I pondered these conclusions for a long time and considered them from different points
of view. My final conclusion, which I was absolutely certain was correct, was that Maria
and Hunter were lovers.
It had just gotten light when I came down the stairs with my suitcase and my box of
paintings. I met one of the housemaids who had started opening the doors and windows
to do some cleaning. I asked her to tell the owner for me that I had to leave immediately
for Buenos Aires. The housemaid looked at me with an expression of surprise when I
told her that I was going to the train station on foot.
Once I got there, I had to wait for several hours in the small station. I had thought that
perhaps Maria might appear; I waited for that possibility with the same bitter feeling one
feels as a child, when one has hidden somewhere thinking that something is wrong, and is
waiting for the arrival of an adult to come and find him and recognize the mistake. But
Maria never came. When the train finally arrived, I looked down the road once more
with the hope that she would appear at the last minute, and I felt an infinite sadness when
I did not see her.
I looked out the window while train was traveling toward Buenos Aires. We passed by
a farmhouse, and a woman standing outside looked at the train. Then, a stupid thought
occurred to me: “I am seeing this woman for the first time. And I will never see her
again in my life.” This thought floated like a cork in an unknown river. For a moment it
continued floating by that woman at the farmhouse. What did that woman matter to me?
But I couldn’t stop thinking that she had existed for a moment, and she would never exist
again. From my point of view, it was as if she had died. If the train had come a bit later
and someone had called her from inside, she would never have existed in my life.
Everything seemed fleeting, transitory, useless, imprecise. My mind was not working
properly, and Maria appeared to me from time to time like something sad and uncertain.
Not until some hours later did my thoughts finally began to recover their ordinary
precision and strength.
XXIX
The days before the Maria’s death were the most terrible days of my life. It is not
possible for me to give a thorough account of everything I felt since, though I remember
many of the things with incredible clarity, there are hours, and even days, that seem like
formless dreams. I think I spent entire days under the effect of alcohol, lying in my bed,
or on a bench in Puerto Nuevo. When I arrived at Constitution Station I remember I
entered the bar and asked for whisky several times, then I vaguely remember I got up and
took a taxi to another bar on Cinco de Mayo street, or perhaps on Leandro Alem. After
that there were noises, music, shouts, a laugh that annoyed me, broken bottles, and very
penetrating lights. Sometime later, I remember feeling very sluggish, with a terrible
headache, in a cell in the police station, when a guard opened the door and an officer told
me something; afterward I was walking down the street, getting drunk again. I think I
went into another bar. Hours (or days) later someone brought me to my studio. Then I
had a nightmare when I was walking across the roof of a cathedral. I also remember
waking up in my dark room with the frightening idea the room had become so large that,
no matter how hard I tried, I would never be able to get outside its walls. I don’t know
how many days passed until I woke up seeing the early morning light shining through the
skylight. Then I drug myself into the bathroom and got into the bathtub with my clothes
on. The cold water began to calm me down, and a few separate things came to my mind,
although they were broken and scattered, like things one sees after a flood: Maria on the
cliff, Mimi smoking with her long cigarette holder, the train station with a restaurant
called The Trust, or maybe The Farm, Maria asking about the drawings, me shouting
“what drawings!”, Hunter looking at me deviously, me listening anxiously to the cousins
from upstairs, a sailor tossing a bottle, Maria walking toward me with penetrating eyes,
Mimi saying Tchékhov, a filthy woman kissing me and me hitting her in the face, Hunter
complaining about detective novels, the driver from the farm. There were also small
parts of my dreams: the cathedral roof on a dark night, and the unbelievably large room.
Then, while I was getting cold those isolated fragments joined with others that entered
my mind, but with the same desolation of things that emerged from flood waters.
I got out of the tub and took off my wet clothes; I put on dry clothes, and I started
writing a letter to Maria. First, I said I wanted to give her an explanation for my flight
from the farm (I crossed out “flight” and wrote “departure”). I added that I was very
grateful for the interest she had in me (I crossed out “in me” and wrote “for me as a
person”). I thought she was very kind-hearted and was full of pure sentiments, in spite of
the fact she said she sometimes followed her “base impulses.” I said that I appreciated
the good intention of the things she had said, but as she could imagine (I crossed out
“imagine” and wrote “calculate”), it was not sufficient to maintain or prove there was a
feeling of love. It was not possible to understand how a woman like her could tell her
husband and me that she loved us and, at the same time, was sleeping with Hunter. With
the additional problem—I added—that she was also sleeping with her husband, and with
me. I concluded saying that, as she could realize, this kind of things gave a lot to think
about, and so forth.
I reread the letter and it seemed to me that, with the changes I had made, it was hurtful
enough. I sealed it and went to the Post Office and sent it certified.
XXX
Right after I left the Post Office I realized two things: I had not told her in the letter
why I assumed she and Hunter were lovers; and I didn’t know why it was that I wanted to
hurt her so mercilessly. Perhaps to force her to change, in case my conjectures were true.
That was clearly ridiculous. To force her to run after me? It was not credible that would
happen after what I had said. However, I thought about the fact that in the depths of my
soul, what I really wanted was for Maria to come back to me. But in that case, why not
tell her straight away, without hurting her, explaining that I had left the farm suddenly
because I had noticed that Hunter was jealous. In the final analysis, my conclusion that
she was Hunter’s lover not only was hurtful, but was completely gratuitous. However, it
was the only hypothesis that I could devise to help me be certaom of what was happening
in the future.
So once again I had made a foolish mistake with my custom of writing spontaneous
letters without thinking, and sending them right away. Important letters must kept for at
least one day, until you can see clearly what the possible consequences might be.