Part I
I
A strange feeling crept over me, as though I were outside my own body. It was a mix of unfamiliar sensations and exhaustion. As this feeling crested inside me, it took me back to the floodplain of my youth and the wide riverbed, twisting like a snake, winding without clear boundaries. It was just like the sensation that had mercilessly seized control of me.
I stretched out my hands. Far from my body, I saw my own hand, still and defenseless. In spite of my efforts, it didn’t respond to my will. It felt like death. In a way, it was a threat against the rest of my body. Total inertia hung above me like a ghost and the worst part was my inability to rationalize what was happening to me because, from any way you looked at it, the whole situation was absurd.
Instead of fading away, the feeling intensified. Now nebulous, now too real. My head languished outside of my body, possible symptoms of a traitorous dementia that took advantage of my sleep and overpowered me. Whatever remained of my sanity—I thought to myself—would end up in confusion. Cell by cell, the equation was disassembled until it triumphantly displayed the remains of a being that once had tried to be a man and then ended up in the insane asylum, just like all the others who had tried. Although, unlike many of the others, there are some who reach the point of being human and die before the final frustration that comes without warning when you discover to be a man is not to be an angel. The heroes, the ones whose defects justify our brutality until it turns them saints, on top of it all.
But to me, it seemed to have signaled another type of death. Perhaps the most degrading of all because it was a passive and useless death. I tried to look back—I wanted to go back a little bit in space and time, a few feet or an hour. Perhaps that was enough to get back to normal. It was a question of putting my head back inside of itself and to get my feet to move at the same time, and getting my cold, indifferent hands back to life. But in my ridiculous position, on my back like someone who was conquered, only served to frustrate me and fuel my desperation. I felt incapable of breaking the chains, limited by plans that were not of my own design. Men shouldn’t have limitations because such limitations are another subtle way of denying their humanity.
I’d like to be transcendent, relegate my own being to the past. But my philosophy wasn’t just some sort of stupidity and a hallucinatory relief before the clear evidence of death. Perhaps a truce of the subconscious will hold back the passage of time for a little while. A subtle way of clinging to life.
Nevertheless, while I tried to rationalize my situation, I pushed aside the concrete and I took up another less painful enterprise which was drifting into thoughts that were far from my current situation. Simple abstractions. And precisely in that effort, I try to recover control over my nerves. And then I realized that I was dreaming, which gave me an enormous sense of relief. Because by moving outside of the realm of the real, things took on a sense of normalcy, the same dimension, almost comic. It was a pleasant feeling. I suddenly felt alive and I could slowly abandon the dream. In any case, it was the easiest thing to do and with that, I acted just as I had learned in the capital—let things work themselves out.
Over in the Caribbean lowlands, I also saw this same attitude and they all considered it normal—the violent flow of the river over the floodplain, across the capricious depth of the earth.
I woke up hours later and extending my tired hand; I stroked my wife’s body with particular urgency. She was there, her warm body outstretched in my bed. My fingers ran across her delicate skin, looking to gather the loose ends of my existence and tether them to her like a sailor tethers his ship to the pier. I felt her body shift, responding almost automatically to my urgency without interrupting the tranquility of her sleep.
“Don’t mess up my hair,” she said without pausing her snores. I kissed her. I too was captive to the automatism that enveloped her. I sank into her like one who carves a new road, my heart palpitating happily, without distress, affirming life. She continued, half consumed by sleep. “Don’t mess up my hair, my love,” while she firmly pulled me against her shoulders, I was seeking new energy along the length of her back and settling into her body as it lay in the bed and then after settling into her, my own abstraction became a firm reality. This woman, her body and her being so open to me, her voice, a “don’t mess up my hair, my love,” and the constant light shining on her body and a weak word swallowed by sleep.
As dawn was breaking, I dreamed, without remembering many of the details to be able to explain it, but I was clinging to the edge of a cliff, one that I had seen before in another dream. Suspended and gasping for air, I felt my hands failing me and that my life was coming to an end. In an instant, I was thrown across the rocks, my head split open, my guts exposed to the sun. I woke up sweating and shaken. It was just simply too much for one night. I got up hurriedly, but I put on my shirt and my other clothes with as little effort as possible as if I had all the time in the world. I reached the bathroom in a state of crisis and closed my eyes. Then, without haste, I watched as my slow-moving spasms folded into one another, as if my body had disconnected from itself at the urging of the necessary physiological need that had just occurred.
So, I looked at myself in the mirror. A man with disheveled hair, dressed in blue pajamas, appeared before my eyes. Something was missing from the image in front of me.
“My God,” I screamed, but the sound was violently swallowed up by terror. There is something mysterious in terror. I have seen people stand mute before danger and others who fall into the most absurd impotence. I imagined the world as a planet trapped between two poles—frenzy on one side and stillness on the other—and the tension between them either gives us hope or frustration.
Then it occurred to me that I was going blind and I called out to God. That’s one of those things that happens to us, we remember God only in certain moments. In any case, I rubbed my hands across my face with such violence that I injured myself in the process. I rubbed my eyelids, over and over again, trying in vain to make the image appear. An inexplicable blackness shrouded my face during the night. “My God, I’m going blind in the most brilliant moment of my life.” Then, I remembered the dream, imagining that since that moment my eyes had not returned to their proper place.
My life has had its ups and downs. Failures, sacrifices, journeys, and homecomings, all in all, too many to count. What I knew for sure at that moment is that there was no way that I would be left blind. Since that moment my decisions were totally irrational.
The feelings of listlessness started the night before when Esther and I triumphantly entered the National Theatre to attend the lecture on racial minorities in Costa Rica. My wife had a distinguished air with her classical elegance, large eyes, and the slight trace of German features. She came from an illustrious family, not wealthy but descended from one of those prominent families with a rich past. That perhaps sounds a bit cliché, but that’s the way Lucas Centeno says it. Lucas Centeno Vidaurre is a distinguished physician and I forgot to point out that he’s also my father-in-law.
But I was telling you about our triumphant entrance into the National Theatre. My wife was elegantly dressed. She’s got a lot of style. That’s one of the things that I like about her. I like a woman who knows how to dress well. It makes it worthwhile to look at her. I’ve always said that if a woman doesn’t know how to dress well and she’s not willing to listen to advice, well she may as well just walk around naked and save herself the ridicule. It’s true. Some women just drag on the first thing they get their hands on and go out into the street. Not Esther. She’s different. Not too sexy, but it’s precisely her expertise in the art of dressing that makes her very attractive. Well, it’s not just that. She’s intelligent and nice. Please forgive me for being cliché because saying that a woman is nice is a bit cliché. Everyone says that, am I right? Anyway, if everyone says it, then it’s cliché. You’ll see that I’m cliché, but at least I don’t like it. Now, what was I talking about? Oh, the way Esther was really dressed that night—her heels and dress perfectly matched her blue eyes. Delicate fingers, lightly blushed cheeks, and her beautiful light brown hair pulled back with a pink headband. We walked deliberately, fitting with our social role. People expected that from us. You don’t run into problems when you do what is expected of you. If anything, you attract the sympathy of all those who stand to reap the benefits of your behavior. Clearly, we go back to the same thing and all of that stuff about behavior is a bit cliché. But, you’ll forgive me. Esther and I sat front and center so that no interested party would go without seeing us. People liked to look at us for some reason. I lowered the seats for us to sit and smiling, I folded my wife’s overcoat. It was a grand moment, yes, it was. We had organized the event and the theater was full. They were all personally invited and they came. Our popularity was at its peak.
What’s more, we had just left our new car in the parking lot. It was a luxury vehicle, including all of the extras like air conditioning, AM/FM stereo, and cassette player. It’s true, we didn’t need any of that and perhaps you’re asking yourselves why do you need air conditioning when the climate averages 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Well, if you believe that you buy things purely for their utility, then you’re the only ones who think that way. People don’t buy things because they’re useful, they buy them because they want to show off. Shoot! You have to be honest every once in a while, am I right? No need to get defensive, no one’s accusing you. We had our car to show off to whoever and we had the money to buy it and that’s why we bought it and it shouldn’t bother you or anyone else. Besides, we have a gardener. A real first-class jackass named Marcel. You know what a jackass is? It’s a cliché type who encompasses all of the characteristics of a particular role, but who is so stupid and clumsy that they can’t get anything done with any sort of efficiency. Marcel was a first-class jackass. And it’s true, his name was Marcel. Imagine what it’s like to walk around with a name like that and be a chauffeur-gardener. It was as if from the time of his birth, his parents had a feeling about what his social status would be, or maybe they defined his destiny. It’s a corny name. But anyway, he didn’t choose it, so it’s okay. Holy shit, we don’t get to choose anything in this world.
When the speaker saw us enter, he stood us and took a deferential bow. That’s so cliché. What a jackass! Then, the lecture started. His words were so odious, but they held the auditorium spellbound. They were completely seductive.
“The alienation and marginalization, as well as the tremendous degree to which black and indigenous peoples are victims of exploitation in our country, is not exactly a shining example of democracy. Their situation is disheartening.” What disheartening situation? I had heard similar words before somewhere. Verbal diarrhea, that’s what it was, because I’ve been to parties and I’ve danced with black women and white women and I’ve seen white men dancing with black women. These weren’t downtrodden people, they were educated people. Above all, it was one of the parties that I attended. I mean, I’m going to say that because it occurred to me while I was listening to the talk. There was a gathering at the Yellow House,1 some dinner in honor of some old guy. There was a black woman there with fiery eyes. Her hair was relaxed, her lips were painted red—not a bright red, but a soft red—her eyebrows were shaped, her eyelids were green, and her cleavage drove the most impassioned admirers absolutely mad. No one there was offended by her presence and if they were, no one dared show it. Quite the contrary, all attention was on her fiery eyes. Once again I’m being cliché, right? Just look here, all eyes were on her. We’re not talking poetry here. What I’m trying to say is that this black woman was beautiful in spite of her color. All night long the son of the Minister of the Interior and I competed for her attention. She was beautiful, smoking hot. Her breasts were well shaped, her waist … black women when they’re young tend to have an incredible waist. And, she was a good conversationalist. We could talk just about anything, but the Minister’s son brought up a terrific topic, an analysis of one of the opposition party’s delegates. We had a great time! That delegate was a bit tipsy and I declared that he was certifiably piss-drunk. So, that’s when Yvonne intervened. That was the black woman’s name, Yvonne. She stated that a delegate couldn’t be drunk because he was a delegate. At first, we thought she was defending the Minister’s son, but later we found out differently. She intended to attack both of our positions. She said, “Luckily for him if he were a worker or a farmer, we could call him drunk. But, because he’s a delegate, we can’t say that he’s drunk. We have to say, ‘He’s had a few too many.’” Turning to the Minister’s son, she said, “Go, ask him and you’ll see” and when all was said and done, he came out looking worse than me.
Well then, nobody displayed any displeasure at her presence. Just the opposite, it was more like people were dying of envy and some probably wished that there could have been more black women there with us.
Anyway, the speaker was talking. How should I say this? … He was talking pure nonsense. Do you know what a windbag is? It’s a person who just moves their mouth just so people don’t think they’re mute. At that moment, a feeling of lethargy began to rise from my feet and I had to stop listening. I think that I thought about Esther at that moment, and if I’m right, I leaned over to kiss her. I mean, I kissed her on the cheek, right there in the theater, in the middle of the lecture. After all, it was a beautiful thing to be Esther’s husband. I’m not going to make any claim that she did me any great favor by marrying me, no, it’s not that. But, what I can tell you is that I gained quite a bit from being married to her. At least that’s what I thought that night. Just imagine, it was a moment to be grateful. I was a Mr. Nobody, a simple man from the country, and she was a Centeno. Some guys are just lucky, right? To marry a Centeno, hardly possible. And not only marry her, but marry for love. That was it, love. And so Lucas and Pérez and Magdalena, and I don’t know who else, were infuriated. That’s it, so let them be mad, let them explode with anger.
Let’s take Magdalena. I made her no promises and besides, she made me suffer! If something nice happened and she liked it a lot, she had no right to complain. Her attitude made no sense. It’s as if someone hands us a glass of water when we’re thirsty. You’re grateful, but you don’t marry the person because of that.
Now, after getting out of bed, my head was in terrible pain and I couldn’t see my face in the mirror. Thirst voraciously chapped my lips and my breathing became more shallow. Moments of sadness sprung from my eyes, already weary from the cascade of silent tears. Da...