Lying Patiently

2001, May, 21. Havana. 22:16 h.

Bernardo does not answer.

That is all.

He is not kidnapped. There is no car waiting beneath a tree, no one is following Ivan Walsh, there is still no reason to think that anything extraordinary has happened. A twenty-year-old young man goes off with a man he knows and does not tell Ivan Walsh where.

Ivan Walsh can repeat it like that.

A twenty-year-old young man goes away.

Nothing more.

María Julia watches him as he dials for the sixth time.

—Ivan Walsh.

—Yes.

—Leave him alone.

—I am leaving him alone.

—It does not look like it.

He puts the phone away.

They are still in San Antonio. The school is beginning to empty, and music he does not recognize comes from somewhere. He could ask. He used to ask about these things. Who sings, who wrote the book, who made that film. As though naming something kept it from disappearing.

—Who was the Mexican? —he asks.

María Julia shrugs.

—I did not see him.

—The boys did.

—Then ask them tomorrow.

—It may be too late.

María Julia looks at him.

She says nothing.

That irritates him because he understands what she is thinking.

—I am not dramatizing.

—I did not say you were dramatizing.

—You thought it.

—Not that either.

She smiles.

Bernardo said exactly the same thing to him this morning.

For an instant he has the unpleasant feeling that everyone is beginning to speak in the same phrases.

The phone vibrates.

He takes it out too quickly.

It is not Bernardo.

JUAN DIEGO

He did not know he had saved his number.

Or he did.

He answers.

—Where is he?

Silence.

Then a small laugh.

—Good evening to you too.

—Where is Bernardo?

—With me.

—I know that already.

—Then why do you ask.

Again.

The same phrase.

He looks at María Julia.

She is no longer looking.

—I want to speak to him.

—He cannot right now.

—Why?

—Because he is busy.

—Doing what?

Juan Diego takes a few seconds.

—Looking.

He does not know what that means.

—Put him on the phone.

—Ivan Walsh, you are not his father.

—I know I am not his father.

He says it too loudly.

A student crossing in front of them turns his head.

I lower my voice.

—I only want to know whether he is all right.

—He is all right.

—Let him tell me himself.

Juan Diego sighs.

—He is going to call you.

—When?

He has already hung up.

He remains looking at the screen.

María Julia comes closer.

—Is he all right?

—That is what they say.

—Then let us go.

He does not tell her that what worries him is not that Bernardo might be unwell.

What worries him is that he might be well without him.

2001, May, 21. Havana. 23:48 h.

Ivan Walsh returns to Vedado close to midnight.

The door is closed.

He opens it.

He says his name before turning on the light.

—Bernardo.

Nothing.

The house seems different when someone who has been living in it for only a few weeks is missing.

That seems ridiculous to him.

He enters the studio.

The black notebook is still on the table.

He had left it open in the afternoon when Liliana recognized the Virgin.

He pours himself water.

Not wine.

Water.

He has learned a few things.

Or a few things have learned to do without him.

He sits down.

The Virgin appears between the pages like a dark stain.

Behind it he finds several folded sheets that he has spent years moving from one house to another.

Rome.

He does not know why they are here.

Of course he knows.

He put them there himself.

They are photocopies of diaries he wrote during his time in the seminary. He tried to make clean copies a few months ago and gave up on the third day. There are hundreds of pages. Mass schedules, names that no longer mean anything, scruples, men he was in love with without knowing it, God appearing in every third paragraph with an insistence that now seems suspicious to him.

He has no vocation to be a saint.

Nor an archivist.

Perhaps not even a writer.

He reads a page.

Then another.

At some point he finds an underlined phrase:

Providence consists in discovering afterward why it was necessary to be exactly there.

He laughs.

What an idiot.

He turns the page.

There is another handwriting.

His, but not the same.

More slanted.

Younger.

And then a name appears that for a few seconds he does not recognize.

Bernardo.

He remains looking at it.

He knows who he is.

He knows perfectly well.

And at the same time he does not.

2001, May, 22. Havana. 00:07 h.

Ivan Walsh stops reading.

The word remains there.

Now.

He does not remember writing this version.

That troubles him more than necessary.

He has others.

He has always had several versions of the same things.

In one, Senel calls in the morning.

In another, in the afternoon.

In one he is at Columbia studying film.

In another he merely teaches.

In one Javier directs a university institute.

In another he works in television.

Every time he tells the story he corrects something and, after enough corrections, the correction becomes a memory.

Perhaps that is writing.

Or lying patiently.

He returns to the sheets.