youâve been educated not to...
âHere, give it to me.
âNo...
âAll right ... thatâs enough ... Iâm through...
âAll right.
âAll right...
âBecause while he was standing there in the living room, wishing he didnât have to talk to whoever was on the telephone, I breezed right in on a blast of all that hot air, and instead of stopping politely in the living room, I kept heading down the hallway until I came to an open door through which I saw, in that dead grandmotherâs bedroom, which was pitch black except for a bit of light shining through the window from the night outside, something so awful that ... I can hardly talk about it even now...
âThere was this hangmanâs scaffold there...
âYes. A scaffold.
âJust what I said. I mean, at first all I saw was that the room was in this absolutely frenzied state. The bed was a mess, but really crazy, as if someone had gone berserk in it: the pillows were thrown everywhere, the sheets were ripped, there were books all over the floor, and the desk was littered with crumpled papers ... but the worst thing, Mother, was the blinds on the big window, which were shut so tight there wasnât a crack in them. The blinds box above them was open, so that you could see the bare concrete and the unpainted wood, and in it, Mother, the belt was dangling from its rodâit was like the one in this room but wider and stronger-looking, yellow with two thin, red stripes down its sidesâit was off the pulley and hanging free, with this big noose knotted at one end of it ... Youâre laughing at me...
âNo, that is
not
all. Beneath it was standing a little stool, just waiting to be kicked away ... everything was ready, I didnât have the slightest doubt ... it couldnât have been more obvious ... and if any more proof was needed, it was his own behavior, because the minute he saw me follow him inside and head past him for that room, he went absolutely wild. He threw down the phone in the middle of a sentence and ran to stop me, to get me out of there, or at least to shut the door and keep me from seeing. I could tell by how frantic he was, all panicky and confused and I guess embarrassed too, that he realized I had understood everything,
everything
... are you listening, Mother?
âNo. Yes. I was already inside that dark room. I was too stunned by that scaffold to move, and he grabbed me from behind and tried wrestling me out of there...
âNothing. He didnât say anything ... thatâs the whole point. If we had spoken to each other it might have been different. And by now I was good and scared too, not only because of this terrible rage he was in, but because I could feel he was naked underneath his bathrobe, although at the same time I knew that if I wanted to save him, I had to resist. And so, Mother, I wrestled with him and even tried grabbing the blinds belt and tearing it down, but he started dragging me out of there, pulling me toward the front door, and I knew that if I didnât dig in my heels by finding something to sit or lie down on, I would be outside in a minute, out of the apartment and out of the picture ... And so all at once I made believe, it was just a trick, I pretended to pass out in his arms, and he was so scared that he let go of me for a second, and I threw myself into this little armchair that was standing by the living room door. We still hadnât said a word to each other, because we were too dazed and surprised to, but when he saw me all scrunched up there like some kind of frog, he simply gave up and left me, he went back to the bedroom and shut the door behind him...
âThat was all.
âHow should I know? I guess he was waiting for me to go away.
âI just sat in that chair, Mother, and I didnât move.
âI sat there.
âI didnât look at the clock.
âSeveral hours.
âYes. Several hours.
âIt wasnât
âHere, give it to me.
âNo...
âAll right ... thatâs enough ... Iâm through...
âAll right.
âAll right...
âBecause while he was standing there in the living room, wishing he didnât have to talk to whoever was on the telephone, I breezed right in on a blast of all that hot air, and instead of stopping politely in the living room, I kept heading down the hallway until I came to an open door through which I saw, in that dead grandmotherâs bedroom, which was pitch black except for a bit of light shining through the window from the night outside, something so awful that ... I can hardly talk about it even now...
âThere was this hangmanâs scaffold there...
âYes. A scaffold.
âJust what I said. I mean, at first all I saw was that the room was in this absolutely frenzied state. The bed was a mess, but really crazy, as if someone had gone berserk in it: the pillows were thrown everywhere, the sheets were ripped, there were books all over the floor, and the desk was littered with crumpled papers ... but the worst thing, Mother, was the blinds on the big window, which were shut so tight there wasnât a crack in them. The blinds box above them was open, so that you could see the bare concrete and the unpainted wood, and in it, Mother, the belt was dangling from its rodâit was like the one in this room but wider and stronger-looking, yellow with two thin, red stripes down its sidesâit was off the pulley and hanging free, with this big noose knotted at one end of it ... Youâre laughing at me...
âNo, that is
not
all. Beneath it was standing a little stool, just waiting to be kicked away ... everything was ready, I didnât have the slightest doubt ... it couldnât have been more obvious ... and if any more proof was needed, it was his own behavior, because the minute he saw me follow him inside and head past him for that room, he went absolutely wild. He threw down the phone in the middle of a sentence and ran to stop me, to get me out of there, or at least to shut the door and keep me from seeing. I could tell by how frantic he was, all panicky and confused and I guess embarrassed too, that he realized I had understood everything,
everything
... are you listening, Mother?
âNo. Yes. I was already inside that dark room. I was too stunned by that scaffold to move, and he grabbed me from behind and tried wrestling me out of there...
âNothing. He didnât say anything ... thatâs the whole point. If we had spoken to each other it might have been different. And by now I was good and scared too, not only because of this terrible rage he was in, but because I could feel he was naked underneath his bathrobe, although at the same time I knew that if I wanted to save him, I had to resist. And so, Mother, I wrestled with him and even tried grabbing the blinds belt and tearing it down, but he started dragging me out of there, pulling me toward the front door, and I knew that if I didnât dig in my heels by finding something to sit or lie down on, I would be outside in a minute, out of the apartment and out of the picture ... And so all at once I made believe, it was just a trick, I pretended to pass out in his arms, and he was so scared that he let go of me for a second, and I threw myself into this little armchair that was standing by the living room door. We still hadnât said a word to each other, because we were too dazed and surprised to, but when he saw me all scrunched up there like some kind of frog, he simply gave up and left me, he went back to the bedroom and shut the door behind him...
âThat was all.
âHow should I know? I guess he was waiting for me to go away.
âI just sat in that chair, Mother, and I didnât move.
âI sat there.
âI didnât look at the clock.
âSeveral hours.
âYes. Several hours.
âIt wasnât
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