I preferred not to tell her about the punch, the unbearable blow, about the shiner, the black eye, it was best if I continued investigating on my own without alarming her, if Cecilia knew no more than she had told me, she wasn't going to be able to provide me with any further information, I didn't mind if she attributed my disquiet exclusively to feelings of jealousy, those were enough to justify my insistent curiosity and, after all, they did exist, perhaps as much as my concern that some poseur, some wretch, with ponytail or without, it didn't matter, was abusing Luisa: someone who was trying to take my place but who would have difficulty keeping it, because it wasn't his turn. Even so he must be gotten rid of. If he was violent, if he was dangerous, if he raised his hand to her, he must be ejected without delay, before he had a chance to settle in, because life is full of surprises and there's always the risk that something that seems to have no future at all could go on forever. And if she lacked the will, the strength, the resolve or the courage, I was the only one capable of attempting it, or so, at least, I told myself.
And so I waited for my father to get up (or for him to be helped out of bed and brought to the living room, to the armchair where he had always done his reading, beneath the pleasant light of the lampstand) and for my sister to leave, and then I could continue my investigations, or my soundings. I didn't really expect that he would know very much, possibly nothing, but if, of all the people I had to hand, he was, according to what Cecilia had said, the one who perhaps talked most to Luisa about her personal life-even if only now and then and given the natural constraints felt by a daughter-in-law and a father-in-law, or rather by two people with such a great age difference between them-I might be able to find out, if not about the man who aspired to my position-she wouldn't tell him anything about that; and there might well be several aspirants-at least about what most concerned me: how she saw me, now that I had abandoned the field and gently removed myself from her existence;-and even from her practical life-and detached myself, unprotesting, from her time and from that of our children. I asked my father about her and again he said that she didn't often come to see him, although I was gradually discovering or realizing that he had grown rather bad at gauging the presences or absences of certain people, as if it seemed to him that his most pleasant or enjoyable visitors always visited him far too infrequently, although I knew that some of those people visited almost every day, as was the case with my sister and my older nieces; he had always enjoyed the company of women and now that he was so weak and in need of gentleness, this liking had become even more marked. I guessed that something similar was happening with Luisa, who would certainly not have been able to visit him quite that often, but who, given the familiarity with which he referred to her and the odd telling comment, clearly did so more often than he imagined or felt that she did. I pressed him ('What does she say, what does she talk about when she comes? Does she talk about me or does she try not to mention me? Do you think she has doubts, might she have regrets, or does my name on her lips sound always as if she had found a place for me from which I don't and won't move, a place that is far too calm and stable?'), and suddenly he looked at me with his pale eyes, without answering, resting his forehead on one hand, his elbow on the arm of the chair, his usual pose when he was thinking and preparing to say something, I had the impression sometimes that he mentally constructed his sentences before uttering them, the first few at least (but not the subsequent ones). He sat looking at me with a mixture of interest, slight impatience and slight pity, as if I were not his son exactly, but a troubled young friend, of whom he was very fond and in whom he found two things strange or perhaps disappointing: one, that I should take such pains over a matter involving the extent of someone else's feelings or, indeed, self-interest, neither of which one can do anything about; and the other, that, despite being a grown man, a father, and despite my years and experience, I had still failed to grasp the insuperable nature of such griefs, or are they perhaps merely disquiets, and their laments.
'You don't seem at all resigned to the situation, Jacobo,' he said at last, after studying me for a while, 'and you have to resign yourself. If someone no longer wants to be with you, then you have to accept it. On your own, and without always watching to see how that person is changing or always looking out for signs and hoping for some drastic change. If such a change occurs, it won't be because you're watching or asking me questions or sounding out someone else. You can't keep on at someone all the time, you can't apply a magnifying glass or a telescope or resort to spies, nor, of course, must you pester them or impose yourself on them. Pretending doesn't help either, there's no point in feigning indifference or politeness when you feel neither polite nor indifferent, and I don't think you feel either of those things-yet. She'll know that you're pretending. Remember, transparency is one of the characteristics of being in love and other related states, in all their many guises (love can often be confused with stubbornness in its first stages and its last, when one thinks that the love of the other person has not yet put down deep roots or is slipping away). It's very difficult to deceive the person you love, or who feels or has felt loved (who has known love), unless, of course, that person prefers to be deceived, which, I must admit, is not uncommon. But you always know when you're no longer loved, if you're open to finding that out: when everything has become mere habit or a lack of courage to bring things to a close, or a desire not to make a fuss and not to hurt anyone, or a fear for your life or your purse, or a mere lack of imagination, most people are incapable of imagining a different life from the one they're living and they won't change it for that reason alone, they won't move, won't even consider it; they patch things up, postpone, seek distractions, take a lover, go gambling, convince themselves that what they have is bearable, allow time to do its work; but it won't occur to them to try something else. Only self-interest can defeat feelings, and then only sometimes. And in the same way, you always know when you're still loved, especially when you would like that love to abate or to stop altogether, which is usually the case with a couple in the process of splitting up. The one who made the decision, if he or she isn't an egotist or a sadist, longs for the other person to leave, to disentangle themselves from the web, to stop loving them and oppressing them with that love. To move on to someone else or, indeed, to no one, but to wash their hands of the whole business once and for all.'-My father paused for a moment and again looked at me hard, the way one sometimes looks before saying goodbye. He seemed to be scrutinizing me, which was unlikely because his sight had deteriorated greatly and he found it hard to read or even to watch television, I think he listened to it rather than watched. And yet that look had exactly the opposite effect, those ever paler blue eyes fixed on my face seemed to see right through me and to know more about me than I did myself.-'I think you need to let Luisa go Jacobo. You haven't done so, even though you've respectfully and courteously taken yourself off to another country and so on. But you still haven't let her go. And now you have no option, you have to do it whether you like it or not. Let her breathe freely, give her some air, don't stand in her way. Let her take the initiative. It's not in your hands to do anything. If, one day, she discovers she's unhappy without you, if she realizes that she misses you so much that it's making her miserable, I don't think she would hesitate to tell you so and to ask you to come back, if I know her as I think I do. She's capable of admitting she was wrong, she's not proud. If she doesn't do so, it's because she doesn't want to, and she won't change whatever you do or say or however you behave, here or at a distance; as far as she's concerned, you're transparent, as she will be for you if you're prepared really to see her and to recognize what you see. If you're not, then that's another matter, and I understand that. Just don't ask me something I don't know, but
Now it was my turn to sit thinking for a moment, but not because I wasn't sure. No, I didn't have anything remotely like a girlfriend; I'd merely had a few fleeting encounters, especially in the first few months of settling in and reconnoitering and weighing things up, but they had all lacked either continuity or enthusiasm: of the three women who had slept at my apartment during that period, only one had returned with my consent (another had tried but without success), and that relationship had soon foundered, after our third or fourth date. Subsequently, another woman had passed through, but without any consequences. Then there was young Perez Nuix who, I could not deny it, had meandered through my imagination, and after the one night we spent together, she still did occasionally, but that strange encounter had become tinged with vague ideas of favors and payments, and such things quickly douse the imagination; and although ideas of secrecy and silence ignite it, they are perhaps not enough to counteract the former, which have more weight and force.
'No,' I replied. 'Just the odd fling, but at my age such things are no longer stimulating or particularly diverting. Or only to those who are easily flattered. Which is not my case.'
My father smiled, he was sometimes amused by the things I said.
'No, maybe not now. It was in the past though, when you were younger, so don't be so superior. It's not the case with Luisa either, of that I'm sure. I have no idea whether she's seeing anyone else. Needless to say, she doesn't talk to me about such things, although she will one day, if I live that long. She trusts me, and I think she would tell me about any serious relationship. What I do see is that she doesn't discount the possibility and might even be in a hurry for such a relationship to appear. She's in a hurry to get back on her feet or to remake her life, or however people put it nowadays, you'll know, I'm sure. I mean that I don't think she yet has doubts about her attractiveness, that's not the problem, although neither of you is as young as you were. It's more that she's afraid
