by Romina Paula
I still can’t figure out if I am happy or sad. All I know is that I’m here. I’m here, that’s the one thing I am sure of.
9.
Ali and I have developed a similar technique. It’s strange. When I wake up she’s the first thing I see, usually she’s still asleep. She sleeps until she feels me moving, and then her eyes part slightly, usually she can’t be bothered to do much more than that, so she sizes me up for a second or so, sees that everything is in its place and as it should be, that my waking up this time is not significantly different from any of the other times, and unless she yawns or stretches or shifts a little she’ll just stay perfectly still. Then I stretch out or writhe around a little in your bed, toss and turn and roll over and over, and then I simply watch her, being peaceful. I wonder which of us is guarding which at night.
Today Vanina came to see me, and it was super weird. Not that she would come, of course, because apparently she had heard I was around, and then she asked your mom, and it’s not like your mom could have lied to her, and plus she had no reason to do so. So she came, and we drank mate. It wasn’t that bad, in the end, once I’d overcome my initial panic or whatever it was. I mean at first I was utterly inhibited, I don’t know, she was happy, purely and sincerely happy just to see me. I mean, in reality, of course, things aren’t actually that complicated. Or at least they aren’t for everyone. She seemed good too. I don’t know why I say too, I don’t know if I’m doing good, I don’t know, you’d have to ask her, I guess, how it was I came across. For the moment I prefer not knowing. Anyway, the point is that she’s still there, I mean, here, but that she’s happy, happy with her decision to stay, to not go to college, to not go off somewhere to go to college, like most of us. She said that at first it was really tough. And besides, at the time she was going out with Mario, and Mario was going to La Plata, and she started to go for it, she thought about going with him, but in the end she didn’t, she ultimately decided to stay because actually, when she was being totally honest with herself—her words—she couldn’t think of a single good reason to go, since she loved Esquel, she always had. But that it’s only been in the past two or three years that she started to be really good again, that at first she used to get depressed because she wound up kind of lonely, feeling like she’d ended up here by herself, and she was working, but she was kind of depressed. She was working as a waitress. But then apparently she started seeing the owner of this bar, it’s this new place, on Rivadavia, orange, kind of dimly lit, that has a pool table, anyway, but so she started seeing Omar. That at first they were seeing each other in secret because Omar was married, but then apparently they fell in love, and then Omar left his wife, and Vanina and he moved in together, and now she’s like thrilled living and working with him. That at first people had been judgmental, but then in reality nobody actually even liked Omar’s ex-wife, who went back to Madryn, because she was from there, so really the majority had been on her side, like they’d mostly been supportive, but regardless she had not been too concerned because she knew the gossip would die down after some time passed and everybody’d just relax. And that’s exactly how it happened, now they’re really happy with the bar, which is doing really well, and on weekends people even come from far away, which is good for them, and she says how they bought a little car and a tiny plot of land on the outskirts of Esquel, and the idea is to start building a house on it, slowly but surely. That they don’t want kids, yet, that it’s just been very recent that they’ve been able to chill and be alone together, after all that ruckus over his divorce, and that they’d like to spend some more time just like that, but that, yeah, she did figure she would start a family with him, that she saw him as the father of her children, and that actually, oh, and by the way, did I know about Julián? Here I make sure that my face doesn’t change. Julián, I say, what do you mean, I have no idea what you’re talking about, know what? And she gets this little twinkle in her eyes, that twinkle of getting to be the one to break the gruesome news to me. Oh, so, Julián’s got kids now, two of them, or, well, one with another on the way. My blood starts running cold, then the predictable/old pit in my stomach. But I keep feigning control. So weird, right? Julián as a dad? Who would have thought, says Vanina. Meanwhile I, bigger liar than ever before, say, what do you mean, I don’t think it’s weird at all, he’d probably be a great father, I don’t see why not, and then she unintentionally drives the dagger in deeper, works it in slow: well, you know, yeah, actually that was the surprising part about it, was that it was incredible seeing Julián with the little one, he takes him everywhere he goes, and that it’s kind of beautiful to see. I feel like I would like to die, or at least like I would like to kill this messenger. And yet the juiciest part is still to come, and I know that Vanina isn’t going to tell me, or that she isn’t going to say it of her own accord, she’ll wait until I ask her, let me want to know, let me demonstrate I want or that I need to know, so as not to gratuitously wound me, as though the damage weren’t done. Even though, based on the information I’ve provided her, about my boyfriend in Buenos Aires, plus the time that’s passed, plus my performance that I’m giving now, the amount that all this hurts me shouldn’t show. She doesn’t, cannot realize. She assumes, I think, that I love my life of a free agent in the city, believes that it’s a life I wouldn’t trade for anything, which I guess is what I have been trying to convey to her since her arrival, what I’ve led her to believe. And really anyone—even me on a good day—could easily confirm this, that I wouldn’t trade my simple, pleasant life in Buenos Aires. It’s just that right at this precise instant I’m not so sure. What if all the decisions I have made were bad ones, and I should have stayed with Julián? In which case those children, those kids, would be mine instead. Jesus. Kids with someone else. Which means he’s inextricably connected to another woman. Which brings us back to . . . Who’d he get married to? Oh, no, he didn’t, or, well, that now he had, that now he was indeed legally wedded, but that that was after, after the son was born. León. León, he’s apparently named, what a nice name, what a discreet name. Very Julián, he must have chosen it. Bound for all time to another person, another woman, deeply revolting, Jesus. No, the girl is younger, you wouldn’t know her, she’s from Trevelin, Welsh family, they had been going out but not for long, really, that the girl was just eighteen, that she’d been eighteen when she’d gotten pregnant, and that they’d decided they would keep it. She had wanted it although she’d just completed high school. Mariela, her name is Mariela. Now she’s twenty-one. And so yeah, León was born, and when he was a year and a half or so, they got married. That no, Vanina hadn’t gone to the wedding, that they’d invited very few people because they didn’t have any money, and because her family wasn’t too thrilled about the marriage, about Julián, or the fact that he’d knocked up their daughter prior to proposing. So they hadn’t made a big deal out of it. She’d stood at the altar with the baby in her arms.
Ah. Pain, the most profound/the lowest kind of pain. He’d just stayed with her? Since when is he capable of that level of love? Well, but I mean, it’s his kid, clearly nothing’s going to get in the way of that. His kid. So anyway, so here they were, he’d brought her down to live here, at his parents’ place, and for now she isn’t working, Susi’s helping her with León and with her pregnancy, and Julián is working with his dad, mostly with the truck, deliveries, traveling a lot.
Good, traveling. That might mean that not everything is so perfect in the end, it means he spends a lot of time away from his family, that makes me happy, that is a relief, Jesus, this should make me feel vulnerable, and yet it doesn’t, it doesn’t because I feel at the same time like the story of my life is all dissolving. And Manuel? How is it that he could just evaporate like this from my mind and my present and my desires, my desires above all? In two years it never even crossed my mind, not once, to have his children, and I assumed this was a stance on my part, a lifestyle that I wanted. And now I come here and after a couple of days I’m already feelin
g like I’d give up everything to be the mother of those children, the woman in Julián’s life, his wife, the one. The workings of desire are curious. The workings of stupidity, as well. That yeah, that Mariela’s nice, the wife, or well, she doesn’t know her that well, but that she seems nice, that in fact she doesn’t talk much, that she seems very shy or whatever, Vanina’s heard she comes from a very strict family, tough father or something like that, so she’s not that used to talking. That she barely goes out, that she’s always with the kid, and besides, she has complicated pregnancies, ending up on bed rest, so it’s also not like she has been around that much, because between the months of pregnancy and then recovery she’s been in bed almost nonstop, ever since she got here, she’s essentially just been lying down at home, and it’s not like Vanina knew her from before, so all in all she just can’t really say. Yeah, she doesn’t really seem that healthy, it’s kind of overwhelming when you look at her because she’s twenty-one but looks more like a little girl, like León’s older sister, so it’s kind of intense to see her pregnant, all emaciated but with that belly, and here I wonder how Vanina’s seen her if she’s been on bed rest, but it doesn’t matter, maybe Vanina just contents herself with picturing the girl so skinny and big bellied, it is enough to overwhelm, I also feel a little overwhelmed imagining her belly swollen and her face that of a child’s, the light hair of a little girl, with freckles, I guess I picture her as Sarah Polley, but at thirteen. Like Sarah Polley when Sarah Polley was thirteen. Less healthy. Poor thing. I note I already feel affection for her, and I have the weirdest urge, on the one hand, to go and sit with her and tell her stories or read to her while she’s on bed rest, while on the other hand I want to smother her with a pillow or give her a bunch of tranquilizers or sleeping pills so she gives me back the world, so it gets given back to me, the world and everything that has to do with it. So my chat with Vanina, the chat itself, wasn’t that bad, but it got blurred in the background behind all the images that popped into my head, populating your parents’/your whole living room. We hugged, I promised I’d go by the bar one night, she left. I locked the door, I went to the bathroom because I didn’t know what to do, I took off my clothes, every last piece of clothing, and I got into the shower, like a robot, like an idiot, as though anesthetized, I don’t even know. I’m pretty sure I didn’t cry, I couldn’t cry, I think I wanted to but couldn’t. I was in there for a while, under a stream of water I kept very hot. Ali lay there, calm, curled up in the clothes on the floor. I looked at her. She looked back, her eyes wide open. I threw up.
10.
Yesterday this house was host to a big barbecue. How could you not want to be here for that? The ashes from the mosquito coil make the same shape on the big tiles on the floor, a spiral of ashes around a little sheet of metal that just looks silly now, purposeless. The ashes are still there, they haven’t scattered, they’re still exactly where they fell. Your cat does twists and licks her lips on the patio floor. So captivating. I stop and cover her with kisses. She sheds, and my mouth gets hair all over it. Tricolor hair. Cat hair. Now she cleans herself, licking between the pads of her paws, her claws, her little claws, licking her nose.
In the end the ceremony’s going to be on Sunday. Yesterday your sister came, which was what did it. I was pretty out of it, I couldn’t really connect, but I still shared my opinion. They couldn’t decide. Your parents, especially your mom, had this idea of just putting the ashes in the ground by the poplar in the back, why make such a fuss, that she liked the idea that the ashes would remain there, at the house where you’d lived all your life. Your dad didn’t say much, I think he was fine with it, or in any case he couldn’t come up with anything better. Your sister had already said she wasn’t too super excited about any of it, just in general, that to her it was just dredging things up for no reason, that she had already made this known, that they already knew, that so whatever they wanted to do was fine. That they could just let her know when on Sunday, and where, and that was that. That she’d come for the barbecue and just to see her parents, and to say hi to me, too, of course. And that that was it. Meanwhile I—who knows why—waxed poetic. It surprised me they weren’t more decisive, or, at least, more imaginative when it actually came to the ceremony. Especially considering they had suggested it. I said that I liked the idea of scattering your ashes from the bridge, into the river, that it might sound cliché or whatever and that I knew it wasn’t a place that could be all that much associated with you, per se, especially compared with your house, but that I didn’t know, that I knew you did like going there, to the river, that ultimately it was the thought of your ashes falling freely and scattering out over the valley, of them flying, that was the good part about it; that putting them in the back behind your house was after all a way to bury them, and that maybe it would be good to take the ceremony, the concept of the ceremony, to more of an idea of freedom. I also said, on a roll now, that I remembered this movie I’d seen, which wasn’t about this or anything, but that this somehow reminded me, or for whatever reason I just associated the image. A movie where at the end, in the last scene, the girl throws herself off a kind of bridge too, in the mountains of Mongolia or wherever, the movie was Chinese, the girl was Chinese, and she was committing suicide, but it wasn’t a suicide, or anyway it wasn’t sad because she was flying, she stayed suspended between the clouds that were there, floating in the air, and it was sad and poetic and beautiful. I didn’t say all of that, I decided to omit the suicide and poetry. Your sister, who had her mouth full, said that that was fine with her but that we’d need to go right around noon because when the sun’s not hitting the bridge directly it’s simply way too cold. Practical. Your mom got a little bit emotional, you could tell it was a little harder for her to think about this getting rid of—because it is that, too—your ashes. Your dad thought it was a nice idea. So then, ultimately, so did your mom.
11.
Today I dreamed that we were going on our high-school graduation trip and that in my hand luggage, in the outer pocket of my carry-on, there were two rats: one was real and the other fake. I just left them there. Maybe it was because I talked to Ramiro last night. Apparently the mouse isn’t gone yet, and there’s just no way that Mauro’s cat can be convinced to hunt it. It won’t even get close to the kitchen. I found this funny, Mr. Tough Cat. A cat fully domesticated and well-fed expected all of a sudden to have instincts it’s in no way capable of having honed. Meanwhile apparently it’s really made itself at home at our house, it spends the whole day sleeping, apparently it particularly likes the floor where my room is, the little steps and the chair from under the table. Ramiro talked about the cat like it was a person, which I really found funny, apparently they’ve bonded. He asked me about Dad. I told him, I told him about going over there for tea, about our kind of tricky hangout at home that afternoon, in Dad’s home, in our home, ex-home—whatever, there. Carmen was fortunately not there, I mean not for any real reason, I like her perfectly fine, it’s just easier to relax if it’s just Dad, even though relaxing, what is commonly known as relaxing, is not exactly what we did, either, in the end. The kids were there, our teenage half brothers. Delightful but demanding. Perpetually in motion. It’s incredible, you can tell Dad’s fully back now. And Lorenzo, such a teenager, can’t catch a break from those hormones, is my impression, you just can’t even imagine what an attitude he has. Not with me, obviously, in fact I felt like he was trying to form some sort of alliance with me while I was there, but with Dad he will not quit, it’s crazy. Facundo, no, Facu is huge, but he’s still like a kid, he must be five nine now, but he’s very childish, which of course is an explosive combo. He messes around all the damn time, sits on top of you and totally squashes you, he’s like a mammoth wanting attention all the time. He does a pretty good job of getting it, he’s very funny, plus he and Lorenzo have this routine going, of sorts. Lorenzo acts like he’s Facundo’s father and calls him snot-nosed all the time, Facu goes nuts, they spend the day kicking each other
’s asses, it’s funny to watch, although I can’t even begin to describe to you how tiring it gets. I went in for tea and came out exhausted. I still have my adolescent-brother quota taken care of, I haven’t gone back to see them since that afternoon. I promised to tell Dad when I’d be leaving, he wanted to invite me over for a barbecue or something, so I guess I’ll see them then. Dad seemed good. Pretty relaxed. Or maybe just the contrast with his children/quasi-grandchildren. Clearly having the family keeps him sedated, as it were. And Carmen, she’s also very hyperactive. Apparently they now have other couple friends, something like a social life, like they go out to eat and stuff, make these social plans, and Dad wears these little shirts, and corduroy, very cool, a kind of more robust Woody Allen, Carmen’s clearly the one in charge of outfits. And he has fully given in to it. As though it were another life—in fact it is, it’s another life. It’s fine, I’m happy for him, it’s good. After tea and the interlude with the brothers we sat for a while in his study with the door closed, my ex-bedroom (so much ex right now, so much), and there we were able to have more of a real conversation. He told me about his new life, he laughed a little, at that, his new role, saying that sometimes when he’s tired he locks himself in his study and everybody knows not to bother him. That he has a really good relationship with the boys, that he’s enjoyed, that he’s enjoying fatherhood again a lot, the fact of living with these kids. That sometimes he regrets not being able to be more fully present when it was us, that he had so much going on back then, that what happened with Cora was really very hard on him, not just because of us, but because of him as well. I tried to avoid that subject, but on the other hand my brother and I are the only ones he can talk about it with, so I let him talk, let him go back to that, and I tried to make him understand, again, that we truly hadn’t ever wanted for anything, that I have the fondest memories of him as a father, that I have no resentments towards him, but it’s no use, he feels he has a sort of debt to us, and there’s no way to convince him that he doesn’t. But he was fine, it’s not like he got too worked up about it or anything. He told me he’d started writing again, that he’d been doing that and that he was happy with it, but he wasn’t discussing it with anyone because they mocked him, that Carmen didn’t get it, that she thought it was just some stupid thing that old men did, that they started calling him Neruda when they first got wind of it, just stuff like that, so now he only writes from within the confines of his study, he says, without showing it to anyone, but he’s happy, he says for now he doesn’t feel the need for readers. I asked him to show me something, told him I’d like to read something he’s written, see what he’s been working on, and he told me not yet, that he’s still revising, that maybe later on, that yeah, that he’d show me something, but he insisted—it was conditional upon this—I was not to give him any feedback, not to tell him what I thought. That he was embarrassed, and that in any case, once it was ready, once it was done, he didn’t have any intentions of altering it anyway, that it was all just what it was, that that would just be that. What about you? he said, he wanted to know what I’d been working on, if I was writing, and I said, very little, that I didn’t really have much time for writing, that between school and the boyfriend I had very little time left for myself. Though then that struck me as funny, the thing about time for myself, since all those things, boyfriend/school/work, were mine, were me, and it’s strange I would refer to them as things/activities taking me away—or at the very least distracting me—from myself. I stopped talking. I kept thinking about that. Time for myself, what could I have meant by that, what could I have been referring to, exactly, when I said time for myself?