This Too Shall Pass (14 page)

I start laughing. —How old we've become! Imagine us twenty years from now. We're just getting started on our new old age, but it's still a joke, a distant shadow.

—Meaning we're not going to sleep together.

He bites my neck softly.

—I think what I really need is a friend.

—You already know how dreadful I am at that.

We both laugh.

—Yeah, well. I'm not particularly good at it either. But we stay cuddling each other for a while…I feel that cloudy and somewhat painful kind of exhaustion from the day convalescing in bed, the vague and persistent sorrow that permeates everything since you died, that I try to shuffle off but whose particles always come back to fall in exactly the same spot.

Nacho hugs me tightly, like a little boy holding a stuffed toy, but I feel his body still tense and anxious. I know he won't go to sleep as long as there is a speck of poison left in the house.

—It's time to go. It's very late, I say, freeing him.

He accompanies me to the door and takes my face into his hands and kisses me like he did a thousand years ago, when we were other people, his Don Quixote silhouette cut out against the threshold.

—Take care of yourself, little one. It's cold out there.

It's cooled down and there is a light gray, milky haze blurring the contours of things, which is going to turn pink and then orange shortly. Dawn is set to break soon—I must have been at the party for three or four hours. The music trails me awhile until all I hear are my own footsteps falling on the gray slate, and the chatter of night birds. I don't want to go to sleep yet, I think I'll head down to the beach and watch the sunrise alone for once. Though like so many other things, maybe sunrises only acquire their true sense of triumph and redemption while in silent company. Instead of heading toward the sea, though, I begin walking up the mountain, following a maze of narrow, pebbled alleys that seem like passageways, and the line of walls built from stacked stones, magnificent ancient puzzles that never collapse, marking the edge of vegetable gardens and olive fields, where cats doze and watch over the town by day. I come across a child's shoe left atop one of the walls. My boys will be waking up in a little while, they're my own private spectacle of dreams and dawns, Edgar silent and meditative, who drags along with him the vestiges of night long into the day, like me, and Nico, who rushes straight into the new day decisively, gushing and cheerful. My legs feel heavy like they do in some of my nightmares but I don't stop. I drink in the day's new, unspoiled air and tell myself that tomorrow I'll stop smoking, as I slowly continue climbing the hill to the dirt esplanade, with its two rickety trees, that serves as the campground parking lot. I used to come here often when I was young; I had an Italian friend who used to make me spaghetti with tomato sauce there, on an outdoor stove. I've forgotten his name, as I have the majority of the main characters of those bright and blissful summers when we soared above the town and the world, young people overflowing with euphoria and arrogance, so full of passion, so carefree. An old man crosses the campground carrying a pail in his hand, and nods to me before disappearing into the small pavilion where the showers are. I must be a sorry sight right now; if the bar were open I would have a coffee and wash my face, but it's still too early, the gray building is closed and dark. I continue walking until I catch sight of the hermitage, whose whitewashed walls are blanching, and there stand the two black cypress trees like solemn and benevolent guardians at either side of the cemetery. And here I am, I made it to the end of the yellow brick road. Despite the fatigue, my heart is beating hard; my hands are freezing and they begin to tremble. There was a crowd of people last time I was here, and the living outnumbered the dead, we were in the majority, and my friends were with me. I fantasized about what it would be like to come here on my own. I imagined myself walking up the hill, serene and philosophical, already healed, maybe holding some wildflower in my hand that I had picked along the path. I look at the huge door, its dark, knotted wood, and stroke the heavy metal handle. I'm frightened, I'm weary, maybe it would be better to head home, get some sleep, take a rest, and come back at noon with someone else, or maybe not come back at all, maybe I'll never come back, it's a possibility. I push the door. It's closed. But cemeteries aren't supposed to close at night, I've seen a thousand horror films set in cemeteries at night. Surely it's just me being clumsy, the door can't possibly be locked. I push with my body against the door again, and work the heavy iron handle to no avail. I can't catch my breath and suddenly I realize I'm crying. I'll fix it, I'll fix it, there's a solution to every problem. I'll call the mayor and ask him to come and open the door for me. I'll climb the wall like Spider-Man. I'll write a letter to the newspaper full of spit and vinegar. I'll talk to Amnesty International. It can't be possible that the door won't open and that I can't get in. I take a deep breath. I'll do things the right way, without losing my temper, I'm sure everything will work itself out. I call at the door under my breath, “Mom, Mom,” quietly, and holding my ear up against the heavy wood. I think I hear something shuffling, like the sound of cat's paws in the distance, but nobody comes to help me. I wiggle the heavy iron handle again and start banging on the door with all my strength, as if I were the one locked inside trying to get out, until the pain in my fists and the palms of my hands obliges me to stop. Feeling defeated and exhausted, I sit down on the bench at the hermitage's door. The sun has come up without my noticing it. A clear, rosy light caresses the silver olive trees, turns the white walls to red, and the dew moistens the dirt roads imperceptibly. I'm as familiar with this particular light as if it were the call of a friend. I climb up onto the bench and peer over the wall, and catch sight of the field of olive trees and Port Lligat in the background, the small port where we used to keep the boat. That's when I see her. Walking along the pier with her faded blue-checked shirt on top of her swimsuit, the beautiful brown legs that were always full of bruises, walking pigeon-toed with little girl's sandals, glasses askew, a messy shock of hair sticking out from under a hat that's dried out from the salt water, accompanied by her three dogs—Patum, Nana, and Luna, who are coming from a swim and joyfully on their way out to the boat. The surface of the sea is as still as a plate; the weather is glorious. Before going aboard, she turns around and smiles at me, saying:

—This too shall pass.

And winks.

You spent your last night alone. I'd been with you the whole day at the hospital holding your hand, and when the doctor told me you were doing better, I decided to go home for a little while. Even though I could tell just by looking at you that it wasn't true. I would have liked to die along with you, in the same room, at the same instant, and not the next morning when you were already dead. I wish I had been there for our last breath, holding your hand. Though I'm walking in the land of the living, more or less joyfully, more or less alone, there's a part of me that will always remain wherever you are. I still occasionally tell myself the story you told me once, when you were sitting on my bed and consoling me after my father died: Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, maybe in China, there was a very powerful emperor who was intelligent and compassionate, and who gathered all the wise men of his kingdom together, the philosophers, the mathematicians, the scientists, the poets, and said to them: “I want a short sentence, that serves all possible circumstances, always.” So the wise men retired and spent months and months in contemplation. “We have the phrase, sire, and it's the following: ‘This too shall pass.' ” And you added: “Pain and sorrow pass, but so do joy and happiness.” Now I know it's not true. I'll live without you until I die. You taught me that the only form of infatuation is the kind that strikes the heart with the flash of an arrow (you were right), the love of art, of books, museums, the ballet, absolute generosity with money, grand gestures at the appropriate time, precision in actions and in words. Never to feel guilt, and to enjoy freedom, with all the responsibility that entails. At home, nobody ever knew how to deal with guilt; if we made a mistake, feeling guilty was never a form of redemption—we had to deal with the repercussions and move on. I don't think I ever heard you say, “I'm sorry.” You gave me the gift of this outrageous laugh, the thrill of being alive, the ability to surrender to things completely, the love of games, contempt for everything you thought made life smaller and more constraining: pettiness, disloyalty, envy, fear, stupidity, and cruelty more than anything else. And a sense of fairness. Nonconformity. The dazzling awareness of joy at the moment you have it in your hand, before it flies away. I remember times when we'd catch each other's eye for a second, over a table full of people, or strolling through some unknown city, or out at sea, and feel as if a little pixie dust was falling over our heads and that maybe we'd never be able to take to flight, as Peter Pan believed, but almost. And you'd flash me a smile from the distance and I knew that you knew that we both knew, and that we both secretly thanked the gods for that silly gift, that perfect swim in the high seas, that pink twilight, that sidesplitting laughter after a bottle of grappa, the clownish things we did so that people who already loved us might love us just a little bit more. And your magnanimity; your knack for giving a name to things, for seeing them truly, your genuine tolerance with the faults and defects of other human beings. I doubt I've inherited your tolerance, but I know it when I see it, I can recognize it, and ever since you've gone, I try to find it in a hungry dog or the haggard eyes of a junkie going through withdrawal; I can smell it, I hear it, I can distinguish it (sometimes the gesture of a hand is enough), it's budding in my children, their courtesy and good manners, the complete lack of snobbery. Every person who comes home, and that includes some very strange people, very wounded, very foolish, are received by your grandsons kindly, with curiosity and respect, cautiously and affectionately. And whenever we drive by your last apartment, on Muntaner Street, I catch sight of your elder grandson in the rearview mirror looking up at your balcony in silence. And I think maybe I should tell him that you're in a better place now, but I know it's not true, because there was nothing you liked more than being with your grandsons and me. The day will come when we talk all about you. I'm beginning to breathe a little better now and the nightmares have almost subsided. Some days I almost feel a little pixie dust fall on my head; not a lot and not very often, but it's a start. And now we have a new guest at home—his name is Rey. I'm trying to teach the children to take him out for a walk every day. The day before yesterday I took your jacket to the cleaner's; it'll be ready on Thursday, “like new,” they said.

Milena Busquets was born in Barcelona, where she attended the Lycée Français de Barcelone. She graduated with a degree in archaeology from the Institute of Archaeology at University College London, began work in publishing, and has since founded her own publishing house. She currently works as a journalist and translator.