This Too Shall Pass (2 page)

To the best of my knowledge, the only thing that momentarily alleviates the sting of death—and life—without leaving a hangover is sex. It only lasts a few seconds, though; maybe a little longer if you fall asleep afterward. But then the furniture, the clothes, the memories, the lamps, the panic, the grief, everything that had been whooshed up into the
Wizard of Oz
tornado comes right back down and falls into its place in the room, in the head, in the belly. I open my eyes and it's not garlands of flowers and singing dwarfs that I see; no, I'm lying in bed next to my ex. The house is quiet except for the cries of children playing in the swimming pool outside, drifting in through the open window. The clear blue light brings the promise of yet another day of sun and heat, and I watch the tops of the sycamore trees sway serenely from my bed, remarkably indifferent to misfortune. Apparently, there was no event of spontaneous combustion in the deep of the night, the branches haven't turned into murderous, flying swords, no blood is dripping from them—nothing like that has occurred. I look at Oscar out of the corner of my eye without daring to move, aware that my slightest gesture could awaken him; it's been a while since we slept together. I take in his long, firm body and slightly concave chest, his narrow hips and cyclist's legs, his large, unequivocally masculine features, somewhat animal-like in their expressiveness and robustness. “I like that he has a man's face,” my mother told me after running into him for the first time in the elevator of our building and realizing, without needing an introduction, that this bullheaded boy with his shy teenage body, always hunched forward just a little, was on his way to my apartment. And she said flirtingly: “It's so hot that I can have a shower fully dressed, sit down to write with my clothes soaking wet, and within half an hour they're already dry!” By the time he got to my apartment he was roaring with laughter. “I think I just met your mother,” he said as I quivered with impatience. Oscar's body was my only home for a while, my only place in the world. Then we had a son. And finally we got to know each other. One tries to behave as a forest creature, guided by instinct, by one's skin, the cycles of the moon, responding promptly and gratefully and with a little relief, to the calling of all that doesn't require thought, that's already been measured and decided for you by your body or the stars. Yet there always comes the day when it's time to stand up and start talking. What theoretically has happened just once in our collective history, when humans went from scuttling around on four legs to standing straight and using reason, is what happens to me every time I fall out of love. And every time, it's a crash-landing. I've lost count of how often we've tried to get back together. Something always gets in the way; usually it has to do with his strong character, or mine. He has a girlfriend now, but that hasn't stopped us from sharing a bed today, or from his being by my side over these six dark months of hospitals and doctors and battles that were lost before they'd even begun. Mom, what got into you? How did you ever think you could win this battle, the last one, the one nobody ever wins? Not the smartest, nor the strongest, not the bravest or the most generous, not even the ones who deserve it the most. I could have reconciled with a peaceful death. We had discussed death so many times, but we never thought the bitch would take your head before taking the rest, that she would leave you with a few little crumbs of intermittent lucidity, just enough to make you suffer a little bit more.

Oscar is a firm believer in the healing power of sex, the sort of man whose natural pluck and robust condition lead him to the idea that there is nothing whatsoever, no disgrace, no disturbance, no disappointment, that a little sex can't fix. Feeling sad? Fuck. Have a headache? Fuck. Computer crashed? Fuck. You're broke? Fuck. Your mother died? Fuck. Sometimes it works. I slink out of bed. Oscar is also of the mind that making love is the best way to start the day off. I prefer to be invisible in the morning, and don't reach my full mind-body union until around lunchtime.

The sink is brimming with dirty plates, and the fridge offers a meager pair of expired yogurts, a wrinkly apple, and a couple of beers. I open a beer, since there's no coffee or tea left. The trees waggle their leaves outside the living room window to bid me good morning, and I see that the blinds are down at the elderly woman's place opposite ours, so she must already be on vacation, or maybe she died, it's hard to say. It feels as though I've been living in some other place for months. I'm still covered in last night's sweat, mixed with a little of the bull man's too. I sniff below the collar of my shirt and distinguish a foreign smell, the invisible traces left by the blissful invasion of my body by another one, of my skin—so compliant and permeable—by someone else's skin, of my sweat by someone else's sweat. Sometimes not even a shower can erase the hint of it, which I notice for days, like a lewd but flattering dress that grows ever fainter, until it disappears altogether. I touch my temple with the bottle of beer and close my eyes. This is supposedly my favorite time of the year, but now I have no plans. Your decline has been the only plan on my calendar for months, maybe years. I hear Oscar moving around in the bedroom. He calls out to me.

—Come here, quick, I have something important to tell you.

It's one of his sexual ploys and I pretend not to hear him. If I pay attention, we won't get back out of bed until lunch, and I don't have time for that; death carries with it a thousand administrative details. He continues griping and calling out to me for ten solid minutes. He says he can't find his boxer briefs, I must have hidden them—sure, I have nothing better to do right now than play hide-and-seek with your underwear. He finally comes out of my bedroom, doesn't say a word, just walks up behind me and starts kissing my neck, pressing me up against the table. I continue organizing my papers as if nothing's going on. He nips hard at my ear. I cry out. I don't know whether to smack him or not. By the time I make up my mind and raise my hand, it's already too late. You can tell a lot about a man by the way he takes off your underwear and flicks them aside. And the animal in me—perhaps the only thing that hasn't been reduced to ashes over the past few months—arches her back, grabs the table for support and tenses her entire body. Just as I'm about to haul off and give him that smack, my other heart begins to throb, the one just invaded by his cock, and once that happens, nothing else matters.

—You shouldn't drink beer in the morning, Blanquita. Or smoke, he adds, watching me light a cigarette.

He looks at me with the same mixture of pity and concern as everyone else over the past few days, and I'm not sure whether these expressions are a reflection of what's on my face, or vice versa. I haven't really looked in the mirror for a long time, or have glanced without really seeing myself, just to straighten up a little. This specular relationship has never been under so much strain. My mirror,
mon semblable, mon frère
, wishes to remind me that the party is over. But there's tenderness in the way Oscar's looking at me too, which is a feeling akin to love, it's not just pity and concern. I'm not accustomed to being the object of people's sympathy, and it makes my stomach heave. Would you please just go back to looking at me the way you did five minutes ago? Just turn me back into an object, a toy? Something to possess and that gives you pleasure, not full of despair, not somebody who just lost the person she loved the most in life and who sped through the streets of Barcelona on a motorcycle, but still didn't get there in time?

—I think you should take off for a few days, get some fresh air. There's nothing for you to do here and the city's completely deserted.

—Yeah, you're right.

—I don't want you to be by yourself.

—No.

I don't mention that I've been feeling alone for months now.

—The worst is over.

I burst out laughing.

—The worst and the best. Everything is over.

—There are a lot of people who care about you.

I don't know how many times I've heard this over the past few days. The silent, chatty army of people who care about me has risen up at the precise moment when all I want is to go to bed and be left alone. With my mother by my side, holding my hand and brushing my forehead with hers.

—Yeah, yeah, I know. Much obliged.

I don't tell him that I don't believe in other people's love—even my mother stopped loving me for a while—because love is the most unreliable thing in the world.

—Why don't you spend a few days in Cadaqués? It's your house now.

How can you say that, you stupid, foolish, disrespectful brute? I think in a snap as I look him right in those big, caring, concerned eyes. It's my mother's house. And it always will be.

—I don't know, I respond.

—The boat's already in the water. It'll do you good to be there.

Maybe you're right, I tell myself. The town witches have always protected me. Cadaqués is a remote place, isolated by mountains and only accessible by way of a hellish road, where savage winds drive anyone who doesn't strictly deserve the beauty of its skies, the pinkish light of its summer sunsets, completely mad. I've seen the witches there since I was a little girl, scrambling over the bell tower, cackling or scowling, expelling or embracing the newly arrived, instigating arguments between lovesick couples, instructing the jellyfish as to which legs or bellies to sting, placing sea urchins strategically just below the intended feet. I've seen how they'd paint breathtaking sunrises to alleviate the most appalling hangovers, turn each of the town's streets and hidden corners into welcoming bedrooms, blanket you in velvety waves that wash the cares and troubles of the world away. And, well, there's a new witch now.

—Yeah, maybe you're right. Cadaqués. I'm going to Cadaqués. And I add: —Tara! Home. The red earth of Tara, I'll go home to Tara…After all, tomorrow is another day.

I take a long pull of my beer.

—What film is that from? I ask him.

—I think you're mixing
Gone with the Wind
and
E.T.
, he says, chuckling.

—Oh, yeah, you're right. The beer on an empty stomach is making me say really idiotic things. —How many times did I force you to watch
Gone with the Wind
?

—Many times.

—And how many times did you fall asleep?

—Nearly every one.

—Yeah, you've always had crappy taste in films. You're such a snob.

For once he doesn't talk back, he just looks at me with a smile on his face, eyes full of wishful thinking. Oscar is one of the few adult men I know whose face can express the eagerness of hope, as if he were expecting the Three Kings. I've never told him this; I'd prefer he didn't know. Hope is the hardest facial expression to fake, and the ability to express it diminishes with every broken dream; the only thing that can substitute the loss is ordinary desire.

—It'll be OK, Blanca, you'll see.

—I know, I lie.

He has to go to Paris for a few days for work, he says, but as soon as he gets back he'll come up to Cadaqués. He sighs and adds: —I'm not sure what to do with my girlfriend.

Men always, always, always have to screw things up. My face takes on the air of deep concern, another expression that's tough to fake, though not as much as hope, and I slam the door.

Don't know what I'm going to do without my mother.

Nicolas thinks you're up in heaven playing poker with Snowflake (Barcelona Zoo's late albino gorilla). Despite only being five years old, he's so staunchly convinced that it's true, he sometimes makes me wonder. From the height of my forty years, I may have known you infinitely more closely, but in the latter days I think the children were the only ones able to work the miracle of accessing you, seeing through the haze of illness to face the person you had been. They alone were truly caring and clever enough to resuscitate you. They are the lucky ones, they never hated you for a minute—I can't imagine a better place for you. Now he draws you in his pictures flying over our heads, a blend of teasing witch and awkward fairy godmother, not very different from the way you were in real life.

They just got back from spending a few days with Guillem, the father of my elder son. They're suntanned, a little taller, and salad-laden, with tomatoes and cucumbers fresh from Guillem's garden. I always accept these offerings of fruits and vegetables with a show of enthusiasm and end up throwing them all in the trash with the first insect that rears its ugly head when I'm cleaning them, especially given my scant interest in all things agrarian.

—Guillem, the only apples for me are the kind Snow White eats. I don't like organic apples because every time I go to take a bite, I feel like I'm about to decapitate a worm. It makes me queasy. Get it?

—Sure, so you prefer poisoned apples, huh? Well, never fear, we'll bring a few next time—they might just do the trick.

He acts out the gesture of cutting his throat, with his eyes closed and tongue lolling, sending the children into a fit of giggles. They adore his mixture of silliness and common sense, how he can bring the events of the French Revolution to life, and then run out to the garden and plant tomatoes.

Guillem is an archaeologist, a drinker, he's cultivated, caring, and intelligent, a Catalan through and through, considerate, a cheat, strong, cagey, generous, a lot of fun, and very stubborn. His motto is “I'm not in the mood for kicking up shit” and except for the years when we were together, when his mood seemed perfect for kicking up a lot of shit, he pretty much adheres to it. We have a love-hate relationship. I love him and he pretends to hate me all the time. But his hatred brings more good things than the love of most of the people I've known. He kept Patum, my mother's dog, since she'd been ours for a few years before we separated. We left her in my mother's care once to go on a trip, and when I went to pick her up, she told me she was keeping her, that Patum would be better off with her mother and sister. So you kept our dog, Mom. You made her yours, like you did with everything you loved, with everyone, you took their lives away from them, and gave each one another life back, much larger and more carefree and fun than anything they'd known before or after. But it came with a price, it meant living under your relentless scrutiny, like prisoners of a love that as you yourself described would never, ever, in a million years, be blind. Except for the dogs, maybe, but only them. Patum outlived her mother and her sister. I knew the end was approaching the day you let us take her back and there was no argument about how she couldn't stay with you anymore. If you were willing to let your dog go, you were willing to let everything go. We'd been in a free fall for two years, and the bottom of the precipice was nigh. That afternoon, with your hand still within my reach, I initiated the process to have you buried at the cemetery in Port Lligat. Patum came to your funeral, the only dog there. Guillem dressed her collar with a black ribbon—the kind of idea that would occur to him—and she behaved like a perfect lady. She didn't sprawl with her legs out everywhere like she usually does, but sat up solemnly and primly in the shade sporting her black ribbon. Guillem wore his old jeans and a shirt, ironed especially for the occasion, that pulled just a little bit at the belly. I think you would have liked the image of it, you would have sat down next to them—not much in the mood for kicking up shit either—your hand patting your dog's head, observing the silent funeral. Who knows, you might even have been there.

—Well, Blanquita, as you can see the children have been fed well. Right, guys?

They both agree, well instructed.

—No frozen pizzas, none of those nasty toxic noodles your mother likes to feed you?

They both say no.

—Yeah, Mom, we ate really well, Nicolas, the younger one, says.

—I'm so glad to hear that.

—By the way, you know they've banned those precooked noodles you're so fond of, don't you? Guillem says. Now you'll have to buy them on the black market.

He laughs. I glare at him with hatred in my eyes until a giggle escapes.

—And they've been to the swimming pool every day. Every day. When was the last time you took them to the pool?

—Never, the two boys exclaim in unison.

Guillem smiles triumphantly.

—Mom, they sell cheese puffs at the pool Guillem takes us to. And they make him special gin and tonics.

Guillem signals with his hand for them to keep quiet.

—Gin and tonics, huh? Who wouldn't want to go to a pool like that?! And cheese puffs. They're grown organically too?

—All righty then…No, seriously, it's good for the children to spend time outdoors, in the fresh air, and there's nothing for them to do here. This city is unbearable in the summer. Actually, it's unbearable all year round. Why don't you go up to Cadaqués for a few days? You'll enjoy it there. The boat's in the water, isn't it?

Yes,
Tururut
is in the water. My mother took care of everything.

You know, Mom, how crazy was that? Did you really think you'd be able to go boating? I wonder if the sea is there now, without you. Is it the same sea? Or will it have turned in on itself and become a tiny thing, like a neatly folded napkin that you carried off with you in your pocket?

—That settles it, then—I'm sure she would have wanted us to take advantage of it.

I accompany Guillem to the door; he pats me on the shoulder a few times.

—Come on, cheer up. We'll hang out in Cadaqués next week, OK? You'll see—it'll be great. Peaceful.