JAN GOSAN

ALICIA
1. Diagnosis Five simple words were all it took for the whole fantastic universe I have created with my novels and in which I have lived apart from this world to collapse: "You suffer from an incurable disease". I have just been told this by the specialist who treats my illness. The messenger waits for my reaction, but I am unable to get an idea of what I have just heard. There is a tense silence. It seems as if the doctor is afraid to go on describing my situation, but he felt he had to be clear so that I would not be under any illusions, and he warned me that I have no more than six months to live, or, in exceptional cases, and if I respond well to treatment, perhaps a year. I leave the hospital reneging on having allowed myself to be diagnosed with the cause of my discomfort. Of course I do not accept the diagnosis. After all, the pains are still bearable. It is a cool, damp morning, as autumn mornings are, but pleasant for a walk. To prove that the diagnosis is not acceptable, I will walk back to my apartment. Why me? Yes, I know many people who suffer from incurable diseases, but for some inexplicable reason I thought I was immune. Now I need some time to come to terms with my mistake. Even to my regret, I have to accept that I am as human as others, and I can suffer from their same diseases. I am tired and I still have more than half of the journey to go. I enter a small park next to the neighborhood church. On one of its benches a beggar is dozing, and when I approach him he looks at me with a clear expression of hatred, because he must feel humiliated by my appearance of a well-placed person. He cannot know that I had just been condemned to die prematurely; if he did, he would have no reason to envy me. I sit down on an adjoining bench, because my legs can't take another step. The beggar looks disgruntled and shuffles around in his rags, as if this were his house and I had entered without knocking. The doctor has created a stigma for me. I am no longer the me-self who just an hour before could do whatever I wanted, but me-self-and-death. From now on, my every thought or act will have to count on it. But I am not resigned. The doctors may be wrong. Perhaps my medical records have been misplaced and are those of another patient. Some inexperienced secretary may have made that terrible mistake. Nature cannot abandon me and life cannot be so irresponsible with me. Fate cannot go against my will, because it is my will that must create my destiny. This can't be happening to me. I still have many new things to admire, many fantastic stories to tell, and, why not, perhaps someone to love. Is this a divine punishment? Am I being condemned to a premature death for supposed sins committed, even though I cannot know the nature of my guilt? A sinner does not need to know the details of his guilt, it is enough for him to suffer the punishment to know that he has sinned. It is perfectly possible that this illness was written in the stars, or can be read in the palm of my hand, without that I should consider it a punishment. But the most reasonable thing is that it is the result of my long nights of voluntary insomnia, giving life to characters that in gratitude lead me to death. But I bear them no grudge. From the beginning I accepted that every work that deserves praise is because in it there is a little bit of our own humanity, and humanity must also have its limits. Perhaps that was my fault: to have created ghosts and presumed to be their god. But without me they would never have existed, so I must be right: I am their god, and therefore I do not deserve to be punished with such cruelty. ZIf that is divine justice, all artists will go to hell and imagination would be persecuted and severely punished. 2. The reaction The great impression and uneasiness that the diagnosis has caused me totally overrides my sense of time. I do not know how long I have been sitting on this bench. While I think of my desolation in some remote part of the universe, I am sure that someone, who already knows my fate, must be feeling sorry for me. It is probably an angel, the same one that appeared in the prayer cards we were given when we were kids in religion classes. Back then I wanted to be an angel too. I wanted to fly, to see the world from above, to migrate to warm lands, to be free like the birds, and, according to those bright pictures, only angels knew how to fly. That's why I wanted to be an angel. My hair stands on end, because I sense that this angel may now be sitting on this very bench, listening to my nostalgic thoughts, futilely trying to console me, because angels and humans, for some reason that only God must know, are incompatible. But I have returned to real time because of the murky, resigned look the beggar gives me from time to time, unable to understand what someone like me is doing sitting on this bench at this hour of the morning, reserved for the homeless. I would like to tell him that I don't know either, but it would be of no use to him. A cold, autumn sun shines, but clean and bright. A cool, damp breeze from a nearby sea moistens my hot face. There are still traces of the morning lightning on the cars and sidewalks. Winter will soon be here. It is inevitable that winter will come to all of us one day, but some of us will not live to see the next spring. The beggar has stood upright and looks at me in wonder. I think that despite his appearance, he must have the ability to read my thoughts. Yes, he knows what I am thinking, because those of us who suffer have the same rictus, the same languor in our eyes, the same curvature of the back, the same reddened eyes, and all that is easy to translate into common language: Desolation. For a few moments he seems undecided. Finally he makes up his mind, and with the gait of one whose muscles are numb, he comes to my bench, but does not sit down. He remains standing, hesitant, undecided. Finally he makes up his mind, and asks me for a cigarette, but unfortunately I don't smoke. I offer him some coins, but he incomprehensibly refuses. His gaze wanders to an indeterminate point, he seems to meditate whether to engage in conversation or return to his world. As if that encounter had not taken place and without making the slightest gesture, he walks again with the same clumsiness that short distance that separates our two worlds, and again wraps himself in his rags to continue dozing. He has no courage to come out of his poverty and I have no courage to accept mine. He has lost confidence in human beings, from whom he only asks for a cigarette; I have lost confidence in myself, from whom I only ask for courage to face my misfortune. The beggar has risen again and comes towards me. He asks me with a gesture of mock humility for the coins I offered him. I don't feel like taking any interest in his situation, I only have some interest in my own. Not even an hour has passed since I have known my condemnation and I have a feeling that before returning to my apartment I will have passed to the phase of rebellion, which is nothing more than the resource of kicking, previous step to the acceptance and submission without defenses or reservations. "Behold the slave of the Lord, be it done unto me according to thy word". The beggar gets impatient, he probably thinks I want to humiliate him and I notice more hatred in his stray look than in the previous one. I hand him the coins and he goes back to his bench without thanking me. He counts them and gives me a contemptuous and coarse look. No doubt I had hoped he would have been more generous. I can't stand his ragged presence any longer and resume my walk, but part of my body burns as if I were already in hell, and I find it hard to walk. Is there a hell? Is there a heaven? Is there a God, and his angels and cherubs? I am horrified to realize my rapid transformation. For the first time I have doubted my deep-rooted secular convictions. Until just a minute ago, hell, heaven and God were something anecdotal; a topic of conversation full of incongruities and fanaticism for the gullible and ignorant; of intellectual blindness and irrationality. And suddenly these theological questions arise again, but with renewed importance. I also sense that my mind will soon go blank, refusing to think, since I could not stop thinking about death and its intricate mysteries. I have to rediscover nothingness, and immerse myself in it until the day of my announced death. 3. It's three in the morning and I can't get to sleep. Just darkness and nothing else. Those figures that the lights of the cars project on the ceiling are the only thing that catches my attention, the rest seems to have vanished. Everything around me is silence, darkness, nothing. Whoever created this absurd word was thinking of me, I have given it its true meaning; its authentic meaning; its oppressive emptiness. At four o'clock in the morning I will still be thinking the same thoughts I am thinking now, and the next hours, the next days until the day of my death I will still have the same thoughts: nothing. I have nothing left to think about except nothingness, and, thinking about nothingness is like not thinking. I leave my mind blank to try to dissuade my brain from reliving bad memories, the good ones I have not forgotten. 824 there is nothing left of all that. It is time for my own final judgment. I have been ambitious, selfish and disloyal. If hell exists, no doubt I will be condemned. I have to admit it, these insistent pains, added to my regrets, have sapped the creativity of my imagination. My latest novel is mediocre, even pathetic. The characters are stillborn and act like real zombies. I think I have lost connection with reality and live in a parallel world. I see the new world but I don't feel it; I hear it but I don't understand it, and I no longer have anyone around me to comment on this chore of time; a confidant to whom you can tell a host of misfortunes without being rejected, ignored, or forgotten. I have crossed from one dimension to another without realizing it, entertained with my dreams of greatness, with the conviction that I would put the world at my feet and now I am its doormat. I have betrayed the only woman I have ever loved. I have despised my friends, and admired my enemies, because I preferred the encouragement of victory after a bitter war against my enemies to the sterile peace of friends. And now I have neither friends nor enemies. Some I have humiliated, and the others have ignored me and rejected my enmity, so that there is nothing left, neither of one nor of the other. I am prostrate on the bed trying to forget that I have a corrupted body, which threatens to destroy my soul and my mind as well. Tonight the sporadic lights of the cars that cross the roof seem to me like souls in pain that warn me that very soon I will be one of them and I will cross the roofs of other damned; that neither heaven 8 hell exist, only the unbearable nothingness. 4. The first sunrise It's finally dawn. I have slept two or three refreshing hours. It is a relief to sleep; to be able to have the opportunity to meet with the dearest people, but not the real ones, but the ones that your mood needs, and that during wakefulness sleep in your imagination. Only in dreams things happen as we wish them to happen; without dreams the soul would have nowhere to take refuge, nowhere to nest and sing its song, it would be prey to the harsh and severe reality. I do not know who gave us the faculty to dream, but it must have been someone very understanding and well aware of the weaknesses of the human being. Maybe it was the God that religions talk about, but I cannot accept it, because I simply do not believe in anything. I have even stopped believing in myself. He who lives in nothingness cannot believe in anything. But it is dawn and it is my hour for optimism; the most awaited moment, because light must be the cause of all creation, while darkness is in charge of destroying it, of plunging creation into an abyss of no return, the same that must await us after death. I have thought a lot about death, especially about my death; about my irreversible and early death. I would like to believe in transmigration, because life is not destroyed, only transformed. It would be a comfort to be able to believe that moments after my last breath to be part of a new life, somewhere on Earth or in the Universe. After all, we come from it and we will return to it. But my room has been flooded with light and now I see things as they are and not as I dream them. I see on the shelf meticulously arranged by thickness, color and height my novels, on which I have spent, or perhaps worn out, all my life, and some photos of remote and unrecoverable times. The best novels I wrote when my mind and my imagination had wings, because they were young and free, and understood each other: what the imagination created my disciplined mind wrote. Most of my novels have been a resounding success, but the last one was tainted with my illness. On my desk, next to the window through which I look out on my part of the world, I see that the computer that in better days constantly provoked me, leaving me hardly any respite, no time for rest, remains inactive and silent. I could only hear the exciting and rapid sound of the keys describing on the illuminated screen the images that gushed like a spring of fresh water from my exuberant imagination. Then this machine was an extension of my mind and my spirit, now it is a common computer, like thousands of others, without soul and without activity, because I no longer have anything to tell. The keyboard seemed to me like a universe, with which one could express even the deepest philosophical thoughts, write the most passionate dialogues, or describe the most beautiful scenery. Everything was there, at sight, you just had to choose the right letters, in the right form and with the right rhythm. That was another life. Each character that came out of that now inert keyboard completely disrupted reality: they were the real ones, the rest was a dream. I felt them so alive that I often invoked them convinced that they would appear in my room, and we would discuss their future as a character in the novel. I always had the feeling that they were unhappy with their role, because I never got to know them as they really were, even though I had created them myself. But that was before the diagnosis; before my walking became clumsy and unsteady; long before the first symptoms of my illness made me lose consciousness because of an intense pain arising from some vague part of the inside of my body. But I had a premonition of my illness many years before. I may have had the presentiment from birth, so I lived with urgency, wrote with urgency and also grew old with the same urgency. Now I can rest and calm down, there is no longer any reason for urgency. 5. A dignified death I have discarded all hope. I know I am going to die, but against my will. I cannot accept that nature will decide for me. I have to anticipate its blind impulses; its irrational destruction. Only I can decide when and how I should die. It is a thought that horrifies me, but perhaps I must put an end to my life myself. Suicide? Would I be able to do it? But how? I don't want to die a violent death. By resorting to sedatives? But, knowing my situation, no doctor would prescribe them. I never thought it would be so difficult to attempt against one's own life. I envy those who are fortunate enough to die in their sleep, because the greatest difficulty for a suicidal person is to make the last decision of his life, because it is not possible to rectify it. Perhaps I could resort to euthanasia, but I do not want to die where the law allows it, nor do I want my death to be a commercial exchange. I would like to die by the sea, at the dusk of an autumn twilight, to take its beauty with me into eternity. Can't the wishes of a dying person be fulfilled? Why can't mine be fulfilled? But I am talking about me; planning my death by my own hands and by my own will. I intend to be myself the murderer who destroys everything I have created; to put an end to the fruit of my youthful illusions, my ambitions consummated after many years of loneliness and sadness, to my pleasant memories. At least if nature kills me, I will not be responsible for this homicide. No, I cannot attempt against myself. No tree would destroy its own fruit. But if I do not have enough courage to attempt against my body, I have to silence my conscience, limit the gloomy thoughts and close the eyes of imagination, the only one responsible for my sufferings, because we do not suffer if we do not imagine. So, do I have to let this terrible disease take its course? How will I bear this long agony? What stimulus will I count on? I can't imagine waiting impassively for death lying in a hospital bed, my mind dazed by painkillers and my vision blurred, foolishly fixed on some spot in the room. No, that is not a dignified way to die. There must be another, more humane and less painful way. Maybe the only worthy way to die is in that place you call home, and to be next to someone who feels true affection for you; that you can shake his hand until the last breath is lost, because it is through the hands that souls communicate and express their desires and feelings, so you can take his affection and his smile to eternity, although my eyes no longer see, my ears no longer hear and my body no longer feels anything. That is the only worthy way to die! A wise but useless reflection, because I don't have a home or anyone who feels so much affection for me. This apartment is not a home, because it lacks the essential: a woman. It is only a place of residence; a comfortable refuge; the right space for a writer; a gilded cage where to let the imagination run free. Only a woman can turn a station waiting room into a home, because she is the home. It is in her arms, in her bosom, in her feminine energy. Home is in the bed where a woman lies. As for someone who feels enough affection for me to watch over my agony and shake the weak hand of a dying man, unfortunately I haven't heard from her for many years. She was my first and only love, the person who stimulated my imagination and my creativity. To her I owe what I am and the memories that have inspired most of my novels. But back then my blind ambition was stronger than my feelings. We were united and separated by our passion for literature. We were both confident in our talents and had not the slightest doubt about our future successes. Our relationship inspired his best poems, for which I was flattered and transported to another world, but providence had a painful fate in store for him. The plot of my first novel was also the fruit of our relationship: the story of a failed poetess who describes her suicide in her last poem - a bitter paradox of fate! She helped me to correct my notable literary defects as a beginner, even typed the manuscript and suggested that I send it to a well-known literary contest for beginners. She shared my illusions and ambitions with generosity and without the slightest shadow of envy. He gave himself entirely to this work, which finally bore its unexpected fruits: I won the first prize! What followed is the cause of my regrets and I will never be able to forgive myself. A well-known literary agent was interested in me, and assured me that I had great literary talent and that in one or two years she would make me the most read and admired writer of that time. I was deeply flattered and accepted her bet. She suggested the theme of my second novel: a romantic story with a happy ending, and I had no difficulty in imagining the plot, I only had to add some new scenes to my own personal experiences. In this second novel it was she who revised and corrected the numerous stylistic flaws and grammatical errors of the first manuscript. We used to work in her own home, in an atmosphere of intimacy and familiarity, created to seduce me and make me literally fall into her arms. He had seen in me not only a talented writer, but also a lover. Unfortunately for my faithful companion, my agent was a woman with the appeal of mature yet beautiful women, with a young spirit and great experience in the arts of seduction, so it was impossible for me to resist. In a short time she managed to completely dominate my will. I spent my days in a frenetic program of promotion of my novel that barely allowed me to dedicate a few minutes to the memory of another woman who had to suffer in silence every time my image, with a studied smile of an arrogant winner, appeared in the media. The few moments I did not dedicate to my promotion I had to occupy them in satisfying her desires, always unsatisfied, not as my agent but as my lover. Although there were times when I was aware of my disloyal behavior, I could not give up the vain feeling of being above the common people; of dominating their wills, turning them into sycophants and my admirers. Since then there has been no peace for my spirit and I have known neither true friendship nor, much less, the passionate feeling of love. Now it is too late, because both friendship and love are like a beautiful plant, it needs time to bloom. 6. Memories Sometimes I wonder what would have become of me if I had not won that unexpected prize. I would possibly be married, have two or three children, a more prominent abdomen and could have found a good job in an insurance company, where I would have been promoted to assistant manager by now. We would live in a nice house with enough rooms for everyone, located in a quiet residential suburb. We would have two dogs, my wife's hysterical Yorkshire and a larger breed, plus a Siamese cat. Two of my children would already be going to university. The eldest would study law, and would already have secured a job in my company, and my middle daughter would study journalism, because she believed she had a vocation as a writer, and would have already published a book on the web with a romantic theme. The little one, because we would most probably have two females, would still be in high school and would wear a dental prosthesis to correct the deviation of her teeth. My wife would be president of some cultural association, and every first Saturday of the month our large living room would become a meeting room, where a dozen active mothers of families, and some retired widower, would discuss the details of an ambitious cultural program. We would have a good relationship with our neighbors. He might be a top executive of a multinational pet food company, and she would run a small, exclusive clothing boutique in our residential area, which in all likelihood would be a ruinous business. Every summer my wife, myself and our youngest daughter would spend two weeks in a popular seaside resort, where we would have an apartment booked every year on the 15th floor of a building on the third line of the sea, while our older children would take advantage of the summer to follow intensive English courses in London or New York. Is that what I missed? No; it's too conventional an assumption that I would never have accepted. But I don't want to think of my life with that woman as if it were the plot of one of my novels. She is a person and I must not confuse her with a character; our relationship was not a novel. Sometimes I don't know how to distinguish dream from reality, because memories eventually become dreams, and dreams eventually become reality. Everything could have been different if I had not been so blind and ambitious and had not fallen into the arms of my literary agent. But soon her eagerness to feel young and attractive no longer found sufficient stimulus in me, and she found herself a new lover, another ambitious young writer. I did not feel her betrayal at all, rather it was a liberation, because I also needed new stimuli to continue the meteoric rise of my popularity. Then I tried to recover my first love, but I lost track of her, it gave the impression that she had emigrated to another planet or had been swallowed up by the earth, because she had disappeared from all the means that could identify her whereabouts. Discouraged by the futile search, I tried to seek solace in one of my young female admirers. It was not difficult for me to seduce them, I could even choose among the many young girls who idolized me. I chose her not for her intelligence but for her body, because my capacity for love had been nullified by my betrayal. Unfortunately, despite her attractiveness, my constant remorse made me impotent and insensitive, so my relationship with my young lovers was brief and frustrating. My remorse led me to accept loneliness and I gave myself body and soul to my work. But the theme of my novels changed radically, the previous plots always had a happy ending, the new ones became unhappy, negative and with tragic endings, in which the protagonist of the story invariably died. But far from declining, my popularity continued to grow, because in our time there are hardly any relationships with a happy ending, and my readers identified better with the new dramatic twist of my tragic plots. 7. Ella Yes, despite all these years, I still keep her image alive, because she has been the one who has inspired my most beloved female characters. I have described her so many times that I could not forget her even if I tried. And if my memory should play a trick on me and erase her image, I only have to read again and again the novels where she is present to recover her intact, just as I have kept her for the last twenty years. But the years go by and leave their horrible mark. Maybe if I passed her in the street I wouldn't recognize her. What havoc has time done to her childish face and rosy cheeks? What color are her curly blond hair, always tousled, tangled between my fingers? And her breasts, small but sensual? What must not have changed is her sincere and tender look, nor the blue color of her eyes. How much I have longed for her in my long sleepless nights giving life to characters with her qualities! How much I would have given to feel her hands on my sore shoulders for those endless hours trying to recreate the world with the fantasies of my exhausted imagination! And how many mornings I woke up hugging my pillow, waking up from a dream in which I took her in my arms, and lying on a fragrant freshly cut lawn, we contemplated a pristine blue sky, which our eyes could barely contemplate a tiny part of its immensity. I met her in the faculty canteen one day in the early spring of 1997, the year Dario Fo won the Nobel Prize for literature, which I secretly aspired to win someday. She stood in front of me in the cafeteria line and pretended to hold her cup of coffee and a huge strawberry-cream cake with one hand, because the other was holding several books of poetry. I offered to hold the books for him, but he declined. Finally, as feared, the coffee cup, the cake and his precious books rolled on the floor. Then she did accept my help. While she cleaned up the pieces of cake that had smeared the books, I got a new cup of coffee and the last remaining slice of cake. But as fate would have it, that early spring morning she was left without her coffee and her delicious strawberry and cream cake, because I tripped over a misplaced chair and, once again, coffee and cake ended up on the floor. That coincidence in our clumsiness we interpreted it as a sign of destiny, that we were made for each other. The days and months that followed our eventful meeting were simply glorious. We discovered our respective vocations and ambitions, and agreed, sealed with a kiss, to walk together on the road to glory, which our youthful optimism considered conquered. We used to sit on the soft grass of our campus and exchange notes with our respective creations. I would read and appreciate her poetry and she would read my stories and we would discuss them in heated literary debates. Even today I still remember one of her poems, dedicated to me, of course: If your heart were foam, I would be ocean; If your soul were heaven, I would be cloud; If your gaze were rain, I would be a field; If your hands were water, I would be thirsty. We attended all cultural events related to literature, and we were considered "Les enfants terribles" of book presentations, because of our exhaustive questions. I think authors were afraid of us. We didn't miss any biographical film of writers. We made plans for the future, for when we were rich and famous. We agreed that we would spend half the year in Paris and the other half in Mallorca, in a small house on some cliff and that from the bedroom window we could watch the sunrise over the Mediterranean Sea. We had even decided to have our first child when I turned 30, and to have enough time to consolidate our respective literary careers. All those wonderful fantasies were happening before I won that damned prize. I realize now that I was sure of what my bright future would be like with all sorts of details, but I wasn't sure what I was like, and I barely endured the first test that fate put in my path. 8. The message I have barely had time to reflect and be fully aware of my pitiful fate and tomorrow I have to appear in public and make the presentation of my latest novel. I am the slave of my own success, a prisoner of the clauses of a draconian contract. I have long since ceased to be free and become an admired slave. I would give everything I own to go back and restart my life with her, and that I would never have had the clumsiness to submit my first novel and a literary contest, only to have the misfortune of winning it. But it's too late now. Now I will be back on the cover of specialized magazines, but to announce my inevitable death. They will write eulogies full of eulogies and virtues that I surely do not have, but the dead are extolled or sullied, but rarely respected. Surely the sales of my books will triple, so my untimely death is a magnificent business for my publishing house, for the printers and for the bookstores. They will mourn my death with crocodile tears. My agent will visit me repeatedly to secure his commission after my death. The publisher will also visit me, and with affected sadness, will make me sign a new contract to ensure the exclusivity of my books when I leave this world. I will receive thousands of condolences from my admirers, and they will be so hypocritical as to wish for my speedy recovery, but deep down my death is much more morbid and exciting for them. And what will become of my work? How long will it remain in the memory of my current admirers? A dead writer is only profitable as long as his funerals and tributes last, then other living writers will occupy my void, and they will surely be victims of my same disease. I am not likely to survive long. I have always had the feeling that I was writing what readers wanted to read not what I wanted to write. I will never know what kind of writer I am because I have never really tested myself. It has all come too easy to be important. There is no greater misfortune for a writer of vocation than to win a contest at a young age nor worse torture than to succeed at something you don't like. To write what your own intuition dictates, it is necessary not to think about readers at least until you are forty. I am one of those victims. I try to put these pathetic thoughts out of my mind by reading some of the numerous messages I receive every day. Today I don't want to read that chorus of praise from those who seem to be born to admire anyone who has their name printed somewhere other than on their ID card or in the mailbox. Most of them admire me only because I have hundreds of other admirers and followers, but they don't really know why they admire me. They all expect the same thing from me: a few words of response from the myth they are subjugated to in order to feel blessed by divine grace. Those of these unconditional admirers are a few short sentences that they must have saved in their computer memory to send to their favorite writers: "Very good your last novel", "I was hooked by your last novel", "I enjoyed your last novel", "I loved your last novel"; etc. And what can I answer? I could give them a huge thank you and have them divide it among themselves. But there is one message that catches my attention. It is that of a young woman. I can't explain it, but her image makes me uneasy and uneasy. Perhaps it is because there is something common in our features; or because of her haughty and provocative look, and yet, there is something of sweetness in her face. I have the impression that her arrogance hides a vulnerable personality. I almost don't dare to read her message, I have a feeling it will not be favorable and I don't have the day to endure criticism. After all, praise is a balm, it doesn't cure but it soothes; criticism is a bitter medicine, it tastes bad but it cures. I dare to read it: "Hi, I am an aspiring writer who has read all your novels and in my humble opinion there is only one that has a good motivation: the first one, the rest are acceptable, but lack this important quality. It seems as if after the first novel you have lost the motivation of the first one. As for your last novel, I am sorry to say that it seems as if you have lost both motivation and inspiration. Forgive me for being so frank, but that is my opinion. Naomi." Whoever you are, Naomi, you have discovered my best kept secret! I confess that this severe criticism from an arrogant and conceited young lady has affected me. I shouldn't worry, all the invitations for the presentation of my new novel have been booked for a week now, and the reviews have not been very effusive but not bad either, but what surprises me is the certainty of her judgments, which fully coincide with the reality of my literary career. It is true that the novels after the first one I wrote were influenced by my literary agent, not by a human being, and that they were not written by the artist but by the professional with a good style. And that face... that expression... those features so similar to mine; the clear forehead, the dimples in the cheeks and the slight droop of the eyelids... they are identical. But I wonder who is this mysterious Naomi? There is nothing in her profile that identifies her, not where she studied, not where she lives, no pictures, no blog; nothing! I answer: "Dear Noemí, your harsh criticism has hurt my self-esteem, but I appreciate your sincerity. I have no doubt that you will be a great writer. I am aware that none of my novels will deserve even a modest corner of posterity. If I wrote with posterity in mind, I would lose practically all my readers. In the times we live in, no writer can be above the intellectual level of his readers, because that would make them feel guilty and ignorant. If you appear half a dozen times on a TV channel with a large audience and you have some physical attraction, you automatically become the idol of thousands of people who were born to be followers. The media has so much power that if they had their way, they could win the Nobel Prize for the editor of the crime chronicles of a provincial newspaper. If the media have idealized you, you can write anything, because they won't stop admiring you. My latest novel is not brilliant, it is as normal and ordinary as the normal and ordinary readers who will enjoy reading it, because it speaks in their same language, it has their same vices and virtues. Anyway, that is the novel they would write themselves, but I have spared them that painful work. Most of us writers today are not chasing readers but journalists and image-makers, who are the ones who really rule the world. If you dream of being an out-of-the-ordinary writer, your life will be spent within that same out-of-the-ordinary dream, and you will never be able to live in reality. I look forward to your understanding. Kind regards" I send it. I find it a good rejoinder, but I have to admit that your criticism has merit. I don't owe my fame to my supposed talent but to the popularity that my first novel gave me, and that she inspired me, and the intelligent marketing of my protector. I have no more merit than to have been able to interpret her advice, her deep knowledge of the psychology of readers and her wise ideas, with my ability to write them in an acceptable style. But I am sure that there are hundreds of writers with much more talent than me who have not been as lucky as me. I just received a new message from Naomi. I wonder how she interpreted my reply. I could delete it. After all, it's just the opinion of an immature young girl, I don't have to take it into consideration. I have plenty of admirers and I am no longer worried about success or failure, because there will be no more novels to criticize. She is right: I lack muse and inspiration. But I am curious to know her opinion and I open it: "Yes, good novels need good readers, that's why they are so scarce. But good writers make good readers, and if you write mediocre novels you will always have mediocre readers. I look forward with great interest to hearing your views on the presentation of your new novel. Best regards and see you tomorrow. Noemí." It hurts me, but I accept it. You are absolutely right: each reader gets the author he or she deserves. No doubt I am one of those to blame for the mediocrity of the readers, because I have been satisfied with their compliments without worrying about whether or not they were well-founded. What can I say about the novel if I have never written a real novel? 9. Hallucinations Another endless sleepless night. I see mysterious shadows creeping stealthily around my bed. No doubt I suffer from hallucinations. I have had to hide all the pictures that decorated this room, because when I looked at them it seemed as if they were moving and coming out of their frames. Sometimes I look at my hands and it seems to me that they are someone else's and not mine. Any small object becomes an insect crawling on the shelves of my bookcase, or on my study table, I even see them moving on the quilt of my bed. I know they are simple hallucinations caused by my tired eyesight and depressed mood, but they distress me. I cannot bear this suffering until the day I die. I have to do something. I need her forgiveness. I have to find her even if I have to go to hell itself, from which I am only a step away. Why hasn't he contacted me in all these years? I am a public figure. She must have known how to contact me. A wound can't stay open for twenty years. They say that time heals everything, but they don't say what kind of wounds it heals. There are some for which, it seems, time does not pass, and probably some of them are disloyalty and betrayal. But she may also already be married with a family, and no longer feel any interest in me. Or, who knows, and I am distressed at the very thought, but she may already be dead. The ghosts keep haunting my bed. It seems as if all the spirits are conspiring against me to destroy what little judgment I have left, but I will resist; this is not a good time for madness. I have taken from the shelf my latest novel and read the passage in which the heroine discovers that her lover is cheating on her. It is an ordinary love story, and in real life cheating is also ordinary, and I have personal experiences to write these scenes realistically. Another dawn without any reason for optimism. I must have slept two or three hours, but I feel tired and sore, because the few hours I have slept have been occupied by a horrible nightmare. Fortunately I can only remember the final moments. I was bedridden in a hospital bed, but the room was painted red and a faceless nurse was injecting me with a dose of morphine. Scenes of a butcher butchering pigs could be seen in front of my bed. The pigs would talk and ask the butcher, "Why me?" But the butcher would not listen to their cries and would unload one after another of his deadly blows. Incomprehensibly it was my turn, and I asked him again the same anguished question, "Why me?" with the same result. And the butcher was preparing to settle his killing blow, when he suddenly transformed into her, smiling, just as I last saw her on campus. She stroked my dazed head. She gazed at me for a few moments, and barely as a whisper, she exclaimed: "Spreads his wings the angel of death, because he has an important assignment from Lucifer. When you are suspended by its deadly claws, I will not cry for you but for me, for I will not be able to accompany you to hell, as was my wish." And he vanished, transforming into the butcher, who again was about to lay his deadly blow when fortunately a call from my cell phone woke me up from this horrible dream. It is my current literary agent. -I'm sorry to call you at this hour, but I want you to know that I'm sorry; I'm really sorry! -His ambiguous message causes me great concern -I'm sorry about your diagnosis! -How do you know about my diagnosis? -Someone from the hospital has leaked the news of your incurable disease and it's circulating all over the social networks! I didn't know it was so serious! Believe me I'm sorry; I don't know what to say...! -My agent feels obliged to take charge of the situation and comments visibly affected: "If you are not feeling well, we can cancel the presentation. But this would mean breaching the contract with the publisher and would bring us a lot of headaches. Only death can be a legal justification. No, I have to make the presentation. Sooner or later they will know my state of health. A writer without a contract is free to do whatever he wants, because he has nothing published. On the other hand, a writer with a contract and who has published has something to justify his slavery. We write to have a reason to lose our freedom. That's how paradoxical the writer's world is. We arranged to have breakfast together in a café near my apartment. My agent was accompanied by a young woman who made a great impression on me. But not because of her beauty, but because of her appearance and curious attire. She wears a wide leather jacket of a striking scarlet color, which contrasts with her straight black hair, cropped at the nape of her neck, pale as snow. She wears tight black tights and a black skirt that covers a small part of her thighs. But the most striking thing is her huge military-style boots, which she laces up with red laces. As for her face, it seems vulgar to me, with nothing to highlight. I have the impression that with that flashy outfit she intends us not to pay attention to her face, which she herself must be aware of its lack of attractiveness or charm. However, her gaze and gestures are simple and frank. Just by her manner of greeting I deduce that she is cultured and intelligent. The young lady is the latest represented by my agent. According to him, she has talent. He wanted her to join us for our interview because she needs to be introduced to the world of literature, and he felt I was a good place to start. The young woman seems somewhat intimidated by my presence. She has spilled her coffee twice by shaking it too vigorously. She doesn't dare look at me straight on, and doesn't take her eyes off her shaken coffee cup. I wonder what he is thinking. He waits for me to speak to him, and the truth is, I don't know what we can talk about other than the weather. I break the silence by commenting that it's been a very wet autumn. The young woman nods slightly, but only out of politeness. My trivial remark confuses my agent, who doesn't want to waste time with such trifles. From a pocket of her jacket she pulls out a newspaper clipping and hands it to me. It is the latest published review of my novel. I ask him to summarize it for me, that's why I have an agent: -It's good," he says, not hiding the businessman's satisfaction, "even suggesting it could be the novel of the year. I don't discuss it with my agent, but I suspect this reviewer must collect a check every month from my publisher, and doesn't want to antagonize them. There are few honest critics left, or if they are, they are ignorant of the fundamentals of literature. For the sake of this millennial art I would have preferred a bad review, as this novel deserves. On another occasion I would have rejoiced, but now that I must give an account to my conscience for all my actions, it saddens me, because even now the wise phrase: "The hour of truth has come" makes sense. And the truth is that it is a bad novel. The young writer congratulates me and assures me that I deserve it, and seems to expect my thanks. I think she is trying to suggest some topic of conversation in which she can participate. -Forgive me for butting in," he finally decides to intervene, "but I think it's a good novel, too. I ask him what motivates his opinion. -It's well written and the characters are very well characterized," she answers a bit embarrassed, because she wasn't expecting my question. It has very well-drawn descriptions and the dialogues are very natural. Yes, I think your last novel is very good. It is evident that this young girl belongs to this generation in which ideals are rare, because she has omitted the fundamental: the plot. A poem does not need a plot, words are enough, but a novel cannot exist without a plot. The plot is what links fiction with reality, and a good novel must bear witness to the reality of its time through the plot; of the author's commitment to his time. If this linkage does not exist, it cannot transcend its immediacy, and instead of a novel we write a pamphlet of three hundred pages, decorated with a suggestive cover, and with an unjustified price. I don't put this idea to her because she probably doesn't feel committed to her times. I ask her what she thinks of the argument and she seems to mull over the answer: -It's a classic theme," he answers without much conviction. The betrayal of the one we love. It's a good argument. But it is rude of me not to show interest in your work. I am also interested in his idea of literature. I ask him which genre of literature he is most attracted to, and without barely letting me finish my sentence, he replies: -The novel, of course! It must be so, because her face has been transfigured with the charm of enthusiasm. She seems pleased by my interest; it is evident that she wished to communicate with me, but as a writer to a writer. She has succeeded. I ask her what is the reason for her enthusiasm for narrative, and her answer leaves no room for doubt: -Only a novel can tell a complex story that is a complete world. The short story is very brief and the tale can only tell a part of that world. No doubt this young woman knows what she wants. Now we'll see if she also knows why she wants it. I ask about her motivation. -My motivation? I've never asked myself this question, I think I was born already motivated by the love of literature! I have many reasons to be motivated," she answers with a sudden and astonishing self-confidence. But perhaps the main one is that through literature many values can be transmitted that can help each generation to be morally superior to the previous one. That's a good answer. I have been wrong about this young woman and I have underestimated her. I ask her the last question: -And what is literature for you? -Literature is a way of telling stories that provoke in the reader the feeling of the beauty of language, the creativity of the imagination and the understanding of the reality in which they come from or wish to live. When the words do not prevent the imagination from seeing, hearing or feeling what you are reading, because they are all in perfect harmony, with none missing or surplus. That is my opinion. I am impressed by her response, and I congratulate my agent on his wise choice. The young lady is out of the ordinary, but that doesn't mean she will have the success she undoubtedly deserves. 10. The walk I say goodbye to my agent and his young companion, to whom I give encouragement to continue because I believe he has the necessary talent for success, but I also warn him of the price he will have to pay for his passion. A useless warning, because passion overflows all attempts at restraint. He will go on his way without heeding my warnings. My agent asks me what I plan to do until the time of the presentation, and if I would like to have lunch together as well. Maybe he's thinking that it's not a day to leave me alone and he needs company. I tell her that I had thought about taking a long walk in the park, but I decline her invitation; I have never liked restaurants. The young woman also seems concerned about my mood and makes me a tempting offer: She would like to accompany me on my walk and then go to her apartment, where she will cook for me one of the specialties of her region. It sounds like a good program and I accept. I notice in his invitation the desire to communicate his concerns and show me his works to know my opinion, but also a sudden affection for me, which must have a large dose of compassion. It is cloudy and at intervals clearings open through which the sunlight penetrates, and all the foliage is illuminated as if it were a fresco painted by some genius of those who probably inhabit this park. My young companion seems to be happy that I have accepted his invitation, and walks beside me but in silence. I have the impression that he has already achieved his purpose and does not think he needs any more arguments or reasons to convince me. There is no doubt that he admires me, which makes me feel uncomfortable. No person is more admirable than another, what is admired are the results of his education, intuition or creativity, but not the human being himself. Since we all deserve the same respect and consideration, there cannot be some more admirable than others. I try to make him see it with a committed personal question: -I would love to know what idea you have formed about me; and why were you interested in meeting me personally? The question has caught her off guard. She meditates for a few moments on her answer, losing her gaze in an undefined point of the leafy walk, sketching a smile that must emerge from her thoughts. She turns to me, literally glares at me, and doesn't hesitate in her surprising answer: -Because I am in love with you! Now the surprised one is me, but the years have made me skeptical and limited my ability to feel affection for others. But there is another reason for me to reject her surprising statement: I have no other mission in my remaining life than to find the woman to whom I owe what this young woman admires. As long as I do not repay my debt my feelings are blocked. I let her know this in the least painful way possible: -Sometimes we writers live our fantasies as if they were reality. I'm sure you love a character in your novels who looks like me. But your answer surprises me even more than the first one: -I have told you that I am in love with you, but not that you are in love with me. You cannot prevent me from loving you, but neither can I prevent you from feeling no affection for me. I know you don't find me attractive, you may even consider me ugly, and you may not like the way I dress. I choose whom I love, but I don't pretend that you are also my lover. I am content to be able to walk beside him, and if he feels like it, to taste my casseroles, but he must know that I love him! Her generosity is sublime: she gives her feelings in exchange for accompanying the faltering step of a dying man, and having a guest at her table. No doubt this ungraceful young woman has an immense heart and can afford to squander her affections. I must not allow this waste, she may later need them for herself. -But you yourself have witnessed that you have fallen in love with a sick man who will soon leave this world! -I know, and I feel a great sadness, but you are a writer too, and you make people love each other who exist only in your imagination. Why can't I do the same? When the unfortunate day comes when you are gone, I will still have you in my imagination, and I will still love you as I love you now. It is inevitable that I will ask you this crucial question: -But what is so attractive about a dying curentón that awakens such a passion in you? -There are very few men who have been able to penetrate the soul of a woman. We admire the man who has brilliant ideas, but we love the man not for his intelligence but for being essentially a man, whereas we can fall madly in love with a gigolo, a greasy-handed mechanic or a smelly sewer man, as long as they are essentially men! If he is also intelligent and creative, then he is irresistible! -Do I belong to that category? He doesn't answer me, but his smile answers my question. 11. Lunch The apartment of my young lover is a museum of nostalgia, because it is full of objects that remind her of her place of origin, which she must miss deeply. It is a single room where a certain chaos reigns. His desk is next to the only window in the room, and it is full of pages with printed texts, which must be his writings, where his laptop appears. On the printer is a small stuffed panda bear, and on the window ledge, arranged in a row, is a veritable collection of assorted objects, possibly gifts or souvenirs from trips. His bed is a large convertible sofa, because there is not enough room for a regular bed. On the opposite side of the window there is a space separated by a wide curtain that must be your kitchen. And next to it a table where no more than two pieces of cutlery can fit, as long as you remove the huge bouquet of flowers that are beginning to wilt. The table is also occupied by the remains of a previous meal, such as unwashed dishes, half-full glasses or leftover bread. It is obvious that he was not expecting visitors, so he hastens to justify the mess: -Excuse this mess, but I wasn't expecting visitors, I'll tidy it up in a moment. Despite the clutter the set is intimate and cozy. I'd rather you didn't tidy it up. -Would you like to read some of my writings while I prepare lunch? I beg you not to address me as you, because we have already made enough confidences to be on a first-name basis. -I will read them with great interest. He tries to put order in the pages scattered on his desk until he has gathered about twenty pages. -It's the first pages of my new novel," she says with some embarrassment, "it's the love story between a young dancer and her choreographer... who is inspired by you. He insists on not calling me by my first name. I suppose his love for me includes this distant treatment. If he were to call me by my first name, some of his charm would be lost. I have to accept that. I like his style. I am particularly struck by this passage: "A talented dancer understands the language of music and translates it into the harmonious movements of her agile body. You no longer need a choreographer, but a lover who interprets the music that moves your body!" The meal was delicious and for her, moreover, a source of longing. I still have a few hours to go before the presentation. She suggests that I get some sleep to be clearer. I accept the idea. We unfold the bed and I lie down. She covers me with a light blanket, closes the window shade and locks herself in her tiny kitchen to do the dishes and the rest of the service. I hear the bustle of the kitchen almost in my sleep, and it brings back images of times gone by, when she also cooked for me. I am awakened by the sound of crying. It is the young woman crying. She is lying next to me, and hurries to wipe away her tears when she notices that I wake up. -Is something wrong, Alicia? I ask him in alarm. But his answer puzzles me: -Forgive me, I am a fool; I was crying with happiness to have you next to me, in my own bed! I could never have imagined that this young, scantily clad, strikingly dressed young woman was such an exceptional human being. No doubt that appearances can be deceiving. I feel the need to know more about her. I let her approach me, because I feel more paternal than passionate affection for her. I beg her to tell me something about her. She comes closer to me. I think she wants me to hold her in my arms. I cannot rebuff her and do her bidding. She smiles gratefully at me. -I'm just a provincial girl, ugly and clumsy," I try to protest, but she interrupts me. No, it's true, I'm ugly, that's why I dress in flashy clothes, although it doesn't do much good. The boys didn't like me, even though more than one tried to rape me. I grew up without the slightest affection and soon I had no other alternative to mitigate my loneliness than to invent lovers and friends. I felt real disgust for boys of my age, violent and rude. I fell in love for the first time with a mature, married man. He treated me gently and, although I would have allowed it, he never asked me to make love. It's my fate, he wasn't in love with me either, I think he felt pity. I had no choice but to leave my city, and I came here. Literature was my only friend. My novels were my only consolation. I managed to interest a modest publisher to publish one of my novels, although I had to pay for the edition out of my own pocket. That was almost two years ago. I sent the manuscript to several publishers, but all of them rejected it. Someone advised me to look for a literary agent, and I found his agent on the Internet. I sent him a copy of my novel, and the rest you know. I remain silent because I am impressed by her story, so different from mine! I have betrayed those who loved me; she has been faithful to those who did not love her. Her story makes me feel even more guilty. But she has omitted something and I can no longer accept that I am not interested: -But I am missing in your story! -Yes, of course; you're missing! I met him during the presentation of his previous novel. I was sitting in the last row. I looked like a normal young woman then, and you approached me several times, but you must have been invisible, because you didn't so much as glance at me and I didn't dare to catch your eye. I have always been somewhat shy and introverted, but that day I was out of this world. When I saw you on the rostrum, with your shirt unbuttoned, with your mocking and provocative gesture, so sure of yourself, something stirred in my whole body, and I immediately understood that I had fallen in love with you, but with the man, I didn't know the writer yet -he remains silent for a few moments, as if reliving that moment in his imagination, because I feel as if his body was shaking; he smiles as if now he finds his sudden passion for me funny-. When I left his presentation, I don't know how long I walked around aimlessly, trying to hold back tears. I had fallen in love with the most admired man in the literary world. I still ache from the applause of his brilliant speech. When he finished and came down from what for me was already a throne, for you were already my king, all the young women in the room surrounded him because they wanted to touch their idol. They were all beautiful and wore brand name clothes. I was a provincial girl, ugly, shy and clumsy, and I wore old-fashioned clothes. That night I stayed up all night, crying non-stop. When a woman falls in love, the lover is part of her flesh and soul, and his absence hurts as if both were torn away. We don't think we can survive these terrible wounds," she pauses again, but now she seems to be reliving those bitter moments. Unexpectedly she takes one of my hands and caresses it. That comforts her and she continues her story. I spent some anguished days, but I finally resigned myself and tried to put the fire that burned me down, but I didn't stop loving him, only to numb his memory. But I resolved to one day be on the same level as him, so that he would notice me. I changed my wardrobe and frantically wrote one novel after another in which somehow you were always the protagonist - he exchanges a meaningful glance with me and continues - You can't imagine the joy that invaded me when I saw your photograph in the office of the agent who had agreed to represent me! -Yes, I can imagine! -I interrupt her. -And now you are here, in my own bed, and you hold me in your arms. Have I no reason to weep for happiness? 12. The presentation The account of her generous love for me, which I certainly do not deserve, changes my affection for this sensitive young woman, who has the evocative name of Alicia. I no longer find her ugly, nor clumsy; I see not her face but her soul, and I find her beautiful. I would like to let her know this, but I fear I may change my mind when my remorse for my unforgivable betrayal returns. Only if I rid myself of them could I even reciprocate her love for me. But I cannot forget that I must not delude myself into enjoying the pleasures of life, for before my feelings can be free to love whomever I wish, I will have died. Alicia does not deserve this punishment. It's time to go to the presentation venue. My agent has called me on my cell phone, he is worried about my state of mind, but I reassure him, I feel strong enough to face the presentation. Even the story of this young woman has given me new arguments to defend the literature that arises from the deepest feelings and condemn the banal and entertaining. As expected, the room is packed to capacity. Most of them remain standing because there are not enough chairs for everyone. No doubt they know the news of my diagnosis. My agent is waiting for me in an adjoining room to bring me up to date with the most prominent attendees. The editors of several literary magazines have come, and most of the journalists from the culture sections of the newspapers. They must be interested in the story of the writer who dies, not the one who writes. Alicia has accompanied me here, but she got confused with the audience and I lost sight of her. The moderator and other guests are already on the podium. When I appear in the room there is a telltale murmur. Several photographers take snapshots of the panel, but mostly they point their cameras at me. They must think that these will be the last pictures they will take of me. The moderator introduces me and gives a brief summary of the novel I am going to present. The time has come for my speech. I look for Alicia in the crowd, and discover her at one end of the room, leaning against a column. She has felt my gaze and smiles at me. She wants to encourage me; her smile makes it easier for me to begin my speech. -Good afternoon. First of all I want to thank all of you for attending the presentation of my latest novel. I feel guilty that I have this comfortable chair when most of you have to stand. Had I known so many of you were coming we would have held this presentation at the Olympic Stadium -you laugh at my joke, but I'm sure most of you didn't expect me to still have a sense of humor under the circumstances-. I assume you have all read the reviews of my new novel. Most are favorable, but not all - I forgot to send the check to two or three reviewers! I also assume you must already know the news of my diagnosis. Yes, I have only a few months to live, and it's no laughing matter, but my health won't improve if I take it seriously," I'm interrupted by a loud murmur, but I beg for silence. I learned the diagnosis yesterday, and because of the leak I haven't been able to extend my life insurance premium. I am sorry for my cat, who is the beneficiary of the insurance, because as you must know, I have no offspring. I'm very fond of my cat, because she's the only one I understand - I gave up understanding humans years ago! But I guess you haven't come here to hear about my good understanding with my cat, but about my latest novel. Surprising as it may surprise you, this novel and the previous ones I could not have written without my cat. She has taught me to accept who feeds me without losing my dignity. She has also taught me that there is always a time to play, and despite my advanced age I have never stopped playing! For me writing is a game, but a serious game. To play it is necessary to know only these three basic rules: to have a good technique, to have one's own style and a solid motivation. Whoever knows these three rules well has every chance of winning. Writers have a solid training, and we know how to distinguish a past perfect from a pluperfect, we do not commit spelling mistakes and we know where to put a comma or semicolon. After all, they are just rules to memorize, so most of us have a good technique. But when we talk about style not everyone understands what its meaning is and how it is valued, although critics insist on pigeonholing us with this or that current, because style has no rules, but depends on our sensitivity and the value we give to the words. Each word, in addition to a meaning, has a tone and must be joined to other words perfectly tuned, which is not common in today's literature, the meaning prevails and not the intonation. And if we talk about motivation, we usually associate it with remuneration, and not with a commitment to the values of our time, which must somehow be reflected in the arguments of what we write. Artists also pay rent; for the tax authorities we are just one more and in supermarkets they don't give us credit, if we don't pay we don't eat. That's why the writer must be paid. But this should not be the motivation. And that is the incurable disease of art, because what is the patrimony of the spirit becomes a market product; what should not have a price becomes an accounting value; what should entertain and enlighten, only serves to entertain. Finally, the spirit has nothing to exercise itself with and atrophies by inactivity and the result is that we lose the sensibility to distinguish the beautiful from the ugly; the good from the bad; the transcendent from the inconsequential. And that is the deplorable state in which literature finds itself today, practically on a global level, because insensitivity to art has also become globalized. All the responsibility for this situation falls on fifty percent of the readers and another fifty percent on the authors, because each reader has the author he deserves, and each writer has the readers he deserves. About this last novel, I will not reveal the plot, just advance that it is the drama of two writers, she is a poet and he is a narrator, who are united by literature, but separated by words. We understand the people we imagine, but not the real ones we love. Finally, I would like to tell you a moving story that illustrates better than any complicated argument what Literature is and what it is for. The story I wish to tell you is that of a young writer from the provinces, who considers herself ugly and clumsy, rejected by everyone, and who learned to love generously through the characters in her novels. This young woman does not write for fame and money, but to feel loved, even if her lovers are fictional. But her extraordinary humanity and generosity has been rewarded, and the beloved protagonist of her fiction has become a reality. However, despite her fleeting happiness, the story does not have a happy ending, because the real character will die a few months later, and this young writer from the provinces, who, as I have said, considers herself ugly and clumsy, will again resort to the suggestive power of literature to keep him in her memory and keep the flame of her love alive forever. -I try to see what Alice's reaction to my mention is, but she is no longer standing by the column. She has disappeared! Perhaps I have offended her, but I have to go on. And it is this extraordinary power of literature that I wanted to tell you about in this presentation. Power that only literature that springs from inspiration and shapes a creative imagination has. There can be nothing more obscene than a stultified, uninspired, soulless literature. Thousands of words put together without harmony or humanity, telling us banal, dehumanized stories, with no other purpose than to entertain our boredom and distract us from our worries. Death scares me, as it does any human being, but in return it has given me something I would not have had without its terrible threat: freedom! Now I can speak my mind without fear of the consequences, and I think that the novel I present to you here today was not written by me, but by market demand, like practically all other novels published today. Only that young, ugly and clumsy provincial writer, and perhaps thousands more as provincial, ugly and clumsy as her, to whom no one will pay attention, write their novels for themselves, as their hearts and minds dictate, because they simply need to. Literature, written in capital letters, is a necessity, not a pastime; it not only entertains, but teaches; it not only calms, but heals; it is not only read, but lived. If I were to be born again, I would like it to be in a world where one could survive without the laws of the market; and where we were all provincial, ugly and clumsy. I have nothing more to add, but I will gladly answer your questions, as long as they are not too personal. Several hands were raised asking for their turn to ask questions. I answer the one from a journalist: -I am sorry about your illness, but I would like to know how you plan to spend your last days. I answer without hesitation: -Meditating on death. The next question is from a woman who must be my age: -What is it that you have wished for but have not been able to achieve? -Understand the world we live in! The third question has caused me an inexplicable emotion. It is from young Naomi, with whom I have exchanged several messages. The question puzzles me, for which I do not have a ready answer. -Do you regret not having started a family, and perhaps having had one or more children, who would now take care of you? I sense that there is some hidden meaning to your question. What can I answer? It is too late for regrets. -Your question is too personal and I have already warned that I would not answer such questions. The young woman seems very upset, and does not want to give up. She insists. -Who or what inspired you to write this novel and what was your motivation? I have not meditated my answer, it has come straight from my subconscious, where it should have been for many years: -All writers have an emotional conflict between what we create and where we get our inspiration. We usually make our imagination make real what is not possible in real life. I have been inspired by a real person whom I don't understand. As for my motivation, it is precisely to try to understand her. The young woman seems satisfied with my answer and does not insist. They applaud my intervention, but only the youngest seem to have understood my message. Utopia is no more than twenty years old. The pain returns with severe intensity. I ask the moderator to close the presentation. The attendees seem to understand the reasons and the room is becoming empty. Alicia met with me. She had rushed out of the room so she wouldn't be seen crying. Perhaps I had overdone it and should have been less dramatic. My agent tells me that outside the room a crowd is waiting for us to sign copies. I can't refuse. Most of them show me their sadness for my illness with some words of comfort. I don't know how many books I have signed but I am exhausted. I beg Alice to let me lean on her shoulder and we return to the hall to collect our coats. I feel the pain blurring my vision and I am so weak that if I didn't lean on her I would have collapsed by now. In this deplorable state I am unable to recognize young Naomi, who remains in her seat, because she is waiting for me. My agent has spoken to her and conveys her desire to talk to me, but has not revealed the reason. But I am not in the mood to hold literary talks with my female admirers. I ask her to excuse herself, and to contact me by mail. My agent communicates my message to her, but the young woman insists on talking to me. It's not about literature, apparently it's personal. Alicia helps me into an armchair in the next room, and the pain seems to subside. I ask my agent to call the young woman - I hope it's not another platonic love! 13. Noemi For the first time my illness has prevented me from fulfilling my editorial commitments. It is evident that my health is getting worse with each passing day. It has been a blessing that I met Alicia at this crucial time. For the first time I am unable to fend for myself and I need help. I am beginning to feel the painful preambles of death. I am anxious about the interview with young Naomi. There is something familiar about her, as if I had known her in a previous life. But, on the other hand, I sense that she brings with her serious events that may alter what little life I have left. Alicia seems to share my concern. She may be a rival with an advantage, because Naomi is a very graceful young woman. She is of a medium build, her long hair, of an elegant brown color and her harmonious forms, make her a very attractive young woman. She enters the room accompanied by my agent. She seems uneasy or perhaps nervous. She contemplates me prostrate on the couch. She must understand the inappropriateness of this interview. As she approaches, I feel a deep pity in her eyes. She seems to feel my illness as if we already knew each other. I beg him to sit in the next armchair. -So, Naomi, what is this important thing you have to tell me? She makes a gesture to sit down, but again she remains upright, something is bothering her. She exchanges a glance with my agent and with Alicia, who remains next to me, leaning on one of the arms of the wide sofa: -Could we be alone for a few minutes," she asks me, visibly nervous, "what I have to tell you is very personal. My agent exchanges a questioning glance with me, and Alicia becomes uneasy, because she must believe that the young woman is definitely a feared rival. If I beg you to leave us alone, you'll think I don't trust you, but now I'm keenly interested in what this young woman wants to tell me. I beg you to leave us alone. Alicia can't help exchanging a sad and doubtful look with me, but she respects my wish. The two leave the room without reproach. Naomi follows them with her eyes and seems relieved when she closes the door behind her. For a few moments, during which she seems to gather her thoughts and calm down, she does not take her eyes off an indeterminate point on the floor. Then she looks up and, visibly excited, asks me: -Do you remember who wrote this verse? If your heart were foam, I would be ocean; If your soul were heaven, I would be cloud; If your gaze were rain, I would be a field; If your hands were water, I would be thirsty. It's as if a bolt of lightning crosses my mind. I have a powerful intuition, but I refuse to acknowledge it. How did that poem come to this young woman? I don't answer, but it is I who asks the next question, and I feel my breathing become labored and my old heart flutter: -Who wrote it? She looks at me and I feel a deep anxiety in her eyes. She is on the verge of tears. -My mother wrote it twenty years ago...! She breaks into silent tears and covers her face with her hands. She doesn't dare look at me. I am stunned, and I don't know how to react. I ask myself the question I anxiously await an answer to: Is this young woman my daughter? If so, how could all these years have passed without her mother telling me? Yes, it is possible; we made love a few weeks before my betrayal, and we took no precautions. But how should I behave towards her? I cannot feel sudden parental affection for someone I do not know, even if she is my own daughter. We will need some time to get to know each other and maintain a normal father-daughter relationship. On the one hand the news fills me with joy, but on the other hand it saddens me, because for twenty years I have ignored its existence and when I learn of it I have only a few months to live. I have managed to regain my composure, I have to act sensibly. I hope she will also regain her composure and clear up my many doubts. Where is her mother? Why has she kept my daughter away from me all these years? My so-called daughter has calmed down and stops crying. She turns to me with a pleading look on her face, because she expects me to somehow prove to her that I have adopted her. But I need some answers: -Dear Naomi, you must understand that this situation is very confusing. I can't behave like a father in a few moments. Calm down and tell me why you haven't contacted me before. Where is your mother? But let my agent and Alicia come, they are absolutely trustworthy and can be present. I must not show them mistrust. My supposed daughter nods slightly as she wipes her tears and tries to regain her composure. I call my agent and Alicia and update them on the new situation. They are both perplexed and don't know what to say. Alicia approaches Naomi and tries to comfort her by stroking her long silky hair. Naomi thanks her with a smile. She seems to be calm now. I hope she can clear all my doubts. 14. Naomi's story -I didn't know you were my father until just a month ago, when I needed a novel for a paper on current literature and I found one of your novels in the faculty library. When I saw your photograph I was struck by our physical resemblance, but I didn't pay any more attention to it, but when I read the description of the female character, I realized that you were describing my mother. I read all her novels and in all of them, with minor changes, she was still the same description of my mother. But I was missing one of her books: the first one, which won a well-known literary contest of that time, and I could have the definitive proof. But they had no copy in the library. The book was out of print and a bookseller informed me that you had not authorized its reprinting. So I went to all the used bookstores in town, with no success. When I had already lost all hope of finding that book, I received a call from a classmate of mine to give me the good news that she had a copy of the book I was looking for. When I read it, all my doubts were dispelled. Your novel was titled "Poetas sin cielo" (Poets Without Heaven), after a poem written by my mother, which is the plot of your novel. Certain that you were my father, I booked an invitation to the presentation of your new novel. But I didn't want you to know until I was sure what kind of person my father was, because I had formed a very negative idea of who had abandoned my mother. When I found out about her illness, I changed my attitude, but when I listened to her today I felt enormously proud to be her daughter, and I want to believe that she will have some powerful reason that could justify her abandoning her when she was pregnant with me. Unfortunately my mother doesn't have the answer. You don't know this, but so great was the trauma of the separation that she suffered a bout of severe amnesia, from which she has not yet recovered. She still has no memory of her relationship with you. I grew up with my grandparents in a small northern town, but they were not aware of their daughter's relationship with you either. My mother was a free and independent woman, always doing what she wanted, until she lost her memory. My grandparents took her in and she still lives there, but now she is alone, because both my grandparents have died and I have enrolled in the university in this city, the same one where you and my mother met, twenty years ago! It is true that reality surpasses fiction! I am desolate, my soul hurts me more than my body, but for this evil they don't sell painkillers in pharmacies, they can only be found in hell. I do not deserve the affection of this ignored daughter; I do not deserve the affection of anyone and I doubt very much that I can avoid my damnation. I almost wish it as a deserved punishment! 15. Repentance There is a sepulchral silence. I notice in the expressions of my agent and Alicia a veiled reproach. Naomi looks exhausted, indecisive, waiting for my reaction. Now I should give her a justification for my behavior, but I have none and she must know it. I do not expect her forgiveness, but at least she will not live deceived. She must know who her father is, and if in spite of everything she believes she deserves his affection and understanding. -No, dear Naomi, I have no justification, your father is a scoundrel! -Alicia wants to protest, she can't understand how I could have behaved that way, but I beg you to let me finish, I need to confess my guilt. Naomi cannot blame her mother; I am the only one to blame. When we are young and ambitious, everything seems valid and we believe that wounds heal easily. I knew your mother would suffer for my betrayal, but I assumed she would soon get over it. Perhaps she would find another young man and soon forget about me. I could never imagine that her love for me would be so deep, and my betrayal so painful. I also didn't know she was pregnant, because after I left her I didn't have enough courage to take an interest in her, and I never saw her again. I know that Naomi must be disappointed with my statement of guilt. I can see the dismay and confusion in her expression. It is unfortunate, but I still believe that youth heals wounds quickly. Naomi must also soon heal this wound. In my desperation I can only think of a remote justification: -Literature brought us together and literature itself drove us apart. I believed that my literary career was above feelings; as if I had been born to fulfill a mission, and I could not put anything, including people and their feelings, before this blind ambition. My only love was literature, there was no room for anyone or anything else! When I received your first message I understood my mistake, and why my novels lacked motivation and humanity, because there can be no humanity in a novel if it is not inspired by love for people, from which the characters arise. Alicia has proved my mistake: she knows what literature is and what it is for. She has not had the misfortune of finding a literary agent with the ability to promote an author's works; someone who knows the tastes of ordinary readers and knows what they like to read. An agent who uses your talent for her commercial purposes. Who makes you the idol of ordinary people and the monster of yourself. My agent has reacted. He seems to wonder if he's not doing the same thing to me. I don't want him to feel guilty too. -When you agreed to represent me, I had already adopted the bad habit and all my novels suffered from the same lack of motivation, but they were guaranteed success. I only began to worry after this last novel, it was the result of all these years of denying myself; the writer who wrote "Poetas sin cielo", the only novel fruit of my love for a person, and not of marketing and the market. Noemi reminded me when it was too late to redeem my sin: I will never write again because I do not deserve to be loved and I cannot love anyone! Alicia does not admit my resignation. She protests and wants to give her opinion: -I don't agree; your father is not totally guilty! Whoever has the courage to acknowledge his guilt deserves forgiveness; the holiest were the most sinful. It is not the saint who needs compassion, but the sinner! Naomi, you have to forgive him, not because he is your father and even if in the past he has behaved like a scoundrel, but a repentant human being who recognizes his faults, deserves your compassion and your forgiveness. Forgiveness is what makes us human beings; resentment turns us into soulless beasts, only with memory. My daughter is on the verge of crying again. She is under great emotional pressure and looks so vulnerable! She looks at me and I can see in her eyes her desire to forgive me. Alicia takes one of her hands and places it on mine. Her hand is burning and trembling. It has been the prodigy of a true writer who has performed the miracle of forgiveness. Naomi hugs me and cries silently. I think I hear a whisper: -Dad, I love you! I feel like crying too, but now I have a daughter who needs a father who is strong! 16. Reconciliation It's been two days since the eventful launch of my latest novel. It's not long to assume that I am now the father of a lovely young woman. I have been taught a hard lesson, but it is only the beginning of my redemption. I have lived twenty years of loneliness and isolation and now it is hard for me to assume that I have to spend some of my time thinking about others. I don't know what the responsibilities of a parent are. Naomi is as independent as her mother and doesn't need anyone to tell her what to do or how to do it, and it doesn't create big responsibilities for me. She will continue to live in the apartment she shares with two college roommates, but we will do our best to have dinner together two or three times a week at my apartment. Alicia has offered to be our cook, and she will delight us with her delicious local stews. Naomi confesses that she is not very skilled in the kitchen, she is a young woman devoted to her career. I think she has inherited my passion for literature and her mother's sensitivity for poetry. I can't say whether or not he has talent, he hasn't had the time or opportunity to test himself yet. He hasn't written anything important. But I have always believed that talent is not inherited, but born with it. It is not in the genes; it is in the mind and in the soul and we must acquire it at the very moment of our gestation. It may come to us from the cosmos or from someone who died at that very moment. I believe in transmigration, because the spirit, like energy, is not destroyed, it is transformed. From the beginning of time there is a universal spirit, which believers call God, from which all animate beings come. The obvious proof of transmigration is that in my family there are no artists or writers, only normal people, concerned about normal things. There may have been some among my remote ancestors, but I do not know it. My illness continues its diabolical course and does not leave me much free time without pain. I often have to go to the hospital for painful treatment. In exchange for putting up with all this discomfort, I am assured that I will be able to prolong the time I have left to live, which I need to put my conscience in order. As expected, my latest novel has tripled the sales of the previous ones. Death is an extraordinary attraction. My publisher cannot hide his satisfaction, even if he is sympathetic. The media hound me and I have had to change my phone number. The messages of condolence are overwhelming, I find it impossible to read them all. But fortunately they are still unaware of my unexpected paternity, they must believe that the young woman who accompanies me is my latest conquest. As for Alicia, I cannot deny that I feel a deep affection for her, but it cannot be called love, because in these critical moments I do not know the meaning of this beautiful word. She seems resigned and I believe that, in spite of everything, she is happy just to be by my side and to be of help to me. Yes, it must be her fate that she is not reciprocated. She has been unlucky in her choice of lovers. She and Naomi seem to understand each other well, and share the same concerns. I think they have become good friends. But this fleeting happiness has a dark shadow: her mother! I have talked to Naomi about her, it is not an easy subject. Naomi thinks my presence might help her regain her memory. But I wonder if it might not be better for her to keep her amnesia. It must not be pleasant for her to remember my betrayal. If she regains her memory she may be able to forgive me, but it may also increase her resentment towards me. Because of me she has wasted twenty precious years of her existence, there is no penance great enough to compensate for her suffering. I know it would make Naomi enormously happy to see us together again. As if time had not passed, and to reconstruct the past at the moment when we were happiest. When she wrote that short and passionate poem to tell me, with four rhymes, how much she loved me, and which has marked our lives. Today we will have dinner at my apartment. My two wives will be arriving any minute and I have to tidy up a bit. I don't feel very well, despite the painkillers that wreak havoc on my stomach, a constant pain persists that manages to make me lose my temper and sour my good nature. It is amazing and sadly paradoxical that during the last twenty years in which I have enjoyed excellent health I don't think I have had even five minutes of happiness, and when my health has broken down I am not able to manage so many moments of happiness, I have met an extraordinary woman and I have recovered an ignored daughter! Living is a game that consists in doing the opposite of what we consider reasonable. The first to arrive was Alicia. She has come a little early so that when Noemi arrives, dinner will be ready. She is interested in my health. She suggests that given the state I am in I should have someone to take care of me 24 hours a day and she is probably right, but I insist that the time has not yet come. -And when will that time come, when he is dead? It was a spontaneous reaction, but she regrets having told me. She is deeply sorry. -Forgive me; I didn't mean to...! -There's nothing to forgive," I interrupt her, "you're right and I know you'd be happy to do it yourself, but I can't accept your help. I have to finish paying my debts first. Naomi's mother needs more help than I do, and she believes that my presence can help her recover her memory. But I don't know how she would react if she remembers our relationship. Alicia has understood what I dare not say. Now her rival is Naomi's mother, because if she agreed to forgive me she would be the one to take care of me until the day I die. -I understand, once again my sad destiny is fulfilled: I will never be reciprocated by the people I love. All my efforts to live this moment have been of no use to me. I am always the last in line, and when I arrive I have finished what they were giving away. Alicia has returned to delight me with her casseroles, but Naomi does not seem to have enjoyed her dinner. She has remained absent and with her thoughts far away from here. Before coming she spoke to her mother on the phone and believes she is deeply depressed and disoriented. -He's afraid to forget about me too," she says in anguish, "He sent me a verse that reflects his confusion and pitiful state of mind. We have to make a decision tonight. Today I dreamed that I dreamed, that you were not who you were, that time had no time, and that death had died. I can't help but compare this verse with the one from twenty years ago. Despite all those forgotten years, she is still a great poet. 17. Amnesia I beg Naomi to tell me everything she remembers about her mother after her bout of amnesia. -What I know of the early years, of which I have only a blurry picture, was told to me by my grandparents. Naomi doesn't seem to be very enthusiastic about my suggestion. They must be sad memories. Memories of a child raised by two old men and a mother with no past, unable to tell her daughter how it came about, by whom and where. Without her being able to even mention the name of her possible father. Not only has she not had an unknown father, but a forgotten one. But I beg you to try to overcome your sadness and go on. Before we meet I need to know how all these years of oblivion have passed. -We don't know anything about how the separation happened," she continued, overcoming the sadness of reliving her childhood, "but it must have been very painful because she didn't remember anything about what happened and she didn't even remember who her parents were or where she lived. A policewoman found her dozing in a park and fortunately they were able to identify her thanks to a prescription for a medicine against morning sickness, because she had no official identity document. But they couldn't leave her alone in that state, so they found my grandparents, who took her in. And that's all we know about the first days of her amnesia. Naomi has exchanged several uneasy glances with me. Possibly she is still wondering if I deserve her forgiveness after all. I remain pathetically silent, not daring to say anything in my defense. I only know the story from one Sunday when we had agreed to attend a screening of an Oscar Wilde film, but I never showed up... while she waited uselessly at the cinema doors, I was in my seductive agent's bed! Will I have the courage to confess it? If I don't confess it my conscience will never be clear! I'll wait to know the whole story. I beg you to tell me what happened during the following years. My poor daughter is recalling a part of her life that she may also wish to forget, but she gets over it and goes on: -My mother moved to live in the small northern town of her parents, my maternal grandparents, and all efforts to get her memory back were futile. She was apparently able to lead a normal life, but she had to learn to recognize her own name, her parents' names, and all the other circumstances following her amnesia. When I was born I was already fully aware of everything, except her stay in this town and her relations with you," she addresses me with the same expression of veiled reproach. My grandfather was a civil servant at the City Hall and got a small pension for my mother, because she had frequent memory lapses and was unable to do any work. My grandfather died when I was ten years old, his health began to deteriorate from the day he learned of my mother's amnesia, and my grandmother died a few months before I enrolled in college. The poor thing was very unhappy about all these events, but she never reproached my mother. We had a maid for several years before I was born, the same age as my mother, who is with her at the moment. I could not give up the University, because I got a scholarship, with which I am surviving at the moment. She never stopped writing poems, she must have written enough to fill a dozen volumes, but she has refused to publish them. I always suspected that she dedicated them to you, but it must have been only a faint intuition, which did not access her conscience. Perhaps that is why she lived tormented by the inability to conceive the image of one who had only an intuition. That is all I can tell you about my mother. Alicia has made us coffee, which she serves us while we keep a thoughtful silence. I try to imagine her mother twenty years later, the woman I will soon have to meet again and account for my unforgivable behavior. I have the impression that she will horrify me, because I think I see on her aged face the indelible mark of suffering, for which I am guilty. Alicia breaks this tense silence: -Perhaps if she receives a strong stimulus to remember the person she seems to still love, she will recover her memory. Alicia has put her finger on the sore spot. It is not enough for her to be reunited with me, but with her lover, as if my betrayal had never happened. Alicia seems deeply affected, I think she regrets her suggestion. But my redemption requires some sacrifice, and Alicia will understand and eventually accept it. Twenty years later I have to try again to seduce the same woman I betrayed. Fate wants to put me to the test and I cannot let it down. 18. Preamble Is it possible to heal a wounded heart? Can time erase forgotten wounds? Can an old man with an exhausted heart love? Can a sick man heal another sick man? I ask myself these anguished questions to still feel like a human being, but I know I don't have the answer.Naomi and Alicia left a little over an hour ago, and they have left an immense void. I have never felt so essentially alone. It is an abysmal loneliness, bottomless, without the slightest glimmer of light. My soul has been left in utter darkness. The body has abandoned it; joy has migrated to other, warmer and more welcoming lands. Pleasure has been transformed into intense pain and happiness, which until only an hour ago was brimming over all its edges, has gone with them, I am unable to keep it with me for long. One more endless night I strive uselessly to be absent from myself. I search with real desperation for a state of mind close to nothingness, no uncontrolled thoughts, no movements of any kind. I try to exercise myself to prepare for my death without last minute shocks, but it is totally useless. The mind does not sleep, it only disconnects temporarily from consciousness. It stops thinking about what it sees to think about what it imagines. It does not tire, it does not exhaust itself, it does not give up, because it has no flesh that can make it sick, nor a skeleton to sustain it; it has no eyes, no mouth, no ears, it does not eat, drink, see or hear, it only thinks without rest because it is eternal and already existed before it was my mind. Naomi believes that, despite the visible traces of my illness, I am still an attractive man and that I can seduce her mother again. Alicia has not given me her opinion, which I already know. She is an unfortunate woman, but at some time and somewhere she will have her reward. But time is pressing, the illness is getting worse and my spirits are failing. I am not sure I can see this plan through to the end. We have agreed that Naomi will invite her mother to spend a few days with her in the city. Our meeting will take place during a welcome dinner at Naomi's apartment. Naomi just called me, her mother has accepted the invitation and will come this weekend and Saturday will be the big day of the test. I have to go back twenty years and try to understand the reasons for my betrayal. It is not enough to blame ambition, vanity or selfishness. There has to be a reasonable explanation to justify that behavior, because we humans always have a good reason to justify our behavior. I have thought it on countless occasions that to discover means to destroy what was hidden. The sun shines at the cost of destroying its hydrogen reserves. Imagination creates at the cost of destroying what has not yet been imagined. In the end there will be nothing left to imagine because we will have destroyed the reserves of images, death. It was inevitable to destroy the causes that had provoked my creativity, and that cause was the woman who had inspired them. If I wanted to continue creating I had to look for new sources for my inspiration, to destroy them again, and so on until death. I am not entirely to blame. We should never have invented literature because it feeds on the souls of humans. Every novel, every story, every tale or every poem has devoured its insatiable ration of humanity. I am no exception, I have my victims too, but otherwise there would be no literature or art or any other expression of the human soul that needs to feed on the human soul. No one will understand these reasons, only our creator knows our weaknesses, our spiritual cannibalism, our revenge for being human. I cannot argue these reasons for my exculpation, only those who are victims of inspiration understand them, through which this evil is contagious. Ordinary people are immunized against this disease of the spirit. Now there is no longer the slightest doubt in my mind that this was the cause of my bodily illness. My harmful spirit has entered my body and will not cease until it dies. There are no heavens reserved for writers, but there are no hells either, there are only purgatories: near heaven, near hell. If I had the strength and the necessary time to live, I would write a novel with this title, which would be the great novel of my life, but I might write it after I am dead, and it might be the great novel of my death. But why write; why stir the still waters of unconsciousness; why bring out the faults and virtues, the passions and disenchantments or the loyalties or betrayals of human beings? Why tell so many lies; so many stories that have never happened and never will happen? Why this sick eagerness to perpetuate our memory after we have lost our memory? No, even if I had a hundred more years to live, I would never write another novel. Someone has to take the first step to rid humanity of this scourge. I have the impression that I am delirious and think things that make no sense. There is no justification for someone who causes harm to a human being without a reason that is also human. A doctor can cause you some harm to heal a wound, but a writer cannot claim his sources of inspiration to cause harm. If I were to put on a scale the pleasure my novels may have caused and the harm caused by writing them, on which side would the scale tip? And who can have the answer? I have no way out. I have no judge but my own conscience, and it keeps shouting at me that I am guilty. 19. The mother Today has dawned an unpleasant day that will influence my mood. Today is also the day Naomi's mother will arrive in town; the person on whom my salvation depends. I am not in the right frame of mind for the circumstances. I should get over myself and realize that I have returned to my college years; years when life was a blank sheet of paper, waiting to be written on both sides; years when the most important thing was to be young, not only to enjoy life but to live away from death; years when everything was allowed except nostalgia; when love was a working tool, when the wisdom of experience was considered an old mania and was worthless compared to the vitality of facts. Those years in which the people around you were samples for your laboratory or the lead of your flask, from which you hoped to obtain gold, following the magic formula invented by your excluding imagination. Years, in short, that I have always wished to forget and that now I have to recall. My memory has to erase without a trace what happened after I won the untimely literary prize, as if it had never happened. As if we had followed together our longed-for path to glory, and once we had achieved it, since it seemed inevitable given our genius, we would live six months a year in Pigalle, in Montmartre or in Saint-German-des-Prés, where I would write my novels in the heat of her inspiration, and she her passionate verses inspired by her love for me. As if every spring we would wake up in our little house in Majorca, next to the highest cliff of the coast, from where our view would be lost in a horizon as infinite as our desires to live; as beautiful as our soul mates, as mysterious as our intuition, or as cozy as our bed where we make love. When I was twenty years old I could not imagine myself at sixty, now that I am about to turn sixty I cannot imagine myself at twenty. Nevertheless, it had to happen, because time is the greatest swindle of human understanding, since it is an eternal instant, this instant in which I live, or better I will say, I live badly today, is the same in which I lived twenty years ago, what has changed is the perspective and the scenario, but the instant is the same! Noemí called me to tell me that she had picked up her mother at the train station, and that she found her very unwell and dazed. They are already in her apartment, and she has been able to rest and recover a little. She tells me that, if she feels better, they will go to the Opera, which is her mother's passion. They will perform "Madame Butterfly", which seems very appropriate for the circumstances. His mother does not remember seeing this opera before, but she had seen it twice because she still kept the tickets as a souvenir. She thinks it may help our plan. She has told him of her desire to have him accompany her to the college on Monday, the same one she attended, but insists that she does not remember ever attending a college in that city. It is evident that she remains obstinate in not allowing the images and feelings that she keeps in her subconscious to enter her consciousness. I also got a call from Alicia. She is concerned about my worsening health. She wants to know if I need help. I thank her, but I insist on fending for myself until I see how the test turns out. Alicia is confused and saddened, because she can't wish it to be a failure, but she can't wish it to be a success either. She would have been happy just to have the exclusivity of my care until the day I die. But Naomi's mother takes precedence. If only we were good friends, both women could watch over my agony, but she has committed the weakness of falling in love with me, and love is selfish and rigorously incomparable. She seems resigned but not defeated. I am the great love of her life and she is not willing to withdraw and give up. She will lurk around waiting for an opportunity. I have created many female characters, and I boasted of cooking them even better than they know themselves, but Alicia has shown me how laughable my smugness is: I still have many nooks and crannies of the female soul to discover. Perhaps my premature death will help me to discover them. What I have not been able to understand is how those who give life see death. Possibly they feel the same affection for both. Many women suffer more depression immediately after bringing a new life into the world than at the sight of a dying person. Life hurts them as much as death. 20. A bad day The weather continues to be unpleasant. On the glass of my large window, the drops of water from a weak but persistent rain drip down. The rain does not depress me, on the contrary, it enlivens me, the water brings life, it brightens everything it covers. The plants are invigorated and show all their splendor and beauty. But what pleases nature displeases humans. I see from my window disgruntled people. They resent everything they cannot dominate and control, and nature does not submit easily. That is why we are putting all our efforts into destroying it. We may succeed in destroying the rain as well. I lie in bed until almost noon because I don't know what I can do to justify being up. I have nothing to write, no event to attend, no visit to receive, nothing; but I have found an occupation: rereading my first novel, and perhaps I should also say that it is the only one I have written, because I think it meets the three basic conditions for it to be considered a novel: it has a motivation: a passionate plea in defense of poetry and poets. This argument is also the fruit of his imagination and not of mine. The novels that followed lacked motivation, they only had technique and style, that is why they were not of this world, but of a parallel and dehumanized world. Noemi is right. "It's the middle of the night. The city lights litter the sky and I can't see the stars. I have to imagine them. I also have to imagine the people on this deserted street. And the rose bushes, orchids and non-existent geraniums on the balconies of their uninhabited houses. I have to imagine the children playing in a ghost school, and the sparrows nesting in absent trees. This is my street, where I don't live, where I don't inhabit, where I only imagine that I live and inhabit." This is how it should be. Our life must pass in one of these deserted streets, where we do not live but imagine that we live, because when you least expect it your time runs out, and it seems to you that in reality you have not lived but have dreamed. On rereading this first novel I feel in all its crudeness the falseness in which I have lived all these years, and I wonder what kind of writer I would be today if I had remained true to myself. It would not have been strange if I had won the Nobel Prize! Now I have to be satisfied with the market prize, and with the thousands of followers of the consumption of entertaining literature with an expiration date. They have nothing to transmit about our way of understanding life and its values to future generations. I am not a redeemer, and I am overwhelmed by praise, but when an artist expresses himself in any discipline, he is sending a message in a bottle that will inevitably fall into the hands of people of other times, in other latitudes of the immense ocean of time; who will have other values, and who, thanks to those messages, will be able to place them in the general trunk of history. Given the brevity of our existence, the only solid thing we humans have to save us from the flood of the inevitable changes that sweep everything away is History. Today I have one of those days when I feel too insignificant to have great ambitions, because this great humanity that populates our planet, of which I am a tiny part, is not even a grain of sand in the desert compared to the immensity of the universe we inhabit. Powerful men believe themselves to be great because they reign over their tiny domains, while those who recognize that they are infinitely small inhabit the great domain of the immensity of the universe. Humans have an endless number of alternatives to choose the way we wish to consume our valuable time, but there is only one that corresponds to our personality. The reason for our existence is none other than to find it and be faithful to it until death. Only in this way each individual will be a person, and each person will be a world, and all the worlds together will form a universe, and many universes gathered into one will be the only idea we can have of something to call "God", so that only people and their worlds are in direct contact with God. I have lived in permanent contact with hell, because I renounced my personal world, so I have no access to heaven. I may still have time left to repair my great mistake, but I would have to write one last novel: the continuation of the first one, which would pave the way to my salvation, but for that I need not only time, but inspiration; I would not only have to meet again with the writer, but also with his lover. Could it happen tomorrow? I should think about tomorrow's dinner and my salvation, and I think I have an idea that would do both: write my last novel with the story of our relationship. To relive her memory day by day, kiss by kiss, caress by caress, with every detail, nuance, feeling, illusion, hope and project for the future. Yes, she would have the story that her conscience refuses to remember. It would undoubtedly be the great novel of my life, the one that would give me a good death. But will I have enough time left, and will I be able to face the challenge with the foresight and the right frame of mind to bring it up to the level of my first novel? Naomi sent me a message to let me know that her mother has recovered and is in good spirits. In the afternoon they will go to the Opera, as planned, and when they leave they will have dinner in a small Italian restaurant nearby. She says she misses me and it would have been a complete joy if the three of us could be together and united as a family. Poor Naomi! Even if your wishes were fulfilled, your happiness will be short-lived. It is better that you get used to my absence, even if you continue to miss me in your happy moments, maybe I will accompany you, even if you cannot see me. Tomorrow I will tell you my idea. 21. Waiting He has also invited Alicia to his mother's welcome home dinner, because he wants it to feel like a reunion of old friends, where his mother is not the focus of most of the attention. He wants to test whether she will recognize me. I haven't communicated my new idea to her yet, because I'm not sure she's in the condition and mood to do it. I call Alicia to tell her about Noemí's invitation. She accepts. -If it's okay with you, I can stop by your place now and prepare something to eat," he suggests, "then we can go to your daughter's apartment together. I notice from the tone of his voice that he has received the news with great joy. Now the scales of fate are tipped in her favor and against me, but I accept her offer. This woman is becoming a necessity, she is always where I need her. She is not an old dream of the past but a reality of the present, no history, no regrets, no need to recover the memory of what has not happened. She brings peace to my spirit and manages to make me forget my past, to recover the present, which I need so much in these difficult times. Alicia is already in my apartment and once again I hear the domestic sound and the pleasant memories of the hustle and bustle in the kitchen. This woman is leaving everywhere she goes the halo of the everyday, the simple, but that is what is truly endearing. She is not only preparing a delicious meal, but the homey atmosphere that is not only a warm feeling, but a necessity of any human being. -What will you do if you don't recognize him? He asks me with a nonchalant air, as if he is not affected by my answer, while he serves me what he has cooked. I ask her once again not to address me as you, because I am no longer the hero of her dreams, but the helpless and tortured man who needs her help. But Alicia knows that calling me "you" means taking a giant step in our brief relationship, and she does not want to change the deal until she is sure that she has conquered my soul and my will. In the meantime, she will continue with the same distant and respectful treatment. I need to rest and get some sleep so I can be presentable for dinner with my daughter, and Alicia makes up my bed, just as she did the first time in her tiny studio. As she fluffs the pillows she gives me several looks that I can easily interpret. She seems to want to tell me that this time I won't be woken up by her crying. She helps me to lie down and, just like the first time, goes back to the kitchen, and I hear again that very domestic and soothing sound of the bustle of the kitchen, with which I fall asleep. Alicia has veiled my dream by reading the manuscript of my first novel, which had been left on the coffee table in the living room. When I awoke, she read aloud one of the most tragic passages of the novel, moments before the suicide of the protagonist. "I was not born to live. I did not come into this world to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh. I am not alive to celebrate the wonders of nature. I do not feel part of life. No, I came into the world to sing it, to recite it, to turn it into a long poem, to dissolve it into beautiful words. So that it may be said of me when I die that I was just poetry, with nothing to stop me, not my body, not my mind; just poetry, nothing but poetry." -Who could have inspired these dramatic lines? -he asks me with a gesture of desolation or perhaps horror, "her? My mind is not yet clear enough to respond and I just smile. She understands, and continues reading, but silently. I see from her astonished expression that she is shocked by what she is reading, no wonder, they are the passages prior to the suicide of the poetess protagonist. She closes the book and leans back on the sofa. He doesn't wait for my answer because he already knows it. He exchanges a sad glance with me. I think he wants to give me his opinion: -You know, I think the suicide of your poetess protagonist is justified," she pauses and it seems as if what she says next is for herself. We are all born with a stigma engraved on our foreheads, which tells us who we are and what we have come to this world for; and what we can aspire to and what we are strictly forbidden. Your protagonist was born with the stigma of poetry in a world without poetry, he had no choice but to immolate himself with it -a new silence that he breaks with a heartfelt sigh, and continues-. I was also born with a stigma: that of ugliness. No doubt an accident of nature, because it is nothing like my soul. They must have been born each on their own, without agreeing. My soul fills me with good and noble feelings, while my face prevents me from taking advantage of them and showing them to others. Only when I write I am free to generously give those feelings to my characters, because they do not find me ugly and do not see my stigma. I have no doubt that she knows what she is talking about. I myself rejected her in the first moments because of her unattractive face. I wonder why we humans have created canons of beauty that ostracize and ostracize people like Alicia, or women and men in the prime of their lives, just because their backs are hunched, their hands go astray, and wrinkles appear on their foreheads, which are the price paid for their wise maturity, serenity, gentleness, balance and intelligence! No doubt we deserve every one of the torments to which this behavior leads. It is useless to try to console her by praising the beauty of her soul, because the soul cannot be seen, the face can. Unfortunately for people with these stigmas, rejection ends up infecting their souls with the same stigma. Alice is a glorious exception, but no doubt she owes it to literature. It seems that we are both immersed in our respective thoughts, and we remain in an eloquent silence. It is Alicia who breaks it with a question that reminds me of the idea of writing a new book: -We still have three hours left to meet your daughter, why don't you tell me about your affair with her mother? I think the idea is interesting, it can serve as an exercise for that last novel that's been on my mind. I agree and Alicia prepares some coffee, no doubt a long and interesting confession awaits! 22. Confession Alicia looks like a little girl whose grandmother is about to tell her a story of enchanted princes and princesses. She has taken off her shoes (since she has known me she has toned down her clothes, and above all she no longer wears those horrible military boots), she settles down in the armchair, gathering her legs also in the armchair, and waits with childish anxiety for my story. I don't know how to explain it, but she seems totally transfigured. I am unable to recognize the clumsy and ugly young woman, as she defines herself, and I see a young woman with a radiant expression, an intelligent gaze, at the same time curious as that of a cat, and a body brimming with vitality. Nature has been bad to her face, but generous to her body. I start by telling you the story of the coffee shop where we met. -After that funny event we each went to our corresponding classes. We were at the same university and had the same studies, but I was one class ahead of him, so our classes did not coincide. We didn't exchange anything to get back in touch. She seemed to distrust everyone, although I didn't know why at the time. She had been sexually assaulted several times by some of her classmates. That day neither of us could concentrate in class, something magical had happened. I think I fell in love with her when I offered to hold her books for her. She did not look at me with distrust, but as soon as she saw me, I noticed as if I was an old lover, whom she had not seen for a long time and was happy to see me again, but after that moment of pleasant surprise, her distrust returned, and she refused my help. If I had not suffered that terrible accident, everything would have ended like that, but destiny had foreseen it all. -That weekend our faculty had organized a meeting of young poets. I wouldn't have hesitated to attend if it had been for narrative, but for poetry I wasn't enthusiastic about the idea. But that Saturday I was deeply bored. It was the end of the month and my allowance was practically exhausted. The meeting was free, so it seemed like a good way to kill time. I arrived a little late, just at the time of the intervention of the young woman I met in the cafeteria. We passed each other in the center aisle of the hall, as I was entering and she was heading to the stage, and I think both her and my hearts skipped a beat, and we greeted each other with a telltale smile. When I saw her on the stage, completely in the dark, except for her, illuminated with a beam of light, she looked to me like an angel who had descended from heaven to announce the good news of her poetry. This was the verse she wrote after our first meeting: We barely looked at each other and we were already kissing. We barely knew each other and we already loved each other, We barely spoke to each other and we already understood each other. We were barely separated and we were already longing for each other. Alicia seems overwhelmed by the passion in these four lines. She is not passionate, she is sensitive, because passion blinds the understanding and Alicia is a thoughtful and reasonable person. She remains silent so as not to distract me from my confession. -At the end of the event I hurried to congratulate her on the reading of her poems, which was very well received by the audience, mostly fellow faculty members. As she left the hall I found her surrounded by her friends and admirers, who besieged her with questions and congratulations. I had barely exchanged a few glances and smiles and already I thought I had the right to have her all to myself. I was so upset that I did not feel like saying goodbye to her, and I grumpily left the auditorium. Once again it seemed as if fate was against us. But as soon as I was out of the auditorium I realized that I had acted in anger and without justification, and I returned hastily, just as she was leaving accompanied by one of her friends. When she saw me, I could again see her expression of joy reflected on her face, and this time she did not hesitate to call my attention. -Why did you leave without saying goodbye? Didn't you like my poems? I'd like to know your opinion! The friend understood the situation and excused herself, leaving us alone. -I loved them! I did not dare confess to him that I had been jealous. I told him that I also wrote, but narrative, I was not born with the grace of poetry, but with the necessary imagination to write novels. We walked for a while, talking about our works, the importance of poetry, the mediocrity of the novels that were published, the excessive commercialization of art. We seemed to have found the ideal interlocutor to unburden ourselves of our artistic concerns. We generally agreed on everything. We agreed to meet the next day in the park. I would show her my stories and she would show me her latest poems. That night I practically stayed up all night, because I wasn't satisfied with any of the stories I had written and I didn't want to disappoint my new friend. I was a complete unknown at the time, while she was well known among the students of the faculty and other local poetry circles. All the reviews were favorable and predicted a brilliant literary career for her. Undoubtedly her beneficial friendship influenced my inspiration, and that night I wrote my first truly literary work, the previous ones were simple stories, almost all autobiographical, lacking the main thing: a motivation. When I met her she was 18 years old. Like you, she had come from the provinces, with a fixed idea, which she carried more in her heart than in her mind: to triumph as a poetess! She didn't need praise, she considered herself great, and she wasn't wrong. All of us who knew her had formed the same opinion. To me her genius was her best attraction. I was more attracted to her as a poet than as a woman, because neither of us lived in this world, but in those two sister worlds: she in that of poetry and I in that of the novel. And that was the cause of our separation! We lived with too much intensity the unreal and we forgot the real. We met in the park on a day that could have been painted by Botticelli or Velazquez. It was early spring, when the tone of the new leaves is intense green. The sky is an inimitable blue, decorated with white clouds of whimsical and imaginative shapes. It smells of the sap of the rejuvenated stems and the perfumed resins given off by the linden trees. New birds flutter in their nests, impatient to fly and get to know what will be their world. In this magical atmosphere and in a secluded and lonely corner of the park, I read her my first story written thanks to her and for her. At that very moment our separation began to take shape. Our relationship became more intimate every day, but always sustained by our common passion for literature. Our euphoria grew at the same pace and intensity as the quality of her poetry or of my stories and tales, because at that time I still felt incapable of tackling the novel. We never seriously thought of our relationship as a simple couple in love, but in love with the poetess and the writer. At no time did it cross our minds to live together, because that would mean depriving us of the solitude necessary to create; we had enough with our daily encounters, during which we would load each other with brilliant phrases, passionate poems, fantastic stories and a moderate dose of sensuality. We didn't make love until after the six months that our relationship lasted, and it was in that one relationship that Noemí was born! Alicia seems to be meditating on everything I have told her so far, because her gaze is lost in some point of the street that can be seen through my windows. She has reacted and looks at me with a certain air of reproach. -So, he didn't love that woman, he was just using her. -Yes, you can put it that way. -And she, do you think she also used him? -No, she didn't use me; she didn't need encouragement, I told you she was fully confident of her talent; it was me who needed it to discover mine. A month after our meeting, when I had already written a dozen stories and tales that she thought were great, she suggested I write a novel. I took her advice and tried to find a plot that would motivate me. They all revolved, in one way or another, around her and our strange relationships. I put my ideas to her, but she didn't find them original enough. It was then that she read me her poem about the suicide of a poetess, and suggested that this could be a good argument, in which she could collaborate with her poetry. I was delighted to accept her proposal and began to work on the plot. During the time it took me to write it, only two months, our meetings focused on the progress of my novel. She checked every chapter, every paragraph and every word I wrote daily, and corrected my many flaws and typos, until she felt that the syntax, spelling, rhythm and style were perfect. It seemed as if she was writing it herself. When my novel was practically finished, she suggested that I submit it to a popular literary contest for new authors. I couldn't refuse, because it wasn't just my novel, it was our novel. Alicia interrupts me. -Now I understand why he suffered that terrible attack of amnesia. His betrayal was double, because he betrayed the lover and the writer! -No doubt it was a double betrayal, but then I didn't take it into consideration! Not only did she collaborate in its writing, but she took the trouble to type up the original and send it herself to the contest. -Why do you think she would do that? Was she really so in love with you that she sacrificed herself to help you in your career? -Although it pains me to admit it, it must have been. The days leading up to the contest judging were really nerve-wracking for me, but not for her. She knew perfectly well that we had submitted one of the possible winning novels, so much so that she had confidence in herself and in her judgments about literature. But she was also aware that among beginners there is little chance of good novels being submitted. Most suffer from an excess of passion, nonsensical styles, defects of structure and syntax, and unoriginal plots. In fact, the vast majority are simply imitations of their idols, or of fashionable writers. She knew we would win, and we did! She was also the first to know the news of the award, because she received the message with the result and the invitation to the awards ceremony that same weekend at a well-known hotel in the city. When we met at the faculty, she recited to me the famous sentence of Julius Caesar: "Vini, vidi, vici", which I understood immediately. I confess that moments after hearing the news, I considered myself a superior being, I had killed the undecided and modest writer to feel like a new member of the cultural elites of the country. And that image blinded me from the first moment. She never suspected my arrogance, and she was as happy as if she had been the awardee. During the award ceremony, she must have felt like the mother who attends the presentation of the diploma of honor to her son at the university: without envy or professional jealousy. But I was already very distant from her. I saw my books piled up in bookstores, with the mention of that award. I saw myself signing copies for my gawking admirers, but above all, I felt superior and dominant. Alicia has reacted, stands up and gives me a questioning look. -I think you're making up the story! I know you well enough by now not to believe that you would behave that way! -You meet a repentant demon twenty years later. But I wouldn't have committed that sin if I hadn't met the real culprit. During the cocktail party hosted by the sponsors, many guests approached me to congratulate me. She seemed proud of my sudden popularity. From the first day she learned of my vocation as a writer, she wanted me to become more self-confident, so that we could pursue our ambitious careers at the same level. I took it for granted that we would achieve our ambitious project of fame and glory without one overshadowing the other. When, fatigued by so many emotions and hustle and bustle, we were about to leave the meeting, we were approached by a middle-aged, elegant-looking woman, dressed in a sober suit jacket, her hair half-haired, blonde and slightly curly, and addressing me, as if the presence of my companion had not been perceived, and without ceasing to fix her deep and insinuating gaze on mine, she handed me a business card, which must have been perfumed with the fragrances of hell, because when I read it the perfume evoked in me an abyss into which I would not take long to fall -You will need a good agent. Call me tomorrow and we'll talk about your future. That was all she said, and she went back to join a group of guests. That look disturbed me so much that for a moment I too forgot about her presence. She must have sensed my betrayal at that moment! I beg Alicia's forgiveness, but I do not wish to continue. What follows is the most painful part for me, and the memory of it has haunted me all these years. Alicia seems to wake up from a dream, or maybe it's a nightmare. The coffee is finished. She picks up the coffee pot and cups and takes them to the kitchen. She remains silent but her mind must be replaying the story I just told her. He returns from the kitchen, exchanges a sad look with me, sits back down and, finally, I know what he is thinking. -Poor woman, I would not have liked to be in her place. I would have lost my memory too. No, I would have lost my head! Your comment makes me feel guiltier. Those who have no remorse cannot know how much it hurts to be reminded of our sins. -Forgive me. I know you are deeply sorry, and if I were that woman, I would probably forgive you, but that doesn't repair the damage done. Perhaps it would be better if she did not recover her memory! If she does not recover her memory and I do not have her forgiveness, I will be hopelessly condemned! 23. End of confession It has been a time of great emotional tension. Alicia is torn between her heightened sense of justice, her solidarity with other women, her mercy and her love for me. Mercy and love have finally won out, but that doesn't mean she considers me redeemed. She thinks that somehow I must repay that woman. But she doesn't know how. Neither do I. -Even if it brings back bad memories, I think you'll feel better if you tell me the end of the story. I promise I won't hold it against you! Maybe Alicia is right. Hiding my guilt only causes it to become entrenched in my conscience, it is healthier to air them. -All right, I'll tell you the rest of this sorry story. Neither I nor she felt the way we were supposed to feel after the awards ceremony. I still hadn't gotten over the shock of that woman's insinuating stare, and she seemed to want to ask me what I was thinking, because I think she was reading my thoughts. In an almost pleading tone of voice, she begged me not to accept that woman as my agent, because there would be others who would be happy to represent me. I assumed she was jealous of her, but I did not have the courage to confess to her that, despite her fears, I would call her and we would meet to find out her plans for my promotion as a writer. What was happening was that the woman was living in the new world I thought I had entered after the award, while she belonged to one that was already outdated and without incentives for an ambitious writer. I was no longer a student of letters, I was a writer, and writers can transgress all moral norms because they are justified. That night I could not sleep until dawn, because I too was torn between what my conscience dictated and what my ambition demanded, because it made no sense to have come that far and renounce what any other author would do in my place. After all, she had helped me get there herself, so why not accept the help of someone who would make your dream of becoming a writer come true? When we met that morning on campus, I had already made up my mind and she seemed to me an unacceptable intrusion on my freedom, but I didn't have the courage to let her know, and tried to pretend that nothing had changed after the award and we would follow our future plans as we had dreamed. She must have been relieved by my attitude, but it was evident that my enthusiasm and joviality had changed. I was no longer paying attention to her readings or motivated to write new stories. She interpreted this as me being tired from my efforts to write my first novel, and she didn't reproach me. That same afternoon I went to the agent's office, with whom I had already arranged an interview that morning. Her office was located in her own home. A spacious apartment in a noble building, located in one of the most expensive avenues of the city. She met me herself at the elevator exit. I could hardly recognize her. She was now wearing tight jeans, which emphasized the soft shapes of her hips, and a loose blouse, with what looked like the logo of her agency. Her reception was extremely cordial. It was evident that she had a great interest in me, not only as a writer, but as a person. -My warmest congratulations on the award, but now you have to prevent them from forgetting about you in a couple of months, I can help you," he said as soon as I got out of the elevator. He introduced me into his office, a spacious and bright room soberly furnished with two comfortable black leather armchairs, a large work table and a large sofa of the same material as the armchairs. The only detail that indicated that we were in a working office were the dozens of photographs of their represented authors that hung on the walls. Some of their writers frequently topped the most prestigious book sections of newspapers and literary magazines. Soon mine would be there too. All this proved to me that I had chosen a good agent. We settled into the two armchairs. He offered me a sweet from a small basket on a glass table, and without wasting time on introductions, he asked me: -Do you want to become a fashionable author? What could my answer be: "No"? There was only one possible answer: -Yes! -Okay, so starting today we have to work on a program that may be hard and require all your dedication. Are you decided? I just nodded my head firmly. -My commission is five percent; the contract is for two years, and I have your exclusive representation for all media where it is published, including film, television, radio and the web. Are you happy? I again agreed with an energetic nod of my head. Well, then come back tomorrow at this same time and we'll sign the contract. In two years you'll be one of the most read and sought-after writers in the country! And that's how I signed the contract that would ruin my personal life and from which the professional writer would be born! The next day, as planned, I signed my condemnation. My new agent was more explicit and argued the reasons why she was sure of my success. -You represent the ideal of a talented young man, successful from his first work, who does not resort to pornography, nor to violence, nor to esoteric plots, nor to cloying romanticism, nor to philosophical detectives. That you write simple, but real and exemplary novels that everyone likes. That you also have enough physical attractiveness to appeal to young female readers. You write novels that can be read by the whole family, at all ages, and in all times... -But I've only written one novel! I must have guessed the answer. It was practically in the clauses of the contract that I didn't bother to read: -But you will write them, I will tell you how! 24. Seduction As I left my new agent's office, I realized what a grave mistake I had made in my haste and blindness. I blamed it on my lack of experience, but I was consoled by the fact that fortunately it was only two years, which passed quickly. Now I felt ashamed because I had thrown dirt on our noble concerns, our illusion of keeping ourselves pure, disinterested, away from the merchants of dreams, who lure us with siren songs, and end up dragging us into their dirty world of economic transactions, balance sheets, shareholders, investors, CEOs, bankers, unprincipled and unscrupulous traders and a whole host of individuals unable to value what does not have a price and can be sold on the market, such as honesty, generosity or illusion... They have no scruples in selling and buying souls, and auctioning them in their corrupt financial markets. I will be one of them. But, to tell the truth, before I entered this office I was already corrupted. That evening we had arranged to attend the premiere of a film on the life of Oscar Wilde. I was not in the mood to attend yet another crucifixion of an author, but I had to keep my relationship with my new agent a secret. I made the appointment, albeit somewhat belatedly, when the film had already begun. She waited patiently at the lonely cinema entrance. Despite my tardiness, she always justified my disloyalties, because she had not a shadow of a doubt about my fidelity. I need to pause. Alicia is as shocked as I am, but she has promised not to recriminate me, and she keeps her promise. I feel bad, because I cannot erase from my memories her frail figure, illuminated by the flickering billboard signs, arms folded, looking anxiously from one side of the street to the other, trying to justify my tardiness. It is likely that I would have waited much longer without losing faith in my fidelity. -When she saw me appear on the side of the street opposite to that on which she expected me to arrive, she had a moment's hesitation, but my vision overflowed any desire for reproach, and she received me with a smile that would try to wrest it from the sadness that a few minutes before had gripped her. I think for the first time I felt sorry for her, and perhaps had a sincere desire for repentance. I was tempted to fill her in on her situation, but her smile thwarted my desire. I hugged her, we kissed and I improvised an excuse. She believed me because she needed to believe me and urged me to get the tickets as soon as possible, because we would have time after the movie to clarify the details. It was not possible to wake up someone who was sleepwalking without the danger of causing her irreparable damage! There was no clarification. The film had had such an impact on us that when we left the cinema for a long time, we strolled through the now deserted streets without saying a word. She broke the silence with a comment that set my conscience on fire: -Why do geniuses have to pay such a high price just to be famous? Will we also have to pay such a high price? No, of course not; we won't make their mistake or lead double lives that could cause scandal! We will be a perfect writing couple without giving any reason for what happened to the unfortunate Oscar Wilde, won't we? What could I answer? At that moment I didn't have the courage to tell him the truth and undo the deception at once. No matter how much she suffered, it would not be compared to what she had to suffer afterwards. So much to justify her amnesia! Alicia indicates with a gesture of her arm that she wants to tell me something. -And that's the woman who will be sitting next to him tonight, at the same table? Of course, if she recovered her memory, she would have every reason to hate him. But go on, forgive my interruption! -The days that followed the signing of the contract were so intense that I didn't have a chance to think about her. My agent would invite me to her apartment, and, after a light dinner, we would sit in the armchairs of her office and discuss the plot of my next novel. Of course it would be a love story with a happy ending. Once in my apartment I would write a chapter or two and show it to her the next night. She would make corrections and suggest any changes she thought were necessary. I have to confess that we became well coordinated, because I did not dislike her arguments and ideas and it was easy for me to interpret and write them. As Naomi said in her first message: I just changed muse, and overrode any noble motivation. For the first few days her behavior was strictly professional, but as the days went by she became more familiar and intimate, and changed her clothes to a comfortable night gown, which left her attractive legs practically uncovered. She had a plan to seduce me, but she would not carry it out until I finished the novel. That would be the prize! My relations with the other woman who had become entangled in this drama remained superficial, as are the relations of those who hide their true feelings. Sometimes she dared to ask me the cause of my apathy, which made her suffer so much, and she herself came to the conclusion that the cause might lie in a lack of more sensual relations. Although it was not in her plans, she set out to seduce me and would consent to our lovemaking. Our relationship had been from the beginning an artistic affinity and we were unsure of our physical attraction. At that moment I was infinitely more attracted to the mature beauty and sensuality of my agent than to that of the poetess, who had not awakened from her dream of glory and fantasies. With the excuse of inviting me to dinner, she prepared the necessary atmosphere for my seduction. That night we gestated Naomi, but neither of us was satisfied with that relationship. No; we had not come together for carnal love, only for spiritual love! I cannot continue this story, because today, twenty years later, I still feel the shame of that hasty pleasure, of those frustrated relationships that were closer to prostitution than to love. -Excuse me Alicia, but I think it's time to go to our appointment with my daughter. -And with his mother! -Yes, and with his mother. This will be the last twist of fate, I don't want to think about anything else! Alicia is visibly dejected, I can see it in her sad and absent look, so different from the one at the beginning of this story. She gets up with a heavy heart, as if her legs were heavy, and helps me to get dressed. I leave my private refuge as if moved by a supernatural force, against which my own will is useless. It is already dark, the days are short in October. The cool breeze of the evening twilight suits me well. There is still a pale streak of red on the horizon. We have called a cab to pick us up at the door, but I ask the driver to drop us off two blocks before my daughter's house. Alicia approves of the idea. I want to finish my story before I face this difficult test. -Two weeks later I was putting an end to my second novel, although I would have to rewrite several chapters that were not to the liking of my demanding agent. But that was the day she had chosen to seduce me, and she prepared everything so that I would have no escape. But that same day I had arranged to meet the other unfortunate woman to see the film about Oscar Wilde again, because the previous time we had missed a good part of the beginning. The idea came from her and I couldn't refuse. But it was not only the interest in the film that made them want to see me, but apparently she had some important news to tell me, but she did not want to tell me what it was about. He wanted me to be there when he gave it to me. I assumed it must be something to do with his poetry, perhaps he had won a prize, or had found an important publisher to publish it. I went to my daily appointment with my agent, with the intention of leaving the manuscript for him to read and write down the corrections, but to my surprise, I found a table prepared with great care and detail for two people, illuminated pale by two artistic candles, on a side table there was a bottle of champagne set to cool, and in the center of the table a silver tray with canapés of caviar, salmon and other such delicacies. But what impressed me most, and of course turned me on, was the way she had dressed for the occasion. She was wearing a silk blouse of the same color as her skin, open almost to the waist, where part of her still firm breasts could be seen, and a tight black skirt that covered her above her knees. The outfit was extremely elegant, but above all, irresistibly attractive! I don't know if you know men well, Alicia, but there is no will capable of overcoming a temptation like that. It is for this very reason that mankind was condemned; it is the eternal sin that man has committed from the beginning: the irresistible attraction of Eve and her apple! This biblical drama was played out in that room: caviar, champagne and sex. After that, the grim reaper could take us into his darkness. I had to choose between the two women: one offered me fame. The other offered me spiritual affection, sincere friendship and, of course, loyalty. -Who would you have chosen, Alicia? The question has caught her off guard, but the answer is withering: -The second time, of course! -I didn't want to choose; I wanted things to stay as they were, I could continue to have both relationships and not hurt either, but my agent forced me to choose. In the end it was the champagne and its irresistible sex appeal that decided. To celebrate my betrayal, we began the evening in a cabaret where they staged sexual scenes of indecent bad taste, but it was part of their plan. At the entrance of the cinema, illuminated only by the flickering lights of the neon signs, with her arms crossed, and without ceasing to look anxiously from one side of the street to the other, she waited uselessly for the man who I now know wanted to tell me that he was going to be a father! Fortunately he lost his memory! 25. The reentry We approached Naomi's house. I have finished my painful story, and we quietly give ourselves to our own thoughts. Alicia must wonder if she hasn't been blinded by my popularity, because I don't deserve her affection; and I wonder if I can look the woman who is waiting for a visit from a perfect stranger in the face. Recent events are beyond my capacity for assimilation, and now I have to face a new mammoth test. A few steps away I am going to meet the woman from whom I have stolen the best years of her life. She may recognize me, in which case I don't know how I will be able to justify myself, and if she doesn't recognize me, I won't be able to justify myself either. All these years have only served me to understand that ambition without a noble cause does not bear noble fruits, but poisoned ones, with the poison of your own poisoned spirit. But there is something that worries and amazes me: Has all that time really elapsed? Are we not always at the same moment? How far does the boatman travel in his boat? None! And yet, the boat does travel a space and consumes a time, dragged by the current. I have also been dragged by the current, but I am still in the same boat; the same instant as always, and that will probably be eternal. The woman who must be in Naomi's apartment is the same woman I left at the door of a neighborhood cinema, but she continues, like me, to live in the same instant, for we have not passed through time, we have passed over time, like the boatman over the current of the river! But it is not the body that travels in the boat, but the soul, which is not affected by time. She will have the same soul she had the day she lost her memory, and it is that soul that has not aged and will surely recognize me. Now they meet again and they will ask themselves: what have we done with our lives that we had to separate? Only I have the answer: not having listened to her or followed her wishes. We are at the door of her apartment. Alicia gives me a pleading look. -Your great moment has come! Now you will have the only chance to save or damn your soul! She knocks and we hear some agile footsteps that must be those of my daughter Noemí. But it is not Naomi who opens the door, but she does! Alicia could not avoid an expressive gesture of surprise, and I feel as if I were plunging into an abyss of time, and I would have to travel through the past twenty years to land in the same place where I was the night of my betrayal: time has not passed for her! There is no trace of suffering on her face, still smooth and young. Her figure is the same. Her hair is still curly, but a little more faded, and what impresses me most is her serene and tender gaze, but as if lost in nothingness. I don't know what to say, but I am anxious about her possible reaction. Did she recognize me? I hear rapid footsteps, it's Naomi coming to greet us. But she has become paralyzed and anxiously contemplates the scene. Finally, her mother and I are face to face and neither of us is able to break the tension of the moment. Naomi watches her mother, but there is no reaction that could give her to understand that she has recognized me. She remains holding the doorknob, and seems relaxed, she is waiting for her daughter to come. -Are they your guests, Naomi? Naomi tries to hide her desolation, she didn't recognize me! -Yes, Mom, they are our guests. She exchanges a disconsolate glance with me. Alicia also feels the tension of the moment, and looks at me questioningly. Naomi's mother begs us to come in, lets us in and closes the door behind Alicia. She follows us into a small living room, where a table is already set for four guests. We take off our coats and Naomi hangs them on a coat rack. Her mother remains silent, rubbing her hands together, not knowing what to do with them. She gives us fleeting glances and smiles slightly. There is strangeness in her expression, it is evident that she considers us strangers, and she does not know what her behavior should be. I think he is waiting for his daughter to introduce them to him. Naomi expected some gesture in her mother's expression that would show some indication that she remembered me, but it is evident that this has not been the case. She seems resigned and introduces us to her indecisive mother. -Mom, these are my friends I told you about. They are both writers, like us. The mother seems to welcome our profession with pleasure, because she gave us a broad smile with a gesture of admiration. Naomi tries, without much hope, to provoke her mother's memory. -He's a very famous writer, I'm sure you've seen his picture in a newspaper or in literary magazines! But the mother flatly denies this with a nod of her head. We are all caught off guard by a question from her mother addressed to me: -And what do you write, novels or poetry...? I write poetry..., yes, I've written a lot of poetry... He loses his gaze on an indeterminate point in the room. I try not to show my deplorable mood and respond by forcing a friendly smile: -I write novels, stories of ordinary people. Nothing special... but I met an admirable poetess, who, unfortunately for her many admirers, never published them! She smiles back at me, but makes no comment. I get the feeling that something is disturbing her mind, because the smile is frozen on her lips. She seems to wander off and move somewhere else. Perhaps to our university campus. She is a helpless and vulnerable woman, the same as she was twenty years ago, but time and amnesia have made her extremely sensitive and emotional. I would love to read her poetry. Dare I suggest it: -Why doesn't one of them read us? She has been startled by my unexpected suggestion and seems embarrassed. -Oh, no, no; I write them for myself.... They are very personal... You wouldn't like them! Naomi listens to her mother and seems devastated. -Mom, these are my friends. Come on, cheer up and read us some of your poems! There's still some time before dinner is ready. Naomi wants to try everything. There may not be another chance. Her mother looks stunned. She looks at us as if to check our willingness to listen to her poems. Once again she seems to sink into faraway places. Naomi tries again and suggests to her mother that she read the first ones she wrote, but that she does not remember when and where she wrote them. There is no doubt that she is under great pressure. I feel sorry for her, but above all I feel even more miserable. This poor frightened woman, who writes romantic poems dedicated to a lover she cannot remember and who has him in front of her, does not deserve this suffering. She seems to be hesitating. We are all watching her decision. She looks at us again as if trying to read our thoughts. Alicia has been silent, she must realize that now she has a real rival. Now that I have seen her again, those happy, pure and generous days return to my mind with infinite nostalgia, and I begin to believe that if destiny has it in mind, they could come back, even if only for a short time. Neomi has managed to overcome her mother's fears and agrees to read us some of her poems. The three of us settle down on a small sofa while she nervously shuffles through several notebooks she keeps in a travel bag, and doesn't seem to know which one to choose. He finally decides on one with pink covers, where there is a caption that I can't read. He sits down on one of the dining room chairs, leafs through several pages, and finally seems to decide on one. She has the same tone of voice, the same slow cadence and intonation. It was a pleasant experience to listen to her recite, and I see it's still the same! IF YOU WERE... If your heart were foam, I would be ocean; If your soul were heaven, I would be cloud; If your gaze were rain, I would be a field; If your hands were water, I would be thirsty. For God's sake, that verse again! Why is fate playing cat and mouse? Why has it chosen this very poem? I think she has noticed my confusion. She gives me a strange look that could be one of interrogation, perhaps she is beginning to remember! Naomi has exchanged a look of astonishment with me, she seems to be asking herself the same question. Alicia hasn't reacted, but I suspect what she must be thinking: her stigma is haunting her! Naomi's mother has come out of her momentary impasse and continues reading. When she finishes, we have the feeling that she has made a great effort. She closes the notebook, leaves it on the table and drops relaxed on the chair. She doesn't want to read any more poems. Something is disturbing her mind again. Now I can read the notebook's caption: "Poems of love and oblivion. Spring 1997." But there is no indication of the place or name of its author. I congratulate her effusively, she thanks me with a kindly smile, but I notice her absent, troubled. Naomi is worried about her mother's despondency. She must think that we should not push her. To awaken her memory abruptly may cause her a new trauma. She does not insist. Dinner is ready. Alicia accompanies Noemí to the kitchen to help her set the table. My daughter has cooked and has surprised me, I didn't know she was such a good cook. Her mother has relaxed; she is calmer and we exchange comments about how wet this autumn is turning out to be and what she has seen during her stay in the city. -Did you like the opera "Madame Butterfly"? -Oh, yes; very much so! -Don't you find it a little sad? -Yes, you are right, it is a bit sad.... I have the impression that she is talking to me, but her thoughts are elsewhere. I would give anything to know where! Naomi intervenes in the conversation. -I have an idea," he turns to me, "why don't you take my mother to visit a museum? I can't miss school, but you might have time. I know she was looking forward to seeing the latest exhibition at the National Museum. His mother tries to protest. Sounds like a good idea to me. -I will be happy to accompany you. I was looking forward to seeing her too! Alicia remains in dramatic silence. Everything is conspiring against her. She has noticed that I am beginning to take a lively interest in Naomi's mother, and I think she even suspects that I may feel something more than compassion. The truth is that I feel a great longing for the times when we were two lovers of literature, but also two good friends, and friendship is less passionate than love, but more loyal and generous. On the other hand, I would like to repay her suffering with my affection. But I can do nothing for her unless she recovers her memory and remembers who I am. I think Naomi is of the same opinion. The dinner was delicious. I congratulate my daughter, who is very flattered. But my aches and pains threaten to return and I would like to be back in my apartment before this happens. Naomi brings us our coats and I notice in her mother's eyes that she senses our departure, I think she has taken a liking to me and has overcome her initial misgivings, possibly she vaguely remembers me. We agreed that I would pick her up here the next day and we would spend the morning visiting the exhibition. Then we would go to an Italian restaurant for lunch, as Noemi has filled me in on her mother's gastronomic tastes, and she loves Italian pasta. Yes, I remember! 26. Memory I have spent a night in intense pain. All these emotions may be detrimental to my health. The pains have been joined by uncertainty about Naomi's mother. It is very likely that had our past not mediated I would have been attracted to her; for her kindness and sensitivity, so rare in the environment in which I have lived these last twenty years. I have still found her attractive, but it is not an exclusively physical attraction, perhaps I cannot explain it in spite of being a writer, but it is a physical attraction that emanates from the spirit; a physical attraction proper to human beings and not to animals. It is the joy of pleasure when it is tempered by sensitivity and not only by sexuality. It is as if the soul gives you its blessing to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh without unconsciousness and bestiality. It's not sex, it's sensuality, if I can put it that way. Maybe that's why we had that frustrated relationship, because she tried to imitate a behavior that was not in her personality, and I wouldn't have known how to interpret it then either. I don't feel well, I'm down and my whole body aches, but I have to pull myself together and keep the promise I made to Naomi's mother. Another absence would be intolerable! The weather is with us. It is a sunny, almost summery day. The shower has cleared my head and I feel a little better. The prospect of spending a morning with someone who has loved you but is unable to recognize you fills me with uncertainty. I may not be up to the task and I may not know how to behave. After all we are two sick people, and sick people understand each other. A cab takes me to Naomi's house, I ask her to wait, because it will take us to the National Museum. Naomi's mother had been waiting for me dressed to go out for a long time. When she opens the door I notice enthusiasm in her expression. I greet her with a friendly kiss on the cheek and can't help but compliment her good looks, which she seems to appreciate. I suspect she has taken a liking to me and feels safe with me. What would happen if she knew who I really was? I don't know, but sooner or later she has to know. I find it hard to accept what is happening. I spend the morning next to a woman I have longed for for many years, and now that she is next to me I feel unable to openly show her my affection, and I continue to suffer from the same regrets as with the previous ones, but aggravated by the constant fear that she will recover her memory and realize that she is next to the man who has caused her the most harm. I would like her to end this nightmare; to recognize me and condemn or forgive me. If on many occasions I have wondered what would have become of me if I had not left her, now I don't need to imagine it. We would visit the latest exhibition at the National Museum, but we would be holding hands, and we would talk about the sales of my latest novel, which surely would not even reach the tenth position of the best sellers, but in exchange I would have a good number of educated and faithful readers, with whom I would exchange thoughts, concerns, ideas and comments about my novels, the message of the characters, about literature and art in general. Many of them I would know personally and I could consider them my friends, as well as faithful readers. But they would not flatter me, even if they felt admiration for my novels. I would not be an idol of young girls blinded by my popularity and the attractiveness of an experienced forty-year-old who considered me sexy, since I would have a companion that everyone would know and would know that I had always been faithful to her, as she herself said at the exit of the movie theater of such bitter memory and that resonate in my ears as if she had pronounced them yesterday: "We won't make mistakes or lead double lives that might cause scandal! We'll be a perfect writing couple, giving no reason why what happened to the unfortunate Oscar Wilde shouldn't happen, right?". How I wish it had been so! But we would also talk about the success of her last book of poems, because she would be much more popular and admired than me. Her books would indeed be at the top of the best sellers and most valued. And they would not be poems addressed to a ghost lover, but to all that multicolored spectrum that can be expressed through poetry. This is the dream that I have failed and that I cannot even turn into an exemplary novel, written with my heart and not my head, without studying the tastes and trends of the market, the number of potential readers and possible royalties, or wasting time in eternal photo shoots to publish the most commercial image, or begging for an interview on the most popular program in exchange for promoting a sponsor who is not interested in what you think about literature, so that future generations would receive that message of friendship, loyalty and generosity from the people of generations already gone. That would possibly have been my life with her. During the cab ride to the museum, she stares quizzically at what she sees as if she has never been here before. When something especially catches her eye, she exchanges a look of amazement with me, I respond with a smile of approval. At the museum she seems enthusiastic about the paintings on display. There is no doubt that she is an artist. She tells me about the ones that catch her attention. I have acquired for her as a souvenir of this visit an illustrated book about the painter in the exhibition, which she thanks me with a discreet kiss on the cheek. She is undoubtedly the same charming woman she was twenty years ago. It would be a memorable morning if I were not in constant pain. I try not to let her notice my suffering, because even if it is brief, today is probably one of the happiest days in recent years. What makes us most human is our ability to get affection and friends who just know us. A friendship without affection is like a black and white photograph: it lacks color. I'm finding the museum visit exhausting, but she seems immune to fatigue. I suggest we take a break and have a drink in the museum cafeteria. She thinks it's a good idea. The cafeteria brings back distant memories of the one at our university. Twenty years later she is standing in line in front of me again and she is also holding a book in one hand! As if this coincidence wasn't enough, they also have slices of strawberry cream pie! She has seen them and seems hesitant to put a slice on her tray. She gestures with the intention of taking a slice but pulls back. I think the sight of that cake has possibly awakened some area of his unconsciousness. I can't see the expression on his face, but he is unable to go on with just a cup of coffee. I get the impression that something is again disturbing his mind. There are several people behind us who are getting impatient, because she has become as if paralyzed in front of the tray of cakes. In a strange gesture, which seems to me more impulsive than voluntary, she finally takes one of the portions. I'm beginning to worry, I have a feeling that twenty years of amnesia may have a tragic end here. But I don't care, and I take one more step towards this abyss, offering to hold the book for him so that he can take the tray with both hands! She turns sharply toward me and I have the alarming feeling that her gaze is remotely familiar, the same one I remember when she turned to me in the faculty cafeteria. Maybe she is starting to remember that scene too, because she refuses my help again! I don't know if fortunately or unfortunately, but there has been no repeat of the accidental event that brought us together, and we managed to get to a table with no accidents! She must have noticed my confusion mixed with my pains, because her gaze shows a certain uneasiness, it seems as if she is looking at a stranger, who is not the same one she had kissed ten minutes before to thank her for the unexpected gift. The coffee and his slice of cake are on the table, and for some reason they remain untouched. It is as if they were witnesses to some important event and needed to be presented as damning evidence to an imaginary but exacting jury. I cannot look into her eyes without feeling uncovered, lost in a deep sense of guilt for which there is no redemption. If I could read her mind I'm sure my image appears blurred in a dense fog, but it is quickly making its way to clearer areas, where it will eventually become perfectly visible. I, too, am getting the feeling that this woman is being transfigured, and before long she may emerge from the mist and may, at last, know the identity of her betrayer! In the midst of this state of anguished transformation, I hear the familiar sound of cups and plates rolling on the floor. An elderly woman has lost her balance, and dropped her tray! Once again fate intrudes on our tormented lives! The woman sitting in front of me now has a twitching face, her eyes wild, her accusing gaze fixed on mine, which I feel unable to hold. She has risen so abruptly that she has caused our accusing coffee cups and cake slices to fall. He almost shouts at me: -You; it's you! PART TWO: THE REUNION "He who forgives sin, seeks affection; he who spreads it, drives away the friend." (Proverbs 17:9) 27. Rejection Naomi's mother has vanished in the cafeteria. I don't know to what extent her memory has returned, but it is clear that she recognized me. A museum security guard has spotted a doctor among the visitors, who is trying to revive her. He asked me what caused her to faint. I told him that she had suffered a shock. The doctor wants to know what caused the shock. I replied that the cause was the strong impression of recognizing a person she had forgotten for the last twenty years. -That's no cause for fainting. -She did not wish to recognize him. He seems to recover. He half-opens his eyes, contemplates me for a few moments and closes them again. -I want to go back to my daughter's house; call my daughter and have her come and get me...! She asks the attending physician. -The gentleman who accompanies you can take you there. -No, no; call my daughter! The doctor looks at me strangely. -It's me he didn't want to recognize. It's a long story; I wouldn't know how to explain it to you. The museum guard suggests we find a cab and tell the driver where to take her. She nods weakly. Someone of those watching the scene has recognized me, and the word spreads among the others watching the scene. I notice in their looks a veiled reproach. I think they know from what is published in the magazines of the heart that my relationships with women are tortuous, and that she may be another of my victims. Nothing causes more pleasure to admirers than to discover the weaknesses of their idols, because deep down they hate them. Their admiration enslaves them and this discovery is a liberation. A few anxious minutes pass, but finally a young man appears who must be the cab driver, because he is accompanied by the guard. I tell him where to take her. The young cab driver and the doctor accompany her, and they leave the cafeteria. I find myself terribly alone, surrounded by people who probably hate me for my alleged misconduct with the victim. It is possible that someone may have taken a photo with his cell phone and tomorrow the photo will be published in the tabloids and on the networks, and some unprincipled and unethical journalist will take advantage of the incident to climb the ladder by resorting to libel. He will make up a story claiming that I mistreat my colleagues, which will delight the readers. He knows perfectly well that I will not sue him, because he will certainly be a poor devil who will not get his miserable salary at the end of the month, and I could only pay for the damages at the taxpayers' expense, giving him shelter and food in one of our overcrowded prisons. But my image will deteriorate, and in these critical moments that is what I most wish to preserve. I don't give the people who witnessed the scene a chance to explain it to them, and I rush out of the museum. It is urgent that I call Naomi so that she is informed of the recovery of her mother's memory and the dramatic outcome, which unfortunately I had already feared. Her cell phone is disconnected, she must be in a class. I call the University secretary's office and ask them to send her my message, and to come to her house urgently. I don't know what else I can do. After making these calls, I stop to think about what has happened. And I don't need to make any great show of intelligence to understand that my life is now meaningless. I don't even have a daughter to hold on to in this life, because I have not been, am not and could not be, the father that any daughter needs. Meeting her was a mistake. It would have been better if we had never met. When I did not exist, all her affection was for her mother and I had no one to judge my behavior. Now I have intruded and she feels obliged to share it with me, and I feel obliged to account for my conduct. It is better for me to get out of her way as soon as possible, as if she had been a mirage, and to employ her noble sentiments on those who deserve them. I am strolling aimlessly along a busy avenue, but I doubt that they will notice my presence, because I already feel myself floating in a vague place, a prelude to my final journey, which I will not take long to undertake. Perhaps sooner than expected! Alicia; yes, Alicia will help me! I can trust her; she will do whatever I ask of her! I don't know the feeling of love and how far we can sacrifice ourselves for the loved one, but she must know because there is no more sublime sacrifice than to love without being reciprocated. And she has endured it with infinite generosity. Someone has to give me the push to get me on my way to a place where I can find peace. I'm startled by the alarm on my cell phone, it's Alicia! It's as if my previous thoughts had been a spell to summon her and she had heard my wishes to die sooner than expected. She has heard from Naomi that her mother has regained her memory and wants to know how she reacted to remembering me. Just a minute ago Alicia was little less than my exterminating angel, and now that I listen to her life is once again claiming her attention, and she manages to drive these gloomy thoughts from my mind. She is a woman and knows how women think and feel, so I knew she would reject me. She asks me how my mood is and I reply that I am like a lost child in a department store who is asked by adults not to cry because they will soon find their parents. I was also crying before his call because I felt lost and scared. She asks me if I want her to come to my apartment so that I can tell her what happened to make Naomi's mother's memory come back. -Thanks to a slice of strawberry cream pie! -I replied. Alicia has the road free, but she knows that I will remain inaccessible as long as I don't have the forgiveness of the woman who now knows who I am and where her enemy lives. Of course, I beg you to come. 28. Depression Despite Alicia's invaluable moral and spiritual help, I am deeply depressed. It must be one of those depressions that inevitably lead to suicide. If I have not committed it yet, it is out of cowardice and horror of physical pain, but there are many ways to end this suffering. If life is not supported by some incentive, it is not possible to live it. In human beings the defense of life is not instinctive, but mental; it is a reasoned and justified decision, but pressured by the irreversible lack of incentives. No animal commits suicide. I have consumed and wasted all my incentives, without the result being what I would have wished. But I must also admit that I have never known what I really wanted. Naomi called me. She is already in her apartment. Her mother is very upset and wants to go home tomorrow. She has completely recovered her memory and remembers the causes of her amnesia in detail as if it happened yesterday. Naomi has tried to make her see that I am deeply sorry, but she does not want them to talk about me. She thinks she will need some time to get over her resentment, but the one thing I don't have is time. She has not told her about my illness so that she does not think that she wants to blackmail her. She is deeply sorry for this situation, for having to divide her affections between two parents at odds. Her mother does not understand why she has forgiven me, when I am the main victim of this drama. Naomi fears that her mother will distance herself from her because she believes that she has not behaved as she expected. She thinks she should have been more consistent and not forgiven me, and I think maybe her mother is right. Alicia has just arrived. Not a day has gone by since the day we met that she hasn't worried about me and I remain stubbornly oblivious to her. Why does she insist on maintaining her loyalty to a doomed, hopeless man who can only inspire pity and sympathy? The answer must lie in those recesses of women's souls that I have failed to understand. 29. Alicia's plan (Narrator: Alicia) Today I found him in a deplorable state. I know that he had hoped that Naomi's mother would have given him the opportunity to express to her his regret and his own sufferings and remorse in twenty years of solitude. If she has lived those twenty years in darkness, he would have preferred to have lost his memory as well. We women are condemned to forgive men's infidelities, because they have created a world where it is not possible to avoid this sin. If it were the world of women, infidelity would not be possible because neither would ownership exist. Men would be as shared as food or work. No one would be anyone's property. This man is a victim of that world, where there is no other incentive than competition and the derisory pleasure of the winners. He is also an unhappy winner in a world made in his own image and likeness. We cannot change a world that has a male God. But we women would not have gods either, only energies, positive or negative. Energy has created the world, we are all energies. I know that in his desperation he is thinking of suicide, but he is a weak man, and to commit suicide it is necessary to have courage. Men feel strong if they have terrible weapons, we do not need those diabolical weapons, but if we set our minds to it, we could bring about the destruction of the world in the same time it took God to create it! God himself had to be begotten by a woman. I would like to make him understand that he is not guilty and that his remorse is unfounded. If there is a guilty party to be found, it is Naomi's mother, because her fantasy and her ignorance of human nature and of the reality in which she lives provoked this man's infidelity. The most serious sins are not committed by the intelligent, but by the ignorant, but they do not feel guilty because their ignorance serves as a mitigating factor. Her literary agent lived in the real world, it was a matter of competition and she had the best offer, that's why she was the winner and got the product. It would be necessary to completely revise our morality and adapt it also to the laws of supply and demand. If I love this man it is because, besides the physical attraction, for twenty years he has been consistent and has written what the market required, but his loneliness justifies his rejection. Only when death threatened him did he decide to put an end to this immorality, and say in public what he really felt and thought. For me he is a hero! He wonders why Naomi's mother won't listen to him and I suggest an idea that might help him: -Why don't you write a new novel with the story of your relations with her and how you have lived these last twenty years. She won't want to see you, but she might read the novel. I think this idea has been in his head for some time, but he doesn't feel strong enough to do something like this. -It's too late now, Alicia, I'm afraid my illness is getting worse and I won't even be able to count on those six months of respite. I have a feeling that I won't live to see the next spring bloom and that I won't be spared the cold winter of death! It is useless for me to encourage him, he knows better than anyone else when death will come, because it must be the most foreseen event. Yes, it is possible that he will not see the next spring bloom and that for him it will be too late, but not for me: I will write that novel in his name! 30. The first novel I had to help him change his clothes and make him comfortable. Maybe it's time to get to know him on a first-name basis. I think he has only me now. His daughter Naomi will only feel pity and compassion for him, but she will remain attached to her mother. She is young and idealistic now, and thinks she loves everyone, but soon she will be more selective, and will be more demanding in lavishing her affections. This is now a dead father, of whom only the memory will remain, but the mother will still be alive and demanding in her maternal affection, more as a family obligation than as a sincere moral sentiment. Now my poor friend is a loser, for with death he loses everything. I need him to tell me what his life has been like in these twenty years of unfounded remorse. -I'll fix you something to eat and then you can rest. While you sleep I will finish reading your first novel. But when you wake up, if you feel well, I want you to tell me what your life has been like during these twenty years. -Alicia, you called me by my first name! I was expecting this remark -Yes, I have called you by your first name; there is no longer any reason to keep our distance. Now we are closer to each other and share the same loneliness. You may not love me, but you need me as much as I need you. We are now traveling companions. You will get off before me, but my journey won't be very long either. I can only trust you and you can only trust me. I may be the only one to mourn your death. Now he rests and I return to the reading of his first book, which I now read with great attention. The one I write must have his style, because it must be his book. I do not know if I should inform him of my idea, it is possible that he felt frustrated at not being able to write it himself. I read a paragraph that strikes me: "The day is dark for the cursed poets, and the night is clear and welcoming for us; the light damages our eyes accustomed to darkness. In the darkness there are no visible paths, it is necessary to travel them with the imagination. During the day all the paths where you are forced to travel are visible. That is why only in the darkness we are free, while in the light of day we are slaves. I have chosen the darkness of death, because on the other side of the darkness there is always light. I will be reborn in a new world saturated with light, where I will live eternally." Will it really be like that? How can I know in life? My good friend will check it very soon, and I should arrange with him a spell to cross our dimension and inform me. Would it be possible? The short break was good for him. He has woken up in a good mood and agrees to tell me his story. I make coffee for both of us; I sit comfortably in the armchair and listen to him with great attention. -My agent knew I had betrayed the other woman, but he didn't feel guilty. He believed she was infinitely more beneficial to my career than my partner. As an agent, she prioritized the success of those she represented over her feelings. In just three months we managed to place my novel among the top 10 best sellers, and two months later, we reached first place. She had kept her promise! She knew all the levers to promote the novel of a perfect stranger. And sometimes those levers didn't move very ethically or morally. Our extra-professional relationship was not very satisfying for both of us. I was not a lover up to her demands. The truth is that for one reason or another I have never been a great lover. When he managed to place me on the cusp of popularity he stopped being interested in me. His passion was to bring young writers out of anonymity and share their triumphs in a very personal and physical way. For the first six months I did not have the courage to concern myself with the fate of the victim of my ambition, but not a day passed without the memory of her and my betrayal weighing on my conscience. I had promised myself that as soon as my career was consolidated and free from the bonds of my contract with my agent, I would seek her out and propose to her to resume our old dreams of glory, and we would once again become the writing couple she had imagined. I already had the means to make it happen. But I still had a year's commitment to my agent. No, that woman does not deserve this man's affection; and of course he is not guilty. If he is guilty, to live is sin! Nothing fundamental that we human beings do is righteous, because we are driven by necessity and not by will, but this is what living is all about. We have all inherited "original sin." -My agent didn't wait for our contract to end before finding a new lover. Another young writer, as ignorant and inexperienced as I was. Surely he would offer him the same fame and success as me, but he hadn't won any contests. He may not have been a better writer than me, but he was probably a better lover. By then I had not only risen to the top of the popularity charts, but I had created a saga that virtually assured the success of my future novels. That's why I decided that the time had come to repair the damage done, to meet her again, to try to get her to forgive me, and to make up for lost time, which had been very profitable for me. But there was no trace of her - he remains silent for a few moments, I think he realizes the desolation that awaited him if he did not manage to find the whereabouts of that woman -. She was hidden in a remote location that had little contact with the rest of the country, and no one knew with whom she was associated during her stay at the university. She never revealed the name of that town, which also did not coincide with her birthplace. Her father was the secretary of the Town Hall and had already made several transfers to that position in that small town. All my inquiries were useless. To make matters worse, she had adopted an artistic name to sign her poetry by which she was known, and not by her real name, which even I do not know! -So, is it true that you have exhausted all attempts to find her? -I ask him, although he has already given me the answer. -All the ones in my hands. I assumed that she had removed all traces of where she was so that I could not locate her. I didn't know I had lost my memory. I still let the year that was left in our contract go by, never for one day failing to try some other means of getting hold of her, but all my efforts proved futile. I finally came to the conclusion that she did not want to be located, because otherwise after two years there was no reason for her not to be the one to try to contact me. I did not believe her to be so spiteful, and I gave up looking for her. Two years of hard work, of having reached the pinnacle of popularity and having the necessary means to realize our dream, were meaningless and useless; in other words: they had gone to waste! -But she says the opposite: that you had no intention of tracking him down. -For her, I must have already been dead; there was no need to wait for me to suffer from this disease! -And how did you live the following years? -The following years I did not live; I survived! I had no other incentive than those commissioned novels, one every year, twenty thorns stuck in my mind! I had thousands of admirers, but not a single one to whom I could confide. When you write novels for ordinary people, don't expect to find a single one out of the ordinary. It's been such a lost few years for her, even though she has an excellent memory. 31. Confidences of a mother (Narrator Naomi) My father has not told me the whole story of his relationship with my mother. Now that he has regained his memory and I know the real story from my mother, I think maybe she is right and does not deserve my forgiveness. My mother could have prevented my birth by having me aborted, which she possibly would have done if my father had known of my gestation. If I was gestated it is because she believed she loved him and did not want to lose him, but he did not know how to value her sacrifice and abandoned her. She knew that she had accepted the representation of that vicious and heartless woman, and she was so naive that she thought she could compete with her. What else could she do to keep him by her side? It was of no use for her to write the best poems and dedicate them to him, because he had ceased to be interested in the poetess, and of course in the woman, but he did not have the courage to be honest with her. My poor mother has been crying practically since she has arrived at my house. It has been very painful to come face to face with a man who had shown so little courage in hiding his infidelity from her. -It's easy to regret when one senses death.... -she says to me between sobs-. You had to be the one to find him.... If he had put more effort years ago he would have found me, but success, and surely his many admirers, kept him very busy. I cannot reproach him for his resentment, twenty years lost in a few hours are not forgotten just because he suffers from an incurable disease. He is the cause of my mother also suffering from an incurable disease, but of the soul. But I am deeply saddened by this situation. I wish I could have found a justification for both of them, because deep down I believe they are both good people. They both have noble souls, and, if they have hurt each other there must be a powerful reason. My father blames his passion for literature and perhaps he is right. To create it is necessary to leave this world and contemplate it without an emotional relationship, otherwise it is not possible to understand it. I suppose that in order to create characters with different personalities, the author does not have to be emotionally linked to any of them. When my father was immersed in the creation of his novels, his relationship with the world around him, including my mother, must have changed and they were no longer people but characters. His life was a fiction and his relationship with my mother, the plot of some of his future novels. As it was. If I intend to follow in his footsteps and be as good a writer as he is, I must avoid creating emotional ties with anyone in this world, because, as he himself told me, and which I have not been able to forget, "If you dream of being an out-of-the-ordinary writer, your life will pass within that same out-of-the-ordinary dream, and you will never be able to live in reality." My mother also lived her out-of-the-ordinary dream, but she made the clumsy mistake of falling in love with one of her characters. I cannot expose this reflection to my mother because she might not be able to understand it. Although she has regained her memory, she still lives in her fictional world, and my father is a character of her imagination who has accidentally incarnated himself in the body of a lover. They should wake up from their respective dreams and contemplate each other as they are. Only then could they know how they really feel about each other, but how to wake up from a dream someone who doesn't know he is dreaming? I know it is useless, but I try to make my mother see this other point of view: -I understand that you are hurt, but perhaps your passion for literature played a trick on you, neither of you knew what the other was really like. Love is blind, and only sees what it imagines it sees. Maybe you were in love with someone who existed only in your imagination. My mother has reacted, and she looks at me confused and suspicious. She doesn't seem to have understood what I meant. I try to be more explicit: -What I mean is that both you and he needed each other as admirers of your respective works, which is what you really loved. When my father found another admirer, he no longer needed you, but you still needed him. I think he still doesn't understand my thoughts about his relationships. I'm afraid he thinks I'm trying to justify it. -Naomi, daughter, I don't know what you're trying to tell me! His guilt is evident, he took advantage of my innocence. I always tried to justify his lack of interest because I blindly believed that, in spite of everything, he was still faithful to me. It wasn't the first time that woman had made him late for our appointments, but that night I needed to see him and let him know that I was pregnant with your child, and I didn't know how he might react. He was not likely to want to be a father at this delicate time in his career. He needed to know as soon as possible, but I didn't think it was appropriate to tell him in writing or over the phone. I wanted to see his first reaction to know whether he would accept you or reject you. So, you can imagine my enormous frustration and anguish, because of his absence. In spite of the pain, I tried to believe that he had some powerful reason for not coming to the appointment, I was still blindly trusting in his fidelity! His expression has changed. She seems to be feeling the desolation and pain of that night. I can see it in the wrinkles on her forehead and in the wetness of her eyelids, she is about to cry again. -I was so distressed and helpless that after waiting uselessly for him for more than an hour, I did not return directly to my apartment. The night was warm and clear so I felt like taking a walk. I thought a long, relaxing walk would calm my anguish and I wandered through the busy streets, to mingle with the people and distract myself from my thoughts. I was confident that the next day we would have a chance to meet. And that's when I had the terrible shock that caused my amnesia. In one of these streets, there was a nightclub of ill fame, and I was contemplating the obscene photographs of the claim, when he descended from a cab, accompanied by that woman, who took him by the arm and they entered the club. They both seemed intoxicated. That image gave me a strong impact and I felt as if my head was going to explode. When I recovered from that terrible shock, I didn't know where I was, nor did I have the slightest idea how I had gotten there? -I didn't know where I lived, I didn't even remember my name! Near that place there was a small park, belonging to a parish in the neighborhood. Most of the benches were lined with homeless people. I was terrified, but I needed to rest, and I let myself fall exhausted on the only one that was free. Moments later a woman from the urban police patrolling the neighborhood was surprised by my appearance, which was not that of a beggar and wanted me to identify myself, but I could not answer any of her questions, so they understood that I was in a state of shock, and took me to the police station of the neighborhood... You know the rest... For God's sake! Why do I have to face this horrible dilemma? If I save one I condemn the other! Where is the justice? Which of the two is truly innocent and which is truly guilty? And why does one of them have to be guilty? Why can't they both be innocent? They each have their reasons for doing what they have done and I am unable to judge them. I suppose only God can judge them! My mother is packing her little travel bag, because she is about to take the first train of the morning. There will be no opportunity for reconciliation. She will probably not be at his bedside when he passes away. She does not want to return to this city that brings back such bad memories. She is determined to forget him, but now voluntarily. Who knows, now that she has regained her memory and can live a normal life, maybe she will meet another man with whom she can rebuild her traumatic life. And me, what should I do? I want her to give me the answer herself: -Mom, I understand that you resent him and want to forget about him, but what should I do? He's my father, and he's a dying man! Should I be at his bedside when he passes away? His answer plunges me deeper into my uncertainty: -My daughter, do what your conscience dictates, you are already an adult, you must decide for yourself.... Now I am the one who feels like crying. -I don't want to be an adult! 32. Naomi's mother (Narrator: Naomi's mother) It is not yet dawn and we are ready to head for the station. My train leaves in an hour and the station is not far, but we will take advantage of the time to have breakfast in the cafeteria. My daughter is not used to these early mornings and is still sleepy. She has insisted on accompanying me to the station, but now I can manage on my own perfectly well. The cab is waiting for us on the street and in less than twenty minutes it drops us off at the station. I look nostalgically at the cityscape of my youth that I will never see again. We have plenty of time to chat, but first we need a strong coffee to clear our heads. We sit at a separate table in the cafeteria and Naomi brings me coffees and two croissants that are still warm. We have breakfast in silence. She waits for me to tell her something about what my life will be like from now on in my small town. I tell her that nothing will change, but that I will now try to publish some of my poems. -Even if they are dedicated to my father? -Why not? A poem is a poem, and it doesn't matter to whom it is dedicated, what matters is that it moves feelings and emotions. -But he can read them. -He has not lost his memory; he has nothing to remember. -Will you ever come back to this city? -No, Naomi, my poor child, I will never set foot in this city again. He's been dead to me for twenty years! He took his own life the night he went to that notorious club on the arm of that woman. She dug her own grave, and then erased the epitaph on his grave, because she too forgot her victim. For me he has remained dead these twenty years, until he was momentarily resurrected to revive again his agony. I have written the last verse dedicated to him, which can serve as a panegyric: I die when I am still young; I die when I am still an adult; I resurrect when I am about to die; I die again when I was about to live. -This is my farewell gift until death wills to take me to his side as well. Then we will know which of us two has done justly. Literature will lose a writer with all his talent barely used and a poetess with all her talent barely remembered. No, Naomi, I don't want to force you to choose who to condemn or who to save. Your soul and mind do not belong to us, only your body. You have received your soul from God, and only you have the possibility of discovering what your true personality is. Don't try to imitate us and choose your own path, which may lead you to be a great writer, but you could also be an excellent doctor or a great soccer player. You owe us nothing. We begot you by our recklessness, without that being our desire, as most human beings are begotten. It is we who are indebted to you, but we do not have the means to compensate you for our mistakes. You were born free and you are free to choose who deserves your affection and your memory. Your mother will always welcome you with open arms, but live your life and do not feel pity or expect comfort from us. If you need comfort, learn to comfort yourself; if you need support, learn to lean on yourself; if you need compassion, learn to pity yourself and if you need love, learn to love yourself. It may not have been the advice a mother should give her daughter, but at least in this I agree with her father, people are only united by the affections that their works arouse; without works there can be no affections. -Your father and I were happy when we both admired each other's work, but when he stopped being interested in my poetry and I stopped admiring his, because he stopped writing short stories to devote himself to writing novels inspired by his perverse agent, we had no reason to love each other anymore. But I didn't want to accept that that talented young writer would let himself be handled by his agent, and I continued to admire the author of "Poetas sin cielo". Now I know how wrong I was! Only if he returned to being the writer I idolized could I forgive him. But perhaps for him it is already too late. That must be his destiny and this must be mine. The public address system at the station announces the imminent departure of my train. My poor daughter has felt it as if they were announcing the departure of a train to eternity with no return, because she looks at me in anguish and I know she is making great efforts to hold back her tears. -Mom, if I have to be an adult, I want to be like you. I love you very much... but also my wretched father... -I know, you have a generous heart because you are young. With age it shrinks and becomes more selfish, but more faithful and demanding. -No, we'll say goodbye here.... Take good care of yourself, and don't pout like when you were a child, or you'll make me cry too. Give me a farewell smile! Naomi tries to please me, but her smile is a cheerful way of crying. My heart breaks into a thousand pieces as I walk away from her dragging my small travel suitcase as if it were my coffin. When I finally step through the door onto the platform and she can no longer see me, I let my downtrodden soul vent freely and cry silently.... I can't help but feel guilty for having lived! 33. The second novel (Narrator: Alicia) I have read the manuscript of her first novel twice and I think I am ready to take on this important challenge. Of course I will alter some things, she has to understand the reasons for his abandonment and be able to justify it. This man cannot leave this world without a clear conscience and I will not be able to convince him that he is innocent. But I have little time, I have long sleepless nights ahead of me! I heard from Naomi that her mother has returned to her hometown and it seems she has no intention of ever going back. Fortunately Noemi still considers me a good friend she can trust. She has not told me expressly, but she is going through a very difficult time. We have arranged to meet at the coffee shop where I met her father, but he will not attend, because I will not inform him of our meeting. I want Naomi to have nothing that prevents her from opening her heart to me and telling me what conclusions she has drawn after what her mother has told me about her father's behavior. I need that information to finish getting an idea of the plot of this new novel. Now she knows the whole story, but according to her mother's version, I want her to know her father's version as well. I am taking advantage of the fact that she is spending the morning at the hospital to meet her. I am the first to arrive and I sit at the same table as that day. In front of the table there are some large mirrors where I see myself reflected and I can hardly believe that this woman is me. My gaze has become severe, or rather, cold and disenchanted. I no longer find myself neither ugly nor beautiful, just sober and adult. I don't need to attract anyone's attention either, because I already have someone to pay all my attention to, that's why I dress again with the same old-fashioned clothes I wore when I arrived from the provinces. I even notice that my movements are slower and my appearance in general suggests that of a simple social worker. I feel more like myself than in those provocative clothes. How little they esteem themselves who need to hide themselves in the way they dress! Naomi has just arrived. She has all the appearance of a helpless and confused creature. She stands hesitantly in the doorway, as if afraid of being discovered. She hasn't seen me, or perhaps hasn't recognized me in my new guise, and she motions to leave. I signal her with my arm, and as she recognizes me she seems to come back to life. She smiles as if I have saved her from some imaginary danger. She sits down across from me. She asks me about her father's health. -I don't want to deceive you Noemi, all these events have affected him... I don't think he will make it through this winter -his smile has turned into a bitter expression of deep sadness-. I think that what is worsening his health is his deep depression after your mother's rejection. Naomi lowers her gaze, as if she does not want me to notice the conflict of her divided feelings in her eyes. We keep a few moments of silence in memory of her dying father. She has nothing to say, I am the one who starts the conversation. -May I ask you why your mother does not want to hear your father's confession? She tells me the real cause and not the one we all believed. I'm afraid the mother has a powerful reason for her spiteful attitude. Even I would find it hard to forgive her if I were in her place. Betrayal now has a pornographic image, something simply intolerable for a sensitive poetess. In her delusions she must have imagined him as a satyr with the face of an angel. How can I justify that scene? Why did they go to that club after, in all probability, they had drunk to excess during the romantic private dinner? There must be a good reason that exculpates him. -Dear friend, sometimes I wonder, especially as a writer, what is the use of language if we cannot understand each other. Perhaps it would have been better to communicate with a few sounds to express our basic feelings, as animals do, because words, no matter how cultured, creative or realistic we may be, are not capable of expressing ourselves as clearly as those simple sounds. Your parents are two excellent people, and they would have understood each other with simple sounds, without using words. The use of words has confused and separated them. It is a biblical curse! The same words have different meanings depending on who pronounces them and how they are pronounced. The heart does not understand the meaning of words, but the tone with which they are pronounced. The meaning is the task of the mind, but the mind lacks feelings, it doesn't care about one word or another. Your mother only listens to what is said if it is poetic; but your father only pays attention to what is said if it resembles the dialogues of a novel. Neither listens to what the other really says! -Yes; they themselves admit that their passion for literature is what has separated them! -No, Noemí; it is not literature, but words. Literature is a noble attempt to give some emotional or intellectual meaning to words so that their messages are clear to the senses. But life is not a novel, we don't know who the characters are or what the plot is about or even know its author. We trust that words and their meanings are enough to go through the world with morality and a sense of justice, but all we do is invent moralities and justice with words that do not have the same meaning for everyone, so there can be no morality or justice as long as there are words. Naomi seems to ponder my thoughts. She has come to a wise conclusion: -So, do you think they are both guilty? -No doubt, but it is an inevitable sin, because we need words, not to understand each other, but to communicate. That is why literature that is born of this curse and tries to redeem itself is so necessary, but not literature that is born already cursed and rejoices in its evil, as a pig wallows in its excrement. We writers have only one mission: to free words from the flames of hell and make them reach heaven. We are the fallen angels in this hell, while we inhabit the Earth, and of heaven, when we leave it. -And what can I do to reconcile them? -Words will not reconcile them, unless they are spoken in such a way that the heart understands them. -What do you mean? -Your mother will only react if she receives the message in poetry! -And who will write this poetry? -The person who loves them the most... You will write it. It will be your debut in this magical world of Literature and you will pass with an A, because you have the main thing: a great motivation. I know she feels overwhelmed, but at the same time I notice in her eyes the spark of genius that demands her chance. -But my mother would only be reconciled if he proves to her with a new novel that he is the same one who wrote "Poets Without Heaven", and that she has unconsciously loved these twenty years.... -Your father will write it! I don't want to reveal to Naomi that I will be the one to write it, because unconsciously I might reveal it to her mother and all the work would be useless. -Alicia, you have never told me why you feel obliged to take care of my father, because you always address him as "you", which is not proper for a mistress.... Do you have anything to do with his publisher or his manager? I had always feared that Naomi would ask me this question. But I don't have a clear answer even if I ask it to myself. Only a month ago I was a woman in love with a famous writer, whom I was physically attracted to and admired for his talent, so I had no doubt about the causes. Now my feelings have gone beyond love and are in an unknown dimension, which is probably not of this world. Thanks to his illness we have found ourselves in a dimension that goes beyond the human and must have something to do with the divine, and that must be hidden in our astral personality. Only in extreme situations do we penetrate this dimension, which creates eternal bonds. It is as if I am helping this man to enter that dimension, which must be the myth of Paradise, where we will meet again and be lovers for all eternity, so we can spare no effort to achieve it. I am trying to secure the love of this man after his death, so I cannot feel jealous of his mother, who will only be able to love him with that earthly, temporary love of human beings, when I reserve for myself his eternal and divine love. But Naomi would not understand. -Your father and I are, in addition to professional colleagues, old friends. I feel obliged to help him die a good death. I would do the same for any of my friends and fellow writers. 34. The wording Today I started writing the novel. I have the strange feeling that I am fulfilling a divine mandate; the will comes to me from an unknown source. The salvation or damnation of a human soul depends on its outcome. It is as if I were donating blood to a badly wounded person. I begin with that terrifying phrase for all writers: "Chapter One. It is like opening the bonds of the imagination, in a perfect union with the mind. It is absolutely necessary that the first lines arouse in Naomi's mother the need to read the following remaining lines or failure is assured. These are my first lines: "The main characters of this story did not meet by chance, but by destiny. But for twenty years they put all their efforts into going against what was written in the stars. This is the story of two lovers united by literature, but separated by words." I think it's a good beginning, and only with a good beginning is a good ending possible. Now I have to create the author of the novel, because this novel will not be written by me but by my characters. Also in real life things work the same way. God has created man, and has endowed him with the necessary understanding so that he can decide for himself the plot of his story. I continue: "These characters are two young people with the defects and virtues of all young people: utopian, independent, rebellious, reckless, nonconformist, generous, innocent and unbelieving. Like all young people, they do not live in the present, but in the future; they have no history, only a great desire to make history. Nor do they have experience, only experiences. They are not wise, they only have the desire to know. They make the simple complicated, because they believe that the simple is for old people or children, but not for them. They are, in short, two young people of our time, but as young people have been in all times. She has a passion for the sensitivity of Garcilaso and he for the imagination of Cervantes; she adores Dante Alighieri, he Lope de Vega; she is a poet, he is a storyteller. She knows she has talent and is sure of herself; he doubts her talent, and has no confidence in himself. But she believes in him and decides to postpone temporarily his inevitable conquest of fame and glory in order to help the insecure young narrator, so that they can walk the road to glory together, without one overshadowing the other." Four exhausting weeks have already passed. The novel is progressing at the same rate as my strength is waning. I have reached the critical point of separation and I have no difficulty in exonerating my death row inmate of all guilt. Where can the writer find the source of his inspiration if not in real life? How can he describe a brothel, observe the deep sadness that encloses the false joy of the prostitutes; the eagerness to make even the smallest drop of pleasure received pay, if he has never been in a brothel? How can a writer with her wings intact and free to fly wherever she pleases, clip another writer's so that he does not stray too far from his nest? Poetry springs from the soul; narrative from life. The poet sees the world from a cloud; the storyteller from the sewers. Poetry is music; narrative is noise. Naomi's mother still sees the world from a cloud, and if she does not descend to dry land she will never know that clouds become rain, and rainwater runs in the gutters! I have used these notes in this decisive chapter : "It was no surprise to find a table set up in his unmistakable style for two diners. Champagne set to chill, caviar canapés and other delicacies. I even knew that he would choose the most provocative clothes, in other words, it was nothing more than a novel scenario that I was to describe in the novel I was writing at the time. It was my clever agent's peculiar form of collaboration. But there were still some complicated scenes to describe for which I lacked the necessary imagery and could easily fall into ridicule. I discussed it with my agent and he suggested we pay a visit to one of the less reputable clubs in town, where I would surely have the images I needed. But I remembered my appointment. It was a painful decision. I knew she would be outraged, but a woman who has a writer for a partner must be used to such rudeness. Would she be angry if I were a doctor who missed her appointment because she had to treat a sick person? With my novels, I also treat thousands of people who are sick with boredom and lack of entertainment. Tomorrow I'll excuse myself and she'll understand! Before that excursion to the most nauseating bowels of the city, we finished the champagne, because sober we would not have had the courage to enter that brothel." "Unfortunately it was a fatal coincidence that she, frustrated and hurt by my absence, strolled down the street where the club was located and surprised us as we got out of the cab and entered the club somewhat dizzy, so that my agent had to lean on my arm. If it was true that he had blind trust in my fidelity, he had to wait until the next day to see that, despite appearances condemning me, I was still faithful. But that misleading image exceeded all her capacity for tolerance, and wounded her deeply, causing her the fatal trauma that has kept us apart for these past twenty years!" If after reading this she doesn't forgive you, this woman has lost her soul! 35. Winter The slower you want time to pass the faster it insists on passing. I've been so busy this past month that I haven't been aware of the passage of time and it's already winter! After her interview with her mother, Naomi is less affectionate with her father. Whatever her mother may have told her about her relationship with her father has affected her noticeably. There is something that separates them, but Naomi does not want to discuss with him her encounter with her mother, and her version of what happened. If she hides it, it must be because it must be something very lurid and that she does not dare to comment on. She has also become accustomed to her father's illness, she even seems to be mentally prepared to accept his untimely death, and only visits him once a week. Her apology is that she is so busy with her exams that she can barely stay for an hour in his apartment, and doesn't even stay for dinner. Since her hasty return, we have heard nothing from the mother. She seems buried in absolute silence. At least Naomi does not mention her. Unfortunately, it is as if all our behavior has entered into an irresponsible routine, without us being truly aware of the seriousness of the moment. Your father has had to be admitted several times to the emergency room, because his illness is getting alarmingly worse. Every time I call an ambulance to transport him to the hospital, he begs me to let him die in his bed. He is horrified by hospitals, because he believes that everyone there is so familiar with death that they cause it themselves! The pains cloud his mind and in those critical moments he totally loses the will to live, but I cannot accede to his wishes, because I still need him to survive at least long enough to see my purpose through. The novel is practically finished, because it is not very long. Only a few corrections are missing. I had some difficulty in finding a good denouement, but I think I have solved it satisfactorily. Your publisher will have no knowledge of this novel, of which I will publish only a few copies, enough to fulfill its purpose and no more. About the poem to be written by Noemi, maybe I overestimated her talent, but I still trust her, she will surprise me any day. My plan is that by Christmas the reconciliation will be consummated, and, at last, I will also be able to reconcile with myself. Perhaps I will also take advantage of this painful experience to write my own novel with my own version of events, but most likely I will dedicate my next work to the memory of this great man. As I expected, Naomi has not let me down, and has written a touching poem that is sure to influence her mother's mood. In any case, I don't think he will follow in his parents' footsteps. She is too down-to-earth and too grounded. She would make a good researcher, or teacher. If her parents have problems it is because of her artistic, creative, fickle, unpredictable temperament. It is difficult to live with an artist. 36. The last winter (Narrator: the sick person) This will be, if medicine does not prevent it, my last winter. I would like to live it intensely, but life slips through my fingers like fine grains of sand on a beach. Soon I will have left this troubled world. With each passing day I feel more and more familiar with death. With each new dawn the sun rises darker for me, and its light grows dimmer. Slowly what was a nightmare becomes a dream. As life punishes me, death rewards me. Death seemed like a drama to me before I knew the true face of life. Now that I know it, death seems to me a comedy, and it causes me an irresistible desire to laugh. In the end I will end up turning my death into a great event and I will sit in the stalls with a real longing for the curtain to rise. I may be starting to lose my mind, but that must be the mind's strategy to elude suffering. Blessed is madness when sanity allies itself with pain so that you suffer it consciously! But I wish to be an exceptional witness to my own death, because it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I am a writer. If I intend to describe death in my novels, I must have experienced it! I know it seems an absurd thought, but more absurd is to believe that our mind and spirit do not transcend beyond the threshold of death. I believe that everything we have come to conceive and imagine will somehow remain, and transcend our death, to be the foundations of the personality of a new life at the instant of its gestation, into whom we will transmigrate. I also know that this is a naive consolation, because no one has been able to prove such a theory. Others believe that their souls will ascend to heaven, remain in purgatory or descend to hell, where they will be reunited with other soul mates, virtuous or sinful. This is the most popular version. In my theory there are no heavens or hells, but there is overcoming or degradation. A wicked and depraved soul can transmigrate into the fetus of a beast. It is not the most popular, but I believe it must be so. Now I spend most of the day bedridden and my mind is only clear when the sedatives take effect and the pain disappears, more and more intensely. Alicia spends the day with me, but at night, after she leaves me sedated and I manage to fall asleep, she goes back to her apartment, only to return first thing in the morning. She must be exhausted, because sometimes she falls asleep on the couch and it is me who watches over her sleep. She has brought her laptop with her, on which she passes the time when I sleep. She says she is working on her new novel about the ballerina, but she doesn't want to read anything to me until it is finished. She has become very superstitious and thinks it brings bad luck. I find her getting worse and worse every day, even thinner. I fear that she may also fall ill. Today is one of the coldest days of the winter. A heavy snow is falling and the flakes seem to go crazy as they are pushed by a strong gusty wind, which is constantly changing direction. Like every morning, I hear the pleasant rattle of the lock as Alice arrives at my apartment. She is shivering with cold and completely soaked. I suggest she put on one of my robes and dry her clothes on the heating radiator. Many times I have held her body in my arms, but I had never seen her naked. This morning I finally had that opportunity. I see the body of an attractive but not provocative woman; sensual but not sexual. It is harmonious but not erotic. It's just a human being's body. It feels better already. As she prepares my breakfast, I inquire about her career situation, which she seems to have abandoned because of me. -Alicia, how are things going with my agent? Did he get you a contract? Alicia denies it with a slight nod of her head. -And has he given you any reason? -Publishers don't like novels where there is no sex, or at least something that excites their imagination, and my novels find them too intellectual or spiritual. -Yes, I think my first agent seduced me into having a firsthand sexual experience and being able to describe it in minute detail. That was also one of the keys to the success of my novels. Sexuality is not an invention of culture, it is a natural reality and there is no reason for it not to be part of a plot, but it should not be described as a simple sexual relationship, similar to that of animals, because what characterizes a human being is that from all his natural experiences he extracts a moral evaluation, which does not exist in animals. Among humans, sex cannot be exempt from this same morality. Most novels dispense with this necessary moral premise to describe it as a purely animal relationship and, therefore, immoral. It is not true that in war as in love anything goes. In war there are also rules of conduct, so why shouldn't there be in sexuality? Alicia listens attentively to my brief dissertation on sexuality and seems to agree, but qualifies a few details. -Morality is relative, and its values are not shared by all, that is why I believe that sexuality has to be based on other more realistic norms, that satisfies desire without incurring in prostitution.... -And what are these standards? -Of course, mutual consent, and respect for the sensitivity of each lover, provided that both are aware of the consequences of this relationship. That attitude is already sufficiently moral. No lover should be considered an object of pleasure, but pleasure should have an object, that of mutual satisfaction of the senses, without creating a bad conscience: the contrary would be prostitution! 37. Last Christmas (Narrator: Naomi's mother) Once again I am in this small and remote town. It has welcomed me with the first snowfall of this year and I feel that the snow is also falling on my soul. Now that I have recovered my memory, the last twenty years of blessed amnesia seem like a brief instant. Were it not for the wrinkles, those of the face and those of the soul, I would not know that time has passed. To remember for what; to recognize the cause of your amnesia; to see again that painful scene at the entrance of that brothel; to relive those dreams cut short by the ambition of a disloyal friend? For this it is better not to remember! Now I have to forget what I have remembered so that it does not continue to disturb me and to meet again with poetry, which is my only friend and confidant. The only one that is loyal and for no cause, justified or not, betrays you. We are only what we believe in and believe, the rest is a chimera, because it only exists in our imagination. I imagined him as I wished him to be, but he was not as I imagined him to be, because no one can penetrate the mind and soul of another person. They will always let us down! Now I have to follow the same advice I gave Naomi: If you need comfort, learn to comfort yourself; if you need support, learn to lean on yourself; if you need compassion, learn to pity yourself; and if you need love, learn to love yourself. What would have become of me if he hadn't won that untimely award? Would we still be together, would he have grown tired of me? We would probably be separated. I remember the night of the recital. He didn't say goodbye to me because he was jealous of my friends. But, on the other hand, only those who love feel jealous. And what would have become of his literary career if he had not met that woman? Naomi wants me to read her novels, but she herself assures me that they are well written and interesting, but lack motivation. They don't convey anything transcendental or human, they are novels to regale the ears of ordinary people, without ambition, conformist and resigned to their vulgarity. If I had helped him, he might not be so famous, but he would be better regarded and would have more incentive. He had the talent to write something more ambitious; something that deserved to go down to posterity. I just got an email from Naomi, I miss her so much! She should write to me more often. I open it, unable to contain my excitement: "Dear Mom, in two weeks it will be Christmas again and this year I don't know with whom of the two of you I am supposed to spend this lovely time of the year. You know how much I love you, but it hurts me that my father spends them alone, being so sick. My heart is still divided between the two of you, and I can't decide on either of you, because I wish I could spend them with both of you!" My poor daughter is in an unbearable emotional struggle. I should write to her and tell her that I won't mind if she doesn't come and spend it with her father. Someone has to sacrifice, because neither of us has done more to deserve her affection! "I have another important piece of news for you: Alicia has given me several copies of Dad's latest autobiographical novel. In spite of being very weak she has kept her promise. I've read it and I couldn't help crying with joy, but I won't tell you why, it's better if you read it and find out for yourself. Will you promise me you'll read it? I'll send you a copy by mail. I also enclose my first poem dedicated to the two of you. I already told you at the station that I wished I was like you. I hope you like it. A very strong hug from your daughter who loves you and misses you, Noemí." God knows that I would make any sacrifice so that Naomi would be happy and not have to suffer for our faults, but He asks the impossible of me! Betrayal has no redemption. Jesus would not have forgiven Judas either, nor does God forgive the devil. One betrayal is enough, now I cannot also betray myself. No, Naomi, my poor child, you cannot yet understand how the wounds of the heart hurt. Mine has bled for twenty years, and now it needs to heal its wound, it may happen tomorrow or never. Everything is written in destiny. Let it decide for us. She tells me that her father has published a new novel, and that it is autobiographical. I have a feeling that it must not leave me in a good place among his memories. Why is Naomi so keen for me to read it? I'm not spiteful. I, too, wish everything had happened differently. I also long for those happy campus days; that insecure young writer who needed my help; those dreams practically within our grasp. But he reneged on everything in exchange for thirty pieces of silver. God is just and has sent him the punishment he deserves! However, the paths of the Lord are inscrutable, thanks to my weakness this daughter of mine was born, who promises to surpass both of us and to be the comfort of both of us. Only God knows what is right and what is wrong. If I stand firm it will be His will and if he must die with regrets, so must he. Today has dawned with a dense blanket of snow that evens everything with the same whiteness. You can hardly walk through these steep alleys. I met the letter carrier on my way out of the bakery and he handed me the envelope with the book Noemi sent me. We all know each other here and there is no need for mailboxes. If I didn't know it also contained a poem by my daughter I wouldn't even open it, but I want to see if Noemí will become a great poet or if she is following the wrong path. I open it and am painfully struck by the title of the book: "Si tú fueras..., Memorias de dos amantes unidos por la literatura y separados por las palabras" (If you were..., Memoirs of two lovers united by literature and separated by words). What does he intend with this title? But I see Noemi's poem. It is not very long. I read it: "I WAS BORN OF FORGOTTEN PARENTS For love or lack of love, by charm or disenchantment, of two unknown lovers I was born of oblivion. As a baby I had no one to rock me, as a child I had no one to spoil me, as an adult I had no one to counsel me because I was born of forgotten parents I met my father when he was dying, I met my mother when I didn't remember, I knew myself when I cried, because we continue to be forgotten. I write you this simple poem to make you forget what you have remembered and remember what you have forgotten of the writer you had loved. Your loving daughter, Naomi." It is a poem worthy of my daughter. You could not have expressed her wishes better. It has touched the depths of my aching soul. I feel guilty that I have ignored my daughter's yearnings. Perhaps she has the right perspective on this drama and I am fixated on my revenge. Perhaps, after all, it is written in destiny that I must forgive her. But how do I know, who can advise me, should I turn to a priest, do they know more about the human soul than we do, have they been given the grace of faith by God himself, so that they are closer to virtue than other human beings? I have lost faith and trusted only in my own judgment, without waiting for the miracle of revelation, but after reading my daughter's moving poem I am beginning to doubt my moral certainties and the time may have come to ask for advice from one who is devoted to the salvation of souls, and mine must be at risk of damnation. If my daughter wishes, I think I should read this new novel. 38. The alarm (Narrator: Alicia) I have to warn Naomi, her father is dying! I know it's against his will, and it's the will of a dying man, but I'm going to call the hospital to have him admitted. He has to hang on to life for a few more days. I can't accept that this woman has no heart. She has to come and save him from the hell of his remorse or he will not rest in peace and we will not be able to meet in that place in the cosmos reserved for our souls. He is bedridden. He can hardly move anymore and has no desire to speak to me. But he follows my every movement with a dull, lifeless look, as if he could only move the girls in his eyes. But in that cloudy, dying look there must be a lucid mind, unaffected by the disease, and he must be thinking about his situation. I can almost read his thoughts. He accepts that his journey through this world has come to an end, and he awaits death with serenity and resignation. He will also dedicate some of his last thoughts to me. I know he hears me, I can see it in the flicker of his eyes, and I have to try to comfort him: -I know you can hear me," he blinks slightly, "You have not been a strong man, for geniuses are weaker the more wisdom they acquire, but illness has given you the strength to accept it without complaint or lamentation. Each day that passes and your end approaches, my love for you increases with the same proportion. At the moment of your death I will be the most in love woman in the universe. I know that this does not console you.... don't be sad, because she will come! But you have to keep a titanic pulse with death. Don't let it take you until it gives you its blessing! -I hold her trembling hand, which is now barely strong enough to know how she reacts. You must forgive me, but I have to call the hospital to prolong your life as long as possible. When she and Naomi arrive we will bring you back here and you can die as I know you wish: holding her hand until your last breath. Then our real life will begin. Then I will not be the ugly, clumsy, provincial girl, but a luminous soul who will meet yours and remain united for eternity. But if you die without his blessing, your soul will wander erratically from one universe to another eternally, never finding peace, and I will be alone for eternity. I know you will do this for me. I try to pull my hand away to dial the hospital phone, but I feel a slight pressure and his gaze seems to come alive. I think he's trying to tell me something. Maybe he wants me to keep shaking his hand. Yes, that must be it. -You don't want me to call the hospital, or stop shaking your hand, do you? -she confirms with a weak blink. Okay, I won't call the hospital, but you have to be strong and hold on until she and your daughter Naomi arrive. He closes his eyes and I get the feeling he's trying to tell me it's too late. Does this mean he could die at any moment? 39. A fatal destiny (Narrator: Naomi's mother) I have not been able to finish reading your latest novel. I think it's enough to make me feel close to hell, when I thought I was close to heaven! Why did fate set that monstrous trap for me? Why didn't I trust his loyalty? How is it possible that a deceitful image could have stolen the best twenty years of our lives? Who drove me to be in that place at that precise moment? The devil? The devil? What monstrous sin had I committed to deserve such a punishment? Poor man, all these years he could not tell me what had really happened! If he had known, of course I would have forgiven him! How could he write the novels I inspired in him if he has felt guilty all these years? I must write urgently to Naomi, telling her of my desire to return as soon as possible and show her father my repentance and my desire for reconciliation. There will probably be no happier person in this world than her when she receives my message! But I also feel as if my heart is no longer oppressed for the first time in twenty years, and is overflowing with joy, and I feel that it is beating again as strongly as when I was eighteen years old, the day I met this wretched writer over a slice of strawberry cream pie! That must be the happiness that forgiveness causes! Blessed be God who has enlightened me! I am desperate and on the verge of a new crisis: the latest snowstorm has left us incommunicado! There is no way to communicate with Naomi. I know from experience of other years that we will be cut off for several days, and he may die at any moment! Why, what evil force interferes with our destiny again and again? For God's sake, I hope it is not too late! No; I can't wait for the telephone lines to be repaired and the snow to be cleared from the road. I have to try to get to the railroad station, because the trains are still running. It's only five kilometers. In a week it's Christmas and I could be by his bedside, and spend the first Christmas together after twenty years of absences. Maybe the cab driver in town will want to take me. I'll go to his house right now. The cab driver is an elderly man, about to retire, and does not dare to drive in this blizzard. The road is narrow, with some very steep slopes. He suggests that we wait for the snowplows to pass, but he doesn't think they will clear the road until tomorrow or maybe the day after tomorrow. But neither tomorrow nor the day after tomorrow are there any trains connecting with the one to the capital. I have to catch the next one, which leaves at five o'clock in the morning. It has stopped snowing and I can walk this route. For this trip I don't need any luggage, whatever I can fit in my bag will be enough. I have to try! 40. The agony (Narrator: the dying man) Poor Alice, how can I tell her that my mind is clear and I am fully aware that I am about to die? How can I also tell her that I no longer have any regrets, because I have only done what destiny had planned for me. Our lives are written in the stars, and our spirit is a part of the destiny of the universe. Destiny that we do not know. Naomi's mother also had a destiny; which has already been fulfilled. I don't know how to tell her that I have sensed her death in some icy place, and that she will never be at the bedside of my deathbed. I once said that a dignified death is to die shaking the hand of the person who feels most affection for you, and that person is you, Alicia, besides your presence in this place makes it a home, so my conditions for a good death are more than fulfilled. Now I can die in peace. She has understood this and continues to hold my hand. I feel her life beating in it, already inert, and that contact makes me begin to feel an indescribable inner peace. It is her soul that pierces me and I feel it inside me, when I only have a few seconds left to live. Now appear the most emotional familiar images of my childhood that I kept in my subconscious. They follow one after the other with their sounds and sensations. I hear my own crying and my mother's voice rocking me in the cradle my grandparents gave her; I see my father pushing the swing in the park near our modest house on the outskirts of the city, when he must have been only two or three years old. He is young and vigorous, and he pushes the swing so hard it makes me cry from the excitement of the game. Many other images pass by, and from all of them I retain some impression. I see myself dressed in my admiral's costume from my first communion, and my parents, who take me by the hand almost on a cartwheel to the neighborhood church. There I see the little girl, with her virginal first communion dress, which made me feel the first passionate emotion of love. A multitude of family images follow, such as the photograph of the primary school, my father's first car, my first train ride, the first girl I went out with and the first kiss on the lips of a woman, and after many others, also the images of the university cafeteria and those that followed. But they all pass quickly and an indescribable emptiness remains after their ephemeral vision. It is as if they were being erased from my consciousness so that when death comes there is no trace left in my soul of what my life in this world has been. I sense that when I reach the last image I will die, and that moment is coming, because I see the image of my literary agent, that night that destroyed our lives. I see her in the half-open door of Naomi's apartment. My imagination has gone blank, and an immense peace comes over me. I no longer feel Alicia's hand. Now I see an intense, blinding light, I know that I am going to penetrate into that light where I will remain eternal... mind.... 41. Death (Narrator: Alicia) He has barely made a slight head movement leaning back against the pillow, and I feel no sign of life in his hand, I think he has died! But he seems to have fallen peacefully asleep. There is not on his face the slightest sign of pain. I withdraw my hand and his hand collapses. Yes, he is dead! The great love of my life lies dead before my eyes! From this instant death will do its work and his beautiful hands, his prodigious head, and his battered body will turn them to ashes. But the hateful reaper has not power enough to destroy the fruit of the one who now belongs to him. His work will survive, and his memory will not fade from my imagination until death takes me too. Now I should mourn him by evoking his memory, but he who has taken him from me will not have his way. Although my soul is broken in pieces, I will not shed a single tear, for I have already mourned him when he was alive. Now I have hardly any tears left, and I must save what tears I still have left for when I begin to miss him and feel his absence. He has been a lucky man, because he has lived doing the will of others, but he has died according to his own will. Only a privileged few have such a death; if it is difficult to live, it is much more difficult to die! 42. The two deaths (Narrator: the author) The two lovers of literature die on the same day and at the same time, because it was written in the stars. The frozen body of Noemi's mother was found by the driver of the snow-clearing vehicle, which would circulate that same morning, clearing the winding road of snow. Her body was not on the road, but in a small ravine, where it must have fallen given the darkness and the layer of snow that hid it. Her former lover died from fatal complications of his incurable disease. Naomi had sensed her mother's death when they said goodbye to each other at the railroad station. Unfortunately, she did not have to choose which of the two she would spend Christmas with, but which of the two she mourned. They were not buried together. She lay in the small local cemetery, and he had her body cremated and her ashes dumped on a nearby beach, as was his wish. Alice was deeply affected, for according to her beliefs, she would not be reunited with her beloved in that dimension she thought she had discovered in his astral personality. PART THREE: ASTRAL ENCOUNTER "Labor not for the meat which perishes, but for the meat which endures to eternal life." (John 6:27) 43. The farewell Death has taken him from me and death will give him back to me. I will look for you wherever you are and we will be together again, but for eternity! If you are in Hell I will rescue you; if you are in Purgatory, I will accompany you until we gain Heaven, and if you are already in Paradise, there we will meet, because love knows no barriers, neither human nor divine. This corpse lying on the bed has lost its soul, which must wander through the cosmos without a specific destination. No one but me will be able to find its whereabouts, because my astral body will be able to travel to every corner beyond the universe, and in some of these places I will find you. She condemned you to hell in one of your nightmares, and she has not come to free you from this curse. Now her presence is no longer necessary. I have to communicate this painful news to Naomi, because she, in spite of her mother's opposition, was very fond of her. She has died just hours before a new dawn. It is not worth waking Naomi so early. It is no longer necessary for her to hurry, her father no longer needs her. I will wait for the dawn. I feel as if I am the messenger of death, but of an expected death. No one will be surprised. Those who knew her diagnosis are already just waiting to read her obituary in the press or on the net, and will exclaim those phrases of condolence that they will have heard in other deaths of other famous people. "Poor thing, he died in the prime of his life and at the height of his popularity"; "He died when he had had everything but his health"; "This is how most of the great characters end their lives: always ahead of schedule"; "Artists live at an unhealthy pace and intensity, that's why they die early", etc. I think they are basically right. The soul is what gives life to the body and if we abuse our soul, we also abuse our body. In the end, the exhausted soul loses its defenses and so does the body, and the inevitable fatal disease ensues. My unfortunate friend was doomed, because he lived abusing his soul since he was aware of its existence. It is dawn, but this is not the same sun as yesterday, nor the same fading stars. It is not the same morning breeze, nor the same blue color of the sky. It is not the same city, nor the same street. Because tonight a writer has died, and when a writer dies something dies in the collective soul of the world, because we writers and artists are the soul of the world. With great pain in my heart I decide to call the unfortunate Naomi to tell her the sad news. She does not answer, but I receive a message from her cell phone answering machine: "Sorry, I am not available. I'm on my way to my mother's place. I just got word that she was found frozen to death on the road as she was walking to the train station. I am devastated and cannot talk. Leave me your message. I feel deeply affected and, at the same time, guilty because I judged this woman prematurely. I hope she forgives me! However, she took too long to forgive him. It is she who should have been shaking his hand when he expired. No doubt she has met her death when she was trying to answer the call of her fake novel, but when it was too late. Once again fate incomprehensibly turns against me, and she will again be my rival after her death, for the three of us will meet again beyond this tormented life. 44. The last trip The unhappy Naomi has had to attend two funerals in a few days. She attended her mother's funeral and barely had time to mourn her when she had to take care of her father's funeral. The hospital has taken care of his cremation and has given him the ashes. Now she has to carry out her father's last wishes and scatter them at sea. She has asked me to accompany her and we will leave for the coast first thing tomorrow morning. -How did my father die," Naomi asks me when we return in a cab to her apartment, unable to hide the sadness in her eyes and her delicate face disfigured by grief. -I think he was at peace, but I can't tell you more because he could hardly speak, I can only tell you that his countenance was serene and he seemed to have accepted death with resignation. -He didn't mention my mother? -He couldn't speak, but I'm sure he would have her in his last thoughts. -The local cab driver told me that she was trying to catch the first train in the morning to meet my father, and he didn't dare take her to the station, so she tried to get there on foot. -Why didn't you wait for the station road to be cleared? -I ask him, although I can guess the reason. -I don't know, but I found a short verse he wrote the night of his death: "Tonight there are no stars and it will not cease to be night Tonight there will be no moon, and it will never be daytime." She must have sensed his death, too, because she did not believe she could see my father alive. But she tried and it cost her her life too. Wherever they are, my parents will have been reconciled and will finally have the peace they deserve. I listen to Naomi and I can't help but feel an unjust wish that her hopes will not be fulfilled. She can't come between us even after she is dead! We are already in his father's apartment. I can't help but have the feeling of his presence, as if his soul has not yet left this room and cannot leave for some reason that only he must know. Naomi looks through everything that belonged to her father, and that now belongs to her, but she doesn't seem to be interested in it. She has gone to the bookshelf and selects one of his novels. She looks at the photograph of her father on the back cover, and cannot contain her tears. -Alicia, what was my father really like? You must have known him better than I did. -I believe that above all he was afraid of condemning himself, because he could never live according to his desires due to his constant remorse. He was a tormented soul who wrote novels to forget the cause of his torments. -Did you love him? -Yes, I loved him, but he never loved me back. -Then why didn't you leave him? -How can you abandon what is already a part of you? -And now, what will you do? -I will write a novel about your father's journey through the cosmos. His life after death! -But that's impossible! I suppose you can imagine, no one has ever been able to meet the dead! I do not want to alarm Naomi and explain to her that I can split my personality and separate my astral body from my physical body. I have experienced it once and I will achieve it a second time. The first time I barely moved a short distance from my physical body, but this new experience I have to take all the necessary precautions so that no one disturbs my concentration, because it will take me a long time to return. -Yes, of course I will imagine it. -Where do you think she is right now? -I can see in her eyes that she is uneasy and fearful, but she must get used to paranormal phenomena, because her parents will try to contact her through her dreams, and I must warn her. -I think he is here, because his soul has not yet been totally uprooted from the emotions transmitted to him by the objects with which he has had contact in life. -And do you think he's watching and listening to us? -he asks me, unable to hide his concern. -No, he neither sees us nor hears us. It can only contact us through our astral body, which happens during dreams. You have to be forewarned, because they are likely to appear in your dreams, and they will want to know what state of mind you are in. But it is likely that they will not make any reference to their deaths, but will appear in scenes that will not make any sense to you. In dreams we have no control over our imagination, time or space. I don't think I should have told her about this possibility. She seems really scared now and will be more so when the night comes and she faces the dreams. A foggy and unpleasant day dawns. It is not the most suitable to spread its ashes. We have arranged to meet at the railroad station, where we will take a train to a coastal town. Naomi is already waiting for me at the station entrance. We still have time for a hot tea, which will lift our spirits. We are sitting at the same table where she was last with her mother. She seems to have regained her composure. -Now I know why my poor mother gave me that sad advice. "Don't expect comfort from us. If you need comfort, learn to comfort yourself." I sensed her death. When she walked away from me, I had a feeling that was the last time I would see her alive! During the trip to the coast we barely exchanged a few words about the unpleasant weather. On the other side of the window, the landscape seems to share our deep sadness. A dense fog hangs over the small towns we are leaving behind. It is hard to believe that there can be happy people in such a depressing landscape. Sometimes the train runs alongside the road, and we can see the cars running at the same speed, occupied by people with obligations and responsibilities who do not think about death, but have no chance to think about life either. They live, that's all! 45. The ashes As we approach the coastal town we can smell the saltpeter. We leave the small railroad station and it is easy to orient ourselves and know where the sea is, because the freshness of the sea breeze clearly indicates the direction. The sky looks like an immense grayish mantle, and a cold and humid fog confuses the shapes of things. The cars drive with their lights on even though it is not yet noon. There are few people in the streets, it looks like a ghost town. We head for the promenade. It is not far. We can already hear the scandalous squawking of the seagulls. The station street leads directly to a simple promenade, as desolate as the rest. We can already hear the waves crashing against the promenade wall. From this promenade we can see the sea, but we can not see the horizon line, which is confused with the sky because of its grayish tone and the dense fog. On one side of the promenade there is a small breakwater, where a few fishing boats are moored, which probably have not gone to sea because of the storm. We chose that place to scatter the ashes. -It is very sad to end a long life of illusions, projects and ambitions," says Naomi, preparing to dump her father's remains in the sea, "in a handful of dust that will be carried by the currents to the bottom of the sea, and so ends his unfortunate story. -It is only his body, his soul will continue to exist, as his works will continue to exist. A group of hungry seagulls hover around, no doubt they must believe that the debris Naomi spreads on the water could be food. -His wish has been granted," he says to me, sobbing, "There will be no more deaths; we no longer need this urn! With an angry gesture, he throws the small urn into the sea. He wipes his tears with the back of his hand, grabs my arm energetically and we walk away from the place. -If you need consolation, learn to console yourself. Yes, Mom, I've already learned! Naomi has recovered her spirits. Life goes on and it is useless to mourn the dead. We have mourned them enough when they were alive. Of the dead, only the memory remains, and he has left a good memory. There is no reason to mourn. I am amazed at her fortitude, but in fact until a few months ago she has been an orphan since birth. Her behavior is not surprising. The return trip is as silent as the previous one. Naomi seems absent, or maybe she is thinking about her future as an orphan. Her gaze is lost in the misty landscape we are leaving behind. She seems to be reacting to some obsessive thought, because suddenly she turns to me and comments: -You were right, I dreamt about my parents tonight.... -He remains eloquently silent, as if wondering if he should unveil his dream to me. I was sitting on a park bench and my father suddenly appeared and sat next to me, but he was dead. I asked him why he had abandoned my mother, and suddenly she appeared sitting next to him, but she also appeared to be dead. They could not answer my question. Suddenly a policeman appeared, and addressing me, he said. "Excuse me, but the dead are not allowed in the park. Take them to the cemetery and bury them." I didn't know what to answer, I was terrified. But incomprehensibly, they both sat up, and turning to the policeman, my father said: "It is not necessary for her to bury us, we will bury ourselves. Goodbye Naomi, don't be late to join us...", and they disappeared, sinking to the ground of the park. At that moment I woke up -she keeps a sepulchral silence, she seems very affected by the dream-. What can this dream mean, Alicia? -That your parents miss you! -I answer without hesitation. -You mean they want me dead? -For them now you live in death, and they live in life. The roles have been changed, that's why they want you to join them. It is possible that this same dream will repeat itself again, although with a different argument, and they will insist again that you join them. You have to be strong and not let yourself be obsessed by what you hear from your parents during the dream. Although they happen in the astral dimension, they are disturbed by your own subconscious. -You mean I subconsciously want to die and join them? -she asks me in alarm. -Yes, but it's because of your current state of mind. You will get over it and your parents will only appear in your dreams when you miss them. Naomi seems comforted by my explanation. But she is still deep in thought, and once again loses her gaze in the misty landscape that we contemplate as the train passes by. Naomi seems to come out of her gloomy thoughts again, turns to me and confesses: -I'd like to be like you, Alicia: sure of who you are and what you want to do with your life. But who am I? The unwanted daughter of two dreamers who were lovers of literature, but who didn't understand the meaning of the word love, even though they wrote it hundreds of times. What should I do? I'm not sure I want to write anymore, with the example of my parents I've had enough! Maybe, as my mother said, I would make an excellent doctor. I'm not sure if I should encourage her to follow her parents' vocation, but precisely because they didn't know how to combine their worldly ambitions with their personal relationships, Naomi will learn from her parents' mistakes and could be an excellent writer without ruining her life. Yes, I think I should encourage her, it would be the best tribute she could pay to her ill-fated parents! -Naomi, in these times when no one believes in what they hear or see anymore, they can only believe in what they can imagine, and we writers can provide them with those images of the world they would like to hear or see! Sadly, most writers rejoice in recreating the nauseating images of what we can no longer believe and should no longer see. You can be a writer who enlightens readers! -But how do I know if I have the necessary talent to not remain in mediocrity? -My dear friend, that is what we all ask ourselves! You won't know the answer until you have overcome a few failures, because each failure will mean you have chosen a wrong path, and you must rectify until you find your own. Talent is about being yourself. The train is entering the central station. Naomi will not move into her father's apartment, because she does not want to live alone. She prefers to continue living with her classmates from college, but she has suggested that, if I wish, I can take it over. The idea is very attractive, because it makes my experience easier. I accept her offer, at least for the remainder of the course, and I will move in as soon as possible. 46. The preparation I am already provisionally installed in Naomi's father's apartment. It is a difficult sensation to describe, because all the objects in the apartment have something of him, and I still have the memory of his dead body on the bed where I am about to sleep. But I feel no fear, on the contrary, sleeping in the bed where the effluvium of the deceased is still there is the best way to communicate with him. I am aware of the risks and I do not know what may lie beyond this dimension. He may be trapped by some higher force and my energy will not be enough to free him. But you may also have reached some dimension that resembles Heaven, and my journey will be in vain. Either way, his destiny was written in the stars from the day of his birth, and it will have been fulfilled without possible appeal. Above all I have to make sure that no one will disturb my sleep while my spectrum is separated from my body. I have to disconnect everything that can ring, including the telephone and anything that creates magnetic fields, which I fear will be impossible to eliminate, and I don't know how it will affect me. After all, when I separate from the body I will only be energy and I don't know how other sources of energy that may be in the apartment may affect it. It is a risk I have to take. The other doubt is, in the case that our spectra meet, to know how we will communicate, because in the encounter we will only be able to communicate through our thoughts, for which we will have to ascend to the mental plane. If we manage to reach that dimension we will not be able to hide our thoughts, so it is impossible to lie or deceive, and everything must happen with total transparency. That must be the curse of material life: the possibility of deceiving and lying, the cause of all the disasters of this world! What will happen if I cannot return to my body? Will I die too? It would be suicide, which means going against my destiny written in the stars, and my soul would wander, without finding rest, until when? But how to have a notion of time where there is nothing but energy? It is all very confusing, and I know I am running a great risk. But what is the meaning of my existence in this world? I have given my heart to a deceased person and now I have no choice but to join him, whether he is in Heaven or in Hell! This weekend could be the appointed day for the meeting, because Noemí will travel to her mother's place to handle the formalities of her inheritance and there is no risk that she might show up unexpectedly. Nor do I expect unexpected visits, because in the last months of her life she had no other friend than her literary agent. His negative opinion of current writers caused him enmity with those with whom he had some relationship. Anyway I will leave a note on the door to make sure of any other eventuality. Tonight will be the big trip. I want to take advantage of these previous hours to write down what I intend to do, and I hope to be able to write also what might have happened on my return. To relax, I take a long walk through the same park where I declared my love. It is a walk full of nostalgia and deep sadness. Everything I see reminds me of his kind person, and sometimes I have the feeling that he is walking next to me and asking me new questions, but this time they are about the mysteries of life and death, for which I have no answers. I sit on a bench and remember Naomi's dream, I would like it to happen to me, but that only happens in dreams, reality is more stubborn, it refuses to change its rigid rules and everything happens as it is meant to happen. I'm back in the apartment and writing notes about tonight's experience. It is getting dark. It is a frigid late winter day. There is a chance of snow. For some reason snow depresses me. I don't like it, because it feels like it is falling on my soul. I like warm countries, because they are cozier and life is simpler. I listen to Bach's oratorios, because I think it is the music that should be heard in Paradise. I lie down on the bed and prepare myself for concentration. 47. Astral travel (Narrator: the deceased) I know I have passed away. I felt a strange vibration and what must be my soul is detached from my body. Alicia has already realized my demise and has let go of my hand, which now falls limp. I feel a force propelling me out of my apartment, and I pass through the wall without any difficulty. I am now traveling at breakneck speed, and I am heading towards the light I saw at the moment of my death. I have entered a strange dimension and I continue my journey through a semi-dark space. In this dimension I see a multitude of trapped specters, who implore me for help and try uselessly to hold me, because their twitching hands penetrate my specter without being able to grasp it. From their appearance and clothing I deduce that some of them have been in this darkness for thousands of years. I also believe that these are people who must have died a violent death, because their specters are horribly mutilated. Some are missing limbs, others heads, and most show wounds possibly caused by the wars or accidents, from which they must have died. But why do they remain in this darkness and not ascend to the luminous zone where I seem to be heading? I notice an important difference between them and me, where the explanation must be. My aura is absolutely resplendent, theirs are darkened. Perhaps when I died with a clear conscience and in peace, my aura was charged with positive energy, which gives it that glow. I have described this phenomenon in one of my novels, the fruit of my intuition, but which I now prove to be correct. For this reason my soul must be attracted directly to the source of light. It must be a simple effect of electromagnetic attraction. For this reason, I suppose that whoever dies with an uneasy conscience, suddenly or by accident, the soul must contain negative energy that obscures the spectrum, and in these conditions they must be attracted only to this dimension, which must be the astral, the first dimension of where those who have died are. These souls are suspended between what theologians call Heaven and Hell, which must be Purgatory. Their desperate attempt to cling to me must be for me to transfer to them the positive energy they need to enter a new dimension that will lead them to the light to which I am heading. But it does not seem that this transfer is possible between wraiths. Possibly that positive energy they need can be transferred to them from the physical world, with invocations, prayers or any other form that I do not know, directed especially to them and showing them your affection. I am still traveling at possibly the speed of light, but I have not yet left this dimension where there are possibly millions of souls in similar conditions. If this is Purgatory, where the souls are not enlightened enough to reach Heaven, those people who die and who have committed faults that have no redemption, their auras will be charged with negative energy, and they must appear absolutely dark, so they cannot rise and remain in the physical world, and this must be the Hell of the souls in pain of theology, and that for some cause that I do not know, they can appear as living dead, or zombies. I have no other explanation. I have crossed another cosmic plane and, at last, I am in the dimension of the blinding light that has irresistibly attracted me since the moment of my death. It has the same luminosity as my soul. No shadow to darken it. My journey through the dimensions of the cosmos seems to end here, because I have stopped moving at dizzying speeds. Here, too, there are perhaps millions of luminous souls like mine. They all seem to have the same youthful appearance, they must not be more than 18 or 20 years old, and they remain suspended in this immense luminous dimension. My specter moves slowly among them. They smile at me and seem to welcome me. I stop in front of a specter that amazingly looks like me when I was 18 or 20 years old, and still in college. He seems to be my double. Something extraordinary has happened: I feel a strange vibration and my double has merged, penetrating into my specter. Now I also have the same appearance as him. I feel confused, but at the same time I feel a great sense of indecipherable goodness. One of the souls who has watched my transformation approaches me and seems to want to communicate something to me. I try to read her thoughts, but I hear nothing. Moments later another even more resplendent soul approaches me, and, like the previous one, I think he is trying to make me listen to his thoughts. I hear him! -Welcome to the luminous dimension, because your soul has only positive energy, and it shines like the light that generates the source that illuminates and created the cosmos! An extraordinary source of positive energy, located in an even higher dimension, and its light is the creator of all the visible and invisible illusions of the cosmos. The more luminous our soul is, the closer we come to this extraordinary source of light. There are the souls of the most virtuous characters in history, such as Socrates, Jesus Christ or St. John of the Cross. I am also a higher luminous entity and I can communicate with any soul, but you can only communicate with those who have had contact in life and feel affection for you. You will be able to hear their thoughts, but they will not be able to read yours. -But what happened to me? Who was this double of mine? Where did he come from? -I hear your thoughts and will answer your questions. When we are gestated two spiritual entities are generated. One is in the form of the space we will come to occupy at the limit of our growth. That entity is composed of positive energy and remains in this dimension. Our destiny is written in it. The other spiritual entity remains in the embryo, which animates it. Its energy is variable and depends on the processes of its consciousness, which can generate positive or negative energy. Our destiny is fulfilled when we act in such a way that it is maintained with positive energy until the instant of our death. Otherwise we act against our destiny and at death we cannot merge with our energetic double and remain in an intermediate dimension or in the physical world, if our consciousness has no redemption. That double of yours has followed your personal development, and has been by your side whenever you invoked him. He was your guardian angel! -Yes, I now remember my experience in the little church park hours after I learned of my diagnosis, where I believed that an angel was sitting in my very pew. It must have been this double of mine, whom I had previously invoked. -You are now constituted as your destiny intended. There is no more duality in you, but an absolute energetic unity! My strange journey to this luminous dimension has ended when I reunite with my double personality. It is as if from this moment on a new eternal life has begun, but I cannot say that I am happy, because that would be to accept unhappiness, unknown in this dimension. It is a neutral state, indescribable, devoid of any anguish, fear or restlessness. Possibly the appropriate expression is "beatific". But fortunately I am not completely separated from my former physical reality, because I can indeed hear the thoughts of those who remember me and invoke me, albeit faintly, like a whisper. At this moment Alicia is invoking me and I faintly hear her thoughts. I fear that she is about to commit a grave imprudence, because she intends to join me in the astral plane, where I am not, and she will never be able to access this luminous dimension while she is alive. If Alice's astral body enters the dimension of the dead, she runs the risk of not being able to rejoin her physical body, and it is quite possible that she will also be trapped in the darkness of Purgatory, and she will no longer be able to join me, as was her wish! I have to find a way to communicate with her and make her see the risk she runs if she persists in her attempt. Now I am nothing more than a contingent of subtle energy that is invisible, but can move into the physical world. I run the risk of becoming infected with negative energy and not being able to return to this dimension, but I cannot allow Alicia to be condemned because of me. I have to try! 48. The return I have returned to the dimension of the physical world and I am at the foot of the bed where Alice is lying. She is approaching the state of concentration where the unfolding of her astral body can occur. If I provoke an energy discharge I may be able to turn on the lamp on the bedside table and interrupt her concentration. I get the lamp to flicker and fortunately Alice has abruptly snapped out of her concentration. She looks at the lamp quizzically, but does not associate it with my presence. She unplugs it and goes back to concentrating. I have to try again and hope she realizes that I'm trying to communicate with her, because my aura's energy wanes. I get her to blink weakly again, and Alice is startled. I think she has understood that it is me who provokes it. -Is that you? Are you here? I flicker the lamp again. Alicia has understood that this is my answer. -So, you haven't left your apartment, as I assumed! But you can't communicate with me. Be patient, I'll join you soon. Maybe this very night. I am trying to concentrate and manage to unfold my astral body, and then we can communicate and you can tell me where you are! I try to flicker the lamp again but it is useless. I will not be able to prevent her from unfolding and entering the dimension of the dead, and if she reaches that dimension and gets trapped I will not be able to rescue her. I only hope that her soul is not condemned and can no longer leave the physical world, which could happen if she dies, because suicide is a serious fault, and it would fill her soul with negative energy! -Alicia doesn't know that I can't hear when she speaks to me, but I can hear her thoughts, and my premonition of Naomi's mother's death is confirmed. But she is thinking that she trusts that we have not met, because she still considers her her rival, even after she is dead. If Noemi's mother is dead I should be able to communicate with her. Perhaps it is because she did not give me her forgiveness before she died that she is in Purgatory. But how do I know where she is? I should listen to her thoughts to know where to go, otherwise it is impossible for me to find her soul among millions of souls. Perhaps his thoughts do not mention me and he thinks only of the wretched Naomi. That would explain it. Alicia is again on the verge of her astral projection. If she succeeds, we will meet again, but it will be for a short time, because she must return to her physical world of the living and I to my energetic world of the dead. All her efforts are useless, our destinies meet neither in life nor in death. I feel truly sorry for this woman, but now I know that it is useless to fight against what is written in the stars. It must be the stigma she was telling me about. Alicia's body seems to shake. It is vibrating. She moves her head from side to side, as if something is trying to detach itself. Yes, it is succeeding, and the specter of her head is detached from her body, and the rest of her astral body as well. Her physical body has been left in absolute rest, no doubt sleeping deeply, while she dreams her splitting. Her first movements are imprecise, she rises slowly but keeps her eyes closed. A thin thread of energy holds her to life, I trust it will not break! Her ascent has stopped. She opens her eyes and gazes at me in amazement, but she cannot speak. Now she must read my thoughts and I must read hers. -Alicia, why did you do it? -He's here! I've done it! But he has changed his appearance, he is now a young man! -Alicia, what you have achieved is to put your life at risk! -He reproaches me for what I did, just for being by his side. -Alicia, I can hear your thoughts. Yes, I have to reproach you. Now you won't be able to join me. I'm dead and you're alive... -Then if my death can settle our differences, I will not return to my body! -You would achieve nothing, because it would be suicide, and you know that your soul would be condemned and could not be separated from the physical world. Give up this useless and dangerous love for both of you! -Haven't I been your faithful companion until your last breath? -Alicia, you are endangering my salvation as well. These reproaches, which I know are not fair, will cause my soul to become contaminated with negative energy, and may prevent me from returning to the dimension of light in which I had managed to ascend. For both our sakes, renounce! -I understand... my stigma haunts me here, too, among the dead. You wish to be with her for eternity, don't you? If I renounce, I'll be damned anyway... -But you will save my soul, and hers too! -She, with her unexpected death, has won! -No, Alicia, we haven't met. I don't know where he might be. Maybe we'll never meet. But where I am, time doesn't exist. I'll wait for you, but you have to die in peace with your conscience! Don't be afraid of old age, when you meet me you'll be eighteen again. -What about her? -Alice, where we will meet there is neither happiness nor misfortune, only goodness; there you can neither love me nor hate me; the three of us will be able to enjoy that infinite goodness eternally, and when its time comes, I trust that Naomi will also join us. -Are you asking me to let my life be consumed in the hope of eternally sharing with you the goodness of your Paradise? -Yes, I beg you! -I have no choice? -Hell now or Heaven when death wants to take you. -You give me the choice between two hells! -Yes, Alicia, but one can last for 30 or 40 years and the other for eternity? -I suppose I must resign and say goodbye until 30 or 40 years from now, and I can't even shake the hand I held at the moment of your death! -That's how it should be, Alicia... But I have to ask you something else.... It's about Naomi's mother. I fear that she is being held in a dark space, halfway between Heaven and Hell. For her to free herself from this dark dimension she needs the help of someone alive, who will transmit her the positive energy that will help her to ascend to a higher plane, and you can help her, and at the same time, help yourself to gain your salvation... -Are you asking me to save my rival? -He is no longer your rival, he is a soul, who, like you, deserves to ascend to the dimension of light and come out of the darkness where he may find himself. -And what can I do for her? -Pray for her! -I've never prayed; I wouldn't know how! -You only have to invoke his name and show him your affection. That will be enough to transmit positive energy to her. Also convey this wish to my daughter, Naomi, to pray also for her mother, and between the two of you you will save her. -How sad is my fate! -No, dear Alicia, in the world of the living there is no greater joy than to feel useful and necessary. Spend the rest of your life writing novels with plots that incite generosity and kindness, and you will live happily until your time comes and you join us. -I don't even have the consolation of crying! -Go back to the living and you can ease your heart with weeping. -Farewell then, until death do us part! -Farewell, my dear Alicia, I'll wait for you in Paradise.... His specter rejoins his body, which remains motionless. I cannot hear him, but I can tell from his sad expression that he must be on the verge of tears. Now he brings his hands to his face and must be sobbing bitterly. Poor Alice, no one but her deserves to enter Paradise! 49. In Purgatory (Narrator: Naomi's mother) Why am I locked in this darkness? Is this the fate of the dead? Where am I? I have seen my body frozen on the roadside as my soul ascended to this dark place. Yes, I must be dead, I have been imprudent, and I have paid for it with my life! What will become of my poor Naomi? I intended to save someone from his regrets, and I die with no one to save me from mine! This place is the Hell I deserve! I shall suffer this anguish forever! I think I see a small glow approaching me. Now I distinguish the spectre of a young man.... Oh, my God, it's him, he's dead too! But he is just as he was when I knew him twenty years ago! Yes, it's him; it's the same restless, ambitious young man who read my poems on our college campus; with the same teasing smile; the same charm in his gaze. I am ashamed that he finds me aging, though he is but a ghost. Perhaps he has heard my wailing, Death brings us together again! He approaches me and I can hear his thoughts: -My dear friend and admired poet, we meet again in strange circumstances. I learned of your sad death in the snow when you were about to watch over my deathbed. I do not know why you are in this dark place, but I will help you and I will repay you in death what you have suffered because of me in life. I needed your forgiveness to die with a clear conscience, but my sincere repentance and the help of our daughter and that extraordinary person, Alicia, saved me from hell. -I would have forgiven you, but death intervened. But, for God's sake, can you tell me where I am? -You are halfway between Heaven and Hell; in Purgatory. Your conscience should not have been at peace at the moment of death, and it became contaminated with negative energy, which prevents you from ascending to a new dimension, where I am. But fear not, your daughter Naomi and Alice will take you out of here and you will be able to join me. -I have never wronged anyone, why do I deserve this punishment? -I do not have the answer. Energy and its relation to consciousness has its own rule, but I suppose that the positive or negative energy that our soul accumulates depends on the state of our consciousness at the moment of death. -Then I deserve to be in this sinister place, because I was reckless.... but I had a good cause! -It would have been useless, because I died the same day. It was already too late! -But I did not know the reasons that led you to that brothel that night, and that you tell in your last novel. If I had known, I would have forgiven you from the first meeting. -I have not written a novel describing that unfortunate event! -Naomi sent me a copy that Alicia had given her.... -Alicia! She wrote that book and altered the facts so that you would come to my deathbed to co-sort me. I don't know what she told about that unfortunate event, but your impression was the true one: I betrayed you! -Is this deception also part of my tragic destiny? -Alicia was only trying to save my soul.... -At the cost of condemning mine! -He had set out to prolong my life until you arrived, but I prevented him from doing so. I am once again to blame! But it is too late for regrets. Our destinies are about to be fulfilled. Mine has already been fulfilled, and Alicia and Naomi will help you to fulfill yours as well. None of us deserves Purgatory, much less Hell. We were wrong because we were human, but for the same reason we repented, and we paid for our absolution with suffering. Now it only remains for us to gain Heaven and a whole eternity to immerse ourselves in a beatific calm in the dimension of light. -If this is also my destiny, I can only trust my daughter Naomi and join you in Paradise. Thus concludes a dramatic story that began one day in early spring, because of a strawberry and cream cakes. 50. Sentences (Narrator: Naomi) Alicia called me because she wants to see me about something related to my deceased parents. We will meet this afternoon and have dinner together at my father's apartment, just like in the old days. I have recovered my spirits and I am living a normal life. Fortunately my career takes up all my time and occupies my thoughts. Only in the evenings I feel the absence of my parents, but in reality I have always felt this absence. I am back in my late father's apartment. Alicia has not changed at all and her books, computer and all her personal belongings remain in the same place. She looks very worn out. It is as if she is suffering from some illness. Her gaze is languid and distant. Something is constantly distracting and disturbing her. She welcomes me with a slight smile. She is no longer the strong, self-confident woman. No doubt my father's death has affected her deeply. -Alicia, don't you feel well? You look tired, you look very unwell. -Yes, Naomi, I am not feeling well. I am depressed and sad. -It's because of my father's death! -Yes, that's why... He remains silent, as if he doesn't want to give me any other reasons for his depression. We sit at the table and Alicia serves me what she has cooked for dinner and we eat in silence. -I thought about your mother," he says in a pause, because he seems to have no appetite. I'm not a believer, but I think we should pray for the salvation of her soul.... -You mean his soul didn't deserve to go to Heaven, if it exists? -The circumstances of her death were not natural but accidental, and in these conditions she died without a companion to comfort her and help cleanse her soul of any remorse. She may be in a dimension where she needs our help. -Alicia, you make me uneasy! Are you suggesting that my mother may be in Hell? -If she were in Hell, she would no longer have salvation, but if she is in Purgatory, our prayers can help her to get out of there and go up to Heaven, which is where she deserves to be! -Alicia, you are talking like a believer. Do you really believe in hell, purgatory and heaven? My comment seems to have confused her, and I think she is mulling over her response. -Naomi, I don't know what I believe anymore! I beg you not to ask me any more questions, for I would not know what to answer. But I have a feeling that we must invoke her and show her our affection. You only need to think of her and show her your affection. Wherever she is, she will receive your message, and she will be closer to Heaven. -Alicia, I always thought you and my mother were rivals. -Dear Noemí, we do not compete with the dead. Outside of this world the heart no longer beats and there is no place for emotions like love. There is only goodness in Heaven and evil in Hell. Near Heaven and Hell there is only anxiety and doubts. Author's note Alicia died of sadness two months later. Her heart stopped because it was no longer useful. There was not an atom of negative energy in her soul and she ascended to the dimension of light without the slightest setback. FIN JAN GOSAN ALICIA ENGLISH EDITION Translated from original spanish by deepl.com First edition , July 2016 Several families in a Berlin neighborhood are conissues such as prostitution, xenophobia, racism, and homosexuality, which they face with tolerance, friendship and love 1. Diagnosis Five simple words were all it took for the whole fantastic universe I have created with my novels and in which I have lived apart from this world to collapse: "You suffer from an incurable disease". I have just been told this by the specialist who treats my illness. The messenger waits for my reaction, but I am unable to get an idea of what I have just heard. There is a tense silence. It seems as if the doctor is afraid to go on describing my situation, but he felt he had to be clear so that I would not be under any illusions, and he warned me that I have no more than six months to live, or, in exceptional cases, and if I respond well to treatment, perhaps a year. I leave the hospital reneging on having allowed myself to be diagnosed with the cause of my discomfort. Of course I do not accept the diagnosis. After all, the pains are still bearable. It is a cool, damp morning, as autumn mornings are, but pleasant for a walk. To prove that the diagnosis is not acceptable, I will walk back to my apartment. Why me? Yes, I know many people who suffer from incurable diseases, but for some inexplicable reason I thought I was immune. Now I need some time to come to terms with my mistake. Even to my regret, I have to accept that I am as human as others, and I can suffer from their same diseases. I am tired and I still have more than half of the journey to go. I enter a small park next to the neighborhood church. On one of its benches a beggar is dozing, and when I approach him he looks at me with a clear expression of hatred, because he must feel humiliated by my appearance of a well-placed person. He cannot know that I had just been condemned to die prematurely; if he did, he would have no reason to envy me. I sit down on an adjoining bench, because my legs can't take another step. The beggar looks disgruntled and shuffles around in his rags, as if this were his house and I had entered without knocking. The doctor has created a stigma for me. I am no longer the me-self who just an hour before could do whatever I wanted, but me-self-and-death. From now on, my every thought or act will have to count on it. But I am not resigned. The doctors may be wrong. Perhaps my medical records have been misplaced and are those of another patient. Some inexperienced secretary may have made that terrible mistake. Nature cannot abandon me and life cannot be so irresponsible with me. Fate cannot go against my will, because it is my will that must create my destiny. This can't be happening to me. I still have many new things to admire, many fantastic stories to tell, and, why not, perhaps someone to love. Is this a divine punishment? Am I being condemned to a premature death for supposed sins committed, even though I cannot know the nature of my guilt? A sinner does not need to know the details of his guilt, it is enough for him to suffer the punishment to know that he has sinned. It is perfectly possible that this illness was written in the stars, or can be read in the palm of my hand, without that I should consider it a punishment. But the most reasonable thing is that it is the result of my long nights of voluntary insomnia, giving life to characters that in gratitude lead me to death. But I bear them no grudge. From the beginning I accepted that every work that deserves praise is because in it there is a little bit of our own humanity, and humanity must also have its limits. Perhaps that was my fault: to have created ghosts and presumed to be their god. But without me they would never have existed, so I must be right: I am their god, and therefore I do not deserve to be punished with such cruelty. ZIf that is divine justice, all artists will go to hell and imagination would be persecuted and severely punished. 2. The reaction The great impression and uneasiness that the diagnosis has caused me totally overrides my sense of time. I do not know how long I have been sitting on this bench. While I think of my desolation in some remote part of the universe, I am sure that someone, who already knows my fate, must be feeling sorry for me. It is probably an angel, the same one that appeared in the prayer cards we were given when we were kids in religion classes. Back then I wanted to be an angel too. I wanted to fly, to see the world from above, to migrate to warm lands, to be free like the birds, and, according to those bright pictures, only angels knew how to fly. That's why I wanted to be an angel. My hair stands on end, because I sense that this angel may now be sitting on this very bench, listening to my nostalgic thoughts, futilely trying to console me, because angels and humans, for some reason that only God must know, are incompatible. But I have returned to real time because of the murky, resigned look the beggar gives me from time to time, unable to understand what someone like me is doing sitting on this bench at this hour of the morning, reserved for the homeless. I would like to tell him that I don't know either, but it would be of no use to him. A cold, autumn sun shines, but clean and bright. A cool, damp breeze from a nearby sea moistens my hot face. There are still traces of the morning lightning on the cars and sidewalks. Winter will soon be here. It is inevitable that winter will come to all of us one day, but some of us will not live to see the next spring. The beggar has stood upright and looks at me in wonder. I think that despite his appearance, he must have the ability to read my thoughts. Yes, he knows what I am thinking, because those of us who suffer have the same rictus, the same languor in our eyes, the same curvature of the back, the same reddened eyes, and all that is easy to translate into common language: Desolation. For a few moments he seems undecided. Finally he makes up his mind, and with the gait of one whose muscles are numb, he comes to my bench, but does not sit down. He remains standing, hesitant, undecided. Finally he makes up his mind, and asks me for a cigarette, but unfortunately I don't smoke. I offer him some coins, but he incomprehensibly refuses. His gaze wanders to an indeterminate point, he seems to meditate whether to engage in conversation or return to his world. As if that encounter had not taken place and without making the slightest gesture, he walks again with the same clumsiness that short distance that separates our two worlds, and again wraps himself in his rags to continue dozing. He has no courage to come out of his poverty and I have no courage to accept mine. He has lost confidence in human beings, from whom he only asks for a cigarette; I have lost confidence in myself, from whom I only ask for courage to face my misfortune. The beggar has risen again and comes towards me. He asks me with a gesture of mock humility for the coins I offered him. I don't feel like taking any interest in his situation, I only have some interest in my own. Not even an hour has passed since I have known my condemnation and I have a feeling that before returning to my apartment I will have passed to the phase of rebellion, which is nothing more than the resource of kicking, previous step to the acceptance and submission without defenses or reservations. "Behold the slave of the Lord, be it done unto me according to thy word". The beggar gets impatient, he probably thinks I want to humiliate him and I notice more hatred in his stray look than in the previous one. I hand him the coins and he goes back to his bench without thanking me. He counts them and gives me a contemptuous and coarse look. No doubt I had hoped he would have been more generous. I can't stand his ragged presence any longer and resume my walk, but part of my body burns as if I were already in hell, and I find it hard to walk. Is there a hell? Is there a heaven? Is there a God, and his angels and cherubs? I am horrified to realize my rapid transformation. For the first time I have doubted my deep-rooted secular convictions. Until just a minute ago, hell, heaven and God were something anecdotal; a topic of conversation full of incongruities and fanaticism for the gullible and ignorant; of intellectual blindness and irrationality. And suddenly these theological questions arise again, but with renewed importance. I also sense that my mind will soon go blank, refusing to think, since I could not stop thinking about death and its intricate mysteries. I have to rediscover nothingness, and immerse myself in it until the day of my announced death. 3. It's three in the morning and I can't get to sleep. Just darkness and nothing else. Those figures that the lights of the cars project on the ceiling are the only thing that catches my attention, the rest seems to have vanished. Everything around me is silence, darkness, nothing. Whoever created this absurd word was thinking of me, I have given it its true meaning; its authentic meaning; its oppressive emptiness. At four o'clock in the morning I will still be thinking the same thoughts I am thinking now, and the next hours, the next days until the day of my death I will still have the same thoughts: nothing. I have nothing left to think about except nothingness, and, thinking about nothingness is like not thinking. I leave my mind blank to try to dissuade my brain from reliving bad memories, the good ones I have not forgotten. 824 there is nothing left of all that. It is time for my own final judgment. I have been ambitious, selfish and disloyal. If hell exists, no doubt I will be condemned. I have to admit it, these insistent pains, added to my regrets, have sapped the creativity of my imagination. My latest novel is mediocre, even pathetic. The characters are stillborn and act like real zombies. I think I have lost connection with reality and live in a parallel world. I see the new world but I don't feel it; I hear it but I don't understand it, and I no longer have anyone around me to comment on this chore of time; a confidant to whom you can tell a host of misfortunes without being rejected, ignored, or forgotten. I have crossed from one dimension to another without realizing it, entertained with my dreams of greatness, with the conviction that I would put the world at my feet and now I am its doormat. I have betrayed the only woman I have ever loved. I have despised my friends, and admired my enemies, because I preferred the encouragement of victory after a bitter war against my enemies to the sterile peace of friends. And now I have neither friends nor enemies. Some I have humiliated, and the others have ignored me and rejected my enmity, so that there is nothing left, neither of one nor of the other. I am prostrate on the bed trying to forget that I have a corrupted body, which threatens to destroy my soul and my mind as well. Tonight the sporadic lights of the cars that cross the roof seem to me like souls in pain that warn me that very soon I will be one of them and I will cross the roofs of other damned; that neither heaven 8 hell exist, only the unbearable nothingness. 4. The first sunrise 6 It's finally dawn. I have slept two or three refreshing hours. It is a relief to sleep; to be able to have the opportunity to meet with the dearest people, but not the real ones, but the ones that your mood needs, and that during wakefulness sleep in your imagination. Only in dreams things happen as we wish them to happen; without dreams the soul would have nowhere to take refuge, nowhere to nest and sing its song, it would be prey to the harsh and severe reality. I do not know who gave us the faculty to dream, but it must have been someone very understanding and well aware of the weaknesses of the human being. Maybe it was the God that religions talk about, but I cannot accept it, because I simply do not believe in anything. I have even stopped believing in myself. He who lives in nothingness cannot believe in anything. But it is dawn and it is my hour for optimism; the most awaited moment, because light must be the cause of all creation, while darkness is in charge of destroying it, of plunging creation into an abyss of no return, the same that must await us after death. I have thought a lot about death, especially about my death; about my irreversible and early death. I would like to believe in transmigration, because life is not destroyed, only transformed. It would be a comfort to be able to believe that moments after my last breath to be part of a new life, somewhere on Earth or in the Universe. After all, we come from it and we will return to it. But my room has been flooded with light and now I see things as they are and not as I dream them. I see on the shelf meticulously arranged by thickness, color and height my novels, on which I have spent, or perhaps worn out, all my life, and some photos of remote and unrecoverable times. The best novels I wrote when my mind and my imagination had wings, because they were young and free, and understood each other: what the imagination created my disciplined mind wrote. Most of my novels have been a resounding success, but the last one was tainted with my illness. On my desk, next to the window through which I look out on my part of the world, I see that the computer that in better days constantly provoked me, leaving me hardly any respite, no time for rest, remains inactive and silent. I could only hear the exciting and rapid sound of the keys describing on the illuminated screen the images that gushed like a spring of fresh water from my exuberant imagination. Then this machine was an extension of my mind and my spirit, now it is a common computer, like thousands of others, without soul and without activity, because I no longer have anything to tell. The keyboard seemed to me like a universe, with which one could express even the deepest philosophical thoughts, write the most passionate dialogues, or describe the most beautiful scenery. Everything was there, at sight, you just had to choose the right letters, in the right form and with the right rhythm. That was another life. Each character that came out of that now inert keyboard completely disrupted reality: they were the real ones, the rest was a dream. I felt them so alive that I often invoked them convinced that they would appear in my room, and we would discuss their future as a character in the novel. I always had the feeling that they were unhappy with their role, because I never got to know them as they really were, even though I had created them myself. But that was before the diagnosis; before my walking became clumsy and unsteady; long before the first symptoms of my illness made me lose consciousness because of an intense pain arising from some vague part of the inside of my body. But I had a premonition of my illness many years before. I may have had the presentiment from birth, so I lived with urgency, wrote with urgency and also grew old with the same urgency. Now I can rest and calm down, there is no longer any reason for urgency. 5. A dignified death I have discarded all hope. I know I am going to die, but against my will. I cannot accept that nature will decide for me. I have to anticipate its blind impulses; its irrational destruction. Only I can decide when and how I should die. It is a thought that horrifies me, but perhaps I must put an end to my life myself. Suicide? Would I be able to do it? But how? I don't want to die a violent death. By resorting to sedatives? But, knowing my situation, no doctor would prescribe them. I never thought it would be so difficult to attempt against one's own life. I envy those who are fortunate enough to die in their sleep, because the greatest difficulty for a suicidal person is to make the last decision of his life, because it is not possible to rectify it. Perhaps I could resort to euthanasia, but I do not want to die where the law allows it, nor do I want my death to be a commercial exchange. I would like to die by the sea, at the dusk of an autumn twilight, to take its beauty with me into eternity. Can't the wishes of a dying person be fulfilled? Why can't mine be fulfilled? But I am talking about me; planning my death by my own hands and by my own will. I intend to be myself the murderer who destroys everything I have created; to put an end to the fruit of my youthful illusions, my ambitions consummated after many years of loneliness and sadness, to my pleasant memories. At least if nature kills me, I will not be responsible for this homicide. No, I cannot attempt against myself. No tree would destroy its own fruit. But if I do not have enough courage to attempt against my body, I have to silence my conscience, limit the gloomy thoughts and close the eyes of imagination, the only one responsible for my sufferings, because we do not suffer if we do not imagine. So, do I have to let this terrible disease take its course? How will I bear this long agony? What stimulus will I count on? I can't imagine waiting impassively for death lying in a hospital bed, my mind dazed by painkillers and my vision blurred, foolishly fixed on some spot in the room. No, that is not a dignified way to die. There must be another, more humane and less painful way. Maybe the only worthy way to die is in that place you call home, and to be next to someone who feels true affection for you; that you can shake his hand until the last breath is lost, because it is through the hands that souls communicate and express their desires and feelings, so you can take his affection and his smile to eternity, although my eyes no longer see, my ears no longer hear and my body no longer feels anything. That is the only worthy way to die! A wise but useless reflection, because I don't have a home or anyone who feels so much affection for me. This apartment is not a home, because it lacks the essential: a woman. It is only a place of residence; a comfortable refuge; the right space for a writer; a gilded cage where to let the imagination run free. Only a woman can turn a station waiting room into a home, because she is the home. It is in her arms, in her bosom, in her feminine energy. Home is in the bed where a woman lies. As for someone who feels enough affection for me to watch over my agony and shake the weak hand of a dying man, unfortunately I haven't heard from her for many years. She was my first and only love, the person who stimulated my imagination and my creativity. To her I owe what I am and the memories that have inspired most of my novels. But back then my blind ambition was stronger than my feelings. We were united and separated by our passion for literature. We were both confident in our talents and had not the slightest doubt about our future successes. Our relationship inspired his best poems, for which I was flattered and transported to another world, but providence had a painful fate in store for him. The plot of my first novel was also the fruit of our relationship: the story of a failed poetess who describes her suicide in her last poem - a bitter paradox of fate! She helped me to correct my notable literary defects as a beginner, even typed the manuscript and suggested that I send it to a well-known literary contest for beginners. She shared my illusions and ambitions with generosity and without the slightest shadow of envy. He gave himself entirely to this work, which finally bore its unexpected fruits: I won the first prize! What followed is the cause of my regrets and I will never be able to forgive myself. A well-known literary agent was interested in me, and assured me that I had great literary talent and that in one or two years she would make me the most read and admired writer of that time. I was deeply flattered and accepted her bet. She suggested the theme of my second novel: a romantic story with a happy ending, and I had no difficulty in imagining the plot, I only had to add some new scenes to my own personal experiences. In this second novel it was she who revised and corrected the numerous stylistic flaws and grammatical errors of the first manuscript. We used to work in her own home, in an atmosphere of intimacy and familiarity, created to seduce me and make me literally fall into her arms. He had seen in me not only a talented writer, but also a lover. Unfortunately for my faithful companion, my agent was a woman with the appeal of mature yet beautiful women, with a young spirit and great experience in the arts of seduction, so it was impossible for me to resist. In a short time she managed to completely dominate my will. I spent my days in a frenetic program of promotion of my novel that barely allowed me to dedicate a few minutes to the memory of another woman who had to suffer in silence every time my image, with a studied smile of an arrogant winner, appeared in the media. The few moments I did not dedicate to my promotion I had to occupy them in satisfying her desires, always unsatisfied, not as my agent but as my lover. Although there were times when I was aware of my disloyal behavior, I could not give up the vain feeling of being above the common people; of dominating their wills, turning them into sycophants and my admirers. Since then there has been no peace for my spirit and I have known neither true friendship nor, much less, the passionate feeling of love. Now it is too late, because both friendship and love are like a beautiful plant, it needs time to bloom. 6. Memories Sometimes I wonder what would have become of me if I had not won that unexpected prize. I would possibly be married, have two or three children, a more prominent abdomen and could have found a good job in an insurance company, where I would have been promoted to assistant manager by now. We would live in a nice house with enough rooms for everyone, located in a quiet residential suburb. We would have two dogs, my wife's hysterical Yorkshire and a larger breed, plus a Siamese cat. Two of my children would already be going to university. The eldest would study law, and would already have secured a job in my company, and my middle daughter would study journalism, because she believed she had a vocation as a writer, and would have already published a book on the web with a romantic theme. The little one, because we would most probably have two females, would still be in high school and would wear a dental prosthesis to correct the deviation of her teeth. My wife would be president of some cultural association, and every first Saturday of the month our large living room would become a meeting room, where a dozen active mothers of families, and some retired widower, would discuss the details of an ambitious cultural program. We would have a good relationship with our neighbors. He might be a top executive of a multinational pet food company, and she would run a small, exclusive clothing boutique in our residential area, which in all likelihood would be a ruinous business. Every summer my wife, myself and our youngest daughter would spend two weeks in a popular seaside resort, where we would have an apartment booked every year on the 15th floor of a building on the third line of the sea, while our older children would take advantage of the summer to follow intensive English courses in London or New York. Is that what I missed? No; it's too conventional an assumption that I would never have accepted. But I don't want to think of my life with that woman as if it were the plot of one of my novels. She is a person and I must not confuse her with a character; our relationship was not a novel. Sometimes I don't know how to distinguish dream from reality, because memories eventually become dreams, and dreams eventually become reality. Everything could have been different if I had not been so blind and ambitious and had not fallen into the arms of my literary agent. But soon her eagerness to feel young and attractive no longer found sufficient stimulus in me, and she found herself a new lover, another ambitious young writer. I did not feel her betrayal at all, rather it was a liberation, because I also needed new stimuli to continue the meteoric rise of my popularity. Then I tried to recover my first love, but I lost track of her, it gave the impression that she had emigrated to another planet or had been swallowed up by the earth, because she had disappeared from all the means that could identify her whereabouts. Discouraged by the futile search, I tried to seek solace in one of my young female admirers. It was not difficult for me to seduce them, I could even choose among the many young girls who idolized me. I chose her not for her intelligence but for her body, because my capacity for love had been nullified by my betrayal. Unfortunately, despite her attractiveness, my constant remorse made me impotent and insensitive, so my relationship with my young lovers was brief and frustrating. My remorse led me to accept loneliness and I gave myself body and soul to my work. But the theme of my novels changed radically, the previous plots always had a happy ending, the new ones became unhappy, negative and with tragic endings, in which the protagonist of the story invariably died. But far from declining, my popularity continued to grow, because in our time there are hardly any relationships with a happy ending, and my readers identified better with the new dramatic twist of my tragic plots. 7. Ella Yes, despite all these years, I still keep her image alive, because she has been the one who has inspired my most beloved female characters. I have described her so many times that I could not forget her even if I tried. And if my memory should play a trick on me and erase her image, I only have to read again and again the novels where she is present to recover her intact, just as I have kept her for the last twenty years. But the years go by and leave their horrible mark. Maybe if I passed her in the street I wouldn't recognize her. What havoc has time done to her childish face and rosy cheeks? What color are her curly blond hair, always tousled, tangled between my fingers? And her breasts, small but sensual? What must not have changed is her sincere and tender look, nor the blue color of her eyes. How much I have longed for her in my long sleepless nights giving life to characters with her qualities! How much I would have given to feel her hands on my sore shoulders for those endless hours trying to recreate the world with the fantasies of my exhausted imagination! And how many mornings I woke up hugging my pillow, waking up from a dream in which I took her in my arms, and lying on a fragrant freshly cut lawn, we contemplated a pristine blue sky, which our eyes could barely contemplate a tiny part of its immensity. I met her in the faculty canteen one day in the early spring of 1997, the year Dario Fo won the Nobel Prize for literature, which I secretly aspired to win someday. She stood in front of me in the cafeteria line and pretended to hold her cup of coffee and a huge strawberry-cream cake with one hand, because the other was holding several books of poetry. I offered to hold the books for him, but he declined. Finally, as feared, the coffee cup, the cake and his precious books rolled on the floor. Then she did accept my help. While she cleaned up the pieces of cake that had smeared the books, I got a new cup of coffee and the last remaining slice of cake. But as fate would have it, that early spring morning she was left without her coffee and her delicious strawberry and cream cake, because I tripped over a misplaced chair and, once again, coffee and cake ended up on the floor. That coincidence in our clumsiness we interpreted it as a sign of destiny, that we were made for each other. The days and months that followed our eventful meeting were simply glorious. We discovered our respective vocations and ambitions, and agreed, sealed with a kiss, to walk together on the road to glory, which our youthful optimism considered conquered. We used to sit on the soft grass of our campus and exchange notes with our respective creations. I would read and appreciate her poetry and she would read my stories and we would discuss them in heated literary debates. Even today I still remember one of her poems, dedicated to me, of course: If your heart were foam, I would be ocean; If your soul were heaven, I would be cloud; If your gaze were rain, I would be a field; If your hands were water, I would be thirsty. We attended all cultural events related to literature, and we were considered "Les enfants terribles" of book presentations, because of our exhaustive questions. I think authors were afraid of us. We didn't miss any biographical film of writers. We made plans for the future, for when we were rich and famous. We agreed that we would spend half the year in Paris and the other half in Mallorca, in a small house on some cliff and that from the bedroom window we could watch the sunrise over the Mediterranean Sea. We had even decided to have our first child when I turned 30, and to have enough time to consolidate our respective literary careers. All those wonderful fantasies were happening before I won that damned prize. I realize now that I was sure of what my bright future would be like with all sorts of details, but I wasn't sure what I was like, and I barely endured the first test that fate put in my path. 8. The message I have barely had time to reflect and be fully aware of my pitiful fate and tomorrow I have to appear in public and make the presentation of my latest novel. I am the slave of my own success, a prisoner of the clauses of a draconian contract. I have long since ceased to be free and become an admired slave. I would give everything I own to go back and restart my life with her, and that I would never have had the clumsiness to submit my first novel and a literary contest, only to have the misfortune of winning it. But it's too late now. Now I will be back on the cover of specialized magazines, but to announce my inevitable death. They will write eulogies full of eulogies and virtues that I surely do not have, but the dead are extolled or sullied, but rarely respected. Surely the sales of my books will triple, so my untimely death is a magnificent business for my publishing house, for the printers and for the bookstores. They will mourn my death with crocodile tears. My agent will visit me repeatedly to secure his commission after my death. The publisher will also visit me, and with affected sadness, will make me sign a new contract to ensure the exclusivity of my books when I leave this world. I will receive thousands of condolences from my admirers, and they will be so hypocritical as to wish for my speedy recovery, but deep down my death is much more morbid and exciting for them. And what will become of my work? How long will it remain in the memory of my current admirers? A dead writer is only profitable as long as his funerals and tributes last, then other living writers will occupy my void, and they will surely be victims of my same disease. I am not likely to survive long. I have always had the feeling that I was writing what readers wanted to read not what I wanted to write. I will never know what kind of writer I am because I have never really tested myself. It has all come too easy to be important. There is no greater misfortune for a writer of vocation than to win a contest at a young age nor worse torture than to succeed at something you don't like. To write what your own intuition dictates, it is necessary not to think about readers at least until you are forty. I am one of those victims. I try to put these pathetic thoughts out of my mind by reading some of the numerous messages I receive every day. Today I don't want to read that chorus of praise from those who seem to be born to admire anyone who has their name printed somewhere other than on their ID card or in the mailbox. Most of them admire me only because I have hundreds of other admirers and followers, but they don't really know why they admire me. They all expect the same thing from me: a few words of response from the myth they are subjugated to in order to feel blessed by divine grace. Those of these unconditional admirers are a few short sentences that they must have saved in their computer memory to send to their favorite writers: "Very good your last novel", "I was hooked by your last novel", "I enjoyed your last novel", "I loved your last novel"; etc. And what can I answer? I could give them a huge thank you and have them divide it among themselves. But there is one message that catches my attention. It is that of a young woman. I can't explain it, but her image makes me uneasy and uneasy. Perhaps it is because there is something common in our features; or because of her haughty and provocative look, and yet, there is something of sweetness in her face. I have the impression that her arrogance hides a vulnerable personality. I almost don't dare to read her message, I have a feeling it will not be favorable and I don't have the day to endure criticism. After all, praise is a balm, it doesn't cure but it soothes; criticism is a bitter medicine, it tastes bad but it cures. I dare to read it: "Hi, I am an aspiring writer who has read all your novels and in my humble opinion there is only one that has a good motivation: the first one, the rest are acceptable, but lack this important quality. It seems as if after the first novel you have lost the motivation of the first one. As for your last novel, I am sorry to say that it seems as if you have lost both motivation and inspiration. Forgive me for being so frank, but that is my opinion. Naomi." Whoever you are, Naomi, you have discovered my best kept secret! I confess that this severe criticism from an arrogant and conceited young lady has affected me. I shouldn't worry, all the invitations for the presentation of my new novel have been booked for a week now, and the reviews have not been very effusive but not bad either, but what surprises me is the certainty of her judgments, which fully coincide with the reality of my literary career. It is true that the novels after the first one I wrote were influenced by my literary agent, not by a human being, and that they were not written by the artist but by the professional with a good style. And that face... that expression... those features so similar to mine; the clear forehead, the dimples in the cheeks and the slight droop of the eyelids... they are identical. But I wonder who is this mysterious Naomi? There is nothing in her profile that identifies her, not where she studied, not where she lives, no pictures, no blog; nothing! I answer: "Dear Noemí, your harsh criticism has hurt my self-esteem, but I appreciate your sincerity. I have no doubt that you will be a great writer. I am aware that none of my novels will deserve even a modest corner of posterity. If I wrote with posterity in mind, I would lose practically all my readers. In the times we live in, no writer can be above the intellectual level of his readers, because that would make them feel guilty and ignorant. If you appear half a dozen times on a TV channel with a large audience and you have some physical attraction, you automatically become the idol of thousands of people who were born to be followers. The media has so much power that if they had their way, they could win the Nobel Prize for the editor of the crime chronicles of a provincial newspaper. If the media have idealized you, you can write anything, because they won't stop admiring you. My latest novel is not brilliant, it is as normal and ordinary as the normal and ordinary readers who will enjoy reading it, because it speaks in their same language, it has their same vices and virtues. Anyway, that is the novel they would write themselves, but I have spared them that painful work. Most of us writers today are not chasing readers but journalists and image-makers, who are the ones who really rule the world. If you dream of being an out-of-the-ordinary writer, your life will be spent within that same out-of-the-ordinary dream, and you will never be able to live in reality. I look forward to your understanding. Kind regards" I send it. I find it a good rejoinder, but I have to admit that your criticism has merit. I don't owe my fame to my supposed talent but to the popularity that my first novel gave me, and that she inspired me, and the intelligent marketing of my protector. I have no more merit than to have been able to interpret her advice, her deep knowledge of the psychology of readers and her wise ideas, with my ability to write them in an acceptable style. But I am sure that there are hundreds of writers with much more talent than me who have not been as lucky as me. I just received a new message from Naomi. I wonder how she interpreted my reply. I could delete it. After all, it's just the opinion of an immature young girl, I don't have to take it into consideration. I have plenty of admirers and I am no longer worried about success or failure, because there will be no more novels to criticize. She is right: I lack muse and inspiration. But I am curious to know her opinion and I open it: "Yes, good novels need good readers, that's why they are so scarce. But good writers make good readers, and if you write mediocre novels you will always have mediocre readers. I look forward with great interest to hearing your views on the presentation of your new novel. Best regards and see you tomorrow. Noemí." It hurts me, but I accept it. You are absolutely right: each reader gets the author he or she deserves. No doubt I am one of those to blame for the mediocrity of the readers, because I have been satisfied with their compliments without worrying about whether or not they were well-founded. What can I say about the novel if I have never written a real novel? 9. Hallucinations Another endless sleepless night. I see mysterious shadows creeping stealthily around my bed. No doubt I suffer from hallucinations. I have had to hide all the pictures that decorated this room, because when I looked at them it seemed as if they were moving and coming out of their frames. Sometimes I look at my hands and it seems to me that they are someone else's and not mine. Any small object becomes an insect crawling on the shelves of my bookcase, or on my study table, I even see them moving on the quilt of my bed. I know they are simple hallucinations caused by my tired eyesight and depressed mood, but they distress me. I cannot bear this suffering until the day I die. I have to do something. I need her forgiveness. I have to find her even if I have to go to hell itself, from which I am only a step away. Why hasn't he contacted me in all these years? I am a public figure. She must have known how to contact me. A wound can't stay open for twenty years. They say that time heals everything, but they don't say what kind of wounds it heals. There are some for which, it seems, time does not pass, and probably some of them are disloyalty and betrayal. But she may also already be married with a family, and no longer feel any interest in me. Or, who knows, and I am distressed at the very thought, but she may already be dead. The ghosts keep haunting my bed. It seems as if all the spirits are conspiring against me to destroy what little judgment I have left, but I will resist; this is not a good time for madness. I have taken from the shelf my latest novel and read the passage in which the heroine discovers that her lover is cheating on her. It is an ordinary love story, and in real life cheating is also ordinary, and I have personal experiences to write these scenes realistically. Another dawn without any reason for optimism. I must have slept two or three hours, but I feel tired and sore, because the few hours I have slept have been occupied by a horrible nightmare. Fortunately I can only remember the final moments. I was bedridden in a hospital bed, but the room was painted red and a faceless nurse was injecting me with a dose of morphine. Scenes of a butcher butchering pigs could be seen in front of my bed. The pigs would talk and ask the butcher, "Why me?" But the butcher would not listen to their cries and would unload one after another of his deadly blows. Incomprehensibly it was my turn, and I asked him again the same anguished question, "Why me?" with the same result. And the butcher was preparing to settle his killing blow, when he suddenly transformed into her, smiling, just as I last saw her on campus. She stroked my dazed head. She gazed at me for a few moments, and barely as a whisper, she exclaimed: "Spreads his wings the angel of death, because he has an important assignment from Lucifer. When you are suspended by its deadly claws, I will not cry for you but for me, for I will not be able to accompany you to hell, as was my wish." And he vanished, transforming into the butcher, who again was about to lay his deadly blow when fortunately a call from my cell phone woke me up from this horrible dream. It is my current literary agent. -I'm sorry to call you at this hour, but I want you to know that I'm sorry; I'm really sorry! -His ambiguous message causes me great concern -I'm sorry about your diagnosis! -How do you know about my diagnosis? -Someone from the hospital has leaked the news of your incurable disease and it's circulating all over the social networks! I didn't know it was so serious! Believe me I'm sorry; I don't know what to say...! -My agent feels obliged to take charge of the situation and comments visibly affected: "If you are not feeling well, we can cancel the presentation. But this would mean breaching the contract with the publisher and would bring us a lot of headaches. Only death can be a legal justification. No, I have to make the presentation. Sooner or later they will know my state of health. A writer without a contract is free to do whatever he wants, because he has nothing published. On the other hand, a writer with a contract and who has published has something to justify his slavery. We write to have a reason to lose our freedom. That's how paradoxical the writer's world is. We arranged to have breakfast together in a café near my apartment. My agent was accompanied by a young woman who made a great impression on me. But not because of her beauty, but because of her appearance and curious attire. She wears a wide leather jacket of a striking scarlet color, which contrasts with her straight black hair, cropped at the nape of her neck, pale as snow. She wears tight black tights and a black skirt that covers a small part of her thighs. But the most striking thing is her huge military-style boots, which she laces up with red laces. As for her face, it seems vulgar to me, with nothing to highlight. I have the impression that with that flashy outfit she intends us not to pay attention to her face, which she herself must be aware of its lack of attractiveness or charm. However, her gaze and gestures are simple and frank. Just by her manner of greeting I deduce that she is cultured and intelligent. The young lady is the latest represented by my agent. According to him, she has talent. He wanted her to join us for our interview because she needs to be introduced to the world of literature, and he felt I was a good place to start. The young woman seems somewhat intimidated by my presence. She has spilled her coffee twice by shaking it too vigorously. She doesn't dare look at me straight on, and doesn't take her eyes off her shaken coffee cup. I wonder what he is thinking. He waits for me to speak to him, and the truth is, I don't know what we can talk about other than the weather. I break the silence by commenting that it's been a very wet autumn. The young woman nods slightly, but only out of politeness. My trivial remark confuses my agent, who doesn't want to waste time with such trifles. From a pocket of her jacket she pulls out a newspaper clipping and hands it to me. It is the latest published review of my novel. I ask him to summarize it for me, that's why I have an agent: -It's good," he says, not hiding the businessman's satisfaction, "even suggesting it could be the novel of the year. I don't discuss it with my agent, but I suspect this reviewer must collect a check every month from my publisher, and doesn't want to antagonize them. There are few honest critics left, or if they are, they are ignorant of the fundamentals of literature. For the sake of this millennial art I would have preferred a bad review, as this novel deserves. On another occasion I would have rejoiced, but now that I must give an account to my conscience for all my actions, it saddens me, because even now the wise phrase: "The hour of truth has come" makes sense. And the truth is that it is a bad novel. The young writer congratulates me and assures me that I deserve it, and seems to expect my thanks. I think she is trying to suggest some topic of conversation in which she can participate. -Forgive me for butting in," he finally decides to intervene, "but I think it's a good novel, too. I ask him what motivates his opinion. -It's well written and the characters are very well characterized," she answers a bit embarrassed, because she wasn't expecting my question. It has very well-drawn descriptions and the dialogues are very natural. Yes, I think your last novel is very good. It is evident that this young girl belongs to this generation in which ideals are rare, because she has omitted the fundamental: the plot. A poem does not need a plot, words are enough, but a novel cannot exist without a plot. The plot is what links fiction with reality, and a good novel must bear witness to the reality of its time through the plot; of the author's commitment to his time. If this linkage does not exist, it cannot transcend its immediacy, and instead of a novel we write a pamphlet of three hundred pages, decorated with a suggestive cover, and with an unjustified price. I don't put this idea to her because she probably doesn't feel committed to her times. I ask her what she thinks of the argument and she seems to mull over the answer: -It's a classic theme," he answers without much conviction. The betrayal of the one we love. It's a good argument. But it is rude of me not to show interest in your work. I am also interested in his idea of literature. I ask him which genre of literature he is most attracted to, and without barely letting me finish my sentence, he replies: -The novel, of course! It must be so, because her face has been transfigured with the charm of enthusiasm. She seems pleased by my interest; it is evident that she wished to communicate with me, but as a writer to a writer. She has succeeded. I ask her what is the reason for her enthusiasm for narrative, and her answer leaves no room for doubt: -Only a novel can tell a complex story that is a complete world. The short story is very brief and the tale can only tell a part of that world. No doubt this young woman knows what she wants. Now we'll see if she also knows why she wants it. I ask about her motivation. -My motivation? I've never asked myself this question, I think I was born already motivated by the love of literature! I have many reasons to be motivated," she answers with a sudden and astonishing self-confidence. But perhaps the main one is that through literature many values can be transmitted that can help each generation to be morally superior to the previous one. That's a good answer. I have been wrong about this young woman and I have underestimated her. I ask her the last question: -And what is literature for you? -Literature is a way of telling stories that provoke in the reader the feeling of the beauty of language, the creativity of the imagination and the understanding of the reality in which they come from or wish to live. When the words do not prevent the imagination from seeing, hearing or feeling what you are reading, because they are all in perfect harmony, with none missing or surplus. That is my opinion. I am impressed by her response, and I congratulate my agent on his wise choice. The young lady is out of the ordinary, but that doesn't mean she will have the success she undoubtedly deserves. 10. The walk I say goodbye to my agent and his young companion, to whom I give encouragement to continue because I believe he has the necessary talent for success, but I also warn him of the price he will have to pay for his passion. A useless warning, because passion overflows all attempts at restraint. He will go on his way without heeding my warnings. My agent asks me what I plan to do until the time of the presentation, and if I would like to have lunch together as well. Maybe he's thinking that it's not a day to leave me alone and he needs company. I tell her that I had thought about taking a long walk in the park, but I decline her invitation; I have never liked restaurants. The young woman also seems concerned about my mood and makes me a tempting offer: She would like to accompany me on my walk and then go to her apartment, where she will cook for me one of the specialties of her region. It sounds like a good program and I accept. I notice in his invitation the desire to communicate his concerns and show me his works to know my opinion, but also a sudden affection for me, which must have a large dose of compassion. It is cloudy and at intervals clearings open through which the sunlight penetrates, and all the foliage is illuminated as if it were a fresco painted by some genius of those who probably inhabit this park. My young companion seems to be happy that I have accepted his invitation, and walks beside me but in silence. I have the impression that he has already achieved his purpose and does not think he needs any more arguments or reasons to convince me. There is no doubt that he admires me, which makes me feel uncomfortable. No person is more admirable than another, what is admired are the results of his education, intuition or creativity, but not the human being himself. Since we all deserve the same respect and consideration, there cannot be some more admirable than others. I try to make him see it with a committed personal question: -I would love to know what idea you have formed about me; and why were you interested in meeting me personally? The question has caught her off guard. She meditates for a few moments on her answer, losing her gaze in an undefined point of the leafy walk, sketching a smile that must emerge from her thoughts. She turns to me, literally glares at me, and doesn't hesitate in her surprising answer: -Because I am in love with you! Now the surprised one is me, but the years have made me skeptical and limited my ability to feel affection for others. But there is another reason for me to reject her surprising statement: I have no other mission in my remaining life than to find the woman to whom I owe what this young woman admires. As long as I do not repay my debt my feelings are blocked. I let her know this in the least painful way possible: -Sometimes we writers live our fantasies as if they were reality. I'm sure you love a character in your novels who looks like me. But your answer surprises me even more than the first one: -I have told you that I am in love with you, but not that you are in love with me. You cannot prevent me from loving you, but neither can I prevent you from feeling no affection for me. I know you don't find me attractive, you may even consider me ugly, and you may not like the way I dress. I choose whom I love, but I don't pretend that you are also my lover. I am content to be able to walk beside him, and if he feels like it, to taste my casseroles, but he must know that I love him! Her generosity is sublime: she gives her feelings in exchange for accompanying the faltering step of a dying man, and having a guest at her table. No doubt this ungraceful young woman has an immense heart and can afford to squander her affections. I must not allow this waste, she may later need them for herself. -But you yourself have witnessed that you have fallen in love with a sick man who will soon leave this world! -I know, and I feel a great sadness, but you are a writer too, and you make people love each other who exist only in your imagination. Why can't I do the same? When the unfortunate day comes when you are gone, I will still have you in my imagination, and I will still love you as I love you now. It is inevitable that I will ask you this crucial question: -But what is so attractive about a dying curentón that awakens such a passion in you? -There are very few men who have been able to penetrate the soul of a woman. We admire the man who has brilliant ideas, but we love the man not for his intelligence but for being essentially a man, whereas we can fall madly in love with a gigolo, a greasy-handed mechanic or a smelly sewer man, as long as they are essentially men! If he is also intelligent and creative, then he is irresistible! -Do I belong to that category? He doesn't answer me, but his smile answers my question. 11. Lunch The apartment of my young lover is a museum of nostalgia, because it is full of objects that remind her of her place of origin, which she must miss deeply. It is a single room where a certain chaos reigns. His desk is next to the only window in the room, and it is full of pages with printed texts, which must be his writings, where his laptop appears. On the printer is a small stuffed panda bear, and on the window ledge, arranged in a row, is a veritable collection of assorted objects, possibly gifts or souvenirs from trips. His bed is a large convertible sofa, because there is not enough room for a regular bed. On the opposite side of the window there is a space separated by a wide curtain that must be your kitchen. And next to it a table where no more than two pieces of cutlery can fit, as long as you remove the huge bouquet of flowers that are beginning to wilt. The table is also occupied by the remains of a previous meal, such as unwashed dishes, half-full glasses or leftover bread. It is obvious that he was not expecting visitors, so he hastens to justify the mess: -Excuse this mess, but I wasn't expecting visitors, I'll tidy it up in a moment. Despite the clutter the set is intimate and cozy. I'd rather you didn't tidy it up. -Would you like to read some of my writings while I prepare lunch? I beg you not to address me as you, because we have already made enough confidences to be on a first-name basis. -I will read them with great interest. He tries to put order in the pages scattered on his desk until he has gathered about twenty pages. -It's the first pages of my new novel," she says with some embarrassment, "it's the love story between a young dancer and her choreographer... who is inspired by you. He insists on not calling me by my first name. I suppose his love for me includes this distant treatment. If he were to call me by my first name, some of his charm would be lost. I have to accept that. I like his style. I am particularly struck by this passage: "A talented dancer understands the language of music and translates it into the harmonious movements of her agile body. You no longer need a choreographer, but a lover who interprets the music that moves your body!" The meal was delicious and for her, moreover, a source of longing. I still have a few hours to go before the presentation. She suggests that I get some sleep to be clearer. I accept the idea. We unfold the bed and I lie down. She covers me with a light blanket, closes the window shade and locks herself in her tiny kitchen to do the dishes and the rest of the service. I hear the bustle of the kitchen almost in my sleep, and it brings back images of times gone by, when she also cooked for me. I am awakened by the sound of crying. It is the young woman crying. She is lying next to me, and hurries to wipe away her tears when she notices that I wake up. -Is something wrong, Alicia? I ask him in alarm. But his answer puzzles me: -Forgive me, I am a fool; I was crying with happiness to have you next to me, in my own bed! I could never have imagined that this young, scantily clad, strikingly dressed young woman was such an exceptional human being. No doubt that appearances can be deceiving. I feel the need to know more about her. I let her approach me, because I feel more paternal than passionate affection for her. I beg her to tell me something about her. She comes closer to me. I think she wants me to hold her in my arms. I cannot rebuff her and do her bidding. She smiles gratefully at me. -I'm just a provincial girl, ugly and clumsy," I try to protest, but she interrupts me. No, it's true, I'm ugly, that's why I dress in flashy clothes, although it doesn't do much good. The boys didn't like me, even though more than one tried to rape me. I grew up without the slightest affection and soon I had no other alternative to mitigate my loneliness than to invent lovers and friends. I felt real disgust for boys of my age, violent and rude. I fell in love for the first time with a mature, married man. He treated me gently and, although I would have allowed it, he never asked me to make love. It's my fate, he wasn't in love with me either, I think he felt pity. I had no choice but to leave my city, and I came here. Literature was my only friend. My novels were my only consolation. I managed to interest a modest publisher to publish one of my novels, although I had to pay for the edition out of my own pocket. That was almost two years ago. I sent the manuscript to several publishers, but all of them rejected it. Someone advised me to look for a literary agent, and I found his agent on the Internet. I sent him a copy of my novel, and the rest you know. I remain silent because I am impressed by her story, so different from mine! I have betrayed those who loved me; she has been faithful to those who did not love her. Her story makes me feel even more guilty. But she has omitted something and I can no longer accept that I am not interested: -But I am missing in your story! -Yes, of course; you're missing! I met him during the presentation of his previous novel. I was sitting in the last row. I looked like a normal young woman then, and you approached me several times, but you must have been invisible, because you didn't so much as glance at me and I didn't dare to catch your eye. I have always been somewhat shy and introverted, but that day I was out of this world. When I saw you on the rostrum, with your shirt unbuttoned, with your mocking and provocative gesture, so sure of yourself, something stirred in my whole body, and I immediately understood that I had fallen in love with you, but with the man, I didn't know the writer yet -he remains silent for a few moments, as if reliving that moment in his imagination, because I feel as if his body was shaking; he smiles as if now he finds his sudden passion for me funny-. When I left his presentation, I don't know how long I walked around aimlessly, trying to hold back tears. I had fallen in love with the most admired man in the literary world. I still ache from the applause of his brilliant speech. When he finished and came down from what for me was already a throne, for you were already my king, all the young women in the room surrounded him because they wanted to touch their idol. They were all beautiful and wore brand name clothes. I was a provincial girl, ugly, shy and clumsy, and I wore old-fashioned clothes. That night I stayed up all night, crying non-stop. When a woman falls in love, the lover is part of her flesh and soul, and his absence hurts as if both were torn away. We don't think we can survive these terrible wounds," she pauses again, but now she seems to be reliving those bitter moments. Unexpectedly she takes one of my hands and caresses it. That comforts her and she continues her story. I spent some anguished days, but I finally resigned myself and tried to put the fire that burned me down, but I didn't stop loving him, only to numb his memory. But I resolved to one day be on the same level as him, so that he would notice me. I changed my wardrobe and frantically wrote one novel after another in which somehow you were always the protagonist - he exchanges a meaningful glance with me and continues - You can't imagine the joy that invaded me when I saw your photograph in the office of the agent who had agreed to represent me! -Yes, I can imagine! -I interrupt her. -And now you are here, in my own bed, and you hold me in your arms. Have I no reason to weep for happiness? 12. The presentation The account of her generous love for me, which I certainly do not deserve, changes my affection for this sensitive young woman, who has the evocative name of Alicia. I no longer find her ugly, nor clumsy; I see not her face but her soul, and I find her beautiful. I would like to let her know this, but I fear I may change my mind when my remorse for my unforgivable betrayal returns. Only if I rid myself of them could I even reciprocate her love for me. But I cannot forget that I must not delude myself into enjoying the pleasures of life, for before my feelings can be free to love whomever I wish, I will have died. Alicia does not deserve this punishment. It's time to go to the presentation venue. My agent has called me on my cell phone, he is worried about my state of mind, but I reassure him, I feel strong enough to face the presentation. Even the story of this young woman has given me new arguments to defend the literature that arises from the deepest feelings and condemn the banal and entertaining. As expected, the room is packed to capacity. Most of them remain standing because there are not enough chairs for everyone. No doubt they know the news of my diagnosis. My agent is waiting for me in an adjoining room to bring me up to date with the most prominent attendees. The editors of several literary magazines have come, and most of the journalists from the culture sections of the newspapers. They must be interested in the story of the writer who dies, not the one who writes. Alicia has accompanied me here, but she got confused with the audience and I lost sight of her. The moderator and other guests are already on the podium. When I appear in the room there is a telltale murmur. Several photographers take snapshots of the panel, but mostly they point their cameras at me. They must think that these will be the last pictures they will take of me. The moderator introduces me and gives a brief summary of the novel I am going to present. The time has come for my speech. I look for Alicia in the crowd, and discover her at one end of the room, leaning against a column. She has felt my gaze and smiles at me. She wants to encourage me; her smile makes it easier for me to begin my speech. -Good afternoon. First of all I want to thank all of you for attending the presentation of my latest novel. I feel guilty that I have this comfortable chair when most of you have to stand. Had I known so many of you were coming we would have held this presentation at the Olympic Stadium -you laugh at my joke, but I'm sure most of you didn't expect me to still have a sense of humor under the circumstances-. I assume you have all read the reviews of my new novel. Most are favorable, but not all - I forgot to send the check to two or three reviewers! I also assume you must already know the news of my diagnosis. Yes, I have only a few months to live, and it's no laughing matter, but my health won't improve if I take it seriously," I'm interrupted by a loud murmur, but I beg for silence. I learned the diagnosis yesterday, and because of the leak I haven't been able to extend my life insurance premium. I am sorry for my cat, who is the beneficiary of the insurance, because as you must know, I have no offspring. I'm very fond of my cat, because she's the only one I understand - I gave up understanding humans years ago! But I guess you haven't come here to hear about my good understanding with my cat, but about my latest novel. Surprising as it may surprise you, this novel and the previous ones I could not have written without my cat. She has taught me to accept who feeds me without losing my dignity. She has also taught me that there is always a time to play, and despite my advanced age I have never stopped playing! For me writing is a game, but a serious game. To play it is necessary to know only these three basic rules: to have a good technique, to have one's own style and a solid motivation. Whoever knows these three rules well has every chance of winning. Writers have a solid training, and we know how to distinguish a past perfect from a pluperfect, we do not commit spelling mistakes and we know where to put a comma or semicolon. After all, they are just rules to memorize, so most of us have a good technique. But when we talk about style not everyone understands what its meaning is and how it is valued, although critics insist on pigeonholing us with this or that current, because style has no rules, but depends on our sensitivity and the value we give to the words. Each word, in addition to a meaning, has a tone and must be joined to other words perfectly tuned, which is not common in today's literature, the meaning prevails and not the intonation. And if we talk about motivation, we usually associate it with remuneration, and not with a commitment to the values of our time, which must somehow be reflected in the arguments of what we write. Artists also pay rent; for the tax authorities we are just one more and in supermarkets they don't give us credit, if we don't pay we don't eat. That's why the writer must be paid. But this should not be the motivation. And that is the incurable disease of art, because what is the patrimony of the spirit becomes a market product; what should not have a price becomes an accounting value; what should entertain and enlighten, only serves to entertain. Finally, the spirit has nothing to exercise itself with and atrophies by inactivity and the result is that we lose the sensibility to distinguish the beautiful from the ugly; the good from the bad; the transcendent from the inconsequential. And that is the deplorable state in which literature finds itself today, practically on a global level, because insensitivity to art has also become globalized. All the responsibility for this situation falls on fifty percent of the readers and another fifty percent on the authors, because each reader has the author he deserves, and each writer has the readers he deserves. About this last novel, I will not reveal the plot, just advance that it is the drama of two writers, she is a poet and he is a narrator, who are united by literature, but separated by words. We understand the people we imagine, but not the real ones we love. Finally, I would like to tell you a moving story that illustrates better than any complicated argument what Literature is and what it is for. The story I wish to tell you is that of a young writer from the provinces, who considers herself ugly and clumsy, rejected by everyone, and who learned to love generously through the characters in her novels. This young woman does not write for fame and money, but to feel loved, even if her lovers are fictional. But her extraordinary humanity and generosity has been rewarded, and the beloved protagonist of her fiction has become a reality. However, despite her fleeting happiness, the story does not have a happy ending, because the real character will die a few months later, and this young writer from the provinces, who, as I have said, considers herself ugly and clumsy, will again resort to the suggestive power of literature to keep him in her memory and keep the flame of her love alive forever. -I try to see what Alice's reaction to my mention is, but she is no longer standing by the column. She has disappeared! Perhaps I have offended her, but I have to go on. And it is this extraordinary power of literature that I wanted to tell you about in this presentation. Power that only literature that springs from inspiration and shapes a creative imagination has. There can be nothing more obscene than a stultified, uninspired, soulless literature. Thousands of words put together without harmony or humanity, telling us banal, dehumanized stories, with no other purpose than to entertain our boredom and distract us from our worries. Death scares me, as it does any human being, but in return it has given me something I would not have had without its terrible threat: freedom! Now I can speak my mind without fear of the consequences, and I think that the novel I present to you here today was not written by me, but by market demand, like practically all other novels published today. Only that young, ugly and clumsy provincial writer, and perhaps thousands more as provincial, ugly and clumsy as her, to whom no one will pay attention, write their novels for themselves, as their hearts and minds dictate, because they simply need to. Literature, written in capital letters, is a necessity, not a pastime; it not only entertains, but teaches; it not only calms, but heals; it is not only read, but lived. If I were to be born again, I would like it to be in a world where one could survive without the laws of the market; and where we were all provincial, ugly and clumsy. I have nothing more to add, but I will gladly answer your questions, as long as they are not too personal. Several hands were raised asking for their turn to ask questions. I answer the one from a journalist: -I am sorry about your illness, but I would like to know how you plan to spend your last days. I answer without hesitation: -Meditating on death. The next question is from a woman who must be my age: -What is it that you have wished for but have not been able to achieve? -Understand the world we live in! The third question has caused me an inexplicable emotion. It is from young Naomi, with whom I have exchanged several messages. The question puzzles me, for which I do not have a ready answer. -Do you regret not having started a family, and perhaps having had one or more children, who would now take care of you? I sense that there is some hidden meaning to your question. What can I answer? It is too late for regrets. -Your question is too personal and I have already warned that I would not answer such questions. The young woman seems very upset, and does not want to give up. She insists. -Who or what inspired you to write this novel and what was your motivation? I have not meditated my answer, it has come straight from my subconscious, where it should have been for many years: -All writers have an emotional conflict between what we create and where we get our inspiration. We usually make our imagination make real what is not possible in real life. I have been inspired by a real person whom I don't understand. As for my motivation, it is precisely to try to understand her. The young woman seems satisfied with my answer and does not insist. They applaud my intervention, but only the youngest seem to have understood my message. Utopia is no more than twenty years old. The pain returns with severe intensity. I ask the moderator to close the presentation. The attendees seem to understand the reasons and the room is becoming empty. Alicia met with me. She had rushed out of the room so she wouldn't be seen crying. Perhaps I had overdone it and should have been less dramatic. My agent tells me that outside the room a crowd is waiting for us to sign copies. I can't refuse. Most of them show me their sadness for my illness with some words of comfort. I don't know how many books I have signed but I am exhausted. I beg Alice to let me lean on her shoulder and we return to the hall to collect our coats. I feel the pain blurring my vision and I am so weak that if I didn't lean on her I would have collapsed by now. In this deplorable state I am unable to recognize young Naomi, who remains in her seat, because she is waiting for me. My agent has spoken to her and conveys her desire to talk to me, but has not revealed the reason. But I am not in the mood to hold literary talks with my female admirers. I ask her to excuse herself, and to contact me by mail. My agent communicates my message to her, but the young woman insists on talking to me. It's not about literature, apparently it's personal. Alicia helps me into an armchair in the next room, and the pain seems to subside. I ask my agent to call the young woman - I hope it's not another platonic love! 13. Noemi For the first time my illness has prevented me from fulfilling my editorial commitments. It is evident that my health is getting worse with each passing day. It has been a blessing that I met Alicia at this crucial time. For the first time I am unable to fend for myself and I need help. I am beginning to feel the painful preambles of death. I am anxious about the interview with young Naomi. There is something familiar about her, as if I had known her in a previous life. But, on the other hand, I sense that she brings with her serious events that may alter what little life I have left. Alicia seems to share my concern. She may be a rival with an advantage, because Naomi is a very graceful young woman. She is of a medium build, her long hair, of an elegant brown color and her harmonious forms, make her a very attractive young woman. She enters the room accompanied by my agent. She seems uneasy or perhaps nervous. She contemplates me prostrate on the couch. She must understand the inappropriateness of this interview. As she approaches, I feel a deep pity in her eyes. She seems to feel my illness as if we already knew each other. I beg him to sit in the next armchair. -So, Naomi, what is this important thing you have to tell me? She makes a gesture to sit down, but again she remains upright, something is bothering her. She exchanges a glance with my agent and with Alicia, who remains next to me, leaning on one of the arms of the wide sofa: -Could we be alone for a few minutes," she asks me, visibly nervous, "what I have to tell you is very personal. My agent exchanges a questioning glance with me, and Alicia becomes uneasy, because she must believe that the young woman is definitely a feared rival. If I beg you to leave us alone, you'll think I don't trust you, but now I'm keenly interested in what this young woman wants to tell me. I beg you to leave us alone. Alicia can't help exchanging a sad and doubtful look with me, but she respects my wish. The two leave the room without reproach. Naomi follows them with her eyes and seems relieved when she closes the door behind her. For a few moments, during which she seems to gather her thoughts and calm down, she does not take her eyes off an indeterminate point on the floor. Then she looks up and, visibly excited, asks me: -Do you remember who wrote this verse? If your heart were foam, I would be ocean; If your soul were heaven, I would be cloud; If your gaze were rain, I would be a field; If your hands were water, I would be thirsty. It's as if a bolt of lightning crosses my mind. I have a powerful intuition, but I refuse to acknowledge it. How did that poem come to this young woman? I don't answer, but it is I who asks the next question, and I feel my breathing become labored and my old heart flutter: -Who wrote it? She looks at me and I feel a deep anxiety in her eyes. She is on the verge of tears. -My mother wrote it twenty years ago...! She breaks into silent tears and covers her face with her hands. She doesn't dare look at me. I am stunned, and I don't know how to react. I ask myself the question I anxiously await an answer to: Is this young woman my daughter? If so, how could all these years have passed without her mother telling me? Yes, it is possible; we made love a few weeks before my betrayal, and we took no precautions. But how should I behave towards her? I cannot feel sudden parental affection for someone I do not know, even if she is my own daughter. We will need some time to get to know each other and maintain a normal father-daughter relationship. On the one hand the news fills me with joy, but on the other hand it saddens me, because for twenty years I have ignored its existence and when I learn of it I have only a few months to live. I have managed to regain my composure, I have to act sensibly. I hope she will also regain her composure and clear up my many doubts. Where is her mother? Why has she kept my daughter away from me all these years? My so-called daughter has calmed down and stops crying. She turns to me with a pleading look on her face, because she expects me to somehow prove to her that I have adopted her. But I need some answers: -Dear Naomi, you must understand that this situation is very confusing. I can't behave like a father in a few moments. Calm down and tell me why you haven't contacted me before. Where is your mother? But let my agent and Alicia come, they are absolutely trustworthy and can be present. I must not show them mistrust. My supposed daughter nods slightly as she wipes her tears and tries to regain her composure. I call my agent and Alicia and update them on the new situation. They are both perplexed and don't know what to say. Alicia approaches Naomi and tries to comfort her by stroking her long silky hair. Naomi thanks her with a smile. She seems to be calm now. I hope she can clear all my doubts. 14. Naomi's story -I didn't know you were my father until just a month ago, when I needed a novel for a paper on current literature and I found one of your novels in the faculty library. When I saw your photograph I was struck by our physical resemblance, but I didn't pay any more attention to it, but when I read the description of the female character, I realized that you were describing my mother. I read all her novels and in all of them, with minor changes, she was still the same description of my mother. But I was missing one of her books: the first one, which won a well-known literary contest of that time, and I could have the definitive proof. But they had no copy in the library. The book was out of print and a bookseller informed me that you had not authorized its reprinting. So I went to all the used bookstores in town, with no success. When I had already lost all hope of finding that book, I received a call from a classmate of mine to give me the good news that she had a copy of the book I was looking for. When I read it, all my doubts were dispelled. Your novel was titled "Poetas sin cielo" (Poets Without Heaven), after a poem written by my mother, which is the plot of your novel. Certain that you were my father, I booked an invitation to the presentation of your new novel. But I didn't want you to know until I was sure what kind of person my father was, because I had formed a very negative idea of who had abandoned my mother. When I found out about her illness, I changed my attitude, but when I listened to her today I felt enormously proud to be her daughter, and I want to believe that she will have some powerful reason that could justify her abandoning her when she was pregnant with me. Unfortunately my mother doesn't have the answer. You don't know this, but so great was the trauma of the separation that she suffered a bout of severe amnesia, from which she has not yet recovered. She still has no memory of her relationship with you. I grew up with my grandparents in a small northern town, but they were not aware of their daughter's relationship with you either. My mother was a free and independent woman, always doing what she wanted, until she lost her memory. My grandparents took her in and she still lives there, but now she is alone, because both my grandparents have died and I have enrolled in the university in this city, the same one where you and my mother met, twenty years ago! It is true that reality surpasses fiction! I am desolate, my soul hurts me more than my body, but for this evil they don't sell painkillers in pharmacies, they can only be found in hell. I do not deserve the affection of this ignored daughter; I do not deserve the affection of anyone and I doubt very much that I can avoid my damnation. I almost wish it as a deserved punishment! 15. Repentance There is a sepulchral silence. I notice in the expressions of my agent and Alicia a veiled reproach. Naomi looks exhausted, indecisive, waiting for my reaction. Now I should give her a justification for my behavior, but I have none and she must know it. I do not expect her forgiveness, but at least she will not live deceived. She must know who her father is, and if in spite of everything she believes she deserves his affection and understanding. -No, dear Naomi, I have no justification, your father is a scoundrel! -Alicia wants to protest, she can't understand how I could have behaved that way, but I beg you to let me finish, I need to confess my guilt. Naomi cannot blame her mother; I am the only one to blame. When we are young and ambitious, everything seems valid and we believe that wounds heal easily. I knew your mother would suffer for my betrayal, but I assumed she would soon get over it. Perhaps she would find another young man and soon forget about me. I could never imagine that her love for me would be so deep, and my betrayal so painful. I also didn't know she was pregnant, because after I left her I didn't have enough courage to take an interest in her, and I never saw her again. I know that Naomi must be disappointed with my statement of guilt. I can see the dismay and confusion in her expression. It is unfortunate, but I still believe that youth heals wounds quickly. Naomi must also soon heal this wound. In my desperation I can only think of a remote justification: -Literature brought us together and literature itself drove us apart. I believed that my literary career was above feelings; as if I had been born to fulfill a mission, and I could not put anything, including people and their feelings, before this blind ambition. My only love was literature, there was no room for anyone or anything else! When I received your first message I understood my mistake, and why my novels lacked motivation and humanity, because there can be no humanity in a novel if it is not inspired by love for people, from which the characters arise. Alicia has proved my mistake: she knows what literature is and what it is for. She has not had the misfortune of finding a literary agent with the ability to promote an author's works; someone who knows the tastes of ordinary readers and knows what they like to read. An agent who uses your talent for her commercial purposes. Who makes you the idol of ordinary people and the monster of yourself. My agent has reacted. He seems to wonder if he's not doing the same thing to me. I don't want him to feel guilty too. -When you agreed to represent me, I had already adopted the bad habit and all my novels suffered from the same lack of motivation, but they were guaranteed success. I only began to worry after this last novel, it was the result of all these years of denying myself; the writer who wrote "Poetas sin cielo", the only novel fruit of my love for a person, and not of marketing and the market. Noemi reminded me when it was too late to redeem my sin: I will never write again because I do not deserve to be loved and I cannot love anyone! Alicia does not admit my resignation. She protests and wants to give her opinion: -I don't agree; your father is not totally guilty! Whoever has the courage to acknowledge his guilt deserves forgiveness; the holiest were the most sinful. It is not the saint who needs compassion, but the sinner! Naomi, you have to forgive him, not because he is your father and even if in the past he has behaved like a scoundrel, but a repentant human being who recognizes his faults, deserves your compassion and your forgiveness. Forgiveness is what makes us human beings; resentment turns us into soulless beasts, only with memory. My daughter is on the verge of crying again. She is under great emotional pressure and looks so vulnerable! She looks at me and I can see in her eyes her desire to forgive me. Alicia takes one of her hands and places it on mine. Her hand is burning and trembling. It has been the prodigy of a true writer who has performed the miracle of forgiveness. Naomi hugs me and cries silently. I think I hear a whisper: -Dad, I love you! I feel like crying too, but now I have a daughter who needs a father who is strong! 16. Reconciliation It's been two days since the eventful launch of my latest novel. It's not long to assume that I am now the father of a lovely young woman. I have been taught a hard lesson, but it is only the beginning of my redemption. I have lived twenty years of loneliness and isolation and now it is hard for me to assume that I have to spend some of my time thinking about others. I don't know what the responsibilities of a parent are. Naomi is as independent as her mother and doesn't need anyone to tell her what to do or how to do it, and it doesn't create big responsibilities for me. She will continue to live in the apartment she shares with two college roommates, but we will do our best to have dinner together two or three times a week at my apartment. Alicia has offered to be our cook, and she will delight us with her delicious local stews. Naomi confesses that she is not very skilled in the kitchen, she is a young woman devoted to her career. I think she has inherited my passion for literature and her mother's sensitivity for poetry. I can't say whether or not he has talent, he hasn't had the time or opportunity to test himself yet. He hasn't written anything important. But I have always believed that talent is not inherited, but born with it. It is not in the genes; it is in the mind and in the soul and we must acquire it at the very moment of our gestation. It may come to us from the cosmos or from someone who died at that very moment. I believe in transmigration, because the spirit, like energy, is not destroyed, it is transformed. From the beginning of time there is a universal spirit, which believers call God, from which all animate beings come. The obvious proof of transmigration is that in my family there are no artists or writers, only normal people, concerned about normal things. There may have been some among my remote ancestors, but I do not know it. My illness continues its diabolical course and does not leave me much free time without pain. I often have to go to the hospital for painful treatment. In exchange for putting up with all this discomfort, I am assured that I will be able to prolong the time I have left to live, which I need to put my conscience in order. As expected, my latest novel has tripled the sales of the previous ones. Death is an extraordinary attraction. My publisher cannot hide his satisfaction, even if he is sympathetic. The media hound me and I have had to change my phone number. The messages of condolence are overwhelming, I find it impossible to read them all. But fortunately they are still unaware of my unexpected paternity, they must believe that the young woman who accompanies me is my latest conquest. As for Alicia, I cannot deny that I feel a deep affection for her, but it cannot be called love, because in these critical moments I do not know the meaning of this beautiful word. She seems resigned and I believe that, in spite of everything, she is happy just to be by my side and to be of help to me. Yes, it must be her fate that she is not reciprocated. She has been unlucky in her choice of lovers. She and Naomi seem to understand each other well, and share the same concerns. I think they have become good friends. But this fleeting happiness has a dark shadow: her mother! I have talked to Naomi about her, it is not an easy subject. Naomi thinks my presence might help her regain her memory. But I wonder if it might not be better for her to keep her amnesia. It must not be pleasant for her to remember my betrayal. If she regains her memory she may be able to forgive me, but it may also increase her resentment towards me. Because of me she has wasted twenty precious years of her existence, there is no penance great enough to compensate for her suffering. I know it would make Naomi enormously happy to see us together again. As if time had not passed, and to reconstruct the past at the moment when we were happiest. When she wrote that short and passionate poem to tell me, with four rhymes, how much she loved me, and which has marked our lives. Today we will have dinner at my apartment. My two wives will be arriving any minute and I have to tidy up a bit. I don't feel very well, despite the painkillers that wreak havoc on my stomach, a constant pain persists that manages to make me lose my temper and sour my good nature. It is amazing and sadly paradoxical that during the last twenty years in which I have enjoyed excellent health I don't think I have had even five minutes of happiness, and when my health has broken down I am not able to manage so many moments of happiness, I have met an extraordinary woman and I have recovered an ignored daughter! Living is a game that consists in doing the opposite of what we consider reasonable. The first to arrive was Alicia. She has come a little early so that when Noemi arrives, dinner will be ready. She is interested in my health. She suggests that given the state I am in I should have someone to take care of me 24 hours a day and she is probably right, but I insist that the time has not yet come. -And when will that time come, when he is dead? It was a spontaneous reaction, but she regrets having told me. She is deeply sorry. -Forgive me; I didn't mean to...! -There's nothing to forgive," I interrupt her, "you're right and I know you'd be happy to do it yourself, but I can't accept your help. I have to finish paying my debts first. Naomi's mother needs more help than I do, and she believes that my presence can help her recover her memory. But I don't know how she would react if she remembers our relationship. Alicia has understood what I dare not say. Now her rival is Naomi's mother, because if she agreed to forgive me she would be the one to take care of me until the day I die. -I understand, once again my sad destiny is fulfilled: I will never be reciprocated by the people I love. All my efforts to live this moment have been of no use to me. I am always the last in line, and when I arrive I have finished what they were giving away. Alicia has returned to delight me with her casseroles, but Naomi does not seem to have enjoyed her dinner. She has remained absent and with her thoughts far away from here. Before coming she spoke to her mother on the phone and believes she is deeply depressed and disoriented. -He's afraid to forget about me too," she says in anguish, "He sent me a verse that reflects his confusion and pitiful state of mind. We have to make a decision tonight. Today I dreamed that I dreamed, that you were not who you were, that time had no time, and that death had died. I can't help but compare this verse with the one from twenty years ago. Despite all those forgotten years, she is still a great poet. 17. Amnesia I beg Naomi to tell me everything she remembers about her mother after her bout of amnesia. -What I know of the early years, of which I have only a blurry picture, was told to me by my grandparents. Naomi doesn't seem to be very enthusiastic about my suggestion. They must be sad memories. Memories of a child raised by two old men and a mother with no past, unable to tell her daughter how it came about, by whom and where. Without her being able to even mention the name of her possible father. Not only has she not had an unknown father, but a forgotten one. But I beg you to try to overcome your sadness and go on. Before we meet I need to know how all these years of oblivion have passed. -We don't know anything about how the separation happened," she continued, overcoming the sadness of reliving her childhood, "but it must have been very painful because she didn't remember anything about what happened and she didn't even remember who her parents were or where she lived. A policewoman found her dozing in a park and fortunately they were able to identify her thanks to a prescription for a medicine against morning sickness, because she had no official identity document. But they couldn't leave her alone in that state, so they found my grandparents, who took her in. And that's all we know about the first days of her amnesia. Naomi has exchanged several uneasy glances with me. Possibly she is still wondering if I deserve her forgiveness after all. I remain pathetically silent, not daring to say anything in my defense. I only know the story from one Sunday when we had agreed to attend a screening of an Oscar Wilde film, but I never showed up... while she waited uselessly at the cinema doors, I was in my seductive agent's bed! Will I have the courage to confess it? If I don't confess it my conscience will never be clear! I'll wait to know the whole story. I beg you to tell me what happened during the following years. My poor daughter is recalling a part of her life that she may also wish to forget, but she gets over it and goes on: -My mother moved to live in the small northern town of her parents, my maternal grandparents, and all efforts to get her memory back were futile. She was apparently able to lead a normal life, but she had to learn to recognize her own name, her parents' names, and all the other circumstances following her amnesia. When I was born I was already fully aware of everything, except her stay in this town and her relations with you," she addresses me with the same expression of veiled reproach. My grandfather was a civil servant at the City Hall and got a small pension for my mother, because she had frequent memory lapses and was unable to do any work. My grandfather died when I was ten years old, his health began to deteriorate from the day he learned of my mother's amnesia, and my grandmother died a few months before I enrolled in college. The poor thing was very unhappy about all these events, but she never reproached my mother. We had a maid for several years before I was born, the same age as my mother, who is with her at the moment. I could not give up the University, because I got a scholarship, with which I am surviving at the moment. She never stopped writing poems, she must have written enough to fill a dozen volumes, but she has refused to publish them. I always suspected that she dedicated them to you, but it must have been only a faint intuition, which did not access her conscience. Perhaps that is why she lived tormented by the inability to conceive the image of one who had only an intuition. That is all I can tell you about my mother. Alicia has made us coffee, which she serves us while we keep a thoughtful silence. I try to imagine her mother twenty years later, the woman I will soon have to meet again and account for my unforgivable behavior. I have the impression that she will horrify me, because I think I see on her aged face the indelible mark of suffering, for which I am guilty. Alicia breaks this tense silence: -Perhaps if she receives a strong stimulus to remember the person she seems to still love, she will recover her memory. Alicia has put her finger on the sore spot. It is not enough for her to be reunited with me, but with her lover, as if my betrayal had never happened. Alicia seems deeply affected, I think she regrets her suggestion. But my redemption requires some sacrifice, and Alicia will understand and eventually accept it. Twenty years later I have to try again to seduce the same woman I betrayed. Fate wants to put me to the test and I cannot let it down. 18. Preamble Is it possible to heal a wounded heart? Can time erase forgotten wounds? Can an old man with an exhausted heart love? Can a sick man heal another sick man? I ask myself these anguished questions to still feel like a human being, but I know I don't have the answer.Naomi and Alicia left a little over an hour ago, and they have left an immense void. I have never felt so essentially alone. It is an abysmal loneliness, bottomless, without the slightest glimmer of light. My soul has been left in utter darkness. The body has abandoned it; joy has migrated to other, warmer and more welcoming lands. Pleasure has been transformed into intense pain and happiness, which until only an hour ago was brimming over all its edges, has gone with them, I am unable to keep it with me for long. One more endless night I strive uselessly to be absent from myself. I search with real desperation for a state of mind close to nothingness, no uncontrolled thoughts, no movements of any kind. I try to exercise myself to prepare for my death without last minute shocks, but it is totally useless. The mind does not sleep, it only disconnects temporarily from consciousness. It stops thinking about what it sees to think about what it imagines. It does not tire, it does not exhaust itself, it does not give up, because it has no flesh that can make it sick, nor a skeleton to sustain it; it has no eyes, no mouth, no ears, it does not eat, drink, see or hear, it only thinks without rest because it is eternal and already existed before it was my mind. Naomi believes that, despite the visible traces of my illness, I am still an attractive man and that I can seduce her mother again. Alicia has not given me her opinion, which I already know. She is an unfortunate woman, but at some time and somewhere she will have her reward. But time is pressing, the illness is getting worse and my spirits are failing. I am not sure I can see this plan through to the end. We have agreed that Naomi will invite her mother to spend a few days with her in the city. Our meeting will take place during a welcome dinner at Naomi's apartment. Naomi just called me, her mother has accepted the invitation and will come this weekend and Saturday will be the big day of the test. I have to go back twenty years and try to understand the reasons for my betrayal. It is not enough to blame ambition, vanity or selfishness. There has to be a reasonable explanation to justify that behavior, because we humans always have a good reason to justify our behavior. I have thought it on countless occasions that to discover means to destroy what was hidden. The sun shines at the cost of destroying its hydrogen reserves. Imagination creates at the cost of destroying what has not yet been imagined. In the end there will be nothing left to imagine because we will have destroyed the reserves of images, death. It was inevitable to destroy the causes that had provoked my creativity, and that cause was the woman who had inspired them. If I wanted to continue creating I had to look for new sources for my inspiration, to destroy them again, and so on until death. I am not entirely to blame. We should never have invented literature because it feeds on the souls of humans. Every novel, every story, every tale or every poem has devoured its insatiable ration of humanity. I am no exception, I have my victims too, but otherwise there would be no literature or art or any other expression of the human soul that needs to feed on the human soul. No one will understand these reasons, only our creator knows our weaknesses, our spiritual cannibalism, our revenge for being human. I cannot argue these reasons for my exculpation, only those who are victims of inspiration understand them, through which this evil is contagious. Ordinary people are immunized against this disease of the spirit. Now there is no longer the slightest doubt in my mind that this was the cause of my bodily illness. My harmful spirit has entered my body and will not cease until it dies. There are no heavens reserved for writers, but there are no hells either, there are only purgatories: near heaven, near hell. If I had the strength and the necessary time to live, I would write a novel with this title, which would be the great novel of my life, but I might write it after I am dead, and it might be the great novel of my death. But why write; why stir the still waters of unconsciousness; why bring out the faults and virtues, the passions and disenchantments or the loyalties or betrayals of human beings? Why tell so many lies; so many stories that have never happened and never will happen? Why this sick eagerness to perpetuate our memory after we have lost our memory? No, even if I had a hundred more years to live, I would never write another novel. Someone has to take the first step to rid humanity of this scourge. I have the impression that I am delirious and think things that make no sense. There is no justification for someone who causes harm to a human being without a reason that is also human. A doctor can cause you some harm to heal a wound, but a writer cannot claim his sources of inspiration to cause harm. If I were to put on a scale the pleasure my novels may have caused and the harm caused by writing them, on which side would the scale tip? And who can have the answer? I have no way out. I have no judge but my own conscience, and it keeps shouting at me that I am guilty. 19. The mother Today has dawned an unpleasant day that will influence my mood. Today is also the day Naomi's mother will arrive in town; the person on whom my salvation depends. I am not in the right frame of mind for the circumstances. I should get over myself and realize that I have returned to my college years; years when life was a blank sheet of paper, waiting to be written on both sides; years when the most important thing was to be young, not only to enjoy life but to live away from death; years when everything was allowed except nostalgia; when love was a working tool, when the wisdom of experience was considered an old mania and was worthless compared to the vitality of facts. Those years in which the people around you were samples for your laboratory or the lead of your flask, from which you hoped to obtain gold, following the magic formula invented by your excluding imagination. Years, in short, that I have always wished to forget and that now I have to recall. My memory has to erase without a trace what happened after I won the untimely literary prize, as if it had never happened. As if we had followed together our longed-for path to glory, and once we had achieved it, since it seemed inevitable given our genius, we would live six months a year in Pigalle, in Montmartre or in Saint-German-des-Prés, where I would write my novels in the heat of her inspiration, and she her passionate verses inspired by her love for me. As if every spring we would wake up in our little house in Majorca, next to the highest cliff of the coast, from where our view would be lost in a horizon as infinite as our desires to live; as beautiful as our soul mates, as mysterious as our intuition, or as cozy as our bed where we make love. When I was twenty years old I could not imagine myself at sixty, now that I am about to turn sixty I cannot imagine myself at twenty. Nevertheless, it had to happen, because time is the greatest swindle of human understanding, since it is an eternal instant, this instant in which I live, or better I will say, I live badly today, is the same in which I lived twenty years ago, what has changed is the perspective and the scenario, but the instant is the same! Noemí called me to tell me that she had picked up her mother at the train station, and that she found her very unwell and dazed. They are already in her apartment, and she has been able to rest and recover a little. She tells me that, if she feels better, they will go to the Opera, which is her mother's passion. They will perform "Madame Butterfly", which seems very appropriate for the circumstances. His mother does not remember seeing this opera before, but she had seen it twice because she still kept the tickets as a souvenir. She thinks it may help our plan. She has told him of her desire to have him accompany her to the college on Monday, the same one she attended, but insists that she does not remember ever attending a college in that city. It is evident that she remains obstinate in not allowing the images and feelings that she keeps in her subconscious to enter her consciousness. I also got a call from Alicia. She is concerned about my worsening health. She wants to know if I need help. I thank her, but I insist on fending for myself until I see how the test turns out. Alicia is confused and saddened, because she can't wish it to be a failure, but she can't wish it to be a success either. She would have been happy just to have the exclusivity of my care until the day I die. But Naomi's mother takes precedence. If only we were good friends, both women could watch over my agony, but she has committed the weakness of falling in love with me, and love is selfish and rigorously incomparable. She seems resigned but not defeated. I am the great love of her life and she is not willing to withdraw and give up. She will lurk around waiting for an opportunity. I have created many female characters, and I boasted of cooking them even better than they know themselves, but Alicia has shown me how laughable my smugness is: I still have many nooks and crannies of the female soul to discover. Perhaps my premature death will help me to discover them. What I have not been able to understand is how those who give life see death. Possibly they feel the same affection for both. Many women suffer more depression immediately after bringing a new life into the world than at the sight of a dying person. Life hurts them as much as death. 20. A bad day The weather continues to be unpleasant. On the glass of my large window, the drops of water from a weak but persistent rain drip down. The rain does not depress me, on the contrary, it enlivens me, the water brings life, it brightens everything it covers. The plants are invigorated and show all their splendor and beauty. But what pleases nature displeases humans. I see from my window disgruntled people. They resent everything they cannot dominate and control, and nature does not submit easily. That is why we are putting all our efforts into destroying it. We may succeed in destroying the rain as well. I lie in bed until almost noon because I don't know what I can do to justify being up. I have nothing to write, no event to attend, no visit to receive, nothing; but I have found an occupation: rereading my first novel, and perhaps I should also say that it is the only one I have written, because I think it meets the three basic conditions for it to be considered a novel: it has a motivation: a passionate plea in defense of poetry and poets. This argument is also the fruit of his imagination and not of mine. The novels that followed lacked motivation, they only had technique and style, that is why they were not of this world, but of a parallel and dehumanized world. Noemi is right. "It's the middle of the night. The city lights litter the sky and I can't see the stars. I have to imagine them. I also have to imagine the people on this deserted street. And the rose bushes, orchids and non-existent geraniums on the balconies of their uninhabited houses. I have to imagine the children playing in a ghost school, and the sparrows nesting in absent trees. This is my street, where I don't live, where I don't inhabit, where I only imagine that I live and inhabit." This is how it should be. Our life must pass in one of these deserted streets, where we do not live but imagine that we live, because when you least expect it your time runs out, and it seems to you that in reality you have not lived but have dreamed. On rereading this first novel I feel in all its crudeness the falseness in which I have lived all these years, and I wonder what kind of writer I would be today if I had remained true to myself. It would not have been strange if I had won the Nobel Prize! Now I have to be satisfied with the market prize, and with the thousands of followers of the consumption of entertaining literature with an expiration date. They have nothing to transmit about our way of understanding life and its values to future generations. I am not a redeemer, and I am overwhelmed by praise, but when an artist expresses himself in any discipline, he is sending a message in a bottle that will inevitably fall into the hands of people of other times, in other latitudes of the immense ocean of time; who will have other values, and who, thanks to those messages, will be able to place them in the general trunk of history. Given the brevity of our existence, the only solid thing we humans have to save us from the flood of the inevitable changes that sweep everything away is History. Today I have one of those days when I feel too insignificant to have great ambitions, because this great humanity that populates our planet, of which I am a tiny part, is not even a grain of sand in the desert compared to the immensity of the universe we inhabit. Powerful men believe themselves to be great because they reign over their tiny domains, while those who recognize that they are infinitely small inhabit the great domain of the immensity of the universe. Humans have an endless number of alternatives to choose the way we wish to consume our valuable time, but there is only one that corresponds to our personality. The reason for our existence is none other than to find it and be faithful to it until death. Only in this way each individual will be a person, and each person will be a world, and all the worlds together will form a universe, and many universes gathered into one will be the only idea we can have of something to call "God", so that only people and their worlds are in direct contact with God. I have lived in permanent contact with hell, because I renounced my personal world, so I have no access to heaven. I may still have time left to repair my great mistake, but I would have to write one last novel: the continuation of the first one, which would pave the way to my salvation, but for that I need not only time, but inspiration; I would not only have to meet again with the writer, but also with his lover. Could it happen tomorrow? I should think about tomorrow's dinner and my salvation, and I think I have an idea that would do both: write my last novel with the story of our relationship. To relive her memory day by day, kiss by kiss, caress by caress, with every detail, nuance, feeling, illusion, hope and project for the future. Yes, she would have the story that her conscience refuses to remember. It would undoubtedly be the great novel of my life, the one that would give me a good death. But will I have enough time left, and will I be able to face the challenge with the foresight and the right frame of mind to bring it up to the level of my first novel? Naomi sent me a message to let me know that her mother has recovered and is in good spirits. In the afternoon they will go to the Opera, as planned, and when they leave they will have dinner in a small Italian restaurant nearby. She says she misses me and it would have been a complete joy if the three of us could be together and united as a family. Poor Naomi! Even if your wishes were fulfilled, your happiness will be short-lived. It is better that you get used to my absence, even if you continue to miss me in your happy moments, maybe I will accompany you, even if you cannot see me. Tomorrow I will tell you my idea. 21. Waiting He has also invited Alicia to his mother's welcome home dinner, because he wants it to feel like a reunion of old friends, where his mother is not the focus of most of the attention. He wants to test whether she will recognize me. I haven't communicated my new idea to her yet, because I'm not sure she's in the condition and mood to do it. I call Alicia to tell her about Noemí's invitation. She accepts. -If it's okay with you, I can stop by your place now and prepare something to eat," he suggests, "then we can go to your daughter's apartment together. I notice from the tone of his voice that he has received the news with great joy. Now the scales of fate are tipped in her favor and against me, but I accept her offer. This woman is becoming a necessity, she is always where I need her. She is not an old dream of the past but a reality of the present, no history, no regrets, no need to recover the memory of what has not happened. She brings peace to my spirit and manages to make me forget my past, to recover the present, which I need so much in these difficult times. Alicia is already in my apartment and once again I hear the domestic sound and the pleasant memories of the hustle and bustle in the kitchen. This woman is leaving everywhere she goes the halo of the everyday, the simple, but that is what is truly endearing. She is not only preparing a delicious meal, but the homey atmosphere that is not only a warm feeling, but a necessity of any human being. -What will you do if you don't recognize him? He asks me with a nonchalant air, as if he is not affected by my answer, while he serves me what he has cooked. I ask her once again not to address me as you, because I am no longer the hero of her dreams, but the helpless and tortured man who needs her help. But Alicia knows that calling me "you" means taking a giant step in our brief relationship, and she does not want to change the deal until she is sure that she has conquered my soul and my will. In the meantime, she will continue with the same distant and respectful treatment. I need to rest and get some sleep so I can be presentable for dinner with my daughter, and Alicia makes up my bed, just as she did the first time in her tiny studio. As she fluffs the pillows she gives me several looks that I can easily interpret. She seems to want to tell me that this time I won't be woken up by her crying. She helps me to lie down and, just like the first time, goes back to the kitchen, and I hear again that very domestic and soothing sound of the bustle of the kitchen, with which I fall asleep. Alicia has veiled my dream by reading the manuscript of my first novel, which had been left on the coffee table in the living room. When I awoke, she read aloud one of the most tragic passages of the novel, moments before the suicide of the protagonist. "I was not born to live. I did not come into this world to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh. I am not alive to celebrate the wonders of nature. I do not feel part of life. No, I came into the world to sing it, to recite it, to turn it into a long poem, to dissolve it into beautiful words. So that it may be said of me when I die that I was just poetry, with nothing to stop me, not my body, not my mind; just poetry, nothing but poetry." -Who could have inspired these dramatic lines? -he asks me with a gesture of desolation or perhaps horror, "her? My mind is not yet clear enough to respond and I just smile. She understands, and continues reading, but silently. I see from her astonished expression that she is shocked by what she is reading, no wonder, they are the passages prior to the suicide of the poetess protagonist. She closes the book and leans back on the sofa. He doesn't wait for my answer because he already knows it. He exchanges a sad glance with me. I think he wants to give me his opinion: -You know, I think the suicide of your poetess protagonist is justified," she pauses and it seems as if what she says next is for herself. We are all born with a stigma engraved on our foreheads, which tells us who we are and what we have come to this world for; and what we can aspire to and what we are strictly forbidden. Your protagonist was born with the stigma of poetry in a world without poetry, he had no choice but to immolate himself with it -a new silence that he breaks with a heartfelt sigh, and continues-. I was also born with a stigma: that of ugliness. No doubt an accident of nature, because it is nothing like my soul. They must have been born each on their own, without agreeing. My soul fills me with good and noble feelings, while my face prevents me from taking advantage of them and showing them to others. Only when I write I am free to generously give those feelings to my characters, because they do not find me ugly and do not see my stigma. I have no doubt that she knows what she is talking about. I myself rejected her in the first moments because of her unattractive face. I wonder why we humans have created canons of beauty that ostracize and ostracize people like Alicia, or women and men in the prime of their lives, just because their backs are hunched, their hands go astray, and wrinkles appear on their foreheads, which are the price paid for their wise maturity, serenity, gentleness, balance and intelligence! No doubt we deserve every one of the torments to which this behavior leads. It is useless to try to console her by praising the beauty of her soul, because the soul cannot be seen, the face can. Unfortunately for people with these stigmas, rejection ends up infecting their souls with the same stigma. Alice is a glorious exception, but no doubt she owes it to literature. It seems that we are both immersed in our respective thoughts, and we remain in an eloquent silence. It is Alicia who breaks it with a question that reminds me of the idea of writing a new book: -We still have three hours left to meet your daughter, why don't you tell me about your affair with her mother? I think the idea is interesting, it can serve as an exercise for that last novel that's been on my mind. I agree and Alicia prepares some coffee, no doubt a long and interesting confession awaits! 22. Confession Alicia looks like a little girl whose grandmother is about to tell her a story of enchanted princes and princesses. She has taken off her shoes (since she has known me she has toned down her clothes, and above all she no longer wears those horrible military boots), she settles down in the armchair, gathering her legs also in the armchair, and waits with childish anxiety for my story. I don't know how to explain it, but she seems totally transfigured. I am unable to recognize the clumsy and ugly young woman, as she defines herself, and I see a young woman with a radiant expression, an intelligent gaze, at the same time curious as that of a cat, and a body brimming with vitality. Nature has been bad to her face, but generous to her body. I start by telling you the story of the coffee shop where we met. -After that funny event we each went to our corresponding classes. We were at the same university and had the same studies, but I was one class ahead of him, so our classes did not coincide. We didn't exchange anything to get back in touch. She seemed to distrust everyone, although I didn't know why at the time. She had been sexually assaulted several times by some of her classmates. That day neither of us could concentrate in class, something magical had happened. I think I fell in love with her when I offered to hold her books for her. She did not look at me with distrust, but as soon as she saw me, I noticed as if I was an old lover, whom she had not seen for a long time and was happy to see me again, but after that moment of pleasant surprise, her distrust returned, and she refused my help. If I had not suffered that terrible accident, everything would have ended like that, but destiny had foreseen it all. -That weekend our faculty had organized a meeting of young poets. I wouldn't have hesitated to attend if it had been for narrative, but for poetry I wasn't enthusiastic about the idea. But that Saturday I was deeply bored. It was the end of the month and my allowance was practically exhausted. The meeting was free, so it seemed like a good way to kill time. I arrived a little late, just at the time of the intervention of the young woman I met in the cafeteria. We passed each other in the center aisle of the hall, as I was entering and she was heading to the stage, and I think both her and my hearts skipped a beat, and we greeted each other with a telltale smile. When I saw her on the stage, completely in the dark, except for her, illuminated with a beam of light, she looked to me like an angel who had descended from heaven to announce the good news of her poetry. This was the verse she wrote after our first meeting: We barely looked at each other and we were already kissing. We barely knew each other and we already loved each other, We barely spoke to each other and we already understood each other. We were barely separated and we were already longing for each other. Alicia seems overwhelmed by the passion in these four lines. She is not passionate, she is sensitive, because passion blinds the understanding and Alicia is a thoughtful and reasonable person. She remains silent so as not to distract me from my confession. -At the end of the event I hurried to congratulate her on the reading of her poems, which was very well received by the audience, mostly fellow faculty members. As she left the hall I found her surrounded by her friends and admirers, who besieged her with questions and congratulations. I had barely exchanged a few glances and smiles and already I thought I had the right to have her all to myself. I was so upset that I did not feel like saying goodbye to her, and I grumpily left the auditorium. Once again it seemed as if fate was against us. But as soon as I was out of the auditorium I realized that I had acted in anger and without justification, and I returned hastily, just as she was leaving accompanied by one of her friends. When she saw me, I could again see her expression of joy reflected on her face, and this time she did not hesitate to call my attention. -Why did you leave without saying goodbye? Didn't you like my poems? I'd like to know your opinion! The friend understood the situation and excused herself, leaving us alone. -I loved them! I did not dare confess to him that I had been jealous. I told him that I also wrote, but narrative, I was not born with the grace of poetry, but with the necessary imagination to write novels. We walked for a while, talking about our works, the importance of poetry, the mediocrity of the novels that were published, the excessive commercialization of art. We seemed to have found the ideal interlocutor to unburden ourselves of our artistic concerns. We generally agreed on everything. We agreed to meet the next day in the park. I would show her my stories and she would show me her latest poems. That night I practically stayed up all night, because I wasn't satisfied with any of the stories I had written and I didn't want to disappoint my new friend. I was a complete unknown at the time, while she was well known among the students of the faculty and other local poetry circles. All the reviews were favorable and predicted a brilliant literary career for her. Undoubtedly her beneficial friendship influenced my inspiration, and that night I wrote my first truly literary work, the previous ones were simple stories, almost all autobiographical, lacking the main thing: a motivation. When I met her she was 18 years old. Like you, she had come from the provinces, with a fixed idea, which she carried more in her heart than in her mind: to triumph as a poetess! She didn't need praise, she considered herself great, and she wasn't wrong. All of us who knew her had formed the same opinion. To me her genius was her best attraction. I was more attracted to her as a poet than as a woman, because neither of us lived in this world, but in those two sister worlds: she in that of poetry and I in that of the novel. And that was the cause of our separation! We lived with too much intensity the unreal and we forgot the real. We met in the park on a day that could have been painted by Botticelli or Velazquez. It was early spring, when the tone of the new leaves is intense green. The sky is an inimitable blue, decorated with white clouds of whimsical and imaginative shapes. It smells of the sap of the rejuvenated stems and the perfumed resins given off by the linden trees. New birds flutter in their nests, impatient to fly and get to know what will be their world. In this magical atmosphere and in a secluded and lonely corner of the park, I read her my first story written thanks to her and for her. At that very moment our separation began to take shape. Our relationship became more intimate every day, but always sustained by our common passion for literature. Our euphoria grew at the same pace and intensity as the quality of her poetry or of my stories and tales, because at that time I still felt incapable of tackling the novel. We never seriously thought of our relationship as a simple couple in love, but in love with the poetess and the writer. At no time did it cross our minds to live together, because that would mean depriving us of the solitude necessary to create; we had enough with our daily encounters, during which we would load each other with brilliant phrases, passionate poems, fantastic stories and a moderate dose of sensuality. We didn't make love until after the six months that our relationship lasted, and it was in that one relationship that Noemí was born! Alicia seems to be meditating on everything I have told her so far, because her gaze is lost in some point of the street that can be seen through my windows. She has reacted and looks at me with a certain air of reproach. -So, he didn't love that woman, he was just using her. -Yes, you can put it that way. -And she, do you think she also used him? -No, she didn't use me; she didn't need encouragement, I told you she was fully confident of her talent; it was me who needed it to discover mine. A month after our meeting, when I had already written a dozen stories and tales that she thought were great, she suggested I write a novel. I took her advice and tried to find a plot that would motivate me. They all revolved, in one way or another, around her and our strange relationships. I put my ideas to her, but she didn't find them original enough. It was then that she read me her poem about the suicide of a poetess, and suggested that this could be a good argument, in which she could collaborate with her poetry. I was delighted to accept her proposal and began to work on the plot. During the time it took me to write it, only two months, our meetings focused on the progress of my novel. She checked every chapter, every paragraph and every word I wrote daily, and corrected my many flaws and typos, until she felt that the syntax, spelling, rhythm and style were perfect. It seemed as if she was writing it herself. When my novel was practically finished, she suggested that I submit it to a popular literary contest for new authors. I couldn't refuse, because it wasn't just my novel, it was our novel. Alicia interrupts me. -Now I understand why he suffered that terrible attack of amnesia. His betrayal was double, because he betrayed the lover and the writer! -No doubt it was a double betrayal, but then I didn't take it into consideration! Not only did she collaborate in its writing, but she took the trouble to type up the original and send it herself to the contest. -Why do you think she would do that? Was she really so in love with you that she sacrificed herself to help you in your career? -Although it pains me to admit it, it must have been. The days leading up to the contest judging were really nerve-wracking for me, but not for her. She knew perfectly well that we had submitted one of the possible winning novels, so much so that she had confidence in herself and in her judgments about literature. But she was also aware that among beginners there is little chance of good novels being submitted. Most suffer from an excess of passion, nonsensical styles, defects of structure and syntax, and unoriginal plots. In fact, the vast majority are simply imitations of their idols, or of fashionable writers. She knew we would win, and we did! She was also the first to know the news of the award, because she received the message with the result and the invitation to the awards ceremony that same weekend at a well-known hotel in the city. When we met at the faculty, she recited to me the famous sentence of Julius Caesar: "Vini, vidi, vici", which I understood immediately. I confess that moments after hearing the news, I considered myself a superior being, I had killed the undecided and modest writer to feel like a new member of the cultural elites of the country. And that image blinded me from the first moment. She never suspected my arrogance, and she was as happy as if she had been the awardee. During the award ceremony, she must have felt like the mother who attends the presentation of the diploma of honor to her son at the university: without envy or professional jealousy. But I was already very distant from her. I saw my books piled up in bookstores, with the mention of that award. I saw myself signing copies for my gawking admirers, but above all, I felt superior and dominant. Alicia has reacted, stands up and gives me a questioning look. -I think you're making up the story! I know you well enough by now not to believe that you would behave that way! -You meet a repentant demon twenty years later. But I wouldn't have committed that sin if I hadn't met the real culprit. During the cocktail party hosted by the sponsors, many guests approached me to congratulate me. She seemed proud of my sudden popularity. From the first day she learned of my vocation as a writer, she wanted me to become more self-confident, so that we could pursue our ambitious careers at the same level. I took it for granted that we would achieve our ambitious project of fame and glory without one overshadowing the other. When, fatigued by so many emotions and hustle and bustle, we were about to leave the meeting, we were approached by a middle-aged, elegant-looking woman, dressed in a sober suit jacket, her hair half-haired, blonde and slightly curly, and addressing me, as if the presence of my companion had not been perceived, and without ceasing to fix her deep and insinuating gaze on mine, she handed me a business card, which must have been perfumed with the fragrances of hell, because when I read it the perfume evoked in me an abyss into which I would not take long to fall -You will need a good agent. Call me tomorrow and we'll talk about your future. That was all she said, and she went back to join a group of guests. That look disturbed me so much that for a moment I too forgot about her presence. She must have sensed my betrayal at that moment! I beg Alicia's forgiveness, but I do not wish to continue. What follows is the most painful part for me, and the memory of it has haunted me all these years. Alicia seems to wake up from a dream, or maybe it's a nightmare. The coffee is finished. She picks up the coffee pot and cups and takes them to the kitchen. She remains silent but her mind must be replaying the story I just told her. He returns from the kitchen, exchanges a sad look with me, sits back down and, finally, I know what he is thinking. -Poor woman, I would not have liked to be in her place. I would have lost my memory too. No, I would have lost my head! Your comment makes me feel guiltier. Those who have no remorse cannot know how much it hurts to be reminded of our sins. -Forgive me. I know you are deeply sorry, and if I were that woman, I would probably forgive you, but that doesn't repair the damage done. Perhaps it would be better if she did not recover her memory! If she does not recover her memory and I do not have her forgiveness, I will be hopelessly condemned! 23. End of confession It has been a time of great emotional tension. Alicia is torn between her heightened sense of justice, her solidarity with other women, her mercy and her love for me. Mercy and love have finally won out, but that doesn't mean she considers me redeemed. She thinks that somehow I must repay that woman. But she doesn't know how. Neither do I. -Even if it brings back bad memories, I think you'll feel better if you tell me the end of the story. I promise I won't hold it against you! Maybe Alicia is right. Hiding my guilt only causes it to become entrenched in my conscience, it is healthier to air them. -All right, I'll tell you the rest of this sorry story. Neither I nor she felt the way we were supposed to feel after the awards ceremony. I still hadn't gotten over the shock of that woman's insinuating stare, and she seemed to want to ask me what I was thinking, because I think she was reading my thoughts. In an almost pleading tone of voice, she begged me not to accept that woman as my agent, because there would be others who would be happy to represent me. I assumed she was jealous of her, but I did not have the courage to confess to her that, despite her fears, I would call her and we would meet to find out her plans for my promotion as a writer. What was happening was that the woman was living in the new world I thought I had entered after the award, while she belonged to one that was already outdated and without incentives for an ambitious writer. I was no longer a student of letters, I was a writer, and writers can transgress all moral norms because they are justified. That night I could not sleep until dawn, because I too was torn between what my conscience dictated and what my ambition demanded, because it made no sense to have come that far and renounce what any other author would do in my place. After all, she had helped me get there herself, so why not accept the help of someone who would make your dream of becoming a writer come true? When we met that morning on campus, I had already made up my mind and she seemed to me an unacceptable intrusion on my freedom, but I didn't have the courage to let her know, and tried to pretend that nothing had changed after the award and we would follow our future plans as we had dreamed. She must have been relieved by my attitude, but it was evident that my enthusiasm and joviality had changed. I was no longer paying attention to her readings or motivated to write new stories. She interpreted this as me being tired from my efforts to write my first novel, and she didn't reproach me. That same afternoon I went to the agent's office, with whom I had already arranged an interview that morning. Her office was located in her own home. A spacious apartment in a noble building, located in one of the most expensive avenues of the city. She met me herself at the elevator exit. I could hardly recognize her. She was now wearing tight jeans, which emphasized the soft shapes of her hips, and a loose blouse, with what looked like the logo of her agency. Her reception was extremely cordial. It was evident that she had a great interest in me, not only as a writer, but as a person. -My warmest congratulations on the award, but now you have to prevent them from forgetting about you in a couple of months, I can help you," he said as soon as I got out of the elevator. He introduced me into his office, a spacious and bright room soberly furnished with two comfortable black leather armchairs, a large work table and a large sofa of the same material as the armchairs. The only detail that indicated that we were in a working office were the dozens of photographs of their represented authors that hung on the walls. Some of their writers frequently topped the most prestigious book sections of newspapers and literary magazines. Soon mine would be there too. All this proved to me that I had chosen a good agent. We settled into the two armchairs. He offered me a sweet from a small basket on a glass table, and without wasting time on introductions, he asked me: -Do you want to become a fashionable author? What could my answer be: "No"? There was only one possible answer: -Yes! -Okay, so starting today we have to work on a program that may be hard and require all your dedication. Are you decided? I just nodded my head firmly. -My commission is five percent; the contract is for two years, and I have your exclusive representation for all media where it is published, including film, television, radio and the web. Are you happy? I again agreed with an energetic nod of my head. Well, then come back tomorrow at this same time and we'll sign the contract. In two years you'll be one of the most read and sought-after writers in the country! And that's how I signed the contract that would ruin my personal life and from which the professional writer would be born! The next day, as planned, I signed my condemnation. My new agent was more explicit and argued the reasons why she was sure of my success. -You represent the ideal of a talented young man, successful from his first work, who does not resort to pornography, nor to violence, nor to esoteric plots, nor to cloying romanticism, nor to philosophical detectives. That you write simple, but real and exemplary novels that everyone likes. That you also have enough physical attractiveness to appeal to young female readers. You write novels that can be read by the whole family, at all ages, and in all times... -But I've only written one novel! I must have guessed the answer. It was practically in the clauses of the contract that I didn't bother to read: -But you will write them, I will tell you how! 24. Seduction As I left my new agent's office, I realized what a grave mistake I had made in my haste and blindness. I blamed it on my lack of experience, but I was consoled by the fact that fortunately it was only two years, which passed quickly. Now I felt ashamed because I had thrown dirt on our noble concerns, our illusion of keeping ourselves pure, disinterested, away from the merchants of dreams, who lure us with siren songs, and end up dragging us into their dirty world of economic transactions, balance sheets, shareholders, investors, CEOs, bankers, unprincipled and unscrupulous traders and a whole host of individuals unable to value what does not have a price and can be sold on the market, such as honesty, generosity or illusion... They have no scruples in selling and buying souls, and auctioning them in their corrupt financial markets. I will be one of them. But, to tell the truth, before I entered this office I was already corrupted. That evening we had arranged to attend the premiere of a film on the life of Oscar Wilde. I was not in the mood to attend yet another crucifixion of an author, but I had to keep my relationship with my new agent a secret. I made the appointment, albeit somewhat belatedly, when the film had already begun. She waited patiently at the lonely cinema entrance. Despite my tardiness, she always justified my disloyalties, because she had not a shadow of a doubt about my fidelity. I need to pause. Alicia is as shocked as I am, but she has promised not to recriminate me, and she keeps her promise. I feel bad, because I cannot erase from my memories her frail figure, illuminated by the flickering billboard signs, arms folded, looking anxiously from one side of the street to the other, trying to justify my tardiness. It is likely that I would have waited much longer without losing faith in my fidelity. -When she saw me appear on the side of the street opposite to that on which she expected me to arrive, she had a moment's hesitation, but my vision overflowed any desire for reproach, and she received me with a smile that would try to wrest it from the sadness that a few minutes before had gripped her. I think for the first time I felt sorry for her, and perhaps had a sincere desire for repentance. I was tempted to fill her in on her situation, but her smile thwarted my desire. I hugged her, we kissed and I improvised an excuse. She believed me because she needed to believe me and urged me to get the tickets as soon as possible, because we would have time after the movie to clarify the details. It was not possible to wake up someone who was sleepwalking without the danger of causing her irreparable damage! There was no clarification. The film had had such an impact on us that when we left the cinema for a long time, we strolled through the now deserted streets without saying a word. She broke the silence with a comment that set my conscience on fire: -Why do geniuses have to pay such a high price just to be famous? Will we also have to pay such a high price? No, of course not; we won't make their mistake or lead double lives that could cause scandal! We will be a perfect writing couple without giving any reason for what happened to the unfortunate Oscar Wilde, won't we? What could I answer? At that moment I didn't have the courage to tell him the truth and undo the deception at once. No matter how much she suffered, it would not be compared to what she had to suffer afterwards. So much to justify her amnesia! Alicia indicates with a gesture of her arm that she wants to tell me something. -And that's the woman who will be sitting next to him tonight, at the same table? Of course, if she recovered her memory, she would have every reason to hate him. But go on, forgive my interruption! -The days that followed the signing of the contract were so intense that I didn't have a chance to think about her. My agent would invite me to her apartment, and, after a light dinner, we would sit in the armchairs of her office and discuss the plot of my next novel. Of course it would be a love story with a happy ending. Once in my apartment I would write a chapter or two and show it to her the next night. She would make corrections and suggest any changes she thought were necessary. I have to confess that we became well coordinated, because I did not dislike her arguments and ideas and it was easy for me to interpret and write them. As Naomi said in her first message: I just changed muse, and overrode any noble motivation. For the first few days her behavior was strictly professional, but as the days went by she became more familiar and intimate, and changed her clothes to a comfortable night gown, which left her attractive legs practically uncovered. She had a plan to seduce me, but she would not carry it out until I finished the novel. That would be the prize! My relations with the other woman who had become entangled in this drama remained superficial, as are the relations of those who hide their true feelings. Sometimes she dared to ask me the cause of my apathy, which made her suffer so much, and she herself came to the conclusion that the cause might lie in a lack of more sensual relations. Although it was not in her plans, she set out to seduce me and would consent to our lovemaking. Our relationship had been from the beginning an artistic affinity and we were unsure of our physical attraction. At that moment I was infinitely more attracted to the mature beauty and sensuality of my agent than to that of the poetess, who had not awakened from her dream of glory and fantasies. With the excuse of inviting me to dinner, she prepared the necessary atmosphere for my seduction. That night we gestated Naomi, but neither of us was satisfied with that relationship. No; we had not come together for carnal love, only for spiritual love! I cannot continue this story, because today, twenty years later, I still feel the shame of that hasty pleasure, of those frustrated relationships that were closer to prostitution than to love. -Excuse me Alicia, but I think it's time to go to our appointment with my daughter. -And with his mother! -Yes, and with his mother. This will be the last twist of fate, I don't want to think about anything else! Alicia is visibly dejected, I can see it in her sad and absent look, so different from the one at the beginning of this story. She gets up with a heavy heart, as if her legs were heavy, and helps me to get dressed. I leave my private refuge as if moved by a supernatural force, against which my own will is useless. It is already dark, the days are short in October. The cool breeze of the evening twilight suits me well. There is still a pale streak of red on the horizon. We have called a cab to pick us up at the door, but I ask the driver to drop us off two blocks before my daughter's house. Alicia approves of the idea. I want to finish my story before I face this difficult test. -Two weeks later I was putting an end to my second novel, although I would have to rewrite several chapters that were not to the liking of my demanding agent. But that was the day she had chosen to seduce me, and she prepared everything so that I would have no escape. But that same day I had arranged to meet the other unfortunate woman to see the film about Oscar Wilde again, because the previous time we had missed a good part of the beginning. The idea came from her and I couldn't refuse. But it was not only the interest in the film that made them want to see me, but apparently she had some important news to tell me, but she did not want to tell me what it was about. He wanted me to be there when he gave it to me. I assumed it must be something to do with his poetry, perhaps he had won a prize, or had found an important publisher to publish it. I went to my daily appointment with my agent, with the intention of leaving the manuscript for him to read and write down the corrections, but to my surprise, I found a table prepared with great care and detail for two people, illuminated pale by two artistic candles, on a side table there was a bottle of champagne set to cool, and in the center of the table a silver tray with canapés of caviar, salmon and other such delicacies. But what impressed me most, and of course turned me on, was the way she had dressed for the occasion. She was wearing a silk blouse of the same color as her skin, open almost to the waist, where part of her still firm breasts could be seen, and a tight black skirt that covered her above her knees. The outfit was extremely elegant, but above all, irresistibly attractive! I don't know if you know men well, Alicia, but there is no will capable of overcoming a temptation like that. It is for this very reason that mankind was condemned; it is the eternal sin that man has committed from the beginning: the irresistible attraction of Eve and her apple! This biblical drama was played out in that room: caviar, champagne and sex. After that, the grim reaper could take us into his darkness. I had to choose between the two women: one offered me fame. The other offered me spiritual affection, sincere friendship and, of course, loyalty. -Who would you have chosen, Alicia? The question has caught her off guard, but the answer is withering: -The second time, of course! -I didn't want to choose; I wanted things to stay as they were, I could continue to have both relationships and not hurt either, but my agent forced me to choose. In the end it was the champagne and its irresistible sex appeal that decided. To celebrate my betrayal, we began the evening in a cabaret where they staged sexual scenes of indecent bad taste, but it was part of their plan. At the entrance of the cinema, illuminated only by the flickering lights of the neon signs, with her arms crossed, and without ceasing to look anxiously from one side of the street to the other, she waited uselessly for the man who I now know wanted to tell me that he was going to be a father! Fortunately he lost his memory! 25. The reentry We approached Naomi's house. I have finished my painful story, and we quietly give ourselves to our own thoughts. Alicia must wonder if she hasn't been blinded by my popularity, because I don't deserve her affection; and I wonder if I can look the woman who is waiting for a visit from a perfect stranger in the face. Recent events are beyond my capacity for assimilation, and now I have to face a new mammoth test. A few steps away I am going to meet the woman from whom I have stolen the best years of her life. She may recognize me, in which case I don't know how I will be able to justify myself, and if she doesn't recognize me, I won't be able to justify myself either. All these years have only served me to understand that ambition without a noble cause does not bear noble fruits, but poisoned ones, with the poison of your own poisoned spirit. But there is something that worries and amazes me: Has all that time really elapsed? Are we not always at the same moment? How far does the boatman travel in his boat? None! And yet, the boat does travel a space and consumes a time, dragged by the current. I have also been dragged by the current, but I am still in the same boat; the same instant as always, and that will probably be eternal. The woman who must be in Naomi's apartment is the same woman I left at the door of a neighborhood cinema, but she continues, like me, to live in the same instant, for we have not passed through time, we have passed over time, like the boatman over the current of the river! But it is not the body that travels in the boat, but the soul, which is not affected by time. She will have the same soul she had the day she lost her memory, and it is that soul that has not aged and will surely recognize me. Now they meet again and they will ask themselves: what have we done with our lives that we had to separate? Only I have the answer: not having listened to her or followed her wishes. We are at the door of her apartment. Alicia gives me a pleading look. -Your great moment has come! Now you will have the only chance to save or damn your soul! She knocks and we hear some agile footsteps that must be those of my daughter Noemí. But it is not Naomi who opens the door, but she does! Alicia could not avoid an expressive gesture of surprise, and I feel as if I were plunging into an abyss of time, and I would have to travel through the past twenty years to land in the same place where I was the night of my betrayal: time has not passed for her! There is no trace of suffering on her face, still smooth and young. Her figure is the same. Her hair is still curly, but a little more faded, and what impresses me most is her serene and tender gaze, but as if lost in nothingness. I don't know what to say, but I am anxious about her possible reaction. Did she recognize me? I hear rapid footsteps, it's Naomi coming to greet us. But she has become paralyzed and anxiously contemplates the scene. Finally, her mother and I are face to face and neither of us is able to break the tension of the moment. Naomi watches her mother, but there is no reaction that could give her to understand that she has recognized me. She remains holding the doorknob, and seems relaxed, she is waiting for her daughter to come. -Are they your guests, Naomi? Naomi tries to hide her desolation, she didn't recognize me! -Yes, Mom, they are our guests. She exchanges a disconsolate glance with me. Alicia also feels the tension of the moment, and looks at me questioningly. Naomi's mother begs us to come in, lets us in and closes the door behind Alicia. She follows us into a small living room, where a table is already set for four guests. We take off our coats and Naomi hangs them on a coat rack. Her mother remains silent, rubbing her hands together, not knowing what to do with them. She gives us fleeting glances and smiles slightly. There is strangeness in her expression, it is evident that she considers us strangers, and she does not know what her behavior should be. I think he is waiting for his daughter to introduce them to him. Naomi expected some gesture in her mother's expression that would show some indication that she remembered me, but it is evident that this has not been the case. She seems resigned and introduces us to her indecisive mother. -Mom, these are my friends I told you about. They are both writers, like us. The mother seems to welcome our profession with pleasure, because she gave us a broad smile with a gesture of admiration. Naomi tries, without much hope, to provoke her mother's memory. -He's a very famous writer, I'm sure you've seen his picture in a newspaper or in literary magazines! But the mother flatly denies this with a nod of her head. We are all caught off guard by a question from her mother addressed to me: -And what do you write, novels or poetry...? I write poetry..., yes, I've written a lot of poetry... He loses his gaze on an indeterminate point in the room. I try not to show my deplorable mood and respond by forcing a friendly smile: -I write novels, stories of ordinary people. Nothing special... but I met an admirable poetess, who, unfortunately for her many admirers, never published them! She smiles back at me, but makes no comment. I get the feeling that something is disturbing her mind, because the smile is frozen on her lips. She seems to wander off and move somewhere else. Perhaps to our university campus. She is a helpless and vulnerable woman, the same as she was twenty years ago, but time and amnesia have made her extremely sensitive and emotional. I would love to read her poetry. Dare I suggest it: -Why doesn't one of them read us? She has been startled by my unexpected suggestion and seems embarrassed. -Oh, no, no; I write them for myself.... They are very personal... You wouldn't like them! Naomi listens to her mother and seems devastated. -Mom, these are my friends. Come on, cheer up and read us some of your poems! There's still some time before dinner is ready. Naomi wants to try everything. There may not be another chance. Her mother looks stunned. She looks at us as if to check our willingness to listen to her poems. Once again she seems to sink into faraway places. Naomi tries again and suggests to her mother that she read the first ones she wrote, but that she does not remember when and where she wrote them. There is no doubt that she is under great pressure. I feel sorry for her, but above all I feel even more miserable. This poor frightened woman, who writes romantic poems dedicated to a lover she cannot remember and who has him in front of her, does not deserve this suffering. She seems to be hesitating. We are all watching her decision. She looks at us again as if trying to read our thoughts. Alicia has been silent, she must realize that now she has a real rival. Now that I have seen her again, those happy, pure and generous days return to my mind with infinite nostalgia, and I begin to believe that if destiny has it in mind, they could come back, even if only for a short time. Neomi has managed to overcome her mother's fears and agrees to read us some of her poems. The three of us settle down on a small sofa while she nervously shuffles through several notebooks she keeps in a travel bag, and doesn't seem to know which one to choose. He finally decides on one with pink covers, where there is a caption that I can't read. He sits down on one of the dining room chairs, leafs through several pages, and finally seems to decide on one. She has the same tone of voice, the same slow cadence and intonation. It was a pleasant experience to listen to her recite, and I see it's still the same! IF YOU WERE... If your heart were foam, I would be ocean; If your soul were heaven, I would be cloud; If your gaze were rain, I would be a field; If your hands were water, I would be thirsty. For God's sake, that verse again! Why is fate playing cat and mouse? Why has it chosen this very poem? I think she has noticed my confusion. She gives me a strange look that could be one of interrogation, perhaps she is beginning to remember! Naomi has exchanged a look of astonishment with me, she seems to be asking herself the same question. Alicia hasn't reacted, but I suspect what she must be thinking: her stigma is haunting her! Naomi's mother has come out of her momentary impasse and continues reading. When she finishes, we have the feeling that she has made a great effort. She closes the notebook, leaves it on the table and drops relaxed on the chair. She doesn't want to read any more poems. Something is disturbing her mind again. Now I can read the notebook's caption: "Poems of love and oblivion. Spring 1997." But there is no indication of the place or name of its author. I congratulate her effusively, she thanks me with a kindly smile, but I notice her absent, troubled. Naomi is worried about her mother's despondency. She must think that we should not push her. To awaken her memory abruptly may cause her a new trauma. She does not insist. Dinner is ready. Alicia accompanies Noemí to the kitchen to help her set the table. My daughter has cooked and has surprised me, I didn't know she was such a good cook. Her mother has relaxed; she is calmer and we exchange comments about how wet this autumn is turning out to be and what she has seen during her stay in the city. -Did you like the opera "Madame Butterfly"? -Oh, yes; very much so! -Don't you find it a little sad? -Yes, you are right, it is a bit sad.... I have the impression that she is talking to me, but her thoughts are elsewhere. I would give anything to know where! Naomi intervenes in the conversation. -I have an idea," he turns to me, "why don't you take my mother to visit a museum? I can't miss school, but you might have time. I know she was looking forward to seeing the latest exhibition at the National Museum. His mother tries to protest. Sounds like a good idea to me. -I will be happy to accompany you. I was looking forward to seeing her too! Alicia remains in dramatic silence. Everything is conspiring against her. She has noticed that I am beginning to take a lively interest in Naomi's mother, and I think she even suspects that I may feel something more than compassion. The truth is that I feel a great longing for the times when we were two lovers of literature, but also two good friends, and friendship is less passionate than love, but more loyal and generous. On the other hand, I would like to repay her suffering with my affection. But I can do nothing for her unless she recovers her memory and remembers who I am. I think Naomi is of the same opinion. The dinner was delicious. I congratulate my daughter, who is very flattered. But my aches and pains threaten to return and I would like to be back in my apartment before this happens. Naomi brings us our coats and I notice in her mother's eyes that she senses our departure, I think she has taken a liking to me and has overcome her initial misgivings, possibly she vaguely remembers me. We agreed that I would pick her up here the next day and we would spend the morning visiting the exhibition. Then we would go to an Italian restaurant for lunch, as Noemi has filled me in on her mother's gastronomic tastes, and she loves Italian pasta. Yes, I remember! 26. Memory I have spent a night in intense pain. All these emotions may be detrimental to my health. The pains have been joined by uncertainty about Naomi's mother. It is very likely that had our past not mediated I would have been attracted to her; for her kindness and sensitivity, so rare in the environment in which I have lived these last twenty years. I have still found her attractive, but it is not an exclusively physical attraction, perhaps I cannot explain it in spite of being a writer, but it is a physical attraction that emanates from the spirit; a physical attraction proper to human beings and not to animals. It is the joy of pleasure when it is tempered by sensitivity and not only by sexuality. It is as if the soul gives you its blessing to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh without unconsciousness and bestiality. It's not sex, it's sensuality, if I can put it that way. Maybe that's why we had that frustrated relationship, because she tried to imitate a behavior that was not in her personality, and I wouldn't have known how to interpret it then either. I don't feel well, I'm down and my whole body aches, but I have to pull myself together and keep the promise I made to Naomi's mother. Another absence would be intolerable! The weather is with us. It is a sunny, almost summery day. The shower has cleared my head and I feel a little better. The prospect of spending a morning with someone who has loved you but is unable to recognize you fills me with uncertainty. I may not be up to the task and I may not know how to behave. After all we are two sick people, and sick people understand each other. A cab takes me to Naomi's house, I ask her to wait, because it will take us to the National Museum. Naomi's mother had been waiting for me dressed to go out for a long time. When she opens the door I notice enthusiasm in her expression. I greet her with a friendly kiss on the cheek and can't help but compliment her good looks, which she seems to appreciate. I suspect she has taken a liking to me and feels safe with me. What would happen if she knew who I really was? I don't know, but sooner or later she has to know. I find it hard to accept what is happening. I spend the morning next to a woman I have longed for for many years, and now that she is next to me I feel unable to openly show her my affection, and I continue to suffer from the same regrets as with the previous ones, but aggravated by the constant fear that she will recover her memory and realize that she is next to the man who has caused her the most harm. I would like her to end this nightmare; to recognize me and condemn or forgive me. If on many occasions I have wondered what would have become of me if I had not left her, now I don't need to imagine it. We would visit the latest exhibition at the National Museum, but we would be holding hands, and we would talk about the sales of my latest novel, which surely would not even reach the tenth position of the best sellers, but in exchange I would have a good number of educated and faithful readers, with whom I would exchange thoughts, concerns, ideas and comments about my novels, the message of the characters, about literature and art in general. Many of them I would know personally and I could consider them my friends, as well as faithful readers. But they would not flatter me, even if they felt admiration for my novels. I would not be an idol of young girls blinded by my popularity and the attractiveness of an experienced forty-year-old who considered me sexy, since I would have a companion that everyone would know and would know that I had always been faithful to her, as she herself said at the exit of the movie theater of such bitter memory and that resonate in my ears as if she had pronounced them yesterday: "We won't make mistakes or lead double lives that might cause scandal! We'll be a perfect writing couple, giving no reason why what happened to the unfortunate Oscar Wilde shouldn't happen, right?". How I wish it had been so! But we would also talk about the success of her last book of poems, because she would be much more popular and admired than me. Her books would indeed be at the top of the best sellers and most valued. And they would not be poems addressed to a ghost lover, but to all that multicolored spectrum that can be expressed through poetry. This is the dream that I have failed and that I cannot even turn into an exemplary novel, written with my heart and not my head, without studying the tastes and trends of the market, the number of potential readers and possible royalties, or wasting time in eternal photo shoots to publish the most commercial image, or begging for an interview on the most popular program in exchange for promoting a sponsor who is not interested in what you think about literature, so that future generations would receive that message of friendship, loyalty and generosity from the people of generations already gone. That would possibly have been my life with her. During the cab ride to the museum, she stares quizzically at what she sees as if she has never been here before. When something especially catches her eye, she exchanges a look of amazement with me, I respond with a smile of approval. At the museum she seems enthusiastic about the paintings on display. There is no doubt that she is an artist. She tells me about the ones that catch her attention. I have acquired for her as a souvenir of this visit an illustrated book about the painter in the exhibition, which she thanks me with a discreet kiss on the cheek. She is undoubtedly the same charming woman she was twenty years ago. It would be a memorable morning if I were not in constant pain. I try not to let her notice my suffering, because even if it is brief, today is probably one of the happiest days in recent years. What makes us most human is our ability to get affection and friends who just know us. A friendship without affection is like a black and white photograph: it lacks color. I'm finding the museum visit exhausting, but she seems immune to fatigue. I suggest we take a break and have a drink in the museum cafeteria. She thinks it's a good idea. The cafeteria brings back distant memories of the one at our university. Twenty years later she is standing in line in front of me again and she is also holding a book in one hand! As if this coincidence wasn't enough, they also have slices of strawberry cream pie! She has seen them and seems hesitant to put a slice on her tray. She gestures with the intention of taking a slice but pulls back. I think the sight of that cake has possibly awakened some area of his unconsciousness. I can't see the expression on his face, but he is unable to go on with just a cup of coffee. I get the impression that something is again disturbing his mind. There are several people behind us who are getting impatient, because she has become as if paralyzed in front of the tray of cakes. In a strange gesture, which seems to me more impulsive than voluntary, she finally takes one of the portions. I'm beginning to worry, I have a feeling that twenty years of amnesia may have a tragic end here. But I don't care, and I take one more step towards this abyss, offering to hold the book for him so that he can take the tray with both hands! She turns sharply toward me and I have the alarming feeling that her gaze is remotely familiar, the same one I remember when she turned to me in the faculty cafeteria. Maybe she is starting to remember that scene too, because she refuses my help again! I don't know if fortunately or unfortunately, but there has been no repeat of the accidental event that brought us together, and we managed to get to a table with no accidents! She must have noticed my confusion mixed with my pains, because her gaze shows a certain uneasiness, it seems as if she is looking at a stranger, who is not the same one she had kissed ten minutes before to thank her for the unexpected gift. The coffee and his slice of cake are on the table, and for some reason they remain untouched. It is as if they were witnesses to some important event and needed to be presented as damning evidence to an imaginary but exacting jury. I cannot look into her eyes without feeling uncovered, lost in a deep sense of guilt for which there is no redemption. If I could read her mind I'm sure my image appears blurred in a dense fog, but it is quickly making its way to clearer areas, where it will eventually become perfectly visible. I, too, am getting the feeling that this woman is being transfigured, and before long she may emerge from the mist and may, at last, know the identity of her betrayer! In the midst of this state of anguished transformation, I hear the familiar sound of cups and plates rolling on the floor. An elderly woman has lost her balance, and dropped her tray! Once again fate intrudes on our tormented lives! The woman sitting in front of me now has a twitching face, her eyes wild, her accusing gaze fixed on mine, which I feel unable to hold. She has risen so abruptly that she has caused our accusing coffee cups and cake slices to fall. He almost shouts at me: -You; it's you! PART TWO: THE REUNION "He who forgives sin, seeks affection; he who spreads it, drives away the friend." (Proverbs 17:9) 27. Rejection Naomi's mother has vanished in the cafeteria. I don't know to what extent her memory has returned, but it is clear that she recognized me. A museum security guard has spotted a doctor among the visitors, who is trying to revive her. He asked me what caused her to faint. I told him that she had suffered a shock. The doctor wants to know what caused the shock. I replied that the cause was the strong impression of recognizing a person she had forgotten for the last twenty years. -That's no cause for fainting. -She did not wish to recognize him. He seems to recover. He half-opens his eyes, contemplates me for a few moments and closes them again. -I want to go back to my daughter's house; call my daughter and have her come and get me...! She asks the attending physician. -The gentleman who accompanies you can take you there. -No, no; call my daughter! The doctor looks at me strangely. -It's me he didn't want to recognize. It's a long story; I wouldn't know how to explain it to you. The museum guard suggests we find a cab and tell the driver where to take her. She nods weakly. Someone of those watching the scene has recognized me, and the word spreads among the others watching the scene. I notice in their looks a veiled reproach. I think they know from what is published in the magazines of the heart that my relationships with women are tortuous, and that she may be another of my victims. Nothing causes more pleasure to admirers than to discover the weaknesses of their idols, because deep down they hate them. Their admiration enslaves them and this discovery is a liberation. A few anxious minutes pass, but finally a young man appears who must be the cab driver, because he is accompanied by the guard. I tell him where to take her. The young cab driver and the doctor accompany her, and they leave the cafeteria. I find myself terribly alone, surrounded by people who probably hate me for my alleged misconduct with the victim. It is possible that someone may have taken a photo with his cell phone and tomorrow the photo will be published in the tabloids and on the networks, and some unprincipled and unethical journalist will take advantage of the incident to climb the ladder by resorting to libel. He will make up a story claiming that I mistreat my colleagues, which will delight the readers. He knows perfectly well that I will not sue him, because he will certainly be a poor devil who will not get his miserable salary at the end of the month, and I could only pay for the damages at the taxpayers' expense, giving him shelter and food in one of our overcrowded prisons. But my image will deteriorate, and in these critical moments that is what I most wish to preserve. I don't give the people who witnessed the scene a chance to explain it to them, and I rush out of the museum. It is urgent that I call Naomi so that she is informed of the recovery of her mother's memory and the dramatic outcome, which unfortunately I had already feared. Her cell phone is disconnected, she must be in a class. I call the University secretary's office and ask them to send her my message, and to come to her house urgently. I don't know what else I can do. After making these calls, I stop to think about what has happened. And I don't need to make any great show of intelligence to understand that my life is now meaningless. I don't even have a daughter to hold on to in this life, because I have not been, am not and could not be, the father that any daughter needs. Meeting her was a mistake. It would have been better if we had never met. When I did not exist, all her affection was for her mother and I had no one to judge my behavior. Now I have intruded and she feels obliged to share it with me, and I feel obliged to account for my conduct. It is better for me to get out of her way as soon as possible, as if she had been a mirage, and to employ her noble sentiments on those who deserve them. I am strolling aimlessly along a busy avenue, but I doubt that they will notice my presence, because I already feel myself floating in a vague place, a prelude to my final journey, which I will not take long to undertake. Perhaps sooner than expected! Alicia; yes, Alicia will help me! I can trust her; she will do whatever I ask of her! I don't know the feeling of love and how far we can sacrifice ourselves for the loved one, but she must know because there is no more sublime sacrifice than to love without being reciprocated. And she has endured it with infinite generosity. Someone has to give me the push to get me on my way to a place where I can find peace. I'm startled by the alarm on my cell phone, it's Alicia! It's as if my previous thoughts had been a spell to summon her and she had heard my wishes to die sooner than expected. She has heard from Naomi that her mother has regained her memory and wants to know how she reacted to remembering me. Just a minute ago Alicia was little less than my exterminating angel, and now that I listen to her life is once again claiming her attention, and she manages to drive these gloomy thoughts from my mind. She is a woman and knows how women think and feel, so I knew she would reject me. She asks me how my mood is and I reply that I am like a lost child in a department store who is asked by adults not to cry because they will soon find their parents. I was also crying before his call because I felt lost and scared. She asks me if I want her to come to my apartment so that I can tell her what happened to make Naomi's mother's memory come back. -Thanks to a slice of strawberry cream pie! -I replied. Alicia has the road free, but she knows that I will remain inaccessible as long as I don't have the forgiveness of the woman who now knows who I am and where her enemy lives. Of course, I beg you to come. 28. Depression Despite Alicia's invaluable moral and spiritual help, I am deeply depressed. It must be one of those depressions that inevitably lead to suicide. If I have not committed it yet, it is out of cowardice and horror of physical pain, but there are many ways to end this suffering. If life is not supported by some incentive, it is not possible to live it. In human beings the defense of life is not instinctive, but mental; it is a reasoned and justified decision, but pressured by the irreversible lack of incentives. No animal commits suicide. I have consumed and wasted all my incentives, without the result being what I would have wished. But I must also admit that I have never known what I really wanted. Naomi called me. She is already in her apartment. Her mother is very upset and wants to go home tomorrow. She has completely recovered her memory and remembers the causes of her amnesia in detail as if it happened yesterday. Naomi has tried to make her see that I am deeply sorry, but she does not want them to talk about me. She thinks she will need some time to get over her resentment, but the one thing I don't have is time. She has not told her about my illness so that she does not think that she wants to blackmail her. She is deeply sorry for this situation, for having to divide her affections between two parents at odds. Her mother does not understand why she has forgiven me, when I am the main victim of this drama. Naomi fears that her mother will distance herself from her because she believes that she has not behaved as she expected. She thinks she should have been more consistent and not forgiven me, and I think maybe her mother is right. Alicia has just arrived. Not a day has gone by since the day we met that she hasn't worried about me and I remain stubbornly oblivious to her. Why does she insist on maintaining her loyalty to a doomed, hopeless man who can only inspire pity and sympathy? The answer must lie in those recesses of women's souls that I have failed to understand. 29. Alicia's plan (Narrator: Alicia) Today I found him in a deplorable state. I know that he had hoped that Naomi's mother would have given him the opportunity to express to her his regret and his own sufferings and remorse in twenty years of solitude. If she has lived those twenty years in darkness, he would have preferred to have lost his memory as well. We women are condemned to forgive men's infidelities, because they have created a world where it is not possible to avoid this sin. If it were the world of women, infidelity would not be possible because neither would ownership exist. Men would be as shared as food or work. No one would be anyone's property. This man is a victim of that world, where there is no other incentive than competition and the derisory pleasure of the winners. He is also an unhappy winner in a world made in his own image and likeness. We cannot change a world that has a male God. But we women would not have gods either, only energies, positive or negative. Energy has created the world, we are all energies. I know that in his desperation he is thinking of suicide, but he is a weak man, and to commit suicide it is necessary to have courage. Men feel strong if they have terrible weapons, we do not need those diabolical weapons, but if we set our minds to it, we could bring about the destruction of the world in the same time it took God to create it! God himself had to be begotten by a woman. I would like to make him understand that he is not guilty and that his remorse is unfounded. If there is a guilty party to be found, it is Naomi's mother, because her fantasy and her ignorance of human nature and of the reality in which she lives provoked this man's infidelity. The most serious sins are not committed by the intelligent, but by the ignorant, but they do not feel guilty because their ignorance serves as a mitigating factor. Her literary agent lived in the real world, it was a matter of competition and she had the best offer, that's why she was the winner and got the product. It would be necessary to completely revise our morality and adapt it also to the laws of supply and demand. If I love this man it is because, besides the physical attraction, for twenty years he has been consistent and has written what the market required, but his loneliness justifies his rejection. Only when death threatened him did he decide to put an end to this immorality, and say in public what he really felt and thought. For me he is a hero! He wonders why Naomi's mother won't listen to him and I suggest an idea that might help him: -Why don't you write a new novel with the story of your relations with her and how you have lived these last twenty years. She won't want to see you, but she might read the novel. I think this idea has been in his head for some time, but he doesn't feel strong enough to do something like this. -It's too late now, Alicia, I'm afraid my illness is getting worse and I won't even be able to count on those six months of respite. I have a feeling that I won't live to see the next spring bloom and that I won't be spared the cold winter of death! It is useless for me to encourage him, he knows better than anyone else when death will come, because it must be the most foreseen event. Yes, it is possible that he will not see the next spring bloom and that for him it will be too late, but not for me: I will write that novel in his name! 30. The first novel I had to help him change his clothes and make him comfortable. Maybe it's time to get to know him on a first-name basis. I think he has only me now. His daughter Naomi will only feel pity and compassion for him, but she will remain attached to her mother. She is young and idealistic now, and thinks she loves everyone, but soon she will be more selective, and will be more demanding in lavishing her affections. This is now a dead father, of whom only the memory will remain, but the mother will still be alive and demanding in her maternal affection, more as a family obligation than as a sincere moral sentiment. Now my poor friend is a loser, for with death he loses everything. I need him to tell me what his life has been like in these twenty years of unfounded remorse. -I'll fix you something to eat and then you can rest. While you sleep I will finish reading your first novel. But when you wake up, if you feel well, I want you to tell me what your life has been like during these twenty years. -Alicia, you called me by my first name! I was expecting this remark -Yes, I have called you by your first name; there is no longer any reason to keep our distance. Now we are closer to each other and share the same loneliness. You may not love me, but you need me as much as I need you. We are now traveling companions. You will get off before me, but my journey won't be very long either. I can only trust you and you can only trust me. I may be the only one to mourn your death. Now he rests and I return to the reading of his first book, which I now read with great attention. The one I write must have his style, because it must be his book. I do not know if I should inform him of my idea, it is possible that he felt frustrated at not being able to write it himself. I read a paragraph that strikes me: "The day is dark for the cursed poets, and the night is clear and welcoming for us; the light damages our eyes accustomed to darkness. In the darkness there are no visible paths, it is necessary to travel them with the imagination. During the day all the paths where you are forced to travel are visible. That is why only in the darkness we are free, while in the light of day we are slaves. I have chosen the darkness of death, because on the other side of the darkness there is always light. I will be reborn in a new world saturated with light, where I will live eternally." Will it really be like that? How can I know in life? My good friend will check it very soon, and I should arrange with him a spell to cross our dimension and inform me. Would it be possible? The short break was good for him. He has woken up in a good mood and agrees to tell me his story. I make coffee for both of us; I sit comfortably in the armchair and listen to him with great attention. -My agent knew I had betrayed the other woman, but he didn't feel guilty. He believed she was infinitely more beneficial to my career than my partner. As an agent, she prioritized the success of those she represented over her feelings. In just three months we managed to place my novel among the top 10 best sellers, and two months later, we reached first place. She had kept her promise! She knew all the levers to promote the novel of a perfect stranger. And sometimes those levers didn't move very ethically or morally. Our extra-professional relationship was not very satisfying for both of us. I was not a lover up to her demands. The truth is that for one reason or another I have never been a great lover. When he managed to place me on the cusp of popularity he stopped being interested in me. His passion was to bring young writers out of anonymity and share their triumphs in a very personal and physical way. For the first six months I did not have the courage to concern myself with the fate of the victim of my ambition, but not a day passed without the memory of her and my betrayal weighing on my conscience. I had promised myself that as soon as my career was consolidated and free from the bonds of my contract with my agent, I would seek her out and propose to her to resume our old dreams of glory, and we would once again become the writing couple she had imagined. I already had the means to make it happen. But I still had a year's commitment to my agent. No, that woman does not deserve this man's affection; and of course he is not guilty. If he is guilty, to live is sin! Nothing fundamental that we human beings do is righteous, because we are driven by necessity and not by will, but this is what living is all about. We have all inherited "original sin." -My agent didn't wait for our contract to end before finding a new lover. Another young writer, as ignorant and inexperienced as I was. Surely he would offer him the same fame and success as me, but he hadn't won any contests. He may not have been a better writer than me, but he was probably a better lover. By then I had not only risen to the top of the popularity charts, but I had created a saga that virtually assured the success of my future novels. That's why I decided that the time had come to repair the damage done, to meet her again, to try to get her to forgive me, and to make up for lost time, which had been very profitable for me. But there was no trace of her - he remains silent for a few moments, I think he realizes the desolation that awaited him if he did not manage to find the whereabouts of that woman -. She was hidden in a remote location that had little contact with the rest of the country, and no one knew with whom she was associated during her stay at the university. She never revealed the name of that town, which also did not coincide with her birthplace. Her father was the secretary of the Town Hall and had already made several transfers to that position in that small town. All my inquiries were useless. To make matters worse, she had adopted an artistic name to sign her poetry by which she was known, and not by her real name, which even I do not know! -So, is it true that you have exhausted all attempts to find her? -I ask him, although he has already given me the answer. -All the ones in my hands. I assumed that she had removed all traces of where she was so that I could not locate her. I didn't know I had lost my memory. I still let the year that was left in our contract go by, never for one day failing to try some other means of getting hold of her, but all my efforts proved futile. I finally came to the conclusion that she did not want to be located, because otherwise after two years there was no reason for her not to be the one to try to contact me. I did not believe her to be so spiteful, and I gave up looking for her. Two years of hard work, of having reached the pinnacle of popularity and having the necessary means to realize our dream, were meaningless and useless; in other words: they had gone to waste! -But she says the opposite: that you had no intention of tracking him down. -For her, I must have already been dead; there was no need to wait for me to suffer from this disease! -And how did you live the following years? -The following years I did not live; I survived! I had no other incentive than those commissioned novels, one every year, twenty thorns stuck in my mind! I had thousands of admirers, but not a single one to whom I could confide. When you write novels for ordinary people, don't expect to find a single one out of the ordinary. It's been such a lost few years for her, even though she has an excellent memory. 31. Confidences of a mother (Narrator Naomi) My father has not told me the whole story of his relationship with my mother. Now that he has regained his memory and I know the real story from my mother, I think maybe she is right and does not deserve my forgiveness. My mother could have prevented my birth by having me aborted, which she possibly would have done if my father had known of my gestation. If I was gestated it is because she believed she loved him and did not want to lose him, but he did not know how to value her sacrifice and abandoned her. She knew that she had accepted the representation of that vicious and heartless woman, and she was so naive that she thought she could compete with her. What else could she do to keep him by her side? It was of no use for her to write the best poems and dedicate them to him, because he had ceased to be interested in the poetess, and of course in the woman, but he did not have the courage to be honest with her. My poor mother has been crying practically since she has arrived at my house. It has been very painful to come face to face with a man who had shown so little courage in hiding his infidelity from her. -It's easy to regret when one senses death.... -she says to me between sobs-. You had to be the one to find him.... If he had put more effort years ago he would have found me, but success, and surely his many admirers, kept him very busy. I cannot reproach him for his resentment, twenty years lost in a few hours are not forgotten just because he suffers from an incurable disease. He is the cause of my mother also suffering from an incurable disease, but of the soul. But I am deeply saddened by this situation. I wish I could have found a justification for both of them, because deep down I believe they are both good people. They both have noble souls, and, if they have hurt each other there must be a powerful reason. My father blames his passion for literature and perhaps he is right. To create it is necessary to leave this world and contemplate it without an emotional relationship, otherwise it is not possible to understand it. I suppose that in order to create characters with different personalities, the author does not have to be emotionally linked to any of them. When my father was immersed in the creation of his novels, his relationship with the world around him, including my mother, must have changed and they were no longer people but characters. His life was a fiction and his relationship with my mother, the plot of some of his future novels. As it was. If I intend to follow in his footsteps and be as good a writer as he is, I must avoid creating emotional ties with anyone in this world, because, as he himself told me, and which I have not been able to forget, "If you dream of being an out-of-the-ordinary writer, your life will pass within that same out-of-the-ordinary dream, and you will never be able to live in reality." My mother also lived her out-of-the-ordinary dream, but she made the clumsy mistake of falling in love with one of her characters. I cannot expose this reflection to my mother because she might not be able to understand it. Although she has regained her memory, she still lives in her fictional world, and my father is a character of her imagination who has accidentally incarnated himself in the body of a lover. They should wake up from their respective dreams and contemplate each other as they are. Only then could they know how they really feel about each other, but how to wake up from a dream someone who doesn't know he is dreaming? I know it is useless, but I try to make my mother see this other point of view: -I understand that you are hurt, but perhaps your passion for literature played a trick on you, neither of you knew what the other was really like. Love is blind, and only sees what it imagines it sees. Maybe you were in love with someone who existed only in your imagination. My mother has reacted, and she looks at me confused and suspicious. She doesn't seem to have understood what I meant. I try to be more explicit: -What I mean is that both you and he needed each other as admirers of your respective works, which is what you really loved. When my father found another admirer, he no longer needed you, but you still needed him. I think he still doesn't understand my thoughts about his relationships. I'm afraid he thinks I'm trying to justify it. -Naomi, daughter, I don't know what you're trying to tell me! His guilt is evident, he took advantage of my innocence. I always tried to justify his lack of interest because I blindly believed that, in spite of everything, he was still faithful to me. It wasn't the first time that woman had made him late for our appointments, but that night I needed to see him and let him know that I was pregnant with your child, and I didn't know how he might react. He was not likely to want to be a father at this delicate time in his career. He needed to know as soon as possible, but I didn't think it was appropriate to tell him in writing or over the phone. I wanted to see his first reaction to know whether he would accept you or reject you. So, you can imagine my enormous frustration and anguish, because of his absence. In spite of the pain, I tried to believe that he had some powerful reason for not coming to the appointment, I was still blindly trusting in his fidelity! His expression has changed. She seems to be feeling the desolation and pain of that night. I can see it in the wrinkles on her forehead and in the wetness of her eyelids, she is about to cry again. -I was so distressed and helpless that after waiting uselessly for him for more than an hour, I did not return directly to my apartment. The night was warm and clear so I felt like taking a walk. I thought a long, relaxing walk would calm my anguish and I wandered through the busy streets, to mingle with the people and distract myself from my thoughts. I was confident that the next day we would have a chance to meet. And that's when I had the terrible shock that caused my amnesia. In one of these streets, there was a nightclub of ill fame, and I was contemplating the obscene photographs of the claim, when he descended from a cab, accompanied by that woman, who took him by the arm and they entered the club. They both seemed intoxicated. That image gave me a strong impact and I felt as if my head was going to explode. When I recovered from that terrible shock, I didn't know where I was, nor did I have the slightest idea how I had gotten there? -I didn't know where I lived, I didn't even remember my name! Near that place there was a small park, belonging to a parish in the neighborhood. Most of the benches were lined with homeless people. I was terrified, but I needed to rest, and I let myself fall exhausted on the only one that was free. Moments later a woman from the urban police patrolling the neighborhood was surprised by my appearance, which was not that of a beggar and wanted me to identify myself, but I could not answer any of her questions, so they understood that I was in a state of shock, and took me to the police station of the neighborhood... You know the rest... For God's sake! Why do I have to face this horrible dilemma? If I save one I condemn the other! Where is the justice? Which of the two is truly innocent and which is truly guilty? And why does one of them have to be guilty? Why can't they both be innocent? They each have their reasons for doing what they have done and I am unable to judge them. I suppose only God can judge them! My mother is packing her little travel bag, because she is about to take the first train of the morning. There will be no opportunity for reconciliation. She will probably not be at his bedside when he passes away. She does not want to return to this city that brings back such bad memories. She is determined to forget him, but now voluntarily. Who knows, now that she has regained her memory and can live a normal life, maybe she will meet another man with whom she can rebuild her traumatic life. And me, what should I do? I want her to give me the answer herself: -Mom, I understand that you resent him and want to forget about him, but what should I do? He's my father, and he's a dying man! Should I be at his bedside when he passes away? His answer plunges me deeper into my uncertainty: -My daughter, do what your conscience dictates, you are already an adult, you must decide for yourself.... Now I am the one who feels like crying. -I don't want to be an adult! 32. Naomi's mother (Narrator: Naomi's mother) It is not yet dawn and we are ready to head for the station. My train leaves in an hour and the station is not far, but we will take advantage of the time to have breakfast in the cafeteria. My daughter is not used to these early mornings and is still sleepy. She has insisted on accompanying me to the station, but now I can manage on my own perfectly well. The cab is waiting for us on the street and in less than twenty minutes it drops us off at the station. I look nostalgically at the cityscape of my youth that I will never see again. We have plenty of time to chat, but first we need a strong coffee to clear our heads. We sit at a separate table in the cafeteria and Naomi brings me coffees and two croissants that are still warm. We have breakfast in silence. She waits for me to tell her something about what my life will be like from now on in my small town. I tell her that nothing will change, but that I will now try to publish some of my poems. -Even if they are dedicated to my father? -Why not? A poem is a poem, and it doesn't matter to whom it is dedicated, what matters is that it moves feelings and emotions. -But he can read them. -He has not lost his memory; he has nothing to remember. -Will you ever come back to this city? -No, Naomi, my poor child, I will never set foot in this city again. He's been dead to me for twenty years! He took his own life the night he went to that notorious club on the arm of that woman. She dug her own grave, and then erased the epitaph on his grave, because she too forgot her victim. For me he has remained dead these twenty years, until he was momentarily resurrected to revive again his agony. I have written the last verse dedicated to him, which can serve as a panegyric: I die when I am still young; I die when I am still an adult; I resurrect when I am about to die; I die again when I was about to live. -This is my farewell gift until death wills to take me to his side as well. Then we will know which of us two has done justly. Literature will lose a writer with all his talent barely used and a poetess with all her talent barely remembered. No, Naomi, I don't want to force you to choose who to condemn or who to save. Your soul and mind do not belong to us, only your body. You have received your soul from God, and only you have the possibility of discovering what your true personality is. Don't try to imitate us and choose your own path, which may lead you to be a great writer, but you could also be an excellent doctor or a great soccer player. You owe us nothing. We begot you by our recklessness, without that being our desire, as most human beings are begotten. It is we who are indebted to you, but we do not have the means to compensate you for our mistakes. You were born free and you are free to choose who deserves your affection and your memory. Your mother will always welcome you with open arms, but live your life and do not feel pity or expect comfort from us. If you need comfort, learn to comfort yourself; if you need support, learn to lean on yourself; if you need compassion, learn to pity yourself and if you need love, learn to love yourself. It may not have been the advice a mother should give her daughter, but at least in this I agree with her father, people are only united by the affections that their works arouse; without works there can be no affections. -Your father and I were happy when we both admired each other's work, but when he stopped being interested in my poetry and I stopped admiring his, because he stopped writing short stories to devote himself to writing novels inspired by his perverse agent, we had no reason to love each other anymore. But I didn't want to accept that that talented young writer would let himself be handled by his agent, and I continued to admire the author of "Poetas sin cielo". Now I know how wrong I was! Only if he returned to being the writer I idolized could I forgive him. But perhaps for him it is already too late. That must be his destiny and this must be mine. The public address system at the station announces the imminent departure of my train. My poor daughter has felt it as if they were announcing the departure of a train to eternity with no return, because she looks at me in anguish and I know she is making great efforts to hold back her tears. -Mom, if I have to be an adult, I want to be like you. I love you very much... but also my wretched father... -I know, you have a generous heart because you are young. With age it shrinks and becomes more selfish, but more faithful and demanding. -No, we'll say goodbye here.... Take good care of yourself, and don't pout like when you were a child, or you'll make me cry too. Give me a farewell smile! Naomi tries to please me, but her smile is a cheerful way of crying. My heart breaks into a thousand pieces as I walk away from her dragging my small travel suitcase as if it were my coffin. When I finally step through the door onto the platform and she can no longer see me, I let my downtrodden soul vent freely and cry silently.... I can't help but feel guilty for having lived! 33. The second novel (Narrator: Alicia) I have read the manuscript of her first novel twice and I think I am ready to take on this important challenge. Of course I will alter some things, she has to understand the reasons for his abandonment and be able to justify it. This man cannot leave this world without a clear conscience and I will not be able to convince him that he is innocent. But I have little time, I have long sleepless nights ahead of me! I heard from Naomi that her mother has returned to her hometown and it seems she has no intention of ever going back. Fortunately Noemi still considers me a good friend she can trust. She has not told me expressly, but she is going through a very difficult time. We have arranged to meet at the coffee shop where I met her father, but he will not attend, because I will not inform him of our meeting. I want Naomi to have nothing that prevents her from opening her heart to me and telling me what conclusions she has drawn after what her mother has told me about her father's behavior. I need that information to finish getting an idea of the plot of this new novel. Now she knows the whole story, but according to her mother's version, I want her to know her father's version as well. I am taking advantage of the fact that she is spending the morning at the hospital to meet her. I am the first to arrive and I sit at the same table as that day. In front of the table there are some large mirrors where I see myself reflected and I can hardly believe that this woman is me. My gaze has become severe, or rather, cold and disenchanted. I no longer find myself neither ugly nor beautiful, just sober and adult. I don't need to attract anyone's attention either, because I already have someone to pay all my attention to, that's why I dress again with the same old-fashioned clothes I wore when I arrived from the provinces. I even notice that my movements are slower and my appearance in general suggests that of a simple social worker. I feel more like myself than in those provocative clothes. How little they esteem themselves who need to hide themselves in the way they dress! Naomi has just arrived. She has all the appearance of a helpless and confused creature. She stands hesitantly in the doorway, as if afraid of being discovered. She hasn't seen me, or perhaps hasn't recognized me in my new guise, and she motions to leave. I signal her with my arm, and as she recognizes me she seems to come back to life. She smiles as if I have saved her from some imaginary danger. She sits down across from me. She asks me about her father's health. -I don't want to deceive you Noemi, all these events have affected him... I don't think he will make it through this winter -his smile has turned into a bitter expression of deep sadness-. I think that what is worsening his health is his deep depression after your mother's rejection. Naomi lowers her gaze, as if she does not want me to notice the conflict of her divided feelings in her eyes. We keep a few moments of silence in memory of her dying father. She has nothing to say, I am the one who starts the conversation. -May I ask you why your mother does not want to hear your father's confession? She tells me the real cause and not the one we all believed. I'm afraid the mother has a powerful reason for her spiteful attitude. Even I would find it hard to forgive her if I were in her place. Betrayal now has a pornographic image, something simply intolerable for a sensitive poetess. In her delusions she must have imagined him as a satyr with the face of an angel. How can I justify that scene? Why did they go to that club after, in all probability, they had drunk to excess during the romantic private dinner? There must be a good reason that exculpates him. -Dear friend, sometimes I wonder, especially as a writer, what is the use of language if we cannot understand each other. Perhaps it would have been better to communicate with a few sounds to express our basic feelings, as animals do, because words, no matter how cultured, creative or realistic we may be, are not capable of expressing ourselves as clearly as those simple sounds. Your parents are two excellent people, and they would have understood each other with simple sounds, without using words. The use of words has confused and separated them. It is a biblical curse! The same words have different meanings depending on who pronounces them and how they are pronounced. The heart does not understand the meaning of words, but the tone with which they are pronounced. The meaning is the task of the mind, but the mind lacks feelings, it doesn't care about one word or another. Your mother only listens to what is said if it is poetic; but your father only pays attention to what is said if it resembles the dialogues of a novel. Neither listens to what the other really says! -Yes; they themselves admit that their passion for literature is what has separated them! -No, Noemí; it is not literature, but words. Literature is a noble attempt to give some emotional or intellectual meaning to words so that their messages are clear to the senses. But life is not a novel, we don't know who the characters are or what the plot is about or even know its author. We trust that words and their meanings are enough to go through the world with morality and a sense of justice, but all we do is invent moralities and justice with words that do not have the same meaning for everyone, so there can be no morality or justice as long as there are words. Naomi seems to ponder my thoughts. She has come to a wise conclusion: -So, do you think they are both guilty? -No doubt, but it is an inevitable sin, because we need words, not to understand each other, but to communicate. That is why literature that is born of this curse and tries to redeem itself is so necessary, but not literature that is born already cursed and rejoices in its evil, as a pig wallows in its excrement. We writers have only one mission: to free words from the flames of hell and make them reach heaven. We are the fallen angels in this hell, while we inhabit the Earth, and of heaven, when we leave it. -And what can I do to reconcile them? -Words will not reconcile them, unless they are spoken in such a way that the heart understands them. -What do you mean? -Your mother will only react if she receives the message in poetry! -And who will write this poetry? -The person who loves them the most... You will write it. It will be your debut in this magical world of Literature and you will pass with an A, because you have the main thing: a great motivation. I know she feels overwhelmed, but at the same time I notice in her eyes the spark of genius that demands her chance. -But my mother would only be reconciled if he proves to her with a new novel that he is the same one who wrote "Poets Without Heaven", and that she has unconsciously loved these twenty years.... -Your father will write it! I don't want to reveal to Naomi that I will be the one to write it, because unconsciously I might reveal it to her mother and all the work would be useless. -Alicia, you have never told me why you feel obliged to take care of my father, because you always address him as "you", which is not proper for a mistress.... Do you have anything to do with his publisher or his manager? I had always feared that Naomi would ask me this question. But I don't have a clear answer even if I ask it to myself. Only a month ago I was a woman in love with a famous writer, whom I was physically attracted to and admired for his talent, so I had no doubt about the causes. Now my feelings have gone beyond love and are in an unknown dimension, which is probably not of this world. Thanks to his illness we have found ourselves in a dimension that goes beyond the human and must have something to do with the divine, and that must be hidden in our astral personality. Only in extreme situations do we penetrate this dimension, which creates eternal bonds. It is as if I am helping this man to enter that dimension, which must be the myth of Paradise, where we will meet again and be lovers for all eternity, so we can spare no effort to achieve it. I am trying to secure the love of this man after his death, so I cannot feel jealous of his mother, who will only be able to love him with that earthly, temporary love of human beings, when I reserve for myself his eternal and divine love. But Naomi would not understand. -Your father and I are, in addition to professional colleagues, old friends. I feel obliged to help him die a good death. I would do the same for any of my friends and fellow writers. 34. The wording Today I started writing the novel. I have the strange feeling that I am fulfilling a divine mandate; the will comes to me from an unknown source. The salvation or damnation of a human soul depends on its outcome. It is as if I were donating blood to a badly wounded person. I begin with that terrifying phrase for all writers: "Chapter One. It is like opening the bonds of the imagination, in a perfect union with the mind. It is absolutely necessary that the first lines arouse in Naomi's mother the need to read the following remaining lines or failure is assured. These are my first lines: "The main characters of this story did not meet by chance, but by destiny. But for twenty years they put all their efforts into going against what was written in the stars. This is the story of two lovers united by literature, but separated by words." I think it's a good beginning, and only with a good beginning is a good ending possible. Now I have to create the author of the novel, because this novel will not be written by me but by my characters. Also in real life things work the same way. God has created man, and has endowed him with the necessary understanding so that he can decide for himself the plot of his story. I continue: "These characters are two young people with the defects and virtues of all young people: utopian, independent, rebellious, reckless, nonconformist, generous, innocent and unbelieving. Like all young people, they do not live in the present, but in the future; they have no history, only a great desire to make history. Nor do they have experience, only experiences. They are not wise, they only have the desire to know. They make the simple complicated, because they believe that the simple is for old people or children, but not for them. They are, in short, two young people of our time, but as young people have been in all times. She has a passion for the sensitivity of Garcilaso and he for the imagination of Cervantes; she adores Dante Alighieri, he Lope de Vega; she is a poet, he is a storyteller. She knows she has talent and is sure of herself; he doubts her talent, and has no confidence in himself. But she believes in him and decides to postpone temporarily his inevitable conquest of fame and glory in order to help the insecure young narrator, so that they can walk the road to glory together, without one overshadowing the other." Four exhausting weeks have already passed. The novel is progressing at the same rate as my strength is waning. I have reached the critical point of separation and I have no difficulty in exonerating my death row inmate of all guilt. Where can the writer find the source of his inspiration if not in real life? How can he describe a brothel, observe the deep sadness that encloses the false joy of the prostitutes; the eagerness to make even the smallest drop of pleasure received pay, if he has never been in a brothel? How can a writer with her wings intact and free to fly wherever she pleases, clip another writer's so that he does not stray too far from his nest? Poetry springs from the soul; narrative from life. The poet sees the world from a cloud; the storyteller from the sewers. Poetry is music; narrative is noise. Naomi's mother still sees the world from a cloud, and if she does not descend to dry land she will never know that clouds become rain, and rainwater runs in the gutters! I have used these notes in this decisive chapter : "It was no surprise to find a table set up in his unmistakable style for two diners. Champagne set to chill, caviar canapés and other delicacies. I even knew that he would choose the most provocative clothes, in other words, it was nothing more than a novel scenario that I was to describe in the novel I was writing at the time. It was my clever agent's peculiar form of collaboration. But there were still some complicated scenes to describe for which I lacked the necessary imagery and could easily fall into ridicule. I discussed it with my agent and he suggested we pay a visit to one of the less reputable clubs in town, where I would surely have the images I needed. But I remembered my appointment. It was a painful decision. I knew she would be outraged, but a woman who has a writer for a partner must be used to such rudeness. Would she be angry if I were a doctor who missed her appointment because she had to treat a sick person? With my novels, I also treat thousands of people who are sick with boredom and lack of entertainment. Tomorrow I'll excuse myself and she'll understand! Before that excursion to the most nauseating bowels of the city, we finished the champagne, because sober we would not have had the courage to enter that brothel." "Unfortunately it was a fatal coincidence that she, frustrated and hurt by my absence, strolled down the street where the club was located and surprised us as we got out of the cab and entered the club somewhat dizzy, so that my agent had to lean on my arm. If it was true that he had blind trust in my fidelity, he had to wait until the next day to see that, despite appearances condemning me, I was still faithful. But that misleading image exceeded all her capacity for tolerance, and wounded her deeply, causing her the fatal trauma that has kept us apart for these past twenty years!" If after reading this she doesn't forgive you, this woman has lost her soul! 35. Winter The slower you want time to pass the faster it insists on passing. I've been so busy this past month that I haven't been aware of the passage of time and it's already winter! After her interview with her mother, Naomi is less affectionate with her father. Whatever her mother may have told her about her relationship with her father has affected her noticeably. There is something that separates them, but Naomi does not want to discuss with him her encounter with her mother, and her version of what happened. If she hides it, it must be because it must be something very lurid and that she does not dare to comment on. She has also become accustomed to her father's illness, she even seems to be mentally prepared to accept his untimely death, and only visits him once a week. Her apology is that she is so busy with her exams that she can barely stay for an hour in his apartment, and doesn't even stay for dinner. Since her hasty return, we have heard nothing from the mother. She seems buried in absolute silence. At least Naomi does not mention her. Unfortunately, it is as if all our behavior has entered into an irresponsible routine, without us being truly aware of the seriousness of the moment. Your father has had to be admitted several times to the emergency room, because his illness is getting alarmingly worse. Every time I call an ambulance to transport him to the hospital, he begs me to let him die in his bed. He is horrified by hospitals, because he believes that everyone there is so familiar with death that they cause it themselves! The pains cloud his mind and in those critical moments he totally loses the will to live, but I cannot accede to his wishes, because I still need him to survive at least long enough to see my purpose through. The novel is practically finished, because it is not very long. Only a few corrections are missing. I had some difficulty in finding a good denouement, but I think I have solved it satisfactorily. Your publisher will have no knowledge of this novel, of which I will publish only a few copies, enough to fulfill its purpose and no more. About the poem to be written by Noemi, maybe I overestimated her talent, but I still trust her, she will surprise me any day. My plan is that by Christmas the reconciliation will be consummated, and, at last, I will also be able to reconcile with myself. Perhaps I will also take advantage of this painful experience to write my own novel with my own version of events, but most likely I will dedicate my next work to the memory of this great man. As I expected, Naomi has not let me down, and has written a touching poem that is sure to influence her mother's mood. In any case, I don't think he will follow in his parents' footsteps. She is too down-to-earth and too grounded. She would make a good researcher, or teacher. If her parents have problems it is because of her artistic, creative, fickle, unpredictable temperament. It is difficult to live with an artist. 36. The last winter (Narrator: the sick person) This will be, if medicine does not prevent it, my last winter. I would like to live it intensely, but life slips through my fingers like fine grains of sand on a beach. Soon I will have left this troubled world. With each passing day I feel more and more familiar with death. With each new dawn the sun rises darker for me, and its light grows dimmer. Slowly what was a nightmare becomes a dream. As life punishes me, death rewards me. Death seemed like a drama to me before I knew the true face of life. Now that I know it, death seems to me a comedy, and it causes me an irresistible desire to laugh. In the end I will end up turning my death into a great event and I will sit in the stalls with a real longing for the curtain to rise. I may be starting to lose my mind, but that must be the mind's strategy to elude suffering. Blessed is madness when sanity allies itself with pain so that you suffer it consciously! But I wish to be an exceptional witness to my own death, because it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I am a writer. If I intend to describe death in my novels, I must have experienced it! I know it seems an absurd thought, but more absurd is to believe that our mind and spirit do not transcend beyond the threshold of death. I believe that everything we have come to conceive and imagine will somehow remain, and transcend our death, to be the foundations of the personality of a new life at the instant of its gestation, into whom we will transmigrate. I also know that this is a naive consolation, because no one has been able to prove such a theory. Others believe that their souls will ascend to heaven, remain in purgatory or descend to hell, where they will be reunited with other soul mates, virtuous or sinful. This is the most popular version. In my theory there are no heavens or hells, but there is overcoming or degradation. A wicked and depraved soul can transmigrate into the fetus of a beast. It is not the most popular, but I believe it must be so. Now I spend most of the day bedridden and my mind is only clear when the sedatives take effect and the pain disappears, more and more intensely. Alicia spends the day with me, but at night, after she leaves me sedated and I manage to fall asleep, she goes back to her apartment, only to return first thing in the morning. She must be exhausted, because sometimes she falls asleep on the couch and it is me who watches over her sleep. She has brought her laptop with her, on which she passes the time when I sleep. She says she is working on her new novel about the ballerina, but she doesn't want to read anything to me until it is finished. She has become very superstitious and thinks it brings bad luck. I find her getting worse and worse every day, even thinner. I fear that she may also fall ill. Today is one of the coldest days of the winter. A heavy snow is falling and the flakes seem to go crazy as they are pushed by a strong gusty wind, which is constantly changing direction. Like every morning, I hear the pleasant rattle of the lock as Alice arrives at my apartment. She is shivering with cold and completely soaked. I suggest she put on one of my robes and dry her clothes on the heating radiator. Many times I have held her body in my arms, but I had never seen her naked. This morning I finally had that opportunity. I see the body of an attractive but not provocative woman; sensual but not sexual. It is harmonious but not erotic. It's just a human being's body. It feels better already. As she prepares my breakfast, I inquire about her career situation, which she seems to have abandoned because of me. -Alicia, how are things going with my agent? Did he get you a contract? Alicia denies it with a slight nod of her head. -And has he given you any reason? -Publishers don't like novels where there is no sex, or at least something that excites their imagination, and my novels find them too intellectual or spiritual. -Yes, I think my first agent seduced me into having a firsthand sexual experience and being able to describe it in minute detail. That was also one of the keys to the success of my novels. Sexuality is not an invention of culture, it is a natural reality and there is no reason for it not to be part of a plot, but it should not be described as a simple sexual relationship, similar to that of animals, because what characterizes a human being is that from all his natural experiences he extracts a moral evaluation, which does not exist in animals. Among humans, sex cannot be exempt from this same morality. Most novels dispense with this necessary moral premise to describe it as a purely animal relationship and, therefore, immoral. It is not true that in war as in love anything goes. In war there are also rules of conduct, so why shouldn't there be in sexuality? Alicia listens attentively to my brief dissertation on sexuality and seems to agree, but qualifies a few details. -Morality is relative, and its values are not shared by all, that is why I believe that sexuality has to be based on other more realistic norms, that satisfies desire without incurring in prostitution.... -And what are these standards? -Of course, mutual consent, and respect for the sensitivity of each lover, provided that both are aware of the consequences of this relationship. That attitude is already sufficiently moral. No lover should be considered an object of pleasure, but pleasure should have an object, that of mutual satisfaction of the senses, without creating a bad conscience: the contrary would be prostitution! 37. Last Christmas (Narrator: Naomi's mother) Once again I am in this small and remote town. It has welcomed me with the first snowfall of this year and I feel that the snow is also falling on my soul. Now that I have recovered my memory, the last twenty years of blessed amnesia seem like a brief instant. Were it not for the wrinkles, those of the face and those of the soul, I would not know that time has passed. To remember for what; to recognize the cause of your amnesia; to see again that painful scene at the entrance of that brothel; to relive those dreams cut short by the ambition of a disloyal friend? For this it is better not to remember! Now I have to forget what I have remembered so that it does not continue to disturb me and to meet again with poetry, which is my only friend and confidant. The only one that is loyal and for no cause, justified or not, betrays you. We are only what we believe in and believe, the rest is a chimera, because it only exists in our imagination. I imagined him as I wished him to be, but he was not as I imagined him to be, because no one can penetrate the mind and soul of another person. They will always let us down! Now I have to follow the same advice I gave Naomi: If you need comfort, learn to comfort yourself; if you need support, learn to lean on yourself; if you need compassion, learn to pity yourself; and if you need love, learn to love yourself. What would have become of me if he hadn't won that untimely award? Would we still be together, would he have grown tired of me? We would probably be separated. I remember the night of the recital. He didn't say goodbye to me because he was jealous of my friends. But, on the other hand, only those who love feel jealous. And what would have become of his literary career if he had not met that woman? Naomi wants me to read her novels, but she herself assures me that they are well written and interesting, but lack motivation. They don't convey anything transcendental or human, they are novels to regale the ears of ordinary people, without ambition, conformist and resigned to their vulgarity. If I had helped him, he might not be so famous, but he would be better regarded and would have more incentive. He had the talent to write something more ambitious; something that deserved to go down to posterity. I just got an email from Naomi, I miss her so much! She should write to me more often. I open it, unable to contain my excitement: "Dear Mom, in two weeks it will be Christmas again and this year I don't know with whom of the two of you I am supposed to spend this lovely time of the year. You know how much I love you, but it hurts me that my father spends them alone, being so sick. My heart is still divided between the two of you, and I can't decide on either of you, because I wish I could spend them with both of you!" My poor daughter is in an unbearable emotional struggle. I should write to her and tell her that I won't mind if she doesn't come and spend it with her father. Someone has to sacrifice, because neither of us has done more to deserve her affection! "I have another important piece of news for you: Alicia has given me several copies of Dad's latest autobiographical novel. In spite of being very weak she has kept her promise. I've read it and I couldn't help crying with joy, but I won't tell you why, it's better if you read it and find out for yourself. Will you promise me you'll read it? I'll send you a copy by mail. I also enclose my first poem dedicated to the two of you. I already told you at the station that I wished I was like you. I hope you like it. A very strong hug from your daughter who loves you and misses you, Noemí." God knows that I would make any sacrifice so that Naomi would be happy and not have to suffer for our faults, but He asks the impossible of me! Betrayal has no redemption. Jesus would not have forgiven Judas either, nor does God forgive the devil. One betrayal is enough, now I cannot also betray myself. No, Naomi, my poor child, you cannot yet understand how the wounds of the heart hurt. Mine has bled for twenty years, and now it needs to heal its wound, it may happen tomorrow or never. Everything is written in destiny. Let it decide for us. She tells me that her father has published a new novel, and that it is autobiographical. I have a feeling that it must not leave me in a good place among his memories. Why is Naomi so keen for me to read it? I'm not spiteful. I, too, wish everything had happened differently. I also long for those happy campus days; that insecure young writer who needed my help; those dreams practically within our grasp. But he reneged on everything in exchange for thirty pieces of silver. God is just and has sent him the punishment he deserves! However, the paths of the Lord are inscrutable, thanks to my weakness this daughter of mine was born, who promises to surpass both of us and to be the comfort of both of us. Only God knows what is right and what is wrong. If I stand firm it will be His will and if he must die with regrets, so must he. Today has dawned with a dense blanket of snow that evens everything with the same whiteness. You can hardly walk through these steep alleys. I met the letter carrier on my way out of the bakery and he handed me the envelope with the book Noemi sent me. We all know each other here and there is no need for mailboxes. If I didn't know it also contained a poem by my daughter I wouldn't even open it, but I want to see if Noemí will become a great poet or if she is following the wrong path. I open it and am painfully struck by the title of the book: "Si tú fueras..., Memorias de dos amantes unidos por la literatura y separados por las palabras" (If you were..., Memoirs of two lovers united by literature and separated by words). What does he intend with this title? But I see Noemi's poem. It is not very long. I read it: "I WAS BORN OF FORGOTTEN PARENTS For love or lack of love, by charm or disenchantment, of two unknown lovers I was born of oblivion. As a baby I had no one to rock me, as a child I had no one to spoil me, as an adult I had no one to counsel me because I was born of forgotten parents I met my father when he was dying, I met my mother when I didn't remember, I knew myself when I cried, because we continue to be forgotten. I write you this simple poem to make you forget what you have remembered and remember what you have forgotten of the writer you had loved. Your loving daughter, Naomi." It is a poem worthy of my daughter. You could not have expressed her wishes better. It has touched the depths of my aching soul. I feel guilty that I have ignored my daughter's yearnings. Perhaps she has the right perspective on this drama and I am fixated on my revenge. Perhaps, after all, it is written in destiny that I must forgive her. But how do I know, who can advise me, should I turn to a priest, do they know more about the human soul than we do, have they been given the grace of faith by God himself, so that they are closer to virtue than other human beings? I have lost faith and trusted only in my own judgment, without waiting for the miracle of revelation, but after reading my daughter's moving poem I am beginning to doubt my moral certainties and the time may have come to ask for advice from one who is devoted to the salvation of souls, and mine must be at risk of damnation. If my daughter wishes, I think I should read this new novel. 38. The alarm (Narrator: Alicia) I have to warn Naomi, her father is dying! I know it's against his will, and it's the will of a dying man, but I'm going to call the hospital to have him admitted. He has to hang on to life for a few more days. I can't accept that this woman has no heart. She has to come and save him from the hell of his remorse or he will not rest in peace and we will not be able to meet in that place in the cosmos reserved for our souls. He is bedridden. He can hardly move anymore and has no desire to speak to me. But he follows my every movement with a dull, lifeless look, as if he could only move the girls in his eyes. But in that cloudy, dying look there must be a lucid mind, unaffected by the disease, and he must be thinking about his situation. I can almost read his thoughts. He accepts that his journey through this world has come to an end, and he awaits death with serenity and resignation. He will also dedicate some of his last thoughts to me. I know he hears me, I can see it in the flicker of his eyes, and I have to try to comfort him: -I know you can hear me," he blinks slightly, "You have not been a strong man, for geniuses are weaker the more wisdom they acquire, but illness has given you the strength to accept it without complaint or lamentation. Each day that passes and your end approaches, my love for you increases with the same proportion. At the moment of your death I will be the most in love woman in the universe. I know that this does not console you.... don't be sad, because she will come! But you have to keep a titanic pulse with death. Don't let it take you until it gives you its blessing! -I hold her trembling hand, which is now barely strong enough to know how she reacts. You must forgive me, but I have to call the hospital to prolong your life as long as possible. When she and Naomi arrive we will bring you back here and you can die as I know you wish: holding her hand until your last breath. Then our real life will begin. Then I will not be the ugly, clumsy, provincial girl, but a luminous soul who will meet yours and remain united for eternity. But if you die without his blessing, your soul will wander erratically from one universe to another eternally, never finding peace, and I will be alone for eternity. I know you will do this for me. I try to pull my hand away to dial the hospital phone, but I feel a slight pressure and his gaze seems to come alive. I think he's trying to tell me something. Maybe he wants me to keep shaking his hand. Yes, that must be it. -You don't want me to call the hospital, or stop shaking your hand, do you? -she confirms with a weak blink. Okay, I won't call the hospital, but you have to be strong and hold on until she and your daughter Naomi arrive. He closes his eyes and I get the feeling he's trying to tell me it's too late. Does this mean he could die at any moment? 39. A fatal destiny (Narrator: Naomi's mother) I have not been able to finish reading your latest novel. I think it's enough to make me feel close to hell, when I thought I was close to heaven! Why did fate set that monstrous trap for me? Why didn't I trust his loyalty? How is it possible that a deceitful image could have stolen the best twenty years of our lives? Who drove me to be in that place at that precise moment? The devil? The devil? What monstrous sin had I committed to deserve such a punishment? Poor man, all these years he could not tell me what had really happened! If he had known, of course I would have forgiven him! How could he write the novels I inspired in him if he has felt guilty all these years? I must write urgently to Naomi, telling her of my desire to return as soon as possible and show her father my repentance and my desire for reconciliation. There will probably be no happier person in this world than her when she receives my message! But I also feel as if my heart is no longer oppressed for the first time in twenty years, and is overflowing with joy, and I feel that it is beating again as strongly as when I was eighteen years old, the day I met this wretched writer over a slice of strawberry cream pie! That must be the happiness that forgiveness causes! Blessed be God who has enlightened me! I am desperate and on the verge of a new crisis: the latest snowstorm has left us incommunicado! There is no way to communicate with Naomi. I know from experience of other years that we will be cut off for several days, and he may die at any moment! Why, what evil force interferes with our destiny again and again? For God's sake, I hope it is not too late! No; I can't wait for the telephone lines to be repaired and the snow to be cleared from the road. I have to try to get to the railroad station, because the trains are still running. It's only five kilometers. In a week it's Christmas and I could be by his bedside, and spend the first Christmas together after twenty years of absences. Maybe the cab driver in town will want to take me. I'll go to his house right now. The cab driver is an elderly man, about to retire, and does not dare to drive in this blizzard. The road is narrow, with some very steep slopes. He suggests that we wait for the snowplows to pass, but he doesn't think they will clear the road until tomorrow or maybe the day after tomorrow. But neither tomorrow nor the day after tomorrow are there any trains connecting with the one to the capital. I have to catch the next one, which leaves at five o'clock in the morning. It has stopped snowing and I can walk this route. For this trip I don't need any luggage, whatever I can fit in my bag will be enough. I have to try! 40. The agony (Narrator: the dying man) Poor Alice, how can I tell her that my mind is clear and I am fully aware that I am about to die? How can I also tell her that I no longer have any regrets, because I have only done what destiny had planned for me. Our lives are written in the stars, and our spirit is a part of the destiny of the universe. Destiny that we do not know. Naomi's mother also had a destiny; which has already been fulfilled. I don't know how to tell her that I have sensed her death in some icy place, and that she will never be at the bedside of my deathbed. I once said that a dignified death is to die shaking the hand of the person who feels most affection for you, and that person is you, Alicia, besides your presence in this place makes it a home, so my conditions for a good death are more than fulfilled. Now I can die in peace. She has understood this and continues to hold my hand. I feel her life beating in it, already inert, and that contact makes me begin to feel an indescribable inner peace. It is her soul that pierces me and I feel it inside me, when I only have a few seconds left to live. Now appear the most emotional familiar images of my childhood that I kept in my subconscious. They follow one after the other with their sounds and sensations. I hear my own crying and my mother's voice rocking me in the cradle my grandparents gave her; I see my father pushing the swing in the park near our modest house on the outskirts of the city, when he must have been only two or three years old. He is young and vigorous, and he pushes the swing so hard it makes me cry from the excitement of the game. Many other images pass by, and from all of them I retain some impression. I see myself dressed in my admiral's costume from my first communion, and my parents, who take me by the hand almost on a cartwheel to the neighborhood church. There I see the little girl, with her virginal first communion dress, which made me feel the first passionate emotion of love. A multitude of family images follow, such as the photograph of the primary school, my father's first car, my first train ride, the first girl I went out with and the first kiss on the lips of a woman, and after many others, also the images of the university cafeteria and those that followed. But they all pass quickly and an indescribable emptiness remains after their ephemeral vision. It is as if they were being erased from my consciousness so that when death comes there is no trace left in my soul of what my life in this world has been. I sense that when I reach the last image I will die, and that moment is coming, because I see the image of my literary agent, that night that destroyed our lives. I see her in the half-open door of Naomi's apartment. My imagination has gone blank, and an immense peace comes over me. I no longer feel Alicia's hand. Now I see an intense, blinding light, I know that I am going to penetrate into that light where I will remain eternal... mind.... 41. Death (Narrator: Alicia) He has barely made a slight head movement leaning back against the pillow, and I feel no sign of life in his hand, I think he has died! But he seems to have fallen peacefully asleep. There is not on his face the slightest sign of pain. I withdraw my hand and his hand collapses. Yes, he is dead! The great love of my life lies dead before my eyes! From this instant death will do its work and his beautiful hands, his prodigious head, and his battered body will turn them to ashes. But the hateful reaper has not power enough to destroy the fruit of the one who now belongs to him. His work will survive, and his memory will not fade from my imagination until death takes me too. Now I should mourn him by evoking his memory, but he who has taken him from me will not have his way. Although my soul is broken in pieces, I will not shed a single tear, for I have already mourned him when he was alive. Now I have hardly any tears left, and I must save what tears I still have left for when I begin to miss him and feel his absence. He has been a lucky man, because he has lived doing the will of others, but he has died according to his own will. Only a privileged few have such a death; if it is difficult to live, it is much more difficult to die! 42. The two deaths (Narrator: the author) The two lovers of literature die on the same day and at the same time, because it was written in the stars. The frozen body of Noemi's mother was found by the driver of the snow-clearing vehicle, which would circulate that same morning, clearing the winding road of snow. Her body was not on the road, but in a small ravine, where it must have fallen given the darkness and the layer of snow that hid it. Her former lover died from fatal complications of his incurable disease. Naomi had sensed her mother's death when they said goodbye to each other at the railroad station. Unfortunately, she did not have to choose which of the two she would spend Christmas with, but which of the two she mourned. They were not buried together. She lay in the small local cemetery, and he had her body cremated and her ashes dumped on a nearby beach, as was his wish. Alice was deeply affected, for according to her beliefs, she would not be reunited with her beloved in that dimension she thought she had discovered in his astral personality. PART THREE: ASTRAL ENCOUNTER "Labor not for the meat which perishes, but for the meat which endures to eternal life." (John 6:27) 43. The farewell Death has taken him from me and death will give him back to me. I will look for you wherever you are and we will be together again, but for eternity! If you are in Hell I will rescue you; if you are in Purgatory, I will accompany you until we gain Heaven, and if you are already in Paradise, there we will meet, because love knows no barriers, neither human nor divine. This corpse lying on the bed has lost its soul, which must wander through the cosmos without a specific destination. No one but me will be able to find its whereabouts, because my astral body will be able to travel to every corner beyond the universe, and in some of these places I will find you. She condemned you to hell in one of your nightmares, and she has not come to free you from this curse. Now her presence is no longer necessary. I have to communicate this painful news to Naomi, because she, in spite of her mother's opposition, was very fond of her. She has died just hours before a new dawn. It is not worth waking Naomi so early. It is no longer necessary for her to hurry, her father no longer needs her. I will wait for the dawn. I feel as if I am the messenger of death, but of an expected death. No one will be surprised. Those who knew her diagnosis are already just waiting to read her obituary in the press or on the net, and will exclaim those phrases of condolence that they will have heard in other deaths of other famous people. "Poor thing, he died in the prime of his life and at the height of his popularity"; "He died when he had had everything but his health"; "This is how most of the great characters end their lives: always ahead of schedule"; "Artists live at an unhealthy pace and intensity, that's why they die early", etc. I think they are basically right. The soul is what gives life to the body and if we abuse our soul, we also abuse our body. In the end, the exhausted soul loses its defenses and so does the body, and the inevitable fatal disease ensues. My unfortunate friend was doomed, because he lived abusing his soul since he was aware of its existence. It is dawn, but this is not the same sun as yesterday, nor the same fading stars. It is not the same morning breeze, nor the same blue color of the sky. It is not the same city, nor the same street. Because tonight a writer has died, and when a writer dies something dies in the collective soul of the world, because we writers and artists are the soul of the world. With great pain in my heart I decide to call the unfortunate Naomi to tell her the sad news. She does not answer, but I receive a message from her cell phone answering machine: "Sorry, I am not available. I'm on my way to my mother's place. I just got word that she was found frozen to death on the road as she was walking to the train station. I am devastated and cannot talk. Leave me your message. I feel deeply affected and, at the same time, guilty because I judged this woman prematurely. I hope she forgives me! However, she took too long to forgive him. It is she who should have been shaking his hand when he expired. No doubt she has met her death when she was trying to answer the call of her fake novel, but when it was too late. Once again fate incomprehensibly turns against me, and she will again be my rival after her death, for the three of us will meet again beyond this tormented life. 44. The last trip The unhappy Naomi has had to attend two funerals in a few days. She attended her mother's funeral and barely had time to mourn her when she had to take care of her father's funeral. The hospital has taken care of his cremation and has given him the ashes. Now she has to carry out her father's last wishes and scatter them at sea. She has asked me to accompany her and we will leave for the coast first thing tomorrow morning. -How did my father die," Naomi asks me when we return in a cab to her apartment, unable to hide the sadness in her eyes and her delicate face disfigured by grief. -I think he was at peace, but I can't tell you more because he could hardly speak, I can only tell you that his countenance was serene and he seemed to have accepted death with resignation. -He didn't mention my mother? -He couldn't speak, but I'm sure he would have her in his last thoughts. -The local cab driver told me that she was trying to catch the first train in the morning to meet my father, and he didn't dare take her to the station, so she tried to get there on foot. -Why didn't you wait for the station road to be cleared? -I ask him, although I can guess the reason. -I don't know, but I found a short verse he wrote the night of his death: "Tonight there are no stars and it will not cease to be night Tonight there will be no moon, and it will never be daytime." She must have sensed his death, too, because she did not believe she could see my father alive. But she tried and it cost her her life too. Wherever they are, my parents will have been reconciled and will finally have the peace they deserve. I listen to Naomi and I can't help but feel an unjust wish that her hopes will not be fulfilled. She can't come between us even after she is dead! We are already in his father's apartment. I can't help but have the feeling of his presence, as if his soul has not yet left this room and cannot leave for some reason that only he must know. Naomi looks through everything that belonged to her father, and that now belongs to her, but she doesn't seem to be interested in it. She has gone to the bookshelf and selects one of his novels. She looks at the photograph of her father on the back cover, and cannot contain her tears. -Alicia, what was my father really like? You must have known him better than I did. -I believe that above all he was afraid of condemning himself, because he could never live according to his desires due to his constant remorse. He was a tormented soul who wrote novels to forget the cause of his torments. -Did you love him? -Yes, I loved him, but he never loved me back. -Then why didn't you leave him? -How can you abandon what is already a part of you? -And now, what will you do? -I will write a novel about your father's journey through the cosmos. His life after death! -But that's impossible! I suppose you can imagine, no one has ever been able to meet the dead! I do not want to alarm Naomi and explain to her that I can split my personality and separate my astral body from my physical body. I have experienced it once and I will achieve it a second time. The first time I barely moved a short distance from my physical body, but this new experience I have to take all the necessary precautions so that no one disturbs my concentration, because it will take me a long time to return. -Yes, of course I will imagine it. -Where do you think she is right now? -I can see in her eyes that she is uneasy and fearful, but she must get used to paranormal phenomena, because her parents will try to contact her through her dreams, and I must warn her. -I think he is here, because his soul has not yet been totally uprooted from the emotions transmitted to him by the objects with which he has had contact in life. -And do you think he's watching and listening to us? -he asks me, unable to hide his concern. -No, he neither sees us nor hears us. It can only contact us through our astral body, which happens during dreams. You have to be forewarned, because they are likely to appear in your dreams, and they will want to know what state of mind you are in. But it is likely that they will not make any reference to their deaths, but will appear in scenes that will not make any sense to you. In dreams we have no control over our imagination, time or space. I don't think I should have told her about this possibility. She seems really scared now and will be more so when the night comes and she faces the dreams. A foggy and unpleasant day dawns. It is not the most suitable to spread its ashes. We have arranged to meet at the railroad station, where we will take a train to a coastal town. Naomi is already waiting for me at the station entrance. We still have time for a hot tea, which will lift our spirits. We are sitting at the same table where she was last with her mother. She seems to have regained her composure. -Now I know why my poor mother gave me that sad advice. "Don't expect comfort from us. If you need comfort, learn to comfort yourself." I sensed her death. When she walked away from me, I had a feeling that was the last time I would see her alive! During the trip to the coast we barely exchanged a few words about the unpleasant weather. On the other side of the window, the landscape seems to share our deep sadness. A dense fog hangs over the small towns we are leaving behind. It is hard to believe that there can be happy people in such a depressing landscape. Sometimes the train runs alongside the road, and we can see the cars running at the same speed, occupied by people with obligations and responsibilities who do not think about death, but have no chance to think about life either. They live, that's all! 45. The ashes As we approach the coastal town we can smell the saltpeter. We leave the small railroad station and it is easy to orient ourselves and know where the sea is, because the freshness of the sea breeze clearly indicates the direction. The sky looks like an immense grayish mantle, and a cold and humid fog confuses the shapes of things. The cars drive with their lights on even though it is not yet noon. There are few people in the streets, it looks like a ghost town. We head for the promenade. It is not far. We can already hear the scandalous squawking of the seagulls. The station street leads directly to a simple promenade, as desolate as the rest. We can already hear the waves crashing against the promenade wall. From this promenade we can see the sea, but we can not see the horizon line, which is confused with the sky because of its grayish tone and the dense fog. On one side of the promenade there is a small breakwater, where a few fishing boats are moored, which probably have not gone to sea because of the storm. We chose that place to scatter the ashes. -It is very sad to end a long life of illusions, projects and ambitions," says Naomi, preparing to dump her father's remains in the sea, "in a handful of dust that will be carried by the currents to the bottom of the sea, and so ends his unfortunate story. -It is only his body, his soul will continue to exist, as his works will continue to exist. A group of hungry seagulls hover around, no doubt they must believe that the debris Naomi spreads on the water could be food. -His wish has been granted," he says to me, sobbing, "There will be no more deaths; we no longer need this urn! With an angry gesture, he throws the small urn into the sea. He wipes his tears with the back of his hand, grabs my arm energetically and we walk away from the place. -If you need consolation, learn to console yourself. Yes, Mom, I've already learned! Naomi has recovered her spirits. Life goes on and it is useless to mourn the dead. We have mourned them enough when they were alive. Of the dead, only the memory remains, and he has left a good memory. There is no reason to mourn. I am amazed at her fortitude, but in fact until a few months ago she has been an orphan since birth. Her behavior is not surprising. The return trip is as silent as the previous one. Naomi seems absent, or maybe she is thinking about her future as an orphan. Her gaze is lost in the misty landscape we are leaving behind. She seems to be reacting to some obsessive thought, because suddenly she turns to me and comments: -You were right, I dreamt about my parents tonight.... -He remains eloquently silent, as if wondering if he should unveil his dream to me. I was sitting on a park bench and my father suddenly appeared and sat next to me, but he was dead. I asked him why he had abandoned my mother, and suddenly she appeared sitting next to him, but she also appeared to be dead. They could not answer my question. Suddenly a policeman appeared, and addressing me, he said. "Excuse me, but the dead are not allowed in the park. Take them to the cemetery and bury them." I didn't know what to answer, I was terrified. But incomprehensibly, they both sat up, and turning to the policeman, my father said: "It is not necessary for her to bury us, we will bury ourselves. Goodbye Naomi, don't be late to join us...", and they disappeared, sinking to the ground of the park. At that moment I woke up -she keeps a sepulchral silence, she seems very affected by the dream-. What can this dream mean, Alicia? -That your parents miss you! -I answer without hesitation. -You mean they want me dead? -For them now you live in death, and they live in life. The roles have been changed, that's why they want you to join them. It is possible that this same dream will repeat itself again, although with a different argument, and they will insist again that you join them. You have to be strong and not let yourself be obsessed by what you hear from your parents during the dream. Although they happen in the astral dimension, they are disturbed by your own subconscious. -You mean I subconsciously want to die and join them? -she asks me in alarm. -Yes, but it's because of your current state of mind. You will get over it and your parents will only appear in your dreams when you miss them. Naomi seems comforted by my explanation. But she is still deep in thought, and once again loses her gaze in the misty landscape that we contemplate as the train passes by. Naomi seems to come out of her gloomy thoughts again, turns to me and confesses: -I'd like to be like you, Alicia: sure of who you are and what you want to do with your life. But who am I? The unwanted daughter of two dreamers who were lovers of literature, but who didn't understand the meaning of the word love, even though they wrote it hundreds of times. What should I do? I'm not sure I want to write anymore, with the example of my parents I've had enough! Maybe, as my mother said, I would make an excellent doctor. I'm not sure if I should encourage her to follow her parents' vocation, but precisely because they didn't know how to combine their worldly ambitions with their personal relationships, Naomi will learn from her parents' mistakes and could be an excellent writer without ruining her life. Yes, I think I should encourage her, it would be the best tribute she could pay to her ill-fated parents! -Naomi, in these times when no one believes in what they hear or see anymore, they can only believe in what they can imagine, and we writers can provide them with those images of the world they would like to hear or see! Sadly, most writers rejoice in recreating the nauseating images of what we can no longer believe and should no longer see. You can be a writer who enlightens readers! -But how do I know if I have the necessary talent to not remain in mediocrity? -My dear friend, that is what we all ask ourselves! You won't know the answer until you have overcome a few failures, because each failure will mean you have chosen a wrong path, and you must rectify until you find your own. Talent is about being yourself. The train is entering the central station. Naomi will not move into her father's apartment, because she does not want to live alone. She prefers to continue living with her classmates from college, but she has suggested that, if I wish, I can take it over. The idea is very attractive, because it makes my experience easier. I accept her offer, at least for the remainder of the course, and I will move in as soon as possible. 46. The preparation I am already provisionally installed in Naomi's father's apartment. It is a difficult sensation to describe, because all the objects in the apartment have something of him, and I still have the memory of his dead body on the bed where I am about to sleep. But I feel no fear, on the contrary, sleeping in the bed where the effluvium of the deceased is still there is the best way to communicate with him. I am aware of the risks and I do not know what may lie beyond this dimension. He may be trapped by some higher force and my energy will not be enough to free him. But you may also have reached some dimension that resembles Heaven, and my journey will be in vain. Either way, his destiny was written in the stars from the day of his birth, and it will have been fulfilled without possible appeal. Above all I have to make sure that no one will disturb my sleep while my spectrum is separated from my body. I have to disconnect everything that can ring, including the telephone and anything that creates magnetic fields, which I fear will be impossible to eliminate, and I don't know how it will affect me. After all, when I separate from the body I will only be energy and I don't know how other sources of energy that may be in the apartment may affect it. It is a risk I have to take. The other doubt is, in the case that our spectra meet, to know how we will communicate, because in the encounter we will only be able to communicate through our thoughts, for which we will have to ascend to the mental plane. If we manage to reach that dimension we will not be able to hide our thoughts, so it is impossible to lie or deceive, and everything must happen with total transparency. That must be the curse of material life: the possibility of deceiving and lying, the cause of all the disasters of this world! What will happen if I cannot return to my body? Will I die too? It would be suicide, which means going against my destiny written in the stars, and my soul would wander, without finding rest, until when? But how to have a notion of time where there is nothing but energy? It is all very confusing, and I know I am running a great risk. But what is the meaning of my existence in this world? I have given my heart to a deceased person and now I have no choice but to join him, whether he is in Heaven or in Hell! This weekend could be the appointed day for the meeting, because Noemí will travel to her mother's place to handle the formalities of her inheritance and there is no risk that she might show up unexpectedly. Nor do I expect unexpected visits, because in the last months of her life she had no other friend than her literary agent. His negative opinion of current writers caused him enmity with those with whom he had some relationship. Anyway I will leave a note on the door to make sure of any other eventuality. Tonight will be the big trip. I want to take advantage of these previous hours to write down what I intend to do, and I hope to be able to write also what might have happened on my return. To relax, I take a long walk through the same park where I declared my love. It is a walk full of nostalgia and deep sadness. Everything I see reminds me of his kind person, and sometimes I have the feeling that he is walking next to me and asking me new questions, but this time they are about the mysteries of life and death, for which I have no answers. I sit on a bench and remember Naomi's dream, I would like it to happen to me, but that only happens in dreams, reality is more stubborn, it refuses to change its rigid rules and everything happens as it is meant to happen. I'm back in the apartment and writing notes about tonight's experience. It is getting dark. It is a frigid late winter day. There is a chance of snow. For some reason snow depresses me. I don't like it, because it feels like it is falling on my soul. I like warm countries, because they are cozier and life is simpler. I listen to Bach's oratorios, because I think it is the music that should be heard in Paradise. I lie down on the bed and prepare myself for concentration. 47. Astral travel (Narrator: the deceased) I know I have passed away. I felt a strange vibration and what must be my soul is detached from my body. Alicia has already realized my demise and has let go of my hand, which now falls limp. I feel a force propelling me out of my apartment, and I pass through the wall without any difficulty. I am now traveling at breakneck speed, and I am heading towards the light I saw at the moment of my death. I have entered a strange dimension and I continue my journey through a semi-dark space. In this dimension I see a multitude of trapped specters, who implore me for help and try uselessly to hold me, because their twitching hands penetrate my specter without being able to grasp it. From their appearance and clothing I deduce that some of them have been in this darkness for thousands of years. I also believe that these are people who must have died a violent death, because their specters are horribly mutilated. Some are missing limbs, others heads, and most show wounds possibly caused by the wars or accidents, from which they must have died. But why do they remain in this darkness and not ascend to the luminous zone where I seem to be heading? I notice an important difference between them and me, where the explanation must be. My aura is absolutely resplendent, theirs are darkened. Perhaps when I died with a clear conscience and in peace, my aura was charged with positive energy, which gives it that glow. I have described this phenomenon in one of my novels, the fruit of my intuition, but which I now prove to be correct. For this reason my soul must be attracted directly to the source of light. It must be a simple effect of electromagnetic attraction. For this reason, I suppose that whoever dies with an uneasy conscience, suddenly or by accident, the soul must contain negative energy that obscures the spectrum, and in these conditions they must be attracted only to this dimension, which must be the astral, the first dimension of where those who have died are. These souls are suspended between what theologians call Heaven and Hell, which must be Purgatory. Their desperate attempt to cling to me must be for me to transfer to them the positive energy they need to enter a new dimension that will lead them to the light to which I am heading. But it does not seem that this transfer is possible between wraiths. Possibly that positive energy they need can be transferred to them from the physical world, with invocations, prayers or any other form that I do not know, directed especially to them and showing them your affection. I am still traveling at possibly the speed of light, but I have not yet left this dimension where there are possibly millions of souls in similar conditions. If this is Purgatory, where the souls are not enlightened enough to reach Heaven, those people who die and who have committed faults that have no redemption, their auras will be charged with negative energy, and they must appear absolutely dark, so they cannot rise and remain in the physical world, and this must be the Hell of the souls in pain of theology, and that for some cause that I do not know, they can appear as living dead, or zombies. I have no other explanation. I have crossed another cosmic plane and, at last, I am in the dimension of the blinding light that has irresistibly attracted me since the moment of my death. It has the same luminosity as my soul. No shadow to darken it. My journey through the dimensions of the cosmos seems to end here, because I have stopped moving at dizzying speeds. Here, too, there are perhaps millions of luminous souls like mine. They all seem to have the same youthful appearance, they must not be more than 18 or 20 years old, and they remain suspended in this immense luminous dimension. My specter moves slowly among them. They smile at me and seem to welcome me. I stop in front of a specter that amazingly looks like me when I was 18 or 20 years old, and still in college. He seems to be my double. Something extraordinary has happened: I feel a strange vibration and my double has merged, penetrating into my specter. Now I also have the same appearance as him. I feel confused, but at the same time I feel a great sense of indecipherable goodness. One of the souls who has watched my transformation approaches me and seems to want to communicate something to me. I try to read her thoughts, but I hear nothing. Moments later another even more resplendent soul approaches me, and, like the previous one, I think he is trying to make me listen to his thoughts. I hear him! -Welcome to the luminous dimension, because your soul has only positive energy, and it shines like the light that generates the source that illuminates and created the cosmos! An extraordinary source of positive energy, located in an even higher dimension, and its light is the creator of all the visible and invisible illusions of the cosmos. The more luminous our soul is, the closer we come to this extraordinary source of light. There are the souls of the most virtuous characters in history, such as Socrates, Jesus Christ or St. John of the Cross. I am also a higher luminous entity and I can communicate with any soul, but you can only communicate with those who have had contact in life and feel affection for you. You will be able to hear their thoughts, but they will not be able to read yours. -But what happened to me? Who was this double of mine? Where did he come from? -I hear your thoughts and will answer your questions. When we are gestated two spiritual entities are generated. One is in the form of the space we will come to occupy at the limit of our growth. That entity is composed of positive energy and remains in this dimension. Our destiny is written in it. The other spiritual entity remains in the embryo, which animates it. Its energy is variable and depends on the processes of its consciousness, which can generate positive or negative energy. Our destiny is fulfilled when we act in such a way that it is maintained with positive energy until the instant of our death. Otherwise we act against our destiny and at death we cannot merge with our energetic double and remain in an intermediate dimension or in the physical world, if our consciousness has no redemption. That double of yours has followed your personal development, and has been by your side whenever you invoked him. He was your guardian angel! -Yes, I now remember my experience in the little church park hours after I learned of my diagnosis, where I believed that an angel was sitting in my very pew. It must have been this double of mine, whom I had previously invoked. -You are now constituted as your destiny intended. There is no more duality in you, but an absolute energetic unity! My strange journey to this luminous dimension has ended when I reunite with my double personality. It is as if from this moment on a new eternal life has begun, but I cannot say that I am happy, because that would be to accept unhappiness, unknown in this dimension. It is a neutral state, indescribable, devoid of any anguish, fear or restlessness. Possibly the appropriate expression is "beatific". But fortunately I am not completely separated from my former physical reality, because I can indeed hear the thoughts of those who remember me and invoke me, albeit faintly, like a whisper. At this moment Alicia is invoking me and I faintly hear her thoughts. I fear that she is about to commit a grave imprudence, because she intends to join me in the astral plane, where I am not, and she will never be able to access this luminous dimension while she is alive. If Alice's astral body enters the dimension of the dead, she runs the risk of not being able to rejoin her physical body, and it is quite possible that she will also be trapped in the darkness of Purgatory, and she will no longer be able to join me, as was her wish! I have to find a way to communicate with her and make her see the risk she runs if she persists in her attempt. Now I am nothing more than a contingent of subtle energy that is invisible, but can move into the physical world. I run the risk of becoming infected with negative energy and not being able to return to this dimension, but I cannot allow Alicia to be condemned because of me. I have to try! 48. The return I have returned to the dimension of the physical world and I am at the foot of the bed where Alice is lying. She is approaching the state of concentration where the unfolding of her astral body can occur. If I provoke an energy discharge I may be able to turn on the lamp on the bedside table and interrupt her concentration. I get the lamp to flicker and fortunately Alice has abruptly snapped out of her concentration. She looks at the lamp quizzically, but does not associate it with my presence. She unplugs it and goes back to concentrating. I have to try again and hope she realizes that I'm trying to communicate with her, because my aura's energy wanes. I get her to blink weakly again, and Alice is startled. I think she has understood that it is me who provokes it. -Is that you? Are you here? I flicker the lamp again. Alicia has understood that this is my answer. -So, you haven't left your apartment, as I assumed! But you can't communicate with me. Be patient, I'll join you soon. Maybe this very night. I am trying to concentrate and manage to unfold my astral body, and then we can communicate and you can tell me where you are! I try to flicker the lamp again but it is useless. I will not be able to prevent her from unfolding and entering the dimension of the dead, and if she reaches that dimension and gets trapped I will not be able to rescue her. I only hope that her soul is not condemned and can no longer leave the physical world, which could happen if she dies, because suicide is a serious fault, and it would fill her soul with negative energy! -Alicia doesn't know that I can't hear when she speaks to me, but I can hear her thoughts, and my premonition of Naomi's mother's death is confirmed. But she is thinking that she trusts that we have not met, because she still considers her her rival, even after she is dead. If Noemi's mother is dead I should be able to communicate with her. Perhaps it is because she did not give me her forgiveness before she died that she is in Purgatory. But how do I know where she is? I should listen to her thoughts to know where to go, otherwise it is impossible for me to find her soul among millions of souls. Perhaps his thoughts do not mention me and he thinks only of the wretched Naomi. That would explain it. Alicia is again on the verge of her astral projection. If she succeeds, we will meet again, but it will be for a short time, because she must return to her physical world of the living and I to my energetic world of the dead. All her efforts are useless, our destinies meet neither in life nor in death. I feel truly sorry for this woman, but now I know that it is useless to fight against what is written in the stars. It must be the stigma she was telling me about. Alicia's body seems to shake. It is vibrating. She moves her head from side to side, as if something is trying to detach itself. Yes, it is succeeding, and the specter of her head is detached from her body, and the rest of her astral body as well. Her physical body has been left in absolute rest, no doubt sleeping deeply, while she dreams her splitting. Her first movements are imprecise, she rises slowly but keeps her eyes closed. A thin thread of energy holds her to life, I trust it will not break! Her ascent has stopped. She opens her eyes and gazes at me in amazement, but she cannot speak. Now she must read my thoughts and I must read hers. -Alicia, why did you do it? -He's here! I've done it! But he has changed his appearance, he is now a young man! -Alicia, what you have achieved is to put your life at risk! -He reproaches me for what I did, just for being by his side. -Alicia, I can hear your thoughts. Yes, I have to reproach you. Now you won't be able to join me. I'm dead and you're alive... -Then if my death can settle our differences, I will not return to my body! -You would achieve nothing, because it would be suicide, and you know that your soul would be condemned and could not be separated from the physical world. Give up this useless and dangerous love for both of you! -Haven't I been your faithful companion until your last breath? -Alicia, you are endangering my salvation as well. These reproaches, which I know are not fair, will cause my soul to become contaminated with negative energy, and may prevent me from returning to the dimension of light in which I had managed to ascend. For both our sakes, renounce! -I understand... my stigma haunts me here, too, among the dead. You wish to be with her for eternity, don't you? If I renounce, I'll be damned anyway... -But you will save my soul, and hers too! -She, with her unexpected death, has won! -No, Alicia, we haven't met. I don't know where he might be. Maybe we'll never meet. But where I am, time doesn't exist. I'll wait for you, but you have to die in peace with your conscience! Don't be afraid of old age, when you meet me you'll be eighteen again. -What about her? -Alice, where we will meet there is neither happiness nor misfortune, only goodness; there you can neither love me nor hate me; the three of us will be able to enjoy that infinite goodness eternally, and when its time comes, I trust that Naomi will also join us. -Are you asking me to let my life be consumed in the hope of eternally sharing with you the goodness of your Paradise? -Yes, I beg you! -I have no choice? -Hell now or Heaven when death wants to take you. -You give me the choice between two hells! -Yes, Alicia, but one can last for 30 or 40 years and the other for eternity? -I suppose I must resign and say goodbye until 30 or 40 years from now, and I can't even shake the hand I held at the moment of your death! -That's how it should be, Alicia... But I have to ask you something else.... It's about Naomi's mother. I fear that she is being held in a dark space, halfway between Heaven and Hell. For her to free herself from this dark dimension she needs the help of someone alive, who will transmit her the positive energy that will help her to ascend to a higher plane, and you can help her, and at the same time, help yourself to gain your salvation... -Are you asking me to save my rival? -He is no longer your rival, he is a soul, who, like you, deserves to ascend to the dimension of light and come out of the darkness where he may find himself. -And what can I do for her? -Pray for her! -I've never prayed; I wouldn't know how! -You only have to invoke his name and show him your affection. That will be enough to transmit positive energy to her. Also convey this wish to my daughter, Naomi, to pray also for her mother, and between the two of you you will save her. -How sad is my fate! -No, dear Alicia, in the world of the living there is no greater joy than to feel useful and necessary. Spend the rest of your life writing novels with plots that incite generosity and kindness, and you will live happily until your time comes and you join us. -I don't even have the consolation of crying! -Go back to the living and you can ease your heart with weeping. -Farewell then, until death do us part! -Farewell, my dear Alicia, I'll wait for you in Paradise.... His specter rejoins his body, which remains motionless. I cannot hear him, but I can tell from his sad expression that he must be on the verge of tears. Now he brings his hands to his face and must be sobbing bitterly. Poor Alice, no one but her deserves to enter Paradise! 49. In Purgatory (Narrator: Naomi's mother) Why am I locked in this darkness? Is this the fate of the dead? Where am I? I have seen my body frozen on the roadside as my soul ascended to this dark place. Yes, I must be dead, I have been imprudent, and I have paid for it with my life! What will become of my poor Naomi? I intended to save someone from his regrets, and I die with no one to save me from mine! This place is the Hell I deserve! I shall suffer this anguish forever! I think I see a small glow approaching me. Now I distinguish the spectre of a young man.... Oh, my God, it's him, he's dead too! But he is just as he was when I knew him twenty years ago! Yes, it's him; it's the same restless, ambitious young man who read my poems on our college campus; with the same teasing smile; the same charm in his gaze. I am ashamed that he finds me aging, though he is but a ghost. Perhaps he has heard my wailing, Death brings us together again! He approaches me and I can hear his thoughts: -My dear friend and admired poet, we meet again in strange circumstances. I learned of your sad death in the snow when you were about to watch over my deathbed. I do not know why you are in this dark place, but I will help you and I will repay you in death what you have suffered because of me in life. I needed your forgiveness to die with a clear conscience, but my sincere repentance and the help of our daughter and that extraordinary person, Alicia, saved me from hell. -I would have forgiven you, but death intervened. But, for God's sake, can you tell me where I am? -You are halfway between Heaven and Hell; in Purgatory. Your conscience should not have been at peace at the moment of death, and it became contaminated with negative energy, which prevents you from ascending to a new dimension, where I am. But fear not, your daughter Naomi and Alice will take you out of here and you will be able to join me. -I have never wronged anyone, why do I deserve this punishment? -I do not have the answer. Energy and its relation to consciousness has its own rule, but I suppose that the positive or negative energy that our soul accumulates depends on the state of our consciousness at the moment of death. -Then I deserve to be in this sinister place, because I was reckless.... but I had a good cause! -It would have been useless, because I died the same day. It was already too late! -But I did not know the reasons that led you to that brothel that night, and that you tell in your last novel. If I had known, I would have forgiven you from the first meeting. -I have not written a novel describing that unfortunate event! -Naomi sent me a copy that Alicia had given her.... -Alicia! She wrote that book and altered the facts so that you would come to my deathbed to co-sort me. I don't know what she told about that unfortunate event, but your impression was the true one: I betrayed you! -Is this deception also part of my tragic destiny? -Alicia was only trying to save my soul.... -At the cost of condemning mine! -He had set out to prolong my life until you arrived, but I prevented him from doing so. I am once again to blame! But it is too late for regrets. Our destinies are about to be fulfilled. Mine has already been fulfilled, and Alicia and Naomi will help you to fulfill yours as well. None of us deserves Purgatory, much less Hell. We were wrong because we were human, but for the same reason we repented, and we paid for our absolution with suffering. Now it only remains for us to gain Heaven and a whole eternity to immerse ourselves in a beatific calm in the dimension of light. -If this is also my destiny, I can only trust my daughter Naomi and join you in Paradise. Thus concludes a dramatic story that began one day in early spring, because of a strawberry and cream cakes. 50. Sentences (Narrator: Naomi) Alicia called me because she wants to see me about something related to my deceased parents. We will meet this afternoon and have dinner together at my father's apartment, just like in the old days. I have recovered my spirits and I am living a normal life. Fortunately my career takes up all my time and occupies my thoughts. Only in the evenings I feel the absence of my parents, but in reality I have always felt this absence. I am back in my late father's apartment. Alicia has not changed at all and her books, computer and all her personal belongings remain in the same place. She looks very worn out. It is as if she is suffering from some illness. Her gaze is languid and distant. Something is constantly distracting and disturbing her. She welcomes me with a slight smile. She is no longer the strong, self-confident woman. No doubt my father's death has affected her deeply. -Alicia, don't you feel well? You look tired, you look very unwell. -Yes, Naomi, I am not feeling well. I am depressed and sad. -It's because of my father's death! -Yes, that's why... He remains silent, as if he doesn't want to give me any other reasons for his depression. We sit at the table and Alicia serves me what she has cooked for dinner and we eat in silence. -I thought about your mother," he says in a pause, because he seems to have no appetite. I'm not a believer, but I think we should pray for the salvation of her soul.... -You mean his soul didn't deserve to go to Heaven, if it exists? -The circumstances of her death were not natural but accidental, and in these conditions she died without a companion to comfort her and help cleanse her soul of any remorse. She may be in a dimension where she needs our help. -Alicia, you make me uneasy! Are you suggesting that my mother may be in Hell? -If she were in Hell, she would no longer have salvation, but if she is in Purgatory, our prayers can help her to get out of there and go up to Heaven, which is where she deserves to be! -Alicia, you are talking like a believer. Do you really believe in hell, purgatory and heaven? My comment seems to have confused her, and I think she is mulling over her response. -Naomi, I don't know what I believe anymore! I beg you not to ask me any more questions, for I would not know what to answer. But I have a feeling that we must invoke her and show her our affection. You only need to think of her and show her your affection. Wherever she is, she will receive your message, and she will be closer to Heaven. -Alicia, I always thought you and my mother were rivals. -Dear Noemí, we do not compete with the dead. Outside of this world the heart no longer beats and there is no place for emotions like love. There is only goodness in Heaven and evil in Hell. Near Heaven and Hell there is only anxiety and doubts. Author's note Alicia died of sadness two months later. Her heart stopped because it was no longer useful. There was not an atom of negative energy in her soul and she ascended to the dimension of light without the slightest setback. FIN