Gonzalo Torne - Divorce Is in the Air

“That’s because you’re looking at me sexually. How many sixty- or seventy-year-old women do you know who aren’t sorry specimens in terms of attractiveness? Getting old is getting old.”

“That’s one way of looking at it.”

“Why did you come here? Why did you look for me? What are you doing?”

“Fair question, Eloise. It’s because of what we’re talking about: I came because I’m getting old. Aging isn’t like a diseased molar you can just yank out of the gum, it’s something that happens to the whole organism, the only one I have. Also because I’m alone, because my life is absurd and my problems can’t be solved like before, by running, or with my hands.”

“Another drink? I haven’t thought about that much. I’ve been busy with other things.”

“They say that life starts to move faster, that everything goes by at top speed during your forties, while you’re turning soft and gray-haired. Further on it slows down again, supposedly. I’ve heard that later, your memory opens up in all its splendor, and you can explore it top to bottom. Sounds nice, but the guys who talk like that don’t have to live in my head, I don’t want to live among the husks of days gone by. How long will I have left once I reach that serenity? There comes a time when the prostate can swell up and burst at any moment.”

“Do you have trouble sleeping?”

“I sleep like a baby — until I wake up at three or four. My biological alarm clock alerts me to the time for thinking about death, and my pores start gushing a cold liquid that can’t be only sweat. You know what I’m talking about, it must happen to everyone.”

“It never happens to me.”

“I’ve studied it. I think within twenty years they’ll be able to transplant a mature brain into a younger body, cultivated expressly in a nursery courtesy of your DNA. There’ll be all kinds of protests, but if you have money no one can stop you. We’ll move beyond the ultimate limitation, people will be born who will never know the final experience.”

“But if the brain gets sick, it will be horrible.”

“That’s almost solved, too. The streets are full of people walking around with pig ventricles and aortas stapled to them. They’ll do the same kind of thing with the brain, until they learn to grow brain cells resistant to aging.”

“And does it have to be from a pig?”

“Don’t panic. That’s just prejudice talking, and you should be familiar with that. Look at you. Thousands of people see a walking transgression where there’s only a pretty girl living her life.”

“Thank you, Joan-Marc. But this is all good news, right? With your pig-human brain transplanted onto a freshly hatched body, there’s no more aging, and—”

“Did you just use my name? No one does that.”

“I don’t like abbreviations or nicknames. Things are confused enough already.”

“I’m afraid of the operating room. The gowns, the lights, the anesthesia sucking out your conscience. The body laid open, defenseless, a fleshy wound. And even if everything goes well, you’ll still be left with flashes of memories from the pigsty floating around in there. Can I ask you a question?”

“Go right ahead.”

“How could you stand it? Everything you did to yourself?”

“You think I’ve transformed myself, but from my point of view this is my true body, and it’s made its way out through the ridiculous and masculine and hairily filthy false skin I used to wear that fucked my life up. Don’t you think I’m better now?”

“Much better. That scalpel was your fairy godmother.”

“It was a long process. Do you feel dizzy, too? Don’t give me any more booze.”

“Have you ever told anyone about it?”

“No. A finger, pour me one finger.”

“Tell me, if you want.”

“It’s a story with no beginning, or it began when I did, if you like. Since the very first sexual signs I’ve known they gave me a body with the wrong gender, that I was covered in the wrong skin. I denied it, I signed up for basketball, I tried to live like a gay boy. I dressed as a woman, in my mother’s clothes, or things I’d buy and then throw in the trash — all it did was make me feel like a creature whose ideas were grotesque once put into practice. I didn’t enjoy wearing dresses, or perfume, or imitating female gestures. I didn’t want to disguise myself as a girl, I was a girl, and I was disgusted with my body. Your brain transplant would have been a good solution for me.

“I didn’t start taking hormones until I was over twenty. I’d put in time researching what I could expect, and the messages were confusing. I started with a gentle hormone replacement therapy, I didn’t want to rush my body or wear it out. The theory is that they block the male hormones and substitute them with estrogen. In practice it makes your voice soften, you grow breasts like little cones. You might get a little whitish fluid leaking from the tips of your nipples, but it’s not milk, it’s a warning that some hormonal reading has skyrocketed. I felt dizzy, I stopped studying, I couldn’t stand the pressure of the questions or the sound of my own answers. I had to move. Even at the beginning the treatment is expensive, and then you go into a spiral: as the regimen demands more and more money to achieve your look, work possibilities diminish. I would have slit my wrists without the Internet, without the forums where girls talk about what they’ve gone through, what they’re waiting for. I don’t see any moral problem; I didn’t ask to be stuck in a man’s body. The Web put me in contact with girls from Madrid, from Valencia, but also from villages in León, bedroom communities. There was a Galician woman who got her skull split open with a stone — we’d been missing her for a week in the forums when we read about it in the papers. Luckily Barcelona is an open-minded city. You can laugh at that idea when you’re straight and you have kids and an apartment in the Quadrat d’Or and a well-paid job, but you don’t know how good it is here until you stumble and need some community support. Some of the girls made photo albums, recorded videos of the process. I promised myself I wouldn’t leave a trace, I’d put it all behind me as soon as I could.

“My face softened smoothly, the feminine features fitted together nicely as they settled in. It’s always a lottery — if you win it opens doors for you, both personally and work-wise. They weren’t pleasant people or jobs, but when you want something so expensive, something that puts such a strain on your life, you reduce your appetites, you learn to put the brakes on them. I came from a good family, from a school where they taught you how to land on your feet. I learned different skills in the bars, on the streets, at night, but the skill of interpreting people’s intentions when they approach you, of arranging your words to persuade or intimidate, that’s something you can’t improvise.

“I earned money to have laser depilation, and also had shaping done on my backside and on my thighs. When the testosterone falls, the fat layer changes and you get irregular blocks of cellulite. I welcomed that kind of complication. I discovered I could please a man looking like that. They were men who wouldn’t have gone out for a walk holding my hand, they wouldn’t have known how to reconcile me with the rest of their lives. But masculine sexuality doesn’t have to fit into a coherent whole, men will pay to have a passing desire catered to. I got lucky with the agency, and money is a magic potion. I found out I was good at it, I had a high libido: just brushing against their small desires, fleeting, avid, and brief, was enough to set me on fire.

“I reached a certain equilibrium, but it wasn’t enough, I was in limbo. Some nights I pulled out my hair, I called myself a coward, but now I’m proud I didn’t rush a single thing. I was patient, I researched every step of the way in the forums, I burned the midnight oil on open threads, I saved more money than I needed so I’d avoid any surprises. I barely let myself think about how while I was moving toward being a woman, my cells were using up the best years of their lives. I started with an Adam’s apple reduction — they didn’t even put me under. A fine incision along the crease in the skin of my neck was all they needed to file down the cartilage, but I had to pay for good hands. With a bad surgeon, you risk damaging the structure of the larynx, it can ruin your voice.