Free Delirium by Laura Restrepo Page B

Sergio Stepansky, like an alter ego of the poet León de Greiff, which is the first thing that pops into my head, I’m not sure why I don’t want to reveal my name to this woman I’ve decided to trust, Follow me, Mr. Stepansky, it’s less a request than an order, so I walk behind her to the fourth floor. I was returning to the scene of events to relive what had happened, to obtain information, to remember, to purge, to find solace, to torture myself, to have something to hold on to, for exactly what I couldn’t say. My discomfort grew at each step and my breathing became agitated, so much so that the Fearless Girl asked me whether I was all right, It’s nothing, I answered, I smoke too much and I get out of breath on the stairs, but since we had come up in the elevator, she gave me one of those looks that made it clear that she could see I was a little odd, and yet she said politely, Yes, smoking is no joke.
    She was walking in front of me and even though some kind of death was lodged in my chest, I couldn’t stop looking at her legs; she really was pretty, this girl enumerating the hotel’s advantages for me, the merits that had earned it each of the five stars adorning its logo, If she only knew that I’m dying, I thought as she sang the praises of the Italian restaurant, the recently remodeled rooms, the gym with professional trainers on staff, the top floor bar open twenty-four hours a day, and there I was with my suffering on rewind, it was along this same seemingly interminable corridor, the same carpet muffling my steps, that the door that opened then opens again now; the tall, dark man who received me that day in room 413 looked more tired than upset, I still have a clear idea of his height and the color of his skin but I can’t manage to fill in the rest of him, he becomes blurred in my memory or maybe I never managed to look him in the face, and I didn’t hear his voice either because when I asked for Agustina all he did was let me in without a word, which means that I couldn’t say whether the male voice I’d heard recorded on the answering machine when I returned from Ibagué was his, the voice that advised me to pick up Agustina at this hotel. The man opened the door for me and then must have left immediately because he wasn’t there a second later, when I turned desperately to ask what had happened to my wife.
    The minute I cross the threshold, I seem to see Agustina again in the corner on the floor, gazing intently out the window at the acacias; the Fearless Girl’s handset rings and she answers, speaks to someone for a minute, and then says to me, Excuse me for a minute, Mr. Stepansky, but they need me downstairs, don’t worry, I’ll be back right away, soothing me because she suspects that something is wrong but my mind is on other things and I can’t quite fathom what she’s saying, Look around the room yourself if you want, adds the Fearless Girl, here’s the closet and here inside is the safe, here’s the bathroom, the television turns on like this, I’ll be right back, excuse me for a second, Mr. Stepansky.
    That day, there in her corner, my wife looked away from the acacias, then turned her head, everything happening so slowly that I had the impression that each of her movements was framed by a single, specific instant; upon seeing me she seemed to come back to life and her face softened as if suddenly bathed in relief, and she got up and came toward me like someone returning to her own kind after a long absence, You’re here, she said and I held her as tight as I could, I felt her press against me and I knew that we were saved, I still didn’t know what from, but we were saved, It’s all over now, Agustina, as bad as it was, it’s over now, let’s go home, my love, I whispered in her ear, but all of a sudden I felt her whole body grow tense and push away from mine; if at first she had sought me, now she tore herself brusquely away, if before she had recognized me, an instant