People in the Room Page 3

  That first evening I spent peering at their imprecise faces seemed to me so beautiful, so easy to describe, that without taking my eyes off them, I amused myself by rehearsing the story of how I had begun to love them. “One evening,” I would tell them, while they kept their customary silence, “I began to watch you, because I’ve always been fond of women of thirty,” and, attuning myself to the three faces that would seem, suddenly, to remember something fearless, I would add, smiling, so as not to anger them, “Someone once told me, or perhaps I read somewhere, that very few women kill themselves after that age. Then I saw the three of you, sheltered from surreptitious deaths, glasses coated with a chalky residue, slit wrists, dull portraits with horrid flowers, conflicting horoscopes … ”

  Then I would fashion an awkward silence, since the three of them would smile. It would be lovely if their heads were to tilt in sudden denial, or if one of them wailed and I were to find out—I would find out, thank God—that I hadn’t been wrong, and perhaps I could dissuade them, since they—or one of them, at least—were contemplating a belated suicide.

  But all of this I thought slowly; each word required a scene which was difficult to compose with their faces incomplete, the signs barely visible, the obscure parts of their voices still unheard. Then I devoted myself only to watching them, because at that moment the one at a slight remove lit a cigarette. Just like the night before, the white blur of her hand lifted the cigarette to her mouth, then returned to its place on the table. A while passed before the third also lit a cigarette. The second didn’t smoke. The drawing room in my house was already dark, and I only left the window to check the time. It was half past six. It would be easy to follow them, I thought, if their domestic routine was so slow and meticulous. Perhaps I could even go out, knowing that when I came back I would find them again in the dining room or in the drawing room.

  About ten minutes passed. The streetlamps had been lit. One of them stood and turned out the light. Startled, I realized I’d lost them. A moment passed that seemed an eternity. The two windows separated by the doorway were dark. I was afraid their habits, their different preferences, might cause them to withdraw to their bedrooms, if indeed they didn’t share just one, until it was time for dinner. I don’t know why I felt sad to know I was there, alone in the shadows, bound to that house, even though I’d only just begun to keep watch on it, instead of going out, or reading in my bedroom, or being free like before. I took comfort in thinking perhaps my interest in the house across the way wouldn’t last long, although I knew this wouldn’t be so. They, in any case, weren’t to blame that I’d been drawn to them, except for allowing their faces to cross the street in the midst of a storm. I was already beginning to feel impatient, but in a sad way, when the same light as the night before appeared in the drawing-room window. In fact, only a few minutes had passed.

  Then—as if in a daily row of unchanging portraits—the three faces took their places in the drawing room, and I could leave them, certain that the next day, perhaps that very night, I would easily recover them.

  I watched them for many evenings to reassure myself, and each evening the same fear of losing them, the fear that some word might wound them, that one of them might fall ill or leave on a journey, would leave me tense in my chair, because when they rose from the table they would disappear, leaving the house in darkness; and invariably, though I remembered the previous evening’s unfounded fear, I would be afraid something might happen to them—as I directed them towards recurring fainting fits, unfinished letters—something that might prevent them from coming to the drawing room. But suddenly the room would light up, the three faces assuming their usual positions, and I was able to leave them, calm, as if someone had come running, at the last minute, to tell me they hadn’t died.

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  ‌4

  Perhaps unconsciously, I had expected a different fear, and as time passed, and no one took any notice of my sudden, studious attachment to the house across the way, I wondered at the indifference that seemed to surround me. No one was surprised to see me reading for so long in the drawing room, even though they all knew my preference for reading in bed. Little did they know, either, that I wasn’t really reading, but keeping watch. I don’t remember much of the two weeks that passed after I first saw them; perhaps I would’ve been afraid otherwise to think no one was bothering me, that I was of interest to no one, and all that remained of me was my habit of keeping watch on the house across the way, and my way of not reading, since I was constantly having to lift my eyes from my book to observe it. Afterwards, I discovered exactly what they were doing. Of course, there would be surprises to come, since before visiting them I knew nothing of their habits, save that they spent many hours sitting in the drawing room. I wasn’t interested in what they did in the morning, and even had to persuade myself to imagine their faces—sometimes briefly—by daylight. There was nothing to surprise me in that, the first few times. I was hardly interested in the prospect of their hair, or their eyes that revealed nothing, since they were storing it all up for later, for when the house was tidy, the beds made, the bathroom tiles still wet, and their dresses ready for sitting in the drawing room.

  But one night as I watched them, I was terrified by the idea of not recognizing them by daylight. I thought it would be dreadful not to recognize them; for one of them to walk past me on Avenida Cabildo and for me to think someone was following me, that I was sure I’d seen the face somewhere before, I couldn’t think where; or for a fleeting amnesia to make me forget my way home, my house, their faces behind the window. To escape that fear, which I couldn’t yet count among my true fears, I thought it would be best to tell someone about it. But what was the use of a sudden smile or a voice that said, “You’re imagining things. Why wouldn’t you recognize them by daylight? Do you really think people change with the light?” and whose scorn would make me shudder? And even if I knew they changed, even if I could swear it, even if I could assure them that if they saw me only during the day I could pass them on any given night, distant and unrecognizable, the other fear would always remain. Because once voiced, spoken aloud, one fear always leads to another, even though the other person might be unaware. So I tried to make sure no one would notice that I was watching them, that I was afraid of not recognizing them, that I was gathering every possible detail of their faces, even the most trivial, to keep in reserve. I came to think winter would pass, and I’d have no choice but to visit them when they stopped turning on the light. Sometimes I took comfort in the certainty that they’d stay in the drawing room, leaving the shutters open, lit only by the streetlamp, or that if the glare disturbed them they’d move their chairs towards the wall, and the closed shutters, drawing pale ribbons on their faces, would break them up into even strips.

  But all this was so terrible that I tried to delay it. That other fear, the first one to begin, which I was afraid would infect those in my house, was already quite enough.

  Sometimes, when we sat down at the table, I would think, “What will I say if they ask me what they’re like, if they ask me to describe them? Or what if someone runs into them in the street?”

  I still hadn’t run into them, hadn’t even seen them cross their threshold. But then I made up my mind to ask them, casually—to do so, I would have to meet them—whether they went out often, so I could plan for any possible encounters with the others. I also thought that, in the exact moment of asking them, I would remember the well-known, despairing saying, “A criminal always returns to the scene of the crime,” and I was so convinced they would one day be punished, that they would sense in my voice the shadows of their three silhouettes clinging to a wrought-iron gate, just as a hand touched them brusquely on the shoulder.

  Perhaps the question wouldn’t be necessary if I was patient, and waited for them to say something. The important thing was for me to see them first, to prepare my answers, to spare them from any cruel or impertinent words, and above all prevent those words from referring to her, to the o
ne who sat separately, since she was the most vulnerable, the best, the one guilty of committing the crime I knew nothing about. I thought this sometimes, hurriedly, trying to lay it aside, though it was impossible to prevent it from surfacing when I least expected, and then, when I remembered her clasping her hands in her lap, or lighting a cigarette, I’d say to myself, “What a pity she must live with the secret of what she’s done!”

  The fear that someone else might see them before me heightened whenever we went out for dinner or tea. When we came home, I would grow impatient if someone lingered while opening the door or looked across the street, not noticing my favorite tree, glancing at the neighboring houses, or at the house across the way. “Here comes the question,” I would think, almost relieved it should happen this way, since by night it seemed easier to answer, or to evade the conversation so no one would find out that I spent hours on end collecting their faces, that their faces crossed the street, promising me their company, no matter what. But then immediately I would wish they would put off the question, or ask it inside, without witnesses, so I could tell the others my answer later, playing down its importance. It would all depend on how I responded, and I couldn’t explain their briefly glimpsed ease in the drawing room, their almost ritual presences at teatime and into the night, the way they sank into the shadows, leaving only their faces and hands still visible, their resigned and mysterious ways, their silence, their safety—as long as they stayed in the dining room.

  My anguish lasted much longer than I can convey by recounting it. The only thing I can be sure of—because I still have an urge to run away, an urge to have never deserved them—happened one afternoon at teatime. We were all sitting together around the table and there was a pleasant silence, as if we were happy. Then, unfolding a napkin, but without looking at me—and that’s what made it dreadful, since there was no need, since I had to remain silent regardless of how many gazes fell on my forehead, on my mouth, forcing me to look down—someone asked, “Who do you think lives in the house across the way? They seem to be spinsters.”

  And then, just what I was always afraid of had happened, and I swore immediately to tell the three women in the house across the way, so they would get up and leave me alone in the drawing room, which would be dreadful without them, as dreadful as those rooms left locked for days on end, their contents scattered across the floor, even a glass upset on the table and left untouched, because a crime must be reconstructed. Then they would come back once I’d left—without putting anything back in its place—and I would be one name less, a well in which to toss something useless, something that tried to resemble—I swear, what do I know?—a disgrace, gently lit by a safe, respectable lamp.

  And slowly, knowing it would be impossible either to rush or to linger, in a voice that sounded stupid to me—the voice of someone saying “How splendid!”—eternally stupid, I answered, “They’re criminals.” And then I got up from the table, leaving their three faces scattered there among comprehending smiles, napkins being folded, chairs replaced at the end of the conversation, with the idiocy over, the mystery unsolved, without any attempt to solve it.

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  ‌5

  I know it was my fault, but I was always afraid any incident concerning the three people in the house across the way would happen without a premonition, without any sign to allow me to savor the sudden encounter, the unfamiliar custom, before it happened. Nothing was any help, not even the gestures I devised for the day I would finally meet them, the various ways I plotted of approaching them. It was all so difficult! Even the trick of dropping a book, or brushing against an arm as I turned the corner, then begging their pardon so they’d be forced to acknowledge me, was useless if they never went out into the street. They’d stayed indoors since the night of the storm, and it seemed to me that even to see them in profile or peering out of their doorway would be momentous, almost a miracle. Of course, to have come to think that way, I’d had to watch them at length, and no one would believe me if I claimed that for twenty days their faces had known the same careful, somber routine. But what was I to do with those three faces in a distant, renewed portrait that lasted until midnight?

  I know it was my fault. I was always to blame for everything. I shouldn’t have gone out that afternoon without making sure there was no chance of surprise, of some change in their habits. I hadn’t been out in a long time either, and when I spied them there so still, I decided to leave the window.

  I opened the door to the street and looked towards the house across the way. I was vaguely worried not to find her face beside the others. After a moment of uncertainty, I thought it was absurd not to trust her, that I was sure to find her in the drawing room as soon as I came home, so I headed in the direction of Avenida Cabildo, planning to stroll a few blocks before going to the post office. It felt strange to be walking alone, free, as if emerging for the first time after a long illness. The faces didn’t encumber me; I even felt like running with their faces inside, but at no time, I remember well, did I breathe any sigh of relief. I knew I was far from their window, that anything could happen to them while I was away, but their faces didn’t weigh on me. I was almost saddened to feel so free while the three faces, as if in persistent, unceasing penance, did not stir from the drawing room.

  I arrived at the post office and went up to the counter. I was about to leave when a voice—my voice, could another voice be mine?—asked slowly, as if she had already composed her condolences, and needed only to write them down; as if she led a cloistered existence, and lacked only a voice, “A telegram form, please … ”

  “I won’t turn around,” I thought. “I mustn’t turn around. I can’t turn around to find out who’s using my voice, or if I’m someone else, or if I’m not myself and I am mistaken, and what I really want isn’t to wait, but to send a telegram.”

  “Your change, miss,” I heard, while a sudden, almost rheumatic tingling crept up my arms. I picked up the coins, not knowing which way to turn to avoid confronting my voice, my own voice, myself, repeated. I remember thinking no one could identify their own voice, or hear how it sounded to others, but I must have thought it hurriedly, because I needed to turn around or leave. And if no one could identify the sound of their own voice, then how had I heard mine? And if it wasn’t my voice, then why had I suddenly felt that fear in my skin, my nerves?

  I looked warily to my right, and took a few steps. There was no one on that side. I went up to a table to stick the stamps on my letters. I thought about going back to the employee and asking, in my own voice, “A telegram form, please … ” to see whether the other voice would recognize itself or show any sign of surprise. I was already approaching the counter when I lost my nerve. I was afraid the employee, without so much as looking at me, would protest with a smile, “I already gave you two … ” Then I would have to burst into tears, or die of fear, since it would mean I endured in another voice, that another voice was leading me down unfamiliar streets, past the portrait-less dead, over a cradle, entering smoky kitchens smelling of fat, boarding ships, saying sorry without my knowledge or knowing I hated to say sorry; imagining new places for me, derelict and beautiful, hearing desperate, anxious music, or uttering countless “I love you”s, and perhaps, though I minded less, a single “I hope you die.”

  I thought I ought to do something, telephone my house and ask someone to come and get me, to see if they noticed the likeness. It would be bravest to say something, so the other voice would realize, and not believe it was alone. I too possessed that voice, and thought it was beautiful. Perhaps there was such a thing as identical voices that met only once, but I was convinced it would be impossible to tell, and I also knew—could swear—that my voice was incapable of making its way through so many coincidences, to request a telegram form.

  I prepared myself slowly to face the danger alone—I turned around again—waited a moment before looking to the other side, and saw three figures hunched over the counter; one had her back turned to me, between th
e others, who were watching her write. I couldn’t see their faces, except for a patch of cheek on either side of the one who wrote, of whom all I saw was her neatly done hair and the lowest patch of the nape of her neck, just above her collar. I preferred not to see their faces, not to confirm the presence of my voice in an unknown face, impossible to follow.

  I turned around not knowing what to do, and soon heard another voice ask:

  “How long will it take to arrive?”

  “About an hour … ”

  “Thank you. We’d like to pay for the reply.”

  It seemed that my voice, the one using my voice, had dared only to ask for the form and compose the telegram, a slow and desperate message in a mysterious hand, perhaps concealing a death or a discreet love.

  I left the post office, and paused in front of a shop window. I was beginning to tire of gazing at the same lace trim when I saw them leave quickly, without looking at anyone. I felt ashamed that someone with my voice might spy me staring into a shop window, so I began to walk. They kept moving; I might almost say they floated, motionless, as if on invisible wheels, towards Avenida Juramento.

  When I saw them that way, moving serenely, each at an equal distance from the other, the irreversible act accomplished, the message and the reply unmediated, it occurred to me for the first time that those hazy, solemn, passive figures might be the three people in the house across the way. It seemed easy to attach those faces to them, to think of them in the street. I remember it made me happy not to have seen their faces, not to have found the faces hunched over forms, or to have met them, suddenly, over the sound of my voice, forgetting storms, twenty days of keeping watch, a dead horse, my life bound to those people in the room … I needed to make sure, to see the room bereft of their presences—lonely and respectable, or hurt and discouraged. I needed to see them arrive, almost floating beneath the chinaberry trees, and take their places among the shadows. When I guessed it was them, I don’t know why but just then they seemed heroic; heroic and defenseless in the face of the brief, measured wording of a telegram. I remembered them hunched over the form and convinced myself they couldn’t possibly write a letter, couldn’t possibly sign those belated, requested, or promised words, with sincere regards or an indifferent embrace. Perhaps they could only write to a distant guardian, and I granted them the necessary strength and pride to reach the end and draft in a sad and neatly penned new line, “We await your response, sincerely yours … ” But the telegram was something so different, so decisive and urgent, that I almost forgot my need to hurry, to see whether they really were the three people from the house across the way.