A Heart So White

by Javier Marías

  There are two pillows on our bed, as is usual on double beds, and when I got back from Geneva, a day before Luisa was expecting me, in the middle of the afternoon, the bed was made. I arrived home tired, the way you do from airports, I opened the door and, without checking to see if there was anyone at home, I put the keys in my jacket pocket, the way Berta used to put them in her bag so as not to forget them when she went out again. When I went in, I called Luisa’s name, but no one was there. I put my suitcase and bag down for a moment and went into the bedroom, where I saw that the bed was made, then I went into the bathroom, the door was open and everything was in order, except that the shower hose hadn’t been put back and only Luisa’s dark blue towels and bathrobe were there; mine, which are pale blue like “Bill’s” bathrobe or, rather, the Plaza’s bathrobe, were still in the wardrobe, where they’d remained since I’d been away. I realized that I didn’t know exactly which wardrobe they were in, I’m still not entirely familiar with my own apartment, which has undergone various changes during my absences, although I hope there’ll be no more absences for a long time now. I went into the kitchen and saw that it was clean, Luisa is both clean and tidy, the fridge was half-full, but there was no milk, I’d have to go out later and buy some. In the sitting room there was an unfamiliar bit of furniture, a pleasant grey armchair that had meant a repositioning of the ottoman and the rocking chair that had once been my grandmother’s and, much later, the backdrop to Ranz’s original poses when he received visitors. The armchair was comfortable, I sat down in it to try it out. In the room where Luisa works when she has something to work on there was nothing to indicate that she’d been working on anything lately. (Perhaps one day it will be a child’s room.) There were no changes in the room where I work, I saw a pile of post awaiting me on my U-shaped desk, too much for me to bother looking at just then. I was about to go back into the hall when I noticed something new: on one of the walls there was a drawing I’d seen before and whose title, if it had one, would be Head of a Woman with Her Eyes Closed. I thought, “My father’s made us another gift, or else he gave it to Luisa and she’s put it in my room.” I went back to the front door and, as I always do when I get home or reach my destination, I started unpacking and putting everything away in its place, diligently, urgently, as if that operation were still part of the journey and the journey had to be concluded. I put my dirty washing in the washing machine, where I noticed there were a couple of things of Luisa’s, I presumed they were Luisa’s, I didn’t check, I just opened the door and threw mine in, without switching the machine on, there was no hurry and she might want to programme it. After a few moments, my suitcases were empty and stored away in the cupboard reserved for them, which I did know about (it’s above the closet for overcoats in the hallway) because ever since we were married I’ve always taken them out of there when I set off on my trips. I was very tired, I looked at my watch, Luisa might arrive at any moment or she might not be back for hours, it was mid-afternoon, the time in Madrid when no one is at home, no one can bear that time of day, people are seized by something close to hysteria or desperation, though they’d never admit it, people would rather do anything than stay in, they go shopping in the crowded stores, go to the chemist’s, they run unnecessary errands, window-shop, buy cigarettes, pick up the children on their way out of school, eat or drink something (even though they’re neither hungry nor thirsty) in one of the million different bars and cafés, the whole city is either out in the street or at work, everyone’s on walkabout, no one’s at home, it’s so unlike New York, where almost everyone goes home at half past five or six, or half past six, if they’ve had to check their mailbox at Kenmore or Old Chelsea Station. I went out on to the balcony, but I saw no one standing on the corner, although there were hundreds of cars about and masses of people on the move, walking back and forth, getting in one another’s way. I went into the bathroom, had a pee and cleaned my teeth. I returned to the bedroom, opened our wardrobe, hung up the jacket I was wearing, saw Luisa’s dresses hanging up on her side, immediately noticed two or three or five new dresses, instinctively kissed or brushed them with my feminine lips, rubbed my face against the scented, inert fabrics and felt the stubble on my chin rough against the smooth cloth (if I’m going out at night, I always have to shave again). I noticed that evening was coming on (it was Friday, it was March). I lay down on the bed, not intending to sleep, just to rest, so I didn’t pull the covers back (the sheets might not be new, Luisa would have planned to change them tomorrow, just before my arrival). Nor did I take off my shoes. I lay across the bed, so that my shoes hung over the edge, presenting no danger to the bedcover.

  When I woke up, no light entered from outside, I mean that what light did enter was a nocturnal light, the light of neon and streetlamps, not an afternoon light. I looked at my watch but I couldn’t see it without turning on the lamp. I was about to switch on the lamp on the bedside table when I heard voices. They were coming from inside the apartment, from the living room, I thought. I was still feeling confused but not for long, my eyes soon grew accustomed to the darkness, the bedroom door was closed, I must have left it like that, a night-time habit in that room, even though it was a habit I’d been out of for eight weeks now. One of the voices was Luisa’s, she was speaking at that point, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. Her tone was leisurely, confiding, even persuasive. She’d come back. I felt for my lighter in my trouser pocket and lit it in order to look at my watch, twenty past eight, almost three hours had passed since I arrived. “Luisa must have seen me sleeping and decided not to wake me up,” I thought, “she left me to wake up of my own accord.” But it was also possible that she hadn’t realized I was back. She didn’t normally come into the bedroom the minute she got home, not unless she needed to change her clothes. If she’d come in with someone else she would have gone straight to the living room, perhaps a brief visit to the bathroom, perhaps to the kitchen to pour some drinks or get some olives (I’d noticed some olives in the fridge). Although I don’t believe I had done this on purpose (I didn’t, after all, know that I’d fall asleep), I realized that there would be no sign in the house of my arrival, I’d put everything away, as I always do, including my suitcase and my bag; I’d put my overcoat underneath, in the closet intended for overcoats, a light goes on when you open the door; I hadn’t got my dressing gown out or my towels, they’d still not been put out in the bathroom, I’d dried my hands on one of Luisa’s towels; all the presents I’d brought from Switzerland were with me in the bedroom; there was only one thing, my sponge bag, which I’d taken out of my hand luggage and left on a stool in the bathroom, its contents were the only things I hadn’t returned to their respective places; I’d opened it, that’s true, but only to take out my toothbrush, not even the toothpaste, I’d used the toothpaste that was on the shelf, Luisa’s toothpaste, half used up. It might be that neither she nor her companion knew that I was there. An involuntary spy in my own house (involuntary until then that is). Now the other voice was speaking, but very low, lower than Luisa’s voice, I couldn’t even make out the tone of the voice and that unsettled me, as it had in the hotel room in Havana – which, it seems, was once the Sevilla-Biltmore, though I’m not sure – on an island. I was gripped by impatience. I knew that I’d eventually find out who was in the living room with Luisa, even if he were to leave at that very moment, I would only have to open the door, go out and see, before he was out of the door and was still waiting for the lift. But that feeling of impatience arose because I was aware that what I didn’t hear now, I never would hear, there’d be no instant replay, as there can be when you listen to a tape or watch a video and can press the rewind button, rather, any whisper not apprehended or understood there and then would be lost for ever. That’s the unfortunate thing about what happens to us and remains unrecorded, or worse still, unknown or unseen or unheard, for later, there’s no way it can be recovered. Cautiously, without making a sound, I opened the bedroom door, a strip of distant light entered thr
ough the still minimal crack and I lay down on the bed again and then I could identify the voice that was speaking, thanks to that crack, I identified the voice with a mixture of fear and relief, it was Ranz’s voice, my father’s voice, which I identified more with relief than with fear.

  I have a tendency to want to understand everything, everything that people say and everything I hear, even at a distance, even if it’s in one of the innumerable languages I don’t know, even if it’s in an indistinguishable murmur or an imperceptible whisper, even if it would be better that I didn’t understand and what’s said is not intended for my ears, or is said precisely so that I won’t hear it. Once the door of my bedroom was half-open, the murmur was distinguishable, the whisper perceptible and both were in a language that I know perfectly, my own, the one in which I write and think, although I co-habit with other languages in which I also sometimes think, though never as often as I think in my own; and it was perhaps best that I should understand what the voice was saying, it was perhaps being said so that I could hear it, so that I would understand. Well, not quite; I didn’t think Luisa could have failed to notice my presence in the house (she’d have spotted something: my sponge bag, my toothbrush in its usual place, my overcoat hanging in the closet), but Ranz, Ranz might not know (if he’d gone into the bathroom the sponge bag and the toothbrush would have meant nothing to him). Perhaps Luisa had finally decided to have that talk with my father and ask him about his dead wives, about Bluebeard, Bluebeard, and leave it to chance that I should wake up and hear what he said directly or go on sleeping off my exhaustion after my trip back from Geneva and find out only indirectly and later on, through her and in other words (translated and possibly censored), or perhaps, if she so decided, I would never find out. Perhaps she’d had no intention of having that talk, not that night or rather evening, until she got home and saw my sponge bag, my toothbrush, my overcoat and then, perhaps, my sleeping figure on our bed. Perhaps she’d looked into the room and it was she, not I, who’d closed the door. It was then, when I thought about it, that I understood that that was what must have happened, because it wasn’t until that moment that I realized that the bed was not as neat as I’d found it. Someone had pulled back the sheets, blanket and bedcover on one side and had tried to pull them clumsily over me, from its outer limit as far as the weight and outline of my body permitted. It was possible I could have done this in my sleep, I thought, but it was unlikely, I dismissed the idea at once and fell to wondering when that could have happened, my being covered up, when Luisa could have opened the door and seen me lying there asleep, perhaps with my hair dishevelled, a few stray hairs lying across my forehead like fine lines sent by the future to cast a momentary shadow over me. (She hadn’t taken my shoes off, I still had them on and now they were dirtying the bedcover.) And I wondered too how long Luisa and Ranz had been there and how she’d managed to orchestrate the conversation they were having so that at the precise moment I half-opened the door and went back to lie on the bed and could hear Ranz’s words (albeit at a distance), those first words were:

  “She killed herself because of something I told her. Something I told her on our honeymoon.”

  My father’s voice sounded weak, but not because he was old, there was never anything of the old man about him. His voice was hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to say what he was saying, as if he were aware how easy it is to say things (it’s just a matter of starting, one word follows another), but that once words have been heard, there’s no forgetting them, you know what’s been said, as if he were remembering that.

  “And you don’t want to tell me what it was,” I heard Luisa say. Her voice was cautious but natural, she didn’t overplay her persuasiveness or her delicacy or affection. She was tentative, that was all.

  “Now, it isn’t a question of my not wanting to, not if you want to know,” replied Ranz, “although the truth is I’ve never told anyone, I’ve kept it to myself It all happened forty years ago, it’s almost as if it had never happened, or had happened to other people, not to me, not to Teresa, not to the other woman, as you call her. Neither they nor what happened to them has existed for a long time now, only I know what happened, I’m the only one left who remembers, and what happened seems very blurred to me now, as if one’s memory, like one’s eyes, grew tired as one got older and no longer had the strength to see clearly. There are no glasses that can compensate for a tired memory, my dear.”

  I went and sat down at the foot of the bed, from which position I could, just by reaching out a hand, open the door a little more or close it. Without thinking, I remade the bed, that is I put sheets, blanket and bed covers back in their original position, I even tucked in the sheets and blanket. Everything was in order, a faint light, the door opened just a crack, the light of the night outside.

  “Why did you tell her, then?” said Luisa. “You must have imagined how she might react.”

  “Hardly anyone imagines anything, not when you’re young, and you’re young for much longer than you think. The whole of life seems a sham when you’re young, what happens to other people, unhappiness, calamity, crimes, it all seems utterly alien, as if it didn’t exist. Even what happens to us seems alien once it’s over. Some people are like that all their lives, eternally young, a great misfortune. We all tell stories, we talk, speak, words are cheap, and sometimes they pour out of us unrestrained. They go on pouring out of us whatever the occasion, when we’re drunk, when we’re angry, when we’re exhausted, when we’re fed up, when we’re cheerful, when we think we’re in love, when it’s not at all the right time to say them or when we’re in no position to ponder them. And we hurt people. It would be impossible not to make a mistake. It’s strange that words don’t have worse consequences than they do. Or perhaps we just don’t see it, we just think they don’t have any consequences and, in fact, the world’s in a permanent state of disaster because of what we’ve said. The whole world talks endlessly, at any given moment there are millions of conversations going on, stories, statements, remarks, gossip, confessions, they’re spoken and heard and no one can control them. No one can foresee the explosive effect they can have, or even perceive that it happens. Because, however many words there are, however cheap and insignificant they arc, very few of us are capable of ignoring them. We invest them with importance. Even if you don’t, you’ve still heard them. You can’t imagine how often I’ve thought about those words over the years, the words I said to Teresa in an uncontrollable moment of passion, I suppose, we were on our honeymoon, it was almost at an end. I could have kept silent for ever, but we believe that the more we love someone, the more secrets we should tell them, telling often seems like a gift, the greatest gift one can give, the greatest loyalty, the greatest proof of love and commitment. You’re rewarded for telling secrets. It isn’t enough just to speak, to utter fiery words that are soon extinguished or even become repetitive. Nor are they enough for the person listening. The person speaking is as insatiable as the person who listens, the person speaking wants to hold the attention of the other for ever, wants to penetrate as deeply with his tongue as he can (“the tongue as raindrop, the tongue in the ear,” I thought) and the person listening wants to be kept entertained, wants to hear and know more and more, even things that are invented or false. Perhaps Teresa didn’t or rather would have preferred not to know. But I blurted something out to her, I didn’t control myself, not enough, and then she couldn’t go on not wanting to know, she wanted to know, she had to listen.” Ranz paused for a second, he was speaking now without hesitation and his voice was louder, almost declamatory, not a murmur or a whisper, I’d have heard it even with the door closed but I kept it half-open. “She couldn’t take it. There was no divorce in those days and she would never have been prepared to ask for an annulment, she lacked all cynicism, and besides our marriage had been consummated, very much so, and long before we were married. But even if divorce or annulment had been possible, it wouldn’t have been enough either. It wasn’t just that once
she knew, she couldn’t stand me, couldn’t bear to be with me for a day or a minute longer, as she said, although she did in fact stay with me for a few days longer, unable to decide what to do. It was because she’d once said something herself, a long time ago, and what she’d said then had had consequences. She could bear neither me nor herself all because of a frivolous remark she once made, not understanding that she wasn’t in the least to blame, how could she possibly be, for what I might have heard, just as I wasn’t to blame for having heard it (“An instigation is nothing but words,” I thought, “translatable, ownerless words”). After I told her, she spent a few days in a state of extreme and ever-mounting anxiety, I’ve never seen anyone in a state like that. She barely slept, she didn’t eat and she kept retching, trying to vomit, but she couldn’t, she didn’t talk to me or look at me, she barely spoke to anyone, she buried her head in the pillow, she put on a brave face in front of other people. She cried, she cried all the time during those few days. She even cried while she slept, when she managed to sleep, just for a few moments, she cried in her dreams, and would wake up at once, sweating and startled, and look at me lying next to her strangely at first and then with horror (“With her eyes fixed on me but without as yet recognizing me or knowing where she was,” I thought, “the feverish eyes of the sick person who wakes up frightened, having received no warning while they slept that they were about to waken”), she used to cover her face with the pillow, as if she didn’t want to see or hear. I tried to calm her, but she was afraid of me, she regarded me with fear or horror. Someone who doesn’t want to see or hear can’t go on living, her only escape would have been to tell someone else the story, in fact, I’m not surprised she killed herself, I didn’t foresee it, but I should have. You can’t go on living in that state, not if you’re impatient, not if you can’t wait for time to pass (“It was as if she’d lost herself and there was no abstract future at all,” I thought, “which is the only future that matters, because the present can neither taint it nor assimilate it”). Everything just evaporates in the end, but you young people don’t know that. She was very young.”