“You’ll laugh when I tell you,” he’d said at the time. Her voice was barely audible, and she was looking at him with that hesitant, slightly cross-eyed gaze, already lost, already adrift, a gaze he would not easily forget. “No, you’ll laugh,” he said again. “It doesn’t get much worse, believe me.”
Doesn’t it? Possibly. The fact is, the other men had laughed when he told them. Even he had laughed. Not just to join in with the crowd, but as a way of washing himself clean of any hint of the ridiculous, with which he might, inevitably, have been spattered. “You’ll laugh when I tell you.” He could still see her and hear her. He would continue to see and hear her for some time, standing motionless at his front door, skinny and uncertain, as if bent beneath the weight of her long hair or her suitcase or her pain. At that point, she still wasn’t trembling or crying or feeling afraid. All that would come later, intermingled with a clear desire to die and an obscure fear of actually seeking her own death. That’s precisely why he wanted her to leave quickly, before she started crying and trembling and feeling afraid. Before all of that.
“You must go back home at once,” he had said. “Don’t wait. Your husband won’t know anything about it. If you like, you can leave your suitcase here and come for it later, when there’s no one expecting you at home.”
“But I told him everything. I obviously made a mistake. But I assumed… You said…”
She wasn’t accusing him; she didn’t yet know what the truth was. She was speaking like someone apologizing or asking forgiveness for having done the opposite of what she should have. Perhaps she could see in his eyes the eyes of others—her mother, her father, her teachers, her husband. Perhaps. I assumed… That’s what she had always done, poor thing, all her life.
He had felt like killing her, yes, killing, or at least hitting, her, shaking her, calling her every name under the sun, telling her the harsh truth. I never loved you, never, do you hear? I said all those things simply because I happened to sit next to you, do you understand? Do you understand? I find you unattractive and stupid—above all, stupid. You know what that means, don’t you? Stupid?
But she had already understood, and why hurt her even more? “Anyway, you must leave now,” he had said at last, in a tone of voice that he was trying to make persuasive, the tone of voice in which you would speak to a child. “Your husband’s a good man; he’ll forgive you, you’ll see. You’ll come up with some explanation: Tell him you thought it all over on your way here and realized that he’s the only one you love…any excuse will do. But you mustn’t delay, and he mustn’t for one moment know that you’ve spoken to me. That’s the important thing. There’s a taxi stand just over there. Come on, there’s no time to waste.”
She was looking at him uncomprehendingly, but she had looked at him in just that way two weeks ago, at the gathering where he had started talking to her simply because there happened to be an empty chair next to hers, and he was tired of standing. That night, she had an air about her of a slightly backward child. Not particularly pretty, not particularly elegant, and certainly not particularly bright. Her husband had seemed more interested in the blonde in the green dress and completely oblivious to the fact that his wife was just a few feet away. Seeing this, he had struck up a conversation with the wife, and they had exchanged a few banal, insignificant words. Then someone had mentioned the name of Einstein: “Isn’t he a German doctor, who discovered something or other?” she asked innocently. He set out to explain to her in simple language what that something or other was, but then he heard her say, “It’s all a bit too abstract for me.” And he had given up. The red-headed poetess was talking loudly about a cruise she was going on in the summer, and then he had turned to her (he still didn’t know her name—“I’m sorry, what’s your name?” “Adelaide”), he had turned to Adelaide and asked if she liked to travel.
“Do you like to travel, Adelaide?”
She had blushed slightly, perhaps ashamed of her own limitations and her mediocre life.
“To be honest, I don’t know. I’ve never left Lisbon. I imagine it must be very nice to travel. And I would love to travel. Do you know what my dream is, the place I would really love to visit?”
“The South Sea islands?”
She stared at him, open-mouthed.
“Good heavens, how did you know?”
“I love you, Adelaide, and I’d love to go with you to Kauai.”
Why had he said that? Because her husband was sitting there, flirting with another woman? Because she seemed such easy prey? Because he felt sorry for her lonely state? Yes, for all those reasons, but mainly because there had happened to be an empty chair beside hers.
She had turned and again stared at him open-mouthed. She didn’t know whether to laugh, to pretend she didn’t believe him, or to join in the game. If she should say to him: Really? That’s wonderful. I had no idea; how could I not have noticed? You will forgive me, won’t you? Or else have the wit to say out loud to her husband: Darling, prepare yourself for a shock. Someone has just made a declaration of love to me. I’m not sure what to do; what do you think? And this would have been followed by much laughter, and it would all have been very funny.
However, she didn’t know how to do any of those things. She led a very quiet life; her husband had found her in the provinces; she didn’t know anything about such elegant games. Her mother was so bourgeois that she didn’t even know that she was, and didn’t even know what being bourgeois meant. This is why every part of her was staring at him open-mouthed.
“What? What did you say? You’re joking, aren’t you?”
And when he saw her sitting next to him, so very vulnerable, he thought that it was true, that he really did love her, that she was the love of his life, despite Einstein and the South Sea islands. Then he said many things, such crazy things that no woman would be totally taken in by them. No woman, apart from Adelaide.
He repeated them the following day and the next and the next, this time over the phone. She listened in silence on the other end of the line. Sometimes she would ask, “Do you mean it? Do you swear that you mean it?”
Then one day, that day, she had appeared at his door, suitcase in hand. That had been a very awkward moment.
“I’m here. Isn’t that what you wanted? Didn’t you say that you’d like to go with me to…where was it now?”
He didn’t know or care. It might have been the South Seas. But he needed to nip this situation in the bud right there and then. Yes, that must have been what he’d said: the South Seas.
“I assume you haven’t said anything to your husband,” he said brusquely.
“Of course I have.”
Of course. He could no longer remember what words he used then. He had perhaps been cruel, but at the time he wasn’t aware that he was being cruel. He had told her everything that he hadn’t yet told her. She didn’t quite understand; she just stared at him. She stood there before him, and only then did he realize that she hadn’t moved from that one spot, his front door.
“You’re joking, aren’t you?” she said fearfully. “You’re trying to frighten me, but why?”
He hadn’t responded, and then she understood. “Ah, so it’s true,” she had said.
There had been no recrimination, no hint of regret or tears in her voice. She seemed like a different woman, and this was what he found especially hard to forgive.
He watched her bend down a little, pick up her suitcase, and once again stoop slightly beneath its weight—was it really that heavy?—then he saw her turn and leave, looking very dignified and without saying a word. The street door slammed, and he went over to the window and peered out to watch her leaving. He saw her slowly cross the street, without looking out for cars; he saw her put down the case as if to catch her breath; then head off along the street until she was lost among the crowds. An ant in an anthill, that’s what she was. A poor ant laden down with her belongings and with nowhere to go. That’s why she was walking so slowly; that’s why she didn’t hail any of the passing cabs. She had no address to give them.
He had a strange feeling in his throat and a need for someone to tell him he’d done the right thing, for someone to tell him he was right. His friends all agreed that he was. And that’s when he started laughing and finding the whole thing ridiculous. But once everyone laughed their fill, the ridiculousness wore thin, and then he saw two very clear images—of her and of him—and he began to feel remorse. Nothing too serious, of course. Nothing that would last.