Gasoline (3 page)

For a while, he halfheartedly mulls over the thought that everything goes by (or everything has gone by him) too quickly in life. Then he wonders whether he isn’t putting off starting the book because, in fact, he’s not in the mood. Or is it this long line of thought he’s not in the mood for? More than a long line: an interminable line. He goes down to the living room. He turns on the television, goes to the kitchen, opens the refrigerator, takes out the bottle of vodka, pours himself a glass, goes back to the living room, sits down on the couch, and starts watching television. He remembers, though, that he hasn’t cleaned his brushes or turned off the radio. So he gets up, leaves the glass on the end table (and as he does it thinks that he ought to leave it on a coaster). Then it crosses his mind that he promised Hildegarda he would take her the record of the Dave Brubeck Quartet the next time they got together. He starts looking for it so he will know where it is when the time comes. One by one, he checks all the record covers, from the first to the last. Since he doesn’t come across it, he checks them all again, from the last to the first. When he’s done, he remembers that a few weeks ago Helena had lent it to Hipòlita. He sits down again in front of the television set just as a movie comes on. He is pleased to have arrived just in time.

Quite some time later, he realizes he doesn’t know what’s happening onscreen. He has seen the picture from the beginning, but now he wouldn’t be capable of explaining the plot. He decides to try: on the screen, two heterosexual couples (Heterosexual? he asks himself. Maybe it would be better to say of different sexes.) are arguing about he’s not sure what at a table in a restaurant. He uses the remote control to distort the colors: the people’s skin turns a reddish pink, like plastic, and the green of the tablecloth is practically fluorescent. It all seems so unreal, with that nervous drizzle that the color casts on actors and objects alike that, in the end, he feels better about it and is able to continue looking at the film without concerning himself with the plot or the actors’ gestures.

Two hours later his own snoring awakens him. He turns off the television and drags himself to bed.

•

He hears the rustling of sheets and asks himself if it is the rustling that has awakened him or if, a few moments before, he heard shoes hitting the floor, or if it’s just that, since he heard the rustling of sheets, he thinks he ought to have heard the sound of Helena undressing. Even if she folded her clothes carefully, shoes (in the quiet of the night) usually make noise when they hit the wood floor, and it is this sound that always awakens him. But what about earlier? Had he heard the floorboards creak under Helena’s feet? It worries him not to be able to tell exactly which sound has awakened him. It worries him that, little by little, he seems to be losing his previous auditory sensitivity; he used to have total awareness of the sounds around him, even when he was fast asleep, right down to the movements that had produced them.

His back feels cold. In a few minutes, Helena’s body, which is cold at the moment, will be warm, and it will be nice to turn over and put his arms around her, as if in his sleep. He thinks the scene would make a beautiful painting: a double bed, with a man sleeping on one edge and on the other a woman lifting the covers to get in. How would you know, though, whether she was lifting them to get in or out? This thought makes the image dissolve, and since he is absolutely certain he will not be able to retrieve it, he doesn’t even try. He continues to pretend to be sleeping, as if he weren’t aware that Helena had arrived. He opens one eye, and since from that position he can see neither the numbers nor the luminescent hands of the alarm clock on the night table, he shifts, as if he were dreaming, and (with his back still to Helena) positions his head in such a way that, by opening one eye, he can see the time: 4:15. He wonders whether to turn over and embrace her or wait for her to do it. Why is it that lately she doesn’t?

He hears her breathing regularly. Is it possible that she has already fallen asleep? All those endless meetings to set up the summer shows
. . .
He had always thought that even summer shows were programmed years (or at least many months) in advance. Helena, though, has such a nose for the new, such an ability to capture the pulse of the moment, that she can’t plan her shows more than a few months ahead. He has a nice long yawn and tries to go back to sleep. The image of a cockroach appears to him and, as hard as he struggles to erase it, it persists, leaving him more and more wide awake. Then he hears Helena breathing deeply, fast asleep. Before dozing off again (or waking up, as for days now—and, above all, since the night before—it is as if he were sleeping awake or as if he were living asleep) he opens an eye one last time to look at the clock: it’s 5:30.

•

Lately, he enjoys sleeping late more and more. Before, whenever he wasn’t out carousing the previous night, Heribert would get up about 9:00 (neither too late nor too early, he would tell himself), shower, have citrus juice for breakfast, and, around 10:00 or 10:30, go up to the studio, turn on the radio or the record player (now it tended more and more to be the radio, since having to choose which records he wanted to hear put him off), and paint until 2:00. Then he would have lunch—at home if Helena was there, at a restaurant if she wasn’t, since cooking for himself was a bore. The problem is that, tired of always going to the same restaurant, for some six months now he has been having lunch at a different place every day, and so, every time Helena isn’t home for lunch, he has to go farther away since (even counting the times—not frequent—that he’s cheated and gone twice to the same place) he has been to all the restaurants in the neighborhood and in the neighboring neighborhoods. Once or twice he has even taken the subway, crossed the river, and had lunch outside the city. But this isn’t his usual pattern, since it prevents his returning in the afternoon to start painting again (particularly now that he was preparing a double show which, according to Hug and Helena was to be the definitive proof that his triumph of the previous year is irrevocable), and it is imperative that he work in the afternoon because things are not proceeding at their usual pace. This is why he has abandoned his old routine (or lack of one) of doing nothing in the afternoon. Before, on occasion, he would go home, read, or watch TV or a video; or sometimes he would go out and have a look at the art shows. Other times (but definitely only once in a while) he did none of those three things and instead would go to the movies. Now, in his haste to do the paintings for the show, he goes back home and shuts himself up in the studio, to paint or to plan possible paintings (except on weekends and holidays, unless for some reason he considers it imperative). These last weeks, even though he’s been taking notes, at most he’s finished a couple of paintings he considers mediocre; and the date on which they would have to begin hanging the paintings in the two galleries is approaching at a rate that increases daily.

In the evenings, he meets up with friends. Mostly with Hug and Hilari, for dinner. Afterwards their schedules are anything but predictable, and even though he tries not to get home too late, so he’ll be able to get up early and get back to work, he still finds it equally hard to get up. Lately, what he likes best of all is to stay in bed and stare at the ceiling.

•

At nine o’clock sharp, the telephone rings. Helena stirs, buries her head in the pillow so as not to hear it, and goes on sleeping. Feeling his way, Heribert picks up the receiver. It’s Hilari, proposing dinner that evening. Hilari will bring along some girls he knows. They make arrangements. He hangs up. Heribert feels the sleep in his eyes, like fists, but he is too wide awake to go back to sleep.

Ten minutes later he is sitting with a half-grapefruit in front of him, which he is eating, section by section, with the aid of a serrated spoon. When he’s finished, he goes up to the studio, sits before the easel, prepares the paints, and continues painting black sections on the canvas of the man sitting on a stool. He is so tired that it is an effort for him to finish working on the man’s suit and the wood of the bar. A half hour later he hears noise in the kitchen, assumes it’s Helena who’s gotten up, and goes downstairs. While she spreads blueberry jam on a piece of rye bread, he opens a bottle of white wine and pours himself a glass.

“You look sleepy,” she says. “Give me a kiss. It’s the first one this year, you know. Mmm
. . .
That’s nice. First of all, Happy New Year, okay? How’s it going for you? Mine’s been just perfect. I had a great time. You know how much I like that city. It’s small without being depressing. It’s a shame you couldn’t come. One New Year’s Eve Hannah and I went to eat at a German restaurant, just gorgeous, where the waiters wore black vests and long white aprons all the way down to mid-calf. It was like being back at the turn of the century. And her house is just beautiful, a half hour outside the city. Did you get a lot or work done? You must be just about finished. I’ll be up in a few minutes to see what you’ve done. No? You’ve got to get a move on, sweetheart; there are only three weeks left. And at this rate
. . .
Did I say three? In two weeks they’ve got to be setting it all up. I’m tired of always running ragged at the last minute. At least you (you of all people) could have a little consideration for me. You’re not going to throw all this work out the window, now, are you? You wouldn’t be the first. This past year things have been going so well for you
. . .
With Hug you were getting along, but when you and I got together, it was perfection! This isn’t about me, it’s about the gallery, and (heck, why not?) about me, too. If you would only listen to me and
. . .
Why do you keep Hug on? Are you going to carry him all your life? Could Hug ever have gotten you the press I’ve gotten you since February? You don’t give me enough credit. You don’t listen to me. You listen to him, though. I’m going to call him and have him give you a talking-to. He should at least be good for that. I really think you trust him more than you trust me. Sure he got the world press to lie down at your feet, but I had already broken the ground for you. Who got the city papers to bow down to you? To get other countries to recognize you afterwards was easy. But here, it certainly wasn’t easy. And why did I do it? Because I love you. Come on, give me a kiss. Do you like my hair? You haven’t said a word about it. Now I ought to make a scene, like in the comics, when the husband comes home and doesn’t notice that his wife has a new hairdo. I had it done at Hannah’s hairdressers. And then I was so busy, I couldn’t even call you. Well, not that night, of course; that night we had people over for drinks to celebrate the summer program. In the summer a lot of novices come through and put even more thought into the organization so we don’t fill the summer shows with leftovers. What time is it? Getting up late makes the day so short. I’ve got to run. Mmmm
. . .
I’ve got a date with Hipòlita. Button me up, please. Thanks. Give me a little kiss. I won’t be home for lunch. And get a move on!”

Since
neither of them feels like going to a restaurant, as soon as Hug arrives Heribert begins to prepare the shrimp. Now, sitting face to face, across a table set with a white tablecloth, Heribert and Hug are devouring them. As he peels one, Heribert thinks that the shell of a shrimp isn’t all that different from the shell of a cockroach. He opens another bottle of white wine.

“Kid,” says Hug, “I’m here to give you a good talking-to, but since you’re certainly old enough to know what you’re doing, I’ll just remind you that we could lose our shirts here. No temper tantrums, now, and no weird, outlandish games. All artists have creative crises (if that’s what you want to call them, even though I think it’s ridiculous), and all artists get over them, and even if they don’t, they pretend they do and keep on going. Maybe what you need is to have a little fun. Go out with some girls. You certainly don’t have to worry about Helena at this stage of the game, right? You don’t get out to clear the cobwebs enough. Not only that, you let all kinds of opportunities pass you by, and, believe me, you do have opportunities
. . .
You weren’t like this before; you were more lighthearted. Until a few months ago, you were always telling me about one affair or another. You’ve been slowing down, going out less and less. Or are you going out and just not telling me? I’d never forgive you for holding out on me. I’d be incredibly pissed at your lack of faith. And if I say you let opportunities pass you by, it’s because Hildegarda—whom you, of all people introduced me to—is a babe, and if you were interested
. . .
Well, she’s really into you. I’m sure of it, because five or six days ago we arranged to get together for a moment because she had been calling me ever since you introduced us, to show me her work, but since I thought it was odd, the way she looks at you, that you weren’t already involved, I kept putting her off, saying I was busy
. . .
Did you know she used to sing in the opera? She even sang at the Met. Did you already know that, or are you just not surprised? In the chorus, but she sang there, and not everyone gets that far, not even in the chorus. Stop laughing. Now it seems she’s decided to paint, and so she finally got me up to her house to show me her work. Her husband is in Europe, on a tour, since he’s an opera singer, and, listen, you can’t imagine how good it was. It’s been years since I met a woman who melted like butter at the first touch. With such soft, full lips
. . .
and those enormous eyes. I’m telling you this, so you’ll stop being a fool and go for it. And then, get down to work, because in two (two or three?), well, in two or three weeks we have to start hanging canvases. Call her. Really. I don’t mind. You know how we used to
. . .
remember the trouble we used to get into? Boy.”

Heribert is surprised not to be amazed. Then he is surprised at being surprised. Why should he have been amazed? What about Hildegarda, wouldn’t she figure out that he and Hug knew each other, and that it was more than likely they would talk about their affairs? He imagines this must be what she wants. Hug lifts his empty glass, and Heribert rushes to open a third bottle of white wine.

When Helena arrives they are eating chocolate cookies and drinking coffee and cognac. She’s arrived in a sweat, carrying two bags from a department store. She kisses each of them on the cheek. Hug helps her put one of the bags on the table, and quickly says goodbye and leaves.

Heribert goes up to the studio. He finds the morning’s colors all prepared, a little dry. He sits down. He stares at the painting. He dips the brush into the paint mechanically. The boredom that engulfs him is so great he messes up the application of the paint to the legs of the stool. If he keeps on painting, he’ll ruin it altogether. “If I can’t overcome this boredom,” he thinks, “I won’t be able to go on.” He continues painting and ruins the canvas beyond repair. “At least I’ve been
. . .
” He doesn’t know whether to finish the thought with the word
sincere
, or
honest
, or
consistent
.
He hears Helena turn on the television. He goes on working despite the fact that each brushstroke wreaks new havoc on the painting.

A half hour later, he considers the painting to be an absolute disaster. He takes it off the easel, half resting it, half throwing it against the wall. He hears Helena turn off the television and tell him she’s leaving, she has to go to the gallery to see if they’ve picked up some lithographs, and if they haven’t, to make sure they do so immediately. As he hears the door close, Heribert places a new, bigger, canvas on another easel.

•

An hour later, he looks at the new painting, screws up his face into an expression of disgust, takes it off the easel, and throws it on top of the first one. He quickly cleans the brushes and paint and, in doing so, stains his pants. He wonders whether to shower and finally opts for the most passive route: not showering. He changes his pants, doesn’t change his t-shirt, puts a jacket on over it, then a coat and boots. He goes out into the street and into the subway. On the platform he decides to get off at the sixth stop. “Because six is an insignificant number, a petty number. It’s not brilliant like three, or pleasant like two, or magical like seven, or independent like one, or
. . .
” He boards the train. He closes his eyes. So he won’t see the next station and therefore won’t know which line he’s on (which would have made it impossible for him not to figure out what the sixth stop would be), he mentally hums an obsessive tune.

On the street, he buys three papers at the first newsstand he comes across. He walks down the avenue, never stepping on snow that has already been stepped on. This reminds him of when, as a child in Barcelona, he would walk down the street trying to step only on alternating paving stones, on the diagonal, like in a game of checkers, feeling that, if he missed, a tremendous curse would fall upon him. Every so often, he makes clouds with his breath. He sees a bar with a long window-front. It’s one of those bars he’s always disliked: too clean, quiet, unnecessarily expensive, and with an annoying tendency to be frequented by people favoring hot chocolate and lattes. He goes in and sits down. It’s hot. He takes off his coat and jacket. He picks up one of the newspapers, looks at the front page, and sees that none of the headlines interests him in the least. He looks over the room: it’s almost empty. There is just one couple, across the room, sitting very close and having espresso. From behind the bar a waiter is approaching, notebook in hand. Heribert understands his purpose. He feels terrified. He doesn’t know what to order.

“What should I have?”

The waiter’s expression shows that he thinks he’s either an obnoxious character who’s trying to give him a hard time or a snob who likes to be waited on down to the smallest detail. Nevertheless, with a smile on his face, he recites:

“A beer? An espresso? A scotch? A bourbon? Pernod? Fernet? Rum? Gin? Tequila? Vodka?”

Humbert orders tequila because the word makes him think of the sun, of a desert, of cactus. A woman with woolen earmuffs going down the street stops for a moment to look at a little Christmas tree, decorated with garlands and tiny balls, in a garbage can. The waiter is already back, serving him the tequila in a small glass. The label on the bottle reads
josé cuervo
. He also leaves him a saucer with a salt shaker and half a lemon, but the mere thought of going through the ritual of licking the salt and sucking on the lemon before drinking down the tequila irritates him beyond expression. He drinks it down and asks for more. The waiter brings another, in another glass, with another piece of lemon. If he asks for many more tequilas, the table will soon be full of half lemons. So why haven’t they brought him another salt shaker? He had not consumed the lemon, and they had brought him another. By the same token, he had not used the salt shaker, and they ought to have brought him another. Something is out of whack here, but the effort required to follow the thread of the argument is so tiring that he turns his attention to something that won’t require him to think so hard.

He looks at his glass and wonders if those little glasses have a special name. If only he had Hildegarda’s dictionary
. . .
If only, as before (a before whose border blurs in the distance between two and four weeks earlier), he had the energy to jot down on a scrap of paper “Look up synonyms for glass and find the one that corresponds to little glass
. . .
” He remembers the word “tankard” and finds it stunning. Each glass for each different drink ought to have a different name. Once, making small talk, a waiter had told him the names of a number of glasses: “up glasses,” for cocktails served without ice, straight up, like a Manhattan up, or a martini up
. . . ;
“rock glasses,” for cocktails served with ice or water, like whiskey sours, Manhattans, vodka tonics, scotch and water
. . . ;
“tall glasses,” in which Bloody Marys, piña coladas, Tom Collinses, fizzes, and beer must be served
. . . ;
“cordial glasses,” for Kahlua and Amaretto-type liqueurs; brandy snifters, for cognac; “sherry glasses,” for Harvey’s Bristol Cream
. . .
When he looks back down at his glass, he doesn’t want it any more. He can already predict how it will taste if he brings it to his lips. What a strange feeling, to be repelled by a familiar taste, when till now he had always been nauseated the first time he tried new foods whose taste was unfamiliar!

He looks at the first page of the other two newspapers and pushes them aside. He asks for the check, pays, and just as he is getting up, manages to snatch up the glass and gulp down what’s left. But this gesture seems absurdly tragic to him. He gathers up the papers, sticks them under his arm, and goes outside.

He walks under the tress in a square. All at once, just as he had felt, before going into the bar, that, despite its not appealing to him, it was relaxing for the place to be clean and quiet, now the neighborhood seems too bland, too
pretty.
It is a
nice
neighborhood, and he finds this very unpleasant. He throws the paper into the garbage can and breaks into a trot. If only his feelings would take a definite turn instead of this constant fluctuation, this swinging back and forth between desiring and despising
. . .

He goes into the first train station he comes across and gets on the first train that comes along, without looking to see which part of the city it’s heading for; once inside, he shuts his eyes, trying not even to count the number of stations the train stops at.

•

Two policemen stand close to the turnstiles at the exit. He takes the stairs two at a time. On the street, he walks around among the pimps and the bums. One drunk, soaked with slushy water from the melting snow, is clinging to a parking meter. In a clothing store window all the mannequins are undressed and wigless; some of them are missing arms. A man on top of a ladder is taking down the Christmas lights and signs bearing wishes for a Happy New Year. He walks by two sex shops, tramples already-trampled snow, and slips and almost falls. At the third sex shop, he stops and looks in the window. At the movie theater next door, they’re showing
Foxtrot
, a movie they’re advertising with enormous billboards containing enlarged reproductions of favorable reviews taken from sex magazines. They include no pictures, suggesting that it has been impossible to choose a single still, as none of them could possibly be put on public display. He keeps on walking. Next door is another sex shop. He goes in.

He comes to a stop in the middle of the room. Only one of the walls is lined with sex toys: rubber vaginas and penises, fantasy condoms, whips, ben wa balls, inflatable boy and girl dolls
. . .
The other walls, painted yellow, are lined with rows and rows of magazines. On the ceiling there are three fluorescent panels, in one of which two of the tubes are flickering. He finds it odd that the two broken tubes should be precisely in the same panel when (by random chance) the probability of their being in different panels was much greater. This leads him to conclude that there is a defect in the fixture itself. Next to the door, on a platform, a bored elderly man with glasses and long sideburns is leaning on a counter as high as the tops of his clients’ heads, overseeing the room, apparently keeping everything under control. Heribert looks at the condoms: there are blue ones, pink ones, green ones, black ones, transparent ones, and red ones
. . .
They come with bumps, with filaments, one has a little hand with five fingers at the tip, several have protruding stars. The boxes say that these extras give the woman pleasure and make her go mad with delight. The penises are all different sizes, colors, and shapes. Some reproduce the texture, the veins, and the shape of the real thing, but others are perfectly cylindrical, or cylindrical with bumps at the tip, like porcupines
. . .
They look to him like orthopedic devices. He looks at the magazines. In the first one he opens there are pictures of a man with one woman. In the second, there are two men with one woman. In the third, there are two women. He opens a fourth: two women with one man. The fifth one he opens has two men with one woman again. He opens a sixth: there is a whole slew of people and part of the fun seems to consist of mixing whites, blacks, and Asians, and men and women. In the most general shot, Heribert counts four men and five women. He thinks it’s too convoluted to excite anyone.