María Dueñas - The Time in Between

The Hispano-Olivetti storefront had two large display windows that showed their products off to passersby with proud splendor. Between the two of them was a glass door, with a bar of burnished bronze crossing it diagonally. Ignacio pushed it and we went in. The tinkling of a little bell announced our arrival, but no one came out to meet us right away. We stopped there, inhibited for a couple of minutes, looking at everything displayed with such reverence, not daring even to brush against the pieces of polished wood furniture where those typewriting marvels rested, one of which we were about to select as the one most suited to our plans. At the back of the spacious room devoted to the displays, there was apparently an office. From it came men’s voices.

We didn’t have to wait much longer. The voices knew that there were customers, and one of them—housed in a rotund body, darkly dressed—approached us. As soon as the affable clerk greeted us, asking what we were interested in, Ignacio began to talk, describing what he wanted, requesting information and advice. Mustering all his professionalism, the clerk proceeded to enumerate the features of each machine on display in rigorous detail, with such monotonous technical precision that after twenty minutes I was ready to fall asleep from boredom. Ignacio, meanwhile, absorbed the information through all his senses, indifferent to me and to anything other than gauging what was being offered to him. I decided to move away from them, totally uninterested. Whatever Ignacio chose would be a good choice. I couldn’t care less about keys, carriage return levers, or margin bells.

So I dedicated myself to walking through the other parts of the display in search of something with which to appease my boredom. I stared at the big advertising posters on the walls proclaiming the store’s products with colored illustrations and words in languages I did not understand. Then I approached the windows and watched pedestrians hurrying past along the street. After a while I returned unwillingly to the back of the store.

A big cupboard with mirrored doors ran along part of one wall. I considered my reflection in it, noticing that a couple of strands had come loose from the bun in my hair. After attending to that I took advantage of the opportunity to pinch my cheeks and give my bored face a little color. Then I examined my attire at leisure. I had made myself get into my best dress; after all, this purchase was supposed to be a special occasion for us. I smoothed out my stockings, upward from my ankles; slowly and deliberately I adjusted the dress on my hips, at the waistline and collar. I retouched my hair again and looked at myself from the front and the side, calmly observing the copy of myself that the mirror glass returned to me. I struck poses, made a couple of dance steps, and laughed. When I tired of the sight, I continued wandering around the room, killing time as I ran my hand slowly over the surfaces, snaking languidly around the pieces of furniture. I barely paid any attention to what had really brought us there; to me there was nothing to distinguish between those machines apart from their size. There were big, solid ones, yet there were small ones, too; some seemed light, others heavy, but to my eyes they were no more than a mass of dark unwieldy contraptions unable to generate the slightest charm. I positioned myself reluctantly in front of one of them, brought my index finger toward the keys, and pretended to press the letters closest to me. The s , the i , the r , the a . “Si-ra,” I repeated in a whisper.

“Lovely name.”

The man’s voice came from just behind me, so close that I could almost feel his breath on my skin. A shudder ran up my spine and I turned around, startled.

“Ramiro Arribas,” he said, holding out his hand. It took me a moment to react, perhaps because I wasn’t used to anyone greeting me so formally, perhaps because I had not yet managed to absorb the impact this unexpected presence had on me.

Who was this man, where had he come from? He clarified it himself, his eyes still fixed on mine.

“I am the manager of the establishment. I’m sorry not to have attended to you earlier; I was trying to place a call.”

And watching you through the blinds that separate the office from the showroom, he should have added. He didn’t say it, but he let it be guessed at. I intuited it from the depths of his gaze, the sonority of his voice, from the fact that he had approached me rather than Ignacio and the length of time he held my hand. I knew that he had been watching me, considering my erratic wanderings around his establishment. He had seen me arranging myself in front of the mirrored cupboard: readjusting my hair, conforming the lines of the dress to my shape, and fixing my stockings by running my hands up my legs. Perched in the shelter of his office, he had absorbed the outlines of my body and the slow cadence of each of my movements. He had appraised me, calibrated the shapes of my silhouette and the lines of my face. He had studied me with the sure eye of someone who knows exactly what he likes and is used to getting what he wants with the immediacy that his desires dictate. And he resolved to show this to me. I had never seen this before in any other man; I had never believed myself capable of awaking such a desire in anyone. But just as animals scent food or danger, with the same primal instinct I knew that Ramiro Arribas, like a wolf, had decided to come for me.

“Is that your husband?” he said, gesturing toward Ignacio.

“My fiancé,” I managed to answer.

Perhaps it was only my imagination, but I thought I sensed the trace of a satisfied smile at the corners of his lips.

“Perfect. Please, come with me.”

He made way for me, and as he did, he positioned his hand gently at my waist as though it had been waiting to be there its whole life. He greeted Ignacio pleasantly, dispatched the salesclerk to the office, and took up the reins of the matter with the ease of someone who gives a clap and makes pigeons take flight. He was like a conjuror combed with brilliantine, the features of his face marked with angular lines, a broad smile, a powerful neck, and a bearing so imposing, so manly and decisive, that beside him my poor Ignacio looked like he was a century away from reaching manhood.

He learned that the typewriter we were planning to buy would be for teaching me to type, and he praised the idea as though it were a matter of great genius. Ignacio saw him as a competent professional who offered technical details and beneficial payment options. For me he was something more: a tremor, a magnet, a certainty.

We took a while longer to finalize the negotiations. Over the course of that time the signals coming from Ramiro Arribas didn’t stop for a single second. An unexpected, glancing touch, a joke, a smile; double entendres and looks that pierced the depths of my being. Ignacio, self-absorbed and unaware of what was happening before his very eyes, finally decided on the portable Lettera 35, a machine with round white keys on which the letters of the alphabet were set with such elegance that they seemed to be carved with a chisel.

“Superb decision,” the manager concluded, praising Ignacio’s good sense. As though he had been the master of his own free will and hadn’t been manipulated with the great salesman’s wiles to buy that particular model. “The best choice for slender fingers like those of your fiancée. Do please allow me, miss, to see them.”

I quickly sought Ignacio’s gaze to gain his consent, but I didn’t find it: he had gone back to focusing on the typewriter. I held my hand out shyly. Faced with my fiancé’s innocent passivity, Ramiro Arribas stroked my hand slowly and shamelessly, finger to finger, with a sensuality that gave me goose bumps and made my legs shake like leaves in a summer breeze. He only let go when Ignacio looked away from the Lettera 35 and asked for instructions on completing the purchase. They agreed that we’d leave a deposit of 50 percent that afternoon and make the balance of the payment the following day.