Free Purgatory by Tomás Eloy Martínez Page B

placid, so quiet, and her embarrassment immediately disappears. She will ask him what he wants to do, hope that he will ask her to come to bed with him tonight. She will give herself to him, follow him wherever he wants to go just as he has followed her to this corner of New Jersey without her even asking. He seems familiar with his surroundings, he doesn’t even seem surprised when she points out the shadows of Johnson Park where she jogs on Saturdays and Sundays. Two blocks from her place, Simón finally speaks: ‘ All yet seems well; and if it end so meet / The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet .’ ‘Shakespeare, isn’t it? Your English is very good. How did you learn?’ ‘Television,’ he answers. ‘Six hours a day.’ And she says, ‘I worked on mine listening to audio books. Solitude leaves you time for everything.’
    Emilia’s apartment is dark: a small balcony overlooking the street, a living room, bathroom, kitchen, bedroom. The dining table is strewn with maps. In the kitchen there are dirty dishes and smells that have been lingering, festering since morning. She has let things go, she didn’t call the landlord to get him to fix the damp patches where the wallpaper is peeling. She watches her husband climbing the stairs behind her, reaches out her hand. ‘Is it you, Simón? Is it really you?’ She grips his hand, slender, weightless, soft as she remembers it. As she climbs the last stair, she is overcome by desire, the torrential desire that has been building in her belly ever since she first began to miss him; she wants to feel his body, to hold him, she cannot bear this passion inside her any longer. As though reading her thoughts, Simón’s voice comes to her aid: ‘Not for a single day did I stop loving you,’ he says. ‘Me neither,’ Emilia replies, ‘not for a single day.’ And with her whole being she says the words again so even the threadbare walls can hear. ‘Not for a single day, amor .’

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    In dream I seemed to see a lady, singing
     
     
     
    ‘Purgatorio’, XXVIII, 40
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Like Emilia, I’ve lived in Highland Park since 1991, on the deserted slope of the hill overlooking the Raritan River. In the mid eighteenth century, the Raritan was a bustling thoroughfare. These days, it’s a trickle of water, a nesting place for thousands of Canadian geese whose honking disrupts the peace of the little town. Although, in September 1999, the geese vanished for no apparent reason. The sky grew dark, all nature fell silent. Nobody was prepared for what happened next. That night, Hurricane Floyd swelled the waters of the Raritan, which rose so much in a few hours that the river burst its banks, flooding the whole of Johnson Park a hundred yards from where I live. The nests of the geese – heavy, rugged straw things – were swept away by the current. The basements of all the houses overlooking the park were flooded. Whole libraries and photographic studios were wiped out and the maps marking out the eruv so crucial to the Orthodox people in town were destroyed. The following morning, everyone turned out to see the damage. The sun was so glorious that morning that even those who had lost things in the storm treated it like a pleasant autumn stroll. After all, it was impossible to estimate the extent of the damage, most of which was irreparable. A week later, life in Highland Park was the same as it had ever been. The waters of the Raritan had retreated and once more skirted the periphery of the town. The geography department at the university drew up a new map for the mayor’s office that included two small islands which had appeared in the oxbow when the water subsided. Space calmly resisted the onslaught of time. Little had changed. The boundaries of Highland Park still comprised the sixty blocks it had before the storm, including the park, eighteen places of worship and some fifteen thousand souls.
    My best friend back then was