86
PARTISAN REVIEW
cup, intent on dismantling the configuration of crushed beans, but the
brown granules were suctioned securely in place.
"If
he is unable to fill in those years," Jorge was still formulating his
appeal, "then it will affect more than his mind. It could have an impact
on his motor coordination as well. There is a possible connection
between these abilities. And, in my opinion, he can't progress with one
form of recovery without the other. It's like trying to ride a bicycle with–
out having the pedals connected to the wheels. The memories are the
bicycle chains."
"Have you read the journal?" Carla asked.
"Only parts. And I've skimmed where I thought it was too personal.
Too private."
Every now and then, usually after making love or in the evenings
while they sat outside, well after midnight, Alvaro would read to her
from this journal. Bits of poems he had written about her or to her,
often blatantly loving, without nuance or structure. The paint without
the painter, she liked to tell herself.
Jorge shifted in his chair. A faint look of embarrassment passed over
his eyes. It wasn't the shame of intruding upon the intimacy of their
lives. It was something else. Carla looked closely at Jorge's boyish blush.
He looked not like a man who had committed a sin, but like one who
was about to. That was it. The journal's problem for Jorge was not what
it said about Carla.
It
was what it said about others. About Alvaro's
children. About Luce. Surely about Luce. Carla had always banished
those thoughts before, when Alvaro read to her and skipped over pages.
Now, the fact lay there, as much a part of the scene as the hands of
Jorge. To open the journal was to peer into the confusions and doubts,
guilts and the betrayals, however slight, that must have filled his
moments alone.
"I read very little. I promise." The doctor sensed the nature of her
intuition. "It is important to his recovery," he added hastily.
"Essential, right?" Carla wondered if he even knew he was being
mocked, however gently. Stephano would have known.
"Right," he answered, once again ashamed, his giant briefcase unable
to compensate for the suddenly evident immaturity of his request.
Jorge paused a moment, staring out across the river, which now had
one or two smaller boats on it, barely moving, as if luxuriating in the
warm, clear breeze. Carla envied the swaying hulls, lazy and meander–
ing, bodies at ease. "Mrs. Santos," Jorge began, still looking out over
the ships in port, "may I say something? May I just say, for the record,
one tiny thing? Please remember. He chose you. Circumstances may
