by Martin Kohan
First of all, María Teresa chooses a red box with a blue sailing ship on it: she sniffs it and puts it back. She tries another called Crandall. It comes in a long-necked bottle, with an unusual label hanging from it. She likes it, but that is not the one. The next one she tries is called Ginell: its box shows a pair of polo ponies. Not that one either. She tries again with a more recent brand called Colbert. It is in a dark green box, perhaps British racing green, but she cannot be sure. As soon as she brings it up to her nostrils, she realises it is the cologne Baragli was wearing. Now she knows that Baragli uses this cologne, that he must have a box the same as this one in his bathroom at home. She decides to buy it, and hands the box to the assistant, who has been hovering somewhat suspiciously around her. María Teresa is not sure why she is buying it and taking it with her.
—Is it a gift?
—Yes.
There are no men in her house. Her father has left, and her brother is in the south of the country. The truth is that María Teresa is not thinking of them: neither her brother who sends postcards, nor her father who does not even do that. She does not think of them, or Baragli; at most, although it might be going too far to call it thinking, she is beguiled by the scent of Colbert cologne as she watches the assistant skilfully wrap the box in gift wrapping and stick it down until she has made a perfect package, then as a finishing touch add a silver sticker that says ‘Happy Birthday!’
María Teresa has been so busy she almost forgets to buy what she came for: her mother’s anti-depressants. She remembers just in time because when she takes out her purse to pay for the cologne, the benefits card falls out, and the black-and-white face of her youthful mother lies open on the counter.
—Oh, I almost forgot.
A short while later she is travelling on her own in the metro, a small plastic bag in one hand. Inside it, there are two boxes: one wrapped, the other not. The fragrance of the cologne is so strong it fills the bag, penetrating beyond the bottle, the box, its wrapping. Every so often María Teresa peeps inside, as if she were keeping a small pet (a tortoise, a hamster, or a newly-born kitten) there, and has to check periodically to see it is all right and has not suffocated. She decides that as soon as she gets home, even before she gives her mother her new box of pills to put in the bathroom cabinet, she will put the Colbert cologne away in her bedside table drawer.
She goes in, to find a new postcard from her brother on the dining-room table. It was sent from Bahía Blanca. All it says is: Francisco. This time the mother, who these days only occasionally cries, has read it, and says she does not understand why her son wrote nothing more than his name. María Teresa explains with a vague reflection on the lack of time and the cost of words (the mother knows it is a postcard and not a telegram, but says nothing in reply). However, the photograph on the other side does not show Bahía Blanca, as if the city lacked any places of interest that would justify making a postcard of them. Or perhaps there were some, but Francisco did not choose one. The fact is that, despite posting it in Bahía Blanca, the postcard he has sent shows a nearby resort called Monte Hermoso. The locals are proud of the fact that this is the only place in Argentina where the sun both rises and sets over the ocean in the same bay. The photographs on the card show this, because it is divided in two: in one half the word ‘sunrise’ is written, over a view of deserted sand and sea, with the sun peeping over the horizon, while in the other half is written the word ‘sunset’, over a golden beach where two women, in noticeably old-fashioned bathing costumes, are watching the sun go down with dreamy expressions on their faces. Although these two juxtaposed photographs depict inconsequential scenes of summer and holidays, they also remind mother and daughter of what they had already realised: that Francisco now really is by the sea. Not that far away, it is true, and still within the boundaries of the province of Buenos Aires, but on the coast now rather than in the heart of the pampas. Further south and on the coast, truly on the edge of the Atlantic.
—We never went to Monte Hermoso. Your cousins used to go occasionally, years ago.
—My cousins?
—Yes.
—And did they like it?
—They said they did, but they complained a lot. They said the sea was full of jelly fish that stung them.
Shortly afterwards, the panorama darkens still further. They might still receive a postcard of Monte Hermoso, stamped in Bahía Blanca. But that would simply be a confirmation of the delays in the postal service, because Francisco will no longer be there: he is being transferred. With a single phone token that allows only a brief burst of words, he calls to tell them he is going to be put on a plane and taken even further south. Further: to Comodoro Rivadavia. No, no, that’s not in Buenos Aires province any more, it’s in Chubut. Yes, yes, Patagonia. No, no, no, not in trucks, in an Air Force plane called a Hercules. Hercules, yes: Hercules. No, no, no, he doesn’t know anything; nobody knows anything. Yes, yes, on the coast: right beside the sea.
10
María Teresa is busy filling in forms in the assistants’ room when she suddenly feels the urge to go to the toilet. She no longer even thinks of doing what might be expected of her: going to the women’s toilet reserved for the assistants. Neither there nor the toilet for girl pupils: instead, she heads straight for the boys’ toilet. As always, she enters without being seen or making any noise, and almost without thinking chooses the first cubicle. She really needs to wee, and so raises her skirt and takes off her knickers. She settles over the hole in order to use it as quickly as possible, but even so it takes time for her to relax and for the liquid to start to flow. While she is crouched there, she hears the swing doors go and realises a pupil is coming into the toilet. She holds back, and listens intently in order not to disturb the solitude the pupil must take for granted as he goes over to the urinal, unzips his trousers and prepares to urinate. Possibly he also needs the pause of some kind of prelude, because it is clear that everything is ready for him to perform, and yet nothing happens. Perhaps the cold in the toilet inhibits him as it does María Teresa. She also feels strange, because she is there with her skirt pulled up and nothing underneath. The air inside the toilet is so cold it is almost like being out in the quad. The body has to get used to it, because it is difficult to do anything if its organs are clenched tight. The pupil eventually succeeds, perhaps by fondling his thing a little to warm it. María Teresa is aware of the exact moment he starts urinating, because by now she knows the sound it produces so well. Yet instead of withdrawing into complete anonymity in the presence of a urinating pupil (a satisfied but discreet sentinel), in this instance, to her surprise she also starts to wee. She does so as quietly as possible, even though she is still running a risk. She does it on impulse, a sudden whim, although she has to admit to herself that the desire has been growing within her for several days. She urinates at the same time as the pupil: close by him, and with him. Not in the same way, of course, because he is a boy; not in the same way but in the same place, and better still, at the same time. Only a thin partition separates them, and that only partially keeps them apart, while at the same time making their actions doubly simultaneous. The two sounds merge into one (that is why she is not heard), and so do their actions.
If, as she rarely does, she were ever to think about all this, María Teresa would perhaps at most admit to a vague, wavering sense of personal satisfaction, attributed above all to the audacity she is showing in carrying out her duties. People do not always fail to do their duty out of moral laziness, but sometimes out of sheer cowardice. She, on the other hand, is showing great courage in this game of espionage that she has taken on as part of her job. She looks forward to the moment when Señor Biasutto congratulates her for enabling the drastic punishment of all those boys who secretly smoke in the school toilets. And just like spies in films, she has had to venture into hostile territory, which is always a risky business. The authorities will praise her for her daring while they are deciding the sanctions such a flagrant breach of regulations demands.
The boy finishes urinating, and María Teresa stops at the same time. She has no idea whether this was simply another coincidence, bound to happen following the initial one, or if she in some way forced herself to finish with him so that the pleasing simultaneity would not come to an end. With sufficient will-power it is possible to dominate one’s bodily needs, and if necessary interrupt them. María Teresa finishes, or interrupts herself (the difference is unimportant), and stops weeing in the cubicle at the exact moment the pupil finishes at the urinal. He must now be shaking his thing, in an unfathomable rite of drips and endings. As everyone knows, women have to be more thorough about the cleaning process. They need paper and have to dry themselves. María Teresa does this now, her hand blindly bringing a sheet of pink, absorbent paper up to her lower body. She holds it there without rubbing; although she does move it slightly. Just the other side of the partition, the pupil shakes himself, looks down and sees himself; María Teresa rests her hand against her body a little longer than necessary to dry herself. She experiences the tingling sensation again, which she takes to mean she wants to wee. She might wonder why she is getting this sensation at that very moment, when she only finished weeing a second ago, and be surprised. But instead she thinks it must be because she controlled herself before she had properly finished.
The pupil is meticulous; he washes his hands with soap before leaving the toilet. While he is putting his hands under the cold water tap, or rubbing them vigorously on the elongated sphere of the soap, he hums a song. He hums or murmurs a melody, rather than singing it out loud; it is impossible to make out the words and, although the tune sounds familiar, María Teresa cannot put a name to it. Even so, the boy’s voice is quite clear: his pronunciation is indistinct, and the notes waver, but of itself his activity is clear, and this means María Teresa is able to recognise and therefore identify it, or more accurately to identify the pupil it belongs to. It sounds so familiar to her that she is certain it must be one of the pupils from third year class ten. She thinks, remembers, tries to associate it. There are two boys who have similar voices: Babenco and Valenzuela. She thinks back to when they call out ‘Present’ as she does the register. She recalls their voices and confirms to herself that, yes, it was one or other of them she just heard in the toilet: it was Babenco or Valenzuela who had been there, who had urinated close to her while she was doing the same thing.
Shortly afterwards she is sitting in the classroom, performing her assistant’s role (but no, she is wrong, she is underestimating herself; when she is in the toilet, in the cubicle, she is also fulfilling her role). The first break has finished, and third year class ten have a Spanish lesson. All the pupils have lined up, stood apart, gone into their classrooms, and have sat down. Now they have to wait, in perfect silence of course, for their respective teachers to arrive. The teachers take four or five minutes to finish their break-time coffee, leave the carpeted room they have on the ground floor, climb the stairs, walk along the cloisters, and reach the doors to the classrooms. While they are doing this, the assistants stand in front of each class to make sure the pupils are well-behaved. María Teresa casts her watchful eye over them all. At some point, however, this typical gaze of a vigilant assistant ceases – not to be watchful, but to be directed at all of them. Instead, it is aimed at Valenzuela, at Babenco. Her scanning lingers longer than necessary when it picks up their two faces. Babenco and Valenzuela: one of them (she does not know which) sang in the boys’ toilet before the break. Their voices are similar, throaty but still child-like, and it is as easy to distinguish them from the other boys as it is to confuse them with each other. One or other of them asked Miss Pesotto, who took the Physics lesson that morning, for permission to go to the toilet, and went there to urinate. Something strange now happens to María Teresa. A lot of what went on during the few moments she was in the boys’ toilet was based on a single premise: that the pupil who was so close to her was completely unaware that the class assistant, in other words her, was urinating at the same time. And yet now, back in the classroom, while she is ensuring the pupils are quiet before Mr Ilundain comes in, she seeks out the eyes of Babenco and Valenzuela as if they could not possibly be unaware of what had happened a short while earlier, as if something (an intuition or instinct) must reveal to them what took place in the toilet, and that it would take only a chance meeting of their gazes for that complicity to be restored and for them to recognise each other. To some extent, María Teresa cannot believe she can have been alongside Babenco or Valenzuela, that she can have been drying herself without looking while they, or one of them, Babenco or Valenzuela (she does not know which), was looking down while he shook his thing, and that now there should remain no trace of such closely-shared intimacy in their eyes, no immediate flash of recognition when their gazes meet. There ought at least to be some kind of recollection, an echo of what they experienced together; she tries to revive this by giving them an intent, knowing look. However, all she finds in Babenco’s eyes is the blank look typical of the dolt (Babenco is a hopeless student, constantly failing his subjects), while Valenzuela looks absentminded, obviously somewhere else. (Valenzuela is good at chess: he is training himself in the art of concentrating on one thing to the exclusion of everything else.)
María Teresa will not give up: she stares at them as though to force them to admit a truth she imagines they are denying. It is as though this were a session of hypnosis, but performed backwards: snapping the fingers to put the person into a trance, and staring at them fixedly to wake them up. This waking up would lead to an awareness, if no more than a dim and half-disclosed one, of what had happened between her and one of them in the boys’ toilet. It does not occur to her to speculate that the lack of response from their evasive eyes might be a clear sign that Babenco or Valenzuela, whichever one it was, are well aware of what took place, that they know it somehow, because the body registers certain things on its own behalf and only later, by some obscure means or other, reveals them. It does not occur to María Teresa (or she prefers not to) to think in this way: what she wants is to catch their eyes (Babenco’s or Valenzuela’s) and, by doing so, provoke a flash of intoxicating recognition.
She does not succeed, and her attempt is put to an end by the arrival of Mr Ilundain.
—On your feet, if you please.
The absolute rule that the school pupils receive their teachers standing by their desks is observed yet again. They will not sit down until Mr Ilundain has greeted them and told them they may do so. María Teresa leaves the course book open on the teacher’s desk, asks permission to leave, and steps down from the platform with short, energetic strides. As she leaves the classroom she closes the door behind her. No sooner is she outside than she collapses against the wall. She stares at the dim light that is a permanent feature of the quad. She feels dizzy. Her hands are troubled by a slight tremor; her back is prickly with sudden perspiration. It is not that she feels hot: she is only wearing a flowery blouse and over it an old cardigan with big buttons her mother knitted for her years ago, nothing that would stifle her. Marcelo, the assistant for third year class eight, comes out of his room because the Latin teacher has arrived, and passes by her.
—Everything all right?
—Yes, fine.
That same afternoon, or that same evening, she meets Señor Biasutto. The bar they have agreed on is sufficiently far from the school to allay the head of the assistants’ fears that they might be seen by pupils, but not so far away as to imply the two of them are out of the work sphere. It is as if they tacitly concur that this is a simple extension of the kind of conversation they usually have in the assistants’ room at school or in the quad during break-time. It is not the same, for example, as meeting on a Saturday afternoon or having dinner together.
Señor Biasutto arrives after María Teresa, but does not keep her waiting long. He was held up at school by a last-minute problem. Nothing serious, just an organizational matter he had to see the Deputy Headmaster about. Señor Biasutto looks
relaxed and in a good mood. María Teresa notices that if he smiles broadly, his moustache stretches so far it almost disappears.
—I suggested we came here as a precaution, if that’s all right. The pupils are at an age when they fantasize a lot, and there’s no reason we should encourage them.
The waiter comes over to their table. María Teresa asks for a milky coffee, with more milk than coffee; Señor Biasutto orders a shot of Old Smuggler whisky without ice. He sits leaning forward, both elbows on the table. María Teresa has never studied him at such close quarters before. He uses brilliantine on his black hair, and the skin on his face is blotchy. His shirt collar is starched, and the knot on his tie is larger than normal. He hardly ever blinks: his eyes are like black holes. His teeth are hidden behind his inexpressive mouth.
—Tell me about you, María Teresa.
—About me?
—Yes, you.
María Teresa blushes. She says she does not know what to say.
—Tell me about your life. Who do you live with?
Slightly hesitant, María Teresa tells him she lives with her mother in a small apartment in Palermo. With her mother and brother, but for the moment she is not counting her brother because he has been called up. As a girl she lived a lot further out, in Villa del Parque.
Señor Biasutto drops a gold packet of dark tobacco cigarettes onto the table.
—What about your father?
—My father?
—Yes, your father.
María Teresa swallows.
—My father died.
—My goodness! I’m sorry to hear that.
—It was a long time ago.
—I’m really sorry.
To change the subject and so as not to appear too dull, María Teresa tells him she is thinking of continuing her studies, although for the moment she has not chosen what subject, and is not sure what she would like to do.