Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

She went over the last journal as avidly as she did the first dirty book Conchita Reyes gave her, and when she was through it seemed as if some heavy burden had been lifted from her shoulders. It was as if she knew not only her husband but the whole mystery of life; she was alive, she could pass her palms over tabletops and feel the smoothness; she could feel a dry martini scorch her throat, smell the fumes of traffic, hear the minutest tick of the clock, the scampering of some lonely cockroach across the bedroom floor. She was alive, she could explain herself, her father and mother, all her friends; she could understand why they breathed the same foul air every day, but she could not understand why Tony was dead.

Then she remembered the torn manuscripts that she had packed in the shoe boxes, and she fell to sorting them out, arranging them page by page. For days, she worked at it feverishly, barely eating anything while she was at it, not accepting condolences or telephone calls. But when everything was ready, taped, and arranged, she was as much in the dark as ever.

One evening, during a dinner at which she had not spoken a word, her father asked if she was feeling well. Her mother had been concerned about how little she had been eating and had ordered the cook to stock her room with fruits so that she could nibble on something if she were hungry.

“I am all right, Papa,” she said, turning to her father. She noticed at once that he looked tired, that there were deepening lines in his lean, handsome face.

“I just don’t have the appetite I used to have.”

“We were all under strain, hija ,” Manuel Villa said languidly. “I hope you realize that. Oh, it’s not money problems — how wonderful it would be if all our problems were about money! They wouldn’t be difficult to solve, you know. But you and I, we understand each other clearly.”

She smiled at him and continued toying with the broiled tuna before her.

Don Manuel Villa brightened up. “I am tired of fish. The sauce is not good, and tonight I feel like having a good piece of steak.” He turned to his wife for approval. “I have a suggestion. Let us go to Alba’s. I hear there’s a new flamenco singer, too.”

She did not really want to go out; she would have preferred to go up to her room and reread the ledgers her husband had left, to know him better now that it was impossible to know him in the flesh; but there was a hint of pleading in her father’s voice, and her mother, too, had looked at her as if her very life depended on going out. She stood up and went to her room to dress.

They had, as usual, the best table in the supper club. The floor show had already started, a mimic from Europe who did imitations of Charlie Chaplin, Charles Boyer, and Humphrey Bogart. Their drinks came when the Spanish singer appeared on the stage — a short, olive-skinned woman accompanied by a lean, dark guitarist. She did not start with the flamencos for which she was famous, as spelled out in neon on the marquee. Her voice was metallic and yet there was a polish and mellowness to it, particularly when she lingered on the upper notes. She was not a trouper; she did not play with the microphone or emote with her hands; she just stood upright and pronounced the words clear as parchment. Her first number was inconsequential — unrequited love, death without end, God’s reward to those who have suffered. Applause was polite, but even then, Carmen knew she was listening to an artist, perhaps not a showman and an egoist, but one who could carry a message of love or grief straight to the heart. The guitar spoke again, and this time the singer’s words were meant only for her and for no other; these were the words Tony had uttered to her, the only Spanish song he had known and sung to her long, long ago, and it all came back — the memories of summer, the quiet walks under the elms, the unspoken acquiescence, the almost sacred tenderness, and all the love that now seemed wasted. There is no time, there is only eternity and the implacable reality that even life can be ephemeral, nothing more than a season, another summer grown cold. And with the sunlight gone, night is here.

Yo sin su amor no soy nada

Deten el tiempo en tus manos

Haz esta noche perpetua

Para que nunca se vaya de mi …

The words were like the ringing of a bell, then they faded, slowly, very slowly; the singer’s lips moved but no sound came forth; the guitar was muted although the fingers still strummed; there came this silence, vast and sepulchral and so frightening, she could feel her arms and legs become clammy, her whole body taut. She strained her ears. This is not true, this is not real, she told herself, but the club was dead, and the whole world, too. She opened her mouth and she knew she was speaking but she could not hear herself. She turned to her father, shouted “Papa!” and her father bolted up. But there was no sound. She screamed again, twice, but nothing, nothing but this silence. Her father rushed to her and slapped her hard across the face and she fell into his arms, sobbing, while her mother went to her and they took her out.

At home her father gave her a couple of pills and warm milk to drink. She fell asleep shortly after. She woke up in the morning, afraid and cold: the world, for the first time, was deathly quiet and still. The room had suddenly become alien; the clutter of magazines on the writing desk, the line of cosmetics at her table, her open cabinets and her clothes spilling out assured her she was indeed in her room, but she missed the old, familiar feeling of security, of being safe, as in the past when her husband was here, padding around in his shorts or snoring in bed. No living sound came from the life beyond the glass windows or the locked door.

The maid came in with a glass of warm milk and, shortly after, her parents, as solicitous as ever, came inquiring about how she felt. She cupped her ears and shook her head. She was not hearing anything, not a whisper, not a stir in this big and empty room.

Her mother helped her dress while her father made some hurried telephone calls. They drove to Ermita, to Dr. Clavecilla, an EENT specialist who was a friend of the family. He was very charming; he had traveled extensively in Europe and he greeted them affably, even made a joke as was his style, for her father and mother, as she could see, were laughing. She must now learn how to read lips if she wanted to understand or, at least, be part of the human race. But the effort that she must make would be great, and as she dwelled on the thought, it repelled her. The doctor led them all to his clinic — a room with all sorts of impressive-looking equipment — and in the background two nurses stood at ease ever ready to jump at the doctor’s bidding. She was led to a chair, much like a dentist’s, and the doctor probed into her ears, poked something cool and smooth into them. He talked desultorily with her parents and they shook their heads at each question. Then the doctor wrote on a pad and showed it to her: Have you had streptomycin injections recently, in huge quantities?

She smiled and shook her head.

The doctor called in the receptionist, who took down notes in shorthand, and after a short while the receptionist returned with the note neatly typed.

She read it slowly: “Deafness can be caused by a hundred reasons, almost all of them having to do with the eardrum and the auditory nerve, which relays sound to the brain. Sound that is received by the external ear and relayed via the middle ear to the internal ear may be blocked by wax. Many who complain that they are deaf usually have too much wax in their ear canal. The eardrum may be perforated and, therefore, can no longer record sound. Perforation may be remedied. There may be infection, too. Neither of these affects both your ears. The auditory nerve may be destroyed by an overdose of streptomycin or a severe disease. This is not so with your case. I can have X-rays made but I do not think this is necessary. I am quite convinced that your sense of hearing is normal but that there is something — perhaps in your mind, I am not sure — that is blocking your sense of hearing. People can be deaf because, in their subconscious, they do not want to hear.”