into tears once more. I was crying because I did not have the guts to tell Jaime how wrong he had been.
11th September 1998
I came back to Barcelona on my own: Harry took another flight for England. Jaime came to the airport to fetch me. He was carrying a big bunch of flowers, and he embraced me as though I had just been set free from a kidnapping. He told me how much he loved me, and explained that his behaviour was for my own good. For a long while I felt I could no longer look Harry in the face, because I was so ashamed of what I had put him through.
My Father Has Died . . .
9th December 1998
I THINK THAT on a few occasions, Jaime is beginning to realize how he has been behaving towards me. He suggested we spend a weekend in Menorca, perhaps to help me forgive him for what has happened. A reward for my patience, you deserve a rest, was how he put it. He said he would take care of everything, the air tickets and all the rest. He had been away all week in the north of Spain, and we were to leave tonight, Friday, for Mahon. The idea was that as soon as he got back, he would come to our apartment to pick me up.
I was excited, because this was the first weekend I was going to spend with him outside the city, so I sat in the living room waiting for him with my packed bag. Jaime phoned last night to tell me he would be reaching Barcelona at around five in the afternoon, and saying to make sure I was ready, because our plane left at half past seven. He wouldn’t tell me what hotel we would be staying in: he wanted it to be a surprise.
By six o’clock there was still no sign of him. I called his mobile, but as usual it was switched off. I left a rather anxious message, saying I hoped he was just stuck in a typical Friday evening traffic jam. At half past six I rang his office, but his secretary had no news of him either. By now it was already too late to catch the plane, but I was more worried that he might have had an accident. I was imagining the worst. Jaime had been travelling with his partner Joaquin, so I called his mobile, but that was switched off too. I nearly had a heart attack, spending the evening phoning every hospital in Barcelona and surroundings to know if anyone called Rijas had been brought in. And every time a nurse said ‘No’, I heaved a huge sigh of relief. But I was increasingly mystified about what could have happe
ned to him.
I spent the night sleeping on the couch. I turned up the volume on the telephone, so that when it rang in the early morning I woke up at once. It was Jaime.
‘My father died of a heart attack yesterday evening,’ he told me in a rough, grief-stricken voice.
The news felt like a blow to my stomach.
‘My God! Where are you?’
‘In the funeral parlour with my mother. I’m going to stay with her for a while. I’m sorry to have abandoned you, but . . .’
‘Don’t worry about that. Is there anything I can do for you? Do you want me to go there? Which funeral parlour are you in?’
‘No, that’s not a good idea. This is a real drama, I don’t know how I’m going to cope with it. Give me some time to be with my mother, and then on my own. I’m feeling really bad.’
I told him again how sorry I was, and said I would wait for him at the apartment, for as long as it took. If he wants and needs to be alone, I can respect that.
15th December 1998
I go to work each day like a robot. I can’t manage to concentrate on anything, and my boss Harry keeps asking what’s wrong. I vaguely told him about a relative dying, without going into any details, and seeing how upset I was, he offered me some extra days off in addition to my Christmas leave.
I have no idea how long Jaime intends to stay away. Only one thing is clear: I miss him dreadfully, and I’m sincerely sorry for all that he is going through. I’m going to wait for him; I’m sure he’ll show some sign of life before Christmas. We are supposed to be spending it together, because his children are going to be with their mother. But I have still had no news from him.
Week of the 24th December 1998 to 31st December 1998
This has been the worst Christmas of my entire life. I spent it at home, dragging the telephone with me wherever I went, waiting in vain for Jaime to surprise me and turn up at the last minute. But it didn’t happen. I had a lot of time to think, and I have to say that at some point it seemed even to me that all this drama is a bit too strange to be true. But, almost immediately, I felt ashamed that I could doubt such a tragic event as the death of a loved one.
2nd January 1999
On New Year’s Eve, Sonia tried to get me out of the house by inviting me to a party a former boyfriend of hers was organizing. I turned her down. She called again to find out how I was, but when she heard my tone of voice, she realized it was no use insisting.
Then Jaime reappeared, three weeks after the death. He has lost at least five kilos, and his face looks distinctly cadaverous. Yet his graceful slim fingers are so swollen he has difficulty closing his fist. And when he walks, his limp is more pronounced than ever. He has hardly spoken to me so far, and I don’t dare talk to him. I can understand he is in mourning, and I have to respect that. Yet I would love to hug and kiss him and try to comfort him. Instead of that, consciously or not, he is becoming just another piece of furniture. He is crazier than ever. I suppose it must be grief making him that way. All this is bringing things to a head, and I’m beginning seriously to suspect that the man I fell in love with has nothing to do with the real man in front of me now.
Jaime has started to spend nights away. At first I put this down to his grief at losing his father, so I could not bring myself to say anything. But when he does come back at night he is usually completely drunk, and is looking to start a fight. As often as I can, I pretend to be asleep, and invariably he goes and locks himself in the bathroom, from where I can hear him scraping away with the scalpel. I pull the sheets up over my head, trembling and half dead with fear.
On those occasions when Jaime spends the night at home, his partner Joaquin usually turns up, and they both shut themselves in Jaime’s study. Joaquin is always half drunk when he appears, and the evening always ends up in an argument because, from a conversation I once overheard, he asks Jaime for money to spend on prostitutes in clubs, or on the transvestites in Ciutadella.
Obsessions With Time
3rd January 1999
TONIGHT JAIME TOOK a phone call which woke me up. He left the apartment in a hurry without a word to me. When he returned, the only explanation he gave was that his ex-wife had been very ill, and that his son had called him to come.
This is the second month that Jaime has forgotten to give me the rent. I have gone on paying it scrupulously. When I reminded him, Jaime asked me to wait a few days, but I know he’s stopped taking responsibility for it. I get the sense he is falling into a deep depression, which he doesn’t want to talk about.
4th January 1999
Today was one of the rare days when we had sex. Jaime had called up a prostitute and invited her back to the flat without asking my permission.
When I got in from work, he was sitting in the living room chatting in a friendly way with a rough-looking woman. I understood what was going on straight away.
‘It’s a present for you, my love. I know I’ve been neglecting you lately . . .’
There was such a mixture of irony and tenderness in his voice, and I was so keen for him to desire me again, that I decided to go along with him, and agreed that the woman should stay for an hour.
For me the whole thing was a disaster. I felt completely inhibited, but Jaime was in his element. After the prostitute had left (I was the one who paid her) he was still aroused, and started fondling me.
‘Let’s see if I can’t give you a baby!’ he said, shutting himself in the bathroom to take a shower.
5th January 1999
I’m really worried about Jaime. His behaviour is getting more and more strange. He has always liked diaries, but until now I had not realized just how much. He is constantly buying all kinds of them, some leather-bound, others with cardboard covers, and then as soon as he has filled his latest purchase with his personal telephone numbers, all of them inscribed in his best handwriting, he buys another one and starts to copy it all out again. What a waste of time! And anyway, it serves no purpose. Even so, I try to justify it to myself by saying that it’s better for someone to have a hobby than for them to have no interests at all. At least it’s a way of keeping himself sane, I tell myself. Some people collect stamps; Jaime collects diaries.
I bought him one today, to console him for the fact that I’m off on another trip. It’s got light brown leather binding, with metal rings like a Filofax. I carefully put a photo of me inside the front cover, so that he can enjoy seeing me each time he opens it.
He seemed to have liked the diary, and walked all round the apartment with it in his hand.
6th January 1999
Today when I was taking the rubbish bag down to the bins I found the leather diary inside it. Jaime must have opened it when it was already taped up and hidden the diary so I would not see. I felt a stab of pain in my heart, and picked the diary out to look in it. All his personal telephone numbers were there, but he had made a mistake in one of them. He had crossed it out, and perhaps that was why he no longer liked the diary. My only consolation was that he seemed to have removed my photo. So at least he has kept that, probably in his wallet. I love him so much!
Watches are another passion. The other day he bought some smart wooden boxes that he piled up in his wardrobe, and in them he put all the watches he has been collecting over the years. Today I counted them. There are more than two hundred. I was so pleased to see how organized he is!
I am starting to feel both physically and psychologically ill. I feel sick the whole time. They have not noticed anything in the office, because I always have a bright smile. I think the sickness comes from the tension at home, because Jaime has still not completely recovered from his father’s death.
7th January 1999
I feel terrible. Today I called a plumber because the toilet was blocked. For days now it has been filling up, and finally it seemed it might overflow. The plumber concluded that something was obstructing it, and after taking it apart for a hour, bits of the photograph I had put in Jaime’s dairy came floating to the surface.
I wanted to find out more about Jaime. I went through his things, feeling guilty all the while. But I have to find some reason for why he is behaving so oddly.
I found letters returning unpaid cheques that Jaime had signed to pay for the apartment furniture. There were also telephone bills that he had paid, carefully placed in a file hidden among his other papers. They were so high he had obviously been unable to pay the most recent ones: there were more demanding letters. All the phone numbers were itemized, including one in Madrid that he seemed to have called every day at any time, but strangely enough not at the weekends, when he is supposed to be there.
I decided to try the number. I wanted to find out once and for all what was going on. I knew that what I was doing was wrong, but I felt I had to do it.
A soft young woman’s voice answered. I did not hang up, but quickly asked if I could speak to Jaime Rijas.
‘He’s not here during the week, but he’ll be here on Friday. Who is calling?’
‘His wife,’ I replied without thinking.
There was silence at the other end of the line. A few seconds later, I heard the voice again.
‘Listen, I don’t know who you are, but I’m Carolina, his girlfriend.’
The calm way she said this left me intrigued. I thought perhaps she imagined this was some kind of joke. Or perhaps she suspected as I did that Jaime was living a double life, and was not all that surprised at what she heard. I felt immediately attracted to her. She seemed like an intelligent person, free of the rancour so common in women who discover they are sharing a man.
‘Carolina, I’m really sorry. My name is Val, and I’m Jaime’s girlfriend here in Barcelona. We’ve been living together for several months now.’