The Truce

by Mario Benedetti

  Friday 31 January

  In the office I tenaciously defend my essential, intimate and profound life (death). No one knows exactly what’s happening inside me. My collapse on 23 September was, in everyone’s eyes, an understandable occurrence and nothing more. Now, no one talks about Avellaneda very much, and I don’t bring up the subject. I defend her with the little strength I have.

  Monday 3 February

  She would place her hand in mine and nothing else was necessary. It was enough to make me feel that I was quite welcome. More than kissing her, sleeping together, more than anything else, she would place her hand in mine, and that was love.

  Thursday 6 February

  The thought occurred to me the other night and today I acted on it. At five o’clock I rushed out of the office. When I arrived at number 368 and rang the bell, I felt an itch in my throat and started to cough.

  The door opened and I was coughing like a wretch. It was her father, the same father as in the photographs, but much older, sadder and more tired. I coughed harder, trying to finally overcome the coughing spell, and managed to ask if he was the tailor. He tilted his head to one side to say yes. ‘Well, I want to have a suit tailored,’ I said. He led me into his workshop. ‘Never ask him to tailor a suit for you,’ Avellaneda had said, ‘he uses the same mannequin for the size of every suit.’ There it was – undaunted, mocking, mutilated – the mannequin. I chose the fabric, recited a few details, and settled on the price. Then he went to the back door and, without shouting, called out: ‘Rosa.’ ‘My mother knows about us,’ she had said, ‘my mother knows everything about me.’ But ‘Us’ didn’t include my name, my face, my height. For the mother, ‘Us’ was Avellaneda and a nameless lover. ‘My wife,’ said the father, ‘Mr … , what did you say your name was?’ ‘Morales,’ I said, lying. ‘Right, Mr Morales.’ The mother’s eyes had a penetrating sadness about them. ‘He’s going to have a suit tailored.’ Neither of them was wearing mourning clothes. There was a light, natural bitterness. The mother smiled at me and I had to look away towards the mannequin, because I wasn’t strong enough to bear that smile which had been Avellaneda’s. She opened up a little notebook and the father started to take my measurements, dictating two-digit numbers. ‘Are you from the neighbourhood? Seventy-five,’ the father said. ‘More or less,’ I replied. ‘I ask you because your face looks familiar. Fifty-four,’ the father said. ‘Well, I live in town, but I come around here very often,’ I said. ‘Oh, no wonder. Sixty-nine,’ he said. She wrote automatically, facing the wall. ‘You want the trouser bottoms to rest on the shoes, correct? One-zero-seven.’ I have to return next Thursday, for the fitting. There was a book on the table: Blavatsky. The father had to leave the workshop for a moment. The mother closed her little notebook and looked at me. ‘Why did you come to have my husband tailor a suit for you? Who recommended him?’ she asked. ‘Oh, no one in particular. I knew that a tailor lived here, that’s all,’ I replied. It sounded so unconvincing that I became embarrassed. She looked at me again. ‘He works very little now. Since my daughter died.’ She didn’t say ‘passed away’. ‘Oh, of course. And has it been long?’ I asked. ‘Almost four months,’ she replied. ‘I’m sorry, madam,’ I said, and I, who feels it not quite like sorrow, but more like a catastrophe, a collapse, like chaos, was conscious of the lie, because to say: ‘I’m sorry’, to say those words of condolence, so frivolous, so late, was simply frightening, it was almost like saying: ‘passed away’. And it was especially frightening because I was saying it to the only person who could really understand, who could understand the truth.

  Thursday 13 February

  It was the day of the fitting, but the tailor wasn’t there. Mr Avellaneda wasn’t there. His wife told me so when I had already entered the workshop. ‘He couldn’t wait for you, but he left everything prepared so that I could do the fitting.’ She went into the other room and returned with the jacket. It looked terrible on me. So it was true after all, he did use the same mannequin to tailor every single suit. Suddenly, I turned to one side (actually, she slowly turned me with the excuse of placing pins in the jacket and making chalk marks) and I ended up in front of a photograph of Avellaneda which hadn’t been there last Thursday. The blow was too sudden, too brutal. The mother was watching me and her eyes took good note of my sad stupour. Then she placed the remaining pins and chalk on the table and smiled sorrowfully, already sure, before asking: ‘You … are?’ Between the first and second word there was a two- or three-second interval, but that silence was enough to subtly reveal the transparency of her question. I felt obliged to respond. And I did, without saying a word; with my head, with my eyes, with all of my being I said: yes. Avellaneda’s mother placed her hand on my arm, that arm which still didn’t have a sleeve and was emerging from a clumsy stitching attempt. Afterwards, she slowly took the jacket off me and placed it on the mannequin. How good it looked on it. ‘You want to know, don’t you?’ she said. I was sure she wasn’t looking at me with resentment or shame, nor anything that wasn’t a wearied, stoical pity. ‘You knew her, you loved her, and must be distraught. I know how you feel. You feel that your heart is an enormous object that begins in the stomach and ends in the throat. You feel miserable, and happy by feeling miserable. I know how horrible that is.’ She spoke as if she had met with an old confidant, but there was also something in her voice that was more than her actual grief. ‘I had someone die on me twenty years ago. Someone who was everything to me. But it wasn’t a physical death. He simply left. The country, my life; especially my life. That is a worse kind of death, I assure you. Because it was I who asked him to leave, and to this day I haven’t forgiven myself. That kind of death is worse, because one remains imprisoned in one’s own past, destroyed by one’s own sacrifice.’ She ran her hand along the back of her neck and I thought she was going to say: ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you these things.’ But instead she said: ‘Laura was all I had remaining of him. That’s why I feel, once again, that the heart is an enormous object in the stomach and ends in the throat. That’s why I know what you’re going through.’ She brought a chair over and sat down, worn out. I then asked: ‘And what about her, what did she know about that?’ ‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘Laura knew absolutely nothing. I am the sole owner of my story. It’s a meagre pride, isn’t it?’ Suddenly, I remembered something and said: ‘And your theory of happiness?’ She smiled, almost defenceless, and said: ‘Did she tell you about that too? Well, it was a beautiful lie, a fairy tale so that she wouldn’t lose her footing, so my daughter would feel alive. It was the best gift I ever gave her. Poor thing.’ She was crying, her eyes aloft, without running her hand across her face; she was crying with pride. ‘But you want to know,’ she said. And then she told me about Avellaneda’s final days, final words and final moments. But that will never be written down. That is Mine, incorruptibly Mine. That will be waiting for me at night, every night, for when I reclaim the thread of my insomnia and say: ‘Love.’

  Friday 14 February

  They love each other, I’m sure about that, Avellaneda used to say about her parents, but I don’t know if that’s the kind of loving that I like.

  Saturday 15 February

  Esteban’s friend called me to say that my pension is ready. From 1 March I will no longer be going to the office.

  Sunday 16 February

  I went to pick up the suit this morning. Mr Avellaneda was just finishing the ironing. The photograph filled the entire room and I couldn’t stop looking at it. ‘It’s my daughter,’ he said, ‘my only daughter.’ I don’t know what I said nor do I care to remember. ‘She died recently.’ Once again I heard myself say: ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘It’s strange,’ he quickly added, ‘now I think that I was distant, that I never showed her how much I needed her. Ever since she was little I’ve been postponing the long chat I had promised myself to have with her. At first I didn’t have time, then she started to work, and, furthermore, I’m rather a coward. It scares me a little, you know, to feel sentiment
al. The truth is that now she’s no longer here and I’ve been left with that weight on my chest, those unspoken words which could have been my salvation.’ He stopped talking for a moment and gazed at the photograph. ‘Many times I thought she hadn’t inherited a single trait of mine. Do you see any?’ ‘A general resemblance,’ I replied, lying. ‘There could be,’ he said. ‘But when it comes to her soul, she was really like me. Or rather, like the way I used to be. Because now I feel defeated, and when one allows oneself to be defeated, one becomes deformed, and turns into a gross parody of oneself. Look, my daughter’s death was a dirty trick played on her, either by destiny or the doctor, I’m not sure which. But I am sure it was a dirty trick. If you had known her, you would understand what I’m trying to tell you.’ I blinked my eyes ten times in a row, but he wasn’t paying attention. ‘Only a dirty trick can extinguish a woman in that manner. She was (how can I explain?) a pure being, and at the same time intense, and modest about her intensity. She was a delight. I was always convinced I didn’t deserve her. But her mother did deserve her, because Rosa is a character; Rosa is capable of confronting the world. But I lack determination, confidence. Have you ever thought about suicide? I have. But I’ll never be able to go through with it. And that, too, is a deficiency. Because I have the whole mental and moral framework to commit suicide, but not the necessary strength to put a bullet in my temple. Perhaps the secret lies in that my brain has some of the needs peculiar to the heart, and my heart has some of the subtleties particular to the brain.’ Once again he stopped talking, this time while holding the iron in the air, looking at the photo. ‘Look at her eyes. Notice how they continue to watch, out of habit, and despite her death. They even seem to be watching you.’ The remark lingered in the air. I felt out of breath. He was left with nothing to say. ‘Well, they’re ready,’ he said, carefully folding the trousers, ‘it’s a very smooth fabric. See how well they come out when you press them.’

  Tuesday 18 February

  I won’t go to number 368 any more. Actually, I can’t go any more.

  Thursday 20 February

  It’s been a while since I’ve seen Aníbal. I haven’t heard from Jaime. Esteban limits himself to talking to me about general topics. Vignale calls me at the office and I have them say I’m not there. I want to be alone. Or, at most, talk to my daughter. And talk about Avellaneda, of course.

  Sunday 23 February

  Today, for the first time in four months, I was in the apartment. I opened the wardrobe. I could smell her perfume. What does that matter? What matters is her absence. Sometimes, I can’t discern the nuances which separate inertia from desperation.

  Monday 24 February

  It’s obvious that God granted me a dark destiny. Not even cruel. Simply dark. It’s obvious that He granted me a truce. In the beginning, I was unwilling to believe that this could be happiness. I resisted with all my might, but I eventually gave in, and I believed. But it wasn’t happiness, it was only a truce. Now I’m inside my destiny again. And it’s much darker than before, much darker.

  Tuesday 25 February

  From 1 March, I will no longer write in this diary. The world is no longer interesting. But it won’t be me who will record that fact. There’s only one subject I could write about. But I don’t want to.

  Wednesday 26 February

  How I need her. God had been my most significant deficiency. But I need her more than God.

  Thursday 27 February

  The office wanted to throw a farewell party for me, but I said no. So as not to be rude, I concocted a very credible excuse based on family problems. The truth is I can’t imagine myself as the inspired reason for a happy and noisy dinner party, with mounds of bread and spilled wine.

  Friday 28 February

  My last day of work. But I didn’t do anything, of course. I spent the day shaking hands, and receiving embraces. I think the manager was bursting with satisfaction and Muñoz was really touched. My desk remained there. I never thought it would matter so little to me to have to give up my routine. The drawers were now empty. In one of them I found an identification card belonging to Avellaneda. She had left it so we could record the number on her personnel file. I put it in my pocket and here it is. The photograph must be five years old, but she was prettier four months ago. Another matter has become clear, and that is that her mother was wrong: I don’t feel happy about feeling miserable. I simply feel miserable. No more office. Starting tomorrow and to the day I die, time will be at my disposal. After so much waiting, this is leisure. What will I do with it?

  Montevideo, January to May 1959

  Acknowledgements

  With love and gratitude to

  Pablo Andres Pérez, who first introduced me to Mario Benedetti’s work

  Barbara Tanzman, a wonderful woman

  Cronopios de primera clase, Gregory Rabassa and Clementine Rabassa, my mentors and surrogate padrinos

  Jeff Rothstein, my everlasting and spareless best friend Catherine Rendón, generous and illuminating and

  Donald Breckenridge of The Brooklyn Rail, where this novel appeared in a different form

  this translation is dedicated

  THE BEGINNING

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  First published as La Tregua in 1960

  This translation first published in Penguin Classics 2015

  Text copyright © Mario Benedetti 1960

  Translation copyright © Harry Morales 2015

  Cover image © Getty Images

  The moral rights of the author and translator have been asserted

  ISBN: 978-0-141-39686-6

  * A native or inhabitant of Galicia, a region in northwest Spain.

  * cortado: An espresso served with a dash of milk.

  * Batllism is the movement founded by José Batlle y Ordóñez (1856–1929) within the Colorado (Red) Party. Batlle, who served as President of Uruguay from 1903 to 1907 and from 1911 to 1915, was one of the most decisive instigators of Uruguayan patriotism and liberalism, as well as sponsor of various laws and official legislation in support of the working class.