A Crack in the Wall Read Online Free PDF Page A

into his head when she says these words, but he doesn’t dare. So he casts about for something else, something less honest but more appropriate.
    â€œThere’s really no reason you shouldn’t go to sleep as normal.”
    He murmurs two or three more platitudes along these lines and Marta feels better – at least she says she does, thanking him before she hangs up. Pablo puts away thelast things, turns off the light and goes to bed. At least that is his intention. When he goes into the bedroom the television is on and Laura seems to be asleep. He fumbles between the sheets for the remote control and switches off the set.
    â€œDon’t turn it off, I was watching,” she says, pointedly pulling herself up against the headboard.
    As Pablo takes off his clothes and gets into bed, Laura asks:
    â€œHave you spoken to Francisca?”
    â€œNot yet,” he admits. “I’d rather wait until she’s in a better mood.”
    â€œIn other words, never,” she says and then, without trying to make it sound like an order but with sufficient force that Pablo takes it as one:
    â€œGo and meet her out of school tomorrow and speak to her then.”
    â€œI will, don’t worry about it,” he says, and he realizes that this is the second time that evening he has told a woman not to worry.
    For a few minutes they lie side by side without speaking. After a time Pablo moves onto his side and strokes her thigh. Laura’s first reaction is to tense up, as though fearful. Then she relaxes, in so far as she is ever able to do that. On screen a woman police officer is examining a corpse still warm from a murder. Pablo watches the picture without reading the subtitles. The woman reminds him of Marta, although she doesn’t look like her – it’s something to do with the way she smiles, the movement of her hair falling over her shoulders. Languorously Pablo runs his hand down the length of his wife’s thigh and, although she doesn’t move or speak, he takes the fact that she hasn’t actively moved her leg away to mean that she’s prepared to have sex that night. So he moves in closer, extending hiscaress beneath the elastic of her pants towards her pubic hair. Laura makes a small movement, like a reflex, closing her legs then yielding again. Pablo bides his time and only after stroking her for a while does he try to kiss her; she turns away but only slightly so that it doesn’t seem like an outright rejection, and his kiss ends up grazing her cheek, close to the corner of her mouth. From there, Pablo drops down to her shoulder and there, on his wife’s shoulder, he finds Marta’s mouth, the mouth of the woman who only a few minutes ago rang him and said:
    â€œI can’t get to sleep, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
    That’s why he goes to her house and lies down next to her, stroking her hair until she falls asleep, stroking her face with the back of his hand and just when he thinks that she’s asleep, Marta takes his face and guides it towards her mouth – which is right here on Laura’s shoulder – and Pablo opens her lips with his. Marta lets him, she doesn’t tense up or turn away or close her legs; Pablo’s tongue comes up against Marta’s teeth, he runs his tongue over them, one by one, because Laura isn’t here any more, not her and not her shoulder, just Marta’s mouth. Laura has died in some accident, or from an illness – he doesn’t know exactly. All he knows is that now he can be with the other woman, the one he desires, and he feels how she makes him hard again as he waits to penetrate her, to be inside her and it’s Marta guiding him, wanting him, asking him to sink into her, to fuck her, that’s how Marta Horvat asks for it and he likes to hear it, to answer the call and penetrate her as often as she asks for it, just as he penetrates Laura now – not Marta but