One night, however, an answer presents itself, though it is not the answer that B was expecting. Over dinner with a Chilean couple, B discovers that U has been committed to a psychiatric hospital after having tried to kill his wife.
Perhaps B has had too much to drink that night. Perhaps the Chilean couple's version of the events is grossly exaggerated. In any case B listens to the story of U's misfortunes with considerable pleasure, which imperceptibly gives way to a feeling of triumph, an irrational, small-minded triumph, hailed by all the shadows of his bitterness and disenchantment. He pictures U running down a vaguely Chilean, vaguely Latin American street, howling or shouting, while smoke begins to emerge from the buildings on either side, steadily, although at no point can any flames be seen.
From then on, whenever B sees the Chilean couple, he makes a point of asking about U and that is how he discovers, little by little, as if the news were being served up to him once a fortnight or once a month for his secret delectation, that U has left the psychiatric hospital, that U is out of work, that U's wife has not left him (which strikes B as truly heroic on her part), that sometimes U and his wife talk about returning to Chile. Naturally the Chilean couple find the idea of returning to Chile attractive. B finds it horrific. But wasn't U a revolutionary? he asks. Wasn't U a member of the MIR?
Although he doesn't say so, B feels sorry for U's wife. How could a woman like her fall in love with a guy like that? At some point B even imagines them making love. U is tall and blond and his arms are strong. If we had fought that night, he thinks, I would have lost. U's wife is slim; she has narrow hips and black hair. What color are her eyes? B wonders. Green. Very pretty eyes. Sometimes it infuriates B to think of U and his wife, and if only he could, he would forget them forever (after all, he has only seen them once!), but the image of the couple against the background of that awful party has a mysterious purchase on his memory, as if it held some meaning for him, an important meaning, but one that B, though he keeps coming back to it, cannot decipher.
One night as B is walking down the Ramblas, he happens to run into his Chilean friends. They are with U and his wife. U's wife smiles and greets him in what could be described as an effusive manner. U, by contrast, barely says a word to him. For a moment B thinks that U is pretending to be shy or distracted. Yet nothing in his behavior indicates the slightest hostility. In fact, it is as if U were seeing him for the first time. Is it an act? Is this disinterest natural or a result of the psychotic episode? U's wife talks about a book she has just bought at one of the newsstands in the Ramblas, as if she were trying to attract B's attention. She takes out the book, shows it to him, and asks what he thinks of the author. B is obliged to confess that he has not read the author in question. You have to, says U's wife, adding: If you like, when I finish it, I'll lend it to you. B doesn't know what to say. He shrugs his shoulders. He mumbles a noncommittal yes.
When they say good-bye, U's wife kisses him on the cheek. U gives him a firm handshake. See you soon, he says.
When they are gone, it strikes B that U is not as tall nor as strong as he remembered from the party; in fact he is only slightly taller than B. His wife, by contrast, has grown and taken on a singular radiance in B's imagination. For reasons unrelated to this encounter, B has trouble getting to sleep that night and at some point his insomniac ruminations return to U.
He imagines U in the Saint Boi psychiatric hospital; he sees him tied to a chair, writhing in fury while doctors (or the shadows of doctors) attach electrodes to his head. Maybe that sort of treatment can make a tall person shorter, he thinks. It all seems absurd. Before falling asleep he realizes that he has settled his score with U.
But that is not the end of the story.
And B knows it. He also knows that the story of his relationship with U is not the story of a banal grudge.
The days go by. At first, impelled by a somewhat self-destructive urge, B tries to find U and his wife, and to that end he starts visiting the Chilean exiles he knows in Barcelona far more assiduously than before, and he listens to their problems and commentaries on daily life with a mixture of horror and indifference. But U and his wife are never there; no one has seen them, although everyone, of course, has an anecdote to recount or an opinion about their dreadful situation, which can only get worse. After a string of such visits and monologues, B is obliged to conclude that U and his wife are avoiding the company of their compatriots. B's urge to see them wanes and dies, and he goes back to his old ways.
One day, however, B runs into U's wife in the Boqueria market. He sees her from a distance. She is with a young woman he doesn't know. They have stopped in front of a stall selling tropical fruit. As he approaches them, B notices that there is something different about U's wife, a new depth to her face. She is not just a pretty woman anymore; now she is interesting as well. He says hello to them. U's wife responds rather coldly, as if she didn't recognize him. Which is what B thinks has happened at first, so he proceeds to explain who he is. He reminds her of the last time they saw each other, the book she recommended; he even mentions the ill-fated party at which they first met. U's wife keeps nodding, but it is clear that she is increasingly ill at ease, as if she were wishing she could somehow make him vanish. Although he is disconcerted, and knows deep down that the best thing to do would be to say good-bye immediately and go, he stays. What he is really waiting for is something — a signal, a word — to make it quite clear that his presence is unwelcome. But no such signal eventuates. U's wife is simply trying not to see him. Her friend, by contrast, is observing him carefully, and B clings to her gaze as if it were a lifeline. Her name is K and she is Danish, not Chilean. Her Spanish is bad but comprehensible. She hasn't been living in Barcelona for long and hardly knows the city. B offers to show her around. K accepts.
So that night B meets the Danish woman and they walk around the Gothic Quarter (Why am I doing this? he wonders, while she is happy and slightly drunk — they have visited a couple of old taverns), and they talk and K points out the shadows their bodies are throwing on the old walls and the paving stones. These shadows have a life of their own, says K. At first B thinks nothing of her remark. But then he observes his shadow, or perhaps it is hers, and for a moment that elongated silhouette seems to be looking askance at him. It gives him a start. Then all three or four of them are swallowed up by the shapeless dark.
That night he sleeps with K. She is studying anthropology with U's wife and although they are not what you would call close friends (in fact they are only classmates), as dawn begins to break, K starts talking about her, perhaps because she is their only mutual acquaintance. B can't make much sense of what she says; it is full of commonplaces. U's wife is a good person, always ready to do you a favor, a bright student (What does that mean? wonders B, who has never been to college), although — and this she states without any evidence, relying solely on her female intuition — she has lots of problems. What kind of problems? asks B. I don't know, says K, all sorts.
The days go by. B has stoped visiting Barcelona's Chilean exiles in the hope of finding U and his wife. Every two or three days he sees K and they make love, but they don't talk about U's wife, or if, occasionally, K mentions her, B pretends not to notice or listens in a deliberately distant, indifferent manner, trying to be objective (and succeeding without too much effort), as if K were talking about social anthropology or the little mermaid of Copenhagen. He returns to his old routines, that is, to his own madness or his own boredom. His relationship with K involves no socializing, so he is spared any unwelcome or chance encounters.