...And Dreams Are Dreams

So I decided to tell another story, to get myself warmed up, the same way a composer writes an overture so that all the instruments tie in with each other, before he proceeds to the symphonic poem. In fact, I didn’t have a shred of a story: someone (the hero) goes to visit a friend, a fisherman, in Crete, during the holiday of the Assumption in mid-August.

The fisherman has just added one more floor to his ancestral home to rent as lodgings for tourists. He works with a Scandinavian travel agency. One day, he’s left with a woman from a Norwegian group who has fallen ill. She is blond and beautiful, like a Nordic goddess. The summer goes by and the patient remains bedridden, unable to get well. The neighbors take her under their wings. The irascible, unapproachable seaman begins little by little to fall in love with her.

They get married. They have two children. The mother of the blond goddess sends her everything she needs from Norway. But the goddess remains a foreigner in the village. She does not adapt to the roughness of the sun, the rocks, and the people. The following year, in mid-August, the friend comes from Crete to visit.

So? No dread, no dream, no drama. Nothing.

What kind of story is that? you will ask. I asked myself the same thing.

So then I started a new story: it takes place in the transit zone of an international airport. Time: the present. Characters: She and He. The voice over the loudspeaker announces: “All flights are delayed indefinitely due to dense fog.” In fact, the passengers know that the real reason is the passage of Haley’s comet. He and She begin to talk to each other. They know they will never meet again. They have separate destinations. They met by chance in the transit zone.

By using this symbol I wanted to say that our life is an airport transit zone, or something like that. We meet, we talk, we love each other, we fall out of sight. But who could these two people be? And what would they confess to each other? If I were He, who would She be? What would be her name? I had to do some searching. Whereas with the story about Don Pacifico, who lives with the heart of Doña Rosita, I had no problem: the topic was given, the facts were known, and the job prepaid. It was no use floundering in search of new stories when I already had my story. All I had to do was build on it.

So now, how did I fail? This is what I have been wanting to tell you. What stages did I pass through to reach the point of being overcome by panic at the thought of time going by and my not getting anything done? Just as during sex, when you can’t get any pop in your pickle, you start telling stories to your partner, and she listens to you, spellbound, but when you are finished talking she asks herself, “Why did he tell me all that? Oh, yes….” And it is only then that she gets the picture. In the same way I, being unable to make love to my typewriter, abandoned it and took pen to snow-white paper, as I’ve said — and here I am telling you why I can’t tell you the story I’m supposed to, the story that has been commissioned, with a signed contract and advance money in my pocket.

This isn’t the first time I’ve gone through such a crisis. But it’s the first time I’ve decided to record it. It is a luxury I am happy to offer myself. Because, between you and me (I can say it now), it is a frightful lie, this reader-writer pact. How am I supposed to know how a man feels with the transplanted heart of a woman? I wasn’t the patient (thank God!), much less the woman killed. However, since as I said, this kind of crisis had happened to me before, I hoped to abandon myself to the flow of events, to be carried away, to be transported.

So, from the morning of the day when my crisis began, I saw the sun shining brightly outside my window. The sky was clear blue. A spring day, in other words, while the day before had been cold and rainy. I decided to go out. I had been here three days, and it had rained nonstop. Indeed, the weather outside was radiant. I didn’t like it. But how could I stay cooped up? I sighed. How could I go back to my dungeon? I walked to the square, then crossed the river and stopped at a cafe for a cappuccino. The world was rejoicing. The cars were speeding along. The leaves were falling from the trees. The municipal officer was stopping cars without permits from entering the historic town center. And I was walking, telling myself I had to return to my dark room and get down to work.

I saw a man in a raincoat and for a moment I imagined him as my hero. With great effort, I convinced myself to turn around and, like a dog who has been walked, return to my shell.

And so it was that as I entered, I saw her sitting on the edge of the bed. An old acquaintance, an old flame.