Although Mercè Rodoreda’s The Time of Doves was a fairly easy read with its short chapters and simple narrative style, I found myself getting frustrated with a particular character. In particular, my frustration wasn’t caused by the actions of the narrator, Natalia, but instead revolves around her love interest, Quimet.

Quimet displayed a few red flags in the beginning of the novel, but as the story preceded, he only got more insufferable. To start, when he first meets Natalia, Quimet, despite knowing that Natalia had a fiancé, makes the bold claim that he’ll marry her by the end oof the year.

However, he soon goes from calling Natalia his “queen” to treating her like crap, for a lack of a better word (17). Although it starts off quite innocent, small incidents such as Quimet being unforgivingly late to a date with Natalie soon build up to fits of jealous anger. For instance, he demands Natalie to quit her job because he thinks that her boss is hitting on her and when Natalie protests, he “grabbed [her] neck and shook [her] head from side to side” (25).

That should have been a red flag for Natalie to end the relationship for good, but somehow Natalie manages to forgive Quimet and the toxicity of the relationship only grows. His jealousy fits only continued as he later falsely claims that he saw Natalie with Pere and makes her kneel and apologize to him.

The relationship doesn’t get any better when they get married with Quimet continuing to treat Natalie poorly and make up  excuses for why he can’t do better.  At this point when my empathy for Natalie also shifted to a bit of frustration for why she didn’t choose to end the relationship earlier. Quimet has only displayed traits that make him a walking red flag, yet Natalie seems to look past them.

Going back to when Quimet and Natalie took a three week break because of the argument regarding her boss, Natalie had showed  signs of regrets for ending her previous relationship. During that time, she also compares her relationship with Quimet to the one she hade with Pere and her only complaint about Pere was that he was “too caught up in his job” (25).

So, I’m wondering why she didn’t attempt to get back with Pere? Although she may physically spend time with Quimet, he clearly doesn’t value her presence as he would “talk like [she] wasn’t there” so what made a relationship with him more attractive than one with Pere (28)?