Read Online A Crack in the Wall by Claudia Piñeiro - Free Book Online Page A

convinced.
    â€œYou didn’t ask her why she was looking for him in the first place?”
    â€œThere was no need – she’s not looking for him any more.”
    â€œAsk her anyway, if you see her again,” Borla said before closing the subject with one of his favourite maxims, “A warned man counts for two.” Then he went, leaving Pablo to ponder what it was like to be a warned man, how much two men would count for and if any two men would count the same as any two others, if he and Jara would count the same as himself and Borla, how much Borla and Jara would count for – and a few other combinations besides.
    When he answers the telephone and hears “Hello, Pablo?” he doesn’t immediately know who is speaking, just that he has an agreeable sensation, as if this woman’s voice evoked some happy memory that has been long buried under the weight of the endlessly repeating days that make up any man’s life. It’s a voice that seems to leap – like a person leaping from one rock to the next to avoid getting wet while crossing a stream at some shallow point – with a tone that glides from one vowel to the next as though she were reading them off a song-sheet. Pablo knows immediately that this enthusiastic “hello” is entirely different to the “hellos” of any of the other women who might have reason to call him. If he had to hazard where the true difference lay, he would say: this “hello” is alive . Very different to Laura’s muted “hello”, presaging a list of complaints and reminders. Very different to Marta’s – a harsh, biting “hello” that has the strange ability to dry the throat not of the person uttering it but of the one hearing it, and which in most cases leaves Pablo speechless, as though even the sound of that five-lettered word confirmed that Marta Horvat wasn’t willing to speak to him any more than was strictly necessary. Different, too, to Francisca’s “hello”, which is sucked in, a prisoner of her mouth, a “hello” weary of giving explanations.
    â€œHello,” he says. “Who’s speaking?”
    â€œIt’s Leonor. Do you remember me?”
    Yes, Pablo remembers: the backpack, the jeans, the ponytail secured at the nape of her neck, the smiling, caramel-coloured eyes. And Jara. He had told her to call if she needed anything and for that reason he asks:
    â€œWhat do you need?”
    â€œFive buildings,” Leonor says.
    â€œFive buildings?”
    â€œWell, actually just the front of five buildings.”
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œTo photograph them – didn’t I tell you?” the girl says.
    She hadn’t told him – he is sure of that, he would remember otherwise – and this worries Pablo, though it pleases him, too, that she thinks they spoke for longer than the brief exchange that day in the café that he never usually goes to. Then Leonor explains, apparently in the belief that she is doing so for the second time; she tells him that she is finishing a photography course – “I told you, remember?” – and that when different subjects were proposed for the final practical assignment, she immediately chose “building façades” because she knows a bit about buildings and because she knew that he would be able to help her.
    â€œSo can you?” she asks him.
    â€œYes, I think so. What sort of façades are you looking for?”
    â€œThe five that you like best, the city’s five most beautiful buildings, according to the architect Pablo Simó.”
    He stops to think.
    â€œHello?” she says.
    â€œYes, still here.”
    â€œSo which would they be?” Leonor asks again.
    â€œLet me think it over, five buildings with sufficient architectonic merit —”
    â€œArchitectonic merit? What’s that?”
    â€œDesign values, qualities that make them stand