DANIEL MOYANO
423
If
it hadn't been for that woman's attitude, I'd never have
dredged all those things out of myself. Never would I have said them
to anyone, not even my son, and if he himself had demanded I tell
them, I'd have refused, saying those things were absolutely mine and
therefore would remain inside me. The truth is that I remembered
some and dwelled on the details, on lapses of time, and beyond them
I spied hundreds of similar things. And to alleviate that shame which
remembering them caused me, the aggression they signified, I re–
called instead others in which no doubt I was primarily to blame, so
as to tell the woman afterward that you really had reasons to be
ashamed of me. Then I remembered the incident in the men's room,
painful because it happened in silence on both sides. Seeing it
clearly, the insult at the nightclub was preferable to the terrible
silence of that night.
We had seen each other for a few minutes, several days before.
You were getting ready for a trip and gave me the money to return
to La Rioja. I didn't go back but went to a friend's house. I was anx–
ious to see you, that's all, and I don't know how I learned you were
attending a banquet in a downtown hotel. I think I saw the news in
the paper. I knew you had the obsession that I followed you, spied
on you , so I was very careful that night. I simply wanted to see what
that meal was like, how you shone among so many distinguished
people . I entered through the employees' entrance and hid in the
men's room. From there I could see you perfectly. The table was im–
mense and there were many officers with their wives. Margarita was
one of the most beautiful. They were laughing and eating. The
men's room was perfect to see from . Only two officers came in dur–
ing more than half an hour , to urinate and comb their hair. One
said, "What's wrong, old boy?" I said I was perfectly all right. Then I
amused myself listening to an argument between two waiters and I
didn't notice that you had gotten up and were coming to the men's
room . You walked with quick, determined steps, with a serious ex–
pression very different from the almost permanent smile you wore at
the table. I hit on the idea of taking my glasses off and dropping
them on the floor and kneeling to look for them. When you opened
the door, it struck my shoe. I looked up as if to explain I'd gone in
there by chance and was looking for my glasses, but I couldn't say a
word. You looked at me angrily and I remembered many things. For
a moment I was afraid, but you raised one foot, then another and
stepped over me, and I kept looking for my glasses. We were both
pretending we didn't see one another. When I tried to leave, I had
bad luck - the service entrance was closed at that hour , so I had to
