Sometimes she feels like a fool, writes the screenwriter in a margin of his notebook, listening to the girl’s inner voice, which is torturing her with that idea. Sometimes she feels like the angel in the film, that she can hear other people’s voices, not only when they speak, but also when they think, convinced she’s eavesdropping on their most intimate thoughts and desires. During these moments, the screenwriter listens to the girl’s inner voice, as plain as if it were a voiceover, saying it doesn’t matter that she has exceptional talent, she’s still a fool. She always feels this way after an argument with the young conductor. She knows she shouldn’t allow herself be carried away by these jealous rages, but by the time she remembers this, it’s already too late. As she gets dressed, the telephone rings, and the young conductor, lying naked on the bed, answers it, his eyes remaining on the girl, engrossed by her body. Listening to what the young conductor’s saying, she guesses that the caller is the brilliant composer. In fact, she’d have known by just listening to the young conductor’s tone of voice. She wouldn’t even need to use her sixth sense, which allows her to perceive all that’s hidden around her, to hear other people’s thoughts, detect when someone pronounces her name with a “ka.” They’re talking about irregular sound waves, which they both agree are harsh on the ears, about the difference between dissonance and consonance, about mathematics, acoustics, and all the rest of it. She takes the book by W from the nightstand and walks out, not forgetting to slam the door behind her. Maybe she’s overreacting; maybe it’s the pills; or maybe it’s just her personality. “3.04 If a thought were correct a priori, it would be a thought whose possibility ensured its truth.” She asks herself what this could mean. Possibly nothing. She walks the streets aimlessly, alone. She inadvertently overhears a conversation by a couple in a café. The man, reading his newspaper, lifts his head to pass a comment about the news. We really don’t belong on this planet, he says solemnly. The woman nods in agreement, drops her cigarette to the ground, and crushes it under the sole of her shoe. The girl walks into a bookstore, passes several tables laden with books, not looking for anything in particular, but she thinks she should start reading other authors, besides the great dramatist and the genius who revolutionized twentieth-century literature. Once again, she gets lost wandering the streets before finding her way again, and decides to head for the bars with the foosball tables. She wouldn’t mind challenging one of the players, or even joining someone else’s team. She watches for a while, but they’re too focused on the game to notice her. As for the screenwriter, Sunday passes by without his even noticing. He went for a walk by the river and then relaxed in the afternoon. He called his wife a couple of times, and watched TV as he waited for the girl. Later in the night, he typed up a scene he’d already written longhand, in which she has an argument with the young conductor and then wanders the streets aimlessly before heading for the bar with the foosball tables. All of a sudden the girl becomes anxious, believing someone’s following her. Perhaps alien hunters have zeroed in on the voices she always hears. All they have to do is narrow the range of their sensors, adjust their frequency, and then it’s only a matter of time before they get to her. The screenwriter turns off the light and looks over at the building opposite as he undresses for bed. He can’t get the girl out of his head. Finally, though, his exhaustion overtakes him, and at precisely the moment he thinks he’s discerned what direction the story will take, his lids give way, and he’s lost in the oblivion of sleep.
It’s cold for an August morning, and the low clouds are moving swiftly, threatening rain. Near the hotel, there’s a secondhand clothes store, and the screenwriter decides to go inside and have a look around. He never used to think of buying anything in a place like this. It’s true, these kinds of stores haven’t always been around, he tells himself, but even if they had been, he’d never have entered one, much less bought anything inside. These days, however, if he needed some pants, a jacket, or possibly a new shirt, such a place could be his only port of call. Necessity can alter habits, he thinks. He’s beginning to run low on money, and one of these days he’ll have to phone the producer to request another advance. He walks down the aisle, past rows of shelves and clothing racks. He notices his leg hurts: a sign it’s going to rain. He exits the store, spends a few moments looking in the window before walking down the street to board the metro. He isn’t traveling far, but his limp makes it seem like a million miles. He should avoid the hotel where the girl’s staying, that’s a no-go area. Curiosity, however, overrides his better judgment. On getting off the metro, the wet street tells him it’s been raining. He looks up at the sky, searching for any indication it might rain again. The air is still quite cool for early August. He returns his eyes to the ground and continues wearily on his way. He knows the girl is staying at one of the best hotels in the capital. Her mother always puts her up in it. It has an English name, and the doorman, dressed like an admiral, cheerily salutes him whenever he passes by. There’s no one at his hotel to hold the door open or carry his bags, much less drive him to the café. Such are the differences between people who have everything and guys like him; palpable differences, which are never adequately described by the girl when she tries to give an account of them, differences which are only felt by him when he takes a stroll through her reality. But when they’re in bed together, sharing ideas and feelings, these distances vanish, he thinks. Sometimes he asks himself if he isn’t writing screenplays to live his life through his characters. The mind is filled with strange things, he reflects, content with this ambiguous response. But if this truly was his reason for writing, it would mean he’s wasted his life. There are so many people who dedicate their efforts to doing something useful, he thinks, like making cars, refrigerators, knives, bread. . while others are working in the dream industry. They don’t make anything that’s real; all they do is provide opportunities for people to dream their lives away by living in fictional realities that are depicted onscreen or in a book. It’s no different than providing drugs, narcotics, to both divert and stupefy the public at the same time. In turn, he thinks, these creators of dreams, whether through screenplays or novels, are dreaming themselves in the act of writing, so it seems the lie goes full circle. He sits in one of the armchairs of the grand lobby that separates the hotel’s café from its restaurant, picks up a menu, and goes over the prices — all outside his budget no doubt. He should’ve dedicated himself to something more remunerative. He might have a decent pension by now, or even be rich like the girl’s parents. Instead he’s wasted his time, he thinks, and has been unable to scrape together enough money to spend even a day in the least expensive room of this hotel. He orders a coffee, the cheapest option, although it costs as much as a full breakfast at his own hotel, lights a cigarette while taking his notebook and pencil from his jacket pocket, and describes in detail the movements of the barman. Then he describes the chairs, the carpet, the magnificent garden outside the windows, and the features of the hotel guests passing by. He wants to immerse himself in the places the girl frequents. For him, these guests are like extras in his film. He spends some time absorbing the full splendor of this place, and finds he can at last appreciate the pomp and circumstance surrounding the girl’s concerts. The girl represents a financial investment. This kind of outlook shouldn’t be scoffed at; after all, a concert pianist is essentially an industry on legs. A young waitress, impeccably dressed in a jacket and pink skirt, serves the screenwriter his cup of coffee. She smiles at him, unlike the waitress at the café in the plaza; to get a smile from her would be like drawing blood from a stone. This waitress’s smile is natural, candid, sincere. . The screenwriter’s at a loss for other adjectives. He’d love to go on a date with her sometime, but somewhere far away from here. Of course, he doesn’t even try asking her out. He knows it’s not a good idea. Instead, he just reciprocates a smile and thanks her for her kindness. She’s too young to be the waitress the girl was talking about; the one who recites random passages from the philosopher W’s magnum opus while watching her and the young conductor having sex. To his right, sitting in one of the armchairs, a guy is chatting to a young woman. Both are dressed elegantly. They’re more than likely talking about money, he thinks, some business deal perhaps, or maybe they’re exchanging ideas about all the great sex they’re going to have later, he thinks, again feeling a little dispirited. Their world is simply too far removed from his own. If a writer doesn’t make enough money to lead this kind of life, he’s better off choosing another career. The screenwriter is living proof. If he were young, and could start all over, he’d do something else. This is one of the reasons a writer or screenwriter will abandon literature or the cinema and dedicate his life to business, he thinks. There are real-world examples of this. They never again show the same interest in poetry, art, or whatever their métier may have been. If the girl gave up her career as a pianist to become a writer, it would be a kind of reversal of this scenario, though. As for him, it’s too late for a career change. When he dies, he thinks, he will have wasted his life. He tries to think of an analogy, and can only come up a case of someone wasting a bumper-car ride, spinning around and around without ever moving from the starting point. He thinks of all the time not spent on furthering his career. Time wasted on attractive young students, or on grooming this or that shy starlet. If he ever returns to teaching, he promises to tell his students the truth about this dirty business: that all they can expect from becoming a writer is a life of frustration and staying in cheap hotels. To hell with writers and to hell with screenwriters, he declaims to himself through gritted teeth. He gets back down to work. He must get something done after spending an arm and a leg for the privilege of drinking a coffee at the hotel with the English name. What goes through the girl’s mother’s head when she’s thinking about her daughter? Money, the screenwriter decides while looking through the windows at the magnificent garden outside. He wouldn’t recognize the girl’s mother if he ran into her, though. He doesn’t remember ever having seen her, or the girl’s father for that matter. They’re the type of people who pay someone to take their children to school, like servants or bodyguards. The screenwriter thinks it immoral for parents to allow a stranger to take their young girl to school. In the distance he sees some patio umbrellas and white wooden tables on the freshly mown grass. Nobody’s sitting outside because it’s just rained. But it seems the rich prefer to eat indoors anyway. The screenwriter pays his bill and crumples the receipt into his pocket along with his notebook. He then leans on his cane to get to his feet, and wobbles slowly toward the door. He could manage a swifter exit, but he wants to enjoy this moment, prolong it, so he memorizes every step like a series of snapshots. As he passes the reception desk, some hotel employees greet him sympathetically. He’d say his age, his bearing, and his cane are all complicit in making him worthy of their deference.