The Invisible Mountain
Page 22
“Tell me what’s happened, then.”
Eva recounted her story, methodically at first, then urgently, telling of her paralysis at Andrés’ departure, the sanitized hospital, the special attentions and small pink pills of Dr. Roberto Santos, the apartment of mauve roses and seduction, the white-pillared house, the birth of her son and daughter, her scattered publications, the appearance of a rain-wet doctor in the middle of the night, the mimeographed words that sent them into exile, her current balcony from which she watched La Diablita’s door, her nights at Xhana’s and days at Coco’s, her distant husband and vivid children and stuffed-in-a-drawer poems. The act of speaking shook the kaleidoscope of memory. Words fell from her lips in splintered colors, and the woman in front of her took in everything she said. She finally trailed into silence.
“So are you happy?”
“I don’t know. Are you?”
Zolá raised an eyebrow. “Yes. But there have been some terrible losses.”
“Like what?”
“Like my mother.”
An imprint of Coco thickened the room—blood-and-soap hands, a brassy laugh, hips like fortress walls.
“And you.”
Eva looked across the room at the mirror. Inside it she could see the clouded sky.
Zolá stared at the coffee table as if it fascinated her. “Are you disgusted?”
Eva gazed out the window. The light was growing golden; shards of it had fallen on the river. The river glistened, long and wide, the same river as always. She had wanted to ride its back for years before she crossed it. She could almost see herself, down on the water, in a boat at dawn, twenty years old, with her best friend, longing for his body, longing for much more, sure of what she longed for, sure of nothing. Perhaps that girl, the ghost of her, still wandered the low waves. A gull soared over rooftops and out of sight. “No.”
Zolá looked, for an instant, relieved like a child.
“But. I have one more question.”
“Well?”
“Did you give up poetry?”
“No. I have a pseudonym. A poetess persona.”
“Ah.”
“She’s a country girl, from the pampas.”
“No.”
“And she’s blind.”
“Zolá, wait. You’re not Soledad Del Valle.”
“You know me?”
“I can’t believe it.”
“Just think. A hermit, demure, blind, in the country—how could she ever make a city appearance?”
Eva took a bizcocho from the plate, but didn’t eat it. She peeled the layers of pastry, exposing soft, pale insides.
“What are you thinking, Eva?”
“That the world is a joke.”
“Are you laughing?”
“Who knows.”
Zolá smiled. Behind her, the sky seemed to gather like a mantle. “Shall I wash your hair?”
It became her secret treasure, that ride up to the fifteenth floor. Up up toward heaven, toward Zolá’s aerie, where there was so much to love: broad streams of light; star-gazer lilies yawning with fragrance; smooth marble and mirrors; tufts of hair, her own, black and slender, falling to the floor. Every time she came it was a different kind of falling. Zolá’s hands returned again and again to Eva’s hair.
“Eva?”
“Mmmmm?”
“How does that feel?”
“Perfect. The best hair wash in the world.”
“I call it a scalp massage.”
“Call it what you want. I call it heaven.” She sank into her chair and let her head relax further into warm, soft water that smelled of rose and almonds. Skilled fingers sifted through her hair as if in search of specks of gold.
“No wonder women can’t get enough of this. You’ve got to let me pay.”
“I won’t hear of it.”
“But your business?”
“Some things are more important. Sshhhh … relax …”
She closed her eyes and Zolá engulfed her head with gentle hands and water soft with nut-and-blossom foam. She was a blossom, an animal kind, a sea anemone, slick, unfurling, undulating, full of slippery urges. “Ay. Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For … making me feel like a mermaid.”
Zolá laughed. “Perhaps you’ll grow a tail.”
These hands were the same as they’d always been, even though the nails could now dig red tips into skin. She had seen them sift imaginary gold, turn pages, fill pages, stroke tears from her cheek. She knew these hands, and they knew her—better, it sometimes seemed, than she knew herself: they felt past the string of pearls, the earrings, even the curls, to glide along the hidden, naked contours of her scalp. It felt excruciating to let those fingers know such pale and private skin: as if all the armor she had ever formed could dissolve in a basin of fragrant water; as if nothing could stay concealed from such fingers or would want to. On some days, she did not care about exposure and plunged freely, hungry to be stroked, sculpted, washed, reborn, rebaptized in a secret sea.
When Zolá took to cutting, Eva felt a different self take shape. She entered as an unfinished woman, strong but blurry at the edges, like a photograph taken with a softened lens. Zolá’s cuts deepened her definition and sharpened her edges. Anything superfluous, she realized, could be shed. Snip, a layer of weight eased away. Snip, and she was incrementally freer than before. Snip, snip, the scissors sang in brisk, low moans as they danced at the curve of her neck.
After the first cut, Eva walked the Rambla as if her feet stepped on pure gold. After the second, she went home and wept for seven hours. Quietly, so the children wouldn’t hear her from their rooms, or from the table where they ate under the half-watchful, half-petulant care of Señora Hidalgo from downstairs. Once an hour, Señora Hidalgo knocked on Eva’s bedroom door.
“Doña Eva? You’ll still be needing me?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“You sure you’re fine?”
“Yes, Señora. Thank you.”
She heard the widow’s slow creak away from the door. More tears.
After the third cut, Eva came home and exhumed every poem she could find. They emerged from drawers, socks, purses, the dark under the bed, the hulls of neglected shoes. She spread them on her bed and started sorting, in search of patterns in the chaos.
She took them to Zolá.
“Read me another. Go on.”
“Zolá, I have to go.” Reluctantly. “I’m late for my babysitter.”
“Of course.” Zolá seemed reluctant too. She curled on the sofa with her chin on her arms. “They’re lovely. Why on earth did we become poets?”
“Because we were reckless.”
“Because we love life?”
“Because we couldn’t help it.”
“That must be it.” She gestured at the papers strewn across the table. “Can I keep them for a while?”
“All right.”
Autumn approached, with its cool winds and early showers. The season seemed enchanted. Eva could walk down the street—one child-hand in each of hers—and be struck by a fierce and sudden gale of happiness. It made her want to skip and run and kick up puddle water and pursue the sensuous crunch of brown leaves beneath her boots. So much opulent sensation on one sidewalk. “Salomé, you get that one!” Small galoshes crushed a leaf, another, and two giggles (a three-year-old’s, her mother’s) mixed with the crackling sound. “Roberto? How about you?” A head shook, a wool cap (made by his abuelita) swung its pom-pom. How did he get so very tall? and how so solemn? Many splashed puddles it took to make him smile, but it was worth it for the dawn-break way it came.
Untethered joy rarely goes unnoticed.
“What’s going on?” Xhana folded her arms across her apron.
“What do you mean?”
“Please, prima. Just look at you.”
Eva took a healthy bite of her empanada. Steam unfurled from its pastry shell.
“Papá, isn’t she different?”
Xhana raised her chin in triumph.
“That’s scandalous,” Eva said.
Artigas said, “Is it?”
Eva looked around, hands spread out, an innocent facing her accusers. She scanned the room for saviors. Oil sizzled in a pan on the stove; a woman rose from the sea in a picture on the wall, stars falling from her hands, the script above her reading Iemanjá; drummer and daughter stared at her. No reprieve. She hung her head in mock defeat.
“You’re right. I’m in love … with my wonderful children.”
Shouts railed at her from both sides.
“That’s all right,” Xhana said. “You don’t have to tell. Not even your own family.”
“Sure.” Artigas leaned toward her. “But we have eyes in our heads.”
She wanted to say more; it was impossible. There were new realms in her life that she had no words for. Astonishing how many realms existed in one city, even a quiet city where you could not find a mountain. There were so many Montevideos, behind the myriad doors. Perhaps women were like cities, full of darkened rooms, able to find new worlds down hidden hallways.
“Eva.” Zolá’s voice slid through the water. “I have a confession.”
Eva pulled herself back from reverie.
“I gave your poems to Señora Sosoma.”
“The publisher’s wife?”
Zolá looked penitent and amused. A drop of water had made a small, dark circle at the breast of her lime-colored blouse. “She’s a regular. She loved your work. They both did. I’m afraid they want to publish you.”
Eva had never met the Sosomas, but she knew of their collections, elegant volumes published out of Montevideo, with a focus, in their own words, on lifting the voices of women. “You’re serious?”
Zolá nodded. “Am I forgiven?”
“Just this once. But I’ll have to watch out. You’re too good at keeping secrets.”
“True. But I’m good at sharing them too.” Zolá’s face grew indecipherable. “Now, dear, if you would please lean back …”
She sank her head into Zolá’s hands. Her tresses were sea kelp; the fingers sought pearls between them. She brimmed with pearls. She overflowed. There was so much to be found.
Eva heard the news of Perón’s fall on September 20, 1955, over the radio. The announcer’s voice, drunk with history, spilled into her kitchen, over the tiles, over everything. In Buenos Aires, a new military junta announced that Perón has resigned … whereabouts unknown … Here in Montevideo, some exiles are already packing their luggage, ready to head home. The voice was euphoric, and Eva felt herself rise from her seat as if on a sudden wind, aloft with hope for Argentina, until the words sank in, new military junta. She saw the Caribes in her mind, pressing shirts and combs and teacups into bags, tearing photographs and paintings from the walls. She saw Roberto, standing over a sick child, head full of news and visions of return. She slapped the radio off. The children were at school. The home was hollow with silence. Salomé’s favorite puzzle lay on the coffee table: a tiger, grinning amiably, its head and paws unfinished.
That afternoon, at Zolá’s, Eva perched before the oval mirror and watched the scissors snip at her wet hair. Zolá stood over her, lips pursed, focused, hair in a high, crisp bun. They were both quiet.
“Shorter, Zolá.”
“You sure?”
Eva nodded, wanting lightness, wanting to be shorn.
“All right. But don’t move your head.” The scissors rasped. “How’s it going with the book?”
“Great. It’s exciting.” That was true—the publisher was immensely kind, and she was almost ready, up late at night arranging her poems into mosaic after mosaic—but today the words were forced.
“Good.”
“You heard the news today?”
“Yes. Fall in wool prices. More jobs lost.”
“And Perón.”
The scissors did not break their flow. “And Perón.”
In the mirror, pineapple light spread in through the windows, over the sofa, the mantel, Zolá’s pink dress, her string of pearls, her body as it arched to get the perfect angle at Eva’s hair.
“What has Roberto said?”
“I haven’t seen him yet.”
“I’m sure he’ll be glad to go home.”
“Home? He never comes home.” Eva hadn’t meant to shout. “He’s cheating on me, you know.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course!”
“Don’t move your head.” Their eyes met in the mirror: a wet-haired angry woman, and another woman close behind her, sweaty, blades aloft.
Zolá resumed her cutting.
“I’m not jealous.”
“No?”
“No. At least not of her, whoever she is. I’m jealous of him.”
“Because?”
“Because he does whatever he wants.”
“And you don’t.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s different for women, Zolá.”
Zolá’s reflection stayed intent on her work. “Is that what stops you?”
“Part of it.”
“What’s the other part?”
“Something else.” The scissors’ blades were at her neck now, cool against her skin. Her skin was hot. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Are you doing what you want?”
Zolá looked into the mirror. “Part of it.”
Their eyes locked. Eva could not breathe. Silence fell over them, and stayed after they broke the gaze, for the rest of cutting, drying, styling. Finally Eva rose to leave. She looked at her hair in the mirror. “It’s beautiful.”
Zolá was arranging her bottles of sweet oils and soaps. She moved a green bottle forward, back again. “If you leave. You’ll say good-bye?”
“Por favor.” Eva reached for her coat. She kept her eyes on its buttons as she slid them into holes. “You’ll see me again.”
On her walk home, Eva took a detour past the Plaza de Zabala, turning on a tall and narrow street.
It was still there. Of course.
The same stone cherubs lined its roof, mottled with pigeon droppings. The same balconies flanked the door with its brass bell. In the windows, rows and rows of shoes showed off their leather—black, red, brown, cream. She hovered at the corner, poised to bolt. Nothing moved. No need to go any closer and no need to run away. The chill of dusk was falling. A streetcar rattled by behind her; soles clapped brusquely against the sidewalk; Montevideo was heading home. She had changed. She was thirty years old, not a girl any longer. She had slight lines at the corners of her eyes; two children; a marriage based on fantasies and masks and earnest trying; a book of poems on the way; a cousin and a mother and three brothers; hands that touched her scalp under lush water; and she had something inside her skin—something dark and slippery and steady, like a rock in the middle of the sea.
A body moved in the store window. Eva shot around the corner, out of sight. She had done it. In every last corner of this city she could stand, breathe air, be true. She wanted, more than anything, to be true.
Roberto’s key turned in the door at half past one. Eva listened to him shuffle out of his coat, hang it up, cough, and approach the bedroom. He sat down on the bed. The duvet creased beneath the heft of him. Eva took in his bent back, fleshy chin, the lean beak of his nose. Almost half his hair was gray. When had that happened?
“Good evening.” He waited. It was her turn, her moment to say, How was your day? and kneel to unlace his oxfords. She did neither. Roberto looked up in faint annoyance. “I’m sure you’ve heard the news.”
“About Perón?”
“Of course.” Roberto hesitated, then reached to remove his shoes. “At work, they gave me a bottle of Champagne.” The lace pulled out of each eyelet with almost surgical precision. It was no
t how Eva did it; she tended to pull too hard. “Have you told the children?”
“Told them what?”
“That we’re going home.”
“Roberto.” She sat down beside him. “I need to tell you something.”
His face grew guarded.
“I’d like to stay.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to go to Argentina.”
“Of course we’re going back.”
“Let me just say this.”
“No. Don’t say it,” he said, too loudly.
She reached out with a soft coolant of a hand. “Just listen for a—”
“No, Eva, you listen, you.” He sprang to his feet. “You don’t want to go to Argentina. You don’t want to. Perhaps you’ve forgotten why we left. Or where I married you. Where I made you everything you are.” He was red-faced, pointing at her with a pale and fleshy finger. “I give you everything. And in return? This. Exile and now this. A wife who doesn’t feel like going back.”
Eva rose. It was a relief, this rage, out in the air, palpable. “I’ve let you down.”
“What do you think?”
“What’s her name?”
“Whose name?”
“Your mistress.”
He drew back.
“Or have there been too many to remember?”
Roberto’s face grew expressionless. Eva stepped closer. She smelled the bite of his cologne, quick, pleasant. “Perhaps I’m a bad wife but I was faithful, at least, I never touched another man.” Or woman. Or. “At least I can say that.”
He turned to the curtains, and then she knew: this room of theirs was far more fragile than she’d realized. Walls buckled at the slightest weight. The air was sharp; it pricked her skin.
A knock on the bedroom door. Eva opened it. Salomé stood, clam-eyed, braids falling against her lavender nightgown. Her face was delicate and small for four years old. Eva knelt.
“Hija, what are you doing out of bed?”
“I heard something.”
“Everything’s fine.” She tried her best to sound reassuring.
“I got scared.”
“I see. But everything’s fine.”
“Can I sleep with you?”
“Not tonight.”
“Please?”
“Next time. I promise.” Eva stroked her daughter’s cheek. “Go back to bed.”