Why I don´t want José to be my husband.

 


   Why I don´t want José to be my husband.

   First of all he drinks a lot. Although when I knew him he already drank.
I think he´s been an alcoholic since he was a teenager. Admittedly, he drank but I liked him. That´s true. I saw a tall and quite man, strong and calm. He looked like a giant, to me, who reminded  me  The Selfish Gigant, that character who was created by Oscar Wilde in a beautiful moving short story that I read when I was a child. And José also lived in a cottage surrounded by a mysterious garden where from the lawn to every plant there, every living being was over-grown, some leaned trees included. Maybe, Oscar Wilde forgot to mencion that his gigant was also an alcohol- abuser.

   Mind you, José isn´t so big  as a gigant, only in comparison when he´s by my side, because I´m a bit short. I don´t like to recognize that I like him.
 When he was young he was blonde. He had straight long hair as soft as baby hair and got a big green pair of eyes pretty bulge though. But his shight was pure and clear. And although his nose was croked and his mouth too big and in general, he had no a goodlooking complexion, the whole set could result attractive.

   I remember my friends saying to me :
_ Do you know that boy? I´m afraid of him. Every body is afraid of him. He isn´t a bad man. Isn´t it?
_ Imagine that you turn a corner and you bump into a bloque like him. Do you picture it?_  someone said.
_ Frighten the life out of you. Won´t you?_  another one said.

   However, José was ugly but he wasn´t dangerous.

   I don´t know why I´m writing those things in past tense. Jose is still alive. He still has a large broken nose (no a surgery one) bulky lips and a sweet smile on his rude rough face. He´s fascinatig to me. Sometimes is stubbly in the morning, a moment later, almost as soon as he see me, is clean shaven. He´s so shy, so respecful. I often say to him that a stubble beard style make him toughter but handsome. Hark back two years I left him and he let his beard grow and he was horrible. A blond man with a  scruffy black bandholdz beard is sort of contrary to known laws. He seemed a kind of impostor, not  a genuine blond guy. I know that it´s no the case. But, by making conspicous his neglect I couldn´t trust him. In fact, I saw his wrong side. Why did not give up drinking instead?

   Well, eventually he did it. But I don´t love him any more. It is too late. Although he doesn´t drink any longer is still an alcoholic and he will be forever. Although he tells me he loves me I´m sorry.


   His voice is very low, often inaudible. I usually have to ask him to repeat what he´s saying. He looks always so tired, so worn-out, as he didn´t want to live.

   Yesterday I was sunk into contemplacion of the flowering climbers on the wall of his garden, climbers as the scented jasmine when he muttered to me something. _ Why do you come around?_ That´s what I understood when I asked him by ramblying myself to repeat what he was mumbling.
_ I´d like to die?_ he said.
_ Why?_ I groaned myself and I added in pain because of his interruption._ Look around. Look at this garden of yours gleaming in the sunshine!_ But talking contemplation was useless.

  Then I became gibbering wreck._ Don´t even pause a breath?! Do I?  Do you know what? You´re really selfish! Aren´t you? You´re so high-maintenance! Do you want to die! So what? Die! Die! Die! You are demanding all the attention just to make me take notice of you. Do you? And not only do you want to draw all the attention that you spoilt my resting moment!

_ I just wanted to ask you a favour._ Answered he.
    I look at him in amazament.
_ What?
_ Could you do me a favour?
_ I guess. Do you want me to get out?
_ No. It´s no that. You  can stay here despite not paying any attention to me. I´m a coward. You know.
_ Yes I do.
_ I want to die. But...
_ You told me that before. But I´m afraid that you´ll be never ready to die. A person who has been coward to live is always coward. Do you understand? I mean, coward to die.
_ I have got my late father´s pistol.
_ What?!
_ A handgun.
   Then I go shocked again._ I start stuttering._ What? What do, do, you mean?
_ Would you shoot that gun for me?
_ Nooo. But!....You have got a real gun? Have you? I´m not dreaming? Am I?
_ Yes. Look.
  In that moment I see him opening a little box. Well, in fact, I see two little heavy box, one on each hand of him; a flat one and a taller one in the shape of a cube.
  Then he put the boxes on the garden table, open the flat box and show me the pistol, an antique one from the civil war period, or maybe older.
_ During the Asturias revolution my father was a doctor there, and he was adviced to carry one of this.
   Then I burst into laughters hysterically_ Noooo. I´m not going to shoot that. Believe me I´d kill you just now....But.
_That´s what I want._ Interrupt he.
_ I´m not a fool. Do you want that junky scrap to blow my face?
   Then he open the bigger bos and tell me_ Here are the bullets.
_ Keep those things away! Please._ I went nervously gabby again_ Are you going to kill me? Are you mad?_ I was out of my wits, awfully scared. I´d have killed him!

_ No_ He said._ I wouldn´t kill a fly._ It´s you. You must kill me.
_ You´re nuts._ Then I started to talk to him as he was a child. Do you want me to go sent to prision?
_ Nobody could blame you. I know it.
_ You´re talking rubbish. Besides, I can´t kill you,because I love you.
_ Do you?
_ Yes. I do.
   He smiled.
_ I thought you don´t.
_ That´s not true José. You Know it. You know I love you. And you love me too. And now, you´re keeping all that stuff in a secret, safe drawer locked away, under lock and key so that any child have an accident. Am I clear?
_ Yes. Your commands are my wishes._ Smiling sinfully as he was I realized that he was waiting a kind of reward for his obedience. I´d have killed him. Did I say that before? Yes I did. That way he made me despite him even more.

   Next morning, I got up quietly. I called his mother.

   I made the end of my own struggle. Maybe, you need to get rid of someone. But if that person has a mother you don´t need to kill him.

   I know it was cruel. She didn´t know that his beloved baby son had got a gum hidden somewhere. He was thirty-seven and had those funny ideas about commiting  suicide....

_ Don´t worry. People who talks that rubbish never do it._ She told me.
  It was so embarrasing_ The gum is now...
_ In the best hands. I gave it to the police.
_ And José?
_ You know him. I´d kill him._ She smiled_ Don´t worry. He´s fine.

   Of course he is. I don´t know what his mother did. Since then we have quit  each other.



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