EPISODE XI
“Now –Valentina lamented-, I will have to pay for my miscalculations”.
Apostasy: The abandonment of the faith in God or Jesus Christ.
Nugaró, Colombia, January 19th 2018
Gloria tried to make up her mind in the proper way. The feature of feminine curiosity thrived well above any other and pushed hard to express itself outwardly, irrespective of philosophic arguments. In front of her was the mysterious present, stuff that became an affair of state. Where and How could Gloria find the spiritual strength to wait till seven o clock in the evening, arranged time for the delivery? No way to prolong the suspense much longer. She could not stand it. As each tenant of the Hotel had his own keys, she mustered up the courage to go deliver the present earlier. It was three o´clock in the afternoon when Gloria headed for René´s house with the Thai shoulder bag on her back. She relied on her friendship with Alba –together with her widespread compassion- to have her curiosity satisfied.
The house looked like a tomb. Alba had just gotten back from the school and was stood behind her husband, dead frozen as the chief bodyguard of the president of Russia must everyday be. What the heck was going on? They gave the impression of a broken marriage, the latent image of discomfort. Gloria clung to these kinds of moments to thank God for not having had children so far, especially a daughter.
- Thank goodness you have come in advance, Gloria –Alba welcomed her-. I am grateful to you. Rather than concerned we are scared: me and René. I did not want to worry you on the phone, but: what if there´s a bomb inside the shoulder bag? To make things worse René is jealous because a foreigner who doesn´t know me, who hasn´t seen me once, has brought me a present. He says: How this could be possible? Tell me.
- Look, I am not here playing the role of a referee but of a neutral third party –Gloria said in a bid to cool the atmosphere down-. I can open the present if you want me to, then we analyse it together. By the way, Don´t you think it´s a beautiful shoulder bag indeed? It seems to be made in Asia.
- That´s true –René admitted, in the hope to sooth his own tensions.
Nobody moved for a short while.
Once ushered in, two meters away from the couch Gloria was stopped in her track by Alba´s restlessness. She felt inspected by her host gaze. In the meantime, René looked out to the street. Alba went to the kitchen to get some coffee. None of them dared to make a step forward to open the present. The threesome had taken the shape of a triumvirate summoned up to urgently declare the state of siege for an indefinite period. At the question of Gloria, they answered that Valentina was out of the house. “It´s better for Valentina not to know what is the present about before we check it” –they self-advised, while steaming cups of coffee were being brought in
- This, I mean the apparition of Balou not the coffee, doesn´t smell right.
Pretty aware there was an away game in progress at Valentina´s home, Gloria would not intend whatsoever –with her globe-trotters expert opinions in dealing with men from all over the world- to make the situation better.
The scream of an ambulance lifted all the three out their slumber. Adalberto Rodríguez Baena was being admitted to the Public Hospital of Nugaró. He was severely injured in a confrontation with the Police and the Special Narcotics Force: his life was hanging in the balance. Oblivious to the wounded drug smuggler suspect, Gloria forgot everything linked to medical emergencies and finally opened up the present.
The gift consisted of a gallery book, similar to those family book records where newly married couples immortalize their presumably endless love by creating a space for the pictures of their sons yet to come. On each page Balou had pasted small photographs of Valentina and him at the same age, making her pics lower corners touch the upper corners of his. Gloria reckoned that the Argentinian must have rummaged through his photographic life, doing archaeology along the way. Each picture deserved a comment, be it via a poem, a haiku or Siamese-related twin feelings phrases. Words which entailed mystical connotations managed to sneak into this thrilling mixture between literature and visual art exhibition. In a context of true audacity, exaggeration spilled all over the work. There was a deployment of unlikeliness going on, to the astonishment of the triumvirate reunited. In accordance to the key role the occasion had assigned her, Gloria turned down the pages eagerly by salivating her fingers in haste, but Alba would often ask her to slow down the wafting so to have time to read as well as to catch the sense of this peculiar photographic collection. Gloria was amazed. Her curiosity was largely being satisfied. Each page a scene of a mystic union between two beings they had just met once. What a wonderful moment! Unlike the case of René and Alba, as pages passed Gloria moulded a novel in her head. All the three viewers lost track of time, even if they knew that they had gone over forty pages so far. René confirmed his initial suspicions: Balou was a delirious man. After seeing the bunch of pictures, he decided to invite Balou to dinner, just to have him face to face.
- I think, sweety –Alba slurred through her lips barely audible- that…
- You think the same as me –René completed the phrase-. We are not going to show this present to Valentina.
- Are you serious? It´s a present for her! -Alba protested. Or better said, I don´t think this be a present at all. It´s something else.
- Something else? –René retorted. Alba, Balou The Insane created this Picture Album out of the blue. There is nothing real between him and my daughter. It´s the work of evil, it´s a work of fantasy, it´s a foolish behaviour of which he should have to give me due explanations forthwith.
- Do you think it is a case already? –Alba enquired-.
René shrugged and turned his head towards Gloria. She understood. In spite of getting himself bogged down in affairs with so many women in the past, done crazy things for them when he fell in love, they were far lesser intensive than the embroidered loving show that came out of Balou´s literary photographic imagination. He was about to respond: “Yes, Alba, this is a case, but not one you are in condition to understand.
Half an hour after Gloria pulled out of the house, Valentina was back home. She looked quite better, kind of refreshed. For a second Alba feared there had been a random encounter of Valentina and Balou in the street. However, Valentina said carelessly:
- Oh mom, so sorry to leave without informing. I needed to be alone. Nothing happened outside except for coming across dad´s friend, the politician. You know what, mom? I have mixed emotions, I am traversed by crossed feelings: on one side I want to meet Balou; on the other, I mistrust him. A piece of me wants to open the present, the gossipy all women carry inside. You know what also? Since the very beginning Balou wrote me using a suspenseful style of speech. One morning I promised him that someday I would read his writings; now I am not so sure to be able to keep the promise. I have an inkling that most of his writing deals with me, they were written because of me. And that makes me afraid. I feel guilty about triggering his imagination to the extreme. It has become such a mess inside that even the thought of Balou gets me nervous. I fail to clean him out of my mind. When modelling there he is; when I go out with my friends there he is too. It really has me worried to have become that obsessed. Whilst he makes great efforts to get closer, I try to slip away. It´s the cat-and-mouse game. In any case, I´m trying to get away from him smoothly so not to make him suffer. And now what does he do? he comes in with this present…I hope Gloria get robbed on the journey. For heaven´s sake, sorry mother, I have never spoken like that. The truth is, that I feel that God has abandoned me.
Valentina broke into tears. Tears rolled down through the topography of her unwrinkled neck, like helicoidal crystals willing to air their sorrows in public. She cried out, defeated by her failure in puzzling Balou out, the man of foreign attitudes. Valentina cried because of the initial joy she experienced when she met Balou at the airport, how a different kind of man he appeared to be then. How naïve she had been in believing there was only friendship between them, a friendship without major commitments. Just a hello, good bye, see you later, we shall see, you can count on me, traditional greetings extended for courtesy purposes, after which everyone goes home unengaged -as God say it should be. “Now –Valentina lamented- I will have to pay for my miscalculation”.
- Oh no, my pet, don´t say that –Alba made an attempt to give her comfort but broke into tears too-.
