The Woman in Valencia by Annie Perreault (book recommendations website txt) 📗

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