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

front of my eyes and the back of my neck starts to tingle, I remember that day, not long after we got back from Spain, when you went for a run in the country, it was a Sunday and it was really hot out, it was the first time you’d gone for such a long run, three hours just a few weeks out from your first marathon, we’d waited to have supper with you, the noodles had all clumped together in the strainer, Dad was getting impatient and was about to go looking for you in the car, Léon had started crying because he was hungry and scared that you’d been attacked by a bear that had wandered out of the forest, we’d just sat down at the table and started eating without you when you staggered in, dripping with sweat, I remember Dad yelling: Where were you? We’ve been waiting an hour for you. The pasta’s cold.

… you’d run out of water, started to feel sick, sunstroke or mild dehydration had forced you to stop a number of times, you’d mumbled an apology, then shut yourself in the bathroom, we could hear you crying, we couldn’t ignore your sobs as we chewed and swallowed our spaghetti, clutching onto the door frame, you’d screamed: I just ran for three hours! I just ran for three hours and all you can say is, the pasta is cold?

… I don’t have many memories of you and Dad together, but I’ve never forgotten that one, I can still picture you: you’re wearing a turquoise tank top and your face is crumpled with exhaustion, your hair is soaked with sweat and your forehead is flushed with anger and resentment, you’re sitting on the edge of the bathtub crying, and there’s Dad, walking away from you, into the kitchen to put away the dishes, clattering the plates together…

KILOMETRE 9

… I push my earbuds further into my ears, I didn’t want music at first, but now that I’ve hit my stride, I press shuffle:

One way or another, I’m gonna find ya

… I’m starting to wonder if this sappiness was such a good idea, I’d thought it was only fitting to add a few of your favourites to my playlist, to include the music that had kept you moving during your marathons, I’d thought it might make you feel a little closer, but suddenly, I’m not so sure, I’m afraid it’ll bum me out and slow me down instead, when Dad gave me your journals, he’d said: they’ll help you understand a few things about your mother, and about me too, things you might wish you’d never known, but actually they don’t explain anything, some things simply defy explanation: one day, people are there with you and you love each other, and then something breaks and they’re not there anymore, they’re somewhere else, it’s cruel and you don’t know why, but that’s just the way it is, and the sooner you understand that, the better off you are…

KILOMETRE 10

… I shove two gumdrops in my mouth, lemonade flavour, chew, chew, chew, my mouth is a little dry, the sweet jelly sticks to my teeth, I’d kill for a glass of water, I notice a woman with brown hair leaning against a barrier on the side of the road, she smiles at me warmly, nods her head and gives me two thumbs up,

It was me on that road

But you couldn’t see me

Too many lights out, but nowhere near here

It was me on that road

Still you couldn’t see me

… for a second, I wonder if I’d recognize my mother if she were actually there, hidden among the crowd, watching the runners go by as though nothing were out of the ordinary…

Road’s end getting nearer

We cover distance but not together

… I speed up as I run through the ten-kilometre arch, I watch the numbers scroll by, hear the drums, see the banners, for a brief moment my lungs feel like they’re on fire…

It’s about you and the sun

A morning run

… fifty-six minutes thirty-four seconds, I’m on pace…

THE TIME DIFFERENCE

The morning after a sleepless night in the Central European Time zone (UTC+1), Claire has trouble getting out of bed, but she’s intent on getting in a run before the midday heat, determined to stick to her Sunday schedule: two hours and thirty minutes, almost three hours of basic endurance training through the city streets. Just before 10 a.m., she sets out along Avinguda Diagonal, toward the sea, her legs on autopilot, her mind momentarily blank, her only ailment some mild stiffness around her collarbones, and already the sun is beating down.

LEAVING BARCELONA

Claire Halde spends a restless last night in her narrow bed in Barcelona. Her leg muscles are aching, and the room is sticky, a combination of the mercury topping out at over thirty degrees Celsius and the total lack of ventilation. The humidity is brutal; nothing she does takes her mind off it. She dreams about the woman in Valencia, hears her hoarse voice in her nightmare. She wakes up often. Still suffering from jet lag, she’s worried she’ll oversleep and miss her train to Valencia.

But she doesn’t. A few hours later, Tarragona flashes past the window of compartment 5. Claire gazes at the passing landscape absently: green hills, huge oil refineries like the ones on the outskirts of all big cities, parched fields, unkempt grass, a layer of dust floating above the brown earth. She registers it all through a narrow slit, eyelids drooping heavily in a state of half-sleep.

TRAVEL BY TRAIN

When she wakes up, nothing about the view has changed; it’s still the same monotonous, forward progression, the same flat, white sky and tall, yellow grass, the same stiff blue seats and paper headrest covers with the Renfe logo, the same hypnotic rolling motion along the railroad tracks, and the same passengers roaming up and down the