Above the Rain: A Novel by Víctor Del Árbol

Author:Víctor Del Árbol [del Árbol, Víctor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2021-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

On the dresser sat the bottle Helena had ordered that night after finishing off what was left in the minibar. She felt among the rumpled bedsheets for her cigarettes and lighter and then sat down to smoke, gazing vacantly at the white wall. Helena couldn’t remember the last time she’d drank or smoked so much—or maybe she could but preferred not to. There was something liberating about getting drunk alone, feeling petty and deceitful, and wallowing like a pig in her own muck without having the burden of pity or compassion. About accepting that she had not been a good wife or mother, and certainly not the friend that Louise deserved. Their triangle had confined her, and she’d always felt trapped by its tight angles. Unable to move, to break its geometry. She’d focused on other people’s faults so as not to think of her own. And she’d spent half her life playing redeemer, taking care of Walter for the whole of his endless pitiful agony, offering her friendship to Marqués. Even pushing Miguel to be something else had a redemptive mission to it. And why? Was she in any way a better person than they were?

She was just an old lady who smelled like an old lady despite covering the stench with perfume and nice dresses. A selfish one, scared and lonely, exhausting herself with all that phony passion, a smiling mummy with no faith in anything or anyone, someone who delivered cheap shots, emotional fluff, clichés, and quips. But the truth was she didn’t care about them, not at all. She just used them so she could keep hiding, wasting time philosophizing, fooling herself into believing that old age was really wisdom, that all was said and done.

What a stupid way to die, waiting for enlightenment.

Someone knocked at the door. Helena opened it and there was Miguel, looking like he’d walked straight out of a Pasolini film, gaunt, drawn, hollow-eyed, his soul flagging. His expression reflected a new kind of fear.

“Can I come in?”

Helena quietly let him in and then sat on the edge of the bed, folded her hands between her legs, and waited. Miguel’s hands worked as if he was kneading the air, trying to give solid form to an as-yet-amorphous idea.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened? You look like you’ve seen the bottom of the abyss.”

Miguel had to force himself to enter the terrain of emotion, let himself go, surrender himself, and disclose everything: his quiet marriage, Natalia’s childhood, the existence of Gustavo, the hell his daughter was going through, his incompetence as a father, the total lack of logic, order, or sense in Natalia putting up with it, how guilty he felt, the dark conviction that he’d failed as a father but couldn’t figure out how or when. How desperate he was.

It took a titanic effort, one entirely out of his comfort zone: sincerity, the heartbreak of the evidence, accepting helplessness, and chaos. And he broke down and cried, and was afraid of his own tears, of the door he’d just opened.

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