Guadalupe Nettel - Natural Histories - Stories

“Those lines are barely noticeable and I don’t think they mean anything. I’m not even sure she didn’t have them before,” he said.

We ate dinner in silence, reheated rice that had been in the freezer for months. Vincent did the dishes and went into the living room where he worked until dawn. Without a word to him I started putting up the teddy bear wallpaper border in the baby’s room, a chore we’d been meaning to do for weeks but that neither of us had gotten around to. I just wanted to take care of one of the infinite things we had to do. True, the result wasn’t as tidy as I’d wanted it to be, but it wasn’t disastrous either. Vincent, however, saw it as provocation. He insisted that I had intentionally put it up unevenly to make him feel guilty.

“You could have asked me to do it. I don’t know why you keep trying to be a victim lately.”

Tuesday morning we ate a breakfast of tea and toast like two polite strangers, but as soon as he left for work I went down to the brasserie full of resentment and had another orange juice. Then I walked to the library in a light rain. In my days as a student I had gone there often, but hadn’t been in a while. My office was on the Rive Gauche, and whenever some query arose that could not be answered from the Internet I would go to the National Library. Unlike that one, which was almost always empty, the library in my neighborhood was full of teenagers like the one I had been in high school: slightly older kids who spoke to each other by yelling and roared with laughter. People who ate in cafeterias and whose only concerns were passing their exams and making the money from their parents or the government last the month. Normally, or at least for the past few years, people of that age made me feel a certain condescension. So I was surprised that morning to feel envy. I was about to push open the main door when one of them, wearing a red and white scarf around his neck, bumped into my stomach.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he said, barely slowing down.

More than my pregnant state, it was his falsely contrite tone that made our age difference so obvious — to me anyway.

Once inside I headed toward the Natural Science section and found the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Marine Animals and searched for our fish. I discovered that they belonged to the Betta splendens species, also known as “Siamese fighting fish.” They are originally from Asia, where they often inhabit stagnant waters. Experts classify them as a labyrinth fish because of a rhizome-shaped bronchial organ on the top of their head that allows them to breath a small amount of air at the surface of the water. According to the article, one of their most notorious characteristics was their trouble with cohabitation. The dictionary did not abound in details about that or about how to look after them. If I wanted advice on their care I’d have to look elsewhere. It didn’t mention anything about the stripes that had appeared on the female’s flanks, either.

I looked at other books about fish and chose a few to bring home. I filled out the cards to sign up and check them out. As silly as it sounds, it thrilled me to be using the library again. It was raining hard when I tried to leave to go home, so I paused a moment by the bookshelves in the entrance where they had newspaper supplements and magazines from that month available to the public. I glanced over them, unable to make up my mind which to read. They were all there, from Magazine Littéraire to Marie-Claire . The cover of the latter displayed the title of an article that seemed to be speaking directly to me: Pregnancy. Why do they leave us right in this moment? I realized that the rain could last for hours and was contemplating going home anyway when my phone rang. Vincent, apologizing for being selfish. He had gone to the apartment so we could have lunch together. “I stopped at the trattoria you like and bought lasagna. I also got you oranges.” When he heard I was at the library he offered to come for me. We returned home arm in arm beneath his huge umbrella, blue with white clouds. The remnants of breakfast were still on the kitchen counter. Vincent took the delicacies from his bag and warmed them in the microwave. While we ate and he served himself two glasses of wine, I told him what I’d discovered about our pets. We laughed because they had been from Pauline and were as eccentric and complex as she. After lunch we made love. One of the few times we did during the pregnancy. It was a quick and tender fuck, but not without desire. Vincent said goodbye to me in bed with a kiss and went back to the office. A few minutes later, while getting dressed in front of the mirror, I noticed a brown line running straight down the middle of my stomach.

I spent the afternoon reading on the couch and watching the fishbowl. While they were not scientific works, the books I had borrowed from the library offered more practical information than had the Encyclopedic Dictionary . Both were intended for a younger audience, or at least one not very well versed on the topic. In one of them I found information on Betta splendens . Its author gave details about their care and reproduction; for example, he said the male’s expanding operculum indicated his desire to mate, and he can become violent if rejected. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The books described the fish as highly combative; it’s why they are commonly referred to as “fighters.” In some countries people even use them as fighting animals and enter them into a ring, just like how the Western world bets on cockfights. Reading this I felt something like embarrassment. The feeling you get when you discover the dark facets of those you know well without their consent. Did I really want to know all this about our fish? I realized I did. It was better to be aware and avoid any kind of accident, as far as possible. The book advised against having two males in the same tank, no matter how large. There was a better chance, on the other hand, of a male and a female surviving together, as long as they had enough space. Five liters, at least. I looked at our fishbowl; the amount of water was absurd. “When in distress or danger,” the author continued, “ Bettas develop horizontal stripes, contrasting with the color of their body.”

When my husband came in, I had been asleep on the couch for over an hour. Vincent closed the books, careful to mark the open pages, and with caresses woke me up so I’d go to bed. But before going back to sleep, I tried to share with him what I had read about our fish.

“It’s dangerous to leave them in that bowl,” I said to him. “They could really get hurt. What if they kill each other?”

I made him promise to move them into an aquarium, with oxygen and some stones where they could hide when they didn’t feel like showing their faces. He humored me, amused.

“You’ve become obsessed with this,” he said. “When you go back to work you should specialize in animal rights.”

It was several days before we removed the fish from their container. Tense days for them but also for us, as Vincent didn’t relish the idea of cluttering our living room with an aquarium.

“It’s going to look like a Chinese restaurant!” he let slip out once, defeated and knowing full well there would be no negotiating on the matter.

I always kept an eye on them whenever I was home, as if with that look, severe and exact, an imminent confrontation could be averted. I of course felt solidarity with her. I could feel her fear and her anxiety at being cornered, feel her need to hide. Fish are perhaps the only domestic animals that don’t make noise. But they taught me that screams can be silent. Vincent adopted an ostensibly more neutral position, betrayed nonetheless by the humorous comments he dropped now and again: “What’s wrong with the female? Is she against reproduction?” or “Keep calm, brother, even if you’re getting impatient. Remember that laws today are made by and for women.”