‘Barcelona is a perfect city for this, because the cardinal points are obvious. The sea is down there, to the south. Well, more or less. Up there, to the north, are the mountains. On the streets that run north–south, the sun only shines on both sides at noon. On the streets running east–west, in mid-afternoon. With a little practice, and good weather, it’s easy to tell which side of the street you’re on and in which direction you’re looking.’
‘Looking, for fuck’s sake. I won’t be looking anywhere.’
‘Don’t be churlish, Víctor, it’s just a manner of speaking. Come on, let’s sit down.’ She stands next to him, offers him her elbow, settles him in one of the two chairs and sits down in the other. ‘This is nice. By the way,’ she adds, with feigned surprise, ‘the plants in your window box have died.’
‘What window box?’ Víctor asks.
He knows how to play dumb too.
‘This one.’ Alicia raps the glass wall with her knuckles. ‘Though I can see you still water it.’
She has seen the water in the moat. Has seen two ants scuttling across the surface.
‘Well, you never know.’
‘Of course. How do you manage to water it?’
‘I chuck water at it.’
Alicia takes a deep breath. This is not going to be easy.
‘Yes, but you’re watering it at the base and from what I can see, you must be spilling most of it because the soil is dry.’
‘I take the jug in my left hand, put my right index finger into the moat. When I feel the water come up past the first knuckle, I stop pouring.’
‘Did you say moat?’
She’s got him. Nearly got him.
‘Moat, base, what’s the difference. It’s just a manner of speaking …’
In your case it’s a manner of not speaking, thinks Alicia. The trail of ants is getting away from her. If she wants to get to the past, she will have to take another route.
‘That’s good. It’s the same trick I was thinking of teaching you for filling a glass of water or a vase. In case you get tired of drinking from the tap. That’s what I wanted to talk about today. I thought we might make a list. Or rather, two lists. On one, we can write down the progress you’ve made, on the other, things that are pending. Things you need to practise over the next few days. The thing is, I forgot to bring a pen with me. Do you mind if I use the one on the dresser?’
Víctor turns towards her and simply waves his hand in response. Alicia gets up, goes into the hall, takes the Parker pen and heads back out to the terrace, preceded by the sound of the spring: click, click, click, click.
‘Now, let’s see …’ she says as she sits down. ‘Walking with a guide you’ve mastered. And you were a very quick learner.’ Click, click, click, click. ‘Although you could do with more practice, it’s clear that you have a very good sense of direction. And as for finding your way around the apartment …’
Click, click, click, click.
‘Are you nervous?’ Víctor interrupts. ‘You’re going to break the spring.’
‘Sorry. You told me it was your father’s, didn’t you.’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s beautiful. I suppose it has sentimental value?’
‘Pff.’
‘Can I ask how he died?’
‘An accident.’
She can barely hear him. It is as though he is breathing in rather than out as he speaks. The clicking starts again, but this time she does not even realise she is pressing and releasing the button. Alicia stares at Víctor, feeling a mixture of shame and fear. Shame because she does not like ambushing him like this. Fear because every muscle in his body exudes a tension that could explode at any moment. Perhaps he is finally about to break down, though it seems just as likely that he might lash out and hit her.
‘What was his name?’
‘Whose name?’
‘Your father.’
‘Martín.’
‘Martín Losa.’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened to Martín Losa?’
Suddenly, all the tension evaporates. Víctor’s body relaxes, his shoulders seem to deflate, and a smile lights up his face. Even his eyes are suddenly alive.
‘Aren’t you going to tell me how Galván is?’ he asks.
Disarmed, Alicia sets the pen on the floor and thinks for a few seconds. Her whole strategy has just gone south, but she takes one last reckless shot at it.
‘He’s old, Víctor. He’s old, he’s sick, and he’s dying. He misses you.’
It is impossible to know whether she has touched a nerve. Víctor tugs at his shirt cuffs, raises his eyebrows twice, moving his eyes as though trying to follow the path of a bird above the terrace. Alicia decides to put her cards on the table.
‘I talked to him because you need help, Víctor.’
‘You mean you needed help. Not me, you.’
‘No. If I fail with you, my life will go on much as before. At least we have that in common, because your life will go on as before too. The difference is that my life is OK, and yours is shit. Sorry to be blunt. The one who needs to change is you.’
‘So let’s get back to your lists, then.’
‘No. The lists are useless. I can teach you a whole host of things and you’re perfectly capable of learning them, but they won’t mean a thing unless you change your …’
‘… my attitude?’ Víctor offers.
‘Call it what you like. And don’t think you’re unique. What’s happening to you has happened to thousands of blind people. They remain stuck in the past. They can’t imagine a future in which their life could be full again.’
‘You have too much faith in the power of imagination.’
‘And you’ve too much faith in memory. That’s why you’re the way you are.’
Alicia shifts her chair towards Víctor’s. She puts a hand on his arm. Brings her other hand up to his face and, as delicately as possible, removes his glasses. Víctor jerks his head as though she has just slapped him.
‘You still wear glasses. I can’t think of a better example of what I’m saying.’ She holds the glasses up and looks at them. ‘You even clean them from time to time. What were they for?’
‘I was short sighted,’ Víctor answers, ‘and slightly astigmatic.’
‘And now you’re completely blind, but you still wear them. Your apartment is full of books you can never read. You have a room crammed with magical props you’re still capable of operating, but it’s all closed up. Or you use it as a torture chamber. You never go out, but you always keep your keys in your trouser pocket. A lot of blind people watch television. Or listen to it. It’s usually a good sign. I’ll bet you never even turn it on, but there it is just the same. Covered in dust, obviously. Because you think you get by fairly well at home, but if you don’t learn how to clean you’re going to end up eating shit. Your home is not that of a blind person. It’s the typical home of a person who refuses to accept he’s blind.’
‘OK, well, write it down: learn to clean.’
‘No. As I said, there’s no point in making a list unless you change. You have to learn to relax. To accept that you need help. You have to promise me that really you’re going to try. Otherwise, I’m not coming back tomorrow.’
‘Oh.’
Alicia gets to her feet.
‘I’m leaving now. And you’re going to sit here and get a bit of sun. And you’re going to think about what we talked about. And this afternoon, you’re going to call me and tell me whether I should come tomorrow or whether you’d rather I stayed at home. If I come, we’ll make that list.’
‘For the future.’
‘For the present. The present starts tomorrow.’
‘If you come.’
‘If I come.’
‘Can you give me back my glasses before you go?’
Down Is Where You Fall
It’s not fair to question the amount of effort he has put in, to deny that he is trying his best. And even if he is headi
ng in the wrong direction, that’s something for which it’s difficult to criticise a blind person. Because in his situation, many people wait for years before taking the first step forward, upward, and some never take it at all. What is rare is his stubborn determination to sink lower, deeper, his longing to hit bottom. He is like a terrified diver who, realising he is almost out of air and with the surface so far away that any attempt to reach it will cause his heart to burst, decides instead to swim down in search of some imaginary way out, a magical opening, a passageway to a topsy-turvy world where hitting the bottom forces everything to rise. Is that what he is looking for? Or perhaps he is just letting himself fall. Perhaps it’s simply a question of pride: not waging the diver’s doomed battle, but allowing his corpse to drift to the surface and reach its destination, caught up in a tangle of seaweed. But nobody can say he isn’t trying.
Moving
There are still some things that Alicia does not understand. The first is this nonsense about the past. No one can blame her, since she does not have the necessary information, but Víctor is not anchored in the past. If only. He is condemned to the insolence of the present, scarcely sustained by the moment on the step on that murky afternoon when he did not realise that time was slipping away. And in the shifting present there is no way to drop anchor. It’s not that the present is fleeting; it doesn’t even exist. You close your eyes in the past and find yourself looking at the future when you open them again.
Her other mistake is not to have understood that, in spite of his apparent reluctance, Víctor is the perfect student. He waits for instructions and follows them to the letter, especially when they are calculated to help him cross the line of fire. Perhaps Galván should have explained that to her. With Víctor, you can save yourself the predictions, the analyses, the lectures: just give him orders.
Pity Galván cannot see him now, he would be proud. In a few short minutes, with no help, he has managed to get the number of a removal company, reserved storage space, counted out the agreed sum and put it in his pocket, because trusting a Romanian prostitute is one thing, but trusting a bunch of movers he doesn’t know is something else. He greets them at the door, fully dressed and wearing shoes as God intended, gives them the money and explains to them that he won’t be much help because he is blind. He has just said the words aloud: because I’m blind. Could it be the Bach’s Flower Remedies?
There are five men. Three immediately set to work putting his books into boxes. Víctor has made it clear that they are to take all of them. The other two follow him around the apartment, nodding as he points to things: ‘that yes, that no’. In fact, almost everything is a yes. In the kitchen, for example, all that is left is the fridge. The washing machine and dishwasher, gone. The crockery, the pots and pans, the cutlery, all boxed up. There is no need to take away the oven, since it is built in. There is no need for them to go into the bathroom or the workshop. In the living room, everything goes except the sofa and a couple of chairs. The dining table? Gone, gone. He doesn’t need it. He’s blind. A blind man who eats standing up in the kitchen. The dresser in the hallways stays. No one is allowed to touch the pen. The paintings, the photos, the posters on the walls, everything goes. Except for Bacall. When one of the movers asks him about the television he hesitates for a minute. Eventually he tells the man to leave it and asks him to find the remote control. He sits on the sofa and turns it on. He quickly realises that Alicia is right: he can listen to the television perfectly well without having to see it. In fact, at this time of day, though he flicks through the channels, all he gets for the most part is noise. Almost without realising it, he gradually turns up the volume so that it drowns out the racket the movers are making. A man has killed his father with an iron bar and attempted to run over his mother as she runs away. The mother escapes, but a well-meaning woman from next door comes out – you’d spread your legs for anyone, you’re nothing but a whore and a liar, because you said he was sleeping with you … turn it off, Víctor, you need to turn off this shit … I’m not a liar, you’re the liar, what I told you was that I contracted AIDS from him … turn it off … he infected me and I can prove it, we’ll be right back after this commercial break when we’ll find out who is telling the truth … a court ruling in Málaga has ordered the city council to pay three thousand euros to a bride who was late for her wedding as a result of the brown bear who builds up layers of fat thanks to the salmon it feeds on because I was a couple of yards in front and the assistant didn’t raise the flag … you’re holding the remote control, Víctor, it’s there in your hand, press the button, Víctor, all you’ve got to do is press the top left-hand button … well that’s not what you said when you were going round claiming you were my best friend, of course not you slut, that’s because I didn’t know you were fucking my husband you have fifteen seconds to give me an answer which could win you the jackpot which stands at €80,000 and we’ll be right back thinking of buying a new car call us now and see how much you could borrow.
The world has flooded into his home and now there has become here, nothing is in its place, but if he can leave, if he can run away right now, if he is able to get as far as the Plaza del Diamante and replace the sound of planets whirling out of orbit with the babbling of the children in the playground, maybe he will be able to find some peace. All he has to do is hug the walls, pay attention to the shadows. Second corner, turn right. It’s not hard. He suddenly gets to his feet and immediately trips over a box one of the men has left in the middle of the floor. Two of the men rush over and help him to his feet. One of them hands him his glasses, which went flying as he fell, but Víctor asks the man to put them on top of the dresser, then requests that they help him as far as the door. He needs to go out for a minute, he says. They lead Víctor out on to the landing, pushing aside boxes, and do not let go of him until he has assured them for the third time that he doesn’t need any help, that he can make it downstairs on his own, that he’s done it before. He reaches the front door and goes out into the street. He takes a first step, almost on tiptoe, as though he had just waded into some viscous liquid or thick foam. Nothing happens. There is very little traffic. He could stop right here, take a deep breath and consider himself satisfied, but he needs to get to the little square. The verb to need is a tricky one. What he really needs is to be able to see. He imagines Alicia is watching him. He remembers her voice yesterday as she said now take it slowly, this way, that way. Remembers that she helped him avoid a lamp-post a few steps from the door. He leans back a little, draws his neck in and frowns. Thanks to this position it is his foot and not his face which hits the lamp-post. He is not hurt. You can let go of the lamp-post now, Víctor.
He makes it to the first corner and stops for a moment. Though he cannot hear any cars, he stands there for three minutes before attempting to cross. He can hear a bicycle approaching from his left, but he is not afraid. On the contrary, he is grateful, it is like a message from his childhood. Besides, from the sound of it, the cyclist doesn’t seem to be moving very fast, doesn’t even seem to be pedalling, seems to be coasting so that, when Víctor decides to stop, it is not because he is afraid for his own safety but for that of the man on the bike. The man or woman. In recent years, Barcelona has become full of women on bicycles. Not one of them ugly. He remembers how he liked to watch them pedal, imagining whole lives for them in the few seconds as they cycled past, sniffing the breeze they left in their wake and, yes, sometimes thinking about their pussies, about the folds of their groin pressed against the seat. He knows it is an infantile fantasy, but it is one that he always allowed himself and he is not about to give it up now. Certainly not now that he can see a pussy only in his dreams. He twists his lips a little. He is thinking about Alicia. Alicia and her bicycle. He is astonished to find that he can walk and think about something else simultaneously. For the first time since he lost his sight, he can imagine a future in which his brain might not be condemned merely to survival – to I am blind and this is my left leg; blind, and
this is my right leg. I’m blind and the wall is there in front of me, the bicycle is on my left. I’m blind and I am standing in the middle of the road. I’m blind and I am risking my life.
He suddenly feels a sense of urgency. He is never going to get to the square like this. He lifts his right heel and is about to take a step forward when he hears another sound. He has a last thought that hearing and seeing are very similar, that this sudden eruption is just like someone blocking his view of something beautiful or necessary. He is about to say as much, go away, let me listen to the bicycle, and he would say it if he were not so preoccupied with his dance with death, because that is what it looks like now as he takes a step forward, a step back, turns to face the source of this new sound and waits, suddenly paralysed, for the sound of the motorcycle changes, all too late, into a shriek of brakes. Don’t stop moving, Viviana would say. Today we are going to work on the passage of time. Imagine you are dancing with death. The most important thing is not to stop moving, not even for an instant, or it will carry you off. Especially you, Víctor. And to illustrate her point, she would probably play Michel Petrucciani’s demented version of ‘Caravan’, that danse macabre.
And Alicia … Alicia would not be quite so proud right now, although if she could see him, if she could bend down beside him, perhaps cradle him, help him bear the pain until the ambulance arrives, she would say it doesn’t matter, everything’s fine, what matters is that you tried. In fact, even Víctor, despite the searing pain shooting through his hip, feels a certain sense of triumph. He did not make it to the square and he won’t be able to go home, but right up to the end he has been able to interpret every sound, the skidding tyres, the choked screams of the other pedestrians and the crack of bones as he was knocked to the ground, the dull thud of his shoulder against the asphalt, the shouted apologies of the motorcyclist; he can even make out, over the noisy chatter of the crowd attracted by the accident, the distant sound of the ambulance siren coming to get him.