One doesn’t become aware of the emptiness in which one has allowed time to go by until one truly lives. Sometimes life – not the days that have burned away – is just an instant, a day, a week, or a month. One knows one is alive because it hurts, because suddenly everything matters, and because when that brief moment is over, the rest of one’s existence becomes a memory to which one tries in vain to return while there is some breath left in one’s body. For me that moment was contained in the weeks I lived in that large house overlooking the sea with David. I should say with David and the shadows that he carried inside him and that lived with us, but then I didn’t care. I would have gone with him to hell if he’d asked me to. And I suppose that, in my own way, that’s what I ended up doing.
At the foot of the cliff there was a shed with a couple of rowing boats, and a wooden jetty that stretched out into the sea. Almost every morning, at dawn, David would sit at the end of the jetty to watch the sunrise. Sometimes I would join him, and we’d swim in the cove shaped by the cliff. It was March, and the water was still cold, but after a while we’d run home and sit by the fireplace. Then we would take long walks along the path bordering the cliffs, which led to a deserted beach the locals called Sa Conca. In the small wood behind the beach there was a gypsy camp where David bought provisions. Back home, he would cook and we’d have dinner in the evening while we listened to some of the old records Vidal had left in the house. Many evenings, right after sunset, a strong north wind would start up, blowing among the trees and banging the shutters. We had to close the windows and light candles all over the house. Then I would spread a couple of blankets in front of the fireplace and take David’s hand, because although he was twice my age and had lived more than I could even begin to imagine, he was always shy with me, and I was the one who had to guide his hands so he could undress me slowly, the way I liked him to do. I suppose I should be ashamed to write these words and conjure up these memories, but I have no modesty or shame left to offer the world. The memory of those nights, of his hands and lips exploring my skin, of the happiness and pleasure I lived between those four walls, all that, together with the birth of Daniel and the years I’ve had him by my side and seen him grow, are the most beautiful things I will take with me.
Now I know that the real purpose of my life, the one not even I could have foreseen, was to conceive my son Daniel during the weeks I spent with David. And I know the world would judge me and condemn me to its heart’s content for having loved that man, for having conceived a son in sin and in hiding, and for lying. The punishment, be it fair or unfair, did not wait. In this life nobody is happy for free, not even for an instant.
*
One morning, while David was walking down to the jetty, I got dressed and went down to the bathhouse and the restaurant called La Taberna del Mar, at the foot of the bay of San Pol. From there I called Juan. It was now two and a half weeks since I’d disappeared.
“Where are you? Are you all right? Are you safe?” he asked me.
“Yes.”
“Are you going to come back?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything, Juan.”
“I love you very much, Isabella. I’ll always love you. Whether or not you come back.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me whether I love you?”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me if you don’t feel like it. I’ll wait for you. Always.”
Those words sank into me like a dagger, and when I got back home, I was still crying. David, who was waiting for me by the door of the house, hugged me.
“I can’t go on being here with you, David.”
“I know.”
Two days later, one of the gypsies from the beach came over to warn us that the Civil Guard was asking about a man and a young girl who had been seen in the area. The guards had a photograph of David, and said he was wanted for murder. That was the last night we spent together. The following morning, when I woke up under the fireplace blankets, David had gone. He’d left a note in which he told me to go back to Barcelona, marry Juan Sempere, and be happy for the two of us. The night before, I’d confessed that Juan had asked me to marry him and that I’d accepted. Even now, I don’t know why I told him that – whether I wanted to push him away from me or wanted him to beg me to elope with him in his descent to hell. He decided for me. When I’d told him he had no right to love me, he’d believed me.
I knew there was no sense in waiting for him. That he wasn’t going to return that afternoon or the next day. I cleaned the house, covered the furniture with sheets again, and closed all the windows. I left the key behind the stone in the wall and made my way to the train station.
I knew I was carrying his child in my womb as soon as I stepped into the train in San Feliu. Juan, whom I’d called from the station before leaving, came to meet me. He hugged me and didn’t ask me where I’d been. I didn’t even dare look him in the eye.
“I don’t deserve your love,” I confessed.
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
I was cowardly and afraid. For me. For the child I knew I carried inside me. A week later, I married Juan Sempere in the church of Santa Ana, as had been arranged. We spent the wedding night in the Fonda España. The following morning, when I woke up, I heard Juan crying in the bathroom. How beautiful life would be if we were able to love those who deserve it.
Daniel Sempere Gispert, my son, was born nine months later.