Gasoline (2 page)

Hildegarda is reconstructing the (approximately) two weeks they’ve been involved, weighing the pros and cons of their relationship. Heribert thinks that the terms she’s using (“involved,” “our relationship”) are mere euphemisms. Euphemisms for what, though? What does “involved” mean? The two weeks we’ve spent touching each other? “Touching each other” sounds like another euphemism to him, though. “The two weeks we’ve spent kissing and caressing each other’s genitals?” He finds the last expression cold enough to be accurate. Then he turns his attention entirely to what Hildegarda is saying to him: everything he hears is a euphemism.

“You don’t know,” she’s saying, “how hard it was for me to convince Tiziana I wasn’t coming here. She wanted to come along. ‘You go there every year and you never invite me,’ she said. She said that I always say I’m not coming and then I always come. That’s why I’m afraid she might surprise us and show up with a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates. She gets more and more melancholy every year, and she wants someone to put up with her gloom, and, frankly, I just can’t do it any more. Not only that, why should I be the one to get stuck holding her hand when Marino’s gone. She should call him. I can’t stand her dependency. And not only that, but I wouldn’t like her to know that you and I
. . .
can you imagine? You didn’t like Tiziana at all, did you? But the party was a lot of fun. Didn’t you think so? Marino didn’t like her much at the beginning, either, and now look at them
. . .
Everyone changes. Even him. He’s a strange guy. Not because he changes. He’s strange for lots of reasons; he goes off on these tangents. You artists are all a little strange, no matter what field you’re in, or at least you all pretend to be. And not just artists, either. I used to get along so well with him. Now it’s as if he weren’t interested in me at all. I used to study (have I told you this?) in a school of
bel canto.
I wanted to sing in the opera. Have you ever sung, opera or anything? Or done anything onstage, like acting? I really love the feeling of being onstage
. . .
I know what it’s like, because I’ve been there, in the chorus, and I know the feeling of being alone before the abyss of the audience. (‘The abyss of the audience
. . .
’ that’s pretty good, isn’t it?) I’ve never been up there alone, of course, but I know what I’m saying. You feel alone all the same, no matter how many people are up there with you. Tiziana used to sing with me. We met at the school. I met Marino in my last year, before I sang in the chorus. He was the one who got me into the chorus, because he was really pursuing me back then. Not any more. He’s such a great singer, and he always has so much work that he doesn’t have any time for me. I don’t know what I stopped liking first: him or the opera. I’ve come to realize that opera is not what I thought it was, what I dreamed of. Do you think I’ve become disillusioned because I married an opera singer? (Perhaps I shouldn’t just say
a
singer, but the
best
singer, but I don’t want to brag; though it isn’t really bragging if I’m not talking about myself, is it?) There was a time when I wanted to write. (I’ve already told you that, haven’t I?) I was a teenager
. . .
The other day I heard a piece I really loved. No, it was jazz. Now I’m starting to like jazz. It was called
Blue Rondo à la Turk
, and it’s by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. You’ve heard it? Oh, since I don’t know much about jazz yet, I didn’t realize it was very well known
. . .
You have the record? With
Take Five
? What’s
Take Five
? Oh. Would you lend it to me? Oh, I’m so thrilled. Please lend it to me. Don’t forget. Maybe some day
. . .
No, forget it. No
. . .
well, maybe some day
. . .
I’d like to try jazz. But I don’t know which instrument would be best for me. No, no, it’s out of the question. Painting is the thing that totally absorbs me now, ever since I married Marino and abandoned opera. I think I should try having a show. Contact with the public is essential, isn’t it? How can a body of work evolve if it doesn’t come into contact with the viewers it’s meant for? I’m not hinting around, but we’ve known each other for a while now
. . .
No, I don’t want to show you my paintings, it’s too embarrassing. Anyway, I don’t know if I’m still interested in painting. But I’ve been saying I’m not interested any more for a couple of years now, and I’m still at it. No, no. I’d be too embarrassed, you’re too good. Give me a kiss. Mmm. All right, if you promise not to make fun of me, I’ll show them to you. Really. We can arrange it some other time. But you have to be very honest. If you don’t like them, say so. I don’t want you humoring me. I couldn’t bear it! Are you in a hurry? I’ll drive you into the city. I have to go home, too; I have so much to do
. . .
I’ve had a wonderful time, though, all these days we’ve spent together. It was nice to start the year with you. Do you think it’s a good sign? For you or for me? Don’t you have anything to say? Give me a great big hug. We’ll get together soon, won’t we? I’ll let you off at the subway stop, okay?”

In
the subway, sitting between a woman thin as a bag of bones and a man sleeping with his head between his knees, Heribert thinks that usually by this time of day he would already have been at work in the
studio for three hours. Then he finds it strange to have thought “usually,” since lately he is there less and less, and he finds it easier and easier to come up with excuses, again “usually,” not to be there.

Across from him, a man is moving in syncopated time: he is drumming on the ground with his feet, as if following the rhythm of a song, but he isn’t wearing earphones and there is no radio on. At the next stop, this man and the man sleeping with his head between his knees get off with Heribert. The man moving in syncopated time stays on the platform, waiting for the express, and Heribert goes out into the street.

He walks into the bookstore and, as he goes through the turnstile, realizes that at no point had he been aware where his steps were leading him. Going in there was always dangerous; an afternoon might go up in smoke, as it could very well be (and, in fact, always is) several hours before he goes out again. That bookstore, divided into two enormous spaces on either side of the street, with two big splendid floors in each of the spaces, draws him like a circus show. He has always found libraries and bookstores more seductive than the books themselves. He likes to look at the rows of bindings. He likes to run his hands over the covers of the encyclopedias and dictionaries, open a volume at random to see the illustrations, stroke the glossy coated paper, peer closely at the letters till they reveal their hairy edges, their distortions. Ever since he decided, two months before, never to attend another art exhibit (they were all so mediocre), he sees everything around him as if it were an art exhibit and discovers unsuspected facets to every object.

The children’s books were on the ground floor. Children’s books bother him. It bothers him precisely that they are
for children.
He has never understood by what rights someone decides there is a dividing line that makes some books
for children
, some
for adults,
others
erotic
, still others
porno,
and, finally, those even farther beyond,
romance.
And it also bothers him that a whole line of shelves should display the title
poetry.
What do they mean by “poetry”? Or “romance”?

As soon as he sets foot on the escalator, he turns around so as to go up backwards and watch as the ground floor gets farther and farther away: the entrance, the turnstiles, the cash registers, the two immense tables of bargain books. When he realizes he has thought
bargain
books, his stomach turns. Isn’t that definition just as presumptuous as one that attributes amorous, poetic, or mysterious qualities to books while—nevertheless—he finds the former to be quite reasonable? At least until now. He feels like a child, playing at discovering already discovered things. When he turns around to get off the escalator and step onto terra firma, however, he realizes (as one enlightened, not knowing why) that the really childish thing is to refuse to admit that it is good for things to be classified; despite the imperfections of the labels, this is the only way to delimit them, understand them, control them, grasp them. (And to have designated that thought as
childish
is equally childish: no doubt about it; and the fact that he has to resort to another adjective in order to dismiss the first series of adjectives as stupid confirms it.) When he reaches the top, and lets his eyes wander over the signs in the different sections (cooking, home improvement, pocket books, textbooks, mysteries, art, fiction, new releases, bestsellers
. . .
), he feels that the most logical thing in the world is precisely for them to be classified. If not, what chaos! Even the sign that says
poetry
seems coherent and logical. Everyone knows what is to be found under that caption, and it is precisely that which makes it not merely valid, but indispensable. He even understands that the books on the shelves labeled
mystery
must, of necessity, be far from the shelves of the
bestsellers.
And if the book is both a
mystery
and a
bestseller
, it must be found under
bestsellers
, as this is the characteristic (additional, and thus more evident) that distinguishes it quite beyond its intrinsic mysteriousness. Always and ever, the surface of things: the part that can be touched and seen without need of opening and destroying it to find out what its innards are like. How is it possible that until now he has not perceived the wisdom of these classifications? It is evident, moreover, that the books in the
fiction
department must of necessity be there, and by no means in
literature
. He feels as if a long time has elapsed since those classifications so annoyed him with their arbitrariness, and yet it isn’t so: he was still laboring under that absurd misconception when he stepped on the escalator. (But he isn’t entirely wrong: for three weeks now—or perhaps a month—he has not been so sure of things as he used to be; it seems as if he has been changing imperceptibly and is no longer the same person: it could be, then, that what he was thinking as he stepped on the escalator was simply a thought born of his former self-assurance, and what has happened as he rose on the escalator is that, imperceptibly, he has begun to realize that the thought no longer jibes with his present state.) Once, in the beforehand that is becoming—more and more, and without his knowing why—irremediably distant, he had tried to figure out the systems and expose the contradictions hidden among the bookcases: Steinbeck was under
fiction
, and Hardy under
literature.
In those days he had found it arbitrary and had deduced that they considered literature to have died in the nineteenth century and, from that moment on, everything was
fiction
. But there were also flaws in that line of reasoning: Kafka was under
literature.
What was he doing there? He had reasoned that perhaps those twentieth-century authors whose lives had a certain, let’s say, tragic quality were sent to swell the shelves of literature. But now it is all clear to him: it’s
obvious
that Hardy and Kafka are
literature
, and Steinbeck,
fiction.
Why rock the boat? Even more to the point: in order for things to be useful to us, they must not be resisted, but accepted just as they are. He feels a chill at the nape of his neck. He pulls up the lapels of his coat but then realizes he’s hot: the heat is on so high that he’s sweating. He takes off his coat.

He peruses the art books. He leafs through one on Tamara de Lempicka, one on Hopper (which brings back snatches of the dream
. . .
), one on Matisse (that shows red flowers with violet spots that seem to move), and one on Magritte. Were there cockroaches there, too? He looks at the legs of the tables where the books lie, expecting to find termites. There aren’t any. He goes back to the book, turns the page, and sees the drawing of a pipe bearing the legend
Ceci n’est pas une pipe.
“It most certainly is not,” he thinks, feeling vaguely content.

He puts down the book on Magritte and picks up a few more books at random from another table, without looking at the titles. He sits in an armchair in a corner of the room. He watches the people who walk by. From time to time he leafs through one of the books, then another, pleased at being capable—despite his leafing-through—of not knowing what they are about. It is the books he’s interested in, not what they say. What they say awakens no passion at all. (Amazing to have felt this way for so long, only to be reasoning it through now for the first time!) Perhaps reasoning it through is a step backwards, though, because, in fact, feelings lie more on the surface of things. It is easy from him not to know what the books say. It is just a question of not noticing, of making an effort not to notice. It’s strange what’s happening to him: attitudes he would previously have considered stupid now delight him, and he finds honest and worthy those which at any previous moment he would have considered idiotic. Maybe he is evolving, becoming more mature. In an on-the-spot application of the ideas fluttering in his head, he sees that leafing through those books comes down, in the end, to a series of arbitrary gestures; and he finds it quite fine to be making arbitrary gestures. Why is it quite fine to be making arbitrary gestures? He doesn’t feel like responding and even considers it stupid to have posed the question. He finds thinking to be a bore. He finds this boredom to be another symptom of maturity. He lets his eyes wander over the shelves, trying not to register anything. He sees a girl leafing through a book and looking from side to side. He realizes right away that she wants to steal it. The girl looks behind her and meets Heribert’s gaze. The sudden flash of her eyes confirms Heribert’s impression that she wanted to steal the book that now, quite flustered, she is quickly returning to the shelf. In spite of his irritation at having realized what the girl had in mind (and therefore at not being able to continue running his eyes over things without registering them), he considers getting up, approaching her, and telling her to take the book without a second thought, as she’s mistaken if she’s taken him for a guard, or if she has taken his expression of curiosity for one of reproach.

When Heribert gets up, the girl has already disappeared behind some bookcases. He searches all over the room for her and only discovers her when, from the handrail, he casts an eye over the main floor: she is at the cash register, paying, waiting for the cashier to put a paperback in a bag, and darting quick glances at the escalator.

Heribert finds it illogical to leave without a book. It isn’t exactly illogical: it is somehow suspect. Suspect? In what way? The question also seems stupid to him. To punish himself, as he runs toward the table of art books and picks up a copy of the one on Tamara de Lempicka, he pinches his left arm with the fingers of his right hand. He is still running (and feeling upon his skin the stares of all the salespeople and customers), when he goes down the escalator. For a moment it seems strange that no one thinks he has stolen anything, but by the following moment it seems evident that no one who had stolen anything would run; so it wasn’t even necessary for him to buy a book: breaking into a sprint was quite enough. As he puts on his coat after paying at one of the cash registers, he sees the girl far away, across the street, walking south.

He crosses the avenue (so suddenly that two taxis collide in order not to hit him) and follows her, quickening his pace until he’s close enough not to lose sight of her. Then he slows up. He is all set to approach her and say: “I’m terribly sorry. I’m not a guard at that bookstore. I know you decided not to steal the book on my account: when I looked at you, you must have thought it was a reproach, but it wasn’t at all.”

He watches her walking in front of him. He thinks she looks like an Anna and doesn’t feel like trying to figure out why he thinks her name should be Anna and not Judith or Cynthia. Maybe Anne or Ann, or perhaps Carmen or Barbara; not Mary, though. He doesn’t know why, but he’s sure a girl who walks like that can’t be a Mary.

He falls into step with her and walks right by her side. After a while, though, he reflects that he can’t address her without conveying an intention quite extraneous to the pure and simple message he wishes to deliver. From close up, her face seems familiar, and from more than one occasion. He sees it against a backdrop of paintings or sculptures
. . .
At some exhibit? He starts to feel embarrassed, or shy, or scared, and he keeps looking at her, determined to say nothing even before her glance (surprised, both angry and frightened), makes him decide to diminish his speed, just as she accelerates. “Lately, I just seem to ruin everything,” he thinks. And, right after that, “It would have been more compelling to think ‘Lately, I just seem to ruin everything’ with tears in my eyes.”

•

He takes a quick look in all the rooms. As usual, Helena isn’t there. He thinks of preparing lunch, but at that point in the afternoon he decides it is more appropriate to skip lunch and prepare dinner. What, though? He opens the refrigerator and checks off the contents: ice cubes, a bottle of vodka, two bottles of white wine, butter, shrimp, chicken, beef, jams, several kinds of bread, tomatoes, string beans, corn, orange soda, grapefruit juice, tomato juice, sparkling water, onions, potatoes, olives, capers. The mere thought of figuring out what he could do with all that makes him dizzy. Perhaps only to avoid any more such musings, he decides that, precisely because it is so late, he can take advantage of these last moments of daylight: he goes up to his studio, prepares his paints, and turns on the radio. Without much enthusiasm, he continues filling in small strips of black on a canvas with a charcoal sketch of a man sitting on a stool with his head propped up on a bar.

Since this gets boring, he picks up the book he bought. He examines it, he touches it. He is so sure he’ll like it (both the book and every one of the plates, including the ones he’s never seen) that he puts off opening it. The longer he delays in opening the front cover and looking at the first page, the longer he puts off the pleasure of beginning to read it, the longer he will postpone the end. He also realizes that the sooner he begins to read it, the sooner he will finish it. (He quickly sees that this is just the same thing said backwards. For a moment he is surprised that one can say the same thing by saying it backwards. He perceives immediately that this is painfully obvious. Being surprised at self-evident things makes him feel corroded.)