XXIV
The station where I arrived was one of those rural stations with a few country folks, a
chief in shirtsleeves, a large wheel, and some jars of milk.
Two things irritated me: the absence of Maria, and the presence of a driver.
As soon as I stepped out, he came up and asked me:
“Are you Mr. Castel?”
“No,” I answered calmly. “I am not Mr. Castel.”
But right away I thought that it was going to be difficult to wait for the return train; it
might take half a day, or something like that. I reluctantly decided to admit my identity.
“Uh, yes,” I added, almost right away, “I am Mr. Castel.”
The driver looked at me uncertainly.
“Here take these,” I said, handing him my suitcase, and the box of paintings.
We walked over to the car.
“Mistress Maria has had an indisposition ,” the man informed me.
“An indisposition!” I murmured with derision. How well I recognized these tricks!
Again I thought about returning to Buenos Aires, but now. besides the necessity to wait
for another train, there was something more: the need to convince the driver that, in fact,
I was not Mr. Castel, or maybe, the need to convince him that if in fact I was Mr. Castel,
I was not out of my mind. I quickly thought about the different possibilities that faced
me, and I arrived at the conclusion that no matter what I did, it was going to be difficult
to convince the driver. I finally decided to let myself be driven to the farm. Besides,
what would happen if I went back? It was easy to imagine, because it would be a
repetition of the type of things I had done before; I would end up being angry, increased
by the impossibility of not being able to direct it toward Maria, I would suffer horribly
because of not seeing her, I would not be able to work, and all for the hypothetical
punishment of Maria. I say hypothetical because I would never be able to know if I truly
punished her with this kind of reprisals.
Hunter looked a lot like Allende (I think I have said they were cousins); he was tall,
dark, and rather thin, but with an elusive look. “That man is a weakling and a hypocrite”
I thought. That thought made me happy (at least it’s what I thought at that moment).
He welcomed me with an ironic politeness, and he introduced me to a thin woman who
was smoking with a very long cigarette holder. She had a Parisian accent, and her name
was Mimi Allende; she was also repulsive and myopic.
But where in the devil was Maria? Is she really indisposed then? I was so anxious that
I almost forgot there were other people there. But when I quickly remembered where I
was, I turned toward Hunter abruptly, in order to control him. It is a method that gets
excellent results with individuals of that type.
Hunter was scrutinizing me with an ironic expression, which he tried to change right
away.
“Maria was not feeling well and has gone to bed,” he said. “But I think she will come
down very soon.”
I cursed myself for being distracted: with those people; it’s always necessary to be on
the alert. Also, I was determined to pay attention to his ways of thinking, his jokes, his
reactions, and his sentiments. All that would help me a great deal with Maria. So I
started to look and listen, and do it in the clearest possible state of mind. I had thought I
would be cheered by the hypocrisy of Hunter, and the woman. Nevertheless, my state of
mind was gloomy.
“So you are a painter,” the myopic woman said, looking at me with half-closed eyes
like someone does when there is dust in the wind. This gesture, certainly caused by her
effort to help her myopia without glasses (as if glasses would make her look more ugly),
only increased her state of insolence and hypocrisy.
Yes, senora,” I answered with anger. Although I was certain that she was only a
senorita.
“Castel is a marvelous painter,” Hunter remarked.
After that, as a way of praise he added several idiocies, repeating some of the stupid
comments that the critics make every time there was an exhibition. I can’t deny that the
repetition of some of those clichés showed he had a certain sense of humor. I noticed that
Mimi was still watching me with her half-closed eyes, and I became rather nervous,
expecting that she would probably say something about me. I still didn’t know much
about her.
“Which painters do you prefer?” she asked me as though I were taking an exam.
No, now that I’m thinking about it, she asked me that after we went outside. I had paid
little attention to that woman who was sitting in the garden next to a table where they had
put the things for her tea. Hunter took me inside to show me the room where I was to
stay. While we were going up (the house had two stories), he explained to me that the
house, with some improvements, was almost the same as the one his grandfather had built
in the old quarters of the farm that belonged to his great-grandfather. “And what does
that matter to me?”, I thought. It was obvious that the guy wanted to show that he was
simple and forthright, although I don’t know for what reason. While he was saying
something about the sundial, or something about the sun, I was thinking that Maria ought
to be in one of these upstairs rooms. Perhaps, due to my curious expression as I looked
around, Hunter told me:
“There are several bedrooms here. In fact it is a very comfortable house, although it is
built in a very amusing fashion.”
I remembered that Hunter was an architect. It remained to be seen what he considered
buildings that were not amusing.
“This is my grandfather’s old bedroom, and it is now the one I am using,” he explained
to me, indicating the one that was at the top of the stairs.
Then he opened the door of another bedroom.
“This is your room,” he said.
He left me alone in the room, and said he would wait for me downstairs at tea time. I
was barely alone when my heart began beating rapidly, because I assumed that Maria was
in one of those bedrooms, perhaps in the room next to mine. Standing in the middle of
the room, I didn’t know what to do. Then I had an idea: I walked over to the wall
between the next bedroom (not the one belonging to Hunter), and I knocked softly with
my fist. I waited for a reply, but nothing came. I went out in the hall and looked to see if
anyone was there; when I saw there was no one, I walked over to door and raised my
hand to knock. But then I lost my courage, and I ran back into my room. After that I
decided to go back down to the garden. I was very disoriented.