Bernardo Atxaga - The Lone Woman

Instead of going directly back to the bus — there were still five minutes before they had to leave — she went into the supermarket and bought whatever she fancied from the shelves, two Crunchies, a small bottle of moisturiser, a fashion magazine, a magazine about the occult and three newspapers. They were the first things she had bought in a long time, her first real purchases, quite different from buying things at the prison store. She had the feeling that she was gradually changing worlds and becoming integrated into reality again.

“Stop trying to be perfect!” she read on the way out, while she was waiting for the checkout girl to finish dealing with another customer. The words appeared on the cover of a fashion magazine. “Are you obsessively tidy? Are you just about to put all your CDs in alphabetical order? Don’t waste your time and energy trying to control this chaotic world of ours. You’ll be a happier person for it.”

She pulled a face. She hated such fatuous things. No, it wasn’t going to be that easy to adapt to reality.

“You’ve got the right change in your hand,” the checkout girl was saying.

“So I have!” sighed the customer ahead of her. It was the large woman who had greeted her in the cafeteria, her travelling companion. “I never used to be this stupid, but ever since my health began to fail, I can’t seem to get anything right. Do forgive me.”

“Perhaps you need glasses,” said the checkout girl.

“No, no, it’s not a question of eyesight. It’s something much more serious than that. Although, in fact, lately, I’ve been feeling really well,” replied the large woman. Then she turned to her. “What about you? How do you feel after having a cigarette?”

“Pretty good,” she said, barely looking up from the magazine. She didn’t want to encourage her to go on talking. As soon as she dropped her guard, the woman would regale her with the whole story of her illness in all its details.

“We’re alike, you and I,” the large woman went on, stopping at the other side of the checkout. “I like to be alone too. I’d much rather be on my own than put up with all the usual disappointments other people seem to suffer.”

“I left my seat because I wanted to smoke. It wasn’t so that I could be alone,” she said, after paying for her purchases.

“I didn’t mean that. I meant because I saw you sitting on the grass,” said the large woman when they went outside. “Not that I was spying on you. It’s just that I had the same idea and I was about to go over when I saw you there. Didn’t you have a cat with you too?”

“The cat did follow me, yes.”

“For a moment, I thought I’d join you, but you looked so absorbed that I thought it best to leave you alone. You were reading a book, weren’t you?”

“Thanks for being so considerate. Not everyone would have been so kind,” she said, paying no attention to the last question. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go to the toilet.”

“I’ll wait for you here. If they don’t see anyone waiting outside, they might leave without you.”

When she came back, most of the other passengers were already on the bus, but there was still a queue to get on.

“You were quick! You hardly took any time at all. You’re obviously very fit,” said the large woman.

“I didn’t have far to go,” she replied, smiling. Then she stood behind the woman and opened the magazine.

“Four ways of increasing your sexual confidence,” she read. “First, take risks. Feeling comfortable about some new sexual technique is like diving into the water, says Dr Valle. You have to take a leap. If your fear seems insurmountable, take it one step at a time. That was how a woman having problems with oral sex solved the problem. She started with little kisses and, in the end, she found it all perfectly natural.”

“Have you got your ticket?”

The new hostess, a young blonde, was addressing the large woman.

“I suppose so, but I don’t know where it is,” replied the woman. She seemed flustered.

“Her seat’s next to mine. It’s number thirty-one,” she said to the hostess, showing her ticket.

“OK,” said the hostess. She didn’t seem as severe as the previous one.

“Thanks very much,” said the large woman to the hostess. Then she looked at her. “And thanks for your help. Are you staying downstairs in the smokers’ section?”

“There’s nothing I love more than a smoke. You know what these vices are like.”

The large woman smiled understandingly and disappeared up the stairs.

“Can you bring me a coffee once we set off?” she said to the hostess.

“Of course. Are you staying down here?”

She nodded and sat down in the same place as before. She put the magazine on the table and went on reading.

“You need to be positive about your fantasies, says Dr Valle. In other words, if you dream about Harrison Ford, don’t imagine him casting a critical eye over your thighs. Don’t feel guilty. We women often fall into that trap. If you get excited thinking about a particular actor, don’t imagine you’re deceiving your husband. If it makes you feel any better, just remember that he might well be fantasizing about Sharon Stone.”

She glanced at her watch and then outside. It was seven in the evening and the sun was nearing the horizon. The spaceship clouds were tinged with gold underneath. The rest of the sky was blue. Pale blue or dark blue.

“Do it over the phone. Sexy phone calls from one office to another can be very exciting. Just make sure the boss isn’t listening in!”

“We’re off!” said the driver, turning on the engine. He too seemed nicer than the previous one.

The bus crossed the lorry park and headed swiftly for the motorway, impatient to get up speed. Without raising her eyes from the magazine, she took out a cigarette and put it to her lips.

“You smoke too much. Every time I see you you’re just getting out another cigarette,” said someone beside her. Before she had time to react, a lit match was being held about six inches from her face.

It was the man in the brown suit and the red tie, the same one who had approached her at the railway station in Barcelona. She put the cigarette down on the table and turned towards the window.

“We’re making progress. Last time you knocked it out of my hand,” said the man, putting the match in the ashtray and sitting down opposite her. He smiled broadly and held out his hand. “My name’s Enrique. What’s yours?”

She said nothing, watching the red car at that moment overtaking the bus.

The mind of an ex-prisoner

Always returns to prison.

In the street, he passes judges, prosecutors and lawyers,

and the police, though they don’t know him,

look at him more than at anyone else,

because his step is not calm or assured,

because his step is far too assured.

Inside him lives

a man condemned for life.

The bus was travelling at about eighty or ninety miles an hour now and heading for the orange lights that flanked the motorway, disappearing off into the horizon. She looked first at those lights and then at the sky. The clouds in the shape of spaceships were becoming tinged with pink and the sun was like a brass coin. The rest was blue, the blue of stained glass, simultaneously dark and brilliant.

“Who buys you those red ties?” she asked the man. He had withdrawn his hand, but he was still smiling.

“I pay for them myself, of course,” replied the man calmly. He wasn’t looking at her, but at one of the magazines on the table. “‘Stephanie of Monaco celebrates her thirtieth birthday’,” he read out loud. “How time flies! I didn’t think she was that old! But then,” his smile grew broader and he looked across at her, “she keeps in good shape. Probably all that weight training she does.”