Andrés Barba - August, October

It’s strange, too — he’s not sure if Marita protested right away or not; that’s one thing his memory has erased completely. He doesn’t know what they told her exactly, whether it was him or one of the others, what deceit set her in motion off toward the dunes. They must have spoken, there had to have been some prior conversation, some lie. But the lie, too, is missing from his memory, it’s disappeared. All he knows is that Rivero, when they’re walking toward the dunes, is telling Marita a story about some monkeys that escaped from the zoo, a monkey revolution, all the monkeys jumping the wall, helping one another escape, the city overrun by their screeching.

“Can you believe that?”

“Tell me again.”

Marita likes having stories told to her. Later, he would search the internet, unable to find it, the implausible tale of the monkey rebellion. Rivero tells it again.

“They all escaped, can you believe it? Hundreds of monkeys jumping around, stealing kids’ candy, pinching old ladies.”

Marita laughs. Then comes another blank in the memory, something avoided, the leap between the end of the esplanade and the start of the dunes. And suddenly all six of them are walking through the pine trees in silence, the sound of the waves in the distance. By the time they sit down, it’s all already begun. Rivero says, “Suck my dick, Marita, show these clowns how good you do it. Like the other day, remember?”

And Marita replies, “I don’t want to.”

In the memory, the violence doesn’t begin right away. There’s a lapse during which everything is still familiar and run-of-the-mill, like a trite conversation. Why does he feel like there’s even a point when they laugh? Nervous laughter, like someone shaking them awake. Marita struggles a little at first, and Rivero falls onto the sand beside her. Pablo and Marcos spring to his aid, and Marita stops moving immediately.

“It’s going to hurt more if you act like that,” Rivero says.

He takes off her panties.

The truth is he doesn’t know if that’s how it goes or not. His powerlessness, the concrete, physical reality of the situation, his nervousness, it all blends together a little. In his memory he can still hear the sea in the distance, hear it at regular, rhythmic intervals, like the whiteness of Rivero’s buttocks thrusting in and out between Marita’s legs. She doesn’t make a sound. The horror does not dissipate in the memory; it is, in fact, the only fixed image — powerless, frozen horror. The pounding of his nerves and heart is so intense it almost leaves marks on his hands, on his skin, everything seems about to meld, everything except for the bodies. Rivero gets up and Pablo crouches down. The scene is repeated. Suddenly there is a fetid, ocean smell, like rotting seaweed, a concentrated, ceremonious stench. Pablo has taken off his jeans and underwear. They’re balled up on the ground beside his flip-flops, buttons glinting like fish eyes in the night. He has a hard time fixing his gaze on those two flapping bodies and instead looks a foot or two beyond them, at the reeds where Marita’s panties lie. Blue panties with a nonsensical pattern. Pablo moans when he finishes, and Tejas crouches down. The operation is repeated once more, but this time it takes far longer. Marita, each time someone finishes, tugs down her skirt timidly, without moving. Tejas is on top of her now, like a stubborn child hell-bent on breaking an indestructible toy. There is a peculiar stagnation in the air, there among the pines, as Tejas raises himself up on his arms and then lets his body drop, again and again, and a fleeting sense, very faint, of the sound of flesh slapping, which lasts several minutes.

“Come on, man.”

“Leave me alone, asshole.”

He is still motionless, it’s as if he’s present but has not entirely taken shape, like a ghost who refuses to materialize. If he moves a little, turns slightly toward the beach that’s visible out beyond the pine trees, the feeling becomes somewhat more pronounced, and he gazes attentively into the distance as though trying in vain to remember something, a name. If he turns back to them, the feeling reappears, but chaotic, like a simple fact, enduring, overcome, crowded by the presence of many other feelings. Tejas moans when he comes. Marcos crouches down. In the intervening moments, he sees Marita’s face for a second, a millisecond. A face seemingly many miles away, a face engulfed . Next will come his turn; he thinks of that for the first time right then, disgusted, and the idea leaves him almost dizzy. His body had never felt that before. Fascination had never been mixed with repulsion, or sorrow, or absence. Marita gives a little shriek and says for the first time, “You’re hurting me.”

Rivero, Pablo, and Tejas seem a bit absent, too, now that they’ve finished.

“Fuck, man, don’t hurt her,” Rivero says.

Marcos comes immediately and climbs off, pulling up his pants. Now it’s his turn. He pulls his pants down, but he’s not turned on. Then, without wanting to, he does become turned on. Is it the fear? It’s not, to be sure, attraction. He is turned on without meaning to be, like someone who trips without meaning to, or falls in love without meaning to. And when he gets on top of her, he feels the viscous wet of her thing . He decides to pretend that he’s doing it. He decides to make noises, do all the things the others did, but without penetrating her. It’s a snap decision, like the kind made when someone playing a game decides to cheat and all rules are suspended. Marita understands immediately and looks at him — something she didn’t do with any of the others. She looks at him with eyes that are not real, as if her glance were somehow passing straight through his body and fixing attentively on something fifty feet behind him. He puts a hand on her shoulder, as though he were tired and had to use her to hold himself up, and at that instant he feels she belongs to him, pure and simple, like an object, she belongs to him. In the memory, Marita’s body takes on a strange grace and fills with bones, flesh, blood, intestines. He would like to whisper something in her ear, something sweet, but he doesn’t know what. He wishes he could tell her that he’s sorry, that he doesn’t want to be doing what he’s doing, even though all he’s doing is pretending. He would like to say something, anything, but he senses that her face is fading, that she can’t hear him, that she isn’t there, where she is. And he senses, too, in the memory, that Marita is mortal, as is he. He senses it like an ingenuous realization, one full of sentimentality. Then he pretends to come, giving two or three juddering spasms. He gets up. Marita finds her panties and pulls them on while standing, taking off her flip-flops.

“Well, that’s everyone,” Rivero says.

In the memory they are silent for a while, until Tejas tries to joke.

“So, princess, how’s that for a sendoff?”

But no one keeps it going, not even Rivero. And the walk back along the esplanade takes longer than before. Marita walks ahead of them, more awkwardly and clumsily than usual, as though trying to get a little farther from them with each step, and then a little farther still, without their realizing, trying to get very far away. Rivero sidles up beside her.

“Marita.”

“What.”

“You know I’ve always taken care of you. You know that. Lots of times.”

Marita doesn’t respond.

“You know that, Marita.”

A very faint yes .

“And you know I always mean what I say, you know that, too.”

“Yes.”

“If you say a word about this, I’ll slit your throat. Understand? Marita, do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

And then, like a spring, Marita bounds down the esplanade, as though her own yes were the starting gun at a race; she’s running away, arms and legs flailing in a crazy dance, toward the low, boxy houses by the estuary. Marcos makes as if to follow her, but Rivero stops him immediately.