A Heart So White by Javier Marías Read Free Book Online

the man must have had that conversation hundreds of times. But for me it was new.
    Tm not bein' impatient, I been patient a long time and still she don't die. You make her suffer you say, but you never tell her about me and that telephone never rings. How I know she really dyin'? How I know it not one big lie? I never see her, I never been to Spain, for all I know, you not even married and this is all one big story you make up. Sometimes I think you don't even got a wife."
    "Oh, really. And what about my papers and the photos?" said the man. He had the same accent as me but his voice was very different. Mine is deep and his was sharp, almost shrill amidst the murmurs. It didn't seem the right voice for such a hairy man, more like that of a crooner, who makes no effort at all to vary his natural or artificial timbre when he speaks, it would harm his singing voice. His voice sounded like a saw.
    "What I know about photographs? Could be your sister, could be some other person, could be your lover. You could have other lover and me. And don't talk to me about papers. I don't trust you no more. Your wife she been goin' to die every day tomorrow for one year now. Either she die pronto or you better leave me."
    That's more or less what they said, as far as I can remember and transcribe it. Luisa seemed to be dozing and I'd sat down at the foot of the bed, my feet on the floor, my back straight, not leaning against anything, watching over her, my body slightly tensed so as not to make any noise (the springs, my breathing, my clothes). I could see myself in the mirror on the wall, that is, I could if I wanted to, because when you listen very intently you don't see anything, as if any sense strained to breaking point excludes the use of all the others. Had I looked I would also have seen the shape of Luisa beneath the sheets, curled up behind me, or rather, only her body, which, since she was lying down, was all that appeared in the field of vision of the half-length mirror. To see more of her, her head, I would have had to stand up. After Miriam's last words (though it may simply have been that I now had enough information to imagine what I couldn't see or hear) I thought I heard her get up angrily and walk once or twice around the room, doubtless identical to ours (as if she wanted to leave but was still unable to do so, still waiting for something, for her own anger to pass), because I heard the creak of floorboards: if I was right, she must have taken her shoes off, for I didn't hear the tap of high heels but the pad of bare heels and toes, perhaps she was naked, perhaps both of them had got undressed during the period when I could still hear nothing, perhaps they'd begun their embraces and then interrupted or abandoned them in order to speak in the exasperated tones that were normal and habitual to them. A couple, I thought, who depend and feed on the obstacles in their lives, a couple who will fall apart when there are none, unless they're driven apart first by those same wearisome, stubborn obstacles, which, nevertheless, they will still have to feed and tend and do their best to eternalize, if they've already reached the point of being unable to do without you and without me, that is, one without the other.
    "Do you really want me to leave you?"
    There was no reply or perhaps he just didn't wait long enough for one, because then, more steadily this time but still in that wounding whisper, the saw-like voice went on:
    "Tell me, is that what you really want? You don't want me to phone you any more when I come here? You don't want to know that I've arrived, that I'm here, and when? Do you want two months and then three months and then another two months to go by without seeing me or knowing anything about me, not even if my wife has died?"
    The man must have got up too (from the bed or from an armchair, I don't know) and gone over to where she was standing, probably not naked, only barefoot, no one stands naked in the middle of a