Ben Lerner - Leaving the Atocha Station

Finally, Isabel came. It was late afternoon and I was reading “The Waste Land” online, stealing phrases. She said something about my apartment being dirty and arranged a few things and it was clear to me that all she felt for me was pity, convinced, no doubt, that she had broken my heart. After saying something about her work that I didn’t try to understand, she told me she was going to Barcelona, probably in the next few days, and would stay with Oscar until they both returned. I experienced the shape of pain but no pain, and said that while it was a shame I wouldn’t see her more, that I was going to miss her terribly, I wished her and Oscar all the best; indeed, if I stayed in Madrid beyond my fellowship, maybe we could all have a drink together at some point, although I understood if that would be difficult for him. My Spanish had never sounded so fluent. I heard myself saying that before she left I’d at least like to take her to dinner, drinks. She had probably planned not to see me again after this visit to my apartment, had imagined a difficult scene, but now that I was showing myself more or less indifferent to her departure, and capable of almost alarming lightness, she said yes, sure, that would be great. I told her for some reason that I was busy that night but that if she came by the next evening around nine we would have our good — bye celebration. She kissed me on the cheek, said how sweet I was, and left. After a momentary flash of anger, I felt nothing.

A few hours after Isabel’s visit I walked to the gallery, a half — hour walk, smoking and reciting some of my poems to myself, barely feeling the ground beneath me. It was a warm evening, or I was oblivious to the cold, and the streetlights and shop windows and lights of passing cars were intensely bright; the conversation of pedestrians and the sound of traffic and music from passing cars was intensely loud; I wondered if these were side effects. Teresa wasn’t there, but Arturo was, and appeared very happy to see me. I told him I had been in Granada with someone named Isabel and he smiled at me but asked no questions. Maybe his expression implied Teresa would be jealous. He asked me about my poems and I took four notebooks out of my bag and gave them to him and explained they were just from this week and I wondered which were his favorite poems and if there were any they wanted to include in the pamphlet. He seemed genuinely excited, and I thought to myself that that was both touching and somehow sad, but felt neither touched nor saddened. He said I must come to the opening on Friday for the show of several well — known Spanish painters and he added, maybe significantly, that Teresa would be eager to see me; I said fine. Then for some reason I embraced and kissed Arturo with an ambiguous passion I didn’t feel and walked home. For the first time in many days I was tired and quickly fell asleep.

When I awoke it was a little after three in the morning and I was perhaps hungrier than I had ever been. I’d been eating very little for two weeks, and the return of my appetite, I assumed, represented a shift in my body’s relation to the white pills. I ate an entire two — day — old baguette and as I ate I checked my e — mail and there was a message in English from Teresa, who had only e — mailed me once or twice in the past, saying that she had heard I was back from “traveling with Isabel” and that she missed me. I felt a small, distant thrill, further confirmation that my body had acclimated a little to the drugs, or that the drugs were already losing their effectiveness, and I went easily back to sleep and slept until the early afternoon.

After I showered, I went to a jeweler near my apartment and with my parents’ credit card, which I was only to use in emergencies, bought Isabel a hundred — and — fifty — euro silver necklace. It was the first time I’d used the card and it was by far the most expensive gift I’d ever purchased. I asked the handsome woman who sold me the necklace where I should take my girlfriend for dinner as it was our anniversary, what did she consider the nicest restaurant in Madrid, the fancier the better, given the occasion. She said she liked Zalacaín, but that it was probably difficult to get in. Smiling, I asked if I could use her phone to call them and beg. She said of course and I called and they said they could, owing to a cancellation, seat two that night at nine thirty. I thanked them and the woman gift wrapped the necklace and said something about how lucky my girlfriend was as I left.

I went to the Corte Inglés and bought a dress shirt, a stylish — looking knockoff black suit that they could tailor within the hour, and a pair of Spanish shoes. It all cost a few hundred euros and again I used the card. I went home and took a second shower, rolled and smoked a spliff, read the Quixote for a while, and then put on the suit. When Isabel arrived she seemed impressed by my appearance; I felt handsome, not, as I had expected, ridiculous. After she considered me for a while, Isabel said her own clothes weren’t elegant enough; she hadn’t thought we were going anywhere so formal. I said we were going to Zalacaín as though I went there all the time and she said she had heard of it but would have to go change. I told her there wasn’t time, although there was, and that she looked beautiful, which she did, but I said she looked beautiful with some condescension, as if I doubted she owned sufficiently elegant clothing. We took a cab and were early to Zalacaín and Isabel was visibly underdressed; people were staring at the scarf in her hair and the hostess hesitated before asking for my name. Isabel was too attractive for her casual attire to cause much of a scandal, but I smiled apologetically at the hostess, who smiled back at me as I gave her my name; I could feel Isabel blushing.

It turned out our table was ready and we were seated and I said to the waiter that my Spanish wasn’t good enough to order so I asked that he just bring us whatever the chef recommended, along with a bottle of his favorite Spanish white; my manner suggested I had made this request in several European capitals and languages. When I heard myself ask for a Spanish wine, which, no matter how expensive, would be several orders of magnitude cheaper than the others, I realized I was not entirely out of my mind, which meant I should stop acting as if I were: I was on track to spend more in one day than I’d spent in the previous two months including rent, and all of it in a manner entirely visible to my parents. How would my ailing mom and fascist dad respond to such acting out was the joke I made to myself; I heard my laughter in my head and it sounded foreign.

Isabel and I had nothing to say. She was nervous, angry, confused; she didn’t drink the aperitifs they brought us on a silver tray. I drank both of them in a manner that communicated I was entirely prepared to make a scene, whatever scene Isabel might like. But worried she would just stand up and leave, I asked her as though there were no tension in the air if she’d had to quit her job at the language school. She said she hadn’t and I realized she’d told me this already. I told her I was sorry about my insisting on such an abrupt return from Granada. She said it was fine and asked after my poems, how work on the little book was coming. I said good, great in fact, that I had never written so much, and I imagined I saw a spark of interest in Isabel as she perhaps remembered my notes and pondered the possibility that she was, in one way or another, involved in them. I told her I would send her a copy in a tone designed to demolish this fantasy if she had it, my voice suggesting I wouldn’t even remember her by the time the book came out, but her smile made it clear this was not a believable implication, that I was trying too hard to appear indifferent. I softened a little, felt myself sink into my chair, and for a second I feared I might let out the same sob, a sob very close to awkward laughter, that I’d released in Granada. Wine was served for me to taste and, making a face that expressed mild disappointment, a face I often made while reading, I said that it was fine.