Mercè Rodoreda - The Selected Stories

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Before falling asleep, Ada Liz gazed at the map hanging in front of the bed: it showed her country. Sometimes, with her index finger, she would wistfully trace the black lines of the rivers. When Jim gave it to her, he had explained the meaning of the words “latitude” and “equator.” He had told her — purely by chance, because he was going there — that Dakar was on the sea.

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Ada Liz can’t sleep and, like other nights, without summoning them, her thoughts lead her to the memory of a man she had truly loved. Suddenly she takes pity on herself. It had happened some years before, when she hadn’t yet travelled all alone across the sea, nor slept in any country other than her own, or heard the unfamiliar sound of water lapping against battered rocks. And now that same man controls the destiny of her country. In the obscurity of time, her name wasn’t Ada Liz, nor had she learned to undress in front of men. She had entrusted her life to the heart of one who called her “beloved” and placed her destiny in his hands.

Ada Liz is remembering the past. She recreates dawns, candid nights, hours with strange fevers in which the murmur of the wind in the branches could make your heart stand still and sharpen your senses.

She’s thinking that she loves, reveres, adores. That young girl, faraway, who had placed her life in the palm of one hand. The girl with the passionate soul, her eyes weary from seeing herself so intently in the lost eyes of another.

“What are you looking at, Ada Liz?”

“Your eyes, sailorman.”

In vain she had sought the eyes that had been wrenched from her.

“It disturbs me when you look at me like that, Ada Liz. I want to sleep without feeling the weight of your gaze.”

“Are you afraid I’ll discover your secrets?”

“That you’ll stay here, like the sea. .”

Lying on the bed, Edgar places his hand on his tanned chest and presses the fingertips, leaving round, white marks on his skin.

“Don’t be afraid, sailor, your eyes aren’t the ones I want, nor are your teeth made to desire me.”

Later, as he dresses, Edgar announces: “I’m getting married, Ada Liz. My fiancée is on the other side of the sea. The night was planted in your hair, the sun in hers. Many men have kissed your breasts; hers are like rosebuds waiting to bloom.”

Ada Liz is troubled by his explanation. She feels slighted, the blood flowing through her heart stops. With her tiny hands she takes Edgar’s arms and holds him tightly, gazing at him with limpid eyes, as if she wished to captivate him.

“You’ll remember Ada Liz, sailorman, and I’ll remember everything I couldn’t find in you. What does it matter if many men have known me, if you have me now? What’s your beloved’s name?”

“Her name’s not important.”

“I don’t care if you won’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

“It’s Maria Teresa, and she’s humble where you’re proud.”

“Maria Teresa? She can never be Ada Liz. One day you’ll find yourself all alone on the open sea, and the wind will bear my name, the storm my perfumed hair, the calm my caresses, the caresses I gave you knowing you would never be mine. Do you understand? As the years pass, more and more you’ll want what you never knew, what you always desired but never had: the air, the white brilliance of the stars, the sea your ship leaves behind. You’ll have a house and children. Maria Teresa will open the door wide when she hears your song of return, but one day, on the high sea, like a smarting wound, the memory of me will pierce you, and at that moment you would surrender all the souls you possess in order to spend one night with me. I am everything that one can breathe, sailorman.”

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Ada Liz, bright and pure, wishes she could remind him of the past. Edgar has written that Maria Teresa had a child and, after suckling him, her breasts withered.

The sailors are all marrying.

So what?

Every day new ships arrive from the other side of the earth. Many are old and storm-battered when they dock. But time passes, and Ada Liz lives only with the obsession of a few memories. Why should she feel lonely now that she’s grown accustomed to it, why frightened by the years that have taken away everything?

She’ll save her money, not simply so she can spend a few days alone. She’ll return to her country. She’ll again place her destiny in the hands of the man who loved her. She’ll describe her life to him. Can she, if she doesn’t really know what has happened?

“I’ve seen the hours fade away,” she’ll say. And the days and years, but I could never find your eyes. Never. There came a day when I refused to go to Dakar, because I believed it lay inland, and I was afraid the color of your eyes would be beyond my reach. Later, a sailor friend told me it had a port and ships and seamen. Where were we coming from the day we met? From what light, from what shadows? I who had only lived a few springs, with feelings not yet discovered, hopes that never materialized. Driven by an affection I’ve never again felt, I’m returning to you because I love you still. Many men have known me. They recognize the color of my skin. My life is such. But I will abandon it in the pause of one breath if you don’t care for it.”

She’ll go to him, her soul stripped bare. What can Ada Liz do with her freedom if she’s invested every idle moment in her memories?

She rises. Her eyes have been open all night, fixed on thoughts of things that do not exist. She strides over to the window, closes it, and draws the blinds, leaving day outside, on the square, already noisy with footsteps and voices. Inside her room night persists, the moment when women are most beautiful. She starts to look at herself in the mirror, but for some inexplicable reason she’s embarrassed and foregoes the inspection. She has the words with which to enamor and a past as sweet as the present. She strolls about the room, her hands on her head. “I’ll turn my voice into wind for your soul and the dark shadow of my hair into green shade for your heart. With a rose in my hand I’ll kiss your lips, and in my black eyes you’ll find blue paths that will be your gaze in mine. Whatever beauty you find in me will be a reflection of your hands caressing me, and everything you desire will be my desire.”

Ada Liz begins to fold her clothes. She tears up passionate letters from an officer who at every moment called her “divine,” then a postcard from another man she doesn’t remember. In the suitcase pocket she discovers a book of poems she hasn’t read for years.

She is resolute: she is leaving. Her only regret is not knowing where she’ll be when evening falls on the lateen-rigged ships.

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Ada Liz stretched out her hand to catch a bit of waveless sea, but the ship’s bow was too high. She stared at the horizon and trembled. The captain passed her, admired the flower she was holding, and invited her to his cabin for a drink. She declined with a smile: the tar-fouled atmosphere made her queasy. She needed air and solitude.

The ship sailed along solitary channels, leaving white foam that slowly dissipated behind it on either side. A cloud scurried across the horizon as Ada Liz’s eyes grew dreamy. The captain said a storm was brewing.

Ada Liz sat down on a coil of ropes, lit a cigarette, and was sorry not to glimpse the nascent stars that the clouds would mask. The wind played against her lips and the ship’s siren pounded the air mournfully. Ada Liz was thinking of roses, and in her mind she recreated the shadow of every vessel that had plowed majestically through the sea.

How dark the clouds have grown! When the wind rises up furiously, a storm is about to break.

“Ada Liz, off the deck!”

The helmsman knits his brow and stares in front of him. Ada Liz is adamant in her refusal. The captain returns to her side.