In Her Absence Read Online Free

experience, that he’d have to go directly from the station to the office without even time for a shower.
    Blanca said nothing, lowered her head, and went to her room and shut the door as soon as they’d finished eating and cleared off the table. Nevertheless, her face didn’t look terribly serious; she had only a faraway air of disappointment thatMario had learned to recognize in a slight fold that formed at one side of her mouth when she gave him a perfunctory smile, out of politeness or as a gesture of kindness, or not even that, as a sign to him to leave her alone: it wasn’t something worth arguing over or even talking about.
    Guilty, ashamed, afraid of losing her, Mario knocked softly on the door. When he heard only music from the radio, he opened it cautiously and saw that Blanca was stretched out on the sofa in the dark, in the small, warm room that was her place of refuge, even though it looked out on an airshaft crisscrossed with clotheslines and the neighbors’ voices, noisy television sets and shouting children that were always audible in there and kept her from concentrating. She had an old writing desk, a gift from her mother, with little drawers that she kept locked but that he often wished he could open. Blanca’s pens and pencils were always lined up on top of it, inkwells with sepia-colored inks, the notebooks where she jotted down thoughts, copied down poems and phrases, pasted clippings frommagazines and newspapers, the lilac-tinted stationery and envelopes with her name printed on them, her name, which made Mario happy just to see it written out.
    He sat down next to her on the edge of the sofa and ran his hand over her smooth, straight hair, over her cheeks that were wet with silent weeping. He begged her pardon, blamed himself for being such an egotist, and told her that if she wanted, they’d go to Madrid that very weekend. Blanca asked him in a low voice to please leave her alone, and she begged his forgiveness as well, blaming herself for being depressed and frazzled: it was the terrible heat that was already starting to set in, the ever-problematic first day of her period. She stood up, her hair disheveled, and Mario thought in sorrow and fear that she had the same empty, drawn look on her face as during the early days, when he was already in love with her without being able to imagine that Blanca might some day pay him sufficient attention even to take full note of his presence, much less reciprocate his feelings.
    Twenty-four hours later, when he thought the crisis had passed, Mario, his back to the television, silently savoring a spoonful of exquisite vichyssoise, watched Blanca’s face, waiting for the signs of enthusiasm and subsequent glumness that the name Frida Kahlo would inspire there. She’d see one of Kahlo’s paintings on the screen, one of the self-portraits Mario secretly considered abominable, and she’d regret not living in Madrid and not having the time or money to travel wherever she wanted. She’d probably even stop eating, or stop speaking to him, withdrawing into silence as if into a room that would forever be inaccessible to him, writing for hours on end in one of the notebooks she kept under lock and key.
    The name Frida Kahlo was repeated two or three times more, and each time Mario feared Blanca’s inevitable reaction, like someone who sees a flash of lightning and waits, counting the seconds, for the thunder to come. But the announcer moved on to developments in the world of sports and Blanca was still talking to him about a possiblejob; he couldn’t really understand what it involved but encouraged her warmly to pursue it. If only he’d paid a bit more attention, if only his obsessive vigilance hadn’t betrayed him by keeping him from observing this new danger, the new name that was beginning to crop up in her conversation.
    He thought, without being able to acknowledge the thought to himself, that what Blanca really needed was to spend some time studying