I. PABLO
I found you singing. In the rain? Not exactly — more under the exhausting sun of the city. It was Friday, if I remember right, once again dressing like the “proper” people, only to wander from bar to bar through the city, with nothing in particular to look for. Just, you know, to play the part. You looked at me as if I were a bad memory, as if I were an affliction that flares up again after healing — or maybe you had simply forgotten me. Whatever your gaze meant, I walked toward you like someone walking toward what they want. Look, let’s cut the crap: I walked toward you with fear, because you know I love you, and you like to see me suffer from your rejections — several already, by the way — and the worst of it is that I like suffering this way, so either way I walked, little by little, with feline movements. Ha! More like clumsy ones, because as I got closer I inevitably had to trip on the curb, and the rest you know: I stayed there on the ground, gray-spirited, pride at its lowest, watching you laugh, which for once — unlike most times — didn’t amuse me at all. What could I do? The one standing, laughing, heart intact, was you; yet the one I have sometimes told you about was still on the floor, time stopped, watching you laugh, not knowing what to do. My foot hurt, my pride hurt, and yes, my love — unlike you — my soul hurt…
But as always, and to the misfortune of other women, ever since I met you I got up from the ground again, as if nothing had happened, and just like other times I tried to play the clown, and just like those same times it didn’t work: I ended up even worse — not with you, but with myself. Let me tell you I have developed a sharp sense of pessimism; even when everything is fine I see it black, I see it all fucked, but that isn’t the case here. My sharp sense of pessimism told me that this time, like so many times before, I would not get you to love me — and instead of listening to that wise black sense of mine, I brushed off my pants and had to say, with a stupid smile on my lips, “Everything! Everything around me is holding me back, all of this doesn’t want me to get near you, but here I am — how are you, gorgeous?” You looked at me intrigued by how quickly I recovered; your honey eyes opened so wide that for a moment the sun seemed like any star inside them. Okay! It wasn’t like that! I didn’t say that bit about everything holding me back; I think I stood up and started saying stupid things like damn curb and stuff like that, and later I said that to you — well, I didn’t say it, I thought it. The point is that a little after the pain in my left knee had eased, and after you and your companions — women, to my fortune or misfortune — finished laughing at this attempt at a Hollywood leading man, you asked me, between sighs and drowned smiles, about my sister. I answered that she was still a handful; that at her beautiful two years, the happiness she brings my family with every smile is invaluable — for this pen and this page at least, indescribable. Of course I didn’t say all that. I said the usual, what one always says to everyone: you know, that she was fine, that she was still a handful, that she was something else, and I don’t know how many more commonplaces people use when speaking and that I use when writing — commonplaces so necessary in those moments when the tongue locks and you don’t know where to begin.
We walked about a block together, without saying much — at least not with words — because with my eyes I tore you apart and set you on a pedestal, then kicked you down and rebuilt you again, so beautiful, me deep in my cycle of loving and hating you, of forgetting you or returning to you with all the force I could muster to love, and you deep in your role of nothing, of indifference, of repeating the song I found you singing with Julia and Alma. How did it go? Ah! Yes — for your damned love. Of course! After all, this love was the damned one and I the villain in whom this aberration took flesh — or should I say this stubbornness? Either way, you kept murmuring the song in the gaps when you spoke with me — or rather answered my attempts to draw you into conversation, all fruitless. Have you noticed that people in the remodeled zone are louder? At times I felt my words never reached your ear because I got no answer from you, but what the hell! I was getting used to it. At times I longed for those days when my opinion mattered so much to you that not a single muscle in your body moved until I gave my verdict. Do you remember how we became a couple? It was something very strange; from that moment I should have imagined you would dump me at any time, but I am more stubborn than smart, and more in love with you than worried about my emotional safety, so without caring much about my physical safety I jumped the fence that protects the building where your apartment is — and what a blow this body of mine took when it fell. Can you picture this monster I am flying from two and a half meters up?
Alejandro’s laugh didn’t wait, and neither did mine. Between laughs I got up, and in my madness I climbed the stairs. I read 104 and stopped. I was about to pound the door but thought you wouldn’t hear me thanks to the tremendous party going on upstairs, so very demurely I rang the doorbell and covered the peephole, laughed and uncovered it again. I don’t think it was any surprise that I was the one ringing — who else would you think it was, if hours earlier I had been the one telling you, very annoyed, “Don’t love me! I don’t know how to love! I’m a bad person!” Ha — who was going to knock if not me? That’s why covering the little hole to surprise you made me laugh so hard. By the fifth unanswered ring I found myself pounding the door as if there were an emergency. Well, for me there was: I was losing you! I kept pounding until between my blows and the music upstairs I heard you shouting, Enough! Enough, Pablo! Enough! I’m coming! I stopped, startled by the racket I was making, and waited for you to open. Can I tell you again that thing I always say about your hair? — You smell like a baby — I said, nervous. You asked what I wanted. — Forgive me! — I exclaimed without stopping — I’m a fool, I love you, I’m crazy about you, and I don’t want to fight with you, forgive me! I love you, I adore you! Listen carefully: since I first saw you in class I liked you — That’s not true — you interrupted — Let me talk! Wait a second! I was enchanted by you, I liked your mouth and your gestures, I liked your broken voice, your enormous honey eyes. I don’t know if it’s machista to say this, but when I saw you I knew you were made for me; I wanted nothing else in this life that wasn’t you. I love you, love! Understand it, and I want — if you want, of course — for you to be my girlfriend. I don’t want to be your little friend anymore, or your confidant, or anything like that. I want to be the man you kiss every time you kiss; I want to know you think of me as much as I think of you; I want to be the one who fills you with flowers or gifts, the one who cooks for you if you want; I want to take care of you. You and only you make me feel I have some reason to keep turning in this world where so many things lose their meaning — Wait, Pablo, let me speak — you interrupted again — Let me finish — I love you and! — You’ve already said it! — you shouted, and turned to look at me astonished — but I was more astonished still to see a tear running from your right eye. My speech of desperation ended; or rather, one of your tears ended it.
I stayed quiet, admiring you. I waited for a response to your tears — better said, an explanation for your tears. Were they anger, sadness, or happiness? I waited a moment and no answer came from you, so I decided to take the initiative. — My pretty girl, don’t cry — I said, and you cried harder. You were definitely very sad, or very angry, but happy you were not. I took you by the upper arms and pulled you toward me; you offered no resistance; I held you. You smelled so good I wanted to take you with me; I held you tight and put my head on your shoulder; I could feel your cheek bathed in tears. I held you again, now more gently but with more force; I didn’t want to let go. In that moment you were everything that tied me to this world; you weren’t everything I wanted. You began to calm, and after five minutes your crying was no longer full; now it seemed as if you were giving little sighs. Forgive me for saying it again, but it seemed like a baby’s cry. I separated you a little from me and thought maybe you didn’t want that, but I did it anyway. I looked at you and asked if you felt better; you only nodded yes. — Don’t worry — I said — everything will be fine, I’m sorry — and that was when I realized that talking to you so close we had drawn near the first time as if we were rocking, announcing the coming kiss. On the next sway we were even closer; I could feel your breath enter my being for the first time. Did I feel different? Definitely yes, because without noticing, on the third time’s the charm, I kissed you, and I can’t explain it well but it was incredible — as if I had been holding a peach in my mouth, but a sweet peach; it was glory itself; it was you, my everything.
II. KARINA
You went quiet, something you don’t do very often. I think seeing me cry scared you; I don’t know, maybe you thought you had hurt me, or that you had said such beautiful things they made me cry from happiness. Nothing further from the truth: I was furious; I wanted to go out screaming from the rage I felt. From the first time I saw you there was a something-or-other that, that, that I don’t know, that I liked in you. I can’t explain it easily. Maybe my father was always a grouch and I liked grouches like him. Besides, from the first day you seemed like one of those heroes from romantic movies who died for their country and their girlfriend. Everything so flushed, so red, as if you were throwing a tantrum all the time. Later, with time, I got to know you more and I came to like how your voice sounded, which seemed at every moment to be giving orders. Ahhh! But whenever you turned to look at me with those eyes so full of soul, so tender, and spoke to me, your voice changed; your tone was no longer a general’s but a child’s telling me how the stars seemed a heap to you and the moon looked like an enormous ball of cheese. So that night of the fight, when I saw you arrive and jump the fence of my house — except for the blow you gave yourself — I felt as if I were in a fairy tale, and believed you were the knight in shining armor coming to save me from imprisonment in the tower. But then you began to talk, and everything you said and everything I managed to understand I somehow already knew, so seeing you there so defenseless and not made of iron as I always imagined you, made me angry. It annoyed me that destiny had to corner us at that precise instant. It angered me that your declaration came that way, so wildly. It filled me with tremendous fury not to have waited until the next night in a nice restaurant by candlelight to live what was about to happen, so I could only cry. I was very happy, but I was also very angry. So instead of hugging you I started to cry from wanting to tell you we should do this another day, and you wouldn’t let me speak — and besides, how would you have felt if in that moment I had said better tomorrow and gone into my house without another word? I didn’t want to hurt you, so I did what I do when I don’t know what to do… I cried.
Then you stood there looking at me without knowing what to do, as if waiting for me to say something. — My pretty girl, don’t cry — you said, and I couldn’t stop even though I wanted to. You came closer to me, at last!, and took me by the shoulders as if you had been about to kiss me; I felt trapped and was about to lift my lips when I saw you hug me and lean on my shoulder. I grew desperate and cried harder; I don’t understand why you were always so decisive and in this moment held back so much, why you didn’t just do things already. But anyway, you stayed there hugging me, about to squeeze the air out of me, so little by little my anger passed and I realized I was no longer crying. I pulled away from you and thought maybe you didn’t want that, but I did it anyway. I looked at you face to face and you told me everything would be fine, not to worry, and in that moment I realized I had heard that before but didn’t know where. — I’m sorry — you finished your sentence and I grew desperate again, but then I noticed how we swayed side to side face to face with our lips as if we were going to kiss. The second time you did it again and I was about to let out a laugh of delight, because I loved it. But before I could laugh you were kissing me, and from that moment until today I have never kissed the same way; what’s more, not even with you have I felt as good as I felt in that kiss. Apparently all your tough-guy face disappeared at the touch of my lips and it seemed as if I were putting my mouth into a cloud. Your rough beard was soft and your mouth even more…
From that day on I swore to love you with all my strength. Even in those moments when you seemed tired of me. But then came summer and with it autumn, and as if we were leaves our love began to detach, and that was how one day I realized we were no longer together, that I would no longer receive white and red roses, that you would no longer sing in my ear, that you would no longer kiss me, or argue with me to be right, and therefore I could no longer tell you how scolding you were and how wrong you were to think that of the ten times you gave your opinion nine you were right. I have to confess that I still love you, that I still dedicate whole nights of sleep — and of dreams — to you. I have to confess that it hurts that you don’t love me, or that you think I am so in love I won’t keep a little pride by not speaking to you. It hurts but I endure it, even if sometimes I do the only thing I know how to do when I don’t know what to do… cry.
III. DESTINY
Both of them belong to me, for since I first saw them I knew I had to join them at all costs; their bodies fit in such a way that the sun would not be the sun if my voice were a lie. Their voices and their tones are so contrary that they complement each other, create and destroy each other — in short, become one. That is why I took them to the same school. That is why I made them fight that February 29th, because they were taking so long that, honestly, they were starting to bore me. That is why with three breaths I made them kiss once and for all.
Now I see my mistake; now I see that maybe I should have made them stronger in the relationship and before it, so that pride — that damned brother of mine — would not have stuck his big nose into this so loving meeting. Otherwise they would now be loving each other with a force none of us will ever know… What once was one, and it was not I who separated it, I cannot join again…