Robert

Ronald pedals his old bicycle through the streets of Bring Spring, bound for the home of the man he loves like a brother.

He rides along the only street in town with a landscaped median. Farther on, he turns right, where the asphalt gives way to stone cobbles. Ronald does not altogether dislike streets like this. Robert, on the other hand, hates them. He says they are uncomfortable and ruin the suspension on any vehicle—which is true. His friend often rails against the Bring Spring authorities for granting that relic state-heritage status. On matters like this, Ronald knows they will never agree, but no two people can see eye to eye on everything.

He prefers to dwell on the good in the man he considers his brother—and there is plenty of it—rather than on the petty quirks that make up the rest of his personality. He continues for another two blocks over the cobbles, his ramshackle bicycle rattling across the uneven ground as though it might fall apart at any moment. Once the wheels have carried him beyond that treasured piece of heritage, he reaches a gravel road that brings some relief to his backside. He has practically left Bring Spring behind; roads like this belong to the outskirts of town.

Over the past few years, however, the town has spread a little, and a handful of houses have risen beyond the asphalt and cobblestone streets. His dear friend has lived in one of them for some time. When they were only boys, they both lived in the very center of town, across from city hall. With the front of Robert’s house now in sight, Ronald wipes the beads of sweat rolling down his forehead and gives the pedals a final push. At his best friend’s house, he dismounts and leans the bicycle against the front wall. There is no sidewalk here where he can brace it with the pedals, as he usually does.

The facade was once white. Now it is grayish, faded, flaking and cracked, overrun with moss and small shoots of wild plants—clear evidence of what the elements have done to it. This does not surprise Ronald nearly as much as what awaits him inside. The young man rolls up the long violet sleeves of the jersey he is wearing, the colors of the soccer club he passionately supports, approaches the metal door and knocks several times. He hopes the owner is home. No one answers.

He knocks again—three times in quick succession, in fact—but every attempt brings the same result. His concern for his friend begins to grow. Robert is not easily depressed. He is strong, resilient, though a tragedy like this does not happen every day. Years ago, when Robert lost his father to heart trouble and later his older brother to an incurable mental illness, Ronald saw how remarkably well he endured both deaths.

But Noel’s death—so young, so vibrant, so healthy, so utterly unexpected—must be a devastating blow. Added to all the losses before it, only God knows what suffering it has caused, no matter how resilient Robert may be. His absence from Noel’s funeral has troubled more than Ronald; several mourners noticed it. Robert is a responsible man, not someone who shirks his duties. A man like him would never fail to keep vigil over the woman he loved. That, together with the silence behind the door, is beginning to make Ronald desperate. After so much knocking, Robert should have shown some sign of life.

Summoning his courage, Ronald resolves to find out how his friend is, one way or another. He takes the handle in his right hand, turns it, applies a little pressure and pushes. The door yields easily. At last he steps into the house, a place he has visited countless times before. He takes three steps inside, leaving the door behind him, and enters a gloom as dense and dark as a bear’s cave. He is relieved to find the door unlocked. The interior is quite small: a square barely five meters by five, in which Robert has arranged the furnishings of a living room, bedroom and kitchenette.

A door on the right leads to the bathroom, the only separate room. Another on the left opens onto a small garden, very pretty, though recently neglected. Three of the four walls in this studio home, faded now, were once a brilliant white. They remain white beneath patches of damp and a grayish discoloration much like the facade. What particularly catches Ronald’s eye is the fourth wall, directly in front of him—the one that, until recently, had been painted a striking salmon color.

It startles him chiefly because it looks so different from the others. Mold has blackened all four corners, while the rest of its surface appears smeared with what might be soot. Yet even that is not what troubles Ronald most. What makes him frown is how badly it has peeled, how broken it is, its plaster split like an open wound. Some cracks are so deep that the soot-darkened bricks beneath are exposed. The house feels funereal behind its dirty, closed curtains. Almost no natural light finds its way inside.

Nor are any electric lights on, so he can see little beyond the trapezoid of daylight cast through the open door. The house has only one window, its sole source of sunlight. Robert used to keep it open almost constantly, even in the depths of winter; now it is tightly shut. After looking around, Ronald studies the fourth wall before him. He moves closer, wondering why it has deteriorated so badly, why it looks so unlike the others. Only a few weeks ago, he remembers, there was nothing wrong with it beyond a little damp.

It has been several weeks since he last visited, and the wall was not like this then. Traces of its old plaster remain, along with islands of whitewash here and there and cracks running between the darkened bricks. Some of those fissures are considerable. Turning to the left, he discovers a countless accumulation of unwashed plates, glasses, bowls and cutlery in the sink beneath the lone window. He looks at the sofa against the right-hand wall beside the bathroom door, then at the cluttered dining table in the center of the studio, its surface heaped with bags and rubbish.

To his left, against the wall that contains the front door—now behind him—stands the double bed. Robert lies upon it in sepulchral silence. He has been following Ronald’s every movement without blinking. When Ronald finally notices him, he starts in surprise. Until then, he had thought the house empty. His friend’s eyes look vacant, lifeless and dry, fixed directly on the wall darker than all the rest. A faint smile rests on his lips, cold and indistinct. Nostalgic, perhaps? No. Robert is not a man anyone would call nostalgic.

His hands are clasped behind his neck. Ronald retraces his steps, closes the door, turns the key already in the inside lock and approaches his friend. Robert appears to be in obvious shock, almost catatonic, lost in the labyrinth of his own memories.

"Robert?"

Ronald speaks in little more than a whisper, careful not to alarm or startle him.

"How are you, my friend?" Robert greets him with surprising warmth, in a voice scarcely different from his usual one.

Ronald notices that his friend never takes his eyes from the dark, flaking wall before him.

"I’m sorry, my friend… I’m so sorry about Noel. I know what she meant to you, how you felt about her… The whole town has suffered a terrible loss. All of us have. It’s a true tragedy." Several uncomfortable seconds of absolute silence pass. "Do you remember when we met her? It was at the summer dance in…" Ronald abruptly falls silent.

His friend does not react to his words. He does not look him in the eye or even blink. Silent and absorbed, Robert simply refuses to let the dark wall out of his sight.

"Thank you," he says at last, several seconds late. "Did you hear me knocking just now?" Ronald asks curiously.

He is trying to draw his friend into any kind of conversation—anything that might tell him how Robert is doing.

"No," Robert replies, offering nothing more.

Ronald forces a slight smile. He knows his friend heard the knocking and chose not to answer. Robert shows no interest in his presence; his eyes remain pinned to the peeling, darkened wall, and he scarcely blinks.

"All right." Ronald pauses briefly before continuing. "What happened to that wall?" he asks, unable to help himself, indicating the strange, ruined surface with his chin.

Ronald studies it again, incredulous at what looks like the aftermath of some incomprehensible destruction. Small mounds of rubble lie beneath the cracks. The wall has neither door nor window; the only object on it is a small picture in a black frame. At least until Ronald’s last visit, the frame had held a beautiful antique map. Now he can see no trace of that landscape. On the wall, stained black—or a dirty gray—even the little frame is surrounded by cracks spreading in every direction like cobwebs or monstrous claws.

Ronald cannot imagine what could have reduced it to this state. He has entered this house hundreds of times, through hardship and happiness alike, and shared endless good times here. He regrets that Robert’s mother and sister are in Jalisco, Mexico. They could have done so much to comfort his friend and help him through this loss. He assumes they have no idea what has happened.

"Nothing happened. I’ve just been redecorating a little. As you can see, that wall has some damp," Robert answers casually.

Naturally, the explanation does not convince his visitor. If anything, it raises more questions than it answers.

"Why didn’t you paint it white like the others?" Ronald wants to ask. The question seems perfectly reasonable, though he cannot possibly predict the answer. "What are you, an interior decorator?" Robert snaps, frowning in obvious irritation.

He sits up on the bed and fixes his green eyes directly on Ronald’s.

"No, you know I’m not. All right… I’m sorry. I came to see whether you need anything. I took the day off work when I heard what happened to Noel," Ronald explains patiently, though it does no good. "Not right now… I don’t need anything. I’ve taken a couple of weeks off work. Thank you," Robert says. "Noel’s mother… well, a lot of people, actually—especially an angry Mr. Norman—have asked whether I know why you didn’t attend the wake."

Ronald sees that Robert’s gaze has changed for the worse. Nothing remains of the mischievous, cheerful glint it used to hold.

"Is that so? Mr. Norman, eh? Ha! What did you tell him?" His sarcastic tone makes Ronald uncomfortable. "I told him the truth: I don’t know."

Ronald is deeply troubled by his friend’s behavior. This is the same man with whom he used to carouse in bars and clubs, watch soccer matches and enjoy countless other diversions.

"I need to be alone now," Robert says abruptly.

In the gloom of the studio, a yellowish gleam shows where the whites of his eyes should be. Without waiting for any answer from his visitor, he lies back down, laces his fingers beneath his neck once more and returns his full attention to the dark wall.

"All right. Will you call me if you need anything? Anything at all." "All right."

Ronald rises, crosses the room quickly and leaves more worried than when he arrived. Robert is finally alone again, exactly as he wants to be. Now he can devote himself entirely to staring at the dark wall, scarcely blinking, his gaze wholly vacant, submerged in thoughts known only to God. Ronald pauses to think before mounting his old bicycle.

The young man still does not know whether Noel’s tragedy was an accident—or something else.