Please Talk to Me: Selected Stories

BISHOP BERKELEY OR MARIANA OF THE UNIVERSE

‘How much longer till Mom comes home?’

It’s the fourth time Mariana has asked that question. The first time, her sister Lucia answered that she’d be back real soon; the second, how the heck was she to know when Mom would be back; the third time, she didn’t answer, she just raised her eyebrows and stared at Mariana. That was when Mariana decided that things weren’t going all that well and that the best thing to do was not to ask any more questions. Anyhow, she asked herself, Why do I want Mom to come back, if I’m here with Lucia…? She corrected herself: Why do I want Mom to come back, if I’m here with my big sister? She blinked, deeply moved by the thought. Big sisters look after little sisters, she told herself as if she were reciting a poem. How lucky to have a big sister. Lucia, with large guardian-angel wings, hovered for a second over Mariana’s head. But in a flash the winged image was replaced by another, one which returned every time their mother left them on their own: Lucia, eyes bulging out of their sockets, hair in a furious tangle, was pointing a gun at her. Sometimes there was no gun. Lucia would pounce on her, trying to rip Mariana’s eyes out with her nails. Or strangle her. The reason was always the same: Lucia had gone mad.

It is a well-known fact that mad people kill normal people, which meant that if Lucia went mad when they were alone together, she’d kill Mariana. That was obvious. Therefore Mariana decides to abandon her good intentions and asks again, for the fourth time, ‘How much longer till Mom comes home?’

Lucia stops reading and sighs.

‘What I’d like to know,’ she says (and Mariana thinks, She said ‘I’d like to know’; does one say ‘I would like to know’ or ‘I should like to know’?) ‘What I’d like to know is why in God’s name do you always need Mom around?’

‘No.’ Now she’ll ask me, ‘No what?’ She always manages to make things difficult. But Lucia says nothing, and Mariana continues, ‘I was just curious, that’s all.’

‘At twelve.’

‘What do you mean, at twelve!’ Mariana cries. ‘But it’s only ten to nine now!’

‘I mean at twelve, six and six,’ Lucia says.

Mariana howls with laughter at the joke; she laughs so hard that for a moment she thinks she’ll die laughing. To tell the truth, she can’t imagine anyone else on earth could be as funny as her sister. She’s the funniest, nicest person in the world, and she’ll never go mad. Why should she go mad, she, who’s so absolutely terrific?

‘Lu,’ she says adoringly, ‘Let’s play something, okay? Let’s, okay?’

‘I’m reading.’

‘Reading what?’

‘Mediocre Man.’

‘Ah.’ I bet now she’ll ask me if I know what mediocre man means, and I won’t know, and she’ll say then, ‘Why do you say “Ah,” you idiot?’ Quickly she asks, ‘Lu, I can’t remember, what does Mediocre Man mean?’

‘The Mediocre Man is the man who has no ideals in life.’

‘Ah.’ This lays her mind at rest, because she certainly has ideals in life. She always imagines herself already grown up, all her problems over, everyone understands her, things turn out fine, and the world is wonderful. That’s having ideals in life.

‘Lu,’ she says, ‘we, I mean, you and I, we’re not mediocre, are we?’

‘A pest,’ Lucia says. ‘That’s what you are.’

‘Lucia, why is it that you’re so unpleasant to everyone, eh?’

‘Listen, Mariana. Do you mind just letting me read in peace?’

‘You’re unpleasant to everyone. That’s terrible, Lucia. You fight with Mom, you fight with Dad. With everyone.’ Mariana lets out a deep sigh. ‘You give your parents nothing but trouble, Lucia.’

‘Mariana, I wish you’d just drop dead, okay?’

‘You’re horrible, Lucia, horrible! You don’t say to anyone that you wish they would drop dead, not to your worst enemy, and certainly not to your own sister.’

‘That’s it, now start to cry, so that afterwards they will scream at me and say that I torture you.’

‘Afterwards? When afterwards? Do you know exactly when Mom will be back?’

‘Just afterwards.’ Lucia has gone back to reading Mediocre Man. ‘Afterwards is afterwards.’ She lifts her eyes and frowns as if she were meditating on something very important. ‘The future, I mean.’

‘What future? You said Mom would be back very soon.’

Lucia shakes her head in resignation and goes back to her book.

‘Yes, of course, she’ll be back very soon.’

‘No. Yes, of course, no. Is she coming back very soon or isn’t she coming back very soon?’

Lucia glares at Mariana; then she seems to remember something and smiles briefly.

‘And anyway what does it matter?’ She shrugs her shoulders.

‘What do you mean, what does it matter? You don’t know what you’re saying, do you? If someone comes home very soon, it means she comes home very soon, doesn’t it?’

‘If someone comes home, yes.’

‘What?’

‘I just said that if someone comes home, then yes. Will you please let me read?’

‘You’re a cow, that’s what you are! What you really want is for Mom never to come home again!’

Lucia closes the book and lays it down on the bed. She sighs.

‘It has nothing to do with my wanting it or not,’ she explains. ‘What I’m saying is that it simply doesn’t matter if Mom is here or there.’

‘What do you mean, there?’

‘Just there; anywhere; it’s all the same.’

‘Why the same?’

Lucia rests her chin on both her hands and stares gravely at Mariana.

‘Listen, Mariana,’ she says. ‘I’ve got something to tell you. Mom doesn’t exist.’

Mariana jumps.

‘Don’t be stupid, okay?’ she says, trying to look calm. ‘You know Mom doesn’t like you saying stupid things like that.’

‘They’re not stupid things. Anyway, who cares what Mom says, if Mom doesn’t exist?’

‘Lu, I’m telling you for the last time: I-don’t-like-you-say-ing-stu-pid-things, okay?’

‘Look, Mariana,’ Lucia says in a tired tone of voice. ‘I’m not making it up; there’s a whole theory about it, a book.’

‘What does it say, the book?’

‘What I just said. That nothing really exists. That we imagine the world.’

‘What do we imagine about the world?’

‘Everything.’

‘You just want to frighten me, Lucia. Books don’t say things like that. What does it say, eh? For real.’

‘I’ve told you a thousand times. The desk, see? There isn’t really a desk there, you just imagine there’s a desk. Understand? You, now, this very minute, imagine that you’re inside a room, sitting on the bed, talking to me, and you imagine that somewhere else, far away, is Mom. That’s why you want Mom to come back. But those places don’t really exist, there is no here or far away. It’s all inside your head. You are imagining it all.’

‘And you?’

‘I what?’

‘There’s you, see?’ Mariana says with sudden joy. ‘You can’t imagine the desk in the same exact place that I imagine it, can you?’

‘You’ve got it all wrong, Mariana sweetheart. You just don’t understand, as usual. It’s not that both of us imagine that the desk is in the same place: it’s that you imagine that both of us imagine that the desk is in the same place.’

‘No, no, no, no. You got it all wrong. Each of us doesn’t imagine things on our own, and one can’t guess what the other is imagining. You talk about what you imagine. I say to you: how many pictures are there in this room? And I say to myself: there are three pictures in this room. And at exactly the same time you tell me that there are three pictures in this room. That means that the three pictures are here, that we see them, not that we imagine them. Because two people can’t imagine the same thing at the same time.’

‘Two can’t, that’s true.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m saying that two people can’t.’

‘I don’t understand what you’re saying.’

‘I’m saying that you are also imagining me, Mariana.’

‘You’re lying, you’re lying! You’re the biggest liar in the whole world! I hate you, Lucia. Don’t you see? If I’m imagining you, how come you know I’m imagining you?’

‘I don’t know, I don’t anything. You are just making me up, Mariana. You’ve made up a person called Lucia, who’s your sister, and who knows you’ve made her up. That’s all.’

‘No, come on, Lu. Say it’s not true. What about the book?’

‘What book?’

‘The book that talks about all this.’

‘That talks about what?’

‘About things not really existing.’

‘Ah, the book… The book is also imagined by you.’

‘That’s a lie, Lucia, a lie! I could never imagine a book like that. I never know about things like that, don’t you understand, Lu? I could never imagine something as complicated as that.’

‘But my poor Mariana, that book is nothing compared to the other things you’ve imagined. Think of History and the Law of Gravity and Maths and all the books ever written in the world and Aspirins and the telegraph and planes. Do you realize what you’ve done?’

‘No, Lucia, no, please. Everyone knows about those things. Look. If I bring a lot of people into this room, and I say when I count up to three, we all point to the radio at the same time, then you’ll see. We’ll all point in the same direction. Let’s play at that, Lu, please, come on; let’s play at pointing at things. Please.’

‘But are you stupid or what? I’m telling you that you are the one who’s imagining all the people in the world.’

‘I don’t believe you. You say that just to frighten me. I can’t imagine all the people in the world. What about Mom? What about Dad?’

‘Them too.’

‘Then I’m all alone, Lu!’

‘Absolutely. All alone.’

‘That’s a lie, that’s a lie! Say that you’re lying! You’re just saying that to frighten me, right? Sure. Because everything’s here. The beds, the desk, the chairs. I can see them, I can touch them if I want to. Say yes, Lu. So that everything’s like before.’

‘But why do you want me to say yes, if anyway it will be you imagining that I am saying yes?’

‘Always me? So there’s no one but me in the world?’

‘Right.’

‘And you?’

‘As I said, you’re imagining me.’

‘I don’t want to imagine any more, Lu. I’m afraid. I’m really frightened, Lu. How much longer till Mom comes home?’

Mariana leans out of the window. Mom, come back soon, she begs. But she no longer knows to whom she’s begging, or why. She shuts her eyes and the world disappears; she opens them, and it appears again. Everything, everything, everything. If she can’t think about her mother, she won’t have a mother any more. And if she can’t think about the sky, the sky… And dogs and clouds and God. Too many things to think about all at once, all on her own. And why she, alone? Why she alone in the universe? When you know about it, it’s so difficult. Suddenly she might forget about the sun or her house or Lucia. Or worse, she might remember Lucia, but a mad Lucia coming to kill her with a gun in her hand. And now she realizes at last how dangerous all this is. Because if she can’t stop herself thinking about it, then Lucia will really be like that, crazy, and kill her. And then there won’t be anyone left to imagine all those things. The trees will disappear and the desk and thunderstorms. The colour red will disappear and all the countries in the world. And the blue sky and the sky at night and the sparrows and the lions in Africa and the earth itself and singing songs. And no one will ever know that, once, a girl called Mariana invented a very complicated place to which she gave the name of Universe.