He’s not the kind of person who makes promises he can’t keep, and neither am I. And much because of that, I was never one to make demands - all that has come from him until this day hasn’t been less than a gift for me and I’m afraid always will be, in all that kindness and warmth I’ve never ceased to love. He does things in his own manner and timing, and shows me time and again that I can do the same.
Although deep down I hoped he’d return like in the other days, if he did not, it was alright, because he never really had left. What I had was already beautiful, and a lot of it was carved as consolation upon my soul to the point of having made me cry after he went away on the previous occasion. Ah, if only he knew about all those tears that poured out of me, that pain, that clenching feeling like that of heartbreak like I had never felt before and with the addition that it wasn’t the pain of a loss, but of the much that was offered to me and left me leaking like a chalice…
But he did come back, to my surprise. I opened the kitchen window and there he was, with that shy smile, covering me with apologies for being late when it was my honor to receive him anyway, and he owed me nothing. I gave him a quick entrance to appease his degree of flusteredness and we sat across each other by the meal table. Us staying there made sense for it was an exchange like meals are and should be. I acceded lovingly and patiently to his apologizing, wondering what gift he had for me at that time when he arrived with the wildness and smell of the sea barely concealed in his body, messy hair, and phlegm in the throat. As usual, his wishes for me to be and remain well warmed me.
Once again, he had come to read to me. To share with me the jewels from his shelves, the stories, and verses, at least some of them, that moved his heart, and which he found only fair to share so that they could be beacons amidst the growing chaos… Out there and within my life, in a way. He and I know words are powerful and that, sometimes, albeit words may be all we can offer, that at least they were sincere, said the truth. And it was even more generous to be able to hear them from himself when, with the same idea, he could have just lent me the books, marked in certain passages. Poetry and good stories can really heal at least a little and I think he feels like that too.
He took out an old, yellowed volume from his pocket, saying he didn’t know if he could keep doing this more times because life was getting in the way… But he had enough time and will to read at least a short story by an author he loved. As though the gesture itself and that beautiful cadence of his were not kneaded bread and honey, even if the scene described was sad or something of the kind. None of that mattered to me, as long as he was there out of a free will and for as long as he liked. Both his presence and his absence within that life which was so his made me happy.
There were the two of us, in one way or another lamenting the mundane with its foolishness that interrupted us like it nearly always seemed to do on the surface. And, even so, he had my attention, in that voice that pulled me to itself in the elegant and dark velvet of a young widow’s dress in mourning with its particular pinch of sadness. I think it was even having noticed it on that specific day which made me, under all the rest, more feel than hear what was being read.
Perhaps even more than if I myself were reading it, it seemed so vivid, so tangible, coming from such a humble mouth that was conscious of the pauses and music in all things. Perhaps it was merely my rather naive way of becoming so easily enamored by the small details and the seasoning of my affection for the man in front of me. Whatever, to be honest. Neither is annulled, much less the merit of the work itself and of what the conjoining of it all made me feel.
I felt like the blind young woman who sees wells from the Irish poem and the also blind Spanish one who sees the city and reads novels through other people’s eyes… I don’t say it out blindness from myself, albeit it somehow did exist, but… Because as good a storyteller people said I was, and details what remained longest with me, it was different to listen to the descriptions, situations, the rhymes in the poems. Somehow I did fall in love, just like the protagonist of the short story, with the beautiful woman he admired under the golden, oniric afternoon light; same light which my hand had described having touched people I loved, both in prose and poetry. Of course, listening to him read even the phone book would be a pleasure, but...
The artificial lighting in my house grew weary of us and left us in the dark, but must have taken pity later, for it soon was back on not to deprive me of that love a wee retroceded in itself before keeping on unfolding before me like a flag or a flower that blooms by the gentleness of who read of it; similar adoration to that of the Catalan boy from the book I’d held in my hands over a decade ago like one who explores a passion as forbidden as that one. A while later, my visitor and I caught ourselves wanting the light not to go out again.
Along with the power, the rest pulled him away from me before he could finish the story, maybe mirroring what happened there; hour turned too late and without explanation. And even so, I did not wish him any less well than I did days ago, for life has of these things, although part of me, human as it is, felt a wee upset, like the young man himself, for the interruption. The sudden parting didn’t keep me from smiling in the beauty of such a company and all that. What I could not imagine was that, a few hours later, with the moon already bearing witness, I'd be hearing the wind and the waves bring my neighbor’s voice whispering the last passage of the story and a true farewell, like only he could do it.
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