Carlos Fuentes - The Crystal Frontier

“Come here,” he said the third time they met in the motel, when she burst into tears and made a jealous scene. “Come here and sit in front of this mirror.”

All she saw was that the tears were gathering in her thick eyelashes, the eyelashes still of a little girl.

“What do you see in the mirror?” asked Rolando, standing behind her, bending toward her face, caressing her bare shoulders with those smooth coffee-colored hands covered with rings.

“Me. I see myself, Rolando. What are you talking about?”

“That’s right, look at yourself, Marina. Look at that unbelievably beautiful girl with thick eyelashes and dark little eyes, look at the beauty of those lips, that perfect little nose, those divine dimples. Look at all that, Marina, look at that lovely girl, and then look at me when I ask myself, How can a girl that pretty be jealous, how can she think Rolando could like any other woman? Maybe she can’t see herself in the mirror, maybe she doesn’t realize how lovable she is. Doesn’t Marina have any self-confidence? Rolando Rozas will have to educate her.”

Then her tears flowed, tears of sorrow and happiness, and she threw her arms around Rolando’s neck, asking him to forgive her.

Today was Friday, but it was different. As they were leaving the assembly plant, Villarreal, the managers’ waiter, told Candelaria something that excited her, something that completely unnerved her — a woman usually so self-possessed. Rosa Lupe, though she pretended to be composed, was in a state of turmoil. She’d been sullied both by Esmeralda, who’d humiliated her, and by Herminio, who’d protected her — which of them was worse, the bestial old woman or the sex-crazed young man? Dinorah, too, was burdened, and Marina tried to recall all the day’s conversations to figure out what had upset Dinorah so much. Dinorah was a good woman, her cynicism was all pose, she was just defending herself against a life that seemed unfair to her, insane — usually she said it but now she was just insinuating it… Marina saw how sad they all looked, how preoccupied, and decided to do something unusual, something forbidden, something that would make all of them feel happy, different, free, who knows …

She took off her patent-leather stilettos, tossed them aside, and ran onto the grass barefoot, dancing over the grass, laughing, mocking the warning NO PISE EL PASTO/KEEP OFF THE GRASS, feeling a marvelous physical emotion. The lawn was so cool, so moist and well-kept, it tickled the soles of her feet; running over it barefoot was like bathing in one of those enchanted forests in the movies, where the pure maiden is surprised by the prince in shining armor, everything is shining, the water, the forest, the sword. Her bare feet, the freedom of her body, the freedom of that other thing — what is it called? — the soul. What the songs sing about — the body free, the soul free …

KEEP OFF THE GRASS

The women all laughed, made wisecracks, cheered, warned her, Don’t be such a nut, Marina, get out of there, they’ll fine you, fire you…

No, said Don Leonardo Barroso, laughing from behind his opaque windows. Just look, Ted, he said to the gringo who was dry as a corncob pipe. Look at the joy, the freedom of those girls, the satisfaction they take in having done their jobs. What do you think? But Murchinson looked at him skeptically, as if to say, How many times have you staged this little act?

The four women, Dinorah and Rosa Lupe, Marina and Candelaria, sat at their usual table right next to the discotheque’s dance floor. The manager knew them and reserved the table for them every Friday. It was Candelaria’s doing. The others knew it. Fridays it was extremely difficult to get a table at the Malibú, it was the great day of freedom, the death of the workweek, the resurrection of hope and hope’s companion, joy.

“Malibú? Maquilú! Maquilá!” said the MC — in a blue tux with a ruffled shirt and fluorescent tie — to the wave of women filling the stands around the dance floor, over a thousand working women all crowded in together. It’s the lights, just the lights, said Dinorah, the wet blanket. Without the lights this is a miserable corral, but the lights make it all nice and pretty. But Marina felt as if she were on a beach, yes, a marvelous beach at night, where the beams of light — blue, orange, pink — caressed her, especially the white, silvery light, which was like the moon touching her and tanning her at the same time, turning all to silver, not a suntan for others to envy (when would she ever go to a beach?) but a moon tan.

No one paid attention to sour Dinorah, and they all got up to dance with themselves, without men. Rock and roll lent itself to that — you didn’t have to put an arm around anyone’s waist or dance cheek-to-cheek. Rock was as pure as going to church: Sundays were for Mass, Fridays for the disco — the soul and the body were purified in the two temples. How well they all got along, what wild ideas they had, arms here, feet there, knees bent, hair flying, breasts bouncing, asses shaking freely, and most of all the faces, the expressions — ecstasy, mockery, seduction, shock, threat, jealousy, tenderness, passion, abandon, showing off, clowning around, imitating celebrities. All of it was allowed on the Malibu dance floor, all the lost emotions, the forbidden moves, the forgotten sensations, everything had its place here, justification, pleasure — pleasure above all — though the best thing was missing.

Sweaty, they returned to their seats — Candelaria in her multiethnic outfit, Marina tricked out in her miniskirt, a sequined blouse, and her stilettos, Dinorah on display in an attractive low-cut dress of red satin, Rosa Lupe wearing her Carmelite robe, carrying out her vow. But here fantasy was allowed, and it was somehow soothing to see someone dressed like that, all coffee-colored and draped in a scapular.

Then the Chippendales paraded onto the runway, gringos brought over from Texas. Bare-chested, they wore bow ties, ankle-high boots, and jocks whose straps slipped between their buttocks and whose pouches barely supported the weight of their sexes while revealing the forms and challenging the girls: Arouse me with your eyes. The boys were identical yet varied, each carrying his sack of gold, as Candelaria said laughing, but each different in certain details: this one with his pubis shaved, that one with a diamond in his navel, another with a tattoo of the two crossed flags — the stars and stripes, the eagle and the serpent — on his shoulder, one boy, if you looked lower down, with spurs on his boots. All of them moving to a delightful, manly, exciting beat while the girls stuck money in their jocks — Rosa Lupe, all of them — blond but tan, oiled so they’d shine more, their faces made up, all gringos, desirable little gringos, adorable, for me, for you. The girls elbow one another. In my bed, just imagine. In yours. If he’d only take me, I’m ready. If he’d only kidnap me, I’m kidnappable. A Chippendale squatted down and pulled the rope that bound Rosa Lupe’s penitential robe, and all the girls laughed. He began to play with the rope as Rosa Lupe said, This is my day, this makes the third time someone’s tried to strip me, but the boy, tanned, oiled, made up, with no hair in his armpits, played with the rope as if it were a snake and he a snake charmer, raising the rope, giving it an erection. The other girls elbowed Rosa Lupe, asking her if she’d rehearsed it all with this hunk, and she swore, laughing till the tears rolled down her face, that no, that was the good part, it was all a surprise. But the girls howled, begging the boy to toss them the rope, the rope, the rope, and he ran it between his legs and stuck it under the diamond in his navel as if it were an umbilical cord, driving the girls crazy, all of them shouting for him to give them the rope, to tie himself to them, to be a son by the rope, a lover by the rope, a slave, a master — they tied to him, he tied to them — until the Chippendale slid the end of the rope into Dinorah’s lap as she sat there next to the runway, and she yanked it so hard she almost pulled the boy down. Hey! he shouted, and she shouted wordlessly, howled, tugging on the rope, pulling herself forward, elbowing her way through the crowd, the astonishment, the comments …