A Heart So White by Javier Marías

silence, but would be given its due weight, would influence whatever happened afterwards, whatever that might be (we still had half a lifetime to spend together); and just as I'd abstained from putting into words what I'm putting into words now (my presentiments since the wedding), I realized that Luisa was closing her eyes to ensure that I wouldn't make her share in my impressions regarding Guillermo and Miriam and his ailing Spanish wife, nor would she make me share in hers. It wasn't out of dishonesty or lack of comradeship nor out of a desire for concealment. It was simply a matter of accepting the belief or superstition that what one doesn't say doesn't exist. And it's true that the only things never translated are those never spoken or expressed.
    While I was immersed in these reflections (only briefly) and having spent some seconds (very long seconds, possibly minutes) looking at Luisa's head in the mirror and seeing that she was now keeping her eyes firmly shut, when before they had been open and thoughtful, I temporarily lost concentration, lost all sense of time (I was too busy looking to listen), or perhaps Guillermo and Miriam were still silent and were taking advantage of that pause to effect a wordless reconciliation, or else they'd dropped their voices so much that they were no longer speaking in those sharp murmurs, but in whispers that were completely inaudible from my side of the wall. I began listening again and, for a while, I heard nothing, there was nothing to hear, I even wondered if, during those few moments of distraction, they had, in fact, left the room without my noticing, had decided, perhaps, to call a truce and go downstairs to eat something, maybe they'd originally met in order to do just that and had had no intention of meeting upstairs at all. I couldn't help thinking that their wordless reconciliation, if that's what it was, would necessarily have been a sexual one, because sometimes where there's mutual dishonesty one can only find reconciliation through sex, and that perhaps they would be standing up, fully clothed, in the middle of that room identical to mine, where they would have been standing before Miriam had said the final words I'd heard her say: "Guillermo, you one real bastard", which she would have said barefoot. Those strong legs of hers, I thought, could survive any amount of standing, any attack, without weakening or retreating or looking for support, just as they'd waited in the street, stabbing the pavement like knives, she would no longer be worried about recalcitrant creases in her skirt, always assuming she still had it on of course, perhaps the skirt would be all increases by now and her bag at last put aside, or perhaps her skirt would be draped over a chair. I don't know, there wasn't a sound, not even the sound of breathing, and that's why, very carefully, but in fact not that carefully since I knew Luisa was awake and, besides, would certainly continue pretending to be asleep, I got up from the foot of the bed and went out on to the balcony, again. By then it was night-time according to the clocks as well and the people of Havana would be having supper, the streets I could see from the hotel were almost empty, it was just as well that Miriam wasn't still out there waiting, abandoned by everyone. The moon was mellow and there wasn't a breath of wind. We were on an island, in a distant corner of the world whence, in a quarter part, I originated; both Madrid, the place in which our relationship had taken shape and where we would live together, and our marriage, seemed far, far away, and it was as if being far from the place that had brought us together had the effect, while on honeymoon, of slightly forcing us apart, perhaps that sense of distance came from our refusal to share what was a secret to neither of us, but which was, nonetheless, becoming a secret by virtue of our not sharing it. The moon was still mellow. Perhaps, I thought, leaning on the balcony rail, you