Outside in the garden, the mad, unyielding crickets summoned the rain, and he asked himself how his wife and daughter could sleep in the upstairs rooms with this deafening chatter.
He couldn’t sleep. He sat, in his shorts, in front of the open sliding glass door that led to the terrace and garden. The last lights still lit were those inside the pool, but the light rippling through the water could not quite kill the feeling of being in someone else’s house, the undefinable malaise of a mock vacation.
Because in reality, he wasn’t there to rest, but to work. Even if the job implied no particular effort, even if he didn’t have to do anything at all, only live in the house with his wife and his daughter and enjoy the possessions of his friend Félix, while Félix and Ruth ascended the Nile and spent fortunes on rolls of film and toothless Egyptian guides on the tab of an Italian travel magazine.
To calm himself, to bring on sleep, he thought about how he wouldn’t set foot in Buenos Aires all month long.
He would live unshaved and in shorts, mow the lawn, take care of the pool, watch tapes, and listen to music while his daughter grew up before his eyes and his wife concocted strange desserts in the kitchen. And in all this time, at most they might leave him some minimally stimulating—or at least catastrophic—message on his apartment’s answering machine.
Meanwhile, maybe Félix and Ruth would decide to extend their trip for another month, or they would have an accident, or they would both fall in love with an androgynous, illiterate ephebos in Alexandria. A month could be a long time in some places; a month could be almost a lifetime. For his daughter, for example. He had to start living at her pace, as his wife had said. Day by day, hour by hour, without haste. He had to face fatherhood once and for all, as Félix and Ruth might say, if they hadn’t already done so.
Then he heard the door. Not the bell, but two soft, courteous knocks, as if mindful of the late hour. Every house has its own logic, and its laws are clearer at night, when things can happen without the pacifying effect of noise. He didn’t look at the clock, nor was he surprised, nor did he think the knocks were his imagination. He simply stood up, leaving the lights off as he passed through the house, and when he opened the door he found his father standing in front of him. He hadn’t seen him since he’d died. And in that moment he knew, incongruously, that he had already accepted that he would never see him again.
His father was wearing a raincoat buttoned all the way up and his hair was as thick and well-combed as ever, but stark white. They had never been very expressive with each other. He said: “Dad, what a surprise,” but didn’t move until his father asked, smiling:
—May I come in?
—Yes, of course. By all means.
The father crossed the darkened living room, passed through the open glass door, and sat down on one of the lounge chairs on the terrace. From there he looked back in, waved, and patted the empty chair next to him.
Obediently, he went out to the terrace. He said:
—I can take your coat, if you want. Can I get you something to drink?
The father shook his head at both offers. Then he stretched as much as he could and took a deep breath, without losing his smile.
—It’s going to rain any minute now. How marvelous. Is it like this during the day too?
—It’s even better. For Marisa and the baby in particular.
—Marisa and the baby. You must have plenty to tell me about, I imagine.
He felt his jaw just barely unclench. In the dreams in which he saw him again, his father always knew about everything that had happened to them in his absence.
—Yes, of course. I guess so.
—Of course, I don’t expect you to bring me up to date on current events. Let’s skip politics, work, and the world in general, if we can. I want to hear about domestic things. Your sisters, you, Marisa, the baby. Those things.
It surprised him that his father had used the word domestic. And even more so that he had named everyone but his mother. But he didn’t know what to say.
—I’m going to pour myself a whiskey. Sure you don’t want one?
—No, no, thanks. By the way, what a good idea, the lights inside the pool.
He paused before going inside.
—It’s not mine. The house, I mean.
When he reappeared, with a rather full glass, he stopped behind his father’s chair and it struck him that they had not yet touched.
—I thought that you saw everything that happened here, from where you were.
His father shook his head slowly back and forth a few times.
—No, unfortunately. It’s quite different from what one imagines.
He gazed into the pool and had the feeling that he was not in control of what he was saying nor what he was going to say.
—If you only knew how many things I did for you over the years, thinking you were watching me . . .
And he laughed a little, a joyless laugh but not a bitter one, just to clear his lungs.
—So you don’t know anything about the last four years then. Incredible.
His father fidgeted some in the lounge chair and gave him an oblique look.
—There might be some changes where they are sending us now. If it’s any consolation.
He stared back at his father blankly.
—There was a transfer. I’m going to be somewhere else from now on. Not just me; many others, too. Things there are not as orderly as one might think. Sometimes there are unforeseen circumstances. That I’m with you now, for example.
—And why with me? Why didn’t you go see mom?
The father stared into the rippling light of the pool for a moment. His face fell ever so slightly and there was a subtle tinge of sadness in his vacant expression.
—With your mother it would have been more difficult. One night is not a long time, and I need you to tell me everything that you can. With your mother, we would talk about other things. About the past, more than anything. About me and her, about the good times we spent together. And that would have been unfair of me.
He paused.
—There are some things that are technically impossible for me to do in my current state: feel, for example. Understand? To a certain extent, what I am tonight is something that would be of no value to your mother. With you on the other hand, it’s simpler, so to speak. You have always put things in perspective, in terms of emotions. With your mother, with your sisters, with yourself.
He paused again.
—I also thought you’d be able to cope better with the feelings this visit will bring up for you. After all, I was never that important to you, was I?
He then felt something that he hadn’t felt in a long time. A kind of submissiveness, and the need to resist that submissiveness. In that moment, he understood that for the past four years he hadn’t been that which he was now, once again: his father’s son. He went to the edge of the pool, took off his loafers and sat down with his feet in the water.
—If you hadn’t been so important to me, then I wouldn’t have done the things I did because of you, for you, over the years. Did that ever occur to you?
—No.
He was dumbfounded. The response had been so quick and brutal that it sounded sincere. And for that very reason, disingenuous. Cowardly. Almost unfair.
—And what do you know now?—he managed to say.
—Nothing.—his father replied.
Then he stood up, carried the chair to the edge of the pool, and sat down with his hands in his pockets.
—I don’t suppose it changes anything. What you did, you’ve already done. And it seems to me that there’s no point in you getting angry about it now, with me or with yourself, is there?
Not only was it useless, but he was beginning to feel that it was not fair, in light of his father’s condition, for him to question anything, or to indulge in this uncharacteristic hostility. The need to resist faded and only submissiveness remained, no longer directed at his father but at the state of things, an obtuse and inscrutable abstraction.
—That’s true. I’m sorry.
They were silent for a moment, until he said:
—Anyways, I exaggerated a little. I didn’t do that many things thinking of you.
His father let out a chuckle.
—I didn’t think so.
A bolt of lightning sliced across the bottom of the sky. When the thunder sounded, the father flinched and his chuckle could be heard again.
—I’d almost forgotten these kinds of things. It’s funny how memory works, what it retains and what it sets aside.
—The crickets. Do you hear them? They wouldn’t let me sleep. That’s why I was awake when you showed up.
After saying this, he began to doubt himself. Crickets? But he thought better of it and decided he preferred not to know.
—Well,—said his father in a gentle voice.—Back to business.
—Can I ask you something first?
The chair creaked. He made an effort to hold his father’s gaze.
–As you wish. But you know how it is: once you find out, it’ll be hard to get it out of your head. That’s not a threat. I only say it for your own good.
—Yes, I know—he said, and asked, his voice unsure—Does everyone go to the same place? Does it matter what each person has done?
—That’s something I could have told you since I was about twenty years old, give or take. I always suspected that it mattered more in life than after. As for your other question, it’s not exactly a place, where they go. But yes: everyone goes to the same place, to the extent that we are all relatively alike. Your neighbor’s way of life and yours, for example, differ as much as your height and his. They’re nuances, and nuances don’t matter. Let’s say there are only two states, basically: yours and mine. It’s much more complicated, but you wouldn’t understand it now.
—Then you and I will meet again, at some point—he said.
The father didn’t answer.
—Does being together matter there?
The father didn’t answer.
—What’s it like?
The father averted his eyes and gazed into the pool.
—Like swimming at night—he said, the ripples of light reflecting on his face—Like swimming at night, in an immense pool, without ever tiring.
In one swallow, he drank the last of the whiskey in his glass and waited for it to hit his stomach.
Then he tossed the ice into the pool and set the empty glass on the edge.
—Anything else?—the father asked.
He shook his head. He pumped his legs a little in the water and looked at the base of the lounge chair, the raincoat, his father’s blandly timeless face. He thought about how reluctant they had always been to make physical contact, and now felt that the hugs in the dreams in which his father appeared were incredibly naive and phony. This was the reality: everything continued how it had always been, and restarted at almost exactly the same point it had been interrupted four years before. Even if only for a night.
—Where do you want me to start?
—Wherever you like. Don’t worry about the time, we have all night. The sun won’t rise until you’re done.
He took a deep breath, let it out, and grasped that he had just begun the longest and most secret night of his life. He began, of course, by talking about his daughter.
