The Law of Boomerangs

The quiet space of the apartment was awakened by the screeching of a lock. Without taking off his coat, he set down his briefcase and, lost in the darkness, found the outline of an armchair. Then he sat down, rested his head on the hard backrest, and closed his eyes.

*

He always closes his eyes when he sits in an armchair at night. He then tries to fall asleep, realizing that when he sleeps, nothing drives him out of the house, forcing him to wander the streets in search of some undefined kind of "nothing" that, in his subconscious mind, he needs for something.

He dislikes walking the city at night; it's more for a pragmatic reason rooted in his overall way of being. Most of his decisions and actions have their foundations there. He picked up this trait with astonishing regularity in its appearance in his daily behavior from his family home, but even if it hadn't managed to become ingrained in his genes, he suspects he would have rediscovered it eventually. Pragmatism has guided his daily path for as long as he can remember. It always has been this way and always will be, for he can't imagine any other way of life. He doesn't want to.

In the case of sleepless nights, pragmatism manifests itself in the ability to simply fall asleep after returning from a nightly stroll, though that's a strange way to sleep and a strange habit.

For some time now, sleepless nights have been tormenting him more than ever, which is why he goes out at night, wandering the empty streets in search of peace. Just as he's tormented by the silence that becomes his lot every evening.

*

Because what good is silence? Dull, isolated, and arrogant?

Sometimes he wants the silence to scream, to tear him from his intoxicated state and prevent him from sitting in that damned armchair. To grab him by the neck, squeeze his skin until it reddens, and, cutting off his air, force him to start living differently.

When it reaches him in a surge of suppressed aggression, it begins to creep into his subconscious and destroy it, instinctively putting on headphones and melting into the loud music, like in the old days. Only the music reminds him that things were different, and that this different was the normality he absorbed and never wants to forget.

Sometimes he wishes the silence would smile and kiss him in greeting; it would be completely different then. How different he would feel opening the door, feeling that it was just a moment, a moment, now. The thought of feeling the gentleness of her lips on his body would make him forget about her arrogant self, push her away into oblivion, bury her, banish her from his space.

Yes... A light kiss on the cheek... So light that he would feel only the slightest touch of lips, curled into a gentle smile.

Just like in the old days.

*

He was roused from his lethargy by the sound of breaking glass, about two meters above his head. It was the neighbor who had broken another glass, or knocked a plate off the table. She does this often, and often in the evenings, when he sits in an armchair with his head resting on the hard backrest.

Sometimes, instead of a glass or a plate, he hears the sound of wooden shoes clattering on the floor, or the sound of a broom hitting the floor, knocked against it neither accidentally nor on purpose. He often gets the impression that there's some unwritten agreement between him and this woman, one he's unconsciously entered into, that compels her to break, knock, or strike, thus restoring his awareness of a reality he's recently been unable to approach as he once did. That's why he hates those damned glasses, plates, wooden shoes, and brooms. He just wants to fall asleep normally, dressed in his coat, and be able to dream about nothing.

It's simply safer that way.

He straightened his head and, slightly nervous, looked out the window, like train passengers do when they want to check the station they're at. It was pitch black; the streetlights hadn't been on outside his building for some time, so he could barely see anything. Still, sitting upright, he tried to overcome the inaccessibility of his surroundings. For a moment, he laboriously stared at the wall, but the darkness of the evening refused to help him decipher the clock's markings. So he got up and turned on the light. It was a few minutes after ten.

He instinctively lit a cigarette and went to the telephone, dialing a number from the phone's memory. It was the most frequently dialed combination of numbers he knew and used. Besides the combinations for his office, the hospital, and his father. Those, after all, were an obvious necessity.

"The telephone is an absolutely phenomenal invention for me," his philosophy professor used to say, and he spoke about life in such an intriguing way that no one in his class would even consider being even a minute late for his Friday lecture, even if it concerned how to tie a tie. He often thinks about that kind old man, brandishing a wooden switch with glee in his eyes, though the telephone doesn't strike him as a phenomenal invention.

She answered after a few rings, saying "yes" inquisitively. She always says "yes" instead of the usual "I'm listening" or "please," as if those words weren't part of the telephone etiquette. Sometimes it annoys him a little, but he never betrays his feelings. It's a trivial matter, after all.

He sensed she was in an indifferent mood. Besides, she's usually in an indifferent mood in the evenings, and that's the main reason he wants to talk to her. She's more objective and clear-headed then; besides, he needs her. Needed simply, every day, just like today, even though he lives in a different city and doesn't see her very often. They last met two months ago, around mid-September.

They talked for a long time and without any problems. He couldn't find another word in his memory that more accurately reflected the way they did it.

She didn't want to force herself to confess, and she didn't want to hear them either. She only said that a pile of dishes was waiting in the sink from the dinner she'd prepared for her friends, and she wasn't in the mood for further discussion. Instead, he, unlike usual, wanted to talk about how miserable he felt today, about how he simply felt bad.

He couldn't talk about his dilemmas; it came to him with difficulty and physical pain, manifested by a stabbing pain in his left shoulder blade. What's more, one could venture to say that confiding in anyone was, at best, unlikely. But today, as rarely before, he felt an almost irresistible need to do so. It was precisely on this day, at this very hour, when, cigarette in mouth, he held the telephone receiver and stood staring out the window, beyond which nothing could be seen.

They were talking nonsense, though, smoothly and communicatively, just as they usually do. They talked about her gallery, his patients, and the new restaurant they'd go to when he came to see her. He didn't dare disrupt the flow of the conversation, which after fifteen minutes he'd begun to despise slightly, but then again, they weren't twenty years old anymore to be forthright and blunt about their personal well-being. It's true they'd known each other for a very long time—he couldn't even remember how long—but he felt a deeply ingrained conviction in his subconscious that a man his age had no right to feel sorry for himself, much less show weakness in front of a woman. Even when he was in a situation similar to his own, and even when this woman was one of the few people he cared about.

He

was awakened by the screeching of a car's wheels, taking a curve too fast. Without lifting his head from the hard seat, he noticed a lamp burning in the corner of the room, and he, dressed in his coat, was still sitting in the armchair.

"Doctor, I saw you last today," he recalled of their morning conversation. These two years I spent with you have changed a lot in my life... This office has changed a lot in me... I think I'm stronger... I can function normally now and I can go back to where I belong... Do you know, doctor, that I'm ready? You should know this, because I feel it inside me, even though where I'm going back isn't the same, that they're all gone, that I'll never see them again... But I want that return because I'm no longer afraid of it... I want to go back... To go back and have a coffee in peace at the same cafe I always did... And I'll do it today. Thanks to you, doctor... Goodbye... I'm going home...

...and I'm sorry for this incident, I just wanted you to... ...I wanted you to... I'm sorry... goodbye. I'll go now..."

He rose from his chair and moved toward the coat rack placed just by the door. Before taking off his coat and hanging it on the metal hook, he came to the conclusion that many people even remotely close to him sooner or later pass away. They pass away, just like the young woman whom he seemed to have helped enough to return to everyday life, starting over. Or perhaps she'll return, because she's a different person, not the one who came to him two years ago. And although for a long time he hadn't entertained such a thought, she inexplicably became close to him, and you help loved ones much more intensely than strangers. She became close, even though he had once promised himself that a patient would remain just a patient, yet when thoughts of this woman crept into his mind, he was overcome by the conviction that he had lost his resolve and betrayed his conscience. Like never before.

He headed toward the kitchen.

From the sideboard he and Anita had planned to exchange a few years ago for a set he'd picked out at the shop on the corner of Milo and Chespo, he took a coffee machine and, as always, poured two cups of water under the tap.

His instincts never failed him. Well, maybe a few times in his life, but those were rather minor incidents, characterized by a lack of serious consequences. Like the time he chose Salmincia instead of Trebigo and drove his car into a huge pothole in the road, a small section of which was being repaired. Or the time he failed to report his missing documents and then spent all night slogging away on a train, only to have to prove with desperate stubbornness at some police station on the other side of the country that he hadn't promised the job picking tomatoes, and that he absolutely didn't have the twenty thousand he'd extorted. Because, after all, a road is a road, potholed or not. Because, after all, he'd never had much money, let alone such a large sum. What's more, he'd never had any. He doesn't even know how to get to the backwater somewhere on the outskirts of the southern district where the plantation is supposedly located, even though they "miraculously" believed him at that particular police station. Idiots.

He's been starving for coffee, filling a cup halfway with water and reserving the other half for milk. Anita always joked that instead of coffee with milk, she drinks milk with coffee. She said it reminded her of a vague, unspecified liquid given to caffeine addicts in some "rehab centers" to taste like a substitute for, as she claimed, that noble drink.

*

He doesn't really know how he ended up spending so much time thinking about this girl. And yet, her story is a simple coincidence, textbook even.

"Woman, twenty-seven years old, Caucasian. In a car accident on October 4, 1995, her mother, six-month-old child, and husband died. A direct interview revealed that she was not receiving psychological help or undergoing any other forms of therapy, was not taking any medications, and had not attempted suicide. Initial diagnosis: moderately severe depressive disorder."

Yes... He remembers this record precisely.

He doesn't know for sure whether the woman, after dozens of visits to him, will be able to cope with everyday life, or whether he has strengthened her enough to begin functioning relatively smoothly. Twenty-three months of therapy... This is a more difficult case than he had expected when she first came to him. She had spent two hours and fifteen minutes with him.

*

It was two-thirty.

He reached for his cup of coffee, which, untouched, had already cooled and thickened somewhat. Coffee has a soporific effect on him, so he often drinks it at night, even though that contradicts the very reason he drinks caffeine. He dipped his lips into the cold beverage, then stood by the window and stared at the neon sign above the jewelry store. He knew he wouldn't sleep again that night.

Why did she do that? Had he given her the understanding that she could expect a reaction to his gestures? He was furious with her, that in his office... After all, he hadn't given her anything but his own words, backed by professional and life experience, anything that could have prompted her to materialize the thought that would materialize in this office.

Why had he allowed her to do this? Why had he allowed himself to do this? After all, only her height, a mere few centimeters, distinguished her from his Maria. And maybe that small mole on her left cheek; that was all. Her eyes, her mouth, the concern and sadness in her eyes were practically, as if touched by a scanner, copied from his little Maria's behavior and appearance, so... no, hell no! Such thoughts were an attack on normality, a destruction of order on earth, a toying with fate. He doesn't want it, can't talk about it, can't even think about it. What's more, he has to forget! Because he wants to forget, because, essentially, he has no other choice... Because, after all, he's still a child!

He knows he's fighting for this oblivion. He fights at night, wandering empty streets, he fights during meetings with patients, he fights while drinking milk and coffee and looking at the photo of Anita and Maria hanging above the desk. He fights even when crossing the street at a red light and hearing the insults of young drivers who, if fate had been kinder, could have become friends with his grandchildren.

At one point, he even felt he was winning this fight, close to definitive victory, that he would forget the whole story, that everything would be as it was before, when his thoughts were completely under his control. Because he wants to control them, as he does his entire life.

But, like boomerangs, the day came when he watched her leave the office for the last time, and when he felt something dying inside him, something he couldn't control, though he desperately wanted to. It was the day he realized that with that exit, all his resistance against this woman, against her presence, and against her blackened blood, was also released. And that he had never wanted that resistance, that he had wanted to stain himself with that blackness, that he couldn't fight its consequences. But he also felt, it seemed to him, relief flowing in torrents through his veins, making it seem as if, having reached his brain, after this exit, things would only get better, more predictable, and simply safer for his daily life, intricately constructed after Anita's departure.

Better, even though that evening, paid for by a subsequent, degrading hangover, he had spent with a bottle of Burgundy, something that had happened in his life under extremely abject circumstances, which he only wanted to forget.

*

Does he love her?

No, it's absurd, even funny. He's already loved and been loved, so his time has passed. Besides, he rarely put his feelings into words, embellished them with diminutives, a multitude of playful phrases, so he's not even used to expressing them. He's only uttered them three times in his life. Sometimes he regrets the stinginess he's fallen into all these years, regrets the constant avoidance of important and necessary words, regrets the years of impoverishing himself in expressing his feelings directly.

Funny... Even now, when he thinks about it, he can't change the way he puts his feelings into words. Sometimes he resents it, but paradoxically, it doesn't really matter anymore. All his loved ones, the people he loved, to whom he could have told them dozens of times that he loved them, are gone.

No! He definitely couldn't have fallen in love with this woman; he sees no point in it; he's too mature a man for a momentary infatuation with some brat. It's not a physical fascination either... No, definitely not! Even as a young man, he had never been captivated by a woman's body—the essence of femininity, for him, was something entirely different from the body. It had never captivated him as much as the mind and the inaccessibility emanating from within. Because for him, a woman will always be an enigma, a phenomenon that every man must discover for himself, step by step.

Besides, that November event...

He remembers everything as if it were yesterday. It was a cool evening, it was raining outside, and she had come to her appointment in a mood of heightened indifference. In her case, that mood was marked by her expressive makeup, drawn with a blackened stain, as he called the stain she usually applied to her face. The blackness of her eyes seemed more intense to him then, her hair shinier, and the mood of depression intensified its impact with amplified force. She was beautiful.

He liked that black and had grown accustomed to it becoming an integral part of her appearance. It was in keeping with her state; her interior had long been black, too. And even if blood could be that color, she certainly carried it within herself. Blood black, thick and strong, like new shoes made of chemically dyed, shiny leather. She

never lay down on the couch. She said she preferred to look at him when he spoke to her, that it made her feel more at ease and normal. And that was a good thing, though sometimes her physical presence had a somewhat destructive effect on his sense of professional distance. He didn't want that and fought for a normal relationship with her. Despite this, for the entire twenty-three months, he couldn't shake a strange feeling of paralysis whenever he was in her presence.

She would sit across from his desk, in the suede-upholstered chair, or in the armchair he himself habitually occupied; he was nervous the first time she sat in it. She thus broke him of the habit he had built over years, as he rarely rose from it during work. It was more likely the patients who jumped from their assigned seats and, often in acts of heightened fear, desperation, or even panic attacks, would pace around the office, sometimes running.

She didn't even sit in a chair, nor did she sit in an armchair, much less on the couch. Upon entering the office, she approached him, occupying a section of the patterned carpet she and Anita had bought several years ago, probably in the third arrondissement. She stared out the window for a moment. At one point, she grabbed his hand and kissed the inside of it, leaving a trace of her wide lips with her lipstick. They stood like that for a moment: she with his hand to her mouth, he with a bead of sweat sliding down his left temple. She didn't see his fear; her eyes were closed and his teeth clenched. He, however, heard her breathing, felt her warmth, and grew increasingly afraid. He didn't know what to do, though he knew he should forbid it, should stop it, should push away the entirety of this strange presence, even scream. Yet he did nothing. He stood still and stared at her blackened, closed eyes, thinking that what was happening would lead to nothing good.

Suddenly, he felt her grip on his wrist tighten. She squeezed it, lifting her eyelids and fixing her gaze on his pupils. A large, heavy tear leaked from her right eye. Still looking into his eyes, she slipped his hand under her cotton blouse, pressing it against her swollen, bare breast, which trembled like her entire body. He felt her heartbeat beneath it, erratic, rapid, loud, and jittery. His hand, as well as his temples, back, torso, and feet, became damp with sweat.

Suddenly, he felt a pressure in his groin, even though he tried to control it. He hadn't been this close to a woman since Anita left, so he felt strange, even disgusting. He was ashamed that he could do this to her, react this way. He remained with her in the middle of the office, statuesque, saying nothing, not trying to free himself, not trying to interrupt her. And though it was only a few moments, a new scale of time had arisen in his consciousness, where a minute represented tens of days and an hour represented decades of years. In his mind, according to the new mental clock, all this had lasted many tens of decades, not about to pass anytime soon, and in fact, refused to end, even though he nervously waited for that end.

Suddenly, a second, equally large and heavy tear rolled down her cheek. For a moment, she looked toward the window, then back into his eyes, before running out, making sounds of nervous, panicked flight from beneath her feet.

He didn't see her again for two months.

*

Three twenty-five. The coffee, downed to the last drop, didn't make him drowsy.

They never spoke of the situation. He learned, in fact, during subsequent meetings that her late husband was not much younger than him and also had a scar on his right cheek. But despite his physical resemblance to that man, he tries not to notice any other reasons for the November event. He wants to forget it. After all, his Maria Helena would be the same age as that woman today, and very similar to her, too. The same voice, the same gaze, the dark circles under her eyes. His little Maria... You can't treat your daughter like that. You can't even entertain such thoughts, and because of their physical resemblance, he felt that what happened had an indirect connection with his child. That's why he wants to forget, to erase it from his memory, to erase it, to annihilate it, and he'll do anything to make that happen. So it's good that this woman is returning to her city, even happy about her return, and glad that he won't see her again, even though in a strange way she has become close to him. Almost as close as his little daughter.

*

"I sensed you weren't sleeping," she said as soon as he picked up the phone.

He didn't react, just inhaling the smoke, glancing at the clock out of the corner of his eye. It was a few minutes after four.

"I can't sleep either, that's why I'm calling," she continued.

He heard her smoking as well.

"And I can't sleep because of you, not because I drank too much coffee at last night's dinner.

You realize I've always been straightforward, so I'll do the same this time," she added after a moment. "I just sent you a letter online with that woman's address and phone number. Don't ask where I got it or how I got it, it doesn't matter. Just turn on your computer and check your mail... And don't interrupt me, even though you probably really want to..."

You can silence a bored gallery owner by telling her you don't want her, but you can't fool a bored former psychotherapist anymore. I was better than you, you know that. Besides, once upon a time... Once upon a time, you bastard, I loved you... I loved you very much... so I know what you're going through right now... My rival was Anita... Beautiful, brilliant, intelligent... Today, your rival is you... and that's why you're going nowhere... do you understand? Nowhere...! If you keep fighting with yourself, you'll lose... You'll lose definitively and collapse...

I don't want us both to lose, so at least you win... So, damn it, call me! I wasted over two months trying to find this woman, so dial that lousy number and call me!"

He heard a tone in the receiver confirming the disconnection.

He sank into his chair, feeling sleepiness blur his vision and his body wither into a paralyzing numbness.

*

He doesn't know how long he slept... Twelve, maybe sixteen hours. The clock, unwinding, had already stopped ticking, and nothing could be seen outside the window again. Only the neon sign above the jewelry store still glowed with a yellowish tint imitating high-karat gold.

*

She hadn't lied to him, he knew that even before he'd turned on the computer. She'd never deceived him, at most, she hadn't told the complete truth, which she was careful to conceal.

This time she'd told him the whole truth. The whole truth about herself, about him, and about what he was missing.

Or maybe she was wrong this time? Everyone makes mistakes in life, even if just once... So maybe she was too?

He didn't know if he truly loved this woman. He didn't know how she felt about him either. Maybe it wasn't a sign of deeper commitment at all, but a momentary infatuation with him? Maybe an unexpected breakdown manifested by a desire for erotic love. closeness to him, a weakness due to his physical resemblance to her husband?

He simply doesn't know, but he realized he had to find out.

He dialed the number from the phone's dial.

It's another combination of numbers he'd like to use as often as possible.

Because he'd like the telephone to become an absolutely phenomenal invention for him, too.