“I don’t know,” she murmured at last. “I don’t know.”
“Someone once said that the moment you stop to think about whether you love someone, you’ve already stopped loving that person forever,” I said.
Bea looked for the irony in my expression. “Who said that?”
“Someone called Julián Carax.”
“A friend of yours?”
I caught myself nodding. “Sort of.”
“You’re going to have to introduce him to me.”
“Tonight, if you like.”
We le
ft the university under a bruised sky and wandered aimlessly, going nowhere in particular, just getting used to walking side by side. We took shelter in the only subject we had in common, her brother, Tomás. Bea spoke about him as if he were a virtual stranger, someone she loved but barely knew. She avoided my eyes and smiled nervously. I felt that she regretted what she had said to me in the university cloister, that the words still hurt and were still gnawing at her.
“Listen, what I said to you before,” she said suddenly, “you won’t mention a word to Tomás, will you?”
“Of course not. I won’t tell anyone.”
She laughed nervously. “I don’t know what came over me. Don’t be offended, but sometimes one feels freer speaking to a stranger than to people one knows. Why is that?”
I shrugged. “Probably because a stranger sees us the way we are, not as he wishes to think we are.”
“Is that also from your friend Carax?”
“No, I’ve just made it up to impress you.”
“And how do you see me?”
“Like a mystery.”
“That’s the strangest compliment anyone has ever paid me.”
“It’s not a compliment. It’s a threat.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mysteries must be solved, one must find out what they hide.”
“You might be disappointed when you see what’s inside.”
“I might be surprised. And you, too.”
“Tomás never told me you had so much cheek.”
“That’s because what little I have, I’ve reserved entirely for you.”
“Why?”
Because I’m afraid of you, I thought.
We sought refuge in a small café next to the Poliorama Theater. Withdrawing to a table by the window, we asked for someserrano ham sandwiches and a couple of white coffees, to warm up. Soon thereafter the manager, a scrawny fellow with the face of an imp, came up to the table with an attentive expression.
“Did yer folks ask for the ’am sandwiches?