by Eduardo Lalo
There was a singer-songwriter, as I now recall, who began by writing melodies that others made famous and then, years later, ventured to record his own album. It was a hit, leading him to face an audience for the first time. He wasn’t a great performer, but he became one of the indisputably important figures of his time.
Ever since I heard his story, I’ve been struck by the steps he took, his halting, measured introduction of himself to other people. Now, I’m relating this to the person sending me these messages, though perhaps the story has more to do with me and my relationships with others. I’ve spent my life carefully measuring out my ties with my fellow man, as if full, direct, and immediate contact would be too much. How many things have taken me too long because of my hesitation and throat clearing? Then again, how long have I taken to get out of certain matters and relationships? My life has passed by while I’ve kept strangers at a prudent distance. I’ve seen them as invaders; that is why I’ve been a pair of watching eyes more than anything, the man who observes, keeping the possibility open of just walking on by. I’ve been like that singer-songwriter who introduced himself to his audience one step at a time.
I’ve sensed the pain in this room, grief gathered over years, generation upon generation, between these four walls. All afternoon here in this room, I’ve felt its eternity, convinced to a certainty that when I am gone my grief will live on, who knows how long, who knows for whom.
I’ve been thinking about certain streets and sidewalks: if the soles of my shoes were paint brushes, by this time my footsteps might have completely covered their surfaces. Absurd, as absurd as so many true ideas. And so, with my foot-brushes, these shoe-markers, I express the autobiographical city, the city whose body my own body has covered.
Yesterday, Julia called, and today, I’ve gone with her and Javier to a shopping center with stores that boast about their prices in Barceloneta. The drive took longer than it should have because, distracted, we didn’t catch sight of it from the highway and got as far as Arecibo before doing a U-turn and backtracking.
I’ve experienced every extreme with Julia. Over a short lapse of time, we could go from a fulfilling life together to a sense that a sudden breakup was brewing. If she hadn’t had a miscarriage, we would have a five or six year old son. I’ve heard this inanity from couples who would probably have become terrible parents, but it might have been good for us if that child had lived.
Answering Julia’s calls, seeing her now and then, and not caring that she has a son by a man who shows up every once in a while—all this makes me wonder. I don’t think fooling people into thinking we’re a family over a whole afternoon helps any of us. Yet there we were, still going out together because yesterday was Saturday and we had nothing else to do.
We went into stores where Julia tried on whole racks of clothes, leaving me to watch Javier. We went to look at furniture as if we were thinking about redecorating a house that didn’t exist. I bought Javier a new robot. We lingered in front of jewelry stores and at a travel agency window; we remarked how expensive tickets had gotten to cities that we’d never visit. Before heading back, we swung by the fast food court.
When I stopped at her house, I helped her with the stroller and the sleeping child, and in the end, I went up to the half of the upstairs apartment where she lives. We made love out of habit, almost indolently. Afterward, I fell asleep even though I knew Julia wouldn’t want to have me there the next morning when Javier woke up.
In the early dawn half-light, we shared a pot of coffee. On the stairs, in parting, I gave her money to buy her child another toy. Much more than she would have needed.
It was odd to be up on a Sunday at that hour. San Juan was empty. The silence and solitude of the rising light created the impression of the aftermath of some unknown disaster. The sun was coming out in force, and the day would be hot, as always. I had all the hours of Sunday ahead of me and didn’t know what to do with them. For a moment, I was tempted to make a U-turn, go back to Julia’s house, say I was sorry for something, no idea what, and stay there. But the day promised to be too hot, and I wanted to sleep.
The next weekend we went out again. This time, we went to Naguabo to have dinner by the little dilapidated pier.
Julia was happy. We had talked over the phone during the week and were looking forward to Saturday with some anticipation. On the way to the coastal village, we had a conversation without falling into the old traps, and I drove for quite a while with her hand on mine.
As we were driving into the village, I committed the indiscretion of mentioning the messages.
— So there’s a crazy woman out there stalking you, she said without weighing the effect of her words, as if an emergency alarm had started howling in her head, stifling any playfulness, irony, or trust.
— That’s not what I’m saying. Besides, I don’t even know whether it’s a woman, I replied.
— That’s not what you just said.
— I don’t think it’s that simple.
— It’s obvious. I don’t know what you’re telling me this for.
The truth is that I didn’t either. The easy answer was, well, I had to tell somebody. No sooner had I come up with this miserable explanation than I realized something inside me was rebelling against the possibility of starting a new relationship with Julia. The fact that everything might turn out fine on this day was no relief; it would only mean draining the bitter cup of disaster a second time.
At the restaurant, wrapped up in our mute turmoil, we pretended to be the family we weren’t. I remembered the photos in the shoebox, her face captured by men she had given herself to and who had left. There are some people destined never to find peace, and I was sure Julia was one. Nothing, no one, could stop this process, which had begun who knows when. Our life together had been a constant grind, and there on the rooftop terrace of the restaurant, I clearly saw we’d never amount to anything but a tangle of impossible demands. We wouldn’t change. I never again wanted to hear complaints about a grief that was not my own.
I watched how, almost turning her back to me, she slowly stripped the fish of its meat. She cut small pieces to put in her son’s mouth while looking at the boats in the fishing harbor and out to the sea that spread from here to Venezuela with nothing in between. We both knew that this outing had been a mistake.
After lunch, obstinately refusing to admit how deeply we were frustrated, we went to the beach in Humacao. Javier played in the sand while, without looking at each other, we exchanged brief phrases that brought no relief.
Later, when night was falling, the highway became an enormous tunnel that I entered rather than having to contend with the people in the back seat. Sometimes Julia would say something, and I’d answer reluctantly, not caring whether she could hear me. The day had been shot for hours, and I was beyond communicating with Julia or anybody else. This was a sensation I’d known before, one that always hit me with alarming exuberance. I knew that nothing but sleep, whenever it finally came, would calm me.
Getting out of the car in front of her two-story building, Julia took the boy and the stroller out and went upstairs without saying good-bye.
I drove around the city in the drizzling rain. The houses, the low-paying jobs, the women came back to me. On these ribbons of pavement, I had experienced dreams and disappointments, but at my age now, it was all too much.
I stopped at a gas station to buy a beer. Next to the cash register they had cigars. I almost bought one but didn’t. Smoking is a way to fill your life, and tonight it wasn’t even worth trying to fool myself with such a hope.
Sunday. Another Sunday in the life of an invisible man. It sounds worse than it is; these twenty-four hours are normal and harmless to someone who doesn’t cast a shadow. I could even say that I like these circumstances, that there are moments in them that I’m fond of, in which I recognize myself.
I haven’t received any messages for days. The city is unchanged; I’m the same as ever. Just life. I watch vast quantities
of ants crawling over the ground.
Clouds scud across the night sky. I’ve climbed on to the rooftop. Now and then a cool, humid breeze blows by ahead of the rain that will fall early tomorrow morning. Far off, the office buildings are almost completely dark.
Tomorrow will be the same, which is almost good news. I don’t want to be somewhere else. That would be worse. It’s too late now. This is what’s left. This city is all I have.
My car’s AC gave out. The streets smell again.
Days went by before an envelope appeared under the windshield wiper. I flattened out the sheet of unlined paper, which had been folded and refolded. Just above the center, in perfect miniscule handwriting (so, no slanted capital letters), was the message: “You haven’t figured out anything. Calle Pointcaré. Grandma’s Attic. Keep looking till you find me. S.W.”
S.W.? Southwest? Some stranger’s initials or the enigmatic Simone Weil once more? Pointcaré? I didn’t recognize the street name, which sounded made-up, or maybe it was another hint. I had a vague memory of an art movement called point carré, but where? In France, Belgium, Switzerland?
I had to rifle through drawers and cabinets to find a map and scrutinize the metropolitan area. There were too many streets and the font was too small. I looked at the index and was surprised to find the street name from the note. It was near Avenida de Diego.
“Grandma’s Attic.” Was it a store? I had been in the area and knew it was mainly residential. There were office buildings, but I couldn’t recall any shops other than restaurants.
I got into my car and was soon in El Condado. I decided to park and scope out the street on foot. There were houses and small apartment buildings. I walked past the street where the Alliance Française sits at the far end.
A bit farther along, I found an old wooden house with a tin roof. Over the door, a crudely lettered sign bore two words, in English: Grandma’s Attic. The balcony was crammed with junk and old furniture. It was an antique store.
After crossing the threshold, I had to wait a few seconds for my eyes to adapt to the darkness. I discovered a series of rooms packed with all sorts of objects: furniture, dishes, crystal and ceramic knickknacks, musical instruments, table linens, picture frames. Behind a desk, a fat woman was talking on the phone in a blend of Spanish and English. She was obviously from the United States. As I walked by her, in the back of the store, I looked at her so inquiringly that she had to say hello.
I stayed in Grandma’s Attic for about an hour, staring like an imbecile at trays full of silver spoons; old posters for festivals and conferences at the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture or the Interamerican University; souvenirs of Venice, Buenos Aires, or Washington; broken cameras; outdated maps; dozens of chairs with no seats hanging from the walls and the ceiling. I lost hope of finding a message in that welter of objects, the wreckage of lives that had nothing to do with my own.
One of the back rooms held books. I was led there by my love of reading and a sense that I had been wasting my time, but I could tell at a glance that hardly any of the books would be worthwhile. They were a mix of hardcover bestsellers from the United States, old encyclopedias that might have helped with someone’s homework a couple of generations ago, a few classics that had undoubtedly passed through the hands of terrible teenage readers who had underlined whole pages and written their nicknames throughout the books, and Time Life manuals for plumbing or electrical wiring. Among these volumes that held no interest for me, I recognized the standard paperback binding of the French Livre de Poche series. There were two titles: a novel set in Italy by a woman whose name I did not recognize and a history of World War I. Both were practically ruined by the damp weather, the paper so deeply yellowed that the print was barely legible.
I was putting them back when my eye was drawn to the next shelf down, a hardcover book in English that had definitely not been on the bestseller list from ten or fifteen years ago. A translation of the biography of Simone Weil by Gabriella Fiori, it was also the only book I’d seen worth buying. Someone had read it, because several pages were marked up with neatly drawn lines, arrows, and asterisks. Some of the margins also had notes in a miniscule but equally careful hand. At the center of the book there was, as in most biographies, a photograph section printed on thick glossy paper. I looked through the photos one by one until I came across the image of Simone Weil with a cigarette in her hand sitting next to a man at a sidewalk café table. I was about to turn the page when I felt something: a note, taped to the back of the page. You could tell it hadn’t been there long; the tape hadn’t yellowed. Just above the center, written in a hand that I had seen for the first time just a couple of hours before, which I now realized was the same one in which all the marginal notes were written, were three short words: “You made it.”
I closed the book, incapable of rereading the terse phrase, afraid that, if I were being watched, I would give away my discomposure. I wanted to phone someone right away, but Diego was traveling, and it was impossible to bring up the subject with Julia. I wished I could have something sure to hold onto and calm me down, some thought that would seem halfway appropriate, given the circumstances. The book was no secret, holding it in my hands was no cause for regret or shame, but for those moments I felt as if its touch burned.
I took it up to the desk where the woman sat. After glancing at it indifferently, she told me the price: three dollars. It was a bargain. Then she asked in English if I wanted anything else. I replied in Spanish, asking who had brought the book there. She didn’t understand what I meant, even though she got all the words.
— Who brought you this book? I asked, switching to English.
— This book, she said, looking at it as if she might find a clue to the answer on the cover. Who knows! Lots of people bring in stuff. Some woman.
— ¿Cuándo? I asked.
— A few times. She also buys stuff.
— ¿Cuándo lo trajo? I asked again. When she gave you the book?
— Maybe a week ago. Give or take.
— You know her? You have her name? You keep a receipt? I am sorry, but it is important.
She must have thought I looked sufficiently decent, and the cardboard box with the receipts was sitting on the desk in front of her.
— Vamos a ver, she said, putting on her glasses. She peered over them at me, as if she were still trying to decide whether to give me the information. Then she flipped through slips of paper until she stopped.
— Aquí está. There she is. Simone Weil.
— Ese es el título del libro, I said.
— No, that’s her name, said the woman.
— You’re wrong. Look, it is the title, I said, jabbing my finger at the cover.
— No, it’s her name. I don’t write down the book titles. They don’t matter to me. Just how many. See, three books. Tres libros. I remember now that she also brought two little French paperbacks. Aquí está también su firma, her signature, here. She writes very clearly: Simone Weil.
The woman showed me the receipt. She had signed it in the same handwriting used in the notes and the message from that morning. It had the precision of typewriting. She had brought three books, had gotten five dollars for them, had signed to leave a record of the agreement and for me to find her traces.
— I wonder why she didn’t sign her real name, said the woman.
I, too, was wondering. Who was behind this game? At least now I knew it was a woman who had been writing to me for weeks in crude block letters that tilted toward the bottom of the paper, a handwriting she probably used only for that purpose, and that beginning today she was inscribing each word with the exactitude of a draftsman.
As soon as I got home, I opened Fiori’s book and examined the marked-up pages. If they were somehow supposed to be messages addressed to me, I didn’t understand anything. On page 64, however, a line and a half were underlined, and a tiny arrow pointed to a note: “Simone Weil was teaching philosophy to the railway workers at a night school on rue Falg
uière.”
Could there still be any doubt? There has long since ceased to be any chance that this is a coincidence, a sick joke, or a hallucination. A woman is after me, but I don’t know why, or who she is, or what she hopes to accomplish. A kind of fatalism makes me think I should expect the worst, but the situation starts to worry me when I admit to myself that I’ve willingly participated in this game of mirrors from the beginning; that Simone (can I really call her that now?), weaving her spider’s web, has made me see that I haven’t, in my whole life, done anything else; that this isn’t the first time I’ve fallen in love with a faceless mask.
What about this is real? Here I am, looking at a book, reading and rereading every passage underlined by a woman whom I do not know yet am desperate to find. How is doing this different from the way I admire the façades of buildings I never enter or stare at women I find attractive, imagining their life stories? In the end it’s just me, my mind, my legs, my car. I have such a capacity for traveling and gazing, for roaming the world weightlessly and leaving traces that fade and disappear. I think for a moment I could be different, and I have to hold tight to this possibility even if I’m wrong.
I’ve written an e-mail to Diego telling him what happened to me. He is as intelligent as he is insensitive. Just one line on the computer screen, not even hello or good-bye or anything: “‘A man can’t be angry at his own era without suffering some damage,’ Robert Musil.”
