Love in Lowercase (14 page)

In the Metro, on my way to the hospital, I felt totally embarrassed about what I'd done. The fact that I was in love with Gabriela didn't give me the right to pressure her the way I had when we said good-bye.

It was lovely to have tea with you, Gabriela. If you like, we can do it again some afternoon. You know where to find me.
That would have been the most elegant and sensitive thing to say.

If I'd said that, she probably wouldn't have felt under duress and might have called me again. But no, I'd forced her to agree to another date. Now, in all likelihood, she'd phone before Thursday and leave me a message to cancel it. My just deserts.

—

Making my way along the endless corridors of the hospital, I realized it was almost a month since I'd last been to visit Titus. That wasn't good. Yes, we'd talked on the phone a couple of times a week, but that wasn't enough. After all, thanks to a section of model-train track, Titus had enabled me to step down from the train heading toward a life of solitude.

He seemed a lot more frail to me this time, probably because
I hadn't seen him for so long. His small bald head was nestled so deep in the pillow that it looked as if it was about to disappear.

I sat down beside him as a porter wheeled off his roommate, a man of about fifty with a dreadful cough.

I got to the point right away. “I've let you down.”

I feel guilty
: the leitmotif of the day.

“Enough of that! I don't think I have much longer to live, so listen carefully. I have something important to tell you.”

With a feeling of dread, I moved my chair closer. His voice was so weak it was difficult to understand him.

“This is purgatory, Samuel. But you can learn important lessons in purgatory.”

I tried to distract him from this gloomy talk by bringing up the only thing I thought might console him.

“Sorry to change the subject, but do you remember the mad physicist I told you about?”

“Valdemar.”

“Good memory. Well, the other day he said that his life's just a dream and that, in reality, he's dead. Maybe he's right and we're all dead. Or real life is just what we see and do when we dream. What I'm trying to say is . . . well, he said that none of this is real, so we shouldn't worry. And you shouldn't worry either, even if you are having a bad time right now.”

Titus rubbed his hand over his unshaven chin, as if looking for the right words. He seemed calm enough. Then he cleared his throat and said very slowly, “This damn Valdemar is right. We can't be sure that this is the only world in existence. Call it a dream or an illusion or whatever you like. But we're just a spark of consciousness in the darkness of the universe. But since the time that comes before us and that which comes afterward are infinite, we might say that this spark never happened. Are you with me?”

“More or less. But what is this important thing you want to tell me?”

“I'm telling you now, damn it!”

After raising his voice, Titus was gasping, so short of breath I was on the verge of ringing for a nurse. But he grabbed my arm to stop me. After a few ragged attempts at trying to breathe steadily again, he got some color back in his face.

“Don't push yourself,” I whispered. “There's no need. If you want to talk, take it slowly. I've got all the time in the world.”

“But I haven't. Please don't interrupt me.”

I nodded and clasped my hands like a good boy. When he began to speak, I could see that he'd been rehearsing the words for some time. They were his farewell to me.

“We live too far away from the outer galaxies. We'll never be able to reach them. We're also too far away from the quantum universe, so we can't understand it. We'll never get across the last threshold of matter. If we did, we'd discover that nothing exists, as Valdemar says. We live in a world of sensations and feelings. Always remember that, Samuel. Never reject your sensations and feelings. They're all you've got.”

His words made quite an impression on me. Then Nasreddin's dictum came to mind.
Those who know should enlighten those who don't
. However, I was sure that I'd never have anyone to whom I could confide what Titus had just revealed.

“Now go and don't come back,” he added.

I was shocked. “Why?”

Everything I'd felt part of was moving away from me, like an expanding galaxy.

“I have nothing more to say to you. I don't want you to call me either. Leave me alone to play the last round with Death. I fear the cards are stacked against me.”

I was devastated when I got home.

When I walked into the living room I was relieved to see that the answering machine wasn't flashing. Gabriela hadn't canceled our date yet, but she probably would sometime before Thursday. Was I getting paranoid?

I put some water on to boil for my pasta and played with Mishima, hoping all the while that Valdemar wouldn't come down to visit. I wasn't in the mood to listen to him. I just wanted to have some dinner and crawl into bed and put an end to the day.

I'd lost Titus, who more than anyone else had been like a father to me. Apart from his final message, which would take me some time to digest, his sad situation had at least given me some perspective on my own. However much I was suffering over Gabriela, it was nothing compared with the distress of a man who was slowly dying in the hospital.

Was that what he was trying to tell me? That I should cling to sensations and feelings as long as I was in the world? It's possible, but Titus's farewell had been too much of a blow for me to be able to act on his advice.

I mixed the spaghetti with some cold tomato sauce and began to
eat it in front of the television, something I don't do often. Oddly enough, they were showing a documentary about the space race.

The film offered a summary of the successes and obstacles faced by more than fifty spaceships that visited the moon, although only twelve men actually managed to walk on it. After
Apollo 17,
which landed on the moon and returned to Earth in December 1972, no one else has been back there, which would seem to bear out Valdemar's suspicions. The next attempt, the Lunar Prospector mission, was carried out with a crewless spacecraft, and it was launched only in 1998.

The episode in question focused on moon dust, the horrible regolith that Valdemar had told me about. It seems that the astronauts who visited the moon brought back some rocks and regolith as souvenirs, which NASA keeps in Houston at 92 degrees below zero.

The strange thing is that, in 2003, three interns at the Johnson Space Center lab were tried for the theft of 101.5 grams of lunar rock samples, which they'd attempted to sell at prices ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 a gram. However, the jury valued the samples at a much higher price, basing its calculations on the fact that each gram had cost the U.S. Treasury $50,800. And since then, the price of moon samples sold to the public has reached even more astronomical levels.

I turned off the TV wondering what sort of idiot would pay that kind of money for a few grains of dust.

On Wednesday, after having to supervise several exams, I went to the vet. I hadn't seen Meritxell since the afternoon snack that had ended so badly. Despite everything, she greeted me quite warmly.

“I can't leave now. I'm on call till five.”

“If you want to come by for an afternoon snack, I'll be at home. Mishima still needs to have his shot, but you know what he's like.”

“I'll come prepared, just in case.”

I understood that she'd forgiven me and accepted my invitation.

Although a benevolent sun was announcing the advent of spring, I felt too sad to wander around the city. Now I needed the warmth of a friend and, better still, a friend like Meritxell.

Danger was lurking on the horizon of our afternoon snack, which was twenty-four hours before my hypothetical date with Gabriela. This would be an ideal time for her to call with an excuse to cancel it. If we were in the living room and the answering machine started blabbing again, I could say bye-bye to my friendship with Meritxell.

The solution was simple. I'd disconnect the answering machine and even the phone as well. In fact, I didn't want to know
in advance whether Gabriela would be having lunch with me or not. I'd go to collect her as planned, and if she didn't want to join me, I'd eat by myself in the restaurant anyway. There was no point in fretting about it.

Cut off from the outside world except for the doorbell, I devoted the early hours of the afternoon to marking the exam papers for my language and history of literature classes. To my surprise, there were no half measures. Either they were impeccable—revealing that some of my students had at least one German parent—or it took a lot of compassion and practical-mindedness to pass them.

As I impassively worked my way through the exam papers, I wondered what Valdemar was doing all day in the upstairs apartment. The fact of his not coming to bother me didn't mean that the problem didn't exist. How long could I hide him? When Titus died—which might happen at any moment—his family would come and decide what to do with his things. I'd have a right old mess on my hands if they found him there.

My irresponsibility in handling the matter of Valdemar presented an even thornier problem: Francis Amalfi's book. It was ages—or so it seemed to me—since Titus had asked me to take on the job. I should have finished it by now, yet he hadn't given me any details or even the name of the publisher.

The doorbell put an end to my musings. I put the coffeepot on the stove as I listened to Meritxell coming up the stairs.

I welcomed her with a tentative hug and helped her out of her coat. She seemed to be in a good mood once again, which supported my theory that she liked me, not that I'd done anything to deserve that.

She accepted a cup of coffee and half a croissant.

“I can't see Mishima.” This was slightly mocking.

“I guess he's gone off to hide again. I think he can detect you
from miles away. That's not so surprising. I used to hide under the bed when the doctor came to give me an injection.”

I'd just put the cups of coffee and the halved croissant on the table when the doorbell rang twice. That set off alarm bells within me.

“Were you expecting someone else?” Meritxell asked warily.

“Certainly not,” I said, heading for the door to see who it was.

The act of opening the door confirmed what I expected to find: Valdemar, hat and all. In these circumstances, a disagreeable sight. Before I had a chance to ask him in—or prevent him from entering—he immediately marched in, heading for the living room.

Following in his wake, I could see that Meritxell almost jumped out of her skin when she saw him. Valdemar sat down beside her without as much as saying hello.

“He lives upstairs,” I informed her, as if that explained anything. “We often have late-night chats, but he's come early today.”

“They've found Temis!” He was euphoric and seemed to assume that I, Meritxell, and the rest of humanity should know what he was talking about.

He took off his hat so he could rest his head more comfortably on the back of the couch. “Temístocles García. Temis to his friends. He disappeared on July 5th last year, in the Valle de la Luna.”

I went to get an ashtray, trying to avoid further complications. Valdemar was highly excited and very twitchy, and Meritxell was frozen to the spot with a cup of coffee in one hand and half a croissant in the other.

I should take a photo. This looks very much like our last afternoon snack
.

“I'm talking about the north of Chile, the Atacama Desert. That's where the Valle de la Luna is, and that's where Temis disappeared. It was a grand mal absence.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” I was annoyed with him for ruining our little party.

“I'm no expert in medicine,” he said, ignoring my reaction. “But I know there's a sort of epilepsy that causes something called absence seizures. These are divided into two types: petit mal and grand mal. Temístocles had the latter, which is more acute. The afflicted person panics for several hours and can think only about fleeing. If he has money, like my friend had, he'll rush to the airport and get a ticket to the most faraway place possible. When he arrives, he gets a room in a hotel and goes to sleep. The absence attack disappears while he's sleeping, but it also wipes out the memories of everything that happened while it lasted. It's happened to Temis dozens of times. Thanks to some money he inherited, he's woken up in cities all over the world over the past few years. That might sound like fun, but I can assure you it causes great anxiety to people who suffer from this. After his last grand mal seizure, no one knew where he was. But I just phoned a friend in Chile, and he told me they've found him. To be precise, Temístocles has managed to find himself, and now he's ready and waiting for his next absence.”

“I have to go,” Meritxell said.

Valdemar must have seen her for the first time. He paused and then said, “If you wake up in a strange city, phone us and we'll come and find you. You never know when your first grand mal seizure's going to strike.”

If she didn't cancel at the last minute, this was going to be my third date with Gabriela. And we were still complete strangers to each other.

All I knew was that she worked in a record shop, that she'd lived in Japan, had gone to ballet classes at some point, and that, when she was taking piano lessons, she'd gotten stuck on the piece called “Spinning Song.” It wasn't much to go by.

As for me, she knew only that I liked classical music and that I remembered a children's game from thirty years ago. She also knew I was crazy about her.

I went to the record shop determined to behave like a gentleman no matter what. I was surprised to find Gabriela waiting for me on the street, ready to go. She was wearing a purple coat and a hair band of the same color.

“My colleague's closing up today. We can leave now.” She sounded happy.

This saying that women never cease to amaze is not a myth.
I was pondering this as we walked up the last bit of La Rambla toward the Plaça de Catalunya.

“Shall we take the Metro?” I asked.

“Let's walk. It's a lovely day.”

I looked around. The square was full of tourists basking in the sun and groups of office workers smoking and cracking jokes. Yes, it really was a beautiful day, and all the more so for me, as I was walking through the streets with Gabriela by my side.

A bunch of Japanese tourists clustered around a map prompted me to ask Gabriela, “What kind of work were you doing in Japan?”

I'd chosen my words very carefully. It was much more tactful than asking why she'd gone to live there, or why she'd come back.

“I was teaching English, giving private lessons.”

“That's odd. I would've thought the Japanese would want a native speaker. You must speak it very well.”

“Not really! I only ever got as far as the Cambridge First Certificate. To tell the truth, hardly anyone speaks English in Japan. It's worse than here. That's why they desperately need teachers, and they pay very well.”

“But living there must be very expensive. I imagine you had to give a lot of classes.”

“Not so many, actually. I was in Osaka, and in those days I rarely went out. When I wasn't teaching, I was in my room, reading. I'd get through three or four books a week.”

What's the point of being in Japan if you lock yourself up in your room?

“Can you read Japanese?”

“No. I can speak it. That's not so difficult. But reading kanji is another matter. It takes years to learn the characters.”

“What language were you reading in, then?”

“Mainly English. Osaka is the cultural capital of Japan, or at least that's what they say there. Not far from where I was living there was an American secondhand bookshop. A lot of foreigners used to go there. I'd spend my money on anthologies of short stories. I love stories!”

“You're certainly full of surprises. Who are your favorite writers?”

“A lot of them are quite old-fashioned—for example, Somerset Maugham. But my favorite story is one by Graham Greene called ‘A Shocking Accident.' I read it in an anthology. It was the only book I brought back with me when I left Osaka. You won't find it anywhere now. Shall I tell you what it's about?”

I nodded and started walking more slowly. I felt so privileged having her there at my side that I wished the Passeig de Gràcia would go on forever.

Gabriela began to tell the story.

—

“The main character is Jerome, the son of a struggling writer who travels a lot. Since the writer is a widower, he sends the boy to a boarding school in England while he's away, working in Italy. The boy worships his father and imagines him as a secret agent and many other things. One day, the housemaster calls him to his room to break the news that his father has died, taking care to add that he didn't suffer. Naturally, Jerome wants to know what happened. The housemaster is reluctant to discuss the details but, as the boy insists, tells him that it was a very strange accident. As he was walking along a street in Naples, his father passed beneath a balcony on which somebody was keeping a pig. The pig was overfed and very fat, and when his father was directly underneath the balcony, it broke and the pig fell on him, killing him instantly.

“When Jerome asks, ‘What happened to the pig?' the housemaster interprets this as callousness and sends him back to his room.

“Jerome grows up to be a lonely, rather melancholy man. He accepts that his father wasn't a spy but refuses to tell people how
he died, because on the few occasions he has done so they have laughed at him. The secret becomes a millstone around his neck. One day he meets a girl and starts going out with her. He conceals the story of his father's death from her because he knows that if she laughs, he will never be able to marry her. But when they go to visit his aunt one day, the girl sees a photo of his father and asks about it. The aunt spills the beans. Jerome's fiancée merely says, ‘It makes you think, doesn't it. Happening like that. Out of a clear sky.'

“On the way home, Jerome asks her what she's thinking.

“‘I was wondering,' she says, ‘what happened to the poor pig.'

“That's when Jerome realizes he's found the love of his life.”