Moratorium

A rat. That’s pretty much the first thing she saw when she entered Washington Square. A rat in a run from under a bench to get lost behind a tree. A middle age white lady was seated in the bench, reading; a couple of teenagers were sharing a joint; in the east side of the park, a crowd was gathered attending or pretending to pay attention to Shakespeare in the Park. Nobody seemed to have seen the rat, or nobody cared, but nobody reacted.

Disgusted, she walked still some two meters before seeing him. He saw her too, he waved. He had the same beard that she remembered from more than ten years ago.

…

She remembers him reading from the back of photographs. Flags photographs. His photographs. It could be 2005, after Audioslave’s concert in Havana. Any case it had to be at some point before the 2006 World Cup but after Greece won the 2004 EuroCup. Because back then she couldn’t stand playing defense.

Then the memory jumps, slides, dissolves and fades away. They are walking over rocks, by the coast, he´s telling her about camera angles and how the most unknown thing to a man, is the man himself, because for whatever optical illusions the mirror returns an image that it is not what others see of him. The Person that you think you know the most, the Person that breathes your air and sleeps in your bed and have your thoughts, is cursed to be the ultimate stranger.

And then they are in his room. And he lights a candle and tells her to shock him. And from her fingers air starts to blow and she braids that air and creates a twister that blows that candle off. And they are in the dark. And somewhere inside the wardrobe he keeps a camera and a flag.

And she pictures him in fast motion. Sitting under the shade of trees. Accepting that award. Telling her not to come. Being with someone else… Being back in her room for one last time…

…

That day in Washington Square, he’s old and new. She’s the same but reconstructed. Soo good to see you. So good to see you too.

She heard him saying something about politics, or perhaps academia. She heard him explaining something that she couldn’t quite remember the next day. Something about red flowers maybe, or Kim Il-sung or the Midwest.

They looked pretty much the same. They could be venturing the brave new world. He was definitely venturing that brave new world.

He walked ahead. And somehow, she had the prickly feeling that he was saying something that wouldn’t stay with her the same way as what he used to tell her before. She looked at him looking at her, and she saw in his eyes the reflection of the child version of herself.

It was evening when a chilling wind started to blow. They left Washington Square. Shakespeare in the park was over. She said no to his question of finding a place to dine. She kissed him in the cheek and waved good-bye.

Breath

-How do I know what I want? Really want?

We are walking side by side on the sand, near the waves that break softly in white foam. We are alone between the ocean and the dunes. The woman next to me answers.

-Shut wide your eyes, and even hold your breath until your lungs empty and your stomach contracts. If it’s still there what you think you want when you’ll grasp for air, you probably really want it.

Although her old voice sounds familiar I can’t recognize her face, because her features are blurred. Then I ask.

-How do I go and get what I want?

A dream.

I don’t hear her answer because I wake up under water.

I can’t see the bottom nor the floor nor walls all around. It is just me inside infinite water and I need to breathe.

And the lungs get emptied and the stomach gets tight and I grasp for air when I am waking up.

For real this time. I hope.

…

Once upon a time I thought life would be like an Ingmar Bergman film, maybe Cries and Whispers, with a face that was beautiful, a face that was strong, and a face that was dying.

But life turns out more like the opening of Millennium Mambo. A woman stomping over a long and elevated passageway.

…

At the end of the passage people wait for the train. The train stops and I get in. I walk pass a woman with a baby towards the end of the wagon. Then I lock eyes with the most beautiful man in the world. Just for a second.

Baudelaire has that poem, À une passante.

Un éclair… puis la nuit! — Fugitive beauté
Dont le regard m’a fait soudainement renaître,
Ne te verrai-je plus que dans l’éternité?

Ailleurs, bien loin d’ici! trop tard! jamais peut-être!
Car j’ignore où tu fuis, tu ne sais où je vais,
Ô toi que j’eusse aimée, ô toi qui le savais!

I open my mouth, but I feel the voice trapped in my throat. The most beautiful man in the world looks at me for one more second before stepping out in the stop before mine.

…

I am blocking a number from my phone. We have met four times for language exchange at the library. But the fifth time makes me anxious.

I block a number because a “no” answer is ten times better than a lingering question.

With odds I can play, but possibility is a bitch.

…

I stand on the edge. High up. Under my feet, a steep wall of stone and then water. An old quarry turned deep pond. I can’t see the bottom nor the place where the stone wall meets the water. I know I can jump from the higher spot because I already survived a dive before, holding a hand.

I jump alone.

Under the water, I swim towards the surface. One, two, three. The lungs emptying and the stomach contracting right before reaching the surface.

And I breathe.

Persistencia del no final

No comiences a escribir hasta que no tengas el final.

En retrospectiva, el consejo suena hipócrita. ¿Qué pasa cuando no hay opciones? ¿Qué pasa cuando hay que escribir sí o sí y lo único que sale de la punta de los dedos son trazos a brocha gorda?

Pero es lo que le dijo el Maestro a Jota Pe desde el otro lado del buró, El principio depende del final en una historia, Lo más importante es el final no empieces si no lo tienes.

Diez años después, la mirada sigue estancada en la misma página en blanco. Un fantasma que se rehúsa a marcharse, que se ancla con persistencia en la memoria.

El guion iba a ser la historia de una hija única. Jota Pe pensó que su personaje debía llamarse Nadia, porque era nadie, pero luego recordó que Sofía era el nombre favorito de alguien que en aquel entonces era un gigante, Sofía que significaba Sabiduría, y Sofía la nombró.

Quizás con la esperanza de que Sofía fuera lo suficientemente sabia para poder encontrar por sí misma su final. O un final. Cualquier final. Y le salvara a Jota Pe del problema de también tener que saber cómo comenzar.

Sofía era restauradora. Lo era porque la película tenía que ser la historia de una gran restauración. Pero restaurar qué, Jota Pe aún no sabía. Diez años después todavía no sabe.

Sofía estaba trepada en un andamio en plena faena de restaurar un fresco, cuando le avisaban que su padre había tenido un accidente o había enfermado de gravedad. Daba igual el motivo. Un detalle, pura semántica.

Tenía un amante, por supuesto. Alguno lo suficientemente verosímil para que fuera tolerable. Pero mientras él le hablaba de cualquiera sabe qué cuando ambos estaban en el apartamento después que ella le dijo que iba a ver al padre, ella miraba la línea del horizonte, entre el mar y el cielo. Adrift. Aloof.

Sofía llega entonces a la casa del origen, la de la niñez, al pasado. Una costa remota. Un faro. Una playa cerca y un risco lejano… A visitar un padre farero, pescador y navegante. Lo que había sucedido para que Sofía se hubiera marchado y no regresara en años, Jota Pe aún no estaba segura, pero sospechaba que quizás tendría que ver con la madre.

Y entonces qué.

Diez años atrás, Jota Pe se enmarañaba para seguir adelante y se le ocurrió que Sofía, mejor que hija única, tendría una gemela. Usar una gemela para poder desdoblar la personalidad de Sofía en su alter ego. Y así llegó Nadia. Que era nadie realmente.

Nadia era buzo. Jota Pe concluyó que si la historia transcurría en una costa remota, con el mar tan ubicuo que era un personaje más, que si no en la imagen persistía en el sonido de las olas, tenía sentido que Nadia fuera buzo. Además, si Sofía comenzaba su historia trepada en lo alto de un andamio, tenía sentido visual y dramático que Nadia comenzara la suya en el fondo del mar.

Nadia, sin apuro, mueve las piernas para irse impulsando con las patas de rana hasta que emerge en la superficie. De alguna forma, así estaba naciendo Nadia –la otra personalidad de Sofia emergía en la superficie.

Tendría que haber otro amante. Pero como alter ego de Sofía, Nadia tiene clavada la vista en un hombre que ama pero que no la ve. Un hombre que hablaba de cualquiera sabe qué luego de que ella le dijo que su padre estaba gravemente enfermo, o herido en un accidente –semántica– y ella tenía que correr a su casa natal a cuidarlo.

Así llega Nadia, quien se nota ha vuelto al faro varias veces durante los años.

Y Nadia y Sofía se encuentran.

Nadia cree que Sofía sabe algo que no ha dicho sobre por qué desapareció su madre. Mientras, Sofía está convencida de que Nadia supo todo el tiempo por qué desapareció su madre.

Diez años después, Jota Pe aún no sabe por qué exactamente desapareció la madre de Sofía y Nadia.

Tiene sospechas. La madre era de otras tierras y la trajo una pasión por el padre que echaba chispas. Pero en tierra de huracanes las chispas se apagan y luego… Era una costa remota y a lo lejos hay un risco.

Y acá Jota Pe se enmaraña de nuevo. Una historia es el puente entre el principio y el final. Un puente… O un barco. Un barco que trata cada vez de llegar a la otra orilla, pero cada vez hace aguas por un choque contra las rocas en el fondo, o porque Jota Pe lo sabotea desde cubierta. Y Jota Pe se pregunta si es ella el barco, que se rompe sin llegar a la otra orilla, o el barco es el final condenado a no llegar porque no ha tenido un principio.

El final es, no lo que el personaje quiere, sino lo que necesita. El Maestro dice desde el otro lado del buró. Y la mayoría de las veces no es lo mismo.

Achieved goals

She’s got it. She’s there, finally where she wanted to be, doing what she wanted to do. By herself. No one gave it to her.

And now she faces the terrifying question, what’s next?

That’s how addicts might feel, she thinks. So much anticipation, but that feeling of being high lasts almost nothing. Why happiness doesn’t last longer? Why doesn’t it linger?

She wonders if there’s someone truly happy.

No one is there either to help her understand why happiness lasts so little.

And then there’s that sadness. Sneaky sadness that hid when she was running, and busy, and working, and surviving, gasping air to not drown and struggling to make ends meet… only to find that sadness again, finally, when she should be enjoying the here, and the now.

And she tries to figure where the sadness comes from, of from the outside, or if it’s always there inside of her. Who could tell her. Who could know her better than herself.

But she’s in an island. She run from an island only to arrive in another. And both were empty. There are many people. But not a single person for her.

Maybe that´s life, sailing from an island to another. Maybe that thing of enjoying the journey is true after all. The journey is holding the wheel steady, keeping the course, pulling the ropes, resisting the current, the wind against, despite exhaustion or disbelief. Then arriving is facing the void. The empty island. Or even worse. The island is not quite how she imagined or hoped for.

Hope

Damned hope.

Have a child, Mother whispers.

Have a lover, Father yells.

But the eyes of her child are fading away in her imagination. The possibility of a child. The not quite getting to know what could the color of her child’s eyes be.

And love passes by. At this point she already discovered that falling in love is fatal, mortal, infinite… and then well, you jump over it, or you fall even lower, out of love.

Candle… Castle… Lies… Truth

She´s realizing that life is better when is lived against the clock. Like sex, that was never as great as when tides were about to destroy a sand castle, or a candle was about to consume itself.

We only have the time until the waves destroy the castle… And then they made love. In the middle of nowhere. Far from the lighthouse, them two. And she did everything she could to make him happy, she was so careful not to harm his delicate skin. She was the balm when he was in crisis. He always returned for something that she could never quite understand. one day she listened, I want to be in love and love doesn’t come to me with you, I don’t love you. It was when the truth destroyed her.

We are protected by the circle of light as long as the candle lasts, then there will be nothing… Just the anguish that makes us both. And she let him lay with her while the flame lighted the old room. And she let him love her, for a while, because everything around seemed blurry. He was the balm to her crises. She always returned, for something that she doesn’t quite understand. Because one day she saw him between his fiancee and his mother, then she realized that lies had pointy ends and she could bleed.

Much later, when she was asked forgiveness, she still found a way to blame herself.

She’s entering that age when she is old enough to have memories starting to fall into perspective, but not old enough to start to forget.

Damned you, Hope.

Three sisters

Three women in one frame. They could be family, mother, daughter and aunt. They could be just friends babysitting a girl. Or they could be three sisters from different mothers.

The girl, disengaged from the adults, could be looking for some lost item. Perhaps a wrist watch given by her father for getting good grades in school. Or she could be just trying to keep up, to reach the same spot where the older sister is. The beautiful sister , the one with a career, who visits a couple of times a year and who doesn’t get along all too well with dad. But dad speaks well about her in his own way. Somehow he always make it sound like she should follow those steps, her oldest sister’s steps. Unlike the middle daughter, pregnant of a man dad doesn’t particularly approve.

But there’s something about her oldest sister that pushes her away. Not that she doesn’t love her, because she certainly does, it’s her sister. But it’s in her eyes. In a way like every time she looks at her she doesn’t really see her. Like she was always bored and wishing to leave. She never asks her about else other than school, and even then for only a second, before she loses interest again. The youngest sister doesn’t get that vibe from her middle sister. In fact, she has taken the girl with her to buy stuff for the baby. She has felt the baby kicking in her sister’s tummy. She’s going to be an aunt and that’s exciting.

Maybe that closeness between a mother to be and her younger sister is because she understands, better than anyone, how does it feel to be measured against such high standards, how much it hurts not to be loved by who she is, but rather being an experiment, another chance to make right whatever went wrong with the first failed trial. That’s what her sister is, a failed trial. It took time for her to understand that she wasn’t really trial number two, because she’s a different person therefore she deserves to be regarded as unique trial, whether failed or not. It took her time in therapy, and finding her husband, who helped her to find herself when looking at the mirror. Herself. A discovery that gave her so much relief. It’s relieving to know that she didn’t have a chance to win that race, because she’s not her older sister, she’s herself. And she loves her husband so much, against all judgments and disapproval, despite the age difference, no matter that he has two previous marriages with two other kids. Right now he’s with her, she’s the center of his world. It feels so great to be at the center of a world. That´s why it breaks her heart to see her little sister, knowing that she doesn’t get it yet, that she can’t win that race, she can’t even run it as it is.

It could be that the middle sister can see through older sister´s walls to see that she’s not really detached, she just can’t be like their younger sisters. She can’t avoid an immense boredom when they try to tell her about baby showers, or matching shoes and purses, of father’s schedule for taking the pills for his heart conditions. God knows she could give her blood for her sister, she would take a bullet for her but she can’t properly listen. Her middle sister, actually, she’s not so sure how does she really feel for the little one. She’s so different, so not part of her memories and so much a child of a middle-age-crisis. And she listen to her speaking that dad has the pictures of her in a vegetable costume for the last school’s stupid play. A vegetable. And she will have to smile when they’ll get back home and father will show the pictures in the cell phone. A vegetable. She was never in a play, she wouldn’t have time in the middle of all those academic contests, advanced classes. She figured out by herself that Santa didn’t really exist, and she got yelled when she told her sister. Her middle sister. Her sister.

But they came together to the park because someone had to take the girl for a walk, now that the father is in mandatory health leave, and doctors recommend not to abuse with effort. But later the middle sister will have a doctor’s appointment for a baby check up and the husband can’t go with her for the day. And the oldest sister doesn’t want her sister to me alone, even though if everything seems to be going well with the pregnancy. They will take the girl along for lunch, then to the doctor’s office, then back to father´s home. And the day will be over. Until next time.