Varamo Read Online Free PDF Page B

the far side, among the
plants, was a long iron bench, on which they sat down.
    When, a few moments later, he was breathing normally, and
the sound of the fish in the depths of the house could barely be heard over the
whispering leaves and chirping birds, Varamo leaned forward, staring at the tips
of his black shoes, sighed and gathered his strength to face the evidence that
was about to be presented. But how could he have a civilized conversation with
that barbarous, instinctive, inhuman being: Th e
Mother? How had other men managed in the past? A mother was a creature made up
of superimposed layers of life: before and after giving birth, but also the
befores and afters of all the other life-changing events, still present within
her. Anything he said would have to be multiplied by all those layers of
existential representation, and he could never be sure of pitching the argument
at the depth required to produce an effect. Meanwhile his mother had taken the
initiative and was already talking, hurriedly, incomprehensibly, but with the
confidence that came from knowing that her son had a single layer of reception,
the layer everyone could see: that of a thin man in a black suit and hat, cut
from the shadows of the universe and pasted onto the luxuriant, crepuscular
landscape of Panama. Cohabitation was full of traps for a single man.
    What was the problem? She had received a poison-pen
letter. Th at was the piece of paper she was
holding in her hand: it had been slipped under the door — just the sort of evil,
underhanded stratagem you might expect from people who would persecute a poor
widow: cowards and racists, envious schemers, virtual murderers. Varamo narrowed
his eyes until they were two slits with nothing behind them. His bowler hat was
giving off sinister gleams in the half-light. If he had been a bottle of mineral
water, and she had been holding a glass instead of a piece of crumpled paper,
she would have drained him in two insatiable gulps. Th e look of the paper had reminded Varamo of a recent event: a banal
occurrence, but it had left its mark. Some weeks earlier, his mother had gone to
buy him a mattress and declined to pay the extra fee for home delivery; she had
said she would come to fetch it later. When Varamo got back from the Ministry he
had no choice but to accompany her, although he was tired, and on the way he
complained about her “false economy.” She assured him that the mattress was
light, and that between the two of them they could carry it without difficulty,
which was true, although it was also true that she had gone and chosen a store
on the other side of Colón. When they arrived, the salesman asked her for the
receipt, and she gave him the piece of paper she had brought. Th e man examined it on both sides and abruptly
handed it back: it wasn’t the receipt. And when Varamo looked for himself, he
saw that it was just a scrap of paper covered with scribbles. To his infinite
mortification, his mother insisted that it was the receipt — they hadn’t given her anything else — and there ensued a long
dispute, during which the salesman showed them the receipt book, with printed
headings, and made it clear that he wouldn’t hand over the goods until they
presented the genuine document, to which he would then apply the “Delivered”
stamp. But, tired of arguing, he yielded in the end, and they carried the
mattress as best they could, with frequent stops because, on top of everything
else, it had begun to rain. When they got home, they looked all over for the
damn receipt, but couldn’t find it anywhere.
    Although Varamo wasn’t particularly curious about the
content of the letter, he picked it up and tried to read it, to humor his
mother. It was difficult because of the weak light (night was falling), but what
he could make out was enough to confirm that it was indeed a poison-pen letter.
It was made up of snippets of information, half digested and thrown together, as
such letters typically