Free The Last Resort by Carmen Posadas Page B

haven’t bumped into a single person from Madrid, and that fact alone divests me of any guilt over paying 700 euros per night for my tiny room at the southern end of the hotel, called the
chambre pistache,
according to the little plate that came along with my key. Here there are no room numbers, of course.
    Right now I am sitting by the winter pool, and my sole companions are two or three senior citizens who are strolling past me now, bundled up in giant terry-cloth robes, silent, pleasant, discreet . . . foreign. What a splendid idea it was to come here. Before this trip I had never traveled alone, but a hotel catering especially to people wanting to eat well and exercise is the perfect place: Lots of people come to L’Hirondelle wanting to diet. Nobody thinks it at all odd when they come alone. And anyway, if anyone did happen to find it strange, I don’t believe it would bother me in the slightest, because that is what this trip is all about: From now on, I plan to do what I want without thinking twice about it. Someone else, I don’t remember who, once said something to that effect—that solitude is only an unpleasant synonym for the word “freedom” and that one must learn to enjoy it. Very well; that is exactly what I intend to do.
    Not long ago I was widowed, in the most unexpected fashion. W-i-d-o-w-e-d. As I write it for the first time, it seems so strange. Painful, too, I should add, but I have recently discovered that grief is a slow sentiment compared with other, more instantaneous feelings one goes through, such as shock and bewilderment. The emptiness takes a while to set in, but I suppose that is a good thing, for it gives a person time to sort things out.
    This is the first time I have spoken—or, rather, written—about what happened, and I can’t decide if this is a good or bad idea. I’d like to think it is good, because if there is anything I have learned in recent times, it is that life’s experiences become real only when you put them down on paper.
    Not long ago I was widowed in such a ridiculous fashion that people have jumped to the wildest conclusions about my situation. There it is. I’ve said it and everything is perfectly fine. I have written it down and made it real. Now, I suppose, I might consider adding a few pertinent details. I might describe the people present when everything happened, and explain that my husband died a rather undignified death: He choked on an almond. My God, how humorous our misfortunes sound when we write them down so succinctly. But that is exactly what happened to him; I swear it is just as I said. Absurd, isn’t it? Tragic too. And nevertheless, absurdity and tragedy are apparently not enough for some people—this has become extremely obvious to me, given all the wild speculations my situation seems to have inspired. As I know all too well, people have been saying the most preposterous things about what happened that evening: Some people claim that Jaime was in bed with another woman when it happened, while others insist that he had financial troubles and that his blood pressure and stress were really what killed him, and there are others who say that he died from some mysterious allergy—to what, I can’t even imagine. There are so many unbelievable stories, so many, that I wouldn’t be surprised if one day someone came out and said that I, tired of all his philandering, was the one who pushed him to his death, although I hope people wouldn’t actually go that far. No, no . . . that would really be too far-fetched. My God, the ridiculous things that a person thinks of . . .
    So then why am I writing all this, if my goal was to talk of the present and only the present, not a word about the past? Ideas . . . memories . . . It feels a little silly to let them all out, because they are all still such a giant jumble in my mind, and after all, the reason I came here was specifically not to spend my time thinking about those things. So there it is. Enough