Now the shower. She could see him under it, as the drizzle began, his eyes shut, groping for the towel he had left on the rim of the bathtub. When he found it, he would hold out his arm so it wouldn’t get wet; then he would wait five minutes. Peculiar habits. Like eating candy while taking a bath: your body soaking, your mouth full of sweetness.
It’s over, she thought. Love is ending. And this is how it ends, quietly. The more she imagined him calmly under the shower, the angrier she became. She would leave him. She could see herself packing her bags. And the details were so real, her imagination evoked them so vividly, that she could almost feel the folded, soft, silky clothes in her fingertips, the clothes she regretfully placed in the suitcase that was now too small for all her things. Oh, yes, she would leave. She could see herself at the door. She would leave at daybreak. She would go down the stairs without making any noise, almost on tiptoe.
But he would hear her. He wouldn’t have been woken by her light step, but rather by a mysterious feeling of loneliness. In a frenzy he would rush down the stairs after her and take her by the arm as she reached the first floor. The conversation would be brief, the silences more eloquent than the words.
“I’m leaving you,” she would say in a low voice.
“What are you saying?” he would ask in amazement.
Could she leave so much tenderness? He would look at her with tremendous sadness: so many words, so many Paris streets, so many days drawing to a close at a time when they were just beginning to dream of their love. She wasn’t counting now. She was looking at the map. In front of every important building he had told her: “I love you.” He had said “I love you” while crossing the street, seated at an outdoor café, under every tree in the Tuileries. He would write “I love you” on a scrap of paper, roll it up, and secretly slip it in her hand when she least expected it. He would write “I love you” on a little piece of wood that he tore off a matchbox or on the foggy window of a bus. That’s how he would say “I love you”: joyfully, not expecting anything in return, as if happiness was simply being able to say “I love you.” Here, where her eyes now rested, at the tip of Île Saint-Louis — the water and sky so blue, the horizon and the river so tenderly blue — here he had also said “I love you.” She could see Place de la Concorde on a rainy evening. Lights were reflected on the glistening pavement, and beneath each lamp was born a river of light. She could see an umbrella approaching, as if she were looking down from a roof. At the end of each rib of the tiny umbrella — between the ribs, too — there stood a drop of water. Paris: roofs, chimneys, ribbons of fog, deep streets, bridges over still water. The bad weather had kept inside all the women who knit in parks near their blond children and had left the lovers outside — together with the roses and tulips in gardens. It had left the two of them under the umbrella with their newly exchanged “I love you”s and their tremendous nostalgia for love.
While still on the landing of the first floor, she would tell him: “If we don’t love each other anymore, why do you want me to stay?” She would make a point of using the plural, not because it was true, but so he would see that her decision was irrevocable, and so he would be forced to understand that there was no other solution. On the street she would encounter rain. Not the rain of lovers, but the rain of those made sad by life’s repeated bitterness, the rain that brings mud and cold, dirty rain that makes the poor complain because it ruins their clothes and shoes and causes children with wet feet to catch cold on their way to school. She would board the train mechanically. A train with dirty windows, with thousands of drops of water trickling down the side. Then there would be the sound of wheels and the shrill whistle. The End.
A new life would begin. She would have to attack it without regret, with great willpower, saying: “Today life begins, behind me there is nothing.” How would her sister receive her? And her brother-in-law?
She would find Gogoclass="underline" fat, ungainly, dirty, his hair white, his lifeless eyes marked with red spots. Her brother-in-law had christened him at the time of his passion for Russian literature, a passion that had moved on to crossword puzzles. He had found the dog crouching on the side of the road like a pile of rubbish. Feeling sorry for him, he put him in his Ford and didn’t realize he was blind until after he’d had him at home for a while. Marta had complained. A blind dog: what good was that? But it would have been too sad to throw him out. . He walked slowly, head down, bumping into furniture. He would lie in the corner or the middle of the room, and if someone approached he would raise his head as if looking at the sky. They kept him, but it was depressing.
“Bon dia, Teresa,” her sister would say when she saw her, “always the same, never letting us know you’re coming. Pere, it’s Teresa, put down your crossword puzzle and come here.” Then the rejoicing would begin. She would feel a terrible loneliness. The house on the outskirts of town would seem sordid to her: the covered entrance had no glass — not that the glass had broken, but rather it had never been put in. The walls were full of drawings Pere had made during his leisure time, abominable, surrealistic drawings that made her dizzy.
“What a surprise, sister-in-law!” Twenty years of bureaucracy hadn’t taken the liveliness from his voice, or the freshness of his laughter, but his eyes were sad and greedy. It was the look of someone suffocating, with no voice left to cry for help.
•
Her eyes welled up. She could no longer see the tender colors on the map.
Not a sound came from the bathroom. He must be putting on his tie; he must be combing his hair. Soon he would be coming out. Quick, quick, she thought. If only the clock could be turned back, back to a previous moment. Back to the little house last year by the sea. The sky, water, palm trees, the fiery red of the sun reflected at sunset on the glass of the balcony. Blooming jasmine gripping the balcony. And the clouds, the waves, the wind that furiously blew the windows closed. . It was all in her heart.
A burst of tears and sighs shook the bed. She cried in despair, as if a river of tears were forcing itself out through her eyes. The more she tried to restrain herself, the sharper the pain. “What’s the matter, Teresa?” He was by her side, surprised and hesitant. Oh, if the crying could only be stopped, controlled. But his voice brought on another flood of tears. He sat on the bed, very close to her, put his arm around her and kissed her hair. He didn’t know what to say, nor did he understand. She had him once more. She had him by her side, even with all there was on the map, and more. Much more than could possibly be conveyed: the smell of water was the rain on the umbrella, on the still, frightened river; it was the iridescent drops on the tips of leaves, hidden drops on rose leaves. The roses didn’t drink them, those iridescent, secret drops. They guarded them jealously, as she did the kisses.
Could she tell him the truth? Now that she had him beside her, his face full of anguish as he leaned toward her, giving himself fully to her, the drama that had arisen in half an hour melted like snow in fire. “Can’t you tell me what’s wrong?” He gently brushed the hair away from her wrists and kissed her. She couldn’t say a word but felt at peace. He threw the map on the floor and hugged her like a child. He truly loved her, she thought, and would never have been able to think the absurd things she sometimes did. They had come so far together. They were one in the midst of so many people.