— Please do.
— I’ll light it in a minute, I said when he held out the lighter. It’s been a while since I’ve smoked.
— I’ve gone back to it, he explained. I return to tobacco as passionately as I give it up. It’s a writer’s vice, and I don’t think I’m just repeating clichés. Smoking produces a low-level anxiety that helps prevent me from leaving my desk and keeps me facing the paper. To write is to wait, to stick around until something turns up. You have to be able to master the dead time between paragraphs or even between words. Smoking helps you to put up with the waiting, stare it down, be stronger than the silence.
— When you stop smoking, your writing changes.
— That’s what I think. At least you stop writing with the need to find something, somehow or other, no matter how long it takes, regardless of how your day is going. When you smoke, all days are alike and so you can limit your activities: smoking and writing. Everything else is extra or doesn’t count. So you go on till you can’t take it anymore, till the tobacco is as worthless as continuing to write. I quit when I’m too worn out, so I can go back to smoking and writing later on, as if I were always returning to the moment when I started doing both things, so many years ago.
— How do you know Carmen Lindo? asked Noreña when they brought us the second round of beers.
— I don’t know her, I answered. I went to a conference, and she was there. That’s all.
— Weren’t you going to her party?
— I was planning to show up there uninvited because there’s a woman I have to talk to.
— I might have guessed, since the university bigwig scene doesn’t suit you any more than it does me. Who’s the girl?
— Her name is Li Chao.
— She was my student. Extraordinary, that Chinese girl.
— I know; that’s why I want to see her.
— Is she your partner?
— Is, was, I’m not sure. That’s why I want to go up there.
— It’s none of my business, but did you know she’s Carmen’s girlfriend?
— Yes, but she was with me until a few days ago, and now, I’m all messed up.
— Happens to all of us, said Noreña. Let me warn you, professor Lindo is going around telling everybody, with the falsest modesty I’ve ever heard, that she’s been given a contract somewhere or other and she’s moving “once and for all” to the United States.
— First I’ve heard.
— You have a few things to clear up with your girlfriend.
I lit the cigar and, as I inhaled the smoke, the walls of my mouth awakened from a long sleep.
— We’ll tell them you’re with me, said Noreña. I’ll introduce you to Carmen myself.
Polishing off his beer, the writer spoke again:
— Know why I have to go to the party?
— You said they called you.
— That’s right, but it isn’t the reason.
— What, then? I asked.
— I can’t say no to Carmen. A long time ago, when we were students, Carmen and I had a relationship and came close to getting married. Books brought us together and women drove us apart. You aren’t the first or the only one.
When Noreña and I got back to the building, I saw lots of shadows running across the apartment ceiling. Two couples were waiting for the elevator in the lobby. One of the men was the rector of the university; the other was a lawyer who had a political commentary program on the radio. Noreña took me by the arm and led me to the stairs.
— Let’s go up here, he said. I don’t want them to pretend they’ve read me.
From the second floor landing, we could hear music and the sound of conversations. The apartment door was ajar; the people who had been waiting for the elevator must have just gone in. Noreña held the door to keep them from closing it and entered first.
— Hello, how are you? he said to someone I couldn’t see. I want to introduce you to a friend.
The writer nudged me on the shoulder, and I found myself face to face with Li. Noreña told her my name, also adding that I was the author of Three-in-One.
— I think I told you about him once, I’m sure you’ll want to talk with him.
— Nice to meet you, said Li, shaking my hand and pretending to meet me. When she brought her cheek close for a kiss, she whispered in my ear, What are you doing here?
— I came to see you.
— You think this is a proper time and place.
— You’ve given me no other option.
— You should leave, you might create a problem.
— And you haven’t created one for me?
Noreña had left us, and we could hear him greeting Carmen in the living room.
— Come, he was saying, I want you to meet a good friend.
Noreña returned to the foyer, bringing Carmen along by the hand. She was looking back as she came, as if to judge the success of her party from that perspective. When she heard my name, she spun around, and I found myself before a woman confronting an emergency.
— I wanted to bring him with me, Noreña explained. I hope you don’t mind.
— Of course not, Carmen lied. Hello, welcome, she added, greeting me. Li has told me about you. I wanted to meet you, and besides, it’s important for you two to talk. I really don’t mind. Just make yourself at home. Right, Li?
Li nodded. An awkward discomfort settled on us all.
— I’ll leave you two. I have to go see the rector, said Carmen, adding to Noreña, García Pardo is already here. Come meet him when you can.
— And so? I asked after we moved to the relative privacy of the hallway.
— And you? Li retorted.
— Bad.
— I’m sorry. But you shouldn’t have come.
— It seems you don’t like trading places.
— This is not the same thing.
— Oh, isn’t it?
— Because we aren’t alone.
— It would have been nice of you to have told me.
— I couldn’t.
— And I pay for the broken dishes.
— And me? Nothing.
— You ought to know.
— You’re being sweet.
— You, clever as you are, couldn’t figure out something like this was bound to happen.
— What could I have done?
— Not left the way you did. Explained it to me, at least.
— Why did you come with the “Melancholy Thug”?
— Who?
— That’s what they call Máximo.
— I’ve never heard that.
— That’s what Carmen calls him, at least. I think she got it from a Roberto Arlt novel; he was a character who ran a chain of brothels and wanted to use them to finance a revolution.
— Why did she invite him, then?
— Carmen invites a lot of people, and she and Máximo have always known each other.
— That’s what he told me, and he didn’t seem particularly happy about it.
— That’s why he’s the Melancholy Thug.
— He knows Carmen better than you do.
— Don’t tell me.
A woman coming out of the bathroom interrupted our conversation as she passed between us.
— I need us to talk, I said.
— It can’t be now.
— When?
— Later.
— Later tonight or later like up to now?
— Later, she repeated.
— Have things changed?
— I’m scared, Li replied after a pause.
— Why?
— I’m all alone.
— You’re with Carmen, and you could be with me.
— Makes no difference. I’m not alone because of you two.
— But why don’t you want to talk?
— I already told you, this isn’t the time or place. Don’t think everything’s a bed of roses with Carmen, and just in case, don’t think you don’t matter to me. I’m trapped because of what’s happened, but for now, I have to be here.