From a distance, I was starting to understand him better. I’d recall how Daniel didn’t really know how to laugh. Once in a while, when I’d say something funny and if I caught him off guard, I’d see his face seem to split in two, in a grimace that contradicted those wrinkles born solely from pain and reflection. He’d look both cynical and childish, almost indecent, as if he were doing something forbidden, as if he were cheating, hiding from someone.
I couldn’t bear to look at him, in those rare instants. I’d lower my head, annoyed, filled with a pity that hurt me. He really didn’t know how to be happy. Maybe he’d never been taught, who knows? Always so alone, since adolescence, so far removed from the least overture of friendship. Today, without hatred, without love, with no more than indifference, how much kindness I could show him.
But back then . . . Was I afraid of him? I just felt that all he’d have to do was show up, a single gesture would make me follow him forever. I used to dream of that instant, I’d imagine that, by his side, I would free myself from him. Love? I wanted to go with him, to be on the stronger side, for him to spare me, like one who seeks shelter in the arms of the enemy to stay far from his arrows. It was different than love, I was finding out: I wanted him as a thirsty person desires water, without feelings, without even wanting to be happy.
Sometimes I’d allow myself another dream, knowing it was more impossible still: he’d love me and I’d have my revenge, feeling . . . No, not superior, but equal . . . Because, if he wanted me, it would destroy that powerful coldness of his, his ironic and unshakable scorn that fascinated me. Until then I could never be happy. He haunted me.
Oh, I know I’m repeating myself, that I’m rambling, mixing up facts and thoughts in this short narrative. Nevertheless, it’s taking me so much effort to marshal its elements and put them on paper. I’ve already said that I’m neither intelligent, nor cultivated. And merely suffering isn’t enough.
Not speaking, with my eyes closed, something beneath my thought, deeper and stronger, apprehends what happened and, in a fleeting instant, I see it clearly. But my brain is feeble and I can’t manage to transform that vivid minute into thought.
It’s all true, nevertheless. And I ought to acknowledge still other, equally true feelings. Often, while thinking of him, in a slow transition, I’d see myself serving him like a slave. Yes, I’d admit, trembling and afraid: I, with a stable, conventional past, born into civilization, felt an excruciating pleasure in imagining myself at his feet, a slave . . . No, it wasn’t love. I horrified myself: it was debasement, debasement . . . I’d catch myself peering in the mirror, searching for some new sign in my face, born of pain, of my vileness, and that might guide my mind toward those tumultuous instincts I still didn’t want to accept. I was trying to unburden my soul, tormenting myself, whispering through clenched teeth: “Vile . . . despicable . . .” I’d answer myself, a coward: “But, my god (lowercase, as he’d taught me), I’m not guilty, I’m not guilty . . .” Of what? I never said exactly. Some awful and powerful thing was growing within me, some thing that paralyzed me with fright. That was all I knew.
And confusedly, faced with the memory of him, I would shrink back, unite myself with Jaime, drawing him close to me, wanting to protect us both, against him, against his power, against his smile. Because, knowing he was far away, I’d imagine him watching my days and smiling at some secret thought, the sort whose existence I could only guess at, without ever managing to penetrate its meaning. I sought, after a long while, over a year, as if to justify to myself, to Jaime and our bourgeois life, how he had taken over my soul. Those long conversations in which all I ever did was listen, that flame that lit up my eyes, that slow gaze, heavy with knowledge, beneath thick eyelids, had fascinated me, awoken in me obscure feelings, the aching desire to immerse myself in something unknown, to attain something unknown . . . And above all they’d awoken in me the sensation that palpitating inside my body and spirit was a deeper and more intense life than the one I was living.
At night, unable to sleep, as if speaking to someone invisible, I’d say to myself softly, defeated, “I agree, I agree that my life is comfortable and mediocre, I agree, everything I have is trivial.” I felt him nod benevolently. “I can’t, I can’t!” I’d shout to myself, this lament containing the impossibility of no longer wanting him, of carrying on like that, of, first and foremost, following the grandiose paths he’d started to show me and where I was getting lost, puny and helpless.
I had learned of ardent lives, but had returned to my own, dull one. He had let me glimpse the sublime and insisted that I too burn in the sacred fire. I was thrashing around, with no strength. Everything I had learned from Daniel only made me realize how trivial my everyday life was and despise it. My education hadn’t ended, as he’d so accurately put it.
I felt alone in the world, I tried to escape in tears. Yet my attitude in the face of suffering was still one of bewilderment.
How did I find the strength to destroy all that I had been, to hurt Jaime, to make Papa and Mama, old and tired already, so unhappy?
In the period leading up to my decision, as in certain illnesses just before death, I had moments of respite.
That day, Dora, a friend, had come over attempting to distract me from one of those headaches that I used as an excuse to surrender freely to melancholy, without being disturbed. It was a remark of hers, if I’m not mistaken, that launched me toward Daniel by other means.
“Darling, you should have heard Armando talking about music. You’d think he was talking about the best meal in the world or the most gorgeous woman. Going on and on, like he was gnawing on every little note and spitting out the bones . . .”
I thought of Daniel who, on the contrary, made everything immaterial. Even the one time he’d kissed me, I had imagined it didn’t involve lips. I trembled: not wanting to impoverish his memory. But another thought remained lucid and undisturbed: he used to say that the body was an accessory. No, no. One day he’d glanced with repugnance and censure at my blouse that was heaving after I’d been running to catch the bus. Revulsion, no! He’d said to me, continuing another cold thought: “You eat chocolate as if it were the most important thing in the world. You have a horrible taste for things.” He ate like someone crumpling a piece of paper.
All of a sudden, I realized that a lot of people would smile at Daniel, with one of those proud and ambiguous smiles that men dedicate to one another. Perhaps I myself would have disparaged him if I weren’t ill . . . At this thought, something rebelled inside me, strangely: Daniel . . .
I suddenly felt exhausted, without the strength now to go on. When the telephone rang. Jaime, I thought. It was as if I were fleeing Daniel . . . Ah, some help. I answered, eagerly.
“Hello, Jaime!”
“How’d you know it was me?” came his nasal, good-natured voice.
As if someone had poured cool water over my face. My nerves relaxed. Jaime, you exist. You’re real. Your hands are strong, they take me in. You like chocolate too.
“Will you be long?”
“No, my girl. I called to ask if you need anything from downtown.”
I struggled for another second not to scrutinize his careless sentence. Because lately I’d been comparing everything to the beautiful and profound things Daniel had told me. And I would only calm down, after I agreed with the invisible Daniel: yes, he’s dull, mediocrely, incredibly happy . . .
“I don’t need anything. But come home right away, all right? (Now, darling, before Daniel comes, before I change my mind, now!) Hello! Hello! Listen, if you want to bring me something, buy some candy . . . chocolate . . . Yes, yes. See you soon.”
When Dora left, I stood in front of the mirror and fixed myself up as I hadn’t done in months. But anxiety robbed my patience, left my eyes bright, my movements darting. It would be a test, the final test.
When he arrived, my agitation stopped immediately. Yes, I tho
ught deeply relieved, I was calm, almost happy: Daniel hadn’t shown up. He noticed I’d changed my hair, my nails. He kissed me, unworried. I took his hands, ran them over my cheeks, my forehead.
“What’s the matter, Cristina? What happened?”
I didn’t answer, but thousands of bells clanged inside me. My thoughts vibrated like a shriek: “Just this, just this: I’m going to free myself! I’m free!”
We sat on the sofa. And in the silence of the living room, I felt at peace. I thought of nothing and leaned against Jaime serenely.
“Can’t we stay like this the rest of our lives?”
He laughed. Stroked my hands.
“You know? I like you better without nail polish . . .”
“Request granted, sir.”
“That wasn’t a request: it was an order . . .”
Then back to silence, whipping in my ears, my eyes, sapping me of strength. It was nice, tenderly nice. He ran his hands through my hair.
Then, as if a spear had pierced my back, I grew suddenly irritated on the sofa, opened my eyes, focused them, dilated, on the air . . .
“What happened?” asked Jaime, worried.
His hair . . . Yes, yes, I thought with a slight, triumphant smile, his hair was black . . . His eyes . . . Just a moment . . . His eyes . . . black too?
That same night, I decided to leave.
And suddenly, I no longer considered the matter, stopped worrying, gave Jaime a pleasant evening. I went to bed serene and slept through the night, I hadn’t in a long time.
I waited for Jaime to go to work. I sent the maid home, gave her the day off. I packed a small suitcase with the essentials.
Before leaving, though, my calm suddenly evaporated. Useless, repeated movements, darting and stumbling thoughts. It seemed as if Daniel were next to me, his presence almost palpable: “These eyes of yours rendered right on the surface of your face, with a delicate brush, a touch of paint. Meticulous, light, incapable of doing good or evil . . .”
In a sudden burst of inspiration, I decided to leave a note for Jaime, a note that would hurt him the way Daniel would hurt him! That would trouble him, crush him. And, just for the pride of showing Daniel that I was “strong,” remorseless, I wrote deliberately, trying to make myself distant and unattainable: “I’m leaving. I’m tired of living with you. If you can’t understand me at least trust me: I’m telling you that I deserve to be forgiven. If you were more intelligent, I’d tell you: don’t judge me, don’t forgive, nobody can do that. But, for the sake of your own peace, forgive me.”
Silently I took my place beside Daniel.
Gradually I took over his daily life, replaced him, like a nurse, in his movements. I looked after his books, his clothes, brightened his surroundings.
He never thanked me. He simply accepted it, as he’d accepted my companionship.
As for me, from the moment in which getting off the train I approached Daniel without being repelled, I had taken a single-minded attitude. Neither from contentment because of him, nor regret because of Jaime. Nor quite relief. It was as if I had returned to my source. As if previously they had chiseled me out of rock, cast me into life as a woman and I later returned to my true roots, like a final sigh, my eyes closed, serene, standing still for eternity.
I didn’t dwell on the situation, but whenever I scrutinized it I always did so in the same way: I live with him and that’s it. I stayed close to the powerful one, to the one who knew, that was enough for me.
Why didn’t that ideal death last forever? A bit of clairvoyance, at certain moments, warned me that peace could only be fleeting. I sensed that living with Daniel wouldn’t always be enough for me. And I plunged even deeper into nonexistence, granting myself respites, putting off the moment when I myself would seek life, to discover by myself, through my own suffering.
For the time being I would just watch him and rest.
The days passed, the months fell away one by one.
Habit settled into my existence and its guidance soon kept me busy by the minute with Daniel. Soon I no longer became enthralled, exalted, as before, when I listened to him. I had entered him. Nothing surprised me anymore.
I never smiled, I had unlearned joy. Yet I wouldn’t have removed myself from his life even to be happy. I was not, nor was I unhappy. I had so incorporated myself into the situation that I no longer received stimuli and sensations that would allow me to modify it.
Only one fear disturbed my strange peace: that Daniel would send me away. Sometimes, silently mending his clothes at his side, I sensed that he was about to speak. I’d drop the sewing onto my lap, go pale and await his order:
“You can go.”
And when, finally, I’d hear him tell me something or laugh at me for some reason, I’d pick the fabric back up and continue my work, fingers trembling for a few seconds.
The end, however, was near.
One day when I’d gone out early, I took longer than usual to come home, due to an accident on one of the roads. When I got to the bedroom, I found him irritated, his eyes gazing off into the distance, not replying to my “good evening.” He hadn’t eaten dinner yet and when I, feeling guilty, begged him to eat something, he kept up a long, willful silence and finally informed me, scrutinizing my worry with a certain pleasure: he hadn’t had lunch either. I rushed to put on the coffee, while he kept up the same sullen attitude, a little childish, watching my hurried movements from the corner of his eye as I set the table.
Suddenly I opened my eyes, in shock. For the first time I was realizing that Daniel needed me! I had become necessary to the tyrant . . . He, I now knew, wouldn’t send me away . . .
I recall that I stopped with the coffee pot in my hand, disoriented. Daniel was still gloomy, in silent protest against my accidental negligence. I smiled, a little bashfully. So . . . he did need me? I didn’t feel joy, but something like disappointment: well, I thought, my job is done. It frightened me, that unexpected and involuntary reflection.
I had already served out my term of slavery. Perhaps I’d go on being a slave, without rebelling, for the rest of my life. But I was serving a god . . . And Daniel had gone soft, his spell was broken. He needed me! I repeated a thousand times afterward, feeling that I had received a beautiful, enormous gift, too large for my arms and for my desire. And the strangest thing is that with this impression came another, absurdly novel and powerful. I was free, I realized at last . . .
How can I understand myself? Why that blind conformity at first? And afterward, the near joy of liberation? Of what matter am I made in which elements and foundations for a thousand other lives mingle but never merge? I go down every path and still none is mine. I have been sculpted into so many statues and haven’t frozen into place . . .
From then on, without actively deciding to, I imperceptibly neglected Daniel. And no longer accepted his dominance. I was just resigned to it.
What good is it to narrate trivial events that demonstrate my gradual progression toward intolerance and hatred? It’s well-known how little it takes to transform the mood in which two people live. A slight gesture, a smile, snag like a fishhook onto a feeling coiled in the depths of calm waters and bring it to the surface, making it clamor over the others.
We went on living. And now I savored, day by day, mingled at first with the taste of triumph, the power of gazing directly upon the idol.
He noticed my transformation and, if at first he retreated in surprise at my courage, he took up the old yoke with still greater violence, prepared not to let me escape. Yet I would find my own violence. We armed ourselves and were two forces.
It was hard to breathe in the bedroom. We moved as if in the thick of danger, waiting for it to materialize and crash down on us, behind our backs. We grew cunning, seeking a thousand hidden intentions behind every word offered. We hurt each other at every turn and established victory and defeat. I grew
cruel. He grew weak, showed what he was really like. There were times when he was a hair’s breadth away from begging me for help, confessing to the isolation in which my freedom had left him and which, in my wake, he could no longer bear. I myself, my strength quickly flagging, sometimes wanted to reach out to him. Yet we’d gone too far and, proud, couldn’t turn back. It was the struggle, now, that kept us going. Like a sick child, he grew increasingly capricious. Any word of mine was the start of a harsh quarrel. Later we discovered yet another recourse: silence. We hardly spoke.
So why didn’t we separate, given that no serious ties bound us? He didn’t suggest it because he’d grown used to my help and could therefore no longer live without someone to wield power over, to be a king over, since he had no other subject. And perhaps he really did love my companionship, he who’d always been so solitary. As for me—I took pleasure in hating him.
Even our new relations were invaded by habit. (I lived with Daniel for almost two years.) Now it wasn’t even hatred. We were tired.
Eventually, after a week of rain that had trapped us together for days on end in the room, fraying our nerves to the limit—eventually the conclusion came.
It was a late afternoon, prematurely dark. Rain dripped monotonously outside. We’d hardly spoken that day. Daniel, his face white over the dark “scarf” of his neck, was looking out the window. Water had fogged the windowpanes; he pulled out his handkerchief and, attentively, as if this had suddenly become important, started wiping them, his movements painstaking and careful, betraying the effort it took to contain his irritation. I watched him while standing next to the sofa. The clock went on ticking in the room, heaving.
Then, as if I were continuing an argument, I said to my own surprise:
“But this can’t go on . . .”
He turned and I met his cold eyes, perhaps curious, definitely ironic. All my rage solidified in that moment and weighed on my chest like a stone.