“Maybe.” She stopped to think, to find the right words.“If I start using ‘tu’ at this stage, I’ll get used to it, because, well, that always happens, and then sooner or later it’ll slip out when I’m telling Andrés about something we’ve discussed, or when I’m mentioning you to someone.And if Andrés hears, he’ll realize what’s going on, and then he’ll get used to it, and if my mother finds out . . .”
“What?”
She didn’t answer, only looked at him, and he guessed the rest of the explanation. “This isn’t an easy business,” her eyes told him, “it can’t be because, away from this bed, you and I are not equal, and if my mother finds out I address you as ‘tu,’ she’ll immediately get suspicious, and I’ll end up letting it slip and then everyone will know, and that won’t be good for anyone, because no one will accept that in this difficult business we’re both winners, they won’t understand what goes on in this bed, and I’ll get an even worse reputation, and you’ll start to get a bad one too, and you won’t care because you can afford not to give a fuck what people think of you in this town, but I can’t, because times may have changed, but not in that way. Not for women like me, and for the children of women like me.That’s why this affair, that’s so easy when we’re here in bed, is so difficult outside, because here you and I are equal, but outside we’re not, and you are ‘usted,’ but I’m still me, and I’m not much.”
“The fact is, if you don’t mind,” she said after a while, “I’d rather go on using ‘usted.’”
Then he kissed her on the mouth for a long time, passionately, with a sudden need to merge with her, to absorb her into himself and keep her there inside him, safe. He didn’t bring the subject up again although it was always on his mind, so much so that he managed to lie to Elia so fluently and eloquently that he was sure she believed him.
“And thirdly, I’m not fucking Maribel. The fact is, I wouldn’t mind, but I haven’t even had a chance to try. I never see her.”
“But she works at your house!” Her look was shrewd rather than suspicious, which revealed the discreet reach of her intelligence.
“Yes, but only between one and five in the afternoon, and I’m at work then.Twenty-five miles away. At the hospital in Jerez, as you know.”
“Ah!” said the girl, showing her ugly teeth as she bit her lower lip, as if punishing herself for having made a mistake.“I just thought, as you never come to see me any more, that must be it. And then Andrés said that maybe . . .”
“I’ve been very busy lately.”
He didn’t feel he owed her more of an explanation, and she didn’t dare ask. Instead, she twined herself around him again, like a trained, hungry snake, before pulling him down the corridor at the back of the bar.
Juan Olmedo, who had come very late to this seemingly complicated and problematic world only to discover that it was an easy place, assumed that Elia would take great pains this time.And he was right. His body was grateful to her for all her efforts, and yet, beneath the basic but costly gratitude, the dose of pleasure that she gave him didn’t satisfy him or make him feel any calmer.The following day when he woke up, he felt anxious and stayed anxious until, at two thirty, absolving himself in advance for all his past and future mistakes, he knocked on the door of his head of department’s office.The sky was a vivid blue, the sun was hot outside the window, and the demon of the east wind was tirelessly practicing new ways of insinuating itself into the landscape and its inhabitants. Juan could feel it slipping inside his body, keeping him on edge, unable to concentrate properly on anything.
“Listen, Miguel,” Juan said. Sitting at a desk covered with piles of graphs, his friend looked back at him over his reading glasses. “I was thinking, the department’s pretty quiet, there’s no one in surgery, no one due to come in, and I don’t have any patients this afternoon. So, I was wondering if I could take a couple of hours off to deal with a personal matter.”
Miguel Barroso took off his glasses, leaned back in his chair and smiled mischievously as he gestured for Juan to sit down.
“What for?” he asked, wrinkling his nose as if he hadn’t heard what Juan had just said.
“A personal matter.” Juan Olmedo couldn’t help laughing when he saw his friend’s expression.“It’s in my contract. I have the right to take time off if necessary.”
“At this time of day?”
“Well, yes. It’s a perfect time of day to sort out business.”
“Right, so you’re going to the notary, are you?”
“Exactly.”
“So what’s her name?”
“The notary?”
“No, the personal matter you’ve gone and got yourself.”
“Well,” said Juan. He knew his boss didn’t believe a word he’d said, and he laughed, realizing he’d have to tell him what it was all about.“The truth is, I wasn’t looking for anything. It just happened.”
“Right,” his friend said again, raising his eyes to heaven. “So who is she?”
“Well . . .” He tried to think of a way of not telling him, but couldn’t find one. “The thing is, I’d really rather not go into it. It’s complicated. And anyway, it wouldn’t mean anything to you because you don’t know her, and you never will.”
“You’re kidding!” Miguel, who knew all about Juan’s passion for his sister-in-law, adopted a look of mock alarm.“Not another one you have to keep secret?”
Juan shrugged, thought for a moment, then laughed.“Well, yes. Let’s say that technically it’s incest.”
“That’s right, make me green with envy, you bastard,” said the head of the department, waving a hand at the door.
Half an hour later, Maribel, who was standing on a chair polishing the mirror in the entrance, wearing the old, worn espadrilles Juan hadn’t seen her in for months, almost fell off the chair when she saw him come in.
“Jesus!” she exclaimed. But she looked pleased rather than surprised. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t answer. He held out his hand to help her down from the chair, put his arms around her and kissed her on the lips, leaning down a little as she was quite a bit shorter without her heels.
“Well, I haven’t got anything for you to eat,” she said with a huge grin.
“Yes, you have.”
They climbed the stairs, not looking where they were going, but still managing to keep their balance and reach the floor above without stumbling, their eyes half closed, lips pressed together, hands under each other’s clothes.The bed was made, the blinds pulled down, the tiles cool and freshly washed. Juan Olmedo noticed all this, and took it as a sign that things were on his side, that his possessions were welcoming him, greeting him happily. Forcing himself to move slowly despite his urgent desire, he undressed Maribel, keeping his eyes open so that he could see her old, mismatched underwear, a bra that must once have been white but was now an odd shade of pink, and flesh-colored knickers with loose elastic which he recognized as the ones she was wearing the first time.This time though they didn’t make him feel sorry for her, or guilty, but inspired in him a strange and deep tenderness. Maribel was obviously embarrassed at having been caught wearing her tatty underwear.While he let her finish undressing quickly, he thought that it had been silly to give her a shawl for her birthday, and he felt moved when he thought how much care she must take of the two brand-new sets of underwear—one black, one white—that she wore, strictly alternating them, whenever she came up to his room in the morning after he’d worked a night shift.
This encounter was taking place on what should, in theory, have been a working day, but this wasn’t the only reason it was special.
“Now, let’s see.”
Maribel didn’t usually talk during sex, as if she couldn’t concentrate on anything other than what she was giving and what she was receiving. Juan liked her instinct to forget everything else because it meant he didn’t have to be on the alert. In this she was so different from Charo who, with her complicated moods, could surprise him at
any time with a revelation without it affecting the quality of her surrender, at least it didn’t seem to. And yet, that afternoon, at a point when neither of them seemed up to talking, Maribel allowed herself to speak for a moment and asked him a question:
“Didn’t we have a deal?”
Juan raised himself up on one elbow and looked at her.
“Yes, we did.”
“And don’t we have it any more?”
“Well, no, it doesn’t look like it.”
“Good.” Maribel smiled and took him back into her mouth. A moment later, pronouncing the word with difficulty, she said again: “Good.”
In a vague, indefinable way, Juan registered the satisfaction with which she had greeted his remark. He had made it without giving it too much thought or attaching much importance to it, when perhaps it was quite important after all.This wasn’t the first time Maribel had surprised him with an intelligence about their relationship that went far beyond her general understanding of things. In such cases, Maribel always realized before he did what was going on. Perhaps that afternoon was no exception and yet, after the final tremor, it was Juan who surprised her. It was five to four and he was starving.
“Did you get any bread?” he asked. She nodded. “Have you had lunch?”
“No,” she laughed,“you didn’t let me.”
“OK, well let’s put that right. I’m going down to the kitchen to make myself a ham sandwich. Do you want one?”
“No, no, let me do it.”
“You don’t get it, Maribel,” he said, hugging her a little tighter and holding both her wrists with one hand. “I’ll say it again: I, yes, I, so not you, am going down to the kitchen to make a ham sandwich.”
“But I can do it.”
“I know, but I didn’t say it so you’d offer to make it. I asked if you wanted one too.”
“OK.” And she relaxed, falling back on the bed.“I’ll have one.”
“Ham or something else?”
“Ham.”
“And what would you like to drink?”
“A beer.”
The tiles on the kitchen floor felt hot beneath his bare feet.The sun was streaming in, creating a puddle of light that he stepped in with pleasure. As he cut the ham carefully—he’d seen too many thumbs sliced open by a knife—he felt the heat through the soles of his feet, the fingers of sun lapping at his insteps, making their way up his legs to his knees, and he welcomed this caress like an unexpected piece of luck. Standing naked in the kitchen of his house, Juan Olmedo experienced a quiet, humble kind of peace, and in this vague harmony of sensations, he realized that he felt all right. He really did.This vague, general well-being felt so unusual that he just stood there, allowing the sun to climb up his back, spread across his shoulders, take over his face, his neck, his hands, closing a perfect circle, a capsule with invisible walls that kept him warm, safe from fear and doubt. He felt all right and he didn’t really know why, didn’t even feel the need to understand why, so he let his arms hang by his sides and closed his eyes, recognizing a self that he thought he had lost forever.Then he wondered if this feeling of warmth wasn’t enough after all. He told himself it probably wasn’t, but hoped he was wrong.
He knew his affair with Maribel was difficult—more than difficult. So much so that it would never have started had chance not placed them at either end of a taut, uneven rope that drew all its strength from its unevenness. Their difference, at first ensuring that nothing would ever happen between them, had become the essence of the bond that united them. Juan would never have gone up to Maribel in a bar, or tried to flirt with her in the street or at work, and when he was out and she was at the house, washing his clothes, tidying his wardrobe, making his bed, he became aware of the deeply perverse nature of their intimacy more clearly than when they were together, a wonder that had all the advantages of a clandestine relationship and none of the drawbacks.Whenever Maribel came to the house to collect Andrés in the late afternoon, on days when the children had a day off from school but the adults had to work, or if they bumped into each other at Sara’s house over the weekend, almost always with the children as an excuse, they were both nervous, both looking out for any opportunity, however small, to suddenly remember something and have to leave. Sara would assure Juan she really wasn’t bothered about the blind, she never opened it fully anyway, while Juan insisted it would only take him a minute to pop home and get a screwdriver. Maribel would remember that there was a loaf of bread in his freezer that she could use for supper that night, as long as Juan didn’t need it, of course. Juan never needed it, because the loaf didn’t even exist, and he and Maribel would cross the road with calm, unhurried steps, as if they were saving up their haste only to release it as soon as the door was closed behind them.
Juan Olmedo had taken much greater risks over the years, but he’d never had sex so fast, or suspected that eight, ten, twelve minutes could stretch for so long. Nor had he ever known a woman who always smiled just after she came.And he liked seeing Maribel’s smile hovering over her face like a veil—stable, transparent—when they got back to Sara’s, both of them quiet, keeping their distance, and walking even more slowly than before. All of this was important, and yet Juan Olmedo knew that their ill-advised affair, which was developing, against all logic, over the weeks, depended on its very precariousness, on the days between his night shifts when they didn’t see each other, on the barriers that separated them apart from the few mornings, like lush desert islands, when they were together, the few hours when they made the most of every minute, each knowing absolutely nothing of the other’s world.This was the strength of their relationship, and its danger.
Juan knew all of this only too well but, that afternoon, he felt all right and couldn’t understand why. So he added a bar of almond chocolate—his favorite—to the tray with the sandwiches, and surrendered for the first time in many years to the comfortable relativity of the truths he preferred.
They ate in bed, propped up against the pillows, and though Maribel wanted to remake the bed, he simply shook the sheet a couple of times to get rid of the crumbs.
“I’m warning you, I haven’t finished cleaning downstairs,” she said, making no move to get out of bed.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, hugging her.“I forgive you.”
They fell asleep without realizing it. Maribel woke up before he did and, glancing at the clock, let out a shriek. By the time Juan managed to open his eyes, she was already half dressed.
“It’s a quarter past five! It’s a miracle your niece hasn’t caught us.”
Tamara must have got home from school by now, but Juan was seized with a kind of lazy regret that prevented him from getting up, so he watched Maribel from the bed. Once she’d finished dressing, she went quickly to the bathroom, emerging a moment later with her hair tidy. She headed for the door, but stopped halfway there and walked back to the bed. She sat down, kissed him on the lips and left again.
“Maribel.” She was already by the door when his voice stopped her. “I need to tell you something because, well, you’re going to find out anyway.”
She gripped the door handle and didn’t say anything. She looked scared, as if she was sure she was about to hear bad news. He realized he’d unintentionally made it sound alarming, so he didn’t want to keep her waiting. He decided to be brief, to see if the special intelligence he thought he’d detected in her on other occasions was present now.
“I went to Sanlúcar last night.”
Her expression changed instantly.All fear gone, she closed her eyes, and a smile spread gradually across her features.
“You’re a bastard, you know that, don’t you?”
It was the first time she’d ever addressed him as “tu,” the first time he’d ever heard her do so aloud, so maybe this was why he spoke without thinking, without attaching much importance to his words, an importance which they perhaps merited.
“I really like you, Maribel.”
She closed her eyes
again, and kept them closed this time. It didn’t even occur to him that she might already know.
III
THE WIND FROM THE EAST
The water was freezing, but Sara Gómez fought the biting cold by paddling her arms and legs madly like a little kid. She was sure that when she got out, her body would be bright pink. She plunged underwater one last time, emerging a moment later looking like a plucked chicken, with goose pimples all over and a vague feeling of happiness reaching down to her fingertips. She had stood indecisively at the water’s edge for rather a long time, successively attracted and repelled by the idea of her first swim of the year, but now the young May sun had warmed her towel, and it spread itself generously over her back, a guarantee of warmth that might, in a little while, encourage her to repeat the experience.While her body temperature returned to normal, Sara sat down and looked at the beach. The steady movement of the sea broke the silence—free of the noise of radios and conversation—with its perfect, rhythmic roar, producing foam that dissolved an instant later in a dance that seemed absurd, and was therefore always fascinating to a child of arid lands.
The Wind From the East Page 41