although I had felt a momentary fear and still did intermittently in his absence, in retrospect or in anticipation. Perhaps I was being overly optimistic, but I didn’t think he would be capable of doing the same thing again. I still saw him as an amateur, an accidental transgressor, as an essentially ordinary man, who had done one anomalous thing.
On the fourteenth day, he phoned my mobile when I was in a meeting with Eugeni and a semi-young author recommended to us by Garay Fontina as a reward for the adulation bestowed on him by the former in his blog and in a specialized literary review of which he was editor, ‘specialized’ meaning pretentious and marginal. I left the office for a moment and told Díaz-Varela that I would call him back later; he, however, seemed not to believe me and kept me on the phone for a moment longer.
‘It won’t take a minute,’ he said. ‘How about getting together this evening? I’ve been away for a few days and it would be good to see you. If you like, come over to my apartment when you finish work.’
‘I might have to stay late this evening, things are absolutely crazy here,’ I said, inventing an excuse on the spur of the moment; I wanted to think about it or at least give myself time to get used to the idea of seeing him again. I still didn’t know what I wanted, his simultaneously expected and unexpected voice brought me both alarm and relief, but what immediately prevailed was my pleasure at feeling wanted, at knowing that he had not yet shelved me, washed his hands of me or allowed me silently to disappear, it was not yet time for me to fade into the background. ‘Look, I’ll let you know later, and depending on how things go, I’ll either drop by or phone to say I won’t be able to make it.’
Then he said my name, something he didn’t usually do.
‘No, María. Come and see me.’ And then he paused as if he really wanted what he had said to sound imperative, which it had. When I didn’t immediately say anything in response, he added something to mitigate that impression. ‘It isn’t just that I want to see you, María.’ He had used my name twice now, which was unheard of, a bad sign. ‘I need to discuss an urgent matter with you. It doesn’t matter if it’s late, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll wait in for you anyway. If not, I’ll come and fetch you from work,’ he concluded firmly.
I didn’t often say his name either, and I did so this time only because he had said mine and so as not to be caught on the back foot, hearing your own name often makes you feel uneasy, as if you were about to receive a warning or as if it were the prelude to some mishap or to a farewell.
‘We haven’t seen each other in days, Javier, can it really be so urgent that it can’t wait a day or two longer? I mean, if it turns out that I can’t make this evening.’
I was playing hard to get, but nevertheless hoping that he wouldn’t give up, that he wouldn’t be satisfied with a ‘we’ll see’ or a ‘perhaps’. I found his impatience flattering, even though I could sense that this was not a merely carnal impatience. Indeed, it was likely that there wasn’t an ounce of carnality in it, but had to do only with his haste to bring something verbally to a close: because once it becomes clear that things cannot simply drift on, that they are not going to dissolve of their own accord or quietly die or come to a peaceful conclusion, then, generally speaking, it becomes very difficult, almost impossible, to wait; one feels a need to say the words, to come out with them immediately, to tell the other person and then vanish, so that she knows where she stands and won’t continue living in a fool’s paradise, so that she won’t still think that she matters to us when she doesn’t, that she occupies a place in our thoughts and our heart when she has, in fact, been replaced; so that we can erase her from our existence without delay. I didn’t care. I didn’t care if Díaz-Varela was summoning me simply in order to get rid of me, to say goodbye, I hadn’t seen him for fourteen days and had