This Too Shall Pass Read online

  —Yeah, yeah, I know. Much obliged.

  I don’t tell him that I don’t believe in other people’s love—even my mother stopped loving me for a while—because love is the most unreliable thing in the world.

  —Why don’t you spend a few days in Cadaqués? It’s your house now.

  How can you say that, you stupid, foolish, disrespectful brute? I think in a snap as I look him right in those big, caring, concerned eyes. It’s my mother’s house. And it always will be.

  —I don’t know, I respond.

  —The boat’s already in the water. It’ll do you good to be there.

  Maybe you’re right, I tell myself. The town witches have always protected me. Cadaqués is a remote place, isolated by mountains and only accessible by way of a hellish road, where savage winds drive anyone who doesn’t strictly deserve the beauty of its skies, the pinkish light of its summer sunsets, completely mad. I’ve seen the witches there since I was a little girl, scrambling over the bell tower, cackling or scowling, expelling or embracing the newly arrived, instigating arguments between lovesick couples, instructing the jellyfish as to which legs or bellies to sting, placing sea urchins strategically just below the intended feet. I’ve seen how they’d paint breathtaking sunrises to alleviate the most appalling hangovers, turn each of the town’s streets and hidden corners into welcoming bedrooms, blanket you in velvety waves that wash the cares and troubles of the world away. And, well, there’s a new witch now.

  —Yeah, maybe you’re right. Cadaqués. I’m going to Cadaqués. And I add: —Tara! Home. The red earth of Tara, I’ll go home to Tara…After all, tomorrow is another day.

  I take a long pull of my beer.

  —What film is that from? I ask him.

  —I think you’re mixing Gone with the Wind and E.T., he says, chuckling.

  —Oh, yeah, you’re right. The beer on an empty stomach is making me say really idiotic things. —How many times did I force you to watch Gone with the Wind?

  —Many times.

  —And how many times did you fall asleep?

  —Nearly every one.

  —Yeah, you’ve always had crappy taste in films. You’re such a snob.

  For once he doesn’t talk back, he just looks at me with a smile on his face, eyes full of wishful thinking. Oscar is one of the few adult men I know whose face can express the eagerness of hope, as if he were expecting the Three Kings. I’ve never told him this; I’d prefer he didn’t know. Hope is the hardest facial expression to fake, and the ability to express it diminishes with every broken dream; the only thing that can substitute the loss is ordinary desire.

  —It’ll be OK, Blanca, you’ll see.

  —I know, I lie.

  He has to go to Paris for a few days for work, he says, but as soon as he gets back he’ll come up to Cadaqués. He sighs and adds: —I’m not sure what to do with my girlfriend.

  Men always, always, always have to screw things up. My face takes on the air of deep concern, another expression that’s tough to fake, though not as much as hope, and I slam the door.

  Don’t know what I’m going to do without my mother.

  Nicolas thinks you’re up in heaven playing poker with Snowflake (Barcelona Zoo’s late albino gorilla). Despite only being five years old, he’s so staunchly convinced that it’s true, he sometimes makes me wonder. From the height of my forty years, I may have known you infinitely more closely, but in the latter days I think the children were the only ones able to work the miracle of accessing you, seeing through the haze of illness to face the person you had been. They alone were truly caring and clever enough to resuscitate you. They are the lucky ones, they never hated you for a minute—I can’t imagine a better place for you. Now he draws you in his pictures flying over our heads, a blend of teasing witch and awkward fairy godmother, not very different from the way you were in real life.

  They just got back from spending a few days with Guillem, the father of my elder son. They’re suntanned, a little taller, and salad-laden, with tomatoes and cucumbers fresh from Guillem’s garden. I always accept these offerings of fruits and vegetables with a show of enthusiasm and end up throwing them all in the trash with the first insect that rears its ugly head when I’m cleaning them, especially given my scant interest in all things agrarian.

  —Guillem, the only apples for me are the kind Snow White eats. I don’t like organic apples because every time I go to take a bite, I feel like I’m about to decapitate a worm. It makes me queasy. Get it?

  —Sure, so you prefer poisoned apples, huh? Well, never fear, we’ll bring a few next time—they might just do the trick.

  He acts out the gesture of cutting his throat, with his eyes closed and tongue lolling, sending the children into a fit of giggles. They adore his mixture of silliness and common sense, how he can bring the events of the French Revolution to life, and then run out to the garden and plant tomatoes.

  Guillem is an archaeologist, a drinker, he’s cultivated, caring, and intelligent, a Catalan through and through, considerate, a cheat, strong, cagey, generous, a lot of fun, and very stubborn. His motto is “I’m not in the mood for kicking up shit” and except for the years when we were together, when his mood seemed perfect for kicking up a lot of shit, he pretty much adheres to it. We have a love-hate relationship. I love him and he pretends to hate me all the time. But his hatred brings more good things than the love of most of the people I’ve known. He kept Patum, my mother’s dog, since she’d been ours for a few years before we separated. We left her in my mother’s care once to go on a trip, and when I went to pick her up, she told me she was keeping her, that Patum would be better off with her mother and sister. So you kept our dog, Mom. You made her yours, like you did with everything you loved, with everyone, you took their lives away from them, and gave each one another life back, much larger and more carefree and fun than anything they’d known before or after. But it came with a price, it meant living under your relentless scrutiny, like prisoners of a love that as you yourself described would never, ever, in a million years, be blind. Except for the dogs, maybe, but only them. Patum outlived her mother and her sister. I knew the end was approaching the day you let us take her back and there was no argument about how she couldn’t stay with you anymore. If you were willing to let your dog go, you were willing to let everything go. We’d been in a free fall for two years, and the bottom of the precipice was nigh. That afternoon, with your hand still within my reach, I initiated the process to have you buried at the cemetery in Port Lligat. Patum came to your funeral, the only dog there. Guillem dressed her collar with a black ribbon—the kind of idea that would occur to him—and she behaved like a perfect lady. She didn’t sprawl with her legs out everywhere like she usually does, but sat up solemnly and primly in the shade sporting her black ribbon. Guillem wore his old jeans and a shirt, ironed especially for the occasion, that pulled just a little bit at the belly. I think you would have liked the image of it, you would have sat down next to them—not much in the mood for kicking up shit either—your hand patting your dog’s head, observing the silent funeral. Who knows, you might even have been there.

  —Well, Blanquita, as you can see the children have been fed well. Right, guys?

  They both agree, well instructed.

  —No frozen pizzas, none of those nasty toxic noodles your mother likes to feed you?

  They both say no.

  —Yeah, Mom, we ate really well, Nicolas, the younger one, says.

  —I’m so glad to hear that.

  —By the way, you know they’ve banned those precooked noodles you’re so fond of, don’t you? Guillem says. Now you’ll have to buy them on the black market.

  He laughs. I glare at him with hatred in my eyes until a giggle escapes.

  —And they’ve been to the swimming pool every day. Every day. When was the last time you took them to the pool?

  —Never, the two boys exclaim in unison.

  Guillem smiles triumphantly.

  —Mom, t
hey sell cheese puffs at the pool Guillem takes us to. And they make him special gin and tonics.

  Guillem signals with his hand for them to keep quiet.

  —Gin and tonics, huh? Who wouldn’t want to go to a pool like that?! And cheese puffs. They’re grown organically too?

  —All righty then…No, seriously, it’s good for the children to spend time outdoors, in the fresh air, and there’s nothing for them to do here. This city is unbearable in the summer. Actually, it’s unbearable all year round. Why don’t you go up to Cadaqués for a few days? You’ll enjoy it there. The boat’s in the water, isn’t it?

  Yes, Tururut is in the water. My mother took care of everything.

  You know, Mom, how crazy was that? Did you really think you’d be able to go boating? I wonder if the sea is there now, without you. Is it the same sea? Or will it have turned in on itself and become a tiny thing, like a neatly folded napkin that you carried off with you in your pocket?

  —That settles it, then—I’m sure she would have wanted us to take advantage of it.

  I accompany Guillem to the door; he pats me on the shoulder a few times.

  —Come on, cheer up. We’ll hang out in Cadaqués next week, OK? You’ll see—it’ll be great. Peaceful.

  One of the best ways to discover your hometown’s secret hiding places—and I don’t mean those little romantic spots, but more like the truly unlikely ones—is by falling in love with a married man. That’s the only way to explain how I got to be in Badalona, I think it’s Badalona, eating truly disgusting croquettes that taste so perfectly delicious to us, in a filthy two-bit bar that seems like the most delightful place on earth, promising to return soon, as eager and worldly as if we were at the Ritz. I hadn’t seen Santi in weeks. Since before you died. Those months while you struggled uselessly and brutally against the disease and dementia, I, when I wasn’t too sad or tired, struggled in the same place, equally uselessly and at times brutally, to prove to myself, to prove to the world, that I was still alive. The opposite of death is life, is sex. And as the disease encroached and grew more fierce and unrelenting, so my sexual relationships also grew more fierce and unrelenting, as if upon every bed on the face of the earth there was a single battle being waged: yours. The desperate fuck desperately, it’s a known fact. So farewell to the mornings when I opened my eyes, alone or in someone’s arms, and thought, “happy”: the world is a little smaller than my bedroom. Sometimes it felt as though we were both turning into dry, brittle trees, gray as ghosts about to turn to dust. But when I told you as much, you assured me it wasn’t so, that we were the two strongest people you’d ever known, and that no storm would ever get the better of us.

  Santi’s wearing my favorite jeans, they’re totally worn out in faded red tones, and a khaki parka we bought together a long time ago. I think he put them on to seduce me, but also as an amulet against the storms that often afflict our relationship. When I see him coming for me straight as an arrow, dodging cars while standing up on his bike pedals as if he were twenty years old instead of twice that age, with those torn red jeans and that tight brown body, my pulse quickens. His body is more toned from the waist down than the waist up from so much skiing and cycling, and his worker’s hands, short-fingered and fleshy, are often marked with cuts or bruises, and he always makes my heart skip a beat. I think that’s why I keep going back: he takes my breath away every time. You always used to tell me with mock concern: “Your problem is that you like good-looking men.” But I think deep down this one childish, masculine trait of mine always amused you, of preferring something as free, as random and pointless as a pleasing appearance to power, intelligence, or money.

  We have a few beers and decide to catch a quick bite; we haven’t seen each other for a long time, and we’re both so anxious to be together, it’s hard to keep our hands to ourselves. I brush his waist, he touches my shoulder, caresses my little finger when he lights my cigarette, we stand about two inches too close for what is proper between a couple of friends. We stroll down the narrow streets looking for a quiet, solitary place away from the sun, and when we find a subterranean passageway, he pushes me up against the wall, kisses me and plunges his hand down my pants. The only reason men’s physical strength should exist is to give us pleasure, to squeeze away every last drop of sorrow or fear left inside. A teenager with a backpack saunters by, looking at us sideways, trying to pretend he hasn’t noticed as he picks up his stride a little. I’ve almost forgotten those tangled first kisses, the eagerness and bruises of the awkward times that came before I learned the value of slowness and immobility, the precise movements of a surgeon, when one goes from only fucking with the body to also fucking with the head.

  —They’re going to arrest us for public indecency, I whisper in his ear.

  He laughs, and wrests himself a few excruciating inches away from me, gently smoothing my pants and shirt back to their proper places as if I were a little girl, the same way as when he helps his daughters get dressed.

  —We could come back and fuck here some night. Don’t you think? I say. —Like a couple of teenagers.

  —Sure we can.

  —I’ll wear a skirt, it’ll make it easier.

  He grabs me by the hand.

  —Why don’t we get something to eat first, Jezebel?

  —There’s nothing like vertical love. Everyone knows that, I say.

  And he gives me a fucking kick in my bum.

  —

  And there’s the ice cube melting woefully in my glass of white wine. The waiter had placed it decisively and without consultation, when I told him that just maybe the wine wasn’t sufficiently chilled. Santi is chitchatting chirpily with the owner of the bar and pinching my knee. A man who isn’t kind to the waiters, I tell myself, is not kind to anyone, and will end up not being kind to you either. I congratulate him effusively for his wild mushroom croquettes, which are unquestionably of the frozen variety. He looks at my cleavage and smiles.

  —Have I ever told you my theory about why some men are so obsessed with food? I ask him. —I think it’s because they don’t fuck enough. All the city’s posh restaurants stay in business thanks to them. Haven’t you ever noticed how they’re always chock-full of middle-aged couples? Men sporting watches as expensive as cars, busy talking about croquette recipes, and women who look off into infinity with irked, pinched faces, counting their calories.

  —And have I ever told you my theory that when you want to fuck around, it’s because you want to fuck around?

  —It’s never occurred to me, no. Could be.

  He grabs me around the rib cage with both hands like a human corset and squeezes until his fingers almost touch.

  —How can you have such big tits with such a small frame?

  —My friend Sofía thinks that big breasts are a hassle and says they should be like dicks: they grow when you need them and then just stay nice and reasonably sized when you don’t. Retracting tits.

  He laughs. —Your friends are nuts. So are you.

  He asks the waiter to pour two more drinks. I feel as though I’ve drunk a lot already. There’s almost no wine left in the bottle and I’m pretty sure it was almost full when we got here. Santi kisses me, holding my face in his two hands, as if I were going to escape. He asks for more croquettes, which I don’t touch, and says to the waiter, sighing and looking concerned: —She won’t eat for me.

  —Eat, lady, eat.

  I nibble half a croquette and wash it down briskly.

  —Let’s make a toast, he says, —to us.

  —To us.

  We stay quiet for a moment, staring at each other.

  —My life’s a piece of shit. I’m a total mess, he murmurs suddenly.

  —Me too, I answer.

  I let out a bark, or what Guillem calls my hyena’s cackle, which he taught the children to imitate perfectly, or what my psychiatrist calls my anxious laugh.

  —How’s work?

  —The partners haven’t been paid for three months. Not a sin
gle architectural firm in this country has work now, there’s not a single building under construction. We have no idea what’s going to happen.

  —What a disaster.

  —As of right now, even if I wanted to, I would never be able to get a separation—I wouldn’t be able to pay the rent.

  Another example of the inevitable triumph in the struggle for gender equality, where it seems as though men have become more like us, instead of the other way around. Now men can’t get divorced either, or they’ll lose their social standing, I think, not without a pang of melancholy.

  —And I wouldn’t be able to go skiing, he adds candidly.

  —Yeah, well, wouldn’t that be the tragedy?

  —Don’t be such a bitch!

  I’ve been seeing Santi for nearly two years. I’ve never wanted to be privy to the details of his relationship with his wife, out of tact, respect, and apprehension. Generally speaking, I think it’s far better to know as little as possible about people. Though it’s really only a question of time, a little, and keeping your eyes and ears open, sooner or later their true self comes out.

  —I would have liked to be there with you at the funeral.

  —Shall we? I say, standing up.

  —

  We locate a nice little hotel, somewhat old-fashioned and family-friendly, right on the beachfront.

  —Is it OK? You like it?

  —Yeah, it’s fine.

  He asks for a room with a view for naptime, and I start unbuttoning my blouse. The receptionist looks at us undaunted, and continues typing away at her computer. We ask for a gin and tonic while we wait for the room to be readied and go outside. The beach is nearly empty, only a few bodies scattered around here and there, looking vulgar, made ugly by the stark noonday sun, the lack of privacy, and promiscuity. Even the most uncomfortable, sick, and shattered body can be grandiose and captivating, but a hundred bodies lying next to one another under the sun never are. I button up my blouse.