Rodrigo Rey Rosa - Severina

In fact, we saw each other next at the bookstore. It was Monday. She arrived shortly before the reading, like the other times. The guest that day was my friend Jean Latouche, a French poet. When she came in I was talking with him. I broke off the conversation, excused myself, and went to say hello.

“I’m very glad you came. I’ve been wanting to see you for days.”

“Have you?”

I wondered if she knew that I’d moved into the pensión; I hoped not.

“I tried to find you a couple of times.”

“Where?” she asked, surprised.

“At the pensión. ”

“Why?”

“I wanted to see you, that’s all.”

“Ah.” She looked me in the eye. “I wanted to see you too.”

“Really?”

She nodded. I took her face in my hands and gave her a kiss on the mouth.

“You don’t waste any time,” she said. “But look. .” She glanced over my shoulder. “I think someone wants to talk to you.”

It was Latouche. He needed to test a microphone, he said. I went with him to the reading space, plugged in some cables, and when I came back to see what she was doing, I realized with a stab of frustration that she had gone.

I rushed to the door and down the corridor, ran up the stairs, but she had disappeared. I returned to the bookstore. My head was spinning. A premonition sent me back to the shelf beside which I had kissed her, and I discovered that she had taken another book: a hardcover edition of Faulkner’s The Wild Palms, translated by Borges. Rather than anger, I felt a strange relief. I went to the cash register and added Faulkner’s novel to the list of stolen books.

I called one of my business partners and asked him to come and take over at the store; there was no way I could stay there for the reading. It would be all right, he said, I could leave; he’d be there within the hour.

Latouche, who had noticed my attempt to slip away discreetly, called out just as I was heading for the door and gave me an inquisitive look. I traced a little circle in the air to signify that we would see each other later on, and went out into the corridor.

It was already dark outside. On Séptima, a team of council workers had opened up the sewers, releasing their stench along with a smell of damp earth. The lighting was poor and at one point I almost fell into a recently dug trench. I kept walking hurriedly toward the pensión, although I was sure that I wouldn’t find her there.

When I arrived, I went to my room to change my shoes and trousers, which were muddy from the dug-up avenue, and after a moment’s consideration I decided to go and talk to the man who was on duty at reception. Pretending that I had some foreign friends coming to visit, I asked if there was a room available. The pensión was fully booked, he assured me. That was why she and her father hadn’t been able to stay there, I guessed.

“I’ll be checking out tonight,” I said to the receptionist.

“It’s up to you, sir. But I’m afraid a refund won’t be possible,” he pointed out. “The rooms are rented by the week, as you know.”

“That’s all right. One question, though. Two weeks ago a young lady was here with her father. Do you know who she was?”

“A young lady with her father? Her name?”

“Ana.”

“Her surname?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well no, sir, no young lady has stayed here with her father this week, as far as I can remember.”

I nodded, but didn’t believe him.

“Will you be checking out?”

“Not straight away, but yes, I think I’ll be leaving tonight.”

“As you please,” he said with a mysterious smile, which I found disturbing.

I left the pensión. In the street, I stopped and hesitated for a moment, then headed back to the bookstore, taking a detour to avoid the muddy avenue.

So had she lied to me about living with her father? Did she live alone? Or with someone who could pass for her father? These questions and various images swirled around in my head. There’s no point going on with this, I told myself; it’s madness, delirium, and the best thing you can do is forget all about her. Now! But the questions and the images kept preying on my mind, and all that night I don’t believe a single minute passed without me thinking of her.

The reading was still going on when I got back to the bookstore. Latouche was a good reader. The last two poems, which I was able to hear in their entirety, drew enthusiastic applause from the audience, but I was there and not there, alien to it all. I was floating in a world whose elements were ill-defined, nebulous, and possibly evil. The idea of hiring a detective to discover her real identity crossed my mind. And it calmed me down, though not for long. In the end, I mixed with the crowd and had a drink.

“She’ll never forgive you,” said Latouche, laughing, when I explained my idea of hiring a detective. “That is, if she finds out. There’s no reason why she should, but I know you: you’ll end up telling her yourself. You’ve got it worse than Tristan, my friend! It’s obvious. But don’t worry; she’ll be back. She’s already come back twice, or three times, is it? She’ll come back again. They always do. Well,” he corrected himself, “almost always. The women I’ve known, anyway.”

We drank a lot. Beyond a certain point, most of what we said and did that night was lost to memory. When I got into a cab after saying goodbye to Latouche, I told the driver to go to my apartment; I didn’t even think of returning to the pensión, and I would regret it the next day.

When I woke up, I didn’t recognize my bedroom; for a moment I thought I was at the pensión. Then came the sketchy memories of the night before that linger in a brain too liberally flushed with alcohol.

“The young lady you were asking about yesterday,” said the receptionist at the Pensión Carlos, “she was waiting for you here all last night, sir. She left with her luggage less than an hour ago.”

“But you told me there wasn’t any young lady. .”

“But, sir, I can’t just give out information about our guests. You didn’t know her name. That made me wonder what was going on.”

“Whose luggage did you say she left with?”

“Hers, sir. No one has been into your room.”

I went to my room, shut the door, and checked that all my things were still there. I sat on the edge of the bed with my head in my hands and my eyes on the floor. That’s what I was like when I fell helplessly in love, which is why I’d learned to avoid it. Too late, again, I thought. I had to find her.

I got to my feet, determined to take action. I picked up my suitcase, opened it on the bed, and started collecting my belongings. And that was when I realized that, in spite of what the receptionist had said, someone had come into my room. She had. The books that I had brought but barely leafed through since I’d been there — with the exception of the Darío — had disappeared: Hadrian the Seventh by Frederick Rolfe, Interludio azul by Pere Gimferrer, Babilonia by Salvator Rosa, The Golden Earth by Norman Lewis, Espérame en Siberia, vida mía by Jardiel Poncela. . I finished packing and went to talk with the receptionist.

“I don’t want to make trouble for you, but someone went into my room.”

“Well, yes, they had to clean the room.”

“What I meant was, someone went in and took my books.”

“Books?”

“Listen.” I looked at him as calmly as I could. “Strange as it may seem, this young lady is my friend. That’s right, even though I don’t know her surname. I haven’t known her for long, but we have become friends.”