Andrés Neuman - The Things We Don't Do

My tragedy was this: how could I fornicate after Juana? Was it worth swapping the lubricious flames of hell for a soft mattress? With her, each time was an event. A deplorable pleasure. An act of transcendental evil. With other women, sex was scarcely sex. From the moment I met Juana, my occasional companions, particularly the more progressive ones, seemed dull, predictable, exasperatingly normal. What we did together wasn’t terrible, or atrocious, or unpardonable. When we touched, neither of us betrayed our principles. We pretended to meet for dinner. Made polite banter. Bored each other discreetly. As time went on I progressed from apathy to phobia, and came to loathe the empty gestures I exchanged with my one-night stands. The wary foreplay. The tiny contractions. The controlled cries. I no longer knew how to be with anyone, anyone, anyone.

The last night I spent at Juana’s, she was dressed as usual, in a flared skirt and old shoes. Hair unkempt. No make-up on. Covered in goose bumps. Flesh on fire. When she tore off her clothes and I contemplated once more her bushy sex, I couldn’t help kissing her and whispering in her ear: I’m in love, Juana. She clenched her thighs instantly. She curled up on the couch, raised her chin and said: In that case, go. She said it so earnestly I didn’t even have the strength to protest. Besides, I was the one who had broken my promise. I dressed, ashamed.

As I crossed the living room cluttered with crucifixes and Holy Virgins, I heard Juana clicking her tongue. I turned round hopefully. I saw her coming towards me naked. She was walking quickly. I could see her feet were cold. She looked me in the eyes with a mixture of resentment and compassion. You can’t go to hell for love, she told me.

Then the light went out.

IT IS WORTH RECALLING that clumsiness can sometimes arise from an excess of symmetry. Elisa and Elías were a case in point. Incapable of embracing each other without their respective right and left arms colliding in mid-air, both equally aroused the admiration of their friends. They had the same habits. Their political views did not clash even over incidental details. They enjoyed similar music. They laughed at the same jokes. In whatever restaurant they ate, either of them could easily order two of something without consulting the other. They were never sleepy at different times, which, however stimulating for their sex life, was annoying from a strategic point of view: Elisa and Elías secretly competed to be first in the bathroom, for the last glass of milk in the refrigerator, or to be the first to read the novel they had both planned to buy the week before. Theoretically, Elisa was able to reach her orgasm at the same time as Elías without the slightest effort. In practice, it was more common for them to find themselves tied up in knots, created by their always simultaneous desire to be on top or beneath the other. What a perfect couple, two halves of the same little orange, Elisa’s mother would tell them. To which they both replied by blushing, and stepping on each other’s toes as they rushed to kiss her.

I hate you more than anyone in the world, Elías wanted to howl in the middle of an eventful night. He was unable to get Elisa to hear him, or rather he was unable to distinguish his own protest from hers. After an unwelcoming sleep filled with synchronized nightmares, the two of them had breakfast in silence, without any need to discuss what was going to happen next. That evening, when Elisa came home from work and went to pack her bags, she was not surprised to find the wardrobe half-empty.

As usually happens, Elisa and Elías have tried several times to patch things up. However, it seems that whenever either of them tries to call, the other’s phone is busy. On the rare occasions when they have succeeded in arranging to meet, perhaps offended at how long it has taken the other to make a move, neither of them has turned up.

I LIKE THAT WE DON’T do the things we don’t do. I like our plans on waking, when morning slinks onto our bed like a cat of light, plans we never accomplish because we get up late from imagining them so much. I like the anticipatory tremor in our muscles from the exercises we list without doing, the gyms we never join, the healthy habits we conjure as if simply by desiring them, our bodies will glow from their radiance. I like the travel guides you browse through with that absorption I so admire, and whose monuments, streets and museums we will never set foot in, as we sit mesmerized in front of our milky coffees. I like the restaurants we don’t go to, the light from their candles, the imagined taste of their dishes. I like the way our house looks when we picture it refurbished, its startling furniture, its lack of walls, its bold colours. I like the languages we wished we spoke and dream of learning next year, as we smile at each other in the shower. I hear from your lips those sweet, hypothetical languages: their words fill me with purpose. I like all the proposals, spoken or secretive, which we both fail to carry out. That is what I most like about sharing our lives. The wonder opened up elsewhere. The things we don’t do.

4 FEBRUARY 2003

AND IT WAS TRUE that the light came in fragmented and warm through the windows, or rather, let’s be frank and call them slits in the walls, and there was something more urgent than beauty, a new beauty, in the simple strength with which the light filled the room in the clinic, in the way it rewarded us, welcome, it announced, all this clarity is just because, and there was a violent sweetness about that other way of feeling myself a man, I was yelling, my wife gripped my wrists and steered me like a bicycle and I ran, I realized I could ask her for help, why shouldn’t we share this pain too, I thought, and those nurses with quivering breasts, Doctor Riquelme’s white, serious face, the sheets rough with time, the pillow with different layers of perfume and sweat-soaked, my wife whispering in my ear, all of them helping me to be strong, to ask for them to rally round me because a tunnel was rushing along inside me, a miraculous haste was robbing me of my breath and giving me another, two breaths, that’s it, my love, that’s it, breathe the air out slowly, my wife’s contracted lips called me, that’s it, that’s it, she shouted that night in the moist darkness of that hotel heaven-knows-where that suddenly saved us, we’ve rediscovered our innocence, she whispered to me afterwards, joined at the shoulders like Siamese twins, that’s it, invade me, she shouted, and I no longer knew who was inside whom, it’s hard for men to love, it’s a risk being the first to feel emotion, to leap into the void without knowing what the reply will be, or where the bicycle is headed, being loved is different, they contemplate us, all comfortable and frozen, in the third person, she loves me, and a third person was precisely what was going to gestate from that night on like a microscopic spider’s web, that’s it, go on, invade me, and at last I could say to her, for once in this fucking life, that I loved her beyond all bounds and the rest did not matter, including her reply, and it was so strange to give oneself, take me, I said to her, and she gave me the mirror of her belly and the anchor of her tongue and her raised thighs but no, I was the one who said take me, letting myself be stirred by the oar of the night, we’ve rediscovered our innocence, she told me, with her shoulder sunk in my shoulder, and it was true that the light came in timid, fragmented under the door like a faint, slightly orange intruder, possibly day was dawning, and then it turned out it was time, they dressed me slowly, observed me in silence, the nurses put on tight rubber gloves as though to preside over a sacrifice, the hour has come, sir, one of the nurses announced, and that word hour hung playfully from one of her nipples down the unexpected channel of her coat, and that nipple was an O, the aureole of the hour of life, we’ve rediscovered our innocence, she had said, and her gesture of consecrated pleasure was the gesture of a woman to come, as if she already knew, and she embraced me like no one had ever done before, I’m so happy, I said, and felt ashamed, then I felt happy at that sense of shame, of that shudder that reached to the tips of my toes, and she kissed me, she kissed my feet and I was very small and was learning to walk, like when she tried to teach me to dance and I was unwilling, you waddle like a duck, she said with a laugh, come on, come and dance, moving around like that is ridiculous, I replied, or I didn’t reply but said it to myself and left her to dance alone, that’s how men without a bike do drink, look at me, clinging to the bar with my exam face and my spilt heart, sir, the hour has come, and at that moment I thought that what I wanted most of all was to teach my son to walk, don’t be scared, I would tell him, this is our music and this is your body, you’ll have to explain to your mother that you’re dancing with me because she’s not going to believe you, come on, my love, move, make more of an effort, at first it was all so slow, the web was growing minutely and seemed to feed off me in exchange for the joy of all the promises, it was all so slow then, and now all of a sudden come on, push hard, my love, push, that was what she said that night of darkness we could touch in that hotel heavens-knows-where that saved us, and I found a canal that climbed her belly and we were filled with a white, thick light, she shouted my name, we both shouted, what are you going to call him? said Doctor Riquelme, trying to distract our attention when he saw how we were suffering or how afraid I was, we haven’t thought of one, replied my wife, we weren’t even sure if it was going to be a boy or a girl, she added, even though she had shown no hesitation over what name to say at the end of the tunnel that opened before us that night, she said my name, as though she was baptizing me, as though up until that moment I had used an assumed name, as though I had not deserved my name until that woman pronounced it differently, we have rediscovered our innocence, she said, lighting a cigarette which also lit the soft night and my heart in the darkness, but not for the pleasure, which is of course redeeming, not so much for the pleasure but for the truth, that canal, I realized, had touched bottom and had bent back on itself to return complete, brimming with two, filled with light, to my own belly, even as far as my astonished chest, someone had given me air, it wasn’t my usual, it was a shared air, one breath inside another, come on, my love, push, you’re nearly there, and the nurses holding my thighs were also breathing deeply, and Doctor Riquelme’s white-speckled nose was twitching, let’s be frank, an ugly nose, go on raise your head, sir, and it will be easier for you, he said, and my furrowed abdomen, germinating, and a tiny shaft of sunlight scratching at the very centre of my skin, the way her unpainted nails scratched me, all the way in, my love, she cried to me that night, and was crying to me now in the unpainted room, perfumed with that somewhat guilty furtiveness hospitals have, nearly there, sir, digging her nails into me, and our voices merged, and it was clear that life is more or less love in tandem, that doesn’t exist for its own sake, what is life if there aren’t two wills entwined and a shared pain, it was pulling me apart, the light was pulling me apart and also that night the sheets fell away and it was a different perfume, less furtive, proud, free of guilt, this is who we are and these are our smells, what will be my son’s smell? will he smell above all of the bemused, sticky cream with which this first life delivers us? will he slide happily or rather disconcerted down the toboggan of time? will he accept me? will I be worthy of his beginning? what to do with all the meanness and cruelty we drag with us when we give life to a child, when a child gives us light, how do we feel that in spite of everything we deserve another start? but we will have to offer him that too, all that cruelty and meanness, they are ours and so will be his, we’ve rediscovered innocence, she said, offering me the half-smoked cigarette so that I could also participate in that secret smoke which was taking shape in our bellies, at first in hers, filled by my entering, then in mine, opening up canals, this is how you will be, son, listen, as clean as this light, as dirty as these windows, let’s call them slits in the wall, and you’ll bring me health and we’ll learn together to speak in that tongue that is insufficient, more than ever insufficient now to say to you, come on, let’s dance, get to your feet and walk in me, let’s get on our bikes, here’s the world for you, son, clean and cruel, fragrant and rotten, sincere and deceiving, give it to me new, come on, run, come on, quickly, my wife groaned as if until that moment we had lived as mutes, repeating my name like a discovery, come on, quickly, my love, a little further, take a deep breath, open your legs nice and wide, don’t be afraid, just a little more, sir, the nurse insisted, and the effort of giving was starting to break me, to demand so much of me that I admit I doubted, I thought I couldn’t do it, that I was defeated, and all paths led to that instant, fragmented memories, unspoken words, coincidences, weapons seized, places, lies, a few moments of candour, every angle of time converged on the small axis of my taut belly, strangely round, and then descended to my reddened sex which vibrated pointing towards the ceiling of the room in the clinic just as it had pointed to the ancient ceiling fan in that hotel heavens-knows-where that we re-encountered one another in, me entering her, her coming into me, almost there, my love, don’t stop, and it was my entire body and a balloon of crushed light that were going to explode, a dual abyss I wanted to cross as quickly as possible and at the same time remain watching as I fell, contemplating the river churning white and thick below, beneath my body she ran looking for a way out, I can’t hold on, finish me, my love, let’s put an end to this, I’m collapsing, I can’t bear it anymore, I shouted, calling to her for help and so creating a new fortress, are you afraid? she suddenly asked me during a pause when we were getting our breath back, yes, I’m very scared, I’m so scared I’m even scared of losing the ability to speak along with everything else, do you understand, yes, my love, Doctor Riquelme said push, yes, I understand, that’s why we’re alive, because we’re afraid, and the fearful man I was could push once more against the pain that was pulling inwards, that hid its head, and Doctor Riquelme eased my wife aside and looked me in the eye and said we can’t hang on much longer, push harder, don’t give up, and with his gloved hand he took hold of my swollen sex and gripped it, spreading his fingers and squeezing all the way with unexpected ease, as if there was nothing in between except air, I shouted, I shouted the doctor’s name and my name, and my wife’s name and some other name, and then I understood that this would be my son’s name, that I had just called out to him, come on, son, come on, my father used to shout, trying to teach me to shoot on summer afternoons, take this shotgun, come on, I’m going to teach you properly so that nobody will ever hurt you, you see that tin can over there? yes, go on, fire at it, go on, my love, push a little more I can see him, and I closed my eyes, I didn’t want to see how that bullet shot out on its path to destiny, and pierced the tin we had placed among the branches, my father smiled, I’m very happy, I shouted with my wife’s voice which repeated I’m happy with my stolen voice, just a moment, the doctor instructed one of the nurses, just a moment, I said, looking at my father’s smiling face with his shotgun slung over his shoulder, just a moment, and then I saw it was smoking, that his big shotgun was smoking the same as mine and I saw the beer can with the impeccable hole right in its centre and I wasn’t sure, I could barely lift the gun but the bullet had sped straight towards the tin and my father was smiling mischievously and stroking my head, and the nurse stretched the opening on my glans, a perfect, warm hole in the centre of the tin can, almost like a navel, my sex stood up and then fell back beneath my navel and I understood that pain was another habit, that in pain a hint of pleasure is also beating as it is split into two halves so that a nameless love can flourish, there, it’s there, and the wound her unpainted nails made at my wrists was a blessing, and night enveloped my wife’s blurred mouth, crying out, come on, and the bed turned to water and we were sinking, I love you so much, so meanly, and as I was passing out I felt how one of the young nurse’s triangular breasts brushed against my leg leaving a furrow of white, nourishing light on my thigh, and my loins gave a start and were recast in another, redder flower, in a flower with the petals pulled off, and that was the last thing I saw because all of a sudden the torrent swept me away, it had been so beautiful, so cruel, to carry him inside me like someone hiding a secret that little by little has to be shared, he’s coming out, he’s coming out, to have him weaving strands along my inner walls, perhaps brush his fingers through the membrane, listen to his submarine complaints, his impatient diving, his kicks against the world, you see, that’s how they treat you, son, said my father on the day of my first fight, always with a few kicks, and my mother said be quiet, let him be, and my father replied what do you know, the boy must know what the world is like, that’s how they will always treat you, but perhaps those kicks in the stomach, I think, were the first steps of a future timid man who would like to learn to dance, to be strong in a different way like that urgent beauty pouring in through the windows, let’s call them slits in the walls of the clinic, move, sir, move, son, you’ll see what a great place this is to dance in, of course there are also shotguns and kicks, you’ll see that later on, but for now give yourself, offer your mouth to the air, feel your mother clasping our wrist to go with us to see fear, that sweet cliff, she has worked so hard, son, while you were spinning yourself, while you made me a man turning and turning between my heart and lungs, now it really is time, take a deep breath, and something also slid out of my sphincter, something like a smooth streamer, I had nothing else in me, I was emptying myself, and so for a while I was still, dead, enormous, with all my entrails and life hanging in the air until yes, my member exploded amid the knots of sheets, more so even than when we opened the canal that night, more than the morning exploding in at the window, or a shotgun claiming to defend itself by firing first, Doctor Riquelme took his hand away, dazzled by the flood of light and the festival of cries and the concert of blood which resounded like an organ throughout the room over to where my wife was telling us, we have abandoned innocence, and a sobbing that did not come from us stirred the sheets, the pain, the membranes, the walls, going through everything only to surge from the channel of my veins to brush against the expectant bulk of my testicles and spill into Doctor Riquelme’s hands, who looks at him and looks at me and understands that this child is the same one I will be, the one I have not yet been, the one I could not be, and that it is my face, identical and different and that I have just given birth to myself, and that is why the woman I loved and who loved me to the depths of a quickening night is crying with me, today or tomorrow, embracing the nurses.