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By Root 379 0

was a warm evening, or I was oblivious to the cold, and the streetlights and shop windows and lights of passing cars were intensely bright; the conversation of pedestrians and the sound of traffic and music from passing cars was intensely loud; I wondered if these were side effects. Teresa wasn’t there, but Arturo was, and appeared very happy to see me. I told him I had been in Granada with someone named Isabel and he smiled at me but asked no questions. Maybe his expression implied Teresa would be jealous. He asked me about my poems and I took four notebooks out of my bag and gave them to him and explained they were just from this week and I wondered which were his favorite poems and if there were any they wanted to include in the pamphlet. He seemed genuinely excited, and I thought to myself that that was both touching and somehow sad, but felt neither touched nor saddened. He said I must come to the opening on Friday for the show of several well–known Spanish painters and he added, maybe significantly, that Teresa would be eager to see me; I said fine. Then for some reason I embraced and kissed Arturo with an ambiguous passion I didn’t feel and walked home. For the first time in many days I was tired and quickly fell asleep.

When I awoke it was a little after three in the morning and I was perhaps hungrier than I had ever been. I’d been eating very little for two weeks, and the return of my appetite, I assumed, represented a shift in my body’s relation to the white pills. I ate an entire two–day–old baguette and as I ate I checked my e–mail and there was a message in English from Teresa, who had only e–mailed me once or twice in the past, saying that she had heard I was back from “traveling with Isabel” and that she missed me. I felt a small, distant thrill, further confirmation that my body had acclimated a little to the drugs, or that the drugs were already losing their effectiveness, and I went easily back to sleep and slept until the early afternoon.

After I showered, I went to a jeweler near my apartment and with my parents’ credit card, which I was only to use in emergencies, bought Isabel a hundred–and–fifty–euro silver necklace. It was the first time I’d used the card and it was by far the most expensive gift I’d ever purchased. I asked the handsome woman who sold me the necklace where I should take my girlfriend for dinner as it was our anniversary, what did she consider the nicest restaurant in Madrid, the fancier the better, given the occasion. She said she liked Zalacaín, but that it was probably difficult to get in. Smiling, I asked if I could use her phone to call them and beg. She said of course and I called and they said they could, owing to a cancellation, seat two that night at nine thirty. I thanked them and the woman gift wrapped the necklace and said something about how lucky my girlfriend was as I left.

I went to the Corte Inglés and bought a dress shirt, a stylish–looking knockoff black suit that they could tailor within the hour, and a pair of Spanish shoes. It all cost a few hundred euros and again I used the card. I went home and took a second shower, rolled and smoked a spliff, read the Quixote for a while, and then put on the suit. When Isabel arrived she seemed impressed by my appearance; I felt handsome, not, as I had expected, ridiculous. After she considered me for a while, Isabel said her own clothes weren’t elegant enough; she hadn’t thought we were going anywhere so formal. I said we were going to Zalacaín as though I went there all the time and she said she had heard of it but would have to go change. I told her there wasn’t time, although there was, and that she looked beautiful, which she did, but I said she looked beautiful with some condescension, as if I doubted she owned sufficiently elegant clothing. We took a cab and were early to Zalacaín and Isabel was visibly underdressed; people were staring at the scarf in her hair and the hostess hesitated before asking for my name. Isabel was too attractive for her casual attire to cause much of a scandal, but I smiled apologetically