I said nothing in reply. Contentment and blackness were circling in my mind as I listened to María’s voice, her marvelous voice. I was falling into a kind of spell. The sunset was firing a gigantic smelter behind the western clouds. I knew that this magical moment could never be repeated. ‘Never more, never more,’ I kept thinking, as I felt myself seduced by the vertigo of the cliff and the thought of how easy it would be to drag María with me into the abyss.
I heard bits of sentences: ‘My God … so many things in this eternity we live together … horrible things … if we were only this beautiful spot, but, no, we are flesh and blood, sordid and insignificant …’
The sea was slowly changing into a dark monster. Soon the darkness was absolute and the sound of the waves below a black magnet. So easy! María had said that we are sordid and insignificant, but even though I knew too well my own immorality, I was crushed by the thought María could be like me – which undeniably she was. How? I thought. How many? When? I felt an almost uncontrollable desire to strike her, to claw her flesh with my fingernails, to strangle her with my bare hands and throw her into the sea. I heard other fragments: she was talking about a cousin, some Juan or other; she was remembering her childhood in the country. I thought I heard something about ‘stormy and cruel episodes’ with that cousin. I realized suddenly that María must have been making a priceless confession and that like an idiot I had missed it.
‘What stormy and cruel episodes?’ I cried.
Strangely, she seemed not to hear me: María, too, had fallen into a kind of trance; she, too, was alone in herself.
A long time passed, perhaps half an hour.
Then I felt her hand caressing my face, as I had at other times like this. I could not speak. As when I was a boy with my mother, I put my head in María’s lap, and for a long time outside of time, a time composed of childhood and death, we were together.
Oh, God! Why did it have to be ruined by suspicion, by things that could never be explained! How I longed to be mistaken, how I wished that María existed only for that moment. But that was impossible. As I listened to the beating of her heart, and as her hand stroked my hair, somber thoughts were stirring in the darkness of my mind, as if awaiting in a dank cellar the moment to erupt, sullenly splashing and grunting through the mire.
XXVIII
Strange events were to follow. When we reached the house we found a highly agitated Hunter (even though he is the kind of person who thinks it bad taste to show one’s feelings). He tried to hide it, but it was obvious that something was in the air. Mimí had left, and in the dining room the table was set for dinner. We were obviously late, because the minute we arrived we noticed a flurry of activity by the servants. Very little was said during the meal. I was carefully observing Hunter’s every word and gesture, because I thought they might shed light on many of the things happening to me, as well as several theories I wanted to test. I watched María, too. Her face was unfathomable. To ease the tension, she commented that she was reading a novel by Sartre. In evident bad humor, Hunter fumed:
‘Novels in this day and age! They can write all they want … but what fool would read one!’
No one replied, and Hunter made no effort to mitigate the effect of his words. It was not difficult to conclude that he was irritated with María. But since there had been no sign of irritation before our walk to the shore, I inferred that it stemmed from the conversation we had had there: yes, it would be surprising if he was not annoyed because of that conversation – more accurately, because of our long absence. Conclusion: Hunter was jealous, and his jealousy proved there was something more than simple friendship and kinship between María and him. That did not mean that María must necessarily be in love with him. On the contrary, it was more probable that Hunter was irked to see María paying attention to someone else. If Hunter’s irritation was caused by jealousy, it would take the form of hostility toward me, because we had no previous relationship. And that is what happened. Even had there been no other indication, one sidelong glance at me when María mentioned the cliff would have been sufficient.
I pleaded fatigue and went to my room almost as soon as we had eaten. My plan was to gather all the evidence I could. I went upstairs, opened the door of my room, turned on the light, slammed the door as if closing it, and then stood in the stairwell to listen. Immediately, I heard Hunter’s voice, speaking heatedly, although I could not hear the words. María did not reply. Then Hunter again, a much longer and even more heated comment. María interrupted before he finished speaking, some very brief, low-pitched reply followed by the scraping of chairs. Within seconds I heard footsteps on the stairs. I leapt back inside my room, but continued to listen through the keyhole. In a moment I heard footsteps outside my door: a woman’s footsteps. I lay awake for what seemed hours, pondering what had happened and listening for any sound. I heard nothing the entire night.
I could not sleep. I was beset by a series of thoughts that had not occurred to me before. I soon realized that my earlier conclusion had been naïve: I had thought (correctly) that María need not necessarily love Hunter for him to be jealous; I had been lulled by this conclusion. Now I realized that although it was not necessary, neither was it precluded.
María could love Hunter, and Hunter still be jealous.
So then: was there reason to believe that something was going on between María and her cousin? Reasons to spare! First, if Hunter’s jealousy was an annoyance to her and she did not love him, why come so often to the estancia? Ordinarily Hunter was the only person at the estancia, and he lived alone (I did not know whether he was a bachelor, a widower, or divorced, although I thought I recalled María’s saying that he was separated from his wife; the important thing was that the fellow lived alone at the estancia). A second reason for suspecting a relationship was that María always referred to Hunter casually, the way you do when describing some member of the family; but she had never mentioned, never even hinted, that Hunter was in love with her – to say nothing of the fact he might be jealous. Third, María had that very afternoon spoken of her weaknesses. What did she mean by that? In my letter to her I had listed a series of despicable acts (my days of drunkenness and the prostitutes) and she had said she understood, that she, too, was more than departing freighters and parks at twilight. What could that mean except that there were things in her life as dark and despicable as in mine. Might Hunter be one such vulgar passion?
All night long, I mulled over these conclusions, examining them from various angles. My final conclusion, which I considered unarguable, was: María is Hunter’s lover.
At daybreak I went downstairs, carrying my suitcase and paints. I met one of the servants just opening the windows and doors to begin the cleaning. I asked him to give my regards to Señor Hunter and to tell him I had had to return to Buenos Aires on urgent business. The servant looked at me with amazement, especially when I told him, in reply to his query, that I would walk to the station.
I had to wait several hours at the tiny station. From moment to moment I expected to see María. I awaited that eventuality with the bitter satisfaction you experience as a child when, unfairly treated, you hide somewhere and wait for a grown-up to come look for you and admit he made a mistake. But María never came. When the train arrived and I looked down the road for the last time, hoping up to the last minute that she would appear, there was no sign of her; I was indescribably depressed.
I watched out the train window as the train sped toward Buenos Aires. We passed near a small homestead: a woman standing in the shade of a thatched roof looked up at the train. An opaque thought crossed my mind: ‘I am seeing that woman for the first and last time. I will never in my lifetime see her again.’ My thoughts floated aimlessly, like a cork down an uncharted river. For a moment they bobbed around the woman beneath the thatch. What did she matter to me? But I could not rid myself of the thought that, for an instant, she was a part of my life that would never be repeated; from my point of view it was as if she were al
ready dead: a brief delay of the train, a call from inside the house, and that woman would never have existed in my life.
Everything seemed fleeting, transitory, futile, nebulous. My brain was not functioning well, but María was a recurring vision, something hazy and melancholy. Only hours later would my mind begin to operate with its normal precision and energy.
XXIX
The days that preceded María’s death were the most horrible of my life. I cannot possibly offer a precise account of everything I felt, thought, and did, for although I remember many of the events in incredible detail, there are hours, even entire days, that I recall as cloudy and distorted dreams. I have the impression that I lost days at a time under the influence of alcohol, sprawled across my bed or on a bench in Puerto Nuevo. When I reached the station at Calle Constitución I remember very clearly going into a bar and ordering several whiskeys in quick succession. Then I vaguely remember leaving and hailing a taxi that took me to another bar on Calle 25 de Mayo or maybe Calle Leandro Alem. What follows is noise, music, shouts, a laugh grating on my nerves, broken bottles, glaring lights. Then I remember a terrible headache and being half-awake in a jail cell, a guard opening a door, an officer saying something to me, and then I can see myself walking aimlessly through the streets, furiously scratching. I think I went into a bar again. Hours (or days) later someone took me to my studio. Then there were nightmares in which I was walking on the roof of a cathedral. I also remember waking up in my room in the dark with the horrifying sensation that the walls had expanded to infinity, and no matter how hard I ran, I would never reach them. I do not know how much time went by before I saw the first rays of light through the window. Then I dragged myself into the bathroom and climbed fully dressed into the bathtub. As the cold water began to revive me, I remembered a series of isolated incidents, ravaged and unrelated, like the first objects to emerge from receding floodwaters: María on the cliff; Mimí brandishing her cigarette holder; Allende station; a bar across from the train station called La Confianza, or maybe La Estancia; María asking me about the sketches, and I yelling ‘What sketches!’; Hunter frowning grimly at me; I anxiously eavesdropping on the cousins’ conversation; a sailor throwing a bottle; María walking toward me with unfathomable eyes; a foul woman kissing me and I, punching her in the face; the itch of flea bites; Hunter lecturing on detective novels; the estancia chauffeur. There were also fragments of dreams: again the cathedral, on a black night; the infinite room.
As my head cleared, some of the segments began to flow into others rising from my consciousness, and the landscape began to take shape, although with the melancholy and desolation of landscapes seen after a flood.
I got out of the tub and stripped off my clothes; I put on dry clothing and began a letter to María. First I wrote that I wanted to explain my flight from the estancia (I crossed out ‘flight’ and wrote ‘departure’). I added that I greatly appreciated the interest she had taken in me (I crossed out ‘in me’ and wrote ‘in my person’). I understood that she was a generous woman with the purest of sentiments, in spite of which, as she herself had informed me, at times ‘baser passions’ prevailed. I still found it incomprehensible that a woman like herself was able to say she loved her husband, and me, at the same time she was going to bed with Hunter (I crossed out ‘Hunter’ and wrote ‘Señor Hunter’; I thought the juxtaposition of the words ‘going to bed’ and the unexpected formal address was very effective). And of course she had the added annoyance, I wrote, of going to bed with her husband and with me. I ended by saying that, as she might realize, such conduct offered serious food for thought, and so on, and so on.
I reread the letter, and it seemed to me that – with the noted changes – it was sufficiently cutting. I sealed it, walked to the main post office, and sent it by certified mail.
XXX
As soon as I left the post office I realized two things: I had not said in the letter how I had deduced that María was Hunter’s lover and, second, I had no idea what I had hoped to accomplish by insulting her so unmercifully. A transformation, supposing my conjectures were accurate? That was obviously ridiculous. That a contrite María would come running to me? After what I had done, I surely could not expect to achieve that goal. Besides, I acknowledged that the only thing in the world I really wanted was for María to come back to me. But if that were so, why not say that, why hurt her feelings? Why not tell her that I had left the estancia because I was suddenly aware of Hunter’s jealousy? After all, my conclusion that she was Hunter’s lover – in addition to hurting her feelings – was pure speculation: at the most it was a hypothesis formed to help guide future deliberations.
Once again, then, I had done something stupid, and all because of my habit of dashing off impetuous letters and mailing them immediately. Important letters should be held for at least one day, until all the consequences are carefully weighed.
I had one desperate recourse: the receipt! I looked in all my pockets but did not find it. I must have carelessly thrown it away. I ran back to the post office, nevertheless, and stood in the line for certified letters. When my turn came I asked the clerk, making a ghastly and hypocritical effort to smile:
‘You remember me, don’t you?’
She looked at me with astonishment; she must have thought I was mad. To correct that misapprehension, I told her I was the person who had just mailed a letter to Los Ombúes. This moronic woman’s amazement merely seemed to intensify and, perhaps wanting to share it, or to seek advice about something beyond her comprehension, she turned to a male companion, then looked back at me.
‘I lost the receipt,’ I explained.
No answer.
‘I mean, I need the letter and I don’t have the receipt,’ I added.
The woman and her male cohort regarded each other as two bridge partners might do.
Finally, with the tone of someone completely dumbfounded, she asked:
‘You want us to give you back the letter?’
‘Exactly.’
‘When you don’t have a receipt?’
I was forced to admit that in fact I did not have that precious piece of paper. The woman’s stupefaction had reached its zenith. She mumbled something incomprehensible and again looked at the other clerk.
‘He wants us to return the letter,’ she stammered.
He smiled with incalculable stupidity, a smile meant to convey his brilliance. The woman looked at me and said:
‘That is absolutely impossible.’
‘I have identification,’ I replied, pulling out some papers.
‘There is nothing we can do. I cannot violate the regulation.’
‘A regulation, as I am sure you know, must be logical,’ I sputtered. On the woman’s cheek there was a mole punctuated with a few long hairs that was truly beginning to offend me.
‘And you know the regulation?’ she inquired scornfully.
‘It is not necessary to know the regulation, Señora,’ I replied icily, knowing that the word Señora would cut her to the quick.
Now the harpy’s eyes glittered with indignation.
‘You must understand, Señora, that a regulation cannot be illogical: it was, no doubt, drafted by a normal human being, not by a madman. If I mail a letter and immediately return to ask you to give it back to me because I have forgotten something essential, the logical thing would be for you to honor my request. Or is the postal service hell-bent on delivering unfinished or erroneous letters? It is eminently clear that the postal service is a means of communication, not an enforcement agency: the postal service cannot force me to mail a letter if I do not want to.’
‘But you did want to’ was her reply.
‘Yes!’ I yelled. ‘But I repeat, I do not want to now!’
‘Don’t yell at me; that’s very rude. It’s too late.’
‘It is not too late, because the letter is right there,’ I pointed to the sack of outgoing mail.
People were beginning to complain noisily. The old harridan’s face was
quivering with rage. With true repugnance, I felt all my hatred concentrating on the mole.
‘I can prove I am the person who sent the letter,’ I repeated, showing her some personal papers.
‘Don’t shout at me, I’m not deaf,’ she protested. ‘I can’t make a decision of this importance.’
‘Then get your chief.’
‘I can’t. There are too many people waiting,’ she said. ‘We are very busy here, can’t you see?’
‘But things like this are part of your job,’ I argued.
Some of the people behind me suggested that she return the letter and get on with it. She hesitated a moment, pretending to be busy at some other task. Finally she went into the office and, after a lengthy absence, returned in a bilious mood. She looked through the sack.
‘What estancia did you say?’ she hissed.
‘Los Ombúes,’ I replied with venomous calm.