Gonzalo Torne: Divorce Is in the Air

“Come on now, we can still fix tonight. We’re here to put things right, remember?”

The key was to control my impatience. She couldn’t stay in there forever, and any minute now she’d start to get hungry. I did think she was capable of holding out until dinner started, making the boy or his grandmother come up to look for us. I resisted the sensible urge to get dressed — I was comfortable there on the bed. My anger began to subside; I really didn’t feel like bickering and avoiding each other. I wanted to move on.

“We came here because you wanted to make up, because you got down on your knees and begged me. This was your idea, so you can’t stay in there.”

She turned on the water again, the little fool, when she heard my voice. At least she was in a playful mood.

“It makes no sense to stay in there!”

“No sense at all, unless you’re trying to break some kind of weird record.”

“And I can assure you that this is not the best day to play with world records.”

She opened the door. She’d managed to find a green dress that clung so tightly to her skin there was no mistaking her for some innocuous maternal figure. She still had that dark look in her eyes, but now the sparks they gave off seemed like stars so distant no one can tell if they’re alive or dead. It was the same gaze I’d woken up to every morning for almost a year, when I would brush the lush blonde hair back from her face to see her eyes, which were like screens where I could watch a sequence of slippery emotions flicker while I waited for one of them to coalesce. That emotion, though, didn’t tend to favor me. Helen was confused. Back when we first started living together, before she was corrupted from the inside by the combined effect of our shared present and the memories of her youth with Daddy, I could always hope she’d start crying. It was uncomfortable to see her breaking inside, but the tears had their advantages. They left her empty and clean, like a white wall on which we could start to write again.

“You’re hateful. I’m trying my best, I’m putting all my energy into this.”

Then she turned that gaze on me, like a curved spoon that scooped effortlessly under my skin, as if to check the ripeness of the pulp inside. I’ve never found a defense against her drive to discover my worst aspects. I had an attack of modesty and yanked off the sheet to cover myself, to take shelter from her scrutiny. It didn’t occur to me that I was breaking a basic rule of cohabitation, even if we were in a hotel.

“You messed up the bed!”

“And why does the bed matter?”

“You’re a disaster, this plan was stupid, I made a mistake…I’ve been wasting my time. I wouldn’t know how to go back to living together without feeling disgusted.”

Considering that all I’d wanted since the moment I’d gotten into the car was to run away, we should have made our peace and separated there and then. But the argument had altered my objectives, and I was moving along the tracks of a different logic. I wanted to avoid making a scene, I wanted to kiss her, I wanted her to apologize. I wasn’t by any means ready to give up — I wanted to win every which way.

“Shut up! I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to sit there until you calm down, and when you’re finished getting dressed you will once again be a normal person. Then we’ll talk.”

“You’re still naked.”

This time it wasn’t a joke. She realized a second before I did that lying on the bed like that, I wouldn’t have time to block her exit, and I wouldn’t be capable of following her down the corridor in my underwear. She left the room.

“You don’t have the nerve!”

Maybe back then I was caught unawares that her brain, which normally needed fifteen minutes to assimilate any new idea, was able to calculate so many possibilities so quickly. Now I know that when the situation calls for it, the brain sends out nervous commands to the muscles without troubling the conscious mind, and the mind only asks for explanations once the flesh and its precious functions are safe and sound. After our little drive, being left alone wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but I was fixated on bringing her back. I left the remaining words to orbit the center of my rage until they burned up; the only indispensable thing was to find some pants and a shirt.

I went out without closing the door, without grabbing the key. I went out without checking the time: night had fallen, and only the promenade lights and the blue rectangle of the pool were shining.

I felt my way down the stairs, my legs shaking. Helen could be anywhere. From the corridor I could see the waiters toiling away with silverware and tablecloths before dinner. I was horrified at the sight of a stage with three microphones set up, ready for an hour or so of musical torment. I preferred not to imagine the food they’d be serving those used-up bodies, with their desiccated lungs and missing prostates: boiled potatoes, steamed fish…I thought I saw my mother-in-law’s expansive backside, but I didn’t hang around to make sure — there was no way Helen would choose to make a scene in front of her parents rather than humiliate me with a spectacular disappearance. I’d have bet our three years together that she’d left the building, and I only had to guess the direction she’d taken. I put my hand in my pocket to be sure I’d brought provisions: the second bag of peanuts and those other, bigger nuts — cashews, I think.

I went out to the terrace and wavered between heading for the forest to the left or the fields to the right. I stood there deliberating while my pupils adjusted to the dark and my nose detected that smell of tender wheat. At least I could see my own hands.

“She went toward the woods.”

The voice came from one of the tables, and I recognized the androgynous face of that obese woman, the smile with its faint flirtatiousness. Out in the civilian world those bands of blubber act as insulation against desire. Those decades (twenties, thirties, forties) in which fat women are not really alive socially must seem long. I felt bad for her, although she looked delighted to find that age was tarring everyone else with the same brush. Anyway, I liked that her crystal ball was directing me away from the farm, where earlier I’d heard the unmistakable grunting of pigs — those animals have given me the willies ever since I was a child. If you ask me, it does nothing for their reputations that their heart tissues are compatible with ours.

“She seemed pretty angry.”

I liked it less that the woman had noticed Helen and connected her to me. Of course, I couldn’t hold it against her. A health farm full of mummies isn’t exactly the best place to enjoy a little privacy; Helen and I looked like we’d just stepped out of a time machine.

“Walk to the bar, then follow the light. If she hasn’t crossed the river she can’t get lost.”

I sped up. Though I hadn’t ruled out strangling her once I found her, I also hadn’t considered the danger a swampy channel posed to an overexcited woman.

I took two steps and brought a couple of peanuts to my mouth. A breeze carried the scent of the dianthus hanging from the balconies, and it was as if for a few seconds I’d stepped outside the loathsome circle of triviality I was trapped in. What was I trying to prove? Our marriage was an undeniable disaster, and even if we somehow managed to bring some equilibrium to our erratic behavior, what sort of future would I have with a Helen desperate to protect her body against gravity’s effects? All that siliconed humanity (paid for by whom?) encasing Helen’s hysterical and paranoid voice, lording it over my little world of pills, secret stashes of food, naps, scarves, and hands that shook as I shaved. If now, when I could still scare her with my bare hands, I was out searching for her and trembling from cold and nerves and fear, what resistance would I have against her tyrannical impulses once my manhood had withered away? When, even if I wiggled free of all the orthopedic gear, I’d still spend my days negotiating among hearing aids, routine doctor’s visits, soft cereals, and heart surgeries?