Gonzalo Torne: Divorce Is in the Air

“You eat too much, John. You’re heavy.”

Helen sank onto the mattress, changing position deftly in mid-air to end up with one leg crossed under her other thigh. I think it speaks well of me that I never confused Helen with a kitten, with some creature bred for confinement. We were in the early stages of something, and it didn’t bode well that neither one of us had any idea how it would end.

“Come again?”

“You’re getting fat. You have to take care of yourself. Tall people don’t wear extra pounds well. Plus, you don’t have the kind of face for a bag of skin at your neck.”

“It’s called a double chin. And why don’t I have the face for a double chin?”

“Because of your eyes, you don’t have clever eyes. Without a well-defined profile your face would look like a balloon, something swollen, an old thing…”

“That’s why I married you, so you’ll take care of me when I’m old.”

I started nonchalantly to undress, going for a purely functional nudity — the air from the radiator was suffocating. I said nothing; when I sucked in my belly, my windpipe was cut off and I started to cough.

“You’re sucking it in. You don’t have a blank check with me, you know. You can forget about me cleaning up your shit if you go and turn into a pig. Spanish women put up with anything: fat guys; bald, hairy, smelly ones….Well, I’m not Spanish.”

“Leave me alone, Freckles. Just try finding someone else you can dump that kid of yours on.”

She jumped up from the bed, evidence that I hadn’t managed to varnish my words with a joking veneer (their doubting undertone probably made things worse). Though I don’t think she entirely understood the Catalan words I used, I know she grasped their general drift. Her eyes darkened, two open holes in pink flesh, and began to dart around the room, scanning the furniture for a hiding place or weapon. She spewed a stream of words, but what she really wanted was to find a way out.

I tried to yell at her to stop, but she charged toward the exit with her hands over her ears, a gesture I’ve always found unbearably childish. In two long strides I was between her and the door. She stopped short of touching me and took two steps backward, her calves tensed. She looked at me, and now there was no hint of circumspection in her eyes; whatever fire had ignited in her wasn’t going to be quenched by talking. It would last all night, and I could forget about touching her now. By some marvel of asymmetry, my head cooled just as Helen was passing the point of no return, a fury mounting in her that couldn’t be stamped out even by apologizing (and I wasn’t about to do that anyway — the final embers of my anger were still smoldering). Helen would only be satisfied once she’d subjected me to a good dose of pain.

“Move.”

“You can’t leave now….”

“Move.”

“I’m not going to let you out.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re going to ruin everything, you’re going to spoil our whole night. Just do me a favor and look at me, listen to me!”

“I don’t want anything to do with you. Let me out or I’ll scream. Move!”

“And what do you think you’re going to do? Hide out in your parents’ room?”

“I’ll leave tomorrow. I can change the plane ticket with Daddy.”

“You’re not serious, you’re talking nonsense. Try to think straight. Don’t be an idiot. You can’t walk out that door.”

“Why are you naked, anyway?”

No matter how intense the argument got, there was always a little light of sanity alive, and now it regained control and the level of rage began to fall. The look in her eyes was, shall we say, tender; she doubled over with laughter. I joined in, and we were on our way out of the mess, taking our first steps through the valley, hand in hand like young lovers.

“You were going to chase me like a naked, stupid balloon all the way down the hall! You wouldn’t get me, I’d never let a dumb bag of nuts catch me.”

Her tone was affectionate enough. Now I only had to absorb the venom; it was nothing I couldn’t bear if I kept my cool. Then we could move on, trusting in the harness of humor. Once we’d shared a smile we would be safe. I could remind her how she always confused cacahuetes with nueces ; I could kiss her, squeeze one of her tits, I had the technique down cold. It was just that combination of “bag” and “balloon,” the clear, lying impertinence of her slapdash attack…I felt my tantrum rearing back up.

“You’ve done it again, Helen. Once again, you are incomprehensible. I can feel the rotten energy you give off when you sink into vulgarity.”

Even though I was down to my boxers, fine drops of sweat began to break out on my forehead. I was euphoric. Helen was a miracle of human strength: in just a few months she’d regained the desire to fight and to reconcile her life with me, adiós , pills, good-bye, self-indulgence. She was overflowing with greed, crafty calculation, and the desire for a good time, all the essential components of the human spirit. I convinced myself I had the argument under control, I knew what I had to say to get a smile out of her so we could leap free of that oppressive atmosphere of aggression. But only a saint can listen to his own mollifying voice while his mind spins in a chaos of fierce emotion. Plus, I was teaching her a lesson, and I was enjoying it.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if all that rage has burst a blood vessel. When a doctor cracks open your skull he’ll find that your thoughts have been fermenting in a brain soaked in blood…I don’t care if I’m shouting! I’m not yelling just to yell, I have a good reason! I need to be able to hear myself think when I’m fighting with you.”

I heard the crash, I saw the pieces on the floor, but it took me a second to compose a mental image of what had broken. She still hadn’t slipped from my grasp; it was in her best interests to go on loving me. Sooner or later the terrifying combination of her lack of drive plus Jackson would bring her back to my side, but when I saw how she was writhing like a creature in a trap, the hair along my spine stood on end.

“Asshole, bastard.”

“You should shut up.”

“Bastard, bastard, asshole. Let me out.”

“At least lower your voice, they’ll hear us.”

“What do I care!”

She leapt at me, she hit my chest, the tip of a fingernail pierced my skin. I don’t know how I got her off me. I must have grabbed her by the shirt because when she threw herself backward, the cloth tore. She covered her breasts with her hands and her face turned red as if there were fire in her veins. She stayed there with her fleshy lips open around the hole she chewed and breathed through. I tried, but I couldn’t muster a single gesture of affection. Quite the opposite, in fact: I started to laugh. I hope the memory of pointing my finger at her is false.

“I hate you.”

She picked up her shoulder bag and heaved it toward the window. A half-meter higher and it would have fallen to the patio below. She ripped apart a pillow before storming into the bathroom and slamming the door behind her. I heard the lock, and the sound of the taps in the shower and the sink. I dropped onto the sheets, my legs trembling.

“Come out of there! You’re acting like a crazy woman! You are a rational creature, try to use your brain, you might surprise yourself!”

I turned my head and found my face in the mirror; my hair was plastered down and a spongy, bulging vein disfigured my forehead, but I liked the cut of my shaven jaw. I took the opportunity to fix my hair.

“You’re behaving like a child! Don’t forget you are a mother!”

I was sweating and my pores were wide open. I started scratching my back and armpits. I stood up to inspect my body in the mirror, and I couldn’t see anything flabby about my stomach — she’d said that just to annoy me. I was getting hungry; it’s a good thing trail mix doesn’t get cold. Daddy and the Mrs. would already be getting dressed for dinner at the Hotel Monster. I missed Jackson, he would have calmed things down. Children force you to behave. If someone had told me, when I was his age, that people nearing thirty could behave like Helen and I had in that room, I would have thought they were crazy. Of course, after all that fuss, it wouldn’t exactly be easy to find the right combination of words to ask Helen to bring the kid back.