29

ADRIANA

Monday, May 14, 2012

I ’d already declared my day over, at least as far as the social side was concerned, and I’d spent some time sitting on my bed with my mother’s safe. I dedicated a bit of time each day to playing around with combinations in the hope of opening it. I couldn’t avoid hoping and believing that it contained the longed-for personal diary of my mother, which, at this stage, only existed in my imagination.

It was almost eleven o’clock at night when my flashing phone signaled Rubén’s insistence that I take his call. I put the safe under the bed and headed into the kitchen in my socks and T-shirt, ready to eat one of my culinary inventions, with the phone burning my ear. I answered the call as I lit the gas burner. It had been too long since I’d spoken to him.

“You finally decided to pick up.”

“How are you, Rubén?” I asked, overlooking his accusation.

“Fine. Thanks for asking. How are you?”

“Pretty busy with work.” I hunted through the various registers of my voice for the most professional one. “My apologies if we haven’t spoken much recently.”

He laughed, though he didn’t sound happy. “I think you’ve just come out with the euphemism of the year. Adriana, since we broke up—or rather, since you broke up with me—and you moved to Santander, we haven’t had a single conversation beyond an exchange of the usual clichés about work and the weather. You said we’d go on being friends.”

I hunted through the arctic landscape of my fridge for something that would be easy to cook, although my appetite was disappearing by the minute.

“Rubén, I didn’t say that. You asked me. But it’s complicated . . . ” On the other end of the line, Madrid was silent. “You don’t really want to be my friend. You want to be nearby, because you want us to be a couple again.”

“And what was wrong with us as a couple, Adriana? Can you tell me that? Because I haven’t worked it out yet, and our friends haven’t either. In fact, no one can work out what got into you. Everyone thought—”

“Yes,” I cut in as I turned off the gas, “that we’d be the next ones to get married and all the rest of it.”

“Was that the problem?”

“Once and for all, can you listen to what I’m trying to tell you?” Did I sound impatient? Because that was the effect I was after.

“Of course, I’ll try.”

I took a deep breath and sighed. How could I make him understand? “There was nothing wrong with you,” I explained.

“&#8202‘Was,’ just like that, in the past? You’re so convinced that I’m no longer a part of your life?”

He’d hit the nail on the head, but was he prepared to accept it?

“Let me finish. I was saying that there was nothing wrong with you or the relationship. But my life in Madrid wasn’t satisfying me: neither my bureaucratic job, nor endlessly going out with friends, nor the social commitments with so many people. I didn’t have a minute to myself.”

“And you have it now?”

“Yes, indeed,” I said, flopping down onto my chair and putting my feet up.

“And that makes you happy?”

You could really tell that he was a lawyer. He always put his finger right where it hurt.

“Give me time,” I asked him.

My ex said nothing for a moment and then, when he saw he had reached a dead end, he decided to change tactics.

“Listen, Adriana, I’ve been checking out some legal practices in Santander. There may be a possibility of joining one of them, but I don’t want to go any further or risk what I have here in Madrid without consulting you first. You say the problem was your life in Madrid. Well, I’m not asking you to come back here. I could move to Santander. I don’t know, what do you think?”

My head was starting to ache. I pressed my fingers against my closed eyelids, but the headache wasn’t going away.

“Say something,” he begged.

“Rubén, I broke it off almost a year ago. You should move on.” I paused. “Without me. Don’t make any plans for Santander if I’m the reason for your move. Look, I’m sorry to have to say it to you like this, but you’re going to force me into a conflict I’m not looking for.”

He began to cry, just as he’d done the day I left him. I held the phone away from my ear. I didn’t want to listen to him again. But I couldn’t hang up either. I swallowed and let him calm down. It was painful to hear him like this. No question, it really hurt. But I couldn’t create the illusion that I’d be there for him, because that wasn’t going to happen.

“I suppose I should stop calling you,” he said when he’d recovered.

“At least for a while,” I agreed. “This is just hurting you.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve given you a hard time,” he said, clearing his throat.

“Don’t worry, it’s fine. Are you feeling better?” I asked, trying to keep my concern for him out of my voice.

“Yes, I think so,” he said. “I guess it’s good-bye, then.”

“Bye, Rubén.”

I left the mobile on the floor and headed for the bathroom like an automaton, removing my clothes as I went. I sat down in the shower with my legs crossed and turned on the hot water. Hotter , I ordered myself. Hotter.

I buried my head between my knees and let the burning needles of water sting my back and shoulders. And then, without really knowing why, my tears arrived too, silent and violent, like the artificial rain punishing my back. I cried for Rubén’s pain, for the ongoing suffering I was causing him. I cried for all my wrong decisions. I cried because it would be simpler to agree and let myself be carried along, but also because I knew I wouldn’t do that. I wept because Iago’s eyes were always in my head, observing every one of my moves, as if a sadistic scientist had placed a hidden camera in my brain so that nothing would escape his attention.

I couldn’t go back to Rubén. It would be comfortable, like living with an affectionate pet that’s waiting for you at the end of the day and keeps your bed warm. That was the problem. It wasn’t a relationship of equals. Rubén had placed me on a pedestal, and I was conscious of it. I no longer admired him, but he still looked up to me. I had lost that fantasy from the early days when you don’t know, you only imagine. But apart from Rubén, the Iago inside my head was asking permission for access, demanding that I make a decision. And it made me mad, because I’d tried everything to forget him and nothing had worked.

But then I realized that that wasn’t true. Being indifferent, avoiding him, keeping my distance, getting involved with other people who, at the end of the day, were just poor copies of the original—all of that hadn’t been enough. Maybe the solution lay with Iago himself. Maybe if I spent a night with him I’d realize he wasn’t so incredibly amazing. Maybe I’d worshipped him, and that entire obsession was giving way to normality.

I turned off the tap, relieved by my new idea, dried myself, and sat down on top of the bedspread gazing at the chessboard. My king was surrounded by black pieces: bishops, knights, the queen, the king. Corralled, more like. The game had seemed doomed for some time. My new strategy would provide a break.

I climbed into bed with Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer . Marcos had been insisting for some time now that I read it.

And there comes a night when everything is over, when so many jaws have bitten down on us, and our flesh is hanging from our bodies, as if all the mouths had chewed it . . .

After a short time, drowsiness crept into all my muscles, relaxed by the boiling hot shower. The words and letters in the novel began to get mixed up, trying out totally unconnected combinations, until finally, comforted by my new resolution, I fell asleep over its open pages.