It would cost a hundred euros to change an international ticket, less than a meal at Zalacaín. The museum guard, the bathroom attendant, the economic mode. I walked to the colonnade and listened to the drummers. The sun was just beginning to set, and the light had softened, but there would be some light until nearly ten. I sat and smoked and, for whatever reason, thought: Teresa should read the originals; I’ll read the translations. My accent, when I read, was good, much better, I didn’t know why, than when I spoke. I sat on the colonnade and read a poem or two aloud in Spanish; I didn’t hear an American accent.
I eventually made my way to the gallery, which I was pleased to see was overflowing. If I was nervous, it was only about the fact that I wasn’t nervous, which might mean something was wrong with me. I was greeted by various people: María José was surprisingly warm; we kissed each other without irony. One of the swimmers I had smoked with caught the corner of my mouth. I found Teresa, who looked stunning, and we kissed each other on the lips. She was wearing a dress that was probably satin, silver, very simple, but unmistakably expensive. We didn’t know many working people. I told her about my idea, that we’d swap parts in the reading, and although there were trace amounts of sadness in her smile, she agreed.
There was a bar and, to my surprise, a bartender. I asked him for white wine. While he was pouring my wine, Jorge approached me; he must have been in my inbox. We embraced each other warmly. He said something about how far my Spanish had come, about the fancy people I’d fallen in with, how he’d tell people in the future all about the famous poet he tutored and sold drugs to. I asked him if he could name a famous living poet. He couldn’t.
“Is Isabel back in Madrid?” I asked him.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“Is she back from Barcelona?” I asked.
“When did she go to Barcelona?” he asked, puzzled.
“Is she working at the language school again?” I asked.
“She never stopped working at the language school,” he said.
“Oh,” I said. I waited for an emotional reaction to this news, to be thrilled or angry or at least suspicious. Had she made up the Oscar story? Had she changed her mind? Had he come early? I waited, but only felt a little curious; I was otherwise unmoved. I wondered if she was in the crowd. I wondered again if there were something wrong with me.
There was a table with stacks of the chapbook for sale; it was strange to see so many copies of my name. They cost ten euros, which seemed like a lot. Arturo came up to me and hugged me and I thanked him for everything. You can make it up to me, he said, by sweeping the floors of the gallery in the coming months. He said we were about to begin and that I should sit in the front with Teresa, which I did. People stopped talking and those that couldn’t find seats sat on the floor or stood in the back. I was a little nervous now, but not unpleasantly so; I thought about my tranquilizers in my suit jacket pocket only because I was surprised not to want one. Arturo appeared at the podium and began to speak. Night-blooming flowers refused to open near the stadium lights. Freedom was on the march. Aircraft noise was having strange effects on finches. Some species synchronized their flashes, sometimes across thousands of insects, exacerbating contradictions. Why was I born between mirrors?
Teresa would read the originals and I would read the translations and the translations would become the originals as we read. Then I planned to live forever in a skylit room surrounded by my friends.
CREDITS
Page 11: Detail of The Descent from the Cross, by Rogier van der Weyden (ca. 1435).
Page 52: Photo of the bombing of Guernica, 1937. Reprinted from the German Federal Archives (Deutsches Bundesarchiv).
Page 90: “Clepsydra” from Rivers and Mountains, by John Ashbery. Reprinted by permission of George Borchardt, Inc., on behalf of the author.
Page 103: The Alhambra, by Esther Singleton — Original from Turrets, Towers, and Temples: The Great Buildings of the World, as Seen and Described by Famous Writers, by Esther Singleton (NY: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1898). Reproduction by Liam Quin (http://www.fromoldbooks.org).
Page 143: Francisco Franco, 1958 is used by permission of Ramón Masats, copyright © Ramón Masats, 1958.
Page 173: Detail of a production still from The Passenger (1975).