Wisdom
-And here is the ungrateful one. Thank goodness I'm not spiteful.
I open the door to let Elvira and her cart, which smells like a gourmet restaurant.
-I'm sorry. I've been a little bit... A little bit.
-For you it's lettuce.
I smile half-heartedly as I watch her make her way to the kitchen unpacking the cargo.
-I made some chicken with fine herbs and cut potatoes just the way you like them. I also made some salad with homemade mayonnaise.
-As it could not be less.
-Of course. I've been looking at this old potato for a month," she says, tossing it contentedly into the trash can. I can't accuse her because she's right. My last thirty days have been a drowning inside my own thoughts.
I sit watching her move around the kitchen as if it were her home. And in a way it is. She and my grandmother have spent many more years in this place than I have been alive. By all accounts they were friends before marriage spoiled them.
She and her grandmother To?i studied at the same sewing academy. In those days, knowing how to sew was a very efficient way to find a job. You could darn while taking care of the children and without taking your eyes off the pot, a real bargain for female equality.
Grandmother To?i was widowed when I was six years old. Tobacco did not spare my grandfather's tarry lungs. Elvira, for her part, does not know her condition. And no, I am not mistaken, as she told me, her husband left with a girl he met long before, and whom, despite adoring, his parents denied him entry. The man as a good son for a year fulfilled his duties as a good husband, until one morning, before going out the door, he kissed her on the forehead asking for forgiveness. That morning Antonio and his lover disappeared from the neighborhood. Evil tongues said that he was one of those who went to buy tobacco and never came back, but when I was older, Elvira explained to me that with unleavened flour you never get cakes.
-How did you do it?
I fall into the kitchen chair at the plastic-wrapped food that almost covers the table.
-It's very simple. With an egg, oil and the chirg you get a chef's mayonnaise.
The chirg is what the rest of us mortals call the Minipimer. Elvira may be an excellent cook, but the naming of kitchen gadgets is something else. No matter how many times she reminds herself, every morning she christens it with a different name.
-I don't mean the mayonnaise. How did you go on.
-The solution is not in the solution," he says, sitting down across from me and pushing the basket of homemade ensaimadas away from me, "but in the results.
-Without the solution, there are no results," I answer with my first smile in a long time, while I am dizzy with an onion in my fingers.
-That is not true. No action is when there are no results. I'm not going to lie to you that I didn't suffer. We are all born out of pain. And your grandmother wiped away a lot of my tears. But one morning, when my hair was messy and my eyes were puffy," she says, reaching out to enclose my hand, "she told me I needed to get going. You know, when she got something in her head she was like a miura in front of a closed fence. I told her it was impossible. In those days an abandoned woman meant bad as a wife, as a companion and as a lover.
-You would be devastated.
-And very lost, the solution did not depend on me. Antonio was no longer there and fingers began to point at me. That's when your grandmother brought this to me," he said, reaching into his robe pocket and pulling out a white handkerchief with my grandmother's typical embroidery. As a sergeant she ordered me to dry my last tears. I remember that I looked at her bewildered and a little bit scared. Our To?i was a lot of To?i," she said, smiling at me.
-What did he want you to do?
-That it will go on because there was no solution. Tell me, if the smoke covered everything and your eyes stung from the pain, wouldn't you move somewhere looking for air?
-I imagine he would go to a window.
-Honey, if you don't know where the window is, you will have to move until the movement shows you the answer.
-Blake, he told me that I have to love myself in order to...
-To be happy?
-And to want it.
-That boy must love you very much. Only people who love want happiness to be an act of freedom.
I duck my head.
-Did you let him go?
-I think so.
-Tell me about it. I have time.
I begin to tell Elvira the story as if it were a soap opera. I tell her about my mother, the money collected for my blood, the will and Blake.
She stood up and prepared two infusions. Then she handed me one of those croissants fresh from the oven before sitting back down. She didn't interrupt me for a second. What's worse, she doesn't seem surprised.
-Did you know about it?
-Honey, your grandmother was away for many days. A lot of paperwork had to be done at the embassy there, and here, before we could bring you back.
-Why didn't you ever say anything?
-What is the middle ground where truth becomes poison? To?i brought you to this house and loved you madly. Your mother's story is a book with so many unknown pages that what she would tell you would be an invention. She wanted her Sofia to be an unburdened girl.
-He asked me that too. Do you know anything about that family?
-Just what your grandmother told me. She said the woman was drowning in a horrible depression. That she stayed in bed for hours and suffered for not being able to take care of you. She also told me about the dark-eyed, jet-haired boy who wouldn't leave your side. To?i confessed to me that he made her feel like a thief. The little boy took care of you as if you were his own.
-Blake...
-When I saw him with those pupils framed in an even darker circle, and that American accent, I immediately remembered that boy. To?i and I suspected that one day he would come for you.
-He is grateful. My blood saved his life. That is not love.
-But to ask you to love yourself and accept that you are a beautiful girl, that is love. The gratitude of your bone marrow was paid for by her mother with money. Honey, getting up at half past seven in the morning to bring the warm croissants to his girl, as he said, was one of his many demonstrations of love.
-Do you really think so?
-My name is Elvira. She never missed a comment about you. She loved listening to me and I assure you it wasn't because of my wonderful sex appeal.
-Elvira! You are terrible.
-My child, you don't doubt him, you doubt you.
-I love him so much that my heart is getting so small," tears come to my eyes, jeopardizing the conversation.
-And that's beautiful. That boy is right. You never accept what you don't think you deserve. The time has come to leave your mother's smoke behind and create your own bonfire. Listen to me -Elvira stands up, and although her body is tiny her greatness holds my cheeks with both hands- when To?i brought you to this house I adored you. You were beautiful. You were so scared that you didn't speak a word, so I prepared you....
-A hot chocolate.
-Do you remember?
I shake my head speechless. How can I forget. Elvira was always the sweet of my bitter moments.
-I sat next to you and taught you how to drink it without getting dirty.
-And we played at giving my bear a drink.
-And we played," she repeats excitedly. I remember I never felt so happy. At that moment I knew you would have two grandmothers. Honey, when we had you with us we never talked about your past again because we didn't need to. We loved you for what you made us feel in our present.
I lower my head. My double-glazed windows collapse. Fresh air knocks to enter. My chest bursts in confusion. Leaving my circumstances behind means abandoning tons of remorse that for years I've carried under my own responsibility.
The lightness gives me a shiver of absence that scares me. I take a deep breath. I am at the beginning of an anxiety attack.
-She takes a deep breath. Come on," Elvira tears off a paper napkin and wipes my face. You've been behind a choking wall for too long. One last stone was needed to break it all, and that boy has given you a good rock. Breathe and let your mother escape. She didn't know how to love you because she didn't know you. Let the rest of us enjoy you for who you are.
-My mother will always be inside me and it scares me. I'm afraid she will never disappear.
-And it won't. What must disappear is your feeling of guilt. I once heard on the radio, on a program called Solas, something I thought was very accurate. She said: Your imperfections make you unique and brave. They don't love you because you are perfect, they love you because you give them happiness. I love you because you give me happiness. That boy I love you because you are happiness.
I burst into disconsolate tears.
Each liter of tears shed cleanses my soul laden with false guilt. The abandoned girl falls apart like a snowman under the sun. The heaviness of my past leaves cold holes that my hope fills. My interior is filled with happy and funny moments that have passed or are yet to come.
-Elvira..." I say, drowned in my own sighs.
-How cute?
-I'm in love with Blake.
-I know, precious, I know.