it and appease it.
Almost two years passed. I met another man whom I found sufficiently interesting and amusing, Jacobo (who is not, thank heavens, a writer), I got engaged to him at his insistence, we made tentative plans to get married, plans that I kept postponing without actually cancelling them, well, I’ve never been that keen on matrimony, but in the end, what convinced me was my age – late-thirty-something – more, at least, than a desire to wake up in company every day, I don’t really see the advantage of that, although it’s probably not that bad, I suppose, if you love the person you go to bed with and sleep next to, as is true in my case – needless to say. There are things about Díaz-Varela I still miss, but that’s another matter. It doesn’t make me feel guilty, for nothing is incompatible in the land of memory.
I was having supper with a group of people in the Chinese restaurant at the Hotel Palace when I saw them, about three or four tables away, shall we say. I had a good view of them both, in profile, as if I were in the stalls and they were on stage, except that we were on the same level. The fact is, I didn’t take my eyes off them – they were like a magnet – apart from when one of the other guests spoke to me, which wasn’t very often: we had come from a book launch, and most of the guests were the proud author’s friends, whom I didn’t know from Adam; they chatted among themselves and hardly bothered me at all, I was there as the publisher’s representative – and to pay the bill, of course; most of the guests looked strangely like flamenco artistes, and my main fear was that they might whip out their guitars from some strange hiding place and start singing loudly, between courses. Quite apart from the sheer embarrassment that would cause me, it would have been sure to make Luisa and Díaz-Varela look over at our table, for they were otherwise too immersed in each other’s company to notice my presence in the midst of that assembly of dark, curly heads. It did occur to me, though, that she might not even remember me. There came a moment when the novelist’s girlfriend noticed my gaze permanently trained on that one point. She turned round rather ostentatiously and sat looking at them, at Javier and Luisa. I was afraid that her uninhibited stare might alert them to my presence, and so I felt obliged to explain.
‘I’m sorry, they’re a couple I know, but whom I haven’t seen in ages. And, at the time, they weren’t a couple. Don’t think me rude, please. I’m just very curious to see them like that, if you know what I mean.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she replied warmly, after shooting them another impertinent glance. She had understood the situation at once; I must be very transparent at times. ‘I’m not surprised. He’s gorgeous, isn’t he? Anyway, don’t you worry, it’s your business. Nothing to do with me.’
Yes, they really were a couple, that’s something that usually even complete strangers can tell, and I knew him very well, but not her, whom I knew very little, or only from talking to her at length on one occasion – or, rather, from her talking to me, she could have been speaking to anyone that day, I was just a useful pair of ears. But I had observed her in a similar situation over several years, that is, with her then partner, who had been dead for long enough now for Luisa not to describe herself first and foremost, as if it were a definitive state, with the words: ‘I’ve been widowed’ or I’m a widow’, because she wouldn’t be that at all, and that fact or piece of information, while remaining the same as before, would have changed. She would say instead: ‘I lost my first husband, and he’s moving further away from me all the time. It’s such a long time since I saw him, whereas this other man is here by my side and is always by my side. I call him “husband” too, which is odd. But he has taken the other husband’s place in my bed and by virtue of that juxtaposition is gradually blurring and erasing him. A little more each day, a little more each night.’ And I had seen them together before, again