Читать книгу August - Romina Paula - Страница 12

6.

You know how cats always position themselves in the most attractive spots? Exactly where you’d go if you were similarly sized. Right now your cat is curled up in the sink. She’s in the sun that way, and she’s arranged herself over a blanket your mom left there to wash. Meaning it smells like people too. It couldn’t be more ideal. Who was it that said that man living in the city is a mammal living like an insect? I don’t know. I do know that being here you’re overcome by sleepiness, no two ways about it, and I am now a viable contender with your cat in terms of hours of sleep. I sleep a lot, as though being awake no longer held any attraction for me.

Yesterday I finally ended up going for a walk, around the neighborhood and a little bit beyond. At first I tried to kind of avoid all the potential problem areas, my route determined by all those spots I preferred to not pass by. I went around the city center, crossed the boulevard, walked along the outside of the bus station, and then I started going up, went from asphalt to dirt road without really realizing it because it starts with just the asphalt getting quietly underneath the dirt and the gravel, and then suddenly walking, taking steps, has a soundtrack, raises dust. I went up a little ways towards the lake, but the sun was intense and I started sweating, but I also didn’t want to take off any of my clothing because the air was cold, and my T-shirt was already damp, so I came back, back downhill, and started towards the highway, towards Trevelin, wanting to see a little of the countryside. Everything is so exactly the same . . . If it weren’t for the sneakers I’m wearing that I definitely purchased this year, I might doubt my age, doubt my historical moment, the point on the line of my life where I am currently positioned—I’d doubt the line. But there can be no doubt about it, there ought not to be, these sneakers are new, new soles, they’re red, I picked them out, recently, Manuel went with me, it took me three hours to decide, he and the salesperson conspired against me, mocking my indecisiveness, while meanwhile I was dealing with another type of issue, I knew I wanted these ones, the red ones, but they were expensive and I felt guilty, but at the same time there was no point in spending money on others because these were the ones, and then I had an argument with Manuel because he’d been on the side of the idiot sales guy, Manuel being like, come on, it wasn’t that big of a deal, how I’m too sensitive. Thus these shoes became my shoes, shoes of discord; therefore it is me in the year two thousand something, there can be no question. But outside of me it’s all so chillingly exactly like itself. It’s so cold here, I’d kind of forgotten how that felt, my lips are already chapped, the corners cracked, and I can barely open my mouth, such a dry cold, and so cold. I sit by the highway for a while, in some grass, in the shade but with my legs in the sun, and if I smoked I would definitely smoke a cigarette. I fish around in my pockets for a piece of candy, but they contain nothing, nothing edible. I swallow and miss how candy tastes and how cigarettes taste, in my imagination, anyway. It smells dry here, weed-like, mountain-like, hay-like, southern, a smell barely discernible due to how dry it is, so dry it nearly impedes the possibility, the constitution, of a smell, of a fragrance. This absence of moisture, this suction, this cold, could truly drive you insane, truly induce it. Moisture, moistness, makes things work, brings things together, permits them contact. With prolonged exposure to this cold and this dryness, to this dry cold, connections sooner or later stop working and then I want to see you with your centrals nervous, nerves frayed, and this desert in the back of your forehead.

I find myself on Juli’s block. His parents’ place. Everything is exactly the same: the dirt road, the same houses, everything the same. They put in some bars here and there, but apart from that it’s identical, even the same dogs, and I’m inundated/ overwhelmed by sadness . . . I don’t know if it’s a bad sadness or a good sadness, it definitely makes me cry, but I couldn’t really say if that’s out of relief or despair, the kind you need to avoid and leave behind or just a good sadness, I don’t know what it is. In any case I am a little glad to be here, weird, like this sense of my own self in my gut, of ownness, of recognition, of belonging. Something. And while I’m trying to deal with all of that the bars part, I’m already at the corner, and automatically I dart behind the hawthorn that’s just in front of me. I don’t think about it, if I had I wouldn’t have opted to look so ridiculous, but fear leads me directly to stupidity, to acting stupid. So now that I’m here and everything I do will look suspicious, I pay homage to the Benny Hill–ness of the situation and peek out from where I’m hiding. But what I see when I do so is vastly less amusing than Benny and a blond losing their clothes behind a bush: I see his mother leaving the house with a kid in her arms. Jesus. I know it, I knew it, it’s Julián’s, it’s Julián’s, I know it, I know it, no one needs to tell me for me to know. Jesus, fuck, and meanwhile I am hiding in a plant. So pathetic, the story of my life: other people start families while I cower behind a bush. What’s worse, I spy. I want to run away, but that would probably draw a lot more attention, so I don’t. Susi sets up her grandkid in a stroller, kind of tucks him in, hesitates, and then finally heads off in the other direction. I stay for a second in my hiding place, more out of bewilderment than anything else. I look back at the house, no sign of life inside though, now, and for a split second I consider ringing the doorbell. Just to get it over with. Say, hey, how’s it going, I wanted to meet your new family. Hey, what’s up, so you’re a dad now. But no, I couldn’t handle it, or I wouldn’t want to. So I’m off, I head off, leave the foliage behind me, leave.