A Heart So White Read Online Free PDF Page B

when she was right up close that she realized I wasn't the man she'd arranged to meet. He's in there." I indicated the wall that separated us from Miriam and the man. There was a table against the wall and above it a mirror, in which, when we moved or sat up, we could see ourselves from the bed.
    "But why was she shouting at you? She seemed to shout a lot. Or did I dream it? I'm so hot."
    I left the towel at the foot of the bed and stroked her cheek and her round chin several times. There was still something nebulous about her large, dark eyes. If she'd had a temperature before, it had gone down now.
    "I've no idea, since it wasn't me she was shouting at but the other man she'd mistaken me for. God knows what they can have done to each other."
    While I was taking care of Luisa (though without paying much attention, because I was tending to her and doing various other things at the same time and going to and fro between the room and the bathroom), I'd heard the tapping of high heels reach the door along from ours and heard how it opened without her knocking and then, apart from a slight creaking (only briefly) and the gentle thud as it closed again (very slowly), there was nothing but an indistinguishable murmur, whispered words that I couldn't make out despite their being spoken in my own language and despite the fact that, according to the noise I'd heard shortly before, their balcony doors were ajar and I still hadn't closed ours. My concern at the inexcusable delay was joined by another, my concern at my feeling of impatience. I felt as if I were impatient not only to calm Luisa and smooth her sheets and, as far as I could, alleviate the effects of her transitory illness, but also to stop her asking me any more questions and simply go back to sleep, for there was no time to explain my curiosity to her nor was she in any state to interest herself in anything outside her own body, and while we exchanged a few words and I went to the bathroom to moisten the corner of the towel and gave her a drink and stroked her chin, the chin I was so fond of, the slight noises I myself was making and our own short, fragmented sentences prevented me from paying attention and attuning my ears to any individual word I might be able to make out amongst the murmurings next door which I was impatient to decipher.
    And I was impatient because I was aware that what I didn't hear now I never would hear; there would be no instant replay, as there can be when you listen to a tape or watch a video and can press the rewind button, rather, any whisper not apprehended or understood there and then would be lost forever. That's the unfortunate thing about what happens to us and remains unrecorded, or worse still, unknown or unseen or unheard, for later, there's no way it can be recovered. The day we didn't spend together we never will have spent together, what someone was going to say to us over the phone when they called and we didn't answer will never be said, at least not exactly the same thing said in exactly the same spirit; and everything will be slightly different or even completely different because of that lack of courage which dissuades us from talking to you. But even if we were together that day or at home when that person phoned or we dared to speak to them, overcoming our fear and forgetting the risks involved, even then, none of that will ever be repeated and consequently a time will come when having been together will be the same as not having been together, and having picked up the phone the same as not having done so, and having dared to speak to you the same as if we'd remained silent. Even the most indelible things are of fixed duration, just like the things that leave no trace or never even happen, and if we're far-sighted enough to note down or record or film those things, and accumulate loads of souvenirs and mementos and even try to replace what has happened by a simple note or record or statement, so that, right from the start, what