And then Norman said: it has nothing to do with the visceral realists, asshole, you haven't understood a thing. And I said: well, what does it have to do with, then? And Norman, to my relief, stopped looking at me and concentrated on the road for a few minutes, and then he said: it has to do with life, with what we lose without knowing it, and what we can regain. So what can we regain? I said. What we've lost, said Norman, we can get it back intact. It would've been easy to argue, but instead I opened the window and let the warm air ruffle my hair. The trees were passing by at an incredible speed. What can we regain? I thought, and it struck me that we were going faster and faster and that there weren't many straight lengths of road anymore, but I didn't care, maybe because Norman had always driven carefully and he could talk, watch me, look for cigarettes in the glove compartment, light them, and even glance ahead every once in a while, all without taking his foot off the accelerator. We can get back into the game whenever we want to, I heard him say. Do you remember the days Ulises spent with us in Tel Aviv? Of course I remember, I said. Do you know why he came to Tel Aviv? Goddamn Ulises, of course I know: because he was in love with Claudia, I said. He was madly in love with Claudia, Norman corrected me, so madly that he didn't realize what he had within his grasp. He didn't realize a fucking thing, I said, the truth is, I don't know how he managed not to get himself killed. You're wrong, said Norman (actually, he shouted it), you're wrong, you're wrong, he couldn't have died even if he'd wanted to. Well, he came for Claudia, he came looking for Claudia, I said, and nothing went right. That's true, he came for Claudia, said Norman, laughing. Goddamn Claudia, do you remember how beautiful she was? Of course I remember, I said. And do you remember where Ulises slept while he was staying with us? On the sofa, I said. On the fucking sofa! said Norman. Hypostasis of romantic love. Threshold space. Noman's-land. And then he whispered, so quietly that between the noise of the Renault, which was blasting down the road, and the noise of the wind rushing along my arm and up the left side of my face, I had to work hard to make out his words: some nights, he said, he would cry. What? I said. Some nights, when I got up to go to the bathroom, I would hear him sobbing. Ulises? That's right, didn't you ever hear him? No, I said, when my head hits the pillow I'm out. That's good, said Norman, although the way he said it, it sounded more like too bad, mano. And why was he crying? I said. I don't know, said Norman, I never asked, I was just on my way to the bathroom and when I passed the living room I heard him, that's all, he might not even have been crying, he might have been jerking off and what I heard might've been sounds of pleasure, see what I mean? Yes, more or less, I said. But then again he might not have been jerking off, said Norman, or crying. What, then? He might have been sleeping, said Norman, maybe those were the sounds Ulises made in his sleep. He cried in his sleep? Hasn't it ever happened to you? said Norman. Frankly, no, I said. The first few nights I was afraid, said Norman, afraid of standing there in the living room, in the dark, listening to him. But one night I stayed, and then all of a sudden I understood everything. What was there to understand? I said. Everything, the most important thing of all, said Norman, and then he laughed. What Ulises Lima was dreaming? No, no, said Norman, and the Renault leaped forward.
Strangely enough, the leap made me remember the giant Austrian whom Ulises had shown up with a month later, and I said to Norman: do you remember that Austrian kid who was friends with Ulises? And Norman laughed and said of course he did, but that wasn't it, Ulises wasn't the same when he got back to Tel Aviv, or he was the same but he wasn't, he didn't sob at night anymore, he didn't cry, I was watching him and I noticed, or maybe that bastard Ulises had stopped indulging himself, what do I know. And then Norman said: it happened at the beginning, when he was alone and slept in the armchair. It was then and not afterward. All right, sure, I said. A long time before he showed up with the Austrian. And he never said anything? Anything about what? said Norman. For fuck's sake, anything about anything, I said. Then Norman laughed again and said: Ulises was crying because he knew that nothing was over, because he knew he would have to come back to Israel again. The eternal return? Fuck the eternal return! Here and now! But Claudia doesn't live in Israel anymore, I said. Wherever Claudia lives is Israel, said Norman, no matter what fucking place it is, call it whatever you want, Mexico, Israel, France, the United States, planet Earth. Let me see if I understand you, I said, Ulises knew that things were going to end between you and Claudia? And then he could try again? You haven't understood anything! said Norman. I have nothing to do with any of this. Claudia has nothing to do with it. Sometimes even that bastard Ulises has nothing to do with it. The tears are all that count. I guess you're right, I don't understand you, I said.
And then Norman looked at me and I swear he had the same expression on his face that he used to have when he was sixteen or fifteen, the expression he had when we met in high school, when he was much thinner, with his bird face, his longer hair, his brighter eyes, and he had a smile that made you love him instantly, a smile that said here today, gone tomorrow. And that was when the truck came barreling toward us and Norman swerved to miss it and we went flying. Norman went flying, I went flying, glass went flying. And we all ended up where we ended up.
When I woke up I was in a hospital in Puebla and my parents or the shadows of my parents were moving across the walls of the room. Then Claudia came and kissed me on the forehead and spent hours sitting by my bed, or so I'm told. A few days later they told me that Norman had died. A month and a half later I was able to leave the hospital and I went to live with my parents. Every so often, relatives I didn't know and friends I'd forgotten would come to see me. It didn't bother me, but I decided to move out and live by myself. I rented a little house in Colonia Anzures, with a bathroom, kitchen, and one big room, and little by little I began to take long walks around Mexico City. I was limping and sometimes I got lost, but the walking did me good. One morning I started to look for work. I didn't need to, because my parents had told me they'd support me till I was stronger. I went to the university and talked to two of Norman's friends. They seemed surprised to see me there, and then they said Norman was one of the most upstanding people they had ever known. They were both philosophy professors and both supporters of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas. I asked them what Norman thought about Cárdenas. He supported him, they said, supported him in his own way, like all of us, but he supported him. The truth, I realized then, was that it wasn't Norman's political affiliation I was looking for but something else, something I wasn't even able to formulate clearly to myself. I had dinner with Claudia a few times. I wanted to talk about Norman, wanted to tell Claudia what Norman and I had talked about as we were on our way back from Puerto Ángel, but Claudia said that talking about it made her sad. Anyway, she added, when you were in the hospital all you did was repeat your last conversation with Norman. So what did I say? What everyone says when they're delirious, said Claudia, sometimes you went on and on about the scenery and other times you switched subjects so fast that it was impossible to follow.
No matter how I tried, I couldn't get anything clear. One night, as I was sleeping, Norman appeared to me and told me to relax, that he was fine. Then, but I'm not sure if this was in the dream or when I woke up shouting, I realized that Norman seemed to be in Mexican heaven, not Jewish heaven, let alone philosophy heaven or Marxist heaven. But what was goddamned Mexican heaven? A pretense of happiness? or what lay behind it? empty gestures? or what was hidden (for reasons of survival) behind them? A little later I started to work at an advertising agency. One night, drunk, I tried to call Arturo Belano in Barcelona. At the number I tried, someone told me that no one lived there by that name. I talked to Müller, Arturo's friend, and he told me Arturo was living in Italy. What's he doing in Italy? I said. I don't know, said Müller, working, I guess. When I hung up I started to look for Ulises Lima in Mexico City. I knew I had to find him and ask him what Norman had meant in his last conversation. But looking for someone in Mexico City is easier said than done.