Marcos Giralt Torrente - Paris

“Oh, please, not again. Not appearances again. Why are they so important?”

“It’s not a matter of appearances, it’s a matter of respecting other people. You left without warning, without telling anyone.”

“Yes, you’re right, I did, but you don’t know why. How could you?”

“Apparently it was my fault, because I got married and left you all alone. .”

“Please don’t make fun of me. I said earlier that your absence was a contributory factor, I didn’t say it was the only reason I left. No, that was because of something that happened before. But forget it. . You’re right, these conversations are pointless and absurd, we just end up saying things we shouldn’t. Really, let’s drop it.”

My mother, who hadn’t smoked once since I entered the room, glanced around as if searching for some lost pack of cigarettes. She failed to find it, and before looking back at Delfina, she suddenly met my gaze. As she said those last words, her voice had grown softer, taken on an imploring tone, but her eyes, in the brief moment they met mine, seemed utterly serene.

“What’s wrong with you? You can’t just leave it like that. I need to know what you’re accusing me of. I don’t remember having done anything wrong.”

“No, Delfina, of course not. You didn’t do anything wrong. It was me. . But forget it. There’s no point talking about it. It’s not your fault, so don’t worry. You can’t understand, because you don’t know. You don’t know, and you’re not going to. .”

“Speak to me. Tell me. Don’t just say nothing. I’m your sister. I can at least try to understand. I’ve been very harsh and said things I shouldn’t have, but I do know what you’ve been through.”

“No, Delfina, you don’t. The truth is that you have no idea what my life was like after you left. You don’t know what I talked to them about. You don’t know what we ate. You don’t know where we went or who we saw. You don’t know when we got up and when we went to bed. You don’t know what we did every hour, every day. Do you? Answer me, Delfina. Do you?”

“No, I don’t, you’re right.”

My mother had become visibly distressed, and I saw a look of alarm in Delfina’s eyes.

“You don’t know anything. You don’t know the extent of my despair. You don’t know how lost I felt or what I came to long for. You don’t know how unbalanced I became. You don’t know how powerless I felt in the face of that woman’s meticulous destruction of the past. You don’t know how much I hated her or that I came to hate him even more. You don’t know how much anger I stored up against him. You don’t know the lies I told myself so as not to have to accept that his indifference was actually sheer cowardice, that he actually did care what I thought, but that he didn’t rebel because these were forces against which he was not prepared to fight. You don’t know how discouraged and bewildered I became. You don’t know how helpless I felt to see him so humiliated, so silent and sad. You don’t know that sometimes he didn’t dare to look at me, you don’t know about the knot that formed in his throat when she did or said something intolerable and he would lower his eyes so as not to meet mine. You don’t know how torn apart I felt. You don’t know that I would sometimes have preferred to think that he really was the heartless person we believed him to be, anything rather than see him like that, incapable of doing what his conscience cried out for him to do. You don’t know that at the same time as I despised him, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. You don’t know the extent of my rancor or my understanding or my devotion. You don’t know that sometimes I thought I was the victim, the one who had the right to complain, or that at others I felt responsible and thought he was the one who suffered most. You don’t know that it often seemed to me that he really missed Mom or that sometimes I would have liked to be her in order to comfort him and make up for the things his wife did. I thought that Mom, wherever she was, would approve, that her union with Dad, though no longer an earthly one, was more important than any other. You don’t know that I came to believe I was the link between them. You don’t know that I sometimes thought I was Mom and that sometimes Dad really wanted me to be her, too. . You don’t know how crazy things got.”

“Stop, stop. Please stop. Don’t go on. There’s no need. It’s pointless. .”

“You see how impossible it is for you to understand? You see how much you don’t know and don’t even want to know?”

“You’re not making any sense. You’re hysterical. .”

“No, you’re wrong. I’m not hysterical. I know perfectly well what I’m saying. I know perfectly well that there are three of us here, and I know perfectly well why you’ve come.” My mother paused and looked at me for a moment, as if to emphasize that even though she was talking to Delfina, the conversation was meant for me as well. “I know that by selling the apartment, I am, according to you, committing yet another act of craziness. But I can’t allow you to continue to think so poorly of me. Your irresponsible, impulsive, feather-brained sister who always does the wrong thing, the one who ran away from home, the one who’s always in need of advice. Things happened, Delfina, for which there are no words. Things you cannot even suspect. .”

“But you’re distorting everything,” said Delfina. “It can’t have been the way you describe it. .”

For the first time since my mother had searched in vain for that pack of cigarettes, Delfina gave me a fleeting glance before answering. They had swapped roles, and now she was the one who sounded pained and almost imploring. Clearly undecided as to what to do or think, she had put her hands in the tiny pockets of her jacket so that her elbows stuck out stiffly on either side, making her look a little like a penguin.

“Of course I’m distorting things, but what does that matter now? Acknowledging that in no way diminishes the depth of my feelings then. I had to leave. If you knew, if I could explain, then you would agree that I was right.”

“Stop talking like that. I won’t have it. You’re tired and upset. These are just fantasies, just like the picture you paint of Dad. It wasn’t like that. All right, Dad betrayed us, but what does it matter if he was also a coward or felt remorse? That doesn’t excuse him. He wasn’t a victim, unfortunately, he may have been heartless, but not a victim. Mom would not have approved. Mom would have despised him. .”

“Delfina, it happened. Don’t try to run away from it. It happened. I’m sorry, but what can I do? You’re right, I was distorting the facts, and Dad’s cowardice was no excuse. But it happened. You can deny it if you like, refuse to accept it, but at least give me your vote of confidence and believe me when I say that I had to leave, that I had no alternative, that it was not some silly, gratuitous act, that my life since then has not been, as you say, a continuation of the same thing, that the fear and the loneliness were my choice, my reward, if you like, that I did what I did out of love or conviction or desperation, and that I don’t regret it.”

There was a silence, and Delfina, who had been staring down at the floor for a while, looked up and fixed her gaze somewhere above my mother’s head. I couldn’t see her eyes, but I imagined them to be blank and lost. She kept fidgeting, caught between conflicting impulses. She had removed her hands from their uncomfortable refuge in her pockets and placed them, palms flat, on her thighs. She had changed the position of her feet several times, and they now formed a right angle, with one foot pointing at my mother and the other at me.