poorly about you as a detective. Let’s go back downstairs.”
In the living room, the logs crackled in the fireplace, while outside the thick fog dispersed, revealing a bit of clean sky.
“We were talking about the women of Rangoon,” Cayetano reminded him, wondering whether he owed his sudden confidence to the disguise. The city’s name struck him as voluptuous. He told himself that on some not-too-distant day he should leave the cold of Valparaíso for a visit to Rangoon, returning to the sticky intensity of the tropics.
“They’re enigmatic,” the poet said, settling into La Nube. The beard hung all the way down to his stomach. “And in matters of love, at the end of the day, frustrating. I never knew whether it was me giving them pleasure in bed, or whether they always enjoyed themselvesthat much. I could never tell whether I was expendable and everybody gave them the same pleasure, or whether I was the chosen one. Even today I ask myself whether women experience the same pleasure with different men,” the poet added. He suddenly became taciturn.
Cayetano didn’t want to lose the enjoyment they were sharing at that moment, so he went out on a limb. “Well, that depends on how you treat them, Don Pablo. My father used to say that they’re like flutes. How they sound depends on how you stroke and care for them.”
“The metaphor’s a bit anemic, but your father may have been right,” the poet conceded benevolently. “In that case, it’s not the same,” he concluded.
“What do you mean, Don Pablo?”
“That if anyone can get the same notes out of a single woman, then the uniqueness and incomparable nature of each individual love is lost. Well, it’s as I was saying,” he added with a faint sparkle in his tired eyes. “In Rangoon, I ran into women of many different races and customs. Sometimes I’d invite three of them back to my place at the same time, and we’d go wild with ecstasy on those high, humid nights, bathed in sweat between the undulating walls of the mosquito net, and I wouldn’t even know whose sex I drank from, whose mouth I kissed, or what folds I was exploring.”
“But that’s paradise, Don Pablo,” Cayetano said, beside himself, and he placed the
karakul
cap on his knees. The tale had made him both hot and incredulous.
“It sounds exciting, but in truth it’s not so much, in the end. I only entered their bodies, never their souls. Understand? I always succumbed like an exhausted castaway before the unconquerable walls of those graceful, mysterious women.”
“I’d still like to have swum that far, Don Pablo.”
“But in the end, none of that stays with you,” he said with agitation. “There are people who would kill over love or jealousy, or out ofspite or envy, but in the end no part of those passionate bodies remains, neither the echoes of their voices nor their images in mirrors, Cayetano.”
He thought the poet was returning to the melancholy he’d exhibited the other day, and that, costumes aside, he had quite a bit of drama in him. As if, in addition to Whitman, he was playing the role of himself, as he’d said during their first meeting, in that dim room, when Don Pablo Neruda—whose real name was Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto—had displayed his passion and sadness with a sense of spectacle that made one wonder what lay behind it. He tried to imagine the poet as a young man. The copious dark brown hair falling over his forehead. His attractive gaze, fresh voice, and shapely chin. It was hard to accept that this old sallow-cheeked man had been that youth who used to hold orgies on the beach, on distant Oriental nights. Could the poet recall the roar of flesh gripped by the urge to touch and possess sweaty bodies, or were his memories of that time now calm and vague, devoid of passion? He picked up the conch that lay beside
El Siglo
, whose front page denounced the national transportation strike the right was devising to overthrow Allende. He
In the living room, the logs crackled in the fireplace, while outside the thick fog dispersed, revealing a bit of clean sky.
“We were talking about the women of Rangoon,” Cayetano reminded him, wondering whether he owed his sudden confidence to the disguise. The city’s name struck him as voluptuous. He told himself that on some not-too-distant day he should leave the cold of Valparaíso for a visit to Rangoon, returning to the sticky intensity of the tropics.
“They’re enigmatic,” the poet said, settling into La Nube. The beard hung all the way down to his stomach. “And in matters of love, at the end of the day, frustrating. I never knew whether it was me giving them pleasure in bed, or whether they always enjoyed themselvesthat much. I could never tell whether I was expendable and everybody gave them the same pleasure, or whether I was the chosen one. Even today I ask myself whether women experience the same pleasure with different men,” the poet added. He suddenly became taciturn.
Cayetano didn’t want to lose the enjoyment they were sharing at that moment, so he went out on a limb. “Well, that depends on how you treat them, Don Pablo. My father used to say that they’re like flutes. How they sound depends on how you stroke and care for them.”
“The metaphor’s a bit anemic, but your father may have been right,” the poet conceded benevolently. “In that case, it’s not the same,” he concluded.
“What do you mean, Don Pablo?”
“That if anyone can get the same notes out of a single woman, then the uniqueness and incomparable nature of each individual love is lost. Well, it’s as I was saying,” he added with a faint sparkle in his tired eyes. “In Rangoon, I ran into women of many different races and customs. Sometimes I’d invite three of them back to my place at the same time, and we’d go wild with ecstasy on those high, humid nights, bathed in sweat between the undulating walls of the mosquito net, and I wouldn’t even know whose sex I drank from, whose mouth I kissed, or what folds I was exploring.”
“But that’s paradise, Don Pablo,” Cayetano said, beside himself, and he placed the
karakul
cap on his knees. The tale had made him both hot and incredulous.
“It sounds exciting, but in truth it’s not so much, in the end. I only entered their bodies, never their souls. Understand? I always succumbed like an exhausted castaway before the unconquerable walls of those graceful, mysterious women.”
“I’d still like to have swum that far, Don Pablo.”
“But in the end, none of that stays with you,” he said with agitation. “There are people who would kill over love or jealousy, or out ofspite or envy, but in the end no part of those passionate bodies remains, neither the echoes of their voices nor their images in mirrors, Cayetano.”
He thought the poet was returning to the melancholy he’d exhibited the other day, and that, costumes aside, he had quite a bit of drama in him. As if, in addition to Whitman, he was playing the role of himself, as he’d said during their first meeting, in that dim room, when Don Pablo Neruda—whose real name was Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto—had displayed his passion and sadness with a sense of spectacle that made one wonder what lay behind it. He tried to imagine the poet as a young man. The copious dark brown hair falling over his forehead. His attractive gaze, fresh voice, and shapely chin. It was hard to accept that this old sallow-cheeked man had been that youth who used to hold orgies on the beach, on distant Oriental nights. Could the poet recall the roar of flesh gripped by the urge to touch and possess sweaty bodies, or were his memories of that time now calm and vague, devoid of passion? He picked up the conch that lay beside
El Siglo
, whose front page denounced the national transportation strike the right was devising to overthrow Allende. He
Similar Books
