Gasoline by Quim Monzó Page A

table, which would have made everyone laugh and got the situation flowing to a point that would have allowed for some serious courting. How many times hadn’t he seen her! So many. Often, when he had gone to pick Hannah up and once when he had seen the two of them walking down the street together. Any other time, he would have found the perverse detail of going out with the sister of an old girlfriend exciting.
    “She had to kill her sister to come to dinner with us today,” says Hilari. “She didn’t want her to come. When she told Hannah you were going to be here, too, it awakened old passions.”
    Heribert usually finds Hilari’s repartee pretty clever, but today it seems old and tired. How he had always laughed at the guy’s constant jokes, his unending stream of lies and stories; now they make him sick. Hilari asks him if something is wrong. He shakes his head. The girl looks at him. Heribert feels incredibly old, and the feeling grows stronger and stronger until, at the end of the meal, he gets up from the table very slowly, hunched over, as if carrying the weight of a century on his shoulders. Hilari thinks he’s joking and congratulates him on recovering his good mood. He takes Heribert’s arm, takes him aside, and inquires— sincerely —as to how he’s feeling, and if there’s anything wrong. That’s what friends are for, he says. He also says that he’s been acting distracted and touchy for days, as if he were having problems. He goes on for quite a while about the problem thing, repeats his offer of help, and reminds him that it is precisely in these situations where you discover who your friends are because, often, the very people you thought were irreproachable friends, turn out, when push comes to shove, to be selfish bums incapable of helping someone who would have done anything for them. Heribert stoically puts up with this rant, but when Hilari puts his hand on his shoulder and pats him a few times on the back, he’s had enough: he looks him straight in the eye and in all seriousness stamps on his foot with all the strength he can muster.
    •
    Herundina smiles.
    “So . . . ? ”
    “So what?”
    “So what? Oh, nothing. I thought you were going to say something.”
    “Not me.”
    “Where would you like to go?”
    “Beats me.”
    “Want to go for a drink?”
    “A drink?”
    “No, not if you don’t want one.”
    “No, no. A drink would be just fine.”
    “No, not unless you want one. It’s up to you.”
    “I can’t think of anyplace to go.”
    “I certainly can’t. It was you who didn’t want to go out dancing with the others.”
    “Did you want to go?”
    “No. I don’t care one way or the other. But I thought you had another place in mind.”
    “Like where?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Well, neither do I.”
    “Want to go for a walk?”
    As soon as he says it, he sees that it’s a ridiculous proposition. He doesn’t know how to behave. Suddenly he feels entirely unschooled in the art of flirting. He feels as if he had amnesia, as if he were an adolescent again. Worse, because at least as an adolescent he had desire, which egged him on, even though his cheeks always got red and gave him away. What does one do with a woman? Chat her up? If only one could chat without saying anything . . . Or if one could only come up with a fake language, made up of exotic sounds, and say: “Babatoo infrechemina, sadafa nogra ptsu allirà?” And if only she, to all that, were capable of responding, “Troc atodrefa mimenyac! . . .”
    He doesn’t know how to behave. Should he start kissing her right off and, if she resists, force her right then and there? He seems to remember it doesn’t quite go like that. They’ve been in the taxi for quite a while. They haven’t decided where to go, and the driver is showing signs of impatience. Heribert says the first thing that comes into his head:
    “Drive straight ahead.”
    The taxi drives up the avenue. Heribert wonders what to do. Stick