Almost Never: A Novel (32 page)

A long time.

A long time to perfectly preserve an illusion. Twelve months of an enlarged enigma, a superconceit, unbreakable, let’s say, that would nurture the steeliest desire. In any case there was a perfect fit: the ring, the offering; Renata, slipping it on; slipping onto her ring finger—yay! perfect. The symbolic yoking that was neither applauded nor commented upon. The trio still insisted that the wait be shortened, but Doña Luisa shook her head, girlishly, and held her ground with a little tantrum, stamping her feet in several ways. No matter: they’d won: the gratification of knowing and feeling that Renata was already Demetrio’s wife, kind of, realizing that from then on there would be a new member of the family, a long-lasting (fresh, fine-looking) flower who already seemed delighted to consider herself a wife from then on. For his part, Demetrio wanted to celebrate by giving her a hug, a decent embrace, not too juicy, but—get a grip! if they did that they would lose so much, such humiliation, so: a show of fortitude, as if they were corroding each other, theoretically; desire so corroded it was on the verge of no longer existing, so: celebrate: never! The trio was leaving, not another word to say: the good-byes, hasty, all for the best: that’s all, so little. But Renata (boldly) told her future husband:
Today I’ll expect you at five in the afternoon, not on the bench but here in the house. Knock on the door, that one there,
an index finger indicating which, the clear sign: knock on the door they leave by. And the trio left, trying to find a spring in their steps, but no luck. It’s just that a whole year of emotional propriety, what was already purified to purify it even more, candor and gabbing, Demetrio also understood that the billiards business would shine with success—hopefully! by that date, twelve months later, so much security, and in the meantime it wouldn’t be long for truly domestic love and to sit down confidently in a very randy (and deplorable) way in the living room armchair. Renata had given him instructions: an exciting come-hither, that’s how Demetrio probably embellished the invitation his wife had extended. He would return obediently, perhaps a kiss inside the house, one on the cheek, now, yes, but with no licking. Well, let’s turn to the trajectory where silence won out over mutterings, although Demetrio heard one sentence, very loud and it doesn’t matter who said it:
No way! Now you’re trapped.
He, trapped? Renata was trapped, just like him: an image of a large jail cell, subject to growth or shrinkage …

Better for us to accompany into eccentric seclusion the big guy, who when observed carefully appeared to be feverish, for at the end of the day he was able to avoid the two-woman-strong dog pack that was surely spewing endless advice. Therefore, when he arrived, violence, door slamming … A room for him alone; yes: his wish, to think to his heart’s content, for a while.

So—trapped?

Let’s not even think about their reaction, and they didn’t dare knock on the door … well, there was all that merry to-do about the wedding …

But—trapped?

Demetrio’s ideas spun in an orbit, recalling all his girlfriends as if he were watching a parade of miniatures; miniature-girls; each one, without exception, he’d done nothing more than kiss on the mouth; charm in sepia tones, perhaps, nothing worth harvesting from the past; lost loves that never involved nudity, and upon uttering that word he remembered Mireya, an unbridled fever of carnal lust; soaring sex, so rarefied, just to imagine it; everything seen through the eye of a heron who could barely shake its wings. The woman who possibly bore his child and was wantonly lost on night
x;
the same woman who once in a while appeared in his dreams laughing at him, calling him “poor imbecile,” what you missed out on, love like this and like that: sex as well as understanding and infinite tenderness: what more do you want, you jerk. And if Demetrio had allowed himself to be trapped by Mireya? Let’s see—what did being trapped or feeling trapped consist of? The truth is that Mireya went from being a total whore to an awesome saint. Struggling saint. Mothering saint. Sexual saint, embossed upon the always-changing great beyond. Oh, most holy Mireya, gone who-knows-where.

Then he imagined the whore rocking her baby sadly, an unlikely cooing, because in unreality it lasted an entire night. A whole night of quite sensitive crying; the cries of a forsaken single mother seen in almost floating limbo; rocking, faithfully rocking, a baby who would probably view things in a dark light when he grew up; who would always have to put up with the vexing stigma of being the son of a single mother—ooh! she, such a whore to the core and such a saint to the discerning judge. She, who but for a magical mistake would have been his wife, but a church wedding—impossible! that was the problem. On the other hand, the green-eyed gal—what a difference! She was a different kind of whore, an emblematic one because legal. And he imagined everything he would do with her once they got married. He saw her upside down performing a difficult fellatio. He saw her doing a somersault in the air and landing precisely on top of him for penetration, no pain as the cowl slid over his erect member. He saw her in a swoon of pleasure, in the middle of an orgasm, her eyes upturned and her plaintive voice pleading for more. He saw her coiled then grow unfurling, that is, her ass and breasts got bigger, large, huge—man oh man! her mouth also swelling, the better to kiss with. Nevertheless, reality, in the end, was third-rate, so abruptly reductive. When Demetrio arrived punctually for his date, Renata immediately ushered him into the yellow room. They were alone, nobody was watching them. Her mother was busy in the stationery store. Moreover, they were already spouses … though only theoretically—right? and, naturally! Demetrio tried to give her a polite kiss. They wrestled. Just one on her pursed lips, or rather a responsible adult kiss, let’s say, on the cheek, but Renata threatened to scream, loudly. Hence an alarm and thus he spurted out:

“Why won’t you let me? You’re already my wife.”

“I will be when we stand before the altar in a year’s time.”

“I love you, Renata. Let me at least hug you.”

“No, not even that. Things have to be done properly.”

“But nobody’s watching us. Come on!”

“Remember, I was well brought up, and it makes no difference whether anybody is watching us … God is.”

“Do you promise you’ll kiss me a lot once we get married?”

“Then, yes, but not before … I want it all to be beautiful.”

“So, you promise me we’ll even do dirty things when we get married?”

“We’ll do whatever you want, but you’ll have to go along with me till then. Don’t ruin what we are trying to build.”

As for the rest of it: sacred hand-holding and finally staring into each other’s eyes for the first time, or rather: rupture, daring: the brown nourishing itself on the green, and vice versa. O furtive proof.

The process of discovery, that’s what was on offer: eyes exploring eyes. To look at what’s wild in the eyes, almost the world’s toy, the color, that which opens onto and exposes the firmly rooted sunken length of a suggestion. Certainly silence abetted concentration and thus they enjoyed each other. Other details as well: the shape of the eyebrows and the distance from there to the eyes; then the shadows under the eyes, the cheekbones, all delicate trifles and, above all, good smells. There they remained for a long while studying each other’s features. Neither of them had ever experienced that. A different kind of pleasure, more detailed. Example: the lashes—phew! They viewed each other’s mouths more lasciviously. In fact, Renata was wearing lipstick, enhanced vermilion, kissable—no! but judging from the fleshy fullness of her lips she seemed ill at ease unless she was constantly kissing. A real mistake and a fantasy assessment. As opposed to Demetrio’s mouth: thin lips, for whistling, not at all sensual, but longing to be so. A deterrent. The closest and most appetizing in reality was forbidden material. Sin was on the prowl and better to create some distance, if only because Doña Luisa, always shrewd and bitter, might appear at any moment, we can see her, even just her head popping in, first, in warning, then her whole body and saying:

“So, children, are you behaving yourselves?”

Tiresome, this decoy, why wonder. Distrust or excessive propriety. Also Doña Luisa told them that it was time to wrap it up, they could see each other again the following day at the same time: visits by minutes, we could call it. Meet in the living room, ergo: propriety: a small love, apparently, though grandiose if interpreted appropriately. So Demetrio left mostly contented because he had finally looked long and hard at Renata’s face—what a beauty, truly!

When he got back to Doña Zulema’s house he wanted only to shut himself up in his room. He didn’t care to give even the most meager account of his date with Renata. Mother and aunt, in fact, asked, but he wagged his finger no, as if wanting to reject all their questions in a single sweep, about six stupid ones, or erase them one by one. He preferred to sink into his solitude, certainly quite cramped, rather than listen to banalities, even if all were instructive. When he did leave his room, because hunger was pressing his stomach against his spine, he preferred to go grab a bite at a tavern, and if we are obliged to expand upon this subject, there were three taverns and all three were on the verge of closing for lack of customers, just one or two throughout the whole day, not enough at all. So the food was poorly prepared at all three, à la don’t-give-a-damn, or rather pretty or a lot greasy: creaky, crackling, thundering, or who knows what, and definitely—what a racket in the kitchen! when he ordered enchiladas or fried tacos topped with lettuce. But Demetrio, we repeat, preferred that griminess to homespun clean that translated into intolerable pestering. Between one torture and the other, he chose the tavern.

Now let’s discuss in greater depth the four days Demetrio remained in Sacramento living out, as we know, his tiny but constant love with his future and sensational wife; he didn’t eat even a crumb of breakfast, no lunchtime stew or supper at Aunt Zulema’s house because, to tell the truth, he didn’t want to talk to the ladies. Though he did mix and match the taverns: that one for breakfast, another for lunch, and, well, like that, then he switched it around: that one’s better for supper and that one for breakfast, so he varied it: or rather his whimsy was an eeny, meeny, miney, mo, but what we can affirm is that none of the three taverns was any good, and also that’s why one day soon they would have to shut their doors.

We understand that Demetrio spent the remainder of his time sitting (like a big shot) on a bench, mulling over his life, a way to kill what’s killable by remembering it. True, he could do that shut up in his room, but out in the open air: advantages, the changing colors of the day, the tiny transformations—how many? That’s when he looked at his wristwatch: five more hours until his date with Renata … Only three more … Now only two … Then to bathe in the cedar tub. The mother and aunt took advantage of those interludes to interrogate him, but his refusal, as we know, the dancing hands, oscillating. To never speak, not even when he was wrapping a towel around himself, not even when he was decked out as an impeccable dandy, not even when he was perfumed. In short, he wanted everything he discussed with Renata to remain secret—but what about us—what did they talk about in the yellow living room? About children, the ones God gives us; about how life would be in Parras, which was like an oasis, with such good weather; how they’d go on excursions in the outlying areas, in the pickup, what else, for he had bought a very good one, and they even talked about politics, that all politicians were a bunch of thieves, without exception; those public servants, were they helpful, once in a while, but, be careful! you should never trust them. They also touched on several trivial subjects, like fashion, like India ink, in 1948, its multiple uses, the latest craze in Sacramento, and still growing; what’s more, they spoke about local customs, how people act in one place versus another. Renata also asserted that she was a woman of action—really? but Demetrio, one day, couldn’t resist saying something like this to her:

“I don’t know if I should bring this up, but I’ve dreamed about you naked many times.”

“Me too.”

“What?”

“In many positions, as if you were posing for photographs.”

“What did you feel?”

“Look, the truth is I don’t want to talk about it. It will just confuse me. Once we get married and receive God’s blessing, then we can talk about all kinds of things related to being naked.”

The truth is, they talked about the wedding, how Demetrio would send her money for the wedding dress; how she would arrange for the bridesmaid and groomsman pairs,
de lazo,
de ramo,
and
de arras;
how he would come back in April to fasten everything that needed to be fastened, to wit: fastidious formalities; but it wouldn’t be a very ostentatious wedding—would it? what for? And then came what they both dreaded: time to say good-bye. A cold good-bye indoors, in the living room. An eloquent pressing of hands, and nothing more, how awful. To also say good-bye to Doña Luisa. How polite! Everything to smooth the way, step by step. Now we’ll reveal a question Renata asked her mother on one of those days.

“Hey, Mama, why did you put our wedding off for a year?”

And the inelegant response:

“Because I want Demetrio to suffer. My goal is for him to love you even more, and to understand that a woman like you is worth a hundred of any other. Let the scoundrel pay.”

T
he first (long, celebratory) kiss after the wedding would hopefully be on Renata’s marvelous lips, those two little round sausages, ah. Then let’s imagine all the prohibitions, every detail spelled out on the train: frenetically: in blurts. We could say that it was a question of verbal regression, clamorous, on Demetrio’s part, which gave too much importance to the embrace that the green-eyed gal definitely refused to give him. He had nothing to lose—or did he? Finally Demetrio came out with something he thought Doña Telma would like to hear.
I didn’t talk to you because I didn’t want to hear from Doña Zulema at all. I don’t want any advice from you, either. If that’s what you’re going to give me, not even one little bit, so I’d rather keep quiet.
Whereby we see the mother listening, until she got fed up. The big guy was fed up, too. The list of restrictions was too long and irksome, but to give her opinion on anything—humph! not on her life! Rather, she stifled herself, the good lady didn’t utter so much as an ahem, and thus they traveled for hours, lulled by the train’s seeing and sawing. Until Demetrio himself, in contradiction to his fed-uppedness, asked his mother for her opinion, one, the first, because he was very frustrated, he had been going down a path full of confusion that had led him to offer her the ring. A bond forged in darkness—right? There was no retreat, because then—what manner of man would that make him!
You’re trapped, all that’s left for you now is to feel fresh when you reach the peak of love. That’s what you’ve been struggling so hard for.
And so, what was wrong with a kiss?, one on the cheek?, a small, decent kiss?, a hug, too.
Renata will give you everything you want, just wait. The wedding will be soon.
The wedding, the culmination of a process, the vertical path, always exhausting. Now would come the ruddiness of pleasure that would never fade. In the meantime that inflated hope that helped him know how to live out the illusion. It was worth waiting for what would come, for the fulfillment bit by bit of the best of the best. Doña Telma was more prodigious than necessary; Demetrio found no way to silence her. An opinion transformed into a speech, but also a litany of ideas that were worth listening to. Philosophy of the lowlands made to sound highfalutin. Even once they’d arrived in Parras and boarded the horse-drawn carriage that would take them home, Doña Telma continued speaking with inspiration. Overflowing eloquence—to be believed?