Carlos Castán - Bad Light

The following day, on my evening stroll, I was struck out of the blue by a sudden thought: What if it turns out I’m seriously ill and the whole world is in on the secret except me? Just like that, as I cast my mind back over the previous weeks, I began to clearly see certain details that I had not fully grasped at the time: questions I had not quite understood, phone calls apropos of nothing, sideways glances as if of commiseration for no apparent reason. On the other hand, my shattered state was no great mystery to me — my pounding heart, my palpitations and, in general, the all-round toll that, for some time now, being alive had been taking on me. This became all too clear whenever I had to climb a few steps on any staircase. At the mere sight of an uphill slope in the distance, I’d begin to feel a shortness of breath, gasping for air like a fish on the sand. Meanwhile, the feeling that something inside of me was rotting away as I slept was a hard one to shake. I could sense my own skeleton as something increasingly green and watery, and the presence of a seaweed-like substance in my lungs. But the fact is I had spoken to no one. Might someone in my family have gotten their hands on the X-rays I leave lying around in envelopes here and there, or the test results that not even I could bring myself to look at? Had my siblings taken it upon themselves to consult one of my doctors? Had he informed them of something other than what he had told me? Did they phone one another every night to weigh up the options and debate the pros and cons of filling me in on the situation? Perhaps, right now, there are people agonizing over whether or not I ought to know, whether or not I would be plunged yet further into gloom, whether or not I would take the opportunity to settle some old score, or devote my days to squeezing every last drop from what little time I had left. Even I can’t answer that. The idea of disappearing has always made me think of the sea at night, of a silence filled with black vessels. At times I think I would have no objection to slipping away if I could be sure of feeling nothing more than the murmur of my strength as it ebbs away, while breath abandons my body and fatigue slowly comes to rest, like a deadweight, on my various organs — my eyelids, my guts, my worn out muscles. But at others I start to doubt whether the suffering will cease after death or there will ever be any real end to this time of nerves and debris. In other words, though on paper I know that it cannot be any other way, at the same time I find it hard to believe that all this darkness, already so dense, can be healed by yet more darkness.

Seated at the terrace of a bar I tend to frequent most evenings, I linger awhile to eavesdrop on the group of women who were sitting at the next table when I arrived. This is by no means difficult, since they all but bellow at one another and act as if they were completely alone. The women are pushing fifty. Though a couple of them are a few years younger, their ugliness evens things out somewhat, otherwise they would have no right, or indeed any great desire, to be there. Most of them are wearing burgundy-colored tights, as if they had arranged it beforehand — out of a group of seven, four are sporting identical pairs. Others, the more daring members of this almost kamikaze commando unit, have opted for a leopard-skin design, their unruly thighs bulging out over the top of knee-high boots, the unmistakable, albeit unofficial, uniform of the divorcée venturing out on a Saturday night this Autumn/Winter season, broadcasting her right to revelry and proclaiming that she is still good enough to eat. They are waiting for the tardiest of their number to arrive. Typical, they say, who else? They criticize the woman with a certain amount of affection. They’re on edge. For a moment they fear that she will ruin everything, and it would not, by all accounts, be the first time. They have a dinner date with “men,” and this means that they are all aflutter, taking little mirrors out of their handbags every other minute, smoothing their eyebrows with their pinkies, or painstakingly touching up their eye shadow. They may well be cutthroat rivals a few minutes from now, but for the time being they still come to one another’s aid, fussing with bangs and constantly telling one another how pretty they look. When they spy the group of men approaching from a distance, they rush to gather up their cosmetics cases, leaving only their cell phones, dry martinis, mojitos, and packs of Winstons on the table. It’s been a long time since they last spoke of boys , and the very word men carries with it a vague hint of seriousness, dirtiness, and menace that attracts and repels them in equal measure. Men. Men always pick up the tab, they undress you with their eyes and see a body free of flab or scars, they drop you off at home in a car with white upholstered seats. By the looks of things, these guys are executives, men of a certain standing, not like the last night out. Much as the women have put their efforts into looking ravishing, the men strive to look sporty and laidback; ties are out this evening, they throttle the men quite enough as it is Monday through Friday. The most seasoned and forward of the women seize the opportunity to mark out their territory just seconds before the game gets underway for real. They let it be known at the last minute, leaving no time for any replies, for the men are now too close, that they have set their sights on this one or that one, on the tall, balding one, on the one in the deck shoes, though later — they know the drill — it will all depend on how things play out and any on-the-spot changes of plan will have to be duly relayed in front of the restroom mirror, where, as the dinner nears its end, when dessert is just about to be served, they will form a line and touch up their makeup. Another one, meanwhile, announces that she is here to eat dinner and that’s that. She wants to make this quite clear, she insists, and she won’t be dragged into anything this time. She knows full well what they’re like, and, until she says otherwise, she’s having none of it. She’ll let them know if she has a change of heart; until then she’ll hold firm to her intention of going home just as she came, all by her lonesome. Before you know it, another woman has allied herself with this wary stance — she’s here for a fun evening out, end of story. That’s the plan. Even so, just in case, they have each carefully picked out their underwear, they’re freshly waxed, and they’re even carrying little tubes of vaginal lubricant tucked away in their handbags. The scent of the heady mix of colognes with which they have daubed their wrists, necks, asses, groins, and even every last fleshy fold of what was once their waistline drifts over to my table. I feel the urge to make a quick getaway, for the whole thing is starting to make me feel a little queasy. I’m not sure quite why, but the scene also makes my heart sink. I think of the hours they’ve each spent at the hairdresser’s that very morning, wearing a blue gown of the sort handed out in hospitals, seated beneath the hairdryer, their hair covered in pins, clips, and rollers. I picture them counting out the money left in their purses after settling the bill for it all — shampoo and set, eyebrows, highlights, fingernails and toenails — and I find the image oddly touching. I imagine them returning home in the early hours of morning, their feet aching, tired of forced grins. Their heads are swimming, and they’ve missed their favorite TV show. They have a run in their panty hose and a longing to break down in a flood of tears that, in the end, will not come, for the lure of tiredness is stronger still, and they fall asleep on the couch without fully removing their makeup, a bottle of fresh water and the ibuprofen within reach. That or worse still: waking up pinned under the weight of a hairy leg, sensing ragged breathing on the napes of their necks, and spotting on the bedside table, inches from their noses, a glass containing the false teeth of a stranger who a few short hours ago was dancing salsa like a maniac in the middle of the dance floor, his shirt unbuttoned at the neck, and telling an endless stream of jokes about black people and whores.