“What else can I do?”
“You could take a train this very evening and disappear forever.”
“You’re the second person to suggest that to me today. To disappear from here.”
“There must be a reason.”
“And who would be your guide through the disasters of literature?”
“I’d go with you.”
I smiled and took her hand in mine.
“With you to the ends of the earth and back, Isabella.”
Isabella withdrew her hand suddenly and looked offended.
“You’re making fun of me.”
“Isabella, if I ever decide to make fun of you, I’ll shoot myself.”
“Don’t say that. I don’t like it when you talk like that.”
“I’m sorry.”
My assistant turned to her desk. I watched her going over her day’s pages, making corrections and crossing out whole paragraphs with the pen set I had given her.
“I can’t concentrate with you looking at me.”
I stood up and went past her desk.
“Then I’ll leave you to work and after dinner you can show me what you’ve written.”
“It’s not ready. I have to correct it all and rewrite it and—”
“It’s never ready, Isabella. Get used to it. We’ll read it together after dinner.”
“Tomorrow.”
I gave in.
“Tomorrow.”
I walked away, leaving her alone with her words. I was just closing the door of my bedroom when I heard her voice calling me.
“Dav
id?”
I stopped on the other side of the door but didn’t say anything.
“It’s not true. It’s not true that you don’t know how to love anyone.”
I closed the door, lay down on the bed, curled up, and closed my eyes.
26
I left the house after dawn. Dark clouds crept over the rooftops, stealing the color from the streets. As I crossed Ciudadela Park I saw the first drops hitting the trees and exploding on the path like bullets, raising eddies of dust. On the other side of the park a forest of factories and gas towers multiplied toward the horizon, the soot from the chimneys diluted in the black rain that plummeted from the sky like tears of tar. I walked along the uninviting avenue of cypress trees leading to the gates of the cemetery, the same route I had taken so many times with my father. The boss was already there. I saw him from afar, waiting patiently in the rain, at the foot of one of the large stone angels that guarded the main entrance to the graveyard. He was dressed in black, and the only thing that set him apart from the hundreds of statues on the other side of the cemetery railings was his eyes. He didn’t move an eyelash until I was a few meters away. Not quite sure what to do, I raised my hand to greet him. It was cold and the wind smelled of lime and sulfur.