Andres Neuman: Talking to Ourselves

He asked me if I had thought about our dinner the previous night. I said no. He asked me if I’d had difficulty getting to sleep. I said no. He suggested meeting for coffee this afternoon. I said no. He asked if he could call me tomorrow. I said yes.

“Hypocrite lecteuse! Ma semblable! Ma soeur!” I underline with a highlighter in a manifesto by Margaret Atwood, hypocrisy is a leveller, sisterly hypocrisy, sister hypocrisy, “Let us now praise stupid women,” praise them, praise them! “who have given us Literature.” Without stupid women, not a single love poem would have ever been written.

Is Mario jealous? Somewhat. Am I jealous? Not particularly.

I could just as well have written: Is he jealous? Not really, because he acknowledges it as such. Because he is a man at ease with his jealousy. Like my sister is with hers. She even cultivates it. She regards jealousy as a sign of love.

And I could as well have written: Am I jealous? Perhaps in a twisted way. Because, although in theory I am less possessive than they are, in fact I am afraid to acknowledge the possessive impulse in myself.

Is jealousy related to love? It is related: they fight. They probably cancel each other out. Are fantasies related to marriage? They are related: they cohabit. Maybe they are mutually sustaining.

Not long ago I reached a certain age, how can I define it? an age: that’s all. After which we begin counting it, we become too aware of it. It isn’t a number so much as a kind of frontier.

Why is it that suddenly, without having decided to, we begin noticing younger people? Observing them with a certain nervousness? Why are we tempted to attract their attention, to display ourselves surreptitiously in front of them? What do we hope they will avoid? What do we want them to give us back?

Any woman who thinks this is a problem restricted to men, very well: she is probably naïve, a coward, or a hypocrite. I have women friends who fit neatly into all three categories. Until one day, when they least expect it, they leave their bald husbands for some other man.

I can’t help but admit that I, too, am turning into That. The thing I didn’t want to become. I should have been fully prepared. I had seen it in books, films, in my neighbours. But that couldn’t happen to me. Yet it has: I am starting to mistake beauty for youth.

… testing, testing, let’s see, is this piece of shit working or not? testing, tes, well, it seems to be, getting started is difficult, breathing is a bit of a struggle sometimes, but the main thing is to get started, isn’t it? like with Pedro, after that, well, everything speeds up, I’ll explain, bah, can I explain this? you’re at your grandparents’ and you don’t know why, we’ve sent you there until the end of the holidays, I’m meant to be travelling, we talk every day, I try to sound cheerful, am I deceiving you, son? yes, I’m deceiving you, am I doing the right thing? I’ve no idea, so let’s assume I am, I prefer you not to see me like this, we can’t tell you what’s going on now, what is now in any case, if I don’t even know when you’re listening to me, will those mp thingamajigs still exist? or will iPods seem as old-fashioned to your kids as my record player? formats disappear just like people, hold on, is this thing still recor—.

And at the same time I’m not sure, do you see? I swear I’d give my life to, how ironic is that, I’d give anything to know what’s going to happen to this lie, what you’ll think of me when you discover it, you’ll have a few photos of me, I hope, and if so Mario you’ll look at them sometimes, won’t you? but I have no way of seeing you, I mean, will you be a nice guy or a rogue? or will you be nice some of the time and a bit of a bastard others, like the rest of us? and, you know, I try, I really do try to figure out if you’re going to look like me, not too much I trust, for your sake, and part of me is desperate for you to grow up now, and another part of me is scared by how fast you, I mean, for you time will also, well, and I spend hours inventing a face, a height for you, but not a voice, I can’t do voices, it’s strange, I make up bodies, but I remember voices, and I can picture your back, your nose, whatever, your beard, you have a beard? I can’t believe it.

Let’s say that with you I’ve had good intentions but not much initiative, I fooled myself into believing I was waiting, waiting for you, for instance, the last few summers you’d been asking me if you could go with Uncle Juanjo on a delivery, he suggested it, he told me, but your mother and I were never sure, we thought it was dangerous, or not right for your age, or heck knows what, there’ll be time, we said, we thought there’d be plenty, and suddenly, or not so suddenly, there wasn’t any, that’s why I had to do it like this, in such a hurry, I had to create this memory for you, your mum was against it at first, we argued quite a lot, I was feeling better, and you know those trips, the ones the travel agency was supposedly sending me on? well, I was staying with your uncle and aunt for a few days, until I had recovered a bit from the side effects, then I came home and did the best I could, your mother, it goes without saying — wait, someone’s coming in.

Once I quit taking the poison there was a, like a kind of illusion, I had mornings when I was elated, I got up and thought: I’m cured, then the next day I returned to reality, I had ups and downs, and during one of these remissions I asked Uncle Juanjo what deliveries he had, are you sure? he said, are you sure? then I suggested we go together, that came first, right? and at the same time, why not, it would bring in some money, the pay was good, and I, well, you’ll agree, son, I was thinking about how little money we had left in the bank, about the mortgage payments, needing a new car, things like that, and I had a duty to you, didn’t I? your duty is to take care of your health, your mother said, but this summer it was different, I hardly felt sick at all, you’d just had your birthday, the delivery date was okay, you can tell there aren’t as many truckers to put the screws on during the holidays, damned bloodsuckers, I more or less knew the route, I’d been there once with your granddad, he was the one who started trucking, then Uncle Juanjo took over, bah, and I was supposed to, that’s another story, your granddad wanted it to be me, you know? he even taught me how to move trailers, how to strip engines, how to budget, I don’t know why the heck we teach our kids to behave the way we do, when we know we aren’t happy, sometimes when I think about it, I swear I—

Yesterday I didn’t feel so good, I tried to take a nap, then your mum came back, I had a bad night, bah, we both did, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about when she and I met, it’s amazing to think we might have lived different lives, a life without the other, the first thing I did after I told your granddad I was leaving the company was to enrol at the university, and it was a big shock for him, you know? my father was one of those men who chop cheese with one stroke, you know? that’s where I met your mum, she didn’t take much notice of me at first, how can I put it, she was more interested in rich kids, she denies it, we never agree about that part of the story, then luckily she started taking more of an interest in the lousy students, I had spotted her from day one, long before we started dating, do people still say dating ? maybe I sound old-fashioned, your mum would get straight A’s, you know what she’s like, heaven forbid a B, I used to scrape through, I never went near a classroom, as soon as I found out your mum wrote short stories I quickly did some research, oh yes, dear, I crammed for that all right, it’s called doing field work.