The Girl in the Photograph (19 page)

He gets up, goes to the window, and peeks out at the night through the hole in the
sleazy venetian blinds. He buries his hands in his pockets and looks at me.

“I think I’m scareder of my folks than of the police. My oldest brother is gung-ho
on family and tradition, you should have seen how hysterical he got. I’m frightened
to death of him.”

“And your father?”

“Separated from my mother. Oh, Rosa, I really suffered over that. I used to cry at
night and bite the pillow, I cried like an idiot. I wanted them both to die but I
didn’t want them to split up. Isn’t that weird? Why should it bother me so much? I
didn’t tell anyone, they never knew it, nobody did. You’re the only person I’ve told.
I was so broken up inside. Just like the glass in my window where a rock hit it, I’d
look at the window and see myself exactly that way. I never said anything. I’m saying
it now and I’m already crying again. Shit, why do I have to cry, goddammit. How imbecilic.”

I rub a spot on my blouse with the handkerchief. I know it won’t come out but I keep
rubbing as if getting the spot out were the most important thing in the world. Lorena
would be radiant if she could see me.

“And did she remarry? Your mother?”

“I’ve noticed a guy hanging around who’s actually not so bad. I have nothing more
to do with it. I read lots of science fiction,
act absentminded so they’ll think I’m stupid and leave me in peace.”

He mounted the chair again, leaning his arms on the back and resting his chin on his
arms. His mouth and fingers are dirty with ink like those of children who are just
learning to write. I feel like cradling his head in my lap, go to sleep, Pedro.

“Families really are a pain. Mine live a long way away, we get along beautifully.”

And together, didn’t we get along beautifully too? But it’s better for me to console
him. He wets the pencil point in his mouth again and starts to draw in the margin
of the paper. He makes a bird flying, a house. He reinforces the plume of smoke coming
out of the chimney.

“As soon as I start working, I’m going to transfer to night school and move in with
two other guys. Are you prejudiced against queers?”

“My prejudice is against lack of character.”

“I think one of them is gay. He hates girls, he says they’re
doors of the Devil
.”

I take off my socks and wad them into a ball. I want to laugh but he’s absolutely
serious. I leave my socks in the drawer, the irritation those socks caused me with
their worthless elastic! How could a simple pair of socks perturb me so? One day I
put a pair of foot-warmers in this drawer, black woolen ones. Could they still… I
curl my fingers around them. Dusty but warm. I look at Pedro and for some reason I
am filled with hope.

“If you’re not interested, tell them before you move in, explain yourself clearly,
right? No pretenses or evasions, that’s the important thing. Are you a virgin?”

“Not exactly. It’s complicated.”

I know, a virgin. He and Lorena would make a great pair. I take his felt pen and draw
a radiant sun beside his plume of smoke.

“Isn’t it warmer now? You’ve got to learn to smile again, Pedro. Learn to fight back.
And clarity, don’t leave anything foggy. Don’t be either pious or sentimental because
then you end up hurting people more. Believe me.”

“But it’s other people who are sentimental! You should have seen my friend when he
had a breakdown, the guy almost died when he came to tell me how unhappy he was, how
cruel his family had been. He asked if I was going to act the same way
everybody else did just because he was nothing but a wretch. He didn’t go down on
his knees because I stopped him.”

“But why a wretch? I can’t stand panic or declarations of principles. Resignation
or provocation. My great-aunt was so burdened down by the fact of sex that she hid
herself in a convent, became a nun. Another aunt who was fond of controversies created
so many that she ended up a whore. Both acted out of the same fear, the same fear.
If only we weren’t so afraid.” “Neither night nor day,” Lorena sentenced once. “They’re
in twilight, and twilight will always be uncertain. Insecure.” “Literature, bah. Women
are finding their way. The men will come along in good time. I think,” I say grinning,
“that in the future there will be only hermaphrodites.” “Poor little things,” Lorena
would add. But when she speaks in her poetic tone she doesn’t use diminutives.

“Are you in love with someone, Rosa?”

“Yes. Now take off that pullover, I need it today. You can wear mine.”

“A mission? With Bugre?”

I take his hand between mine. Dry and dirty. “I didn’t hear that.”

He remounts his chair, did he blush? He blushed.

“Crap, I’m really stupid. Oh Rosa, for God’s sake, be my girl. I’ll give you my stuffed
rabbit, my tricycle, my dove’s egg, I have a dove’s egg,” he murmured laughing softly.
“You can have them all.”

I pull his hair. “I already have a man. Period. Now I have to go.”

“Wait, what are the characteristics of a Third-World country? Ours, for example. I’m
thinking of writing an article. But where would I publish it?”

And where would I be able to publish it? I asked. Miguel looked at me the same way
I’m looking at Pedro. He straightened the pages of my manuscript and gave me an ambiguous
answer, he who isn’t ambiguous. I should keep on writing without worrying about getting
published. Someday, who knows? If I felt the text was still valid. One could sense
it had been written with love. With honesty.

I squeeze Pedro’s hand as if I were squeezing my own.

“Don’t worry about publishing, just keep writing. You want to be a journalist, don’t
you? So you’ve got to practice, later
we’ll see. And remember, to write about underdevelopment isn’t just to write about
the children, afterwards I’ll get you the exact number who die per day. There’s illiteracy,
the mushrooming of the slums, the people who flee from the droughts, you should take
a ride out along the country roads sometime and hear what these people have to say.
Traveling salesmen with combs, pencils, razor blades. Trash multiplying in the streets,
what do they call those openings that are always plugging up along the sidewalks?
The dirt in the cafés and restaurants, toilets, the apotheosized filth of these toilets,
starting with the ones in the Department, oh, Pedro, just take a little walk around
outside and your article will practically write itself, ‘from general to specific,’
as my friend says in Latin, she likes Latin. Now I really must go.”

He follows me to the door. I paw through the bottom of my bag.

“Here’s some yenom, money spelled backwards brings luck, remember that: yenom. We’ll
settle up later.”

“But it’s a lot, Rosa.”

I give him a good-bye kiss on the cheek and enter the darkness of the corridor as
he asks about my novel. I don’t want him to see me when I answer that I ripped it
all up, destroyed it.

“I thought I had talent but I was wrong, like these priests who are getting married
all over the place.”

“But how do you know you were wrong?”

“One knows, Pedro. One knows.”

He embraces me so hard that I am actually alarmed, I never imagined he was so strong.
His mouth, quivering, searches for mine. I go to meet it, good grief, he doesn’t even
know how to kiss. I’ll teach you stage by stage, wait, what’s the big rush? Don’t
hurt me, we’re not enemies, I try to tell him with my tongue that flattens against
his and teaches him to kiss slowly and deeply. At first he’s completely clumsy, never
mind, pretty soon things will smooth out. I still have fifteen minutes, I murmur in
his ear. We draw back inside the room, holding each other. He reaches out and turns
off the light, he wants it to be in the dark. Fine, in the dark and with the door
closed, I decide pushing the door shut with my foot. His teeth hurt my lip, he has
big teeth, oh, don’t make it such a battle, I’ll show you the way. It’s suffering,
yes, but it’s pleasure too, don’t worry about me, see. Come on, don’t be afraid, I’m
on your side, not against you.

“Don’t be like that, Pedro. Relax, take it easy. We have time.”

He kisses me and sobs with affliction and anger, bewildered. I have to take the initiative,
he may fail out of sheer emotion and become desperate. “Come on, Pedro. It’s not a
door of the Devil,” I whisper in his ear and we laugh. “Not of God either, just a
door like any other. Come inside.” He explodes in a torrent of sperm and tears.

“I’m sorry, Rosa, I’m sorry!”

“If you say that again I’ll kill you right now, on the spot.”

“It was awful!”

“What do you mean, awful? Wasn’t it good for you?”

I take the handkerchief from my bag and dry his face. I feel him smiling and smile
too. “You’ll orient Pedro,” Bugre ordered. Right, a complete orientation. A good deed
or a simple desire to make love? Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know. I know I love Miguel
even more after the betrayal. If this is what you could call betrayal. I tousle Pedro’s
hair; he’s coming out of his depression with alarming speed. He laughs at nothing,
he’s high as a kite. He kisses the palm of my hand and places it against his burning
face.

“I love you Rosa, I love you.”

“Great. Now go and find yourself a girl.”

“Wait, Rosa!”

I gather up my belongings. He grabs me but I’m stronger. I leave him lying on the
floor, completely tender and silly. He wants to know if we’ll see each other tomorrow,
if my boyfriend really is Miguel, he asks questions, questions.

“Good night, Pedro! Write a good article, you hear?”

The circular stairway is dark. Somebody is coughing, halfsuffocated. Pedro will feel
the cold in my light sweater but he can drink some coffee and tomorrow look his girl
friend in the face, oh, Miguel, how I need you. How that boy needed me. Who knows,
maybe someday I’ll write well. It could happen. I’ve thought about a diary, that might
be simpler, something plain. Lorena advises me to write in unadorned language, she
finds me baroque. I
am
baroque, from head to toe, I admit it. Draperies and stars. Genialities without genius,
is that it, Miguel? An honest diary. Dry, telling about my work without bragging,
without any glory. Until I get arrested and die in obscurity, only with the name I
chose: Rosa. I need some fresh air
at once, I’m getting so emotional. I open the door of the building and a burst of
rain and wind hits me in the face, the rain comes in bursts, like gunfire. Gunfire
isn’t a good word but backwards … erifnug? Rosa was hit in the chest by erifnug is
less serious. I run to the corner, we arrive at the same time, Bugre and I. The car
is the color of the night.

“Well, Bugre?”

“Everything was postponed, more important things are happening. And some good news
for you. Is your watch working? I lost mine, can you lend me yours? Leave it there
in the glove compartment.”

She took off her wristwatch. “Good news for me? Tell me, Bugre.”

“Wait a minute, I can’t see, have you got a handkerchief?”

The windshield wiper, stuck, could not remove the heavy mist; it would travel halfway
in its appointed semicircle across the glass and return tremblingly, like the antenna
of a crippled insect, too weak to fulfill its function. The right-hand wiper only
vibrated; it didn’t move at all.

“Want me to drive?”

“It’s better now. Light me a cigarette, OK? They’re in the glove compartment. Oh,
that cap, get it out, it’s yours. You can wear it.”

She unrolled a black rib-knit cap.

“Mine? But how gorgeous, Bugre! This hair has been driving me crazy.”

He took the cigarette and looked at her in the mirror.

“You look like a sailor, Rosa. That’ll be useful on your trip.”

“What trip?”

He shifted gears and turned to look at her.

“Miguel is on the list of prisoners to be exchanged for the ambassador.”

“On the list?” slowly she raised her head. “Miguel on the list?”

“Your man is about to embark. Algeria. One of the top guys on the list, I wish I was
in his place. The news will be out tomorrow, you’d better get your passport in order.”

“Algeria?” she thought. She stared at the water drizzling in broken spasms over the
windshield, forming pools near the wiper rods. Algeria, Algeria. For a long moment
she pressed the
handkerchief against her eyes, then sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her
hand.

“Miguel? In Algeria? We’re going to be together? Too much, Bugre, too much! I can’t
explain it but I’m so stunned! We’re going to be together, is that it? I’ll have to
get together the money, excuse me, yenom! Is it expensive, the ticket? Never mind,
that’s not important, I’ll talk to my folks, the
gens lore-nensis
will help too, obviously. Algeria!”

I stifle my tears and laughter.

“And get your passport ready right away, the operation has to be quick. Now I’m going
to take you home, I have something else to do, tomorrow we’ll talk. A good journey,
sailor girl!”

She opened her mouth and breathed carefully, afraid of inhaling too deeply. With one
finger she wrote the word “journey” on the white moisture-coated window, thinking
of arriving in Algiers. As she started to wipe it off, the middle letters ran together
into a smear, leaving only the
jo
and the
y. Joy
… Quickly she erased them with the handkerchief.

“Oh, Bugre. My head is whirling. I’d been having horrible thoughts, I don’t know.
But how did all this happen, what’s going on?”

“It’s a long story, Rosa. I’ll tell you about it later. Just enjoy your good news
for now. You’re going to have a hard life.”

“I know. I know.”

“A lot of work. But you’ll have good contacts. No problem with your family?”

“After crying for three days my mother will get busy raising money to send me, she’ll
want to protect me from dying of hunger in
foreign parts
. My father is a sentimental German, but he’s contained, he understands. I may even
send them a photo of me in a bridal gown to guarantee good family relations, I’ll
force Miguel to pose as the groom, ah! they’ll be so proud showing off their picture
in a silver frame on the parlor table.”