I THINK THAT on a few occasions, Jaime is beginning to realize how he has been behaving towards me. He suggested we spend a weekend in Menorca, perhaps to help me forgive him for what has happened. A reward for my patience, you deserve a rest, was how he put it. He said he would take care of everything, the air tickets and all the rest. He had been away all week in the north of Spain, and we were to leave tonight, Friday, for Mahon. The idea was that as soon as he got back, he would come to our apartment to pick me up.
I was excited, because this was the first weekend I was going to spend with him outside the city, so I sat in the living room waiting for him with my packed bag. Jaime phoned last night to tell me he would be reaching Barcelona at around five in the afternoon, and saying to make sure I was ready, because our plane left at half past seven. He wouldn’t tell me what hotel we would be staying in: he wanted it to be a surprise.
By six o’clock there was still no sign of him. I called his mobile, but as usual it was switched off. I left a rather anxious message, saying I hoped he was just stuck in a typical Friday evening traffic jam. At half past six I rang his office, but his secretary had no news of him either. By now it was already too late to catch the plane, but I was more worried that he might have had an accident. I was imagining the worst. Jaime had been travelling with his partner Joaquin, so I called his mobile, but that was switched off too. I nearly had a heart attack, spending the evening phoning every hospital in Barcelona and surroundings to know if anyone called Rijas had been brought in. And every time a nurse said ‘No’, I heaved a huge sigh of relief. But I was increasingly mystified about what could have happened to him.
I spent the night sleeping on the couch. I turned up the volume on the telephone, so that when it rang in the early morning I woke up at once. It was Jaime.
‘My father died of a heart attack yesterday evening,’ he told me in a rough, grief-stricken voice.
The news felt like a blow to my stomach.
‘My God! Where are you?’
‘In the funeral parlour with my mother. I’m going to stay with her for a while. I’m sorry to have abandoned you, but . . .’
‘Don’t worry about that. Is there anything I can do for you? Do you want me to go there? Which funeral parlour are you in?’
‘No, that’s not a good idea. This is a real drama, I don’t know how I’m going to cope with it. Give me some time to be with my mother, and then on my own. I’m feeling really bad.’
I told him again how sorry I was, and said I would wait for him at the apartment, for as long as it took. If he wants and needs to be alone, I can respect that.
I go to work each day like a robot. I can’t manage to concentrate on anything, and my boss Harry keeps asking what’s wrong. I vaguely told him about a relative dying, without going into any details, and seeing how upset I was, he offered me some extra days off in addition to my Christmas leave.
I have no idea how long Jaime intends to stay away. Only one thing is clear: I miss him dreadfully, and I’m sincerely sorry for all that he is going through. I’m going to wait for him; I’m sure he’ll show some sign of life before Christmas. We are supposed to be spending it together, because his children are going to be with their mother. But I have still had no news from him.
This has been the worst Christmas of my entire life. I spent it at home, dragging the telephone with me wherever I went, waiting in vain for Jaime to surprise me and turn up at the last minute. But it didn’t happen. I had a lot of time to think, and I have to say that at some point it seemed even to me that all this drama is a bit too strange to be true. But, almost immediately, I felt ashamed that I could doubt such a tragic event as the death of a loved one.
On New Year’s Eve, Sonia tried to get me out of the house by inviting me to a party a former boyfriend of hers was organizing. I turned her down. She called again to find out how I was, but when she heard my tone of voice, she realized it was no use insisting.
Then Jaime reappeared, three weeks after the death. He has lost at least five kilos, and his face looks distinctly cadaverous. Yet his graceful slim fingers are so swollen he has difficulty closing his fist. And when he walks, his limp is more pronounced than ever. He has hardly spoken to me so far, and I don’t dare talk to him. I can understand he is in mourning, and I have to respect that. Yet I would love to hug and kiss him and try to comfort him. Instead of that, consciously or not, he is becoming just another piece of furniture. He is crazier than ever. I suppose it must be grief making him that way. All this is bringing things to a head, and I’m beginning seriously to suspect that the man I fell in love with has nothing to do with the real man in front of me now.
Jaime has started to spend nights away. At first I put this down to his grief at losing his father, so I could not bring myself to say anything. But when he does come back at night he is usually completely drunk, and is looking to start a fight. As often as I can, I pretend to be asleep, and invariably he goes and locks himself in the bathroom, from where I can hear him scraping away with the scalpel. I pull the sheets up over my head, trembling and half dead with fear.
On those occasions when Jaime spends the night at home, his partner Joaquin usually turns up, and they both shut themselves in Jaime’s study. Joaquin is always half drunk when he appears, and the evening always ends up in an argument because, from a conversation I once overheard, he asks Jaime for money to spend on prostitutes in clubs, or on the transvestites in Ciutadella.