Leaving the Atocha Station - Ben Lerner [8]
Outside we lit cigarettes and before he could repeat his questions I hurriedly said: my Spanish is not good. I read very well, I lied, but I don’t speak. He laughed and asked if I knew various people and when I said no, he would say, with excitement, that he had to introduce me. You’re very nice, I kept saying, which struck him as very funny. Fashionable people kept greeting him as they passed. He told me he owned or worked at a gallery in Salamanca, the ritziest neighborhood in the city, and that his brother or boyfriend was either a famous photographer, sold famous photographs, or was a famous cameraman. He said something about how his gallery was a place where poets gathered, held readings, and he spoke at length in terms I could barely follow about his own love for poetry, listing several Spanish poets of whom I’d never heard, plus the obligatory mention of Lorca. He gave me the gallery’s card, first writing a cell phone number on one side of it, then put his arm around me warmly and returned me to the group inside the bar. There everyone assumed I was a friend of Arturo’s and we exchanged names and, with the two women nearest me, Teresa and Ester, kisses on both cheeks. Arturo immediately entered into conversation and I slipped away to the bar to order another mojito, and every time thereafter I thought I might be called upon to speak, I absconded to the bar. I would ask, largely by indicating my glass or theirs and raising my eyebrows, if I could bring anyone anything; Ester disappeared after a while but I bought Teresa and Arturo several mojitos and it was when I found myself enthusiastically explaining my project to Teresa that I realized I had had too many.
I need air, I said, and left the slowly spinning bar; I intended to walk home and pass out. While I was leaning against the wall of the bar collecting myself for the walk I was surprised to find Arturo and Teresa suddenly beside me, asking if I was all right. Yes, I said, and straightened myself abruptly, causing the spins to resume, redouble; I realized I would vomit. I walked across the street where there were fewer people and a public trash can and, just before I reached it, vomited indeed. When I finished being sick, I stood up and there they were just across the street, waiting for me, Teresa smoking and Arturo proffering a bottle of water, smiling. I crossed, washed out my mouth, drank some of the water, and thanked him. We’ll drive you home, he said, we’re going to another party anyway.
I was embarrassed to tell Arturo once we were in his car that I was a ten-minute walk from home, but, as it turned out, I didn’t have to tell him anything; the joint Teresa lit and passed back to me produced a cone of intense heat in my throat, which then migrated to my chest, where it unfurled against my rib cage. I realized my tongue was numb or at least tingling and I couldn’t summon the name of my street, a situation that struck me as horrifying and hilarious. I turned my head and watched the lights slide by and found it lovely and then I realized I was saying so in English, that several minutes had elapsed and I was enumerating everything I found beautiful as we passed; streetlights, fountains, plane trees, if that’s what those were. While in the first phase of my project I very rarely spoke Spanish, I had almost never had occasion to use my English, and the latter erupted as we left the city and merged onto a highway, Arturo and Teresa having decided to take me with them to the party; maybe I had asked. With what I thought was remarkable eloquence and rhythm I described Cyrus feeding bats at dusk in Providence and seeing myself from above; I elaborated something like a theory of poetry, deadest of all media, in cadences that rose and fell so movingly I imagined Arturo and Teresa would find themselves compelled to acknowledge my profundity, all the more compelled for not comprehending me, save for occasional cognates; they would experience the periodicity of my thinking without the