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John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC

GETTING AHEAD by JONAS KARLSSON




Sometime in June, my back started to itch. I thought I’d been bitten by a mosquito or some other insect. That’s how it felt. It was always worst when I’d been out running and worked up a sweat. The thing was, the itch was in such an awkward place – right in the middle of my back and quite high up – that I couldn’t reach it properly with my fingers. I had a go with a pencil and a toothbrush, but that didn’t seem to help much.
I’d headed off to my holiday cottage in the countryside to chill out and find myself. Things were starting to get me down rather. I was forty-something, and many aspects of life had got much trickier since my thirties. Just drifting around wasn’t as pleasant as it had been. But I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, and I didn’t want to stop the things I wasn’t doing. What was the point?
I felt I needed some peace and quiet to work out who I really was and what my goals were. So I decided to go to the cottage all on my own, for the whole summer break – just me, my notepad and my running shoes.
For the first few days, everything was just as usual, except that I was on my own. I was used to having lots of people around all the time. Having plenty of company had become like curling up under a cosy blanket. I just liked people and didn’t mind leaving decisions to others. It was fine by me to go with the flow, taking it easy. I was happy to go along with any decision or opinion, no matter what the subject – football, politics, art or whatever. I liked just being in the midst of things, not having to make too much effort. The solitary life has never been my thing. I get restless and anxious, can’t be doing with that stuff they talk about, sitting alone with a book over a cup of tea, meditation, relaxation. I start to get the twitches. I want to go out and meet people, ask them round to my place, or just sit and chew the fat with someone or other. I’ve never been that particular about who I talk to. I used to plunge into random discussions pretty often. If there was a subject and someone had a definite opinion, I’d generally go along with them – or keep quiet. That worked out fine to begin with. We’d agree, and avoid rubbing each other up the wrong way, and most people found me likeable. Thought I was a nice guy, easy to get on with. But after a while I realised that people felt let down if they discovered I’d taken quite a different view when talking to others.
It wasn’t that big a deal as far as I was concerned. After all, what mattered most to me was having a chat for its own sake. But it ended up becoming hard to socialise except two by two. Then I found out that people were even avoiding talking to me one to one. They’d demand my opinion on something first. Things got so bad that some people thought I was unreliable, undependable, two-faced, that sort of thing.
So I decided to take some time out, head over to the cottage and think the whole thing through. Who was I? What did I stand for, what opinions did I have, and did I have any goals? I thought I’d take off and hang out with the wolves, as it were, work stuff out for myself. I did exactly what was recommended – wherever I’d got the idea from, probably some magazine or TV programme – I left my laptop and mobile at home and went off to the cottage without telling anyone. Just did whatever I felt like, went out for the odd run, quarrelled off and on with the gas stove, which stopped working at regular intervals. After that I’d sit there with my notepad, just staring into space.
It was mostly rather dull. I’d spend most of the day browsing through back numbers of ‘The Phantom’ comic and gazing out of the window, and no matter how I racked my brain, I never came up with any particular thoughts or feelings. Not beyond thinking that coffee tastes good, rain is wet, and that sort of stuff. I found my old guitar, which was short of an E string, and sat around for a while trying to tune it, but it wasn’t that easy, so I just let it be.
After only a few days I was already starting to regret the whole project. I’d pictured myself coming up with new insights into myself, one after the other, yet I didn’t seem to be discovering anything at all. I began to wonder whether all that stuff about finding yourself was just so much pretentious bullshit. Was it something people invented because they didn’t have much of a social life? It was then that my back started to itch.
When it had been itching for over three days and nights, I went and had a look in the bathroom mirror to see if I could spot anything. It felt as though the itching was coming from a small patch quite high up on my back, just to the right of my spine.
I stood for a long time with my back to the bathroom mirror, looking at the patch and thinking that it seemed somehow familiar. I thought I recognised it, like a birthmark or an old acne scar. Surely I’d glimpsed it before when I’d chanced to see my back in a mirror? That’s not something you do all the time, after all. Presumably, it had always been there, without my giving it a thought. Now it had started itching it was hard to think of anything else.
For a while, I tried to ignore it. I just tried to avoid thinking too much, despite the itching. I had a tendency to get lost in my own thoughts when I was supposed to be concentrating on something else. It was just like me to find something totally irrelevant to focus on when I was supposed to be chilling out and finding myself.
Anyway, a few days later I could feel that it had grown into a little bump. At about the same time, the itching calmed down, and for a short while, I found what was by now an oversized pimple quite amusing if anything. It wasn’t normal, of course, but I was so relieved the itching had finally let up that I wasn’t too bothered about having a little mound on my back. Surely it didn’t matter that much. And it wasn’t as though it was that big – although it was growing.
 At any rate, it was easier to concentrate on other things now it had stopped itching so badly. I found I could sit for long periods thinking about myself and my doings. I even noted down the odd idea or two. Things I thought might be important, that I didn’t want to forget. I made a list of pluses and minuses, noting down the good and the bad – mostly individual words I liked the sound of and which somehow summed up who I was. I wrote down ‘roly-poly’, for example, not because I was at all overweight, but simply because the word appealed to me and gave me good vibes. It seemed to me that if only I could get a grip on something, no matter how insignificant, I could keep hold of it, and eventually I’d haul in something weightier and more definite, whatever that might be. I jotted down ‘mini, midi, maxi’, then I hummed the words to myself for half a day. That felt good too. ‘Itching’ went down in the minus column. ‘Mounds’, on the other hand, went into the plus column. ‘Mounds – good’, I wrote. ‘I like mounds. Especially grassy ones.’  Fun – I liked having fun. Being sociable. Company. Pleasant company. Good manners. Nice people. Good looks. Raspberry gums. Suddenly the words were pouring out of me into the two columns on the paper. I could fill half a page just with the TV programmes I liked or disliked, for instance. It was only now and then that I went past the mirror and looked at my own mound, the one on my back.
It grew a little with each day that passed until it was slightly bigger than a five-kronor coin. I was beginning to suspect that some kind of creature might have got under my skin after all – a tick or some other creepy-crawly that had dropped out of a tree on one of my runs. It was probably infected. I seemed to recall some jungle story or other about ants – or was it larvae? – crawling under people’s skin to lay their eggs. That wasn’t pleasant, of course, but somehow it struck me as the most reasonable explanation. Ants and larvae both went into the minus column.
It occurred to me that I should put something on it, but I had no idea what might work on a sore spot like the one I had. I tried splashing it with aftershave, and eventually I managed to lay my hands on an old bottle of acetone in what had once been the broom cupboard, which, over the years, had turned into a glory hole full of paint tins, tubes of glue and turps rags.
I splashed a drop or two onto a cloth and rubbed at the lump. But nothing happened, except that the skin around it got drier and began to sting.
It was rather annoying that I had no-one to talk to. It would have been quite something to show off such an amazing physical change. And maybe it would have changed my detractors’ minds. I wasn’t sure whether ‘detractors’ was quite the right word. But it gave me a warm glow when I thought of it; it was a good word to have in your vocabulary. I wasn’t certain whether it belonged in the plus or the minus column, nor was I one hundred percent sure of the spelling, so I didn’t put down anything at all. But I kind of savoured the word for the rest of the day. ‘Detractors’ – it had a certain style. I’d have to remember to use it once I was back among other people. Maybe I’d even look it up to see what it meant.
One morning the bump was so big and my skin so taut that I realised something was going to happen that day. The bump stood out like a sugar loaf as if someone’s finger was pushing at the skin from the inside. I kept running to the mirror, and in the course of the afternoon, a split started to appear.
A rift opened in the middle of the bulge, and in the middle of the weeping sore and the pus, I glimpsed something that looked like a tiny little … head.
It struck me as quite repulsive, and I stood stock-still for ages, staring into the mirror to see what was going on. I’d never seen such a small head before. Tiny though it was, it had a full set of human features: eyes, nose, mouth, even a wisp of hair. I realised straight away that it wasn’t an insect, but a new body part that had suddenly decided to make an unexpected appearance. It dawned on me that it must have been there the whole time, somehow – like a wisdom tooth. Complete with mouth, jaw, eyes, ears, nose, and forehead.
I took an instant dislike to it. I didn’t want it on my back – I just wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible. I took out my toothbrush again and started scrubbing at the opening from which it had emerged, but neither the head nor the film of skin over it would disappear completely. All that happened was that my skin went red, and after a while it began to hurt a good deal.
That evening I couldn’t get off to sleep. Time and again I got up and stood in front of the mirror. I wandered round and round in the cottage, sat down at the kitchen table and wrote ‘I like heads’ in the plus column. And ‘But not on my back’ in the minus column.
I felt that summed up my views pretty well.
Staying in the cottage got more and more boring, and if it hadn’t been for the Head I’d have left a long time ago. But it was clear to me that I couldn’t show myself in public, disfigured as I was. When I woke up in the morning I hoped it would be gone, but when I checked in the mirror it was there as usual. After a while, I didn’t even have to get up. I could clearly feel its presence between me and the sheet. The Calor gas stove broke down regularly, and sometimes the smell of gas hung over the cylinder. Sometimes I’d thump it and get it to work for a while, but I wondered whether it was leaking a bit. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the raw patch on my back seemed to have got slightly infected, but I didn’t make any particular effort to get it to heal. I thought that might be a natural way to get rid of the intruder.
Gradually the Head grew bigger and bigger, and it generally kept itself hidden under its protective membrane. It would peek out just for an instant, then withdraw again. In early July it got up the nerve to pop out and have a look around for a little longer. Its features looked rather like mine, and I would often stand in front of the mirror waiting for it to peek out. Once or twice our eyes met momentarily in the mirror before it popped back inside the bump.
Sometimes I wondered what the Head thought of me. It must have been pretty striking to see its full-size alter ego, so to speak, towering above it on my neck and shoulders.
Since the Head had ears, eyes and a mouth, I soon started talking to it. I’d say ‘Hello’, ‘Hey’, ‘Hi there’ and so on. I’d threaten and cajole by turns, but mostly I chatted away to it as if I were talking to a plant or to myself. After all, in a way, I’d longed for someone to talk to, and now it turned out there was a head inside my back, I thought it would be a pity if we couldn’t hang out together now and then. I started telling it the names of the things around me. For example, I’d say ‘running shoes’ when I put them on to go jogging. ‘Mug’, I’d say when I took out my coffee cup. Then I’d add ‘cup’, just to be on the safe side. I wasn’t sure myself which word was best. Anyway, I thought it was a good idea to give the Head an opportunity to learn some of the words and phrases people use most, so we could rub along together more easily. But it didn’t reply, and after a while, I stopped talking. I felt daft talking to someone who never said anything back.
It became harder and harder to sleep on my back. Sometimes, when I was lying stretched out, reading damp old Donald Duck comics in bed, the Head would suddenly move slightly behind my back. It was as though it were stretching out, or curling up into a ball. I’d always press a little harder when that happened. I don’t really know why. It just happened. Maybe it was a bit mean of me, but I wanted to make the point somehow that it was my back. After a while, the Head would start to resist, and we’d sometimes engage in a low-key wrestling match, which generally ended with my shifting onto my side.
I noticed I was getting hungrier and hungrier. There were days when I’d suddenly crave things I’d never liked before, such as boiled cod, peas in white sauce, grapefruit, muesli, and wholemeal bread. To my surprise, I also noticed that I was gradually becoming less fond of beer. I could see it was all the fault of the new head. It was taking in nutrients through me, of course, not through its own mouth. Now it was clearly trying to influence my habits, to bring them into line with its own tastes and its own aims.
I was annoyed that the Head was starting to take up more space and that it was kind of getting above itself in the evenings and at night, though it wouldn’t reply when spoken to and didn’t even have the guts to come out properly during the daytime.
I started to think the Head had something of an attitude problem. It would never look me in the eye. It wasn’t willing to learn anything about my habits or to repeat any of the words I tried to teach it. And then there was the way it took what it wanted, expanding more and more in the evenings. On top of that, the few times I caught a glimpse of its mouth, I detected a rather superior expression.
To begin with, I interpreted its behaviour as shyness. I thought it looked diffident, touching. It was, after all, so small, and if anything it came across as rather timid. In time, however, I came to think it was being pretty rude in keeping itself to itself. Just what was it scared of? I felt my approach had been quite respectful. Apart from the episode with the toothbrush and the after-shave, I’d been nothing but friendly and obliging, helpful even. Of course, you have to be careful in relations with other people, but the Head’s avoidance tactics sent a negative message, almost like disdain. As though it had no interest whatsoever in its – what could one call me? – host. Didn’t it like my company? I was quite sure I could detect a certain overbearing look in its eyes. Who did it think it was, this creature, to turn up and make silent demands on me? I was gradually feeling more and more determined to show it who was boss.
‘Listen here, you gutless little pipsqueak,’ I said one evening when I was sitting with a can of lager, staring at the wall. I was getting wasted out of pure defiance, just to show who was boss, though the lager was like vinegar. In fact, it tasted vile, and several times I was on the point of throwing up. The only thing that kept me going was the thought that it must be worse for the little beast on my back. I’d laid in plenty of lager, but I had no TV, stereo or anything else that might have taken my mind off things. In the absence of any entertainment, I’d generally end up on the sofa in front of the big, empty wall. ‘Why don’t you come out and party a little?’ I said.
That wasn’t like me. It wasn’t my style to carry on and throw my weight about, but what I needed now was to find myself and deal with this uninvited guest. After all, I was over forty. I couldn’t carry on pussyfooting around. I was starting to lose my patience. I sat gazing at the damp around the broken electricity cables where the wallpaper had split.
Everything was silent and still behind me. Gulping down the last drop of lager in the can, I squeezed it in the middle and slung it into the corner where the TV should have been. Opening a new can, I wriggled my shoulder blades a little. I thought the creature might have gone to sleep. ‘Hey, you!’ I called again. ‘Come on out and have a beer, will you? Come on, try and be sociable.’
I raised the can over my head, held it carefully at an angle and let the lager run down the back of my neck. A small amount ended up in my hair, but the rest ran down over my skin, over the mound on my back. I’d thought the Head could just hold its mouth open and have a drink. But nothing happened.
‘Don’t fancy it? Well, it’s your loss,’ I said.
Then I sat there, the can in my hand, without a TV, while the lager gradually settled in a sticky mess between my skin and the leather upholstery.
I decided to try cutting my losses. If the Head didn’t want any contact, well, I was damned if I was going to carry on dancing attendance on it. I made it quite clear that I wanted peace and quiet. Staggering into the kitchen, I found a pencil. Each time I felt any movement inside my back, I jabbed at the opening with the pencil. It took several attempts to hit the right spot, but pretty soon I’d got quite accurate. The least sign of activity and I’d be onto it with the pencil, and as soon as the Head felt me jabbing at it, it would freeze. That gave me a power rush that was pretty cool. I’d have preferred to be on friendlier terms, of course, but with things as they were, there was no alternative. After a while, however, I realised the jabs weren’t having the same impact anymore. The Head would keep shifting around inside my back even after I’d jabbed at it several times, and sometimes I jabbed pretty hard.
I went out into the bathroom and sat in front of the mirror for a long while, quite light-headed and a little queasy from the booze. I nagged loudly at the Head to come out so we could agree on how we were to get on together. As usual, however, it refused to put in an appearance. At one point I got up, went out and pressed my back against the stove two or three times. Really hard. I felt the Head shrinking in on itself, seeking protection from each new impact. But there wasn’t the least sign of any willingness to communicate.
When I’d had no response for over an hour, and the Head had done nothing but keep itself to itself, I felt my patience coming to an end. I took the mirror off the wall and carried it over to the bed. Then I fetched a pair of scissors from the kitchen drawer, sat down on the edge of the bed with the mirror leaning against the wall behind me, and waited. I breathed slowly, trying to steady my pulse.
Nothing happened for a long while, but then the Head’s curiosity must have got the better of it, for when I was completely still, I could clearly sense it slowly emerging. I stayed where I was, leaning forward, and let it continue for a good while. The longer I sat, the more distinctly I could feel the Head sliding in and out of my back. It was taking the opportunity to move around, thinking I wasn’t really aware of what was going on. Maybe it thought I hadn’t noticed anything, and that was what really got me – the fact that it seemed to want nothing to do with me as if I wasn’t good enough for it. Presumably, it had discovered the mirror; it felt as though the thing was slipping out at regular intervals to look at itself. It was becoming bolder and bolder, taking longer each time. It must have thought I was asleep, as pretty soon it seemed to have stopped paying me any attention.
‘What’s that?’ I said, my tone of voice calm and measured, but with a note of surprise, as though I’d spotted something unexpected and was more or less talking to myself. I thought that would tempt the Head out to have a look. And lo and behold, it finally emerged, prompted by curiosity. I waited and waited, breathing calmly, biding my time.
When I thought enough of the Head was out in the open, I swivelled round as quickly as I could and snapped the scissors shut, just where I thought its neck must be. The Head must have had a terrible shock; its eyes were goggling like ping-pong balls. Somehow it had managed to start withdrawing, so the cut had sliced into its chin more than its neck. It was almost as if I’d cut through its mouth. A tongue slid back and forth over the blade, cutting itself again and again.
And a cry came from its mouth. It was all quite horrible. The blood and the tongue, those goggling eyes, and the cry, rising into a scream.
‘Aaaooouuuhhh!’
I tried to snap the scissor blades together and snip the whole thing off, but as I’d caught it at an odd angle, there were jaw muscles and bones in the way. It was a terrible mess.
In the end, I opened the scissors and let the creature take cover again.
Blood continued to flow out of the opening for quite a while, so I had to stand in the bathroom splashing water over it for a long time. The floor got messy, and I had to dig out an old 1950s vacuum cleaner to hoover up the blood and the water. The hoover crackled and sparked, and it had little suction power. I had to go over the floor inch by inch with the metal mouthpiece. The Head didn’t show itself.
The morning after, I woke up lying in an awkward position on my front, with my face pressed into the pillow. I had a headache and a bad conscience about the previous evening’s attack. I called to the Head to come out, but there was no response. I begged and pleaded, but nothing happened.
It stayed inside for several days, and I felt nothing at all beyond a dull pain in my back – unsurprisingly, as the Head was linked to some extent with my own nervous system. Though I looked in the mirror a few times, I could see nothing. I began to wonder whether it might have died from its injuries, but little by little, in the evenings, I once again started to feel tiny movements, a cautious scratching. It was if it was literally licking its wounds.
For a while I was afraid it would try to get its own back somehow, slide out when I was least expecting – who knew how quickly its neck was growing? Or maybe it would start eating me up from the inside?
Once again I cursed the fact that I was all on my own. I dared not turn my back on any knives or scissors that might be lying about, and I constantly tried to be aware of whatever was within reach each time I turned round. I developed such a keen awareness of what was behind me that I sometimes forgot to look out for what was in front. I started walking into things, bumping my head when looking through the kitchen hatches and stubbing my toes on the furniture. I should have brought someone along right from the start, I thought. It’s never a good idea to go off on your own as I’d done. If I’d brought someone else, I’d have had someone to talk to who would have witnessed the whole process and understood my plight.
At the same time, I could see it would be tricky to turn up anywhere with the Head as it was now. People would think it was peculiar, maybe even rather frightening. No-one would want to touch it. They’d think I’d done this to myself, that I’d had some sort of operation.
I’d have to deal with the problem on my own.
I started talking again. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but it was probably stuff like:
‘Hallo? Are you there?’ or ‘How’s it going?’ ‘Why don’t you answer? I know you can.’
But the Head kept mum. I had the feeling it might have learned its lesson, or at least grasped who was boss. Whenever it moved, its movements were very cautious.
I was gradually beginning to relax a little.
In a way, everything had calmed down considerably after the incident. Maybe being a bit rougher had been just the right thing? Maybe I’d held back far too much and given it far too much room for manoeuvre? Cut it too much slack for too long? Perhaps a firmer hand was needed to instil a natural respect for me in the intruder, and to put it in its place.
One day in early August, when I was standing in front of the mirror looking at the igloo-shaped lump on my back, which was growing larger and larger, its forehead and eyes finally emerged, and, for the first time, it looked me straight in the eye for a long while.
‘Are you angry?’ I asked.
It was still for a moment. Then it slowly shook in a way that might well have meant no.
‘How’s your mouth?’ I asked, and the Head’s gaze darkened slightly. It blinked a few times and breathed through its nose as if preparing for something. Finally, it popped out completely, stretching its neck. It gave me quite a fright, as I recall. The Head was already bigger than a fist, and its mouth had healed well. The only visible signs of the scissors’ treatment were a few pink streaks.
It withdrew after showing me its mouth, and neither of us made any further attempt to communicate for the rest of the day. A strange, oppressive atmosphere filled the cottage. Maybe it was angry about the scissors incident, but if that was the case it could have said so, always assuming that it could speak. Of course, my attack might have damaged its powers of speech, but I didn’t think it was that badly injured. After all, it had managed to scream.
Next morning I went straight to the mirror and tapped the bump on my back with a toothbrush. It took a while, but eventually the eyes peeped out. I don’t know whether it was my imagination, but it seemed to me that the Head had grown slightly bigger overnight.
‘Hi there,’ I said, ‘Shall we be friends, then?’
The eyes looked at me for a long time. We just stared at one another. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but in the end I thought I saw it give a cautious nod.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry about that business with the scissors. That was unkind. I won’t do it again.’
Motionless, the eyes continued to stare at me. After a while, the Head decided to come right out, revealing a slightly distant, superior expression.
‘Can you speak?’ I asked.
‘What do you think?’ said the Head.
I was so astounded that I dropped my toothbrush on the floor. True, I’d heard it scream, and I’d suspected that it had a voice. But it felt strange to hear actual words. It changed something. I felt quite unsure of myself. It was as if it suddenly dawned on me that it had actually understood everything I’d said, which doubled the stress I felt. I tried to control my feelings and maintain a semblance of calm before the Head, which was continuing to stare at me as though amused by my confusion, though it didn’t give that away for an instant. It gave away nothing. And its very expressionlessness only reinforced the menacing impression it made on me. Its voice sounded just like mine.
‘Nothing, just wondering,’ I said. ‘You haven’t said anything.’
The Head said nothing now either but continued to scrutinise me with a slightly blasé expression. He was very like me.
‘Er… are you male or female?’ I continued.
That wasn’t a particularly well-thought-out question, but I felt I’d better seize the opportunity to find out as much as possible, now we’d established some kind of contact, so to speak. What did I know? Maybe the Head wasn’t intending to come out again for another few months.
‘What do you think?’ said the Head again.
The voice was calm and steady, like a more stable variant of my own. At the same time, it sounded – how can I put this? – rather reserved and haughty. ‘I think you’re a man,’ I said. ‘And I really don’t like your snarky tone. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t have a little chat together, without getting on our high horses.’
The Head didn’t reply now either, but it seemed to roll its eyes briefly, exhaling rapidly rather as though it were sighing.
‘Oh, all right then, forget it,’ I said.
The Head said nothing. It just slipped swiftly back into its lair.
The next morning we stared at each other in the bathroom mirror while I was brushing my teeth. He stuck out his whole neck and head and yawned expansively. I could have sworn this was a minor demonstration of power. He’d got even bigger. Soon he’d be the same size as any other head. He was only very slightly smaller than my own.
I said nothing. I’d been feeling a little hurt since the previous day and rather anxious about how all this was going to end. The toothpaste tube slipped out of the washbasin and landed on the floor. My knees creaked when I bent down to pick it up.
A few days later, when I was in front of the bathroom mirror again brushing my teeth, the Head suddenly popped out again, and this time he managed to stretch up over one shoulder. It looked funny to have two heads the same size on the same body, and I couldn’t stop myself asking:
‘How big are you going to get?’
The other head smiled and replied:
‘What do you think?’
For the first time, it felt as though he was actually challenging me in some way, but I just didn’t understand how he was doing it or what it was he wanted. It was as though we were sizing each other up for a while.
Quick I could, I tried to come up with a flash of repartee that would answer that question once and for all. After all, he hadn’t exactly been wonderfully articulate himself. Yet, in just a few brief rejoinders, he’d managed to seize what you might call the rhetorical high ground. And however hard I racked my brains and struggled to think of something, it didn’t really work. Finally, I had to say the first thing that had popped into my head, and I still doubt whether it sounded very smart.
‘Hmmm…,’ said I. ‘What do you think?’
Obviously it was easier for him to inject that edge of ambiguity into what he said. After all, he had the advantage of surprise. Hell, surely anyone would be pretty taken aback if a head on their back suddenly started to talk? He could have said anything at all. Besides, he’d certainly had plenty of time to think of something. I now see I shouldn’t just have recycled what he’d already said; I should have come up with my own unique, quick-fire rejoinder. But that just didn’t work.
He merely smiled, and from that moment on he no longer seemed to pay me much attention. Increasingly, he didn’t bother to crawl back into his lair; instead, he spent more and more time next to my own head.
For several days I went around regretting that unfortunate exchange of words. It felt as though I’d lost something, without really understanding what it was. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything at all? Whatever I said, things only seemed to get worse.
‘Can’t we go out some time?’ he asked one day.
‘How would that look?’ I said. ‘Surely you understand it’d scare people silly to see such a monstrosity? No, we’ll have to stay in here till…’
I fell silent, not knowing how to continue.
‘Till what?’ he said.
‘Till we sort this out,’ I said, making it clear the conversation was over. I noticed him looking over my shoulder at the notes I’d jotted down, and sometimes he seemed to be scoffing at something I’d written. As his neck grew stronger, he pushed my head down closer and closer to my shoulder. He tried both sides a few times, but soon he’d made his choice, and there wasn’t much I could do when he made himself comfortable in the middle.
We did some things together. Now and then, out of the blue, he’d take control over an arm or a leg, as if for a joke. He’d make me cross out some new words I’d just written in the plus or minus column. He’d spill a glassful of juice just for the hell of it, so I’d have to wipe it all up before it ran over the chairs as well.
He’d take over for short periods without my noticing. If I didn’t watch out, he’d suddenly stow the coffee tin in the cupboard over the coffee machine, rather than the one over the stove where I’d always kept it. He’d throw rubbish straight into the bin instead of the sink, or turn the gas off. I generally took over control again as soon as I noticed what was going on, but sometimes I’d let him do his own thing, just to see what he’d come up with.
At any time, and without any warning at all, I could be struck by a sudden numbness. It was as if my arms had gone to sleep and it was nearly impossible to raise them – as if he’d decided we were going to take a rest. And once, when I was doing my usual twenty press-ups, just as I was relaxing after the last one I felt as though he’d taken over and was forcing me to do another one. My arms ached, and it was incredibly tough, but I had to go through with it, though I was tired and felt I’d done my fair share already. Once we’d got up again, and I’d sat down, I turned my head as far as I could and yelled straight into his ear, ‘Don’t you bloody well do that again!’
I knew full well how much it hurt when someone bellowed into your ear, but all he did was laugh.
‘What’s that?’ he said all of a sudden one day, looking down at the floor with a startled expression. I bent down to see what he was talking about. But before I’d managed to spot anything, I felt him wrapping one of my arms around my neck. I resisted, trying to push my head back up again, but he seemed to have locked it in place with my other hand. I was held in a grip under one arm. And try as I might to wave my arms about and gesticulate, it was his will that mainly commanded my muscles now. ‘When are you going to let go?’ I yelled as loudly as I could, muffled by the body and the clothes around me.
‘What do you think?’ said he.
When I got back up again I was livid with fury. I tried to punch his head, but my arms would only half obey me. They were directionless and weak, like the arms of a puppet. That felt even more humiliating if anything, so I left off pretty quickly and sat down on the sofa.
‘This isn’t working,’ I said.
As usual, he said nothing. We sat that way for a long time, without doing anything in particular. It was as though we were waiting. Waiting for something to happen.
‘Hey, you,’ he said. ‘Why don’t we go out?’
‘No chance,’ said I.
When we had our breakfast, each would have his own bowl of cereal, but we’d use the same two hands. I noticed the spoon went up to his mouth more often than to mine. But since I had little appetite, it didn’t matter much. We hardly ever spoke to each other, just exchanged brief utterances like ‘Mind yourself!’ or ‘Shift!’ and stuff like that.
A few days went by in comparative peace. It was getting easier and easier to synchronise our movements. We generally agreed on what our arms and legs should be doing. We’d go out for a short run, shower, sleep, eat – all the usual things. I noticed I no longer needed to think so much. I generally just went along with whatever he was doing, and that was quite agreeable in its way. I could sense that I no longer had the strength I’d once had.
One afternoon, when we were standing in front of the bathroom mirror cleaning our teeth – first mine, then his – he said, in passing as it were, his mouth full of toothpaste:
‘You can hardly see the scar now.’
Looking up, I realised I couldn’t tell straight away which of the two heads was mine. Each was the spitting image of the other. After a moment, it occurred to me to focus on the eyes. The face that gazed back would be me, of course. The whole thing was made more difficult by the fact that he was looking at me too, with an indulgent, almost contemptuous expression. I yelled at him to stop gawping and looked in the mirror to see which one of us was shouting. The tired, worn-out one – that was me.
The new head took over my body more and more, and began to do things differently. It felt unfamiliar and rather irritating. He forced me to climb on the roof to mend the hole in the roofing-felt. Then he’d be off round the whole building, taping up all the loose contacts, taking out the rugs to air, listening to discussion programmes on the radio – that sort of stuff. He dug out the brush and dustpan and set about cleaning the cottage from top to bottom. He started cooking and setting the table, rather than eating straight out of a tin. He’d pour milk into a glass. Then we’d have to stand around washing up afterwards.
My appetite dwindled. Everything went to the other head. He helped himself eagerly, while the flesh shrank from my cheeks and chin. My temples grew closer together, and my eyes were sunken in their sockets.
He picked up the guitar, gathered up all the comics, and put the lot away in the loft, where he found a book about birds and another about flowers that he dusted off and brought down.
Now and then I’d find the Head writing with my hand. I thought I might still be able to tell his handwriting from mine, so I made no particular effort to stop him.
He would write and write, sometimes for hours at a time, and I thought it all terribly boring. He used such complicated language, with difficult words and long sentences. For a while, I was rather impressed and felt a spark of pride at the thought that it was my handwriting it all down, after all. But all things considered, it was dull and hard to understand.
He never wanted to do anything fun. Just boring stuff.
The summer ended and autumn came. After a while, I realised I was finding it harder and harder to hold up my head. I wanted to kind of lie on one shoulder. It was as if my neck muscles had atrophied, and all of a sudden my neck was so scrawny, desiccated and skinny, shrivelled, withered in the middle, that I wondered how the oxygen could get through. Maybe it couldn’t. Maybe my entire oxygen intake was now coming in through the new head?
I realised that I was gradually getting used to his dull, monotonous routines, and would often just hang to one side. For a while, he would help me by holding me up with his hands from time to time, but he tired of that soon enough. As he took on more and more activities, I would all too often remain hanging at an angle, unable to hold myself up, so that I viewed the world half upside-down. My neck had shrivelled into a thin thread that increasingly resembled a scrap of umbilical cord attached to newborn babies, which gradually dries out and eventually falls off.
One morning after breakfast he went out to the toolbox and fetched a pair of pincers. He clipped me off and laid me in the bed, on the pillow.
‘Want to be on one side, or facing upwards?’ he asked.
‘On my side,’ I said.
He laid me with one cheek on the pillow, so I could lie there and watch him getting undressed and smartening himself up. He disappeared into the bathroom, and I heard him turning on the tap and splashing water around. He came back into the bedroom, freshly showered. He’d put a waterproof plaster, such as you might stick over a shaving nick, on the tiny wound where I’d been attached. He opened the wardrobe and changed into smart clothes right in front of my face.
‘What are you going to do?’ I asked.
‘I saw from the calendar that we’ve got a table booked for lunch at “The Gondola”. Thought I’d go along,’ he said.
Before he went, he tucked me in with the cover over my chin. I took the opportunity to have a nap. It was so pleasant to be on my own again, even though my mobility was now severely limited, but it had happened so gradually that I hadn’t really noticed what was going on. Now that I was over forty, I thought to myself, I no longer placed such high demands on life. There was no need to win or to be a top dog all the time, or to have arms and legs and all that sort of thing. I was quite content with everything just the way it was. I wouldn’t have had the strength to creep around outside anyway.
By the time he got home again, it had been dark for a long time. I awoke when the door closed, and pretty soon I saw him looking into the bedroom. Apart from his wet hair, he looked just like me. He wore my clothes, was a little older, and had a slightly more pronounced widow’s peak. The scar had disappeared completely. No-one would ever think he was anyone but me.
‘Are you awake?’ he whispered.
‘Sure,’ I said.
We were both whispering, although there were only the two of us in the cottage. It was as though we didn’t want to disturb the night. Or maybe what we had to say called for a lower volume. He sat down on the edge of the bed but realised that the rest of it was empty. So he edged up further and leaned against the wall.
‘I’m thinking of taking up smoking,’ I said.
He sighed and looked at me. I rocked back and forth a little. I could feel something like a speck of dust settling on my nose. I grimaced a little, trying to get rid of it. Finally, he stretched out a hand and helped me scratch.
‘What’s it like out there?’ I asked.
He leaned back, sinking down against the wall. Shook his head slowly, as though he couldn’t decide whether it was wonderful, or terrible, or just too hard to explain.
‘It’s a different world,’ he said. ‘Trust me, pal, you’d never cope out there.’

THE WOMAN IN GREEN by STINA FERNÁNDEZ CUBAS


  

 ‘I’m sorry,’ says the girl. ‘You’re mistaken.’

I listen to her without batting an eyelid, nodding my head as if being mistaken were the most natural thing in the world. Because there’s no other explanation. I’ve made a mistake. And I do a quick mental run through all the other times I might have made a little mistake and I can’t think of anything that comes close. But I shouldn’t blame myself. I’m tired, bogged down with work and, to cap it all, I’m not sleeping properly. This morning, in fact, I almost called my landlord. Why on earth did he rent out the apartment upstairs to such a noisy family? But what’s uppermost in my mind now has nothing to do with the neighbours or the landlord or my tiredness, it’s all to do with the weird experience I seem to have had just half an hour ago. A mixture of unease and conviction that made me rush out of a shoe shop and run down the street after a woman who I insisted on calling Dina. And the woman ignored me and walked on without paying any attention to me. Because it wasn’t Dina. Or at least, that’s what the real Dina Dachs says, sitting opposite me at her tidy desk, wearing the same innocent smile as she had when she received the offer of a permanent position with the firm just a week ago. ‘No,’ she says, ‘I’ve haven’t left my desk since nine o’clock this morning.’ And then, shaking her head sympathetically, she adds, ‘I’m sorry. You’re mistaken.’
Yes. Now I understand that it must have been a mistake. Because, although I’m still astonished by the likeness, the girl in front of me is just an ordinary girl, well mannered, polite, an efficient secretary. And the woman, the unknown woman I’ve just run after down in the street, had a face that bore the scars of a lifetime of suffering, with a cold, enigmatic stare that never wavered, in spite of me shouting and the crowds shoving past me in a busy shopping street the day before a holiday. And that must have been what caught my attention, what made me think that the woman (who I thought was Dina) was having a turn, a momentary loss of identity and wasn’t quite all there. But now I know that I was only half-mistaken. Because the unknown woman, whoever she was, did need help. And I look at Dina once more, at her angora jumper and her winter coat that’s hanging up on the coat stand and I think of the woman again. She was wearing a green silk dress in the middle of December. A thin party dress with a plunging neckline and she had a violet necklace around her neck. Indifferent to the cold, the traffic, the crowds. I leave it at that. The fact that I’ve mistaken a mad woman for this girl makes me smile. And I shut myself away in my office, leave the shopping on a chair and start to go through my correspondence. It will be a busy month, but it’s only one month. And then I’ll be in Rome, with Eduardo. I’m happy. I have every reason in the world to be happy.
Neither of the two pairs of shoes fits me properly. One pair is too narrow, they pinch my feet and I have to scrunch my toes up. The problem with the others is the complete opposite. I have to scrunch up my toes as well but the end result is very different. The shoes are like barges refusing to be steered and won’t do as they’re told, my feet slipping and sliding inside them. It’s too late to go back home now so I decide that I’ll just have to choose between the two forms of torture. I opt for the second one, but I don’t do it lightly. Half an hour from now I have to go to a work dinner. That’s why I came to the office all dressed up and that’s also why I went to the shoe shop earlier. It was silly of me to buy them. I was in too much of a hurry. I’ll return the ones that are too narrow tomorrow. Because now I realise that I’m not in the least bit hungry and in a half hour’s time I’ll have to sit down and eat. I’ve had to suffer this form of torture ever since I became a successful executive, although it’s nothing like the mirror opposite (starving with hunger and having nothing to eat) and that often makes me feel ashamed. That’s why I choose the slidey gondola shoes (I can’t explain why but they seem better suited for what’s in store for me) and that’s how I turn up at the restaurant, right on the dot, dragging my feet and not in the least bit hungry. I feel sick when I look at the menu. It’s a ridiculous feeling. Boorish. Just as the ten dinner guests seem boorish too, talking about their secretaries in a conspiratorial tone and about their wives with a certain respectful admiration. Just as the shoes, which I slipped off a while ago and left on the carpet, seem ridiculous as well. All I can do is wait for the dinner to be over and done with and hope that at some point someone will mention Eduardo, the last time they saw Eduardo, how well everything’s turning out for Eduardo. Luckily it doesn’t take long for someone to oblige. They ask me about the branch we’ve just opened in Rome and (even though when I mention Eduardo I call him “the boss”) I feel a slight sense of relief at being able to think about him out loud, despite the fact that what I’m saying doesn’t actually have anything to do with what I’m really thinking. But they don’t know that. Nobody, not even our work colleagues, could have the faintest suspicion about my relationship with Eduardo. No one in the office and of course no one at home (I mean his home). And sometimes I like to think that even Eduardo himself isn’t too clear about our relationship. I don’t care what his wife would say if she knew about it, but I do care what Eduardo might think, and that’s my strongest weapon. Eduardo doesn’t think. He doesn’t think of me as his lover, even though that’s the word that would best describe our situation, and I’d rather he didn’t think of me as his lover. Eduardo is scared of words. Words and his wife. That’s why, for once in his life, he’s found the courage to cheat on her, without even managing to say to himself, ‘I’m cheating on her’. As far as the dinner guests are concerned I just went to the same college as my boss. I’m his right-hand woman. That’s what his wife thinks, too. And that’s what I want them to carry on thinking. What’s more, I can play the part to perfection. When anyone asks me who’ll be in charge of the office in Rome I shrug my shoulders. Eduardo’s over there, hiring a team. Eduardo will oversee the work for the first year, commuting between here and there. Then, when he finds the right person, he’ll leave it all in their hands. Most likely it will be an Italian. And I think about an apartment in Trastevere. A life of freedom with no schedules, no family, his wife thousands of kilometres away. Someone tells me that I seem to not be eating, I’ve hardly had a mouthful, and he trots out the line that “a woman who doesn’t enjoy her food…”, and I take the opportunity all of a sudden to remember an important call. A business call, naturally. My feet search out my abandoned shoes, I scrunch up my toes and leave the table. But instead of going to the telephone I go to the toilet. I splash some water on my face and dry myself off with a paper towel. Then, when I’m about to touch up my make-up, I see her again.
I’m sure I did. I’ve hardly eaten anything but then again I’ve had a lot to drink. But she was there for a moment, a few seconds. I saw her quite clearly. Her green dress, her violet necklace, her cold, enigmatic stare. I don’t know whether she opened the door and then left the minute she saw me. I don’t know if she was already there when I came in. It all happened so quickly. I was drying my face with the paper towel, trying out the three-way mirror, checking my hair, my face and she passed by the mirror in a green flash, like a cloud of breath evaporating in the cold air. I readjust the mirrors, opening and closing the wings and, still in a state of shock, I manage to capture her for a few seconds. The woman is there. Behind me, beside me, I’m not too sure. I turn around quickly but only to see the door closing. ‘She ran away when she saw me,’ I think. And I can’t help remembering those eyes. A cold stare – enigmatic – but also, I now realise, full of hatred.
 Dina Dachs is just like any other girl. That’s what I tell myself in the morning and again in the afternoon. In the evening I take the file with all the details of the new employees home with me. There are five of them altogether. They all have similar CVs, they’re all the same age and they all have the same prospects for promotion in the firm. Dina has a slight advantage. She speaks three languages fluently, has excellent references and was remarkably adept at filling in our application form. That’s why she was the first candidate I chose. That’s why, I realise now, I remembered her name so clearly that day I ran down the street after the woman in green. But then Dina Dachs is a difficult name to forget, perhaps because it doesn’t seem like a real name. It makes me think of a pseudonym, a stage name, DINA DACHS emblazoned across the front of a variety theatre in gigantic letters, cabaret stars. I’m not sure what to think any more. With the constant din from the neighbours upstairs I can’t get my thoughts in order. I’ll complain about them tomorrow, I’ll have a word with the landlord or I’ll move. And tomorrow I’ll speak to Dina as well. Tactfully.
 I’ve spent the whole day watching her, studying her, monitoring her phone calls. I haven’t come across anything out of the ordinary so far, nothing to make me suspect a double life, to explain her strange appearances, first in the street and then in the restaurant. Dina tells me she doesn’t go out in the evenings. She says so very calmly, not knowing that it’s a trap question. She doesn’t mind staying on at the office, doing overtime, getting everything up to date. She hardly knows anyone here in the city. She doesn’t have any brothers or sisters or even parents. No brothers or sisters? No, none. Then I ask her to make a reservation for this evening in a particular restaurant the name of which, for some strange reason, has slipped my mind. I tell her the street, the exact location, the revealing detail that it has carpeted walls and the toilets have three-way mirrors. Dina doesn’t usually eat out but it suddenly occurs to her that she could ask one of her work colleagues. I leave her to it and, discreetly, listen at the door. She doesn’t seem to be pretending. Then I dictate a letter to her, then a second one and a third. They’re made-up letters that won’t be going out to anyone. Their only purpose is to let me observe Dina, trap her in a corner, catch her out in some way. She knows that what I’m dictating to her is completely absurd. She also knows that I’m watching her all the time. At one point, flustered, she instinctively smoothes her skirt down and uncrosses her legs. I make an excuse that the room is full of smoke and open the window. It’s cold outside. It’s a biting cold, almost as icy as the silence that has just come down between the two of us. It’s all getting embarrassing. I’m going to turn around, tell her to go home, she’s done enough for today, she should go home. But I can’t find the words. For the first time in my life I get vertigo, looking down from the fifth floor. Because she’s there. I can’t believe my eyes, but the woman is standing there, on the street corner opposite. I can see her green dress, the violet necklace, her hesitant figure standing out amid the bustle of the street. She looks like a beggar. Her dress strap has slipped off one of her shoulders. Her hair’s in a mess, she’s all dishevelled, she looks like she’s going to freeze to death at any moment. And her arm’s raised, stock still. But from the way she’s standing she doesn’t look like she’s begging. Unless she’s mad. Or drunk. Or unless her arm is pointing at nobody else but me. Here, on the fifth floor, looking out of my office window.
 ‘Anything else?’ asks a tired voice behind me.
I ask Dina to come over to the window. I make room for her and point to the exact place where she should look. ‘The beggar woman,’ I say. ‘That beggar woman over there.’ A bus stops right in front of the woman in green. I wait for it to move off. The woman appears now and again behind the cars. ‘Have a good look. There she is. No, she’s gone now. Wait…’ Without realising it I’ve clutched her shoulder. She gets annoyed and moves away from the window.
‘I can’t see a thing,’ she says.
She’s angry, cross. As she leaves she does something that no other secretary would have dared to do. She snaps the door shut behind her, almost slams it.
I can’t discuss what’s worrying me with anyone. Eduardo’s still in Rome, with his wife. I know it’s a consolation prize, a non-event, a clever tactic to enable him to engage in his forthcoming project without a guilty conscience. But I also know I mustn’t call him. His wife will be with him. She’ll be in the hotel, in the office, everywhere. I can’t confide in anyone else either because I’m not sure how to go about it. I briefly think about talking to Cesca, the firm’s longest-serving employee. Cesca likes and respects me. But Cesca likes to snoop around, poke her nose into other people’s business, pass around comments, spread gossip. Even so, if the woman in green appears again tomorrow, why would it seem strange if I asked Cesca to look out of the window? ‘Look at that woman. She’s been loitering around here for days now. It’s as if something strange is happening to her.’ And then Cesca, putting on her glasses, would tell me that she’s just a beggar woman, there’s so many tramps on the streets around this time of the year, maybe she’s mad, or a lush, or a prostitute. Maybe all three. And then, looking more closely, Cesca would realise that she reminds her of someone. She can’t quite put her finger on who, but she does remind her of someone. Or she’d call the concierge. And the concierge would go out to investigate. Or perhaps there’s no need. ‘She’s mentally disturbed,’ she might say. ‘Either that or she’s faking it. She always turns up around here at Christmas. People give her money because they’re scared of her.’ But I haven’t seen anyone stop to give her any money. In fact, from up here on the fifth floor, all I’ve seen is her down there in her green dress and her arm raised, pointing towards me, asking me for something, telling me something. And I’ve also seen Dina. Next to me, leaning on the window sill while I pointed towards the beggar woman. I say this to myself several times. The beggar woman down there, in the street. Dina next to me. This should be enough to reassure me and to put it all down to pure chance, a coincidence, a striking resemblance, to realise that it’s impossible for the same woman to be in two places at once. But then there’s that look in her eyes. Brushing my arm off her shoulder, flushing with anger, snapping the door shut. It’s all a question of degree, I reflect. Because Dina Dachs’ look of irritation could so easily become the woman in green’s angry stare. A cold, enigmatic stare. Full of hatred.


But I can’t blame her. For the past few days all I’ve done is shower her with work, telling her to do one thing and then the opposite, calling her into my office or bursting into hers and making sure she’s still there, buried under a mountain of paperwork, grappling with accounts, documents, reports. It reassures me to know she’s busy and that it will still take her ages to finish the day’s tasks, that she’ll probably be the last one to leave the office at night. And meanwhile I think about the woman in green. I wait at the window for the woman in green to appear, holding the telephone in my hand, ready to call Cesca or the concierge. But not Dina. Dina’s not like the other girls. I’ve realised that after spending so much time watching her. Dina’s proud and dignified, and God only knows how long she’s going to endure the pressure I’m putting her under without facing me out. I know that I’m beginning to seriously annoy her and I also now know that Dina’s much more charming than she comes off as at first. She’s one of those calm, reserved women who win you over with time. So I confine Dina to her office and wait. Staring out of the office window, I wait.
 She doesn’t make the appearance I was expecting the next day nor the one after that. All the work that I can’t manage I delegate to Dina. From my place at the window I can hear her typing frenetically in her office next door, but I’m not thinking about her anymore and I don’t care what she thinks about my behaviour either. All my senses are attuned to the prospective appearance of the woman in green. Maybe, I think, the poor amnesiac has got her memory back. Or she’s frozen to death. Or the local police have taken her away. I sit in my armchair and decide to call Cesca. ‘I don’t feel well,’ I’m going to say. ‘You’re in charge until tomorrow.’ But I don’t even get to dial her number. Suddenly I feel cold. It’s a damp, biting coldness behind me and it makes me react, realise that I really do feel ill and that it’s sheer madness to keep the window open in the middle of December. A gust of wind makes the pile of papers flutter around the room. I haven’t given that pile of papers the slightest thought for days and I’m not going to be distracted from my mission now. I turn around suddenly, although I already suspect that the sudden rush of cold has little to do with the bad weather at this time of the year or with the state of my nerves. The woman is down there. Across the road, on the corner. She seems resolute, determined, about to cross the road towards me. She dodges between the cars as if by a miracle. With her arm raised, always pointing towards me. The way she’s gone downhill is pathetic. Her green dress is in tatters, leaving her breasts on show and, suddenly, she’s not so much walking as staggering, unsteady and grotesque. What could have made me think that this monstrosity looked like Dina? I try to get a better look and leaning even further over the windowsill I notice something green on one of her feet, only one of them, and then I understand why she’s started to hobble. She’s lost the other shoe by the side of the road. But nobody picks it up, nobody kicks it away, nobody trips over it. Nobody, in short, takes pity on this poor woman and takes her to a place of safety. City life is inhumane, cruel, pitiless. Frozen stiff, I close the window and dial Cesca’s number. ‘I’m exhausted. Could you take over until tomorrow, please?’ And I go home, take a sleeping pill and, for once, not even the neighbours upstairs can stop me falling asleep.


It’s the same story every year on 23rd December. ‘I’m feeling exhausted, Cesca. I shan’t come in tomorrow.’ And every Christmas Eve I do the same running around, the same searching, the same wandering around the shops and department stores clutching a list of all the employees’ names. It’s one of the firm’s traditions. A childish ritual that starts with Cesca pretending to be worried about me supposedly not feeling very well and the wink I can imagine at the other end of the telephone line, then the “what will I get this year?” that I detect from everyone I come across as I leave my office, put on my coat and let the concierge open the door for me. On 27th December they will all find a gift on their desk. Something personal, that hits the spot, an inspired choice that was all down to me, but everyone without exception will thank Eduardo for it, as if they knew that he’s the one who always takes the most delight in this childish game, even though, like now, he happens to be thousands of kilometres away and, as usual, doesn’t have a clue about what they like, what they might need or what they might be interested in. I remember Cesca’s spectacles. She’s always losing them and they turn up hidden in some corner or in the most unlikely places, and I buy her a silver chain. After her, there’s the caretaker, the concierge, the cleaning lady, the messenger boy, the personnel manager, the new secretaries. I suddenly realise that I scarcely know anything about the secretaries, having focussed on just one of them. And I think about Dina. I wonder if perhaps she deserves a bigger present. Something extra to apologise for unfairly taking advantage of her, bullying her, bossing her around.
But wouldn’t that make her even more confused? I decide that all five girls in the office have very similar jobs and all of them will receive a similar gift. I go into department stores, perfumeries, record shops. I’ve got all the cards in my bag, signed by Eduardo and with the employees’ names already written out. That way I can put them together with the presents as I go along, so there’s no risk of any mix ups and in two days’ time everyone can show their surprise and admiration and gratitude for Eduardo’s attention to detail, as if it were the first time ever. The same as every year.
It’s bitterly cold on this December afternoon but I’ve always liked cold December afternoons. Despite the time of year and in spite of the shops’ bright lights, the Christmas carols and the profusion of Christmas trees with all their decorations, there aren’t too many people on the streets. So I can amble along and peruse the shop windows quite calmly, in the same good mood as when I woke up this morning. Sleeping pills. That’s the solution. An artificial sleep has let me recover from all those hectic, tiring days. Now I can begin to see things in a different light. Eduardo was expecting too much, leaving me in charge of the office for three weeks. I’m not up to it. I don’t have the right temperament. My nerves were shot. Who knows what blunders I could have made? But I’m happy now. For the first time in days I feel happy and all of a sudden I realise I’m singing along to a Christmas carol that’s being spat out by some loudspeaker in a nearby shop. People must think I’m mad. I burst out laughing. And that’s when, like a recurring nightmare, I see her again.
I’m not scared anymore and I don’t feel tired. I’ve just had enough. I’ve had it up to here. I’m going to follow her, get a good look at her, reassure myself that she’s just a tramp, ask her if she needs any help. Now she’s leaving the well-lit avenue and turning down a dark passageway. I run and almost catch up with her, then I hold back, keeping a safe distance, watching her walk. She’s barefoot, gliding across the cobbles like a cat. Her hair is a tangled mess. Her dress is in tatters. I don’t call her by her name anymore because I don’t know her name. Suddenly she stops dead, as if she were waiting for me. In spite of the dark I realise that we aren’t in a passageway, as I’d thought, it’s a dead end. But it’s too late to turn back now. My inertia has made me bump into her. ‘Excuse me,’ I say. ‘Just a moment, please. Listen.’ And then I’m mystified to find a piece of green silk in my hand, a bit of moth-eaten material that disintegrates between my fingers, and she turns and smiles at me. But it’s not a smile, it’s a grimace. An awful rictus grin. And her breath! I’m enveloped in a fetid stench. I feel sick, my senses cloud over. When I come to I’m alone, leaning against a wall, with the shopping bags scattered across the ground. I’m not surprised to find them still there. I pick them up one by one. Carefully, almost fondly. Now I know who the woman is. And I think of Dina again. Poor Dina Dachs. Shut away in her office, going back to her apartment, walking along the street. Because Dina, wherever she happens to be at the moment, still doesn’t know that she’s been dead for a very long time.
 Or maybe I can still stop it. I forget all about the dictates of reason, which have turned out to be useless, and for the first time in my life I listen to a voice that comes from somewhere deep inside myself. Dina, even though she may not have died yet, is dead. The woman in green is the dead Dina. I’ve seen her decomposing, her impossible appearances in busy streets, in three-way mirrors, in dead end streets. I think of mirages on a hot beach. Maybe it hasn’t happened yet but it’s going to happen. And it’s fallen to me, by some inexplicable chance of fate, to bear witness to these strange events. It doesn’t stretch the imagination to conclude that I’m the only one who can do something about it. And I don’t feel frightened. It’s strange, but I don’t feel frightened, just resolute. So I do what I always do on every Christmas Eve. I leave the employees’ presents in the caretaker’s office, I check that none of the cards have come unstuck, remind him of exactly what needs to be done in two days’ time. The caretaker, as ever, tells me not to worry and sends me off, pretending he doesn’t know that one of the parcels is for him, then he locks up his office and goes home. But I don’t go home. I go outside and I walk a short way down the street, but there’s a light on up on the fifth floor and I know who’s there, typing away, sorting out files, working overtime again as a result of my ignorance and confusion. I open the street door with my key and call the lift. When I get to the fifth floor landing I hesitate for a moment. But I don’t ring the bell. All the lights are out except in one office. I go in quietly, cautiously, because the last thing I want to do is give her a shock. So I knock on her office door and wait.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ says Dina. But she’s really thinking, ‘Not you, again.’
Dina has her coat on and there are piles of papers, letters and files on her desk. ‘I was just about to leave,’ she adds. She opens her handbag and puts in a couple of letters, snaps it shut and then, since I haven’t moved away from the doorway, she says, ‘I needn’t remind you it’s Christmas Eve.’
I draw on all my strength and ask her to stay on for a moment. To sit down. To allow me a few minutes to tell her something. Dina obeys me resentfully. With a sigh of annoyance, weariness, disgust. She drums her fingers on the desk top.
‘I’m meeting friends on the other side of town in fifteen minutes. Please be quick.’
I’m not put out by her arrogance. Nothing that poor Dina does or says could upset me now. But I can’t find the words. How can I explain that it’s not worth rushing? How can I make her understand that, sometimes, time doesn’t follow the usual rules? Maybe it’s all an illusion. We see things as we’ve been taught to see them. Her desk, for example. Can we be sure that it’s a desk with four legs and a desk top? Who can be sure that in fifteen minutes’ time she’ll be on the other side of town? A quarter of an hour. It’s just a convention, isn’t it? A way of measuring, pigeon-holing, tying down or controlling things that are beyond us, things we don’t understand. An artifice to reassure us, so we don’t ask too many questions.
‘I’d appreciate it,’ she says, noticeably irritated, ‘if you would try to be more specific.’
But I can’t. I tell her that I’ve just seen her in the street. ‘Again?’ she says, with a sarcastic sneer. ‘Don’t you think you’re becoming totally obsessed?’ Any moment now she’s going to explode, force me to leave the office, threaten to call the police. That’s why I need to be quick. Yes, I saw her. Today and yesterday too, and the other day in the restaurant, and that first time in the busy street. At first I thought that she had something against me, was following me, searching me out. Later, I thought that it wasn’t her, but someone who looked strikingly like her.
‘And now?’
Dina looks at me. She’s running out of patience. I insist that she stays a little while longer. I take off a glove and put it back on. I’m lost for words again. I don’t know how to tell her. I don’t how to let her know that the process is irreversible. That less than an hour ago, in the dead end alleyway, I saw the grimace of death on her mouth with no lips, her fetid stench, her decomposing flesh. All I can manage is to stutter out, ‘Be very careful, please. Maybe we can still stop it. Or delay it, delay it for as long as possible.’
Dina has got to her feet.
‘I’m sorry. Everything you’ve just told me is very interesting. But I have to go. Maybe you don’t have any plans for tonight, but I do.’
Dina hates me. She loathes me or thinks I’m mad. All I can do is let things run their course. I get up too, convinced that any explanation, any warning, is pointless. I feel small, insignificant but at the same time presumptuous and arrogant. I wanted to change the pages of destiny, but this poor girl’s destiny has already been written.
‘Why are you looking at me like that, if you don’t mind me asking?’
Dina’s indignant, standing in front of me, with her handbag over her shoulder and the office keys jangling in her hand. Maybe I’ve made a mistake. But when she slung her handbag over her shoulder so brusquely, her coat gaped open for a second or two and I caught sight of something that for all the world I would rather not have seen.
‘You’re wearing a green dress. A green silk dress.’ Dina Dachs’ eyes are spitting fire. ‘For the record, your position in the firm doesn’t give you the right to…’
I’ve no idea what she’s saying anymore. There’s something in her voice, in her tone, that defies any response.
‘And you can stop spying on me, following me around all the time. You give me the creeps. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.’
Now her words are coming out in a torrent, compulsively.
‘Whatever it is you want from me you’re not going to get it. And if you’re interested in my clothes, well here you are. A green silk dress. Brand new. I hope you like it.’
Dina has taken off her coat, brusquely. Now she looks like the same woman I’ve been seeing again and again over the past few days. There’s only one detail missing: a small accessory that she must have hidden away somewhere. I can picture her in the lift, putting on the necklace in front of the mirror. Or in the taxi. Or the bathroom in the office.
‘Your handbag,’ I say, ‘let me look in your handbag.’
Now, for the first time, she seems frightened. I try to do the impossible: persuade her that she shouldn’t go out into the street dressed like that. That everything I’m doing is for her own good. But words are not enough. Now, more than ever, I know they’re not enough. I don’t know whether I’m going mad or obeying the voice of destiny. Because I grab her and shake her. And she fights back. She clings to her handbag and fights back and tries to open a penknife. She’s frightened and won’t listen to reason. So now, resolute, I have no choice but to stop her, to reveal the awful truth, to shout at her, ‘You’re dead. Do you still not get it? You’re dead!’ But Dina’s not fighting back anymore. Her eyes are staring at me wide with shock and her body slips from my grasp down to the floor, powerless, terrified. There’s no time to waste and I snatch her handbag. I search desperately for a case or a box containing the necklace; maybe without the necklace none of what’s been predicted will come to pass. All I find are sheets of paper. Sheets of paper that are of no interest to me, that I ignore, throw away. Sheets of paper the exact contents of which I’ll discover in two days’ time, together with everyone else in the office.
And then Cesca will shake her head sadly. And I’ll hear rumours, footsteps, I’ll feel cold. The electricity bill, a note pad, a letter… Dear Eduardo… words that I remember well because they’re Dina’s. She’s always spying on me, following me around all the time. She gives me the creeps… And others I recognise even more clearly because they’re mine, even though the letter is signed Dina Dachs and I myself have not yet dared to write them down on paper. I think about Trastevere. Our apartment in Trastevere, counting the days until we meet in Rome… Memories that I don’t remember. I shall never forget our first night, in the hotel on the seafront… Absurd, ridiculous, obscene sentences. Promises of love intermingled with the sound of footsteps, keys, doors opening and closing, the neighbours in the apartment upstairs moving furniture, a man in a white coat telling me, ‘You’re exhausted. Relax.’ And, above all, Cesca. Cesca looking at me, full of compassion.
But that won’t happen for another two days. Right now I’m kneeling down, determined to prevent the inevitable, holding the empty handbag, surrounded by sheets of paper that I’ve not the slightest interest in reading, that I sweep aside angrily with my hand. I remember, ‘In fifteen minutes’ time, on the other side of town.’ And then a light comes on. It’s as if she were there, at a party, a gathering, at midnight and people are exchanging presents. But Dina will never receive the fateful gift. I’ve managed to frighten her, warn her. ‘I’ve stopped it happening,’ I say. I look at my hands. Still in their gloves. Still shaky, still possessed by a strength that I never knew I had. And then I look at Dina, on the floor, with her eyes still bulging in terror, in shock, at what she must have thought was the vision of a madwoman. But Dina doesn’t move. She’s wearing a green dress. Green dress, green shoes . . . And only now, as I get up slowly, do I notice the bruising around her throat and I understand the cold truth that nothing is missing. ‘It’s too soon yet,’ I say out loud, even though no one can hear me. ‘But by tomorrow, or the day after, it will have become a violet necklace.’