The Four Corners of my Past

by Alaitz Arruti

  We got on the Ferry that connects Fuerteventura to its north neighbor and visited Lanzarote. It was only six hours, just the time to promise myself that I would return, that I would relive the magic of the ashes, the dark color of its beaches, the magnet in the form of minerals that catches you, turns your feet and anchors you in its volcanic land. Edward couldn’t have proposed a better destination for the one that would be our last encounter, although neither of us even suspected it.

  I landed leaving a sunset behind me. Barcelona would be starting to get dark at eight o’clock in the afternoon, but in the island that shared schedule with Edward, the sun was still shining at seven. I was carrying my suitcase with me. I was only spending two nights in Lanzarote and it was enough just two pairs of dresses and a pair of sandals to tour the island. It is not the same to travel to Norfolk for two days than to do it to Canarias.

  In the rent car offices, they gave me the keys to a gray Fiat Panda and the first thing I did when I got in, was to put on my sunglasses and put the CD I had taken for the trip. Songs are like smells, they have the virtue of reminding us eternally of a moment, a person, a feeling. It’s only necessary to listen to the first few musical notes of a song dedicated to a love, sung in the school yard or a karaoke at dawn with a group of friends to transport you to that place, on the floor of a room where Luis Eduardo Aute could be heard while I closed my eyes and came back to remember.

  For my trip to Lanzarote I chose Salitre 48. I wasn’t in the city of the wind, but I knew that breakwater would remind me of him. That the breakwater would take me away from him.

  I arrived at the urbanization of Puerto Calero where I had reserved the apartment when the sunset was starting to bathe the mountains the color of fire. It didn’t take me more than twenty minutes to get there from the airport and park the car at the main entrance, in a street with a name of a Canarian aboriginal princess. I couldn’t see the sea from there, but I felt the breeze, the salt on my skin.

  I didn’t see that many people in the urbanization when I arrived. A couple of families on the front terrace of each apartment, parked bicycles in front of the main entrance, towels hanging from the balcony of the second floor, drying. The pool that served as an internal courtyard for a square shaped, temporary neighborhood, was empty but the water around it was the final witness of a summer day on an island that does not know the cold.

  I put the key in the door that the reservation of accommodation indicated under my name and surname. Among all white, narrow and elongated modules, in the form of a single-family apartment with wooden windows, mine was the central one. Edward was staying at a luxury hotel on the beach but I preferred the intimacy of a private house to the indiscretion of piled doors, like the pieces of domino, of a hall awarded with five stars. To me, the stay on the island had nothing to do with any of my business trips, although Edward, in a way, was a part of my professional life, that is why I wanted to rent a space that could be used as a house. Anonymous and shared, temporary, but mine. Hotels were part of my routine, just the thing I needed to escape from.

  The apartment was divided in two floors. It had an ample lounge at the entrance, with two sofas that looked parallel to a long black table ans a small terrace with two hammocks that observed the solitude of the communal pool. In the upper floor, under the dark wood roof, after going up a dozen stairs, was the main room, also with white walls, a double bed and a crystal armoire. I put the book I was carrying as a travel companion over the night table near the window facing, but no looking at, the sea. I marked my place in that bed that had not yet designated the positions to occupy, but that night would be mine alone and would give a break to the hard cover story that changed country before a chapter reached its end.

  I wouldn’t see Edward until the next morning. Before getting on the plane, while I was still in Barcelona, he had let me know that the company responsible of the training course had organized a farewell dinner for every person that assited and we both decided it would be best to see each other once the course was over, when all of his partners were back home and the island was left without any know witnesses. We were in neutral territory, we were entitled, for the first time, to a meeting in freedom.

  - Are you coming to get me?

  It was nine in the morning when Edward’s text woke me up. It had been a while since I’d slept as good as that night. The sheets were glued to me. It would the magic of the island, the smell of salt, the breeze that was sneaking under the door, the shiny, bright sun hiding behind the window. The bed seemed to be floating over ocean and I was willing to let myself go but the time had come to put my feet on the ground and start living the adventure that had taken me to the island, to a date that had only twenty hours left.

  While I was approaching with the rent car to the door of the hotel Edward was staying in, it sounded the end of a song that, between the guitar chords, sang to a grief and was sworn to forget by necessity. <>. I would have to do it too and the clock had already started its countdown.

  Edward, was waiting for me in front of the crystal door of the lobby. I barely went around the palm trees surrounding the roundabout, and I saw him. Two months had passed since our second and last encounter. The last time we were together, was in the meeting room of his London office next to Mr. Higgins, Mr. David and Mr. Case. That dim lighting and carpeted room had nothing to do with the clarity of a new morning in Lanzarote.

  Edward, I always remembered him with his loafers, his long pants and the first button of his shirt always unbuttoned. To see him disguised as a tourist, with light trousers, sandals and a green shirt with a black line that crossed his chest horizontally, made me realize all the things I still did not know about him. That uniform of British tourist belonged to his other world, to the part of his life where I did not exist. I remembered that whatever was about to happen, would belong only in a dream of a canarian night.

  << may the waves bring you, may the waves carry you, and may they never force you the way to go>>.

  For the first time, we would have an encounter in which rush would not be a protagonist. We could dose the kisses, calm our passion, enjoy the gentle strokes in midday light. We had enough time to truly enjoy ourselves, without the need of dressing up our day with velocity. We’d stop building moments to write a story that only lacked the ending.

  We put his luggage in the trunk of the car and began enjoying the hours that we could guarantee ourselves. With the engine running, we inverted the order of the clock and started the route in Punta Mujeres, Jameos del Agua and the Mirador del Río.

  - That island you see in front of you, it’s called La Graciosa – Edward told me. – Barely eight hundred people live there in its nearly thirty square kilometers and it surely is the only, or one of the only – he emphasized – places in Europe, without paved roads.

  - What a nice place to get lost...

  - What are you trying to escape from Elena? – He asked me.

  - Me? From nothing!

  - Are you sure? – he insisted.

  - Why do you ask me that?

  - You have seen La Graciosa, its intimacy, the isolation of the sea surrounding it, the forced lack of communication and you have thought about losing yourself, about disappearing...

  - It’s just a saying Edward – I justified.

  - No Elena. Ever since I met you I have the feeling like you constantly want to escape from something. The sobriety of your apartment, the trips not always justified, the suitcase prepared at the door, the impossible love... I think you’re afraid to stop and discover yourself.

  - Why did you say <>?

  - Don’t hang on to just one phrase, don’t hang on to it to escape, once again, of what’s important. – He saw that I was deviating my stare to the horizon, he noticed that that was not the conversation I was expecting from a day like that and he decided to respect my silence – are you hungry?

  - I’m starving! – I
answered.

  Among the narrow and small houses of Caleta de Famara, we found a small place with three plastic tables facing the sea. There, we ate what Pedro, the owner, served us without the right of choosing.

  - I’ll get you a mix of fresh fish that they brought me this morning.

  And so, under a warm sun and a pleasant breeze that moved the flight of my skirt, we ate everything served, we accompanied it with beer and lemon and we gave each other the caresses and kisses that we had to hide in other cities.

  I really liked the Edward I met that day. Until then all of our encounters and most of our conversations had been the result of a desire that caught us almost by surprise. Neither of us was prepared for what happened after our first meeting in the Holborn building. Later, I understood that my desire was born out of a necessity of a new illusion but I never knew where his came from. During those four months that Edward and I lived our particular relationship of imaginary encounters and words that could touch the skin like real caresses, I had dedicated very little time in getting to know the person behind every message. I settled into my feeling, the excitement of our dates and I neglected the most emotional part of our encounters.

  The day we spent in Lanzarote, while the time gave us a truce and allowed us to enjoy the company without the necessity to burn in lust on every corner, I met a sensible Edward, committed to various social causes, very familiar and with great knowledge of universal history. A man capable of debating the political actuality of his country, a staunch defender of his ideas, understandable and respectful of those of others. A person who enjoyed landscapes as small hidden gifts, a young man who spoke to me of his dreams with an almost childlike passion.

  That was not our moment, Edward and I we were part of a wonderful adventure that was about to culminate, we knew what was our place in that match, even if at some point we had played with the idea of changing the pieces on the dashboard and skip a few rules. Being able to know the intimate part of Edward made think that if life, at any point, gave us a new opportunity, Lanzarote would always be our place.

  That same night, while we were having dinner at Playa Quemada, like any other couple, dressed in Sunday clothes and without being able to separate our hands, Edward pulled a little box out of the pocket of his pants.

  - I bought it the other day while thinking about you – he said.

  I opened the silver paper that wrapped it up and I saw a bracelet made of volcanic rock and five green crystals in the center.

  - Elena, I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future but I can assure you that I will always remember this day, you, and everything you have given me. You have been my sea breeze, my volcano, my fire and my calmness. – he was looking at me fixedly. He had lost the naughty expression in his eyes, the moistness of his lips and I felt as if before me I had for the first time, the authentic Edward, the one that did not hide behind the success of his work and his skillful seduction game – I can’t ask you to think about me all the time, I’m just asking you, not to forget me.

  And how to do that? – I thought.

  When at six in the morning of the next day, I said goodbye to him at the airport, I knew I did not need to promise him anything, that I would never forget him. I sensed that that dinner for two, last night’s dream and the nudeness of his words, had been the goodbye of a story that never had beginning and maybe not even an ending. I cried at the dawn of the parking lot, hugging the wheel, kissing the bracelet on my right hand as if I could hold Edward between its stones, still feel him on my skin. I wished for him to return, for La Graciosa to be our hiding place, our beginning, the witness to that eruption that changed the landscape of my life and my body as I knew it. I walked over Puerto del Carmen with the moisture of my fogged eyes. I returned to Playa Quemada to see in the light of morning the landscape that illuminated the promise of remembrance. I cried trying to empty the fire of my chest, with the desire to leave in the island what was only hers. I cried away all of my passions, his perfume on my clothes, the taste of sea in our mouths. I cried, cried, and cried. I got on the plane to Barcelona and I cried again. How difficult it is to say goodbye to an instant of happiness.

  - Miss, are you alright? – the stewardess asked me.

  I would have like to hug her, to take advantage of the three hours of flight to vent, that the unknown lady in the ponytail was my confidant.

  - Yes, thank you, I’m just afraid of flying – the excuses kept accompanying me even in the oblivion.

  - Don’t worry about the turbulence, it’s just very windy today.

  She was telling me, as if I hadn’t been dealing with turbulence for months now. I thanked her for her comforting words and tried to hold back the crying to show her that yes, her visit to seat 19C had worked, that I was better already and that I trusted that the turbulence was only due to the strong wind, but tue truce lasted a few minutes.

  - I brought you a chocolate candy, maybe this will cheer you up – the stewardess told me again.

  It was there when I realized that she hadn’t believed my excuses, either.

  Edward and I, we saw each other again four months later.

  The trip to Lanzarote was the storm that preceeded the calm. We spent togheter twenty hours that were a dream, the fruit of the magic of an island I always thought was bewitched. Edward lived on the limits of its frontier, on the lines of its beaches and when I got back to Barcelona, I brought the memory and the silence with me. I didn’t write him again. He didn’t either.

  We both knew that day had been a little farewell present, a bitter ending. Edward had given me back the illusion, it was up to me to do the hard work, of retaking the reins of my life, the one that was left suspended for four months by his texting, by the excitement of the hidden encounters.

  To my return, I thought a lot and for a long time about the conversation that Edward and I had about my route of escape, La Graciosa, and I decided to settle in Barcelona, to decorate my house, buy fresh flowers and put my clothes in my closet. With the suitcase close, but empty. I passed the Holborn project file to one of my colleagues. I did it because I needed to put some distance with everything I had lived during the last months, I needed to breathe my own air. I left the excuses and simply focused on a new remodeling proposal, this time near home, in Sitges.

  When autumn arrived and I was about to celebrate my third anniversary in Beauty Building Company, an unknown number appeared on the screen of my mobile. The country prefix in the form of fourty four, and it stole me one heartbeat. I had cancelled Edward’s phone number off of my address book. I wasn’t pretending that he’s go out of my life with that gesture, but doing so, it was a necessary part in my reconstruction plan.

  Hey Elena, how are you? It’s been so long that I don’t know if my proposal might be out of place, but it is the first time I’m coming back to Barcelona since our meeting, almost a year ago and it is hard to comprehend this city without you. I’d like to see you. Let’s eat together? Edward x.

  That message said so much about him that I didn’t need to find him to know that the winter’s passion belonged in the past. His proposal, the possible date, was only the Bis of a concert that ended in salt water, the sweet taste we hadn’t found yet. A closure with pleasure and serenity.

  At one thirty in the bar in front of the office. You know the way ;) Elena x.

  Edward was waiting for me at the door, punctual, as usual. I saw him through the window pane of my office while I was coming down the stairs from the second floor and when I opened the door I didn’t even have the time to look at the cars that were crossing the one-way street. I walked between the horning and the complaints of the drivers and I hugged Edward. His smell, the same of that Tuesday morning, the day of my fortieth birthday, accompanied our embrace, it invaded the hole street. It came in through my lungs and owned every pore on my skin. I felt as if a part of me was back home, in that Lanzarote apartment where life gave us a twenty-hour truce to fill up the album with our best memories.
/>   It was so nice to see him again without the pressure of stolen kisses and hidden caresses, that I wished to stay forever living in that moment, between the laughter, the shock of our wine glasses and the immense affection of two persons that were starting to know each other from a different perspective. Two persons that saved the magic of three encounters in a little precious box and decided to forget any kind of suffering to protect the treasure they shared. It was so nice to see him again.

  When I turned forty years old, I began to become aware of what I had lived, learned. To feel proud of the road traveled and accepted the mistakes of the past without judging myself for them. I understood that all of my flaws made me beautiful, because I had learned to live with them, to control them sometimes, to overcome them most of the time. I stopped feeling frustrated for repeating, sometimes, the same mistakes and I understood that every mistake, however equal it might seem, was always different and what I learned, better. I managed to understand that the fight to reach my own objectives, was not incompatible with my dignity and that I didn’t have to prove anything to anybody, not even to myself.

  I could change my opinion without having to justify myself for it, I could be whom I never thought I’d be and not feel like a failure, but evolved. I could recognize all the stupid things done and said a while back and understand that consider them as such, was the confirmation of going the right way. That being different doesn’t mean to be worst. That choosing a book instead of a glass of whiskey to spend a Saturday night is not boring and that no one needs to insist to make me believe the contrary. That silence was a choice of life and that solitude, as long as it was chosen, a wonderful company.

  My thirties were my inflexion point. When I stopped caring for everyone else’s opinion, for the rules, the protocols and that “right impression” that so many people force you to comply and that I never understood why or with whom. It was at my thirty years old when I started doing what I really wanted to do and I didn’t apologize for doing it. At thirty, I chose my happiness over the world’s and I knew I wasn’t being selfish for it.