Piece of paper

I had just finished reading Vargas Llosa's essay on the novel Madame Bovary, entitled: The perpetual orgy. That reading sparked my interest in Flaubert's famous novel. I remembered that my wife is a fan of European literature, especially French and English. She had mentioned this writer many times, so I did not doubt that such a work was in her collection.

It was already after midnight, I had some sleep; However, I went in search of the book, I was confident that I would find it without problem. Sure enough it was there. I shook the dust off but in doing so unintentionally opened the book, then a small folded piece of paper fell; It contained a phone number, the time 2 pm and the word: "Colina" ... I picked up the paper and put it back between the pages. At that time I did not give it much importance ... Then I began to read over the prologue and the notes of the translation of the novel.

The dream was already dominating me but a hunch led me again to the small paper. This time I tried to make sense of everything that was written there. It looked like a note for a date. The first unhealthy deduction that crossed my mind is that it could be a note to meet someone, perhaps a friend, even a lover; but I wondered, would my wife be capable of that?

For the next few days, the thought that my wife had had, and perhaps had, a lover haunted me obsessively. That could explain the origin of our crisis that for some time had become entrenched in our relationship ... So, I decided to investigate and go further. I did something I never needed to do before: check my wife's phone. I did not find anything that could give her away, the number was not in her agenda, no message that compromised her.

Days passed while I carefully followed my wife's behavior. I tried to stay calm and avoided any confrontation at all costs; especially I pushed away the idea of ​​asking him for explanations about the suspicious paper. I wanted to be prepared for the moment that I considered appropriate to confront her.

After two weeks, with nothing that could shed light or calm my mortifying doubts, I decided to stop by a public telephone center to make an anonymous call to the person on that number; I still didn't know what I could achieve by hearing the voice of the man sleeping with my wife. I carefully prepared a script and several possible answers. When the time came for the call, I took a deep breath and dialed the blessed number ... After a few moments it began to ring ... To my bewilderment came the voice of a woman. This was not in my calculations nor did I consider it in the well-memorized plan. The woman said "Hello", kindly, but when she did not get an immediate response, she insisted with another hello, this time more pronounced. I tried to recover from the unexpected and babbling I replied:

- Good afternoon. - After a short pause I added - excuse me I think I got the wrong number ... maybe I wrote it down wrong. - To increase my surprise she did not hang up but asked, with the same kindness:

- Who did you want to talk to? - I replied that it did not matter and reiterated my apology.

I had already terminated the communication when the kind lady asked as if there was trust between us:

- Can I know your name? - This time her voice seemed familiar to me but my mind was still disturbed by the incident, I wanted to flee from that situation. She, without waiting for an answer, continued with another question:

- Are you Raúl? This time I was stumped. I felt how my heart was accelerating progressively and a cold ran through my whole body ... I answered affirmatively, like an automaton. Then she was excited and began to ask the usual questions, without stopping ... Suddenly I understood the reason and meaning of that piece of paper. I had just called an old friend. At least two years must have passed since our last conversation. Then I remembered that she had given me that note before I went to her house, named Colina, for the first time. There we spent afternoons devoted to fun and good sex ... Somehow that paper had ended up in the hands of my wife ... I'm not sure what he could have found on my cell phone ...