This Too Shall Pass Page 5

  I leave the house before the others wake up—I need coffee and I’d like to visit the cemetery. The town is full of summer visitors, but it still seems quiet at this hour, when the early risers are buying bread and the newspaper, planning lunch before taking off to sail or doing chores with their children. Mornings in which the most important decision of the day is what to have for lunch, and don’t forget the children’s sunscreen. There are nearly no young people in the street at this hour. I guess they’re all sleeping. I miss that about being young, being able to sleep so soundly. Now when I get into bed it’s as if I were lying down in my coffin. Some days, I fall asleep curled up on the couch to avoid that feeling. Finding sex is relatively easy—finding someone who will hold you through the night is another thing altogether, it’s different, and not even that is a guarantee for a peaceful night’s sleep; some men can be very uncomfortable. The warm morning breeze ruffles my rice paper–thin silk dress, which swells and floats lightly atop my skin. How to be rid of the weight and how to reduce the burden of other things, when sadness makes everything weigh two tons? At the newsstand in the square I’ve been going to since I was a little girl, the owners offer their condolences, again, discreetly, and almost apologetically. I appreciate it when people don’t make a spectacle of their sympathy, or solidarity, though with love it’s more difficult to do, there’s something fluorescent about young lovers, as if they existed smack in the eye of a vortex, and no wind could pull them away. We’re never as formidable as when we’re in love and our love is reciprocated. At least in my case it’s an experience that sets the bar so high that only the brief spark of sex can offer any substitute; low-intensity love doesn’t do the trick, because it doesn’t exist. As I’m walking along I run across Joan, the mayor, dressed in navy blue Bermudas and an impeccably white shirt. He’s tanned and always seems to be happy. We’ve known each other since we were kids, and he responded very kindly when I wrote to let him know that you wanted to be buried here. He said yes, that he could arrange everything, and that as long as there’s life, nothing is lost. I knew that everything was perfectly lost, but I thanked him for his words and support. I think you’re buried in one of the most beautiful places on earth and someday, soon, now that I can still look death in the face from the pedestal of good health and forty years of age, I’ll buy the niche next to yours. You can see the sunrise from there; we won’t even have to get up.

  Joan is handsome, well mannered, and seductive, even a little too sexy to be a politician. Whenever I see him, I ask if he’s truly the mayor of Cadaqués. It always cracks him up. Flirting moves in mysterious ways. The idea that one of my friends is now mayor seems outrageous and totally incompatible with my idea that we’re all still in the playground at recess, skipping around and staring at the clouds. My father used to say that being the mayor of Cadaqués has to be the best job on earth, although I never actually heard him say it, you were the one who told me. I don’t remember ever being with him in Cadaqués, I was so little when you separated. Most of what I know about him, I learned from you. I remember one day when I was visiting at the last home you were in, the one they expelled you from for bad behavior: really it was the Parkinson’s devouring your brain and the dike had a hole in it, and without your extraordinary head controlling things, the floodwaters came pouring in. Truth be told, by then you were already too ill to live in that luxury assisted-living place for the elderly, even though you insisted that it wasn’t true out of rage and desperation, more rage than anything else. I tried to reason with you, told you it was time to hand over your weapons, stop refusing our help, that if this is the end, let’s do it right, like we always said we would, with dignity, calmly and in peace. And I gave my father as an example of his fortitude before illness and death. They said—you said—that one day in the hospital, when he was already very ill, he commented, “Considering how life is a bitch, mine has been pretty good.” And from the shadows you answered me: “Your father’s death wasn’t like that, not like what you think.”

  I didn’t have the courage to ask then how it had been. And you didn’t say anything else, just left that poisoned sentence hovering between us; you stabbed me with it, and I couldn’t tell if in a fit of lucidity or of madness. Now I’ll never know, and I don’t want to know if Dad died screaming, terrified, or with the heroic dignity that helped the stupid little girl I was then live better for so many years.

  I walk into the Maritim to have breakfast and find all the regulars at their habitual tables—the tourists all sit at the edge of the beach—close to the glass dividers that provide shelter from the wind and allow a view of the people who come and go, like that beautiful, mysterious stranger who was at your funeral. I recognize him instantly, that great and formidable head, his lively, quick gaze that gives away a touch of the jocose, his chestnut beard and blonder hair, all thick and tousled, his big nose and plump lips camouflaged by the beard, and long, lean but solid build. He’s poring over the newspaper but looks up when he notices that someone is approaching. A smile escapes my lips and we both immediately look the other way. Anyway, I’m not really in the mood for more condolences, or to impose my own sadness and exhaustion on a stranger. And yet, I can feel myself perk up; I remove my sunglasses and pull the hem of my dress up just a tad. I think I share with most other women on the planet, and maybe the pope or some other religious leader too, the wild idea that love is the only thing that can save us. Men, and some clever women, know that work, ambition, effort, and curiosity can also save us. But I believe that nobody can live without a minimum effective dose of love and physical contact. There’s a point below which we begin to rot. Prostitutes are essential; and there should be prostitutes of love too. But love is too difficult to reproduce, and faking it properly is too labor-intensive, long, and subversive. Not to mention ruinous.

  —Who are you flirting with now? Sofía asks, as she plops down next to me and places her huge straw hat on another chair.

  —Why do you think I’m flirting?

  —You’re assuming your trademark flirting position: perky, straight-backed and sinuous. And your underwear is showing.

  I giggle. —That’s not true. And it’s my swimsuit.

  —Oh, but I think it’s just fine. And turning to the waiter, who is carrying a tray laden with croissants and buttered toast: —Would you bring me a draft beer, please? A little one. And she measures a minuscule size with her forefinger and thumb. —I’m a little hungover.

  I watch her from the corner of my eye, so tiny, with her pleated shorts, striped shirt, and butterfly glasses. She has her dark hair as impeccably combed as always; she washes, dries, and flat-irons it every day, wherever she is. Her skin is uniformly brown. Her mouth is perfectly shaped with a tiny freckle on the upper lip. She has expressive eyes and a lean, wiry body that is well proportioned.

  —Remember what I said about a beautiful man I didn’t know being at the funeral?

  —Yeah, I remember.

  —Well, he’s here.

  —Get out. She looks around with the type of frenetic expression one imagines an ornithologist would have after being told there’s a long-extinct bird crossing the sky. A smile comes to her face. —I know which one he is. The one over there, sitting beside the glass divider. Do I know you to a T or what?

  I giggle again. —How’d you guess?

  —Easy. He has all your favorite features: big nose, strong but lean body, the relaxed elegance of people who feel comfortable anywhere. Simplicity. His worn, faded T-shirt and espadrilles. Holes in his jeans. He’s not out to prove anything, no outward displays, no bracelets, tattoos, caps or expensive watches. He’s your type. Why don’t you go and say hello?

  —You’re nuts. No way, I’d die of embarrassment. He might not even remember me. I wasn’t at my best the day of the funeral.

  —What do you mean? You were gorgeous; though you seemed sad and self-absorbed, which hasn’t changed much since then.

  —It’s called depression, I answer. —I wonder why h
e was there at all, if he knew my mother.

  —Why don’t you just go over and ask?

  —No, it doesn’t matter, some other time.

  —Are you sure there’ll be another time?

  —There’s always another time. Well, maybe not always. But I’m sure this one lives here.

  —Right. You’re just chicken.

  Just then the beautiful stranger gets up. Sofía nudges me with her elbow and we both stare at him, speechless. He takes a few steps toward the exit, looks over in our direction, stops, and nods a timid farewell. Sofía responds by waving her hand effusively as if she were waving good-bye to thousands of passengers on a huge transatlantic cruise ship.

  —Now listen, if you don’t pick him up, I will.

  —That’s just perfect.

  Just then, Guillem calls to let me know he’ll be arriving the following day. Sofía’s never met him and is curious to see what he’s like. I can’t imagine two more opposite people. Sofía is worldly, generous, tolerant, honest, and transparent, as enthusiastic as she is infantile, impassioned, and narcissistic. And Guillem is the most sarcastic, ironic, and unpretentious man I know. His principles are carved in stone and he has zero patience for nonsense. Sofía is capable of calling me first thing in the morning to tell me she hadn’t slept a wink all night, she’s in the throes of a high creative point and overwhelmed with nifty ideas on how to transform and combine garments from last season. Guillem dresses almost entirely in old T-shirts designed by his students to raise money for their class trip. She’s as tiny and delicate as a porcelain doll, and though when we first met he was as skinny as our son is now, he’s grown into the solid, vigorous man he was always meant to be. What we have inside always ends up expressing itself. We become what we are; beauty and youth only camouflage it for a time. Sometimes I think I catch a glimpse of the face my friends will have when they’re older, though I can’t yet see it in my sons; it’s too early, they’re still flooded by the light of life, they throb. I can hardly bear to look at my own face, only askance, and from a distance. Your face disappeared, Mom, hidden behind the mask of disease. Every day I try to see it again, jump beyond the last few years to once again encounter your true face, the way it was before it turned to stone. It’s like carrying a hammer to knock down walls. Or like what happens with sadness, whose wafer-thin layers of crackling glass settle over us gradually, enshroud us little by little. We’re like the little pea buried under a thousand mattresses, like a bright light flickering feebly. And only true love can end pain, like in the fairy tales, and sometimes not even then. Time soothes the ache, pacifies us, like a lion tamer.

  Sofía drains her glass of beer while Elisa, who has just shown up with Damián, decides on the lunch menu. Sofía is responsible for buying the wine, and I get a pedicure since I’m in mourning, and less is expected of me in the way of domestic duties, which are usually negligible anyway. I’ll go to the cemetery some other time, later in the afternoon or tomorrow morning.

  There’s only one pharmacy in the whole town. It’s a tiny seafront place with old-fashioned charm, chock-full of products and perfumes, and the slightly faded smell of talcum powder and roses. There’s a tiny cabin around the back for beauty treatments. A middle-aged woman, more middle than me, does my pedicure and tells me that, aside from being a beautician, she’s also a witch. I blurt out: —I’m a witch too, and I’m witchy. Both things, I add. She remains silent and looks at me with a kind of dubious expression, squinting her eyes. She doesn’t look like a witch to me. Fortunately, she’s dressed like a woman from the provinces. Brown knee-length skirt, white short-sleeved shirt with a pattern of tiny pastel-blue flowers, white nurse’s clogs. She’s blond, well coiffed, and painted, a little on the plump and motherly side. Though nowadays, any woman older than me seems motherly enough that I feel the desire to throw myself into their arms.

  I lie back on the couch and she begins massaging my feet. I close my eyes and breathe deeply. Since your death, the only thing that alleviates me is physical contact, however fleeting or casual or light. I’ve had to close all my books since I’m incapable of reading, of finding consolation in them now; they bring me back to you, your house lined with bookshelves, your meticulous annual library cleaning, vacuum cleaner in hand, our expeditions to London to find yet another treasure of children’s illustrations, the hours sitting together on the bed in the hotel poring over them, I more distracted, coming and going and doing other things, you completely absorbed like a little girl.

  “You can tell if someone really loves books by the way they look at them, how they open and close them, how they turn the pages,” you used to say.

  Same as with men, I thought, and sometimes said. And you would look at me, half shocked, half amused, half grande dame, half woman who lost no opportunity to enjoy herself in life, and you’d laugh. We were never the type of mother and daughter who confided absolutely everything to each other, we were never friends, we never shared intimacies; I think we always tried to be a more decent version of ourselves to each other. I remember how amazed you were the day you told me that maybe you’d have to take me to see a doctor if I didn’t get my period soon, and I told you nonchalantly that I’d had my period for two years now, and that I didn’t say anything because I didn’t think it was your business. We were in the car and you slammed on the brakes, looked at me open-mouthed for a few seconds, and finally accelerated when the people behind us started honking angrily. And we never brought up the subject ever again.

  I can’t open a book now without thinking of you, but with men it’s different. I knew from a very young age, instinctively, that I needed to keep this part of my life from you, or you might invade it too, with your ego, your generosity, your insight, and your love. You watched me from afar when I fell in and out of love, take a good licking and get back on my feet. You enjoyed my happiness and let me suffer in peace, without too much of a fuss or giving too much advice. I guess you were partly aware that you were the love of my life, and no other stormy love affair would ever come close to outdoing ours. After all, we love the way we were loved in childhood, and all the love that comes afterward is only ever a replica of that first love. I owe you, then, all my later loves, even the blind, wild love I feel for my boys. I’ll never be able to open a book without wanting to see your calm, concentrated face, without knowing that I’ll never see it ever again, and what is perhaps even worse is that it won’t ever see me again, either. I will never be seen through your eyes again. When the world begins to depopulate of the people who love us, we become, little by little and following the rhythm of death, strangers. My place in the world was in your gaze and it was so unquestionable and perpetual that I never bothered to find out what was there. Not bad—I was able to remain a little girl until I was forty years old, with two children, two marriages, a slew of relationships, several apartments, several jobs, and now I hope I’ll be able to make the transition into becoming an adult and not go straight on to old-ladyhood. I don’t like being an orphan; I’m not made for this depth of sadness. Or maybe I am, maybe it’s the precise size of pain, maybe it’s the only dress left that can fit me.

  —I can feel that you have a knot inside. There’s a lot of tension here, the beautician-witch tells me. —Can I place my hands on your heart?

  I reluctantly say yes. To begin with, my chest is not a place for strange middle-aged women to place their hands, I don’t care if she is a witch. She places them gently, and I can feel her heat through the silk of my dress. But I can’t relax, I’m too self-conscious of the intimate nature of the gesture. Thirty seconds later, she removes them.

  —You’re closed, hard as a rock, as if your heart were locked inside a cage.

  —My mother just died, I answer.

  —Ah, well. She keeps silent, which shows without a shadow of a doubt that she’s a complete phony. A real witch would have had more resources when confronted by death. —Well, she finally responds, —I have essential oils that help open the heart, you burn them
at night, before sleeping—

  —I’m sorry, but I really dislike that New Age stuff, I say, interrupting, thinking I should never have let her feel my tits up. —I don’t believe in natural medicine, or homeopathy, none of that stuff.

  —Not even Bach flower remedies? she asks, horrified, clutching tightly at the little gold cross with a tiny ruby in the center that she’s wearing around her neck.

  —No, not even that.

  She looks at me with pity, apparently feeling sorrier that I don’t believe in her esoteric paraphernalia than that I just lost my mother.

  —My grandfather was a doctor, a surgeon, and in my house we believed in science, I apologize.