The Truce

by Mario Benedetti

  Thursday 20 June

  I haven’t written anything in four days. Between the process of renting the apartment, drawing up the security agreement, the withdrawal of the $2,465.79 and the purchasing of some furniture, I’ve been tremendously stressed. I can move in tomorrow. My furniture will be delivered on Saturday.

  Friday 21 June

  Suárez was fired, it’s unbelievable, but he was fired. The staff happily spread the rumour that the Valverde woman had urged that he be fired. But what’s most surprising is that he couldn’t have been fired for a less important reason. The Shipping Department sent two packages to the wrong address. Suárez didn’t even know about those two packages, which were surely shipped by one of those inexperienced and absent-minded fellows who are in charge of packaging. In the not-too-distant past, Suárez had made a great number of terrible mistakes and no one had said anything. Apparently, for the last three or four days, the manager had been on the brink of discharging the disgraced lover; but Suárez, who sensed he was going to be fired, had been behaving like an exemplary child. He would arrive on time and there were even days when he would work an extra hour or so. He was also kind, humble and disciplined. But it still didn’t do him any good because even if that shipping error hadn’t occurred, I’m sure he still would have been fired; either for smoking too much or for not having his shoes shined. On the other hand, some sharp individual maintains the packages were sent to the wrong address under the confidential and direct orders of management. Nothing would surprise me.

  It was a pity to watch Suárez after he received the news. He went to the Payroll Department, collected his severance pay, and then returned to his desk and started to empty the drawers. He did this in silence, without anyone approaching him to ask what was wrong, give him advice, or offer to help. In just half an hour he had become an undesirable. I haven’t spoken to him in years (since the day I realized he would lift confidential data from Accounting, pass it on to one of the Directors, and then turn him against the others), but I swear that today I felt like approaching him to offer words of sympathy, comfort. But I didn’t, because he’s a filthy pig and doesn’t deserve it. I couldn’t help feeling a little disgusted about that sudden and complete change of attitude (in which everyone participated, from the Chairman of the Board to the kitchen servants) based purely and exclusively on the suspension of relations between Suárez and Valverde’s daughter. It might seem strange, but the atmosphere in this business firm depends, to a great extent, on a private orgasm.

  Saturday 22 June

  I didn’t go to the office. I took advantage of yesterday’s joyful chaos and asked the manager for the proper authorization to take the morning off. It was granted with a smile and even with a pleasant and stimulating comment about how they didn’t know how they would manage without the key man of the office. Is it that they want to force Valverde’s daughter on me? Bah.

  I accepted delivery of the furniture in the apartment and worked like a slave. The furniture looks good. Nothing vehemently modern. I don’t like those functional chairs with ridiculously unstable legs that collapse when you merely look at them angrily, or those chair-backs seemingly always made to someone else’s size. I don’t like those lamps that always illuminate things no one has any interest in seeing or displaying, for example: spider webs, cockroaches, power points.

  I think that it’s the first time I’ve decorated an apartment to my liking. When I got married, my family gave us the bedroom furniture, and Isabel’s family contributed the dining room set. They weren’t compatible at all, but it doesn’t matter. Later, my mother-in-law would arrive and dictate: ‘You two need a painting for the living room.’ No need to say it twice. The next morning there would appear a still life with sausages, hard cheese, a melon, homemade bread, bottles of beer; in short, a sight that could ruin my appetite for six months. At other times, usually on the occasion of some anniversary, a certain uncle would send us seagulls to hang up on the bedroom wall, or two pieces of Italian pottery decorated with odd-looking little figures of servants that were utterly repugnant. After Isabel died, and as time, distractions and the servants finished disposing of the paintings, seagulls and pottery, Jaime proceeded to fill the house with those grotesque ornaments that need a periodic explanation. I see them sometimes, Jaime and his friends, reeling in ecstasy in front of a jar with wings, newspaper clippings, a door and testicles, and hear them say: ‘What a great reproduction!’ I don’t understand, nor do I want to, because the truth is their admiration seems hypocritical! One day I asked them: ‘Why don’t you ever bring home a print of Gauguin, Monet or Renoir? Are they terrible, perhaps?’ Then, Danielito Gómez Ferrando, a good-for-nothing who goes to bed every day at five o’clock in the morning because ‘the evening hours are the most authentic’, a weakling who doesn’t set foot in a restaurant if he sees someone in there using a toothpick, he, precisely he, replied: ‘But, sir, we’re interested in the Abstract.’ He, on the other hand, isn’t abstract at all, with his little face without eyebrows, and his eternal expression of a little pregnant cat.

  Sunday 23 June

  I opened the door and stepped aside so she could walk in. She entered with short steps, looking all around with extreme attention, as if she wanted to slowly absorb the light, the atmosphere, the smell. She passed her hand over the bookcase and then over the sofa’s upholstery. She didn’t even look towards the bedroom. She sat down, wanted to smile, and couldn’t. It seemed that her legs were shaking as she looked at the reproductions on the wall and said: ‘Botticelli’. She was mistaken, it was Filippo Lippi. There will be time to correct her later. She started to ask about quality, prices and furniture stores. ‘I like it,’ she said, three or four times.

  It was seven o’clock in the evening, and the sun, almost setting, made the cream-coloured wallpaper look orange. I sat down next to her and she stiffened. She hadn’t even put her handbag down. I asked her to give it to me. ‘Don’t you remember that you’re not a visitor but the lady of the house?’ I remarked. Then, making an effort, she let her hair down a bit, took off her jacket, nervously stretched her legs. ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked. ‘Are you scared?’ ‘Do I look like it?’ she responded. ‘Frankly, yes,’ I replied. ‘You could be right,’ she said. ‘But not of you or myself.’ ‘I know, you’re just scared of the Moment,’ I said. It seemed to me she was starting to relax. But one thing was true, she wasn’t pretending. Her paleness meant she was truly scared. Her attitude wasn’t the same as that of those female cashiers who agree to go a motel, but who, the very moment the taxi comes to a stop, suddenly become hysterical and scream for their mothers. No, there’s nothing theatrical about her. She was confused and I didn’t want – perhaps it didn’t suit me – to inquire too much about the causes of her confusion. ‘It’s just that I have to get used to the idea,’ she said, perhaps to satisfy me. She realized I was a bit discouraged. ‘One always imagines these things a bit differently than they turn out to be,’ she said. ‘But there is something I have to recognize and be grateful to you for. What you have prepared isn’t too different from what I had in mind,’ she said. ‘Since when?’ I asked. ‘Since high school when I was in love with my maths teacher,’ she replied. The table was set, with those plain yellow plates the saleswoman at the department store had picked out for me. (It’s not completely true, I like them too.) I served a cold dish of meat and vegetables and performed the role of host with dignity. She liked everything, but the tension didn’t allow her to enjoy anything. When the moment to uncork the champagne arrived, she was no longer pale. ‘Until what time can you stay?’ I asked. ‘Until late,’ she replied. ‘And what about your mother?’ I asked. ‘My mother knows about us,’ she replied.

  Obviously, a low blow. That’s not fair. I felt naked, with that desperate bareness of dreams, when one walks around in one’s underwear along Sarandí and the people celebrate this public display from pavement to pavement. ‘And why is that?’ I dared to ask. ‘My mother knows everything about me,’ she re
plied. ‘And your father?’ I asked. ‘My father lives in another world,’ she replied. ‘He’s a tailor. Awful. Never ask him to tailor a suit for you. He uses the same mannequin for the size of every suit. In addition, he’s a theosophist. And an anarchist. He never asks anything. On Mondays he meets with his theosophist friends and they discuss Blavatsky until dawn; on Thursdays his anarchist friends come to the house and they argue about Kropotkin of Russia, at the top of their lungs. Apart from this, he’s a tender, peaceful man, who sometimes looks at me with such sweet patience and tells me very useful things, the most useful things I have ever heard.’ I like it very much when she talks about her family, but I especially liked it today. It seemed like a good omen for the inauguration of our brand-new intimacy. ‘And what does your mother say about me?’ I asked. My mental distress stems from Isabel’s mother. ‘About you? Nothing. She talks about me.’ She finished drinking the rest of the champagne in her glass and wiped her mouth with the little paper napkin. There was nothing left of her lipstick. ‘My mother says I’m dramatic, that I don’t have serenity,’ she said. ‘With respect to us or everything in general?’ I asked. ‘Regarding everything,’ she replied. ‘Her theory, the great theory of her life, the one that keeps her invigorated, is that happiness, true happiness, is a condition much less angelic and less pleasant than one always tends to dream it is. She says people generally end up feeling miserable only because they believed that happiness was a permanent sensation of undefinable well-being, joyful ecstasy and perpetual festivity. No, she says, happiness is much less (or perhaps much more, but in that case it is something different), and certainly many of those allegedly miserable people are actually happy, but they don’t realize it or admit it, because they think they’re quite distant from the highest state of well-being. It’s similar to what happens to those people who are disillusioned with the Blue Grotto in Capri. What they imagined was a cave of fairies; they didn’t know exactly what it was, but they were sure it was a cave of fairies. But when they arrive they realize that the entire miracle consists of dipping one’s hands in the water and seeing them appear slightly blue and luminous.’ Apparently, it pleases her to relate her mother’s thoughts. I think she relays them as if they were an unattainable conviction, but also a conviction she would fervently like to possess. ‘And you, how do you feel?’ I asked. ‘As if your hands were light blue and luminous?’ The interruption brought her down to earth, to the special moment that was this Today. And she replied: ‘I haven’t placed them in the water yet,’ and quickly blushed. Because, naturally, her response could be interpreted as an invitation, or even as a pressing need she had not wanted to express. It wasn’t my fault, but there lay my sudden disadvantage. She stood up, leaned against the wall, and asked in a low tone of voice that she intended to sound pleasant but was actually glaringly inhibited: ‘Can I ask you a favour for the first time?’ ‘You may,’ I replied, and now I was worried. ‘Would you let me leave, without a fuss?’ she asked. ‘Today, only for today. I promise everything will be fine tomorrow.’ I felt disappointed, stupid, understanding. ‘Of course I’ll let you leave. And that’s the end of it,’ I replied. But it isn’t the end of it. How could it be?’

  Monday 24 June

  Esteban is ill. The doctor says it could be serious. We hope not. It’s pleuritis or some other pulmonary disease. He doesn’t know. When will the doctors know? After I had lunch, I went to his room to check on him. He was reading, with the radio playing loudly. When he saw me enter, he folded the upper corner of the page he was reading, and closed the book. He turned off the radio, as if to say: ‘Well, my private life is over.’ I pretended not to notice. I didn’t know what to talk about. I never know what to talk about with Esteban. Regardless of the subject we inevitably end up arguing. He asked how my retirement plans were progressing. I think it’s going well. Actually, it can’t be terribly complicated. I arranged my schedule, paid the pledged contributions, and organized my office record card a while back. ‘According to your friend, the matter shouldn’t take long,’ I said. My retirement is one of the subjects Esteban and I discuss the most. There’s a kind of silent agreement between us about having it at our disposal. Even so, today I made an effort: ‘Well, tell me a bit about your affairs. We never talk.’ ‘It’s true,’ he replied. ‘It must be that we’re both always so busy.’ ‘Must be,’ I said. ‘But do you really have so much work to do at your office?’ A stupid, thoughtless question. His response was predictable, but I hadn’t foreseen it: ‘What are you trying to say? That all city employees are lazy? Is that what you’re trying to say? Sure, only you, the outstanding private sector employee, have the privilege of being efficient and hardworking.’ I felt doubly furious, because it was my own fault, and said: ‘Look, don’t be an idiot. That’s not what I meant to say nor did I even think it. You’re as touchy as an old maid. Or you have a guilty conscience as big as a house.’ Surprisingly, he didn’t say anything offensive in reply. The fever must have weakened him. Furthermore, he even apologized: ‘You could be right. I’m always in a bad mood. What do I know? It’s as if I feel uncomfortable with myself.’ As a secret, and coming from Esteban, it was almost an exaggeration. But as self-criticism, I think it’s very close to the truth. For a while I’ve had the impression that Esteban’s path doesn’t follow that of his conscience. ‘What would you say if I left my city job?’ he asked. ‘Now?’ I replied. ‘Well, not now,’ he said. ‘When I recover, if I recover. The doctor said it would probably be a few months.’ ‘And where does this sudden inspiration come from?’ I asked. ‘Don’t ask me too much,’ he replied. ‘Isn’t it enough that I want to change?’ ‘Of course it’s enough. You’ve made me very happy. The only thing I’m worried about is if you need a leave of absence due to illness, it’s much easier to secure it from your present job.’ ‘When you had typhus,’ he said, ‘did they fire you? They didn’t, did they? And you were off for six months.’ Actually, I was contradicting him for the pure pleasure of hearing him assert himself. ‘The main thing now is that you recover,’ I said. ‘We’ll see afterwards.’ Then he launched into a long description of himself, his limitations and his hopes. It was so long I didn’t get to the office until three-fifteen, and had to apologize to the manager. I was impatient, but I didn’t feel I had the right to interrupt him. It was the first time Esteban had confided in me and I couldn’t disappoint him. I spoke afterwards. I gave him some advice, but very broadly, without boundaries. I didn’t want to scare him and I don’t think I did. As I was leaving the room, I squeezed his knee, which was protruding underneath the blanket, and he smiled at me in return. My God, it looked like the face of a stranger. Could it be possible? On the other hand, it’s a stranger’s face filled with affection. And it’s my son. How wonderful.

  I had to stay late at the office and, consequently, had to postpone the beginning of my ‘honeymoon’.

  Tuesday 25 June

  A tremendously big assignment. It will have to be done tomorrow.

  Wednesday 26 June

  I had to work until ten o’clock at night. I’m utterly exhausted.