Andrés Neuman: The Things We Don't Do

THE AIR smelled of leather. A studied gloom made it difficult to see anything properly. Almost all the coats appeared to be in good condition.

She steadied her glasses. She was thinking of her husband’s unpredictable taste, somewhere between conventional and whimsical. She felt an urgent need to smoke. That night, or tomorrow morning at the latest, her period was going to start: an insistent dagger below her navel and a feeling of irritation at everything were signs.

She took a brown leather double-breasted coat off the hanger. Scrutinized it for a moment. She hung it up again, took down one that was black and had a pointed collar. She hung that up too and took down another longer grey one with big padded shoulders. Too manly, she thought maliciously. Returning it to the rack, she reached for a dark suede jacket and looked at it approvingly: it was just right for her husband’s old-fashioned taste. She could picture it on him with amazing clarity, as if she had already seen him wearing it, as if it had always belonged to him. In fact, now she thought about it, the coat was almost identical to the one she herself had given him the Christmas before last. But that was impossible. She tried to make sure. She examined the lining, the buttonholes, the sleeves: they looked the same, but how could she remember the exact shape of the buttons, or the brand? It was the same size too, although her husband wore the same size as most men. She noticed that the elbows were not at all worn: it might be, it might not be.

She paused to think it over. How could it have ended up here? Why would her husband pawn his present from the Christmas before last? Things hadn’t been going so well over the past year. But they hadn’t gone that badly. Or had they? She tried to recall their most recent arguments. No, there must be other reasons. It could simply be that he hated the coat (how elegant, he had exclaimed, you can’t imagine how badly I needed one), or that he couldn’t find an excuse not to wear it, and so decided to sell it and later pretend he had lost it (it looks great on me, really great, he had insisted). But her husband hadn’t said anything about having lost the coat. And yet she had no recollection of ever having seen him in it either, except the day he had tried it on at home. She studied the coat once more, then put it back. It was that one. It wasn’t that one. She didn’t know if it was that one. She felt the dagger twisting in her stomach again, and a pain encircling her head and pressing down on her vertebrae. She had spent all day — all her life — on her feet. When had they last gone on a trip? A real trip, just the two of them? They hadn’t had enough money. Or, above all, any reason to go. But that dark suede coat, where on earth had it come from? She searched the inside pockets, hoping to find some evidence to confirm her suspicions. They were empty.

Taking it down again, she went over to the shop assistant, who was painting her nails behind the counter and had a star-shaped nose stud. She asked her if she remembered who had brought the coat in. The girl looked up, twisted one side of her top lip and replied in a nasal voice: How should I know, love, so many people come and go in here. She looked the girl in the eye, demanding she make an effort. The assistant shrugged, then looked down again and dipped the brush in the nail-polish bottle. And you can’t tell me how long this coat has been in the shop either? she insisted. The assistant left the brush in the little bottle, sighed and grabbed the coat from her so as to check the label. It’s been here since last January, okay? And went back to her nails. I’ll take it then, she said, picking the coat up from the counter and removing the hanger. It’s my husband’s birthday, you see, and I want to give him a surprise.

THE NIGHT I met Sister Juana, she explained to me that the menopause was to blame for everything. But the menopause, I protested, splitting hairs, starts at fifty. Juana contemplated me like those priests who are on the point of punishing you, and absolve you instead. She looked at me with a superior, inviting smile, and replied calmly: What do you know about the menopause of nuns?

Fifteen minutes later, Juana paid for our drinks. Twenty-two minutes later, by a miracle, we found a cab for hire in the middle of Paseo de la Reforma. Forty-three minutes later, she was bouncing on top of me, trapping my wrists.

According to her own confession, Juana lost her virginity to a fair-haired monk, a week before she left the convent. To be more precise, let us say she lost her virginity to six or seven monks, not all of them fair-haired, at the age of thirty-nine. In her own words, no sooner had she tried one than she wanted them all, all, all. The repetition is Juana’s, not mine. That was the way she described it, with her eyes closed and her legs open.

As soon as she realized she would never again be worthy in the eyes of the Lord (the realization was instantaneous), Juana let her hair grow, found a job as a vet’s assistant and spent all her free time (all, all, all) fornicating with men of any age, race and condition. The only prerequisite, Juana warned them, was that they must not fall in love with her. And they must give her their word on this from the first day. I have been a bride of Christ, she explained to them (she explained to us), from the age of eighteen until the age of thirty-nine. And since I cannot possibly aspire to any higher devotion, what I want now is sex, sex, sex. Although I know I shall be damned because of it.

Anyone who hasn’t slept with Juana (and let’s acknowledge that this possibility is becoming ever more remote in Mexico City) might be suspicious of such a pronouncement: “I know I shall be damned because of it.” And they might consider it a pious excuse. But one night with her, not to say a brief congress, was enough to understand just how transparent and unyielding Juana’s declaration was.

Juana’s sex life was so much more than that. More than life, I mean. And had it not been so vigorous I would venture to add that, on the contrary, it was a kind of death. With its attendant, absolutely inevitable carnal resurrections. I can imagine the misconceptions this will provoke in the most devious minds. Spasmodic ecstasies. Unfathomable suckings. Implausible durations. Crude acrobatics. My God, my God, my God. Juana’s way was different. Honest. No awkward positions. No oriental techniques.

Juana had something our civilization has all but lost: pure lust. With its unbridled temptations, genuine remorse and inevitable relapses. The incredible thing was that those cycles which to the rest of us might take days, months or years to get through, were condensed by Juana into a matter of minutes. If we attempt a scientific approach, we could say that the female population usually experiences the arousal, plateau, orgasmic and resolution phases. Juana on the other hand suffered shame, delirium, repentance and relapse. No preamble. No lingering. Like a summer storm.

From our first encounter at her house, I witnessed open-mouthed the liturgy she would always repeat. Juana would undress me roughly, bite me, rebuff me, tear off her underwear and pull me inside her. Then the most astonishing part would commence, the part that finally captivated my senses, and, in some way, ended up condemning me: Juana spoke to me. She spoke, howled, prayed, begged, wept, laughed, sang, gave thanks. It required no physical heroics to make her enter into that trance. You simply had to say yes to her. The reward was overwhelming. Of the hundreds of biblical obscenities Juana proffered during the act, it was the simplest ones that intrigued me most: “You’re making me sin, you devil”, “Your body is my damnation”, “You’re sending me to hell”, etcetera. A sceptic might consider these mere doctrinal utterances. But they defeated me. I am an ordinary fellow. I don’t usually arouse great passions in anyone. And, believe me, I had never in my life sent anyone to hell.