I hung up, and went and looked up Tristan da Cunha on the internet and, to my surprise, it turned out to be a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic, halfway between Africa and America, with a population of three hundred. Why the hell had José been going there all these years? I confess I still don’t know.
A strange silence descended, interrupting Egiswanda, and at that moment the lights came on.
Immediately a voice announced that the danger was over and that we could go back to our rooms. The light from the generator had started working and reality, after that horrible flickering, seemed to have returned to us. But we weren’t the same anymore. In the light I recognized some of the shadows: there were Kosztolányi and Supervielle, and I even thought I saw Kaplan in the distance. Our faces were haggard. Marta was so pale she worried me, and Egiswanda, who I had never seen in the light, looked really grim-faced. From the way they were both looking at me I assumed they were struck by my appearance, too.
It was clear that the situation was moving quickly, that our days at the conference were coming to an end.
We went up in the elevator, after a long wait for our turn. When we reached the floor where my room was, Egiswanda looked at us anxiously and said, can I stay with you a while longer, I feel a bit scared. Marta hugged her and said, of course, our room is also yours, I think we should drink something. We sat down on the bed with some gins from the mini-bar and Egiswanda continued her story.
One day José himself said to me, why do you never ask me where I go? to which I replied: because I know perfectly well you won’t answer and I’m not stupid. José was silent for a long while, lost in thought, and finally said: you’ll come with me soon to live in another country, I’m getting everything ready for that; it will do you good, you and the people who need you, the moment is coming, you just have to wait.
Time passed and one day he said, get your bags ready, we’re going on a journey. I thought he was referring to a change of motel, but he said, no, we’re going to travel together, bring your passport, and that’s how we came to this conference. Of course he didn’t want us to share a room and asked me not to be close to him. He said: stay in your room and think about important things like your destiny or the destiny of the world, I’ll come for you when I need you. The day of his talk, he asked me to go and hear him, saying: only by listening to me will you finally understand who I am, and that was what I did, I went to hear him. I listened to him eagerly, drinking in his every word. I cried. I got goose bumps. I got wet. I felt all that, listening to him. It was what I’d been waiting to hear for years and I assumed there would be a change in our life. First the journey and then his words, why wouldn’t I have imagined that everything was about to change? Men like José, who love humanity, aren’t capable of loving one particular person; that’s something they have in common with the prophets. When he finished his talk I met him in the corridor and tried to speak to him, but he brushed me aside, saying we would talk later, he would come and find me.
I was in my room waiting for him, with the TV on, and had no idea what had happened. I found out in the most brutal way, because I kept calling his room until the switchboard operator answered, and said, we’re terribly sorry, the guest in that room has just had an accident. I went to reception and that’s where I heard the news. I almost fainted. They also gave me a letter, they said they’d been going to take it up to my room but had been distracted. A letter? I recognized José’s handwriting on the envelope and when I opened it I found another envelope inside, with these words written on it: Don’t read this today, wait until tomorrow. I went into a corner to cry, trying to hide my grief from everyone, but then I said to myself, if he’s not here anymore there’s no reason for me to hide, I’m not harming anyone and I deserve to be able to cry for him, after all the sacrifices and the sad, solitary life I’d lived with him. I deserved to cry rivers of tears in that lobby where nobody knew I was his wife, which was why nobody had a kind word, nobody bothered to talk to me with any kind of tact, it was just: the man slit his wrists, they took his body to the morgue; I tried going to his room but, as I walked toward it, I felt his presence and got scared. I thought he was watching me and was going to fly into a temper, seeing me break the rules: never approach him, only wait for him to come, so I went back to my room and lay down on the carpet to cry, I wanted to drink but I couldn’t swallow the alcohol, I’d lost even that, and besides, he wouldn’t be there to take care of me anymore, so I cried and cried until there were no more tears left, until the last cell of grief left my body, and I was empty, and this city and this destruction and all that’s happening here seemed to me the ideal place from which to go away, and I even imagined that if I slit my wrists I could still get to him, get to where he was before he moved off and squeeze his hand and fly together to who knows where, I don’t know what there is after death, because deep down I’m not very religious. The world hurts me without him, the light and the air, everything hurts me without him. This conference and its delegates hurt me. The world is still turning, as if nothing had happened. I can’t believe it, José’s death can’t go unnoticed, like the fall of a dead leaf in a forest. It can’t be. I’ve read the letter about ten times or perhaps a hundred, and I know parts of it by heart. I have it here, would it bother you if I read it aloud? Marta wiped the tears from her cheeks and said, no, please, Wanda, read it.
Before doing that, Wanda asked if she could go to the bathroom to wipe her tears and freshen up, but what we heard were two loud snorts. She came out looking a little better, and said, you two are special, you’re the only people in all this mass of vanity who really care about José’s death. She picked up the letter and read: