Gonzalo Torne - Divorce Is in the Air

“You’re an idiot. That’s your secret, Helen. You have a ball full of sawdust sitting on your shoulders, stuck together in the most primitive way humanity has to offer. If you’d let me smash your skull and pry it open, stick some cotton in there to soak up the blood, and drive a needle into your brain to extract a gallon of your cerebrospinal fluid, I’d bet my balls it would be made of greed, provincialism, and malice.”

“You’re jealous.”

“You were the one who came crawling back to me.”

“You’re dying of jealousy.”

“I want you, you damn idiot.”

“You were always a jealous dog, you just hid it.”

“You know what, Miss Montana? If you’d taken that stupid, irresistible face of yours and told them you had a wide and gaping vagina, they still would have crawled after you. You’d get the same result confessing you had two cunts, you can take my word for it. With everything you’ve got, after prancing in front of them, believe me, you couldn’t keep them off even if you announced you were a guy. Arousal is very forgiving.”

“You’re talking too fast, I don’t understand.”

“You know that before I met you I couldn’t even imagine how sexy an idiotic face can be? I liked dark brunettes and their air of mystery. Luckily, when it comes to desire we don’t have to be consistent. If I’d stuck to my taste in fine, soft, well-mannered, tidy women, I would have missed out on all your splendor. You poor fool, poor lovely fool, with your little eyes so full of ambition, with all your mindless nonconformism, you’re marvelous. You’re not going to stop driving me crazy, we’re never going to work. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do you want us to get back together?”

“I don’t want you to leave me, John. I’ve invested too much time in you. I don’t want to be abandoned again, the first time was enough. I don’t want to feel humiliated again, like I’m dirty. Anyway, it’s never how I imagine it’s going to be, and I like the way you talk to me, the way you touch me. I’m not going to let you say good-bye.”

“You know what, Freckles? I’m going to tell you the secret of the world. I’m going to tell you why you’re a miserable person, and why you’ve made me feel so wretched for a year and a half, and the best part is I’ll tell you this for free. Don’t think I’m stingy or one to keep secrets. If I didn’t tell you sooner it’s because, though I’ve had some vague impressions, I’ve only just now pulled the threads together. You know me, I’m not a quick study, but when I know where I’m going I can move like a bulldozer. Are you listening?”

“I’m listening, talk more slowly. This is entertaining.”

“Look, boys act like they’re men before they are. We puff out our chests, we show off our package, we unbutton the second button of our shirts, all in the hope you’ll be impressed. We make you laugh, and that’s good, but you never believe us, we can’t keep up the act. We play at being the stronger sex, but there we are, trembling with emotion in front of the very organisms that hold the key to a paradise on earth. You develop gradually, so none of you understand what it’s like to have those testosterone bombs exploding at twelve, thirteen, fourteen. They burn down entire vines of neurons to their roots, make hair spring out all over our bodies, our features change in fits and starts. We are placed here amid all this sensation to plant the seed in the carnal tunnel and ensure the continuation of the species. Understand?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t matter, because you see it, you get it, you make the most of it. And the thing we hardly ever take advantage of is that you haven’t finished growing either. We give you credit for physical charms that you’ve developed effortlessly, from the force built into your bones, into your cells, into the double helix of the genetic code. But in the end you go on being girls, scared little girls, with your teddy bears and their imagined personalities. We’re afraid of you, and we take what comes out of your mouths seriously, but you’re not sure of anything. Lonely little girls, weak, afraid of the dark, of solitude, of the masculine drive to devour life. Maybe you and I still have a chance. Get in bed.”

“What?”

“Get in bed.”

“Why?”

“Get in bed, you want it.”

“It’s not that simple, we’re having a discussion.”

“And by discussing it we’re only courting disaster. You talk and talk and talk, and I talk and talk. Oh boy, do I talk! And the good intentions float away, lost, like helium balloons. How sad it is when you’re barely three feet tall and you feel the string slipping out of your hand and you watch as the balloon disappears up toward the atmosphere. You know what? I always imagined the sky as a lid. It scared me to think of it being so deep, and that mile by mile its color changed and the blue got darker and darker until it vanished in that pitch-black expanse where living planets float, if there are any, along with the sterile planets and all the planets that have died.”

“You’re making this up as you go. You’ve never in your life thought about this before.”

“See? Words are too much for us, they get tangled up, they lead us to strange places. Get in bed. When have our bodies ever failed us?”

“You want to go to bed? Now? With nothing fixed?”

“We’re not going to fix it any other way, why do you think we were given arms and hands and lips? Get in bed right now, damn it, let’s solve this our way, don’t make me beg you.”

“Don’t do this to me. I don’t agree, I don’t want to, it doesn’t have to be like that. Plus, I’m on my period.”

“And since when has that stopped us? It’s only liquid, juice, bodily fluid, a bit thick, but doesn’t it flow from your beloved body? The body is full of possibilities. It was that way the last time we saw each other, and anatomy’s fairly reliable, it can’t have changed that much. You know what, Helen? I feel life in my hands, you can’t imagine how much I like being alive, how incredible it is! Dying is repugnant, the fastest way to lose what you cherish most. It’s not for you or me, we have too much ahead of us, and we’re going to spend it together, so you’d better get a grip on yourself. Being dead is as sad as the time before you were born. I’m sure you don’t remember that time when you hadn’t yet been born — what could you remember?”

“Shut up. Don’t talk so fast, you’re confusing me. You’re like one of those movies that wants to make you think, and I don’t like thinking that much anymore, it scares me these days. We didn’t come here to fuck, we’re here to make up. This is about love.”

“It’s the same thing, one leads to the other. It’s natural, when it comes to love it’s the only way, anyone will tell you the same.”

“It’s not the way.”

“And what is the way, you damned blonde idiot?”

“Talking.”

How I would have liked to pierce the heart of her ignorance with a spear.

“Talking?”

“Yes, I talk and you listen.”

I knew the look she gave me all too well. She wasn’t going to move a millimeter. The part I could see was only the tip of a colossal mass submerged in a mixture of absurd ideas, superstitions, stubbornness, and rich veins of contempt. It would be simpler to separate her head from her neck by spinning it like a screw cap than to get her to change her mind.

So I got up, slammed the door, and left.

“Not like that, not like that, it doesn’t have to be like that. Come back. Come back, John. It’s not like before. That’s why I brought you here…”

After I turned the corner in the corridor I could no longer hear her needling little voice, as hoarse as if she were at the bottom of a cave.