The Woman in Valencia Page 5

  The mattress doesn’t make a sound as Claire places one foot on the carpet. The alarm clock reads 3:04 a.m. She slips her feet into her sandals, pulls a sheet up over a child’s arm and drapes her navy cardigan over her shoulders, buttoning it up crookedly over her nightgown. As she walks toward the door, she presses a hand to her side; through the ribbing of the sweater, she can feel the rectangular shape of the woman in Valencia’s key card, which she’d stashed in the pocket. She retraces her steps, gropes around on the dresser for her own key, emblazoned with the hotel logo, and folds it, smooth and cold, into her palm. Ever so gently, like she’s caressing a child’s cheek, she turns the lever until she hears the muted click of the latch releasing. Claire closes the door slowly behind her and steps out into the hallway.

  She makes her way down the stairs to the fourth floor. She’s careful to close the heavy fire door behind her, then pauses for a moment in the hallway, which looks exactly like every other hallway in the Valencia Palace Hotel, with its mocha carpeting and cream-coloured panelling interspersed with expanses of vaguely walnut-looking faux wood around each door. Spotlights on the ceiling and knee-high emergency lighting strips cast an intense, hazy glow, almost like they were designed to hurry guests back to their rooms. But Claire lingers; she approaches a door, presses her ear up against it, holds her breath. She runs a hand slowly over the smooth, shiny surface of the artificial wood, traces a finger around the fake knots and imitation rings, lined up in a predictable horizontal pattern, there to give the impression of the real thing, but not fooling anyone.

  The walls are perfectly soundproofed. It’s impossible to tell which rooms are occupied, who’s sleeping, who’s having sex, who’s battling insomnia or infidelity or depression, who’s masturbating, who can’t get it up, who’s snoring, who feels utterly alone behind these impenetrable doors, locked tight with an electronic bolt. A rabbit hutch made up of perfectly aligned cages, with thick concrete walls designed to block out all sound, ensure a peaceful night’s sleep. She tiptoes forward, coming to a stop in front of one of the rooms, hyper-aware of the silence, the night, the muted tones of the hallway. She spends a few seconds turning the woman in Valencia’s key card over and over in her fingers, as though preparing for a coin toss. She slides it into the slot in the waist-high door handle and swipes down. The light stays red. Claire pivots and tries the lock on the door across the hall. Nothing happens. She keeps going, making her way along the nubby wall-to-wall carpeting, card in hand, heart in her throat each time she slides the key into the narrow slot on one of the doors. Her palm is sweating, her temples pounding. The risk is intoxicating, like slipping into a cage with a predator or reaching out to stroke a big cat.

  Another step, another door.

  At the second-to-last door on the left, against all expectations, the light turns green and a click breaks the silence. Claire freezes, a lump of fear in her throat. She hesitates between running away and slowly pushing the door open; for a second, she remains mired between the two, on the razor’s edge.

  Then, powerless to resist, Claire eases the door open on its hinges. She takes one step forward, and the floor suddenly gives way. She loses her footing and she’s about to go over a cliff, into a bottomless pit, the start of a sickening fall through the Valencian sky, through the oppressive night air. She topples into the void, her body in free fall. She sees her reflection streaking by in the windows of the Valencia Palace Hotel; she’s blonde and terrified, she doesn’t recognize herself. With mere inches to go before she hits the ground, she screams and sits bolt upright in bed, her back drenched with sweat in the frigid hotel room. Jean moans quietly, rolls over and wraps himself in the sheet, while Claire stares wide-eyed at the white soundproof ceiling, tries to steady her breathing and go back to sleep.

  *

  Someone other than her, Claire Halde tortures herself, might have been more helpful, might have reacted better or been more comforting in the time it would have taken to call for help or come to the strange woman’s assistance. Surely, someone else would have said or done the right thing at the right time, offered her a warm smile, an “it’ll be okay” or a “don’t worry, we’ll take care of you,” a glimmer of hope, a measure of kindness in the form of a smile or a hand on the small of her back, with the compassion needed or the wherewithal required to shield the woman from her own desperation, from her determination to depart this world.

  Claire Halde will keep this story from her friends and family, and Jean will eventually tell her that he’s sick of hearing about it. She will carry the secret around like a vicious scar, and the encounter in Valencia will become engraved on her mind. A crack in the heretofore smooth finish, a defect, a burden, a sense of self-loathing, the biggest failure of her life. In the wake of the woman’s death, she will hand herself down a sentence of silence and self-effacement and something resembling guilt. And yet, she didn’t kill the woman. No one will come to arrest her or even question her. She didn’t run over a child with her car. She didn’t lose control of her vehicle, spin out on the highway, commit a hit-and-run or mow down strangers in a moment of distraction. She didn’t start a forest fire, burn down a parliament building, torture an animal, smuggle ivory in her suitcase or plan a terrorist attack.

  Up to that point, Claire Halde had lived a life virtually above reproach. She carried her elderly neighbour’s shopping bags into the house and shovelled her driveway during the winter, she often held out her arm to a young blind man on his way to the metro, she always stopped at crosswalks, always used her flashers, rarely gave in to road rage. She even let the squeegee kids make a streaky mess of her windshield in exchange for a few coins, which she handed over with a smile. She often asked the homeless man bundled up in front of the grocery store if she could buy him a meal, beaming with pride at the sight of her generous, kind-hearted children holding out a barbecued chicken, a carton of milk or chocolate cookies to the man with the sunken, hollow cheeks—Mama, can we give him a little treat today? She also gave money to the rubby who held the door open for her at the Fabre metro station and to the gypsy woman in front of the Asian market with the passel of snot-nosed kids clinging to her embroidered skirts, although less often, mostly because she couldn’t stand it when people used their kids to attract sympathy. For the same reason, she never gave a cent to some charities, but gave generously to others, like Doctors Without Borders and Amnesty International. She even gave up her seat in the metro for old people and pregnant ladies. But, for that desperate woman in Valencia, she’d had nothing but cold indifference.

  DAY 3 ITINERARY

  At breakfast, the children are impressed by the buffet in the hotel restaurant. They pile their plates high with pastries, ham, eggs and jam. Jean eats with gusto, sipping his coffee while paging through a guidebook. He plans the day ahead. The children go back for seconds. Claire forces herself to swallow a few bites, chews slowly, with no real interest in her food. She drinks two big cups of coffee while watching the people eating at the surrounding tables. The hotel staff are cheerful. The guests are relaxed. You’d never know a woman killed herself at this very hotel the night before. The newspapers don’t even mention her death.

  Checkout is at noon. After breakfast, the kids ask to go for a swim; they want to enjoy the pool for as long as possible. Jean agrees to take them and suggests that Claire go for a run to clear her head.

  When she hits the streets of Valencia that morning, Claire Halde feels detached from reality, like she’s running outside her own body. The streets, the buildings, the pedestrians she deftly avoids—seniors, the odd couple with arms wrapped around each other’s waists, babies in strollers, roly-poly little girls like her daughter playing hopscotch—it all flashes by in a haze. Nothing but vague shapes stand out from among the Valencian cityscape; she runs with just enough focus to avoid obstacles and cracks, to stop obediently for red lights, to watch out for reckless drivers. It’s the same easy motion as when she runs at home, in her own city,
on the streets and paths so familiar to her. Her body moves forward on autopilot in Valencia, speeding up and switching gears smoothly, but her thoughts are detached and her concentration almost nonexistent. And yet, she runs to feel alive; she pounds the pavement to numb the part of her brain where her conscience and her obsessions dwell.

  WORTH THE DETOUR:

  THE VALENCIA INSTITUTE OF MODERN ART

  They check out at noon, right on time, after showering quickly and shoving wet bathing suits and sweaty workout gear in a plastic bag, which they tuck into the suitcase at the last minute. They stow their luggage in a locker at the train station, then walk over to the Valencia Institute of Modern Art, where they will spend the afternoon before taking the train back to Barcelona.

  They begin their tour with the Lived Body exhibit, and the children twitter nervously in front of the photos that show genitals, breasts and shrivelled skin, which they’re not used to seeing. Claire sits on a navy blue bench in a dark room; jaw clenched, she watches a series of slides projected on the white wall. Nan Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency leaves her breathless. She experiences the images like a punch in the gut: the bodies of the men, women and children, bones protruding, skin smooth and bright on some, battered and bruised on others, their injuries and their smiles, their embraces, their eyes suffused with desire or hopelessness or contentment. She is struck by how the light imbues them with a sense of poignancy, fallibility, humanity.

  Watching the slides and listening to the music that accompanies the portraits provides her with a measure of comfort, a feeling of consolation that eases the sorrow she’s felt since the day before.

  Jean leaves the room well before the end, continuing on his way with the kids, but Claire stays for the rest of The Ballad, not wanting to miss anything, transfixed by the slideshow as though it were a family album conjuring up long-forgotten memories.

  PUERTA DE SERRANOS

  After the museum, they still have time for one more attraction before they’re due to catch their train. Jean climbs to the top of Puerta de Serranos with their daughter, while Claire stays down below with the little guy, who’s fast asleep. She doesn’t have the stomach for heights right now, and it’s all she can do to keep it together for the kids, going through the motions of motherhood: tying a shoelace, buttoning a shirt, washing hands, combing hair, pushing the stroller, holding her daughter’s hand as they cross the street.

  The little girl waves at her from the top of one of the massive Gothic towers, happy and carefree. Her father has picked her up by the waist, and she’s leaning over the stone rampart, in one of the crenellations, to get a better look at her mother and brother far below. Claire’s legs give out from under her and she crumples to the ground, head between her knees, clutching the stroller wheel for balance.

  From that moment on, everywhere Claire Halde looks, she will see bodies raining down from the sky.

  THE TRAIN RIDE

  Claire makes her way slowly down the aisle. There are a few passengers scattered around the carriage, people dozing off, an elderly couple. The mauve purse knocks against her hip, and she clutches it protectively against her body. She turns around, tries to catch Jean’s eye. He’s slipped an arm around their little boy, who’s dozing on his chest. On the seat across from them, their daughter has also fallen asleep, her head resting against the window on a makeshift sweater-pillow.

  The bathrooms are tucked between two cars. Claire pushes open the accordion door, slides the lock into place and hangs the bag on the wall hook. The sound emanating from the train to Barcelona is monotonous, steady, predictable. There’s an announcement: We’ll be arriving at the station in twenty-five minutes. Claire runs the water for a minute, lets it fill her cupped palms, splashes it on her face. She tucks a stray strand of hair back into her bun, unbuttons her sweater, straightens her blouse.

  She opens the purse and grabs a frosted makeup case. She takes out a tube of lipstick and removes the gold lid. In the rectangular mirror, Claire surveys herself closely as she paints her lips with several coats of the woman in Valencia’s lipstick, a creamy blood red that’s started to melt in the heat. Claire stares at her reflection, puckering and smacking her lips together. You can’t miss them—her shiny, luscious lips, bright as a maraschino cherry. She lines the sink delicately with a paper towel, as though preparing to lay out syringes, a round mirror and other dental instruments. She arranges the various cosmetics with care: blush, eyeshadow, eyeliner, mascara and face powder, which she applies in succession to the apples of her cheeks, the creases of her eyelids, the full length of her lashes, the stubborn oily spot on her forehead. She smiles at herself mechanically in the mirror, sizes herself up as she would a stranger who both fascinates and repulses her. The jerky movements of the train throw her off balance just as she’s having another go with the eyeliner. A thick, black line shoots across her eyelid, like a jagged seam reducing her eye to a slit. Doe-eye fail. She rips off a length of toilet paper, which she raises to her mouth to wipe away the red, rubbing so hard she tears the thin, delicate tissue of her lips, drawing blood. The skin around her mouth turns pink, like a wound healing over.

  She puts away the makeup and closes the case, then bundles it in the folds of her cardigan. She eyes the purse as it swings back and forth on the hook, vibrating with the motion of the train.

  BACK IN BARCELONA

  In the days following their return to Barcelona, her blood turns to ice whenever she hears the wail of an ambulance siren.

  Claire is terrified that she’ll never get over it, that she’ll slide irretrievably into obscurity, the unknown, her own indifference.

  She chokes down her fears and her guilty thoughts, does her best to make up for her many silences by plastering a weak smile on her face. She suppresses her sighs and puts on her vacation face, mostly for the kids.

  SITGES

  The Sunday after the fall, a few days before returning to Montreal, as they’re strolling along the shore in Sitges—“Must-see seaside resort,” according to the guidebooks—Claire notices a woman sit down on a stone palisade overlooking a cliff. As Claire looks on, the woman shifts her weight onto her hands and raises her legs. Claire stops dead in the middle of the street, drops her little girl’s hand, shakes her head. Her entire body freezes. She takes a step forward, ready to sprint toward the cliff, and just as she frantically screams STOP!, she realizes the woman is smiling. Her head is at a forty-five degree angle, and she’s pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head, which is covered with a thick helmet of dull, brown hair. The woman is posing for her husband, a sweaty, oily-faced man in Bermuda shorts, holding a camera not six feet away. Claire trembles as she takes her daughter’s hand again, and Jean glares at her, eyebrows furrowed.

  “What the hell, Claire?”

  “I don’t know, I just thought…”

  MONTREAL AIRPORT

  At carousel 6, they’re still waiting for their luggage to emerge. People are getting impatient. Some look visibly annoyed, foreheads creased with frown lines; others are huffing and puffing, taking their exasperation out on their life or travel partner: Talk about a crappy ending to our holiday, what a shitty company, worst experience of my life, we should make a complaint. Jean crosses his arms and exhales loudly; he casts an irritated glance at the kids, who are standing next to the conveyor belt, waiting eagerly for the suitcases to appear. Claire keeps her distance, hangs back from the crowd; quite frankly, she’d like to walk away from the whole scene. She looks away. Her gaze travels above the roiling sea of peeved heads and shoulders and comes to rest on a giant TV tuned to a twenty-four-hour news channel. Headlines scroll by on a blue ticker at the bottom of the screen: “New surge of violence in Sudan. Young woman found in California 18 years after kidnapping. Teenage girl drowns in Rimouski River. Montreal beats record high set 83 years ago.”

  Later, as Claire is looking out the window at the cars crawling by on the Metropolitan, another
news bulletin will announce the latest in a string of tragedies in the Mediterranean. Libyan authorities have found the bodies of one hundred and thirteen migrants washed up on shore after their boat capsized off the coast of Sicily, the radio announcer will drone. It’s estimated that some one hundred others may have gone down with the ship, she’ll conclude, before moving on to the sports scores, the weather, the arts and entertainment segment, and finally the traffic. At that point, the taxi driver will turn up the volume and let out a long, weary sigh. Claire and Jean will look at each other silently in the air-conditioned car. Drivers will need to be patient: It’s going to be another long ride home.

  *

  Over the years, various news stories she reads will continue to raise the spectre of the woman in Valencia. “Man throws himself off Tate Modern,” a headline will blare one July afternoon. A woman will confess to the Evening Standard that she finds it “really sad that this happened on the first sunny day of the year and just before the Olympics.” Memories of the Spanish city will come surging back with news of an investigation into how a drunk man died after being struck in the head by a metro train at the Langelier station one January evening. Sprawled out on the platform, he was ignored by at least forty bystanders and three transit employees. No one lifted a finger to help him as two metros came and went, mere inches from his body, as a full sixteen minutes elapsed, and the man lay dying without anyone raising an eyebrow. When Winston Moseley, Kitty Genovese’s killer, dies in prison at the age of eighty-one, more than half a century after brutally raping and murdering her in the middle of a New York City street, Claire Halde will read old newspaper articles about how thirty-eight witnesses watched the scene unfold from their apartment windows without coming to the victim’s rescue.