Mouthful of Birds(32)

We looked at the painting together: the face of a Korean crashing against the black and white tiles of a waiting room very much like John’s. My hand isn’t there pounding the head, it’s falling on its own, and the first thing that hits the gleaming tiles, the thing that receives the whole weight of the fall, is one of the Korean’s teeth. It has a vertical crack that, an instant later, will split it right down the middle. I couldn’t understand what wasn’t working for John—the painting was perfect. And I realized I wasn’t willing to change a thing. Then John said that’s how it always was at the end of the day, and he started in again on the subject of Korean education. He said we Argentines are slackers. That we don’t like to work, and that’s why our country is the way it is. That it would never change, because we were how we were, and he left.

Now, that really bothered me. I mean a lot. Because my mother and Aníbal are Argentines, too, and they work a lot, and it bothers me when people talk without knowing what they’re talking about. But I told myself that John was my friend. I contained my rage, and I felt very proud of that.

The next day I wrote him an email explaining that I could change whatever he wanted me to change in the painting. I clarified that I didn’t agree with him “aesthetically,” but I understood that maybe he needed something more “commercial.” I waited a couple of days, but John didn’t answer. Then I wrote him again. I thought maybe he was offended by something, and I explained that if he was, I needed to know what it was, exactly, because otherwise I couldn’t apologize. But John didn’t answer that email, either.

Mom called Aníbal and explained to him that this was all happening because I was “very sensitive,” and I wasn’t prepared for “failure.” But that didn’t have anything to do with it. After seven days with no word I decided to call John at his office. His secretary answered. “Good morning, sir; no, sir, the doctor isn’t in; no, sir, the doctor can’t call you back.” I asked why, what was wrong, why was John doing this to me, why didn’t John want to see me? The secretary was quiet for a few seconds and then said, “The doctor took a few days off, sir,” and she hung up on me. That weekend I painted six more pictures of Korean heads splitting open on the concrete, and Aníbal was very excited with the work. He said the “Korean thing” gave “a new feel to the whole series,” but I was boiling with fury and also still very sad. And then Aníbal, on the condition I wouldn’t abandon my “new wave of inspiration,” got me John’s home address and telephone number. I called immediately, and a Korean woman answered. I said I wanted to talk to John, and I repeated his name several times. The woman said something I didn’t understand, something short and fast. She repeated it. Then a man answered, some other Korean who wasn’t John, either, and he also said things that I didn’t understand.

So I made a decision, an important one. I wrapped the painting in the sheet, dragged it outside as best I could, waited forever until I caught one of those big taxis with enough room in back for the painting, and I gave the driver John’s address. John lived in a Korean world fifty blocks from my neighborhood, full of signs in Korean and of Koreans. The taxi driver asked me if I was sure about the address, and whether I wanted him to wait for me at the door. I told him that wasn’t necessary. I paid him and he helped me unload the painting. John’s house was old and big. I leaned the painting against the entrance gate, rang the doorbell, waited. There are a lot of things that make me nervous. Not understanding something is one of the worst, and the other worst thing is waiting. But I waited. I think these are the things one does for one’s friends. I had talked to Mom a few days earlier and she’d said that my friendship with John suffered from a “cultural gap,” too, and that made everything more complicated. I told her that a cultural gap was a thing that John and I could fight. I just needed to talk to him, to find out why he was so angry.

The living room curtain moved. Someone looked out for a second from inside. A woman’s voice said “Hello” through the intercom. I said I wanted to see John. “John, no,” said the woman, “no.” She said other things in Korean, the intercom made some noises, and then everything went silent. I rang again. Waited again. Rang. I heard the bolts in the door, and a Korean man older than John opened it, looked at me, and said: “John, no.” He said it angrily, scowling, but without looking me in the eyes, and then shut the door again. I realized I didn’t feel well. Something was wrong in me, inside me, something was coming out of its place again, like in the old days. I rang the bell again. I yelled “John!” again, again. A Korean man who was walking on the sidewalk across the street stopped to look. I yelled at the intercom again. I just wanted to talk to John. I yelled his name again. Because John was my friend. Because “gaps” didn’t have anything to do with us. Because we were two people, John and I, and that’s what having a friend is. I pressed the doorbell again, one long ring, and my finger hurt from pressing so hard. The Korean across the street said something in his language. I don’t know what, it was like he wanted to explain something to me. And me, again, “John, John,” really loud, like something terrible was happening to me. The Korean came over to me and made a hand gesture to calm me down. I took my hand from the doorbell to change fingers and kept shouting. I heard blinds fall in another house. I felt like I couldn’t get enough air. Like I didn’t have enough of something.