The first thing to strike me was that “verbatim” too trivial not to be double edged. I couldn’t stop myself blurting out a “She did?” that rather ruined my pretense of imperturbability.
“She did. She’s got a damn good ear for voices. Even on the phone.”
The waiter arrived, and old Pedro ordered a coffee and glanced inquiringly at me. I met his look with my own brows arched, mirroring his expression purely as a reflex.
“What will you have?”
He seemed nice, and genuinely tired. Not like someone about to say “Watch your back, sonny,” or “Next time I’ll break your legs,” or whatever it is people whose job it is to keep snitches, peeping Toms, and weirdos in their place say. I wasn’t sure whether this deference was something to be thankful for or an elaborately offensive way of rubbing salt in the wound.
The wound of having been found out by her. The certainty of deserving nothing better than old Pedro’s weary benevolence.
“Nothing, thank you.”
The waiter moved off. A new and still more exquisite wave of humiliation washed over me. She hadn’t deigned to unmask me over the phone. She’d sent this guy instead.
“Even on the phone. Especially on the phone, in fact. She sees right through them, it’s amazing. Practice, of course. Part of the job. You wouldn’t believe some of the losers …”
He seemed oblivious to the fact that I myself featured among those she had seen right through. That I was one of those “losers” he evoked with such uncomprehending compassion. Perhaps he wasn’t meaning to be cruel. That’s the impression I had then, and I still think so now.
I looked at him, feeling unable to say anything. And in fact, there was nothing really to say.
“So you’d do best to let it drop. That’s what she says, that you’d do best to let it drop.”
I couldn’t marshal a single thought. Like on every one of the very few previous occasions when something awful has happened to me, a part of me couldn’t help but be aware, at the same time, of the sheen of imbecility that these sorts of situations always have. So this was how it all turned out. Here was the denouement I had spent all these months not daring to anticipate. I was about to cover my face with my hands. A gesture that’s just another old trick: to make everything go away, to be the one who disappears.
What stopped me was the waiter returning. He set the cup on the table and poured in a splash of milk, raising and lowering the small pitcher with odious expertise. Old Pedro said nothing. Or not to me at least, because to the waiter he said, “Here’s for the coffee,” and handed him a few coins. Then he looked back at me.
“Best separately, don’t you think?”
I couldn’t drag my eyes off him. I found myself incapable of getting up and walking out.
“And go back to the writing, she says, she misses your column.”
Another silence fell after that. Old Pedro took a sip of coffee, started, blew on the edge of the cup, brought it back to his lips, slurped briefly, brought it down to the table, and regarded me, eyebrows arched quizzically as before. He seemed to consider that some kind of response from me was due. And truthfully, I myself felt compelled to say something. Not for his sake — for mine. To utter some sound at the very least.
“Uh-huh.”
Old Pedro weighed this up and decided it would do.
“And she’s not wrong, either. I should know. Take it from me, I’ve been in this business long enough. Sure, it’s got its rewards. Not just the money, mind you, though there’s that too. You travel a lot. Yeah, it’s worth it.”
Old Pedro peered at me as though trying to read my response in my eyes, as though written across my forehead was the whole, all-encompassing, definitive tally of how worthwhile (or not) everything will have been when the final day of reckoning comes around.
“Still, it’s tiring. To be honest, it wears you out in the end. Everything does. This does too. Wears you out.”
He had picked up the banana absentmindedly, and was now softly banging it against the edge of the table. I think that’s what I found more insufferable than anything. Neither of us spoke. He gave it one last bang, harder than before, and got to his feet.
“So there we are. I have to go. But I’m telling you: honestly, it’s better if you just let it drop.”
He was already on his way out. I watched him as he left. Suddenly, he turned around and retraced his steps back to the table.
“Umbrella.”
I found myself smiling in response to the pally grin he threw me as he picked up the umbrella from the floor beside his chair. Some time later, I don’t know how long, I realized I was still smiling into the void.
I was soaked through when I got back to the hotel just now. I roamed the streets for hours, with no sense of direction or time. The old man from this morning was not at his post. In his place was a young kid who looked like his grandson; the two shared a family resemblance, although this one was taller and his eyes were different, almost unpleasantly green. He held out the key before I’d told him my room number. The old man must have told him about me. Or I might be the hotel’s sole guest, even though we’re in high season. Perhaps I am the hotel’s high season.
Another trait he shared with his probable grandfather was a knowing smile, a smile convinced that the most anodyne pronouncement conceals an infinity of meanings.
“Here you are. Room six.”
I thanked him and headed for the hallway leading to my room. The boy spoke to my back without raising his voice, as if I were still standing in front of him.
“Excuse me.”
I didn’t turn around at once. In truth, I was tempted to pretend I hadn’t heard. The boy addressed me again.
“Excuse me.”
When I faced him, he had the smile on.
“My father told me that you’re looking for a woman. Maybe I can help.”
I felt my pulse quicken. That’s how I knew that everything I’d been telling myself over and over again all those hours, through all those streets, was a lie. I hadn’t given up at all. I thought: this kid knows her. He may even have posed for her, he’s just her type. He’ll be able to tell me where she is. Maybe she was already regretting not coming to see me. After all, she must be bored out of her skull with no other company than old Pedro. And her job was tiring, old Pedro had said so — it wears you out.
“Really?”
The boy grinned complacently at the eagerness in my voice.
“I think so.”
“Do you know her?”
“I know lots of good-looking women. Many as you like. All you gotta do is choose.”
I felt a sharp pang in the pit of my stomach.
“They can even go to your room.”
I turned away. I didn’t want him to see my scowl of sheer rage.
“No thanks. That’s not what I’m after.”
I took a few steps down the hallway. The kid piped up again.
“Is it boys you’re after? I know some of those too.”
I couldn’t help turning round, already anticipating the smirk of innuendo he would be wearing. This time I forced myself to smile back.
“No, not boys either.”
I got as far as the door to my room with no further remarks from him. I paused, my key in the lock. Once again, I mutinied against the idea of remaining this way forever, never knowing whether I had truly done all that I could. I’ve never known when to call it a day. I prefer to push on until circumstances themselves force me to stop. I went back to the desk. Funny to think how so recently, in the other cities, I’d been too embarrassed to ask the other receptionists about her.
“Actually, maybe I am.”
The kid smiled at me. In fact, I don’t think he’d stopped smiling.
“You bet.”