“I dialed Ariella’s number at the university, but of course she wasn’t there. Who knows where she was, what she was doing and with whom. Mario was crying now, he said, you’re hurting my hand, and I didn’t want to hurt him but I couldn’t let him go, but then his grandmother looked at me over his head and said, You pervert, this is no place for a child. What’s a pervert? Mario asked through his tears. He was always full of questions and I always tried to answer them, so he’d know, so he’d learn. He looked up at me, trusting me to answer. And then I couldn’t. I just couldn’t anymore. I let him go. She didn’t even pack him a bag. She just said, tell Ariella I’m at the Hotel Paraíso, and then they were gone. I called the university again and left an urgent message for Ariella, then sat by the phone. She called three hours later, and when I told her she was furious at me for letting Mario go. What was I supposed to do? I said. She’s his grandmother. I’m his nothing. And it hurt me to say it because he was my everything. By the time Ariella came home, she’d called her mother at the Hotel Paraíso and they’d had a long fight on the phone. Her mother was demanding Mario’s passport and signed parental permission for him to travel. She’d had enough, she was going to save her grandchild, take him back to Uruguay and raise him herself. And Ariella agreed. She told me to pack a bag of Mario’s things, to take to the hotel. You do it, I said. You pack it. We fought. She left with the bag and the passport and when she came back home I wouldn’t speak to her. Four days later I was on a plane back to Uruguay. I felt brokenhearted, not for Ariella but for Mario. As if my heart and lungs had been ripped from my body.” She paused. There was more, the part she couldn’t yet say aloud, about what she’d taken from Ariella just before she vanished without warning, what she’d stolen across the border into Uruguay, and then, too, there was the way it felt the second her plane touched the ground in Montevideo, the surprising lurch of relief to be home. Home. Despite the military junta and their stupid prisons and decrees, this was her country and she loved it, needed it, even. Uruguay would be in her always. “Even so,” she said, “I was glad to be back. I’d missed Uruguay. I missed all of you. I missed Polonio.”
Malena was still beside her, holding her hand, and she squeezed it with a startling force. “And now you’re here.”
“Yes.” La Venus smiled. “I’m here. And ready to eat.”
* * *
*
New Year’s Eve arrived, and they spent the afternoon swimming in the ocean and lying out in the sun. The water surrounded them, each wave sloshing forward with its own wet, singular song, offering the pull of undertow and a brief respite from gravity.
Romina looked up from the waves and gazed out over the beach. Always, its desolation, the bare long stretch of it, provoked a deep sense of comfort. To be so far from the living was a solace. There were the rocks where she’d seen soldiers when they’d first arrived to take the lighthouse—such squadrons they used to send, back then! Now it was a meager encampment, who knew how many, two, maybe three, bored soldiers who ended up playing cards and getting drunk with the fishermen. She never spoke to them and didn’t know their names, but knew their faces. You should always know your enemy’s face. She saw two figures climbing up over the rocks, onto the beach. She tensed. But they were not the soldiers, nor were they fishermen or their wives, any locals she’d seen. They were two women, she realized. They were holding hands—sisters, maybe? She let a wave pass around her, hovered in the water, and watched.
Perhaps she was going crazy, but their body language did not seem like that of sisters.
Malena swam up to her, put her cheek to Romina’s shoulder, followed her gaze. Her head jerked up. “Oh! That woman!”
“Which one?”
“The taller one. Do you know who that is?”
“Who?”
“Mariana Righi!”
“The singer? From Argentina?”
“Yes—don’t stare. I swear it’s her. She doesn’t live in Argentina now, she fled to Spain.”
“You’re sure it’s her?”
Malena stole glances. “It has to be.”
“What would she be doing all the way out here?”
“What are you two whispering about?” It was Flaca, wading up to them, Cristi and La Venus close behind. It was all of them now, all except Paz and Yolanda, who must have stolen off for time alone at the Prow, or maybe in the dunes. The newer the couple, Flaca thought, the more urgent the stealing of private time.
“Those women. Malena says the tall one is Mariana Righi.”
“Really?” Cristi did not hide the excitement in her voice. “I love her!”
“It can’t be,” Flaca said. “I heard she’s in exile, in Europe somewhere.”
“Spain,” La Venus said. “That’s her. I know her face. It’s Mariana.”
The two women on the beach leaned close to each other. Their foreheads touched, and they stayed that way, hands interlocked, faces communing.
“A la mierda,” La Venus said. “She’s a cantora.” She drew out the word cantora, her meaning clear.
“It can’t be—”
“It is, it is, don’t you have eyes in your—”
“Will you stop staring? It’s obvious they came here for privacy.”
“It’s not her.”
“It’s her.”
The two women became aware of the figures in the water, with a strange suddenness, as if they’d just shaken off a spell. They waved. The women in the water waved back. Romina tried to think of what to say, gathered the courage to call out to them, but then the women had turned around and started walking back toward the path up from the beach.
“Mariana Righi,” Flaca said slowly, savoring each syllable. “Who would have known.”
“That she’d find Polonio?”
“That she’d be one of us.”
“Sometimes,” Romina said, “it seems like we’re everywhere—”
“—and yet nowhere at the same time,” Malena said.
“Yes. That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
“How many of our ancestors were like this too?” said La Venus. The two women were gone now, out of sight, but she could not tear her eyes from where she’d seen them. “Or would have been, if given the chance?”
“I wasn’t given the chance.” Flaca came up behind Cristi and wrapped her arms around her. “I took it.”
“Mmmmm,” said Cristi.
“That’s not what I mean,” La Venus said.
“But it’s what I mean. What I want to know is how many of our foremothers got to chucu-chucu with each other. Actually did it.” Flaca tickled Cristi and delighted in the way she squirmed against her, under the water, where nobody could see. “Took matters into their own hands.”
“Ha! So to speak,” said Romina.
“If they did, we’ll never know,” Malena said.
“No,” La Venus said thoughtfully. “I suppose we won’t.”
“All that chucu-chucu, lost in history,” said Romina, with an exaggerated, tragic flair.
“Rewrite the history books for us,” said Flaca, stroking Cristi’s belly in that way she could never tire of, such a miraculous belly, smooth and full of hunger like an eddy that could pull you deep into its whorl. “You’re the brilliant historian.”
“I am neither of those things,” Romina said. “I’m a schoolteacher. I teach propaganda to bored children.”
She was a demon, this Cristi, she’d guided Flaca’s hand down to the rim of her bikini bottom, under it. Time to swim away. “Well, Ro, if not you, then who?”
* * *
*
A few weeks later, they would learn that they’d been right: the woman they’d spied was, in fact, Mariana Righi—and they hadn’t been the only ones to see her. A newspaper in Spain published a grainy photograph of Mariana Righi on a remote Uruguayan beach, kissing a woman
. The friends would always wonder about the mysterious photographer who’d sold the picture and blown Mariana’s cover, their prime suspect being Benito of the Rusty Anchor, who possessed the only known camera in Polonio, though he would deny this charge vehemently for the rest of his life. As the scandal spread, articles in Spain and South America referred to the beach in question, this Cabo Polonio, as a “perverts’ beach,” a “land of Sapphic urges,” a “paradise for tortilleras, maricones, and invertidos of all kinds.”
The words were meant as insults. But the following summer, in late 1983, there would be new visitors, also castoffs. Cantoras. Maricones. Seeking the promised land of perversions. And so the change began. They were Argentineans, at first, fresh from the end of their own dictatorship, flush with possibilities, and the five friends who’d been there from the start would drink mate with them, share their fire, share stories under the stars. That first summer, there would not yet be many. Just a handful, really. Scraps of humanity, castoffs—the thrown out, the spurned, the invisible, the mocked, the hiding and hidden, the don’t come-back-to-this-house-you-faggots—gathered at the world’s edge.
Huddled together for warmth. Unfurling their fires. Unfurling what they’d buried since the dawn of their lives.
Not many, but enough to be changed by the seeing.
By the together.
By the glow and burn.
* * *
*
Before that, before any of that, six hours after seeing Mariana Righi or a woman who looked just like Mariana Righi on the beach, the women of the Prow had a feast and then rang in the New Year, drunk with hopes for a better future. They were in such a good mood that they even cheered for the fireworks from the lighthouse, even though they’d been set off by soldiers’ hands, because what the hell, pretty lights are one thing, soldiers are another, no one would be saved by staying grumpy about a gorgeous sky, so why not revel in the show.
“¡Opa!”
“¡Opa!”
“Now that’s a firework.”
“My God, it’s ’eighty-three. The century sounds so old!”
“It’s an octogenarian. It needs a cane.”
“My great-grandmother is ninety-six, and she doesn’t use a cane!”
“Well then, it’s a spry old century.”
“Seriously. We’re headed toward freedom—”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’re a far cry from that.”
“Things have started. The chink in the dam.”
“Chink the dam!”
“Bash the dam!”
“Break the dam!”
“Seriously, queridas, I can’t help it, I feel hope.”
“Me too. Maybe because I just got back, but the country’s changed since I left for Brazil.”
“Really, Venus? What do you see?”
“I don’t know. More buoyancy. Like people aren’t drowning in quite as much despair.”
“They’re drowning in only medium-size despair?”
“Maybe. A medium-to-large river of despair.”
“Instead of a Río-de-la-Plata-size river of despair?”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Better than nothing!”
“People still live in fear. Our prisoners aren’t free.”
“Oh, Romina.”
“What? I’m just saying—”
“I know, I know, I just want to have a moment to feel what’s possible.”
“Ha!” La Venus leaned toward Flaca. She wanted to keep the mood bright and aloft. “You’d certainly feel that if I showed you what’s in my bag!”
“Why? What’s in your bag?”
“Something I smuggled in from Brazil.”
“What?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Oh, come on, now you’re torturing us.”
“Guess.”
“Drugs.”
“Diamonds.”
“Pirate maps.”
“Guess again.”
“Magic powders from the Umbanda priests.”
“That would be good. This is better.”
“You’re killing us.”
“Now you have to show us.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not drunk enough.”
Roars of protest.
“I mean it, I want to show you but it’s too much.”
“Too much, how?”
“Oh for God’s sake, can’t you see she won’t tell us without more whiskey? Open another bottle and pour her a glass!”
“Here we go. Like this. A tall one.”
“More!”
“More!”
“Chicas, chicas—”
“Don’t you chicas, chicas us, Venus, you said you had to be more drunk, we’re helping you.”
“We’re counting on you to set the tone for 1983!”
“Oh God.”
“Well done. Another swig.”
“You can do it.”
“All right, chicas. All right!”
“Are you drunk enough yet?”
“Give me a second.” La Venus looked around. She was very drunk. The room swelled, swam with candle flames and open faces, so many points of light, as if the world were burning brightly in this room, as if the world were composed of nothing but fires sparked in the faces of the living, as if nothing else could light the void or keep you warm. She wished the instant could last forever. “Yes. I’m ready.”
She walked to her bag with the solemnity of a priestess guarding some ancient temple. She pulled out a bundle, unwrapped it. Inside lay a chaos of slim black straps and a red object, long and cylindrical like a piece of tubing, only it didn’t seem hollow and had a flared base on one end, a rounded tip on the other.
“What is it?” Romina asked in wonder, though Flaca, holding her breath and furiously aware of Cristi’s body beside her, guessed exactly what it was.
“You wear it,” La Venus said. “To—” She raised her eyebrows, gestured.
“How—oh.”
“Oh!”
“No.”
“Ay ay ay…”
The women leaned closer, staring.
“Can I touch it?”
“Of course.” La Venus laughed, emboldened now. “Don’t worry, it’s clean.”
They touched it, gingerly at first, then with more confidence.
“Where did you get this?”
“Ariella bought it. In the Rio shops. You can get anything in Rio de Janeiro.”
“I bet it’s the only one in Uruguay.”
“Probably.”
“The first ever!”
“Perhaps.”
“History is being made here, ladies.”
“Who wore it? You or her?”
“We both did. Depending on our mood.”
This produced a fascinated silence. Never had they spoken so frankly with each other about what they did, about what two women together could do.
“Mostly,” La Venus added, “depending on her mood.”
“Did she know you were taking it?”
“No. I took it from the drawer. I decided I had the right.”
“I can’t believe you got it through customs. You could have been arrested.”
“I know. I hid the straps with my belts and wrapped the—thing—in a couple of blouses.”
“Didn’t they check your suitcase?”
“They did. It was a soldier, at the Montevideo airport.”
“Did he find it?”
“Yes.”
“Did he touch it?”
“Yes.”
Cristi, who was holding the red part, dropped it to the ground and stared in horror.
<
br /> “I’ve washed it since,” La Venus reassured her.
“So what did you say?”
“I—I told him it was a potato masher.”
“A potato. Masher.”
“He bought that?”
“He seemed to.”
“Potato masher!”
Roars of laughter.
“Mash my potatoes!”
“Mash them well!”
“Get that puree going!”
“I wish I had one of those,” Paz said.
“I wish you had one of those, too,” Yolanda said.
An uproar. Yolanda hid her face behind a curtain of hair. Paz felt herself flush but could not stop smiling like an idiot.
“I was thinking,” La Venus said, “that I could—well—you know—share. Lend it out.”
“You would do that?” Flaca said, trying hard to sound casual.
“Why not? We’re family, aren’t we? Just, you know, wash it before you give it back.”
“Fair enough!”
“I don’t think I’d ever want to use such a thing,” said Romina.
Malena said, gently, “And you don’t ever have to.”
Romina looked at her with love and gratitude, at this woman of hers, who gave so much, who loved so much, I’ve been too impatient, haven’t I, where would I be without her. “In any case, let it be known that we don’t need one of those contraptions to mash potatoes.”
“Oh, sure,” Flaca said. “This is Uruguay. We’re a resourceful people. Potato-mashing experts.”
“It’s a Uruguayan specialty,” Yolanda said.
Paz beamed at Yolanda; her first night at the Prow, and she’d gotten right into the flow.
“It’s not about needing it,” La Venus said. “It’s just one more fun thing for your—er, for your kitchen.”
“But how the hell does it work?” Cristi asked.
“You just—put it on.” La Venus picked up the straps, began to untangle them. “Who wants to try?” She looked at Flaca.
But Flaca, staring at the contraption hanging from her friend’s hands, knew she could not try it on in front of all her friends, that just the sight of it made her skin burn and the pit of her body ache in a manner she’d never felt before; she didn’t know what it meant or what would happen when she closed the distance between it and her; she longed to know, but the knowing would have to be private, in the dark, alone, the only way to meet buried parts of your own self.
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