expecting to see me sooner, or at least to hear from me.
‘I couldn’t come any earlier, I had a legal matter to take care of,’ I say and he doesn’t show any interest in finding out what.
The first thing I do is to examine the other Jaime, who has improved considerably. It shows in the whites of his eyes, which are much livelier, and in the rhythm of his breathing. Jaime asks whether he could get better by himself. With difficulty, I reply.
Why did I come? I don’t question myself, Jaime asks me even less. We start preparing a meal. We both happen to be very hungry. The radio is loud: there’s a tacit agreement not to speak.
Later, after lunch, I tell Jaime about Aída. My story lasts the time it takes for him to roll and smoke three of his cigarettes. The kitchen reeks of smoke.
‘You must be sad,’ he says, or asks. With Jaime, it’s hard to tell.
When we take our siesta, Jaime offers me his bed again but this time he doesn’t ask my permission to lie down next to me. He’s less inhibited and takes advantage of the first brush of contact to stroke my back underneath my blouse. He kicks off his boots, snorting. I help him to undress, and take off my own clothes. Before I know it, he’s inside me. For a few minutes. He doesn’t leave me time for anything.
We sleep our siesta with our backs to each other. The sheets smell clean, Jaime must have changed them with me in mind. Or perhaps not, it could just be a coincidence. It’s my first siesta for a long time. I enjoy it, although the silence unsettles me at times.
When I open my eyes, it’s already night-time. Jaime is still aroused. He climbs on top of me again. This time he grips the headboard with both hands, his nose scraping the wall. He moves like an animal. I try to take pleasure from it. At times I even succeed. His penis slips out and I feel it colliding against the inside of my thighs. It struggles, almost manages to enter again but immediately slides out, ending up limp with the effort. I cool off, I become dry. I wait for him to sort himself out with his hand, for him to wet his fingers with saliva and pass them over my lips. But it would seem that Jaime doesn’t know about that sort of thing, even less that he wants to find out. He persists. My face is squashed up against his solid, hairy chest. It’s no use, I end up having to make way with my own hand. I guide him. He’s a terrible lover, with no technique.
On Sunday, Jaime wakes up with a fever. A relentless, country fever. He says it’s nothing, that it will soon pass. I touch his forehead with my palm. It’s boiling.
Some five hundred metres from the house, there’s a small shop. Jaime asks me to go and buy some coarse salt to make him a steam bath. He tells me to take the pick-up. I say I’d prefer to walk. The road is full of potholes, enclosed by two barbed-wire fences, three wires high on the right and four on the left. It’s half twelve and the sun, close to its zenith, prevents me from seeing things as they really are. The shop door is a curtain of rubber strips which I pull aside in order to pass through. There’s no one there. Hello, I say, but there’s no answer.
I retreat and, at the entrance, I clap my hands together. Still no response. I clap again, harder this time, and I hear the patter of small, reluctant, dawdling footsteps. The first thing I see is not that pair of tiny feet, with skin like dirty porcelain; instead it’s the dust they raise as they drag along. The feet stop and I hear a soft breath close behind me.
I raise my head and have to lean slightly to see a round, flushed face, the forehead covered in pimples. It’s a girl, somewhere between thirteen and sixteen; at that age you can never tell.
‘We’re closed,’ she says, ‘we open again at four.’
Silence. Neither of us moves from our position: I remain in the shade, she’s in the sun. I don’t know what to say, nor does she and, almost in unison, we shrug, hers apologetic,
‘I couldn’t come any earlier, I had a legal matter to take care of,’ I say and he doesn’t show any interest in finding out what.
The first thing I do is to examine the other Jaime, who has improved considerably. It shows in the whites of his eyes, which are much livelier, and in the rhythm of his breathing. Jaime asks whether he could get better by himself. With difficulty, I reply.
Why did I come? I don’t question myself, Jaime asks me even less. We start preparing a meal. We both happen to be very hungry. The radio is loud: there’s a tacit agreement not to speak.
Later, after lunch, I tell Jaime about Aída. My story lasts the time it takes for him to roll and smoke three of his cigarettes. The kitchen reeks of smoke.
‘You must be sad,’ he says, or asks. With Jaime, it’s hard to tell.
When we take our siesta, Jaime offers me his bed again but this time he doesn’t ask my permission to lie down next to me. He’s less inhibited and takes advantage of the first brush of contact to stroke my back underneath my blouse. He kicks off his boots, snorting. I help him to undress, and take off my own clothes. Before I know it, he’s inside me. For a few minutes. He doesn’t leave me time for anything.
We sleep our siesta with our backs to each other. The sheets smell clean, Jaime must have changed them with me in mind. Or perhaps not, it could just be a coincidence. It’s my first siesta for a long time. I enjoy it, although the silence unsettles me at times.
When I open my eyes, it’s already night-time. Jaime is still aroused. He climbs on top of me again. This time he grips the headboard with both hands, his nose scraping the wall. He moves like an animal. I try to take pleasure from it. At times I even succeed. His penis slips out and I feel it colliding against the inside of my thighs. It struggles, almost manages to enter again but immediately slides out, ending up limp with the effort. I cool off, I become dry. I wait for him to sort himself out with his hand, for him to wet his fingers with saliva and pass them over my lips. But it would seem that Jaime doesn’t know about that sort of thing, even less that he wants to find out. He persists. My face is squashed up against his solid, hairy chest. It’s no use, I end up having to make way with my own hand. I guide him. He’s a terrible lover, with no technique.
On Sunday, Jaime wakes up with a fever. A relentless, country fever. He says it’s nothing, that it will soon pass. I touch his forehead with my palm. It’s boiling.
Some five hundred metres from the house, there’s a small shop. Jaime asks me to go and buy some coarse salt to make him a steam bath. He tells me to take the pick-up. I say I’d prefer to walk. The road is full of potholes, enclosed by two barbed-wire fences, three wires high on the right and four on the left. It’s half twelve and the sun, close to its zenith, prevents me from seeing things as they really are. The shop door is a curtain of rubber strips which I pull aside in order to pass through. There’s no one there. Hello, I say, but there’s no answer.
I retreat and, at the entrance, I clap my hands together. Still no response. I clap again, harder this time, and I hear the patter of small, reluctant, dawdling footsteps. The first thing I see is not that pair of tiny feet, with skin like dirty porcelain; instead it’s the dust they raise as they drag along. The feet stop and I hear a soft breath close behind me.
I raise my head and have to lean slightly to see a round, flushed face, the forehead covered in pimples. It’s a girl, somewhere between thirteen and sixteen; at that age you can never tell.
‘We’re closed,’ she says, ‘we open again at four.’
Silence. Neither of us moves from our position: I remain in the shade, she’s in the sun. I don’t know what to say, nor does she and, almost in unison, we shrug, hers apologetic,
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