The Infatuations by Javier Marías

couple. I was about to add: ‘That’s all I wanted to say, I won’t delay you any further,’ then turn and leave, when Luisa Alday stood up, smiling – it was a broad smile that she made no attempt to repress, she was incapable of deceit or malice, she could even be ingenuous – and placed one hand affectionately on my shoulder and said:
    ‘Yes, of course, we know you by sight as well.’ She unhesitatingly addressed me as tú despite my more formal approach, well, we were the same age more or less, or she was possibly just a couple of years older; she spoke in the plural and in the present tense, as if she had not yet become used to being singular or perhaps considered herself to have already crossed over to the other side, to be as dead as herhusband and therefore an inhabitant of the same dimension or territory: as if she hadn’t yet separated from him and saw no reason to give up that ‘we’ to which she had been accustomed for nearly a decade and which she wasn’t going to abandon after a mere three months. However, she did then go on to use the imperfect tense, perhaps because the verb demanded it: ‘We used to call you the Prudent Young Woman. You see, we even gave you a name. Thank you so much for your kind words. Won’t you sit down?’ And she indicated one of the chairs that had been occupied by her children, still keeping her hand on my shoulder, and now I had a sense that I was a support for her or a handle to hold on to. I was sure that, had I moved even slightly closer, she would, quite naturally, have embraced me. She looked fragile, like a hesitant novice ghost, who is not yet fully convinced that she is one.
    I looked at my watch and saw that it was late. I wanted to ask her about that nickname, I felt surprised and slightly flattered. They had noticed me, had spoken about me and given me a name. I smiled unwittingly, we both smiled with a kind of tentative happiness, that of two people recognizing each other in the very saddest of circumstances.
    ‘The Prudent Young Woman,’ I repeated.
    ‘Yes, that’s how we see you.’ She returned again to the present tense, as if Deverne were at home and still alive or as if she could separate herself from him only in some respects. ‘You don’t mind, I hope. Please, sit down.’
    ‘Why should I mind? I had my own private name for you too.’ I was still using the formal usted , not because I didn’t want to address her as tú , but because, having included him in that plural ‘you’, I didn’t dare address her husband in such familiar terms, just as one cannot refer to a stranger who has died by his first name. At least oneshouldn’t, but nowadays no one worries about such niceties, everyone is overfamiliar. ‘I’m so sorry, I can’t stop now, I have to go to work.’ I glanced at my watch again, either mechanically or simply to corroborate that I was in a hurry, because I knew perfectly well what time it was.
    ‘Of course. If you like, we can meet later on. Come to our house. What time do you leave work? What do you do, by the way? And what was the name that you gave us?’ She still had her hand on my shoulder, she wasn’t demanding, but rather pleading. A superficial plea, born of the moment. If I declined, come the evening, she would probably have forgotten all about our encounter.
    I didn’t answer her penultimate question – there wasn’t time – still less her last one, because telling her that I had thought of them as the Perfect Couple could only have added to her pain and sorrow, after all, she was about to be left alone again, as soon as I left. But I said, yes, I would drop by on my way home from work, if that suited her, at around half past six or seven. I asked for her address and she told me, it was quite near by. I said goodbye and briefly placed my hand on hers, the hand resting on my shoulder, and I took the opportunity to squeeze that hand gently before removing it, again very gently, and she seemed grateful for that