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“I opened a bank account and paid in the cheque, but the days passed and I couldn’t bring myself to touch the money. For a time I thought of donating it to charity, but I had a superstitious fear of doing anything with it, even to give it away, as if like that I’d be able to keep things from moving on. I thought that as soon as I withdrew even a tiny amount it would trigger reprisals. I became obsessed with the idea that Kloster was pla
“The Day of the Dead. I remember it well. It came out at the same time as the one I dictated to you. It was his first big hit.”
“It soon became a bestseller. It topped all the lists, was in all the shop windows. You could even find it in supermarkets. Every time I passed a bookshop I’d see his name and shiver. My boyfriend tried to reassure me, saying it must have earned Kloster much more than what he’d paid me and he had probably forgotten all about it. But I started noticing something.”
“What?”
“What we mentioned before. Until then, as you said, Kloster was a writer who hated public appearances. But suddenly he became famous. As if he wanted to be everywhere, all the time.”
“Maybe it was because he was alone-it was a way of filling time.”
“Yes, at first I thought something like that as well, that he was looking for comfort in celebrity, or trying to keep his mind busy so as to forget his daughter’s death. Even so, it went totally against his nature. It made me suspect it was part of his plan. But my boyfriend convinced me that Kloster was too busy promoting his book to think of me. That year Ramiro had finished his course in physical education and found a job as a lifeguard on one of the beaches in Villa Gesell. But he wanted to spend time in Mexico before starting. He’d been pla
“Couldn’t it simply have been a coincidence? Lots of writers used to spend the summer in Gesell. Maybe he was renting a house there.”
“Of all the resorts on the coast he chose Gesell? Of all the bars, he went to the very one near my boyfriend’s job? No. It was odd enough that he’d picked Gesell. He knew I spent every summer there. I pointed him out discreetly to Ramiro and he said it could be a coincidence as well. I asked if it was the first time he’d seen him. He said he’d been there every morning, sitting at the same table, for about a week. After reading the paper he’d wade into the sea and swim out very far. Actually I think Ramiro was a bit surprised, and a bit jealous, that this was the writer I’d worked for. I’d told him very little about Kloster and I suppose he’d pictured him much older, more bookish. Sitting there in his trunks Kloster looked like an athlete. He’d regained some of the weight he’d lost, and the sun and sea air had obviously done him good.
“While Ramiro and I were talking about him, he went to the water’s edge and swam out with long, relaxed strokes until he was beyond the breaker. He went further and further out. At first you could still see his arms rising out of the water, but once he got beyond the last line of buoys he was just a dot that became harder and harder to make out in the waves. At one stage I lost sight of him completely. Ramiro passed me his binoculars. I could see him still swimming with the same placid strokes, as if he’d only just set off. I asked Ramiro what would happen if he suddenly got cramp so far out. He admitted that most probably he wouldn’t get there in time to save him. So how could he let him swim out so far? I asked. He seemed embarrassed and said that it was a sort of code: Kloster was a grown-up and obviously knew what he was doing.
“I looked through the binoculars again and said I was amazed he could still be swimming at the same pace. I regretted saying it immediately. Ramiro seemed piqued and said that he swam out just as far every morning, as part of his training for the job. We said nothing more until Kloster reappeared, swimming on his back. He turned round at the last moment, before being dragged in by the breakers, shook his streaming hair from his face, and strode out of the water. He didn’t look in the least bit tired. Still dripping with water, he walked right past without glancing at us, picked up his things from the table, settled the bill, and left. I asked Ramiro if he ever came back in the afternoon and he said no. Nor had he ever seen him in town in the evening.
“We had a bit of an argument then. I begged him not to have breakfast there any more and to go to the bar next door. He was a
She stopped suddenly and leaned forward to stub out her cigarette, twisting and turning it in the ashtray, as if there were one particular memory she found humiliating that made it difficult to go on. She lit another cigarette and as she expelled the first cloud she waved her hand, but I couldn’t tell whether it was simply to disperse the smoke or in unconscious recognition that none of it mattered now. She took another drag on her cigarette and seemed to find the strength to continue.
“In fact I don’t think he liked me having breakfast with him. There was a waitress there who was really pretty and sexy. She always wore tiny miniskirts and bikini tops. As soon as I saw her I thought there were too many giggles and glances between them. When I said this, he got even angrier and denied it, of course. But I really believed he was in danger and I wasn’t prepared to go away and leave him alone just because of a jealous scene. So I went back the following morning. I got there a little earlier. Kloster arrived soon afterwards, before we’d ordered. But instead of sitting at one of the tables outside, he went in and sat at the bar. At first I took this as a good sign, an admission that he’d seen me but didn’t want to face me. I wondered for a moment if perhaps, as Ramiro had said, it really was a coincidence that Kloster was there. I didn’t want to look in his direction and when the waitress had brought our coffee I tried to chat to Ramiro as if Kloster didn’t exist-and the waitress as well. I think Ramiro was even more pleased than I was that Kloster had gone inside and things could stay as they were. He was in a good mood and as soon as he finished breakfast he ran down to the sea, leapt over the breakers and swam out. I suppose he wanted to impress me. I watched as he grew more and more distant, beyond the buoys. He’d left the binoculars on the table and I followed him for a while. His strokes were more energetic than Kloster’s and he was splashing a lot as he kicked his feet, but he didn’t seem to be gliding through the water as smoothly as Kloster had. And he looked as if he was getting tired: he was twisting awkwardly when he lifted his head from the water to take a breath, he was losing his rhythm and his strokes were becoming jerky. He stopped and floated on his back for a while, resting. I thought he seemed agitated…exhausted. I don’t think he was half as far out as Kloster had been the day before. Even without the binoculars I could still make out his head and shoulders in the water. He swam back more slowly and when he was close to the shore, to show off or something, he did the butterfly for the last few yards. I think it was intended for the waitress rather than me. When he got out, breathing hard, I suddenly realised what Kloster’s plan was.”