With three rapid movements, he closes the doors; Gerardo whispers, “What’s with him? Is he stupid or something?” and I put a hand on his arm to calm him. I want to avoid an argument so that Shorty doesn’t drive like a maniac, which I think will happen if he gets into a fight with Gerardo. Journeys along narrow back roads really disturb me, I become superstitious, and behind any raised voice I hear the screech of tires, collisions, see bodies flying through the air. It’s so bad that whenever I get into a car I prepare to die. But Shorty drives slowly, and what ends up bothering me is his lack of urgency. All of a sudden, I want the C5 to accelerate and thus crystallize my fear, which is not fear now, but the thrill of letting myself be carried away by speed, the sensation of not giving a damn if we crash. In Talavera we eat sandwiches and visit the ceramics museum. Then we spend a few hours walking around the bitingly cold city, with its unalleviated back-alley ambience. We hitch a ride back to the hostel and, as the idea of going up to the bedroom scares me, I insist on taking a walk before nightfall. Two roads, separated by a wasteland approximately a kilometer wide, run parallel to the building. I suggest we cross them, but Gerardo says it’s late, and we’d be better off exploring closer to home. I acquiesce, although I still have the urge to cross the limits of the landscape—this anxiety to know what lies beyond always makes me hurry, as if I’m late in arriving somewhere. We walk in a straight line until the darkness is absolute, and then turn back, guided by the lights from the hostel and the passing cars. We can’t even see our sneakers, and keeping our eyes fixed on the ground makes us nervous, as though any minute we might fall face first or step into a scorpion’s nest. More than walking, it feels like our feet are sinking into the earth like talons. When we get to the basketball courts, I ask Gerardo to brace my knees while I do some abs. The cold ground makes it hard to bend; the sense of having Gerardo crouching near me, his head brushing my knees, becomes unpleasant and I stop. I feel absurd but think that getting wrapped up in each other’s manias is what couples do. Things like that are part and parcel of the whole romantic rigmarole, of the idea that you find a special person who loves you, and whom you love, and who gives his blessing to all your personal eccentricities, like doing an ab workout at nine at night on a dark basketball court three kilometers from Talavera. Perhaps there’s something good in all of it, something I’ve lost sight of; perhaps the absurdity only applies to moribund relationships, like mine and Gerardo’s. He claims that everyone else accepts that rigmarole without question. “You’re crazy,” he tells me when I voice such arguments, and then I experience my craziness as a lacerating loneliness, even as true madness; I don’t know if I’m crazy, or if it’s Gerardo making me think I am. In his company, I lose my sanity, and given that Gerardo has usurped sound judgment, I assume that without him I’ll be unable to find my way in the world.