The Invisible Mountain (28 page)

She sank her head into Zolá’s hands. Her tresses were sea kelp; the fingers sought pearls between them. She brimmed with pearls. She overflowed. There was so much to be found.

Eva heard the news of Perón’s fall on September 20, 1955, over the radio. The announcer’s voice, drunk with history, spilled into her kitchen, over the tiles, over everything.
In Buenos Aires, a new military junta announced that Perón has resigned … whereabouts unknown … Here in Montevideo, some exiles are already packing their luggage, ready to head home
. The voice was euphoric, and Eva felt herself rise from her seat as if on a sudden wind, aloft with hope for Argentina, until the words sank in,
new military junta
. She saw the Caribes in her mind, pressing shirts and combs and teacups into bags, tearing photographs and paintings from the walls. She saw Roberto, standing over a sick child, head full of news and visions of return. She slapped the radio off. The children were at school. The home was hollow with silence. Salomé’s favorite puzzle lay on the coffee table: a tiger, grinning amiably, its head and paws unfinished.

That afternoon, at Zolá’s, Eva perched before the oval mirror and watched the scissors snip at her wet hair. Zolá stood over her, lips pursed, focused, hair in a high, crisp bun. They were both quiet.

“Shorter, Zolá.”

“You sure?”

Eva nodded, wanting lightness, wanting to be shorn.

“All right. But don’t move your head.” The scissors rasped. “How’s it going with the book?”

“Great. It’s exciting.” That was true—the publisher was immensely kind, and she was almost ready, up late at night arranging her poems into mosaic after mosaic—but today the words were forced.

“Good.”

“You heard the news today?”

“Yes. Fall in wool prices. More jobs lost.”

“And Perón.”

In the mirror, pineapple light spread in through the windows, over the sofa, the mantel, Zolá’s pink dress, her string of pearls, her body as it arched to get the perfect angle at Eva’s hair.

“What has Roberto said?”

“I haven’t seen him yet.”

“I’m sure he’ll be glad to go home.”

“Home? He never comes home.” Eva hadn’t meant to shout. “He’s cheating on me, you know.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course!”

“Don’t move your head.” Their eyes met in the mirror: a wet-haired angry woman, and another woman close behind her, sweaty, blades aloft.

Zolá resumed her cutting.

“I’m not jealous.”

“No?”

“No. At least not of her, whoever she is. I’m jealous of him.”

“Because?”

“Because he does whatever he wants.”

“And you don’t.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s different for women, Zolá.”

Zolá’s reflection stayed intent on her work. “Is that what stops you?”

“Part of it.”

“What’s the other part?”

“Something else.” The scissors’ blades were at her neck now, cool against her skin. Her skin was hot. “What about you?”

“What
about me?
”

“Are you doing what you want?”

Zolá looked into the mirror. “Part of it.”

Their eyes locked. Eva could not breathe. Silence fell over them, and stayed after they broke the gaze, for the rest of cutting, drying, styling. Finally Eva rose to leave. She looked at her hair in the mirror. “It’s beautiful.”

“
Por favor
.” Eva reached for her coat. She kept her eyes on its buttons as she slid them into holes. “You’ll see me again.”

On her walk home, Eva took a detour past the Plaza de Zabala, turning on a tall and narrow street.

It was still there. Of course.

The same stone cherubs lined its roof, mottled with pigeon droppings. The same balconies flanked the door with its brass bell. In the windows, rows and rows of shoes showed off their leather—black, red, brown, cream. She hovered at the corner, poised to bolt. Nothing moved. No need to go any closer and no need to run away. The chill of dusk was falling. A streetcar rattled by behind her; soles clapped brusquely against the sidewalk; Montevideo was heading home. She had changed. She was thirty years old, not a girl any longer. She had slight lines at the corners of her eyes; two children; a marriage based on fantasies and masks and earnest trying; a book of poems on the way; a cousin and a mother and three brothers; hands that touched her scalp under lush water; and she had something inside her skin—something dark and slippery and steady, like a rock in the middle of the sea.

A body moved in the store window. Eva shot around the corner, out of sight. She had done it. In every last corner of this city she could stand, breathe air, be true. She wanted, more than anything, to be true.

Roberto’s key turned in the door at half past one. Eva listened to him shuffle out of his coat, hang it up, cough, and approach the bedroom. He sat down on the bed. The duvet creased beneath the heft of him. Eva took in his bent back, fleshy chin, the lean beak of his nose. Almost half his hair was gray. When had that happened?

“Good evening.” He waited. It was her turn, her moment to say, How was your day? and kneel to unlace his oxfords. She did neither. Roberto looked up in faint annoyance. “I’m sure you’ve heard the news.”

“About Perón?”

“Told them what?”

“That we’re going home.”

“Roberto.” She sat down beside him. “I need to tell you something.”

His face grew guarded.

“I’d like to stay.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to go to Argentina.”

“Of course we’re going back.”

“Let me just say this.”

“No. Don’t say it,” he said, too loudly.

She reached out with a soft coolant of a hand. “Just listen for a—”

“No, Eva, you listen, you.” He sprang to his feet. “You don’t want to go to Argentina. You don’t want to. Perhaps you’ve forgotten why we left. Or where I married you. Where I made you everything you are.” He was red-faced, pointing at her with a pale and fleshy finger. “I give you everything. And in return? This. Exile and now this. A wife who doesn’t feel like going back.”

Eva rose. It was a relief, this rage, out in the air, palpable. “I’ve let you down.”

“What do you think?”

“What’s her name?”

“Whose name?”

“Your mistress.”

He drew back.

“Or have there been too many to remember?”

Roberto’s face grew expressionless. Eva stepped closer. She smelled the bite of his cologne, quick, pleasant. “Perhaps I’m a bad wife but I was faithful, at least, I never touched another man.” Or woman. Or. “At least I can say that.”

He turned to the curtains, and then she knew: this room of theirs was far more fragile than she’d realized. Walls buckled at the slightest weight. The air was sharp; it pricked her skin.

“
Hija
, what are you doing out of bed?”

“I heard something.”

“Everything’s fine.” She tried her best to sound reassuring.

“I got scared.”

“I see. But everything’s fine.”

“Can I sleep with you?”

“Not tonight.”

“Please?”

“Next time. I promise.” Eva stroked her daughter’s cheek. “Go back to bed.”

Salomé nodded, unconvinced. Eva watched her walk back to her room, and closed the door.

Roberto looked weary. “You really don’t want to go.”

“No.”

He nodded, as if she’d spoken the obvious answer. He opened the closet and threw a pair of slacks on the bed. Reached for another.

“What are you doing?”

“Leaving.”

“Sshhhhh. The children.”

“I’m leaving.” He spoke more softly but kept his stride back and forth from the closet.

“Tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you going?”

“Does it matter?”

“To her house.”

“What if I am?”

“Are you coming back?”

“Why should I?”

She rocked slightly. “The children.”

“I won’t forget them.”

She watched Roberto pull the suitcase from its shelf and drop it open on the bed. He worked methodically, her husband, even in the heat of high emotion. A subtle fondness moved through her at the thought. At that moment she could have kissed him (not to keep him) but the gesture seemed ill timed. Instead, she went to the balcony to breathe unfettered air. Avenida San Salvador stretched below her, wide awake. An old tango record crooned through a nearby window; couples strolled, unrushed, hands gliding through each other’s hair; on the sidewalk outside La Diablita, people clustered at small tables, braving the cold. She lit a cigarette and watched the ember crackle toward her mouth. The man in the fedora had arrived at his lamppost, coat pulled tight and hat pulled low as always. Sad. Absurd. If he was a tortured artist he should go home and make art. If he was a broken lover he should look for a new love. If he was a madman—well—couldn’t he find a better use for madness somewhere else? She was full of the strange liquor of this night. “Señor,” she called, “who are you? What the hell are you looking for?”

The man stiffened. A young couple, on their way from La Diablita, stopped in curiosity.

“Eva,” he said. “Hello.”

Eva’s cigarette almost singed her fingers. She knew that voice. The man removed his hat. His hair shone gray in the lamp glow, a shade lighter than the old stone edifice behind him. He smiled nervously. His hands chewed on the fedora. From this angle he looked small, a figurine of a father. “I …
este …
didn’t mean to bother you.”

Eva crushed her cigarette and tossed it into the street. She wanted to laugh, but she opened her mouth and the sound didn’t come. “That was you, all this time?”

“No,” Eva said. “I’m in the middle of something.” Now she did laugh, and it came easily, a madwoman’s loose laugh. Her father, at his iron lamppost, stared. “Maybe tomorrow? Five o’clock?”

“Well, then.” He replaced his hat. “See you tomorrow.”

“
Adiós
, Papá.”

In the bedroom, Roberto stood with two pairs of socks in hand. “That,” he said incredulously, “was your father?”

Eva thought of Roberto’s own father, who would never spend his nights combing the streets like a commoner. Not for a daughter or for anyone in the world. Only the most strange or sick or ardent men would think of such a thing. “Yes,” she said, “that’s him.”

The next morning, Eva woke alone in an empty bed. Light’s long fingers curled around the edges of the curtains. The room felt stuffy, crowded by old breaths and hovering words. Light and breath and unsaid things and she alone between the sheets, hollow, euphoric, afraid. She reached for pen and paper and began a poem. In the poem, a woman lost her legs and set out to find them, gritting her teeth, dragging herself along by the knuckles. Dust filled the woman’s mouth, and Eva stopped writing, tore off the page, and began another poem, where a woman rode a river in the middle of the night from a shore called Lies to a shore called Truth. She described Truth, its wild vines and flame-colored birds, and continued even when she heard the light feet of her children at the door; she should get up and make them breakfast, but her pen coiled and pushed across the paper and her hand had no choice but to follow. The feet were gone and then sounds from the kitchen and more steps came and then a voice was at the door, saying, “Mami.”

Salomé stared up at her, dwarfed by the tray she was holding, concentrating intensely on her balance. The tray held
mate
, a thermos of hot water, and a plate of toast. How had they done it by themselves? What if they had gotten burned?

“Good morning,” Salomé said, uncertainly.

Salomé relaxed, a little.

“Are you hungry?”

Salomé nodded, and Eva lifted the covers to let her crawl in. Salomé burrowed against her like a snouted underground creature. How did her own body form this strange and perfect child?

“Where’s your brother?”

Salomé shrugged.

Eva called for him, once, twice, and Roberto arrived, half-eaten toast in hand, looking wary and hopeful in his Donald Duck pajamas. They would rise together, make a new life, the three of them a newly fashioned trinity, and who cared how the world shook its head and pursed its lips, it was her life, not the world’s.

“Come in, come in,” she said.

She broke toast into uneven pieces, and they pressed into her side of the bed, all three of them, close, quiet, feet entangled, eating torn toast, reckless with the crumbs.

That afternoon, Eva entered La Diablita for the first time in ten years. Memories flooded her, from red chairs and bright music and dark walls. She saw herself, thirteen years old, arriving out of breath on tottering heels, that hinge of a day when she’d last spoken to this man, her father, now at her side.

They sat down close to the piano. The waitress who took their order had hair like raven wings, folded in close to the body. Ignazio looked around him. His face had creases she’d never seen. “This is where you worked?”