People in the Room Read online

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  ‌22

  Goodbye, goodbye, upon the black dress I want to wear for the first time to bid them goodbye in just a little while, saving a place in my suitcase to lay it over my future absence, while I remember their faces from another house, where perhaps I’ll be able to say something mysterious. Goodbye upon these useless things, upon my prettiest nightgown, because my family noticed how I’d changed and she said that they would miss me, while I look for a space to stow my perfume, to stow the cool tube of toothpaste, bidding them goodbye, trembling from the farewell, convinced I’m wrong to go away, that it’s shameful to leave at seventeen, even though, if I were to forgo my journey, or postpone it, she, and only she, would dare to cry, “You assured us you were leaving on the fourteenth of September, and you’d be gone four days,” and her cry would float upwards, transforming that date into something ominous and final.

  So that I could wear my new dress for the first time, and come back once everyone was at the table, I told my family I was going to pay someone a visit. My suitcase, ready for me to leave the next morning, served as proof of my recovery from the three faces and their bad influence. Everything seemed to be conspiring for me to bid their faces farewell, as I struggled, a little helplessly, as if foreseeing that it would be impossible to live at the edge of their faces without enlarging them, torturing them, or ceasing to see them.

  Finally, the moment came for me to dress and cross the street. I felt important and sinuous beneath the thick, fitted fabric, as important as if I was delivering bad news, certain that they would all await the words I uttered, digressing constantly so that the moment wouldn’t end, forcing me to be as I was before. I felt as if I’d been crying for a long time, and thought perhaps they would be watching me, even though they never noticed anything, but no one mentioned my dress when I arrived in the drawing room. I thought at least they couldn’t find fault with my hands against the black fabric, just as they also wouldn’t dare say the black was lovely, since perhaps they could only conceive of black dresses on some other street, and they found it hard to believe. Perhaps they also found it hard to believe I was there after so many evenings when they’d paid little attention, dressed in black, with my impeccable hands. I thought they might’ve been able to say something about my attire, without it causing them to forget her blue, perhaps slightly common dress, or, knowing how I loved them, allude to mine so it would become the dress they remembered, my farewell dress. But it was impossible for them do anything they hadn’t already planned, anything that didn’t resemble her selfishness, or the strange way she kept on living; or, perhaps, their namelessness, since it was possible they were simply three women who’d chosen that street and that house so it wouldn’t be quite so obvious that they’d been forgotten.

  My sadness didn’t last long, because she soon got up to fetch a tray, announcing that she’d made something special. Then the three of us were left alone with our thoughts, trying to appear to muse on something we couldn’t postpone, as if we suspected her of spying on us. When she came back she said, with a voice she rarely used and which might have echoed long before on a balcony, one breezy afternoon with suddenly shivering shawls, as someone suggested it might be warmer inside, “We must celebrate your farewell … ” and then, after pouring the usual glasses of pale, cool wine, she passed around a platter of small canapés, whose yellow center gave way to red and green circles. We each took one, and waited, as usual, for the modest, ritual drinks to stir a little in our veins, while I passed the time, once more, observing that they liked to eat different things, savor one thing after another, erase sweetness with something salty, and be surprised by the taste.

  “I’ve always detested people who don’t have a good appetite,” she once said to me. “When I’m reading a book, I like for all the characters to remember, in the middle of a tragedy, that despite everything, they must still sit down at the table, and if she serves herself as much as usual, I never think the heroine cold or superficial, but rather that she’s preparing herself to suffer with dignity, without falling asleep, or fainting, or disturbing anyone, but simply gathering the strength to truly suffer.”

  Perhaps because I felt an urge to eat and cry at once, her remark seemed both correct and sad, and I helped myself to everything they offered me, convinced I was going to cry nearly all night long, drifting away, gradually, preparing to distance myself from them, taking quick, pensive sips, thinking of how beautiful it would be to step away for a few moments from a wake for the dead, to rest my eyes on the tablecloth and chew slowly, break the exact middle of a yolk with my fork, drink a little wine and slice the dark, brave meat through my tears, saying to myself, “I’ll be back soon, I’ll be back … ” without any sleeping pills, or insipid teas to comfort every sorrow, no tiresome cups of coffee or cowardly valerian. And she must have been right, since the moment was drawing near for me to bid them goodbye, and I savored an anchovy against the lacquer of a hard egg white as I thought of the train and of trees other than mine and of going to bed late, convinced their three faces would drift out into the street, uncollected. Nor could I ask anyone to collect them in my place. I couldn’t shout, or wail a final request, “Look after the three faces in the house across the way … Don’t forget to watch them before you go to sleep,” as if it were simply a question of making sure the doors were all locked. Perhaps she too might feel something strange, and dare to utter, “What a pity she’s gone,” thinking less of me than of their faces relieved from my house, and even if someone answered, “She’ll be back the day after tomorrow,” she wouldn’t know how to move without my help, without my constant, addicted gaze. Then their faces would roam throughout the house, mistaking the hour, not knowing what to do, until they resolved to go to bed early, so none of them would notice my absence in each other.

  Determined not to shrink away from any sorrow, and because I wanted to hear it once more, I ventured to ask, “Will you miss me?”

  “It’s our duty,” she answered, slightly in jest, as if wanting to direct her answer not at me but at all that was lost, seized, catalogued, all that had been renewed by this farewell, and just as I was going to reproach her for the vagueness of her answers, she added, as if mustering the courage, “We’re happy to have met you.”

  I can’t remember how I answered, but I thought she should have told me long before, beside the talcum powder packed into the white gloves, the afternoon of the fire, or after she found the spider, and not then, at the very moment I needed to be strong, as my glass drained in the listing of favorite scenes; choosing the best, choosing only words with a view into the past, to that piece of the past that entertained and grieved me most, while the “I love you” made signs at me from within. I thought I should go home, and that for once, it didn’t matter whether they could see my anguish, my altered demeanor in the black dress, because I felt strong, and was happy to be leaving, since they were happy to have met me, still smoking, watching me as they moved their wine glasses in different ways, still having the same thoughts, keeping things to themselves, setting them aside, but happy all along to have met me even though I’d read the telegram and heard the voice in the gloom of the carriage, for, as indifferent as they were, I’d come to possess their three mysterious, placid faces, and—I swear—I never expected anything from them in return, and all that could be remembered, that was lasting, that no one else knew, was already mine, and could transform my life more than the fire, more than their own deaths, because they were happy to have met me and said nothing about my hands—even though they must have noticed everything—or my dress; and I loved them even though they were guilty.

  I drank the rest of my glass of wine, saddened, since it was already time to leave, and since she ought to have told me when I still had plenty of time to think about it, and not now, when I had to go home, sit down at the table happy they had met me, until it was time to shut myself in my room and remember it quickly, since I didn’t have much time left and would have to cry and get up
early and wait until I was looking out of the train window to think about it calmly.

  When I got up to leave, I already knew what I was going to say. They looked at me as if they’d decided to look at me another way, or as if learning a new gaze before turning into three faces I wouldn’t collect, minute by minute; a gaze lengthened perhaps because they were happy to have met me, and they wished to repay me for mine, or perhaps because they wanted that new gaze to stay with me for a long time.

  Then I held out my hand. First to her, then to the other two; and, as I was about to say farewell to their gazes, which didn’t retreat, but which seemed to be hiding something from me that I couldn’t attribute to the smoke from their cigarettes, I murmured the only thing I could put into words, the thing I’d been storing up for them for so long, because someone once said it to me, and moved me to tears, and because it seemed like the only way to repay them for the discreet, then anguished, meeting between their faces and mine. Watching them as I tried to collect them meticulously, carefully, so nothing could ruin that transcendent moment, I said, “God keep you!” and something covered my eyes, since it was so easy to say to them, and to mean it, to mean it unceasingly, for years to come. I know, too, that I dared to say it because I felt, suddenly, with an intensity I barely managed to disguise, my desire to see her dead. But before she could lower her head onto a narrow cushion, I left, closing the door myself, so they could recover their places, and so the “God keep you!” wouldn’t be a lie as I crossed the street, loving them, towards the hour of my tears.

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  ‌23

  I knew it wouldn’t be easy to come up with the right beginnings, the decisive words that would force them to appear in slow after-dinner conversations, prompting discussions, urging someone to beg me to continue, but I couldn’t even mention their faces during my stay in Adrogué.

  That first night, when I withdrew to the bedroom reserved for me, their secrets, their way of living with every difficulty, drove me to promise myself never to live alone with something as important as their three faces—which didn’t even allow me to describe their beginning so I could keep telling their story, if I managed to surround them with a suitable atmosphere. I thought, too, that there was no one to whom I could entrust them without adding some charm they didn’t possess, or withholding what for me was their true attraction. Since I couldn’t reveal that part I didn’t wish to correct, no one would understand that I loved them, or that my yearning to be like them could coexist with my frequent desire to see her dead.

  “I’d like to see her dead,” I would murmur, sure no one would guess I meant the one who found the spider, the one who would go back to bed, trying, as she lay down on her side, not to brush against the patches of her nightgown wet from her own tears. Were I to tell someone about the three faces, even the most understanding person would still suggest, in a conciliatory and practical gesture, the grand idea that would solve everything, “Why don’t you invite them to tea?” as if I could invite the three faces to take tea, a tedious tea with biscuits from Avenida Cabildo; as if I could ask them whether they liked their tea strong, how many lumps of sugar they preferred, exchanging pleasantries about the neighborhood, or the latest film, because if they were to mention death everyone would be simply appalled, and ask for another half-cup of tea, only half a cup—how dreadful!—determined to change the subject, while the faces ate nothing, not because they didn’t wish to eat, but out of restraint. Only after describing the tea to myself in detail did I realize it was a waste of time, since in any case they would never accept the invitation.

  The days I spent in Adrogué were pleasant and peaceful. It was comforting to realize I could read before falling asleep, without keeping watch on them or making sure they were in their places. Rather, I was the one who was being watched, as if someone had recommended I be kept under observation during my three-faced convalescence.

  On the second night, dressed in my black farewell outfit, I thought vaguely that I was being disloyal to them, that I had no right to shed the weight of their faces in some other, less transient alcohol, later going to bed without setting them apart, only missing them. I remember trying to place their faces in different windows to see how they looked, but I wasn’t satisfied. I tried several times, but soon gave up on that rather sad game, either because I couldn’t remember the faces or because sometimes there was only room for two, and one would be left out. Then I was forced to look for another window where all three would fit, without bringing them closer than necessary, without turning them into an altered portrait, into a new habit.

  On two or three occasions, just as I was about to mention them, I feared my voice would turn flat; then I silenced them, thinking of absurd things like “kindred spirits.” I knew I’d have the courage to leave if, after naming the faces, someone tried to make their silhouettes clearer, to bring them closer to the others (who were taking longer to see), by calling them “kindred spirits.” Kindred spirits, because their days all seemed the same. It was so easy to say! My kindred spirits would be those who, on hearing me, favored the faces without forcing me to list their painstaking silences, their constant, unfailing presences.

  But I was sure that as soon as I said, “Three faces in a drawing room,” everyone would fall into an indifferent silence, or if anyone showed a slight interest, they’d be content simply to ask me how they made a living, if they were unmarried, their names—above all, their names—and the sad thing was that sometimes I too wanted to know their names; but I was better, because I had been able to watch them for two months without needing to hear them.

  When I boarded the train at Adrogué my nerves were fluttering up and down my arms—as if I were on my way to a rendezvous—and making my fingers feel muddled. “I’ll see them tonight. Everything will go on like before. I’ll visit them tomorrow,” I kept saying to myself, and I don’t know why I felt angry, an anxious kind of anger, as if I was being forced to return to the habit of watching them. There were so many other ways I could spend my time … I considered the possibility of letting two or three days pass before visiting them, to make them long for my presence, or at least make them feel surprised by the delay, but as soon as I thought this, I began to sense the danger. Perhaps they didn’t want to see me, or they didn’t care either way, or perhaps one of them might say, coldly, “How strange that she hasn’t come!”

  Then I despaired, suspecting they were incapable not only of feeling grieved by my absence but also of letting it show. They were so well prepared for anything meaningful that if my absence were to trouble them, pain them, or suggest to them a probable slight, full of misunderstandings, they would store it away among the rest of their inventory, and wouldn’t even remember the evening I’d said goodbye, or would mistake it for the night she told me of how she cried.

  When I reached Constitución, I decided to continue to Retiro, then take the train to Belgrano. I wanted to walk up Avenida Juramento, to accustom myself to its atmosphere again while I calmed my nerves, feeling saddened, because my family was waiting, convinced of my recovery. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, and yet someone was to blame that I hadn’t been able to share their faces. Once on the train, heading towards my street, towards my tree, now different, I arrived gradually at the conclusion that she was the one responsible for everything, and if I had been mistaken it was because she did nothing to help me. I thought, too, that if they preferred to sit facing the street, allowing themselves to be seen through the window, it was either because they wanted to draw attention to themselves, or because nothing mattered to them at all. But I loved them all the same, even though their faces had cost me so much.

  At the station in Belgrano, I approached a carriage and climbed into it slowly, as if I still had one final remaining hope. I wanted to recover their faces, after those four days, from the shelter of the carriage, or, if it happened to stop beyond my doorway, from hidden behind the horse. I thought they deserved it, and at least I owed them that—to regain them alongside someth
ing reminiscent of that first night. I set my suitcase down beside me and counted out some money so nothing could disturb me when the moment came to see the frosted clover under the lamplight again.

  I was almost in tears when we reached my block, the street deserted.

  “This is it,” I said to the driver, so he would stop the horse before we arrived at my door, while I looked towards the house across the way.

  I know when I paid him he mumbled a “Thank you,” and that, at first, I supposed my confusion might be a result of my absence, and of the figure in the driver’s seat blocking my view. I know the horse was of little interest to me since I looked straight past it, towards the house across the way, unsure what I might see. I know I thought of many things as I struggled not to be frightened, and to look again, as the carriage disappeared around the corner. I know I looked at my house and went towards the window so I wouldn’t be wrong or wish her dead, or think of anything that might perturb me, and that I dried my eyes before leaving my suitcase in my doorway, then taking a few steps. I know I couldn’t allow myself to be mistaken, that I loved them, that I didn’t mind not knowing their names as long as things went on just as before, and that if I had once felt a desire to see her dead, it was because I was fond of her, and when I was fond of people, I always imagined them dead. I know I looked carefully until I found the same window where so many times I had collected their faces, and began to understand that I couldn’t be confused, since there was the doorway, between the two balconies, and the only thing still missing was the light. Then, all I knew, knew so intensely that it pained me, made me feel like tearing at the walls with my hands and wailing, was that their faces were gone, and that not only were they not sitting in darkness behind the window—which would have been absurd—but that the drawing room was dark, and for the first time, someone had closed the shutters. The dining-room shutters were also closed. I looked again and again to make sure I wasn’t mistaken; I crossed the street, very slowly, but didn’t see anything. Only the wooden slats against their absent faces while I remembered them, trying not to be afraid, unable to muster the strength to ring the bell, because they knew I was coming back that night, and it was their duty not to let me down, not to play games with their faces as if they belonged to them alone.