2015

At the beginning of March, when old people are still hopeful of getting to hear the cuckoo that year and, at daybreak, frost cuts your breath on leaving the house, the wisteria casts off its lethargy to offer the mirage of an early spring. Its mauve racemes – succumbing to their own weight amidst the intense green of the leaves, growing invariably to the left in the northern hemisphere, to the right in the southern – contradict the silken consistency suggested by each flower in its individuality: petals that open in a gesture of unconscious vulnerability to allow the air to slip between them and turn them into accidental kites, daily koinobori flags waving as they cling to their masts, against a façade.

The wisteria explodes like this and spreads a sweetish aroma that irremediably saturates the nostrils and arouses in the palate’s memory the taste of the spoonfuls of honey that were taken in childhood before going to bed, accompanied by exaggerated expressions of distaste.

Planted in the front garden of a modest house in a comfortable outlying district, with its vine’s stem leaning against the frame and a torrent of flowers tumbling over the head of anyone entering or leaving, the wisteria offers a scene of incomparable beauty. A delicate show of welcome without the need for words.

And yet its majestic presence is incapable of distracting the young woman who nervously approaches the entrance and can barely distinguish one species from another, one smell from another, the breeze or the sun beating on her back on this afternoon when, having taken the black line on the Underground in a southerly direction – the one that goes from H. B. station to M. – she covers the considerable physical, aesthetic, social distance that separates the apartment where she lives on a part-time basis and this residential quarter, where she saw a pleasant room for rent at a price she believes to be reasonable.

She is so nervous that it takes her a few seconds to locate the bell, which merges with the doorjamb, white on white. She presses it, and a hum like the electric discharge of a cartoon pervades the distance. She shakes off this absurd idea she doesn’t have time for right now and stands listening, trying to reconstruct the concatenation of gestures, movements, this tinkling will be producing on the other side of the red-brick wall that is only a few inches in front of her. The gathered blind of the large window to her left reveals no presence; there is no face peeping out, watchfully, to see who it is, no shadow passing across the glass, betraying a defensive impulse or irresistible curiosity. In short, nobody can be heard coming down some hypothetical stairs, bouncing on the steps. If they are coming, they’re doing so on tiptoe, slowly, without hurrying. Without delegating the task of opening for the stranger, candidate number something, to another person, but also without noisily expressing a willingness to perform that task themselves. Inside, it could be said that all is silence.

This bothers her and calms her in equal measure, since she feels ridiculous standing in front of someone else’s house – no doubt the neighbours will think she is sniffing around with a view to breaking in later – and would rather the sensation didn’t last; that said, if there is no answer, she will be free to leave and to forget the nerves, the fear of disappointment, the practised responses aimed at engendering trust. All she needs now is to calculate a prudential temporal interlude before passing from one state to another.

And she starts thinking about the room she saw the previous week in an anodyne district that must have lived through a brief period of splendour back in the sixties or seventies, when so many immigrants arrived as a workforce from the old colonies, which she liked, but not enough to forget the peculiarities of the person showing it to her. Bird heads everywhere: hyperrealistic, plastic, stuffed, beaks half open, with fixed, unsettling stares. Omnipresent. Her potential landlady told her not to be afraid. “It’s just a question of taste, you know?”

But there are some things it’s better not to know, she thought to herself, and this appeared to be one of them, so she took her leave with kind words, promising to inform her the very next day whether she was still interested. She ought to have been pragmatic, to have valued aspects such as the decent size of the room and communal areas, the moderate rent, the natural light that bathed the living room, the newly refurbished heating system, the bolt for locking herself in, the well-equipped kitchen. She had endeavoured not to notice a diffuse awkwardness with regard to that house. In the meantime, she awoke in the middle of the night, crestfallen on account of a dream: on the duvet of that bed she would never now occupy lay a creature with her features and the colour of wax figures people used to bring back from local shrines. Next to her, a magpie was watching. Shortly after dawn, she composed a polite email and sent it to the woman by way of apology: perhaps moving to that distant area wasn’t such a good idea.

That day, she had been received by monastic silence. She had rung the bell, and nothing had happened. She had knocked gently, and the same. The owner hadn’t come downstairs to open until the exact time they had arranged to meet.

And now, again, silence. Yes, there were still five minutes to go before four thirty, but she had thought it sensible to ring as soon as she arrived. She is one of those people who prefer to wait than to make others wait. She is at the mercy of Natalie, who in the messages they sent each other sounded agreeable, but may perhaps be a fearful woman, a bloodless woman, or a real charmer. The woman ponders these things while waiting to be received, unaware of the discreet shelter offered by the wisteria.

For a few minutes of unusual elasticity, all she can hear is the noise she has brought along in her head. Need – or rather urgency – has eaten away at her nerves. With such a badly paid job as the one she found by a miracle, having sent out handfuls of CVs and motivation letters that didn’t motivate her in the slightest, she realizes the rent she is paying in zone 2 is no longer within her reach. The most realistic course of action is to lower her expectations, to move out into the suburbs – as far away as possible without ending up isolated in the countryside or in one of those boring dormitory towns that can be seen from the train and maintaining an acceptable quality of life.

Which, in her language, among other things, means being able to go from here to there without experiencing more fear than necessary – something she has yet to learn to quantify, but which she associates with certain disagreeable episodes that have clung to her innards and won’t leave. She hasn’t got used to it, even though she knows this is what the city is like.

She wants to believe that zone 3 heading south-west, to which that piece of garden she is stepping on belongs, fulfils her requirements and she will finally be able to achieve a little rest there. In the absence of a faith to infuse her with optimism, she focuses all the energy she has left to confront the week on that visit.

It is taking this Natalie a little too long, she who sends her messages with farewells that are both prudent and friendly, avoiding the use of colloquial expressions of the kind that help to draw a line as invisible as it is impassable between someone who possesses a genuine dominion of the language and someone who has acquired it by dint of effort. Natalie’s style is so neutral she finds it difficult to form a picture of her, to invest her with an attitude, a personality, to speculate about her origins, her caste. The absence of markers torpedoes her curiosity, albeit, deep down, that also is a marker: for people with a linguistic, studied conscience.

And yet now she is inside without really knowing how – it all happened so quickly: the open door, the splendid smile, one kiss followed by another, hardly in keeping with the country’s customs, but with the conviction, no doubt, that this is the greeting a continental woman would expect – in the company of this red-robin lady, chubby and perfect with her alabaster countenance and slight, but indelible hint of surprise in those deer-like eyes.

Transporting her from one room to the next, upstairs and down, Natalie completes her mission as a guide and hostess. She explains the history of the place to her, though she can barely retain any details. Ears have become eyes, her mouth is eyes, her eyes are insufficient to register the numerous decorative objects that inhabit each span of the rooms. She walks behind her as if in a trance. She talks little, endeavouring to listen carefully. Natalie, splendid, makes her feel at home. They are two creatures who are starting to get used to each other in what will soon be their common space.

As if remembering something, she brings her right wrist closer to check the time. Goodness me! The next person who is interested in taking the room is about to arrive, Natalie is surprised how quickly the time has gone on this visit. She would hate for them to pass each other in the doorway, since she is convinced the tiniest amount of contact between candidates would be in bad taste and indicate a lack of planning on her part.

“Goodbye, goodbye, Cecilia,” she is practically pushing her towards the exit. “Between today and tomorrow, I hope to be able to take a decision. I will let you know as soon as possible.”

The prospect of leaving with this uncertainty is unbearable. How many rooms for rent there must be in zone 3 or 4 – just as spacious, luminous, comfortable – but suddenly her mind reacts as if she was at a crossroads: it’s this one or nothing. Recently, life has become far too volatile and unpredictable, and she’s not used to walking over quaking bogs. She, therefore, comes out with an outburst, so out of character for her, which she materializes in the form of a desperate petition:

“Please cancel the next appointment. Rent it to me. Do me this favour.”

*   *   *

Come on, you can do it. One, two, three… up you go! Between the pole and the carriage door, perhaps, so as not to get in the way. Ah, poor lady, I must have hit her heel… She’s not protesting, but I still smile and apologize for my clumsiness. Another twenty-five minutes on my feet, just enough to get my breath back. I won’t have so much on the return journey.

Down here, either I observe the people around me or I go into a trance and think about things I normally try to keep under wraps in this head of mine. Crikey! I’ve been living in the city for almost three years, and this is the provisional result: the second move I’ve done on my own. Of course, I could have asked for help – I know they would have given it – I could have said I’d finish sooner if we carried my belongings conveniently classified into boxes according to their provenance between us, in the streets, up and down the stairs, just managing to avoid the closing doors. Nobody is as busy as they make out.

And yet perhaps I preferred to go it alone to save them and myself the image of the tangible balance of this unstable existence we all must endure. Two trips underground with one large suitcase and one small, emptying them in the new house and taking them back to the provisional apartment to fill them with what’s left, matter settled. And yet it doesn’t do one any favours to see one’s life reduced to the size of one’s luggage, does it? It’s like being forced to look in a full-length mirror when one is half undressed. Who could withstand such a dose of reality?

This unfamiliar sense of shame that overwhelmed me when it came to sharing the dimensions of what I have accumulated over the years… I’m not sure I’ll ever shrug it off. Because, though I may deny it, I really do care how others see me. And, if I have little, that’s a bad sign. But, if I have amassed a lot, this also is hardly practical. No, there is no solution. Which is why I keep the result to myself, there’s nothing that won’t fit in this chest of mine.

These suitcases ought to contain something other than clearance clothes bought on a Saturday morning to be worn that night and a collection of shoes that hurt. Something substantial, with a history of their own, objects that are worthy of being kept in a box on my return from this voluntary exile and forgotten until one day, rummaging around to dislodge whatever is preventing it from closing properly, my fingers come across them. I could set fire to my bits and bobs tomorrow, it would be no great loss.

Imbued with insignificance, and yet they’re heavy. Oof! I’d do better to leave them here. At least there’s a lift at the exit to B. station.

In short… Enough fantasizing about Nordic covers with floral patterns and delicately chosen bedside lamps. Well done, Cecilia. In this country, I am a person without their own bed linen. Learning to accept I am destined to use whatever the landlord gives me has been quite the process. Also, perhaps, the acceptance of the subconscious humiliation. I wash the sheets, but it doesn’t help – it takes me several nights to get over my revulsion at feeling them next to my skin. Later, the thought fades because you can hardly live with it and the truth is it’s better to forget it. I lower my guard. And off to find a supermarket again that has fruit, milk and bread at reasonable prices. Or at least fruit and milk. Or at least the kind of milk I like. Or at least that is nearby.

I shall miss going to expensive supermarkets with Francesca. Just to see, to make fun of products from elsewhere adapted to the taste of such an advanced country. Oh, yes! Sometimes we would laugh at these people, which is like feeding pigs: they will accept anything. The tomatoes here make Francesca feel unwell. I think they make her ill. To me, it’s as if they have no taste.

Mind the gap between the train and the platform.

Sometimes I dream I have tripped and fallen head first onto the track, some disturbed person has attacked me from behind and thrown me off the platform while the other passengers continue with their conversations, turn the page of the book they’re reading, or tap their feet while listening to their favourite song on earphones. It would constitute just another incident on the service, I would be announced over the loudspeaker as a euphemism to explain the delay to the subsequent trains that morning. But regular passengers would hear the automatic message – which the nameless station attendant has mechanically selected from a list of diverse warnings while chewing on their biro and thinking about the fifth clue in the crossword before them – and reach the same conclusion: someone has ended up beneath a locomotive again.

How irritating, how annoying precisely on the day when blah, blah, blah. They would hate me – not me, Cecilia, but the individual I represent and my awkward cadaver – for the seconds it took to contact the office, the maid, the partner, the personal trainer, to tell them they will be late for reasons beyond their control. Then it would pass – they were hardly desperate to be on time at any of those places. And they would carry on listening to music or reading the free paper they had picked up at the entrance or typing up that report that was overdue without giving me any more thought, though it wasn’t actually me. Because I never go to the edge of the platform until it’s time to climb on board.

This is B. Mind the gap. Mind the gap.

These suitcases are really heavy. It would be extremely polite if someone were to lend me a hand with them… That guy in the amateur football club sweatshirt. Or Mrs Atlas with those broad shoulders of hers that could sustain a yoke without a partner. But they pass by quickly, surreptitiously bang into the part of the suitcases I am not protecting with my body; together, they furtively push us towards the side of the tunnel, which constitutes the slow zone set aside for those who are hesitating or turning around, wondering whether to change direction, or those like me who refuse to form part of the mass bustling towards the exterior and who stay behind, panting by the roadside, while others are already in sight of the exit. There is the lift… and the queue to use it.

Hop! We made it. In the foyer there is no sign of the crowd from earlier. Only – how many? – three or four minutes have gone by. Better, I check the map again to be sure: left, then straight until taking the first street on the left, keep going on this street until you reach number 62. It’s the second time I’ve taken this route, which will now be mine. And this, my station. This, my street. This, me from behind, pushing two suitcases over the uneven paving stones.

Tran, tran, tran… (turning into “trrraaaaaaan” when the pavement becomes even, like now, for several yards and the wheels don’t catch on every single broken or protruding stone, at which point it is necessary to push more forcefully). I am a walking rattle. People turn to see who on earth is following them. Repent, for the end of the world is near! Am I smiling unconsciously? I am smiling, consciously now.

I am going to live in the silent part of a neighbourhood where passing suitcases constitute a sonorous event. The houses look happy despite their solitary appearance. They are because the neglect they suffer is only transitory – from six in the morning to five in the afternoon, from eight to seven in the worst cases. Also, because those who inhabit them have not tired of protecting them from the ravages of time. They bought them and they love them… for now. At this hour, however, they have yet to emerge from their lethargy. There’s a while to go before they switch on the light at the entrance and take off their shoes on the carpet (I must ask Natalie what her policy is in this regard). Nobody can be seen on the small front patios I go by – no adults or children or pet animals or old people. Red and ochre brick, slate on roofs.

It’s so humble there is something beautiful about the solid brick on display. Look at that house over there: crumbling edges, a certain porosity in the material that can be glimpsed. Daddy and the whetstone. Mummy and the stone for softening calluses. Were my hands free, I would secretively go over and feel it the way I did in Paris with the bullet holes. Doubting Thomas come back to life, so to speak…

Rows of houses, successive buildings as in mining settlements up north, here and there. Those who went on strike against Thatcher. Those in Zola. I’d be happy to see an Étienne Lantier come out of an alleyway with a sturdy moustache and the air of a premature elder. Too much fantasy, my girl. Perhaps this used to be a working-class district in the past, and workers from the local factory lived here. Or it was just another proletarian new suburb for the great city. Now it seems B. appears in the lists of areas coveted by new professional families as a place to settle and grow. They come to make their nests in these houses alongside their grandparents, whom they treated from a distance. They feel secure because there are no half-eaten drumsticks lying on the pavements and they do not bump into ghost women reduced to the slit of a look. They prefer not to see things that clash with their reality. Deep down, I am the same as them.

I picture them going to the shops with their trolleys at weekends in the morning, brand-name trolleys they spotted in a catalogue or fashion magazine which may not be as practical as they seemed, but give the right impression with that air somewhere between casual and arrogant. They disgust me, and yet I’d like to be one of them. Perhaps what disgusts me is my own hypocrisy, not the people themselves.

If I had an office job, I wouldn’t be here. Not here, here, in this place – though probably not that, either – but at this hour of the afternoon. I would be in an underground carriage or a commuter train, breathing through my mouth to endure the smell of dampness, the lack of ventilation, the sticky skin. The spiced perspiration. I would be nowhere, my head focused on anything that wasn’t what I had in front of me, like now.

I ignore the postman I have just passed so I can imagine possible futures, typical for me. It seems to me he was dressed in this strong red colour, industrial tomato sauce. How stupid. I think about this in order to avoid another thought: the fact I am about to reach number 62 and I don’t know whether Natalie will be at home this afternoon or whether it’s one of the three days a week she goes to work in a home-décor shop that is near the station in the adjoining town. I’m worried she won’t be here, I’ve got used to her way of being pleasant without you feeling she’s opening her arms at the very first opportunity. She smiles with her eyes, and that’s a good thing.

62. Breathe, go on, breathe.

*   *   *

Ce Efese (1984-2020)

A Moment’s Confusion or The Little Innocent

2015. Oil on canvas

92 x 73 cm.

A fundamental work from the initial stage of the artist in B., it stands out because of the luminosity of the palette being used, as well as the decided, energetic brushstrokes. Against the voluntarily hermetic character of the series “Expat/Impact”, the manifestation of a period of personal and creative crisis, this represents a qualified return to the festive academicism she employed in her first pieces. Thus, her contribution to the fixation of the generational discourse by means of collective portraits influenced by neorealism becomes much more intimate painting. It is no longer the group but the individual who captures the artist’s interest. That female figure with her back to us, before a door that is opening, that hand of hers anxiously toying with her hair, that man who receives her with an ambiguous gesture – surprise, pleasure, amusement – that light on the stone of the façade, on the flowers in the front garden: a scene that may not be as pleasant as it seems.

*   *   *

When Natalie and her fiancé, Tom, are absent – which happens regularly and with surprising precision, since they both millimetrically follow the simple routine established by their work hours in order then to withdraw to the security afforded by their hearth without making a stop, without meeting anybody, without engaging in other activities; work, be together, rest, work, come together, sleep… – she imagines she is in her own home. And she is sitting on the bed with the laptop balanced on a cushion on her thighs because she enjoys this half-anarchic, half-reckless posture and not because there is no desk in her room and she considers it a bold move to turn the kitchen table into an office, even if she is alone.

Cecilia is in the guest room, where it is clear visitors need something that goes beyond essential comforts and guarantees them a pleasant stay in the absence of their hosts: an ample bed flanked by two bedside tables, a resistant base and a mattress made not of springs, but viscoelastic, a charming rustic bench at its foot for slowly removing socks or tights, a triple wardrobe no cabin bag could ever aspire to fill, an armchair in which to sit to read in the early evening, but to have one’s attention irremediably distracted by the views from there over the semi-sauvage garden.

The point is the status of tenant differs from that of guest. But nobody has realized this. A hearth is not conceived for welcoming strangers – that fits better with apartments for students, professionals without a family, itinerant people. The home of a future couple is structured differently. And this is something she is fully aware of.

Hence, she is resigned to working in her room, with a flowery cushion balanced on her knees to ward off the unhealthy heat exuded by the fan on her laptop. She connects at ten to nine and opens several tabs, one after the other: private email, company email, text editor, translation glossary. At nine on the dot, she starts translating descriptions of fashion products. Prêt-à-porter products, to be exact. In the past few days, she has learnt a whole heap of terms. She can distinguish a logo from a monogram, she knows the history of the Harrington jacket, she can distinguish dress shoes from others just by looking at the stitching on the part with the laces. Everything is reduced to the names of British localities: Oxford, Derby, Balmoral. She adores a certain French brand. She has become strangely obsessed by one that is Japanese. She still believes this contract as a self-employed translator can lead somewhere. But every day she misses office life.

Which annoyed her so much in her previous position, let’s be honest. She hated the cold, affected way the members of her team had of relating to one another. She hated being regarded as a usurper simply because she had occupied the post of a charismatic colleague while she was taking maternity leave. She hated the stork’s cackle coming from the desk at the end, next to the window. She hated the company’s disproportionate size. She hated the company itself. She hated things not being the way they were before.

Before, it was C., a town in crisis in zone 5 heading southwards, in an establishment that had struck her as enormous to begin with, but now she understands was tiny, located in an unnumbered building no navigation system seemed to have registered. Something like a non-place or a blind spot – highly in keeping with the grey activities being carried out there – next to a supermarket/petrol station, opposite a pizza restaurant and a hair salon that offered employees discounts because they worked nearby.

She had gone there once to have her hair dyed. The hairdresser had chatted to her about the glorious times of Vidal Sassoon and the beauty of Italy. She had dyed it badly and styled it even worse. She had come out, blindly tying her hair in a ponytail and stopping in front of shop windows to confirm that Nicola wasn’t joking and she had inky splodges by her roots and on her cheeks. She had rubbed her skin with a wet wipe while cursing the fifty pounds in the false offer. Once she had got over her anger, they had laughed about it and gone to eat a large ice cream. It must have been nearly summertime, it was a barbarous Saturday.

Then, the office was something else. It was far from being ideal, but they had each other.

Now, there are fewer of them, and she works from home.

She selects, copies, types, checks the glossary, and completes it when necessary. She forces herself to keep up a rhythm nobody imposes on her. She thinks she will maintain a certain discipline that way, preserving the illusion that she is fulfilling a timetable. She has got it into her head that she should finish around five, like those who fill the return trains in the afternoon. She translates many more descriptions of products than she has to, only because she can. From time to time, she looks up from the screen and sees her reflection in the mirror: damp hair, irritated nose, feet like a puppet’s, an inert continuation of the print cushion.

She loves her room, though clearly it would be good to have a desk that saved her having to spend so many hours, by day and by night, in bed. If she thought about asking Natalie for one, she quickly rejected this idea. Anyway, she has made it clear they are not considering the possibility of extending the rental agreement beyond the autumn. So, it would represent an imprudent expense, since, from that moment onwards, the room will regain its original typology: that of a lifeless space awaiting occasional visitors.

“Hello, hello!” Natalie enters the kitchen with a couple of supermarket bags that are full to the brim, places them carefully on the table, and sets about emptying them while inserting what she has bought in the cupboards. “How was your day?”

However naive it might be to think this question is anything other than an expression of politeness, she is grateful to be able to exchange a few trivialities after so many hours of solitude. As if she were breaking the involuntary vow of silence that is coupled with her new job. And she says it was fine, without going into details, since what does Natalie care about how difficult it was to fine-tune the translation of some adornments that are characteristic of an Italian fashion house and the tension she feels whenever she comes up against such an obstacle?

“See what a nice afternoon it is,” a remark about the weather is never out of place. “I think I might go for a walk in town until it’s dinner.”

“Good idea, darling, absolutely,” replies Natalie’s back. She has half her body in the fridge and is moving products from one shelf to another, squeezing others together, to make room temporarily for all her purchases. “You must forgive us. Tonight, I’m going to prepare a special menu for Tom. Lebanese food,” she explains, standing up and heading over to the shelf where she keeps her collection of cookery books in order to point out a beautiful volume with a cover of tiles with blue, black, and orange geometrical lines.

Tom will arrive at seven, very punctual. Natalie likes to receive him with the table laid and the lights lowered, with the aromas of her concoction wafting towards the front door. She then takes off her apron and throws herself into his arms. Or that’s what she imagines happens. She endeavours to step aside so as not to interfere in these, their moments of intimacy.

*   *   *

Ce Efese (1984-2020)

Who Flees Happiness?

2015. Oil on canvas

38 x 61 cm.

A singular example of the artist’s time in B., on the compositional plane this work links with a long line of artists interested in forcing the limits of bidimensional representation – from portraits framed by a window, from whose sill emerges an object, common among primitive Flemings, to Pere Borrell and his Escaping Criticism (1874), passing through Bartolomé Esteban Murillo and his Self-Portrait (1668-70) – by questioning the picture’s own nature and function. The centrifugal element in this trompe-l’œil painting is provided by a person in the background: the young woman passing behind the sofa, looking up at a mirror on the wall – and at us spectators – in which are reflected the figures of a couple, oblivious to everything in their happiness. The nuances in the illumination of the two pictorial groups, and the observer’s serious expression, emphasize the unusually baroque-style character of the work, in both its tone and its composition.

*   *   *

Am I going to complete three weeks in this house? I am going to complete three weeks in this house (there is no need for the admiring tone. I rented a room here. Time passes. Full stop). In C., I never paid attention to this. I lived, it was simple. So many things happened that I didn’t even keep track of whether it was Monday or Saturday; and the days quickly turned into months, closing a cycle without my even realizing. These, on the other hand… I would say these have passed in a peculiar manner which I wouldn’t know how to explain. Somewhat slow and somewhat strange. Unfocused. It’s because I don’t head outside to work, obviously. Coming and going helps to air your head, forms part of the whole, keeps your guard up.

Tom leaves early in the morning for the National Gallery and returns in the early evening. Natalie keeps herself busy, even if it isn’t Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. I have no idea where she goes. She leaves us alone, the cat and me. Inside the house, the air doesn’t change, the decoration doesn’t alter, there are no other faces. Bad business, my Jane Eyre. I admit I have taken a liking – when I leave the room to have breakfast, lunch, or dinner – to stopping in the living room and surveying the walls in sections while scrutinizing the Polaroids that are scattered about the shelves. The people in them are like regular travellers I might bump into on the 8:05 train to the centre. Outside or in, routine is made up of a mosaic of faces.

I am moved by the one of a girl who must be about two years old – a little less, perhaps – standing in a meadow of mown grass, with a woman kneeling behind her. The composition is similar to one Uncle took of us in the flax field, with the cows in the background. Mental note: tell my sister the next time I write to her. She will enjoy the comparison.

Is Natalie an only daughter? Judging by the photographs, I would say she is. Perhaps she is like Francesca, who misses having a sister to take away the guilty feeling every time something happens to her father or mother (I miss my own, the flesh-and-blood one, albeit her presence does not serve to wash away the bad deserter’s conscience I carry around with me). How can we be useful to them two seas away? As explained by her, anyone would say, in her country, our generation is comprised of creatures raised among adults – they themselves are adults in the making, old children – infantile islets inside their own homes, sovereigns of undisputed kingdoms. And I sense this is how Natalie was raised, alone among big people, though I know nothing about her childhood or her life in general.

Meanwhile, I detect a constant element in the photos scattered about the living room: that half-blonde, half-chestnut woman with prominent eyes and chin, to whom she bears a vague resemblance. Her mother, I think. It’s them and the world, no one else. Together, they form an indivisible unit. And the way she looks at the camera reveals a kind of fierceness or pride, I’m not sure. Nothing like Mummy. Mummy’s face would break into a smile whenever she posed. Her look was less serious. Her hair would be a mess, electric, and the fringe would fall over her eyes with a curve that almost blocked her field of vision. How ridiculous. There aren’t many photos where it’s just the two of us. We’re always accompanied by Grandma or Uncle. It’s a shame.

Note: Natalie doesn’t have any taken on the steps of a circus ring, clambering over rocks in the middle of a gorse patch, or picking off grains of sand like lice on some beach. Behind her can be seen parks, interiors, walls, and gates without identity that suggest an abstract urban geography. Natalie’s snapshots tell of places and moments I have no idea about. Whatever the reason, I like looking at them and giving them a family history, an origin, in my head.

How strange that all the photos should be old, there aren’t any showing her as a teenager or the woman she turned into. The one who is about to get married, with her man. Perhaps for her they possess a value that is more aesthetic than emotional and she displays them like this, inserted between various figurines and drawing projects on A5 sheets, among relatively original souvenirs, simply because she thinks they look good. Looking good is as valid a criterion as any other. Who am I to judge? At the end of the day, nobody said decoration should obey any other principle than giving pleasure to the eyes, to the fingertips.

It’s true that the decontextualized Polaroids have a certain halo, the light always badly calibrated, the contrasts exaggerated, with their lack of sharpness and permanent air of falsified portraits. They are involuntarily artistic, just as sleeping babies are tender or tadpoles at the bottom of a slimy pool are repulsive. Without meaning to be. In a museum, the unmarked area beneath the image could hold a caption: “A singular example of the artist’s time in B., on the compositional plane…”

Natalie. Always her and her past. There is no lasting material trace of Tom in this hearth. The marks he leaves are drawn and erased from one day to the next: a hat on the rack in the hallway, a slight aroma of beard balm, his shoes by the door. All ephemeral, easily forgettable signs. I would like to know how long he has been living with her. Because, all things considered, he could disappear one day, and the house would barely register his absence. He resembles an accessory element, as dispensable as me. Each in our own way, we are two ghostly tenants orbiting around Natalie. When, in what way, does a domestic presence begin to gain substance? At what moment will Tom become a full-fledged member of this place? Perhaps it’s just a question of getting used to the space. Perhaps I can no longer see it.

Sometimes I think we run the risk that I will turn into an unnecessary go-between for them. They will abhor my presence hanging in the air, ever so slightly disturbing their intimacy. I will be that agreeable, fun friend who helps to save an uninspired night on the tiles from turning into a complete failure, but who, when the company is reduced to two lovebirds, quickly captures – with a hint of embarrassment – the urgent looks they exchange while shamelessly allowing the conversation to founder with the sole purpose of tiring her out, making her give up. Getting rid of her, so they can give free rein to their amorous outburst. Hello, hello, chaperone, where are you?

Why is it they never laugh in my presence the way I can hear them laughing right now? I suppose they are laughing out of the plenitude of intimacy, and it’s nice to hear, although, deep down, I am aware this laughter is not for me. Perhaps I ought to block my ears and force it back the way it came, push it back towards the kitchen, so it stays between them and leaves me alone. Tra-la-la-la-la. Shoo, away with you. That’s what I think.

There are those who might find it exciting to sink into a private scene like this, a kind of auditory voyeurism. What an image I have just planted in my little head… If I hear them, it’s because I’m not deaf and the muffled echo of their guffaws expands in waves through the air at the speed of x and reaches the upper floor despite the layers of brick, cement, wood, and carpet that separate us. If we were to open the house perpendicularly, the way doll houses are opened, they would be directly beneath my feet. And, between us, a narrow sheet of material, clearly insufficient as a form of insulation.

They expand through everything; here, I voluntarily contract night after night in the narrow strip between the outside wall and the bed, pacing up and down, from the bedside table to the curtain and from the curtain to the bedside table. Four steps in one direction, another four in the other. Hey! Careful, you’re going to trip! I ought to make sure the footfalls continue to be ephemeral, I’m not wearing away the threads in the carpet, because I am tracing a silvery grey trail on it like a slug dragging its saliva over the earth. It would be annoying to have to renounce this limited physical activity because of something like this. Though I would hate to ruin their carpet. If only I had a little more margin to go out walking in the afternoons… But Natalie comes back at half past six, and Tom half an hour later. The only option is to have dinner earlier so as not to get in the way and then to retire to my room to read or walk. I spend too many hours without moving, the day I least suspect it, I’m going to have a thrombosis. This vein sticking out in the depression behind my right knee, does it mean something?

Who am I trying to deceive? Their laughter bothers me. Inside, I’m an angry five-year-old shouting repeatedly, “I want, I want, I want.” I want to be a Natalie, half actress, making the crystals of a chandelier tinkle in my throat and to laugh splendidly, my mouth replete with joy and my eyes closed for a second, as I deliberately throw my head back in an exaggerated gesture (he accompanies her down below, producing a slightly nasal laugh that ruins the overall effect). I should like to recuperate the invasive pleasure of ivy.

This… hadn’t I read this already? Or is it a déjà-vu?

Baaack to the beginning of the paragraph. At this rate, I’m not going to finish the chapter.

*   *   *

She sometimes finds it difficult to distinguish between a b and an m in Natalie’s mouth. She articulates very clearly, and yet whenever she pronounces one of these two letters in a certain context, she is unsure which she is hearing. Even though one is a bilabial occlusive and the other a bilabial nasal, both voiced. But there’s a region of sound that escapes and tortures her whenever her landlady enounces the name of her fiancé – Tom(my) – or the cat – Tob(by) – in a single sentence without context. A confusion that is not without its logic. Domestic anecdotes are not good for distinguishing personalities. And, at the end of the day, they are the words of a foreign language.

It would be another matter – flour from another sack – if she could scrutinize her mouth while she is speaking, the way they used to be hypnotized by their French teacher’s grimaces during the first year of their degree – she would project her lips or wrinkle her upper lip in a gesture bordering on disgust, raise an eyebrow drawn on flesh to underline a word and then throw it out as if spitting it or spitting at them. But this would be far too awkward for obvious reasons, which means the only alternative is to focus her attention and sharpen her ears.

At dusk, when Natalie comes back from wherever it is she spends the days she’s not working in the shop, they exchange a few words in the kitchen or in the middle of the living room. One interprets the movement of entering while the other executes an exit from the stage. Clearly, it’s difficult to establish fluid communication in such circumstances, always with one’s foot slightly forward to initiate the next movement. One might think Cecilia has an itch. They each emit a succinct evaluation of the day, which is invariably qualified by the two of them as “good”, “pleasant”, “not bad”, “cool”. And, to a greater or lesser degree, they are both exaggerating. Because the former argued today with an assistant on the visual project on which she is collaborating to stifle her desires, while the latter feels growing pressure – pressure she imposes on herself – to increase the number of articles she translates every day.

Once the trivialities have been exhausted, Natalie whispers, “Tobby, Tobby!”, and she knows what she is hearing is a b – voiced bilabial occlusive – for the simple reason that the other – the man – is not home yet. The cat miaows in a corner of the bedroom and races downstairs to greet the woman, who bends down to pick it up in her arms, pressing it to her bosom. The image transmits almost maternal tenderness, like this, the two of them overjoyed at being reunited so many hours later.

Tobby – rarely Tob – is a Ragdoll in a DJ, characterized by long, bicolour hair which emulates a man’s dress coat at formal evening functions. Unlike the cat of her landlord in C., given to dramatic excesses in front of strangers – in other words, her – this one barely seems to register her presence. No frenetic banging into walls with unusually high-pitched whines, no strategically projected mountains of vomit – that maniacal puss could threaten like a Mafia boss – to cut off her route to the kitchen… and any wish to have breakfast.

Conscious of its position in the domestic system, Tobby moves silently between the rooms that are left open – all except hers. It prefers to avoid problems. And yet it spends most of its time outside, messing about in the back garden. It chases after birds that land on the overgrown grass, generally without much success, and, having got bored of the ground, climbs onto the wooden fence and disappears from view in order to reappear a few yards further on, where there is an enormous apple tree on the right, swaying its body with all the gracefulness of a ballerina, in search of new adventures. For a city cat, it is quite wild. But, after it returns from its forays into the neighbourhood, it goes back to being the tranquil pussycat of mid-morning. In a corner of the living room, by the large window which lets in the indecisive light of spring and noises from the pavement, there is a grey cushion where it spends most of the afternoon slumbering while waiting for Natalie. From time to time, she catches it out of place, at which point it starts running to make up for the minor fault of not having been attentive to her arrival. Recently, this has been happening more often. Tobby hasn’t been firing on all cylinders this season.

Cecilia has yet to realize this. Natalie does, but prefers to ignore the evidence and to continue immersing herself in the illusion of happiness each afternoon. Hence, the protracted hugs, the exaggerated displays of affection. “Tobby! Tobby!” she calls to the cat without raising her voice, as if the connection between them did not rely on words. At times like this, there is no possible confusion between the name of the man and the cat.

Who could have come up with the idea of naming it like this is something that intrigues her. In the country, animals are not named like people. It would be a lack of respect to have a cow called Philomena or a bitch named Flora. With the obvious exception of the surnames of French and English generals at the time of the Peninsular War, which are still applied to house dogs. Soult, Ney, Lord – there are lots of them, even though nobody can explain the reason for such persistence. They shout, “Here, boy / Lord, Soult, Ney,” and they come running, with their tongues lolling. Pavlov’s dog didn’t care what it was called. So long as it got its reward.

Perhaps Tom – rarely Tommy – travels home on the Underground each afternoon, salivating at the thought of the succulent dinner awaiting him in the oven that was switched off a moment ago to keep it warm. Not a conditioned reflex, but the pleasurable consequence of a routine established between him and his partner. He doesn’t come home to eat: he comes home and eats. He really eats. This man of about thirty, with his appearance as a worn individual – caused by the clothes he wears, his obsession with velveteen trousers and woollen jackets, warm shirts and felt caps – forever dressed in dull, sad colours that emphasize his natural greyness, has a healthy appetite.

Tobby and Cecilia live together in harmony. In fact, they ignore each other politely (the way she generally ignores everything in this house). They accept each other’s presence as an inevitable, albeit not necessarily desirable, condition. She would prefer it if there weren’t any pets. The cat could happily live with fewer people bustling about – it has little interest in widening its circle of human contacts. It was just getting used to this man when this other, strange woman turned up.

When it comes to those two, however, it would be inappropriate to talk of cohabitation. Tom would like to believe he lives by and for Natalie. Cecilia is horrified by the idea of getting between them. How many sentences have they exchanged until now? Three? Four? The day they talked most was before she moved in, when she came to leave two suitcases of belongings one afternoon when Natalie was working. He smiles a lot and glances at her behind Natalie’s back. But there is little, or no, living together.

Tobby, Tom, Tom, Tobby: it’s an easy mistake. But one is a man, and the other a black and white cat. When you think about it, it’s hard to understand the affection people have for these animals, since they generally don’t offer authentic company. What is the reason for them rubbing against you if not to obtain food in exchange for the illusion of contact? Were one to accord them a psychological profile as a species – a reductionist thing to do, by the way – the result would highlight narcissistic, self-sufficient features and marked independence. They are creatures that refuse to adhere to a system, small beasts that are quick to show their teeth and claws, but only for the best of causes: their own. Compare them to dogs, and the difference is abysmal, since it seems they lack one essential value: a sense of loyalty to the one who looks after them, strokes them, elevates them to the condition of human. There are heaps of stories about cats which, with their owner dead in the room they occupy, react with complete indifference. After some hours, they might even dig in. When the stench on the staircase guides the emergency services and they discover the body some days later, instead of a cheek there may be a rotten hole.

Tom, Tobby, Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom.

*   *   *

Ce Efese (1984-2020)

Study for a Working-Class Trinity

2015. Charcoal on paper

35 x 27 cm.

Albeit in a very embryonic stage, this charcoal sketch is one of few examples of the artist’s preparatory work to have been preserved. Discovered among personal papers and without a date, it announces a work whose execution hasn’t been confirmed. And yet both the compositional scheme and choice of theme allow it to be placed within the period she ironically termed “of classist fury”, which reached its maximum expression in Who Flees Happiness? (2015). It shares with the latter a certain wish to challenge contemporary eyes by bringing together the treatment of modern daily scenes and aesthetic parameters that clearly hark back to the Renaissance. There is the hint of a tribute to Raffaello Sanzio in this geometrizing composition, in which the three figures that have been depicted – a young man whose clothing gives him a mature air, a woman of rotund sensuality and quince-like hair, an adored feline – are arranged after the manner of The Holy Family with a Lamb (1507) to evoke what might well be an alternative vision of the theme of maternal love.

Text © Cecilia Fernández Santomé

Translation © Jonathan Dunne