Nowhere People by Paulo Scott Page B

When he does return, he enters the room to find Maína finishing the first outfit, the one she’s going to wear. ‘Preparing some costumes, Maína?’ he asks. ‘Spirit dress,’ she replies, seriously. ‘And are they for us?’ She approaches him from behind, uses her hands to measure the breadth of his shoulders. ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘for us to know.’ He is intrigued. ‘To know?’ ‘Yes, to know,’ and she measures the distance from his face to his waist. He shows her the Polaroid, says there’s still one photographic sheet left to use. They mustn’t get the picture wrong. She doesn’t answer. He sets up the camera, sits in the only armchair in the room, watches. Maína gets his outfit ready even more quickly than she’s done her own, she opens up the black and brown gouaches, takes one of the finer paintbrushes and passes it to him, inviting him to paint with her. They paint around the edges of the holes that will be the eyes, the one that will be the mouth, they cover the chest and forehead with inscriptions. The paint dries quickly. In those minutes Paulo explains how the polarisation of the photographic sheet works; Maína doesn’t take her eyes off her creations for a second. She gets hold of his costume, tells him to take off his t-shirt, puts it straight on to his body; his head is covered, his upper back and trunk down to just below his waist, she takes the purple paint and paints a few more details, she adds the sleeves, asks him not to move. She crouches down, takes his trainers and socks off his feet, then brings her hands to his belt buckle, removes his trousers and underpants. He doesn’t react. She takes off her trainers, her t-shirt, her skirt and knickers, puts her one on, she only asks for help attaching the second sleeve. ‘Now what?’ he asks. ‘You can move,’ she replies. Moving with some difficulty so as not to tear the paper, he walks over to the armchair where he had left the Polaroid. He positions it on one of the bookshelves, setting the timer to go off in ten seconds. He presses the button. He walks as fast as he can over to her. They get themselves into position. ‘Ready.’ The flash goes off after winking three times less brightly, it makes Maína laugh under her decoration. ‘Shall we go outside?’ she suggests. ‘Are we going to catch fire like in the story you told me that time, is that it?’ She doesn’t answer. They leave the room and walk perhaps five metres, which is the mid-point between the two buildings. She embraces him as hard as she can, and his jacket tears over his shoulders. He doesn’t move. She bites his chest, tearing off a bit of paper. He takes her whole body in his arms and, without even noticing the paper outfit coming apart, carries her to his room, lies her on the bed, turns off the light, turns on the one in the corridor, strips her naked and strips himself, too. Maína is barely participating, she rolls about in the bed, she slips, forcing him to change the way he’s kissing her, the places he’s kissing her. With more than half of his body off the bed, he holds on to her hips, his face rough and unshaven slides down her belly, he breathes out, mouth, lips, the slowness of the zig-zagging motion moistens her.
    He is staring at the bloodstain on the white sheet. He awoke agitated, like she’d never seen him before, said that he was going out for a run and would be back in an hour at the most. She did not reply, she just stayed there, still, on the single bed. Alone in the house. She needs some thought, she needs some reaction, because the satisfaction she’s feeling is huge and reckless and solid (she feels ready, fortunate, she took in the night before, the mingled smells between the two of them, the new texture clinging to her skin). The minutes pass quickly. Paulo comes back (it’s very possible that he exercised for less time than he had promised). Maína is in the same position. He lies down in front of her, he says they need to