"And what about Cesárea Tinajero? Is she a faggot or a queer?" someone asked. I didn't recognize the voice.
"Oh, Cesárea Tinajero is horror itself," said San Epifanio.
NOVEMBER 23
I told María that her father had given me money.
"Do you think I'm a whore?" she said.
"Of course not!"
"Then don't take any money from that old nut-job!" she said.
This afternoon we went to a lecture by Octavio Paz. On the subway, María didn't speak to me. Angélica was with us and we met Ernesto at the lecture, at the Capilla Alfonsina. Afterward we went to a restaurant on Calle Palma where all the waiters were octogenarians. The restaurant was called La Palma de la Vida. Suddenly I felt trapped. The waiters, who were about to die at any minute, María's indifference, as if she'd already had enough of me, San Epifanio's distant, ironic smile, and even Angélica, who was the same as always-it all seemed like a trap, a humorous commentary on my own existence.
On top of everything, they said I hadn't understood Octavio Paz's lecture at all, and they might have been right. All I'd noticed were the poet's hands, which beat out the rhythm of his words as he read, a tic he'd probably picked up in adolescence.
"The kid is a complete ignoramus," said María, "a typical product of the law school."
I preferred not to respond. (Although several replies occurred to me.) What did I think about then? About my shirt, which stank. About Quim Font's money. About Laura Damián, who had died so young. About Octavio Paz's right hand, his index finger and middle finger, his ring finger, thumb and little finger, which cut through the air of the Capilla as if our lives depended on it. I also thought about home and bed.
Later two guys with long hair and leather pants came in. They looked like musicians but they were students at the dance school.
For a long time I stopped existing.
"Why do you hate me, María? What have I done to you?" I whispered in her ear.
She looked at me as if I were speaking to her from another planet. Don't be ridiculous, she said.
Ernesto San Epifanio heard her reply and smiled at me in a disturbing way. In fact everybody heard her, and everybody was smiling at me as if I'd gone crazy! I think I closed my eyes. I tried to join some conversation. I tried to talk about the visceral realists. The pseudomusicians laughed. At some point María kissed one of them and Ernesto San Epifanio patted me on the back. I remember that I caught his hand in the air or grabbed his elbow, and that I looked him in the eye and told him to back off, that I didn't need anybody's pity. I remember that María and Angélica decided to go with the dancers. I remember hearing myself shout at some point during the night:
"I earned your father's money!"
But I don't remember whether María was there to hear me or if by then I was alone.
NOVEMBER 24
I'm back at home. I've been back to the university (but not to class). I'd like to sleep with María. I'd like to sleep with Catalina O'Hara. I'd like to sleep with Laura Jáuregui. Sometimes I'd like to sleep with Angélica, but the circles under her eyes keep getting darker, and every day she's paler, thinner, less there.
NOVEMBER 25
Today I only saw Barrios and Jacinto Requena at Café Quito, and our conversation was mostly gloomy, as if something irreparably bad was about to happen. Still, we laughed a lot. They told me that Arturo Belano once gave a lecture at the Casa del Lago and when it was his turn to talk he forgot everything. I think the lecture was supposed to be on Chilean poetry and Belano improvised a talk about horror movies. Another time, Ulises Lima gave a lecture and no one came. We talked until they kicked us out.
NOVEMBER 26
No one was at Café Quito and I didn't feel like sitting at a table and reading in the middle of the dreary bustle at that time of day. For a while I walked along Bucareli. I called María, who wasn't home, walked past the Encrucijada Veracruzana twice, went in the third time, and there, behind the bar, was Rosario.
I thought she wouldn't recognize me. Sometimes I don't even recognize myself! But Rosario looked at me and smiled, and after a while, once she had waited on a table of regulars, she came over.
"Have you written me my poem yet?" she said, sitting down beside me. Rosario has dark eyes, black, I'd say, and broad hips.
"More or less," I said, with an ever-so-slight feeling of triumph.
"All right, then, read it to me."
"My poems are meant to be read, not spoken," I said. I think José Emilio Pacheco claimed something similar recently.
"Exactly, so read it to me," said Rosario.
"What I mean is, it's better if you read it yourself."
"No, you'd better do it. If I read it myself, I probably won't understand it."
I chose one of my latest poems at random and read it to her.
"I don't understand it," said Rosario, "but thank you anyway."
For a second I waited for her to ask me back to the storage room. But Rosario wasn't Brígida, that much was immediately clear. Then I started to think about the abyss that separates the poet from the reader and the next thing I knew I was deeply depressed. Rosario, who had gone off to wait on other tables, came back to me.
"Have you written Brígida some poetry too?" she asked, gazing into my eyes, her thighs grazing the edge of the table.
"No, just you," I said.
"They told me what happened the other day."
"What happened the other day?" I asked, trying to seem distant. Pleasant, but distant.
"Poor Brígida has been crying over you," said Rosario.
"And why is that? Have you seen her crying?"
"We've all seen her. She's crazy about you, Mr. Poet. You must have some special thing with women."
I think I blushed, but at the same time I was flattered.
"It's nothing… special," I murmured. "Did she tell you anything?"
"She told me lots of things, do you want to know what she said?"
"All right," I said, although the truth is I wasn't very sure I wanted to hear Brígida's confidences. Almost immediately, I despised myself. Human beings are ungrateful, I said to myself, thoughtless and quick to forget.
"But not here," said Rosario. "In a little while I get an hour off. Do you know where the gringo's pizzeria is? Wait for me there."
I said I would, and I left the Encrucijada Veracruzana. Outside the day had turned cloudy and a strong wind was making people walk faster than usual or take shelter in the entrances to stores. When I passed Café Quito I glanced in and didn't see anyone I knew. For a minute I thought about calling María again, but I didn't.
The pizzeria was full and people were standing up to eat the slices that the gringo in person cut with a big chef's knife. I watched him for a while. I thought that the business must bring in good money and I was happy because the gringo seemed nice. He did everything himself: mix the dough, spread tomato sauce and mozzarella, put the pizzas in the oven, cut them, hand the slices to the customers who crowded around the counter, make more pizzas, and start all over again. Everything except take money and make change. That job was handled by a dark kid, maybe fifteen, with very short hair, who constantly consulted with the gringo in a low voice, as if he still didn't know the prices very well or wasn't good at math. After a while I noticed another odd detail. The gringo never let go of his big knife.
"Here I am," said Rosario, tugging on my sleeve.
She didn't look the same out on the street as she did at the Encrucijada Veracruzana. Outside, her face was less firm, her features more transparent, vaporous, as if on the street she were in danger of turning invisible.
"Let's walk a little way, then you can treat me to something, okay?"