by David Trueba
They laughed at the wet stain around his pocket. With my coat on no one will notice it. Do you want to wash up? said Sylvia. No, I should go. He left quickly. Sylvia realized how Dani changed after he came, going from relentless passion to cold discomfort. It was as if he were landing in reality with an abrupt lurch. He went from floating inert to being aware of where he was, of what had happened, of who they were, of the earth spinning on its axis, and of the Canary Islands being an hour behind. Not her. Sylvia would have liked to remain intertwined for a while, for him to twist a finger around her favorite curl, for him to kiss her even if her saliva didn’t taste quite as warm after his orgasm. But she had been left alone almost without realizing it.
Her father came home later and found her reading. He noticed that it was a different book than the one he had laboriously recommended. You’re not tired? He smelled of smoke and soccer. Who won? We did, said Lorenzo. And how’d that Argentinian guy play, the one you hate so much? Eh, he wasn’t too bad. Sylvia finished a chapter before falling asleep.
The day after, Dani wasn’t able to meet her eyes. He sat with her and Mai awhile in the classroom and then disappeared before the break was over. She wanted to tell him, relax, I’m not in love with you, but maybe he already knew it. Sylvia again felt stupid about the incident, but calm, with no desire to take their relationship any further.
Now, Sylvia listened to Mai talk about the latest mishaps with her boyfriend. Mateo wanted to go to an antiglobalization march in Vienna, and he had asked her to go with him. It could be romantic, right? A little trip together. Sylvia doesn’t say anything. She is thinking about Ariel.
After no contact for weeks, she had gotten a message from him yesterday afternoon. He asked for her address. Sylvia sent it to him and then ran to change her clothes, thinking he would show up at the house. She was tense for more than two hours, she changed her shirt six times, finally deciding on a thick sweater over her bra. She decided that her hair was dirty and she put it up in a ponytail over and over until her wrists hurt. When the doorbell rang, she was about to scream.
At the door was a man holding up a bouquet. Sylvia signed the delivery slip with a disappointed scrawl and was left alone with the flowers. She put them down on the table. There was a little envelope with her name and inside a card that read: “Accept this, please, with a million apologies and a kiss. Ariel.” Beside it, folded in half, was a check made out to the bearer for twelve thousand euros. Sylvia dropped onto the sofa. The bouquet was enormous, excessive, impersonal. The brush of the sweater on her skin aroused her. She tore the check into pieces as tiny as confetti and let it fall into the ashtray as if a party had just ended.
Later she sent him a message: “The flowers are lovely. I tore up the check. It’s not necessary.” Barely a second later, her phone rang. Are you crazy? You have to accept it, it’s the least I can do. Sylvia interrupted him. Stop feeling guilty. It was an accident and that’s it. Ariel said something about the insurance, but Sylvia didn’t let him go on. Your friend took care of it. That’s what my father told me. They worked it out. “Your friend” sounded ugly, harsh. There was a pause, which Sylvia cut short. You didn’t even invite me to see you play. Ariel asked her if she would like that. She said yes. More than a check. I thought maybe … Yeah, I know what you thought. That maybe I was thinking of taking advantage of the fact that you’re famous and get some cash out of you. Well, no, you don’t have to worry.
On the other end of the line, all she heard was Ariel’s breathing. This Sunday we’re playing here, he said. Should I leave you two tickets? Is two enough? Yes, agreed Sylvia. And if you score a goal, will you dedicate it to me? Ariel laughed. I doubt I’ll score. But if you score, how will I know you’re dedicating it to me? I don’t know, but I’m telling you I don’t think I’ll score. You could lift all five fingers in the air, for the five weeks I’m going to spend in this fucking cast. Deal. The flowers are pretty, did you choose them or is there a flower-selecting employee at the club?
When they hung up, Sylvia felt a strange power. She had always been the youngest in the group, used to being told what to do by older friends who imposed their authority. With Ariel she took the initiative. She allowed herself to disparage his check, make jokes, be sarcastic about the bouquet of flowers. It was the first time in her life anyone had ever sent her flowers.
In the afternoon, she took the bouquet to her grandmother Aurora. They are lovely, your grandfather used to bring me flowers every Sunday, from a gypsy woman who set out her wares beside the newspaper stand. But the gypsy left and the flowers stopped coming, oh well.
Sylvia returned home with her father. While he drove, she told him, they gave me two tickets for the soccer game this Sunday, do you want to come? With you? he asked, surprised. Yes, with me. And who gave them to you? Do you want to come or not? Sylvia smiled without moving a muscle on her face.
When recess ends and the classroom fills up again, Mai drags herself lazily away from her friend, toward her class on the upper floor. I’ll walk you home later. Sylvia moves her cast to create space for people to pass between the desks. Nadia offers her the last bite of a roll. Rainbow collapses into his seat with a snort of anticipated boredom. The science teacher comes in and closes the door behind him, even though two or three stragglers have yet to make it to class. How’s it going? he asks from his desk. But nobody responds.
2
Sometimes he would follow a beautiful woman whom he passed on the street. From fifteen steps behind, he’d delight in her gait, the swinging of her hips, her curves, her rushing about. He speculated on her age, the type of life she led, her family relationships, her job. He fixed his gaze on the wavy hair against her neck or pursued a glimpse of her bust in profile. Sharing the street with these women was enough for him to feel he’d met them; accompanying them for several blocks was like making love. On occasions they would disappear into a doorway, or a car, they’d descend into the metro or enter a store, and Leandro would wait on the sidewalk across the street like a patient lover. Sometimes he followed a woman through the Corte Inglés department store, and studied her through the shelves, floor after floor, and savored her face, with its absent look of someone shopping, unaware she’s being watched. He was satisfied with assessing the harmony of a pair of lips, the brush of a sweater over the curve of a breast, or the veiling and unveiling of a knee in play with a skirt. Trailing along in her sensual wake, he sometimes ended up on a bus ride to a strange neighborhood where the woman kissed a man or joined a group of friends, the spell suddenly broken when she was no longer alone.
Watching was admiring. Watching was loving. But never had obsessive sex taken a hold over Leandro like now. He had never felt overtaken by instinct, unable to control his desire. He had never served his sex drive morning, noon, and night. Sex at all hours of the day. The mere gleam off an object was enough to remind him of the sheen of Osembe’s skin, a shape could pull his mind to her muscular thighs, a slight sway of flesh reminded him of her breasts, seeing pink painted anywhere suggested the palms of her hands. Any accident was sex. Any gesture was sex. Any movement was sex. The roundness of a cold saucepan, the shape of a bottle placed on the table, the underside of a spoon. Sex. Sex when he woke up aroused, alone in his bed. In the morning shower that reminded him of the quick showers at the chalet before and after making love. Sex at noon when the regular hour of their encounters approached. Sex at night when he returned to his bed repentant, yet the touch of the sheets aroused him again.
Fear was sex, too. The lack of control. The obsession. The shame was sex. The sheer drop he sensed behind his incomprehensible pursuit of the pleasure he enjoyed every evening. Every evening because after the first two weeks, during which every encounter was followed by at least forty-eight hours of anguish, regret, and attempts to forget, his defenses had been defeated. The previous week he had only missed one day. He went on Saturday and Sunday, too. He even went in spite of the persistent rain of the last week of November, which swept the stre
et’s pollution and filth, leaving it gleaming under the streetlights. At six in the evening, punctual as an employee, he rang the bell beside the metal door that opened with a groan.
Osembe received him in underwear one day, in street clothes the next. She varied the undressing ceremony, but the process was the same: Leandro’s old body assailing her fortress. In Benin she used to work at a stall in the market and on weekends she enjoyed the beach. There she had started to earn a little extra money by going up to the tourists’ hotel rooms or by accompanying them to nightclubs. She explained to Leandro that the first Spaniard she ever met was an engineer who worked for an NGO. Andoni, very drunk, but he treated me lovingly. He told her about Spain. He worked in the Delta, on an environmental cleanup project, but every time he was in Benin they met up. His sister had a business selling African handicrafts in Vitoria and Osembe helped him get a good price for the pieces that he brought back in an enormous shipping container once a month. When I arrived in Madrid, I called him. I saw him one day, explained Osembe. He gave me a little money and then he asked me not to call him again. He has a girlfriend here. She also met another Spaniard from the consulate in Lagos, a civil guard who gave her a Real Madrid T-shirt for her little brother and some earrings for her. We used to fuck twice a week in the Sofitel Ikoyi. Spaniards are very affectionate.
On occasion Osembe mentions a name: Festus. Leandro asks her about it, but she never gives more details other than that he is the one who brought her to Madrid. Nothing more. When Leandro asks, do you have a pimp? she laughs, as if it were a ridiculous question. Here I go halfsies with the house. Is he your boyfriend? Are you going to marry him? More laughter. No, not him, how awful. No, I told you already, Africans are not good husbands. Leandro questions her about her gold bracelets, her rings, the necklace around her neck, which she sometimes delicately removes and places on the nightstand. I like jewelry, she says, but she never admits whether they are gifts from anyone. I earn my money. She also changes her hairstyle often, telling him she spent fourteen hours on her day off having her friend do her braids. Her brightly colored underwear is carefully chosen, sometimes even to match her nails, painted with designs that end up chipped and dulled.
He enters Aurora’s room with chamomile tea, steam rising from the mug. He puts sugar and jam on the toast she will eat in tiny bites. Leandro caresses the white lock of hair with gray glints that falls toward one side of his wife’s face. Yesterday their granddaughter came and washed Aurora’s hair in a washbasin of steaming water, massaging her head with delicate hands, and today her hair shines when the light hits it. I have to go to the bank, he tells her. Then I’ll come up and read to you. He leaves the room after filling it with the upbeat saraband of one of Mozart’s capriccios on the classical radio station.
On the street, he is received by an intense sun that doesn’t mollify the cold. A street sweeper smokes a butt beside his pail, dustpan, and bristle brush. He reads a wrinkled, faded sports page and spits green phlegm into the street. They’ve already hung the Christmas lights along the avenue. Earlier and earlier, someone says every year. He passes by the windows of the various bank branches. He can see the busy employees in their cubicles decorated with friendly advertisements for financial offers and their clients waiting like fish in waterless tanks.
A few days earlier, he had been with Osembe and two other girls, one recently arrived from Guatemala with a huge rear end and lovely sad eyes, and a Valencian he had met on the very first day, and who explained to him that she had been at the chalet longer than anyone else. She had just had her breasts enlarged and she showed them off, firm and plastic, and poured champagne over them during the party. Leandro noticed her gold crucifix, so out of place that it was comical during their frivolous ceremony, which stretched over almost three hours. Naked among all that young flesh, caressed by different hands, hearing whispered voices from three continents, seeing clean smiles, for a moment he felt on top of the world. He emptied his glass onto the girls’ skin and then licked their bodies. Drunk and somewhat feverish, Leandro went out into the cold street, convinced that the spiral threatening to pull him down was a reaction against the formal, moderate life he had been leading. That afternoon he paid for his indulgences with his debit card. Three days later, he received a call from his bank. An icily friendly female voice told him the funds had been covered, although they exceeded his balance, so it was urgent that he pass by the office to replace the amount. It was almost an hour before closing time, and in a very low voice Leandro responded, tomorrow, tomorrow I’ll be there for sure.
Leandro waits in line in front of the teller’s window while an old lady tries to update her bankbook, barely able to see, with blind trust in the woman who tells her her balance. The branch director touches Leandro’s shoulder and greets him with fake cordiality. He invites Leandro into his office and as he offers a chair he makes a sign to one of the employees. They talk about Christmas approaching, the weather, the mountains that are already covered in snow, while Leandro thinks that, if the director were an animal, he would be a mosquito, nervous and distrusting. When he asks Leandro about his wife, the conversation turns serious. Bad, to tell the truth, I don’t know if you know she broke her hip a month ago … Oh my God, I had no idea, how is she? Well, pretty weak, says Leandro, and lets the pause lengthen, her recovery is long and difficult.
Leandro explains that Aurora has to learn to walk again, like a child, but that she doesn’t have the strength. The other day, she insisted on sitting but wasn’t able to. She couldn’t hold herself up. The doctor who visited that morning had tried to be reassuring. It’s a normal process, she needs rest. But Aurora went to pieces; that same afternoon she whispered to Leandro, it would be better if I just died now. Leandro took her hand and stroked her face. He talked to her for a long time and it seemed to lift her spirits.
The female employee puts a statement of recent activity in Leandro’s account in front of the director. Leandro defuses the alarm growing in the director’s eyes. My wife is dying, I have to spend up to the last peseta of my savings on anything that can extend her life or at least make her suffer less. The director points out the almost constant withdrawals from ATMs, the excessive charges on the card. Leandro doesn’t say much, just names nurses, expensive medications, second opinions in private clinics. He doesn’t say whores, massages, foam baths, paid caresses. He reaches for his wallet and suggests covering the overdraft, but the director stops him. Don’t think of it, don’t think of it, there’s no rush. We put people before numbers, at least in this bank.
Leandro lies naturally, finds it simple to just let himself be dragged along. The bank director pulls out a calculator and scribbles various amounts. He suggests a higher line of credit, which could help Leandro during the coming months. We could take your home as collateral, a part of it, maybe just 50 percent, and that will provide you the liquidity for peace of mind as you face your wife’s illness. Otherwise, I don’t know if you are familiar with our offer of reverse mortgages.
Leandro hesitates. I’m not sure, I would have to talk to her about it, he says. Here, of course, we are going to give you the best terms on the market, the director assures him. Yeah, but my pension is so ridiculously small, I’m afraid to take on something that size … No, Don Leandro, please. Let me explain how our credit system works.
He leaves the branch with the hypothetical bank operation written on a piece of paper. He thinks his entire life story is summed up there, in the intersection of four or five figures. They gave him his most recent statement and Leandro felt a humiliating stab when he recognized the fake name of the whorehouse. Every afternoon with Osembe, every excess, shows up there. A petty amount appears for the tickets to the Joaquín Satrústegui concert that Aurora bought over the phone a few weeks ago; in the end she insisted on getting them. Then the house expenses, the bills. But among them all the withdrawals of money for his vice stand out, accusatory. He is even further debased by the director’s expression as he watches him leave t
he branch, that sort of condescension, respect, pity.
If only they knew.
If only they knew, he thinks, the people who look at him now and see a decent old man bitterly facing his wife’s illness, the honest decline of old age, if they only knew his hidden vertigo of moral degradation. If they knew what he knows, that he’ll go back to the chalet that afternoon, around five-thirty, and he’ll give himself half an hour of doubting, he’ll torment himself with anticipated guilt. But he knows in the end he’ll ring the bell beside the metal door and he will watch through the frosted glass to the reception room as Osembe arrives with her long stride, her little jump on the final step, her straight-toothed smile as she discovers he’s returned, another evening, punctual and vanquished.
Perhaps because of all that, and because when he returns home he finds Aurora more fragile and somber than ever, as he lies down beside her on the bed, instead of consoling her, he breaks out in tears. It is the slow, muffled cry of an old man broken inside. On the radio, Beethoven’s adagio from the Emperor Concerto plays, a little bit mosso, and Aurora reminds him that sometimes, long ago, he dared to play it for her. Do you remember? When was the last time you played it? No, I only knew the beginning, he apologizes. Oh yes, I remember now, when Lorenzo decided to quit school and I was so depressed and it seemed like you didn’t care and you said that I shouldn’t blame people for choosing a different life than the one I would’ve chosen for them. And I was sad and you played it for me. Aurora dries the tears from Leandro’s face with her soft, thin fingers, without even being able to turn toward him. Then they hold hands, lying on top of the bedspread, and she tells him, don’t be afraid, everything will be okay, you’ll see, I’m going to get better. Why are men always so cowardly?