Mr. Gwyn (22 page)

Did you find yours? the man asked.

Yes, the woman answered confidently. It's a disgusting table, everyone cheats, the money is dirty, and the people are worthless.

How marvelous.

I couldn't be too fussy, with the cards I hold.

Like?

I'm imprecise, not very intelligent, and too mean. And I've never finished a thing in my life. Is that enough for you?

What do you mean by “mean”?

I don't care about seeing people suffer. Sometimes I like it. Sit down, it's annoying, your standing there, please.

Now I truly have to go.

On the bed. Sit on the bed. You can stay there at the end if it bothers you to get close.

It doesn't bother me, it's that I have to go.

Like that, good.

A moment, then I really have to go. Just tell me how you're going to leave here, tomorrow.

What?

Tomorrow morning, if they see you.

What do I know? I'll make up something. That you picked me up last night and this morning you vanished, taking my wallet. Things like that.

Very kind of you.

Don't mention it.

In fact you have no idea how little it matters to me.

Really?

Really.

That is, you're pretending?

Pretending what?

To be someone who cares what they think of him in a hotel. A half-wit of that type.

No, I really am. It's that now I'm late.

Don't be like that, I was joking, I won't get you in trouble, they won't see me leave, if there's one thing I know how to do it's leave a hotel without anyone noticing, believe me. I was joking.

It's not that.

Then what?

Nothing. It's that it's late now.

For what?

Forget it.

Is it so important, this work thing?

I should have gone earlier. It's that I couldn't get out of that chair.

Maybe you didn't want to.

That's also possible. But it would be extremely illogical for someone like me.

You never do things that are illogical?

No.

Never a mistake?

Many, but never illogical.

There's a difference?

Obviously.

Give me an example.

I would have a perfect one, quite recent, but believe me, it's not something to talk about now.

You smiled.

What?

It's the first time you've smiled since we met. You have a lovely smile, you know?

Thank you.

You ought to do it more often, I mean smile, it gives you that melancholy air that appeals to women.

Are you coming on to me?

Now then!

I'm sorry, it was a joke.

A joke. I hope you can do better.

Yes, I can do better, but not tonight, I'm sorry.

What is there about tonight?

It's the wrong night.

You're here, chatting, with a naked woman in the bed, what's wrong about it, apart from the deplorable absence of alcohol, I mean.

If you like there should be a minibar somewhere.

How can you say “there should be,” you've been coming to this hotel for sixteen years and you've never looked to see where the minibar is?

No.

You're crazy.

I don't drink much.

What about water, you've never even felt like having some water?

I usually bring it with me.

Jesus, you're crazy. Do me a favor and go look for this damn minibar. Generally it's under the television.

In fact, that seems to be the most logical solution.

The most logical solution would be next to the bed.

Wrong. The noise wouldn't let you sleep.

But the alcohol, yes.

Beer?

Beer? There's nothing else?

Nothing alcoholic.

What a hotel. There isn't any popcorn, I'm mad about popcorn…

No, nothing to eat.

Disgusting. All right, we'll have to make do with beer. You have one, too.

But the man said he preferred not to drink, he had managed not to for the whole night, and he didn't feel like giving in just now. He said he needed to remain lucid. Then he went toward the bed and while he was crossing the room he noticed the light filtering through the curtains. He turned back and with one hand looked for the cords to open them, remembering how absolutely certain it was, although for incomprehensible reasons, that one would pull the wrong cord, the one that opens when you want to close, or vice versa. He said it to the woman, as wittily as he could, and meanwhile he managed to
shift the curtains slightly. It was dawn. He looked at the distant sky brightened by an ambiguous light and wasn't sure of anything. The woman asked if he was hatching that beer, and so he brought it to her. Sit down, said the woman, but in a gentle tone, this time. Just a moment, said the man, and went back to the window. There was that light. He thought it was an invitation, but now it was difficult to understand if it was addressed to him, too. He looked at his watch as if there were some possibility of finding an answer there, and he didn't get anything useful, except the vague impression that it was the wrong time for a lot of things. Maybe he ought still to have faith, leave the room, get in the car, and drive onto a highway, pressing the accelerator. Maybe it would be more appropriate to get in the bed and find out if the body of the woman was really as desirable as it seemed. But this he thought as if it were someone else's idea, not his. He heard the snap of a can that was being opened and then the woman's voice asking if he had always been like that. Like what? Like all in order, said the woman. The man smiled. Then he said no. So the woman wanted to know when he had begun to be like that, if he remembered, and it was for that reason that, without moving from the window, he said that he remembered precisely, he was thirteen and it had all happened in one night. He said that everything had shattered then. In front of his house that was burning, that night, everything had shattered, in the face of that senseless fire. I was thirteen, he said. Then I met a man who taught me to put things in order, and from then on I've never stopped thinking that we have no other task but that. There is always a house to rebuild, he added, and it's a long job, which requires a lot of patience. The woman asked him again to sit on the bed, but he didn't answer and, as if following his thoughts, said that
every night his father listened to the radio and drank a bottle of wine, to the bottom. He sat at the table, placed his gun in front of him, and next to it the bottle. He drank with a straw, slowly, and you couldn't disturb him as he was doing it, for any reason. He never touched the gun. He liked to have it there, just that. He said that that night, too, everything had been just like that, the night when the fire consumed everything. Then he asked the woman if she had a house.

Four walls and a bed? Of course.

Not in that sense. A true house. In your head.

I'm not sure I understand.

Something you're building, your task.

Ah, that.

Yes, that.

I told you, I never finish anything.

Did you ever start, at least, once?

Maybe once.

Where was it?

Next to a man.

It's a good point of departure.

Well.

The father of the child?

Him? Hardly, he was a real dickhead, at the right opportunity he disappeared.

I'm sorry.

He didn't even have a job. Or maybe he did, but something like stealing cars.

And the other?

Who?

The man of the house.

Well, him…

Was there something special about him?

Everything. There's only him, in the world.

Meaning?

There's no one like him.

Where is he now?

Not with me.

Why?

Forget it.

He didn't love you?

Oh yes, he loved me.

So?

We made a real mess of things.

Like?

You wouldn't understand.

Why?

Do you have an idea what it means to be mad about someone?

I'm afraid not.

There.

Try to explain it to me.

Are you joking?

Try, just tell me even one thing.

Why?

I don't have anything else to do. I have to wait for the shoes to dry.

That's a good answer. What is it you want to know, exactly?

What it means to be mad about someone.

You don't know.

No.

The only thing that occurred to the woman was that you understand all films about love, you
truly
understand them. But that wasn't easy to explain, either. And it sounded a bit foolish. Involuntarily there returned to her mind many scenes she had lived through beside the man she loved, or far from him, which after all was the same thing—it had been for a long time. Usually she tried not to think about it. But now they came to mind, and in particular she remembered one of the last times they parted and what she had understood at that moment—she was sitting at a table in a café, and he had just left. What she had understood, with absolute certainty, was that to live without him would be, forever, her fundamental occupation, and that from that moment on things would always have a shadow for her, an extra shadow, even in the dark, and maybe especially in the dark. She wondered if that might work as an explanation of what it means to be mad about someone, but looking up at the man standing at the window, there with his suitcase in hand, she saw it as so elementary and final that it seemed to her totally pointless to try to explain. All in all she didn't have a great desire to, and she wasn't there for that. So she smiled a sad smile that wasn't hers and said no, it was better to forget about it. Be kind, she said to the man, let's not talk about me anymore. As you like, said the man. The woman opened another can of beer and was silent for a while. Then she asked how in the world a person ends up building scales. It didn't really interest her, but she wanted to put a stop to the silence, or maybe to the memory of the man she loved. So she asked how someone ends up building scales. It must have seemed an important question to the man, because he
began to recall when he had first been taught to measure. To measure correctly. He had liked what you did with your hands, to measure correctly. Probably it was then that he had become obsessed with the idea that there was a lack of tools for measuring, and that that was the beginning of any problem. He had to measure two paints and mix them, measure exactly how much it took of one and how much of the other. If you did it right the brush would glide over the wood, and the color would be just right in the morning light and slightly warmer in the light of sunset. He would have liked to explain that this had to do with the task we all have of rebuilding our house, and was in a certain sense the beginning of it, its dawn. But as he searched for the words he looked down at the street and saw that three police cars had stopped at the entrance to the hotel, their blue lights flashing. One policeman had gotten out and was leaning against the open door, and talking on a radio. The man stopped speaking and turned to the woman, there in the bed. Only in that moment did he notice her eyes, which were pale but gray, like a wolf's, and he understood where her beauty began. I'm listening, said the woman. The man kept staring at her—those eyes—but finally he went back to looking out the window and began to remember again the two cans of paint, and the thick liquid that came out into a glass measuring cup.

It took some time to learn, he said finally.

You're strange, said the woman. Come here.

No.

Why?

The night is over.

You're not still thinking of that damn appointment? They must have given you up for dead by now.

It's not that.

So? Are you afraid they'll catch you, tomorrow morning, with a woman in an evening dress? I told you I can vanish and they won't even notice.

Really?

Of course.

Maybe you should do it now.

I wouldn't think of it! Why?

Believe me, do it now.

What are you talking about?

Nothing.

In fact, you know what I'm going to do? What we need is a nice breakfast here in the room, to celebrate.

Put down that phone.

What's the number of the reception desk?

Don't do that, please.