The Right Intention

by Andrés Barba

  What happened then resides in the realm of total ambiguity. He’ll never know if he saved himself or someone else did. The first man to trip was just a few feet ahead, and he himself was looking the other way at the time. All he knows is that he didn’t trip over him, that something (maybe himself, maybe his own intuition) made him leap. Afterward—hearing the inevitable sound of runners colliding behind him, the shock of the crowd at this unforeseen spectacle—he thought that it might have been Ernesto who grabbed his arm, averting him from a fall. Perhaps the act of believing himself saved by Ernesto is what suddenly, and more vehemently than ever, turned Ernesto into the enemy; or perhaps it was thinking that he’d saved himself and Ernesto had done nothing to help. It didn’t really matter.

  The first ten miles were like his eight years of dating Diana; every move, every reaction seemed predicated on what was expected of them, and that predictability both negated and transcended them as individuals, placing them in a higher order. He thought that any one of the runners breathing there beside him could, at the time, have shouted with joy, and yet the truth was they felt no joy; but the momentous sound of their footfalls, the torrent of feet pounding the ground, made them a force of nature, a stampede of wild horses that had suddenly taken the city. Allowing himself to be flooded by that sensation was like surrendering his freedom to a more powerful force and enjoying the submission, for it offered him the happiness of being unable to make a mistake, no matter what he did. A mile or two later the real marathon would begin, the one where they’d each be on their own, where their solitude would open and close like a vast expanse of nothing, or of nonsense.

  It was at mile eleven that he felt younger and stronger than he in fact was, and attempted a breakaway that Ernesto seemed to concede, lagging slightly behind. For over three miles his solitude wrought havoc, like an avalanche of absurdity raining down: he was ahead, true, but it was as if his goal were behind him, as if beating Ernesto without being able to see him defeated the whole point, and this threw him off, made him lose his stride. If he came up on a steep incline, he sped up too much out of anxiousness and was exhausted afterward. He lost his breath for several seconds and then caught it, but didn’t stop panting until he felt Ernesto beside him once more. Ernesto’s bib number was 1476 and he stared at it as though doing so somehow made Ernesto less real and gave him more strength than he actually had. He did the same with Diana, but now the whole world came down to keeping Ernesto from getting more than a foot and a half ahead, everything was concentrated there, everything—the spectators breathing on either side of the guardrails, Diana’s translations, her body sinking into bed almost weightlessly beside him, her palm upturned on the sheet, asking in an absurd almost adolescent way (unbelievable, really) for something she didn’t dare ask for any other way—for him to turn to her, to make love to her; but how could he make love to her the night before the marathon, how (and Diana should have known this already) was he supposed to do that the night before a race, knowing how much of his energy it would sap? He’d turned onto his side to avoid looking at her and repeated, “Tomorrow’s the big day,” and she had said, “Yes,” trying not to make any noise as she pulled her hand away, as though ashamed even to have asked. He pitied her silence then, and decided to go ahead, to make love to Diana quickly, and then turn away as soon as possible and go to sleep. But he wasn’t going to say so openly, after the overture she’d made, which is why he reached out a foot, to touch hers beneath the sheets. Mile fifteen and there was the image of Diana, again and again, and Ernesto, in the silence that once more turned into his foot searching for hers and not finding it, because she too had pulled away so as not to look at him, just as Ernesto was now pulling away so as not to look at him; Ernesto’s legs before him now exactly like Diana’s legs the night before, hip sinking into the sheet like a soft wave of flesh, him on the verge of saying her name, on the verge of saying “Diana” but not managing to do it, just as now he did not manage to catch up to Ernesto, to run beside him.

  Knowing about the wall in advance made it no easier to endure when he hit it at mile twenty. It started with a sense of regret over his breakaway and then made its way to his arms, his shoulders, his head. If only he hadn’t thought so much about Diana over the past few miles, if he’d focused more on the race, he might feel less exhausted now. Ernesto’s energy, by contrast, seemed boundless. He’d maintained the same pace, the same breathing pattern, since catching up over four miles ago; suddenly the man’s resistance seemed inhuman. Someone poured a bottle of water over his head, soaking his shirt and bib. 1476, he read, one-thousand four-hundred seventy-six, as Ernesto pulled decisively ahead—a foot and a half, three feet, five, the words I can’t pounding in his temples, along with 1476, and Diana scoffing at him, because she’d undoubtedly have scoffed at him, at his failure, in these circumstances. He thought about quitting, giving up when Ernesto couldn’t see him, and would have done so behind mile marker 21 had Ernesto not turned back to look at him. He felt Ernesto’s eyes lash across him like a whip, and then the distance between them shrank, which made no sense.

  “Only five more miles,” he said, as though speaking these words aloud might somehow help him, might magically reduce the stamina required to keep up the pace. When Ernesto was once again beside him, he got the feeling he’d forced something, that there was something completely unnatural about the way Ernest had (possibly) held back, as if it had been a voluntary act, as if Ernesto had waited for him. He wanted to say so but did not. He kept running—he thought—because he had to finish the race, not because he had to beat Ernesto. He’d realized three miles earlier that it was going to be impossible to make his goal and this realization, along with everything else, including the memory of Diana, seemed totally ludicrous. The feeling lasted a few miles, but as he passed the 24-mile marker something inside him snapped and every ounce of his determination was once again thrown into the singular aim of beating Ernesto. He attempted to pull away yet again but couldn’t manage to get more than a few feet ahead. If anyone had asked, he’d have said that he hated him. Hated Ernesto, and himself, and the crowds shouting from behind the barricades, and his satisfaction at the idea of beating him, and the idea of being beaten; and the hate strangled him, like a fury. He wanted to destroy Ernesto and destroy himself; to beat him and then die when the race was over.

  He ran the last two miles in a state of near hysteria, jaw clenched so tight it hurt. In the last five hundred meters Ernesto gave a little sprint, as though attempting to prove something (but prove what?) and then returned to his side. Again he heard the crowd screaming, and again he hated them for pouring water over him. The finish line appeared in the distance, ugly and absurd, and brilliant. Attempting to pull ahead of Ernesto he lost his balance and almost fell, and it was only because he leaned into Ernesto, pushing him, that he did not. He crossed the finish line with the utter dissatisfaction of a man with no idea why he’s done what he’s done, and turning to look back all he could see was a group of people gathered where Ernesto lay sprawled, fifty feet away. “I won,” he thought.

  “I beat him,” he said, as though pronouncing the words might purge the dissatisfaction suddenly rising in his throat. He thought, guiltily, that he didn’t care about Ernesto falling. And yet he wanted to see him, not to gloat over having beaten him but to see if the satisfaction he’d sought (and not found) might come when he saw Ernesto on the ground. They wouldn’t let him through, and he felt so weak that all it took to dissuade his attempts was a gentle push.

  Going home was like starting an incredibly long, boring game all over again, and when Diana opened the door he told her the truth:

  “I won.”

  “I know,” she replied.

  He pushed past her at the door and walked toward the hall without caring about her words, which hung mysteriously in the air, there by the front door, like a riddle that cannot or must not be solved. He walked into the bedroom and flopped down on the bed. A few seconds later Diana appeared in the doo
rway. She said his name once. Twice. Three times.

  The same pointlessness he’d felt winning the race rose in his throat again on hearing Diana’s voice, calling his name. He hoped she would not come to him, would leave him in peace, and at the same time life splintered into ridiculous plans (to go running again), fears (maybe it wasn’t Ernesto he’d seen that one morning), dissatisfactions (Diana’s kindness colliding with his single-mindedness like a gentle wave). She said his name once more, then came over to the bed, sat down beside him. Suddenly he couldn’t bear her hand in his hair, couldn’t bear the gentle way she said his name yet again, and, after withstanding a few seconds turned to her brusquely.

  “Would you please just leave me alone!” he shouted, and Diana’s face froze in a pathetic expression, a blend of disbelief, fear, and the urge to cry.

  She walked out without making a sound, as though she had no body, not turning to look at him. He let himself sink into a heavy black suffocating sleep.

  A month later they divorced, the way so many couples do in their first years of marriage—with a sense of assumed failure, and embarrassment. Diana’s absence was this:

  Silence in the bathroom before getting into bed.

  Empty space in the closets.

  The memory of voices and photographs.

  She left one Wednesday afternoon when the apartment was sweltering in the springtime heat, and before walking out, absurdly, lowered the blinds to keep the sun out, the same way a suicide victim folds clothes never to be worn again before jumping off a cliff. Her sister dealt with the legal procedures and, after an initial period of silence during which she made no attempt to disguise her hatred, was also the one to accompany the lawyer, to come over with the documents—pre-signed by Diana, who was no doubt out of town, far away, safe from him—to be signed. He learned through the sister, whose malicious intent was to see him suffer rather than to provide objective information, that Diana was seeing a psychologist, and on meds; yet rather than pity, he felt a sort of guilt-ridden happiness that she was being kept away from him, preparing to start a new life in which perhaps she could be happy herself.

  Running was the great liberation, especially in those days when the silence at home, which he’d begun to grow used to, made going outside seem like the only possible act. If anyone had asked if he was happy he wouldn’t have known how to respond. Perhaps by saying that he felt empty, and that emptiness was, if not happiness, then the closest thing to a state of calm he’d ever known, a calm that didn’t need to be spoken or shared, and keeping it to himself made it no less happy but did (strangely) make it more real. He realized that all of the states in which he’d previously believed himself happy had led him to share his joy, to speak it, and that this new state seemed more real because he no longer felt that need, because voicing it, sharing it, would have added nothing to the simple satisfaction of running.

  Slowly, something inside him retracted, his need for others shrank, became miniscule, froze, and while the presence of other people never actively bothered him, he did try to get away from them as soon as possible, and thought they were as unnecessary as he himself felt, and accepted that he was.

  In the first four months of Diana’s absence he sank into an abyss in which he felt he’d never ultimately know himself. The people around him commented on how much he’d changed, attributing it to the divorce, when the truth was that Diana hadn’t caused the change and had in fact been the sole obstacle keeping from embracing this new state, which he seemed naturally suited to. And when he did, it was not out of remorse but because her absence was still too real, too palpable, and now he saw that it was precisely Diana’s absence which made him good, purified him, transforming him into something better than he had been.

  It was early summer when, stretching before a run, he bumped into Ernesto in the park. They hadn’t seen one another since the marathon, and after spotting him in the distance, they looked at one another, and he felt neither pleasure nor anger but something akin to the sensation that made his palms sweat when he came across a photo of Diana—a feeling that, though not unpleasant, brought back the almost-embarrassed memory of who he’d been. He didn’t approach Ernesto because he wouldn’t have known what to say, but nor did he look away. Instead he kept stretching, and in a few minutes saw Ernesto coming over. It was as though no time had passed, as though Ernesto were going to say, like he had the day they first met, “You run, don’t you? I’ve seen you here in the park, lots of times,” but instead stopped before him, silent, and stood threateningly, until he himself finally spoke.

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to tell you the truth.”

  Then a new silence, justified in part by the solemn tone Ernesto had used on speaking those words. A runner passed by, quickly, and they both stared after him until the man turned at some bushes. It was hot out.

  “You know full well you didn’t beat me at the marathon, you know I let you win,” Ernesto continued, wearing an expression of utter revulsion, or wounded pride, and then waited in silence as though daring him to deny it. Which he did not, because suddenly, it seemed equally meaningless either way, whether he’d won or lost. Conceding to Ernesto now added nothing, just as the sunlight in the park, or the afternoon heat, added nothing.

  “I bet you want to know why.”

  “Sure,” he replied despite feeling no curiosity, because he knew that Ernesto wanted to tell him.

  “Diana asked me to. Diana was the one who wanted me to let you win.” Ernesto had spoken quickly, awaiting his reaction, and seemed to delight in it, smiling as the obvious shock set in.

  “Diana?”

  “Yeah. She knew we ran together. She used to come watch sometimes, but you never even noticed.”

  “Diana,” he said, thinking he’d have been less shocked had Diana herself appeared then and there and confessed.

  “She thought if you won it would fix things between the two of you.”

  “She told you that?”

  “Yes. She was desperate. Cried when she came to see me.”

  Some part of Ernesto was taking pleasure in relaying these details, as if finally this were his victory and he wanted to relish it, savor it. He felt disgusted by Ernesto, more for knowing so much about Diana’s life than for accusing him of having caused her unhappiness.

  “Anything else you’d like to tell me, Ernesto?”

  “Yeah. You make me sick.”

  They heard the breathing and quick steps of a runner but neither turned to look. They felt the heat again now, as though the air were reacting to the density of their expressions. Ernesto left without another word, and he waited in vain for him to turn, for a chance to get one last look at him.

  Night was falling on the seventh of May in the best of possible worlds. Running was the only, and the purest, and the most absurd of options.

  DESCENT

  ALL AT ONCE she became aware of how silent the afternoon was, as though silence, all at once, had been dropped into the middle of the living room, onto the picture of Mamá with corkscrew curls at the almost impossible age of twenty, there among her and Manuel’s and the children’s things. Mamá had left her the picture in a prideful fit, a month ago, in part because she liked the photo but mostly because she was irritated that there was no image of her on display in the living room and there was one of Manuel’s mother. So there she was now: elegant, absurd, out of place, not matching any of the furniture, fighting to be seen—so Mamá.

  The words she’d just heard on the phone, the frightened voice of the caregiver (unmistakably South American, possibly overreacting) had left her with that sense of silence, and she felt a bit guilty for not grabbing her purse and running straight for the hospital, as she had other times in similar situations. The Señora, the caregiver had said, well, she slipped in the shower, and since she was so, well, ah, so particular, so private about these things, even though she made a loud bang and began wailing immediately, in order to get to her they had to wait for the ambulan
ce to arrive and break the lock on the bathroom door. Now the Señora was in the hospital.

  If she waited a bit longer still before leaving home, it was because something seemed to hold her there. Mamá herself, perhaps, in black and white, staring out from the shelf at age twenty, smiling a head-tilted studio smile, a lean-this-way smile, although in her mother’s case it must have been the other way around: Mamá telling the photographer exactly what she wanted or didn’t want, because this was the picture she’d given Papá when they’d been dating for one year (Papá, always the memory of his funeral that almost didn’t seem like a memory); that was in the postwar years and there was no money for frivolities.