Exquisite Pain (Day 16)

Edition 2/3 Embroidery panels, each: 50 3/4 x 22 1/2 inches;
each framed: 53 x 24 3/8 inches
Photo panels, each: 18 1/2 x 23 1/4 inches,
each framed: 19 3/4 x 24 3/8 inches
Overall size: 75 1/2 x 51 1/2 inches (191.8 x 130.8 cm)
(Inventory #18505)

Text:
Sixteen days ago, the man I love left me.
January 25, 1985, at two in the morning. Room 261. Imperial Hotel. New Delhi. I loved him and yet I accepted the study grant in Japan even though he had warned me that he wouldn’t wait that long for me. I knew his ways: he claimed he wasn’t really serious about me, but he stayed and made jealous scenes. Anyway, I ignored his reminders. Perhaps, by leaving, I meant to test his feelings. That day, I thought I’d won: we were going to be together again after a separation of three months. He had decided the place and the date: New Delhi, January 24. At the airport I received a telegram urging me to call my father because M. was in hospital. We had only just spoken: surely, there had been a crash on the road to the airport. It was my fault. It took me more than ten hours to get hold of my father, who had no idea what was going on. Yes, M. had indeed been to hospital, but for ten minutes, to have a finger abscess removed. So I called him at home. He picked up the phone and said something like “I wanted to come and explain a few things to you.” I knew at once that he’d met another woman. I hung up. I sat there on the bed for hours, staring at the telephone. I was wearing black silk trousers and two shirts, a gray one and a blue one, by Yamamoto, one over the other. I had spent hours choosing my outfit: at last, I was going to see the man I loved.
English text (anonymous):
It was in front of a mailbox that I suffered the most. In Cannes. It was August 1963. In a huge lobby with black and white tiles. There was a marble staircase lit through a glass roof, and a glass street door framed in wrought iron. There were rows of mailboxes along the wall, down on the left. They were made of plain wood and had a little opening through which you could see if there was mail inside. There were two rows. In one of these boxes, there was supposed to be a letter for me. It was never there, it never came. This went on for ten days. My whole life revolved around this mailbox. I stopped sleeping. I couldn’t eat. I remember that the mailman came twice a day. At 11:15 and at 15:15.