Free Talking to Ourselves: A Novel by Andrés Neuman

Those Stallone horrors. Juanjo’s taste in movies is rather peculiar. Stallone’s only noteworthy performance was in a porn movie, I seem to recall. Lito and his youngest uncle shut themselves in his room and listen to music online. My son is twenty years his junior, yet they have the same mental age. He sees much less of his other uncle, who has hundreds of children and dresses them all identically.
    Of course Mario is happy about their visit, too. But happiness in him has become muddied. You need to dig down to see it. All of a sudden it appears, from beneath his hostile looks.
    Juanjo is going to stay for a few days. And nights.
    I make beds, make infusions, make food, make assumptions. Whenever I am on my own, I turn my phone off.

    Mario’s brothers are coming in a few hours. And so is all the rest. What’s coming is That. Everything is descending on me. From time to time I leave the bedroom to take a cold shower.
    I’ve just turned my phone on.

    I couldn’t. Resist.
    Full stop. Pointless to justify myself.
    He was understanding. He let me hit him. Then we talked about movies.
    He penetrated me only at the very end, all at once. It was like being healed.
    I got hold of a colleague who asked no questions. She agreed to ring me at home at a prearranged time and, following my instructions , asked to speak to me. Pretending I was busy with something else, I let my brothers-in-law pick up the phone. The moment they passed me the receiver, my colleague hung up as agreed. I carried on talking to myself and concocted a meeting at her place to prepare the school exams. I was surprised by her willingness. I thought she was more prudish. She has three children .
    That’s what we talked about, movies. Ezequiel doesn’t like classic movies at all. He makes fun of my taste, thinks they are pedantic. He says I consider any old nonsense in black and white a gem or the predecessor of something. He says today’s movies can’t hide behind these excuses. They are either good or bad. Fullstop. I have started using that stupid expression of his,
full stop
. That’s his approach to life. And to movies. If the characters suffer , he’s interested. If they have fun, he’s bored.
    Ezequiel told me he had just seen a film starring Kate Winslet . He’s crazy about Kate Winslet. He says she’s as beautiful as a plain woman can be, or as thin as a fat woman can be. Winslet’s lover is a premature ejaculator (in other words, he’s a man) and after a fuck, she reproaches him: It’s not about you! Ezequiel explained that at the beginning he thought this was a good expression . But that later he had realized it was a lie. A piece of pseudofeminist demagoguery, he said. I was immediately on my guard, tried to gainsay him, but he continued undaunted. He said the premature ejaculator’s problem is the exact opposite. The poor guy is incapable of feeling any pleasure. He has no idea how to get any. He has to begin by enhancing his own pleasure. Making it more complex. Only in this way can men pleasure women as well. “We have to be good in bed out of pure selfishness. A useful selfishness.” That is what he told me. “And then the others thank you. The same as in medicine.”

    He rarely gets out of bed, he feels sick, and when he does get out of bed he feels worse. It’s as if he is walking along the top of a wall. His voice quavers. It doesn’t matter how much he eats, he continues losing weight. His muscles, his bones, his veins ache. We can’t keep up the deception that this is the flu. He still goes on pretending. Every time Lito goes near him he grins like a dummy, takes out the thermometer, cracks jokes that make me want to weep. I sometimes think that deceiving his son brings him a measure of relief. Within these fictions, he is still not critically ill.
    I change sheets, cook, keep quiet. I come and go like a sleepwalker . I think things I don’t want to think.

    I have just left Lito at my parents’ house. He is going to