She had big breasts, slim legs, and blue eyes. That’s how I like to remember her. I don’t know why I fell madly in love with her, but I did, and at the start, I mean for the first days, the first hours, it all went fine; then Clara returned to the city where she lived, in the south of Spain (she’d been on vacation in Barcelona), and everything began to fall apart.

One night I dreamed of an angel: I walked into a huge, empty bar and saw him sitting in a corner with his elbows on the table and a cup of milky coffee in front of him. She’s the love of your life, he said, looking up at me, and the force of his gaze, the fire in his eyes, threw me right across the room. I started shouting, Waiter, waiter, then opened my eyes and escaped from that miserable dream. Other nights I didn’t dream of anyone, but I woke up in tears. Meanwhile, Clara and I were writing to each other. Her letters were brief. Hi, how are you, it’s raining, I love you, bye. At first, those letters scared me. It’s all over, I thought. Nevertheless, after inspecting them more carefully, I reached the conclusion that her epistolary concision was motivated by a desire to avoid grammatical errors. Clara was proud. She couldn’t write well, and she didn’t want to let it show, even if it meant hurting me by seeming cold.

She was eighteen at the time. She had quit high school and was studying music at a private academy, and drawing with a retired landscape painter, but she wasn’t all that interested in music, and it was pretty much the same with painting: she liked it, but couldn’t get passionate about it. One day, I received a letter informing me, in her usual terse fashion, that she was going to take part in a beauty contest. My response, which filled three double-sided pages, was an extravagant paean to her calm beauty, the sweetness of her eyes, the perfection of her figure, etc. The letter was a triumph of bad taste, and when I had finished it I wondered whether or not I should send it, but in the end I did.

A few weeks went by before I heard from her. I could have called, but I didn’t want to intrude, and also at the time I was broke. Clara came in second in the contest and was depressed for a week. Surprisingly, she sent me a telegram, which read, “SECOND PLACE. STOP. GOT YOUR LETTER. STOP. COME AND SEE ME.”

A week later, I took a train bound for the city where she lived, the first one leaving that day. Before that, of course—I mean after the telegram—we had spoken on the phone, and I had heard the story of the beauty contest a number of times. It had had a big impact on Clara, apparently. So I packed my bags and, as soon as I could, got on a train, and very early the next morning there I was, in that unfamiliar city. I arrived at Clara’s apartment at nine-thirty, after having a coffee at the station and smoking a few cigarettes to kill some time. A fat woman with messy hair opened the door, and when I said I had come to see Clara she looked at me as if I were a lamb on its way to slaughter. For a few minutes (they seemed extraordinarily long at the time, and, thinking the whole thing over, later on, I realized that in fact they were), I sat and waited for Clara in the living room, a living room that seemed welcoming, for no special reason, overly cluttered but welcoming and full of light. When Clara made her entrance, it was like the apparition of a goddess. I know it was a stupid thing to think—and it’s a stupid thing to say—but that’s how it was.

The following days were pleasant and unpleasant. We saw a lot of films, almost one a day; we made love (I was the first guy that Clara had slept with, which seemed incidental or anecdotal, but in the end it would cost me dearly); we walked around; I met Clara’s friends; we went to two horrific parties; and I asked her to come and live with me in Barcelona. Of course, at that stage I knew what her answer would be. After a month, I took a night train back to Barcelona; I remember it was a terrible trip.

Soon after that, Clara explained in a letter, the longest one she ever sent me, why she couldn’t go on: I was putting her under intolerable pressure (by suggesting that we live together); it was all over. After that, we talked three or four times on the phone. I think I also wrote her a letter full of insults and declarations of love. Once, when I was travelling to Morocco, I called her from the hotel where I was staying, in Algeciras, and that time we were able to have a civilized conversation. At least, she thought it was civilized. Or I did.

Years later, Clara told me about the parts of her life I had missed out on. And then, years after that, both she and some of her friends told me her life story all over again, starting from the beginning, or from the point where we split up—since I was a minor character, it didn’t make any difference to them, or to me, really, although that wasn’t so easy to admit. Predictably, not long after the end of our engagement (I know “engagement” is hyperbolic, but it’s the best word I can find) Clara got married, and the lucky man was, logically enough, one of the friends I had met on my first trip to her city.

But, before that, she had psychological problems: she used to dream about rats; at night she would hear them in her bedroom, and for months, the months leading up to her marriage, she had to sleep on the sofa in the living room. I’m guessing those damned rats disappeared after the wedding.

So. Clara got married. And the husband, Clara’s dear husband, surprised everyone, even her. After one or two years, I’m not sure, exactly—Clara told me, but I’ve forgotten—they split up. It wasn’t an amicable separation. The guy shouted, Clara shouted, she slapped him, he responded with a punch that dislocated her jaw. Sometimes, when I’m alone and can’t get to sleep but don’t feel up to switching on the light, I think of Clara, who came in second in that beauty contest, with her jaw hanging loose, unable to get it back in place on her own, driving to the nearest hospital with one hand on the wheel and the other supporting her jawbone. I’d like to find it funny, but I can’t.

What I do find funny is her wedding night. She’d had an operation for hemorrhoids the day before, so I guess she was still a bit groggy. Or maybe not. I never asked her if she was able to make love with her husband. I think they’d done it before the operation. Anyway, what does it matter? All these details say more about me than they do about her.