Felipe Alfau - Chromos

“Not all of them.” His voice was hollow. “You say that because you are young yet. When one is old, when one has conquered the storm of a young, secret love, that storm turns into gloomy days, hopeless, endless, gray, dull days, and one waits and one knows one waits in vain. One does not kill oneself then through conviction or despair. One kills oneself then because one has realized that it was death one was waiting for.”

At that time Julieta used to take long walks in the Retiro with her children. She walked fast, with resolution, frowning, like someone in a hurry to get somewhere, and then, all of a sudden, stopped and sat on a bench, her head down, while the children played about.

It was thus that her friend Virginia met her once. She noticed Julieta looking frightfully aged, careless of her person and dress, the one thing she once was so exacting about.

They embraced one another a long time and then Julieta spoke, but this time she was sober in her manner and scarcely spoke of her life. This composure was even sadder to her friend.

When they parted, Virginia hesitated and then said: “Julieta, I hope you know that if you need anything you can come to me, like a sister. Promise me.”

Julieta looked long and blankly at her friend and said, “Thank you.” Then she looked down again and shivered in her thin, shabby clothes. It was a chilly, somber autumn day.

The friend was about to say impulsively: “Julieta, I know that you don’t like to wear a coat, but. ”

But Julieta had already called the children and was walking fast away.

“That Virginia was my mother,” Garcia had said once to me very solemnly, as if this lent matters an authenticity that justified anyone in crashing the literary gates and then condoned his misconduct, once inside.

I dallied a bit longer thinking about these things, then stood up, stretched, and walked home with determination.

When I got there I noticed the light in my room and wondered if Garcia had changed his mind and returned after all. I went in and sure enough he was there, but it was a very different Garcia. He stood in the middle of the room as if he had heard my key in the door and come to meet me, and he looked very strange:

“Where were you all this time?”

“Sitting on the park side reading this.” I laid the manuscript on the desk. He stood there wanting to say something, I was sure, and not knowing how to say it, and I asked him what was the matter.

“She is dead.” He choked on it and his whole expression seemed to disintegrate. His mouth, the flesh all over his face, trembled.

I knew he meant his landlady and for a moment I entertained the stupid thought that he might have killed her, but soon the idea vanished of its own accord and I asked him what was it all about, to tell me more.

“When I got home I found a note from the Cuban roomer telling me to call some number. He had to go to work and could not wait for me.” Garcia produced the note. “They told me that she had drowned, that she was at the morgue and I must come down to identify her, or something like that.”

“But then why didn’t you go right down? Perhaps it is somebody else. What will they think if you don’t go right down?”

“Oh, it is her all right.” He appeared to be regaining some control: “They had all her stuff, and anyway the note was left this afternoon.” He looked away from me: “Think. She was dead all that time, drowned — that horrible tragic death, and we were— I can’t go down there all by myself. You must come with me. I could not go alone.”

“But of course. Let’s go.” Then I had an inspiration and told him that the person to accompany him should be Dr. de los Rios.

“It had not occurred to me, but Dr. de los Rios — to burden him with these personal matters. ”

It was obvious that, even now, he was ashamed of his relationship with the woman and still more ashamed of his shame.

“Dr. de los Rios understands much more than you think and is as much your friend. I am going to call him.”

As I made the call he insisted: “But you are coming too, are you not?”

“Naturally. You don’t think I am going to go to sleep at a moment like this and let you go out by yourself—” The voice of Dr. de los Rios interrupted.

I explained as well as I knew how and he said to come right down. It would be simpler that way as he lived on the other side of the park and farther down than we did.

We went out and hopped a late-cruising cab and rode across the park and down to de los Rios. All Garcia said during the ride was: “And to think we were in that neighborhood this evening and tonight.”

Dr. de los Rios was waiting at his private entrance and his car was ready at the curb. He got hold of Garcia by the shoulders and studied him. Then he told me that he had made a telephone call and everything would be all right.

We all piled in the front seat and were off.

I will not easily forget that scene at the morgue. Going down the narrow stairs to the basement of the building we met a chauffeur coming out. At the foot of the stairs we met two men whom I surmised were the police or something like it. They greeted Dr. de los Rios and moved a little away with him and spoke in a low voice. De los Rios motioned with his head in our direction and for the second time they gave us a careless glance. Then a voice behind us said to get out of the way and we turned, and it was an attendant wheeling a man stretched out on a curved tin rack. He looked small, shriveled. I noticed the blood, the bald spot on his head as he passed. He looked so puny and vulnerable, so incapable of coping with life and so easy to eliminate by death. The pallor of Garcia was ghastly to see in that light

“What are we waiting for?” he whispered and his words caught in his throat, but when Dr. de los Rios and the two men approached us and we started walking along the room, he held back shaking and saying that he could not go on, could not do it.

Dr. de los Rios held one of his arms tightly and propelled him gently forward. One of the men moved ahead of us and we followed.

We did not find her in one of the boxes as I had expected, but in a room at the far end, on a table. Sometimes the dead look small, shrunken, and sometimes they look big and swollen. She looked big and imposing, her whole body saying: “Here I am. It is your problem.”

Garcia stood like a swaying stone pillar. Here was the woman of whom he had been ashamed and there probably was a futile and sad attempt to control his emotions. I am sure that if he had been alone with the two men, it would have been easier for him, but we were there, his friends, Spanish, creating a self-imposed conflict of loyalties and inevitable embarrassment.

And then he leaped forward and threw his arms about her, the side of his face against her breast, his eyes shut.

One of the men moved toward him, but Dr. de los Rios was nearer and lifted an unresisting Garcia. He looked at Dr. de los Rios as if he could not make him out, as if nothing in this world made any sense to him, as if he could not understand his own emotions. His sorrow, crushed between bewilderment and shame, was horrible to behold, and suddenly his tenseness melted away. He sagged against de los Rios’s chest, buried his face in his shoulder and wept like a child. His muffled voice cried that he loved her, that he wanted to admit it to us at last, that he loved her and owed her that last confession.

Now that we were going out again, Garcia did not want to leave her there but stay with her or make better arrangements for her surroundings and he babbled that this was his duty, but again Dr. de los Rios prevailed and eventually we were outside. Once more we all piled in the front seat and Dr. de los Rios said that Garcia would stay with him.