Daniel Alarcón - At Night We Walk in Circles

“Immediately,” he said. “Right away.”

Nelson agreed, and Patalarga could hardly argue. They were right, but this sort of thing was easy to say, and not so easy to do. He played along, even stood up and took out his phone. “You know what?” he said. “You’re right, and I’m going to call her.” His friends applauded.

He went backstage (“for some privacy”), and there, among the variegated junk that crowded the hallways and dressing rooms, he once more lost his nerve. He held the phone in his hands, could hear Diana’s sweet voice in his head, but the in-between steps seemed impossible.

“I wanted to call,” he told me later. “I just couldn’t.”

So he waited a moment beneath the single fluorescent light that illuminated the hallway, breathing the stale air. Fifty years of theater. Longer. When enough time had passed, he returned to his friends, to the stage, and announced: “She still loves me!”

He had a bottle of rum handy, and brought it out now. “To celebrate,” he said. It was all made up (“And they knew it, I assume”), but he did feel like celebrating. “It made me happy to see Nelson and Henry again, to be together, even if it was just one night.” They drank and laughed some more, and at a certain point, they reenacted a scene from the play, rewriting it on the fly to suit their mood and their circumstances. Patalarga’s servant had been kicked out of the house by his wife; Nelson’s Alejo had murdered an old woman in the provinces; Henry’s idiot president was losing his mind to loneliness. This improvised scene was so satisfying and felt so real that it was a surprise to look out on the empty theater and realize they were alone.

Only they weren’t.

It was past midnight then, and Mindo was at the gate, calling Nelson’s name.

THROUGHOUT THAT AFTERNOONand into the evening, Mónica looked for her son without success. She didn’t know where to begin, and the process made her aware of just how little she knew about his life, or at least about his life now. Nelson’s friends, the ones she remembered, were from middle and high school. They appeared in her mind’s eye, effortlessly, a row of adolescent boys standing on a sidewalk in their gray and white school uniforms, performing a world-weariness they could scarcely have understood. She smiled at the memory, could see their dark eyes, their slumped shoulders, their vanity beginning to manifest itself in surprising ways (the carefully maintained shadow of a mustache, or the sneakers whose wear and tear was as curated as any gallery exhibit). Fifteen, sixteen, almost men but not quite — this was not the age she most loved, but it was the one she recalled most clearly, in part because she’d had Sebastián by her side to help record it. Those were the years they talked most of all; the happiest years of their marriage: they were alone in the house with a somber teenage madman whom they loved, two hostages who admired and feared for their captor. They discussed Nelson’s moods the way farmers analyze the weather, looking for some logic in it, some reason. They worried over his choice of friends, worried most of all because it was something they could not control: Santiago, Marco, Diego, Sandro, Fausto, Luis. She remembered their faces, but not their surnames. They were good kids, but not good enough, boys with easily identifiable weaknesses, talents they hadn’t yet discovered; and more worrying than their lack of maturity was their lack of curiosity. On this count, Mónica and Sebastián saw a clear difference between their son and the others. The boys came to the house, and spent hours in a locked bedroom. She could not, at the time, conceive of what made these children laugh. The years passed, she and Sebastián watched them grow; and then Nelson entered the Conservatory, and these boys simply faded from view, to be replaced by others. These others — now that she needed them, Mónica realized she had only the vaguest idea who they were. She looked among her papers and found programs to various plays Nelson had been in. She scanned the names of the cast members, and not one of them jogged anything in her memory. She searched for Ixta’s number, and couldn’t find it. She even called the Conservatory, and spoke to a secretary, but found it impossible to explain what she wanted: for this woman, this stranger, to tell her who her son’s friends were.

After dinner, Mónica decided to go see her sister, who lived only ten blocks away. She went by car for it was dark out, and one never knew. She found the family — Astrid, Ramiro, and their two teenage daughters, Ashley and Miriam — gathered in front of the television, as if for warmth, a portrait of togetherness that made Mónica long for another kind of life. Perhaps if I’d had girls, she thought idly. For her extended family, she offered a broad smile, and they made room for her on the couch. Not long after, Mónica was breathing at their rhythm, laughing when they laughed. Soon, she’d almost forgotten why she’d come at all, and looked down to discover, with some surprise, that her shoes had slipped off her feet. She wiggled her toes in her socks, a childish gesture that made her smile. She was comfortable, and hadn’t even noticed.

When the program ended, the adults left the television to the girls. Ramiro disappeared into the garden for a cigarette, while Astrid and Mónica prepared the hot water, set the table, brought out fruit and cheese and olives and bread. Mónica liked the routine, and looked forward to not eating alone. A year after Sebastián died, Astrid had suggested that she move in, but at the time Mónica had been offended by the proposal, so offended it had never been mentioned again. And still, ever since, the house looked very different to Mónica. Whenever she visited, she imagined herself living there, growing old there, and to her surprise, the notion didn’t bother her as much as it had then. Years later, it had begun to make sense, more so now that Nelson was gone.

When we spoke in early 2002, she was still mulling it over. “I believe less and less in autonomy,” she told me. “I don’t know what it means anymore, at my age. I can only tell you it seems less desirable each day.”

Ramiro returned, tea was served, and he recounted for his sister-in-law all the relevant details from that morning’s conversation with Nelson, including his odd comment about becoming a father. Astrid and Ramiro found it troubling; Mónica did not, and she couldn’t say why. She puzzled over it. Part of her hoped it was true. It would be nice to have a grandchild, even if she had to travel to the provinces to visit.

Mónica’s questions were basic: Was her son skinny? Did he look healthy? How was he dressed? Did he appear unhappy?

With each query, Ramiro became more and more uncomfortable. He had excuses, and he employed them: he’d been rushed, he’d been caught off guard and hadn’t paid attention to the details. Mónica continued to press him, and finally, Ramiro raised his hands in exasperation.

“Do you want to know the truth?” he asked Mónica.

She stared at him intently. It was a ridiculous thing to ask.

“I’ve never understood your son.” Ramiro paused, and took a sip from his teacup. “I’ve always found him to be … inscrutable.”

Mónica slumped back in her seat. As if on cue, her nieces laughed along with the television, along with each other; two lovely, well-adjusted girls whom this mediocre man had no trouble understanding. She glared at her sister’s husband. He responded with an insipid smile.

“Well,” she said, and for a long moment this was all she could manage. “That’s not very helpful.”

Astrid reached a hand across the table. “What he means is—”

“Your boy is complicated, that’s all,” Ramiro said. “And no, he did not seem well. He hasn’t seemed well to me in years. Not since …”