Letter: January 27 - Blue Flowers

My darling,

What’s to be said now, now that I’ve already said it all? Now that it’s all over. What do we say when everything is over and the day is dawning and the sheets are stretched out on the bed, the rumpled sheets, what’s to be said in the next moment, because even after the end there’s something that comes after, something that pulses and flows? Does something really exist after the end? Something we don’t say, a forgotten word, or a wave, a gesture left half-finished, something capable of transforming us.

The afterward. Is there an afterward? Separation never stops. The last time, the endless night, you lying in silence beside me on the bed, or you behind me, sitting on the sofa, or you, dressed already, headed toward the door, the last time you headed toward the door in silence, my hand seeking out yours, something you didn’t say but that echoed there, something lost along the way, the people and the cars on the road, your hand on my arm and the mark of your hand on my arm, or long before this, the first look, something lost but that I wanted to be there, secret, still there, something lost infinitely, something unrecoverable but which was still there after everything, after the end. Something capable of transforming us.

Is that it, is that what separation is? I’m alone in this house; is separation a space that appears all of a sudden, the earth unexpectedly opening up, enraged, reconfiguring the landscape, this place where I now find myself? Or is separation just an empty space on the bed? An absence that used to be diffuse and now finally materializes there, beside us on the bed, and faces up to us, merciless, while the night comes into our room. Is that it? And if I were to tell you, no, separation can be anything, not just the earth opening up or an empty space on the bed, but anything, whatever I want, whatever we want, and your space can be any space, even an expectation, a clash, or even a blank space, an envelope, a sheet of paper on which I write these words, where every day I dream up a broad tissue of seductions and questions and answers, patiently, carefully.

There’s not just the letters and their epistolary forms, but also another story, that of the reader of these stories. Have I told you about this before? About that other story, this character I’ve invented, this character with a life so different from yours, someone who receives in error these written words that are directed at you, opens up these pages, careless or curious, and without realizing it, is gradually charmed and transformed. Someone who’s so different but who reads me the way I’d like you to read me. And why all of this, you must have been wondering from the start, and again I will answer you: the desire that I should have within me, in my words, something capable of touching you and transforming you, so that you will read me and turn and look at me and, without realizing, create a shortcut, a bridge between us.

So separation can be that, too, you reading on the sofa, or what I imagine you doing, reading on the sofa. My presence. The reflection and reverse of my presence. And I imagine there’s something in this game that intrigues you, that surprises you, with every phrase you are surprised and you think, How can I go on here, after everything, you think, How can someone after everything, after that night, after the end, the silence, the closing door, how is it possible, this obstinate presence, this tenacity. How could anyone return, go back over the terrain that I go back over in each letter, the interminable separation. And then I tell you that there’s always something left over, even after the end, something that insists and returns, in this space I am creating between what I write and what you read, there’s a waiting, there’s something that transforms us. When we thought everything was lost, when we thought everything was over, when nothing else can ever reach us, then it appears, this opportunity to recover the unrecoverable. Because hatred is never only hatred, hatred is never pure, intact, hatred is never only a passion. Something betrays us, something left behind. And what I write to you, these letters, their reflections and reversals, the impulse that started them off is no more than this, what is left behind. The hope that you will turn and look.

Which is why from here, from this space, I imagine that at a certain moment you might come through that door: I’d walk over, my hair loose, wearing high heels, and I see you coming through that door, the interminable separation. At any time of the night, of the day. You ring the doorbell. You walk across the hallway, climbing the stairs. You in the middle of the street. An enchantment. A call.

But why am I telling you this, you might be wondering, and I answer you: Because hatred is never merely a passion, and because you’re reading me, because you are still reading me, even now this letter is in your hands, isn’t that so? Perhaps, I could answer, because there is something within me that is very beautiful. Something terrible and beautiful. Something of yours, which appears in another space, in another story, so different and which you perhaps do not understand but which belongs to you. Have you thought of that? Something of yours, which belongs to you, even if you don’t want it. You carry an emblem, an invisible mark, that only the other person can see and recognize; strange, isn’t it? And so this sign I see and recognize and carry, this something of yours in me, makes me keep going. And I tell you that I will be here, every night. Time stretches out and I wait for you, my footsteps in the hall, the doorbell, and you arrive in silence.

So as I hate you, as I try to destroy something of yours in me, there will always be this impulse, this flaw, that I hate you and yet never hate you. The interminable separation. And when you finally return I would receive you—the uneasiness, the doorbell—and I’d take your hand, that same one, the one of the dagger, of the rose that was blooming, the very same, I’d take your hand between my hands, delicately, affectionately, your hand between mine, and I’d close the door and kiss the tips of your fingers, one by one, the tips of your fingers, and then, coming even closer, I’d kiss your forehead, very gently, your forehead, your cheeks, your mouth, at first just our lips brushing together and the breath from your mouth, and I would recognize your taste, as if it were yesterday, the taste of your mouth and your hand between mine. How was that possible? you might be thinking. And I give you my answer: there is something very beautiful in me.

So this is all it’s for, this last letter and everything I have written you, just to say that I would receive you, if you returned, if you wanted to, if you, without realizing, were to create a shortcut, a bridge, between us. That’s all. I’d receive you without questions, without demands, I’d kiss your hand and lead you to the bedroom, the same bedroom, ours, the same bed, remember? The sheets, the night opening up. The space of the previous night, of the war, the battles lost, I would lead you, withdrawn, silent, and you would go with me and rest your head in my lap, your head weighing on my lap like a stone, my fingers slipping through your hair, the silent tangle of your hair.

And at that moment, everything else will stop mattering, the last day, the last night, the separation, even the letters would lose their purpose, even the possible interpretations, that other story, the words I write you, this glossary of little seductions. All the rest would cease to exist, and nothing would remain but us, us and the forgetting and the calm of forgetting and of defeat. Your head in my lap. I would bend down and kiss your brow, my love, I’d very gently kiss your eyes and the dark color of your eyes, I’d kiss your neck, the back of your neck, I’d feel the taste of your mouth in my mouth and I’d feel in my body the growing velocity of time running on. And I would stay where I was, in that moment, hunched over myself, over us, your head in my lap, your fingers between mine, between my hands, like a knife, between mine, like a knife, my love, and I’m hunched over us, there’s something closing, something resting, like a knife, something very beautiful within us, the rumpled sheets, my hair loose, a smile, the dress you like, my skin, my lips, the taste of your mouth.

And you there, so submissive, surrendering, you would ask yourself, how is it possible, all this love. How is it possible?

A.