*
Claire Halde leaves Valencia without knowing if she’ll ever be back. It’s an unyielding city, one she has a hard time getting her bearings in, with a layout that belies its seaside location. Twice now she’s been to Valencia in August, and twice the city’s been operating in slow motion, vaguely empty, lethargic. She hadn’t come to splash around in the sea or to loll about in the sun. Her memory will be one of blistering, suffocating heat, and two torrid nights with a man she had no intention of falling for, spent exorcizing—through her spasms, her moans, her sighs, and all the sweat and bodily fluids that had seeped from her pores, orifices, mouth, vagina, anus, saliva, mucous, tears—that business of the woman in Valencia. In the shadow of the city where she let a woman die, she had finally felt alive again.
More than any other place in the world, she had managed to lose herself in this city. Even as the train pulls out of the station, she has no concept of north or south, no idea in what direction Barcelona or Madrid, Asia or America lies.
KILOMETRE 41
… one kilometre to go, I’m almost there, one kilometre to go, the crowd is cheering, I can’t make out the faces, my head is pounding, I’m disoriented, but I’m still going, I’m somewhere else, over there up ahead, I’m going to make it, I feel an incredible force rising up inside me, I’m not giving up now, I’m so close, my whole body has kicked into overdrive, powering beyond fatigue now, I speed up, I’m giving myself the shake…
LEAVING
At Atocha station, in Madrid, Claire watches the stream of travellers make their way toward the C1 line to the airport. She’s incapable of entering the current; she’s rooted in place, upright in the passageway, leg glued to the suitcase resting at her feet. She’s in the way, forcing people to go around her, annoyed. Claire is struck with a realization: She doesn’t want to go home. She rummages around in her bag and pulls out her plane ticket, stares it as though expecting some revelation to flow from it. After a moment, she tosses it on the tracks, on impulse, a visceral motion that comes out of nowhere and lands her in front of the departures board, next to the indoor garden brimming with lush plants growing and blooming under the glass-and-steel dome. There’s a train leaving for Seville in thirty-two minutes. She’ll go back to Andalusia. After that, who knows, maybe somewhere else, in search of her youth.
*
The train picks up speed, hurtling away from Madrid at two hundred and fifty kilometres an hour, skirting a pine forest for the first stretch. Before long, it cuts across a field of sunflowers at the foot of a mountain range whose name Claire doesn’t know. Two hundred and sixty kilometres an hour. The scenery flashing by holds absolutely nothing of interest. Forehead pressed against the glass, Claire Halde notes with indifference the barrenness of the landscape, nothing more.
42.2 KILOMETRES
… I can see it, I can finally see it, the finish line, I push even harder, I don’t hear the cheers, I’m floating, forward, everything is white, the buildings like bones, steel as white as aspirin, that thing I’m longing for with my entire body, the end of the marathon, I feel like I’m passing everyone ahead of me as I round the Príncipe Felipe Science Museum, a giant whale skeleton emerging from the water, still a few metres to go, the water in the ponds is a bright blue, like an inverted sky, my veins course with pure adrenaline, a potentially lethal dose for a weaker heart, a geyser bubbling up, an ocean of ice dissolving, I can no longer hold back this sudden flood, no, I am this sudden flood, my thighs are screaming in agony like my muscles might tear with every step, I speed up some more, nothing is going to stop me…
Run! Go on, faster, my love!
… come, Mama, take my arm, pull me into your slipstream so we can go even faster…
… still a few more seconds to go, pump the arms, lift the knees, go, go, go, faster…
Run! Go on, faster, my love! Faster!
… take my hand, we’ll cross the finish line hand in hand, Mama, like that time in the Caribbean, with the turtles, I can see you next to me, suspended in your ray of light, I squeeze so hard I can feel your bones in my moist palm, I can hear the tide breaking at our backs, I close my eyes, another wave lifts us, we cover the last few metres without touching the ground, with oceanic ease, we float together upright…
Raise your arms, Laure, be proud of yourself, raise your arms above your head, you’re a marathoner!
… a remarkable stillness, for a second my body is no longer in pain, I’m nothing but joy and exhaustion. I am a marathoner.
I look at the screen on my wrist: three hours fifty-nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds.
The euphoria and fatigue send me reeling. The dam in my head finally bursts. Without warning, my muscles are wracked with spasms, my chest heaves, struggling to contain my racing heart. A warm breeze blows over my skin, caressing the sweat on the surface, teasing the damp hairs at the back of my neck. Someone hands me a bottle of water. A medal is placed around my neck. I run my tongue over my dry, salty lips, my face finally relaxes, my hips throb,
