The Right Intention

by Andrés Barba

  “Another piece. Now. Come on.”

  “Let her catch her breath for a second,” the woman said.

  “Now,” her father continued after a short silence.

  “I hate you.”

  It wasn’t the silence or the tension of the preceding scene that made the words fall leadenly onto the table. Had she spoken loudly, had she shouted, it would have seemed a childish outburst, but pronounced that way, in a straightforward informational tone, they became mercilessly solid, as though her hatred had surpassed the bounds of passion and taken root in its cruelest realm—that of absolute indifference. Sara had placed her fork down on the plate, taken a sip of water, dried her lips, and said, “I hate you,” as though none of the preceding acts outweighed any other in importance, as though each belonged to the same series of banalities.

  “I’m not going to eat any more. What are you planning to do about it?”

  Nor did this proclamation have the tone expected of a threat, and again Sara’s absolute indifference to the repercussions of her decision left her father at a loss. Silence didn’t make it any easier.

  “I’m leaving, the two of you need to talk,” the woman said.

  “No, please stay,” said her father.

  “I think you should talk alone,” she replied.

  “Go,” Sara said in the same unflappable tone.

  Her father stood, walked to her, and gave his daughter a resounding slap. The woman rushed over, begged him to stop. She looked like she was about to cry but didn’t, instead just kept repeating, “Oh my God,” over and over, as though imitating a melodramatic sketch. Sara’s father turned to the woman and put his arm around her, trying to calm her. Sara tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and put a hand to her cheek, now burning with her utter indifference. She felt no urge to cry, no shame, no pain. A strange man embracing a strange woman. She wanted to be small, immeasurably tiny, to disappear. She closed her eyes.

  “Have you stopped for a second,” her father finally said, “for one single second, to think about how much you’re making your mother suffer?”

  “Have you stopped for a second,” she echoed, eyes wide, “to think about how much you’re making my mother suffer?”

  They stared at one other without malice, two criminals confessing to the same crime, in mutual understanding. It had been a long time since Sara cared about her role in it all, but for her father the words seemed to reopen an old wound that had never healed properly, his agitation betraying his guilt.

  “Get your things,” he said, “dinner’s over.”

  They drove in silence for an hour and when they got to the door of her building, Sara’s father told the woman to wait in the car, he’d be right down. They didn’t look at one another in the elevator. Her father said, “Open the door,” and Sara opened the door. Her mother was in the living room watching television. Sara left them there. She heard her father shouting. Heard her mother shouting. Heard her father close the door. Heard her mother turn off the television.

  It was February twenty-eighth. Sara weighed 88.6 pounds.

  It was a Tuesday, the night she left home, and absurdly warm in Madrid, almost spring-like. She hadn’t gone to school all week and her mother, if she’d even noticed, hadn’t said a word about it. It was four o’clock in the morning when she walked out of the apartment, trying not to make any noise, taking the stairs. On leaving, she felt dispossessed, like a creature with neither time nor place, and when she opened the door to the street she inhaled deeply, as deep as her lungs would allow, filling them with air. Then she walked to the only conceivable place: the park. The obvious silence of the paths, of the trees, lent the park a strange nocturnal vitality and she felt pleased to be walking there, like someone slowly strolling, reveling, in their own private garden. The lake was still, waiting there, and she sat to contemplate it. When she felt overcome with sleep she stretched out on the grass. Closing her eyes, Sara got the feeling that the ground beneath her body was breathing, that some sort of force—initially almost imperceptible but growing stronger by the second—was holding her to the spot, first sucking her in and then lifting her into the air, weightless, as though she had no body. She stroked the grass without opening her eyes and then clutched it so as not to lose that marvelous feeling, like riding an enormous and immensely powerful horse, clutching the mane of an animal sweeping her along at incredible speed. And Sara began to laugh. It felt as though her joy had spread all the way across the earth and then come and surged up right there in her chest. She felt tears stinging her eyes. She screamed. Screamed to keep from bursting with happiness. Then smiling, overcome, she fainted, or fell asleep.

  The owner of one of the sidewalk cafés that bordered the lake roused her, and it seemed to Sara that rarely had she awoken so rested, so jovial as she did that morning. The man, however, was giving her a frightened look.

  “You feel okay, kid?”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m . . .” And he pointed to the café by the lake but he must have decided it would be absurd to finish the sentence. “Where do you live? Did you sleep here?”

  Sara didn’t respond, simply stared at the lake and then at the grass on which she’d spent the night. It was cold.

  “You feel okay?”

  Though concerned, the man was also afraid of something, it was palpable, as was a glimmer of repugnance lurking in the depths of his fear, making him frown.

  “Of course I feel okay.”

  “Where are you parents? Where do you live?”

  Sara didn’t respond, she just wanted that man to go away, leave her alone, stop talking already so that she could keep gazing at the lake; she wouldn’t make any noise, wouldn’t bother anyone.

  “Kid.”

  “What?”

  “I said where do you live.”

  “I don’t know,” she replied just to say something, thinking that this way he might leave sooner, but not only did he not leave he grabbed her wrist and hauled her to the cafeteria, picked up the phone and dialed a number.

  “Police, please. Yes, I’ll hold.”

  Hearing that, Sara’s blood began to boil.

  “Police! Why are you calling the police? What have I done to you?”

  “Nothing, not a thing; this way they’ll come get you and take you home.”

  “I don’t want to go home.”

  The man was about to say something but someone must have started talking on the phone.

  “Yeah,” he said, “listen, I work at the park and this morning . . .”

  Sara bit the man’s hand so hard she felt her teeth pierce the skin on his thumb. The moment he released her she ran.

  “Stop that girl!” he shouted, but the only person who could have done it—a woman crossing the path, who looked to be about forty—almost took a step back, an expression of fear frozen on her face.

  Sara veered off the path and headed for the trees, listening to the thud of her shoes, racing as fast as possible. Her mouth was dry and she was running out of breath, inhaling in jagged uneven gulps. She was sure now: she’d have to run away, far, and hide. Her stomach hurt and she felt weak but kept running until a whitish fog told her she was about to faint. Approaching a giant shrub, she climbed in. There was a strong stench of urine and the remains of what must have been an old picnic: some wrappers and an empty cigarette pack. She sat down. No one would see her there. She wiped the cold sweat from her temples with a shirtsleeve. The beating of her heart sounded like heavy banging on a muffled drum. Her saliva had a metallic taste to it. She thought she was going to faint. She lay down.

  For an entire hour she feared that the man would find her and force her to go home. She felt it in the sound of each footstep that neared the bush, in each noise that didn’t belong to the park itself. Then the fear became hollow and she thought of her mother, of Teresa, of Aunt Eli, but as if they had no texture to them, as if they were simply images stored in her memory, with no repercussions other than that of floating there, weightless.
“I left home,” she thought, “I ran away,” but not even this moved her to sadness or to joy. Everything welled up and then fizzled in that void, where only what was palpable was real or solid: the grass, the wall of leaves formed by the shrubs in which she’d hidden, her hands stroking them, the empty cigarette pack, empty Coke can, the candy wrapper. “They’ll come looking for me now,” she thought, as if shocked at her indifference, as if wanting to feel shock, “they’ll search everywhere for me,” but not believing that their images were material enough to do so. Then fear, again, when she heard footsteps and drew her legs up, trying not to make any noise, almost holding her breath. On her pink watch with a minute hand curved like a little worm, an hour went by, and then another, and another, and in each hour her fear grew dense and then hollow, dense and then hollow. And the image of Teresa, and the image of Aunt Eli, and her feet.

  Sara looked at her watch at 5:18, because she was thirsty. She hadn’t had a drop of water all day, she suddenly realized, despite having felt thirsty the entire time. She decided to give it a little longer because it was still light and people might see her, but even as she made this decision Sara felt her panicky urge for water intensify. She stuck her head out through the twigs and saw a man walking his dog in the distance. This man, too, would grab her by the arm, call the police. She couldn’t come out. But she was thirsty. Two feet from the bush was a hosepipe but Sara saw no faucet and was completely parched. She could make a run for it, but didn’t know where to run. The water fountain she knew was too far away and there would no doubt be people by the lake. She tore off a handful of leaves and chewed until they formed a little wad. Then she pressed it against the roof of her mouth. After repeating this operation four or five times she ended up swallowing the mass out of sheer anxiety, desperate to quench her thirst. Though the taste was not pleasant, she sensed that it calmed her.

  Two hours later it started to grow dusky and an hour after that it was completely dark. And still she waited in the shrubbery, to be absolutely certain no one would see her. When Sara finally stepped onto the path her pink watch said 12:30. Sitting still all day had made her legs numb, and she shivered with the cold, having been motionless for the past few hours, her chest suddenly quivering at irregular intervals. Walking toward the lake, she noted with pleasure that her body was starting to warm up. Lampposts illuminated the deserted path like a catwalk primed for a celebrity expecting a huge audience on the other side of the curtain, except there was no audience, no witness to her joy, no one to pretend for. Sara stepped off the path and walked among the trees. The silence there had a different texture—natural, everyday. It was unreal, imagining that no one had ever walked there before. The moon cast a faint glow on the lake, and the lamps lining the other side were reflected on the water like shards of light. She leaned over and slowly began to drink, calmly, as though for the first time. Satisfied, Sara crossed her legs and inhaled deeply. She wasn’t sleepy, she had no memories.

  Morning arrived from far off, dawn breaking in one part in the sky and tinting the park with the matte lighting of an old movie. Sara was tired and realized that she had gone all night without moving. There was a sweeper on the other side of the lake. She drank water hurriedly and made for the trees. The light, suddenly, had made shame return, and fear, and though she’d seen only one cleaner and knew that not even he had noticed her presence, Sara felt a cruel stirring of shame at her ugliness. She was disgusting, that’s why she had to hide. Her pants had dirt and grass stains on them, and her shirt had a mysterious L-shaped rip that exposed the skin around her ribs. Her hair was dirty too, she realized, as she smoothed a hand through it and her fingers caught in the tangles. She probably smelled bad. This was an almost scandalous realization. She, who had always gone to such lengths not to smell like anything at all, probably now reeked. She couldn’t recall the man’s face but most certainly remembered the smell of a beggar who’d once approached her close to home, asking for money. That was how she must smell—the same concentrated stench of urine and rot, same sour wine-breath; that must be how people would see her now.

  The pink watch with the worm-shaped minute hand said it was 7:30, and Wednesday, but neither of those things was as important as hiding again. With an astonishment bordering panic, she discovered she’d peed in her pants. It must have happened during the night, while she was watching the lake. She hadn’t even been aware of it at the time, but now a yellow stain on her light-colored trousers announced the fact like an exclamation of shame.

  It was warm that morning and she feared the temperature would bring people out. She hid, as though having planned it, in the same shrub as the day before. She was exhausted and curled up, leaning back, covering herself with leaves so no one could see her. She’d gone almost 30 hours without sleep and when she closed her eyes it felt like everything started to spin. The light didn’t bother her, but if she heard a strange sound her eyes flew open and she’d wait, motionless, for the danger to pass. Although it happened repeatedly throughout the morning, Sara was able to rest, dozing but never sleeping, like an animal whose survival depends on constant vigilance. The periods of rest were dark and leaden as caverns and she could feel—oddly aware of each part of her body—the way these or those muscles relaxed while still holding tension elsewhere, as though certain parts segued into others in a concert she herself were unconsciously conducting.

  There were no images or voices there. The pleasure she derived from rest (Sara had always loved sleeping in on weekends) was replaced by the obligation to rest, by its necessity. She felt genuine delight at this hardening. No longer feeling guilty for running away from home, no longer thinking of anyone, she allowed herself to be swept off by her fascination at perceiving that she controlled everything down to the last fiber of her own awareness. Every feeling, every bodily sensation was ultimately a controllable fiction. Hunger, the sharp pain in her stomach, disappeared just by thinking about it, by deconstructing it into simple pains until it was nothing but a reaction whose existence was as easy to suppress as wishing it so. The same was true of loneliness. She had only to think about it, to isolate it from other feelings, other reactions, and then watch it slowly dissipate, almost shamefully, like a lie that’s been exposed, to return to the state in which she now felt more herself, perhaps, than ever before.

  She awoke during the nicest, warmest part of the afternoon. There were voices around her and she made every effort not to move. When they grew distant she sat up, brushing off the leaves she’d used to cover herself. She could see them through the shrub’s branches: a group of boys who’d stood, after sitting and talking for a while, and were now ready to leave. Sara both hated and feared them, a single shift in her disposition. They joked and laughed like giants. One of them, as the others walked off, broke from the group and came back toward the bush. He was very good-looking. He wore jeans and had enormous green eyes. She tried not to move but, out of fear, parted the leaves, making a noise which, though in fact very quiet, sounded to her terribly sharp, a dead giveaway.

  “What are you doing?” his friends shouted from the distance.

  “Looking for my lighter, I think I left it back here,” he replied.

  Sara was hypnotized by his brawny arms, his shoulders.

  “Come on, man!” they shouted.

  “Hang on! I put it down somewhere around here, I’m sure . . .” his voice trailed off, almost a whisper. On his knees he searched, patting the grass.

  “We’re leaving,” they yelled.

  “Fuck it,” he said jumping up, and ran after them.

  When night fell Sara emerged from the bush, still thinking about that boy. Not even the lake managed to calm her. She felt danger lurking like a shadow the moment she emerged from her hiding place and took the illuminated path, in the heat of the night, and although not excessive, it lent a special torpor. She didn’t turn when she heard noises—first far off, then closer, but stopping, as though wanting to keep a distance—because a strange part of her had accepted fear, a
s well, had deconstructed it until all that was left was anxiety pursuing her, snapping twigs behind her, taking false steps from time to time. She didn’t go sit in the spot she had the other nights because suddenly she decided to face up to it as soon as possible. She waited, standing by the lake, for it to catch up. The noise ceased for a few seconds, perhaps twenty feet away; there was no sign of it for a few minutes. She turned abruptly toward where she thought she’d last heard it and shouted. And slowly the shadow shrank and slunk away when she turned her back to it once more, and Sara knew that it was gone for good because the air became heavy and slow and difficult once more. She walked to the place she liked to sit and contemplate the lake. She drank water, bending over, wetting her entire face. If she’d said, “Move it, get out of here, go jump in the sea,” it would have.

  Sara awoke in the morning clenching her teeth, again hiding behind the wall of leaves. The pink worm minute-hand of her watch said it was 8:20, Thursday. She clenched them even tighter, for a long time, until her jaw began to ache. She saw, through the gaps in the branches, that the sky was a steely gray, promising rain. Strong and heavy as that sky, that was how she felt, hard and rough as an animal; it was as though she’d always lived there, behind that wall of leaves, in that shrub, as though the sunlight she’d seen her whole life was the very one now filtering through the branches. And yet the more pleasurable she found the things surrounding her, the more unpleasant her own body among them. Sara grabbed a stick and, rolling up her pants leg, scratched at her thigh until it bled. Then, as though shocked by her own action, she gazed, transfixed, as a fat maroon drop rolled down the whiteness of her skin to the ground, like a flag that’s just been invented.

  Afternoon was the saddest time of day, and on that one it also rained for thirty minutes, making it worse. She wanted to move but was afraid, again, of being seen. Being taken home was no longer what she feared. Honestly, the thought of going home was something that hadn’t really concerned her since the first morning. No, what she feared now was being seen, and her fear, like the air, like the light, altered by the second, swinging from the sort that was tinged with scorn to the hopeless panic that overcame her, soaked and hugging her knees after the rain while straining to hear every little suspicious sound, knowing that she was repugnant and at the same time aware that repugnance was the very key to her hardness, to her control.