CHAPTER THREE
“Knowledge is the midday of imbalance, its centre and cause. The origin of unease, anxiety, lack of love, the soul’s pallid face, semi-colon, to know is to suffer.” This is exactly what Libardino Romero jotted down in his notebook, the continuation of his reflection on devilish tubercles, light and the infinite. He sometimes wrote orthographic signs with his own name – he said this afforded the sentences a nice rhythm, an unequalled elegance, an unrivalled freshness, full stop. He also liked to walk, in the early evening, feeling freedom on his skin like a kiss. To walk unhurriedly, with no need to quicken his pace so he could get to Camellia Square, say, “I’m home already!” and hear a roar coming from the sitting room that commanded, “Start getting dinner ready, Libar, I’m starving.” He could have murdered Matilde. He’d thought about it on more than one occasion, but had never been able. Two motives influenced this behaviour: the first was his lack of enthusiasm for combat or a disposition that might push him to devise a homicidal method (poison, gunshot, blow, knives, cutlery, scissors); the second, and more important, the ample, abundant, muscular body of Matilde, who, when faced by immediate danger, could have crushed Libardino Romero’s short, stunted physique in a matter of minutes. Better then to forget about the road of murder.
That was the way of things, the only path open to him was to resist: to hear his shortened name each morning, to carry out household tasks with excessive commitment and sweat and asphyxiation, to attend to her needs and please her in every way possible and impossible, to hand over his entire wage packet, to beg for 500 pesetas so he could drink a coffee or buy a newspaper, to do overtime so a distinguished surgeon could operate on her nose. That was destiny, the beast that traps us like a cephalopod, doesn’t let us go, drowns our breaths, our ambitions and freedom. He accepted it like a penance, agreeing to suffer as a way of paying off some dark, forgotten debt of his ancestors. But patience has its limits, and he couldn’t surpass them.
Perhaps the final reason, what impelled him to take flight, the second momentous decision of his entire existence, has to be sought in the previous night, at dinnertime. Matilde was obsessed with cleaning, which Libardino had to perform every weekday before going to the office, on coming back, before going to bed and, most of all, after preparing Matilde’s lunch, a habit that worsened his already vulnerable stomach. Almost every day, he was forced to gulp down an indelicate mortadella or something else sandwich while beating with his arm, cloth in hand, polishing up numerous figures, walls, tiles, and so on. The indelicate mortadella or whatever sandwich ended up gnashing his entrails, duodenum, oesophagus, pylorus and intestines.
Saturdays and Sundays were reserved for washing and ironing clothes, doing odd jobs and the shopping, hoovering, mopping and waxing the floor, preparing frozen dishes that could be kept in storage in case of need, lack of appetite in front of the day’s dish, the visit of friends in make-up, the unexpected appearance of Ofelia Grande and Belisario Sánchez, Matilde’s progenitors, or other such unforeseen circumstances. His wife would use cotton wool to see if the objects, rooms, walls and frames Libardino wiped with his cloths and other utensils really were immaculate. When the result was not to her liking, she would rebuke her husband’s behaviour and make him do it again. The previous night, however, Libardino had not shown his customary submission. It was on account of a painting he despised, a present from Matilde’s parents, a canvas that depicted his wife’s profile with the newly operated nose. Don Belisario had commissioned the painting from a workshop in Barcelona, days after his daughter’s operation. Libardino had paid, needless to say. And he’d paid far too much for a poor imitation of Modigliani’s magical brushstrokes – had he lifted his head and seen the imitative outrage, he would have burned the Barcelona workshop, the author of the painting, the model that served as its inspiration, the oil manufacturers and probably Belisario Sánchez himself, promoter of such an ignominious initiative.
Matilde had said the previous evening, “Libar, my portrait is not absolutely clean, you haven’t fulfilled your duty today.” “Matilde, my love, you are wrong, the painting is like the streams of the Douro.” (Lying was his way of taking revenge.) “Like streams of gold, I imagine you mean.” “No, no, my love, like the streams of the Douro, which are waters of a bright white colour, like milk, that emerge from the subsoil next to this river, waters that enable the Germans to produce a cottage cheese of worldwide renown.” “The Douro flows through Germany?” “The Douro rises in Burgos, crosses the whole of France and flows into the Mediterranean on the German coast.” “Well, it doesn’t matter now, the point is you must clean the painting again.” “I won’t.” “What was that?” “I won’t do it.” She then raised her right hand. He then ducked his head. She then said, “Do it, or I’ll smash you to pieces!” He then took the cloth and, blowing softly on the glass that covered said anasalic painting, rubbed again and again so not the slightest amount of dirt or dust would remain to detract from its scintillating splendour. Destiny, what a dog.
Text © Xosé Carlos Caneiro
Translation © Jonathan Dunne
