Because I see Trevor every time he surrenders.
I see him and I see my own face, like a reflection in the mirror. Everything he feels, I feel too.
I recognize myself in his weakness, in the daily temptation to give up, to fuck once and for all with art and this journey that exhausts me. Like him I am scared, and just want to be normal again, and at peace with myself. To return to the days when everything was so much more spontaneous, and there were no goal posts to reach, and to manage to say “I love you” and to be able to live with that.
Yes, Trevor. I must confess I want to say I love you.
Such a simple thing, isn’t it?
To say I love you, and that I love you so much that I will not be able to write another word for the rest of my life, because this love is so strong and so intense that it drains all my energy.
Yes, Trevor. This love makes me weak. And it makes you weak. Maybe you didn’t know, but that’s the way things are.
If I now say I love you, I won’t save your life. All I will provide you with is a pretext to accept it, to become content with what you have, even though that’s still not enough to be happy. For folks like us, happiness is inappropriate. For folks like us, happiness is a state of unthinkable boredom. Surely we are not ready to set our pride aside and give up the fight. We lack the courage to accept our fate and to love each other for what we truly are.
We’re two losers, Trevor. Two beautiful losers who were lucky enough to meet each other and recognize ourselves, as if our reflections were seeking one another. But you are you and I am me, and we will know how to benefit from the occasion.
It’s better to pretend not to notice, to cover our faces with masks, to start wearing another character.
It’s easier to smash the mirror.
8
My eyes are red and clouded with tears. I can barely see, but on the other hand all my other senses feel stronger, more acute, and sharpen my perception of reality.
The memory of that night now feels less painful, now that the din of the airport has brought me back to the present.
The nauseating smell of this place, a blend of sweat and disinfectant, invades my nostrils and almost makes me sick. I try to get a hold of myself and wipe my face with my sleeve. Now it’s no longer stained by the coffee but also my make-up.
“I didn’t go to bed with Maxim,” I tell Mauro. “I lied to Trevor.”
“I’d assumed that.”
“I wanted to,” I continued. “I wanted to move away from myself in order to be free and live my dream life. But life is not as beautiful as I thought it was.”
Mauro and I walk towards the exit. I finally manage to light a cigarette and the first mouthful of smoke is wonderful. Even Mauro gives in and indulges in a Marlboro.
“You still love him,” he tells me. “That’s why you’ve come back. To stop him catching that plane that will take him home.”
I listen to Mauro’s words in silence. He looks as if he’s waiting for me to say something. An apology, maybe a clever fairy tale I could just there and then pull out of my head, just like a magician pulls the traditional rabbit out of his hat. But this time, there’s no way out, I’ve exhausted my stock of lies and self justification. There are no more white rabbits or thunderous applause ahead of me, just weariness.
Here we are, I thought. My dance with the cosmos ends here. I’ve reached the finishing line, cut the ribbon, but I’ve only won the consolation prize: a job as an editor and a failed photographer who thinks he can act as my confessor. Was it worth sacrificing everything, even Trevor, for such a meagre bounty?
“And what if he doesn’t want to stay?” I ask Mauro, my voice a thin fillet of sound. “As a matter of fact there’s little to keep him here, not even me.”
Mauro shrugs.
“Trevor is alone, as you are. And when you’re on your own, one place is as good as another.”
“How would you know that?” I tease him. But his response is quite serious.
“There is no place where happiness is automatically guaranteed.” He looked around, watched all the people wandering around between the announcements of arrivals and departures. “Some of them still believe, but soon enough they will realize they’ve made a mistake,” he said.
I nodded. All this fascinating crowd of nomads, all anxious to explore other worlds, just like a swarm of flies.
Mauro had won. I no longer wished to escape.
“Shall I take you straight home or to Trevor’s?” he asked.
“I don’t know yet. Give me just a minute.”
I walked away from him and went back inside. The airport crowds made me dizzy as I watched the people rushing from one end to the other. Some were worried they were running late, others furious because their flight had been cancelled. Another was complaining because his luggage had been lost and it reminded me of Trevor’s first day here in Bologna when he had created such an uproar over his suitcase going missing. I recalled his reddening face, the nasal voice hurling insults at the airline clerk, and how much Mauro had been laughing as he explained to me that this unlikeable quarrelsome person was a friend of his.
And this is how love catches you by surprise. With a rude gesture. It runs into you, without even asking whether it’s right to cross your path. With no reason. Without even thinking of what it will do to you.
MEMORIES THAT LINGER ON by Carlos Benito Camacho
Translated by the author
Although I was born and grew up in the city, I spent fragments of my life in the country. Once, when I was a very young boy, my mother became ill and could not look after the six of us kids. While my brothers and sisters were taken care of by relatives who lived in the city, I was sent to the country to stay at an uncle’s.
Uncle Miguel lived on a small farm, which was about 75 miles from the city. He was a tenant farmer who worked a 50-acre rectangular piece of fertile land. Like my mother he was born and grew up in the country and was a devoted Catholic who attended church every Sunday. He was married to Aunt Jane, a woman who was half his age. Since they were a childless couple, it was deemed convenient that I stayed there for a whole year. I did not like the idea of having to spend such a long time away from my brothers and sisters, in some remote place where I had never been before. But they said I had to go when my uncle’s old pick-up truck stopped out in front.
My arrival in that exotic place was an unnerving experience. I was scared to death by those scrawny, rural dogs, which welcomed the urban alien with growls and barks. The first days were awful. I was homesick all the time. Hidden in some nook of that house, I would cry silently in sobs. My uncle’s solemn and distant presence was no solace to me, but Aunt Jane was a warm lady who cheered me up, talking to me as she smiled, giving me cosy hugs which fed my childish heart with sprinklings of mirth.
As my uncle was away all day long, working in the field, I spent most of the time with my dearest Aunt Jane. She worked hard, too, doing the household chores, but she always found time to fit me in, taking me for a walk to the river or giving me a ride on one of the horses. She got up at dawn everyday, milked the cows, made the fire with wood in the out-kitchen, and then she made breakfast. When Uncle Miguel left for work, she would go over to wake me up. Although I was already wide awake, because of the cocks’ crows and her hustling around the house, I always shammed sleep and let her walk over and sit on the edge of my bed; and the magic moment came when she kissed my forehead as she gently rumpled my hair for a while, whispering nice things in my ear. And I woke up, letting myself be caught in her intense blue-eyed look which warmly seeped into my soul on those beautiful country mornings when the golden beams of sunlight slantingly streamed in through the window panes. Then I smiled at her, smelling the smoked hair which flowed down over my face. Being touched by that motherly woman’s warmth made me feel safe at home.