At Close Quarters Read Free Page B

some inevitable questions would also arise: how did he know it was hers? Where had he been at the moment she had dropped it, seeing that the street was deserted? Why was he returning it, supposing it was valuable? And, above all, who was he, what was his name, who should she thank for that unusual gesture of decency and kindness? And at that point he wouldn’t know what to reply, wouldn’t be able to speak without lying, without concealing from her that he was a solitary man who, hidden behind a window, watched a woman whose name he didn’t even know any more than her occupation, address, or civil status, but whom he could safely say he liked a lot, in a naive, almost adolescent way.
    He slowly opened the gate and walked out onto the empty pavement. He saw her for a few seconds at the end of the street, before she turned the second corner, pushing the stroller in that peculiar way of hers, without leaning forward much but neither completely straight, halfway between the heaviness that goes with great effort and the lightness of excessive energy. He took a few steps and, sure enough, found the shiny object. He quickly picked it up and went back inside.
    It was a slim gold bracelet with small flattened links and delicateoval charms. The clasp had come undone, perhaps having caught a snag on the stroller. In between the links was a plaque of about two centimetres with a filigree engraving on its flipside which read
Marina
.
    ‘Marina,’ he said out loud. ‘Marina. It’s a nice name. Like placing a grain of salt on your tongue and listening to the crystals dissolve.’
    He had to find a way of giving it back; he couldn’t keep it. Besides, it was the perfect excuse he needed.
    Samuel put away the bracelet in a drawer and left for work. He was in a daze all day, swinging between the joy of a suitor who presents his beloved with a jewel and the caution of someone who fears he will be accused of stealing it. On coming home that evening he took another look at the bracelet and imagined the moment he would approach her and the words he would say. He supposed she would be grateful, given that he was returning an object of value. There was only one thing that worried him: she might ask him how he knew it was hers, and then he would have to hide the fact that he spied on her from the window balcony, and claim that, purely by chance, he had seen her drop the bracelet and that she had vanished by the time he came down to pick it up. If that part of the story sounded convincing enough, the rest might hold.
    By the time parents and children started arriving the following morning, he’d been waiting for a while behind the window. He had the jewel between his fingers. Marina – he had no doubt that was her name – was among the first to arrive, and for a second she studied the ground, no doubt looking for the bracelet but without much conviction, as if she imagined that if she had lost it there someone else must have found it by then. A little later the bus appeared and took the children away. Samuel waited until the mothers too had left, and only then went out. Marina was already walking across the street, and he quickened his pace to catch up with her before she turned the corner. He had to hurry, but at the same time didn’t want to look clumsy or say something silly in haste. His hesitation made him walk more slowly. It had alwaysbeen the same with women, he ran after them fighting an impulse to retreat. Instinct and feelings pushed him towards them, but he never entirely cast off the suspicion that everything would be easier if he closed his eyes to the mysterious feminine world and spent his free time cultivating his garden, sitting at his computer, or hanging out with friends.
    Marina disappeared round the corner before he had a chance to catch up with her. Fearing he would lose sight of her, he ran to the junction and was relieved to see her only ten or twelve metres ahead. If he was going to approach her, now was the time,