Juan José Saer - Scars

— She’s behaving, said Tomatis.

— Things are better, I said.

— It’s good to slap her around once in a while, said Tomatis.

Then he got up and said he was leaving. Gloria seemed surprised.

— Well, I’m off, said Tomatis.

— I thought we could stay a little longer, said Gloria.

— I didn’t say you had to leave as well, said Tomatis, with an edge in his voice. I said I was the one who was leaving.

I asked Gloria to stay. She shrugged and said she could stay a while longer, as long as I could get her a little more gin. I told her there were two bottles in the fridge, so there would be plenty of that. Tomatis gave her a kiss and before going asked if I was planning on getting up the next day.

— I think so, I said.

— Then I’ll look for you at the paper, he said, and left.

Gloria walked him to the door and I was left alone for a minute. I could hear them talking in the corridor but couldn’t understand what they were saying. Then Gloria came back and sat down on the edge of the bed.

— I’ll go get you some gin, I said.

— Not yet, said Gloria.

— You were amazing to bring me that book, I said, gesturing toward the gift.

— It was just a coincidence, she said.

— Gloria, I said. I’m not mad or anything that you went with Tomatis. I didn’t know there was anything between you.

— Before that night there was nothing, said Gloria. And now there’s almost nothing.

— You can never have much with Tomatis, I said. You can’t hope for much with him, right?

— That’s what he says, said Gloria.

— I think it’s okay for people to be like that, I said.

I grabbed her hand but she shook me off.

— Don’t start, Ángel, she said.

Then she asked me if I would like it if she read to me from the book. I said yes.

— I’ll open at random and read some, she said.

She read for an hour. Then she put down the book and said she was tired and she was leaving.

— I’ll be alone and the fever will come back, I said.

— Not if you go to sleep once and for all, said Gloria, and she disappeared.

I lay there thinking for a while, then I turned off the light.

I had the feeling of not being exactly anywhere. And then I saw, clearly, a slow procession of everyone in my life, everyone who I’d known in the past few years, and at the end of that slow procession was me, advancing from the blackness of my mind into a bright circle, only to disappear again into another blackness outside the bright circle. Then I fell asleep. I woke up at dawn. The rectangular transom was already a pale green. I felt euphoric. I made myself a cup of coffee, got in bed, and started reading Tonio Kröger . It was still raining. When I finished, it was nine-thirty and my mother had been up for a while. I could hear her moving around the house, but she didn’t come in my room. I shaved, took a shower, and went to the paper. I didn’t see Tomatis, and the police reporter asked me if I had read the piece about the guy who threw himself out the window of the courthouse and if it was right. I told him I hadn’t read the paper.

— They’re saying you were scared sick, said the police reporter.

— I had a cold, I said.

— But you changed your underwear, right? he said.

I didn’t smash his face in because he was wearing glasses, but I asked him if he thought he was Philip Marlowe.

— Who? he said.

— An uncle of mine who’s always getting involved in murder cases.

He shrugged and I left for the courthouse. I couldn’t see Ernesto because he was giving a statement about what had happened, but I ran into the secretary in the corridor.

— The judge is very busy, he said.

— Did they fix the window? I asked.

— Not yet, he said. Did you see how that maniac jumped through it and broke every piece of glass?

— Yeah, I saw it, I said.

Ramírez met me with a cup of coffee — he’d already added sugar to it for himself; he told me that the judge was in a terrible mood because of the thing with the suicide. That everyone in the courthouse was talking about it. I drank down the revolting paste that Ramírez called coffee and left. Downtown I bumped into Tomatis in front of a lottery kiosk. When he saw me he asked if I knew of anyone with worse luck than his.

— Up comes 255 again, he said. But 245? Nothing.

We ate together and went to play pool. Tomatis asked me if I had gone to bed with Gloria the night before, and when I said no he started laughing.

— You weren’t insistent enough, he said.

He saved himself from being murdered with a pool cue by being on the other side of the table. Then he said my mother was a good person and I had to treat her better.

— Don’t play the enfant terrible , he said. You’re too old for that.

— Gloria is going to stab you in the back one of these days and I’ll testify on her behalf; I’ll say it was self-defense.

— Gloria is in love with me, so I do what I want, said Tomatis. In any case, she’s not better than me, or anyone else.

— Have you been writing? I asked.

— Something, said Tomatis.

— Smut, no doubt, I said.

— Something like that, said Tomatis.

He did his best to let me win, to little effect. Then we went back to paper and didn’t speak again that afternoon, except to say goodbye on the way out. I walked around the city, drank a cognac at the arcade bar, and around eight I went home. My mother was in the kitchen, filling up a glass of gin.

— Are you going out? I asked.

— Yes, she said.

Any more and she would have emptied the bottle.

— I’m hungry, I said.

— There’s cheese in the fridge, said my mother.

— Hungry for dinner. A hot meal, like God intended, I said.

— I have to take a shower and then get out of here, she said.

She went out with her glass, and I stayed in the kitchen. I took a piece of cheese and the bottle of gin from the fridge. My mother went in the bathroom and a little later I heard the shower. Then I saw her go by, wrapped in her towel, walking quickly. She crossed in front of the doorway to the kitchen and then disappeared. She looked amazing. When I finished my cheese I poured myself another gin and went to her room. I asked permission to come in. She had put on a gorgeous yellow dress and was painting her eyes in front of the mirror.

— We should go out to eat together one of these nights, I said.

— We’ll see, my mother said, slightly resentful.

— It’s time we got along better, I said.

— I hope so, my mother said.

I went back to my room, and a little while later heard her leave. I sat down at my desk, took out my notebook, opened to the last page of Tonio Kröger , and copied this down: I look into an unborn, murky world that needs to be shaped and fashioned; I look into a teeming throng of human shadows, who beckon to me, want me to exorcise them and redeem them: tragic shadows and ludicrous ones and some that are both — and I am very fond of them. But my deepest and most furtive love is for the blond and blue-eyed people, the brightly living, the happy, lovable, and normal ones . Then I closed the novel and the notebook. I didn’t feel like staying in the house. I wanted to walk the streets and be with someone, with everyone if I could. When I stepped into the corridor and turned on the light, the procession from the night before flashed across my eyes. The light illuminated the courtyard, where the rain floated in a white mass. It didn’t seem to fall, but to have been suspended in the same place for many days. I realized that I had barely noticed it, and felt guilty. This thing, the rain, was happening around me — a mystery that seemed beautiful and full of sadness — and I hadn’t even looked at it. Then I remembered the shrunken body on the yellow pavement, outside the courthouse, and I asked myself what kinds of awful things could happen to make someone hollow out his body into a shell and throw it through a third-floor window and smash it to pieces against the ground. It had grown dark over the body, a sunless, blue twilight. I put on my raincoat and walked into the street. No one was out. I walked downtown and into the arcade. No one was there. A cashier in green overalls was staring into space, her hand resting on the handle of the cash register. I drank a gin standing next to the register and walked out. I walked north two blocks on San Martín and then turned. I passed the Banco Provincial and saw that it was eleven. Then I reached the Parque del Palomar and walked a while under the waterlogged trees. I imagined that I was in a deserted city, abandoned by everyone. They’d all gone, and I was alone. And how great that was! I walked along, in the darkness, passing under the streetlights, spheres of weak light dulled by the rain, then plunging again, across the intersection, into the dark streets. Before I knew it, I was at the corner of Tomatis’s house. Light poured through the front window onto the street. I approached slowly. The blinds were all the way up, and through the glass you could see the illuminated room with the couches, the bookcase, the table, and the chairs. Gloria was sitting on the sofa, reading. She was wearing the same clothes as always, propped up against the wall with her legs stretched out in front of her. In one hand she held the anthology of English poetry and in the other a lit cigarette. Her lips moved as she read. I watched her for a long time without her noticing. Then I went to the door and tried the handle, trying not to make noise. It opened. I tiptoed down the dark corridor and entered the front room. I was three meters from Gloria, in front of her, in the doorway, and she still hadn’t noticed me. A second later she looked up and screamed. I started laughing.