There is a verse by Verlaine that I will never
remember again.
There is a street nearby that is closed to my steps.
There is a mirror that has seen me for the last time.
There is a door that I have closed until the end of
the world.
–Jorge Luis Borges: “Limits”
After standing for a long time in silence,
trying to find the right words to tell Raúl about the transformation that had
taken place in her life, Liliana placed the flowers on the grave. She wiped her
tears with the back of her hand and steadied her voice. “Happy birthday Raúl; this
is the last time I come. I hope you don't get angry.”
Contrary to tradition, Liliana used to visit him on his
birthday, not on the anniversary of his death. The difference was not much in
any case; only a week separated the two dates. She had been doing so for almost
ten years, ever since she was discharged from the psychiatric hospital José
Tiburcio Borda in Barracas, more or less a year after Raúl's death. She
left the hospital on his birthday. Her father picked her up. She asked him to
take her to La Recoleta. Raúl's father had been a general during the
military regime; that is why he had obtained a plot in the cemetery; and there
he was buried, together with his son. Before entering, Liliana bought flowers.
Her father took her for the first time to the place where the man who was going
to be her lifelong companion was buried. He waited at a certain distance from
the grave, leaving her alone with her past. Liliana cried heartbreakingly for a
while. “Happy birthday, Raúl”, she finally said when she managed to control
herself. For a decade, she repeated that ceremony. She even rented an apartment
in Ayacucho and Guido so as not to be too far from him.
Early in the morning, when she woke up, she was
distressed, because she remembered the promise she had made to herself the day
before, and she was not sure whether she would carry it out. After a moment of
indecision, she got up, took a shower, got ready, and went downstairs from her
apartment in Ayacucho. Then she walked along the sidewalk of Junín Street. She stopped at the church of Nuestra
Señora Del Pilar and bought flowers from the man who seemed to be
there every day. Then she walked towards the entrance of the Northern General Cemetery.
With her
heartbeat racing, she stopped for a moment before the four imposing Doric
columns of the portico she was to pass through. She sighed. But the sign in
large letters above the portico reassured her: “REQUIESCANT IN PACE.”
There were
few people. The usual noise of traffic and the music from the bars on Vicente López
Street
could not be heard that early in the morning; the only sounds in the air were
the murmur of the few visitors and the occasional cat playing and meowing among
the stone angels. That peace and quiet accentuated the halo of mystery, myths,
ghosts, and legends that surrounds that place; at the same time, however, it
brought some comfort to Liliana.
She
continued to walk along the main path, leaving behind tombs with illustrious names, heroes
of the country, presidents, renowned writers, scientists, and athletes. On both
sides were marble and bronze statues, representing virgins, angels, Christs,
men, and women.
Five
blocks, five and a half hectares, and five thousand graves would make one think
that it would be very difficult to find a specific tomb, but Liliana knew
exactly where she was going. She just had to go straight to the Central
Rotunda. There she was greeted by the Christ statue, with open arms, as if
welcoming her, or inviting her to stay in that peaceful world. Christ was also
looking towards the exit door, as though he were urging her to leave the
necropolis.
She kept strolling forward, following a little cobblestone lane, under the shade of the
cypresses, the araucarias, and the magnolias. Next to the big wall that overlooks
Azcuénaga
Street
(on the other side of which, at night, prostitutes walk around, offering their
expert services) was the grave she was looking for. Compared to the others, it
was simple, with a tombstone that reached Liliana to the height of her navel.
Liliana
remembered the last time she saw Raúl and the nonsense they had argued about.
She was twenty-two years old. She had never been in love or shown any interest
in the opposite sex, which is why her family and friends considered her
eccentric. It was then that she met Raúl. He was handsome, tall, successful in
business, with his own house in Belgrano; passionate, self-assured; he
participated in car racing circuits with his Ferrari. In other words, he was
the kind of man that women gravitate around. And Liliana was no exception. The problem
was that neither her parents nor her friends accepted him. It was true that he
was not a bad guy, and, despite what was rumoured about him, he adored Liliana.
But he was thirty-three years old, had a reputation for being a womanizer, and
was deemed to be violent, with an irascible temper.
Nevertheless,
needless to repeat, you can’t rule the heart, and Liliana decided that it would
be Raúl or no one else. Her parents had no choice but to give in and accept him
as a member of the family.
Everything
was ready for the wedding. In a month, they would be married. The party would
be big at Dock 1 in Puerto Madero; a honeymoon in Europe; a new
house in Palermo with a swimming pool and twenty rooms for the five kids
they were going to have; because she insisted that she would not live in the
house he inherited from his parents in Belgrano, but in a new house
built especially for them and their future children.
One night,
Raúl was at Liliana's place, a grand house in Montserrat, which her father had inherited from his grandparents,
who were among the few who did not move further north during the yellow fever
epidemic that broke out in 1871. They were making plans for their honeymoon and
got angry over something unimportant. Raúl wanted to spend a week skiing in Bariloche
before taking the flight to Europe. She wanted to go straight to the old continent,
starting in Switzerland, where her ancestors came from; besides, she had
already been to Bariloche more than once, and she hated snow and cold
weather. There was no way to come to an agreement. Raúl reproached her for
being inflexible; she accused him of wanting to control everything; offensive
words were exchanged, and at the end of the argument, Raúl left the house,
slamming the door. He got into his sports car, and the anger he was carrying
inside was reflected in the speed and the screeching of the tires.
A couple of
hours later, when the phone rang, thinking it was Raul calling to insist on
having the last word, Liliana decided that she wasn't going to pick up the
phone. But she also thought that he might be calling to apologize. When she
dropped the receiver and sank into the couch, pale and moaning convulsively,
her father knew it wasn't Raul who had called.
The
accident occurred on 9 de Mayo Avenue. The collision was head-on with a truck, the Ferrari became
a pile of scrap metal, and Raúl, obviously, did not live to tell the tale.
Liliana was not even able to attend the funeral. The magnitude of the tragedy
and the feeling of guilt broke her down.
After a
year in the psychiatric hospital, she returned to work. Apart from that, she would
not leave her house and would refuse all romantic proposals made to her. Her
family and friends were very worried about her. They, along with the psychotherapist
she was seeing regularly, kept telling her that it was time to forget
everything and move on. They gave her a thousand explanations and reasons. Still,
she would not come to her senses.
“Happy birthday, Raul,” she said again. “This is the
last time I come. I hope you don’t get angry,” she repeated. “I’ve been alone
for ten years. I met someone. He’s a good man. I think you would have liked
him. His name is Anselmo.” After confessing the truth to him, Liliana regained
her composure. It seemed to her that wherever he was, Raul understood her and
gave her his approval. “Goodbye, Raul. Wish me luck.” After kissing the grave,
she left and did not look back.
©Translated from the Spanish by William Almonte Jiménez, 2024
© Spanish title: “Calle Junín 1760”
© William Almonte Jiménez, 2014
