Sway
A novel by Mariano Morales Ramírez
Prologue
One day, long after the years of glory, Paula came to me with a defiant look, with evaporated tears in her eyes that could have been but never were. I watched her come to me from the doorway without hesitation, with determination. I was always a little afraid of her, I must confess. Avoiding any empty small-talk that precedes an argument, she told me: “I’ve always said that falling in love with a writer is one of the hardest things. I came to realize this with you. It’s depressing, how there’s always an unforgotten muse in you.” I stood there, thinking for a moment – not of what she had just said, but of Mariamónica. In that moment, I understood what she meant. “You may be right,” – I said, aware that she actually was – “and that means hell to us poets.” I went on “Not only to our future women. It is an internal war, one that we suffer more than you women.” Paula gave me a tender look, as if what I had just said completely made sense. She said: “I don’t want that. It hurts. It hurts a lot.” I held her with pity, although it stung me feeling pity for her. Pushing me away from her with her hand on my chest, she tenderly looked me in the eye and said: “What about Macarena?” How did she find out? Who knows? Maybe Anabel told her something. “I loved Macarena deeply, but I never imagined what she faced when she would read what I wrote, until today. The fact that we have an unforgotten muse does not mean we can never fall in love again. We simply have that one woman to whom we always go back to, like a cat always goes back to the tiled rooftops. The one woman we go back to when things are wrong. Imagine that, Paula. Meeting someone for the first time and knowing it’s the love of your life. Just like that, not thinking it twice, as if that person’s face already existed deep in the darkness of your conscience. Imagine recognizing that and knowing that life will go on, whether you can have that person or not. Now imagine life knowing that person has been left behind, far down the road. That person has always been Mariamónica to me, as painful as it may be to you to hear it.” I looked at her without looking, trying to calm down the mood with fake fleeting smiles. “But that doesn’t mean we can never love another woman. We all have that one teenage love, that unreal love that can be even stronger than real love – and I’m not truly convinced about real love, because I can’t even define it. Neither as an object, as women, or even less as what it actually is – a feeling. The thing is that I had Mariamónica, but I never loved her. You are old enough to understand that.” Almost instantly, she said: “But sometimes, the slightest contact from that person can be enough to completely turn your life around.” I just added: “Exactly, it seems so.” This time she paused while she stood up, as if she was ready to say goodbye and catch her flight back to Montevideo. “There comes a point in life when you realize things will never be the same, that things will not work out, precisely because of that one person trapped in your minds – the minds of writers.” She made another small pause to add, “The fear of loving a writer exists only when he isn’t aware of it, when he writes to her muse without knowing he’s writing to her, and disguises it of anything but her. I don’t know if I’m explaining myself. That’s how you hurt us. Although, now that I think of it that is everyone’s fear: to be loved, when the one who loves you also loves someone else. Do you understand? You write to someone else” I didn’t know what else to say. I never heard anyone talk like that in my life. I strongly felt the urge to hold her, so I threw myself at her, but even though she didn’t push me away, she didn’t hug me back either. I felt my heart tangling. “Take care,” she said, and then she left. I desperately tried to yell that I loved her, that I always did, but she never would have believed me. And standing there, I watched her walk into oblivion.
I went outside, like many other times, and walked without a destination. My shoes were the floor, and my hat was the sky. Devoid by then from any thought that could have made me hate her for becoming what she had become, I decided to hate her. Even though I could never hate her, I decided to do so. And I didn’t hate her like those who love are able to hate, but I hated her like those who aren’t able to hate, do love.
I’m purposeless and senseless. I’m only me, without a right to free will. I didn’t choose prostitution, drug-dealing, hunger or misery. In all honesty, if I could choose, I would choose to be Mexican, always and forever, even after the conflicts I’m about to tell you and after the events that take place in Mexico. Although it may be sad, I have come to the realization that in the puzzle of freedom, I am only a piece that doesn’t know exactly where or how to fit in, for I am me, no strings attached. I am me, with everything and without sanity. I am, and I define. I define the being that defines me. And even if it seems ironic, one is the only thing that cannot define oneself. In between strings. Behind the scenes, yet without any scene. Without any mask or make-up. I am dust, and I redefine expressions without any gesture. Because from a tree, we pick the leaves, and from fruit we take its peel. You see? For I am who I’ve always been. The same tree from back then, the same I was when I was twenty, when I first met Mariamónica. I am the very same tree I was back with Anabel, the same I was with each of my women who never were mine. Because my roots keep digging deeper into the ground, while my leaves are gone with the wind. So are my women. Whenever I couldn’t find myself, I came to the conclusion that there is no better mirror to look into the soul than my own eyes. A tree does not stall, it roots.
A bougainvillea flower rolled in the floor by my right side, blown by the wind, as I walked down Leones Avenue. It seemed to be racing me. It rolled at the same speed I was walking, although it seemed to move a lot faster than me due to its size and its spinning and twirling through the air. I wasn’t running, I was just walking. Suddenly, more runners joined the race. Hundreds of bougainvillea flowers rolled down the street behind me, jumping and twirling by the floor in the same direction. Two minutes hadn’t passed before I realized I was witnessing a concert, rather than a race. I impassively and excitedly listened each time a flower touched the floor, creating a sound that alone wouldn’t be special itself. However, since there were hundreds of sounds, accompanied by the most beautiful red sunset and a horizontal curtain of purple flowers, they seemed to conjure and invoke the very gods of music – meanwhile, all the flowers leaped into the air, only to come back touching the ground and back up and twirling again. Soon they all passed me and I began to feel cold, but the thrill of seeing the flowers roll past me was stronger. Suddenly the wind stopped, and my race competitors were resting. The flowers concert finished and the cold that tore my body disappeared. It was getting dark and I knew I still had a long way to get anywhere I was going.
I only realized I had been getting wet once it stopped raining. I was lost in my thoughts as usual. At this point I had stopped thinking of Paula’s words. By then, rain water didn’t taste like freedom – it tasted like a storm. As usual, I forgot what I was thinking about earlier when I was lost in my thoughts. It has been a while since I regretted my actions and the decisions I have made. Because I do regret – I often regret what I do. Even If I did things with the strong conviction that what I was doing was unquestionably the right thing to do. But it wasn’t the right thing, because my actions hadn’t given me the peace I was looking for – they never did.
Lately, the memory of my muddy pants, Christmas leftovers, and sand in my summer shoes has been coming to my mind. I have been remembering high school, and the people who turned their backs on me. I have been remembering my parents, my grandparents and my brothers. I have been remembering politics, and the lies that didn’t seem like lies at the time. I remember it all. Lately, the past has touched my most sensitive areas, and even though I don’t feel like talking about it, it’s a promise I must keep, for I owe everyone the truth, especially them. I remember the three of them quite well. I remember the diplomatic barriers, the social conflicts, and every single one of the sexual encounters too. What I can’t remember clearly, are the reasons that slowly dragged me away from them to the point where I was completely lonely – the reasons I write these memories. I can’t remember from which point forward that moral smile showed up on my face. Everything else I remember clearly. I clearly remember the Marists and the damned moment I met Mariamónica. How I wish I was born in another city! Anywhere that could have taken me to be somewhere else, to fall in love with other women. Because I promise you, I never wanted to wish to forget.