Catching Water II
Javier Gómez
Desenterrar, profundizar
es la forma más simple
de iluminar, de luz llenar
las grietas de mi alma
-Massacre, El espejo (Reflejo I)
She lights one in the dead of night, the sudden flare shattering the murky quietness. The air is crisp outside, but the rooftop is the best spot to think. A dog howls in the distance. The last kiss still stings on Nadia’s lips. That guy Leo was so unexpected and charming and true. Honest, funny. None of that raw aggressive crap she’s had to face in the past few months. Looks like she’s free now. Her foot plays idly with an old plant pot that her mother left on a rusty stool. The plant and its vessel are both weathered down, rough sailors in a storm of constant exposure to the city’s changing mood. Her black combat boot prods the rim of the pot, little kicks like droplets of rain. Can’t stop thinking, can’t shake the feeling that something’s off. She touches her upper lip with her tongue and sighs. An accidental last movement sends the plant on a suicide mission towards the floor. The crash is not so loud despite the silence, but a small clump of dirt adorns a corner of the rooftop, crowned by a curious jungle of roots and leaves peeking through the soil like undead hands. She shrugs and whispers “fuck.” No worries, she’ll say it was the cat. Tomorrow is a clean slate and maybe nothing will break. She goes to bed, though she doesn’t want to sleep. The whole first half of NIN’s The Fragile plays on her headphones before her eyelids fall.
It’s raining. Of course, it is. She has to work today.
Nadia spends the first minutes of the day sitting on her bed and leafing through a battered down Sandman paperback for the umpteenth time. “You get what anybody gets – you get a lifetime.” She likes to read that quote once in a while when she feels different and worlds apart from everyone else. She’s not so special, only a bit lost. And she has time. Perhaps that’s why she runs five or ten minutes late every morning, but the manager doesn’t even notice or doesn’t care. One of the good things about working in a coffee shop bookstore is that it’s busy at a steady pace pretty much all day long. That’s also one of the bad things, you can’t get a smoke break longer than five minutes before a wealthy dickhead asks for some pre-chewed Daoism or Buddhism disguised as modern self-help shit with an inane title. Her boss is not even there today when she arrives and goes straight to the back of the shop, ignoring her co-workers’ hellos and powering through the ensuing boredom. Having to turn off the post-punk playing on her headphones is almost painful, but you have to be able to listen. The only kind of satisfaction she gets in a job like this is convincing people to buy something better. Once in a while, someone comes in looking for a best seller and ends up leaving with Poe or Borges or Atwood. A small victory. Changing the world one book at the time, as her friend Julia says with nonchalant sarcasm. She misses the daily humour, but Julia left the bookshop a year ago to teach English and she does not regret it. They still hang out, but nothing beats eight straight hours of conversation with a thinking person. The remaining staff is alright, but they have less interest in whatever Nadia has to say. She’s a discordant voice there but she’s used to it, high school was the same. Elementary school too.
Her mind recedes into her five-year-old self, asking teachers if they also had a pussy. She laughs a lot about it now, but it was a major crisis when it happened. She had to sit down with her mother and the principal, who were desperately trying to find out where she had read that word at such a young age. The thought of a kid having fun with the dictionary was impossible to them, so they kept asking if she had borrowed “inappropriate material” from older girls. The world is full of short-sighted people. Shit, her house too. But at least there she can listen to what she likes all the time. Here, it’s generic world music or any other crap that her boss deems appropriate for customers. She has this theory that people who never had an emotional connection to any band or artist end up liking whatever mixture of ethnic sounds over programmed beats get enough radio airplay, especially when they are in their 40s or 50s. Having no identity means you can rent one from the current mainstream landscape. From the alternative sphere too. She knows plenty of zombies who put themselves in neat little boxes labelled punk, goth, metal or any other convenient label. But studs or black eyeliner or a band T-shirt can’t make you. They are ornaments, like flowers. They can come and go, fade, wither, get replaced. Roots are what count, and they can’t be seen…
“Nadia. Nadia!”
“Sorry, what?”
“You spaced out again. New books in the self-help section. Go sort that out.”
“Yup.”
She thinks she hears him whisper something. Fuck Juan, he’s a loser. They’ve been working together for more than six months and she knows zilch about his life. He’s just a boring, mediocre retail store employee with a sour face. He makes zero jokes and doesn’t laugh much either. Why bother getting to know someone who doesn’t appreciate your humor? She starts putting the books on the shelves with no intention to finish quickly. If timed right, one of these average tasks can get you through half of the working hours, provided that you get enough interruptions from customers. That also means a sales bonus. She’s never too eager and ends up selling more because of it. Profitable tedium, she calls it. Someday it will pay off. She daydreams about the streets of London, the canals of Amsterdam, the cafés of Paris. Savings should be growing faster, but she always ends up paying for her boyfriend. Is that right? Is he a boyfriend? She’s not sure about that, but they spend a lot of time together. Or at least they did until last month when things got prickly.
Nadia still shudders when she remembers that night. Julia’s birthday. The girl that flirted with her and the disturbing reaction of her boyfriend. They were sort of fine until that day. Everything happened in less than two minutes. Nadia and Paula were talking about music and joking. At some point, they were holding hands. She giggled and thought she was floating. It wasn’t the beer or the weed. And then Ale, Nadia’s jackass of a boyfriend, bolted from the other side of the patio and grabbed her.
“We need to talk.”
“What? Why? We’re fine.”
“Now. Come.”
They went into the kitchen. A guy was making a drink there and got out as soon as he saw them.
“What are you doing? You’re my girlfriend. We’re together.”
There was something awful in the way he pronounced “my,” almost grinding his teeth. Nadia’s hands were sweating.
“It’s nothing. She’s just flirting, it’s OK. She’s nice.”
“What? Do you want to be with her?”
“Fuck, Ale. It’s a party. People drink and smoke and flirt with each other. You were talking to someone too. It’s not so terrible.”
“Don’t be like that. You act like you’re over everything. It’s just to piss me off.”
“Calm down. Newsflash: my life is not centered on you. I can meet people and talk to them. Does not mean I’m going to fuck everyone in sight. You’re being paranoid.”
“I saw how she looked at you, she held your hand. Don’t treat me like an idiot.”
“I’m done with this. I’m going back outside.”
And then he grabbed her arm. Nadia tried to get rid of him and the next seconds became a blur of noise and fear. She didn’t remember the exact actions, but there was a glass smashing against the wall and she had marks on her arms. When Julia got there, he was grabbing Nadia by the throat. Someone shouted for him to stop. Ale released her and stormed out of the house. She stayed at Julia’s that night, waking up every 30 minutes gasping for air.
A cycle of deranged situations followed by lengthy, crying apologies started that night. She believed him the first time, they were high and drunk, and she thought he might have been under a lot of emotional strain. His family was a mess, she was sure there was something Ale wasn’t telling her. That guy had darkness inside, and she felt how it was growing all the time. A shadow that could consume him, her and everything in between.
“Excuse me, miss. Do you have The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho?”
The question pulls her back from the depths of pain and memory. She smirks.
“Sure. There are three different editions, let me show you. Over here.”
A few more of those interactions, some book shelving, and her shift is done. She says goodbye to the air – her co-workers immersed in their tasks. When she leaves the shop, Placebo’s Flesh Mechanic is playing on her headphones and she sings along. The line “Aristocratic parents / a rebel with a heart of gold” seems made for her, Nadia always chuckles when she hears it. They were on holiday one time – she must have been three or four years old. The hotel was a lavish, almost preposterous 19th century building perched on a cliff somewhere along the Argentinean coast. She woke up at 5 a.m., and it was Sunday and she wanted to meet the other guests so she went out of the room and knocked on everyone’s door. Her mum ran behind her and tried to shush her, but there was no way to reason with Nadia who replied, “we like to wake up early,” when confronted with the possibility that the rest of the hotel might have been asleep. That was spontaneous and younger Nadia. The current version is moodier and sighs whenever she catches a glimpse of untainted bliss or innocence.
She turns right on Sarmiento Street, only two blocks to her house, and there he is. Ale, leaning up against the wall of a shoe shop and smoking. She’s about to turn back when he raises his head and sees her. A smile breaks his deadpan façade as if nothing ever happened.
“Hey, love.”
“Fuck off. I’m not your love. We’re not anything anymore.”
“C’mon, we can be friends.”
“I have friends. They treat me better than you.”
“Don’t be like that. I told you I was in a bad place, not thinking straight. I’m off it now.”
“What? Madness? Blow?”
“Both. I swear on my mum’s life.”
He smiles. She sighs. The same conversation with slight variations. Makes her think of the Multiverse in comics, how there are infinite versions of each planet with small changes. The same character with a different cape, more hair or a wacky additional power. But she knows you still buy them. No matter how ludicrous the plot is, no matter how many times they are about to face the end of the world. You still pay the price both in time and money and read through the half-assed battles that should be epic because you know it will all end well. So she sighs and smiles back.
“Alright. Coffee?”
“Sure.”
They get back into their shared moments, step by careful step at first. This time he seems calmer. They both love live shows, and they roam around the city center from gigs to bars and gigs in bars most Saturdays. Some Fridays too, even when she hates working with a hangover. On Sundays they go to the park, their studded jackets and pins and patches sticking out of the throng of average families eating popcorn and cotton candy. One of those afternoons, they are talking about Rancid and how they think they’re The Clash but they are delusional. Then she spots Leo in the distance. She doesn’t make eye contact and laughs at some random comment from Ale, a way to disarm the bomb in her head. As they pass Leo and his friend, she ventures one look back. He doesn’t seem to notice Nadia – he just looks at the brown water with hollow eyes. She stares ahead and squeezes Ale’s hand, but he’s too distracted berating Californian punk. It will be different this time, she swears. It has to be.
Weeks roll by, and she starts easing into the routine: dull bookshop hours interspersed with cigarette breaks, nights reading comic books and the poètes maudits, weekends of live bands and sex and hanging out. She’s toying with the idea of bringing Ale home for dinner or lunch one day. Her parents will grill anyone who comes into their house. They do it with Julia; they did it with all her friends and partners. She should move out soon, but saving some dough for a long trip around Europe is way more enticing. Nadia dreams of Rome’s monuments and Berlin’s techno parties. The math is solid, just one more year of the grind and then it’s travel time. There’s still the passport to sort out, but it’s not as terrible as it seems. Maybe she can ring a few of her dad’s friends and speed up the process. Her parents are annoying, but they do say yes to most of her requests. At least when they relate to bureaucracy and adult life.
They didn’t front the money for her tattoo even when she would have paid them back soon. She had to scrape up every penny and even ask Julia, but that was easy. Nadia touches the Chinese dragon on her left thigh every time she remembers all that. She needs the tiger now. Heaven and Earth, softness and hardness, intelligence and strength, balance. It seems possible. She daydreams and another week flies straight into Sunday.
It’s dark. She has been walking around with Ale and they’ve reached a quieter corner of the park, past the crowds and the food stalls. He’s kicking pebbles into the distance. The click-clacking of the stone pellets echoes up into the inky sky. They’ve been quiet for a while. She hugs him and they kiss under a streetlight. Nadia pictures the scene from afar, the island of light with the two bodies fused in the middle. It would be a nice panel in a graphic novel. And then he breaks the silence.
“I know about that guy.”
“What?”
“The Cúmulo show. You met a guy, you kissed him, he walked you home.”
She’s frozen. Her body sinks into itself and her head spins. How can he know? Did he follow them? They didn’t see anyone nearby. Nadia sighs.
“Fuck. We broke up before that. I wasn’t with you anymore. We had a shitty fight the week before. Remember?”
“You always do this. Like you don’t care about us. About me.”
“Don’t be like that. It wasn’t anything. It just happened.”
She knows it’s not the truth as she’s saying it, so she lowers her eyes. And he knows too.
“Bullshit. I saw you all cheery and singing all the time the following week.”
“Shit. You were following me. What the fuck were you thinking? You can’t do that! Are you the fucking cops?”
His eyes are transfixed now. The last word is worse than a slap or a punch for Ale.
“Fuck you, bitch. You’re just a common whore trying to be cool, a fucking poser. That’s what you are.”
“Get fucked, twat! I don’t owe you anything. You’re a fucking child who thinks he’s Sid Vicious!”
Ale loses it. They throw insults at each other, and the words become a cloud of hate spewed by the river. Time is a wormhole. They fight for an hour or minutes, she doesn’t know. He hits her; she hits back. Fuck him. They break away shouting, someone hollers back from a nearby house. Nadia doesn’t remember how she gets home; everything’s covered in a gray layer of shame and sorrow. It’s late, so she doesn’t have to hide anything from her prying parents. The ice stings on her black eye, but she’s too exhausted to cry.
The roof is the best place to be right now. She stares into the night and lights cigarette after cigarette while a long list plays on her headphones. Ramones, L7, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Tori Amos, Bowie… Black Market Music by Placebo kicks in. As soon as Brian starts warbling Come back to me awhile / Change your taste in men, the levee breaks and tears start pouring out. She hasn’t cried in months, but it’s all there. The pettiness, the hurled anger, the mind games and the lies. There’s a crying river inside her and it flows, echoing in the weather-beaten walls of the surrounding buildings. An hour later, she goes to bed and almost passes out into a dreamless sleep. In the morning, opening her eye is a cavalcade of pain. It’s doable but exhausting so she lies there for a while, not daring to enter reality. The first time she felt like this, she was about eight or nine, and an angry girl had pushed her from behind because Nadia had won some stupid game. She fell down, face flat on the floor, no time to do anything but stare at the zoomed in tiles. Her nose bled and she came back home early that day. Her mum made pastelitos and hot chocolate, stayed with her for hours watching cartoons and movies. Nadia laughed a lot, even when she thought her head would strain and burst like an overinflated balloon. But her mum’s not there now, always working and oblivious to anything else but the usual routine. Not quite there for her. No one is.
The new routine is the old routine with less drama. Nadia finds her space again and starts playing the guitar. Whenever she feels down, her European trip daydreams do the trick. Julia gives her some mind-blowing weed that someone grew in their backyard. Dutch seeds, strong and hazy. Listening to Massive Attack after a few puffs becomes her Friday nights. Saturday nights are usually spent with Julia and an assortment of her friends or lovers or whatever. Her words. Nadia goes to see Leo one day and she finds him kissing a girl in Plaza Pringles on an ethereal Wednesday evening. They don’t see her, and it’s better that way. Another dead end, no surprise. Nadia is now focused at work, to her boss’ and her co-workers’ surprise. She somehow becomes a better employee, her sales improve, and Juan is less of a jackass to her from time to time. She knows she’s pushing everything back, gripping her issues with force and putting them all into a bottle, casting it away into the flood of numbness. No going back to the park by the Río Paraná on Sundays, both Ale and Leo could be there. She finds a new area to walk in, the Cementerio El Salvador and the surrounding Parque Independencia. It’s nice for a change, and also farther away from her house. The route takes her to Oroño Boulevard and the out-of-place palm trees, which she always found ludicrous. A testament to the unbridled wealth and ambition of a few old money families. They shaped the city in many ways, they still do.
She doesn’t return Ale’s calls.
After a few weeks of relative balance, she cracks one Monday for reasons she soon forgets. Some crappy discussion with Juan escalates; her boss jumps in; she shouts “Fuck this, I quit!” and everyone shuts up. She should give two weeks’ notice, but her boss seems to agree with everyone not wanting her there anymore. They pay her until the end of the month and she doesn’t have to be there. It’s a curse in disguise. Nadia spends a few boring days that feel like years. Ale calls all the time. She somehow knows that he knows that she’s unemployed now. One of those days, she answers. The standoff lasts a few minutes, but he manages to convince her again that he has changed. He’s working in a better place now, a coffee processing plant. 9 to 5, very good money. Independent, he says it so she knows he’s still a punk rocker. They end up laughing. The call leads to coffee, then to beer, then to a gig, then to bed. Again. They are together and planning futures she doesn’t want, but she’s too numb to care. They will move in together. They still fight once in a while, but the fog of passivity drowns her and the pain too. She runs into Leo one afternoon outside a record store, HIM playing in the background. They exchange a few words, she wants to run away fast. She’s hiding a black eye and a shattered crystal heart. Also, she doesn’t want Ale to know. Why poke the bear? At least she’ll move out of her parents’ house. Maybe she can reset her life there. Yeah, right. Whatever. She leaves Leo dumbfounded and disappears once again into the sea of unknown voices, killing loneliness. They meet in dreams that night, by the river Seine. It’s the first time she has remembered a dream in ages. She wakes up rested and almost happy. Maybe they will meet again sometime. There’s a chance, it’s always there.