The Invisible Mountain

by Carolina de Robertis

  When her poem came out in Expresión, a journal published in a poet’s basement, Eva clipped two copies: one to keep under her pillow, and one for the dark place between her breasts. It grew damp with sweat each day. By winter the paper had smudged and thinned. She carried it anyway, tucked into place like a little weapon.

  In Eva’s fifth year at La Diablita, her youngest brother became a man by marrying María Chamoun’s daughter, the bright-as-a-flame Carlota. Tomás stood by the altar, dwarfed by his own stiff suit, gaping at the cloud of tulle and silk on its way toward him. In the pews, Eva sat with Bruno, Marco, and Mamá. The bride reached the altar. Padre Robles made the sign of the cross (his fingers were still fat) and leaped into his script. Carlota beamed through her veil. Tomás grinned like a comicbook character. The wooden pew was hard, and Eva crossed and recrossed her legs, picturing herself spitting on the giant crucifix behind the altar.

  At the reception—half the neighborhood cramped into the Chamouns’ living room—Eva served plates with her sister-in-law Mirna.

  “So, Eva.” Mirna cocked her head slyly. “When will we do this for you?”

  She didn’t answer. She looked around for some reprieve. Across the room, Xhana leaned her head toward the boy who had been courting her. César. They had met at the university, where they were both studying to become schoolteachers. César had the kind of eyes an angel might: fresh, wide, midnight-black, lit up by something Xhana was now saying. Eva still hadn’t met him; she avoided family gatherings by reflex, to avoid awkward moments with Papá. But she missed her cousin. They were almost strangers. Maybe she could go over there, smile, say hello like a normal girl.

  Her father’s voice rose behind her. “So, Pietro—how’s the store?”

  “Wonderful. Wonderful.”

  Mirna handed Eva a plate. She almost dropped it.

  “Your daughter works there?”

  “Sí.”

  “I hope she gives you less trouble than mine did.”

  Pietro laughed amiably. “Ay, Gondola,” he said. Eva gripped the knife from the pascualina platter. It was long and flecked with spinach—she could raise it right now, slash both of their throats, stop their laughing. Heat rushed through her at the thought. She swung the blade against the platter once, twice, three times, and on the third it tipped and spilled the rest of the pie onto the floor.

  Mirna stared.

  “I need air,” Eva said, loping out.

  That night she dreamed she was a bride walking down an aisle. I never thought this could happen to me. She held dozens of carnations. She had to crane her neck above them to see where she was going. Who’s the groom? The dim air crashed with organ music. As she got closer to the altar she heard a terrible cackle, getting louder and louder. She dropped the flowers. In front of her, a giant slice of pascualina pie stood on stick legs, a bow tie slapped onto its pastry shell. It was laughing. It smelled like rotting eggs. She screamed, and it laughed louder. She screamed and screamed and woke up sweating. Dawn light seeped through the curtains. She sat up and pulled them back. The sky looked ashen. She wanted to fly out of the window, become a bird, a buoyant speck of grime, anything that might lift off and disappear into the night. The little house felt like a trap, tight, dark, inescapable, cluttered with unsaid words. Her body too. She was eighteen. At her age her mother had been married for two years, and not that she wanted her mother’s life or even cared, but who would marry her? And who would she want to live so close to in one corner of the raucous world? Only one person. She didn’t deserve him, she never would, but perhaps she had to try.

  She waited too long. A week later she was still mustering up courage, searching for the words, when she marched out of the La Diablita kitchen to wipe the sweat from tables and saw Andrés and Beatriz, against the wall, by the piano, kissing. Two mouths locked together. Hands in each other’s hair.

  She would not drop her tray, with all its dirty dishes, though it was heavy, too heavy, an impossible load. She bolted to the kitchen and disappeared behind its door.

  Eva turned nineteen without a hint of marriage. She watched Andrés and Beatriz sit close together, and it turned her stomach, the proprietary way she stroked his neck. She tried to ignore them but they imprinted themselves on her vision as if she had glanced at the sun.

  In her last year at La Diablita, Eva worked as many hours as she could and stashed extra cash beneath her mattress, just in case the world ever opened an escape hatch and she had to sling together her own raft.

  The World War ended and turned Montevideo into an early Carnaval. Eva woke to the roar of drum and song and shouting from the street. The neighbor’s radio blared ecstatically through the wall: “Peace at last—Germany’s surrender—no more war …” She dressed quickly and ran to the kitchen, where her mother stood still as a hawk, wet rag suspended in her hand, staring at the wall as if boring through its surface to reveal a hidden fissure. Eva felt, against her will, the wide and fickle arms of hope. The world could change. It was changing: this kitchen was not just a kitchen, but a box at the edge of a human river, streaming past their door, celebrating the eruption of peace. She approached her mother and hugged her from behind.

  “Mamá.”

  Pajarita leaned into her daughter. A single wet trail ran down her cheek, as if a snail or tear had crept there. It was not a wetness Eva wanted to see, not an embrace she could withstand. She stepped away, toward the door. Mamá looked at her in a manner that sealed her mission to escape.

  “I’m going out.”

  On the street, Eva opened her veins and bones and senses to loud, fresh peace, swirling around her, thickening the crowd and carrying her past the prison’s sunlit walls and past the long church steps all the way to the wide central artery of Avenida 18 de Julio. People swarmed and cheered and howled and shook around her. Men in shiny murga costumes belted out last season’s ballads; a boy, high on his father’s shoulders, chewed a Uruguayan flag; a young couple danced a fervent tango, bumping against the crowd; Champagne bottles popped frothily at each turn; music moved in random eddies, candombe drums here, accordions there, chants and clapping, sounds she could move to, dance to, swept up in the explosion of her city. Peace! someone shouted. Peace! she shouted back, jostling against those close to her. An unknown hand passed her a cup of Champagne. She toasted with the sky—here’s to a new world—and drank. The crowd pressed closer, bodies and more bodies, warm and pungent, keen and dense, and she pressed back gladly until one body pressed too hard at her bottom. She froze. Pietro (his hands, his breath, the push of him) shot through her like cold lightning. The stranger’s erection dug into her. Pietro leered—she smelled him again, she heard his voice, she had to scream or run, she stood still as the man’s hands groped her body. Nausea rose when he lifted her skirt.

  “¡Che!” yelled the man in front of her.

  She stared blearily at the vomit on his coat, his disgusted face. Hands and penis melted away and left a gap in the throng behind her. She raced into it, away from the man she’d soiled, from the scene of the crime, far away far away from the scene of her crime. She ran. She pushed through the revelry toward emptier streets, until a stitch in her side forced her to slow to a walk. Where was she going? The day’s flush now tasted like pure bile. She stumbled into an unfamiliar alley, a damp and narrow shaft lined with brick walls. She belonged in the heel of a shoe. She belonged nowhere, she should pour down the gutter, drain through the ground and be gone. Who would miss her? She was ridiculous, almost twenty, almost un-weddable, a waitress and third-rate poet whose own father thought she was a whore and whose countrymen, on freedom’s day, could shove into her dress. Vomit soured her mouth. She had to rinse. She was close to the fountain at Parque Rodó. She turned the corner and walked to the park, to the plaza nestled at the center, and strode to the fountain. She did not care (did not care) about the strangers staring from their benches as she scooped water onto her dress.

  “Eva?”

  She turned around. Andrés Descalzo
stood in front of her, looking at her wet chest and then away.

  “I … spilled Champagne.”

  “I see. ¿Estás bien?”

  “Claro. Claro. I’m fine.”

  “Are you happy about the surrender?”

  “What?”

  “You know. Of Germany.”

  “Oh, right, Germany.” Eva stared down at her feet. The tiles beneath them burst with dragons, painted fish, a pomegranate yawning wide with seeds. “Great. Of course. Couldn’t be better.”

  “Things are going to change now.”

  “Sí.”

  “You sure you’re all right.”

  “Sí, sí.”

  “You seem different.”

  “I’m tired.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of—everything—of my family, of stupid poets, of Montevideo, and every single man in this damn country!”

  Andrés laughed. The sun caught on his teeth as he laughed. “Me too.”

  They sat down together at the rim of the fountain. Blue tiles cool against her skirt.

  “How’s Beatriz?”

  “She broke up with me.”

  “Oh.”

  “She’s with Pepe now.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Andrés shrugged. “It wasn’t working anyway.” He looked at her frankly and her face went hot. “She’s not like you, Eva. Not someone I can really talk to.”

  Eva broke the gaze. He was so close. The air she was breathing had been inside his body.

  “I need to tell you something.”

  She held her breath.

  “I’m leaving.”

  “What?”

  Andrés nodded. Eva crushed a handful of her skirt.

  “I’ve got to get out of Uruguay.” He stared out at impassive trees. “My father wants to retire. If I stay, I’ll have to take over the carnicería. Who ever heard of a poet who smelled like cow blood? The war’s over. It’s a sign. It’s time to do it.”

  “Where to?”

  “Buenos Aires.”

  In Eva’s mind, Buenos Aires was a dancer, with flashy moves and a scandalous scent beneath her clothes, who danced as Montevideo—her smaller, drabber sister—never would.

  “Buenos Aires,” she repeated.

  “Things are going well there, with the social revolution.” His hands locked together, then unlaced. “There are other reasons.”

  “Like what?”

  Andrés studied her face. To her right, beyond the trees, Eva heard a baby crying. Andrés shrugged. “Well, for writers, it’s the next best thing to Paris, ¿no? Paris before the bombs.”

  Eva said nothing. Obviously it was the next best thing to Paris. “How will you get there?”

  “I have just enough money for the ferry, and the first week or so after that. I’ll find work. I’m willing to do anything at first.”

  “When are you leaving?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “No.” Eva grasped his wrist. It was smooth under her fingers; perhaps she would leave marks. “You can’t do that.”

  His arm relaxed in her clasp, a supple prey.

  “I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you too. You’re my closest friend.” He stared at the ground; at the tiles; at the fantastic pictures painted on those tiles. “I love you, chiquilina. But don’t worry, I’ll write. I’ll send you my address.”

  That night, Eva breaded milanesas in silence by her mother’s side. She set the table, fork by fork, each motion a minuscule act of release. At dinner, she ate slowly, floating far away from her brothers’ uproar over the German surrender, their wives’ interjections, her father’s constant reaching for the wine. Later, in bed, she lay thinking and feeling, feeling and thinking, picturing Buenos Aires and picturing Montevideo without Andrés, hearing his words, chiquilina, I love you. She did not sleep. Before dawn could bleach the darkness from her room, she reached under the mattress and drew out her stack of pesos. She slid it into a tapestry bag, along with clothes, jewelry, notepads, books. She dressed. She wrote a note to her mother. It was 4:55 a.m.

  She crept to the kitchen and placed the note by the sink, where Mamá would be the first to see it. She could almost taste her mother’s presence in this kitchen, with its cluttered green cheer, its jars of dark dry plants whose uses Eva had never learned. It would be many years before she stood in this kitchen again, and more years still before the night when she would stand here, in the dark, scraping burned tomato sauce into the trash with desperate gestures, unable to feel the pot in her hands, unable to smell the black ruins, unable to think anything but No, Salomé, no, no. Now, in this moment, preparing to escape across the river, she thought only of Mamá. Perhaps, if she breathed deeply enough, she could fill her lungs up with her mother’s essence and take it with her. She tried it but her lungs were tight and she felt nothing, so she slipped out of the kitchen into the night.

  It was dark outside, and the prison walls formed broad shadows on the street. She could barely make out the castle pattern in the bricks along the top, the shape that had enchanted her as a child. She crossed the cobblestones, passed the prison, and approached the steps of the church. They felt cool and smooth against her legs as she sat down, her back to the chapel, facing Carnicería Descalzo. She settled in to wait.

  The street was perfectly still. Only her breath seemed to move. Light leaked over the houses on the east end of the street. Any time now. She could see the door of the butcher shop more clearly with each minute, a dark green rectangle in the wall. She would not miss his exit—unless he’d already left. Anxiety tugged at her nerves; at least it would keep her awake. She hoped her mother had not gotten up to pee. Weak light crawled higher into the sky. The houses of Punta Carretas pressed together, side by side, little boxes in a row. Any moment now, her parents would wake up and find her gone. She pictured them bustling toward her in their nightclothes. She shifted to a lower step.

  The Descalzo door opened and a tall silhouette stepped out. She rushed to meet it.

  “Psst. Andrés.”

  His spine tensed. “Eva, what are you—”

  “I’m coming with you. You have to take me.” She hoped she sounded firm and irrefutable.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not? I want to break away, just like you.”

  He shook his head, but he was listening.

  “I’ve got money of my own. I’ll help you. I want Buenos Aires, I want to be a poet, and I want to be with you. Don’t you love me? Didn’t you say that?”

  The pause between them thickened. She tried another approach. “Look, in any case, I’m after the same thing you are.”

  He bit his lip. “Which is?”

  “Piracy.”

  He let out a short laugh; it was almost a bark. Then he was serious. He met her eyes. “God.” He looked away, toward the prison. “Have you packed your things?”

  “What I really need.”

  “You sure about this?”

  “Completely.”

  He stared at her as if she were a missive he’d just come to understand. “The ferry leaves soon. We’d better head right to the dock.”

  Just before they rounded the corner, Eva took one last look at her childhood street: the church door’s arc, the long prison wall, the road of inlaid stones, the oaks rising out of the sidewalk, the sand-colored house where her family slept. It was more than she could curl her tired mind around. She turned and walked away, toward the river.

  Cuatro

  ——————

  THE ART OF MAKING

  ONESELF ANEW

  This city. Buenos Aires. It gleamed like a land of lucent giants. It roared and stretched and shot up from the ground in planes of stone. Eva stood at the lip of Avenida Nueve de Julio and stared. The widest street, her new landlady had boasted, in the world. She lifted her sagging chin as she said it. And there was no reason to believe that the world held anything, anywhere, vaster than this road, loud with automobiles and the bustle of a thousand
people’s shoes. A proud late-autumn sky vaulted above it. The obelisk towered in the middle of the street, piercing the heart of the city, a long white finger pointing toward heaven, tall, sleek, effulgent with authority and promise. The people seemed that way to her too: smooth and sleek like stone. Slender women with exquisite purses, men in sharp Parisian suits. They poured everywhere and did not relent. Eva turned onto Avenida Corrientes. At the corner newsstand, a leathery man mumbled highlights of his wares—Perón defends new labor plan! Cigarettes! Magazines! Gum!—between puffs of his cigar. Earlier in the day he might have hollered, but it was 3 a.m. and some territory, only some, had to be ceded to the night. She passed him without slowing, passed the couple kissing against a lamppost; the men just burst from a bar, slick-haired, smelling of liquor and cologne; the dance-hall doors throbbing with tangos; the crowded café where a woman sat alone at a small table, scrawling mournfully on delicate pink paper. The city was too much, crushing against her. Eva stopped and leaned against the window of a closed boutique. She stood still until she sensed the hum, low and constant, beneath the surface of the city. She felt it in her bones—it lit her up, unnerved her, showed the way, filled each sequin and bulb and alley, from dense downtown to her crumbling San Telmo tenement, where paint can be bright as it peels, where tangueros danced at bars with cracking walls, where fire escapes were balconies on which to sway to stolen music, taking reprieve from small damp rooms. Even in her own bedroom, Eva was in the hum, and she felt it when she sat completely still. Never mind the roaches that teemed across the floor, the stains on the bedsheets, the way she held her breath to avoid the stink in the bathroom down the hall. Never mind the paper-thin walls through which she heard the prostitute next door conducting business, night and day, man after man with his own pace and push and vocal gait; the families of five, six, nine in single rooms; the knife fights in the alley around the corner. She was home there, still, in the glow of the city, and anyway she’d moved her bed to the other wall, the one adjacent to Andrés’ room.