the stack of letters that Alicia says is her prize possession? (I want to be honest, I aspire to that in these pages: I’ve been waiting several months for two letters: the one Alicia sent me from Czechoslovakia last summer, marvelously trivial, without a doubt, but something of her, for me, indelible smile would arrive in that envelope; the letter that J implied she was going to send me, if I’m not mistaken, telling me off over and over, after describing in cruel detail what happened that February night when I was a monster. The postal service took care of losing them, and I’ve not heard from J since. And what if Alicia finally did decide to write me, is it possible that I’ll never get to possess her handwriting?)
And yet, the letter from Alicia’s friend is still in the drawer. It’s taken an effort not to open it, I should give it to Alicia tomorrow, it’s addressed to her. (Every time Alicia sat down next to me in the quad, she seemed to be searching for a word. I talk and I talk. She remains distant. Is it possible that Alicia was born while her parents were traveling abroad somewhere? No, that was her friend, the one who died, the one who spent her life thinking of a way to escape, “to go back,” as Alicia says. Back where? And I chose to hide myself in this dusty apartment instead of wandering through the deserted fields of Rancagua.) They say that Alicia writes too, poems maybe. Pizarnik’s eyes. Pizarnik’s mouth. The professor at the university, with the uncomprehending smile: “Poetry is the woman: an image that contains and expresses itself through suggestion, with silences; narrative is like men: another image, but this time expansive, overwhelmingly explicit and verbose.” But Alicia looks so sure of herself, she gives me a sidelong glance and tells me about things that happened in her childhood. When she names them, the ten people she’s been involved with in her life, they revolve around me, as if I knew them.
August 12th
7:50 P.M.
I don’t want to sit and write, I’m exhausted, but if I stop I’ll forget myself. I took an hour-long nap, an hour and a half, give or take, and I dreamed. This last week the nightmares have been constant, the face of the albino girl (Violeta?) cupped in the hands of some man. The man caresses her, she maintains a stoical expression of sensual pleasure, a face of false enjoyment. The man was me, I mean, it wasn’t me but the resemblance was horrifying. It was Carlos. The phone woke me, a telemarketer or something; I realized that it’d been years since I’d last written about Carlos and his girlfriend. At that time, J lived only a few blocks away, we’d wait for each other in the square, for the other to appear when one of us was sad and needed a shoulder to cry on. (And this longing, what is it?) I would give her little sheets of paper with poems written on them. Wow.
Pathetic Carlos. I found the notebook containing the story I wrote the summer of my and J’s first kiss. “Carlos is actually just the opposite of me, I’m a coward. He’s fearless, he acts,” that’s how the opening paragraph starts. I took out Violeta’s letter before lying down to go to bed. I stared at it. What would Carlos do in this situation? Open the envelope and read what it says.
August 13th
Wasted day. I’ve slept and slept, just now turning on the three lights in my room and the radio to wake myself up. I’ve never thought of dying by my own volition, but today I came close.
I feel like puking. I have to go to the bathroom every fifteen minutes and my face is burning. I drank a lot last night; this morning, walking to the university, an old lady offered me a job selling chocolates in an artisanal market, probably because I reeked horribly of alcohol. Self-pity is the word. Alicia used it against me and I couldn’t keep the tears from falling. She stopped the car and sat motionless, looking straight ahead, like she was still driving. Understand that I was drunk, that I’ve forgotten almost all my words and instead remember every single one of hers: they hurt as if they were burying me underground. I know I talked to her, or tried to talk, about the almost inexpressible pain the thing with J caused me. In her face I saw disappointment, that she was bewildered by my tears, that she was thinking: “So that’s the big mystery, a simple case of loneliness and the inability to be alone.”
“I’m trembling. Delirious.” That, according to Alicia, was one of her dead friend’s favorite expressions. Yes, I believe that justice should exist, that yes, there’s such a thing as kindness. And then I realize mistakenly that these are just verbal constructions, because I can’t help but think that last night I got exactly what I deserved: a few months ago, in a car parked along the curb, I was the same worn out statue that Alicia was last night. And J qualifying her miserable life (that same lack of self-love) was just like me, sitting in the passenger seat, watching my own tears fall. Without knowing it, Alicia hurt me the same way I wanted to hurt J when I told her I never wanted to see her again, never again. I wouldn’t be surprised if Alicia told me the same thing last night. The symmetry, which had already disappeared, makes me think about God again. That I was a religious being, or something like that, added the callous Alicia with a reproachful tone. I should see a specialist; “check yourself in,” she told me. And me in the morning, almost having to force myself to get up: I’m bound for madness.
I called Alicia, the maid told me to hang on. She came back, unfortunately Alicita just went out, I wasn’t able to catch her. (White lie?) I don’t want to lose her, I don’t want to forget her faraway look, her rigid posture in front of the steering wheel; last night she was a wise woman. She’d never been as attractive as in the moment when she revealed her deepest disdain for me, and at the same time, deep down, she wanted to help me see beyond the pit where I’ve stuck my head. I’m going to puke.
I don’t want to write about myself anymore, but it’s no use, TV and music don’t work; books even less; not the phone either. I just received a telephonic greeting from a supermarket; after hanging up I had to fight the urge to dial J’s number. I miss her, but I wouldn’t be able to handle hearing her. Alicia is so decent: she told me she didn’t want to know anything about J, it was what it was, not a single miserable detail of the sordidness that went down between us. Alicia and I. Me and J. Like that time in the country, when my dog tore half of the chickens to shreds. My mom was horrified and I decided to teach him a lesson: I started by kicking him repeatedly over in the corner of the chicken coop until the poor thing cowered, howling in pain. I kept hitting him even though he looked at me with his most pained eyes—I was the master and I was giving him a beating. I restrained myself when he dropped to the ground. Then I ran to the river. Sitting on a large rock beside the brown water of a rushing branch of the Cachapoal, I watched as my dog approached, his head bowed in pure shame. He came up to me, frightened and guilty; I petted him. He was ashamed, even though it was I who’d almost beaten him to death, taking advantage of my superiority! What would Carlos have done? He would’ve taken each dead chicken, put it in front of the dog’s nose, and then slapped the nose quickly and deftly. He would’ve seen Alicia, rigid in her seat, approached her and, gently turning her head with his hand, kissed her softly, just lips, the way J kissed me in the car to force me to make a decision: truly damage her or be her friend again. And I waited for her to say the words: “Okay already, if that’s what you need to hear: do whatever you want to me.” But instead, I started the car, drove her home, and told her that we’d never, ever see each other again. I don’t know if I said goodbye to Alicia last night. I would’ve given her a kiss just like Carlos, like the other guys who stayed in her car, oh how I wanted her, but how can I imagine leaning in, how can I forget that what I’m writing isn’t my diary but the diary of another, which in turn forms part of a detective novel or a study of death. (Thinking it over carefully, Carlos wouldn’t commit the blunder of kissing his cousin. Because Carlos and Alicia are first cousins: two individuals of such rare will can only be bound by blood. He’s had a girlfriend for several years; yes, he wouldn’t dare cheat on Elisa, especially with his cousin.) I need to get my head out of this pit; I’m going to turn on the TV.
(Edgardo
