Juan José Saer - La Grande

— Anoch, he says. How are you? I’m at the cafeteria. I’m on my way to your office. You’re coming for a coffee? Even better.

He decides to move to a clean table, and he’s just finished settling down when he sees the manager, accompanied by a woman who entices him immediately, a decisive and professional demeanor yet conscious of the effect she produces in men, and who exchanges a probing glance with Nula, a momentary search for recognition which he’s unsure if the manager has noticed or even if it’s actually happened at all. Suddenly it’s like his sexual encounter with Lucía a little while earlier had never happened. It’s been discarded in the trash heap of the past, the incomprehensible limbo where, rather than vanishing suddenly, disappearing forever from the strange world in which things take place, we believe the events recently shuffled from the present go to rest, their tenuous threads unraveling in our memory, like the ghostly, colored silhouettes that linger on our retinas when we close our eyes and which disintegrate slowly behind our closed eyelids until they dissolve completely into the darkness. With an infantile yet detached curiosity, Nula wonders (as he does somewhat too often) if the manager and the woman have just come from doing the same thing that he and Lucía did a little while ago, together or on their own, indulging a different hunger than the one usually satisfied at lunch. And Nula imagines the possibility that just as he called them they were in the middle of an embrace, though they seem too clean, well-combed, spotlessly dressed, and too calm and sure of themselves to have emerged, less than a minute ago, from the paroxysm comprised of spasms, moans, sweats, discharge, and even tears, which shortly afterward, after a brief pause, anticipating the promise of the unattainable, desires its infinite and, if possible, even more intense and emphatic repetition.

— How are you? the manager asks, giving him a brief, vigorous handshake, and adds, Mr. Anoch, from Amigos del Vino. Virginia is in charge of the whole beverage department, alcoholic and otherwise. You’re required to get along with each other.

Nula and Virginia exchange a long handshake until her soft, warm hand slides effortlessly from Nula’s.

— Should we have a coffee? Nula asks.

— I can’t, the manager says. But Virginia has carte blanche to make decisions for the shop.

— Don’t take this the wrong way, Nula says, but I think a conversation alone with Mrs. Virginia — or is it Miss Virginia, I hope? — would have its own advantages.

— She’s our secret weapon, the manager says. Don’t let your guard down.

— And here we see them practicing their beloved national sport, Virginia says.

— You mean chivalry? the manager says.

— No, machismo, Virginia says.

— I dare you to find someone more feminist than me, the manager says, and looking at his watch, getting serious and thinking of something else, an urgent matter somewhere else in the hypermarket, he announces, With the way I love my women!

He shakes Nula’s hand and practically runs away. As they’re sitting down, Virginia whispers:

— Every asshole thinks he’s a comedian.

Nula laughs and Virginia, satisfied that her comment has been well-received, reclines against the back of her chair, and looks around, smiling languidly, making her breasts rise and stand out from beneath the tight, pale green suit jacket. In her heels she’d seemed taller than Nula, but she must be more or less his same height. Her face is round and full, her lips fleshy, and her hair, dark and thick, curls down to her shoulders. She doesn’t seem inclined to show weakness, not at work or anywhere else.

— Would you like a coffee? Nula asks.

— Yes, she says. But don’t get up. They’ll bring it to us.

And she makes a pair of signs to the cashier, the first consisting of curling the index finger and thumb on her right hand slightly, the fingertips pointing at each other, three or four centimeters apart, and the second of extending her index and middle fingers on her left hand, curling the other three into her palm, and waving the extended fingers in the air, very conspicuously, to specify the quantity, signs that, translated into ordinary language, would signify two coffees . Nula follows her gestures admiringly, and though she doesn’t appear to notice, it’s clear that she’s used to being looked at in that way, and the gaze that would have produced distinct pleasure in someone else apparently slides off her shell, or ricochets against it, falling to the floor without having had any effect, like bullets off Superwoman’s chest, or prayers to an indifferent divinity, cloistered in her sanctuary, more self-absorbed than uncaring or contemptuous.

— Friday around five is a good time to open the display, Virginia says, looking him in the eyes, probing, despite her professional tone, whether, ultimately, given the moment, she might decide, if Nula is worthy, of accepting her admiration. That’s when people start coming in, and it doesn’t let up till Sunday, she adds. During the week it’s slower. You’re staying till the following Sunday, right?

— Yes, Nula says. Too bad we ended up with Holy Week.

— That won’t change much, Virginia says. We’re open Wednesday and Thursday that week and lots of people come in, and we only close on Friday afternoon. And Thursday is like the night before a holiday.

— So you’re saying that in his final moments on the cross, Christ authorized that the Warden hypermarket could open half a day on Good Friday? Nula says, and halfway through the sentence he regrets having opened his mouth.

— I don’t think so, Virginia says. But our chain does have special permission from the Pope, and in any case the Vatican is one of our biggest shareholders.

— Heaven awaits us, then, Nula says.

One of the waitresses from the cafeteria walks over with their coffees and leaves them on the table. Nula takes out some money to pay, but Virginia stops him with a quick gesture.

— It’s on the house, she says.

— I’ll have to pay you back somehow, Nula says.

— You’ll get your chance, Virginia says.

They drink their coffee black, and Nula takes advantage, when she narrows her eyes as she brings the cup to her lips, taking short sips so as not to burn herself, to study her openly, almost hoping that she sees him do it, her attractive, regular features, her skin tanned by the recent summer, her thick, curly hair, her slightly compressed neck holding up her motionless head, her wide, almost masculine shoulders, her breasts bulging from the lapels of her pale green blazer made of a light and silky material. When they finish their coffee, Virginia looks at the time and nods vaguely toward the supermarket.

— Come on, I’ll show you the place where the display will be set up, she says.

Nula follows her obediently. They walk side-by-side, unreserved, familiar, like a couple who’ve known each other a long time, and Nula, completely indifferent to the Amigos del Vino’s commercial interests, wonders what the best way would be to advance his personal, and even intimate, relationship with Virginia, what means he might have to make that self-possessed, alert creature, attentive only to the interests of her own desire, fix him, if only for a passing moment, with a look that conveys abandon and submission. And suddenly, she takes the first step in that direction.

— Since you’ll be calling me Virginia, I’ll want to know your first name.

— Nicolás, but my friends call me Nula, which means Nicolás in Arabic, Nula says, scrambling to respond, hastily, almost servile.

She laughs.

— What a strange name. It sounds pretty feminine. But I like it, she says.