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- Herausgeber: Pushkin Press
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
Inspired by Borges and Cortzar, and echoing Vila Matas and Zarraluki, Neuman regards both life and literature's big subjects - identity, relationships, guilt and innocence, the survival of extreme circumstances, creativity and language - with a quizzical, philosophical eye. Shining from the page with both irony and mortal seriousness, these often tragicomic 'stories of ideas' vacillate between the touching and the absurd, in the best tradition of Spanish storytelling. This is the first ever English collection of Neuman's short fiction, containing thirty-five short stories and four sets of 'Twelve Rules for a Storyteller'. Neuman was born in Buenos Aires in 1977, and grew up and lives in Spain. The son of Argentinian musicians, he has published numerous novels, short stories, essays and poetry collections. Pushkin Press also publishes his novels Talking to Ourselves and Traveller of the Century which was awarded the Alfaguara Prize and the National Critics Prize, and shortlisted for the Foreign Fiction Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
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PRAISE FOR
Traveller Of The Century
Shortlisted for the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
“A beautiful, accomplished novel: as ambitious as it is generous, as moving as it is smart”
Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Guardian
“Rarely comes a novel that blends poetry, history, philosophy, semantics, politics, a murder mystery—and love, that too—with such skill… Neuman takes his readers on a literary pilgrimage, back to the essence, and reminds us why we loved stories so much even as little children”
Elif Shafak
“A big, utterly captivating murder mystery and love story, full of history and politics and the hottest sex in contemporary fiction”
Daily Telegraph
PRAISE FOR
Talking to Ourselves
“Simple, profound, heartbreaking”
The New York Times
“This is writing of a quality rarely encountered, which actually feels as though it touches on reality, translating something experienced into words, without loss of detail or clarity… When you read Neuman’s beautiful novel, you realize a very high bar has been set”
Guardian
“Andrés Neuman’s gem of a novel… is a profound meditation on illness, death and bereavement and brilliantly illustrates literature’s ability to help readers confront and understand mortality… Neuman is a master craftsman”
Independent on Sunday
“The book does not attempt to find coherence beyond each narrator’s individual account, which is precisely what makes it so affecting”
Times Literary Supplement
ANDRÉS NEUMAN
THE THINGS WE DON’T DO
Translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor and Lorenza Garcia
PUSHKIN PRESS LONDON
CONTENTS
THE THINGS WE DON’T DO
HAPPINESS
MY NAME IS MARCOS. I always wanted to be Cristóbal. I don’t mean I wanted to be called Cristóbal. Cristóbal is my friend; I was going to say my best friend, but I have to confess he is the only one.
Gabriela is my wife. She loves me a lot and sleeps with Cristóbal.
He is intelligent, self-assured, an agile dancer. He also rides. Is proficient at Latin grammar. Cooks for women. Then eats them for lunch. I would say that Gabriela is his favourite dish.
Some uninformed person might think my wife is betraying me: nothing could be further from the truth. I have always wanted to be Cristóbal, but I do not simply stand there watching. I practise not being Marcos. I take dancing lessons and pore over my student textbooks. I am well aware my wife adores me. So much so that the poor thing sleeps with him, with the man I wish to be. Nestling against Cristóbal’s muscular chest, my Gabriela is anxiously awaiting me, arms open wide.
Such patience on her behalf thrills me. I only hope my efforts meet her expectations, and that one day soon our moment will come. That moment of unswerving love that she has been preparing so diligently, cheating on Cristóbal, getting accustomed to his body, his character and his tastes, so that she will be as comfortable and happy as can be when I am like him and we leave him all alone.
A LINE IN THE SAND
RUTH WAS making mountains with her foot. She dug her big toe into the warm sand, formed small mounds, tidied them, carefully smoothed them with the ball of her foot, contemplated them for a moment. Then she demolished them. And began all over again. Her insteps were reddish, they glowed like solar stones. Her nails were painted from the night before.
Jorge was digging out the umbrella, or trying to. Someone should buy a new one, he muttered as he grappled with it. Ruth pretended not to be listening, but she couldn’t help feeling annoyed. It was a trivial remark like any other, of course. Jorge clicked his tongue and jerked his hand away from the umbrella: he had pinched his finger in one of the struts. A trivial remark, Ruth reflected, but the point was he hadn’t said “we should buy”, but rather “someone should buy”. In one go, Jorge managed to fold the umbrella, and stood there staring at it, hands on hips, as if awaiting some final response from a vanquished creature. Arbitrary or not, there it was, he had said “someone” and not “we”, Ruth thought.
Jorge held the umbrella poised. The tip was streaked with tongues of rust and caked in wet sand. He glanced at Ruth’s miniature mountains. Then his eyes rested on her feet blistered from her sandals, moved up her legs to her belly, lingered on the folds gathered round her navel, his gaze continued up her torso, passed between her breasts as though crossing a bridge, leapt to her mass of salty hair, and finally slid down to Ruth’s eyes. Jorge realized that, reclining in her deckchair, shading her eyes with one hand, she had been observing him for some time as well. He felt slightly embarrassed without knowing quite why, and he smiled, wrinkling his nose. Ruth thought this gesture was exaggerated, because he was not facing the purple sun. Jorge raised the umbrella like an unwieldy trophy.
“So, are you going to help me?” he asked in a voice that sounded ironic even to him, less benign than he had intended. He wrinkled his nose again, turned his gaze to the sea for an instant, and then heard Ruth’s startling reply:
“Don’t move.”
Ruth was gripping a wooden racket. The edge of the racket was resting on her thighs.
“Do you want the ball?” Jorge asked.
“I want you not to move,” she said.
Ruth lifted the racket, sat up straight and reached out an arm in order to slowly trace a line in the sand. It was not a very even line, about a metre long, separating Ruth from her husband. When she had finished drawing it, she let go of the racket, lay back in the deckchair and crossed her legs.
“Very pretty,” Jorge said, half-curious and half-irritated.
“Do you like it?” Ruth replied. “Then don’t cross it.”
A damp breeze was beginning to rise on the beach, or Jorge noticed it at that moment. He had no wish to drop the umbrella and the other stuff he was carrying over his shoulder. But above all he had no desire whatsoever to start playing silly games. He was tired. He hadn’t slept much. His skin felt sweaty, gritty. He was in a hurry to shower and go out and have dinner.
“I don’t understand,” said Jorge.
“I can imagine,” said Ruth.
“Hey, are we going or not?”
“You can do what you want. But don’t cross the line.”
“What do you mean, don’t cross it?”
“I see you understand now!”
Jorge dropped the things; he was surprised they made so much noise as they landed on the sand. Ruth jumped slightly, but didn’t stir from her deckchair. Jorge examined the line from left to right as if something were written on it. He took a step towards Ruth. He saw how she tensed and clutched the arms of the chair.
“This is a joke, right?”
“This couldn’t be more serious.”
“Look, darling,” he said, halting at the line. “What’s the matter with you? What are you doing? Can’t you see everyone else is leaving? It’s late. It’s time to go. Why can’t you be reasonable?”
“Am I not reasonable because I’m not leaving when everyone else does?”
“You’re not reasonable because I don’t know what’s the matter with you.”
“Ah! How interesting!”
“Ruth…” Jorge sighed, making as if to go over and touch her. “Do you want us to stay a bit longer?”
“All I want,” she said, “is for you to stay on that side.”
“On what side, damn it?”
“On that side of the line.”
Ruth recognized a flash of anger in Jorge’s sceptical smile. It was only a fleeting twitch of his cheek, a hint of indignation he was able to control by feigning condescension; but there it was. Now she had him. It suddenly seemed it was now or never.
“Jorge. This is my line, do you understand?”
“This is absurd,” he said.
“Quite possibly. That’s the point.”
“Come on, hand me the things. Let’s go for a walk.”
“Whoa there. Stay back.”
“Forget about the line and let’s go!”
“It’s mine.”
“You’re being childish, Ruth. I’m tired…”
“Tired of what? Go on, say it: tired of what?”
Jorge folded his arms and arched backwards, as if he had been pushed by a gust of wind. He saw the trap coming and decided to be direct.
“That’s unfair. You’re taking my words literally. Or worse: you interpret them figuratively when they hurt you, and take them literally when it suits you.”
“Really? Is that what you think, Jorge?”
“Just now, for example, I told you I was tired and you play the victim. You act like I’d said ‘I’m tired of you’, and…”
“And isn’t that deep down what you wanted to say? Think about it. It might even be a good thing. Go on, say it. I have things to say to you too. What is it you’re so tired of?”
“Not like this, Ruth.”
“Like what? Talking? Being honest?”
“I can’t talk this way,” Jorge replied, slowly picking up the things once more.
“Over and out,” she said, her eyes straying towards the waves.
Jorge suddenly let go of the things and made as if to seize Ruth’s chair. She reacted by raising her arm in a gesture of self-defence. He realized she was deadly serious and stopped in his tracks, just as he was about to cross the line. There it was. He was touching it with the tips of his toes. He considered taking another step. Trampling the sand. Rubbing his feet in it and putting a stop to all this. His own cautiousness made Jorge feel stupid. His shoulders were tense, hunched. But he didn’t move.
“Will you stop this already?” he said.
He instantly regretted having phrased the question in that way.
“Stop what?” Ruth asked, with a painfully satisfied smile.
“I mean this interrogation! This interrogation and this ridiculous line!”
“If our conversation bothers you that much, we can end it right here. And if you want to go home, carry on, enjoy your dinner. But the line is non-negotiable. It isn’t ridiculous and don’t cross it. Don’t go there. I’m warning you.”
“You’re impossible, you know that?”
“I do, unfortunately,” Ruth replied.
Disconcerted, Jorge noted the frankness of her retort. He bent down to pick the things up again, muttering inaudible words. He rummaged vigorously through the contents of the basket. Rearranging the bottles of suntan lotion several times, piling up the magazines furiously, folding the towels again. For a moment, Ruth thought Jorge had tears in his eyes. But she saw him gradually regain his composure until he asked, looking straight at her:
“Are you testing me, Ruth?”
Ruth remarked that the almost shocking naivety of his question brought back an echo of his former dignity: as though Jorge could make a mistake, but not lie to her; as if he were capable of every type of disloyalty except for malice. She saw him squatting, bewildered, at her feet, his shoulders about to start peeling, his hair thinner than a few years ago, familiar and strange. She felt a sudden desire both to attack and to protect him.
“You go round bossing people about,” she said, “yet you live in fear of being judged. I find that rather sad.”
“No kidding. How profound. And what about you?”
“Me? You mean what are my contradictions? Am I aware of always making the same mistakes? Yes. All the time. Of course I am. To start with, I’m stupid. And a coward. And too anxious to please. And I pretend I could live in a way I can’t. Come to think of it, I’m not sure what is worse: not to be aware of certain things, or to be aware but not to do anything. That’s precisely why I drew that line, you see? Yes. It’s childish. It’s small and badly drawn. And it’s the most important thing I’ve done all summer.”
Jorge gazed past Ruth into the distance, as though following the trail of her words, shaking his head with a gesture that veered between dismay and incredulity. Then his face froze in a mocking expression. He started to laugh. His laughter sounded like coughing.
“Have you nothing to say? Not bullying any more?” Ruth said.
“You’re so impulsive.”
“Do you think what I’m saying to you is impulsive?”
“I don’t know,” he said, standing up straight. “Maybe not exactly impulsive. But you’re definitely proud.”
“This isn’t simply a question of pride, Jorge, it’s about principles.”
“You know something? You may defend a lot of principles, be as analytical as you like, think yourself terribly brave, but what you’re actually doing is hiding behind a line. Hiding! So do me a favour, rub it out, collect your things, and we’ll talk about this calmly over dinner. I’m going to cross. I’m sorry. There’s a limit to everything. Even my patience.”
Ruth leapt up like a spring being released, knocking over the deckchair. Jorge pulled up before having taken a step.
“You’re damn right there’s a limit to everything!” she yelled. “And of course you’d like me to hide. Only don’t count on it this time. You don’t want dinner: you want a truce. Well, you’re not getting one, you hear me, you’re not getting one until you accept once and for all that this line will be rubbed out when I say so, and not when you run out of patience.”
“I can’t believe you’re being such a tyrant. And then you complain about me. You’re not allowing me to come close. I don’t do that to you.”
“Jorge. My love. Listen,” Ruth said, lowering her voice, brushing her fringe into place, putting the chair back up and sitting down again. “I want you to listen to me, okay? There isn’t one line. There are two, do you understand? There are always two. I see yours. Or at least I try to see it. I know it’s there, somewhere. I have a suggestion. If you think it’s unfair that this line is rubbed out when I say so, then make another. It’s easy. There’s your racket. Draw a line!”
Jorge guffawed.
“I’m serious, Jorge. Explain your rules. Show me your territory. Say to me: don’t step beyond this line. You’ll see that I never try to rub it out.”
“Very clever! Of course you wouldn’t rub it out, because it would never occur to me to draw a line like that.”
“But let’s say you did, how far would it reach? I need to know.”
“It wouldn’t reach anywhere. I don’t like superstitions. I prefer to behave naturally. I like to be free to go where I want. To quarrel when there’s a reason for it.”
“All I want is for you to look a little bit beyond your own territory.”
“All I want is for you to love me,” he replied.
Ruth blinked a few times. She rubbed her eyes with both hands, as though trying to wipe away the damp breeze that had been buffeting her that afternoon.
“That’s the most awful answer you could have given me,” said Ruth.
Jorge considered going over to console her and thought he had better not. His back was stinging. His muscles were aching. The sea had swallowed the orb of the sun. Ruth covered her face. Jorge lowered his eyes. He looked once more at the line: he thought it seemed much longer than a metre.
ANABELA AND THE ROCK
WHO DARES to swim to El Cerrito? asked Anabela, her face, I don’t know, like something moist and very bright. I imagine a cookie as big as the sun, an enormous cookie dipped in the sea. That’s sort of what Anabela’s face looked like when she asked us.
Nobody dares? she insisted, but I don’t know what face she made then because my eyes slid further down. Her bathing suit was green, green like I don’t know what, I can’t think of an example right now. It was light green and the top was sort of pinched in the middle.
Anabela was always laughing at us. And that was okay, because she was two, or maybe three years older than we were, she was almost a woman, and we, well, we were staring at the top of her bathing suit. It was worth having her laugh at us, because her shoulders went up and down and the light green material moved around inside as well.
Since no one replied, Anabela folded her arms. And that was bad, because now we could no longer see anything and had to look at each other and notice our fear of the water and our irritation at not being good enough for Anabela. Good enough for, I don’t know, those big waves, like the ones the older boys surfed, and then we realized that only one of them could make Anabela happy. Except that she never took any notice of them, which made us even more confused.
Every afternoon, Anabela would swim out on her own to El Cerrito, a dry rock about two kilometres east. We couldn’t go there. Well, we could, but we weren’t allowed, because it was dangerous and besides they said strange things went on over there, like naked people sunbathing and other stuff. It took nearly an hour of long, hard swimming to get to the rock, and made us a bit nervous to watch Anabela plunge in, to watch her head appear and disappear until it became, I don’t know, a buoy, a speck, nothing. She would swim over there, sunbathe for a while, two of us reckoned without the top half of her bathing suit on, and three others reckoned with nothing on at all, and at sunset she would come back in a motorboat, because there was always someone with a motorboat coming back to the beach. That was the worst part, we all agreed, of her going off on her own. We all felt sure nothing bad would happen to her on the way there, she was older and very fast, she was a really strong swimmer and always knew what to do. Besides, Anabela was amazing at floating, when she got tired she would lie on her back, her arms and legs spread wide apart, and she could stay like that, almost asleep, as long as she wanted, like a mermaid or, I don’t know, a green lifebelt, with only her mouth, nose and toes poking out. And pointy bits in the top of her bathing suit. It was the journey back from the rock that worried us, because some scoundrel, that’s what my dad said, some scoundrel in the boat might, I don’t know. My dad didn’t say what.
Anabela scoffed and turned her back on us. In fact, I think she had only asked for the sake of it, she already knew none of us had the nerve to swim that far. Not just because we were afraid of El Cerrito, but because of the awful punishment our parents had threatened us with if we dared go. And what about Anabela’s parents? Did she have their permission? It’s funny, because I had never thought about it before that afternoon. I had imagined she must have, or had imagined nothing at all. Nothing. Anabela was tall, and very fast, who could forbid Anabela anything? When I saw her walk once more to the water’s edge that afternoon, when I saw her move, I don’t know, in that way she had, I felt something tremendous there, between my stomach and sternum. Until suddenly Anabela heard a voice, and I heard that voice too and I realized it was mine telling her: I’ll go with you.
It was a burning sensation down there.
Anabela turned towards us in surprise. She shrugged, the light bouncing off her shoulders, I don’t know, like a beach ball, it rolled down her arms and all she said was: All right. Let’s go.
The others looked at me, I know for sure, with more envy than fear, and I even suspected one of them was going to tell tales on me to my dad. Was I doing the right thing? But there was no time for hesitation, because Anabela’s suntanned arm was already tugging at mine, her yellow down was guiding me to the sea, and her feet and mine made the pebbles crunch at the water’s edge, that was happening now and it was almost impossible to believe. Then I had the feeling I had been born and learned to swim and spent the summer holidays at that beach just for this, to perceive that moment, I don’t say experience it because in that instant it wasn’t happening to me, it was happening to somebody else. I saw myself take my first strokes behind Anabela’s thrashing legs, Anabela’s feet that went in and out of the water. My friends were yelling, it made no difference.
I don’t know how far we swam. The sun was blinding us, we could no longer hear voices from the beach, only the sound of the waves and the seagulls. We felt a mixture of cold and heat, the current was pulling us along and I was happy. When we set out, the first few minutes, I had only thought about what I was going to say to Anabela, how I should behave when we reached the rock. But then everything started getting wet, I don’t know, sort of going soggy, my head too, and I stopped thinking and I realized this was it, we were together, we were swimming as if we were speaking. From time to time, Anabela would turn her head to make sure I was still following her, and I tried to keep my head up high and smile at her, swallowing salty water, so that she saw I could keep up with her, although the truth was I couldn’t. We only stopped for a rest twice, the second time because I asked her, and I felt a bit ashamed. She floated and taught me how to play dead, she explained exactly what you have to do with your stomach and lungs in order to stay afloat, like a lilo. I thought I was no good at it, but she congratulated me and laughed like, I don’t know what, and I thought about kissing her and I laughed too and I swallowed water. That’s when I decided that instead of telling my friends how things had gone, instead of boasting about every detail, which is what I had planned to do at first, I wasn’t going to tell them anything. Not a word. I was just going to remain silent, smiling, triumphant, with a knowing look on my face, like Anabela, in order to let them imagine whatever they liked.
I don’t know how far we swam altogether, but El Cerrito was close, or it looked close. It was a while since we had stopped the second time. I felt exhausted, Anabela was relaxed. I was no longer enjoying myself, I had only one mission, to keep going, keep going, to push with my arms, my stomach, my neck, everything. That’s why it is so difficult to explain what happened, it was all very quick or very invisible. Every second stroke I rolled my head half out of the water, glanced at the rock and calculated how far we had left to go, and to take my mind off my tiredness I started to count Anabela’s fast kicks and my own heartbeat. It was because I was counting Anabela’s kicks, that I was so surprised when I paused for a moment, saw the rock ahead of me and didn’t see her. She was simply gone. As if she had never been there. I turned in circles a few times, arms flailing, swinging my head from side to side. I saw myself in mid-ocean, miles from the beach, still a long way from El Cerrito, floating in the midst of silence, with no sign of Anabela. And I felt, I don’t know, doubly frightened. Not just because I was alone. But because I realized that for a good while I had been counting my own kicks.
I cried out a few times, the way she had perhaps cried out when I hadn’t heard her or had mistaken her cries for seagulls, I don’t know. But crying out exhausted me as well, and it made my body ache. I realized if I wanted to have the slightest chance of reaching the rock I had no choice but to be quiet, calm down, stifle my terror and keep swimming. Move forward and keep swimming, nothing more. This time I didn’t count, I didn’t think, I didn’t feel anything.
I swam until I lost all sense of time, as if I were part of the sea.
