Antonio Molina - In the Night of Time

He speaks without moving and without taking his eyes off Judith. Words leave his mouth, though he barely separates his lips. He speaks and doesn’t think about what he’s going to say next, the sound of his own voice spurs him on. The fury is in the words, not in him. He maintains a monotonous neutrality, as if testifying at a trial or making a statement, being careful not to speak too quickly for the typist who’s transcribing it. Speaking alleviates and exalts him. It returns shame and lucidity to him in waves, and restores an abused but not abolished shadow of personal integrity. He can’t be the only one who’s fled, who hides behind a submissive courtesy, who before speaking must be certain not to offend or annoy anyone. His hands still rest on the table, one on top of the other, and the muscles in his face don’t move either, though the unequal light from the fire and oil lamp modifies the shadows. But he’s become more confident as he speaks, raising his voice a little or perhaps pronouncing words with more precision and a different kind of energy, just as he hasn’t once lowered his eyes or stopped speaking when Judith looked as if she were about to say something. He’s been silent for so long that even if he wanted to, he couldn’t stop talking. It’s now, stimulated by his own words, that he begins to realize how long his silence has lasted, the huge volume of what he’s kept silent, its monstrous proliferation, silence a habit and a refuge and a way of accommodating to the world, then transformed into the very space around him, the cell and bell jar where he’s lived in recent months. The silence in his apartment on sleepless nights, the silence in his office at University City; looking and keeping silent, looking away, not saying anything, traveling in silence on trains, alone in hotel rooms, in a cabin on the ship that crossed the Atlantic, in New York cafeterias where he sat by the window to look at the street and the signs painted in bright colors. He’s been silent for so long, and now words come easily to him, the images of what he’s seen and what he’d like to describe to Judith with absolute accuracy, though he suspects he won’t succeed. No explanation can convey the experience, the terror, the absurd truth that only someone who’s lived it can understand, though he tries in vain to turn it into words and moves his lips as if gasping for air, not looking away from Judith’s eyes; looking at her now with an openness he didn’t have before, slowly taking pleasure in her reclaimed features, her proximity, the marvel of her existence now that he has no hope, and desire is stunted by her physical reticence, by the inertia of a bitter male capitulation, wounded vanity, and sexual humiliation. But it’s this lack of hope that allows him to see Judith more clearly than ever, his attention for the first time free of the urgency of a desire that in its former fulfillment was always undermined by the fear of evanescence and loss. Now he sees Judith exactly as she is. Her voice reaches him as precisely as the brush of a hand on his eyelids.

“If you know so much, tell me the honorable way to act. Tell me whether you think there’s a just way to behave.”

“I don’t know anything. I don’t know whether I’m as much of a clown as the rest. Each person justifies his shameful behavior the best he can. Only the murdered are without guilt, and you don’t want to be one of them. Professor Rossman, or Lorca.”

“I couldn’t believe it when I read it in the paper. Professor Salinas was distraught. I wanted to think it was a rumor, a false report. Why would they have killed him?”

“For no reason, Judith. He was innocent. Do you think that’s a small crime? Innocents are not wanted anywhere.”

“You finally said my name.”

“You haven’t said mine yet.”

“‘Living in pronouns.’ Do you remember? I didn’t really understand the meaning of that poem. You explained it to me. The lovers can call each other only ‘you’ and ‘I’ so they won’t be found out.”

“Don’t go. Stay with me.”

“I already have the ticket. The ship sails tomorrow from New York. Three hundred of us are going. And many more will go soon. In small groups, to keep a low profile. Some will go to France first, others to England.”

“The borders will be closed.”

“We’ll cross where the smugglers do.”

“This is not a novel, Judith.”

“Don’t talk to me again in that mocking tone.”

“I don’t want you to be killed.”

“I asked you to tell me what can be done, and you haven’t answered.”

“There’s nothing you can or should do. You’re lucky, it’s not your country. Forget about it because you can. Many more people were killed in Abyssinia than in Spain and neither of us lost any sleep over it. And neither did the democracies or the League of Nations. Hitler wants to expel all the Jews from Germany, and he’s put the Social Democrats and Communists in camps, and there hasn’t been a single international protest. Will anyone be shocked to learn that he’s helping Franco? In Russia they die of hunger by the millions and nobody cares, but all the generous lovers of justice are moved by Soviet propaganda. With some exceptions, this whole world is a horrifying place. Don’t they lynch Negroes in the south of your country? How many were killed three or four years ago in Paraguay, in the Chaco War? Hundreds of thousands. You may not have heard of it. Do you really believe that your actions, just or unjust, can make any difference? If you want to ease your conscience, join a committee of solidarity with the Spanish Republic. Ask for money in the street, collect warm clothing. The militiamen need it now in the Sierra. If you send them a sweater or a blanket, you’ll have been more useful than letting yourself be killed. If you collect just one can of condensed milk or a pack of cigarettes for them.”

“I hear you speak and I don’t know you.”

“I’m not here to tell you what you want to hear.”

“I shouldn’t have come. I could have been in New York by now.”

“Go on, then. Maybe by the time you get to Spain the Republic won’t have collapsed yet. They’ll welcome you with placards and bands. They’ll take you on a tour of some peaceful front. In Madrid they’ll give a dinner dance in your honor at the palace of the Alliance of Anti-Fascist Intellectuals. The meal they’ll serve will be much better and more abundant than the food they give the soldiers at the front — that is, if there are trucks to bring the food, or gasoline for the trucks, maybe there isn’t any, or it’s being used for parades or for taking people to slaughter. Alberti and his gang of poets in nicely pressed blue coveralls will recite yards of verses for you. They’ll take you to a bullfight and a flamenco performance. They’ll take pictures of you and you’ll be in the papers. They’ll present you as further confirmation that all over the world sympathy is growing for the struggle of the Spanish people against fascism. Then they’ll take you to the border and you’ll all go back to your countries with a clear conscience and the joy of having had a dangerous, exotic adventure. You’ll even go back with a tan.”

“I’m leaving. I don’t have to listen to this. I’m ashamed of you.”

She stood up and now looks at him from above, as if challenging him to try to block her way. His two hands are separated, parallel on the table, but that’s the only movement he’s made. He raises his eyes to her, then looks at the fire, then at the spot where Judith had been only a moment before. She’ll leave, and each step she takes will be a definitive parting. He thinks of Moreno Villa this summer, in his room at the Residence: now we’ve learned that in these times a casual departure may be forever. She’ll cross the darkened library, the foyer. He’ll hear the door shut, then wait for the car engine to start. Angry and nervous, Judith won’t begin to drive right away. The sound of the engine will become steady. Sitting still, his eyes on the fire, he’ll hear the sound fading until it’s gone, the red taillights dimming like embers at the end of the road, the tunnel of entwined tree branches. In the silence the patter of the rain will return, the crackle of the fire, a brief burst of logs burning. After a while no sign that Judith has been here, only the plate with her unfinished supper, the half-consumed bottle of beer. He’ll go up to bed, lighting his way with the oil lamp, and search for Judith’s scent on a towel. He’ll look in the mirror to brush his teeth, half his face erased by darkness, his own eyes eluding him. He makes no move to stop her, now that he still has her within reach. Judith speaks, framed by the door she’s just opened and at any moment will cross. She is calm.