Cesar Aira - Shantytown

He knelt down to examine her — this was becoming a habit. Jessica was breathing deeply and gently, as if asleep. Maxi looked at her lips: they were slightly open, pink and motionless. With her, getting up close to listen would have been more pleasant, and suddenly he found himself wondering dreamily what she would say to him, what her “little voice” would sound like. . She was beautiful, she really was beautiful, a dream come true. . How odd that he hadn’t noticed before, although he saw her every day. But that must depend on the context as well, he thought. In the end, sleep and waking were the fundamental pair of contexts from which all the others were derived. A pair of words came to mind: “sleeping beauty.” Maybe she was one of those girls who’s always tense when she’s awake, and can only relax and allow her beauty to blossom when she falls asleep. The naked pink of her eyelids and lips continued under the folds of the only garment she was wearing: a white T-shirt of lightweight fabric. Her breasts were just visible, pink and white. She wasn’t wearing underwear: the mishap must have caught her by surprise while she was getting changed. But Maxi looked around and couldn’t see clothes or a bag or anything. And besides, it was the men’s dressing room: she wouldn’t have come in here to get changed.

In the absence of instructions to follow, Maxi felt he had to do something: get her off that cold, wet floor, for example, and lay her on one of the one of the long wooden benches. Which he did, rather slowly, on the pretext of being careful, but really to savor the experience of holding her in his arms. Once on the bench, she sighed and seemed to be on the point of waking. Since her T-shirt had ridden up during the maneuver, leaving her visible up to the waist, Maxi felt embarrassed and afraid that he’d have to explain himself, so he looked around again for clothes or anything, a stray towel, say, with which to cover her up. And then he saw that there was a bag, in full view, sitting on the other bench, a big gym bag. How could he have missed it before? He crossed the room with two strides, looked for the zipper, and before opening the bag, glanced back at Jessica. She was still asleep. He unzipped the bag and rummaged around inside. How strange. It contained men’s clothes: shorts, a tracksuit, a singlet, a pair of enormous shoes (she had little pink doll’s feet) and even men’s deodorant and shampoo, the same brand he used. . Everything in the bag looked familiar, but he still hadn’t realized why: it was his bag; he had left it there when he came in, before kneeling down. This absurd befuddlement could only be explained by his agitation and, perhaps, the blow to his head. Neither of which prevented Maxi from momentarily envisaging the strange possibility that the bag concealed a secret: maybe Jessica was in fact a man, or a man was impersonating her, or something like that.

The mistake did have one benefit, though: it proved that he wasn’t thinking straight, that he was losing the plot. He should have been trying to revive her or help her somehow, instead of imagining nonsense. So he went and sat down next to her, put his hand under the nape of her neck, and lifted her head. Her hair was so silky, so fine!

Jessica opened her eyes. . they were eyes that Maxi had never really seen: large and dark, with streaks of gold that made them very still, veiled now with silence and bewilderment. He let himself sink into them, quiet like her, enfolded in a dream. But he snapped out of it when he heard her say his name:

“Maxi. .!”

She sounded surprised, as if he were the last person she was expecting to see at that moment.

“Jessica! What happened? Are you OK? Did you faint?”

“Uh? What?” She moved her head, which was still cradled in his hand, but didn’t sit up. Her confusion settled into a little smile. “I fainted, or I fell asleep. I don’t know. .”

“You were lying on the floor!”

“I think my blood pressure dropped. I shouldn’t have got up so early. . It’s the weather, the storm.”

“I think the sun’s come out now.”

“What do you mean? The sky’s about to fall! You never notice what’s happening around you.”

“No, I think. .”

They both looked at the glass doors to the balcony, which were painted green except for a strip at the top. A dark gray, almost nocturnal light was coming in through that strip. The silence was supernatural, as if the world really was about to end. Maxi let his gaze stray to the mirror that covered one of the walls and saw himself there, like the Virgin in a Pietà, holding in his arms that warm, pink object: a woman. They seemed to be floating in a greenish element. Then he remembered:

“The same thing happened to Saturno. I left him to recover.”

“Really? Him too? Then. .”

“It must be the weather.”

“Yeah. . it must be. Him too?”

“He was lying on the floor like you.”

Maxi nearly added, “Although he was dressed,” but he stopped himself in time and said: “He didn’t want me to call an ambulance.”

“No!” she exclaimed with a shudder. “There’s no need, not for me, anyway. I’m fine now.” She put her hands on the bench to sit up, but then changed her mind, as if reluctant to abandon the comfort of Maxi’s arms. “Give me a minute.”

“There’s no hurry.” They remained silent for a moment. “But how come you were in the men’s dressing room?”

She looked at him, puzzled.

“What do you mean?” she eventually asked. “There’s a men’s dressing room and a women’s dressing room?”

“Yes. . I think so. I always get changed here.”

“Me too. Is there another one?”

Maxi thought about it.

“You know, I’ve never checked. I come really early, you see, and there’s never anyone else around. .”

She shook her head wearily.

“No, Maxi, it’s not that. It’s because you don’t notice. . you live in your own private world.”

“I don’t think I’m really that bad. Anyway, even if you’re right, I’m not hurting anyone; the opposite, in fact!” After all, it was the second time that morning that he’d come to the aid of someone who had fainted.

“Yes you are, Maxi. You have victims whether you know it or not. You walk right past, you don’t even see us.”

“I saw you. If it was like you say, I would have stepped over your body, got changed and gone to work out, leaving you there on the floor.”

She didn’t answer. She had been distracted, not by something else but by him. She was staring.

“What happened to your forehead?”

Maxi touched it.

“I hit it on the door.”

“You’ve got a huge bump. The door? Did you think you could walk through it, like a ghost?”

Before he could answer, he saw a grimace distort her beautiful face, and she cried out.

“Agghh! Maxi!”

“What is it? What?”

“I’ve lived through this already. It’s an exact repetition! Absolutely exact, down to the last detail!”

“Including the bump?”

“Don’t make fun of me. It’s amazing! It’s a déjà-vu. Including the fact that I know it’s a déjà-vu. .”

“When you remember that the other time you thought it was a déjà-vu too, that means it’s over.”

“But I’m not sure it’s over this time. It’s like it’s still going on, more faintly, or differently. . It’s beautiful but it’s horrible too.”

“It makes sense that it’s two things at once because it’s a double experience.”

“You know why it happened? Because I was thinking of you when I fainted, and when I came to, the first thing I saw was your face.”

As an explanation it was dubious, but he felt flattered anyway. Who doesn’t like to be the object of other people’s thoughts?