Marcos Giralt Torrente - Paris

“But Mom didn’t. .”

“Leave Mom out of it, Delfina. That’s another lie we created between us. Dad was an egotist who forgot about his guilt by hiding away inside his own cowardice. Grief doesn’t last forever. I soon realized that. But I can tell you that the image we’ve cultivated of Mom over the years is just as false. Another distortion. We’ve always thought of Mom as some kind of storybook heroine and Dad as a bit of a fool, easy to manipulate, and whom she led along the path of righteousness until, alas, she died and that other woman arrived. Mom was the intelligent one, the sensitive one, the high-minded one, the one who had sacrificed herself for her sole weakness, a weakness, moreover, that only increased her stature: our father. The perfect wife. Superior in every way to her husband, but redeemed by the way she so lovingly gave herself to him. It wasn’t like that, Delfina. Mom was just like Dad. She wasn’t the archetype you and I have created between us. Mom was as normal as Dad, as worthy or not of criticism and as foolish or not as him. Oh, she was definitely the nobler of the two, but make no mistake — otherwise, she was as simple and straightforward as we remember. She always did exactly what she wanted and made no sacrifices at all. She lived according to her own idea of happiness. She had everything she could possibly want. As bad luck would have it, though, and as no one could have foreseen, she died far too young, but that’s all. People don’t sacrifice themselves. People usually do what they want to do, what suits them best, what fits their personality or brings in the most money. No one sacrifices themselves. I haven’t, and neither have you. Even if you sometimes think you’re like Mom and have some kind of duty to fulfill, the only duty you have is the one you owe to your own will.”

“But who’s saying I’m self-sacrificial, that I feel what Mom used to feel? Who’s saying I do anything out of duty? Look, let’s just stop this conversation right now. It’s absurd.”

“No one’s saying that, Delfina, no one. It’s just that sometimes I’ve imagined you at night, when you’re lying in bed in the dark, and I’ve wondered if perhaps you ever fall into the temptation of thinking that. And I’ve wondered if, given that you, too, escaped from home, you might think the world you chose and from which you’ve never moved, La Coruña and all that, isn’t really yours, isn’t the world you were made for.”

“But who says that? How can you even think. .?”

Delfina’s voice faltered, and her expression — which had passed through various states, from uncontrolled aggression to alarm tinged with sadness — took on a somber air. She was no longer looking at me and was once again resting one hand on the back of the armchair.

“No one, Delfina, no one. I’m just warning you, because if you ever do succumb to that temptation, you’ll be lying to yourself. It would be a complete lie. You’re not on the right path, you’re on the path you chose and that you want to follow. You are that path. There’s no great purpose behind your life in La Coruña. You haven’t given up anything. You are what you do. Like everyone. Like Mom and Dad. Like me.”

“I know. Of course my life is the way I want it to be. Have I ever said otherwise? Listen, we’re both getting hysterical now. We’ve been talking for ages and we just keep going around and around in circles and all we do is talk nonsense and hurt each other. It’s ridiculous, pointless. After all, we love each other. So let’s just drop it, shall we?”

“Yes, let’s. Don’t worry, consider the subject dropped. I only said that because it seems to me sometimes that you might feel that way. I said it because sometimes I’ve felt like that when I’ve put myself in your shoes. I’ve been tempted to think that you don’t have everything you deserve to have, that your life could have been different, more satisfying, rather than that of the resigned, perfect wife. .”

“That’s enough. Drop it, please. I can’t take any more.”

“But, Delfina, what’s wrong. Don’t cry, please. There’s no point. I just wanted you to see that you, too, could, that I. . oh, Delfina, it’s OK. Don’t cry, please. . don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying, oh, now you’re starting to cry. Why are you crying? Look, I was crying, but now I’m not. It was just a tear or two. It’s because I’m tired.”

“Don’t worry. It was just a tear or two with me, as well. Aren’t we silly? What’s he going to think of his aunt and his mother?” My mother paused, lowered her head, wiped away her tears with her hands, then looked at me and said, “What a sappy pair, huh?”

My aunt turned to look at me, as well, and my mother, assuming the conversation was over, got up and walked over to her. I was too taken aback to answer and stood, unmoving, frozen against the wall where I had stood all the time they had been arguing. My mother kissed Delfina on both cheeks and, after briefly embracing her, came toward me. Carefully, so that she wouldn’t notice, I removed my clenched fists from behind my back and stepped slightly away from the wall. “What a sappy pair,” she murmured as she kissed me, before folding me in her arms and hugging me for rather longer than she had hugged Delfina. “What a sappy pair.”

I don’t know, although I can imagine, why it was that my mother decided to speak, why she wanted to tell me what she had never intended to tell me. I don’t know, of course, but I’m sure that the argument I’ve just reproduced was not the reason behind her decision. It helped to precipitate it, helped her to find the right time and place, but it was not the only reason or what made it necessary. Indeed, I believe that if the idea of talking to me had not already been there in her mind, her confrontation with Delfina would never have happened in the way it did. How, otherwise, to explain her acceptance of my presence there or the fact that, far from stopping their quarrel as soon as she saw me enter the room, she did something that went entirely against her nature and took center stage. In all family disputes that result in a sharp exchange of reproaches, however bitter and stormy that dispute is, there is always a point at which you can decide either to back down and allow the other person to proceed alone along that rancorous path, or else to steam ahead, knowing full well that you will say things you’ll regret later on. If my mother continued to speak despite having me there as a witness, it was because she wasn’t exposing herself to any risk that she had not, in some way, already accepted. Whether or not she made the decision at that precise moment, she nevertheless took that risk, and I would go so far as to say that some of the things she said were intended not for my aunt’s ears but for mine. It was not the argument itself that prompted her desire to speak but, rather, her desire to speak that prompted the argument. The question, therefore, is not Would my mother have told me, had there been no argument ? The question is would she have done so if the cause of the dispute had not occurred, if she hadn’t had to consider selling the apartment and there had been three and not two of us living there; that is, did she intend telling me?

Whatever the truth of the matter, it’s a question to which probably not even she had a clear answer. And now no one does. I don’t know why she went to Paris or the reason for her early return, or what terrible disappointment or insult finally forced her to accept defeat; I don’t know what part of her past gave rise to the determination I saw in her tearless eyes the afternoon I watched her leave the café I had happened upon after lingering for no particular reason on my way home from school, nor do I know what arguments persuaded her to take the symbolic step — which so enraged my aunt — of selling the apartment. I don’t know the answer to these unknowns, just as I don’t know the details of my father’s abrupt departure at a time when my mother had such high hopes that he would stay, or what he did with the business cards and the fake ID I found under the table in the room where he used to work during a period I can’t even remember, or a whole multitude of other things that happened without my being there to witness them and of which I know nothing because no one told me and no strange coincidences placed them before my eyes.