WHILE CATERINA WAS walking the whole length of the avenue from where she lived, down amongst the second-hand dealers and the motorbike repair shops and the angry little bars, all the way to the other end, where Chano lived, amongst the smart restaurants with their glass tables outside on the terrace and the banks and the department stores, where you could look up at night into lighted rooms and see molded ceilings and believe that you could hear the notes of a piano drifting over the traffic noise, he was locked inside his flat, pretending that he was not hiding.
While she pushed her way through the late-night crowds, that fat gray folder held across her chest like armor to deflect a sword thrust or a glance, making her way to him, brave, unstoppable, driven by love the way that the tides are driven by the moon, he was inside, being afraid and making excuses for why he could not go to her.
And when she walked down the dark curve of the ramp that led from the street down into the garage beneath his block and through the petrol-smelling parking bays and up the stairs, avoiding the front desk and the all-night porter waiting there, when she climbed up alone and kept climbing although the echoes chased her and there were shadows at every landing, when she came to his door and knocked, gently at first, and then louder, he lay in bed, holding a sword.
He still had the sword with him when he went to the door, slowly, fearfully, peering round the corner as if he had been waiting for it to disappear in a storm of splinters and bullet holes. The tip of the sword dragged over the tiled floor, singing, behind him and he said: “Who is it?” in an angry whisper.
“Chano, it’s me.”
He hurried forward and stood behind the door and looked through the spyglass. “Are you alone?”
“Of course I’m alone. What’s wrong?”
He hesitated. She was standing there in the corridor in bright light and, although she was so short, he could see it was her, he knew it was her and yet he hesitated and stood, shifting from foot to foot, turning his head, squinting with each eye, checking along the walls behind her and on the pale carpet at her feet, looking for an unfamiliar shadow that might betray a hidden watcher, flat against the wall. That was what Camillo had done to him. It only took a second or two but she noticed.
“Chano, aren’t you going to let me in?”
“Just a moment.”
The sword was ridiculous. He knew it was ridiculous. He opened the narrow cupboard in the vestibule, the place where he had hung her coat that first night, and laid it there along the floor, corner to corner so it would fit. Even that took time.
“Chano!” A worried hiss from the other side of the door.
“A moment.” He undid the chain and turned the key in the lock. She heard him and she was pushing at the door before he had a chance to open it, although he did open it but by no more than a crack, just enough to let her slip through before he shut it again, quickly, and put the chain back on and locked it again.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“I thought you might not let me in.”
“We quarreled. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?”
“You had every right to be upset.”
“I was rude and unkind and I accused you of things.”
“It’s all right. You were disappointed. You are so young.”
And then Caterina was satisfied. She had done what Dr. Cochrane had suggested. “Let him blame your youth and don’t disagree.”
“Kiss me,” she said.
He did.
“Still love me?”
“Of course.”
But he didn’t say it. Only “Of course,” not “Of course I still love you.”
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“Nothing.”
“Something’s wrong.”
“A bad dream, that’s all. It was just a bad dream. A nightmare. I got a fright.” That was half the truth again. He was frightened. He had suffered a nightmare. But he had not been asleep.
“Tell me. Then it won’t come back.”
“It never goes away,” he said. “It’s always been there. All my life it’s hung over me.”
Caterina brushed her hand gently over his face and—he did not imagine it—let the tip of her finger rest for a moment too long on his lip. “I can kiss it all better,” she said. “I promise.” She walked ahead of him into the sitting room where the scabbard of his grandfather’s sword lay empty and abandoned on the sofa. He found it suddenly embarrassing but Caterina seemed not to notice.
She walked to the window and looked at the lights of the avenue. “I was down there a minute ago. Way along there. You see the world differently from up here. Maybe it is different.”
“It’s just because you are further away from it. It’s the same world. It’s the height, that’s all.”
“No, Chano. This isn’t high. The mountains, they were high, but I felt like I lived in the same world then. It’s not the height that separates you from the street. It’s the money.”
“Are we going to argue about money again? I’m too tired. Come to bed.”
“No. We’re not going to argue about money—or anything else. Not ever again. If I had all the money in the world, I’d give it to you to make you happy. Everything I have, I want you to have but I don’t have anything so I want to give you this.”
He was standing there in the clothes he had lain down in, exhausted from the effort of trying to sleep and the pain of finding himself so afraid, and she was close to him, holding out her scuffed gray folder to him as if it had been all the gifts of the Magi.
“What is it?”
“It’s everything. That’s what you asked for, isn’t it? Everything. All I have in the world except for a couple of pairs of jeans and a jacket and some shoes you don’t like. It’s my book.”
“Your book?” he said.
“Yes. I’ve been writing a book and I have nothing more precious to offer you. It’s for you. I will write your name on the front in a deeply respectful dedication and with love. With all my love.”
“Your book?” He said it again, as if she had no right to write a book, as if nobody had the right except him, as if the very idea of “book” was his copyright, the sole property of L.H. Valdez, and if he chose not to exercise those rights for a time, perhaps for years, perhaps forever, then that was his business and it certainly did not mean that Caterina, this girl, was permitted to write a book. “You wrote a book.”
“Yes, Chano. I wrote a book. Now come to bed.”
“It’s just a story. Come to bed.”
“I will. Yes. You go. I’ll be there in a moment. You go.”
“All right,” she said, “but hurry. We have making up to do.”
Chano stood at the window, holding her great gift, that worn, gray folder, by his side, watching the lights of the avenue until he was sure she had gone. He took Caterina’s book to his desk and turned on the lamp but, before he sat down, Mr. L.H. Valdez crept through his own house like a thief, back to the front door on silent feet. He opened the cupboard. He picked up his grandfather’s sword. When he sat down at the desk again, he laid it across his knees. Then he opened the folder and he began to read.
He was almost sure he hated her.