Suddenly he stopped the car and looked directly into my eyes.
No one can lie, no one can hide anything, when he looks directly into someone's eyes. And any woman with the least bit of sensitivity can read the eyes of a man in love.
I thought immediately of what that weird young woman at the fountain had said. It wasn't possible--but it seemed to be true.
I had never dreamed that after all these years he would still remember. When we were children, we had walked through the world hand in hand. I had loved him--if a child can know what love means. But that was so many years ago--it was another life, a life whose innocence had opened my heart to all that was good.
And now we were responsible adults. We had put away child
ish things.
I looked into his eyes. I didn't want to--or wasn't able to--believe what I saw there.
"I just have this last conference, and then the holidays of the Immaculate Conception begin. I have to go up into the mountains; I want to show you something."
This brilliant man who was able to speak of magic moments was now here with me, acting as awkward as could be. He was moving too fast, he was unsure of himself; the things he was proposing were confused. It was painful for me to see him this way.
I opened the door and got out, then leaned against the fender, looking at the nearly deserted street. I lit a cigarette. I could try to hide my thoughts, pretend that I didn't understand what he was saying; I could try to convince myself that this was just a suggestion made by one childhood friend to another. Maybe he'd been on the road too long and was beginning to get confused.
Maybe I was exaggerating.
He jumped out of the car and came to my side.
"I'd really like you to stay for the conference tonight," he said again. "But if you can't, I'll understand."
There! The world made a complete turn and returned to where it belonged. It wasn't what I had been thinking; he was no longer insisting, he was ready to let me leave--a man in love doesn't act that way.
I felt both stupid and relieved. Yes, I could stay for at least one more day. We could have dinner together and get a little drunk--something we'd never done when we were younger. This would give me a chance to forget the stupid ideas I'd just had, and it would be a good opportunity to break the ice that had frozen us ever since we left Madrid.
One day wouldn't make any difference. And then at least I'd have a story to tell my friends.
"Separate beds," I said, joking. "And you pay for dinner, because I'm still a student. I'm broke."
We put our bags in the hotel room and came down to see where the conference was to be held. Since we were so early, we sat down in a cafe to wait.
"I want to give you something," he said, handing me a small red pouch.
I opened it and found inside an old rusty medal, with Our Lady of Grace on one side and the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the other.
"That was yours," he said, noticing my surprise. My heart began to sound the alarm again. "One day--it was autumn, just like it is now, and we must have been ten--I was sitting with you in the plaza where the great oak stood.
"I was going to tell you something, something I had rehearsed for weeks. But as soon as I began, you told me that you had lost your medal at the hermitage of San Saturio, and you asked me to see if I could find it there."
I remembered. Oh, God, I remembered!
"I did find it. But when I returned to the plaza, I no longer had the courage to say what I had rehearsed. So I promised myself that I would return the medal to you only when I was able to complete the sentence that I'd begun that day almost twenty years ago. For a long time, I've tried to forget it, but it's always there. I can't live with it any longer."
He put down his coffee, lit a cigarette, and looked at the ceiling for a long time. Then he turned to me. "It's a very simple sentence," he said. "I love you."
SOMETIMES AN UNCONTROLLABLE feeling of sadness grips us, he said. We recognize that the magic moment of the day has passed and that we've done nothing about it. Life begins to conceal its magic and its art.
We have to listen to the child we once were, the child who still exists inside us. That child understands magic moments. We can stifle its cries, but we cannot silence its voice.
The child we once were is still there. Blessed are the children, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
If we are not reborn--if we cannot learn to look at life with the innocence and the enthusiasm of childhood--it makes no sense to go on living.
There are many ways to commit suicide. Those who try to kill the body violate God's law. Those who try to kill the soul also violate God's law, even though their crime is less visible to others.