The Place of Losses

Take your shit with you, all your memories, I wanted to say before she stood up, but then, when I started to stammer it, when I finally got up the courage to say it, it was too late, she had turned around, she was already walking out of the cafe, out of my life, to the street, into someone else’s life. Take your name with you, bitch, thief, woman, I wanted to say, to wound her, to return some of the pain she was causing me. Take everything with you and please don’t come back (because Valeria always comes back after leaving). And please don’t come back this time, Valeria, I wanted to say to her, that’s what I ask above all, that you leave forever and take your memories and your scent. And, if it’s easier for you, think that you’re leaving because I want you to leave, like in the bolero song, like in so many other lives (but I only want you to leave after you’ve left). Take yourself with you, the ghost you summon. Take your body. And don’t come back, I wanted to say, this time don’t even think of coming back. Please, if you’ve really stopped loving me, don’t come back.

But one week later, we were there again, at the only table by the window. It had to seem as though we’d run into each other by chance and it had to seem as though I hadn’t found anything out or that I’d already put away the hurt. So I took the photos out of my backpack without saying anything, without reproach, and I left them on the table, next to the coffees that had just been served and were still steaming. Valeria looked at them for a good while.

She didn’t understand because she hadn’t gone to the last session of the workshop, to which, in spite of everything, I’d only gone to find her. One of them took place in a train carriage. An old man appeared looking slightly lost, possibly he’d got on the wrong train or perhaps he’d forgotten where to disembark. Perhaps he was still stuck in some war, escaping fire and bullets. In the other photo, still alive, or not, covered entirely by a white sheet, a man appeared in a hospital bed.