“You eat too much, John. You’re heavy.”
Helen sank onto the mattress, changing position deftly in mid-air to end up with one leg crossed under her other thigh. I think it speaks well of me that I never confused Helen with a kitten, with some creature bred for confinement. We were in the early stages of something, and it didn’t bode well that neither one of us had any idea how it would end.
“Come again?”
“You’re getting fat. You have to take care of yourself. Tall people don’t wear extra pounds well. Plus, you don’t have the kind of face for a bag of skin at your neck.”
“It’s called a double chin. And why don’t I have the face for a double chin?”
“Because of your eyes, you don’t have clever eyes. Without a well-defined profile your face would look like a balloon, something swollen, an old thing…”
“That’s why I married you, so you’ll take care of me when I’m old.”
I started nonchalantly to undress, going for a purely functional nudity—the air from the radiator was suffocating. I said nothing; when I sucked in my belly, my windpipe was cut off and I started to cough.
“You’re sucking it in. You don’t have a blank check with me, you know. You can forget about me cleaning up your shit if you go and turn into a pig. Spanish women put up with anything: fat guys; bald, hairy, smelly ones….Well, I’m not Spanish.”
“Leave me alone, Freckles. Just try finding someone else you can dump that kid of yours on.”
She jumped up from the bed, evidence that I hadn’t managed to varnish my words with a joking veneer (their doubting undertone probably made things worse). Though I don’t think she entirely understood the Catalan words I used, I know she grasped their general drift. Her eyes darkened, two open holes in pink flesh, and began to dart around the room, scanning the furniture for a hiding place or weapon. She spewed a stream of words, but what she really wanted was to find a way out.
I tried to yell at her to stop, but she charged toward the exit with her hands over her ears, a gesture I’ve always found unbearably childish. In two long strides I was between her and the door. She stopped short of touching me and took two steps backward, her calves tensed. She looked at me, and now there was no hint of circumspection in her eyes; whatever fire had ignited in her wasn’t going to be quenched by talking. It would last all night, and I could forget about touching her now. By some marvel of asymmetry, my head cooled just as Helen was passing the point of no return, a fury mounting in her that couldn’t be stamped out even by apologizing (and I wasn’t about to do that anyway—the final embers of my anger were still smoldering). Helen would only be satisfied once she’d subjected me to a good dose of pain.
“Move.”
“You can’t leave now….”
“Move.”
“I’m not going to let you out.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re going to ruin everything, you’re going to spoil our whole night. Just do me a favor and look at me, listen to me!”
“I don’t want anything to do with you. Let me out or I’ll scream. Move!”
“And what do you think you’re going to do? Hide out in your parents’ room?”
“I’ll leave tomorrow. I can change the plane ticket with Daddy.”
“You’re not serious, you’re talking nonsense. Try to think straight. Don’t be an idiot. You can’t walk out that door.”
“Why are you naked, anyway?”
No matter how intense the argument got, there was always a little light of sanity alive, and now it regained control and the level of rage began to fall. The look in her eyes was, shall we say, tender; she doubled over with laughter. I joined in, and we were on our way out of the mess, taking our first steps through the valley, hand in hand like young lovers.
“You were going to chase me like a naked, stupid balloon all the way down the hall! You wouldn’t get me, I’d never let a dumb bag of nuts catch me.”
Her tone was affectionate enough. Now I only had to absorb the venom; it was nothing I couldn’t bear if I kept my cool. Then we could move on, trusting in the harness of humor. Once we’d shared a smile we would be safe. I could remind her how she always confused cacahuetes with nueces; I could kiss her, squeeze one of her tits, I had the technique down cold. It was just that combination of “bag” and “balloon,” the clear, lying impertinence of her slapdash attack…I felt my tantrum rearing back up.
“You’ve done it again, Helen. Once again, you are incomprehensible. I can feel the rotten energy you give off when you sink into vulgarity.”
Even though I was down to my boxers, fine drops of sweat began to break out on my forehead. I was euphoric. Helen was a miracle of human strength: in just a few months she’d regained the desire to fight and to reconcile her life with me, adiós, pills, good-bye, self-indulgence. She was overflowing with greed, crafty calculation, and the desire for a good time, all the essential components of the human spirit. I convinced myself I had the argument under control, I knew what I had to say to get a smile out of her so we could leap free of that oppressive atmosphere of aggression. But only a saint can listen to his own mollifying voice while his mind spins in a chaos of fierce emotion. Plus, I was teaching her a lesson, and I was enjoying it.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if all that rage has burst a blood vessel. When a doctor cracks open your skull he’ll find that your thoughts have been fermenting in a brain soaked in blood…I don’t care if I’m shouting! I’m not yelling just to yell, I have a good reason! I need to be able to hear myself think when I’m fighting with you.”
I heard the crash, I saw the pieces on the floor, but it took me a second to compose a mental image of what had broken. She still hadn’t slipped from my grasp; it was in her best interests to go on loving me. Sooner or later the terrifying combination of her lack of drive plus Jackson would bring her back to my side, but when I saw how she was writhing like a creature in a trap, the hair along my spine stood on end.
“Asshole, bastard.”
“You should shut up.”
“Bastard, bastard, asshole. Let me out.”
“At least lower your voice, they’ll hear us.”
“What do I care!”
She leapt at me, she hit my chest, the tip of a fingernail pierced my skin. I don’t know how I got her off me. I must have grabbed her by the shirt because when she threw herself backward, the cloth tore. She covered her breasts with her hands and her face turned red as if there were fire in her veins. She stayed there with her fleshy lips open around the hole she chewed and breathed through. I tried, but I couldn’t muster a single gesture of affection. Quite the opposite, in fact: I started to laugh. I hope the memory of pointing my finger at her is false.
“I hate you.”
She picked up her shoulder bag and heaved it toward the window. A half-meter higher and it would have fallen to the patio below. She ripped apart a pillow before storming into the bathroom and slamming the door behind her. I heard the lock, and the sound of the taps in the shower and the sink. I dropped onto the sheets, my legs trembling.
“Come out of there! You’re acting like a crazy woman! You are a rational creature, try to use your brain, you might surprise yourself!”
I turned my head and found my face in the mirror; my hair was plastered down and a spongy, bulging vein disfigured my forehead, but I liked the cut of my shaven jaw. I took the opportunity to fix my hair.
“You’re behaving like a child! Don’t forget you are a mother!”
I was sweating and my pores were wide open. I started scratching my back and armpits. I stood up to inspect my body in the mirror, and I couldn’t see anything flabby about my stomach—she’d said that just to annoy me. I was getting hungry; it’s a good thing trail mix doesn’t get cold. Daddy and the Mrs. would already be getting dressed for dinner at the Hotel Monster. I missed Jackson, he would have calmed things down. Children force you to behave. If someone had told me, when I was his age, that people near
ing thirty could behave like Helen and I had in that room, I would have thought they were crazy. Of course, after all that fuss, it wouldn’t exactly be easy to find the right combination of words to ask Helen to bring the kid back.
“Come on now, we can still fix tonight. We’re here to put things right, remember?”
The key was to control my impatience. She couldn’t stay in there forever, and any minute now she’d start to get hungry. I did think she was capable of holding out until dinner started, making the boy or his grandmother come up to look for us. I resisted the sensible urge to get dressed—I was comfortable there on the bed. My anger began to subside; I really didn’t feel like bickering and avoiding each other. I wanted to move on.
“We came here because you wanted to make up, because you got down on your knees and begged me. This was your idea, so you can’t stay in there.”
She turned on the water again, the little fool, when she heard my voice. At least she was in a playful mood.
“It makes no sense to stay in there!”
“No sense at all, unless you’re trying to break some kind of weird record.”
“And I can assure you that this is not the best day to play with world records.”
She opened the door. She’d managed to find a green dress that clung so tightly to her skin there was no mistaking her for some innocuous maternal figure. She still had that dark look in her eyes, but now the sparks they gave off seemed like stars so distant no one can tell if they’re alive or dead. It was the same gaze I’d woken up to every morning for almost a year, when I would brush the lush blonde hair back from her face to see her eyes, which were like screens where I could watch a sequence of slippery emotions flicker while I waited for one of them to coalesce. That emotion, though, didn’t tend to favor me. Helen was confused. Back when we first started living together, before she was corrupted from the inside by the combined effect of our shared present and the memories of her youth with Daddy, I could always hope she’d start crying. It was uncomfortable to see her breaking inside, but the tears had their advantages. They left her empty and clean, like a white wall on which we could start to write again.
“You’re hateful. I’m trying my best, I’m putting all my energy into this.”
Then she turned that gaze on me, like a curved spoon that scooped effortlessly under my skin, as if to check the ripeness of the pulp inside. I’ve never found a defense against her drive to discover my worst aspects. I had an attack of modesty and yanked off the sheet to cover myself, to take shelter from her scrutiny. It didn’t occur to me that I was breaking a basic rule of cohabitation, even if we were in a hotel.
“You messed up the bed!”
“And why does the bed matter?”
“You’re a disaster, this plan was stupid, I made a mistake…I’ve been wasting my time. I wouldn’t know how to go back to living together without feeling disgusted.”
Considering that all I’d wanted since the moment I’d gotten into the car was to run away, we should have made our peace and separated there and then. But the argument had altered my objectives, and I was moving along the tracks of a different logic. I wanted to avoid making a scene, I wanted to kiss her, I wanted her to apologize. I wasn’t by any means ready to give up—I wanted to win every which way.
“Shut up! I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to sit there until you calm down, and when you’re finished getting dressed you will once again be a normal person. Then we’ll talk.”
“You’re still naked.”
This time it wasn’t a joke. She realized a second before I did that lying on the bed like that, I wouldn’t have time to block her exit, and I wouldn’t be capable of following her down the corridor in my underwear. She left the room.
“You don’t have the nerve!”
Maybe back then I was caught unawares that her brain, which normally needed fifteen minutes to assimilate any new idea, was able to calculate so many possibilities so quickly. Now I know that when the situation calls for it, the brain sends out nervous commands to the muscles without troubling the conscious mind, and the mind only asks for explanations once the flesh and its precious functions are safe and sound. After our little drive, being left alone wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but I was fixated on bringing her back. I left the remaining words to orbit the center of my rage until they burned up; the only indispensable thing was to find some pants and a shirt.
I went out without closing the door, without grabbing the key. I went out without checking the time: night had fallen, and only the promenade lights and the blue rectangle of the pool were shining.
I felt my way down the stairs, my legs shaking. Helen could be anywhere. From the corridor I could see the waiters toiling away with silverware and tablecloths before dinner. I was horrified at the sight of a stage with three microphones set up, ready for an hour or so of musical torment. I preferred not to imagine the food they’d be serving those used-up bodies, with their desiccated lungs and missing prostates: boiled potatoes, steamed fish…I thought I saw my mother-in-law’s expansive backside, but I didn’t hang around to make sure—there was no way Helen would choose to make a scene in front of her parents rather than humiliate me with a spectacular disappearance. I’d have bet our three years together that she’d left the building, and I only had to guess the direction she’d taken. I put my hand in my pocket to be sure I’d brought provisions: the second bag of peanuts and those other, bigger nuts—cashews, I think.
I went out to the terrace and wavered between heading for the forest to the left or the fields to the right. I stood there deliberating while my pupils adjusted to the dark and my nose detected that smell of tender wheat. At least I could see my own hands.
“She went toward the woods.”
The voice came from one of the tables, and I recognized the androgynous face of that obese woman, the smile with its faint flirtatiousness. Out in the civilian world those bands of blubber act as insulation against desire. Those decades (twenties, thirties, forties) in which fat women are not really alive socially must seem long. I felt bad for her, although she looked delighted to find that age was tarring everyone else with the same brush. Anyway, I liked that her crystal ball was directing me away from the farm, where earlier I’d heard the unmistakable grunting of pigs—those animals have given me the willies ever since I was a child. If you ask me, it does nothing for their reputations that their heart tissues are compatible with ours.
“She seemed pretty angry.”
I liked it less that the woman had noticed Helen and connected her to me. Of course, I couldn’t hold it against her. A health farm full of mummies isn’t exactly the best place to enjoy a little privacy; Helen and I looked like we’d just stepped out of a time machine.
“Walk to the bar, then follow the light. If she hasn’t crossed the river she can’t get lost.”
I sped up. Though I hadn’t ruled out strangling her once I found her, I also hadn’t considered the danger a swampy channel posed to an overexcited woman.
I took two steps and brought a couple of peanuts to my mouth. A breeze carried the scent of the dianthus hanging from the balconies, and it was as if for a few seconds I’d stepped outside the loathsome circle of triviality I was trapped in. What was I trying to prove? Our marriage was an undeniable disaster, and even if we somehow managed to bring some equilibrium to our erratic behavior, what sort of future would I have with a Helen desperate to protect her body against gravity’s effects? All that siliconed humanity (paid for by whom?) encasing Helen’s hysterical and paranoid voice, lording it over my little world of pills, secret stashes of food, naps, scarves, and hands that shook as I shaved. If now, when I could still scare her with my bare hands, I was out searching for her and trembling from cold and nerves and fear, what resistance would I have against her tyrannical impulses once my manhood had withered away? When, even if I wiggled free of all the orthopedic gear, I’d still spend my days negotiating among hearing aids, routine doctor’s
visits, soft cereals, and heart surgeries?
Two bats fluttered past while I was entertaining the thought that I deserved a woman of better character, but then I shook off my self-indulgence. When it came down to it, we were all barreling toward old age at the speed of time, and Helen was the girl I wanted. And—why deny it—a large cross-section of my molecules was enjoying the unexpected surges of adrenaline the night had provided so far.
Through the glass wall I could see the black man at the hotel bar, holding what I guessed was a gin and tonic. The window was so dark it was hard to make out his skin; it was like his yellow shirt and the glass he held were floating in space. I couldn’t say why, but I felt heartened when the guy peered out at me from his gloomy fish tank, as if he were attaching me by an invisible thread to the world of sanity, far from the bitter sphere where Helen and I screeched like two lunatics. It seemed like he was pointing me in the right direction. I made a gesture of thanks that was quite eloquent—though with black people, who knows?—and I took off toward the forest at a trot, like a soldier on a mission. The peanuts made themselves known, bilious, in my stomach.
I had to cross a narrow canal in a no-man’s-land between the pool and the woods. The only light came from the sliver of raw-metal moon that hung in the sky beside a single amethyst-colored star. I felt a gust of wind; somehow in the villages it always blows coldly. I started to walk through the bushes. Here and there I came across cans and bottles and dirty newspapers—those old folks were real slobs. It wasn’t long before I reached the Corb River, blanketed by the stench of moldering vegetation. The light barely reached the opposite bank, and the currents shone and flowed over a mass of shadows. Near where the forest grew free of human intervention I could distinguish bubbles of greenery. I knew I’d find her any minute. It wasn’t Helen’s style to run around barefoot in the dark in a ditch. I was promising myself I would flatten her skull before I’d let her cross that river, when another damn bat came at me. It took half a minute to get rid of the rodent, but the fear was still in me when I came to a stretch where the river flowed luminously. The water reflected spotlights hung in the trees, presumably so any old codgers who decided to take a little midnight stroll wouldn’t end up at the bottom of the river. It looked like a miniature city had sunk right there, the lights still shining underwater. Right at the water’s edge I recognized Helen’s shape, trampling clumps of weeds: her figure tensed, her head bent, a living ghost. She looked unsteady and I took two long strides to catch her before she slid. I guess I must have forgiven her—if now I’m regretting not pushing her, it’s only because I know the last dirty trick she still had up her sleeve.
Divorce Is in the Air Page 2