Juan José Saer - La Grande

Although it’s only ten after five, Gabriela decides it would be a good idea to start preparing now so she’s ready by six; she can call Rosario and Caballito before she leaves for their date at the Amigos del Vino, and so, translating her decision into actions, she walks out to the tiled corridor and takes the short walk toward the back of the house, sidestepping the doormat that guards the entrance to her aunt’s bedroom, opens the next door, where there is no doormat, and enters the bathroom. Maruca, the girl who’s taken care of the house for the past seventeen years — she started when she was single, but by now her eldest son, who’s Ángela’s godson, is at least fourteen — responsible for the gleaming neatness that dominates even the most remote corner of the house, pays special attention to the kitchen and the bathroom, and when she turns on the light, Gabriela realizes that Maruca must’ve waited till her aunt left before she finished cleaning, because the mirrors, tiles, railings, shower, tub, toilet and bidet, plastic curtain, medicine cabinet, towels, shower caps and bathrobes, slippers, combs and toothbrushes, shampoo and soaps (rose-colored for the sink, green in the shower, white on the bidet), lotions, creams, powders, and perfumes are all clean and polished, each one in its place, so carefully scrubbed and arranged that as she enters, and as often happens in certain places, Gabriela perceives less the bathroom itself, which is displayed, overwhelmingly, before her senses, than the ideal that inspired its style, its arrangement, its cleanliness down to the millimeter, as though it were decoration, a hyperrealist illusion or some sample display at a trade show. It wouldn’t be smart to take a bath under the circumstances, and so, after undressing and urinating, and before entering the shower, she turns on the tap and tests the temperature with the back of her hand as she adjusts the mix of cold and hot water, opening and closing the respective taps until she finds the appropriate level, and when she finds it she steps into she shower, closes the flower-patterned plastic curtain to keep the water from splashing out, and lets the warm rain soak her. Washing her hair carefully keeps her in the shower a long time, and when she finally comes out she dries herself off energetically, wraps her hair in a towel, puts on a bathrobe, slips on a pair of plastic and wood clogs, gathers her dirty clothes, and puts them directly into the washing machine in a small room behind the kitchen, in the rear courtyard. When she’s back in her room, she opens the bathrobe and slowly examines her body in the dresser mirror. Are her breasts any larger? Apparently yes. And her belly? Gabriela looks at herself face on and then, turning sideways, gathers up the white bathrobe and studies the contours of her belly, unable to decide if it is or isn’t slightly more prominent than usual. By the time she finishes drying her hair, dressing, putting on makeup, it’s twenty after six. No one answers when she calls Caballito, which means her father hasn’t come home yet, and José Carlos’s cell phone goes straight to voicemail. Gabriela doesn’t leave a message, and as she’s hanging up an unexpected realization strikes her, a feeling that, paradoxically, combines defiance and pain: In the end, this is happening inside my body, and whether anyone else knows it or nor, whether they like it or not, they’ll always be outside of what’s happening .

She crosses, calmly, in the warm evening, the blocks that separate her from the bar, and when she arrives, she feels hot on her face and legs and damp on her temples — for several minutes, she’s been walking down the street wrapped in a spring-like warmth, the seasons confused on her own skin, which, in contact with the air, has revived her flesh, her organs, and the spark that flickers behind her forehead, sensations related to other days of the year, to October and November. The door to the bar is closed because of the air conditioning, but through the window, sitting at the last table, she sees Tomatis, Violeta, and another young woman who she doesn’t recognize. Soldi is standing at the bar, behind Tomatis, talking and laughing with Nula, who, from the other side of the bar, is uncorking a bottle of wine as though he were the bartender. Of the seven or eight tables in the tiny bar, the one at the back is the largest; besides theirs, only three others are occupied, and two young men are at the bar, near the entrance, drinking red wine and snacking on something. The real bartender — Gabriela’s already seen him several times before — wearing a white jacket over a red and green check shirt, visible at the collar and at the wrists, who smiles when he sees her come in, is arranging some salmon slices on a plate. As she enters, a few somewhat loud exclamations erupt from the last table, causing Gabriela to check her watch to see how late she’s arriving, because her friends’ excessive happiness seems to suggest that they’re already on their second or third glass of wine. But it’s only seven fifteen, and there’s nothing on the table yet, not a bottle, or glasses, or plates, nothing apart from an ashtray, a metal stand that, vertically, contains a stack of napkins, and a glass toothpick container. Gabriela leans in toward Violeta and Tomatis and kisses each of them on the cheek. Tomatis asks:

— Do you know Diana? The wife of our friend Nula, who as you can see is opening a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, which honors us this night at the Amigos del Vino.

Gabriela steps aside and leans in to give Diana a kiss, and as their cheeks quickly and delicately graze, Gabriela’s gaze lands on the stump on the end of her left arm; she controls her surprise in time, pretending not to have seen anything, but her face burns suddenly, and she hopes that her summer tan hides the blush. But from Diana’s vaguely mocking expression— How incredibly beautiful you are! — she suspects that she must’ve noticed the look and is amused by her distress. Diana, possibly to calm her, raises her left arm and, with a slow and natural gesture, slides her hair behind her ear with the stump and then returns it to her lap, under the table. Hesitating, Gabriela continues standing next to the table, staring at the wall behind them, and after a few seconds the memory of the previous moments returns, as she crossed the threshold and closed the door, the tableau that has become fragmentary and confused by her intrusion, the bartender in the white jacket, smiling as she comes in, arranging, at the end of the bar near the door, oval salmon slices on a plate, the two people drinking red wine at the bar, the blurry patrons at the small tables near the entrance, and her friends at the last table, Tomatis at the head, his back to the bar, and to his left, their backs to the wall, Violeta and Nula’s wife, and behind Tomatis, on either side of the bar, Nula and Pinocchio, talking and laughing as Nula uncorks a bottle, the noisy greeting from her friends, like actors sitting around a table on a stage, performing the arrival of an actress who plays the role of the friend, in a typical bar scene with some extras who play the parts of the bartender and of the patrons pretending to have a conversation, all forming a scene so external to her that Gabriela feels nostalgia for its loss in the bottomless abyss where it collected with the more remote past, the previous week, the years of her childhood, the centuries buried forever, the innumerable masses dispersed over the world and eventually erased, the first moment of the universe, despite the fact that it occurred only a few seconds before.

— My father was an architect, my ex-husband is an architect, my first son is in his first year studying architecture in Rosario, and of course I’m an architect, so I think there’s still some hope of keeping these old ruins from collapsing; we might even modernize him, Violeta says to Diana, nodding toward Tomatis, who seems to draw extreme pleasure from the declaration, though he must’ve heard it several times by now.